_THE PURPOSE OF THE EPISTLE.--THE FAITH ONCE FOR ALL
DELIVERED AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE_
"Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our
common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you
to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered
unto the saints."--ST. JUDE 3.
The Greek of the opening sentence of this passage, in which St. Jude
explains his reason for writing this Epistle, is ambiguous. The words
"of our common salvation" (περὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας) may go
either with what precedes or with what follows. But there is little
doubt that both the Authorized and the Revised Versions are right in
taking them with what precedes. The true connexion is, not, "While I
was giving all diligence to write unto you, I was constrained to write
unto you of our common salvation," but, "While I was giving all
diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained
to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith."
This Epistle can scarcely be called a letter "about our common
salvation." The meaning is that St. Jude had intended to write such a
letter, but the crisis created by the entrance of these ungodly men
into the Church constrained him to write a letter of a different kind,
viz. the one which lies before us. That he had already _begun_ to
write a letter "respecting our common salvation," and that we have
here to lament the loss of another Epistle besides the lost Epistles
of St. Paul and St. John (1 Cor. v. 9; 3 John 9), is neither stated
nor implied.[106] St. Jude had been thinking very earnestly about
writing a more general and comprehensive Epistle, when he realized
that the presence of a very serious evil required immediate action,
and accordingly he writes at once to point out the existing peril, and
to denounce those who are the authors of it. It is the duty of all
Christians to be on their guard, and to be unflinching in their
defence of the truth which has been committed to them to preserve and
cherish.
"The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." This
does not mean, which was delivered by God to the Apostles, but which
was delivered by the Apostles to the Church. "The saints" here, as so
often in the New Testament (Acts ix. 13, 32, 41; xxvi. 10; Rom.
viii. 27; xiii. 13; xv. 25, 26, 31; etc., etc.), means _all_
Christians. If the whole nation of the Jews was a "holy people" (λαὸς
ἅγιος), "a peculiar treasure unto Jehovah from among all peoples"
(Exod. xix. 5), by reason of their special election by Him (Deut.
vii. 6; xiv. 2, 21); if they were "saints of the Most High" (Dan.
vii. 18, 22, 25), much more might this be said of Christians, who had
inherited all the spiritual privileges of the Jews, and had received
others in abundance, far exceeding any that the Jews had ever
possessed. Christians also, in a still higher sense, were "an elect
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own
possession" (1 Peter ii. 9). The Christians of Corinth, Ephesus, and
Colossæ, in spite of the enormous evils which they practised or
sanctioned, or at least tolerated, are still called "saints." They are
holy, not as being persons of holy life, but as being devoted to God.
Of course such persons _ought_ to be holy in conduct, but to call them
"saints" does not assert that they are so. The name asserts the fact
of being set apart by God for Himself, and implies what ought to be
the result of such separation. "Thus the main idea of the term is
_consecration_. But though it does not assert moral qualifications as
a fact in the persons so designated, it implies them as a duty."[107]
To each individual Christian, therefore, the name is at once an
honour, an exhortation, and a reproach. It tells of his high calling,
it exhorts him to live up to it, and it reminds him of his grievous
shortcomings.
"The faith _once for all delivered_ unto the saints" (τῇ ἅπαξ
παραδοθείσῃ τοῖς ἅγίοις πίστει): both the adverb, "once for all,"
and the aorist participle, "delivered," are worthy of special notice.
"The faith" does not mean any set formula of articles of belief, nor
the internal reception of Christian doctrine, but the _substance_ of
it; it is equivalent to what St. Paul and the Evangelists call "the
Gospel," viz. that body of truth which brings salvation to the soul
that receives it. This Faith, or this Gospel, has been once for all
delivered to Christians. No other will be given, for there is no
other. Whatever may be delivered by any one in future cannot be a
gospel at all. The one true Gospel is complete and final, and admits
of no successors and no supplements (Gal. i. 6-9).
