JEWISH CHRISTIANITY.
So far in the course of our inquiry we have traced the development of
Christian doctrine simply through the religious ideas of the Jewish
people. But from this point we shall have to consider the relations
of opposite tendencies, the collision between Judaism and Paganism
in Christianity to which I have referred in the Introduction. And in
dealing with this subject, it is a fair canon of historical criticism
to say that so far as any dogma is distinctly Jewish, its origin should
be assigned to the earliest period of the Christian Church, and so far
as any dogma is distinctly Pagan, its origin should be assigned to
a later period, after the conversion of the Gentiles had begun. The
justice of this canon is evident when we remember that Christianity
at the time of Christ’s death had none but Jewish adherents, and that
thenceforth it grew to be more and more accepted by Pagans, until
at last its ranks were filled with Pagans alone. The Atonement is
the chief Jewish dogma, and the Incarnation the chief Pagan dogma of
Christianity, and they obviously conform to the requirements of the
canon. For the present we shall be occupied with the doctrines of
Christianity which are mainly Jewish in form.
Though the Christian Church started with belief in the Atonement,
the dogma at the beginning could not have been fully grasped and
understood. For a time it was probably only latent in the doctrines
of the Church. His disciples were not likely at once to recognize the
significance of what Christ did at the passover supper; up to the last
they could hardly have been prepared for his death. But even with a
blind obedience they would naturally obey their lord’s commands. As
they commemorated the Christian passover and repeated its forms, the
meaning of it would gradually dawn on their minds. This repetition must
have been from the first the centre of the early Church, a distinctive
ceremony which brought the Christians together and marked them off
from the Jews around them. While thus incessantly repeating the form
of sacramental communion with the body of Christ, sooner or later they
would be sure to recognize what this sacramental communion implied,
the sacrificial character of his death. Then the latent dogma of the
Atonement would be fully understood. As Jews, they would readily accept
it; indeed, it would be to them an explanation of their strange
position as disciples of a crucified Messiah.
As soon as the first Christians recognized that Christ’s death had been
an atonement offered for their sins, a feeling of lightness and joy
must have arisen in their hearts. Circumstances like those in which
they were placed always tend to develop strongly a sense of sinfulness
and of alienation from God. But here appeared a means of reconciliation
to God and of escape from the burden of sin. And, accordingly, it is
likely that now their missionary activity began. The dogma supplied
them with a vindication of their lord’s greatness. Jesus, as the
Messiah, had borne the sins of men, and had become the representative
of men with God. The Jews, who had so unjustly slain him, were in
special need of divine forgiveness; and we may be sure that the
watchwords of the preaching of the early Christians, when they preached
only to Jews, were “Jesus and the remission of sins.”
Though the commemoration of the passover supper was probably the
means of impressing the doctrine of the Atonement on the minds of
the early Christians, there is no reason to suppose that at first
they attached to it an actual sacramental value. They would naturally
repeat the forms of the sacramental feast they were commemorating
without considering the repetition also to be sacramental. But before
long, as we know from St. Paul’s words,[60] the repetition did become
sacramental itself. The Christians then believed that the elements
of Christ’s body were present in the bread and wine of their Lord’s
Supper. At first this presence may have been regarded as symbolical
only. It is obvious, however, that the delicate symbolism habitual
in Christ’s language was sure in this instance sooner or later to
be misunderstood by the grosser minds of his followers. The passage
of St. Paul just referred to shows that he believed the flesh and
blood of Christ to be actually present in the bread and wine of the
Eucharist—that is, present in them by an act of faith, not changed into
them by a formula of consecration. When the common feast of the early
Christians had thus become a sacramental commemoration of the sacrifice
of Christ’s death, their conception of that sacrifice must have been
strengthened and made definite. And with this clearer conception of
Christ as the victim that atoned for the sins of man, whose body was
spiritually present in the food they ate at their sacred supper, would
come a greatly enhanced reverence for him. He would seem to them more
than human; his Messiahship would gather round it all the highest
attributes ever dreamed of in the Messianic ideals of their race.
