{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39288/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39288","id":"gutenberg_39288","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39288","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. New Testament -- Introductions","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by David Edwards, Hazel Batey and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT\n\n\n  THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE\n\n  Editors of THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE\n\n  Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., F.B.A.\n  Prof. Gilbert Murray, Litt.D., LL.D., F.B.A.\n  Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., LL.D.\n\n\n  _For list of volumes in the Library see end of book._\n\n  THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT\n\n  _By_ BENJAMIN W. BACON D.D.\n\n  PROFESSOR OF NEW CRITICISM AND EXEGESIS IN YALE UNIVERSITY\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED 15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2\n\n_First Impression September 1912 - All Rights Reserved_\n\nMADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  PART I\n\n  CANONIZATION AND CRITICISM\n\n   CHAP.                                                       PAGE\n\n      I INSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION                              7\n\n     II THE REACTION TO CRITICISM                                33\n\n\n    PART II\n\n    THE LITERATURE OF THE APOSTLE\n\n    III PAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE   56\n\n     IV PAUL AS PRISONER AND CHURCH FATHER                       83\n\n      V PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES                               104\n\n\n    PART III\n\n    THE LITERATURE OF CATECHIST AND PROPHET\n\n     VI THE MATTHAEAN TRADITION OF THE PRECEPTS OF JESUS         128\n\n    VII THE PETRINE TRADITION. EVANGELIC STORY                  154\n\n   VIII THE JOHANNINE TRADITION. PROPHECY                       185\n\n\n   PART IV\n\n   THE LITERATURE OF THE THEOLOGIAN\n\n     IX THE SPIRITUAL GOSPEL AND EPISTLES                       206\n\n      X EPILOGUES AND CONCLUSIONS                               233\n\n        BIBLIOGRAPHY                                            251\n\n        INDEX                                                   255\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT\n\nPART I\n\n\nCANONIZATION AND CRITICISM\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION\n\n\nThe New Testament presents the paradox of a literature born of protest\nagainst the tyranny of a canon, yet ultimately canonized itself through\nan increasing demand for external authority. This paradox is full of\nsignificance. We must examine it more closely.\n\nThe work of Jesus was a consistent effort to set religion free from the\ndeadening system of the scribes. He was conscious of a direct, divine\nauthority. The broken lights of former inspiration are lost in the full\ndawn of God's presence to His soul.\n\nSo with Paul. The key to Paul's thought is his revolt against legalism.\nIt had been part of his servitude to persecute the sect which claimed to\nknow another Way besides the \"way\"[1] of the scribes. These Christians\nsignalized their faith by the rite of baptism, and gloried in the sense\nof endowment with \"the Spirit.\" Saul was profoundly conscious of the\nyoke; only he had not drammed that his own deliverance could come from\nsuch a quarter. But contact with victims of the type of Stephen, men\n\"filled with the Spirit,\" conscious of the very \"power from God\" for\nlack of which his soul was fainting, could not but have some effect. It\ncame suddenly, overwhelmingly. The real issue, as Saul saw it, both\nbefore and after his conversion, was Law _versus_ Grace. In seeking\n\"justification\" by favour of Jesus these Christians were opening a new\nand living way to acceptance with God. Traitorous and apostate as the\nattempt must seem while the way of the Law still gave promise of\nsuccess, to souls sinking like Saul's deeper and deeper into the\ndespairing consciousness of \"the weakness of the flesh\" forgiveness in\nthe name of Jesus might prove to be light and life from God. The\ndespised sect of 'sinners' whom he had been persecuting expressed the\nessence of their faith in the doctrine that the gift of the Spirit of\nJesus had made them sons and heirs of God. If the converted Paul in turn\nis uplifted--\"energized,\" as he terms it--even beyond his\nfellow-Christians, by the sense of present inspiration, it is no more\nthan we should expect.\n\n    Footnote 1: _Tarik_, i. e. \"way,\" is still the Arabic term for a\n    sect, and the Rabbinic term for legal requirement is _halacha_, i.\n    e. \"walk.\"\n\nPaul's conversion to the new faith--or at least his persistent\nsatisfaction in it--will be inexplicable unless we appreciate the logic\nof his recognition in it of an inherent opposition to the growing\ndemands of legalism. Jesus had, in truth, led a revolt against mere\nbook-religion. His chief opponents were the scribes, the devotees and\nexponents of a sacred scripture, the Law. \"Law\" and \"Prophets,\" the one\nprescribing the conditions of the expected transcendental Kingdom, the\nother illustrating their application and guaranteeing their promise,\nconstituted the canon of the synagogue. Judaism had become a religion of\nwritten authority. Jesus set over against this a direct relation to the\nliving Father in heaven, ever presently revealed to the filial spirit.\nThe Sermon on the Mount makes the doing of this Father's will something\nquite other than servitude to written precepts interpreted by official\nauthority and imposed under penalty. It is to be self-discipline in the\nFather's spirit of disinterested goodness, as revealed in everyday\nexperience.\n\nEven the reward of this self-discipline, the Kingdom, Jesus did not\nconceive quite as the scribes. To them obedience in this world procured\na \"share in the world to come.\" To Him the reward was more a matter of\nbeing than of getting. The Kingdom was an heir-apparency; and,\ntherefore, present as well as future. It was \"within\" and \"among\" men as\nwell as before them. They should seek to \"be sons and daughters of the\nHighest,\" taking for granted that all other good things would be\n\"added.\" So Jesus made religion live again. It became spiritual, inward,\npersonal, actual.\n\nAfter John the Baptist's ministry to what we should call the\n'unchurched' masses, Jesus took up their cause. He became the \"friend\"\nand champion of the \"little ones,\" the \"publicans and sinners,\" the\nmixed 'people of the land' in populous, half-heathen, Galilee. The\nburdens imposed by the scribes in the name of 'Scripture' were accepted\nwith alacrity by the typical Pharisee unaffected by Pauline misgivings\nof 'moral inability.' To \"fulfil all righteousness\" was to the Pharisee\nuntainted by Hellenism a pride and delight. To the \"lost sheep of\nIsrael\" whom Jesus addressed, remote from temple and synagogue, this\n\"righteousness\" had proved (equally as to Paul, though on very different\ngrounds) \"a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear.\"\nJesus \"had compassion on the multitude.\" To them he \"spoke with\nauthority\"; and yet \"not as the scribes\" but as \"a prophet.\" When\nchallenged by the scribes for his authority he referred to \"the baptism\nof John,\" and asked whether John's commission was \"from heaven, or of\nmen.\" They admitted that John was \"a prophet.\" Those who give utterance\nafter this manner to the simple, sincere conviction of the soul, voicing\nits instinctive aspiration toward \"the things that be of God,\" are\nconscious that they speak not of themselves.\n\nJesus, it is true, was no iconoclast. He took pains to make clear that\nif he superseded what they of old time had taught as righteousness, it\nwas in the interest of a higher, a \"righteousness of God.\" If he\ndisregarded fasts and sabbaths, it was to put substance for form, end\nfor means. \"Judgment, mercy, and good faith\" should count more than\ntithes from \"mint and anise and cummin.\" He echoed what John the Baptist\nhad taught of repentance and forgiveness. Hope should no longer be based\non birth, or prerogative, or ritual form, but on the mercy of a God who\ndemands that we forgive if we would be forgiven. Such had been, however,\nthe message not of John only, but of all the prophets before him: \"I\nwill have mercy, and not sacrifice.\" Jesus taught this higher, inward,\nrighteousness; but not merely as John had done. John had said: Repent,\nfor the wrath of God is at hand. Jesus said: Repent, for the forgiveness\nof God is open. The Father's heart yearns over the wayward sons. Jesus\npreached the nearness of the Kingdom as \"glad tidings to the poor\"; and\namong these \"poor\" were included even aliens who put \"faith\" in the God\nof Abraham.\n\nThe new Way started from the same Scripture as that of the scribes, but\nit tended in an opposite direction. Theirs had been gradually developing\nin definiteness and authority since the time of Ezra; yes, since Josiah\nhad made formal covenant, after the discovery of \"the book of the Law\"\nin the temple, pledging himself and his people to obedience. As with\nmany ancient peoples, the codification of the ancient law had been\nfollowed by its canonization, and as the national life had waned the\nreligious significance of the Law had increased. It was now declared to\nexpress the complete will of God, for an ideal people of God, in a\nrenovated universe, whose centre was to be a new and glorified\nJerusalem. The Exile interrupted for a time the process of formal\ndevelopment; but in the ecclesiastical reconstruction which followed in\nEzra's time \"the book of the Law\" had become all the more supreme; the\nscribe took the place of the civil officer, the synagogue became local\nsanctuary and court-house in one, the nation became a church, Israel\nbecame 'the people of the book.'\n\nLegal requirement calls for the incentive of reward. We need not wonder,\nthen, that the canon of the Law was soon supplemented by that of the\nwritings of the Prophets, historical and hortatory. The former were\nconsidered to interpret the Law by showing its application in practice,\nthe latter were valued for their predictive element. Law and Prophets\nwere supplemented by Psalms, and elements from the later literature\nhaving application to the religious system. The most influential were\nthe \"apocalypses,\" or \"revelations\" of the transcendental Kingdom and of\nthe conditions and mode of its coming. Scripture had thus become an\nembodiment of Israel's religion. It set forth the national law, civil,\ncriminal, or religious; and the national hope, the Kingdom of God. Its\ncustodian and interpreter was the 'scribe,' lawyer and cleric in one.\nThe scribe held \"the key of knowledge\"; to him it was given to 'bind and\nloose,' 'open and shut.' Any preacher who presumed to prescribe a\nrighteousness apart from 'the yoke of the Law,' or to promise\nforgiveness of sins on other authority, must reckon with the scribes. He\nwould be regarded as seeking to 'take the Kingdom by violence.'\n\nJesus' martyrdom was effected through the priests, the temple\nauthorities; but at the instigation of the scribes and Pharisees. His\nadherents were soon after driven out from orthodox Judaism and subjected\nto persecution. This persecution, however, soon found its natural\nleadership, not among the Sadducean temple-priesthood, but among the\ndevotees of the Law. It was \"in the synagogues.\" From having been\nquasi-political it became distinctly religious. This persecution by the\nPharisees is on the whole less surprising than the fact that so many of\nthe Jewish believers should have continued to regard themselves as\nconsistent Pharisees, and even been so regarded by their fellow-Jews. In\nreality Jewish Christians as a rule could see no incompatibility between\naverage synagogue religion and their acceptance of Jesus as the man\nsupernaturally attested in the resurrection as destined to return\nbringing the glory of the Kingdom. Jesus' idea of 'righteousness' did\nnot seem to them irreconcilable with the legalism of the scribes; still\nless had they felt the subtle difference between his promise \"Ye shall\nbe sons and daughters of the Highest\" and the apocalyptic dreams which\nthey shared with their fellow-Jews. Saul the persecutor and Paul the\napostle were more logical. In Gal. ii. 15-21 we have Paul's own\nstatement of the essential issue as it still appeared to his clear mind.\nAverage synagogue religion still left room for a more fatherly relation\nof God to the individual, in spite of the gradual encroachment of the\nlegalistic system of the scribes. Men not sensitive to inconsistency\ncould find room within the synagogue for the 'paternal theism' of Jesus,\neven if this must more and more be placed under the head of\n'uncovenanted mercies.' To Paul, however, the dilemma is absolute. One\nmust trust either to \"law\" or \"grace.\" Partial reliance on the one is to\njust that extent negation of faith in the other. The system of written\nprecept permits no exception, tolerates no divided allegiance. If the\ncanon of written law be the God-given condition of the messianic\npromise, then no man can aspire to share in the hope of Israel who does\nnot submit unreservedly to its yoke. Conversely, faith is not faith if\none seek to supplement it by the merit of \"works of law.\"\n\nFrom this point of view the Jew who seeks forgiveness of sins by baptism\n\"into the name of Jesus\" must be considered an apostate from the Law. He\nacknowledges thereby that he is following another Way, a way of \"grace,\"\na short-cut, as it were, to a share in Israel's messianic inheritance by\nthe \"favour\" of a pretended Messiah. The same Paul who after his\nconversion maintains (Gal. ii. 21) that to seek \"justification\" through\nthe Law makes the grace of God of none effect, must conversely have held\nbefore conversion that to seek it by \"grace\" of Jesus made the Law of\nnone effect. Even at the time of writing the axiom still held: No\nresistance to the yoke of the Law, no persecution (Gal. v. 11).\n\nIt is true, then, that the legalistic system of prescription and reward\nhad developed--could develop--only at the expense of the less\nmechanical, more fatherly, religion of a Hosea or an Isaiah. Even\nscribes had admitted that the law of love was \"much more than all whole\nburnt-offering and sacrifice.\" And the movement of the Baptist and of\nJesus had really been of the nature of a reaction toward this older,\nsimpler faith. The sudden revolt in Paul's own mind against the scribal\nsystem might not have occurred in the mind of a Pharisee unfamiliar with\nGreek ideas. But to some extent Paul's experience of the conflict of\nflesh and spirit, a 'moral inability' to meet the Law's demands _was_ a\ntypical Christian experience, as Paul felt it to be. To him it became\nthe basis of an independent gospel. To him the Cross and the Spirit\nimparted from the risen Messiah were tokens from God that the\ndispensation of Law is ended and a dispensation of Grace and Son ship\nbegun. Without this Pauline gospel _about_ Jesus Christianity could\nnever have become more than a sect of reformed Judaism.\n\nThe teaching and martyrdom of Jesus had thus served to bring out a deep\nand real antithesis. Only, men who had not passed like Paul from the\nextreme of trust in legalism to a corresponding extremity of despair\nmight be pardoned for some insensibility to this inconsistency. We can\nappreciate that James and Peter might honestly hold themselves still\nunder obligation of the written law, even while we admit Paul's logic\nthat any man who had once \"sought to be justified in Christ\" could not\nturn back in any degree to legal observance without being\n\"self-condemned.\"\n\nChristianity may be said to have attained self-consciousness as a new\nreligion in the great argument directed by Paul along the lines of his\nown gospel against Peter and the older apostles. Its victory as a\nuniversal religion of 'grace' over the limitations of Judaism was due to\nthe common doctrine of 'the Spirit.' This was the one point of\nagreement, the one hope of ultimate concord among the contending\nparties. All were agreed that endowment with 'the Spirit' marks the\nChristian. It was in truth the great inheritance from Jesus shared by\nall in common. And Peter and James admitted that to deny that\nuncircumcized Gentiles had received the Spirit was to \"contend against\nGod.\"\n\nAfter Paul's death ecclesiastical development took mostly the road of\nthe synagogue. The sense of the presence and authority of 'the Spirit'\ngrew weaker, the authority of the letter stronger. From the outset even\nthe Pauline churches, in ritual, order, observance, had followed\ninstinctively this pattern. All continued, as a matter of course, to use\nthe synagogue's sacred writings. Paul himself, spite of his protest\nagainst \"the letter,\" could make no headway against his opponents, save\nby argument from 'Scripture.' He had found in it anticipations and\npredictions of his own Christian faith; but by an exegesis often only\nlittle less forced and fantastic than that of the rabbinic schools in\nwhich he had been trained. This was a necessity of the times. The\nreasoning, fallacious as it seems to-day, had appealed to and\nstrengthened Paul's own faith, and was probably effective with others,\neven if the faith really rested on other grounds than the reasoning by\nwhich it was defended. The results of this biblicism were not all\nsalutary. The claims of written authority were loosened rather than\nbroken. Paul himself had found room enough within these defences for the\nreligion of the Spirit; but a generation was coming with less of the\nsense of present inspiration. Dependence on past authority would be\nincreased in this new generation in direct proportion to its sense of\nthe superior 'inspiration' of the generation which had gone before. Paul\nis unhampered by even \"the scriptures of the prophets\" because in his\nview these take all their authority and meaning from \"the Lord, the\nSpirit.\" Hence \"where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.\" Only\nthe remembered \"word of the Lord\" has authority for Paul beyond his own,\neven when he thinks that he also has the Spirit. With that exception\npast revelation is for Paul subordinate to present. But Paul's immediate\ndisciple, the author of Hebrews, is already on a lower plane. This\nwriter looks back to a threefold source of authority: God had spoken in\nformer ages \"by the prophets\" and to the present \"by a Son,\" but he\nlooks also to an apostolic authority higher than his own: The word \"was\nconfirmed unto us by them that heard, God also bearing witness with\nthem, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts\nof the Holy Ghost.\" Similarly the author of the Pastoral Epistles\n(90-100?) holds the \"pattern of sound words\" heard from Paul as a\n\"sacred deposit,\" which is \"guarded,\" rather than revealed, \"by the Holy\nSpirit.\" The \"sound words\" in question are defined to be \"the words of\nour Lord Jesus Christ.\" These, taken together with \"the doctrine which\nis according to godliness,\" fix the standard of orthodoxy. To \"Jude\"\n(100-110?) the faith is something \"once for all delivered to the\nsaints.\" His message is: \"Remember, beloved, the words spoken before by\nthe apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.\" Authority increases, the sense\nof the revealing Spirit decreases.\n\nIt is long before the sense of present inspiration, both in word and\nwork is lost; still longer before the recorded precepts of Jesus, the\nexhortations and directions of apostles, the visions of \"prophets,\" come\nto take their place alongside the Bible of the synagogue as \"writings of\nthe new covenant.\" Melito of Sardis (_c._ 170) is the first to use this\nexpression, and even in his case it does not bear the sense of a canon\nwith definite limits. Tertullian (200-210) is the first to place a\ndefinite \"New Testament\" over against the Old. We must glance at some of\nthe intermediate steps to appreciate this gradual process of\ncanonization.\n\nAt first there is no other 'Scripture' than the synagogue's. Clement of\nRome (95) still uses only the Law and the Prophets (including certain\napocrypha now lost) as his Bible. He refers to the precepts of Jesus\n(quoted as in Acts XX. 35 from oral tradition), with the same sense as\nPaul of their paramount authority, and bids the Corinthians whom he\naddresses give heed to what the blessed Apostle Paul had written to them\n\"in the beginning of the gospel service,\" to warn them against\nfactiousness. Nor has Clement yet lost the sense of direct inspiration;\nfor he attaches to his own epistle, written in behalf of the church at\nRome, the same superhuman authority claimed in Acts XV. 28 for the\nletter sent by the church at Jerusalem. If the Corinthians disregard the\n\"words spoken by God through us\" they will \"incur no slight\ntransgression and danger,\" for these warnings of a sister church are\nuttered in the name and by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Still, Clement\ndoes not dream of comparing his authority, even when he writes as agent\nof the church, with that of \"the oracles of the teaching of God,\" the\n\"sacred Scriptures,\" the \"Scriptures which are true, which were given\nthrough the Holy Ghost, wherein is written nothing unrighteous or\ncounterfeit.\" He does not even rank his own authority with that of \"the\ngood apostles, Peter and Paul.\"\n\nIgnatius, bishop of Antioch, transported to Rome for martyrdom in\n110-117, employs a brief stay among the churches of Asia to exhort them\nto resist the encroachments of heresy by consolidation of church\norganization, discipline, strict obedience to the bishop. Ignatius, too,\nstill feels the afflatus. His message, he declares with emphasis, was\nrevealed to him, together with the occasion for it, directly from\nheaven. It was \"the voice of God and not only of a man\" when he cried\nout among the Philadelphians: \"Give heed to the bishop, and the\npresbytery and deacons.\" Yet Ignatius cannot enjoin the Romans as Peter\nand Paul did. They were \"apostles.\" He is \"a convict.\" His inspiration,\nhowever undoubted, is of a lower order.\n\nHermas, a 'prophet' of the same Roman church as Clement, though a\ngeneration later, is still so conscious of the superhuman character of\nhis \"Visions,\" \"Parables,\" and \"Mandates\" that he gives them out for\ncirculation as inspired messages of the Spirit; and this not for Rome\nalone. Clement, then apparently still living, and \"the one to whom this\nduty is committed,\" is to send them \"to foreign cities.\" In point of\nfact the _Shepherd_ of Hermas long held a place for many churches as\npart of the New Testament canon. Yet less than a generation after\nHermas, the claim to exercise the gift of prophecy in the church was\nlooked upon as dangerous if not heretical.\n\nIn the nature of the case it was really impossible that the original\nsense of endowment with \"the Spirit\" should survive. Not only did the\nrapidly growing reverence for the apostles and the Lord open a chasm\nseparating \"the word of wisdom and the word of power\" given to that age,\nfrom the slighter contemporary claims of miracle and revelation; the\nvery growth and wide dissemination of the gospel message made\nstandardization imperative. Before the middle of the second century\nGnostic schism had swept nearly half the church into the vortex of\nspeculative heresy. Marcion at Rome (_c._ 140) carried Pauline\nanti-legalism to the extreme of an entire rejection of the Old\nTestament. Judaism and all its works and ways were to be repudiated. The\nvery God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was declared other than, and\nignorant of, the \"heavenly Father\" of Jesus. Against such vagaries there\nmust be some historic standard. Even Marcion himself looked to the past,\nhowever recent, as the source of light, and since some written standard\nmust be found, it was he, the heretic, who gave to Christianity its\nfirst canon of Christian writings. The Marcionite churches did away with\nthe public reading of the Law and the Prophets, and could only put in\ntheir place \"Gospel\" and \"Apostle.\" Not that Epistles, Gospels, and even\n'Revelations' were not also in use among the orthodox; but they are not\nyet referred to as 'Scripture.' Even gospels are treated merely as aids\nto the memory in transmitting the teaching of the Lord. This teaching\nitself is but the authoritative interpretation of Law and Prophets, and\nis in turn interpreted by the writings of the apostles.\n\nMarcion's 'Gospel' consisted of our Luke, expurgated according to his\nown ideas. His 'Apostle' contained the Epistles of Paul minus the\nPastoral Epistles and a series of passages cancelled out from the rest\nas Jewish interpolations. This was the first Christian Bible distinct\nfrom 'the Scriptures' of the synagogue.\n\nIndirectly the growth of Gnostic heresy contributed still more to the\nincreasing authority of apostolic and quasi-apostolic writings. One of\nits earliest and most obnoxious forms was called 'Doketism,' from its\nexaggeration of Paulinism into a complete repudiation of the historic\nJesus, whose earthly career was stigmatized as mere 'phantasm'\n(_dokesis_). Doketism is known to us not only through description by\northodox opponents, but by a few writings of its own. It is the type of\nheresy antagonized in the Johannine Epistles (_c._ 100) and in those of\nIgnatius (110-117). Now Ignatius, as we have seen, relied mainly on\nchurch organization and discipline. The Pastoral Epistles (90-100),\nwhile they emphasize also \"the form of healthful words, even the words\nof our Lord Jesus\" take, on the whole, a similar direction. But 1st\nJohn, which relies far less than the Pastoral Epistles or Ignatius on\nmere church organization, is also driven back upon the life and teaching\nof Jesus as the historic standard. It _does_, therefore, make formal\nappeal to the sacred tradition in both its elements, but with a\ndifference characteristic of the Pauline spirit. The redeeming life and\ndeath of Jesus are viewed as a manifestation of \"the life, even the\neternal life (of the Logos) which was with the Father and was manifested\nunto us\" (the historic body of believers). Again Jesus' one \"new\ncommandment,\" the law of love, is the epitome of all righteousness.\n\nIn his doctrine of Scripture as in many other respects the Johannine\nwriter shows a breadth and catholicity of mind which almost anticipates\nthe development of later ages. His task was in fact the adjustment of\nthe developed Pauline gospel to a type of Christianity more nearly akin\nto synagogue tradition. This type had grown up under the name of Peter.\nOn the question of the standard of written authority 'John'[2] leaves\nroom for the freedom of the Spirit so splendidly set forth in the\nteaching and example of Jesus and Paul, while he resists the erratic\nlicence of \"those that would lead you astray.\" The result is a doctrine\nof historic authority in general, and of that of the Scriptures in\nparticular, sharply differentiated from the Jewish, and deserving in\nevery respect to be treated as the basis of the Christian. In a great\nchapter of his Gospel (John v.), wherein Jesus debates with the scribes\nthe question of His own authority, the dialogue closes with a\ndenunciation of them because they search the Scriptures with the idea\nthat in them they have eternal life, that is, they treat them as a code\nof precepts, obedience to which will be thus rewarded. On the contrary,\nsays Jesus, the Scriptures only \"bear witness\" to the life that is\npresent in Himself as the incarnate, eternal, Word; \"but ye will not\ncome unto me that ye might have life.\"\n\n    Footnote 2: In using traditional names and titles such as \"Luke,\"\n    \"John,\" \"Matthew,\" \"James,\" no assumption is made as to\n    authenticity. The designation is employed for convenience\n    irrespective of its critical accuracy or inaccuracy.\n\nIn seeking the life behind the literature as the real revelation, the\nJohannine writer makes the essential distinction between Jewish and\nChristian doctrine. He stands between Paul, whose peculiar view was\nbased on an exceptional personal experience, and the modern\ninvestigator, who can but treat all literary monuments and records of\nreligious movements objectively, as data for the history and psychology\nof religion. If the student be devoutly minded the Scriptures will be to\nhim, too, however conditioned by the idiosyncrasies of temporal\nenvironment and individual character, manifestations of \"the life, even\nthe eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.\"\n\nBut the Johannine writer was far deeper and more 'spiritual'[3] than the\ntrend of his age. Ignatius' friend and contemporary, Polycarp, \"the\nfather of the Christians\" of Asia, in his Epistle to the Philippians\n(110-117) urges avoidance of the false teachers who \"pervert the sayings\nof the Lord to their own lusts, denying the (bodily) resurrection and\njudgment.