PAGAN CHRISTIANITY.
While the movement within Judaism with which hitherto we have been
mainly occupied was tending to create out of it a world-religion,
outside of it circumstances were preparing to make this tendency
succeed. The later additions to Judaism, the supernatural system of
dogma which formed the basis of Christianity, were, as I have already
said, favourable to its expansion by reason of their harmony with Pagan
ideas. About the time at which they entered strongly into Judaism,
began a steady break-up of the religions of the Pagan world. The
material power of Rome attacked them from below, by destroying the
national foundations on which they rested, while Greek culture and
philosophy, advancing under the protection of that power, assailed
them from above. Under the double pressure they faded away. In the age
of the apostles, over the greater part of the Roman empire religion
was a matter of sincere belief only with the lower orders of the
people. A few men of thought and learning put it utterly aside.
Between these two classes there was the great body of ordinary persons
mentioned at the beginning of our first chapter, who had lost faith
in the popular religions, but were themselves thoroughly religious.
The credulity which always characterizes periods of religious change,
when some form of religion is destroyed, though the religious spirit
retains its energy, was universal. Besides this break-up of the old
religions in consequence of the extension of Roman power, in another
way that extension of power more directly prepared a path for a great
proselytising system. As national limits were overthrown, of course
a religion that ignored national distinctions could more easily
overspread the world.[80] Thus when Christianity touched Paganism
everything promised it success. In fact, the critical period in the
life of Christianity was that which immediately followed its founder’s
death. While it existed only in Palestine, it was in great danger.
When it spread among the synagogues of Jews in foreign countries, it
had a surer footing. And when from these, which served as a means of
introducing it to them, it turned to Pagans, it was placed beyond
possibility of failure.
It is interesting to note that Christianity failed to conquer the
Judaism from which it sprang, while the Paganism seemingly foreign to
it everywhere succumbed to it. A few centuries after this time every
part of the Roman empire professed Christianity as its religion, while
the Jews remained still the same. Paganism was overcome and absorbed
by Christianity, but Judaism shook it off as an excrescence without
suffering harm. In this fact there is nothing surprising. Judaism was
too strong for Christianity to subdue it, while Paganism was a ready
prey. The Roman empire, outside Judaism, lay before Christianity like
a body without a mind; it needed a unifying religion to match its
political unity, and this Christianity supplied.
The general effect likely to be produced on Christianity by its
reception of Pagan disciples may now be considered. It is obvious that
Pagans, who were steeped in religious ideas very different from those
with which the Jews were familiar, would carry with them into Jewish
Christianity different principles of religion. To ascertain the extent
of this difference, we must compare Judaism and Paganism.
As a pure monotheism, Judaism stood alone in the world. A purely
monotheistic religion tends to produce humility and stress on faith.
The two great principles of human action, which Mr. Lecky names
as the alternative forces that underlie every important movement
of mankind,[81] a sense of human dignity and a sense of sin, are
distinctive marks of polytheism and monotheism. Monotheism, with
its one God so far removed from man, inspires a feeling of human
nothingness in comparison with him. Polytheism, with its far more
anthropomorphic and less awful gods, does not dwarf man thus, but
enables him freely to compare himself with the divinities he worships.
And monotheism, by making man appear nothing beside God, necessarily
exalts faith above good works as a means of pleasing him; for when the
distance between them is so immense, the best that man can do appears
a trifle. Both these tendencies of Judaism, as a monotheism, were more
than counterbalanced by other circumstances connected with it. The
humility the Jews might feel when conscious of the difference between
themselves and God was more than outweighed by the pride they felt in
their superiority to the rest of mankind as his chosen people who alone
had the knowledge of him.[82] Their superiority to other men naturally
affected them more than their inferiority to God. The strict legalism
of Judaism also prevented stress on faith from being developed in it,
as a multitude of petty observances made it peculiarly a religion of
works. But both these principles were latent in Judaism, and were only
checked by special circumstances attending it as a national religion.
These circumstances being removed, the latent principles were sure to
be developed. And, in fact, in Jewish Christianity, which was neither
formal nor exclusive, their development was unmistakable. Early
Christianity was essentially distinguished both by humility and stress
on faith, as a glance at the New Testament is sufficient to show.
Simplicity of thought also characterized Judaism. Mysticism was
abhorrent to a pure Jew, though a hellenised Jew like Philo might be
steeped in it. Simplicity of worship, too, was a feature of Judaism;
for the splendid ritual connected with the temple at Jerusalem was not
properly a part of it, but was merely the expression of national pride.
