PART III

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THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE

Editors of THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE

Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., F.B.A.

Prof. Gilbert Murray, Litt.D., LL.D., F.B.A.

Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., LL.D.

_For list of volumes in the Library see end of book._

THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

_By_ BENJAMIN W. BACON D.D.

PROFESSOR OF NEW CRITICISM AND EXEGESIS IN YALE UNIVERSITY

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THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED 15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2

_First Impression September 1912 - All Rights Reserved_

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CONTENTS

PART I

CANONIZATION AND CRITICISM

CHAP. PAGE

I INSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION 7

II THE REACTION TO CRITICISM 33

PART II

THE LITERATURE OF THE APOSTLE

III PAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE 56

IV PAUL AS PRISONER AND CHURCH FATHER 83

V PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES 104

PART III

THE LITERATURE OF CATECHIST AND PROPHET

VI THE MATTHAEAN TRADITION OF THE PRECEPTS OF JESUS 128

VII THE PETRINE TRADITION. EVANGELIC STORY 154

VIII THE JOHANNINE TRADITION. PROPHECY 185

PART IV

THE LITERATURE OF THE THEOLOGIAN

IX THE SPIRITUAL GOSPEL AND EPISTLES 206

X EPILOGUES AND CONCLUSIONS 233

BIBLIOGRAPHY 251

INDEX 255

THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

PART I

CANONIZATION AND CRITICISM

CHAPTER I

INSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION

The New Testament presents the paradox of a literature born of protest

against the tyranny of a canon, yet ultimately canonized itself through

an increasing demand for external authority. This paradox is full of

significance. We must examine it more closely.

The work of Jesus was a consistent effort to set religion free from the

deadening system of the scribes. He was conscious of a direct, divine

authority. The broken lights of former inspiration are lost in the full

dawn of God's presence to His soul.

So with Paul. The key to Paul's thought is his revolt against legalism.

It had been part of his servitude to persecute the sect which claimed to

know another Way besides the "way"[1] of the scribes. These Christians

signalized their faith by the rite of baptism, and gloried in the sense

of endowment with "the Spirit." Saul was profoundly conscious of the

yoke; only he had not drammed that his own deliverance could come from

such a quarter. But contact with victims of the type of Stephen, men

"filled with the Spirit," conscious of the very "power from God" for

lack of which his soul was fainting, could not but have some effect. It

came suddenly, overwhelmingly. The real issue, as Saul saw it, both

before and after his conversion, was Law _versus_ Grace. In seeking

"justification" by favour of Jesus these Christians were opening a new

and living way to acceptance with God. Traitorous and apostate as the

attempt must seem while the way of the Law still gave promise of

success, to souls sinking like Saul's deeper and deeper into the

despairing consciousness of "the weakness of the flesh" forgiveness in

the name of Jesus might prove to be light and life from God. The

despised sect of 'sinners' whom he had been persecuting expressed the

essence of their faith in the doctrine that the gift of the Spirit of

Jesus had made them sons and heirs of God. If the converted Paul in turn

is uplifted--"energized," as he terms it--even beyond his

fellow-Christians, by the sense of present inspiration, it is no more

than we should expect.

Footnote 1: _Tarik_, i. e. "way," is still the Arabic term for a

sect, and the Rabbinic term for legal requirement is _halacha_, i.

e. "walk."

Paul's conversion to the new faith--or at least his persistent

satisfaction in it--will be inexplicable unless we appreciate the logic

of his recognition in it of an inherent opposition to the growing

demands of legalism. Jesus had, in truth, led a revolt against mere

book-religion. His chief opponents were the scribes, the devotees and

exponents of a sacred scripture, the Law. "Law" and "Prophets," the one

prescribing the conditions of the expected transcendental Kingdom, the

other illustrating their application and guaranteeing their promise,

constituted the canon of the synagogue. Judaism had become a religion of

written authority. Jesus set over against this a direct relation to the

living Father in heaven, ever presently revealed to the filial spirit.

The Sermon on the Mount makes the doing of this Father's will something

quite other than servitude to written precepts interpreted by official

authority and imposed under penalty. It is to be self-discipline in the

Father's spirit of disinterested goodness, as revealed in everyday

experience.

Even the reward of this self-discipline, the Kingdom, Jesus did not

conceive quite as the scribes. To them obedience in this world procured

a "share in the world to come." To Him the reward was more a matter of

being than of getting. The Kingdom was an heir-apparency; and,

therefore, present as well as future. It was "within" and "among" men as

well as before them. They should seek to "be sons and daughters of the

Highest," taking for granted that all other good things would be

"added." So Jesus made religion live again. It became spiritual, inward,

personal, actual.

After John the Baptist's ministry to what we should call the

'unchurched' masses, Jesus took up their cause. He became the "friend"

and champion of the "little ones," the "publicans and sinners," the

mixed 'people of the land' in populous, half-heathen, Galilee. The

burdens imposed by the scribes in the name of 'Scripture' were accepted

with alacrity by the typical Pharisee unaffected by Pauline misgivings

of 'moral inability.' To "fulfil all righteousness" was to the Pharisee

untainted by Hellenism a pride and delight. To the "lost sheep of

Israel" whom Jesus addressed, remote from temple and synagogue, this

"righteousness" had proved (equally as to Paul, though on very different

grounds) "a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear."

Jesus "had compassion on the multitude." To them he "spoke with

authority"; and yet "not as the scribes" but as "a prophet." When

challenged by the scribes for his authority he referred to "the baptism

of John," and asked whether John's commission was "from heaven, or of

men." They admitted that John was "a prophet." Those who give utterance

after this manner to the simple, sincere conviction of the soul, voicing

its instinctive aspiration toward "the things that be of God," are

conscious that they speak not of themselves.

Jesus, it is true, was no iconoclast. He took pains to make clear that

if he superseded what they of old time had taught as righteousness, it

was in the interest of a higher, a "righteousness of God." If he

disregarded fasts and sabbaths, it was to put substance for form, end

for means. "Judgment, mercy, and good faith" should count more than

tithes from "mint and anise and cummin." He echoed what John the Baptist

had taught of repentance and forgiveness. Hope should no longer be based

on birth, or prerogative, or ritual form, but on the mercy of a God who

demands that we forgive if we would be forgiven. Such had been, however,

the message not of John only, but of all the prophets before him: "I

will have mercy, and not sacrifice." Jesus taught this higher, inward,

righteousness; but not merely as John had done. John had said: Repent,

for the wrath of God is at hand. Jesus said: Repent, for the forgiveness

of God is open. The Father's heart yearns over the wayward sons. Jesus

preached the nearness of the Kingdom as "glad tidings to the poor"; and

among these "poor" were included even aliens who put "faith" in the God

of Abraham.

The new Way started from the same Scripture as that of the scribes, but

it tended in an opposite direction. Theirs had been gradually developing

in definiteness and authority since the time of Ezra; yes, since Josiah

had made formal covenant, after the discovery of "the book of the Law"

in the temple, pledging himself and his people to obedience. As with

many ancient peoples, the codification of the ancient law had been

followed by its canonization, and as the national life had waned the

religious significance of the Law had increased. It was now declared to

express the complete will of God, for an ideal people of God, in a

renovated universe, whose centre was to be a new and glorified

Jerusalem. The Exile interrupted for a time the process of formal

development; but in the ecclesiastical reconstruction which followed in

Ezra's time "the book of the Law" had become all the more supreme; the

scribe took the place of the civil officer, the synagogue became local

sanctuary and court-house in one, the nation became a church, Israel

became 'the people of the book.'

Legal requirement calls for the incentive of reward. We need not wonder,

then, that the canon of the Law was soon supplemented by that of the

writings of the Prophets, historical and hortatory. The former were

considered to interpret the Law by showing its application in practice,

the latter were valued for their predictive element. Law and Prophets

were supplemented by Psalms, and elements from the later literature

having application to the religious system. The most influential were

the "apocalypses," or "revelations" of the transcendental Kingdom and of

the conditions and mode of its coming. Scripture had thus become an

embodiment of Israel's religion. It set forth the national law, civil,

criminal, or religious; and the national hope, the Kingdom of God. Its

custodian and interpreter was the 'scribe,' lawyer and cleric in one.

The scribe held "the key of knowledge"; to him it was given to 'bind and

loose,' 'open and shut.' Any preacher who presumed to prescribe a

righteousness apart from 'the yoke of the Law,' or to promise

forgiveness of sins on other authority, must reckon with the scribes. He

would be regarded as seeking to 'take the Kingdom by violence.'

Jesus' martyrdom was effected through the priests, the temple

authorities; but at the instigation of the scribes and Pharisees. His

adherents were soon after driven out from orthodox Judaism and subjected

to persecution. This persecution, however, soon found its natural

leadership, not among the Sadducean temple-priesthood, but among the

devotees of the Law. It was "in the synagogues." From having been

quasi-political it became distinctly religious. This persecution by the

Pharisees is on the whole less surprising than the fact that so many of

the Jewish believers should have continued to regard themselves as

consistent Pharisees, and even been so regarded by their fellow-Jews. In

reality Jewish Christians as a rule could see no incompatibility between

average synagogue religion and their acceptance of Jesus as the man

supernaturally attested in the resurrection as destined to return

bringing the glory of the Kingdom. Jesus' idea of 'righteousness' did

not seem to them irreconcilable with the legalism of the scribes; still

less had they felt the subtle difference between his promise "Ye shall

be sons and daughters of the Highest" and the apocalyptic dreams which

they shared with their fellow-Jews. Saul the persecutor and Paul the

apostle were more logical. In Gal. ii. 15-21 we have Paul's own

statement of the essential issue as it still appeared to his clear mind.

Average synagogue religion still left room for a more fatherly relation

of God to the individual, in spite of the gradual encroachment of the

legalistic system of the scribes. Men not sensitive to inconsistency

could find room within the synagogue for the 'paternal theism' of Jesus,

even if this must more and more be placed under the head of

'uncovenanted mercies.' To Paul, however, the dilemma is absolute. One

must trust either to "law" or "grace." Partial reliance on the one is to

just that extent negation of faith in the other. The system of written

precept permits no exception, tolerates no divided allegiance. If the

canon of written law be the God-given condition of the messianic

promise, then no man can aspire to share in the hope of Israel who does

not submit unreservedly to its yoke. Conversely, faith is not faith if

one seek to supplement it by the merit of "works of law."

From this point of view the Jew who seeks forgiveness of sins by baptism

"into the name of Jesus" must be considered an apostate from the Law. He

acknowledges thereby that he is following another Way, a way of "grace,"

a short-cut, as it were, to a share in Israel's messianic inheritance by

the "favour" of a pretended Messiah. The same Paul who after his

conversion maintains (Gal. ii. 21) that to seek "justification" through

the Law makes the grace of God of none effect, must conversely have held

before conversion that to seek it by "grace" of Jesus made the Law of

none effect. Even at the time of writing the axiom still held: No

resistance to the yoke of the Law, no persecution (Gal. v. 11).