\" But he has no better remedy than to \"turn (probably in a\nsomewhat mechanical way) to the tradition handed down from the\nbeginning\" and to study \"the Epistles of Paul.\" The former process is in\nfull application in Polycarp's later colleague, Papias of Hierapolis\n(_c._ 145?), who publishes a little volume entitled _Interpretation of\nthe Sayings of the Lord_. It is based on carefully authenticated\ntraditions of the 'apostles and elders,' especially a certain\ncontemporary \"Elder John\" who speaks for the Jerusalem succession.\nAccording to Papias our two Greek Gospels of Matthew and Mark represent\ntwo apostolic sources, the one an Aramaic compilation of the Precepts of\nJesus by Matthew, the other anecdotes of his \"sayings and doings\"\ncollated from the preaching of Peter.\n\n    Footnote 3: The Fourth Gospel is thus characterized by Clement of\n    Alexandria, meaning that it had a deep symbolic sense.\n\nGrateful as we must be for Papias' efforts to authenticate evangelic\ntradition, since they are corroborated in their main results by all\nother ancient tradition as well as by critical study of the documents,\nit is noticeable how they stand in line with the tendencies of the age.\nEusebius (325) characterizes the reign of Trajan (98-117) as a period\nwhen many undertook to disseminate in writing \"the divine Gospels.\" One\nof our own evangelists, whose work must probably be referred to the\nbeginning of this period, but is not mentioned by 'the Elder,' alludes\nto the same phenomenon. The apostles were gone. Hence to Luke[4] the\nquestion of \"order\" was a perplexity, as the Elder observes that it had\nalready been to Mark. Soon after Luke and Papias comes Basilides with\nhis _Exegetics_, probably based on Luke (120?), and Marcion (140), both\nengaged from their own point of view with the current questions of\nJesus' teaching and ministry.\n\n    Footnote 4: See Footnote 3 above.\n\nThus, at the beginning of the second century, the elements necessary to\nthe formation of a New Testament canon were all at hand. They included\nthe tradition of the teaching and work of Jesus, the letters of apostles\nand church leaders revered as given by authority of the Spirit and the\nvisions and revelations of 'prophets.' Not only the elements were\npresent, the irresistible pressure of the times was certain to force\nthem into crystallization. The wonder is not that the canon should have\nbeen formed, but that it should have been delayed so long.\n\nFor there were also resistant factors. Phrygia, the scene of Paul's\nfirst great missionary conquests, the immemorial home of religious\nenthusiasm, became the seat, about the middle of the second century, of\na movement of protest against the church policy of consolidation and\nstandardization. Montanus arose to maintain the persistence in the\nchurch of the gift of prophecy, tracing the succession in both the male\nand female line back to Silas the companion of Paul and the prophesying\ndaughters of Philip the Evangelist. The 'Phrygians,' as they were\ncalled, naturally made much of the writings current in Asia Minor,\nespecially the book of 'prophecy' attributed to 'John.' Theoretically\nindeed the church was unwilling to acknowledge the disappearance of this\ngift. To Hermas (130-140) and the _Teaching of the Twelve_ (120-130) it\nis still a \"sin against the Spirit\" to interrupt or oppose a prophet\nduring his ecstatic utterance. On the other hand, the _Teaching_\nreiterates the apostolic warnings to \"try the spirits,\" with\nprohibitions of specific excesses of the order. Moreover by the time of\nMontanus and the 'Phrygians' theoretical recognition of revelation\nthrough the prophets was rapidly giving way before the practical dangers\ninseparable from 'revelations' of this enthusiastic character, of which\nany member of the church, man or woman, ignorant or learned, lay or\ncleric, might be the recipient. The strict regulative control imposed by\nboth Paul and John[5] upon this type of spiritual gift (1st Thess. v. 20\nf.; 1st Cor. xii. 3; xv. 29 f. 32; _cf._ 1st John iv. 1) was found\nto be doubly necessary in face of the disintegrating tendencies of the\npost-apostolic age, and after long debate and much protest the movement\nof Montanus was at last decreed heretical at Rome, though Irenaeus (186)\ninterceded for it, and Tertullian (210) became a convert.\n\n    Footnote 5: See Footnote 3 above.\n\nThe history of this movement in the formative period of the New\nTestament canon explains why the \"revelations of the prophets\" obtained\nbut scant recognition as compared with the \"word of the Lord\" and the\n\"commandment of the apostles.\" Last of the three, in order of rank (1st\nCor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11), last also to be codified in written form, we\nneed not be surprised that our present New Testament retains but a\nsingle one of the once current books of 'prophecy.' For a time the\n_Shepherd_ of Hermas and the _Apocalypse of Peter_ rivalled the claims\nto canonicity of our own Revelation of John, but were soon dropped. Our\nown Apocalypse has suffered more opposition than any other New Testament\nwriting, being still excluded from the canon in some branches of the\nchurch. Its precarious place at the end of the canon which we moderns\nhave inherited from Athanasius (_ob._ 373) was due, in fact, far less to\nits author's vigorous assertions of authority as an inspired \"prophet\"\n(i. 1-3; xxii. 6-9, 18 f.) than to the claims to apostolicity put\nforward in the preface and appendix. For until the third century no one\ndrammed of understanding the \"John\" of Rev. i. 4, 9 and xxii. 8\notherwise than as the Apostle. Eusebius accordingly (325) is uncertain\nonly as to whether the book should be classed in his first group of\n\"accepted\" writings, along with the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, or in\nthe third as \"spurious.\" If written by \"some other John than the\nApostle\" he would not even honour it with a place in his second group of\n\"disputed\" books, along with Hebrews, James, Jude, and 2nd Peter.\n\nThus at the end of the second century, while there was still much\ndispute (destined indeed to continue for centuries) as to the _limits_\nof the New Testament canon, there had in fact come to be a real\ncanonical New Testament set over against the Old, as of equal, or even\ngreater authority. The \"word of the Lord,\" the \"commandment of the\napostles,\" and at last even the \"revelations of the prophets,\" had\nsuccessively ceased as living realities, and become crystallized into\nwritten form. They had been codified and canonized. The church had\ntravelled the beaten track of the synagogue, and all the more rapidly\nfrom the example set before it. None of the early canons (_i. e._ lists\nof writings permitted to be read in the churches) coincides exactly, it\nis true, with the New Testament current among ourselves. The list of\nAthanasius is the first to give just our books. The Roman list of the\nMuratorian fragment (185-200) omits Hebrews, James and 2nd Peter, and\ngives at least a partial sanction to the _Apocalypse of Peter_. The\nlists of Origen (_ob._ 251) and Eusebius (325) vary as respects both\ninclusion and exclusion. All early authorities express a doubtful\njudgment regarding the outer fringe of minor writings such as James,\nJude, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John. Even those of larger content, such as\nHebrews and Revelation, if their apostolicity was questioned, remained\nsubjects of dispute. But already by A.D. 200 the time had long since\npassed when any of the thirteen epistles bearing the name of Paul could\nbe deemed open to question. Marcion's exclusion of the three Pastorals\nhad been forgotten. Dispute of the four-gospel canon could still be\ntolerated; but not for long. Irenaeus (186) has no patience with \"those\nwretched men\" who cannot see that in the nature of the case there should\nbe neither more nor less than this number. But he explicitly refers to\nthose who disputed \"that aspect of the gospel which is called John's.\"\nThere were, in fact, opponents of Montanism at Rome, who under the lead\nof Gaius had denied the authenticity of all the writings attributed to\nJohn, including the Gospel itself. But even those of the orthodox who\nwere willing enough to reject Revelation, with its now unfashionable\neschatology, agreed that Gaius' attack upon the fourth Gospel was too\nradical. The small body who continued for a few generations to resist\nthe inclusion of any of the Johannine writings in the canon remained\nwithout influence, and were ultimately forgotten. The 'catholic'[6]\nchurch had repudiated heresy, standardized the faith, and confined its\nrecognized historic expression to a 'canon' of New Testament Scripture.\n\n    Footnote 6: Catholic is here used in its etymological sense of\n    \"general\" or universal. We shall have occasion to apply the term in\n    a more limited sense hereafter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE REACTION TO CRITICISM\n\n\nThe consolidated 'catholic' church of the third century might seem, so\nfar as its doctrine of Scripture was concerned, to have retraced its\nsteps to a standpoint corresponding completely to that of the synagogue.\nOnly, the paradox still held that the very writings canonized were those\nsupremely adapted to evoke a spirit of resistance to the despotism of\neither priest or scribe. The Protestant Reformation was a revolt against\nthe former, and it is noticeable how large a part was played by the New\nTestament doctrine of the 'Spirit' in this struggle of spiritual\ndemocracy against hierocratic tyranny. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians\nbecame Luther's Palladium.\n\nBut the post-Reformation dogmatists took fright at their own freedom.\nThe prediction of the Romanists that repudiation of traditional\nauthority in its ecclesiastical embodiment would result in internecine\nschism and conflict seemed on the point of being realized. The\ntheological system-makers, like their predecessors of the post-apostolic\nage, could see no way out but to throw all their weight on a past\ninspiration assumed to be without error. The canonical books were\ndeclared to furnish an infallible rule of faith and practice.\n\nIt was in the sincere desire to meet the requirements of this theory\nthat the science of criticism grew up. In the earlier days it did not\nventure for the most part beyond what is known as 'textual' criticism.\nFor a doctrine of inerrancy is manifestly unserviceable until errors of\ntransmission have been eliminated. Textual criticism set itself to this\ntask, asking the question: As between the various readings found in\ndifferent New Testament manuscripts, which is original? Unfortunately,\nto meet the logical requirement the critic, if not backed like those of\nRome by a papal guarantee, must himself be infallible. The inevitable\nresult of this attempt, begun in the sincerest spirit of apologetics,\nwas to prove that an infallible text is hopelessly unattainable. Textual\ncriticism is indispensable; but as the servant of apologetics it is\nforedoomed to failure.\n\nThe variation of the manuscripts was not the only obstacle to biblical\ninfallibility. To say nothing of differences of interpretation there was\nthe question of the canon. Either the decision of the 'catholic' church\nmust be accepted as infallible, or scholarship must undertake a\n'criticism of the canon' to defend the current list of \"inspired\" books.\nA 'higher' criticism became necessary if only to vindicate the church's\nchoice on historical grounds. Roman Catholics like Simon, whose\n_Critical History_ of the Biblical books appeared in 1689-1695, could\nreopen the question with impunity. Those who based their authority on\nthe infallibility of Scripture alone could not meet the challenge\notherwise than as Michaelis did in his _Introduction to the Divine\nWritings of the New Testament_ (1750-1780). Michaelis undertook a\nhistorical inquiry into the circumstances of origin of each of the\ncanonical books, with the object of proving each to be in reality what\ntradition declared. The twenty-seven commonly accepted were supposed to\nhave been either written by apostles, or at least so super-intended and\nguaranteed by them, as to cover all with the aegis of an infallibility\nnot conceded to the post-apostolic age. Scholarship in the harness of\napologetics again found its task impracticable. Michaelis himself\nconfessed it \"difficult\" to prove authenticity in cases like that of the\nEpistle of Jude. Conceive the task as the scientific vindication of a\nverdict rendered centuries before on unknown grounds, but now deprived\nof official authority, and it becomes inevitably hopeless. Can it be\nexpected that doctors will not disagree on the authenticity or\npseudonymity of 2nd Peter, who always have disagreed on this and similar\nquestions, and have just admitted failure to agree in the matter of\ntext?\n\nFor half a century criticism seemed lost in the slough of mere\ncontroversy over the (assumed) infallible text, and the (assumed)\ninfallible canon. Apologists fought merely on the defensive,\nendeavouring to prove that men whose fallibility was admitted had\nnevertheless pronounced an infallible verdict on the most difficult\nsubjects of literary and historical inquiry. Critics had an easy task in\nshowing that the church's theory of inspiration and canonicity was\nincorrect; but made no progress toward a constructive explanation of the\nreligious, or even the historical, significance of the literature. Real\nprogress was made only when criticism left off the attempt either to\nestablish or disestablish a 'received' text, or an 'authorized' canon,\nand became simply an instrument in the hand of the historian, as he\nseeks to trace to their origins the ideas the church enshrined in her\nliterature because she found them effective in her growth.\n\nFor the great awakening in which New Testament criticism 'found itself'\nas a genuine and indispensable branch of the history of religion, we are\nlargely indebted to the eminent church historian, Ferdinand Christian\nBaur (_ob._ 1860). Baur gathered up the fragmentary results of a\ngeneration of mere negation, a war of independence against the tyranny\nof dogmatic tradition, and sought to place the New Testament writings in\ntheir true setting of primitive church history. His particular views\nhave been superseded. Subsequent study has disproved many of his\ninferences, and brought from friend and foe far-reaching modifications\nto his general theory. But, consciously or not, Baur, in making\ncriticism the hand-maid of history, was working in the interest of that\nconstructive, Christian, doctrine of inspired Scripture which an ancient\nand nameless teacher of the church had described as \"witness\" to the\nLife, \"even the eternal life, which was with the Father,\" and is in man,\nand has been manifested in the origin and historical development of our\nreligion.\n\nThe Reformation had been a revolt against the despotism of the priest;\nthis was a revolt against the despotism of the scribe.\n\nBaur gave scant--too scant--consideration to early tradition, making his\nresults unduly negative. None of the New Testament books are dated; few\nbesides the Pauline Epistles embody even an author's name; and these\nfew, 1st and 2nd Peter, James, Jude and Revelation, were (1st Peter\nalone excepted) just those which even the canon-makers had classified as\ndoubtful, or spurious. Not even a Calvin would support the authenticity\nof 2nd Peter, a Luther had denied the value of James and Revelation. It\nhad been an easy task for 'criticism of the canon' to show that those\nwho determined its content had not been actuated by considerations of\npure science. Those books secured admission which were most widely\ncurrent as ancient and trustworthy, and whose orthodoxy met the\nstandards of the time. Those were disputed, or rejected, which were less\nwidely current, or unorthodox, or could establish no direct relation to\nan apostle. It was proper for the critic, once his aim had become not\napologetic but historical, to drop once for all the question whether the\ncanon-makers' selection--made not for scientific, but for religious\npurposes--is good, bad or indifferent. The time had come for him to\napply the available evidence to his own scientific question: What\nrelation do these several writings bear to the development of\nChristianity? It remained to be seen whether he could offer constructive\nevidence more convincing than tradition.\n\nThe latest date to which an undated, or disputed, writing can be\nassigned is that when the marks of its employment by others, or\ninfluence upon them, become undeniable. This is termed the 'external'\nevidence. The earliest date, conversely, is that to which we are brought\ndown by references in the book itself to antecedent and current events,\nand writings, or by undeniable marks of their influence. This is termed\nthe 'internal' evidence. Counting tradition as part of the external\nevidence, modern scientific criticism is able to fix within a few\ndecades the origin of all the New Testament writings, without incurring\nopposition even from the apologist. No scholar now dreams of adopting\nany other method of proof, whatever his doctrinal proclivities. The\noverwhelming majority are agreed that the period covered, from the\nearliest Pauline Epistles to the latest brief fulminations against\nGnostic Doketism and denial of 'resurrection and judgment,' is included\nin the century from A.D. 50 to 150.\n\nBaur's conception of the course of events in this momentous century has\nbeen described as a theory of historical progress by fusion of opposites\nin a higher unity. The Hegelian scheme of thesis, antithesis and\nsynthesis had in fact some justification in the recognized phenomena of\nthe development of Christianity. It had sprung from Judaism, overcoming\nthe particularism of that still nationalistic faith by the sense of its\nmission to the world at large. The conflict acknowledged in all the\nsources and most vividly reflected in the great Epistles of Paul to the\nGalatians, Corinthians and Romans, a conflict between those who\nconceived Christianity as a universal religion, and those who looked\nupon it as only a reformed, spiritualized and perfected Judaism, was the\ncharacteristic phenomenon of the first or apostolic age. It was the\nstruggle of the infant faith against its swaddling bands. The critical\nhistorian is compelled to estimate all later, anonymous, accounts of\nthis development in the light of the confessedly earlier, and\nindubitably authentic records, the four great Epistles of Paul; for\nthese simply reflect the actual conditions, and are not affected by the\nlater disposition to idealize the story. Thesis and antithesis were\ntherefore really in evidence at the beginnings.\n\nEqual unanimity prevailed as to the close of the period in question. In\nA.D. 150 to 200, Christianity was solidifying into the 'catholic'\nchurch, rejecting extremes of doctrine on both sides, formulating its\n'rule of faith,' determining its canon, centralizing administrative\ncontrol. It had thrown off as heretical upon the extreme left Marcion\nand the Gnostics, who either repudiated the Jewish scriptures\naltogether, or interpreted them with more than Pauline freedom. On the\nextreme right it had renounced the unprogressive Ebionites of Palestine,\nstill unreconciled to Paul, and insistent on submission to the Law for\nJew and Gentile, as the condition of a 'share in the world to come.'\nWhat could be imagined as to the course of events in the intervening\ncentury of obscurity? Must it not have witnessed a progressive\ndivergence of the extremes of Paulinists and Judaizers, coincidently\nwith a rapprochement of the moderates from the side of Peter and that of\nPaul respectively? Baur's outline seemed thus to describe adequately the\nmain course of events. He relied upon internal evidence to determine the\ndates of the disputed writings and their relation to it. But 'criticism\nof the canon' in Baur's own, and in the preceding generation, had come\nto include among the writings of doubtful date and authenticity not only\nthose disputed in antiquity, and the anonymous narrative books, but also\n1st Peter and the minor Epistles of Paul. Nothing strictly apostolic was\nleft save the four great Epistles of Paul.\n\nThe theory of Baur and the Tuebingen school (for so his followers came to\nbe designated) was broadly conceived and ably advocated. In two vital\nrespects it has had permanent influence. (1) Criticism, as already\nnoted, has ceased to be mere debate about text and canon, and concerns\nitself to-day primarily with the history of Christian ideas as embodied\nin its primitive literature. Its problem is to relate the New Testament\nwritings, together with all other cognate material, to the history of\nthe developing religion from its earliest traceable form in the greater\nPauline Epistles to where it emerges into the full light of day toward\nthe close of the second century. (2) Again, Baur's outline of the\nprocess through which the nascent faith attained to full\nself-consciousness as a world-religion required correction rather than\ndisproof. It was a grievous mistake to identify Peter, James, and John\nwith those whom Paul bitterly denounces as Judaizing \"false brethren,\"\n\"super extra apostles,\" \"ministers of Satan.\" It was a perversion of\ninternal evidence to reject as post-Pauline the Epistles of the later\nperiod such as Philippians and Colossians, on the ground that Paul\nhimself did not live to participate in the second crisis, the defence of\nhis doctrine against perversion on the side of mystical, Hellenistic\ntheosophy. The great Epistles written under the name of Paul from the\nperiod of his captivity are innocent of reference to the developed\nGnostic systems of the second century. They antagonize only an incipient\ntendency in this direction.\n\nBut while the transition of A.D. 50-150 was both deeper and more complex\nthan Baur conceived, the transfer of the gospel during that century from\nJewish to Gentile soil is really the great outstanding fact, against\nwhich as a background the literature must be read; and the initial stage\nof the process is marked by the controversy of Paul with the Galilean\napostles. What we must call, in distinction from Paulinism, 'apostolic'\nChristianity is well represented in the Book of Acts. Paul's writings\nshow that he felt himself and his churches to represent an independent\ntype of Christianity in all respects equal to the 'apostolic,' the\nproblem being unification of the two. Now it is axiomatic that the\ninvestigator must proceed from the relatively known and determinable to\nthe unknown and disputable. Accordingly it is in reality from the\nEpistolary literature of the church, in particular the greater Pauline\nEpistles, that he must take his start. As a source for our understanding\nof the development of the life of the church the Literature of the\nApostle, directly participant in the conflicts and issues of the times,\neven if in its later elements of doubtful or pseudonymous authorship,\ntakes precedence as a whole over the Literature of the Catechist, with\nits later and more or less idealized narration, exemplified in the Book\nof Acts.\n\nModern criticism acknowledges, then, its indebtedness to the Tuebingen\nschool for a clearer definition of both its task and method, by\nconcentrating attention upon the contrast between the Petrine and the\nPauline conception of 'the gospel.' Still it must be admitted that most\nof the inferences first drawn have since been overthrown. In their\nchronological scheme of the New Testament writings the Tuebingen critics\nunder-estimated the force of the external evidences (including early\ntradition) and misinterpreted the internal. New discovery and more\ncareful study of literary relations have inverted Baur's views as to\ndates of the Johannine writings. Four of these (the Gospel and three\nEpistles) are anonymous. Baur's date for these has been forced back by\nno less than half a century. The fifth (Revelation) bears the name of\nJohn, but was hotly disputed as pseudonymous in the second century, and\neven by its supporters was dated so late as \"the end of the reign of\nDomitian\" (95). The Tuebingen school placed Revelation thirty years\nearlier, and attributed it to the Apostle. Modern criticism emphatically\nreverts to the ancient date, and regards the book as pseudonymous, or as\nwritten by \"some other John.\"\n\nAgain the relative dates of the Synoptic writings (Matthew, Mark,\nLuke-Acts) were inverted by the Tuebingen critics, primarily through\nwrong application of their theory of doctrinal development; secondarily,\nand as a consequence, through misinterpretation of the intricate\nliterary relationships. Present-day criticism considers it established\nthat Mark is the oldest of the three, taken up by each of the other two.\nThere is almost equal unanimity in regarding the discourse material\ncommon to Matthew and Luke and variously combined by each with Mark, as\nindependently drawn by them from the book of the \"Precepts of the Lord,\"\nreported by Papias to have been compiled by Matthew \"in the Hebrew (_i.\ne._ Aramaic) tongue.\" Tuebingen gospel criticism is thus almost entirely\nset aside, in favour of the so-called 'Two-document' theory.\n\nSo with the Pauline Epistles of the second period. Doubt still clings to\nEphesians. It had been treated by some as pseudo-Pauline even before the\ntime of Baur; but Baur's own followers soon receded from his extreme\napplication of his theory to the internal evidence of Philippians,\nColossians and Philemon. It became evident that Paul's \"gospel\"\nincluded something more than the mere antithesis of Law and Grace. He\nhad other opponents than the Judaizers, and had to defend his doctrine\nagainst perversion by Grecizing mystics as well as against opposition by\nPharisaic legalists.\n\nTwo generations of research and controversy have greatly advanced the\ncause of constructive criticism. Hand in hand with a more accurate\ndating of the literature, secured through more impartial judgment of\nboth the external and internal evidence, there has gone a reconstruction\nof our conception of the course of events. The tendencies in the early\nchurch were not two only, but four; corresponding, perhaps, to those\nrebuked by Paul at Corinth, which called themselves by the names\nrespectively of Peter, of Paul, of Apollos and of Christ. It seems\nprobable from the bitterness with which in 2nd Cor. x. 7 Paul denounces\nthe man who says, \"I am of Christ,\" that this party-cry was employed in\nthe sense of following the example of Jesus as respects obedience to the\nLaw (for even Paul acknowledged that Christ had been \"made a minister of\nthe circumcision for the truth of God\"). If so, the Corinthian\n\"Christ-party\" may be identified with those \"ministers of the\ncircumcision\" who denied both the apostleship and the gospel of Paul. At\nall events those \"of Cephas\" were relatively harmless. They may be\nidentified with the so-called 'weak' of Romans, for whose scruples on\nthe score of 'pollutions of idols' Paul demands such consideration both\nat Corinth and at Rome. His own adherents both at Corinth (those 'of\nPaul') and at Rome (the 'strong') are to follow his example not merely\nin recognizing that: \"No idol is anything in the world,\" that \"there is\nnothing unclean of itself,\" and that \"all things are lawful.\" It is to\nbe followed also in recognizing the limitations of this liberty. Limits\nare imposed among other things by the scruples of others, so that Paul\nhimself becomes \"as under the Law\" when among Jews, though \"as without\nthe Law\" among the Gentiles. The \"weak\" are to be resisted only when the\nadmission of themselves or their claims would lead to \"doubtful\ndisputations,\" or to a rebuilding of walls of separation that had been\ntorn down through faith in Christ. Galatians sounds the battle-cry of\nendangered liberty. Corinthians (and Romans in still higher degree)\nshows the magnanimity of the victor.\n\nWhether it be possible to identify those \"of Apollos\" at Corinth with\nthe beginnings of that Hellenistic perversion of the Pauline gospel into\na mystical theosophy which afterwards passed into Gnosticism may be left\nan open question. At least we have come to see that the conditions of\nthe church's growth were far more complex than Baur imagined. In\nparticular it is necessary to distinguish four different attitudes on\nthe single question of the obligation of the Law. There were (1)\nJudaizers who insisted on complete submission to the Law as the\ncondition of salvation, for both Jews and Gentiles; (2) imitators of\nCephas, who considered believers of Jewish birth to be \"under the Law,\"\nbut asked of Gentiles only such consideration for it as the special\nconditions seemed to require; (3) Paulinists, who held that neither Jews\nnor Gentiles are under the law, yet felt that consideration should be\nshown for the scrupulous when asked not as of right, but as of charity;\n(4) radicals, who recognized no limits to their freedom save the one new\ncommandment.