"The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." Does
this exclude all possibility of a "development of Christian doctrine"?
That depends upon what one means by "development." The expression has
been interpreted to mean "that the increase and expansion of the
Christian creed and ritual, and the variations which have attended the
process in the case of individual writers and Churches, are the
necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes
possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or
extended dominion; that from the nature of the human mind, time is
necessary for the full comprehension _and perfection_ of great ideas;
and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to
the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended
all at once by the recipients, but, as received and transmitted by
minds not inspired and through media which were human, have
required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full
elucidation."[108] If the ambiguous expression "and perfection" be
omitted, one may readily allow that development of Christian doctrine
in this sense has taken place. To say that time is needed for the
_full comprehension_ of the great truths which were communicated to
the Church once for all by the Apostles is one thing; to say that time
is needed for the _perfection_ of those truths may or may not be quite
another. And the manner in which the subject is treated in the famous
Essay from which the passage just quoted is taken shows that what is
meant by the "perfecting" of the truths is a very different thing from
the full comprehension of their original contents; it means making
additions to the original contents in order to remedy supposed
deficiencies. In this sense it may be confidently asserted, and as
loyal Christians we are bound to assert, that there is no such thing
as development of Christian doctrine. If there be such a thing, then
we cannot stop short with those developments which can in some measure
be called Christian. The author himself reminds us that "no one has
power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage our
argument, and have as much of it as we please, and no more" (p. 29).
If the faith once for all delivered to the saints was defective, and
needed to be supplemented by subsequent additions, why may not
Christianity itself be, as some have maintained, only a phase in the
development of religion, which in process of time is to be superseded
by something wholly unchristian? The transition is easily made from
the position of the _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_
to that of Channing, that "it makes me smile to hear immortality
claimed for Catholicism or Protestantism, or for any past
interpretations of Christianity: as if the human soul had exhausted
itself in its infant efforts; as if the men of one or a few
generations could bind the energy of human thought and affection for
ever;"[109] and thence to the position of Strauss, who, in his latest
and most dreary work, on _The Old and the New Faith_, asks the
question, "Are we still Christians?" and answers it emphatically in
the negative. The chief doctrines of Christianity are to him childish
or repulsive beliefs, which thoughtful men have long since left
behind. We may still in some sense be religious; but Christianity has
done its work, and is rightly being dismissed from the stage.[110]
This is the advanced thinking of which St. John writes in his Second
Epistle: "Everyone that _goeth onward_ (πᾶς ὁ προάγων), and
_abideth not in the doctrine of Christ_, hath not God" (ver. 9). There
is an advance which involves desertion of first principles; and such
an advance is not progress, but apostasy.
But _does_ the development of doctrine, in the sense contended for by
the author of the celebrated Essay, mean making actual additions to
the faith once for all delivered, as distinct from arriving at a
better comprehension of the contents and logical consequences of the
original deposit? This question must be answered in the affirmative,
for various reasons. The whole purpose of the Essay, and the actual
expressions used in it, require this meaning; and that this is the
obvious meaning has been assumed by Roman Catholic as well as
Protestant critics, and (so far as the present writer is aware) this
interpretation has never been resented as illegitimate by the author.
The whole argument is admittedly "an hypothesis to account for a
difficulty," "an expedient to enable us to solve what has now become a
necessary and an anxious problem" (pp. 27, 28), viz. the enormous
difference between the sum total of Roman Catholic doctrines and those
which can be found in the Christian documents of the first two or
three centuries. The Essay is believed by its author to furnish "a
solution of such a number of the reputed corruptions of Rome as might
form a fair ground for trusting her where the investigation had not
been pursued" (p. 29). And that the faith once for all delivered is
regarded as in need of supplements and additions seems to be implied
in such language as the following: "In whatever sense the need and its
supply are a proof of design in the visible creation, in the same do
_the gaps_, if the word may be used, _which occur in the structure of
the original creed of the Church_, make it probable that those
developments, which grow out of the truths which lie around them, were
intended to complete it" (pp. 101, 102). It is the business of
succeeding ages of the Church to "keep what was exact, and _supply
what was deficient_" (p. 354).