It is true, then, that the legalistic system of prescription and reward

had developed--could develop--only at the expense of the less

mechanical, more fatherly, religion of a Hosea or an Isaiah. Even

scribes had admitted that the law of love was "much more than all whole

burnt-offering and sacrifice." And the movement of the Baptist and of

Jesus had really been of the nature of a reaction toward this older,

simpler faith. The sudden revolt in Paul's own mind against the scribal

system might not have occurred in the mind of a Pharisee unfamiliar with

Greek ideas. But to some extent Paul's experience of the conflict of

flesh and spirit, a 'moral inability' to meet the Law's demands _was_ a

typical Christian experience, as Paul felt it to be. To him it became

the basis of an independent gospel. To him the Cross and the Spirit

imparted from the risen Messiah were tokens from God that the

dispensation of Law is ended and a dispensation of Grace and Son ship

begun. Without this Pauline gospel _about_ Jesus Christianity could

never have become more than a sect of reformed Judaism.

The teaching and martyrdom of Jesus had thus served to bring out a deep

and real antithesis. Only, men who had not passed like Paul from the

extreme of trust in legalism to a corresponding extremity of despair

might be pardoned for some insensibility to this inconsistency. We can

appreciate that James and Peter might honestly hold themselves still

under obligation of the written law, even while we admit Paul's logic

that any man who had once "sought to be justified in Christ" could not

turn back in any degree to legal observance without being

"self-condemned."

Christianity may be said to have attained self-consciousness as a new

religion in the great argument directed by Paul along the lines of his

own gospel against Peter and the older apostles. Its victory as a

universal religion of 'grace' over the limitations of Judaism was due to

the common doctrine of 'the Spirit.' This was the one point of

agreement, the one hope of ultimate concord among the contending

parties. All were agreed that endowment with 'the Spirit' marks the

Christian. It was in truth the great inheritance from Jesus shared by

all in common. And Peter and James admitted that to deny that

uncircumcized Gentiles had received the Spirit was to "contend against

God."

After Paul's death ecclesiastical development took mostly the road of

the synagogue. The sense of the presence and authority of 'the Spirit'

grew weaker, the authority of the letter stronger. From the outset even

the Pauline churches, in ritual, order, observance, had followed

instinctively this pattern. All continued, as a matter of course, to use

the synagogue's sacred writings. Paul himself, spite of his protest

against "the letter," could make no headway against his opponents, save

by argument from 'Scripture.' He had found in it anticipations and

predictions of his own Christian faith; but by an exegesis often only

little less forced and fantastic than that of the rabbinic schools in

which he had been trained. This was a necessity of the times. The

reasoning, fallacious as it seems to-day, had appealed to and

strengthened Paul's own faith, and was probably effective with others,

even if the faith really rested on other grounds than the reasoning by

which it was defended. The results of this biblicism were not all

salutary. The claims of written authority were loosened rather than

broken. Paul himself had found room enough within these defences for the

religion of the Spirit; but a generation was coming with less of the

sense of present inspiration. Dependence on past authority would be

increased in this new generation in direct proportion to its sense of

the superior 'inspiration' of the generation which had gone before. Paul

is unhampered by even "the scriptures of the prophets" because in his

view these take all their authority and meaning from "the Lord, the

Spirit." Hence "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Only

the remembered "word of the Lord" has authority for Paul beyond his own,

even when he thinks that he also has the Spirit. With that exception

past revelation is for Paul subordinate to present. But Paul's immediate

disciple, the author of Hebrews, is already on a lower plane. This

writer looks back to a threefold source of authority: God had spoken in

former ages "by the prophets" and to the present "by a Son," but he

looks also to an apostolic authority higher than his own: The word "was

confirmed unto us by them that heard, God also bearing witness with

them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts

of the Holy Ghost." Similarly the author of the Pastoral Epistles

(90-100?) holds the "pattern of sound words" heard from Paul as a

"sacred deposit," which is "guarded," rather than revealed, "by the Holy

Spirit." The "sound words" in question are defined to be "the words of

our Lord Jesus Christ." These, taken together with "the doctrine which

is according to godliness," fix the standard of orthodoxy. To "Jude"

(100-110?) the faith is something "once for all delivered to the

saints." His message is: "Remember, beloved, the words spoken before by

the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." Authority increases, the sense

of the revealing Spirit decreases.

It is long before the sense of present inspiration, both in word and

work is lost; still longer before the recorded precepts of Jesus, the

exhortations and directions of apostles, the visions of "prophets," come

to take their place alongside the Bible of the synagogue as "writings of

the new covenant." Melito of Sardis (_c._ 170) is the first to use this

expression, and even in his case it does not bear the sense of a canon

with definite limits. Tertullian (200-210) is the first to place a

definite "New Testament" over against the Old. We must glance at some of

the intermediate steps to appreciate this gradual process of

canonization.

At first there is no other 'Scripture' than the synagogue's. Clement of

Rome (95) still uses only the Law and the Prophets (including certain

apocrypha now lost) as his Bible. He refers to the precepts of Jesus

(quoted as in Acts XX. 35 from oral tradition), with the same sense as

Paul of their paramount authority, and bids the Corinthians whom he

addresses give heed to what the blessed Apostle Paul had written to them

"in the beginning of the gospel service," to warn them against

factiousness. Nor has Clement yet lost the sense of direct inspiration;

for he attaches to his own epistle, written in behalf of the church at

Rome, the same superhuman authority claimed in Acts XV. 28 for the

letter sent by the church at Jerusalem. If the Corinthians disregard the

"words spoken by God through us" they will "incur no slight

transgression and danger," for these warnings of a sister church are

uttered in the name and by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Still, Clement

does not dream of comparing his authority, even when he writes as agent

of the church, with that of "the oracles of the teaching of God," the

"sacred Scriptures," the "Scriptures which are true, which were given

through the Holy Ghost, wherein is written nothing unrighteous or

counterfeit." He does not even rank his own authority with that of "the

good apostles, Peter and Paul."

Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, transported to Rome for martyrdom in

110-117, employs a brief stay among the churches of Asia to exhort them

to resist the encroachments of heresy by consolidation of church

organization, discipline, strict obedience to the bishop. Ignatius, too,

still feels the afflatus. His message, he declares with emphasis, was

revealed to him, together with the occasion for it, directly from

heaven. It was "the voice of God and not only of a man" when he cried

out among the Philadelphians: "Give heed to the bishop, and the

presbytery and deacons." Yet Ignatius cannot enjoin the Romans as Peter

and Paul did. They were "apostles." He is "a convict." His inspiration,

however undoubted, is of a lower order.

Hermas, a 'prophet' of the same Roman church as Clement, though a

generation later, is still so conscious of the superhuman character of

his "Visions," "Parables," and "Mandates" that he gives them out for

circulation as inspired messages of the Spirit; and this not for Rome

alone. Clement, then apparently still living, and "the one to whom this

duty is committed," is to send them "to foreign cities." In point of

fact the _Shepherd_ of Hermas long held a place for many churches as

part of the New Testament canon. Yet less than a generation after

Hermas, the claim to exercise the gift of prophecy in the church was

looked upon as dangerous if not heretical.

In the nature of the case it was really impossible that the original

sense of endowment with "the Spirit" should survive. Not only did the

rapidly growing reverence for the apostles and the Lord open a chasm

separating "the word of wisdom and the word of power" given to that age,

from the slighter contemporary claims of miracle and revelation; the

very growth and wide dissemination of the gospel message made

standardization imperative. Before the middle of the second century

Gnostic schism had swept nearly half the church into the vortex of

speculative heresy. Marcion at Rome (_c._ 140) carried Pauline

anti-legalism to the extreme of an entire rejection of the Old

Testament. Judaism and all its works and ways were to be repudiated. The

very God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was declared other than, and

ignorant of, the "heavenly Father" of Jesus. Against such vagaries there

must be some historic standard. Even Marcion himself looked to the past,

however recent, as the source of light, and since some written standard

must be found, it was he, the heretic, who gave to Christianity its

first canon of Christian writings. The Marcionite churches did away with

the public reading of the Law and the Prophets, and could only put in

their place "Gospel" and "Apostle." Not that Epistles, Gospels, and even

'Revelations' were not also in use among the orthodox; but they are not

yet referred to as 'Scripture.' Even gospels are treated merely as aids

to the memory in transmitting the teaching of the Lord. This teaching

itself is but the authoritative interpretation of Law and Prophets, and

is in turn interpreted by the writings of the apostles.

Marcion's 'Gospel' consisted of our Luke, expurgated according to his

own ideas. His 'Apostle' contained the Epistles of Paul minus the

Pastoral Epistles and a series of passages cancelled out from the rest

as Jewish interpolations. This was the first Christian Bible distinct

from 'the Scriptures' of the synagogue.

Indirectly the growth of Gnostic heresy contributed still more to the

increasing authority of apostolic and quasi-apostolic writings. One of

its earliest and most obnoxious forms was called 'Doketism,' from its

exaggeration of Paulinism into a complete repudiation of the historic

Jesus, whose earthly career was stigmatized as mere 'phantasm'

(_dokesis_). Doketism is known to us not only through description by

orthodox opponents, but by a few writings of its own. It is the type of

heresy antagonized in the Johannine Epistles (_c._ 100) and in those of

Ignatius (110-117). Now Ignatius, as we have seen, relied mainly on

church organization and discipline. The Pastoral Epistles (90-100),

while they emphasize also "the form of healthful words, even the words

of our Lord Jesus" take, on the whole, a similar direction. But 1st

John, which relies far less than the Pastoral Epistles or Ignatius on

mere church organization, is also driven back upon the life and teaching

of Jesus as the historic standard. It _does_, therefore, make formal

appeal to the sacred tradition in both its elements, but with a

difference characteristic of the Pauline spirit. The redeeming life and

death of Jesus are viewed as a manifestation of "the life, even the

eternal life (of the Logos) which was with the Father and was manifested

unto us" (the historic body of believers). Again Jesus' one "new

commandment," the law of love, is the epitome of all righteousness.

In his doctrine of Scripture as in many other respects the Johannine

writer shows a breadth and catholicity of mind which almost anticipates

the development of later ages. His task was in fact the adjustment of

the developed Pauline gospel to a type of Christianity more nearly akin

to synagogue tradition. This type had grown up under the name of Peter.

On the question of the standard of written authority 'John'[2] leaves

room for the freedom of the Spirit so splendidly set forth in the

teaching and example of Jesus and Paul, while he resists the erratic

licence of "those that would lead you astray." The result is a doctrine

of historic authority in general, and of that of the Scriptures in

particular, sharply differentiated from the Jewish, and deserving in

every respect to be treated as the basis of the Christian. In a great

chapter of his Gospel (John v.), wherein Jesus debates with the scribes

the question of His own authority, the dialogue closes with a

denunciation of them because they search the Scriptures with the idea

that in them they have eternal life, that is, they treat them as a code

of precepts, obedience to which will be thus rewarded. On the contrary,

says Jesus, the Scriptures only "bear witness" to the life that is

present in Himself as the incarnate, eternal, Word; "but ye will not

come unto me that ye might have life."

