EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS (A SEQUEL TO SOPHIA SOLOMONTOS).
In a Theocracy the birth of a new God was not the mere new
generalization that it might be in our secularized century,--a
deification of the Unknowable, for instance,--of not the slightest
practical or moral interest to any human being. Judea was the bodily
incarnation, even more than Islam is now, of a deity who said,
"I am the Lord and there is none else; I form the light and create
darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these
things." The denial of such a deity, the substitution of one who
required neither prayers, sacrifices, nor intercessions, could not
be merely theoretical. It must involve the overthrow of a nationality
which had no bond of unity except a book, and the institutions founded
on that book.
Nor did the theocratic principle admit of a mere philosophical
opposition to its institutions. He who touched that system was dealing
with people who, in the language of "Sophia Solomontos" were "shut up
in a prison without iron bars." The natural advent of the anti-Jahvist
was in the Temple and with the words--
He hath sent me to herald glad news to the poor,
He hath sent me to proclaim deliverance to captives,
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised.
These miseries had no real relation to the social or political
conditions amid which their phrases and hymns were born, but to a
burden of debts to a jealous and vindictive omnipotence; a burden
not of actions really wrong, but of mysterious offences, related to
incomprehensible ordinances and heavenly etiquette. No human vices
are so malignant as inhuman virtues.
Bunyan, in depicting Christian's burden, has, with a felicity
perhaps unconscious, made it a pack strapped on. It is not a hunch,
not any part of the pilgrim, and had he possessed the courage to
examine it there must have been found many spiritual nightmares
of the race, and many robust English virtues turned to sins when
the merry and honest tinker turned retrospective Rip Van Winkle,
and dreamed himself back into the year One. The burden of sins on
the poor Israelites had been gradually getting lighter under the
scepticism of the Wisdom school, in view of the failure of Jahveh to
fulfil the menaces and sentences of the priesthood. Conformity was
secured mainly for actual advantages bestowed by the synagogue, or its
terrors. But the discovery of the doctrine of a future life and a day
of judgment, when all the mysterious "sins" were to be settled for,
while smiled at by the Saducees, made the burden of the ignorant poor
intolerable. Life was passed under suspended swords. The priesthood
had a cowering vassal in every ignorant human being. The time, the
labour, the flocks of the peasantry were devoted, but it was all a
"sweating" process,--the debts were never paid, and there was always
that "certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of
fire which shall devour the adversaries." No doubt even the learned
supposed these superstitions useful to keep the "masses" in order.
But one day a scholarly gentleman, a man of genius, was moved with
compassion for these poor lost and priest-harried sheep: he turned
aside from his college and his rank, and became their shepherd;
he declared they owed no duties to any deity, and that the heavenly
despot they so dreaded had no existence.
A modern gentleman in a fine mansion and estate may be amused at
Bunyan's quaint pilgrim, reading in a book and discovering that he
was in a City of Destruction, fleeing with a burden on his back, and
rejoicing when it rolls off at the cross. But if this gentleman should
suddenly receive from some distant personage papers showing that his
estate had been entirely mortgaged by his father, that it would soon
be claimed and his family reduced to beggary, he might understand
the City of Destruction. And if, soon after, some visitor arrived to
state that the holder of the mortgages was dead; that those claims had
all legally fallen into his own hands, and that he had burnt them,
the rolling off of Christian's burden might be appreciated,--also
the enthusiasm of the personal followers of Jesus.
But one might further imagine a host of hungry lawyers, living on
large retainers, not being quite happy at such easy settlements,
especially if the generous visitor were found wealthy enough to go
about buying up and burning claims, and ending litigation. This, to
us hardly imaginable, was, however, actually the condition of things
reflected in parts of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therein the bond
under which man suffers is clearly to him who hath the Power of Death,
the Devil: Jesus ransomed man from the Devil.