\n\nBut while conflict first broke out over the mere concrete question of\nGentile liberty, the real distinction of Paul's gospel from that of the\nolder apostles was far deeper. The question as Tuebingen critics\nconceived it concerned primarily the _extent_ of the gospel message,--to\nhow large a circle was it offered? Modern criticism has come to see that\nthe difference was in higher degree a difference of _quality_. Paul's\nwhole message of redemption through the cross and resurrection started\nfrom other premises than those of the Galilean apostles, and was\nconceived in other terms. For this reason it leads over to a new\nChristology. In short, the transition of Christianity from its Jewish to\nits Gentile form is not a mere enlargement of its field by the abolition\nof particularistic barriers. The background we must study for the\nunderstanding of it is not so much mere contemporary history as the\ncontemporary history _of religion_. The development from the Petrine\ngospel broadly characteristic of the Synoptic writings, through the\nPauline Epistles to that of the Johannine writings, is a transition from\nHebrew to Hellenistic conceptions of what redemption is, and how it is\neffected. Modern criticism expresses the contrast in its distinction of\nthe gospel _of_ Jesus from the gospel _about_ Jesus.\n\nIn the case of both Paul and his predecessors in the faith there is a\ncommon starting-point. It was the doctrine that God had raised Jesus\nfrom the dead and exalted Him as Christ and Lord to the throne of glory.\nIts proofs were the ecstatic phenomena of the Spirit, those strange\nmanifestations of 'prophecy,' 'tongues,' and the like in the Christian\nassembly. The inference from this resurrection faith for an apostle of\nthe Galilean group was that he must \"teach all men everywhere to observe\nall things whatsoever Jesus had commanded.\" Jesus had been raised up in\nIsrael as the Prophet like unto Moses; His apostle must repeat the\nremembered word of commandment and the word of promise. He will have an\nauthority derived from the manifestations of signs and wonders. These\nhad accompanied Jesus' own career, and now, by grace of His endowment of\nHis disciples with the Spirit, they will be repeated by their hands.\nThe 'apostolic' gospel is thus primarily historical. The Pauline gospel\ncentres at the other pole of religious conviction. It is primarily\npsychological. For Paul the immediate effect of the revelation of God's\nSon \"in\" him is an irresistible impulse to relate his own soul's\nexperience. The gospel he preaches is not so much what Jesus did or said\nwhile on earth, as what God has done, and is still doing, through the\n\"life-giving Spirit\" which emanates from the risen Lord. Signs and\nwonders are tokens of the Spirit, but are of less value, and must vanish\nbefore the \"abiding\" ethical gifts. Both the Pauline and the Petrine\ngospel start from the common confession of \"Jesus as Lord\"; but the\nChristology of the Synoptic literature is an Apotheosis doctrine,\nfalling back on the historical Jesus. That of the Epistles is a doctrine\nof Incarnation, appealing to the eternal manifestation of God in man.\nFor the former, Jesus was \"a prophet mighty in deed and word,\" raised up\nby God in accordance with the promise of Deut. xviii. 18, to turn Israel\nto repentance. Having fulfilled this mission in rejection and martyrdom\nJesus had been exalted to God's \"right hand\" and \"made both Lord and\nChrist.\" He there awaits the subjection of all His enemies. In the\nPauline gospel the story of Jesus is a drama of the supernal regions,\nwherein His earthly career as prophet, leader, teacher, sinks to the\nlevel of the merest episode. As pre-existent spirit, Jesus had been\nfrom the beginning of the creation \"in the form of God.\" As the period\nof its consummation drew near He took upon Him human form, descended\nthrough suffering and death to the lowest depths of the underworld, and\nby divine power had reascended above all the heavens with their ranks of\nangelic hierarchies. Whether Paul himself so conceived it or not, the\nGentile world had no other moulds of thought wherein to formulate such a\nChristology than the current myths of Redeemer-gods. The value of the\nindividual _soul_ had at last been discovered, and men resorted to the\nancient personifications of the forces of nature as deliverers of this\nnew-found _soul_ from its weakness and mortality. The influential\nreligions of the time were those of personal redemption by mystic union\nwith a dying and resurrected \"Saviour-god,\" an Osiris, an Adonis, an\nAttis, a Mithra. Religions of this type were everywhere displacing the\nold national faiths. The Gentile could not think of \"the Christ\"\nprimarily as a Son of David who restores the kingdom to Israel, shatters\nthe Gentiles like a potter's vessel and rules them with a rod of iron.\nIf he employed this Old Testament language at all, it had for him a\npurely symbolical sense. The whole conception was spiritualized. The\n\"enemies\" overcome were the spiritual foes of humanity, sin and death;\n\"redemption\" was not the deliverance of Israel out of the hand of all\ntheir enemies, that (together with all afar off that call upon the name\nof this merciful God) they may \"serve Him in holiness and righteousness\nall their days.\" It was the rescue of the sons of Adam out of the\nbondage to evil Powers incurred through inheritance of Adam's sinful\nflesh. This had been the tendency already of Jewish apocalypse. The\nstarting-point of Paul's own conceptions was not Israel's bondage in\nEgypt, but a conception already tinged, like the late book of Jewish\nphilosophy called the Wisdom of Solomon, with the Stoic conception of\n'flesh' as prison-house of 'spirit,' already inflamed, like the\ncontemporary Jewish apocalypses of Esdras and Baruch, with lurid visions\nof a universe rescued by superhuman power from a thraldom of demonic\nrule. Paul's preaching was made real by his own experience. For if ever\nthere was an evangelist whose message was his own experience, Paul was\nsuch. And Paul's experience was not so much that of a Palestinian Jew,\nas that of a Hellenist, one whose whole idea of 'redemption' has been\nunconsciously universalized, individualized, and spiritualized, by\ncontact with Greek and Hellenistic thought. Paul and the Galilean\napostles were not far apart in their expectations of the future. Both\nstood gazing up into heaven. But for his authority Paul inevitably\nlooked inwards, the Galilean apostles looked backwards.\n\nIt is hopeless at the present stage of acquaintance with the history of\nreligion, particularly the spread of the various 'mysteries' and\nreligions of personal redemption in the early empire, to deny this\ncontrast between the gospel of Paul and the gospel of \"the apostles and\nelders at Jerusalem.\" It is shortsighted to overlook its significance in\nthe transition of the faith. Whereas the Jewish-Christian had as its\nprincipal background the national history, more or less\ntranscendentalized in the forms of apocalypse, Paul's had as its\nprincipal background the speculative mythology of the Hellenistic world,\nmore or less adapted to the forms of Judaism. Only ignorance of the\nfunction of mythology, especially as then employed to express the\naspiration of the soul for purity, life and fellowship with God, can\nmake these mythologically framed religious ideas seem an inappropriate\nvehicle to convey Paul's sense of the significance of Jesus' message and\nlife of \"Son ship.\" They were at least the best expression those times\nand that environment could afford of the greater Kingdom God had\nproclaimed in the resurrection of the Christ, and was bringing to pass\nthrough the outpouring of His Spirit.\n\nModern criticism must therefore recognize that the beginnings of our\nreligion were not a mere enlargement of Judaism by abolition of the\nbarriers of the Law, but a fusion of the two great streams of religious\nthought distinctive of the Jewish and the Hellenistic world in a higher\nunity. Alexander's hoped-for \"marriage of Europe and Asia\" was\nconsummated at last in the field of religion itself. Denationalized\nJudaism contributed the social ideal: the messianic hope of a world-wide\nKingdom of God. It is the worthy contribution of a highly ethical\nnational religion. Hellenism contributed the individual ideal: personal\nredemption in mystic union with the life of God. It is a concept derived\nfrom the Greek's newly-awakened consciousness of a personality agonizing\nfor deliverance out of the bondage of the material and transitory, alien\nand degrading to its proper life. The critic who has become a historian\nof ideas will find his study of the literature of the apostolic and\npost-apostolic age here widening out into a prospect of unsuspected\nlargeness and significance. He will see as the two great divisions of\nhis subject, (1) the gospel _of_ Jesus, represented, as we are told, in\nthe first beginnings of literary development by an Aramaic compilation\nof the Precepts of the Lord by the Apostle Matthew, circulating possibly\neven before the great Pauline Epistles among the Palestinian churches;\n(2) the gospel _about_ Jesus, represented in the Pauline Epistles, and\nthese based on their author's personal experience. It is a gospel of\nGod's action \"in Christ, reconciling the world.\" It interprets the\npersonality of Jesus and his experience of the cross and resurrection\nas manifestations of the divine idea. The interpretation employs\nHellenistically coloured forms of thought, and is forced to vindicate\nitself first against subjection to legalism, afterwards against\nperversion into an unethical, superstitious theosophy. But surely the\ndoctrine _about_ Jesus, interpreting the significance of His person and\nwork as the culmination of redemption through the indwelling of God in\nmen and among men belongs as much to the essence of Christianity as the\ngospel of love and faith proclaimed _by_ Jesus.\n\nBesides these two principal types of gospel and their subordinate\ncombinations the critical historian may see ultimately emerging a type\nof 'spiritual' gospel, growing upon Gentile soil, in fact, receiving its\nfirst literary expression in the early years of the second century at\nthe very headquarters of the Pauline mission-field. This third type aims\nto be comprehensive of the other two. It is essentially a gospel about\nJesus, though it takes the form for its main literary expression of a\ngospel preached by Jesus. The fourth evangelist is the true successor of\nPaul, though the conditions of the age compel him to go beyond the\nliterary form of the Epistle and to construct a Gospel wherein both\nfactors of the sacred tradition shall appear, the words and works, the\nPrecepts and the Saving Ministry of Jesus. But it is in no mechanical or\nslavish sense that the fourth evangelist appeals to this supreme\nauthority. He lifts the whole message above the level of mere baptized\nlegalism, even while he guards it against the unbridled licence of\nGnostic theosophy, applying to this purpose his doctrine of the\nIncarnate Logos. His basis is psychology as well as history. It is the\nLife which is the light of men, that life whose source is God, and which\npermeates and redeems His creation; even \"the eternal Life which was\nwith the Father and was manifested to us.\"\n\nIn the critical grouping of our New Testament writings the Gospel and\nEpistles of John can occupy, then, no lesser place than that of the\nkeystone of the arch.\n\nTo sum up: the Literature of the Apostle owed its early development and\nlong continuance among the Pauline churches of Asia Minor and Greece, to\nthe impetus and example of Paul's apostolic authority. The Literature of\nthe Teacher and Prophet, growing up around Jerusalem and its daughter\nchurches at Antioch and Rome, came slowly to surpass in influence the\n\"commandment of the apostles,\" as the church became more and more\nexclusively dependent upon it for the \"teaching of the Lord.\" It was the\nfunction of the great \"theologian\" of Ephesus (as he came early to be\ncalled), linking the authority of both, to furnish the fundamental basis\nfor the catholic faith.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\nTHE LITERATURE OF THE APOSTLE\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE\n\n\nMost vital of all passages for historical appreciation of the great\nperiod of Paul's missionary activity and its literature is the\nretrospect over his career as apostle to the Gentiles and defender of a\ngospel \"without the yoke of the Law\" in Gal. i.-ii. Especially must the\ncontrast be observed between this and the very different account in Acts\nix.-xvi.\n\nGalatians aims to counteract the encroachments of certain Judaizing\ninterlopers upon Paul's field, and seems to have been written from\nCorinth, shortly after his arrival there (_c._ 50) on the Second\nMissionary Journey (Acts xv. 36--xviii. 22). We take \"the churches of\nGalatia\" to be those founded by Paul in company with Barnabas on the\nFirst Missionary Journey (Acts xiii.-xiv.), and revisited with Silas\nafter a division of the recently evangelized territory whereby Cyprus\nhad been left to Barnabas and Mark (Acts xv. 36--xvi. 5; _cf._ Gal. iv.\n13).\n\nThe retrospect is in two parts: (1) a proof of the divine origin of\nPaul's apostleship and gospel by the independence of his conversion and\nmissionary career; (2) an account of his defence of his \"gospel of\nuncircumcision\" on the two occasions when it had been threatened.\nVisiting Jerusalem for the second time some fifteen years[7] after his\nconversion, he secured from its \"pillars,\" James, Peter, and John, an\nunqualified, though \"private,\" endorsement. At Antioch subsequently he\novercame renewed opposition by public exposure of the inconsistency of\nPeter, who had been won over by the reactionaries.\n\n    Footnote 7: Or perhaps thirteen. Gal. ii. 1 may reckon from the\n    conversion (31-33). In both periods (Gal. i. 18, and ii. 1) both\n    termini are counted.\n\nActs reverses Paul's point of view, making his career in the period of\nunobstructed evangelization one of labour for Jews alone, in complete\ndependence on the Twelve. It practically excludes the period of\nopposition by a determination of the Gentile status in an 'Apostolic\nCouncil.' Paul is represented as simply acquiescing in this decision.\n\nAs described by Paul, the whole earlier period of fifteen years had been\noccupied by missionary effort for _Gentiles_, first at Damascus,\nafterwards \"in the regions of Syria and Cilicia.\" It was interrupted\nonly by a journey \"to Arabia,\" and later, three years after his\nconversion, by a two-weeks' private visit to Peter in Jerusalem. In this\nperiod must fall most of the journeys and adventures of 2nd Cor. xi.\n23-33. It was practically without contact with Judaea. His \"gospel\" was\nwhat God alone had taught him through an inward manifestation of the\nrisen Jesus.\n\nAs described by Luke[8] the whole period was spent in the evangelization\nof Greek-speaking _Jews_, principally at Jerusalem. This was Paul's\nchosen field, worked under direction of \"the apostles.\" Only against his\nwill[9] was he driven for refuge to Tarsus, whence Barnabas, who had\nfirst introduced him to the apostles, brought him to Antioch. There was\nno Gentile mission until Barnabas and he were by that church made its\n'apostles.' This mission was on express direction of \"the Spirit\" (Acts\nix. 19-30; xi. 25 f.; xiii. 1-3; _cf._ xxii. 10-21). Paul's\napostleship to the Gentiles begins, then, according to Luke, with the\nFirst Missionary Journey, when in company with (and at first in\nsubordination to) Barnabas he evangelizes Cyprus and southern Galatia.\nThe two are agents of Antioch, with \"letters of commendation\" from \"the\napostles and elders in Jerusalem\" (Acts xv. 23-26). Paul is not an\napostle of Christ in the same sense as the Twelve (_cf._ Acts i. 21\nf.). He is a providential \"vessel of the Spirit,\" ordained \"by men and\nthrough men.\" His gospel is Peter's unaltered (_cf._ Acts xxvi. 16-23).\n\n    Footnote 8: We apply the name to the writer of Luke-Acts without\n    prejudice to the question of authorship.\n\n    Footnote 9: Acts xxii. 10-21 is not quite consistent with xxvi.\n    15-18; but the general sense is clear.\n\nThere is even wider disparity regarding the period of opposition. Luke\nslightly postpones its beginning and very greatly antedates its\nsuppression. Moreover, he makes Paul accept a solution which his letters\nemphatically repudiate.\n\nAccording to Acts there was no opposition before the First Missionary\nJourney, for the excellent reason that there had been no Gentile\npropaganda.[10] There was no opposition after the Council called to\nconsider it (Acts xv.), for the conclusive reason that \"the apostles and\nelders\" left nothing to dispute about. As soon as the objections were\nraised the church in Antioch laid the question before these authorities,\nsending Paul and Barnabas to testify. On their witness to the grace of\nGod among the Gentiles, Peter (explicitly claiming for himself (!) this\nspecial apostleship, Acts xv. 7) proposes unconditional acknowledgment\nof Gentile liberty, referring to the precedent of Cornelius. In this\nthere was general acquiescence. In fact the matter had really been\ndecided before (Acts xi. 1-18). The only wholly new point was that\nraised by James in behalf of \"the Jews among the Gentiles\" (Acts xv. 21;\n_cf._ xxi. 21). For their sake it is held \"necessary\" to limit Gentile\nfreedom on four points. They must abstain from three prohibited meats,\nand from fornication, for these convey the \"pollution of idols.\" The\n\"necessity\" lies in the fact that _liberty from the Law is not conceded\nto Jews_. They will be (involuntarily) defiled if they eat with their\nGentile brethren unprotected. \"Fornication\" is added because (in the\nwords of an ancient Jewish Christian) it \"differs from all other sins in\nthat it defiles not only the sinner, but those also _who eat or\nassociate with him_.\" Paul and Barnabas, according to Luke, gladly\naccepted these \"decrees,\" and Paul distributed them \"for to keep\" among\nhis converts in Galatia (!). _Peter_ is the apostle to the Gentiles.\nAntioch and Jerusalem decide the question of their status. The terms of\nfellowship are those of _James_ and Peter.\n\n    Footnote 10: Cornelius' case (Acts x.-xi. 18) is exceptional, and no\n    propaganda follows. The reading \"Greeks\" in Acts xi. 20, though\n    required by the sense and therefore adopted by the English\n    translators, is not supported by the textual evidence. Luke has here\n    corrected his source to suit his theory, just as in x. 1--xi. 18 he\n    passes by the true significance of the story, which really deals\n    with the question of _eating_ with Gentiles (xi. 3, 7 f.).\n\nPaul has no mention of either Council or 'decrees.' His terms of\nfellowship positively exclude both. He falls back upon the private\nConference, and lays bare a story of agonizing struggle to make\neffective its recognition of the equality and independence of Gentile\nChristianity. The struggle is a result of his resistance to emissaries\n\"from James\" at Antioch, who had brought over all the Jewish element in\nthat mixed church, including Peter and \"even Barnabas\" to terms of\nfellowship acceptable to the Pillars. After the collision at Antioch\nPaul leaves the \"regions of Syria and Cilicia,\" and transfers the scene\nof his missionary efforts to the Greek world between the Taurus range\nand the Adriatic. For the next ten years we see him on the one side\nconducting an independent mission, proclaiming the doctrine of the Cross\nas inaugurating a new era, wherein law has been done away, and Jew and\nGentile have \"access in one Spirit unto the Father.\" On the other he is\ndefending this gospel of 'grace' against unscrupulous Jewish-Christian\ntraducers, and labouring to reconcile differences between his own\nfollowers and those of 'the circumcision' who are not actively hostile,\nbut only have taken 'offence.' Throughout the period, until the arrest\nin Jerusalem which ends his career as an evangelist, Paul stands alone\nas champion of unrestricted Gentile liberty and equality. He cannot\nadmit terms of fellowship which imply a continuance of the legal\ndispensation. Jewish Christians may keep circumcision and the customs if\nthey wish; but may not hold or recommend them as conferring the\nslightest advantage in God's sight. He will not admit the doctrine of\nsalvation by faith _with_ works of law. Jew as well as Gentile must have\n\"died to the Law.\" There is no \"justification\" except \"by faith _apart_\nfrom works of law.\"[11]\n\n    Footnote 11: The assertion has recently been made in very high\n    quarters on the basis of 1st Cor. vii. 18 that Paul also took the\n    \"apostolic\" view that the Christian of Jewish birth remains under\n    obligation to keep the law. One would think Paul had not added verse\n    19!\n\nUnless we distinctly apprehend the deep difference, almost casually\nbrought out by this question of the (converted) Jew among Gentiles and\nhis obligation to eat with his Gentile brother, a difference between\n'apostolic' Christianity as Luke gives it, and the 'gospel' of Paul, we\ncan have no adequate appreciation of the great Epistles produced during\nthis period of conflict. The basis of Luke's pleasing picture of peace\nand concord is a fundamentally different conception of the relation of\nLaw and Grace. Paul and Luke both hold that the Mosaic commandments are\nnot binding on _Gentiles_. The point of difference--and Paul's own\naccount of his Conference with the Pillars goes to show that Luke's idea\nis also theirs; else why need there be a division of 'spheres of\ninfluence'?--is Paul's doctrine that the believing Jew _as well as the\nGentile_ is \"dead to the Law.\" And this doctrine was never accepted\nsouth of the Taurus range.\n\nAgreement and union were sure to come, if only by the rapid\ndisappearance from the church after 70 A.D. of the element of the\ncircumcised, and the progressive realization in 'Syria and Cilicia' of\nthe impracticability of the Jerusalem-Antioch plan of requiring Gentiles\nto make their tables innocuous to the legalist. If only the\nparticipation of Paul and Barnabas be excluded from the story of Acts\nxv. (or better, restored to its proper sequence after Acts xi. 30) we\nhave every reason to accept Luke's account of an Apostolic Council held\nat Jerusalem not long after \"Peter came to Antioch\" to settle between\nthe churches of northern and southern Syria the knotty question of the\nChristian Jew's eating or not eating with Gentiles. It is almost certain\nthat Syria did adopt this modus vivendi for \"the brethren which are of\nthe Gentiles _in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia_\" (Acts xv. 23); for we can\ntrace its gradual obsolescence there. In Revelation (a book of\nPalestinian origin republished at Ephesus _c._ 95; _cf._ Rev. ii. 14,\n20, 24) in the _Teaching of the Twelve_ (125), and in the 'Western' text\nof Acts xv. (150?) there is a progressive scaling down of the 'burden.'\nGentiles are at last asked to do almost nothing more than Paul had\ndemanded on moral grounds without recognition of the validity of\n\"distinctions of meats.\" In A.D. 120 the 'burden' is: \"Concerning meats,\nkeep what thou art able; however, abstain at all events from things\noffered to idols, for it is the food of dead gods.\"\n\nBut to take Luke's account of how peace was restored, with its\nimplication that the Pauline gospel as developed in Greek Christendom\nbetween the Taurus range and the Adriatic was nothing more than a branch\nfrom the parent stock of the 'apostolic' church in \"Syria and Cilicia,\"\nwould be like viewing the history of the United States from the\nstandpoint of a British imperialist of a period of Anglo-Saxon reunion\nin A.D. 2000, who should omit entirely the American War of Independence,\nholding that Washington and Franklin after bearing testimony before\nParliament accepted for the colonies a plan of settlement prepared by a\nLiberal Government which reduced to a minimum the obnoxious requirements\nof the Tories.\n\nThe history of this period of the development of the independent\n'gospel' of Paul and of his independent churches is so vital, and so\nconfused by generations of well-meaning 'harmonizers,' that we must take\ntime to contrast once more Luke's theory of the process of reunion with\nPaul's.\n\n_In Acts Paul takes precisely the view of Peter and James._ He is\nhimself 'under the Law.' He does _not_ disregard it even among Gentiles.\nOn the contrary, he sets an example of scrupulous legality to the Jews\namong the Gentiles, himself 'walking orderly, keeping the Law.' The\nstatement that he \"teaches them to forsake Moses, telling them not to\ncircumcise their children, nor to obey the customs\" is a calumny (!)\nwhich he takes public occasion to disprove (Acts xxi. 20-26). Before the\nSanhedrin he emphatically declares himself a consistent Pharisee (Acts\nxxiii. 1, 6); before Felix and Festus, blameless by the standard of Law\nand Prophets (xxiv. 14-16; xxv. 8); before Agrippa, a strict Pharisee in\nhis conduct hitherto (xxvi. 5, 22 f.). Titus, whose circumcision Paul\nstrenuously resisted, is never mentioned in Acts. Conversely Timothy (a\nJew only on his mother's side) Paul \"took and circumcised\" immediately\nafter the Jerusalem Council \"because of the Jews that were in those\nparts\" (Galatia!). His visit with Barnabas to Jerusalem is not\noccasioned by opposition to Gentile missions, though it falls between\nBarnabas' mission from Jerusalem to investigate the alarming reports of\nGentile conversions at Antioch, and the First Missionary Journey on\nwhich the two take with them Mark, who had accompanied them from\nJerusalem. No; according to Luke Gentile missions did not yet\nexist[12](!). This visit (that of the Conference, Gal. ii. 1-10) was\nmerely to convey a gift from the Antioch church to that of Jerusalem\nbecause of the famine \"about that time\" (it occurred in 46-47).\nConversely the great 'offering of the Gentiles' made at the risk of\nPaul's life in company with delegates from each province of his field,\nas a proffer of peace, the enterprise which occupies so large a place in\nhis effort and his letters of this period (1st Cor. xvi. 1-6; 2nd Cor.\n8-9; Rom. xv. 15, 16, 25-32), has in Acts no relation to the\ncontroversy--for the demonstration of Paul's exemplary legalism in the\ntemple is merely incidental. The gift Paul brought was \"alms to my\nnation\" (!) (Acts xxiv. 17). The reader asks in vain what necessitates\nthis dangerous journey. The only motives assigned are a Nazarite vow\nassumed in Cenchreae (xviii. 18; xxi. 24), and regard for the Jewish\nfeasts (xx. 16).\n\n    Footnote 12: On the reading \"Greeks\" in Acts xi. 20 see Footnote 10\n    above., p. 59.\n\nThe background of history against which the modern reader must place the\ngreat letters of Paul of the first period, is manifestly something quite\ndifferent from the mere unsifted story of Acts. Their real origin is in\na profound difference in Paul's idea of 'the gospel' and the necessity\nof defending the independence of it and of the Gentile churches founded\non it. The difference originates in Paul's own religious experience. It\nfound its first expression in his antithesis of Law and Grace, his\ndoctrine that the cross marks the abolition of the economy of Law.\n\nBoth in Galatians and everywhere else Paul treats on equal terms with\nthe representatives of the \"apostleship of the circumcision.\" He\ndenounces Peter and \"the rest of the Jews,\" including \"even Barnabas,\"\nat Antioch, after they have withdrawn from Gentile fellowship in order\nto preserve their legal 'cleanness,' and the point of the denunciation\nis that this is inconsistent with _their_ (implied) abandonment of the\nLaw as a means of salvation when they \"sought to be justified by faith\nin Christ.\" This makes their conduct not only inconsistent but cowardly\nand \"hypocritical.\"\n\nHere is something far deeper than a mere question of policy. Paul's\nattitude shows that from the beginning he has really been preaching \"a\ndifferent gospel.\" A gospel _about_ Christ in which the central fact is\nthe cross as the token of the abolition of a dispensation of Law wherein\nJew and Gentile alike were in a servile relation to God, under angelic\n(or demonic) \"stewards and governors,\" and the inauguration of a\ndispensation of Grace, wherein all who have 'faith' and receive in\nbaptism the gift of 'the Spirit,' are thereby adopted to be God's sons.\nBeside this cosmic drama of the cross and resurrection wherein God\nreveals his redemptive purpose for the world, the mere inculcation of\nthe easy yoke of Jesus as a new Law, simplifying and supplementing the\nold by restoring the doctrine of forgiveness for the repentant believer\n(_cf._ Matt. xxviii. 20; Acts x. 42 f.; xiii. 39; xxvi. 22 f.) seems\nonly half a gospel.\n\nPaul can never surrender the independence of his God-given message, nor\nthe liberty wherewith Christ has made all believers free in abolishing\nthe economy of law and making them \"sons\" by the Spirit. And yet he is\neven more determined to achieve peace and reunion than the apostles 'of\nthe circumcision'; only he has a different plan. Paul and his churches\nfall back upon the Jerusalem Conference, not upon the 'Apostolic\nCouncil.' The Conference is their Magna Carta. Its recognition of\nPaul's independent gospel and apostleship as no less divine than Peter's\nis their guarantee of liberty and equality; its request for brotherly\naid is their promise of fraternity.