Footnote 2: In using traditional names and titles such as "Luke,"

"John," "Matthew," "James," no assumption is made as to

authenticity. The designation is employed for convenience

irrespective of its critical accuracy or inaccuracy.

In seeking the life behind the literature as the real revelation, the

Johannine writer makes the essential distinction between Jewish and

Christian doctrine. He stands between Paul, whose peculiar view was

based on an exceptional personal experience, and the modern

investigator, who can but treat all literary monuments and records of

religious movements objectively, as data for the history and psychology

of religion. If the student be devoutly minded the Scriptures will be to

him, too, however conditioned by the idiosyncrasies of temporal

environment and individual character, manifestations of "the life, even

the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us."

But the Johannine writer was far deeper and more 'spiritual'[3] than the

trend of his age. Ignatius' friend and contemporary, Polycarp, "the

father of the Christians" of Asia, in his Epistle to the Philippians

(110-117) urges avoidance of the false teachers who "pervert the sayings

of the Lord to their own lusts, denying the (bodily) resurrection and

judgment." But he has no better remedy than to "turn (probably in a

somewhat mechanical way) to the tradition handed down from the

beginning" and to study "the Epistles of Paul." The former process is in

full application in Polycarp's later colleague, Papias of Hierapolis

(_c._ 145?), who publishes a little volume entitled _Interpretation of

the Sayings of the Lord_. It is based on carefully authenticated

traditions of the 'apostles and elders,' especially a certain

contemporary "Elder John" who speaks for the Jerusalem succession.

According to Papias our two Greek Gospels of Matthew and Mark represent

two apostolic sources, the one an Aramaic compilation of the Precepts of

Jesus by Matthew, the other anecdotes of his "sayings and doings"

collated from the preaching of Peter.

Footnote 3: The Fourth Gospel is thus characterized by Clement of

Alexandria, meaning that it had a deep symbolic sense.

Grateful as we must be for Papias' efforts to authenticate evangelic

tradition, since they are corroborated in their main results by all

other ancient tradition as well as by critical study of the documents,

it is noticeable how they stand in line with the tendencies of the age.

Eusebius (325) characterizes the reign of Trajan (98-117) as a period

when many undertook to disseminate in writing "the divine Gospels." One

of our own evangelists, whose work must probably be referred to the

beginning of this period, but is not mentioned by 'the Elder,' alludes

to the same phenomenon. The apostles were gone. Hence to Luke[4] the

question of "order" was a perplexity, as the Elder observes that it had

already been to Mark. Soon after Luke and Papias comes Basilides with

his _Exegetics_, probably based on Luke (120?), and Marcion (140), both

engaged from their own point of view with the current questions of

Jesus' teaching and ministry.

Footnote 4: See Footnote 3 above.

Thus, at the beginning of the second century, the elements necessary to

the formation of a New Testament canon were all at hand. They included

the tradition of the teaching and work of Jesus, the letters of apostles

and church leaders revered as given by authority of the Spirit and the

visions and revelations of 'prophets.' Not only the elements were

present, the irresistible pressure of the times was certain to force

them into crystallization. The wonder is not that the canon should have

been formed, but that it should have been delayed so long.

For there were also resistant factors. Phrygia, the scene of Paul's

first great missionary conquests, the immemorial home of religious

enthusiasm, became the seat, about the middle of the second century, of

a movement of protest against the church policy of consolidation and

standardization. Montanus arose to maintain the persistence in the

church of the gift of prophecy, tracing the succession in both the male

and female line back to Silas the companion of Paul and the prophesying

daughters of Philip the Evangelist. The 'Phrygians,' as they were

called, naturally made much of the writings current in Asia Minor,

especially the book of 'prophecy' attributed to 'John.' Theoretically

indeed the church was unwilling to acknowledge the disappearance of this

gift. To Hermas (130-140) and the _Teaching of the Twelve_ (120-130) it

is still a "sin against the Spirit" to interrupt or oppose a prophet

during his ecstatic utterance. On the other hand, the _Teaching_

reiterates the apostolic warnings to "try the spirits," with

prohibitions of specific excesses of the order. Moreover by the time of

Montanus and the 'Phrygians' theoretical recognition of revelation

through the prophets was rapidly giving way before the practical dangers

inseparable from 'revelations' of this enthusiastic character, of which

any member of the church, man or woman, ignorant or learned, lay or

cleric, might be the recipient. The strict regulative control imposed by

both Paul and John[5] upon this type of spiritual gift (1st Thess. v. 20

f.; 1st Cor. xii. 3; xv. 29 f. 32; _cf._ 1st John iv. 1) was found

to be doubly necessary in face of the disintegrating tendencies of the

post-apostolic age, and after long debate and much protest the movement

of Montanus was at last decreed heretical at Rome, though Irenaeus (186)

interceded for it, and Tertullian (210) became a convert.

Footnote 5: See Footnote 3 above.

The history of this movement in the formative period of the New

Testament canon explains why the "revelations of the prophets" obtained

but scant recognition as compared with the "word of the Lord" and the

"commandment of the apostles." Last of the three, in order of rank (1st

Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11), last also to be codified in written form, we

need not be surprised that our present New Testament retains but a

single one of the once current books of 'prophecy.' For a time the

_Shepherd_ of Hermas and the _Apocalypse of Peter_ rivalled the claims

to canonicity of our own Revelation of John, but were soon dropped. Our

own Apocalypse has suffered more opposition than any other New Testament

writing, being still excluded from the canon in some branches of the

church. Its precarious place at the end of the canon which we moderns

have inherited from Athanasius (_ob._ 373) was due, in fact, far less to

its author's vigorous assertions of authority as an inspired "prophet"

(i. 1-3; xxii. 6-9, 18 f.) than to the claims to apostolicity put

forward in the preface and appendix. For until the third century no one

drammed of understanding the "John" of Rev. i. 4, 9 and xxii. 8

otherwise than as the Apostle. Eusebius accordingly (325) is uncertain

only as to whether the book should be classed in his first group of

"accepted" writings, along with the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, or in

the third as "spurious." If written by "some other John than the

Apostle" he would not even honour it with a place in his second group of

"disputed" books, along with Hebrews, James, Jude, and 2nd Peter.

Thus at the end of the second century, while there was still much

dispute (destined indeed to continue for centuries) as to the _limits_

of the New Testament canon, there had in fact come to be a real

canonical New Testament set over against the Old, as of equal, or even

greater authority. The "word of the Lord," the "commandment of the

apostles," and at last even the "revelations of the prophets," had

successively ceased as living realities, and become crystallized into

written form. They had been codified and canonized. The church had

travelled the beaten track of the synagogue, and all the more rapidly

from the example set before it. None of the early canons (_i. e._ lists

of writings permitted to be read in the churches) coincides exactly, it

is true, with the New Testament current among ourselves. The list of

Athanasius is the first to give just our books. The Roman list of the

Muratorian fragment (185-200) omits Hebrews, James and 2nd Peter, and

gives at least a partial sanction to the _Apocalypse of Peter_. The

lists of Origen (_ob._ 251) and Eusebius (325) vary as respects both

inclusion and exclusion. All early authorities express a doubtful

judgment regarding the outer fringe of minor writings such as James,

Jude, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John. Even those of larger content, such as

Hebrews and Revelation, if their apostolicity was questioned, remained

subjects of dispute. But already by A.D. 200 the time had long since

passed when any of the thirteen epistles bearing the name of Paul could

be deemed open to question. Marcion's exclusion of the three Pastorals

had been forgotten. Dispute of the four-gospel canon could still be

tolerated; but not for long. Irenaeus (186) has no patience with "those

wretched men" who cannot see that in the nature of the case there should

be neither more nor less than this number. But he explicitly refers to

those who disputed "that aspect of the gospel which is called John's."

There were, in fact, opponents of Montanism at Rome, who under the lead

of Gaius had denied the authenticity of all the writings attributed to

John, including the Gospel itself. But even those of the orthodox who

were willing enough to reject Revelation, with its now unfashionable

eschatology, agreed that Gaius' attack upon the fourth Gospel was too

radical. The small body who continued for a few generations to resist

the inclusion of any of the Johannine writings in the canon remained

without influence, and were ultimately forgotten. The 'catholic'[6]

church had repudiated heresy, standardized the faith, and confined its

recognized historic expression to a 'canon' of New Testament Scripture.

Footnote 6: Catholic is here used in its etymological sense of

"general" or universal. We shall have occasion to apply the term in

a more limited sense hereafter.

CHAPTER II

THE REACTION TO CRITICISM

The consolidated 'catholic' church of the third century might seem, so

far as its doctrine of Scripture was concerned, to have retraced its

steps to a standpoint corresponding completely to that of the synagogue.

Only, the paradox still held that the very writings canonized were those

supremely adapted to evoke a spirit of resistance to the despotism of

either priest or scribe. The Protestant Reformation was a revolt against

the former, and it is noticeable how large a part was played by the New

Testament doctrine of the 'Spirit' in this struggle of spiritual

democracy against hierocratic tyranny. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians

became Luther's Palladium.

But the post-Reformation dogmatists took fright at their own freedom.

The prediction of the Romanists that repudiation of traditional

authority in its ecclesiastical embodiment would result in internecine

schism and conflict seemed on the point of being realized. The

theological system-makers, like their predecessors of the post-apostolic

age, could see no way out but to throw all their weight on a past

inspiration assumed to be without error. The canonical books were

declared to furnish an infallible rule of faith and practice.

It was in the sincere desire to meet the requirements of this theory

that the science of criticism grew up. In the earlier days it did not

venture for the most part beyond what is known as 'textual' criticism.

For a doctrine of inerrancy is manifestly unserviceable until errors of

transmission have been eliminated. Textual criticism set itself to this

task, asking the question: As between the various readings found in

different New Testament manuscripts, which is original? Unfortunately,

to meet the logical requirement the critic, if not backed like those of

Rome by a papal guarantee, must himself be infallible. The inevitable

result of this attempt, begun in the sincerest spirit of apologetics,

was to prove that an infallible text is hopelessly unattainable. Textual

criticism is indispensable; but as the servant of apologetics it is

foredoomed to failure.

The variation of the manuscripts was not the only obstacle to biblical

infallibility. To say nothing of differences of interpretation there was

the question of the canon. Either the decision of the 'catholic' church

must be accepted as infallible, or scholarship must undertake a

'criticism of the canon' to defend the current list of "inspired" books.