When away from Jerusalem, the Jew worshipped in the simplest and purest
manner. And, most of all, morality was closely bound up with Judaism.
Josephus justly boasted that his religion made virtue an indispensable
part of itself.[83] The Jews as a whole were certainly far more moral
than the Pagans as a whole.
The opposite of all these qualities characterised Pagan religions.
Pagans felt no religious humility, for there was no great difference
between their gods and themselves. Pride, a sense of human dignity,
distinguished them as men. They had not to lay stress on faith, for
this pride made them fully recognize the value of their own good works.
Mysticism marked their religious thought, and sensuousness their
religious worship. Between morality and their religions there was only
the loosest connection.
Keeping these facts in view, we can easily understand the change in
Christianity which now began. All the characteristics of Judaism just
mentioned distinguished Jewish Christianity. Humility, stress on
faith, simplicity of thought and worship, and the closest connection
with morality clearly marked the religion of the early Church. This
was evidently the case because the first Christians were Jews. When,
then, the Pagans came in, having wrapped up in their religious ideas
pride, trust in good works, mysticism, a love of sensuous worship,
and a loose regard for morality, and when before long they alone made
up the Church, Christianity could not remain unchanged. Christianity
became Pagan because Pagans became Christians. And this is the full
explanation of its corruption. The Jews, in a religious sense, were
more highly developed than the Pagans, and so when it passed from Jews
to Pagans it necessarily deteriorated.
As Christianity was preached in the Pagan world, it continually reached
lower strata of Paganism. At first only the best Pagans could have
entered the Church, but afterwards, as it grew in influence, Pagans
of a constantly inferior type must have joined it. Thus the corruption
of Christianity proceeded, not merely because Pagans in larger numbers
professed it, but because, as time went by, a lower, a more Pagan class
became included within its ranks. All during the period we are now
examining probably belonged to the great middle order of society before
mentioned, philosophers and peasants equally being absent. Christianity
clung to the cities, and the restlessness of city life contributed to
the growth of its theology. We will now trace the results of the direct
influence of Paganism on the dogmas of the Church.
This influence naturally showed itself in a tendency towards the
exaltation of Christ. He would seem to Pagans the real god of
Christianity. God, the purely Jewish divinity, the national deity of
Judaism, must have been from the beginning unattractive to Pagans,
who disliked Jews, and were accustomed to gods that differed but
little from men. The identification by Marcionite Gnosticism of the
Jewish god with the malignant creator of matter showed how strong this
feeling could become. But for the most part Pagans would simply put
God aside, and fix all their attention on Christ. They would honour
and exalt him, and regard him as the representative of heaven. Thus
Paganism must have tended to develop still further the Christology of
Paulinism. The first result of this probably appeared in connection
with the Pauline phrase “son of God.” A Jew could not misinterpret the
phrase and give it a literal meaning, but a Pagan might do so easily.
Familiar with ideas of extremely anthropomorphic gods, Pagans would
naturally consider Christ to be the son of God in the sense in which
Herakles was the son of Zeus. As the proportion of Jews in the whole
number of Christians grew less, the increasing Paganism of the Church
developed this tendency, until finally it resulted in the belief in the
miraculous conception of Christ, the first distinctly Pagan dogma of
Christianity.
The gospels supply us with almost certain evidence that this was the
way in which the dogma originated. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke
are clear proof that the earlier traditions of the Church made Joseph
the father of Christ, and of course the Church was less Pagan then than
it was in later times. The doctrine, as Dean Milman points out, is
utterly un-Jewish.[84] The Jews always expected the Messiah to be born
in the ordinary manner, and they reverenced God too much to put him in
the place of a human father. So the dogma shows plainly that it was the
first triumph of Christian Paganism. Jewish Christianity was only able
slightly to spiritualize it, and to found it in appearance upon an
absurd misinterpretation of a passage of Isaiah.[85]
While the beginning of the gospel narratives was being constructed
by one influence of Pagan Christianity, the end of them was being
constructed by another. When the expectation of the second coming
of Christ was abandoned, the Church had to assign a different
meaning to his resurrection. Originally, and especially by St. Paul,
this was closely connected with the second advent.[86] St. Paul
evidently regarded the appearances of Christ to him and to others as
preliminaries of the second advent, but now they seemed to stand in
another light. Examining the traditions which preserved the remembrance
of the visions of Christ seen by the early Christians, the Church found
them, of course, clustered most thickly in the period immediately after
his death, when the conditions likely to produce them were strongest.