\n\nApproaches were made on both sides. It is true the ill-advised attempt\nof the Judaizers to secure unity by a renewal of their propaganda of the\nLaw, seducing the Greek churches from their loyalty to Paul and his\ngospel, provoked from him only such thunderbolts as Galatians, with its\ndefence of \"the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,\" or 2nd Cor.\nx. 1 to xiii. 10, with its denunciation of the \"ministers of Satan.\"\nPeace through surrender was not to Paul's mind. But the sincere attempt\nof the followers of Peter to find a _modus vivendi_, even if they did\nnot venture to claim liberty from the Law for themselves, found Paul\nprepared to go more than half-way. His epistles are not more remarkable\nfor their strenuous defence of the liberty of Son ship, than for their\ninsistence on the obligation of brotherly love. His churches must be not\nonly morally pure for their own sakes, but must avoid offences to the\nmore scrupulous. Even that which Christian liberty allows must be\nsacrificed to the scruples of the 'weak,' if only it be not \"unto\ndoubtful disputations,\" or demanded as of right. From 1st Thessalonians\n(Corinth, A.D. 50), where, in the absence of all Judaizing opposition\nPaul merely exhibits his simple gospel of the resurrection and judgment\nto come, unaffected by questions of Law and Grace, on through Galatians\nwith its sublime polemic for the liberty of sons, to the Corinthian\ncorrespondence, with its insistence on the duty of consideration and\nforbearance, its stronger note of love, its revelation of the\nwidespread, strenuous exertions of Paul to promote his great 'offering,'\ndown to Romans, where the 'offering of the Gentiles' is ready to be made\n(Rom. xv. 16-33), and Paul is sedulously preparing to enter a great new\nfield already partially occupied, by presenting a full and superlatively\nconciliatory statement of his entire 'gospel' (i. 15-17), there is\nsteady progress toward the \"peace\" and \"acceptance\" which he hopes to\nfind in Jerusalem. The later Epistles, with their different phase of\nconflict, the very attitude of 'apostolic' Christianity toward Paul, as\nexhibited in Acts, make it incredible that substantial unity was not in\nfact secured.[13] We cannot, indeed, accept Luke's representation of\nPaul as performing the Nazarite ceremonial in the temple in order to\nprove _that he does not teach that the Law is not binding on Jews_. But\nit does not follow that Paul may not have done even this to prove that\nhis principle of accommodation to the weak (1st Cor. ix. 19-22) left\nample room for fellowship with the Jewish Christian--except when (as\nwith Peter and Barnabas at Antioch) the needless scruples of the\nlegalist were made a pretext for \"compelling the Gentiles to live as do\nthe Jews.\"\n\n    Footnote 13: The actual outcome is seen in the reduction of the\n    'burden' to the two items of abstinence from \"fornication and from\n    things offered to idols.\" Paul's nicer distinctions under the latter\n    head (1st Cor. viii. 1-13, x. 14-23) as well as his distinction\n    between the ceremonial and the moral grounds for abstinence, were\n    disregarded.\n\nHad unity been attained through the simple process imagined by Luke,\nobedient acquiescence of Paul and the Gentiles in the divinely inspired\nverdict of \"the apostles and elders in Jerusalem,\" Christianity would\nhave been an immeasurably poorer thing than it became. Indeed, it is\nquestionable whether a gospel of mere simplification, extension and\nsupplementation of the Law would ever have made permanent conquest of\nthe Gentile world. It is because Paul stood out on this question of\n'meats' for the equal right of his independent gospel, refusing\nsubmission until his great ten-years' work of evangelization by tongue\nand pen had made Gentile Christianity a factor of at least equal\nimportance with Jewish, that our religion was enriched by its\nHellenistic strain. The deeper insight into the real significance of\nJesus' work and fate born of Paul's peculiar experience and his\nHellenistic apprehension of the gospel found embodiment in the\nbeginnings of a New Testament literature. The writings of this period\nmust accordingly be viewed against the background of a critical history.\nLuke's account, written in the interest of \"apostolic\" authority, must\nreceive such modifications as the contemporary documents require.\n\nTaking up the story at the point of divergence we see Paul and Barnabas\nreturning to Antioch after the Conference with the Pillars, glad at\nheart, and expecting now to resume the work for Gentiles without\nimpediment. Besides Titus, John Mark of Jerusalem, a nephew of Barnabas,\naccompanied them. The Missionary Journey to Cyprus and (southern)\nGalatia follows, Mark returning, however, to Jerusalem after leaving\nCyprus.\n\nIt was probably during the absence of the missionaries that \"Peter came\nto Antioch\" and, at first, followed the Pauline practice of disregarding\n'distinctions of meats.' Later, on arrival of certain \"from James\" he\n\"drew back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision.\"\nWhile matters were at this stage Paul and Barnabas reappeared on the\nscene. Paul thought it necessary to rebuke Peter \"openly, before them\nall.\" Barnabas, former head of the Antioch church, took sides with Peter\nand \"the rest of the Jews,\" doubtless determining the attitude of the\nchurch; for Paul says nothing of prevailing upon them by his argument,\nbut merely turns it at once upon the Galatians themselves. Moreover,\nBarnabas now takes Cyprus as his mission field, with Mark as his helper,\nwhile Paul with a new companion, Silvanus (in Acts \"Silas,\" a bearer of\nthe 'decrees' from Jerusalem), takes the northern half of the newly\nevangelized territory, and through much difficulty and opposition makes\nhis way to the coasts of the AEgean.\n\nThis second visit to the churches of Galatia (Acts xvi. 1-5) was\nsignalized by warnings against the (possible) preaching of \"another\ngospel\" (Gal. i. 9); for Paul had reason to anticipate trouble from the\n\"false brethren.\" If Acts may be believed, it was also marked by an\nextraordinary evidence of Paul's readiness to \"become all things to all\nmen\" in the interest of conciliation. He is said to have circumcised a\nGalatian half-Jew named Timothy. If so, it was certainly not to prove\nhis respect for the legal requirement, but rather its indifference.\n\"Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision nothing; only faith working\nthrough love.\" But these generous 'accommodations' of Paul produced more\nof misrepresentation than of conciliation. He had cause to regret his\nliberality later (Gal. i. 10; v. 11 f.; _cf._ 1st Cor. vii. 18).\n\nSome unexplained obstacle (Acts xvi. 6) prevented Paul's entrance into\nthe Province of Asia at this time. Ephesus, his probable objective, had\nperhaps already been occupied (xviii. 24-28). He turned north through\nPhrygia-Galatia, hoping to find a field in Bithynia, but was again\ndisappointed. At Troas, the very extremity of Asia, came the\nturning-point in the fortunes of the missionaries. Encouraged by a\nvision they crossed into Macedonia and found fields white for the\nharvest.\n\nThe Epistles to Thessalonica address one of these Macedonian churches\nfrom Corinth, whither the missionaries have been driven. Timothy had\nbeen sent back from Athens when Paul's own repeated attempts to return\nhad been frustrated, and has just arrived with good news of the church's\nperseverance in spite of a persecution stirred up by the Jews. It is\nagainst these, apparently, not against Jewish-Christian detractors, that\nPaul defends his character and message (1st Thess. ii. 1-13). There is\nalso an urgent warning against fornication (iv. 1-8) and exhortation to\nabound in love (iv. 9-12), with correction of the natural Greek tendency\nto misapprehend the Jewish eschatology and resurrection-doctrine (iv.\n13--v. 1-11; _cf._ 1st Cor. xv.). The closing admonitions relate to the\ndirection of church meetings and discipline.\n\n2nd Thessalonians corrects and supplements the eschatology of 1st\nThessalonians by adding a doctrine of Antichrist, which is at all events\nthoroughly Jewish and earlier than 70, when the temple was destroyed in\nwhich it expects the manifestation of \"the man of sin.\" It is the only\none of the Epistles of this period whose authenticity is seriously\nquestioned by critical scholarship. How little this affects the question\nof Paul's 'gospel' may be seen by the fact that the entire contents\ncover less than 3 per cent. of the earlier Epistles, while the subject\nis a mere detail.\n\nFar more significant is it to observe the close correspondence between\nthe missionary preaching of Paul as here described by himself (1st\nThess. i. 9 f.) and the general apostolic message (_kerygma_) as\ndescribed by Luke (Acts x. 42 f.; xiv. 15-17; xvii. 24-31). Where\nthere are no Judaizers there is no reference to the dispensations of Law\nand Grace and the abolition of the former in the Cross. The doctrine is\nthe common gospel of the Resurrection, wherein Jesus has been manifested\nas the Messiah. Faith in him secures forgiveness to the repentant; all\nothers are doomed to perish in the judgment shown by his 'manifestation'\nto be at hand (_cf._ 1st Cor. xv. 11; Rom. i. 3-5).\n\nGalatians was written but slightly before (or after?) the letters to\nThessalonica. Its single theme (after the retrospect) is the Adoption to\nSon ship through the Spirit. Against the Judaizer's plea that to share\nin the Inheritance one must be adopted (preferably by circumcision) into\nthe family of Abraham, or at all events pay respect to the Mosaic Law,\nPaul asserts the single fact of the adoption of the Spirit. \"It is\nbecause ye are sons that God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our\nhearts crying (in the ecstatic utterances of 'tongues') Abba, that is,\nFather\" (Gal. iv. 6). To go back to legal observances is to revert from\nredemption to bondage. All Christians are indeed sons of Abraham, but\nonly as sharers of his trust in God. Abraham was made \"heir of the\nworld\" (Rom. iv. 13) for his faith. Circumcision and the Law came\nafterwards. They were not superimposed stipulations and conditions of\nthe promise. On the contrary they were temporary pedagogic measures\nintended to produce the consciousness of sin and (moral) death, so that\nwhen the Heir should come men should be ready to cast themselves on the\nmercy of God displayed in his vicarious death.[14] Thus the messianic\nRedemption is a redemption from a system issuing in sin and death. On\nthe cross even the sinless Christ incurred the curse in order that\nbelievers thus redeemed might have the Blessing of the Abrahamic promise\n(Gal. iii. 1--iv. 7).\n\n    Footnote 14: Romans enlarges the conception of the economy of Law by\n    making it include the Gentile law of 'conscience' (Rom. i. 18--ii.\n    16). In Galatians this point is covered only by classing the\n    \"angels\" through whom the Mosaic Law was given, with the \"Elements\"\n    honoured in Gentile religion. Both are codes of \"stewards and\n    governors.\"\n\nBut this transfer from bondage to liberty, from the legal to the filial\nrelation, does not \"make Christ a minister of sin.\" On the contrary, if\nthe delivering Spirit of Son ship has been received at all, it controls\nthe life for purity and love. One cannot be a son and be unfilial or\nunbrotherly. The unity of the redeemed world in Christ is the unity of\nloving service, not of subjection to a bygone system of rules (iv.\n8--vi. 18). Thus does Galatians meet the insidious plea of the\nJudaizers, and their charges against Pauline liberty.\n\nThe church founded by Paul in Corinth (Acts xviii. 1-17) was grounded\nfrom the beginning in this doctrine of the Cross. Paul purposely\nrestricted himself to it (1st Cor. i. 17-25; ii. 1-5). He had indeed a\nworld-view, of which we learn more in the Epistles of the Captivity, a\nphilosophy revealed by the Spirit as a \"mystery of God.\" Those who\nafterwards in Corinth came to call themselves followers \"of Apollos\" had\nnothing to teach him on this score. But consideration of this Grecizing\ntendency, too often issuing in a mere \"philosophy and vain deceit after\nthe Elements of the world and not after Christ\" (Col. ii. 8), must be\ndeferred, in favour of questions which became more immediately pressing.\nFor after Paul had left Corinth to make a brief visit via Ephesus to\nCaesarea and Antioch, and had returned through the now pacified Galatian\nchurches to make Ephesus his permanent headquarters (Acts xviii. 18-23),\nhe received disturbing news of conditions in Corinth. Under Apollos (now\nat Ephesus with Paul) an Alexandrian convert thoroughly indoctrinated\nwith Paul's gospel (Acts xviii. 24-28) the church had flourished, but\ndiscussions had subsequently arisen, resulting in a letter to Paul\nasking his advice on disputed points. Besides this there were moral\nblemishes. First the factious strife itself, of which Paul has learnt\nfrom newcomers from Corinth; secondly a case of unpunished incest. A\nprevious letter from Paul (now lost, or but partially preserved in 2nd\nCor. vi. 14--vii. 1) had required the church \"to have no company with\nfornicators.\" The church, making the application general, had pleaded\nthe impracticability of \"going out of the world.\" Paul now explains: \"If\nany man _that is named a brother_ be a fornicator ... with such a one\nno, not to eat.\" After further rebuke for litigiousness, and a lack of\nmoral tone, especially in the matter of \"fornication\" (ch. vi.), Paul\ntakes up seriatim \"the things whereof ye wrote.\" We are chiefly\ninterested in the long section (viii. 1--xi. 1) on \"things offered to\nidols\" wherein Paul instructs those who would be imitators of his\nfreedom, but who forget that he has always refused to assert his rights\nwhen thereby the 'weak' were stumbled. Moreover fornication is never\namong the permissible things, nor even the eating of meats offered to\nidols _at the heathen banquet itself_. Such food is unobjectionable only\nwhen it has been sold in the market, and can be eaten without 'offence.'\n\nThe other questions related to church meetings for the \"Lord's supper\"\nand the exercise of \"spiritual gifts.\" They give opportunity for the\ndevelopment of Paul's noble doctrine of unity through loving service\n(xi. 2--xiv. 40). The doctrinal section of 1st Corinthians concludes\nwith a full statement of Paul's doctrine of the resurrection body\n(called forth by Greek objections to the Jewish). From the items of\nbusiness at the close we learn that \"the collection for the saints\" has\nbeen under way some time already \"in Galatia,\" and that Paul hopes,\nafter passing through Macedonia, to join the delegation which is to\ncarry the money to Jerusalem (xvi. 1-6).\n\nAs it turned out Paul actually followed the itinerary outlined in 1st\nCor. xvi. 1-6, but not until after distressing experiences. Timothy,\nsent (by way of Macedonia, Acts xix. 22) as Paul's representative (iv.\n17; xvi. 10 f.), was unable to restore order. The opposition to Paul's\napostolic authority, treated almost contemptuously in ix. 1-14, grew to\nalarming proportions. Paul received so direct and personal an affront\n(either on a hasty visit undertaken in person from Ephesus, or in the\nperson of Timothy) that he despatched a peremptory ultimatum, whose\neffect he is anxiously waiting to hear when 2nd Corinthians opens with\nPaul driven out from Ephesus, a refugee in Macedonia (_c._ 55). It is\nhighly probable that the disconnected section appended between 2nd Cor.\nix. 15 and the Farewell, is taken from this \"grievous\" letter written\n\"out of much affliction and anguish of heart with many tears\" (2nd Cor.\nii. 1-4; vii. 8-16); for it was not only a peremptory demand for\npunishment of the offender, but also a letter of forced\nself-commendation. Paul cannot have written in self-commendation on more\nthan one occasion, and he promises not to repeat this in iii. 1 ff. We\nmay take 2nd Cor. x.-xiii., then, as representing the \"grievous\" letter.\nThe opposition emanates from Judaizers who say they are \"of Christ,\" and\nmay therefore be identical with those of 1st Cor. i. 12. But it has\ngrown to proportions which for a time made Paul despair of the church's\nloyalty. Titus' arrival in Macedonia with news of their restored\nobedience had been an inexpressible relief (ii. 5-17; vii. 8-16). It\nremains only to set his 'ministry of the new covenant' once more in\ncontrast with the Mosaic 'ministry of condemnation and death,' including\nfurther elucidation of the doctrine of the resurrection body (iii.\n1--vi. 10) and to urge generosity in the matter of the collection (chh.\nviii.-ix.).\n\nThe somewhat disordered, but unmistakably genuine material of 2nd\nCorinthians was probably given out as a kind of residuum of Pauline\nmaterial long after our 1st Corinthians had been put in circulation,\nperhaps when renewed strife had caused the church in Rome to intervene\nthrough Clement (95), who quotes 1st Corinthians, but shows no knowledge\nof 2nd Corinthians. The correspondence is not only invaluable to the\nchurch for its paean of love as the invincible, abiding gift of the\nSpirit (1st Cor. xiii.) and its sublime eulogy of the \"ministry of the\nnew covenant,\" but instructive in the highest degree to the historian.\nAlmost every aspect of Paul's work as missionary, defender of his own\nindependent apostleship and gospel, guide and instructor of developing\nGentile-Christian thought, and ardent commissioner for peace with the\napostolic community in Syria, is here set forth. The best exposition of\nthe history is the documentary material itself, and conversely.\n\nRomans was written during the peaceful winter at Corinth (55-56) which\nfollowed these weeks of tormenting anxiety in Macedonia (Acts xx. 1-3).\nPaul feels that he has carried the gospel to the very shores of the\nAdriatic (xv. 19). He is on the point of going to Jerusalem with his\ngreat 'offering of the Gentiles,' and has already fixed his eye on Rome\nand \"Spain\"! Just as before the First Missionary Journey he forestalled\nopposition by frankly laying his gospel before the Pillars, so now he\nlays it before the church in Rome, but most delicately and tactfully,\nnot as though assuming to admonish Christians already \"filled with all\nknowledge and able to admonish one another\" (xv. 14), but \"that I with\nyou may be comforted in you, each of us by the other's faith\" (i. 12).\nThus the Epistle is an eirenicon. For Rome was even more than Ephesus\nhad been, a preoccupied territory, though a metropolis of Paul's\nmission-field. Most of the church are Paul's sympathizers, but there\nare many of the 'weak,' who may easily be 'offended.' The letter repeats\nand enlarges the argument of Galatians for the gospel of Grace, carrying\nback the promise to Abraham to its antecedent in the fall of Adam,\nwhereby all mankind had passed under the domination of Sin and Death.\nThe function of the Law is again made clear as bringing men to\nconsciousness of this bondage, till it is done away by (mystical) death\nand resurrection with Christ. In the adoption wrought by the Spirit the\nwhole creation even, groaning since Adam's time under 'vanity,' is\nliberated in the manifestation of the sons of God. Jesus, glorified at\nthe right hand of God, is the firstfruits of the cosmic redemption (Rom.\ni.-viii.). Such is Paul's theory of 'evolution.' It is followed by a\nvindication of God in history. Rom. ix.-xi. exhibits the relation of Jew\nand Gentile in the process of the redemption. Israel has for the time\nbeing been hardened that the Gentiles may be brought in. Ultimately\ntheir very jealousy at this result will bring them also to repentant\nfaith.\n\nPaul's sublime exposition of his view of cosmic and historic redemption\nis followed (as in all the Epistles) by a practical exhortation (chh.\nxii.-xiv.), the keynote of which is unity through mutual forbearance and\nloving service. It repeats the Corinthian figure of the members in the\nbody, and the Galatian definition of the 'law of Christ.' Special\napplication is made to the case of the scrupulous who make distinctions\nof days and of meats. Here, however (xiv. 1--xv. 13), there is no longer\nneed to resist a threatened yoke. Only tenderness and consideration are\nurged for the over-scrupulous \"brother in Christ.\" It was in this spirit\nthat Paul and his great company of delegates from the churches of the\nGentiles went up to Jerusalem (Acts xx. 4--xxi. 17).\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPAUL AS PRISONER AND CHURCH FATHER\n\n\nThe second period of Paul's literary career begins after an interval of\nseveral years. This interval is covered indeed, so far as the great\nevents of the Apostle's personal story are concerned, by the last nine\nchapters of Acts, but exceedingly obscure as respects the fortunes of\nhis mission-field and the occasion for the group of Epistles which come\nto us after its close. It is barely possible that a fragment or two from\nthe so-called Pastoral Epistles (1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, Titus), which\nseem to be compiled long after Paul's death on the basis of some\nremnants of his correspondence, may have been written shortly after the\narrest in Jerusalem and \"first defence.\" In 2nd Tim. iv. 11-18 a journey\nis referred to from Troas by way of Ephesus which coincides in many\nrespects with that of Acts xx. If the fragment could be taken out from\nits present setting it might be possible to identify the two; for it is\nclear from the forecast of Acts xx. 25, 38 that Paul never did revisit\nthis region. The grip of Rome upon her troublesome prisoner was not\nrelaxed until his martyrdom, probably some considerable time before the\n\"great multitude\" whom Nero condemned after the conflagration of 64.\nHowever, until analysis can dissect out with greater definiteness the\ngenuine elements of the Pastoral Epistles, they cannot be used to throw\nlight upon the later period of Paul's career. A historical background\nhas indeed been created to meet their requirements--a release of Paul,\nresumption of missionary activities on the coasts of the AEgean, renewed\nimprisonment in Rome and ultimate martyrdom. But this has absolutely no\nwarrant outside the Pastorals themselves, and is both inconsistent with\nActs and open to criticism intrinsically. The story thus created of a\nrelease, _second_ visitation of the Greek churches, and _second_\nimprisonment must, therefore, be regarded as fictitious, and the\nPastoral Epistles in their present form as products of the post-Pauline\nage.\n\nIt is our task to trace the development among the Greek churches of\nChristianity conceived as a \"revelation of God in Christ,\" alongside of\nits development in the 'apostolic' church, until the period of\n'catholic' unity and the completed canon. Upon this development the\nstory of Paul's personal fortunes in Acts throws but little light. We\nmerely see that his great peace-making visit to Jerusalem was suddenly\ninterrupted by his arrest in the temple, while engaged in an act of\nworship undoubtedly intended by him to demonstrate his willingness in\nthe interest of unity to \"become as under the Law to them that are under\nthe Law.\" After this his great delegation from the Gentile churches must\nhave scattered to their homes. Paul remained a prisoner for two years in\nCaesarea, and after an adventurous journey covering the ensuing autumn\nand winter (59-60), spent two more years in less rigid confinement at\nRome. We need no hint from his request in 2nd Tim. iv. 13 for \"books and\nparchments\" to infer that the years of forced seclusion in Caesarea were\nmarked by study and meditation; but narrative and inference together\nconvey but little of what we mainly desire to know: the course of\nreligious development in the Pauline churches, as a background for the\nliterature.\n\nOn the other hand recent research into religious conditions in the early\nEmpire has removed the principal objections to the authenticity of\nPhilippians, Philemon, Colossians, and even Ephesians. We are far from\nbeing compelled to come down to the time of the great Gnostic systems of\nthe second century to find a historical situation appropriate to this\ngroup of letters purporting to be written by Paul from his captivity.\nIndeed they exhibit on any theory of their origin a characteristic and\nlegitimate development of the Pauline gospel of Son ship by the Spirit\nof Adoption abolishing the dispensation of Law. It is a development\nalmost inevitable in a conception of 'the gospel' formed on Greek ideas\nof Redemption, if we place in opposition to it a certain baser type of\nsuperstitious, mongrel Judaism, revealed in the Epistles themselves,\nrepeatedly referred to in Acts, and now known to us by a mass of\nextraneous documentary material.\n\nThe new disturbers of the churches' peace revealed in the Epistles of\nthe Captivity are still of Jewish origin and tendency; but at least in\nthe region of Colossae (in the Lycus Valley, adjacent to southern\nGalatia) the issue is no longer that between Law and Grace, but concerns\nthe nature and extent of the Redemption. The trouble still comes from a\nsuperstitious exaltation of the Mosaic revelation; but those whom Paul\nhere opposes do not \"use the Law lawfully,\" frankly insisting on its\npermanent obligation as the will of God for all sons, unaffected by the\nCross. It is now admitted to be an \"ordinance of angels\"; but the\nobservance of it is inculcated because man's redemption can only come\nthrough conciliation of these higher beings. Mystical union with\nsuperhuman Powers is to be promoted by its observances. This\nsuperstition is neither purely Jewish, nor purely Greek. It is\ncomposite--Hellenistic. Judaism is imitated in the superstitious\nreverence for the Law; but the conception of Redemption leaves behind\nevery thought of national particularism and is openly individualistic.\nThe redemption sought is that of the individual soul from the\nlimitations of humanity, and doubtless the name of Jesus played an\nimportant role in the emancipation, as in the exorcisms of the sons of\nSceva (Acts xix. 13 f.); only it was not \"above every name.\"\n\nBut even Jewish apocalypses such as _Enoch_ and _Baruch_ with all their\nsuperstitious angelology and demonology manage somehow to cling to the\nancient Jewish faith in the primacy of man, and Paul in like manner\nupholds against the theosophists the doctrine of the believer's Son ship\nand joint-heirship with Christ. In fact the Adoption, Redemption and\nInheritance accorded in the gift of the Spirit are to his mind gifts so\ngreat and exalted as to make it a \"gratuitous self-humiliation\" to pay\nhomage, in Mosaic or other ceremonial, to \"angels,\" \"principalities,\" or\n\"powers.\" In Christ we already have a foothold in the heavenly regions.\nWe were foreordained in his person to be \"heirs\" \"before the foundation\nof the world.\" His resurrection and ascension \"to the right hand of God\"\nparticipated in by us through \"the Spirit\" was a \"triumph\" over the\n'Elements' and 'Rulers.' They should be beneath the Christian's feet in\nfeeling, as they soon will be in reality.\n\nThis exalted doctrine of Christ's Son ship as compared with the mere\ntemporary authority of \"angels and principalities and powers,\" secures\nto the Epistles of the Captivity their well-deserved title of\n\"Christological\"; for they lay the foundation for all later doctrines of\nthe Logos or Word. It is well to realize, however, that the doctrine is\nin origin and meaning simply a vindication of the divine dignity of\nmanhood.\n\nAn idea of outward conditions at the time of writing may be gained from\nthe two Epistles of the group most universally admitted to be genuine,\nPhilemon and Philippians. Both are written from captivity, almost\ncertainly in Rome, because the writer is expecting, if released, to\nrevisit the AEgean coasts, which was not Paul's expectation in Caesarea.\nBut there is a wide difference between the two as respects the\ncircumstances presupposed. The tone of Philemon is hopeful, sprightly,\neven jocose. Paul is in company with a group of \"fellow-workers\" which\nsignificantly includes \"Mark,\" as well as two companions of the voyage\nto Rome, \"Aristarchus\" of Thessalonica, and \"Luke\" (Acts xxvii. 2).\nEpaphras, his \"fellow-prisoner,\" appears in Colossians as the founder of\nthat church and a teacher in the adjacent towns of Hierapolis and\nLaodicea. He has brought to Paul either of his own knowledge or by\nreport from others, disturbing news of the inroads of the heresy.\nOnesimus, whose case occasions the letter to Philemon, is an escaped\nslave of this friend and convert of Paul. The apostle is sending back\nthe slave with the request that he be forgiven and manumitted. The\ninterrelation of the persons mentioned in Philemon and Colossians shows\nthat the occasion is the same. Tychicus (_cf._ Acts xx. 3) the bearer of\nColossians (Col. iv. 7) accompanies Onesimus. Ephesians (if authentic)\nbelongs to the same group, being also carried by Tychicus (Eph. vi. 21).