The anonymous tractate superscribed solely "To the Hebrews," though
the last admitted into the New Testament, is probably the earliest
document it contains. It has no doubt been tampered with, but the
evidences of the early date of its conception of Christ remain. Not
only was it evidently written before the destruction of the temple
(anno 70), but before there was any thought of a mission to the
Gentiles, who, with Paul their apostle, are ignored. Some of its
phrases and illustrations are found in epistles of Paul, but, as
Dr. Davidson pointed out in his Introduction to the New Testament,
the general doctrine of this treatise is far from Pauline, and
it is difficult to find any reason for supposing that the few
borrowings were not by Paul, other than a preference for Paul, and
disinclination to admit that there is any anonymous work in the New
Testament. The treatise is without Paul's egotism, or his fatalism,
and its conception of the new movement seems decidedly more primitive
than that in the recognised Pauline epistles. The sagacious Eusebius,
"father of church history," connects the Epistle "To the Hebrews"
with the "Wisdom of Solomon," and it seems clear that we have here the
bridge between the last abutment of philosophic or "broad" Jahvism,
and its "new departure" as Christism.
It is not of especial importance to the present inquiry to determine
that Paul might not at some youthful period have written this work,
though I cannot see how any critical reader can so imagine; but
it will bear indirectly on that point if we read successively the
following corresponding passages:
Wisdom of Solomon.--"For Wisdom, which is the worker of all things,
taught me ... she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure
influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty; therefore can
no unclean thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of
the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God,
and the image of his goodness. And alone she can do all things;
herself unchanged, she maketh all things new: and in all ages
entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God and
prophets."--(vii. 25-27.) "And Wisdom was with thee: which knoweth
thy works, and was present when thou madest the world." (ix. 9.)
Epistle to the Hebrews.--"God, having in time past spoken to the
fathers by many fragments and divers ways in the prophets, at the
end of these days spake unto us in Son whom he constituted heir
of all things, by whom also he fashioned the ages; who, being the
brightness of his light and the image of his substance, and guiding
all things by the word of his authority, having made purification
of sins, sat on the right of majesty in high places." (i. 1-3.)
Epistle to the Colossians.--"Who (the Father) delivered us out of
the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his
son of love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of
our sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of
all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens
and above the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have
been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things,
and in him all things hold together." (i. 13-17.)
Fourth Gospel.--"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made through him, and without him was
not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him,
and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory--glory as of an only
begotten of a Father full of grace and truth." (i. 1-15.)
It appears to me that the evolution is represented in the
order given. Paul's phrase, "first-born of all creation," is an
amplification of the word "first-born" used in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, but there used in another connection,--and not solely,
as we shall see, relating to Christ. Paul's phrase corresponds with
"the only-begotten," etc., of John, and with the "son constituted
heir" of the Epistle to the Hebrews, though the latter is a different
Christological conception. When this writer's doctrinal statement is
finished, and after his argument is begun, he says (i. 6), "But when
of old bringing the first-born into the inhabited earth, he saith,
And pay homage to him all angels of God." The word "first-born" here is
probably the seed from which Paul develops his full flower of doctrine,
given above. Paul's conception of a creative Christ seems later than
the "guiding" Christ (Heb. i. 3), which recalls the function of Wisdom
as "director" at the creation (Prov. viii. 30); and the idea in this
epistle to the Hebrews of a previous and historical Christophany,
while harmonious with that of the "Wisdom of Solomon" (vii. 27),--that
she (Wisdom) "in all ages enters into holy souls,"--is so primitive,
unique, and so foreign to Paul, that the writer may have been one of
those accused by him of preaching "another Jesus" (2 Cor. ii. 4). [30]
Although this Epistle contains the principle ascribed to Jesus,
"charity and not sacrifice" (xiii. 9) and substitutes for beasts the
"sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips harmonious with his good
name" (verse 15), the letter that killeth brought forth from the same
chapter the fatal doctrine that the body of Jesus was a sacrifice to be
eaten. And although this emphasizes the completeness of his humanity
to an extent inconsistent with his deity, it is on the letter of this
Epistle that the deification of Christ is founded.