Visions seen after that time were probably only occasional and rare,
and, with the exception of St. Paul’s, they were sure to have little
importance. Finding, then, that nearly all the appearances of Christ
had occurred within a short period after his death, the Church would
naturally make a distinction between this period and subsequent
times. Christ obviously seemed to have been more present then than
afterwards. It would not be long before the belief would follow that
he had actually stayed on earth during this period, before he had
ascended to heaven. With his second coming no longer expected, that
he should have done so would seem quite natural. The Church having to
face a long life without Christ, it was reasonable that, before leaving
it to its lonely struggle, he should have stayed with it for a time
to sustain its immaturity and to strengthen it for its work. A solemn
ascension of Christ in presence of his disciples would seem to be
demanded as a suitable close to this period, and with the addition of
it the dogma was complete.
As we can see by comparing Luke’s gospel with the Acts, this stay on
earth was made shorter by an earlier than it was by a later belief. It
was probably fixed finally at forty days, in order to include different
reports of visions with places other than Jerusalem as their scene,
and possibly, through the influence of expiring Christian Judaism, to
match the forty days of Moses on Mount Sinai. That Christ rose on the
third day after his death was a dogma of older times accepted by St.
Paul,[87] founded, it is likely, on a passage of Hosea,[88] and there
was no difficulty in connecting it with the belief in his stay on
earth. So the final doctrine of the Church was that Christ rose again
on the third day after his death, stayed then forty days on earth, and
afterwards ascended to heaven, not to return till the day of judgment
and the end of mortal things.
The evidence in favour of this explanation of the origin of the
orthodox doctrine of the resurrection of Christ is exceptionally
strong. The accounts in the gospels, so confused and contradictory even
in comparison with the rest of them, and telling only of occasional
appearances of Christ to his disciples, show us clearly the underlying
basis of dreams and visions on which the legend was founded. The belief
in the resurrection of Christ on earth, we may conclude with almost
historical certainty, arose from the late combination of the early
traditions of Christ’s appearances from heaven to his disciples.
Thus at the time to which we have now come the Church in general
believed Christ to be the divinely begotten and humanly conceived
son of God, who had risen after his death on earth, and then had
finally ascended to heavenly glory. Pagan principles had triumphed,
and Paganism was every moment growing stronger in Christianity. The
tendency to exalt Christ, already far advanced, had now nothing to
check it. Forces were at work which were inevitably destined fully to
deify Christ, to lift him to the level of the Jewish God. The Jewish
elements of Christianity, including monotheism, were thus in great
danger of utterly perishing. Christianity, in fact, was tending to
become a purely Pagan polytheistic religion, with a human being as its
most important god, when it was saved by the influence on it at this
critical period of a fortunate development in Jewish hands of Pagan
philosophy.
Philosophy, from the moment of its first existence, has always by an
irresistible pressure been driven towards monotheism. The consciousness
in the thinker of his own unity, and the inevitable conditions of
thought, alike force him to imagine one power as the cause of all
the phenomena of life. Philosophy, when it arises in the midst of
polytheism, at first allows the orthodox gods to be the subordinate
instruments of this power, but it soon develops a tendency to sweep
them utterly away. Then, having shaken itself free of popular religion,
it builds up a new religion of its own, in which it asserts the
existence of one supreme intelligence, the creator and governor of the
world.
When philosophy has got thus far, and has constructed its eternal God,
certain difficulties confront it. God, as the great first cause, has
to be made perfect, for if he were imperfect thought would have to
ascend higher to find a cause of his imperfection. But as the creator
of all things, God at one time must have existed alone, an absolute
being simply self-contemplative. When he began to create, he ceased
to be absolute, and became a relative being contemplative of his own
creation. If as an absolute being he was perfect, how did he remain
perfect when he became a relative being? The study of this problem has
generally driven philosophy into pantheism, but where it has maintained
its hold on theism, it has been forced to suppose that a change
occurred in God at the time of creation, by which he remained absolute
in regard to himself, though he became relative in regard to that which
he created.