\nIt was certainly _not_ intended for Ephesus, but for some church or\nchurches not directly known to Paul (i. 15; iii. 2). It bears much the\nsame relation to Colossians as Romans to Galatians. In spite of copious\nevidences of its use reaching back even to Clement of Rome (95) the\ngenuineness of Ephesians is more seriously questioned than that of any\nother Pauline letter save the Pastorals. In the present writer's\njudgment this suspicion is unfounded, but the question of Pauline,\nsemi-Pauline or deutero-Pauline is immaterial to the general\ndevelopment.\n\nPhilippians is of later date than Philemon and its companions. Paul has\nbeen in circumstances of dire physical distress, and is comforting his\ncorrespondents in view of an immediately impending decision of his case\n(ii. 23). The issue will be life or death, and Paul has no earthly (but\nonly super-earthly) reasons for hoping the verdict may not be adverse.\nHe is still expecting, if released, to revisit the AEgean coast (ii. 24);\nbut it is only smiling through his tears when he tells the Philippians\nthat their need of him is so great that he is confident he will be\nspared to them (Phil. 1. 12-30). Knowing that this journey was never\nmade, we can but infer that the fate so near at hand in Phil. ii. 17\ncame actually to pass. Paul's blood was \"poured out a libation,\" as\ntradition of extreme antiquity credibly reports, and it can hardly have\nbeen after a release, return to Greece and second arrest. The passage in\n2nd Tim iv. 5-8 which repeats the figure of the libation (Phil. ii. 17),\ntreating it no longer as doubtful, but a tragic certainty, will have\nbeen penned (if authentic) but a few weeks at most after Philippians,\nand immediately before the end. If Philemon-Colossians-Ephesians be\ndated in 62, Philippians, with the possible fragments in 2nd Timothy,\nmay be dated a few months later.\n\nConditions at Philippi appear only in a favourable light from this\nlatest authentic epistle. Paul can thank God upon every remembrance of\nthese loyal and liberal Macedonian friends. In Rome, however, he is\nstill affected by Judaizing opposition, though his attitude toward it\n(in Rome at least) shows the significant difference from Galatians that\nhe can now be thankful that Christ is preached even thus (Phil. i.\n15-18). Moreover there is a difference in the type of legalism\nrepresented; for while in his warning to the Philippians of the possible\ncoming of the heretics Paul is moved to recall his own renunciation of\nlegalistic righteousness, the terms of opprobrium applied to the\ndisturbers imply an immorality and assimilation to heathenism (Phil.\niii. 2 19; _cf._ Rom. xvi. 17-20) which could not justly be said to\ncharacterize the legalism of the synagogue.\n\nThe doctrinal elements of Philippians consist of two passages: (1) the\ndenunciation of the \"concision\" (a term applied to the heathenized\nrenegade Jew) ending with a reminder of the high enthronement of our\nspiritual Redeemer (iii. 1-21); (2) the definition of the \"mind,\" or\n\"disposition,\" of Christ exhibited in his self-abnegating incarnation,\nobedient suffering, and supreme exaltation (ii. 5-11). Both passages are\ncharacteristic of Paul's gospel in general, which is always, as against\nthat of the Judaizers, the gospel of a drama, or spectacle, witnessed;\nnot a gospel of teachings heard. It is a gospel _about_ Jesus, not of\nprecepts inculcated _by_ Jesus, a drama of redemption for all mankind\nout of servitude into Son ship, wherein the cross is central. Both\npassages are also characteristic, as we shall see, of the later period\nof Paul's literary activity; for even in Philippians, the dominant\ndoctrinal motive is the Redemption to which Paul is looking forward, and\nthis is now conceived even more strongly than in the earlier letters in\nterms of personal religion. He anticipates \"departing to be with Christ\"\n(i. 23) rather than awaiting Him on earth (1st Thess. iv. 17). The\n\"goal\" toward which the Christian \"presses on\" is personal immortality\nthrough mystic union with Christ in the life of God (iii. 10-14). This\ntoo is a real doctrine of the Kingdom of God; but its starting-point is\nhumanity's triumph over its enemies 'sin' and 'death,' not Israel's\ntriumph over its oppressors. Still more in the Colossian group does it\nbecome apparent how the 'far-off, divine event' is a unity of mankind\nthrough the Spirit corresponding to the Stoic figure of the members and\nthe body rather than the 'Kingdom of David.'\n\nAgain the opponents in Phil. iii. 2, 18 f. are not mere Pharisaic\nlegalists, unable to see that Law and Grace are mutually exclusive\nsystems, and nullifying the significance of the Cross by perpetuating\nthe system it was intended to abolish. If we may explain the difference\nby Colossians, they are Jews of heathenish tendencies, pretended\nadherents of the gospel, who nullify its significance by perpetuating\nregard for the Law; only the servility deplored is not servility toward\nGod, but toward \"angels\" (Col. ii. 18).\n\nTo appreciate the enlargement which has come to Christianity beyond its\nmerely 'apostolic' form through the independent development of the Greek\nchurches in this second period we must realize that Paul's 'gospel of\nthe uncircumcision' differed in respect to promise as well as law. The\ncoming Kingdom which he preached was something more than \"the kingdom of\nour father David\" extended from Jerusalem. What it really was becomes\nfully apparent only in the 'Christological Epistles.' But we must study\nthe opposition to appreciate how differently the idea of Redemption had\ndeveloped on Greek soil.\n\nThat aspect of Judaism which was most conspicuous to the outsider in\nPaul's day was not the legalism of the scribes and the Palestinian\nsynagogue, perpetually embalmed in the Talmud and orthodox rabbinism of\nto-day. It was the superstition and magic which excite the contempt of\nsatirists like Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, and call forth descriptions\nlike that of the letter of Hadrian to Servianus, characterizing the\nSamaritans, Jews _and Christians_ dwelling in Egypt as \"all astrologers,\nharuspices, and quacksalvers.\" It is this type of Jew who is most widely\nknown in the contemporary Hellenistic world; whose spells and\nincantations, framed in Old Testament language, are perpetuated in the\nleaden incantation rolls and magic papyri of the Berlin collection;\nwhose portrait is painted in the Simon Magus of Acts viii. 14-24, the\nElymas the sorcerer of Acts xiii. 6-12, the \"strolling Jews, exorcists,\"\nand the \"seven sons of Sceva\" of Acts xix. 13-20. A Christian writer\nearly in the second century is so impressed with this characteristic of\ncontemporary Judaism that he even distinguishes as the third type of\nreligion, besides idolatry and Christianity, \"the Jews, who fancy that\nthey alone know God, but do not, worshipping angels and archangels, the\nmoon and the month,\" and seeks to prove his case by citing the Old\nTestament festal system. Indeed this idea of Judaism is the predominant\none among the second-century apologists. Jewish \"superstition\" is a\nnotorious fact of the time. The transcendentalizing of Jewish theology\nafter the Persian period had led inevitably to an elaborate angelology\nand demonology. When as part of this process a more and more\nsupernatural character was attributed to the Law it could but have a\ntwo-fold effect. The learned and orthodox would treat it soberly as a\nrevelation of the divine will. This is the legalistic development we see\nin the Talmud and the Palestinian synagogue. The ignorant and\nsuperstitious, especially in the Greek-speaking world, would use it as a\nbook of magic. This is what we see among many Jewish sects, particularly\nin Samaria, Egypt and among the Greek-speaking Jews. The tendency was\nmarked even in Galilee. Jesus Himself stigmatizes the morbid craving of\nHis countrymen for miracles as the mark of an \"adulterous\" generation,\nbecause the power invoked was not divine, but always angelic, or even\ndemonic. Paul alludes to the same trait (1st Cor. i. 22). But while\nthere is a singular absence both from the Pauline and the Johannine\nwritings of any reference to exorcism, the typical miracle of Synoptic\nstory, it has been justly remarked that no element of Paul's thought\nhas been so little affected by that of Jesus as his angelology and\ndemonology. Paul's world-view, like that of the apocalypses of his time,\nis a perfect phantasmagoria of angels and demons, \"gods many and lords\nmany.\" His conception of the redemption conflict is not a wrestling\nagainst flesh and blood, but against \"world-rulers of this (lower region\nof) darkness,\" against \"archangels,\" \"elements,\" \"principalities,\"\n\"powers.\" The one thing which takes away all harmful influence from this\ncredulity (if we must apply an unfairly modern judgment to an ancient\nwriter) is his doctrine of the Son ship and Lordship of Jesus, with whom\nthe redeemed are \"joint-heirs\" of the entire creation and thus superior\nto angels. In this respect Paul has imbibed the mind of Christ. Jesus'\nremedy for superstition is not scientific but religious. It does not\ndeny the popularly assumed relation to \"spirits\" good or evil, but\naffirms a direct relation to the Infinite Spirit, which reduces all\nangels and demons to insignificance save as \"ministers.\" Paul's\nworld-view starts with the creation of man to be lord and heir of the\nworld (Gal. iv. 1; 1st Cor. iii. 22; _cf._ Gen. i. 28). The \"purpose of\nGod, which he purposed in Christ Jesus, before the creation, unto a\ndispensation of the fulness of the ages\" is \"to our glory.\" It would be\nfrustrated if the \"Second Adam\" did not become the Heir, in whom the\nredeemed creation would find the goal of its long expectancy. Paul has a\ncosmology as well as \"Enoch.\" He could not be a worthy follower of\nJesus--he could not even be a loyal \"son of the Law\" without holding to\nthe accepted doctrine of the Inheritance intended for Messiah and his\nobedient people. It did not make him less firm in this conviction when\nas a Christian he thought of Jesus as the Messiah, and of Jew and\nGentile united in his kingdom; only the starting-point is not the\nsubjection of the sons of Abraham under Gentiles, but the subjection of\nthe sons of Adam under \"world-rulers of this darkness.\" When he combines\nPs. viii. and Ps. cx. in his depiction of the reign of Christ in 1st\nCor. xv. 24-27, it is a sure indication of its scope as Paul understood\nit. He included in the lordship over creation, and the subjection of all\n\"enemies\" which the exalted Christ is awaiting \"at the right hand of\nGod,\" the subjection of \"angels, and principalities, and powers and\nevery name that is named, whether of beings in heaven, or on earth, or\nunder the earth.\" Paul pursues, then, the method of the apocalyptic\nwriters in making his doctrine of Redemption and the Kingdom\ntranscendental. By making it cosmic he undermines its Jewish\nparticularism. He avoids the superstition by holding firmly to Jesus'\ndoctrine of Son ship by _moral_ affinity with God.\n\nIn the Christological Epistles accordingly it is apparent that the\nPauline churches are learning to think of the coming Kingdom in a widely\ndifferent way from the 'apostolic.' The Greek doctrine of mystic union,\nnot the rabbinic of a \"share in the world to come,\" is the basis. In due\ntime we shall see how difficult the process of reconciliation became\nbetween Greek and Semitic thought in this field also. For the present we\ncan only note how in the great theme of the Unity of the Spirit in Eph.\niv. 1--vi. 9 it is not the 'apostolic' ideal of a restoration of the\nkingdom to Israel according to the oath sworn to Abraham (Luke i. 68-75;\n_cf._ Acts i. 6) that dominates, but an enlargement of the figure of the\nbody and members, a figure commonly employed by Stoic writers, to apply\nto the unity of the church in Corinthians and Romans. In the Epistles of\nthe Captivity the doctrine of the Kingdom is a social organism permeated\nand vitalized by Christ's spirit of service. Personal immortality is\nunion with the life of God.\n\nIn view of the notoriety of Ephesus as the very centre of the trade in\nmagic (so much so that spells and incantations were technically known as\n\"Ephesian letters\") and of what Acts tells us of the enormous\ndestruction there of \"books of magic\" effected by Paul's preaching, it\nis not surprising that Asia and Phrygia should appear a few years after\nPaul's departure as the hot-bed of a \"philosophy and vain deceit, after\nthe tradition of men, after the 'elements' of the world, and not after\nChrist.\" Acts xx. 29 makes Paul predict the heresy.\n\nSuch was especially the case at Colossae, a little town long after\nnotorious for its superstition, where Epaphras, now Paul's\nfellow-prisoner, had founded the church. Epaphras himself at the time of\nPaul's writing was in great anxiety both for this church and for the\nadjoining churches at Hierapolis and Laodicea. Colossians is written to\nmeet this danger, and was sent by the same bearers as the note to\nPhilemon. It was to be exchanged, after being read at Colossae, for\nanother epistle sent simultaneously to Laodicea. Whether our Ephesians\nis this companion letter or only a deutero-Pauline production framed on\nthe basis of some genuine letter written on this occasion, is a disputed\npoint among critics. In Marcion's canon our Ephesians was called\n\"Laodiceans,\" and in our own oldest textual authorities it has no\naddress. We may assume that Ephesians is really the companion letter,\nwhose original address was for some reason cancelled;[15] or that it is\nbut partially from Paul's own hand. Neither view will materially alter\nour conception of his teaching, or the special application of it to the\ncircumstances of the churches of the Lycus Valley. The important thing\nto observe is that whereas the application in Colossians is specific, in\nEphesians it is systematic and general. Colossians wages a direct\npolemic against those who are making believers the spoil of mere\n'Elements' by introducing distinctions of \"meats _and drinks_\" (a step\nbeyond Mosaism), with observance of \"feast days, new moons and\nsabbaths.\" In Ephesians we have, either altogether at first hand, or to\na greater or less extent at second, a general, affirmative presentation\nof Paul's doctrine of Lordship in Christ. It has only incidental\nallusion to being \"deceived with empty words\" (v. 6), and a warning not\nto be \"children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of\ndoctrine, by the sleight of men in craftiness, after the wiles of error\"\n(iv. 14).\n\n    Footnote 15: Harnack very ingeniously suggests as a reason the ill\n    repute later incurred by Laodicea (_cf._ Rev. iii. 15 f.);\n    comparing the chiselling out from inscriptions of the names of\n    unpopular kings.\n\nColossians and Ephesians develop, accordingly, that (cosmological)\nwisdom of God conveyed to Paul by the Spirit of Christ in a \"mystery,\"\nat which he had only hinted in 1st Cor. ii. 1-16. Paul's _gnosis_, or\ninsight, concerns the purpose of God in creation, hidden even from the\n(angelic) \"world-rulers,\" who are coming to nought. The Spirit of\nChrist, who as the divine Wisdom had been the agent of creation, is\ngiven to Christian apostles and prophets. It affords them in the\nrevelation of this \"mystery\" a philosophy both of creation and\nredemption which puts to shame mere speculative reasoning. The\nInheritance--the things God prepared for those that love Him--consists\n(as an apocalyptic writer had said) of \"things which eye had not seen,\nnor ear heard, nor had entered into the heart of man to conceive.\" Paul\nhad purposely refrained from unfolding this revealed cosmology and\nphilosophy of history to the Corinthians, in order to avoid just the\nevils which the teaching of Apollos had apparently precipitated at the\ntime when 1st Corinthians was written. Still, we can gain from this very\nepistle (1st Cor. viii. 6; xv. 24-28) a partial conception of his\ndoctrine of Christ as the beginning and end of the creation, the Wisdom\nof God by whom and for whom as Heir, all things were created. From\nRomans i.-viii. and ix.-xi. we can easily see that as Second Adam the\nMessiah was to Paul the key to the world's development and to human\nhistory; for since the triumph of Satan in Eden the whole creation had\nwaited, groaning, for the advent of the sons. Galatians makes it no less\nclear that he thought of the Cross as the epoch-making event, which\nmarks the transition from the period of the control of the world by\nsecondary agencies, to the rule of the Son. This \"mystery\" is simply\nbrought out and developed now in the Epistles of the Captivity. The\neffort and prayer is that the readers may \"have the eyes of their heart\nenlightened,\" obtain something of Paul's own insight into the riches of\nthe inheritance they are to share with Christ, something of Paul's\nexperience of the power of God in raising Christ from the dead and\nsetting Him on the throne of glory. If they but realize what Son ship\nand heirship with Christ implies--if they but take in the fact that by\nthe resurrection Spirit within them they have already in a sense shared\nin this deliverance and this exaltation, they will be forearmed against\nall the vain deceits of theosophy. It is in fact this resurrection\nSpirit which brings about the unity of the world as a single organism.\nIt extends from the uppermost height to the nethermost abyss. And\nbecause it is the Spirit of Jesus, it fills all it touches with the\ndisposition to loving service. It affords a new ethics and a new\npolitics whose keynote is the law of love in imitation of God and\nChrist. All social relations are recreated by it, beginning with family\nand church. Hence we must think of our redemption as like Israel's from\nthe bondage and darkness of Egypt. The principalities and powers of this\nworld, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the super-terrestrial regions,\nare vainly endeavouring to hold back the people of God, in \"this\ndarkness.\" We have only to wait like Israel at the Passover \"with our\nloins girt, and our feet shod.\" The Deliverer will soon appear from\nheaven, clad in armour of salvation, as in the ancient passover songs,\ncleaving the darkness with his sword of light, and leading forth the\ncaptives.\n\nIn these themes, variously interwoven in Ephesians and Colossians, it is\ndifficult to say whether it is the note of unity or the note of freedom\nwhich predominates. Certainly we can recognize the same great apostle of\nliberty who in the epistles of the earlier period had proved the power\nand value of his religious insight by seizing upon the doctrine of Son\nship as the essential heart of the gospel. It is the same genius\nconsciously taught of God who had demanded and obtained recognition on\nequal terms for his gospel of Grace and Son ship, a gospel given by\nrevelation of God's Son \"in\" him, who now demands that the gift of the\nSpirit to Jew and Gentile be recognized as calling for reconstruction of\nthe doctrine of the coming Kingdom. \"He that ascended is the same also\nthat descended to the lowest depths that he might fill all things.\" And\nhe poured out the \"gifts\" in order that they might make one organism of\nthe new social order, a new creation animated and vitalized by Jesus'\nspirit of loving service.\n\nFor just as in all the great earlier epistles the note of longing for\npeace and unity in love rings ever stronger and clearer above the\nstrife, so in the later epistles, the note of triumph in liberty has a\ndeep under-chord of thanksgiving for reconciliation achieved. The great\npaean of reverent adoration for the glory of God's grace in Eph. i. 3-14,\nis a thanksgiving for the union of Jew and Gentile in one common\nredemption. The retrospect of the work of God in ii. 11-21 is the\nproclamation of \"peace to him that was far off and peace to him that was\nnigh.\" It is described as the building of Jew and Gentile into one\nliving temple, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ\nJesus Himself being the chief corner-stone. The exhortation to the unity\nof the Spirit in iv. 1--vi. 9 rests upon an exultant application of the\nfigure of the \"one new man\" in whose body all are members, that would be\ninconceivable if at the time of writing the church which had received\nthe gifts from the ascended Lord was not indeed one body, but two bodies\nstanding apart in mutual distrust and jealousy.\n\nIn fact we may say not of Ephesians only, but of Colossians likewise,\nand indeed of all the group: Their keynote is not so much the conquest\nof all things by Christ as \"the reconciliation of all things in Christ,\nwhether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens\" (Col. i. 20).\nIt is not unreasonable to infer from such undertones as these that the\nprayer was answered in which Paul when he set out from Corinth had\nbesought the Roman church by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of\nthe Spirit to strive together with him, that his ministration which he\nhad for Jerusalem might be acceptable to the saints, that so his coming\nto them in Rome through the will of God might be in joy, and that\ntogether with them he might find rest.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nPSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES\n\n\nWe cannot wonder that an epoch of the church's history which followed\nupon the martyrdom in rapid succession of all its remaining great\nleaders, should at first be poor in literary products. James the Lord's\nbrother was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem in the year 61-2. His\nnamesake, brother of John, had been beheaded early in 44 by Herod\nAgrippa I. Among the \"others\" who, as Josephus informs us, perished\nalong with James in 61, we may, perhaps, reckon John, who stands beside\nhim in Paul's list of the Pillars. This John, son of Zebedee, brother of\nthe other James, is reckoned a martyr in the same sense as his brother\nin the earliest gospels. The brothers are assured that they shall drink\nthe same cup of suffering as the Lord, though they may not claim in\nreturn pre-eminent seats in glory (Mark x. 39 f.). John did not suffer\nwith his brother James in 44, because he is present at the conference in\n46-7 (Gal. ii. 9); but one of the traditions of the Jerusalem elders\nreported by Papias declared that he was \"killed by the Jews\" in\nfulfilment of the Lord's prediction, and this early tradition must be\naccepted in spite of its conflict with one which gradually superseded it\nafter John came to be regarded as author of Revelation and the Fourth\nGospel. The statement that he was killed \"together with James his\nbrother\" may be due merely to the (not infrequent) confusion of the two\nJameses.\n\nPaul's decapitation in Rome occurred not more than a year or two later,\nand was followed there in 64, according to very ancient and trustworthy\ntradition, by the martyrdom of Peter. The death of all the principal\nleaders explains why the Jerusalem church when it reassembled after the\noverthrow of city and temple in the year 70, put forward no more\nprominent candidates for the leadership than a certain Symeon, son of\nClopas, one of the group of 'relatives of the Lord' who are traceable\n\"until the time of Trajan,\" and a certain unknown Thebuthis. Symeon,\naccording to Eusebius, who takes his account from Hegesippus (165), was\nthe representative of \"those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord\nthat were still living, together with the Lord's relatives.\" Thebuthis\nis said to have sprung from one of the heretical Jewish sects and to\nhave organized a schism in consequence of his disappointment. All we can\nbe sure of is that Jerusalem 'down to the time of Trajan' continued to\nregard itself as the seat of apostolic authority and arbiter of\northodoxy, on account of its succession of disciples and relatives of\nthe Lord. Among the latter the leading, if not the only, representatives\nof the seed of David, when \"search was made\" in the persecution under\nDomitian (81-95), were two _grandsons_ of Jude, the Lord's brother. Jude\nhimself, then, was no longer living. Luke (_c._ 100), Papias (145), and\nHegesippus (165) successively exhibit the growing authority of the\n\"tradition handed down,\" especially that of \"the apostles and elders in\nJerusalem.\" But what Papias records of the traditions of these \"elders\"\ndoes not rise above the level of Jewish midrash, and the epistles which\nbear the names of James and Jude have little intrinsic value, and\nenjoyed from the beginning only the most meagre acceptance. At Rome\ntradition attaches to the name of Peter, but besides the bare fact of\nhis martyrdom \"at the same time with Paul\" (64-5) it has little of value\nto relate. We cannot safely go beyond the tradition reported by Porphyry\nthat Peter fed the lambs (at Rome) for a few months before his\nmartyrdom, and that reported by Papias that Mark, who had been Peter's\nassistant, compiled there the Gospel which bears his name, basing it\nupon his recollections of Peter's preaching. Of this vitally important\nwork (_c._ A.D. 75) we must speak in another connection. We are\nconcerned at present with writings which directly reflect the\ndevelopment of Christian life and doctrine in this sub-apostolic\nperiod, especially that in the Pauline mission-field.\n\nExcept for the appearance of the Gospel of Mark at Rome (_c._ 75) there\nremains nothing to break the silence and darkness of twenty years after\nthe deaths of James and Peter and Paul. The writings which finally did\nappear were almost inevitably anonymous or pseudepigraphic, because\napostolic authority stood so high that no other could secure\ncirculation. Hebrews (_c._ 85) has an epistolary attachment at the close\nof its \"exhortation,\" but either never had an address or superscription,\nor else has been deprived of it. All the Synoptic writings are\nanonymous, though Luke-Acts (_c._ 100) is dedicated to a literary\npatron. Revelation (_c._ 95) is boldly asserted to be the work of the\nApostle John in the prefatory chapters and the epilogue (i. 2, 4, 9;\nxxii. 8). But the body of the work, though of Palestinian origin, has a\ntotally different standpoint, and claims the authority of a prophet, not\nthat of an apostle. Similarly the Fourth gospel when finally published\nreceived an appendix (ch. xxi.) which cautiously suggests the Apostle\nJohn as its author; but the three Epistles by the same writer are\nanonymous. The homily called James (90-100) has a superscription which\nsuperficially connects it with the chief authority in Jerusalem, and the\nEpistle of Jude prefixes to itself the name which stood next in the same\nclass. But even in antiquity they had a precarious standing, and\nneither is a real letter. Finally there are the Epistles to Timothy and\nTitus, purporting to be written by Paul, and a whole series of every\nkind, epistles, gospel, acts, and apocalypse, written in the name of\nPeter, of which only two secured final adoption into the canon. Of all\nthese only 1st Peter and the so-called Pastoral Epistles (1st and 2nd\nTimothy and Titus) have some claim to be considered genuine; for 1st\nPeter is certainly of early origin (_c._ 85), and was undisputed in\nantiquity; while the Pastorals, though rejected by Marcion, and as a\nwhole of late date (90-110), are made up on the basis of some authentic\nPauline material.\n\nThe post-apostolic epistles may be grouped into two classes, according\nas they are predominantly occasioned (_a_) by internal dangers of heresy\nand moral laxity; or (_b_) by the external peril of persecution. To the\nformer (_a_) must be reckoned (1) the so-called Pastoral Epistles; (2)\nJude; (3) 2nd Peter. All these concern themselves outspokenly with a\ntype of false doctrine which has certain more or less definite traits,\nand is tending toward the Gnostic heresies of the second century, if not\nyet clearly identifiable with them. But the inspired genius of Paul is\nwanting. The age is not creative, but conservative. Its writers are\necclesiastics and church teachers, not apostles and prophets. Their\ndistinctive note is appeal to apostolic authority. Whether the name by\nwhich they cover their own insignificance be that of \"Paul,\" or \"Jude\nthe brother (son?) of James,\" or \"Peter,\" they have little or no\nindependent message. They hark back to the \"pattern of sound words\" the\n\"deposit,\" \"the faith once for all delivered to the saints,\" \"the words\nspoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the Lord and\nSaviour through your apostles,\" in particular the \"wisdom of our beloved\nbrother Paul\" who (in the Pastoral Epistles) had predicted the heresy,\nand \"in all his epistles\" had spoken of the resurrection and judgment.\nSecond Peter, which refers in the passage just quoted (2nd Pet. iii. 2,\n15 f.) to the Pauline Epistles alongside \"the other Scriptures\"\nbelongs to a very late period (_c._ 150). In fact this Epistle, now\nalmost universally recognized to be pseudonymous, merely reedits the\nEpistle of Jude, supplying a prefix (ch. i.) and an appendix (ch. iii.)