V. 7-9. "Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up
entreaties with vehement crying and tears to him able to save
him out of death, and although inclined to because of his piety,
yet, albeit a son, learned obedience by the things he suffered;
and having been made perfect, became unto all that follow him
the author of eternal salvation." [31]
He is represented as "made perfect through sufferings," as "tempted
in all points like (?others) without sin," and as having without
assistance of temple or sacrifices, "obtained eternal redemption"
(ix. 12). Thus he also needed redemption.
The new covenant of which Jesus was the founder is described in the
words of Jeremiah (xxxi.):
I will put my laws into their mind,
And on their heart will I write them
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to me a people:
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know me,
From the least unto the greatest.
In quoting this the writer to the Hebrews adds: "In that he saith,
'A new (covenant) he hath made the first old. But that which is
becoming old and waxeth aged is near unto vanishing entirely.'" Here
is a primitive Quakerism, but more conservative; not like George Fox
at once sweeping away priesthood sacraments and ecclesiastical laws
before the Inner Light, but pointing to their near vanishing.
The writer of this Epistle is a philosophical conservative; he shudders
at the idea of a swift and complete overthrow of the traditional
system, and even borrows its old thunders against levitical sin
to menace offences against the new moral God. "Our God [also] is
a consuming fire." It is evident by his very warnings that a great
anti-sacerdotal and anti-levitical revolution had taken place, and
that the free spirit was burgeoning out in excesses. But such is
his culture that one may suspect his thunders of being theatrical,
and that he thinks some superstition necessary for the masses.
The fatal and subtle character of the detective Holy Spirit is imported
into this Epistle from the "Wisdom of Solomon" (i. 6), though not
so distinctly personified. The sin afterwards called "unpardonable"
is here a sin against Christ for which repentance, not pardon, is
impossible. We may perhaps find in some of the expressions germs of
the legend of Judas. "As touching those who were once enlightened,
and tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy
Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age
that is come, and fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to
repentance, seeing they individually impale the Son of God afresh
and put him to open shame" (vi. 5, 6). The believers are "not of
them that shrink back into perdition" (x. 39); and they are warned
to look carefully "whether there be any man that falleth back from
the grace of God,... like Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own
birthright" (xii. 15, 16). The words "tasted," "perdition," "sold,"
might start a legend of the betrayal, first alluded to by Paul (if 1
Cor. xi. 23 be genuine, which is doubtful), though had the legend of
Judas then existed this writer would naturally have alluded to him
along with Esau.
This Epistle is the nursery of the titles of Christ; he is Apostle,
Son of God, Son of Man, Great Shepherd, Captain of Salvation, Mediator,
Great High Priest; and here alone is found the now familiar endearing
phrase "Our Lord." These titles represent the functions of different
beings in the Avesta. The conception of the work of Jesus on earth
is largely Zoroastrian. The Majesty on high has a colony and a people
on earth, which otherwise is under the supremacy of the Evil One. As
we have seen the Avestan definitions of Ahuramazda and Angra Mainyu,
"the Living and the Not Living," are reflected in the phrases of this
Epistle,--the "Power of Imperishable Life" (vii. 16) and the "Power of
Death" (ii. 14). Ahuramazda, when his "habitable earth" was prepared,
brought into it his "first-born," Yima, and wished him to propagate
the divine law which should destroy the power of Angra Mainyu on earth
and confine him in the underworld. Yima replied, "I was not born,
I was not taught, to be the preacher and the bearer of thy law." He
engaged, however, to enlarge and nourish the garden of God on earth,
of which he was king, and entitled "the good shepherd." He obtained
from the Holy Spirit, Anâhita, the powers thus enumerated in Abân
Yast 26: "He begged of her a boon, saying, 'Grant me this, O good,
most beneficent Ardvi Sûra Anâhita, that I may become the sovereign
lord of all countries, of the dævas [devils] and men, of the Yâtus
[sorcerers] and Pairkas [seducing nymphs], of the oppressors [who
afflict] the blind and the deaf; and that I may take from the dævas
[devils] both riches and welfare, both fatness and flocks, both weal
and glory" [hvarenô, "the glory from above which makes the king an
earthly god"]. [32] This "firstborn" reigned a thousand years, but
then, having ascribed his "glory" to the demons from whom he obtained
wealth and material benefits, his "glory" was lost, and secured by
the Devil, who reigned in his place a thousand years, blighting the
world, when Zoroaster was born to undertake the establishment of the
divine Law on earth. Yima was ultimately developed into the Jamshid
of Persian mythology, whose power over demons, fabulous wealth, and
ultimate fall (through declaring himself a god, according to Firdusi)
invested the legend of Solomon.