The author of the _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_
states in another of his works that when he was admitted to the Church
of Rome he embraced volumes containing the writings of the Christian
Fathers, crying out that now they were really his own. The action and
exclamation were thoroughly inconsistent with the position maintained
throughout the Essay, and since then adopted by numbers of Roman
controversialists. He ought rather to have cleared his shelves of the
works of the Fathers, and to have consigned them to the lumber-room,
with the remark, "Now I need never look at you any more." As Bishop
Cornelius Mussus (Musso) said long ago, "For my part, to speak quite
frankly, I would give more credence to a single Pope than to a
thousand Augustines, Jeromes, and Gregorys" (_In Epist. ad Rom._ xiv.,
p. 606, Venet., 1588, quoted in Hardwick's edition of Archer Butler's
_Letters on Romanism_, p. 394). It is the latest and most modern works
on Roman theology, especially those which expound the utterances of
the most recent Popes, that deserve to be studied, if the theory of
the development be correct. According to that theory, the teaching of
the primitive Church was certainly immature and defective, and
possibly even erroneous. In order to find out what primitive writers
meant, or _ought to have meant_, we must look to the latest
developments. _They_ are the criteria by which to test the teaching of
the early Church; it is beginning at the wrong end to test the
developments by Christian antiquity. In former times Romanists were at
great pains to show that traces of their peculiar tenets could be
found in the writers of the first few centuries; and in not a few
cases the works of these primitive writers were interpolated, in order
to make out a fair case. Criticism has exposed these forgeries, and it
has been demonstrated that the early Christian teachers were ignorant
of whole tracts of Roman doctrine and practice. Roman controversy has
therefore entirely shifted its ground. It now freely admits that these
things were unknown to Irenæus, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and
Augustine; but for the simple reason that, when they wrote, these
things had not yet been revealed. The Church was still ignorant that
the Blessed Virgin was conceived without sin, was taken bodily to
heaven after her death, and ought to be invoked in prayer; it was
still ignorant of the doctrine of purgatory, of indulgences, and of
the necessity of being in communion with the Church of Rome. It will
not do to say that Christ and His Apostles planted the _germs_ of
these things, and that for centuries the germs did not expand and
fructify, and therefore remained unnoticed. For, first, how can there
be _a germ of an historical fact_, such as the supposed removal of the
Virgin's body to heaven, which is most happily named an "assumption"?
Secondly, now that the fruit _has_ appeared, we ought to be able to
trace it back to the germ which for so long was ignored. And thirdly,
if the germs were really deposited by Christ and His Apostles, they
would have developed in a _somewhat_ similar manner in all parts of
Christendom. Different surroundings will account for some variety of
development, but not for absolute difference in kind. The germ
respecting communion with the Church of Rome, if there was one,
developed in the East, where all germs were in the first instance
planted, into the doctrine that no such communion was necessary.[111]
Therefore, from the Roman point of view, it is necessary to maintain
that the development of Christian doctrine involves, not merely the
better comprehension of the contents of doctrines, and the expansion
of seeds and germs of truth, but the admission of actual supplements
and additions, derived from new revelations of fresh items of truth.
As the Jesuit Father Harper said, in his reply to Dr. Pusey's
_Eirenicon_, "Christ grew in wisdom daily. So does the Church, not in
mere appearance, but of truth. Her creed, therefore, can never shrink
back to the dimensions of the past, but must ever enlarge with the
onward future."
Hence the necessity for the doctrine of Infallibility. For Roman
developments are not the only ones. The Eastern Churches have theirs;
Protestant Churches have theirs; and outside these there are other
developments, both non-Christian and anti-Christian. Unless there is
some authority which can say, "Our developments are Divinely inspired
and necessary, while all others are superfluous or wrong," the
doctrine of Development may be used with as much force against Rome as
for her. Consequently, we find the author of the Essay using the
theory of Development as an argument for that of the Infallibility.