\nto make special application of its denunciations to the case of the\nfalse teachers who were \"denying the (bodily) resurrection and the\njudgment.\" Neither plagiarism nor pseudonymity were recognized offences\nat the time; so that we bring no indictment against the author of 2nd\nPeter, were he the Apostle or not. Still our conception of the Galilean\nfisherman will be higher without this example of pulpit rhetoric than\nwith it.\n\nOf the nature of the heresies controverted in this series of writings we\nmust speak later. As to the region whence they originate something can\nbe made out already. Not indeed from 2nd Peter, which is of too late\ndate to be of service. True the readers addressed are assumed to be the\nsame as in the first epistle, in other words the Pauline mission-field\nof Asia Minor (1st Pet. i. 1), and there is reason to think \"Asia\" was\nthe region first affected. \"Ephesus\" and \"Asia\" are in fact the regions\naffected in 1st and 2nd Timothy (1st Tim. i. 3 f.; 2nd Tim. i. 15).\nMoreover it is in this same region that we find Polycarp (110-117)\nadverting to those who \"pervert the sayings of the Lord to their own\nlusts, and deny the resurrection and judgment.\" To the same region and\nthe same period belong the letters of \"the Spirit\" in Rev. i.-iii. (_c._\n95) with their denunciation of the Balaamite and Nicolaitan heretics,\nand still further 1st-3rd John and the Epistles of Ignatius, which are\nalso polemics against a Gnostic heresy (Doketism) tending to moral\nlaxity. It is doubtful, however, in view of the general address (2nd\nPet. i. 1), whether the author of 2nd Peter really has a definite circle\nin mind, and does not rather in iii. 1 mistakenly treat 1st Peter as a\ngeneral epistle. Denial of the resurrection and judgment was not limited\nto one locality or period. Hegesippus regards it as a pre-Christian\nheresy combated already by James. Equally precarious would be the\nassumption that Jude, with its similar general address, was necessarily\nintended for Asia Minor. The false teachers resemble those we know of\nthere, and the denunciation is incorporated by 2nd Peter, but 'Cainites'\nand 'Balaamites' were not confined to the regions of 1st John and\nRevelation, and Jude might have almost any date between 90 and 120. The\nmost that can be said is that before the death of Paul the last view we\nobtain of his mission-field shows it exposed, especially in the region\nof Ephesus, to a rising flood of superstition and false doctrine, while\ndocuments that can be dated with some definiteness in 95-117, such as\nRevelation, the Johannine and Ignatian Epistles, and the letter of\nPolycarp, show a great advance of heretical teaching in the same region.\nThe later heresy corresponds in several respects to that combated in\nthe Pastorals, Jude and 2nd Peter, but becomes at last more distinctly\ndefinable as Doketism, whose most obnoxious form comes to be denial of\nthe (bodily) resurrection and judgment. The three Pastoral Epistles,\nJude and 2nd Peter may, therefore, be taken as probably reflecting the\ngrowing internal danger confronted by the churches of Asia (if not by\nall the churches) in the sub-apostolic age.\n\nUnfortunately, literary relations sometimes interfere with historical\nclassification, and we are, therefore, compelled to defer treatment of\n1st-3rd John and the Epistles of \"the Spirit\" to the churches (Rev. i.\n3), which really belong to our present group (_a_) of writings against\nthe heresies of (proconsular) Asia. Their relation to the special canon\nof Ephesus, whose writings are all ascribed to John, makes it convenient\nto consider them in another connection. The reader should bear in mind,\nhowever, that the group extends continuously down to the Epistles of\nIgnatius and centres upon Ephesus, where, according to Acts xx. 29 f.,\nthe \"grievous wolves\" were to enter in after Paul's departing.\n\nSimilar considerations affect the grouping of the Epistle of James,\nwhich almost demands a class by itself. It might be called\nanti-heretical, except that its nature is the reverse of controversial,\nand its author seems to have no direct contact with the false teachers.\nIn a remote and general way he deplores the vain talk and disputation\nwhich go hand in hand with a relaxation of the practical Christian\nvirtues. On the whole it seems more correct to class James with 1st\nPeter and Hebrews, particularly as it displays direct literary\ndependence on the former, if not on both.\n\nOur second group (_b_) consists of writings not primarily concerned with\nheresy. Its first and best example speaks in the name of Peter as\nrepresentative of \"apostolic\" Christianity at Rome. But the doctrine,\nand even the phraseology and illustrations of 1st Peter are largely\nborrowed from the greater Epistles of Paul, particularly Romans and\nEphesians. Nothing even remotely suggests an author who had enjoyed\npersonal relations with Jesus, or could relate his wonderful words and\ndeeds. On the contrary the doctrine is Paul's gospel minus the sting of\nthe abolition of the Law. In view of the known internal conditions of\nthe churches to which 1st Peter is addressed in Pontus, Galatia,\nCappadocia, _Asia_ and Bithynia it is remarkable how completely the\nsubject of heresy or false doctrine is ignored. Their adversary the\ndevil is not at present taking the form of a seducing serpent (2nd Cor.\nxi. 3), but of a \"roaring lion\" openly destroying and devouring (1st\nPet. v. 8 f.), and the same sufferings the Asiatics are called upon to\nendure are being inflicted upon their brethren throughout the world. A\nsystematic, universal \"fiery persecution\" is going on, which has come\nalmost as a surprise (iv. 12) and may compel any believer, after having\nmade \"defence\" before the magistrate of \"the hope that is in him,\" to\n\"suffer as a Christian\" and to \"glorify God in this name.\" The author\nexhorts to irreproachable conduct as citizens, and kindness and good\norder in the brotherhood. If such blamelessness of living be combined\nwith patient endurance of the unjust punishment, Christians who still\nmust sanctify in their hearts Christ (and not the Emperor) as Lord, will\nultimately be left unharmed.\n\nSuperior as is this noble exhortation to patient endurance of suffering\nin the meekness of Christ to the controversial rhetoric of 2nd Peter,\nimmeasurably better as is its attestation in ancient and modern times,\neven the most conservative modern critics are compelled to regard it as\nat least semi-pseudonymous. It might be just possible to carry back the\nconditions of persecution presupposed to the time of Nero. But if it be\nPeter writing from Rome after the recent martyrdoms of James and Paul,\nwhy is there no allusion to either? Again, we might possibly prolong the\nlife of Peter (against all probability) down to the beginning of the\nreign of Domitian (81-95). In that case the absence of any allusion to\nthe great events of recent occurrence in Palestine would be almost\nequally hard to explain. Moreover, with any dating the real author\nremains a literary man, a Paulinist, a Grecian Jew, and the share\nattributable to Peter personally becomes most shadowy. The simpler, and\n(as the present writer has come to believe) the more probable view is\nthat 1st Peter, like the later writings which assumed the name, is\nwholly pseudonymous. If, however, it appeared (as we are persuaded) some\ntwenty years after the Apostle's death, among those perfectly aware of\nthe fact, assuming no other disguise, but frankly dealing with the\nexisting situation, this is a kind of pseudonymity which should be\nclassed with literary fictions and conventions which are harmless\nbecause (at the time) perfectly transparent. Letters written under\nfictitious names were in fact a very common literary device of the age.\n\nAt all events the Apostle appears as an old man (v. 1) writing from\n\"Babylon\"--rightly taken by the fathers to be a cryptogram for Rome.\nSalutations are conveyed from Mark, his \"son\" (_cf._ Philem. i. 10). The\nbearer (writer?) is represented to be Silvanus (like Mark a companion of\nPaul with relations to Jerusalem as well), and Silvanus is commended as\na \"trustworthy\" disciple. The author states it as his object to \"exhort\nand testify that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand.\"\n\nIgnorant as we are of its author's name it is fortunate for our study of\nthe times that the date of 1st Peter is fairly determinable by the\nconvergence of external and internal evidence. Echoes from it appear\nalready in Clement of Rome (95) as well as in James and Hermas. We must\nthink of it, then, as a hand of cordial encouragement extended by a\nrepresentative of the Petro-Pauline church at Rome, soon after the\noutbreak of the persecution of Domitian (_c._ 90), to the still\nindependent but suffering churches of Asia Minor. If we remember that it\nundertakes to endorse the doctrine of one third of contemporary\nChristendom, and (in substance) offers a 'letter of commendation' to\nSilvanus, it will be obvious that no name of less authority than that of\nPeter could have served. As Zahn has well remarked: \"The significant\nthing ... is that it is Peter, the most distinguished apostle of the\ncircumcision (Gal. ii. 7) who bears witness to the genuineness of their\nstate of grace.\"\n\nWe must place alongside of 1st Peter one other epistle in which the\nmotive of exhortation to endurance of persecution without relaxation of\nthe moral standard is prominent, though not exclusive, and a second,\nwherein it appears only in a faint echo of \"trials,\" which turn out,\nhowever, as the reader proceeds, to be only \"temptations,\" while the\nreal occasion of writing is plain--moral relaxation without either\nheresy or persecution to excuse it. The two writings in question are the\nanonymous \"exhortation\" handed down under the title \"To the Hebrews,\"\nand the so-called Epistle (in reality a homily) of James. Hebrews begins\nas an exposition of the two psalms Paul had quoted in his reference in\n1st Cor. xv. 24-28 to the exaltation of Jesus (Pss. viii. and cx.)\nproving Him to be the Son, who, after temporary subordination to the\nangels, has been exalted above them to the place of supreme dominion.\nChrist has thus effected a greater redemption than Moses and Joshua. He\nis also a \"high-priest after the order of Melchizedek\" according to Ps.\ncx.; so that the Aaronic priesthood and ceremonial are surpassed as well\nas the Mosaic legislation, by the sacrifice of Calvary and intercession\nof the risen Redeemer. It is no wonder that in the period of debate\nagainst Judaism the canon-makers gave to this anonymous sermon a title\nwhich ranks it first in the class of subsequent controversial pamphlets\n\"against the Jews.\" Controversy, however, is subordinate in the writer's\npurpose to edification. He is not unconscious of the dangers of that\nsuperstitious 'worship of the angels,' against which Paul's Asian\nepistles had been directed, but his demonstration of the superiority of\nthe institutions and aims of Christianity to those of Judaism has the\npractical object of reinforcing the courage and \"faith\" of his readers\nunder pressure of persecution. His argument culminates in an inspiring\nlist of Scriptural heroes and martyrs, leading up as a climax to \"Jesus\nthe author and perfecter of our faith.\" As Jesus endured, looking beyond\nthe shame and suffering of the cross to the joy of His reward, so should\nthe readers \"endure their chastening.\" Apostacy will meet a fearful doom\nin the judgment of fire. To this homily (Heb. i.-xii.) is appended a\nconcluding chapter (probably by the author himself) which transforms it\ninto a letter. The author is a church-teacher of the second generation,\nas he frankly confesses himself (ii. 3); a disciple of Paul, to judge by\nhis use of Paul's doctrine and some of his epistles, especially Romans.\nTo judge by his rhetorical style and his Alexandrian ideas and mode of\nthought, he is the sort of teacher Apollos will have been. Just at\npresent he is separated from his flock (xiii. 19). Where they are we\ncan only infer from xiii. 24, which conveys salutations from those in\nthe writer's neighbourhood who are \"from Italy.\" He himself is probably\namong the Pauline churches, for he sends news of Timothy (xiii. 23) and\nhopes to come soon in company with him. Ephesus, where Apollos was at\nlast accounts, may possibly be the place of writing. Hebrews would seem\nthen to be written to Rome, long after the first \"great fight of\nafflictions\" (the Neronian outbreak of 64) and when the danger of\n\"fainting under the chastening\" of a second persecution (that of\nDomitian _c._ 90) was imminent. Such slight indications as we have of a\nliterary relation between Hebrews and 1st Peter suggest the priority of\nHebrews, but the date and occasion must be nearly the same.\n\n\"James\" is also a homily exhorting to patient endurance, but there is\nnothing to suggest its having ever been sent anywhere as a letter, save\nthe brief superscription written in imitation of 1st Pet. i. 1. \"James\n... to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion.\" Imagine the mode of\ndelivery! Nor is it called forth by any special emergency. There is an\nallusion to false doctrine. It is the heresy (!) of \"justification by\nfaith apart from works.\" But the writer is no more conscious of\ncontradicting Paul than is Luke in describing Paul's apostleship and\ngospel. He merely impersonates the 'bishop of bishops' addressing\nChristendom at large, deprecating the loquacity of the \"many teachers,\"\nand commending the 'wisdom' of a \"good life\" instead. There is protest\nagainst oppression. But it is only the oppression of the poor by the\nrich in the Christian brotherhood. He returns to this subject con amore.\nEvidently the church of his age is characterized by worldliness both of\nthought and conduct, among clergy and laity. But all colour of region or\nperiod is wanting. Take 1st Peter, substitute the head of the Jerusalem\nsuccession for the head of the Roman, remove the Pauline doctrine, the\ntraces of Jesus and his gospel of Son ship, remove the special\nreferences to local conditions and particular emergencies, leaving only\nmoral generalities, and the result will be not unlike the Epistle of\nJames. The author has heard something of Paulinism, has read Hebrews\n(Jas. ii. 21-25; v. 10), and imitated 1st Peter (Jas. i. 1, 18, 21; iv.\n6 f.; v. 20). Strong arguments have even been advanced to prove that\nhe was not a Christian at all. He probably was, if only from his\nliterary connection with the above-named earlier writings, and the\ninfluence exerted by his own on Hermas (Rome, 120-140), and perhaps\nClement (Rome, 95). But as for connection with the historic\nJesus--\"Elijah\" is his example of the man of prayer (v. 13-18), and\n\"Job\" and \"the prophets\" his \"example of suffering and patience\" (v. 10\nf.). Hebrews can show more of the influence of Jesus than this (Heb.\nv. 7 f., xii. 2-4). Like Hermas (who, however, does not even mention\nthe name of Jesus) 'James' thinks of Him simply as \"the Lord of glory,\"\nwithout raising the question how He came to be such.\n\nApart from the superscription, whose object is only to clothe the homily\nwith the authority of a name revered throughout the 'catholic' church,\nthere is nothing to connect James with Syria rather than any other\nregion outside Paul's mission-field. Even Palestine might be its place\nof origin if the date were late enough to account for the Greek style.\nAt all events it comes first to our knowledge at Rome. There is some\nreason to think that Clement of Rome (A.D. 95), whose moralizing is of a\nsimilar type, has been directly influenced by James. If so we have in\nJames, Clement and Hermas a series illustrative of the decline at Rome\nof the Pauline gospel of conscious revelation and inspiration toward the\nhum-drum levels of mere 'catholic' catechetics.\n\nWith every allowance for differences among critics as to date and origin\nof the non-controversial epistles of the sub-apostolic age, it is easy\nto see that the resistless march of events is taking up and\naccomplishing Paul's effort and prayer for the unity of the two branches\nof the Church. One great event of this period, which for us stands out\nwith startling vividness upon the pages of history, is curiously without\ntrace or reflection in this literature. We search the New Testament in\nvain for the slightest allusion (outside the writings directly or\nindirectly derived from Palestine itself) to the fall of Jerusalem in\nA.D. 70, and the consequent cessation of Jewish national life and temple\nceremonial. The remoteness of the writers with whom we are dealing both\nin time and national interest from the affairs of Jerusalem is not the\nonly cause. The fate of the temple had no effect to weaken the types of\nJudaism with which the church of the sub-apostolic age had to contend.\nThe Pharisaic legalism of the synagogue became only the stronger when\nthe hollow Sadducean priesthood collapsed, and temple ceremonial became\nsimply a ceremonial on paper, the affair no longer of priest and Levite,\nbut of scribe and Pharisee. So also with the denationalized Judaism of\nthe Dispersion, a more insidious danger for early converts from\nheathenism than the stricter, legalistic type. The crushing of the\nnationalistic rebellion, the temporary suppression of the war-party, the\nZealots, only strengthened and promoted Pharisaism, and the Dispersion\nwas scarcely affected by the losses of the war. When Jerusalem and the\ntemple fell, temple and city had become entirely superfluous factors to\nboth parties in the great strife of church versus synagogue. Hebrews\nknows of a type of Judaism which is formidable by reason of the appeal\nof its ordinances of angels and its sacerdotal system written in a book\nof acknowledged divine authority. But the characteristic point is that\nin Hebrews, as truly as in Barnabas and Justin Martyr, it is only the\nprescription and not the practice which is in question. But for the fact\nthat the \"new testament\" of Heb. ix. 15 is still unwritten, its\ncontroversy might properly be described as a battle of books.\n\nOn the other hand the pressure of persecution without, combined with the\ndisappearance of creative leadership within, is visibly forcing the\nindependent provinces of Christendom toward organic unity under the\nprinciple of apostolic authority. First Peter is the first and greatest\nevidence of this tendency to union promoted by external pressure.\nHebrews and James follow as illustrative of the need felt for\nmaintaining the standards both of doctrine and of morals at their full\nheight. Christianity must not be thought of as on a level with Judaism,\nit is the final and universal revelation. It must not be practised\nhalf-heartedly, with \"double-mindedness,\" nor in vain philosophizing and\nprofessions belied by deeds. It must be obeyed as a new and royal law,\nthe mirror of divine perfection.\n\nIf, then, we turn from these evidences of general conditions in church\nand empire to the inward dangers revealed by the writings against\nheresy, we shall see how this disruptive influence, already distinctly\napprehended in Paul's later writings, makes itself more and more\nstrongly felt, and in more and more definite form, with Ephesus and the\nchurches of Asia as its chief breeding-place.\n\nThe Pastoral Epistles in their present form cannot be dated much before\nthe time when they begin to be used by Ignatius and Polycarp (110-117).\nIndeed some phrases (perhaps editorial additions) seem to imply a still\nlater date, as when in 1st Tim. vi. 20, Timothy is warned against the\n\"antitheses of miscalled Gnosis,\" as if with direct reference to\nMarcion's system of this title. Their avowed purpose is to counteract\nthe inroads of heresy, and the remedy applied is ecclesiastical\nauthority and discipline. Far more of Paul's inspired gospel of Son ship\nand liberty, far more of his conception of the redemption in Christ as a\ntriumph over the spiritual world-rulers of this darkness, is found in\n1st Peter and Hebrews than here. Nothing appears of Paul's broad\nhorizon, his spirit of missionary conquest, his devotion to the unity of\nJew and Gentile in their common access to the Father in one Spirit.\nThere is no trace of the great Pauline doctrines of the conflict of\nflesh and spirit, the superseding of the dispensation of Law by the\ndispensation of Grace, the Adoption, the Redemption, the Inheritance.\nThe attention is turned wholly to local conditions, maintenance of the\ntransmitted doctrine and order, resistance to the advance of \"vain\ntalk,\" \"Jewish fables,\" \"foolish questionings, genealogies and strifes\nabout the Law,\" which go hand in hand with moral laxity. In short the\noutlook and temper are those of the Epistle of James, while the remedy\nis that of Acts and the Epistles of Ignatius. The Paul who here speaks\nis not the missionary and mystic, but the shrewd ecclesiastic. There is\nonly too much evidence to show that in the Pauline mission-field the\nremedy resorted to against the licence in thought and action which\nthreatened decadence and dissolution after apostolic inspiration had\ndied out, was the religion of authority, doctrinal and disciplinary, not\nthe religion of the Spirit. Ecclesiastical appointees take the place as\nteachers and defenders of the faith of those who had been the inspired\napostles and prophets of its extension.\n\nAnd on the other side are the false teachers. They are of Jewish\ncharacter in their doctrine, aspiring to be \"teachers of the Law\" though\nreally ignorant of its meaning. The worst of them are actual Jews (Tit.\ni. 10), which implies that some were not. Moreover the type of doctrine\nis still less like the Pharisaism of the synagogue than the \"philosophy\nand vain deceit\" rebuked by Paul at Colossae. There is similar\ndistinction of meats (treated in 2nd Tim. iv. 1-5 as a doctrine of\n\"seducing spirits and demons\"), and a prohibition of wine and marriage.\nThere is side by side with this ascetic tendency one equally marked\ntoward libertinism and love of money (2nd Tim. iii. 1-9). Both phases\nremind us of the \"concision\" of Paul's later letters. But besides the\nlarger development new features appear of Hellenistic rather than Jewish\ntype. The new doctrine of the resurrection as something \"past already\"\nis more closely connected with the Pauline mysticism, the present union\nof the believer with the life of Christ \"hid in God,\" than with the\nJewish idea of return to earth in resuscitated flesh. The Paulinist of\nthe Pastorals is already foreshadowing the great conflict of Ignatius,\nJustin and Irenaeus against those who \"denied the resurrection,\"\nperverting (as the fathers allege) the meaning of Paul's saying, \"flesh\nand blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God\" (_cf._ 2nd Pet. iii. 16).\nAnd the Pastorals tend toward the un-Pauline doctrine soon to be\nformulated in the 'catholic' church: \"I believe in the resurrection of\nthe _flesh_.\" Again the false doctrine now distinctly avows itself a\nform of Gnosis. \"They profess that they know God, but by their works\nthey deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good\nwork reprobate.\" And our Paulinist's remedy is the traditional doctrine,\nthe \"pattern of sound words,\" the \"deposit\" of the Church teacher, more\nespecially the whole-some words, \"even the words of our Lord Jesus\nChrist, and the doctrine which is according to godliness.\" Thus even the\nrich, if they do good, and become \"rich in good works\" will \"lay up in\nstore for themselves a good foundation against the time to come.\"\n\nWe have only to place these pseudo-Pauline writings side by side with\nthe Epistles of John and Ignatius to recognize the advance of the heresy\nwhich soon declared itself as Gnostic Doketism, with the Jew Cerinthus\nat Ephesus as its principal exponent. Moreover this steadily increasing\ninward danger of the Pauline mission-field, a danger not merely sporadic\nlike the outbursts of persecution, but constant and increasing, is\nforcing the two great branches of the Christian brotherhood together on\nthe basis of 'catholicity' and the 'apostolic' tradition. Between the\nchurches of the AEgean and that of Rome, where both parties stand on\nneutral ground, there are exchanged generous and sympathetic assurances\nof essential unity of doctrine in the great outbreak of persecution in\n85-90. Among the Pauline churches themselves there is an irresistible\nreaction against the vagaries and moral laxity of heretical teaching\ntoward 'apostolic' tradition and ecclesiastical authority. It appears\nwith almost startling vividness in the Pastoral Epistles, and meets its\nanswer from without, perhaps from Rome, perhaps from Syria, in the\nhomily dressed as an encyclical called the Epistle of James. It is not\nhard to foresee what sort of Christian unity is destined to come about.\nNevertheless the creative spirit and genius of Paul was to find\nexpression in one more splendid product of Ephesus before the Roman\nunity was to be achieved.--But before we take up the writings of the\ngreat 'theologian' of Ephesus we must trace the growth in Syria and at\nRome of the Literature of the Church Teacher and Prophet.\n\n\n\n\nPART III\n\nTHE LITERATURE OF CATECHIST AND PROPHET\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE MATTHAEAN TRADITION OF THE PRECEPTS OF JESUS\n\n\nAs we have seen in our study of the later literature addressed to, or\nemanating from, the Pauline mission-field, the church teacher and\necclesiastic who there took up the pen after the death of Paul had\nscarcely any alternative but to follow the literary model of the great\nfounder of Gentile Christianity. Inevitably the typical literary product\nof this region became the apostolic letter, framed on the model of\nPaul's, borrowing his phraseology and ideas, when not actually embodying\nfragments from his pen and covering itself with his name. Homilies are\nmade over into \"epistles.\" Even 'prophecy,' to obtain literary\ncirculation, must have prefixed epistles of \"the Spirit\" to the\nchurches; and when at last a gospel is produced, this too is\naccompanied, as we shall see, by three successive layers of enclosing\n'epistles.'\n\nAt the seat of 'apostolic' Christianity it was equally inevitable that\nthe literary products should follow a different model. Here, from the\nbeginning, the standard of authority had been the commandment of Jesus.\nApostleship had meant ability to transmit his teaching, not endowment\nwith insight into the mystery of the divine purpose revealed in his\ncross and resurrection. \"The gospel\" was the gospel _of_ Jesus. The\nletters of Paul, if they circulated at all in Syria and Cilicia at this\nearly time, have had comparatively small effect on writers like Luke and\nJames. At Rome the case was somewhat different. Here Pauline influence\nhad been effectually superimposed upon an originally Jewish-Christian\nstock. The Roman Gospel of Mark, accordingly, has just the\ncharacteristics we should expect from this Petro-Pauline community.\nAntioch, too, though at the disruption over the question of\ntable-fellowship it took the side of James, Peter, and Barnabas against\nPaul, had always had a strong Gentile element. But Jerusalem, the church\nof the apostles and elders, with its caliphate in the family of Jesus,\nand its zeal for Jewish institutions and the Law, was the pre-eminent\nseat of traditional authority. No other gospel, oral or written, could\nfor a moment compare in its eyes with its own cherished treasury of the\nprecepts of Jesus. Its own estimate of itself as conservator of\northodoxy, and custodian of the sacred deposit, vividly reflected from\nthe pages of Hegesippus, was increasingly accepted by the other\nchurches. 'James' and 'Jude' were probably not the real names of the\nwriters of these 'general' or 'catholic' epistles; but they show in what\ndirection men looked when there was need to counteract a widespread\ntendency to moral relaxation and vain disputations, or to demoralizing\nheresy.\n\nWe have also seen how inevitable was the reaction after Paul's death,\neven among his own churches, toward a historic standard of authority.\nEven more marked than the disposition to draw together in fraternal\nsympathy under persecution, is the reliance shown by the Pastoral\nEpistles on \"health-giving words, even the words of our Lord Jesus\nChrist\" (1st Tim. vi. 3), and on a consolidated apostolic succession as\na bulwark against the disintegrating advance of heresy. In (proconsular)\nAsia early in the second century there is an unmistakable and sweeping\ndisposition to \"turn to the word handed down to us from the beginning\"\n(_Ep. of Polyc._, vii.) against those who were \"perverting the sayings\nof the Lord to their own lusts.\" The ancient \"word of prophecy\" and the\nformer revelations granted to apostolic seers were also turned to\naccount by men like Papias and the author of 2nd Peter against those who\n\"denied the resurrection and judgment.