A 'higher' criticism became necessary if only to vindicate the church's

choice on historical grounds. Roman Catholics like Simon, whose

_Critical History_ of the Biblical books appeared in 1689-1695, could

reopen the question with impunity. Those who based their authority on

the infallibility of Scripture alone could not meet the challenge

otherwise than as Michaelis did in his _Introduction to the Divine

Writings of the New Testament_ (1750-1780). Michaelis 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 aegis of an infallibility

not conceded to the post-apostolic age. Scholarship in the harness of

apologetics again found its task impracticable. Michaelis 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 Tuebingen 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 Tuebingen

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 Tuebingen 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 Tuebingen 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 Tuebingen 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." Tuebingen 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 Tuebingen critics

conceived it concerned primarily the _extent_ of the gospel message,--to

how large a circle was it offered? Modern criticism has come to see that

the difference was in higher degree a difference of _quality_. Paul's

whole message of redemption through the cross and resurrection started

from other premises than those of the Galilean apostles, and was

conceived in other terms. For this reason it leads over to a new

Christology. In short, the transition of Christianity from its Jewish to

its Gentile form is not a mere enlargement of its field by the abolition

of particularistic barriers. The background we must study for the

understanding of it is not so much mere contemporary history as the

contemporary history _of religion_. The development from the Petrine

gospel broadly characteristic of the Synoptic writings, through the

Pauline Epistles to that of the Johannine writings, is a transition from

Hebrew to Hellenistic conceptions of what redemption is, and how it is

effected. Modern criticism expresses the contrast in its distinction of

the gospel _of_ Jesus from the gospel _about_ Jesus.

In the case of both Paul and his predecessors in the faith there is a

common starting-point. It was the doctrine that God had raised Jesus

from the dead and exalted Him as Christ and Lord to the throne of glory.

Its proofs were the ecstatic phenomena of the Spirit, those strange

manifestations of 'prophecy,' 'tongues,' and the like in the Christian

assembly. The inference from this resurrection faith for an apostle of

the Galilean group was that he must "teach all men everywhere to observe

all things whatsoever Jesus had commanded." Jesus had been raised up in

Israel as the Prophet like unto Moses; His apostle must repeat the

remembered word of commandment and the word of promise. He will have an

authority derived from the manifestations of signs and wonders. These

had accompanied Jesus' own career, and now, by grace of His endowment of

His disciples with the Spirit, they will be repeated by their hands.

The 'apostolic' gospel is thus primarily historical. The Pauline gospel

centres at the other pole of religious conviction. It is primarily

psychological. For Paul the immediate effect of the revelation of God's

Son "in" him is an irresistible impulse to relate his own soul's

experience. The gospel he preaches is not so much what Jesus did or said

while on earth, as what God has done, and is still doing, through the

"life-giving Spirit" which emanates from the risen Lord. Signs and

wonders are tokens of the Spirit, but are of less value, and must vanish

before the "abiding" ethical gifts. Both the Pauline and the Petrine

gospel start from the common confession of "Jesus as Lord"; but the

Christology of the Synoptic literature is an Apotheosis doctrine,

falling back on the historical Jesus. That of the Epistles is a doctrine

of Incarnation, appealing to the eternal manifestation of God in man.

For the former, Jesus was "a prophet mighty in deed and word," raised up

by God in accordance with the promise of Deut. xviii. 18, to turn Israel

to repentance. Having fulfilled this mission in rejection and martyrdom

Jesus had been exalted to God's "right hand" and "made both Lord and

Christ." He there awaits the subjection of all His enemies. In the

Pauline gospel the story of Jesus is a drama of the supernal regions,

wherein His earthly career as prophet, leader, teacher, sinks to the

level of the merest episode. As pre-existent spirit, Jesus had been

from the beginning of the creation "in the form of God." As the period

of its consummation drew near He took upon Him human form, descended

through suffering and death to the lowest depths of the underworld, and

by divine power had reascended above all the heavens with their ranks of

angelic hierarchies. Whether Paul himself so conceived it or not, the

Gentile world had no other moulds of thought wherein to formulate such a

Christology than the current myths of Redeemer-gods. The value of the

individual _soul_ had at last been discovered, and men resorted to the

ancient personifications of the forces of nature as deliverers of this

new-found _soul_ from its weakness and mortality. The influential

religions of the time were those of personal redemption by mystic union

with a dying and resurrected "Saviour-god," an Osiris, an Adonis, an

Attis, a Mithra. Religions of this type were everywhere displacing the

old national faiths. The Gentile could not think of "the Christ"

primarily as a Son of David who restores the kingdom to Israel, shatters

the Gentiles like a potter's vessel and rules them with a rod of iron.

If he employed this Old Testament language at all, it had for him a

purely symbolical sense. The whole conception was spiritualized. The

"enemies" overcome were the spiritual foes of humanity, sin and death;

"redemption" was not the deliverance of Israel out of the hand of all

their enemies, that (together with all afar off that call upon the name

of this merciful God) they may "serve Him in holiness and righteousness

all their days." It was the rescue of the sons of Adam out of the

bondage to evil Powers incurred through inheritance of Adam's sinful

flesh. This had been the tendency already of Jewish apocalypse. The

starting-point of Paul's own conceptions was not Israel's bondage in

Egypt, but a conception already tinged, like the late book of Jewish

philosophy called the Wisdom of Solomon, with the Stoic conception of

'flesh' as prison-house of 'spirit,' already inflamed, like the

contemporary Jewish apocalypses of Esdras and Baruch, with lurid visions

of a universe rescued by superhuman power from a thraldom of demonic

rule. Paul's preaching was made real by his own experience. For if ever

there was an evangelist whose message was his own experience, Paul was

such. And Paul's experience was not so much that of a Palestinian Jew,

as that of a Hellenist, one whose whole idea of 'redemption' has been

unconsciously universalized, individualized, and spiritualized, by

contact with Greek and Hellenistic thought. Paul and the Galilean

apostles were not far apart in their expectations of the future. Both

stood gazing up into heaven. But for his authority Paul inevitably

looked inwards, the Galilean apostles looked backwards.

It is hopeless at the present stage of acquaintance with the history of

religion, particularly the spread of the various 'mysteries' and

religions of personal redemption in the early empire, to deny this

contrast between the gospel of Paul and the gospel of "the apostles and

elders at Jerusalem." It is shortsighted to overlook its significance in

the transition of the faith. Whereas the Jewish-Christian had as its

principal background the national history, more or less

transcendentalized in the forms of apocalypse, Paul's had as its

principal background the speculative mythology of the Hellenistic world,

more or less adapted to the forms of Judaism. Only ignorance of the

function of mythology, especially as then employed to express the

aspiration of the soul for purity, life and fellowship with God, can

make these mythologically framed religious ideas seem an inappropriate

vehicle to convey Paul's sense of the significance of Jesus' message and

life of "Son ship." They were at least the best expression those times

and that environment could afford of the greater Kingdom God had

proclaimed in the resurrection of the Christ, and was bringing to pass

through the outpouring of His Spirit.

Modern criticism must therefore recognize that the beginnings of our

religion were not a mere enlargement of Judaism by abolition of the

barriers of the Law, but a fusion of the two great streams of religious

thought distinctive of the Jewish and the Hellenistic world in a higher

unity. Alexander's hoped-for "marriage of Europe and Asia" was

consummated at last in the field of religion itself. Denationalized

Judaism contributed the social ideal: the messianic hope of a world-wide

Kingdom of God. It is the worthy contribution of a highly ethical

national religion. Hellenism contributed the individual ideal: personal

redemption in mystic union with the life of God. It is a concept derived

from the Greek's newly-awakened consciousness of a personality agonizing

for deliverance out of the bondage of the material and transitory, alien

and degrading to its proper life. The critic who has become a historian

of ideas will find his study of the literature of the apostolic and

post-apostolic age here widening out into a prospect of unsuspected

largeness and significance. He will see as the two great divisions of

his subject, (1) the gospel _of_ Jesus, represented, as we are told, in

the first beginnings of literary development by an Aramaic compilation

of the Precepts of the Lord by the Apostle Matthew, circulating possibly

even before the great Pauline Epistles among the Palestinian churches;

(2) the gospel _about_ Jesus, represented in the Pauline Epistles, and

these based on their author's personal experience. It is a gospel of

God's action "in Christ, reconciling the world." It interprets the

personality of Jesus and his experience of the cross and resurrection

as manifestations of the divine idea. The interpretation employs

Hellenistically coloured forms of thought, and is forced to vindicate

itself first against subjection to legalism, afterwards against

perversion into an unethical, superstitious theosophy. But surely the

doctrine _about_ Jesus, interpreting the significance of His person and

work as the culmination of redemption through the indwelling of God in

men and among men belongs as much to the essence of Christianity as the

gospel of love and faith proclaimed _by_ Jesus.

Besides these two principal types of gospel and their subordinate

combinations the critical historian may see ultimately emerging a type

of 'spiritual' gospel, growing upon Gentile soil, in fact, receiving its

first literary expression in the early years of the second century at

the very headquarters of the Pauline mission-field. This third type aims

to be comprehensive of the other two. It is essentially a gospel about

Jesus, though it takes the form for its main literary expression of a

gospel preached by Jesus. The fourth evangelist is the true successor of

Paul, though the conditions of the age compel him to go beyond the

literary form of the Epistle and to construct a Gospel wherein both

factors of the sacred tradition shall appear, the words and works, the

Precepts and the Saving Ministry of Jesus. But it is in no mechanical or

slavish sense that the fourth evangelist appeals to this supreme

authority. He lifts the whole message above the level of mere baptized

legalism, even while he guards it against the unbridled licence of

Gnostic theosophy, applying to this purpose his doctrine of the

Incarnate Logos. His basis is psychology as well as history. It is the

Life which is the light of men, that life whose source is God, and which

permeates and redeems His creation; even "the eternal Life which was

with the Father and was manifested to us."

In the critical grouping of our New Testament writings the Gospel and

Epistles of John can occupy, then, no lesser place than that of the

keystone of the arch.

To sum up: the Literature of the Apostle owed its early development and

long continuance among the Pauline churches of Asia Minor and Greece, to

the impetus and example of Paul's apostolic authority. The Literature of

the Teacher and Prophet, growing up around Jerusalem and its daughter

churches at Antioch and Rome, came slowly to surpass in influence the

"commandment of the apostles," as the church became more and more

exclusively dependent upon it for the "teaching of the Lord." It was the

function of the great "theologian" of Ephesus (as he came early to be

called), linking the authority of both, to furnish the fundamental basis

for the catholic faith.

PART II

THE LITERATURE OF THE APOSTLE

CHAPTER III

PAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE

Most vital of all passages for historical appreciation of the great

period of Paul's missionary activity and its literature is the

retrospect over his career as apostle to the Gentiles and defender of a

gospel "without the yoke of the Law" in Gal. i.-ii. Especially must the

contrast be observed between this and the very different account in Acts

ix.-xvi.

Galatians aims to counteract the encroachments of certain Judaizing

interlopers upon Paul's field, and seems to have been written from

Corinth, shortly after his arrival there (_c._ 50) on the Second

Missionary Journey (Acts xv. 36--xviii. 22). We take "the churches of

Galatia" to be those founded by Paul in company with Barnabas on the

First Missionary Journey (Acts xiii.-xiv.), and revisited with Silas

after a division of the recently evangelized territory whereby Cyprus

had been left to Barnabas and Mark (Acts xv. 36--xvi. 5; _cf._ Gal. iv.