Two Gods had thus to be imagined, one absolute and eternal, the other
relative and existing from the beginning of created things. But these
two had to be one, or else the first or absolute God would have been
relative to the second, and so the old difficulty would have been
revived. Hence there was need of a mystery; God was one and yet two,
two persons and one substance. The first was God as he was through
all eternity, the second was God as he was manifested in creation,
his representative with everything but himself. Thus the second was a
mediator between the first and the world.
While for purely philosophical reasons philosophy was thus compelled
to dualise God, other reasons also impelled it to this conclusion.
Holding him to be pure mind, it had to explain his action on matter.
Here, too, it was necessary to suppose, a mediator between the material
world and God. And in proportion as philosophy advanced in its theism,
it extended the attributes of God and raised him to a loftier height
above created things; and hence, to connect him with what was so far
inferior, a mediator again was needed. But in all cases this mediator
had to be a part of God himself, or no difficulty was met; and thus in
every way philosophy tended towards a divine dualism in mystery.
All Greek philosophy, except where it drifted into pantheism or pure
materialism, was more or less influenced by this tendency. In Platonism
especially it is clearly marked. The ideal world of Plato fills the
place of the second or relative God, and acts as a mediator between God
the absolute and the material world. God, according to Plato, is not
the creator of matter, which, so far as it is recognized in his system,
is given an eternal existence. The action of God is confined to the
ideal world, of which material phenomena are a distorted reflection. At
the time of the beginning of Christianity these features of Platonism
were strongly developed in the theology of an Alexandrian Jew.
Outside Palestine the most important centre of Jewish thought was
Alexandria. There from the time of the captivity a large colony of
Jews had been established. This colony became in many respects almost
independent of Jerusalem in religion; it formed and translated its own
canon of sacred writings, and even set up a temple of its own. Speaking
the Greek language and living in the most cosmopolitan city of the
world, the meeting-ground of eastern and western thought, the Jews of
Alexandria were naturally affected by the speculative activity of Greek
philosophy. The high development of Judaism encouraged speculation in
its adherents. The Jewish philosopher had not, like the Pagan, to cast
his religion aside when he began to seek out the causes of things;
on the contrary, his religion seemed to cover a great part of the
philosophical path. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that a
philosophy should have arisen among the Alexandrian Jews.
For us this philosophy is represented by Philo, who was born about
twenty years before Christ. A Jew by birth, and nominally always one in
religion, Philo was so steeped in Pagan thought that he really ranks
as a Greek philosopher. The chief object of his life was to reconcile
Judaism and Hellenism, to give a philosophical reason for every feature
of the Jewish religion. In fulfilment of this purpose, he handled
Judaism with considerable freedom, and bent its simple theology into a
mystical Platonism.
The tendency which inevitably characterized philosophy to push God back
from contact with creation, and to preserve his shadowy glory as an
absolute being, of course influenced Philo, who simply as a philosopher
was bound to be a pure theist. But as a Jew also, Philo was bound to
be a pure theist, with the most reverent conception of God. Thus two
forces acted on him, as a Jew and as a Greek philosopher, driving him
to the most refined theism, and this double pressure produced what
Professor Huxley calls Philo’s agnosticism. He was compelled to form a
conception of God utterly inconsistent with his character as creator
of the world. Philo could not imagine that God had any relations with
matter, or that he contemplated anything except the world of his own
ideas. So philosophy, helped by his monotheistic religion, forced Philo
to pursue the path of theological development which I have described
above, to leave God in his pure essence absolute and unknown, and to
attribute all the phenomena of creation to a mediator between this pure
essence and created things.
In Judaism, language had already been used which, taken literally,
almost described such a mediator. Wisdom had been spoken of as God’s
companion before creation and his assistant or agent in all that he had
done.[89] In a passage of the Psalms the word of God had been called
the maker of the heavens.[90] Language of this kind probably was merely
the result of the inveterate tendency of the Jewish mind to express
itself by means of personification and symbolism, and had no mystical
significance. But the passage last referred to, derived of course from
the formula of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, seems to have
guided Philo in his difficulty. He made the “Word” of God the required
mediator, God’s agent and representative in all his actions.[91]
Philo’s conception of the Word is shrouded in the deepest mysticism. In
language worthy of the Athanasian Creed, he asserts that it is neither
created nor uncreated.[92] At one time he makes it distinct from
God, at another a simple manifestation of God. These contradictions
reveal his meaning only the more plainly. He regarded the Word as
the modification of God which necessarily preceded creation, God
the relative, while God the absolute remained outside it and yet
not separate from it. Contradiction, of course, was inevitable. As
a monotheist, for him there could be but one God; as a theistic
philosopher, he had to push this God back from contact with the world.