\"\n\nThis Papias of Hierapolis, the friend and colleague of Polycarp, had\nundertaken in opposition to \"the false teachers, and those who have so\nvery much to say,\" to write (probably after the utter destruction of the\ncommunity of 'apostles, elders, and witnesses' at Jerusalem in 135), _an\nExposition of the Sayings of the Lord_. He based the work on authentic\ntradition of the Jerusalem witnesses, two of whom (Aristion, and John\n'the Elder') were still living at the time of his inquiries. In fact,\nthis much debated \"John the Elder,\" clearly distinguished by Papias from\nJohn the \"disciple of the Lord,\" may be identified, in our judgment,\nwith the John mentioned by Eusebius and Epiphanius midway in the\nsuccession of 'Elders' of the Jerusalem church between A.D. 62 and 135.\nEpiphanius dates his death in 117. Papias gives us practically all the\ninformation we have regarding the beginnings of gospel literature. He\nmay have known all four of our Gospels. He certainly knew Revelation and\n\"vouched for its trustworthiness,\" doubtless against the deniers of the\nresurrection and judgment. He \"used testimonies\" from 1st John, and\nprobably the saying of Jesus of John xiv. 2; but he seems to have based\nhis _Exposition_ on two gospels only, giving what he had been able to\nlearn of their history from travellers who reported to him testimonies\nof 'the elders.' Papias' two gospels were our Matthew and our Mark,\nwhose differences he reconciled by what the Jerusalem elders had\nreported as to their origin. Matthew, according to these authorities\n(?), represented in its Greek form a collection of the Precepts of the\nLord which had formerly been current in the original Aramaic, so that\nits circulation had of course been limited to Palestine. The original\ncompiler had been the Apostle Matthew. Various Greek equivalents of this\ncompilation had taken its place where Aramaic was not current. Thus\nPapias, in explicit dependence on \"the Elder\" so far as Mark is\nconcerned, but without special designation of his authority for the\nstatement regarding Matthew. It is even possible that his representation\nthat the primitive Matthew was \"in the Hebrew tongue\" may be due to\nrumours whose real starting-point was nothing more than the _Gospel of\nthe Nazarenes_, a product of _c._ 110-140 which misled many later\nfathers, particularly Jerome. We cannot afford, however, to slight the\ngeneral bearing of testimony borne by one such as Papias regarding the\norigins of gospel composition, and particularly the two branches into\nwhich the tradition was divided. For Papias had made diligent inquiry.\nMoreover his witness does not stand alone, but has the support of still\nmore ancient reference (_e. g._ 1st Tim. vi. 3, Acts i. 1) and the\ninternal evidence of the Synoptic Gospels themselves. The motive for his\nstatement is apologetic. Differences between the two Gospels had been\npointed out on the score both of words and events. Papias shows that\nGospel tradition is not to be held responsible for verbal agreement\nbetween the two parallel reports of the Lord's words. The differences\nare attributable to translation. So, too, regarding events. Exact\ncorrespondence of Mark with Matthew (or other gospels) is not to be\nlooked for, especially as regards the order; because Mark had not\nhimself been a disciple, and could not get the true order from Peter,\nwhose anecdotes he reproduced; for when Mark wrote Peter was no longer\nliving. Mark has reproduced faithfully and accurately his recollection\nof \"things either said or done,\" as related by Peter. But Peter had had\nno such intention as Matthew of making a systematic compilation\n(_syntagma_) of the sayings of the Lord, and had only related his\nanecdotes \"as occasion required.\" If the tradition regarding Matthew, as\nwell as that regarding Mark, was derived from the Elder, he, too, as\nwell as Papias, knew the Greek Matthew; regarding it as a \"translation\"\nof the apostolic _Logia_, he naturally makes Matthew the standard and\naccounts as above for the wide divergence of Mark as to order.\n\nThe Jerusalem elder who thus differentiates the two great branches of\ngospel tradition into Matthaean Precepts and Petrine Sayings and Doings,\nis probably \"the Elder John\"; for this elder's \"traditions\" were so\ncopiously cited by Papias as to lead Irenaeus, and after him Eusebius, to\nthe unwarranted inference of personal contact. Irenaeus even identified\nthe Elder John with the Apostle, thus transporting not only him, but the\nentire body of \"Elders and disciples\" from Jerusalem to Asia, a pregnant\nmisapprehension to which we must return later. In the meantime we must\nnote that this fundamental distinction between _syntagmas_ of the\nPrecepts, and narratives of the Sayings and Doings, carries us back as\nfar as it is possible to penetrate into the history of gospel\ncomposition. The primitive work of the Apostle Matthew, was probably\ndone in and for Jerusalem and vicinity--certainly so if written in\nAramaic. The date, if early tradition may be believed, was \"when Peter\nand Paul were preaching and founding the church at Rome.\" Oral tradition\nmust have begun the process even earlier.[16] Mark's work was done at\nRome, according to internal evidence no less than by the unanimous voice\nof early tradition. It dates from \"after the death of Peter\" (64-5)\naccording to ancient tradition. According to the internal evidence it\nwas written certainly not long before, and probably some few years\nafter, the overthrow of Jerusalem and the temple (70). At the time of\nPapias' writing, then (_c._ 145), all four gospels were probably known,\nthough only Matthew and Mark were taken as authoritative because\n(indirectly) apostolic. At the time of prosecution of his inquiries the\nvoice of (Palestinian) tradition was still \"living and abiding.\" If, as\ntenses and phraseology seem to imply, this means Aristion and the Elder\nJohn (_ob._ 117?) it is reasonable to regard it as extending back over a\nfull generation. The original Matthew was even then (_c._ 100), and in\nPalestine itself, a superseded book. It had three successors, if not\nmore, two Greek and one Aramaic, all still retaining their claim to the\nname and authority of Matthew[17]; but all had been re-cast in a\nnarrative frame, which at least in the case of our canonical first\nGospel was borrowed from the Roman work of Mark. So far as the remaining\nfragments of its rivals enable us to judge, the same is true in their\ncase also, though to a less extent. It is quite unmistakably true of\nLuke, the gospel of Antioch, that its narrative represents the same\n\"memorabilia of Peter\"; for so Mark's gospel came to be called. Thus the\nPetrine story appears almost from the start to have gained undisputed\nsupremacy. But side by side with this remarkable fact as to gospel\n_narrative_ is the equally notable confirmation of the other statements\nof 'the Elders' regarding the Precepts. For all modern criticism\nadmits, that besides the material of Mark, which both Matthew and Luke\nfreely incorporate, omitting very little, our first and third\nevangelists have embodied, in (usually) the same Greek translation but\nin greatly varied order, large sections from one or more early\ncompilations of the Sayings of Jesus.\n\n    Footnote 16: Some authorities of the first rank think there is\n    evidence of literary dependence in 1st Cor. i. 18-21 on the Saying\n    (Matt. xi. 25-27 = Lk. x. 21 f.).\n\n    Footnote 17: The orthodox Aramaic _Gospel of the Nazarenes_ borrows\n    from Luke as well as Matthew, but speaks in the name of \"Matthew.\"\n    This apostle was also regarded as author of the _Gospel according to\n    the Hebrews_, a heretical product of _c._ 120, current in Greek\n    among the Jewish Christians of Palestine (Ebionites).\n\nIt is indispensable to a historical appreciation of the environment out\nof which any gospel has arisen that we realize that no community ever\nproduced and permanently adopted as its \"gospel\" a _partial_\npresentation of the message of salvation. To its mind the writing must\nhave embodied, for the time at least, the message, the whole message,\nand nothing but the message. Change of mind as to the essential contents\nof the message would involve supplementation or alteration of the\nwritten gospel employed. No writing of the kind would be produced with\ntacit reference to some other for another aspect of the truth.\n\nIt was not, then, the mere limitation of its language which caused the\nancient Matthaean Sayings (the so-called _Logia_) to be superseded and\ndisappear; nor is mere \"translation\" the word to describe that which\ntook its place. The growth of Christianity in the Greek-speaking world\nnot only called upon Jerusalem to pour out its treasure of evangelic\ntradition in the language of the empire, but stimulated a sense of its\nown increasing need. That which could once be supplied by\neye-witnesses, the testimony of Jesus' mighty works, his death and\nresurrection, was now fast disappearing. And simultaneously the\nappreciation of its importance was growing. It was impossible to be\nblind to the conquests made by the gospel _about_ Jesus. Enclosed in it,\nas part of its substance the gospel _of_ Jesus found its final\nresting-place, much as the mother church itself was later taken up and\nincorporated in a catholic Christendom. So it is that in the Elder's\ntime the church of the 'apostles, elders and witnesses' have done more\nthan merely supersede their Aramaic(?) _Syntagma_ of the Precepts by\n\"translations.\" They had adopted alongside of it from Rome Mark's\n\"Memorabilia of Peter\" as to \"things either said or done by the Lord.\"\nWe can see indeed from the apologetic way in which 'the Elder' speaks of\nMark's limitations (Peter is not to be held responsible for the lack of\norder) that Mark's authority is still held quite secondary to Matthew's;\nbut the very fact that his work is given authoritative standing at all,\nstill more the fact that it has become the framework into which the\nold-time _syntagma_ has been set, marks a great and fundamental change\nof view as to what constitutes \"the gospel.\"\n\nNo mere _syntagma_ of the Precepts of Jesus has ever come down to us,\nthough the papyrus leaves of \"Sayings of Jesus\" discovered in 1897 at\nBehneseh in Egypt by Grenfell and Hunt had something of this\ncharacter.[1] It was impossible that any community outside the most\nprimitive one, where personal \"witnesses of the Lord\" still survived\n\"until the times of Trajan,\" could be satisfied with a \"gospel\" which\ngave only the precepts of Jesus without so much as an account of his\ncrucifixion and resurrection. And, strange as it may seem, the evidence\nof Q (_i. e._ the coincident material in Matthew and Luke not derived\nfrom Mark), as judged by nearly all critics, is that no narrative of the\nkind was given in the early compilation of discourses from which this\nelement was mainly derived. After the \"witnesses,\" apostolic and other,\nhad begun to disappear, a mere _syntagma_ of Jesus' sayings could not\nsuffice. It became inevitable that the precepts should be embodied in\nthe story. And yet we have at least two significant facts to corroborate\nthe intimations of ancient tradition that this combination was long\npostponed. (18) When it is at last effected, and certainly in the\nregions of southern Syria,[19] there is even there practically nothing\nleft of authentic _narrative_ material but the Petrine tradition as\ncompiled by Mark at Rome. Our Matthew, a Palestinian Jew, the only\nwriter of the New Testament who consistently uses the Hebrew Bible,\nmakes a theoretical reconstruction of the order of events in the\nGalilean ministry, but otherwise he just incorporates Mark substantially\nas it was. What he adds in the way of narrative is so meagre in amount,\nand so manifestly inferior and apocryphal in character, as to prove the\nextreme poverty of his resources of oral tradition of this type. Luke\nhas somewhat larger, and (as _literary_ products) better, narrative\nadditions than Matthew's; but the amount is still extremely meagre, and\noften _historically_ of slight value. Some of it reappears in the\nsurviving fragments of the _Preaching of Peter_. To sum up, there is\noutside of Mark _no_ considerable amount of historical material,\ncanonical or uncanonical, for the story of Jesus. This fact would be\nhard to account for if in the regions where witnesses survived, the\nfirst generation really took an interest in perpetuating narrative\ntradition. (2) The _order_ of even such events as secured perpetuation\nwas already hopelessly lost at a time more remote than the writing of\nour earliest gospel. This is true not only for Mark, as 'the Elder'\nfrankly confesses, but for Matthew, Luke and every one else.\nUnchronological as Mark's order often is (and the tradition as to the\n'casual anecdotes' agrees with the critical phenomena of the text), it\nis vastly more historical than Matthew's reconstruction. On the other\nhand Luke, while expressly undertaking to improve in this special\nrespect upon his predecessors, almost never ventures to depart from the\norder of Mark, and when he does has never the support of Matthew, and\nusually not that of real probability. In short, incorrect as they knew\nthe order of Mark to be, it was the best that could be had in the days\nwhen evangelists began to go beyond the mere _syntagmas_, and to write\n\"gospels\" as we understand them, or, in their own language, \"the things\nwhich Jesus began _both_ to do _and_ to teach\" (Acts i. 1). From these\ntwo great outstanding phenomena of gospel criticism alone it would be\napparent that the distinction dimly perceived in the tradition of the\nJerusalem elders reported by Papias, and indeed by many later writers,\nis no illusion, but an important and vital fact.\n\n    Footnote 18: It was superscribed \"These are the ... words (_logoi_\n    as in the Pastoral Epistles, not _logia_ as in Papias and Polycarp)\n    which Jesus the living Lord spoke to the disciples and Thomas.\"\n\n    Footnote 19: The possibility should be left open that the Greek\n    Matthew was written in Egypt (cf. Matt. ii. 15), as some critics\n    hold. From the point of view of the church historian, however, Egypt\n    must really be classed as in \"the regions of southern Syria.\" Its\n    relations with Jerusalem were close and constant.\n\nA third big, unexpected fact looms up as we round the capes of critical\nanalysis, subtracting from Matthew and Luke first the elements peculiar\nto each, then that derived by each from Mark. It is a fact susceptible,\nhowever, of various interpretation. To some it only proves either the\nfutility of criticism, or the worthlessness of ancient tradition. To us\nit proves simply that the process of transition in Palestine, the home\nof evangelic tradition, from the primitive _syntagma_ of Precepts,\nframed on the plan of the Talmudic treatise known as _Pirke Aboth_, or\n\"Sayings of the Fathers,\" to the Greek type of narrative gospel, was a\nlonger and more complex one than has commonly been imagined. A cursory\nstatement of the results of critical efforts to reproduce the so-called\n\"second source\" of Matthew and Luke (Mark being considered the first),\nwill serve to bring out the fact to which we refer, and at the same\ntime, we hope, to throw light upon the history of gospel development.\n\nThe mere process of subtraction above described to obtain the element Q\noffers no serious difficulties, and for those who attach value to the\ntradition of 'the Elders' it is natural to anticipate that the remainder\nwill show traits corresponding to the description of an apostolic\n_syntagma_ of sayings of the Lord translated from the Aramaic, in short\nthe much-desired _Logia_ of Matthew. The actual result is disappointing\nto such an expectation. The widely, though perhaps somewhat\nthoughtlessly accepted equivalence Q = the _Logia_ is simply false. Q is\n_not_ the _Logia_. It is not a _syntagma_, nor even a consistent whole,\nand as it lay before our first and third evangelists it was not (for a\nconsiderable part at least) in Aramaic. True, Q does consist _almost_\nexclusively of discourse material, a large part of which has only\ntopical order, and is wholly, or mainly, destitute of narrative\nconnection. Also we find traces here and there of translation at some\nperiod from the Aramaic, though not more in the Q element than in Mark.\nBut to those who looked for immediate confirmation of the tradition the\nresult has been on the whole disappointing. Some, more particularly\namong English critics, have considered it to justify a falling back upon\nthe vaguer generalities of the once prevalent theory of oral tradition.\nIn reality we are simply called upon to renew the process of\ndiscrimination. Most of the Q material has the saying-character and is\nstrung together with that lack of all save topical order which we look\nfor in a _syntagma_. But parts of it, such as the Healing of the\nCenturion's servant (Matt. viii. 5-10, 13 = Luke vii. 1-10), or the\nPreaching of the Baptist and Temptation Story (Matt. iii. 7-10, 12; iv.\n2-11 = Luke iii. 7-9, 17; iv. 2-13), obstinately refuse to be brought\nunder this category. Moreover, the latter section has the unmistakable\nmotive of presenting Jesus _in his character and ministry_ as \"the Son\nof God,\" precisely as in Mark. It begins by introducing Jesus on the\nstage at the baptism of John, after the ancient narrative outline (Acts\ni. 22; x. 37 f.), and cannot be imagined as forming part of anything\nelse but a _narrative_ having the conclusion characteristic of our own\ntype of gospel. Other considerable sections of Q, such as the Question\nof John's Disciples and Discourse of Jesus on those that were 'Stumbled'\nin him (Matt. xi. 2-11, 16-27; Luke vii. 18-35; x. 13-22), share with\nthe Baptism and Temptation section not only the doctrinal motive of\ncommending Jesus in his person and ministry as the longed-for Son of\nGod, but in a number of characteristics which set them quite apart from\nthe general mass of precepts and parables in Q. We can here mention only\nthe following: (1) the coincidence in language between Matthew and Luke\nis much greater in these sections of Q, often even greater than in the\nsections borrowed from Mark, showing clearly the existence of a common\ndocument written not in Aramaic, but in the Greek language. (2) This\nmaterial, unlike most of Q, has served as a source and model in many\nportions of Mark. (3) It is for the most part not included in the five\ngreat blocks into which Matthew has divided the Precepts by means of a\nspecial concluding formula (vii. 28; xi. 1; xiii. 53; xix. 1, and xxvi.\n1) but appears outside, in the form of supplements to the Markan\nnarrative (iii. 7--iv. 11; viii. 5-13, 18-22, xi. 2-27; xii. 38-45,\netc.). Finally (4) the Q material of this type seems to be given more\ncopiously by Luke than by Matthew, and with something more than mere\nconjecture of his own as to its historical occasion. In fact, since it\nappears that at least this element of Q was known to Mark, there is\nnothing to justify exclusion from it of such material as the\nTransfiguration story, though in this case it would be needful to prove\nthat Mark was not the source. Similarly it would be reasonable to think\nof Luke's wide divergence from Mark in his story of the Passion as\noccasioned by his preference for material derived from this source.\nOnly, since Matthew has preferred to follow Mark, we have no means of\ndetermining whence Luke did derive his new and here often valuable\nmaterial.\n\nThe existence, then, of an element of Q which quite fails to correspond\nto what we take the Matthaean _syntagma_ to have been by no means proves\neither the futility of criticism or the worthlessness of the ancient\ntradition. It only shows that our synoptic evangelists were not the\nfirst to attempt the combination of discourse with narrative, but that\nLuke at least had a predecessor in the field, to whom all are more or\nless indebted. Criticism and tradition together show that there are two\ngreat streams from which all historically trustworthy material has been\nderived. The one is Evangelic Story, and is mainly derived from Mark's\noutline of the ministry based on the anecdotes of Peter, though some\nelements come from another source, principally preserved by Luke, which\nwe must discuss in a later chapter devoted to the growth of Petrine\nstory at Rome and Antioch. The other stream, \"Words of the Lord,\" comes\nfrom Jerusalem, and is always associated in all its forms with the name\nof Matthew. We have every reason for accepting the statement that as\nearly as the founding of the church in Rome (45-50) the Apostle Matthew\nhad begun the work of compiling the Precepts of Jesus, in a form\nserviceable to the object of \"teaching men to observe all things\nwhatsoever he had commanded.\" Our present Gospel of Matthew, however, is\nneither this work nor a translation of it; for the only three things\ntold us about the apostle's work are all irreconcilable with the\ncharacteristics of our Matthew. The compilation of \"Words of the Lord\"\nwas (1) a _syntagma_ and not, like Mark, an outline of the ministry. It\nwas (2) written in Aramaic; whereas our Matthew is an original Greek\ncomposition. It was (3) by an apostle who had personal acquaintance with\nJesus; whereas our first evangelist is to the last degree dependent upon\nthe confessedly defective story of Mark. Still if we take our Matthew as\nthe last link in the long chain of development, covering perhaps half a\ncentury, and including such by-products as the _Gospel according to the\nHebrews_ and the _Gospel of the Nazarenes_, we may obtain a welcome\nlight upon the environment out of which has come down the work which an\nable scholar justly declared, \"the most important book ever written, the\nGospel according to Matthew.\"\n\nThe language in which it was written was alone sufficient to place the\nGreek Matthew beyond all possible competition in the larger world from\nAramaic rivals. But its comprehensiveness and catholicity still further\nhelped it to the position which it soon attained as the most widely used\nof all the gospels. Matthew is not only in its whole structure a\ncomposite gospel, but shows in high degree the catholicizing tendency of\nthe times. Just as it frankly adopts the Roman-Petrine narrative of Mark\nwith slightest possible modification, so also it places in Peter's hand\nwith equal frankness the primacy in apostolic succession. Almost the\nonly additions it makes to Mark's account of the public ministry are the\nstory of Peter's walking on the sea (xiv. 28-33), and his payment of the\ntemple tribute for Christ and himself with the coin from the fish's\nmouth (xvii. 24-27). The latter story introduces the chapter on the\nexercise of rulership in \"the church\" (ch. xviii.), beginning with the\ndisciples' question: \"Who _then_ is greatest in the kingdom?\" Peter is\nagain in it the one salient figure (xviii. 21). An equally important\naddition, connected with xviii. 17 f. is the famous committal to Peter\nof the power of the keys, with the declaration making him for his\nconfession the 'Rock' foundation of \"the church.\" This addition to\nMark's story of the rebuke of Peter at Caesarea Philippi, is one which\ndecidedly alters its bearing, and seems even to borrow the very language\nof Gal. i. 16 f. in order to exalt the apostleship of Peter. In fact,\nthe Roman gospel and the Palestinian almost reverse the roles we should\nexpect Peter to play in each. Matthew alone makes Peter \"the first\" (x.\n2), while Mark seems to take special pains to record rebukes of the\ntwelve and the brethren of the Lord, and especially the rebukes called\ndown upon themselves by Peter, or Peter and John.\n\nIn respect to the primacy of Peter we can observe a certain difference\neven among the Palestinian gospels which succeeded to the primitive\n_syntagma_ of Matthew. Little, indeed, is known of the orthodox _Gospel\nof the Nazarenes_, beyond its relatively late and composite character;\nfor it borrowed from Matthew, Mark and Luke in turn. Its list of\napostles, however, begins with \"John and James the sons of Zebedee,\"\n_then_ \"Simon and Andrew,\" and winds up: \"Thee also, Matthew, did I\ncall, as thou wert sitting at the seat of custom, and thou followedst\nme.\" The anti-Pauline _Gospel according to the Hebrews_ shows its\nconception of the seat of apostolic authority by giving to \"James the\nJust\" the place of Peter as recipient of that first manifestation of the\nrisen Lord, which laid the foundation of the faith. Why then does the\nGreek Palestinian gospel, in contrast with its rivals, lay such special\nstress on the primacy of Peter?\n\nFrom the cautious and (as it were) deprecatory tone of the appendix to\nJohn (John xxi.) in seeking to commend the \"other disciple whom Jesus\nloved\" as worthy to be accepted as a \"true witness\" without detriment to\nthe acknowledged authority of Peter as chief under-shepherd of the\nflock, we may infer that not at Rome alone, but wherever there was\nquestion of 'apostolic' tradition, the authority of Peter was coming\nrapidly to the fore. The tendency at Antioch is even more marked than at\nRome, as is manifest from Acts. If, then, it seems stronger still in a\nregion where we should expect the authority of James to be put forward,\nthis need not be taken as a specifically Roman trait. We must realize\nthe sharp antagonism which existed in Palestine from the time of the\nApostolic council down, between (1) the consistent legalists, who\nmaintained down to the period of Justin (153) and the _Clementine\nHomilies and Recognitions_ (180-200), their bitter hostility to Paul and\nhis gospel of Gentile freedom from the Law; and (2) the 'catholic,' or\nliberal, Jewish-Christians, who took the standpoint of the Pillars. It\nis but one of many indications of its 'catholic' tendency that our\nMatthew increases the emphasis on the apostolic authority of Peter to\nthe point of an actual primacy. The phenomenon must be judged in the\nlight of the disappearance or suppression of all evangelic story save\nwhat came under the name of Peter, and the tendency in Acts to bring\nunder his name even the entire apostleship to the Gentiles. Peter is not\nyet in these early writings the representative of Rome, but of\n_catholicity_. The issue in Matthew is not as between Rome and some\nother dominant see, but (as the reflection of the language of Gal. i.\n17 f. in Matt. xvi. 17 shows) as between 'catholic' apostolic\nauthority and the unsafe tendencies of Pauline independence.\n\nNevertheless, for all his leanings to catholicity the Greek Matthew has\nnot wholly succeeded in excluding materials which still reflect\nJewish-Christian hostility to Paul, or at least to the tendencies of\nPauline Christianity. Over and over again special additions are made in\nMatthew to emphasize a warning against the workers of \"lawlessness.\" The\nexhortation of Jesus in Luke vi. 42-45 to effect (self-)reformation not\non the surface, nor in word, but by change of the inward root of\ndisposition fructifying in deeds, is altered in Matt. vii. 15-22 into a\nwarning against the \"false prophets\" who work \"lawlessness,\" and who\nmust be judged by their fruits. They make the confession of Lordship\n(_cf._ Rom. x. 9) but are not obedient to Jesus' commandment, and lack\ngood works. In particular the test of Mark ix. 38-40 is directly\nreversed. The principle \"Whosoever is not against us is for us\" is not\nto be trusted. A teacher may exercise the 'spiritual gifts' of prophecy,\nexorcism, and miracles wrought in the name of Jesus, and still be a\nreprobate. A similar (and most incongruous) addition is made to Mark's\nparable of the Patient Husbandman (Mark iv. 26-29), in Matt. xiii.\n24-30, and reiterated in a specially appended \"interpretation\" (xiii.\n36-43). This addition likens the \"workers of lawlessness\" to tares sown\nalongside the good seed of the word by \"an enemy.\" A similar incongruous\nattachment is made to the parable of the Marriage feast (Matt. xxii.\n1-14; _cf._ Luke xiv. 15-24) to warn against the lack of the 'garment of\ngood works.' Finally, Matthew closes his whole series of the discourses\nof Jesus with a group of three parables developed with great elaboration\nand rhetorical effect, out of relatively slight suggestions as found\nelsewhere. The sole theme of the series is the indispensableness of good\nworks in the judgment (Matt. 25; _cf._ Luke xii. 35-38; xix. 11-28, and\nMark ix. 37, 41). A similar interest appears in Matthew's insistence on\nthe permanent obligation of the Law (v. (16) 17-20; xix. 16-22--in\ncontrast with Mark x. 17-22), on respect for the temple (xvii. 24-27)\nand on the Davidic descent of Jesus, with fulfilment of messianic\npromise in him (chh. i.-ii.; ix. 27). He limits the activity of Jesus to\nthe Holy Land (xv. 22; contrast Mark vii. 24 f.), makes him in sending\nforth the Twelve (x. 5 f.) specifically forbid mission work among\nSamaritans or Gentiles, and while the prohibition is finally removed in\nxxviii. 18-20, the apostolic seat cannot be removed, but remains as in\nx. 23, among \"the cities of Israel\" to the end of the world.\n\nThere is probably no more of intentional opposition to Paul or to his\ngospel in all this than in James or Luke. We cannot for example regard\nit as more than accidental coincidence that in the phrase \"an enemy hath\ndone this,\" in the parable of the tares, we have the same epithet which\nthe Ebionite literature applies to Paul. But enough remains to indicate\nhow strongly Jewish-Christian prejudices and limitations still affected\nour evangelist. With respect to date, the atmosphere is in all respects\nsuch as characterizes the period of the nineties.