Their full missionary energy would then be displayed. Probably the
recovery of the Church from the paralysis that must have fallen on
it after Christ’s death began with the recognition of the doctrine of
the Atonement, and was finally completed when the Eucharist became a
sacrament, a solemn and mysterious ceremony, the central expression of
Christian belief.
The preaching of Christianity must have been far easier after its
founder’s death. Reverence for Christ could rise to greater heights.
Supernatural powers could be attributed to him without any fear of
too dangerous a challenge. And, besides, the preachers could disperse
themselves. So long as Christ lived he alone could properly preach his
system, for all Christians would gather closely round him as their
living head. But now every body of Christians was equally near him,
no matter where they might be, and had the assurance of his spiritual
presence in the elements of the Eucharist. Henceforth the mission of
the Church was proselytism; growth became its evidence of life.
That proselytism began immediately after Christ’s death is, of course,
very unlikely. The Church probably took some years to recover from the
shock of its loss. During this period it could barely have managed
to survive as a small body containing the most faithful of those who
had followed Christ. Among these picked disciples the development of
latent doctrine went on, until the primary principles of Christianity
were established on a sure basis. Then, proselytism beginning, every
member of the original body probably became more or less a missionary.
As a select few they were the preachers and authorities of early
Christianity. The commands of Christ, as well as the nature of their
religion, impelled them to preach with vigour. At first they would
naturally address themselves to Jews alone. With the Jews of Palestine
they were not likely to make much way. But when they extended their
activity to the synagogues in foreign countries they would be more
successful. Here, as the fanaticism of race was less, the spiritual
ideal of Christianity would have fewer obstacles to overcome. Still in
all their dealings with Jews they probably met with little success.
To the Jews Christ crucified was indeed a stumbling-block which even
the promise of his second advent could not remove. But as soon as the
preachers of Christianity touched the Gentiles, they must have reaped
an abundant harvest. Such was the disorganization of religion at this
time in the Roman world that, notwithstanding the harsh exclusiveness
of Judaism, Gentiles in large numbers were becoming proselytes to it.
Under these circumstances Christianity, which had dropped all the harsh
features of Judaism, and had added to the remainder much that was in
harmony with Gentile ideas, must have easily made converts among them.
Though probably very soon the majority of Christians were Gentiles,
all the heads of the Church still were Jews, and its principles
remained wholly Jewish. This period of Jewish Christianity may fairly
be said to have lasted in full vigour until the death of St. Paul.
For more than the second half of this time the missionary activity of
the Church centred in St. Paul. After Christ himself, no man influenced
the circumstances and doctrines of Christianity more than he. The
stress laid upon faith as a means of salvation in early Christianity
was largely the result of his personal character. A renegade from the
most rigid legalism of Judaism, he naturally, as a Christian, passed to
the other extreme, and exalted faith above the righteousness of works.
The same recoil from Judaism made him the apostle of the Gentiles. But
though St. Paul was as little Jewish as an unhellenised Jew could be,
and strained the doctrines of Christianity greatly in the direction
of Gentile ideas, his religion was still essentially Jewish. In his
epistles—putting aside his references to the resurrection of the dead,
made because he was writing to Gentiles who were not familiar with
the doctrine—as well as in the other books of the New Testament that
belong to this period, we find stress laid chiefly on two dogmas, the
Atonement and the second advent.[61] These two dogmas were closely
connected, and were the strength of the early Church.