13).

The retrospect is in two parts: (1) a proof of the divine origin of

Paul's apostleship and gospel by the independence of his conversion and

missionary career; (2) an account of his defence of his "gospel of

uncircumcision" on the two occasions when it had been threatened.

Visiting Jerusalem for the second time some fifteen years[7] after his

conversion, he secured from its "pillars," James, Peter, and John, an

unqualified, though "private," endorsement. At Antioch subsequently he

overcame renewed opposition by public exposure of the inconsistency of

Peter, who had been won over by the reactionaries.

Footnote 7: Or perhaps thirteen. Gal. ii. 1 may reckon from the

conversion (31-33). In both periods (Gal. i. 18, and ii. 1) both

termini are counted.

Acts reverses Paul's point of view, making his career in the period of

unobstructed evangelization one of labour for Jews alone, in complete

dependence on the Twelve. It practically excludes the period of

opposition by a determination of the Gentile status in an 'Apostolic

Council.' Paul is represented as simply acquiescing in this decision.

As described by Paul, the whole earlier period of fifteen years had been

occupied by missionary effort for _Gentiles_, first at Damascus,

afterwards "in the regions of Syria and Cilicia." It was interrupted

only by a journey "to Arabia," and later, three years after his

conversion, by a two-weeks' private visit to Peter in Jerusalem. In this

period must fall most of the journeys and adventures of 2nd Cor. xi.

23-33. It was practically without contact with Judaea. His "gospel" was

what God alone had taught him through an inward manifestation of the

risen Jesus.

As described by Luke[8] the whole period was spent in the evangelization

of Greek-speaking _Jews_, principally at Jerusalem. This was Paul's

chosen field, worked under direction of "the apostles." Only against his

will[9] was he driven for refuge to Tarsus, whence Barnabas, who had

first introduced him to the apostles, brought him to Antioch. There was

no Gentile mission until Barnabas and he were by that church made its

'apostles.' This mission was on express direction of "the Spirit" (Acts

ix. 19-30; xi. 25 f.; xiii. 1-3; _cf._ xxii. 10-21). Paul's

apostleship to the Gentiles begins, then, according to Luke, with the

First Missionary Journey, when in company with (and at first in

subordination to) Barnabas he evangelizes Cyprus and southern Galatia.

The two are agents of Antioch, with "letters of commendation" from "the

apostles and elders in Jerusalem" (Acts xv. 23-26). Paul is not an

apostle of Christ in the same sense as the Twelve (_cf._ Acts i. 21

f.). He is a providential "vessel of the Spirit," ordained "by men and

through men." His gospel is Peter's unaltered (_cf._ Acts xxvi. 16-23).

Footnote 8: We apply the name to the writer of Luke-Acts without

prejudice to the question of authorship.

Footnote 9: Acts xxii. 10-21 is not quite consistent with xxvi.

15-18; but the general sense is clear.

There is even wider disparity regarding the period of opposition. Luke

slightly postpones its beginning and very greatly antedates its

suppression. Moreover, he makes Paul accept a solution which his letters

emphatically repudiate.

According to Acts there was no opposition before the First Missionary

Journey, for the excellent reason that there had been no Gentile

propaganda.[10] There was no opposition after the Council called to

consider it (Acts xv.), for the conclusive reason that "the apostles and

elders" left nothing to dispute about. As soon as the objections were

raised the church in Antioch laid the question before these authorities,

sending Paul and Barnabas to testify. On their witness to the grace of

God among the Gentiles, Peter (explicitly claiming for himself (!) this

special apostleship, Acts xv. 7) proposes unconditional acknowledgment

of Gentile liberty, referring to the precedent of Cornelius. In this

there was general acquiescence. In fact the matter had really been

decided before (Acts xi. 1-18). The only wholly new point was that

raised by James in behalf of "the Jews among the Gentiles" (Acts xv. 21;

_cf._ xxi. 21). For their sake it is held "necessary" to limit Gentile

freedom on four points. They must abstain from three prohibited meats,

and from fornication, for these convey the "pollution of idols." The

"necessity" lies in the fact that _liberty from the Law is not conceded

to Jews_. They will be (involuntarily) defiled if they eat with their

Gentile brethren unprotected. "Fornication" is added because (in the

words of an ancient Jewish Christian) it "differs from all other sins in

that it defiles not only the sinner, but those also _who eat or

associate with him_." Paul and Barnabas, according to Luke, gladly

accepted these "decrees," and Paul distributed them "for to keep" among

his converts in Galatia (!). _Peter_ is the apostle to the Gentiles.

Antioch and Jerusalem decide the question of their status. The terms of

fellowship are those of _James_ and Peter.

Footnote 10: Cornelius' case (Acts x.-xi. 18) is exceptional, and no

propaganda follows. The reading "Greeks" in Acts xi. 20, though

required by the sense and therefore adopted by the English

translators, is not supported by the textual evidence. Luke has here

corrected his source to suit his theory, just as in x. 1--xi. 18 he

passes by the true significance of the story, which really deals

with the question of _eating_ with Gentiles (xi. 3, 7 f.).

Paul has no mention of either Council or 'decrees.' His terms of

fellowship positively exclude both. He falls back upon the private

Conference, and lays bare a story of agonizing struggle to make

effective its recognition of the equality and independence of Gentile

Christianity. The struggle is a result of his resistance to emissaries

"from James" at Antioch, who had brought over all the Jewish element in

that mixed church, including Peter and "even Barnabas" to terms of

fellowship acceptable to the Pillars. After the collision at Antioch

Paul leaves the "regions of Syria and Cilicia," and transfers the scene

of his missionary efforts to the Greek world between the Taurus range

and the Adriatic. For the next ten years we see him on the one side

conducting an independent mission, proclaiming the doctrine of the Cross

as inaugurating a new era, wherein law has been done away, and Jew and

Gentile have "access in one Spirit unto the Father." On the other he is

defending this gospel of 'grace' against unscrupulous Jewish-Christian

traducers, and labouring to reconcile differences between his own

followers and those of 'the circumcision' who are not actively hostile,

but only have taken 'offence.' Throughout the period, until the arrest

in Jerusalem which ends his career as an evangelist, Paul stands alone

as champion of unrestricted Gentile liberty and equality. He cannot

admit terms of fellowship which imply a continuance of the legal

dispensation. Jewish Christians may keep circumcision and the customs if

they wish; but may not hold or recommend them as conferring the

slightest advantage in God's sight. He will not admit the doctrine of

salvation by faith _with_ works of law. Jew as well as Gentile must have

"died to the Law." There is no "justification" except "by faith _apart_

from works of law."[11]

Footnote 11: The assertion has recently been made in very high

quarters on the basis of 1st Cor. vii. 18 that Paul also took the

"apostolic" view that the Christian of Jewish birth remains under

obligation to keep the law. One would think Paul had not added verse

19!

Unless we distinctly apprehend the deep difference, almost casually

brought out by this question of the (converted) Jew among Gentiles and

his obligation to eat with his Gentile brother, a difference between

'apostolic' Christianity as Luke gives it, and the 'gospel' of Paul, we

can have no adequate appreciation of the great Epistles produced during

this period of conflict. The basis of Luke's pleasing picture of peace

and concord is a fundamentally different conception of the relation of

Law and Grace. Paul and Luke both hold that the Mosaic commandments are

not binding on _Gentiles_. The point of difference--and Paul's own

account of his Conference with the Pillars goes to show that Luke's idea

is also theirs; else why need there be a division of 'spheres of

influence'?--is Paul's doctrine that the believing Jew _as well as the

Gentile_ is "dead to the Law." And this doctrine was never accepted

south of the Taurus range.

Agreement and union were sure to come, if only by the rapid

disappearance from the church after 70 A.D. of the element of the

circumcised, and the progressive realization in 'Syria and Cilicia' of

the impracticability of the Jerusalem-Antioch plan of requiring Gentiles

to make their tables innocuous to the legalist. If only the

participation of Paul and Barnabas be excluded from the story of Acts

xv. (or better, restored to its proper sequence after Acts xi. 30) we

have every reason to accept Luke's account of an Apostolic Council held

at Jerusalem not long after "Peter came to Antioch" to settle between

the churches of northern and southern Syria the knotty question of the

Christian Jew's eating or not eating with Gentiles. It is almost certain

that Syria did adopt this modus vivendi for "the brethren which are of

the Gentiles _in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia_" (Acts xv. 23); for we can

trace its gradual obsolescence there. In Revelation (a book of

Palestinian origin republished at Ephesus _c._ 95; _cf._ Rev. ii. 14,

20, 24) in the _Teaching of the Twelve_ (125), and in the 'Western' text

of Acts xv. (150?) there is a progressive scaling down of the 'burden.'

Gentiles are at last asked to do almost nothing more than Paul had

demanded on moral grounds without recognition of the validity of

"distinctions of meats." In A.D. 120 the 'burden' is: "Concerning meats,

keep what thou art able; however, abstain at all events from things

offered to idols, for it is the food of dead gods."

But to take Luke's account of how peace was restored, with its

implication that the Pauline gospel as developed in Greek Christendom

between the Taurus range and the Adriatic was nothing more than a branch

from the parent stock of the 'apostolic' church in "Syria and Cilicia,"

would be like viewing the history of the United States from the

standpoint of a British imperialist of a period of Anglo-Saxon reunion

in A.D. 2000, who should omit entirely the American War of Independence,

holding that Washington and Franklin after bearing testimony before

Parliament accepted for the colonies a plan of settlement prepared by a

Liberal Government which reduced to a minimum the obnoxious requirements

of the Tories.

The history of this period of the development of the independent

'gospel' of Paul and of his independent churches is so vital, and so

confused by generations of well-meaning 'harmonizers,' that we must take

time to contrast once more Luke's theory of the process of reunion with

Paul's.

_In Acts Paul takes precisely the view of Peter and James._ He is

himself 'under the Law.' He does _not_ disregard it even among Gentiles.

On the contrary, he sets an example of scrupulous legality to the Jews

among the Gentiles, himself 'walking orderly, keeping the Law.' The

statement that he "teaches them to forsake Moses, telling them not to

circumcise their children, nor to obey the customs" is a calumny (!)

which he takes public occasion to disprove (Acts xxi. 20-26). Before the

Sanhedrin he emphatically declares himself a consistent Pharisee (Acts

xxiii. 1, 6); before Felix and Festus, blameless by the standard of Law

and Prophets (xxiv. 14-16; xxv. 8); before Agrippa, a strict Pharisee in

his conduct hitherto (xxvi. 5, 22 f.). Titus, whose circumcision Paul

strenuously resisted, is never mentioned in Acts. Conversely Timothy (a

Jew only on his mother's side) Paul "took and circumcised" immediately

after the Jerusalem Council "because of the Jews that were in those

parts" (Galatia!). His visit with Barnabas to Jerusalem is not

occasioned by opposition to Gentile missions, though it falls between

Barnabas' mission from Jerusalem to investigate the alarming reports of

Gentile conversions at Antioch, and the First Missionary Journey on

which the two take with them Mark, who had accompanied them from

Jerusalem. No; according to Luke Gentile missions did not yet

exist[12](!). This visit (that of the Conference, Gal. ii. 1-10) was

merely to convey a gift from the Antioch church to that of Jerusalem

because of the famine "about that time" (it occurred in 46-47).

