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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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]
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).
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."
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).
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).
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.[18] 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.
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."
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]
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.
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.
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.
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 Phœoenicia 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).
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.
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 dreamt 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.
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. 9b, 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.
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.
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]
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.
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).
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.'
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
(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."