From the legend of Solomon and the Solomonic Psalms the Epistle to
the Hebrews brings its exaltation of Christ. From Ps. lxxxix. 26-7,
as reproduced in 2 Sam. vii. 14, is quoted (i. 5) the divine promise,
"I will be to him (Solomon) a Father and he shall be my Son," along
with the manifesto at Solomon's enthronement (Ps. ii. 7), "Thou art
my Son; this day have I begotten thee." Solomon is the "first-born"
alluded to in Heb. i. 6: "When of old bringing the first-born into
the inhabited earth (oikoumenên) he saith, And pay homage to him all
angels of God?"
And here we have an interesting example of evolution in the Solomon
legend. The term "first-born," as indicating the relation of a human
being to the deity, occurs but once in the Old Testament, namely, in
Psalm lxxxix. 27. It occurs in a strange passage that must be quoted:
19. Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy ones,
And saidst, I have laid help upon a youth;
I have raised one elected out of the people.
20. I have discovered David, my servant:
With my holy oil have I anointed him,
21. By whom my hand shall be established,
Whom also mine arm shall strengthen.
22. The enemy shall not do him violence,
Nor the son of evil afflict him.
23. I will beat down his adversaries before him
And smite them that hate him.
24. But my faithfulness and my mercy end not with him,
And in my name shall his horn be exalted.
25. I will extend his hand on the sea also,
And his right hand on the rivers:
26. He shall address me, "Thou, my father,
My God, and the rock of my support";
27. In answer I constitute him first-born,
Elyon of the kings of the earth.
Although in all of these verses the Davidic royalty is exalted, the
reference to David's own reign passes at verse 24 into a celebration of
Solomon. Here, as in Psalm cxxxii. 17, Solomon is the "horn" of David:
he was distinctively the power on sea and river, phrases inapplicable
to David, and there is a contrast between the anointed "servant"
(verse 20) and the "first-born" (verse 27). The next title, "Elyon"
(Most High), comes very near to that of the deity (El Elyon) of the
mysterious priest-king of Salem, Melchizedek, whose mythical character
and identity with the legendary Solomon will be hereafter considered.
Here we have no doubt the germs of the narrative in 2 Sam. vii. of
the formal adoption of Solomon as Jahveh's son, with the addition of a
metaphysical connotation of the sonship not found in the Psalm. In the
Psalm the fatherhood is that of support, the position of "first-born"
is that of chieftainship among kings; and it is further said (31,
32) that if any of the sons of the Davidic line profane the divine
statutes, "Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and
their iniquity with stripes." But in 2 Sam. vii. 14, Jahveh applies
this warning to Solomon alone, and with a remarkable modification:
"I will be his father and he shall be my son: if he commit iniquity
I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of
the sons of men; but my mercy shall not depart from him." That is,
though a son of God he may be chastened like the sons of men,--an
intimation of a difference between Solomon and ordinary human nature
not intended in the words of the Psalm.
The Epistle to the Hebrews, finding in this Psalm an introduction of
"first-born" into the world, for there is no article preceding the
word, follows it so closely as to omit any article before "son"
(i. 2). He finds this in an address of the deity to his angels
("holy ones" or saints), and understands verse 27 of the Psalm to
mean that they, the angels, are to worship the "first-born" as the
Elyon, or Most High on earth. From 2 Sam. vii. the Epistle gets
sufficient authority for ascribing an eternal personality to the
sonship, anciently represented by Solomon, and we may thus see that
the gesture of Hebrew religion towards a doctrine of incarnation was
much earlier than is generally supposed. And this, too, is the Hebrew
contribution to a Psalm which, in the nine verses above quoted, imports
ideas foreign to Judaism. The reciprocal help of the deity and the king
(19-21) is Avestan, and inconsistent with monotheism. Elyon is the
name of an ancient Phoenician god, slain by his son El, no doubt the
"first-born of death" in Job xviii. 13, and the violent "son of evil,"
in verse 22 of our Psalm. The exaltation of both David and Solomon in
the Psalm is primarily in reference to service and deeds, not majesty,
essence, or title; of these Avestan religion made little, but Hebraism
made much, and the deification of Solomon, though warranted by other
Psalms, is added to this eighty-ninth by Samuel and the Epistle to
the Hebrews.