Hence he was compelled to imagine a manifestation of God, distinct from
him and yet mystically one with him, to bear the burden of creation,
and to represent the divine nature with all outside itself.
On the theological system of Philo, which was widely diffused at
the period of its greatest danger from the pressure of Paganism,
Christianity now drew largely to avert its ruin. This product of Pagan
mysticism was exactly what it needed at the time. It was in danger,
through its deification of Christ, of losing its monotheism and of
worshipping a human God. By identifying Christ with Philo’s Word, every
difficulty was overcome. The doctrine of an incarnation of a divine
being in a human form had already entered into Asiatic religion, and,
in a more familiar shape, was a common feature of western Paganism.
Christ, as the Word made flesh, could be raised to the level of
God without destroying monotheism; the Jewish God, as the absolute
and unknown, could be reduced to the position of a constitutional
sovereign; by a mystery the impulses of the Church could be satisfied,
and yet the purity of Christianity be preserved.
“Philo,” says Professor Kuenen, “gave the Church a formula commensurate
with her ideas of her founder.”[93] But Philo really did much more. He
gave the Church a means of reconciling conflicting tendencies within
it, of satisfying at once the higher and the lower class of religious
instincts. And by doing so he saved Christianity. If this means of
reconciliation had not been provided, Christianity would have sunk to
the level of Paganism, and would have fallen among the ruins of the
empire. Still we must not conclude that the doctrine of the mystic
union of the persons of the Trinity was, except in a secondary sense,
derived from Philo. Primarily it was derived from the necessities
of Christianity. By deifying Christ, the Church prepared the way
for that doctrine and the dogma of the Incarnation depending on it.
Before Philonism entered into Christianity, Christ was man made God;
afterwards he was God made man; but before and after alike he was the
object of Christian worship.
The Church adhered closely to the philosophical basis of the doctrine.
Christ, as the Word, was made the sole instrument of creation,
God the relative; God the absolute, the Jewish God, was left in
lonely supremacy, unnoticed except in the theological philosophy of
Christianity. We can see the doctrine in its early shape best in the
fourth gospel, which was written about the middle of the first half
of the second century, in order to give it a basis in the life of
Christ.[94] The gospel was probably composed in Asia Minor, where
Gnosticism and the Asiatic fondness for mystery would naturally
facilitate the development of the doctrine. “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were
made by means of him, and without him was not anything made.”[95] That
is, at the beginning of creation, the Word existed with and as God, and
became the agent by whom all things were created. But of course to the
Church the Incarnation was the most important fact. “The Word became
flesh;”[96] Christ was God incarnate. The Church might now safely
worship its founder. As God, the human Christ could be adored, while
nominally monotheism was maintained.
It was long before the doctrine was finally settled. Not until early
in the fourth century, at the Council of Nicæa, did the Church define
the dogma in its fulness. During this period different opinions
prevailed respecting it, until at last, on the question of Arianism,
two great parties made it their battle-ground. In the controversy
the orthodox contention was philosophically justifiable. Christ, as
God the relative, had to be of one substance with God the absolute,
or no absolute God remained; while if in substance also he was not
eternal, he ceased to be God at all. Arianism, in fact, was simply
Christian rationalism; it endeavoured to explain the relationship
of God the Father and God the Son. But the essence of the dogma is
pure inexplicable mystery, and rationalism could not touch it without
destroying it. In the Nicene Creed it is stated in its proper form.
“I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and in one Lord
Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, begotten of his father
before all worlds, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of
one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” Here
the philosophical basis of the dogma is shown in the clearest manner.
God was modified and Christ produced before creation began, and by
means of Christ the work of creation was performed. We must carefully
remember that the Nicene Council did not assert the eternal existence
of Christ as a distinct being. He existed eternally, but in God the
absolute before the creation of things. This is declared plainly in
the damnatory clauses attached to the original creed by the Council,
one of which anathematized him who should say that Christ had not
existed before he was begotten. It was not until long afterwards,
in the Athanasian Creed, that the eternal existence of Christ as a
person of the then fully developed Trinity was made a dogma of the
Church, notwithstanding the absurd contradiction in terms involved in
its statement. As expressed in the Nicene Creed, putting aside the
misleading words “Father” and “Son,” inherited from an earlier belief,
there is no such direct contradiction in the doctrine. God as one
existed eternally; God as two persons only from the beginning of things.