Conversely the great 'offering of the Gentiles' made at the risk of

Paul's life in company with delegates from each province of his field,

as a proffer of peace, the enterprise which occupies so large a place in

his effort and his letters of this period (1st Cor. xvi. 1-6; 2nd Cor.

8-9; Rom. xv. 15, 16, 25-32), has in Acts no relation to the

controversy--for the demonstration of Paul's exemplary legalism in the

temple is merely incidental. The gift Paul brought was "alms to my

nation" (!) (Acts xxiv. 17). The reader asks in vain what necessitates

this dangerous journey. The only motives assigned are a Nazarite vow

assumed in Cenchreae (xviii. 18; xxi. 24), and regard for the Jewish

feasts (xx. 16).

Footnote 12: On the reading "Greeks" in Acts xi. 20 see Footnote 10

above., p. 59.

The background of history against which the modern reader must place the

great letters of Paul of the first period, is manifestly something quite

different from the mere unsifted story of Acts. Their real origin is in

a profound difference in Paul's idea of 'the gospel' and the necessity

of defending the independence of it and of the Gentile churches founded

on it. The difference originates in Paul's own religious experience. It

found its first expression in his antithesis of Law and Grace, his

doctrine that the cross marks the abolition of the economy of Law.

Both in Galatians and everywhere else Paul treats on equal terms with

the representatives of the "apostleship of the circumcision." He

denounces Peter and "the rest of the Jews," including "even Barnabas,"

at Antioch, after they have withdrawn from Gentile fellowship in order

to preserve their legal 'cleanness,' and the point of the denunciation

is that this is inconsistent with _their_ (implied) abandonment of the

Law as a means of salvation when they "sought to be justified by faith

in Christ." This makes their conduct not only inconsistent but cowardly

and "hypocritical."

Here is something far deeper than a mere question of policy. Paul's

attitude shows that from the beginning he has really been preaching "a

different gospel." A gospel _about_ Christ in which the central fact is

the cross as the token of the abolition of a dispensation of Law wherein

Jew and Gentile alike were in a servile relation to God, under angelic

(or demonic) "stewards and governors," and the inauguration of a

dispensation of Grace, wherein all who have 'faith' and receive in

baptism the gift of 'the Spirit,' are thereby adopted to be God's sons.

Beside this cosmic drama of the cross and resurrection wherein God

reveals his redemptive purpose for the world, the mere inculcation of

the easy yoke of Jesus as a new Law, simplifying and supplementing the

old by restoring the doctrine of forgiveness for the repentant believer

(_cf._ Matt. xxviii. 20; Acts x. 42 f.; xiii. 39; xxvi. 22 f.) seems

only half a gospel.

Paul can never surrender the independence of his God-given message, nor

the liberty wherewith Christ has made all believers free in abolishing

the economy of law and making them "sons" by the Spirit. And yet he is

even more determined to achieve peace and reunion than the apostles 'of

the circumcision'; only he has a different plan. Paul and his churches

fall back upon the Jerusalem Conference, not upon the 'Apostolic

Council.' The Conference is their Magna Carta. Its recognition of

Paul's independent gospel and apostleship as no less divine than Peter's

is their guarantee of liberty and equality; its request for brotherly

aid is their promise of fraternity.

Approaches were made on both sides. It is true the ill-advised attempt

of the Judaizers to secure unity by a renewal of their propaganda of the

Law, seducing the Greek churches from their loyalty to Paul and his

gospel, provoked from him only such thunderbolts as Galatians, with its

defence of "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," or 2nd Cor.

x. 1 to xiii. 10, with its denunciation of the "ministers of Satan."

Peace through surrender was not to Paul's mind. But the sincere attempt

of the followers of Peter to find a _modus vivendi_, even if they did

not venture to claim liberty from the Law for themselves, found Paul

prepared to go more than half-way. His epistles are not more remarkable

for their strenuous defence of the liberty of Son ship, than for their

insistence on the obligation of brotherly love. His churches must be not

only morally pure for their own sakes, but must avoid offences to the

more scrupulous. Even that which Christian liberty allows must be

sacrificed to the scruples of the 'weak,' if only it be not "unto

doubtful disputations," or demanded as of right. From 1st Thessalonians

(Corinth, A.D. 50), where, in the absence of all Judaizing opposition

Paul merely exhibits his simple gospel of the resurrection and judgment

to come, unaffected by questions of Law and Grace, on through Galatians

with its sublime polemic for the liberty of sons, to the Corinthian

correspondence, with its insistence on the duty of consideration and

forbearance, its stronger note of love, its revelation of the

widespread, strenuous exertions of Paul to promote his great 'offering,'

down to Romans, where the 'offering of the Gentiles' is ready to be made

(Rom. xv. 16-33), and Paul is sedulously preparing to enter a great new

field already partially occupied, by presenting a full and superlatively

conciliatory statement of his entire 'gospel' (i. 15-17), there is

steady progress toward the "peace" and "acceptance" which he hopes to

find in Jerusalem. The later Epistles, with their different phase of

conflict, the very attitude of 'apostolic' Christianity toward Paul, as

exhibited in Acts, make it incredible that substantial unity was not in

fact secured.[13] We cannot, indeed, accept Luke's representation of

Paul as performing the Nazarite ceremonial in the temple in order to

prove _that he does not teach that the Law is not binding on Jews_. But

it does not follow that Paul may not have done even this to prove that

his principle of accommodation to the weak (1st Cor. ix. 19-22) left

ample room for fellowship with the Jewish Christian--except when (as

with Peter and Barnabas at Antioch) the needless scruples of the

legalist were made a pretext for "compelling the Gentiles to live as do

the Jews."

Footnote 13: The actual outcome is seen in the reduction of the

'burden' to the two items of abstinence from "fornication and from

things offered to idols." Paul's nicer distinctions under the latter

head (1st Cor. viii. 1-13, x. 14-23) as well as his distinction

between the ceremonial and the moral grounds for abstinence, were

disregarded.

Had unity been attained through the simple process imagined by Luke,

obedient acquiescence of Paul and the Gentiles in the divinely inspired

verdict of "the apostles and elders in Jerusalem," Christianity would

have been an immeasurably poorer thing than it became. Indeed, it is

questionable whether a gospel of mere simplification, extension and

supplementation of the Law would ever have made permanent conquest of

the Gentile world. It is because Paul stood out on this question of

'meats' for the equal right of his independent gospel, refusing

submission until his great ten-years' work of evangelization by tongue

and pen had made Gentile Christianity a factor of at least equal

importance with Jewish, that our religion was enriched by its

Hellenistic strain. The deeper insight into the real significance of

Jesus' work and fate born of Paul's peculiar experience and his

Hellenistic apprehension of the gospel found embodiment in the

beginnings of a New Testament literature. The writings of this period

must accordingly be viewed against the background of a critical history.

Luke's account, written in the interest of "apostolic" authority, must

receive such modifications as the contemporary documents require.

Taking up the story at the point of divergence we see Paul and Barnabas

returning to Antioch after the Conference with the Pillars, glad at

heart, and expecting now to resume the work for Gentiles without

impediment. Besides Titus, John Mark of Jerusalem, a nephew of Barnabas,

accompanied them. The Missionary Journey to Cyprus and (southern)

Galatia follows, Mark returning, however, to Jerusalem after leaving

Cyprus.

It was probably during the absence of the missionaries that "Peter came

to Antioch" and, at first, followed the Pauline practice of disregarding

'distinctions of meats.' Later, on arrival of certain "from James" he

"drew back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision."

While matters were at this stage Paul and Barnabas reappeared on the

scene. Paul thought it necessary to rebuke Peter "openly, before them

all." Barnabas, former head of the Antioch church, took sides with Peter

and "the rest of the Jews," doubtless determining the attitude of the

church; for Paul says nothing of prevailing upon them by his argument,

but merely turns it at once upon the Galatians themselves. Moreover,

Barnabas now takes Cyprus as his mission field, with Mark as his helper,

while Paul with a new companion, Silvanus (in Acts "Silas," a bearer of

the 'decrees' from Jerusalem), takes the northern half of the newly

evangelized territory, and through much difficulty and opposition makes

his way to the coasts of the AEgean.

This second visit to the churches of Galatia (Acts xvi. 1-5) was

signalized by warnings against the (possible) preaching of "another

gospel" (Gal. i. 9); for Paul had reason to anticipate trouble from the

"false brethren." If Acts may be believed, it was also marked by an

extraordinary evidence of Paul's readiness to "become all things to all

men" in the interest of conciliation. He is said to have circumcised a

Galatian half-Jew named Timothy. If so, it was certainly not to prove

his respect for the legal requirement, but rather its indifference.

"Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision nothing; only faith working

through love." But these generous 'accommodations' of Paul produced more

of misrepresentation than of conciliation. He had cause to regret his

liberality later (Gal. i. 10; v. 11 f.; _cf._ 1st Cor. vii. 18).

Some unexplained obstacle (Acts xvi. 6) prevented Paul's entrance into

the Province of Asia at this time. Ephesus, his probable objective, had

perhaps already been occupied (xviii. 24-28). He turned north through

Phrygia-Galatia, hoping to find a field in Bithynia, but was again

disappointed. At Troas, the very extremity of Asia, came the

turning-point in the fortunes of the missionaries. Encouraged by a

vision they crossed into Macedonia and found fields white for the

harvest.

The Epistles to Thessalonica address one of these Macedonian churches

from Corinth, whither the missionaries have been driven. Timothy had

been sent back from Athens when Paul's own repeated attempts to return

had been frustrated, and has just arrived with good news of the church's

perseverance in spite of a persecution stirred up by the Jews. It is

against these, apparently, not against Jewish-Christian detractors, that

Paul defends his character and message (1st Thess. ii. 1-13). There is

also an urgent warning against fornication (iv. 1-8) and exhortation to

abound in love (iv. 9-12), with correction of the natural Greek tendency

to misapprehend the Jewish eschatology and resurrection-doctrine (iv.

13--v. 1-11; _cf._ 1st Cor. xv.). The closing admonitions relate to the

direction of church meetings and discipline.

2nd Thessalonians corrects and supplements the eschatology of 1st

Thessalonians by adding a doctrine of Antichrist, which is at all events

thoroughly Jewish and earlier than 70, when the temple was destroyed in

which it expects the manifestation of "the man of sin." It is the only

one of the Epistles of this period whose authenticity is seriously

questioned by critical scholarship. How little this affects the question

of Paul's 'gospel' may be seen by the fact that the entire contents

cover less than 3 per cent. of the earlier Epistles, while the subject

is a mere detail.

