The literature is here too vast to mention even the works of the very
first importance: I can only select a very few books which have been
useful to myself. The late Sir John Seeley's _Ecce Homo_ may be
regarded as in the light of modern research a somewhat uncritical book,
but it remains to my mind the most striking expression of the appeal
which Christ makes to the Conscience of the modern world. It has
proved a veritable fifth Gospel to many seekers after light. Bishop
Moorhouse's little book, _The Teaching of Christ_, will serve as an
introduction to the study of Christ's life and work. A more elaborate
treatment of the subject, with which I am very much in sympathy, is
Wendt's _Teaching of Jesus_. The ideal life of Christ perhaps remains
to be written. Professor Sanday's Article on 'Jesus Christ' in
Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_ may be mentioned as a good
representative of moderate and scholarly Conservatism or Liberal
Conservatism. Professor Oscar Holtzmann's _Life of Jesus_ is based on
more radical, perhaps over-radical, criticism. Professor Harnack's
{189} _What is Christianity?_ has become the typical expression of the
Ritschlian attitude. The ideas of extreme Roman Catholic 'Modernism'
may be gathered from Loisy's _l'Evangile et l'Eglise_ and _Autour d'un
Petit Livre_. Professor Gardner's three books--_Exploratio
Evangelica_, the shorter _An Historic View of the New Testament_, and
_The Growth of Christianity_--may be especially commended to those who
wish to satisfy themselves that a thorough-going recognition of the
results of historical Criticism is compatible with a whole-hearted
personal acceptance of Christianity. Dr. Fairbairn's _Philosophy of
the Christian Religion_ and Bousset's _What is Religion?_ are
especially valuable as vindications of the supreme position of
Christianity combined with the fullest recognition of the measure of
Revelation contained in all the great historical Religions. Allen's
_Continuity of Christian Thought_ suggests what seems to me the right
attitude of the modern thinker towards traditional dogma, though the
author's position is more decidedly 'Hegelian' than mine. I may also
mention Professor Inge's contribution to _Contentio Veritatis_ on 'The
Personal Christ,' and some of the Essays in _Lux Hominum_. Though I
cannot always agree with him, I recognize the high value of the Bishop
of Birmingham's Bampton Lectures on _The Divinity of Jesus Christ the
Son of God_ and the accompanying volume of _Dissertations_.
[1] In their assertion of the necessity of Development, and of the
religious community as the origin of Development, the teaching of the
Abbe Loisy and the Roman Catholic Modernists seems to me to be
complementary to that of the Kitschlians, though I do not always accept
their rather destructive critical conclusions.
[2] In his Essay in _Lux Mundi_ (1889). He has since developed his
view in his Bampton Lectures on _The Incarnation of the Son of God_ and
a volume of _Dissertations on Subjects connected with the Incarnation_.
[3] I venture thus to translate 'Principium' (_arche_); in Abelard and
his disciple Peter the Lombard, the famous Master of the Sentences, the
word is 'Potentia' (L. I. Dist. xxxiv.): and St. Thomas himself (P. I.
Q. xli. Art. 4) explains 'Principium' by 'Potentia generandi Filium.'
[4] Thus in _Summa Theologica_, Pars I. Q. xxxvii. Art. 1, the
'conclusio' is 'Amor, personaliter acceptus, proprium nomen est
Spiritus sancti,' which is explained to mean that there are in the
Godhead 'duse processiones: Una per modum intellectus, quae est
processio Verbi; alia per modum voluntatis, quae est processio amoris.'
So again (_ibid._ Q. xlv. Art. 7): 'In creaturis igitur rationalibus,
in quibus est intellectus et voluntas, invenitur repraesentatio
Trinitatis per modum imaginis, inquantum invenitur in eis Verbum
conceptum, et amor procedens.' In a friendly review of my Essay in
_Contentio Veritatis_, in which I endeavoured to expound in a modern
form this doctrine, Dr. Sanday (_Journal of Theological Studies_, vol.
iv., 1903) wrote: 'One of the passages that seem to me most open to
criticism is that on the doctrine of the Trinity (p. 48). "Power,
Wisdom, and Will" surely cannot be a sound trichotomy as applied either
to human nature or Divine. Surely Power is an expression of Will and
not co-ordinate with it. The common division, Power (or Will), Wisdom,
and Love is more to the point. Yet Dr. Rashdall identifies the two
triads by what I must needs think a looseness of reasoning.' The
Margaret Professor of Divinity hardly seems to recognize that he is
criticizing the Angelical Doctor and not myself. If Dr. Sanday had had
the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the result, if less
metaphysically subtle, might no doubt have proved more easily
intelligible to the modern mind; but the 'identification' of which he
complains happens to be part of the traditional doctrine, and I was
endeavouring merely to make the best of it for modern Christians. I
add St. Thomas' justification of it, which is substantially what I gave
in _Contentio Veritatis_ and have repeated above: 'Cum processiones
divinas secundum aliquas actiones necesse est accipere, secundum
bonitatem, et hujusmodi alia attributa, non accipiuntur aliae
processiones, nisi Verbi et amoris, secundum quod Deus suam essentiam,
veritatem et bonitatem intelligit et amat' (Q. xxvii. Art. 5). The
source of the doctrine is to be found in St. Augustine, who habitually
speaks of the Holy Spirit as Amor; but, when he refers to the 'Imago
Trinitatia' in man the Spirit is represented sometimes by 'Amor,'
sometimes by 'Voluntas' (_de Trin._, L. xiv. cap 7). The other two
members of the human triad are with him 'Memoria' (or 'Mens') and
'Intelligentia.'
With regard to the difficulty of distinguishing Power from Will, I was
perhaps to blame for not giving St. Thomas' own word 'Principium.' The
word 'Principium' means the _pege theoteos_, the ultimate Cause or
Source of Being: by 'Voluntas' St. Thomas means that actual putting
forth of Power (in knowing and in loving the Word or Thought eternally
begotten by God the Father) which is the Holy Ghost. I am far from
saying that the details of St. Thomas' doctrine are not open to much
criticism: a rough correspondence between his teaching and any view of
God's Nature which can commend itself to a modern Philosopher is all
that I endeavoured to point out. The modern thinker would no doubt
with Dr. Sanday prefer the triad 'Power, Wisdom, Love,' or (I would
suggest) 'Feeling, including Love as the highest form of Feeling.' The
reason why St. Thomas will not accept such an interpretation is that
his Aristotelianism (here not very consonant with the Jewish and
Christian view of God) excludes all feeling or emotion from the divine
nature; 'Love' has therefore to be identified with 'Will' and not with
'Feeling.' I cannot but think that the Professor might have taken a
little more trouble to understand both St. Thomas and myself before
accusing either of us of 'looseness of reasoning.'