Thus the mystery of one God in two became a part of Christianity. The
Church believed in God, and worshipped him as manifested in Christ.
The incarnation of God was henceforth the doctrine dearest to the
Christian. His God was thus brought near to him, and presented to him
in a form he could readily grasp. And, besides, the love felt by the
Church for its founder was strengthened by the belief that he had
renounced divine glory to come to the assistance of men. The God who
had become man in his love for men, and for their sakes had endured
suffering and shame, inspired the passionate devotion which, in the
darkness of medieval Christianity, shone with a blaze of light. As the
figure of the human Christ faded away in the dim distances of the past,
the figure of the divine Christ was able to replace it, and to kindle
anew the flame of zeal which had marked the beginning of the Church.
The second great dogma of Christianity had now been developed. The
Incarnation took its stand beside the Atonement in the doctrines of
the Church. Henceforth Christian theology was a mixture of Judaism and
Paganism. For when this new essentially Pagan dogma of the Incarnation
was added on, the old essentially Jewish dogma of the Atonement had
entered too deeply into the life of Christianity to be laid aside.
Both had to be accepted by the Christian. And, unfortunately, they
happened to be utterly inconsistent. The doctrine that Christ had borne
the penalty of human sins, and had died as an atoning victim, did not
harmonize with the doctrine that Christ was God. That God has forgiven
human sins and laid the penalty on a victim chosen for the purpose, is
a doctrine strange indeed, but perfectly natural when viewed from a
Jewish standpoint; but that God has forgiven human sins and laid the
penalty on himself is a doctrine which, viewed from any standpoint,
cannot be other than a hopeless puzzle.
Incompatible as the two dogmas are, Christian theologians of course
have endeavoured to reconcile them. Only one explanation of the
difficulty has been seriously offered. This is, that an absolutely
sinless victim was required to become an atonement for human sins,
and that such a victim could not be found outside the person of God
himself. A reference to Pauline Christianity at once disposes of this
explanation. Even if Christ as merely a man could not be sinless,
he might be more than man without being actually God. From its very
beginning, the Church regarded Christ, as the Messiah, as one greater
than ordinary men, though still thoroughly human. Long before the
dogma of the Incarnation was in existence, Christians looked on Christ
as sinless, and connected his sinlessness with the Atonement.[97]
Nevertheless, the explanation is the best available. It has created
the doctrine of the “contract in the council of the Trinity,” as Mr.
Arnold calls it. God the Father’s sense of justice could be satisfied
only by the self-sacrificing love of God the Son, and hence the death
of Christ upon the cross. It is certainly a characteristic example of a
theological explanation.
The two great dogmas remained really irreconcilable. The Jewish dogma
of the Atonement and the Pagan dogma of the Incarnation entered into
Christianity as the results of opposite religious tendencies, and
they could never be brought into harmony. The inevitable attempt to
reconcile them is chiefly responsible for the formation of the complex
mass of theology which so greatly distinguishes Christianity. One or
the other can strongly influence individual Christians, but it is
impossible for both at once to occupy the same mind.
Now that we have examined the chief consequences of the transition from
Jewish to Pagan Christianity, and dealt with the greater part of the
doctrine of the Trinity, we must investigate the means by which that
doctrine was completed by the inclusion of the third person, the Holy
Spirit.
Throughout the earlier books of the New Testament we find constant
references to the Spirit as a presence abiding with the Church. As
used most frequently, the term simply means inspiration, the influence
of God on individual Christians. This sense was derived directly from
the Old Testament. Jahveh’s messengers to his people are there often
described as filled with his spirit, as inspired by him for their
mission. Naturally the early Church believed that this inspiration
was continued under the new dispensation, and that the apostles, its
leaders, were filled with the spirit of God to enable them to perform
their work. But a new feature was introduced into the belief; the
Church held that not merely leading Christians but all Christians were
thus filled with the spirit of God. This was the natural consequence
of the Messianic prophecies. Among the glories of the Messianic times,
the prophets often included, as the result of the reconciliation of
Jahveh and Israel, the resting of the inspiration of God on all his
people, all being his servants just as they were themselves. Of course
the early Jewish Christians applied these prophecies to themselves, and
believed that the spirit of God rested on all the people of his true
Israel, the Christian Church.