Far more significant is it to observe the close correspondence between

the missionary preaching of Paul as here described by himself (1st

Thess. i. 9 f.) and the general apostolic message (_kerygma_) as

described by Luke (Acts x. 42 f.; xiv. 15-17; xvii. 24-31). Where

there are no Judaizers there is no reference to the dispensations of Law

and Grace and the abolition of the former in the Cross. The doctrine is

the common gospel of the Resurrection, wherein Jesus has been manifested

as the Messiah. Faith in him secures forgiveness to the repentant; all

others are doomed to perish in the judgment shown by his 'manifestation'

to be at hand (_cf._ 1st Cor. xv. 11; Rom. i. 3-5).

Galatians was written but slightly before (or after?) the letters to

Thessalonica. Its single theme (after the retrospect) is the Adoption to

Son ship through the Spirit. Against the Judaizer's plea that to share

in the Inheritance one must be adopted (preferably by circumcision) into

the family of Abraham, or at all events pay respect to the Mosaic Law,

Paul asserts the single fact of the adoption of the Spirit. "It is

because ye are sons that God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our

hearts crying (in the ecstatic utterances of 'tongues') Abba, that is,

Father" (Gal. iv. 6). To go back to legal observances is to revert from

redemption to bondage. All Christians are indeed sons of Abraham, but

only as sharers of his trust in God. Abraham was made "heir of the

world" (Rom. iv. 13) for his faith. Circumcision and the Law came

afterwards. They were not superimposed stipulations and conditions of

the promise. On the contrary they were temporary pedagogic measures

intended to produce the consciousness of sin and (moral) death, so that

when the Heir should come men should be ready to cast themselves on the

mercy of God displayed in his vicarious death.[14] Thus the messianic

Redemption is a redemption from a system issuing in sin and death. On

the cross even the sinless Christ incurred the curse in order that

believers thus redeemed might have the Blessing of the Abrahamic promise

(Gal. iii. 1--iv. 7).

Footnote 14: Romans enlarges the conception of the economy of Law by

making it include the Gentile law of 'conscience' (Rom. i. 18--ii.

16). In Galatians this point is covered only by classing the

"angels" through whom the Mosaic Law was given, with the "Elements"

honoured in Gentile religion. Both are codes of "stewards and

governors."

But this transfer from bondage to liberty, from the legal to the filial

relation, does not "make Christ a minister of sin." On the contrary, if

the delivering Spirit of Son ship has been received at all, it controls

the life for purity and love. One cannot be a son and be unfilial or

unbrotherly. The unity of the redeemed world in Christ is the unity of

loving service, not of subjection to a bygone system of rules (iv.

8--vi. 18). Thus does Galatians meet the insidious plea of the

Judaizers, and their charges against Pauline liberty.

The church founded by Paul in Corinth (Acts xviii. 1-17) was grounded

from the beginning in this doctrine of the Cross. Paul purposely

restricted himself to it (1st Cor. i. 17-25; ii. 1-5). He had indeed a

world-view, of which we learn more in the Epistles of the Captivity, a

philosophy revealed by the Spirit as a "mystery of God." Those who

afterwards in Corinth came to call themselves followers "of Apollos" had

nothing to teach him on this score. But consideration of this Grecizing

tendency, too often issuing in a mere "philosophy and vain deceit after

the Elements of the world and not after Christ" (Col. ii. 8), must be

deferred, in favour of questions which became more immediately pressing.

For after Paul had left Corinth to make a brief visit via Ephesus to

Caesarea 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 paean of love as the invincible, abiding gift of the

Spirit (1st Cor. xiii.) and its sublime eulogy of the "ministry of the

new covenant," but instructive in the highest degree to the historian.

Almost every aspect of Paul's work as missionary, defender of his own

independent apostleship and gospel, guide and instructor of developing

Gentile-Christian thought, and ardent commissioner for peace with the

apostolic community in Syria, is here set forth. The best exposition of

the history is the documentary material itself, and conversely.

Romans was written during the peaceful winter at Corinth (55-56) which

followed these weeks of tormenting anxiety in Macedonia (Acts xx. 1-3).

Paul feels that he has carried the gospel to the very shores of the

Adriatic (xv. 19). He is on the point of going to Jerusalem with his

great 'offering of the Gentiles,' and has already fixed his eye on Rome

and "Spain"! Just as before the First Missionary Journey he forestalled

opposition by frankly laying his gospel before the Pillars, so now he

lays it before the church in Rome, but most delicately and tactfully,

not as though assuming to admonish Christians already "filled with all

knowledge and able to admonish one another" (xv. 14), but "that I with

you may be comforted in you, each of us by the other's faith" (i. 12).

Thus the Epistle is an eirenicon. For Rome was even more than Ephesus

had been, a preoccupied territory, though a metropolis of Paul's

mission-field. Most of the church are Paul's sympathizers, but there

are many of the 'weak,' who may easily be 'offended.' The letter repeats

and enlarges the argument of Galatians for the gospel of Grace, carrying

back the promise to Abraham to its antecedent in the fall of Adam,

whereby all mankind had passed under the domination of Sin and Death.

The function of the Law is again made clear as bringing men to

consciousness of this bondage, till it is done away by (mystical) death

and resurrection with Christ. In the adoption wrought by the Spirit the

whole creation even, groaning since Adam's time under 'vanity,' is

liberated in the manifestation of the sons of God. Jesus, glorified at

the right hand of God, is the firstfruits of the cosmic redemption (Rom.

i.-viii.). Such is Paul's theory of 'evolution.' It is followed by a

vindication of God in history. Rom. ix.-xi. exhibits the relation of Jew

and Gentile in the process of the redemption. Israel has for the time

being been hardened that the Gentiles may be brought in. Ultimately

their very jealousy at this result will bring them also to repentant

faith.

Paul's sublime exposition of his view of cosmic and historic redemption

is followed (as in all the Epistles) by a practical exhortation (chh.

xii.-xiv.), the keynote of which is unity through mutual forbearance and

loving service. It repeats the Corinthian figure of the members in the

body, and the Galatian definition of the 'law of Christ.' Special

application is made to the case of the scrupulous who make distinctions

of days and of meats. Here, however (xiv. 1--xv. 13), there is no longer

need to resist a threatened yoke. Only tenderness and consideration are

urged for the over-scrupulous "brother in Christ." It was in this spirit

that Paul and his great company of delegates from the churches of the

Gentiles went up to Jerusalem (Acts xx. 4--xxi. 17).

CHAPTER IV

PAUL AS PRISONER AND CHURCH FATHER

The second period of Paul's literary career begins after an interval of

several years. This interval is covered indeed, so far as the great

events of the Apostle's personal story are concerned, by the last nine

chapters of Acts, but exceedingly obscure as respects the fortunes of

his mission-field and the occasion for the group of Epistles which come

to us after its close. It is barely possible that a fragment or two from

the so-called Pastoral Epistles (1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, Titus), which

seem to be compiled long after Paul's death on the basis of some

remnants of his correspondence, may have been written shortly after the

arrest in Jerusalem and "first defence." In 2nd Tim. iv. 11-18 a journey

is referred to from Troas by way of Ephesus which coincides in many

respects with that of Acts xx. If the fragment could be taken out from

its present setting it might be possible to identify the two; for it is

clear from the forecast of Acts xx. 25, 38 that Paul never did revisit

this region. The grip of Rome upon her troublesome prisoner was not

relaxed until his martyrdom, probably some considerable time before the

"great multitude" whom Nero condemned after the conflagration of 64.

However, until analysis can dissect out with greater definiteness the

genuine elements of the Pastoral Epistles, they cannot be used to throw

light upon the later period of Paul's career. A historical background

has indeed been created to meet their requirements--a release of Paul,

resumption of missionary activities on the coasts of the AEgean, 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

Caesarea, 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 Caesarea 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 Colossae (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 role 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 AEgean coasts, which was not Paul's expectation in Caesarea.

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 AEgean 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 Colossae, 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 Colossae, for

another epistle sent simultaneously to Laodicea. Whether our Ephesians

is this companion letter or only a deutero-Pauline production framed on

the basis of some genuine letter written on this occasion, is a disputed

point among critics. In Marcion's canon our Ephesians was called

"Laodiceans," and in our own oldest textual authorities it has no

address. We may assume that Ephesians is really the companion letter,

whose original address was for some reason cancelled;[15] or that it is

but partially from Paul's own hand. Neither view will materially alter

our conception of his teaching, or the special application of it to the

circumstances of the churches of the Lycus Valley. The important thing

to observe is that whereas the application in Colossians is specific, in

Ephesians it is systematic and general. Colossians wages a direct

polemic against those who are making believers the spoil of mere

'Elements' by introducing distinctions of "meats _and drinks_" (a step

beyond Mosaism), with observance of "feast days, new moons and

sabbaths." In Ephesians we have, either altogether at first hand, or to

a greater or less extent at second, a general, affirmative presentation

of Paul's doctrine of Lordship in Christ. It has only incidental

allusion to being "deceived with empty words" (v. 6), and a warning not

to be "children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of

doctrine, by the sleight of men in craftiness, after the wiles of error"

(iv. 14).

Footnote 15: Harnack very ingeniously suggests as a reason the ill

repute later incurred by Laodicea (_cf._ Rev. iii. 15 f.);

comparing the chiselling out from inscriptions of the names of

unpopular kings.

Colossians and Ephesians develop, accordingly, that (cosmological)

wisdom of God conveyed to Paul by the Spirit of Christ in a "mystery,"

at which he had only hinted in 1st Cor. ii. 1-16. Paul's _gnosis_, or

insight, concerns the purpose of God in creation, hidden even from the

(angelic) "world-rulers," who are coming to nought. The Spirit of

Christ, who as the divine Wisdom had been the agent of creation, is

given to Christian apostles and prophets. It affords them in the

revelation of this "mystery" a philosophy both of creation and

redemption which puts to shame mere speculative reasoning. The

Inheritance--the things God prepared for those that love Him--consists

(as an apocalyptic writer had said) of "things which eye had not seen,

nor ear heard, nor had entered into the heart of man to conceive." Paul

had purposely refrained from unfolding this revealed cosmology and

philosophy of history to the Corinthians, in order to avoid just the

evils which the teaching of Apollos had apparently precipitated at the

time when 1st Corinthians was written. Still, we can gain from this very

epistle (1st Cor. viii. 6; xv. 24-28) a partial conception of his

doctrine of Christ as the beginning and end of the creation, the Wisdom

of God by whom and for whom as Heir, all things were created. From

Romans i.-viii. and ix.-xi. we can easily see that as Second Adam the

Messiah was to Paul the key to the world's development and to human

history; for since the triumph of Satan in Eden the whole creation had

waited, groaning, for the advent of the sons. Galatians makes it no less

clear that he thought of the Cross as the epoch-making event, which

marks the transition from the period of the control of the world by

secondary agencies, to the rule of the Son. This "mystery" is simply

brought out and developed now in the Epistles of the Captivity. The

effort and prayer is that the readers may "have the eyes of their heart

enlightened," obtain something of Paul's own insight into the riches of

the inheritance they are to share with Christ, something of Paul's

experience of the power of God in raising Christ from the dead and

setting Him on the throne of glory. If they but realize what Son ship

and heirship with Christ implies--if they but take in the fact that by

the resurrection Spirit within them they have already in a sense shared

in this deliverance and this exaltation, they will be forearmed against

all the vain deceits of theosophy. It is in fact this resurrection

Spirit which brings about the unity of the world as a single organism.