"If the Christian doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and
important developments, ... this is a strong antecedent argument in
favour of a provision in the Dispensation for putting a seal of
authority upon those developments.... If certain large developments of
it are true, they must surely be accredited as true" (pp. 117-19).
This is further proof that what is contemplated in this theory is not
mere logical deductions from revealed truth; for logical deductions
vindicate themselves by an appeal to the reason, and need no sanction
from an infallible authority. Developments are indeed said to follow
by way of "logical sequence," but this term is made to receive an
enlarged meaning. "It will include any progress of the mind from one
judgment to another, as, for instance, _by way of moral fitness_,
which may not admit of analysis into premiss and conclusion" (p. 397).
Thus the "deification of St. Mary" is a "logical sequence" of our
Lord's Divinity. "The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith,
unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is
not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy" (p. 406). The following
criticism, therefore, does not seem to be unjust: "However the theory
may be modified by the subsequent additional supposition of infallible
guidance, it is quite evident that, considered in itself, its internal
spirit and scope (especially as illustrated by its alleged Roman
instances) are nothing short of this, that _everything_ which
_certain_ good men in the Church, or men assumed to be such, can by
reasoning _or feeling_ collect from a revealed truth is, by the mere
fact of its recognition [_i.e._ by the supposed infallible guide],
admissible and authoritative."[112] This is indeed a wide door to open
for the reception of additions to the faith!
That St. Jude lays much stress on the fact that the sum total of the
Gospel, and not merely the elementary portions of it, have been once
for all committed to the Church, is shown, not only by the prominence
which he gives to the thought here, but by his repetition of it a few
lines later, when he begins the main portion of his Epistle: "I desire
to put you in remembrance, though ye know _all things once for all_"
(ver. 5). Any teaching of new doctrines is not only unnecessary, it is
also utterly inadmissible. And every Christian has his responsibilities
in this matter. He is to "contend earnestly" (ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι), with
all the energy and watchfulness of an athlete in the arena, for the
preservation of this sacred deposit, lest it be lost or corrupted. And
the manner in which this earnest contest is to be maintained is not
left doubtful; not with the sword, as Beza rightly remarks, nor with
intemperate denunciation or indiscriminate severity, but with the
mighty influence of a holy life, built upon the foundation of our
"most holy faith" (vv. 20-23). It is in this way that lawful
development of Christian doctrine is secured; not by additions to what
was once for all delivered, but by a deeper and wider comprehension of
its inexhaustible contents. "If any man willeth to do His will, he
shall know of the doctrine."
NOTE.--In connexion with the subject treated above, chapter ix. of R.
H. Hutton's sketch of _Cardinal Newman_ (Methuen & Co., 1891) may be
profitably read.
[106] This is an assumption of De Wette, who in this followed
Sherlock, and was followed by Brückner. It is worth noting that the
Vulgate here is as ambiguous as the original Greek: "_Omnem
solicitudinem faciens scribendi vobis de communi vestra salute necesse
habui scribere vobis_," etc.
[107] Lightfoot, _Philippians_, note on i. 1.
[108] J. H. Newman, _An Essay on the Development of Christian
Doctrine_ (London, Toovey, 1845), p. 27.
[109] _Letter on Catholicism: Complete Works_ (Routledge, 1884), p. 346.
[110] _Der alte und der neue Glaube_ (Leipzig, 1872), pp. 13-91: see
especially pp. 90, 91.
[111] See Dr. Salmon's admirable work on _The Infallibility of the
Church_ (Murray, 1888), pp. 33-41.
[112] Archer Butler's _Letters on Romanism_, Revised by Rev. Charles
Hardwick (Macmillan, 1858), p. 91.