In Ecclesiasticus it is written: "In the division of the nations of the
whole earth he set a ruler over every people; but Israel is the Lord's
portion: whom, being his first-born, he nourisheth with discipline,
and giving him the light of his love doth not forsake him.... For all
things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal. What
is brighter than the sun? Yet the light thereof faileth; and flesh
and blood will imagine evil" (xvii.). Now in the Zoroastrian theology
there could be no direct contact of God with matter: the devil's
empire could be invaded and death conquered only by a perfectly
"blameless" MAN. (Cf. "Wisdom of Solomon," xviii. 21, with the
"sinless" of Heb. iv. 15, the "guileless" of vii. 26, and "without
blemish," ix. 14). The spotless one can use no carnal weapon. In
the Zoroastrian theology the divine potency is that of the Word, and
formulas exist to be wielded against every variety of demon. So in
this Epistle the supremacy of the Son is by "the word of his power",
(i. 3), and "the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword"
(iv. 12).
The enterprise of the Son of God was to fulfil these conditions. He
must become a complete man, share all the infirmities of man, all his
liabilities to temptation, receive no assistance from his Father,
no angelic help,--placed lower than the angels,--and confront the
powers of Death and Hell without any material weapon. If he succeeded
in remaining sinless, faithful to the divine law, even unto death,
even while in hell, unshaken by threats, sufferings, or seductions,
it must be a purely human achievement. There was no miracle; even the
suspicion of using supernatural power would have tainted the whole
work of Jesus as conceived in this Epistle.
This undertaking was not simply for the sake of mankind. All things
are not yet subjected to the divine sway (Heb. ii. 8). Heaven itself
was shaken, when the old covenant failed, and trembled for the result
of the tremendous conflict of the Son of Man on earth with its Prince
and his hosts (Heb. xii. 25-29). This was "the joy in front of him"
(xii. 2), as well as the rescue of men.
Thus was the man left entirely to the devil, not even his life
being reserved, as in the case of Job. He loudly cries for help,
even with tears, at the sight of Death; he is heard, pitied, but no
help comes. He must trust to his human merits, and not miracles,
for his Sonship is of no value in this conflict. By his obedience
learned in his sufferings, by his sinlessness under all trials and
temptations, he fulfilled the conditions of deathlessness. By his
own heart's blood, not by offerings of bloody sacrifices, not by
supernatural power, he reached the place of holiness, "having obtained
eternal redemption." From first to last there was no divine aid. His
unanswered loud cries (Heb. v. 7) may be connected with the legend
of his expiring cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Much of the thought here is similar to the "Wisdom of Solomon"
(ii. 22-4, iii. 1-9), where however the ideas are conflicting. It is
said, "God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of
his own eternity: nevertheless, through the devil's envy came death
into the world, and they that hold of his side do find it." But then
Jahvism puts in with the declaration that the seeming destruction
of the righteous is God's chastisement and probation of them. The
Epistle to the Hebrews does not regard the sufferings and death of
Jesus as God's work at all, but all from the devil. Though God spoke
by him there is no suggestion that he sent Jesus, or that his coming
was not voluntary.