The doctrine of the Atonement was that Christ had died for the sins
of the world. “God was in Christ,” says St. Paul, “reconciling the
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”[62]
The term “world,” as used in this and kindred passages, can only be
understood by keeping the doctrine of the second advent steadily in
view. All the glories predicted by the prophets for the Messianic
times were transferred in the expectation of the early Christians to
the period of the second coming of Christ. They believed that when
their lord returned there would be literally “new heavens and a new
earth.”[63] This new world, then to be established in fulness, they
held to have been actually founded by the death of Christ, which had
rendered it possible by relieving man from the burden of sin. But
in their case only had sin been thus put away, and accordingly they
were the foundation of the world reconciled to God, which after the
second coming of Christ would remain alone, the old world of sin and
alienation from God which still survived beside the new being then
finally destroyed. Christ had left them to preach the gospel, that is,
to snatch souls from the perishing to the permanent world. The latter
seemed to them the real world, and the other, which existed for a time
beside it, only a vanishing shadow. For this real and permanent world,
then represented by the Church, they believed Christ to have died. The
more hopeful Christians might expect that the two worlds would yet
become identical, through the conversion of all men before the second
advent. Then Christ would come, not in wrath, but simply in love; not
to punish, but simply to reward. This, however, could only have been a
rare belief. In general the expectation of the Church was that Christ
would come speedily, and sweep away all men outside it, and leave it
alone on an earth renewed and glorified. Faith in him was the pass that
procured admission to the felicities of his Messianic reign; to those
outside Christianity his coming could only bring confusion and ruin.[64]
This new world, the creation of which was begun by Christ’s death, and
was to be completed by his second coming, the early Christians regarded
as a kingdom of light girdled on every side by the old world or kingdom
of darkness. It was their mission, they held, to extend its frontiers,
and continuously to encroach on the region given over to night. Every
inch of ground they gained they believed to be saved from an imminent
destruction. For the fervour of proselytism which possessed them rested
on the dogma of the second advent. To it they looked forward as a
blessing to themselves and a terror to the rest of mankind.[65] All men
outside the Church seemed to be walking on the brink of a precipice,
over which they were shortly to be hurled. Naturally to save as many as
possible of these from a danger so immediate and so vividly conceived
was to most Christians the chief object of life. Some of the sterner
of them, as we know from the book of Revelation, which was written at
the close of this period, expected with gladness the coming of Christ
to take vengeance on his enemies. But the harsh and exclusive spirit of
that characteristically Jewish work could not have been general; and we
may be sure that the Christians, as a whole, felt only pity when they
thought of the impending destruction of the proud non-Christian world.
Many strange ideas entered into the expectation of the coming of
Christ. It was even thought that at the last moment he would convert
and save those who had been unreached by his earthly envoys. St. Paul
believed that then, “after the fulness of the Gentiles had come in,”
Israel would at length be saved.[66] As to what was to follow the
second advent, opinions slightly varied. According to St. Paul,[67]
Christ would establish after it an eternal and heavenly kingdom of
the Christian living and risen dead; but according to the book of
Revelation,[68] he would then reign for a thousand years on earth,
afterwards beginning his everlasting rule.
From the new world then to be completed the Christians believed sin
to have been put away by the death of Christ. The doctrine of the
Atonement, as they understood it, meant actual deliverance from sin,
and not mere deliverance from its penalty. Nothing could be clearer
than St. Paul’s statement of this.[69] All St. Paul’s epistles are
pervaded by a tone of grieved surprise that sin should be found
existing within the Church. Sin in his eyes was essentially the mark
of the old world. If, then, a Christian sinned, he showed that he did
not really belong to the new world; he was under the law, and not under
grace, and by the law he would be condemned; he would perish with
the perishing world. Probably, under the pressure of such a belief,
the Church at this time was the purest society of men that has ever
existed. Considering the moral condition of the period, it is likely
that the distinction then made between believer and sinner almost
corresponded to actual fact. Practically within all was good, and
without all was evil. In modern evangelical Protestantism language of
the same kind is often used, but only as the shadowy semblance of what
was once substantial reality.
The belief in the second advent of Christ in another way must have
helped to maintain the purity of the early Christians. Living in the
constant expectation of his immediate coming, worldly pleasures seemed
too transient and unsure to be worthy of attention. Their belief too,
was invested with a vivid sense of reality. They expected to see
their lord in all his heavenly majesty, not under strange and unknown
conditions only to be experienced by passing through the gate of death,
but in the midst of the familiar associations of earth. They awaited
his appearance “in the very world which is the world of all of us,” and
the shadow of his coming lay on all the thoughts and actions of their
lives.