But in the early books of the New Testament we also find the term
“spirit” used in a sense applicable only to a distinct being. St. Paul,
in a remarkable passage, speaks of the Spirit as interceding with God
for man.[98] In order to understand the origin of this belief of the
early Church that the spirit of God, as a distinct being, sustained
it in its struggle with the world, it must be remembered that the
Jewish Christians regarded Christianity as a movement from among the
unconverted Jews similar to the movement of ancient Israel from among
the Egyptians. They continually looked for analogies between their
circumstances and what was related of the exodus from Egypt. An angel
was believed to have led the Israelites against their enemies,[99] and
the Church would naturally expect a corresponding representative of God
to watch over its progress. But by the prophets the name “spirit” had
been given to this angel;[100] and so the early Christians, believing
that the spirit of God rested on the Church, personified it vaguely
and made it a divine representative abiding continually with them.
They regarded it as the substitute for the personal presence of Christ
which had come to them immediately after his death. And thus the belief
in the Holy Spirit was connected with the expectation of the second
advent; it had come when Christ had left the Church, and when he
returned its mission would be ended.
When the expectation of the second advent was abandoned, and a stay on
earth after his death was assigned to Christ, the Church’s ideas of
the Spirit underwent a further development. As it was the substitute
for his presence, it could only have come after his ascension. Just as
the ascension had been imagined as a suitable close of Christ’s stay
on earth, so now a solemn ceremony was imagined to mark the entrance
of the Spirit on its mission. The day of Pentecost, the recognized
anniversary of the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, appeared the
fittest time for this ceremony.[101] As the founding of the law was
regarded as the true beginning of the life of Israel, the coming of the
Spirit seemed to match it and to form the true beginning of the life
of the Christian Church. The construction of this tradition, as we
have it in the Acts of the Apostles, was one of the last results of the
influence of Judaism on Christianity.
At about the same time this influence was shown in another doctrine
in connection with the belief in the Holy Spirit. I have already
said that, when the mainly Pagan dogma of the miraculous conception
of Christ was created, Jewish Christianity was able slightly to
spiritualize it. By making the Spirit the agent on the divine side of
that conception, the dogma was as far as possible purified from its
taint of grossness.
Until after the time of the Nicene Council, the general belief in the
Holy Spirit remained in this vague undefined form. The Church regarded
it as a personified influence, and gave it little attention. In the
Nicene Creed there is no dogma of the Trinity; only two persons of
the Trinity as yet existed. In the fully developed Creed merely vague
language is applied to the Spirit; it is spoken of as a distinct being,
but its union with the Father and the Son is not asserted. The phrase,
“Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,” shows, as Feuerbach
points out,[102] how loose an idea of personality was attached to it,
and is very different from the precise terms in which the Creed defines
the production of the Son. The subsequent dispute between the Eastern
and Western Churches in reference to the “filioque” of the Latin form
of this Creed rendered it impossible for Christian theology to remain
satisfied with the Nicene definition of the Spirit. Always regarded as
divine, there was now a natural tendency to declare it to be God. A
mystery of three in one was a puzzle no more perplexing than a mystery
of two in one. And so the Holy Spirit was included in the divine
Government, and the dogma of the Trinity was complete.
The full doctrine of the Trinity, philosophically expressed, is this.
God the Father is God the absolute, incomprehensible and unapproachable
by created things. God the Son is part of God the relative, the creator
and saviour of the world. God the Holy Spirit is the rest of God the
relative, the sustainer and guide of the world. Thus it is evident
that the third person of the Trinity philosophically has no existence;
its functions are only carved out of those of the second. And this
philosophical non-existence of the third person has its reflection in
theology. In spite of the Athanasian Creed, the Holy Spirit is only
a shadow in Christian belief. Intellectually the sincere Christian
is convinced of the existence of God the Father; emotionally he is
convinced of the existence of God the Son; but of the existence of God
the Holy Spirit he is not convinced at all, and he asserts it merely in
the empty forms of traditional dogma.
We have now dealt with all the chief dogmas of Christianity. The
Atonement, the Incarnation, the full doctrine of the Trinity, and the
more important of the circumstances believed to be connected with the
life and death of Christ—in fact, all the dogmas of the Creeds, have
passed under our review. Only minor doctrines, in regard to which there
are differences of opinion among Christians, remain to be noticed.