With this reservation, and a large one it is, that Jesus was not
delivered up to Satan by God, but left to confront his torments in an
effort to subdue him, "bring him to nought," the central idea of the
Epistle is a doctrinal transfiguration of Job, who being delivered up
to Satan, triumphs over the tempter and tormentor, and through all
preserves his sinlessness and loyalty to God. The result being that
those who had denied Job's merits, his sinlessness, had to secure Job's
intercession in order to escape the penalty of having ascribed his
sufferings to God (Job xlii. 8). [33] This relationship of ideas is all
the more interesting because apparently unconscious in the writer of
the Epistle, and thus revealing the extent to which Oriental religion
had remoulded Judaism among the educated Jews of his time. Monotheism
is strictly inconsistent with the supremacy of "merits" which is the
very soul of Oriental religion. The sacred books of India contain
records of saints or Rishis who by extraordinary austerities,
sacrifices, and virtues so piled up their "merits" that the gods
were frightened, as they were at the tower of Babel; and sometimes
the gods tempted these powerful saints to commit some sin that would
reduce their "merits." The Solomonic "Proverbs" are pervaded by the
Oriental doctrine of "merits": a man is proved by test of his merits,
as gold passing through the furnace (xxvii. 21); the perfect inherit
good (xxviii. 10); and perhaps that sublime pedlar of transcendent
gems imported along with the gold of Ophir some version of the Puranic
legend of Harischandra, "the Hindu Job." All the Jahvist adulterations
of the biblical version do not conceal the fact that when Jahveh,
by delivering the meritorious man up to Satan, delivered himself also
into the hands of Satan, he (Jahveh) was compelled to surrender before
the merits on which the man had planted himself. Jahveh reclaimed his
sovereignty, but agreed that Job, who had said "God hath wronged me,"
had spoken of him "the thing that is right" (xlii. 8). In the same
way the storm-god Indra (the Hindu Jahveh) accompanied by all the
gods, headed by Dharma (Justice), appears to Harischandra after his
trials, and tells him that he, his wife and son, had, by their merits,
"conquered heaven" (Markandeya Purana). The completion of these merits
was when Harischandra resolved with his wife to die on the funeral
pyre of their son, who, as a result of their torments, had died by a
serpent's bite. It was then that the god Indra appeared to restore
the son, and admit that the just and faithful king, his wife and
son, had "conquered heaven." We are thus carried to the Solomonic
affirmations that "when the whirlwind passeth the just man is on
an everlasting foundation" (Prov. x. 25), that "justice delivereth
from death" (x. 2), that "the just man finds a refuge in death"
(xiv. 32); and we are carried forward to the Epistle to the Hebrews,
where, after the last ordeal, death, the son of the heavenly king
is restored to life, and Satan, who had over him the power of death,
"brought to nought" (ii. 14). But further, in the Puranic legend, which
from time immemorial has been a passion-play in India, Harischandra,
when told that he, his wife and son, had "conquered heaven," refused
to ascend to heaven without his "faithful subjects." "This request
was granted by Indra, and after Viswamitra had inaugurated Rohitaswa,
the king's son, to be his successor, Harischandra, his friends and
followers, all ascended to heaven." Thus, in our Epistle, the son,
having "learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and having
been made perfect, became unto all them that obeyed him the author
of eternal salvation." "For in that he hath himself suffered being
tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." The subjects of
King Harischandra who remained faithful to him after he was reduced
to beggary, ascended with him. Faith is declared in our Epistle to be
"the testing of things not seen" (xi. 1), and faithfulness is to "run
with patience the course that is set before us, looking unto Jesus,
the captain and perfector of faithfulness, who for the joy set before
him endured the stake (stauron), despising shame, and hath sat down
at the right hand of the throne of God" (xi. 1, xii. 1, 2).