With the fading of so beautiful a dream the real corruption of
Christianity began. As the years passed by, and Christ did not appear,
the hopes of the Church gradually died away. The doctrine of his speedy
coming at length became the last refuge of fanaticism. With it “the
freshness of the early world” of Christianity finally perished; the
Church never knew again the simplicity and purity which marked this
period of its youth.
The expectation of the immediate coming of Christ was the sustaining
principle of Jewish Christianity. The loss of it threw the Church
completely into Pagan hands. While it prevailed, Christians cared
little about the explanation of their theology; existing conditions
were regarded as too provisional. But afterwards, when a long life
seemed to lie before the Church, theological “pseudo-science” was
born. New and complex doctrines were needed to engage the thoughts of
Christians, and these Pagan Christianity supplied.
Though the Christianity of this period was thoroughly Jewish in the
character of its doctrines, the preaching of it was addressed chiefly
to Pagans. St. Paul was their representative among the heads of the
Church, and preached almost exclusively to them. In turning to them,
Christianity had to a certain extent to adapt itself to their ideas.
The nature of this adaptation is clearly visible in the writings of St.
Paul.
I have said that, in preaching to Jews, the watchwords of Christianity
probably were “Jesus and the remission of sins.” In preaching to
Pagans, these watchwords would not have been worth much. Pagans looked
for no Messiah, nor were they likely to be inconveniently conscious of
sin. The great doctrine of the Church on which stress was laid when it
preached to Pagans, as we have clear evidence in St. Paul’s epistles,
was the resurrection. Christianity attracted Pagans mainly by promising
them the resurrection of the dead. This was naturally the case, as
to them, unlike Jews, it was a novel doctrine. But the strength of
Christianity in dealing with Pagans lay not merely in its assertion of
the resurrection of the dead, but in the proof of the resurrection it
professed to give. This, again, is plainly evident in the epistles of
St. Paul. He dwells so much on the resurrection of Christ that we might
suspect him to have been tainted originally with the scepticism of the
Sadducees. By this peculiarity, however, he was exactly fitted to be
the apostle of the Gentiles. With his writings before us, we may be
sure that he preached to Pagans, as he is made to do in the Acts of the
Apostles, “Jesus and the resurrection.”[70] To him the resurrection of
Christ was the evidence for the general resurrection of the dead; while
his conviction that Christ had risen from the dead rested on the belief
that he as well as others had seen Christ after his death.[71] And so
St. Paul could preach the resurrection to Pagans in a very effective
manner, declaring that the dead would rise again, and giving as proof
of this the fact that one man, Jesus, was known thus to have risen, as
after his death he had been seen by many credible witnesses, including
St. Paul himself. If God had raised Jesus, why should he not also raise
other men? Christ had risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits
of them that slept.
Thus while the watchwords of the Church in preaching to Jews were
“Jesus and the remission of sins,” its watchwords in preaching to
Pagans were “Jesus and the resurrection.” That the evidence on which
this preaching was founded should have existed is natural enough.
The disciples of Christ, as Jews, necessarily believed that he,
after his death, had ascended to heaven, and was living there with
God. Such being the case, there is nothing strange in their fancying
that he occasionally appeared to them.[72] The death of Christ must
have immediately weeded out of the Church all but his most faithful
followers. It is not surprising that these, in the midst of the
disturbance and excitement of those early days, should have seen
visions of their lord, should have imagined that he came sometimes from
heaven to console them and strengthen them in their weakness. People
so superstitious, in a period of so much supernaturalism, were almost
certain to see such visions. St. Paul’s own particular vision, which
played so important a part in the history of early Christianity, of
course can only be explained by referring to the peculiarities of his
personal character.