It extends from the uppermost height to the nethermost abyss. And

because it is the Spirit of Jesus, it fills all it touches with the

disposition to loving service. It affords a new ethics and a new

politics whose keynote is the law of love in imitation of God and

Christ. All social relations are recreated by it, beginning with family

and church. Hence we must think of our redemption as like Israel's from

the bondage and darkness of Egypt. The principalities and powers of this

world, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the super-terrestrial regions,

are vainly endeavouring to hold back the people of God, in "this

darkness." We have only to wait like Israel at the Passover "with our

loins girt, and our feet shod." The Deliverer will soon appear from

heaven, clad in armour of salvation, as in the ancient passover songs,

cleaving the darkness with his sword of light, and leading forth the

captives.

In these themes, variously interwoven in Ephesians and Colossians, it is

difficult to say whether it is the note of unity or the note of freedom

which predominates. Certainly we can recognize the same great apostle of

liberty who in the epistles of the earlier period had proved the power

and value of his religious insight by seizing upon the doctrine of Son

ship as the essential heart of the gospel. It is the same genius

consciously taught of God who had demanded and obtained recognition on

equal terms for his gospel of Grace and Son ship, a gospel given by

revelation of God's Son "in" him, who now demands that the gift of the

Spirit to Jew and Gentile be recognized as calling for reconstruction of

the doctrine of the coming Kingdom. "He that ascended is the same also

that descended to the lowest depths that he might fill all things." And

he poured out the "gifts" in order that they might make one organism of

the new social order, a new creation animated and vitalized by Jesus'

spirit of loving service.

For just as in all the great earlier epistles the note of longing for

peace and unity in love rings ever stronger and clearer above the

strife, so in the later epistles, the note of triumph in liberty has a

deep under-chord of thanksgiving for reconciliation achieved. The great

paean of reverent adoration for the glory of God's grace in Eph. i. 3-14,

is a thanksgiving for the union of Jew and Gentile in one common

redemption. The retrospect of the work of God in ii. 11-21 is the

proclamation of "peace to him that was far off and peace to him that was

nigh." It is described as the building of Jew and Gentile into one

living temple, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ

Jesus Himself being the chief corner-stone. The exhortation to the unity

of the Spirit in iv. 1--vi. 9 rests upon an exultant application of the

figure of the "one new man" in whose body all are members, that would be

inconceivable if at the time of writing the church which had received

the gifts from the ascended Lord was not indeed one body, but two bodies

standing apart in mutual distrust and jealousy.

In fact we may say not of Ephesians only, but of Colossians likewise,

and indeed of all the group: Their keynote is not so much the conquest

of all things by Christ as "the reconciliation of all things in Christ,

whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens" (Col. i. 20).

It is not unreasonable to infer from such undertones as these that the

prayer was answered in which Paul when he set out from Corinth had

besought the Roman church by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of

the Spirit to strive together with him, that his ministration which he

had for Jerusalem might be acceptable to the saints, that so his coming

to them in Rome through the will of God might be in joy, and that

together with them he might find rest.

CHAPTER V

PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES

We cannot wonder that an epoch of the church's history which followed

upon the martyrdom in rapid succession of all its remaining great

leaders, should at first be poor in literary products. James the Lord's

brother was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem in the year 61-2. His

namesake, brother of John, had been beheaded early in 44 by Herod

Agrippa I. Among the "others" who, as Josephus informs us, perished

along with James in 61, we may, perhaps, reckon John, who stands beside

him in Paul's list of the Pillars. This John, son of Zebedee, brother of

the other James, is reckoned a martyr in the same sense as his brother

in the earliest gospels. The brothers are assured that they shall drink

the same cup of suffering as the Lord, though they may not claim in

return pre-eminent seats in glory (Mark x. 39 f.). John did not suffer

with his brother James in 44, because he is present at the conference in

46-7 (Gal. ii. 9); but one of the traditions of the Jerusalem elders

reported by Papias declared that he was "killed by the Jews" in

fulfilment of the Lord's prediction, and this early tradition must be

accepted in spite of its conflict with one which gradually superseded it

after John came to be regarded as author of Revelation and the Fourth

Gospel. The statement that he was killed "together with James his

brother" may be due merely to the (not infrequent) confusion of the two

Jameses.

Paul's decapitation in Rome occurred not more than a year or two later,

and was followed there in 64, according to very ancient and trustworthy

tradition, by the martyrdom of Peter. The death of all the principal

leaders explains why the Jerusalem church when it reassembled after the

overthrow of city and temple in the year 70, put forward no more

prominent candidates for the leadership than a certain Symeon, son of

Clopas, one of the group of 'relatives of the Lord' who are traceable

"until the time of Trajan," and a certain unknown Thebuthis. Symeon,

according to Eusebius, who takes his account from Hegesippus (165), was

the representative of "those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord

that were still living, together with the Lord's relatives." Thebuthis

is said to have sprung from one of the heretical Jewish sects and to

have organized a schism in consequence of his disappointment. All we can

be sure of is that Jerusalem 'down to the time of Trajan' continued to

regard itself as the seat of apostolic authority and arbiter of

orthodoxy, on account of its succession of disciples and relatives of

the Lord. Among the latter the leading, if not the only, representatives

of the seed of David, when "search was made" in the persecution under

Domitian (81-95), were two _grandsons_ of Jude, the Lord's brother. Jude

himself, then, was no longer living. Luke (_c._ 100), Papias (145), and

Hegesippus (165) successively exhibit the growing authority of the

"tradition handed down," especially that of "the apostles and elders in

Jerusalem." But what Papias records of the traditions of these "elders"

does not rise above the level of Jewish midrash, and the epistles which

bear the names of James and Jude have little intrinsic value, and

enjoyed from the beginning only the most meagre acceptance. At Rome

tradition attaches to the name of Peter, but besides the bare fact of

his martyrdom "at the same time with Paul" (64-5) it has little of value

to relate. We cannot safely go beyond the tradition reported by Porphyry

that Peter fed the lambs (at Rome) for a few months before his

martyrdom, and that reported by Papias that Mark, who had been Peter's

assistant, compiled there the Gospel which bears his name, basing it

upon his recollections of Peter's preaching. Of this vitally important

work (_c._ A.D. 75) we must speak in another connection. We are

concerned at present with writings which directly reflect the

development of Christian life and doctrine in this sub-apostolic

period, especially that in the Pauline mission-field.

Except for the appearance of the Gospel of Mark at Rome (_c._ 75) there

remains nothing to break the silence and darkness of twenty years after

the deaths of James and Peter and Paul. The writings which finally did

appear were almost inevitably anonymous or pseudepigraphic, because

apostolic authority stood so high that no other could secure

circulation. Hebrews (_c._ 85) has an epistolary attachment at the close

of its "exhortation," but either never had an address or superscription,

or else has been deprived of it. All the Synoptic writings are

anonymous, though Luke-Acts (_c._ 100) is dedicated to a literary

patron. Revelation (_c._ 95) is boldly asserted to be the work of the

Apostle John in the prefatory chapters and the epilogue (i. 2, 4, 9;

xxii. 8). But the body of the work, though of Palestinian origin, has a

totally different standpoint, and claims the authority of a prophet, not

that of an apostle. Similarly the Fourth gospel when finally published

received an appendix (ch. xxi.) which cautiously suggests the Apostle

John as its author; but the three Epistles by the same writer are

anonymous. The homily called James (90-100) has a superscription which

superficially connects it with the chief authority in Jerusalem, and the

Epistle of Jude prefixes to itself the name which stood next in the same

class. But even in antiquity they had a precarious standing, and

neither is a real letter. Finally there are the Epistles to Timothy and

Titus, purporting to be written by Paul, and a whole series of every

kind, epistles, gospel, acts, and apocalypse, written in the name of

Peter, of which only two secured final adoption into the canon. Of all

these only 1st Peter and the so-called Pastoral Epistles (1st and 2nd

Timothy and Titus) have some claim to be considered genuine; for 1st

Peter is certainly of early origin (_c._ 85), and was undisputed in

antiquity; while the Pastorals, though rejected by Marcion, and as a

whole of late date (90-110), are made up on the basis of some authentic

Pauline material.

The post-apostolic epistles may be grouped into two classes, according

as they are predominantly occasioned (_a_) by internal dangers of heresy

and moral laxity; or (_b_) by the external peril of persecution. To the

former (_a_) must be reckoned (1) the so-called Pastoral Epistles; (2)

Jude; (3) 2nd Peter. All these concern themselves outspokenly with a

type of false doctrine which has certain more or less definite traits,

and is tending toward the Gnostic heresies of the second century, if not

yet clearly identifiable with them. But the inspired genius of Paul is

wanting. The age is not creative, but conservative. Its writers are

ecclesiastics and church teachers, not apostles and prophets. Their

distinctive note is appeal to apostolic authority. Whether the name by

which they cover their own insignificance be that of "Paul," or "Jude

the brother (son?) of James," or "Peter," they have little or no

independent message. They hark back to the "pattern of sound words" the

"deposit," "the faith once for all delivered to the saints," "the words

spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the Lord and

Saviour through your apostles," in particular the "wisdom of our beloved

brother Paul" who (in the Pastoral Epistles) had predicted the heresy,

and "in all his epistles" had spoken of the resurrection and judgment.

Second Peter, which refers in the passage just quoted (2nd Pet. iii. 2,

15 f.) to the Pauline Epistles alongside "the other Scriptures"

belongs to a very late period (_c._ 150). In fact this Epistle, now

almost universally recognized to be pseudonymous, merely reedits 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 Colossae. 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 Irenaeus 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 AEgean and that of Rome, where both parties stand on

neutral ground, there are exchanged generous and sympathetic assurances

of essential unity of doctrine in the great outbreak of persecution in

85-90. Among the Pauline churches themselves there is an irresistible

reaction against the vagaries and moral laxity of heretical teaching

toward 'apostolic' tradition and ecclesiastical authority. It appears

with almost startling vividness in the Pastoral Epistles, and meets its

answer from without, perhaps from Rome, perhaps from Syria, in the

homily dressed as an encyclical called the Epistle of James. It is not

hard to foresee what sort of Christian unity is destined to come about.

Nevertheless the creative spirit and genius of Paul was to find

expression in one more splendid product of Ephesus before the Roman

unity was to be achieved.--But before we take up the writings of the

great 'theologian' of Ephesus we must trace the growth in Syria and at

Rome of the Literature of the Church Teacher and Prophet.

PART III

THE LITERATURE OF CATECHIST AND PROPHET