And there is also, I believe, in the scheme of redemption set forth
in this Epistle, an influence from the story of King Usinára in the
Mahábhárata, of which there were various versions which must have
been familiar to the Buddhists in Alexandria. A dove pursued by a
falcon takes refuge in the bosom of Usinára; the falcon demands its
surrender. The King quotes the law of Manu that it is a great sin to
abandon any being that has taken asylum with one. The falcon urges that
it is the law of nature that falcons shall feed on doves, and that
unless this dove is surrendered its little falcons must starve. The
King offers other food, but the only substitute that is adapted to
the falcon's nature is a quantity of Usinára's own flesh equal to the
weight of the dove. To this the King agrees. Balances are produced,
and the dove placed in one scale, in the other a piece of the King's
flesh, which seems large enough, but is insufficient. Though the
King cuts off piece by piece all of his flesh, the dove outweighs it,
until at length Usinára gets into the scale HIMSELF. That outweighs
the dove, which is really Agni, the falcon being Indra. The gods
who had assumed these forms in order to test Usinára's fidelity
to the law of sanctuary, resume their shape, and the King ascends
transfigured to paradise. In one version a King (Givi) sacrifices
his son, Vrihad-Gasbha in obedience to sacred requirements, the story
resembling that of Abraham and Isaac. Alford calls attention to the
emphasis on the word "himself" in the Epistle of the Hebrews ix. 14:
"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal
Spirit offered HIMSELF, without blemish, unto God, cleanse our
conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
Without blemish! That was the great point. The champion of the Good
confronts the champion of Evil, his purpose being to conquer the last
enemy, Death, by unarmed human virtue. This was the central idea
in the Passion, a drama gone to pieces in the Gospels. Therefore,
he did not summon legions of angels, and said to Peter, "Sheath
thy sword." Therefore, the mere lynching of Jesus, for such it was,
is given the formalities of judicial procedure, in order to impress
an official character on the testimonies to his innocence: Pilate,
Caiaphas, Pilate's wife, Judas, Herod, all bear witness that no evil
is in him, and he challenges the High Priest's court, "If I have
uttered evil bear witness of the evil." [34] In this passion-drama
Jesus Barabbas is set beside Jesus the Christ,--officially proclaimed
guilt beside officially proclaimed innocence,--and Wrath selects guilt,
condemns innocence. But it was thus the first-born of Life prevailed
over the first-born of Death. In that crisis the blameless man swerving
not from his rectitude, established the "assembly of the first-born,"
who can dwell with the living God because they have learned from their
Captain how to get rid of the defilement of mortality. There is nothing
vicarious in his service. The Captain represented the human race in
a single combat with Satan, and he discovered for all the vulnerable
point of that Adversary,--that he could not hold in sheol a perfectly
sinless human being. But it still remained that without holiness no
man could see the Lord. Another advantage secured by Jesus for men
was that after his victory was achieved the heroic man, on resuming
his previous position as Son of God, was able to add thereto what
he had won as Son of Man,--the office of high priest or intercessor,
who could take good care that every man who fulfilled the condition
of holiness got his reward. Satan should not cheat. Nevertheless
Jesus had been his own saviour, and every man must be his own saviour.
Pulpit ignorance has wrested from the Epistle to the Hebrews
fragments of texts, in support of a dogma of atonement which only
a fortunate lack of logic prevents from amounting to a doctrine of
human sacrifice. A favorite clause is, "Without the shedding of blood
there in no remission,"--which is really this epistle's stigma on
the system it is abolishing! The sacredness of the blood of Jesus
was that it was the price he had to pay to the devil in order to
preserve his sinlessness, and so rise from death, and demonstrate to
others that they also could rise by sinlessness to eternal life. It
might cost their blood also, but would be lost if they "resisted unto
blood." Jesus thus brought life and incorruption, as distinguished
from living-death in sheol, to light. And the devotion to Jesus for
this was due to the belief that he had laid aside his heavenly glory
and become a complete man, and had thus risked his all, his greatness,
his very immortality, to make for both heaven and earth the tremendous
venture; the slightest misstep, the least sin, or wrath, or impatience,
and he would have had his abode in sheol, in bonds of Satan, through
all eternity.
When this Epistle was written the believers already found immortality
in such faith; with such hope and joy before them they were able to
despise sensual joys, to conquer temptations, and to fulfill those
duties and conditions of personal holiness which are described in this
Epistle,--"Peace with all men, and holiness without which no man can
see the Lord." The ecstasy did not last long, but it was a marvellous
phenomenon while it lasted, and the most complete reflection of it may
be found in this Epistle to the Hebrews, especially if it be approached
by its prologue,--the "Wisdom of Solomon,"--but it is subtle, and
can only be comprehended by patient and comparative studies.
At the heart of this earliest and swiftly lost Christianity was a
sublime effort to humanize God.