This basing the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead on the
resurrection of Christ had nothing to do with the subsequent belief
that he rose on earth and stayed there for a time. St. Paul evidently
believed that Christ appeared to others as well as to himself by
coming straight from heaven, and that his resurrection had been his
entrance into heavenly glory.[73]
In another and a more important respect the influence of its Pagan
proselytes affected the principles of Jewish Christianity. In preaching
to Pagans it was necessary to determine the nature of Christ. For Jews
it was enough to call him the Messiah; their imagination supplied
the rest. But Pagans, who had no Messianic expectations, required an
explanation of his position as founder of the Church. This influence
naturally was most felt by St. Paul, and through him it had a
considerable effect in shaping the development of Christian doctrine.
St. Paul believed that Christ “was born of the seed of David according
to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God in power by the
resurrection from the dead.”[74] Thus St. Paul, as Strauss says, began
the deification of Christ. Of course, as Strauss also points out,
this was due to the fact that he had never personally seen Christ.
Entering the Church some years after its founder’s death, when already
legendary influences must have been active in exalting him, St. Paul
had no knowledge of Christ to check his natural tendency to glorify
the master whom he believed to have appeared to him in a blaze of
heavenly light. The other Christians who saw visions of Christ had
probably all known him during his life, and this must have interfered
with their impulses to magnify him. Naturally, then, St. Paul went
further than the other leaders of the Church, and, having seen Christ
only in a heavenly vision, thought of him only as a heavenly being.
The conception he ultimately formed of Christ in consequence of this
tendency to exalt him is somewhat obscure. The term “son of God” in the
mouth of a Jew might have only a vague meaning applicable to any man.
As employed by St. Paul, it evidently has a special significance. He
seems to have believed that Christ was the true Man, Man as he ought
to be. Adam was the first and imperfect man, Christ was the second and
perfect man. Thus God was the father of Christ in a fuller sense than
that in which he was the father of ordinary men, as he had imparted
to Christ more of his own nature. Through this possession of elements
of the divine nature, Christ was able to represent and redeem mankind
fallen under the power of sin. All faithful followers of him were to be
made partakers of his divine characteristics, were to become children
and heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, were to suffer and be
glorified with him.[75]
Christ was evidently regarded by St. Paul as made thus peculiarly the
son of God by his possession of God’s spirit. No idea of his having
had a miraculous human birth entered into this belief. God in the
fulness of time sent forth his son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the
law.[76] St. Paul, however, seems to have believed vaguely in Christ’s
pre-human existence;[77] but the pre-existence he assigned to Christ
was potential rather than actual, Christ existing from the beginning of
time as the destined deliverer of mankind.[78]
So the extent of St. Paul’s deification of Christ may be thus generally
described. He believed that Christ was in a peculiar sense the son of
God—that is, something more than ordinary man. Intermediate between God
and man, he was at once God’s agent and man’s representative. But St.
Paul clearly makes him inferior to God as well as superior to man, and
allows him no power except what is delegated to him by God.[79] Thus
as yet there was no sign of the doctrine of the Incarnation, though a
path for it was being prepared. For the doctrine of the Incarnation,
it must be remembered, is not a mere deification of Christ. It is
important, not because it deifies man, but because it humanizes God.
St. Paul undoubtedly, so far as he deified—it would be better to say
divinised—Christ, helped the Pagan tendencies of later Christianity,
but there was nothing actually Pagan in his belief.
The death of St. Paul marked the beginning of the end of Jewish
Christianity. As the Jewish leaders died off, the vast Pagan majority
seized upon power and impressed their ideas on the doctrines of the
Church. Between the undiluted Jewish Christianity of its origin and
the Pagan Christianity of the second century, Paulinism served as a
link which enabled them finally to remain in nominal connection. In
the spurious epistles attributed to St. Paul we can trace the steps
of advancing Paganism, and observe the struggle for reconciliation
which his followers inherited from him. Paulinism was ultimately lost
in the Paganism with which its Jewish opponents had identified it.
But it bridged the interval between the Jewish and Pagan periods of
Christianity, and so saved the Church from a rupture it could not have
survived.