\n\nIt does not belong to our present purpose to analyze this gospel into\nits constituent elements. The process can be followed in many treatises\non gospel criticism, and the results will be found summarized in\n_Introductions_ to the New Testament such as the recent scholarly work\nof Moffatt. We have here but to note the general character and structure\nof the book as revealing the main outlines of its history and the\nconditions which gave it birth.\n\nMatthew and Luke are alike in that both represent comparatively late\nattempts to combine the ancient Matthaean _syntagma_ with the\n'Memorabilia of Peter' compiled by Mark. But there is a great\ndifference. Luke contemplates his work with some of the motives of the\nhistorian. He adopts the method of narrative, and therefore subordinates\nhis discourse material to a conception (often confused enough) of\nsequence in space and time. Matthew, as the structure of his gospel, no\nless than his own avowal shows, had an aim more nearly corresponding to\nthe ancient Palestinian type. The demand for the narrative form had\nbecome irresistible. It controlled even his later Greek and Aramaic\nrivals. But Matthew has subordinated the historical to the ethical\nmotive. He aims at, and has rendered, just the service which his age\ndemanded and for which it could look to no other region than Jerusalem,\na full compilation of the commandments and precepts of Jesus.\n\nThe narrative framework is adopted from Mark without serious alteration,\nbecause this work had already proved its effectiveness in convincing men\neverywhere that Jesus was \"the Christ, the Son of God.\" Like Luke,\nMatthew prefixes an account of Jesus' miraculous birth and childhood,\nbecause in his time (_c._ 90) the ancient \"beginning of the gospel\" with\nthe baptism by John had given opportunity to the heresy of the\nAdoptionists, represented by Cerinthus, who maintained that Jesus\n_became_ the Son of God at his baptism, a merely temporary \"receptacle\"\nof the Spirit. The prefixed chapters have no incarnation doctrine, and\nno doctrine of pre-existence. They do not intend in their story of the\nmiraculous birth to relate the incoming of a superhuman or non-human\nbeing into the world, else they could not take up the pedigree of Joseph\nas exhibiting Jesus' title to the throne of David. Miracle attends and\nsignalizes the birth of that \"Son of David\" who is destined to become\nthe Son of God. Apart from the mere question of attendant prodigy the\naim of Matthew's story of the Infancy is such as should command the\nrespect and sympathy of every rational thinker. Against all Doketic\ndualism it maintains that the Son of God is such from birth to death.\nThe presence of God's Spirit with him is not a mere counterpart to\ndemonic \"possession,\" but is part of his nature as true man from the\nbeginning.\n\nBut the doctrinal interest of Matthew scarcely goes beyond the point of\nproving that Jesus is the Christ foretold by the prophets. Doctrine as\nwell as history is subordinate to the one great aim of teaching men to\n\"observe all things whatsoever Jesus commanded.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE PETRINE TRADITION. EVANGELIC STORY\n\n\nOf the extent to which the early church could do without narrative of\nJesus' earthly ministry we have extraordinary evidences in the\nliterature of Pauline Christianity on the one side and of Jewish\nChristianity on the other. For Paul himself, as we know, the real story\nof Jesus was a transcendental drama of the Incarnation, Redemption, and\nExaltation. It is probable that when at last \"three years\" after his\nconversion he went up to Jerusalem \"to get acquainted with Peter,\" the\nstory he was interested to hear had even then more to do with that\ncommon apostolic witness of the resurrection appearances reproduced in\n1st Cor. xv. 3-11, than with the sayings and doings of the ministry. As\nto this Paul preserves, as we have seen, an almost unbroken silence. And\nthat which did not interest Paul, naturally did not interest his\nchurches.\n\nOn the other hand those who could have perpetuated a full and authentic\naccount of the ministry were almost incredibly slow to undertake the\ntask; partly, no doubt, because of their vivid expectation of the\nimmediate end of the world, but largely also because to their mind the\ndata most in need of preservation were the 'life-giving words.' The\nimpression of Jesus' character, his person and authority was not, as\nthey regarded it, a thing to be gained from the historical outline of\nhis career. It was established by the fact of the Resurrection, by the\npredictions of the prophets, which found fulfilment in the circumstances\nof Jesus' birth, particular incidents here and there in his career and\nfate, but most of all in his resurrection and the gifts of the Spirit\nwhich argued his present session at the right hand of God. Once this\nauthority of Jesus was established the believer had only to observe his\ncommandments as handed down by the apostles, elders and witnesses.\n\nOn all sides there was an indifference to such historical inquiry as the\nmodern man would think natural and inevitable, an indifference that must\nremain altogether inexplicable to us unless we realize that until at\nleast the time of the fourth evangelist the main proofs of messiahship\nwere not looked for in Jesus' earthly career. His Christhood was thought\nof as something in the future, not yet realized. Even his resurrection\nand manifestation in glory \"at the right hand of God,\" which is to both\nPaul (Rom. i. 4) and his predecessors (Acts ii. 32-36) the assurance\nthat \"God hath made him both Lord and Christ,\" is not yet the beginning\nof his specific messianic programme. Potentially this has begun, because\nJesus has already been seated on the 'throne of glory,' \"from henceforth\nexpecting until his enemies be made the footstool of his feet.\"\nPractically it is not yet. The Christ is still a Christ that is to be.\nHis messianic rule is delayed until the subjugation of the \"enemies\";\nand this subjugation in turn is delayed by \"the long suffering of God,\nwho willeth not that any should perish, but that all men should come to\nrepentance.\" Meantime a special \"outpouring of the Spirit\" is given in\n'tongues,' 'prophecies,' 'miracle working,' and the like, in fulfilment\nof scriptural promise, as a kind of coronation largess to all loyal\nsubjects. This outpouring of the Spirit, then, is the great proof and\nassurance that the Heir has really ascended the 'throne of glory' in\nspite of the continuance of \"all things as they were from the foundation\nof the world.\" These 'gifts' are \"firstfruits of the Spirit,\" pledges of\nthe ultimate inheritance, proofs both to believers and unbelievers of\nthe complete Inheritance soon to be received. But the gifts have also a\npractical aspect. They are all endowments for _service_. The Great\nRepentance in Israel and among the Gentiles is not to be brought about\nwithout the co-operation of believers. The question which at once arises\nwhen the manifestation of the risen Christ is granted, \"Lord, dost thou\nat this time restore the kingdom to Israel?\" is therefore answered by\nthe assurance that the time is in God's hand alone, but that the 'gifts\nof the Spirit,' soon to be imparted, are intended to enable believers to\ndo their part, at home and abroad, toward effecting the Great Repentance\n(Acts i. 6-8).[20]\n\n    Footnote 20: The parallel in Mark xvi. 14-18 is very instructive,\n    but needs the recently discovered connection between verses 14 and\n    15 to complete the sense: \"And they excused themselves (for their\n    unbelief) saying, This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under the\n    dominion of Satan, who by means of the unclean spirits prevents the\n    truth and power of God from being apprehended. On this account\n    reveal thy righteousness (_i. e._ justice, in the sense of Isa. lvi,\n    1 _b_) even now. And Christ replied to them, The limit of years of\n    Satan's power is (already) fulfilled, but other terrible things are\n    at hand; moreover I was delivered up to death on behalf of sinners\n    in order that they might return unto the truth and sin no more, that\n    they might inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory which is in\n    heaven.\" Then follows the mission into all the world and endowment\n    with the gifts.\n\nFor a church which felt itself endowed with living and present evidences\nof the messianic power of Jesus it was naturally only a second thought\n(and not a very early one at that) to look back for proof to occurrences\nin Jesus' life in Galilee, however notable his career as \"a prophet\nmighty in deed and word before God and all the people.\" The _present_\ngifts of his power would be (at least in demonstrative effect) \"greater\nworks than these.\" With those who had the resurrection testimony of 1st\nCor. xv. 3-11, and even the recurrent experience of \"visions and\nrevelations of the Lord,\" anticipatory revelations of his messiahship,\nutterances, like that to Peter at Caesarea Philippi, wherein Jesus only\npredicted the great work to be divinely accomplished through him,\nwhether by life or death, in going up to Jerusalem, intimations which\nhad been disregarded or disbelieved at the time, could not rank with\npresent knowledge, experience and insight. They would be recalled merely\nas confirmatory foregleams of \"the true light that now shineth,\" as the\ntwo who had received the manifestation at Emmaus exclaim, \"Did not our\nheart burn within us while he talked to us in the way?\"\n\nWe could not indeed psychologically account for the development of the\nresurrection faith after the crucifixion, if before it Jesus' life and\nutterances had not been such as to make his manifestation in glory seem\nto the disciples just what they _ought_ to have expected. But,\nconversely, nothing is more certain than the fact that they _did not_\nexpect it; and that when the belief had become established by other\nmeans, the attitude toward the \"sayings and doings\" maintained by those\nwho had them to relate--as we know, the most successful missionary of\nall felt it no handicap to be entirely without them--was one of looking\nback into an obscure past for things whose pregnant significance became\nappreciable only in the light of present knowledge. \"These things\nunderstood not his disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified,\nthen remembered they that these things had been written of him, and that\nthey had done these things unto him.\"\n\nWe are fortunate in having even one example of the \"consecutive\nnarratives\" (_diegeses_) referred to in Luke i. 1. Our Mark is a gospel\nwritten purely and simply from this point of view, aiming only to show\nhow the earthly career of Jesus gave evidence that this was the Son of\nGod, predestined to exaltation to the right hand of power, with little\nattempt, if any, to bring in the precepts of the New Law. We should\nrealize, however, that this is already a beginning in the process soon\nto become controlling, a process of carrying back into the earthly life\nof Jesus in Galilee of first this trait, then that, then all the\nattributes of the glorified Lord.\n\nAncient and reliable tradition informs us that this first endeavour to\ntell the story of \"Jesus Christ the Son of God\" was composed at Rome by\nJohn Mark, a former companion of both Peter and Paul, from data drawn\nfrom the anecdotes casually employed by Peter in his preaching. There is\nmuch to confirm this in the structure, the style, and the doctrinal\nobject and standpoint of the Gospel.\n\nTo begin with, the date of composition cannot be far from 75. Mark is\nnot only presupposed by both Matthew and Luke, but in their time had\nalready acquired an extraordinary predominance. To judge by what\nremains to us of similar products, Mark in its own field might almost be\nsaid to reign supreme and reign alone. Such almost exclusive supremacy\ncould not have been attained, even by a writing commonly understood to\nrepresent the preaching of Peter, short of a decade or more of years. On\nthe other hand we have the reluctant testimony of antiquity, anxious to\nclaim as much as possible of apostolic authority for the record, but\nunwilling to commit Peter to apparent contradictions of Matthew, that it\nwas written after Peter's death (64-5).[21] Internal evidence would in\nfact bring down the date of the work in its present form a full decade\nthereafter. It is true that there are many structural evidences of more\nthan one form of the narrative, and that the apocalyptic chapter (ch.\nxiii.), which furnishes most of the evidence of date, may well belong\namong the later supplements. But in the judgment of most critics this\n'eschatological discourse' (almost the only connected discourse of the\nGospel) is clearly framed in real retrospect upon the overthrow of\nJerusalem and the temple, and the attendant tribulation on \"those that\nare in Judaea.\" The writer applies a general saying of Jesus known to us\nfrom other sources about destroying and rebuilding the temple\nspecifically to the demolition effected by Titus (70). He warns his\nreaders in the same connection that \"the end\" is not to follow\nimmediately upon the great Judaean war, but only when the powers of evil\nin the heavenly places, powers inhabiting sun, moon and stars, are\nshaken (xiii. 21-27). The Pauline doctrine of 2nd Thess. ii. 1-12 is\nadopted, but with careful avoidance of the prediction that the \"man of\nsin\" is to appear \"in the temple of God.\" Paul's \"man of sin\" is now\nidentified with Daniel's \"abomination that maketh desolate\" (Dan. xii.\n11), which therefore is spoken of as \"he\" (masculine). \"His\" appearance\nwill prelude the great Judaean tribulation; but his standing place is\nill-defined. It is only \"where he ought not.\" Matthew (following his\nusual practice) returns more nearly to the language of Daniel. With him\nthe \"Abomination\" is again an object standing \"in _a_ holy place.\" But\nMatthew is already applying the prophecy to another tribulation still to\ncome. He does not see that Mark refers to the sack of Jerusalem on which\nhe himself looks back in his addition to the parable of the Supper\n(Matt. xxii. 6 f.; _cf._ Luke xiv. 15-24), but takes Mark xiii. 14-23\nas Jesus' prediction of a great final tribulation _still to come_.\n\n    Footnote 21: So Irenaeus (186) and (by implication) Papias. Clement\n    of Alexandria (210) meets the difficulty by alleging that Peter was\n    still alive, but gave no aid to the writer.\n\nMark's crudities of language and style, his frequent latinisms, his\nexplanation to his readers (almost contemptuously exaggerated) of Jewish\npurifications and distinctions of meats (vii. 3 f.), presupposition\nof the Roman form of divorce (x. 12), explanation in Roman money of the\nvalue of the (Greek and Oriental) \"mite\" (_lepton_), are well-known\nconfirmations of the tradition of the writing's place of origin. But\nthese are superficial characteristics. More important for us to note is\nthe fundamental conception of what constitutes \"the gospel,\" and the\nwriter's attitude on questions of the relation of Jew and Gentile and\nthe authority of the apostles and kindred of the Lord.\n\nThe most striking characteristic of Mark is that it aims to present the\ngospel _about_ Jesus, and is relatively indifferent to the gospel _of_\nJesus. Had the writer conceived his task after the manner of a Matthew\nthere is little doubt that he could have compiled catechetic discourses\nof Jesus like the Sermon on the Mount or the discourse on prayer of Luke\nxi. 1-13. The fact that he disregards such records of Jesus' ethical and\nreligious instruction does not mean that he (tacitly) refers his readers\nto the Matthaean Precepts, or similar compilations, to supplement his own\ndeficiencies. It means a different, more Pauline, conception of what\n\"the gospel\" is. Mark conceives its primary element to be attachment to\nthe _person_ of Jesus, and has already gone far toward obliterating the\nprimitive distinction between a Jesus whose earthly career had been \"in\ngreat humility,\" and the glorified Son of God. The earthly Jesus is\nstill, it is true, only a man endowed with the Spirit of Adoption. But\nhe is so completely \"in\" the Spirit, and so fully endowed with it, as\nalmost to assume the Greek figure of a demi-god treading the earth\nincognito. No wonder this Gospel became the favourite of the\nAdoptionists and Doketists.\n\nMark does not leave his reader in the dark as to what a man must do to\ninherit eternal life. The requirement does not appear until after Jesus\nhas taken up with the twelve the road to Calvary, because it is\ndistinctly _not_ a keeping of commandments, new or old. It is an\nadoption of \"the mind that was in Christ, who humbled himself and became\nobedient unto death.\" In Matthew's 'improved' version of Jesus' answer\nto the rich applicant for eternal life, the suppliant is told he may\nobtain it by obeying the commandments, with supererogatory merit (\"if\nthou wouldest be perfect\"), if he follows Jesus' example of\nself-abnegating service. In the form and context from which Matthew\nborrows (Mark x. 13-45) there is no trace of this legalism, and the\nwhole idea of supererogatory merit, or higher reward, is strenuously,\nalmost indignantly, repudiated. No man can receive the kingdom at all\nwho does not receive it \"as a little child.\" Every man must be prepared\nto make every sacrifice, even if he has kept all the commandments from\nhis youth up. Peter and the disciples who have \"left all and followed\"\nare in respect to reward on the same level as others. Peter's plea for\nthe twelve is answered, \"There is no man that hath left\" earthly\npossessions for Christ's sake that is not amply compensated even here.\nHe must expect persecution now, but will receive eternal life hereafter.\nOnly \"many that are first shall be last, and last first.\" Even the\nmartyr-apostles James and John will have no superior rights in the\nKingdom.\n\nSuch passages as the above not only reveal why Mark's gospel shows\ncomparative disregard of the Precepts, but also displays an attitude\ntoward the growing claims of apostolic authority and neo-legalism which\nin contrast with Matthew and Luke is altogether refreshing. The kindred\nof the Lord appear but twice (iii. 20 f., 31-35 and vi. 1-6), both\ntimes in a wholly unfavourable light. John appears but once, and that to\nreceive a rebuke for intolerance. James and John appear only to be\nrebuked for selfish ambition. Peter seldom otherwise than for rebuke.\nAll the disciples show constantly the blindness and \"hardness of heart\"\nwhich is explicitly said to characterize their nation (vi. 52; vii. 18;\nviii. 12, 14-21). Their self-seeking and unfaithfulness is the foil to\nJesus' self-denial and faithfulness (viii. 33; ix. 6, 18 f., 29; x.\n24, 28, 32, 37, 41; xiv. 27-31, 37-41, 50, 66-72). That which in Matthew\n(xvi. 16-19) has become a special divine revelation to Peter of the\nmessiahship, marking the foundation of the church, is in the earlier\nMarkan form (Mark viii. 27-33) not a revelation of the messiahship at\nall. Peter's answer, \"Thou are the Christ,\" is common knowledge. The\ntwelve are not supposed to be more ignorant than the demons! There is,\nhowever, a caustic rebuke of Peter for his carnal, Jewish idea of the\nimplications of Christhood. A revelation of its significance almost\nDoketic in character is indeed granted just after to \"Peter, James and\nJohn\"; but they remain without appreciation or understanding of the\n'vision,' though it exhibits Jesus in his heavenly glory in company with\nthe translated heroes of the Old Testament. The revelation still\nremains, therefore, a sealed book until \"after the resurrection.\"\n\nThis exaggeration of the disciples' obtuseness is partly due, no doubt,\nto apologetic motives. The evangelist has to meet the objection, If\nJesus was really the extraordinary, superhuman being represented, and\nwas openly proclaimed such by the evil spirits, why was nothing heard of\nhis claims until after the crucifixion and alleged resurrection? His\ncarrying back into the Galilean ministry of the glorified Being of\nPaul's redemption doctrine compels him to represent the twelve as\nsharing the dullness of the people who \"having eyes see not, and having\nears hear not.\" But with all allowance for this, the Roman Gospel shows\nsmall consideration for the apostles and kindred of the Lord.\n\nIt shows quite as little for Jewish prerogative and Jewish law. Jesus\nspeaks in parables because to those \"without\" his preaching is to be\nintentionally a 'veiled' gospel (iv. 1-34). The Inheritance will be\ntaken away from them and given to others (xii. 1-12). Priests and people\ntogether were guilty of the rejection and murder of Jesus (xv. 11-15,\n29-32). Forgiveness of sins is offered by Jesus on his own authority in\ndefiance of the scribes. Their exclusion of the publicans and sinners he\ndisregards, proclaims abolition of their fasts, and holds their\nsabbath-keeping up to scorn (ii. 1--iii. 6). On the question of\ndistinctions of meats his position is the most radical possible. The\nJewish ceremonial is a \"vain worship,\" mere \"commandments of men.\"\nDefilement cannot be contracted by what \"goes into a man.\" Jesus' saying\nabout inward purity was not aimed at the mere 'hedge of the Law' (Matt.\nxv. 13), nor the mere matter of ablutions (Matt. xv. 20), but was\nintended to \"make all meats clean\" (vii. 1-23). Moses' law in some of\nits enactments does not represent the real divine will, but a human\naccommodation to human weakness (x. 2-9). Obedience to its highest code\ndoes not ensure eternal life (x. 19-21). The single law of love is \"much\nmore than all whole burnt offering and sacrifices\" (xii. 28-34). When\n_all_ the references to Judaism, its Law, its institutions, and its\nprerogative, are of this character, when Jesus _always_ appears in\nradical opposition to the Law and its exponents (xii. 38-40; xiii. 1\nf.), _never_ as their supporter in any degree, the evangelist comes\nnear to making it too hard for us to believe that he really was of\nJewish birth.\n\nOn the other hand we cannot doubt the statement that he derives his\nanecdotes, however indirectly, from the preaching of Peter. The prologue\n(i. 1-13), indeed, makes no pretence of reporting the testimony of any\nwitness, but acquaints the reader with the true nature of Jesus as \"the\nChrist, the Son of God\" by means of a mystical account of his baptism\nand endowment with the Spirit of Adoption, probably resting upon that\ndocument of Q, which we have distinguished from the Precepts. But the\nensuing story of the ministry opens at the home of Peter in Capernaum,\nand continues more or less connected therewith in spite of interjected\ngroups of anecdotes whose connection is not chronological but topical,\nsuch as ii. 1--iii. 6; iii. 22-30; iv. 1-34. It reaches its climax where\nJesus at Caesarea Philippi takes Peter into his confidence. Here again\nthe mystical Revelation or Transfiguration vision (ix. 2-10) interrupts\nthe connection, and shows its foreign derivation by the transcendental\nsense in which it interprets the person of Jesus. Certain features\nsuggest its having been taken from the same source as the prologue (i.\n1-13).\n\nThe story issues in the tragedy at Jerusalem, where, as before, Peter's\nfigure, however unfavourable the contrast in which it is set to that of\nJesus, is still the salient one. The outline in general is identical\nwith that so briefly sketched in Acts x. 38-42--_except_ that the\nabsolutely essential point, the one thing which no gospel narrative can\npossibly have lacked, the resurrection manifestation to the disciples,\nand the commission to preach the gospel, is absolutely lacking!\n\nThat Mark's gospel once contained such a conclusion is almost a\ncertainty. Imagine a gospel narrative without a report of the\nmanifestation of the risen Lord to his disciples! Imagine a church--and\nthat the church at _Rome_--giving out as the first, the authentic,\noriginal, and (in intention) the only account of the origin of the\nChristian faith (Mark i. 1), a narrative which _ended_ with the apostles\nscattered in cowardly desertion, and Peter the most conspicuous, most\nremorseful renegade of them all! He who writes in Peter's name from Rome\nbut shortly after, affectionately naming Mark \"my son,\" must have had\nindeed a forgiving spirit. But traces of the real sequel have not all\ndisappeared. Many outside allusions still remain to the turning again of\nPeter and stablishing of his brethren in the resurrection faith. The\nearliest is Paul's (1st Cor. xv. 5). The present Mark itself implies\nthat it once had such an ending; for Jesus promises to rally his flock\nin Galilee after he is raised up (xiv. 28), and the women at the\nsepulchre are bidden to remind the disciples of the promise, though\nthey fail to deliver their message. Indeed the whole Gospel looks\nforward to it. To this end \"the mystery of the kingdom\" is given to the\nchosen twelve (iii. 13 f., 31-35; iv. 10-12); for this they are\nforewarned (though vainly) of the catastrophe (viii. 34--ix. 1, 30-32;\nx. 32-34; xiv. 27-31). In fact the promise of a baptism of the Spirit\n(i. 8) probably implies that the original sequel related not only the\nappearance to Peter and (later) to the rest with the charge to preach,\nbut also their endowment with the gifts, perhaps as in John xx. 19-23.\nWhat we now have is only a substitute for this original sequel, a\nsubstitute so ill-fitting as to have provoked repeated attempts at\nimprovement.\n\nFrom xvi. 8 onwards, as is well known, the oldest textual authorities\nhave simply a blank. Later authorities give a shorter or longer\nsubstitute for the missing Manifestation and Charge to the twelve. The\nshorter follows Matthew, the longer follows Luke, with traces of\nacquaintance with John. Fanciful theories to explain these textual\nphenomena, such as accidental mutilation of the only copy, are\nimprobable, and do not explain. If conjecture be permissible it is more\nlikely that the original work was in two parts, after the manner of\nLuke-Acts, the 'former treatise' ending with the centurion's testimony,\n\"Truly this man was a Son of God\" (xv. 39). The second part continued\nthe narrative in the form of a Preaching of Peter, perhaps ending with\nhis coming to Rome; for the ancient literature of the church had several\nnarratives of this type. Its disappearance will have been due to the\nsuperseding (perhaps the embodiment) of it by the work of Luke. When the\nprimitive Markan 'former treatise' was adapted for separate use as a\ngospel it was quite natural that it should be supplemented (we can\nhardly say \"completed\") by the addition of the story of the Empty\nSepulchre (xv. 40--xvi. 8), though this narrative is quite unknown to\nthe primitive resurrection preaching (_cf._ 1st Cor. xv. 3-11), and one\nin which every character save Pilate is a complete stranger to the body\nof the work. The subsequent further additions of the so-called \"longer\"\nand \"shorter\" endings belong to the history of transcription after A.D.\n140.\n\nIt will be apparent from the above that the Gospel of Mark is no\nexception to the rule that church-writings of this type inevitably\nundergo recasting and supplementation until the advancing process of\ncanonization at last fixes their text with unalterable rigidity. Whether\nwe recognize \"sources,\" or earlier \"forms,\" or only earlier \"editions\"\nof Mark, it is certain that appendices could still be attached long\nafter the appearance of Luke, and probable that in the early period of\nits purely local currency at Rome the fund of Petrine anecdote had\nreceived more than one adaptation of form before it was carried to\nSyria and embodied substantially as we now have it in the composite\ngospels of Matthew and Luke. The omission by Luke of Mark vi. 45--viii.\n26 is intentional,[22] and cannot be used to prove the existence of a\nshorter form; and the same is probably true of the omission of Mark ix.\n38-40 by Matthew. Mark xii. 41-44, however, is probably an addition\nlater than Matthew's time. Neither Matthew nor Luke had a text extending\nbeyond xvi. 8. But signs of acquaintance with the original sequel appear\nin the appendix to John (John xxi.) and in the late and composite\n_Gospel of Peter_ (_c._ 140). According to the latter the twelve\nremained in Jerusalem scattered and in hiding for the remaining six days\nof the feast. At its close they departed, mourning and grieving, each\nman to his own home. Peter and a few others, including \"Levi the son of\nAlpheus,\" resumed their fishing \"on the sea.\" ... The fragment breaks\noff at this point. The story may be conjecturally completed from 1st\nCor. xv. 5-8, with comparison of John xxi. 1-13; Luke v. 4-8; xxii. 31\nf.; xxiv. 34, 36-43.\n\n    Footnote 22: See below.\n\nAs we look back upon the undertaking of this humble author, named only\nby tradition, one among the catechists of the great church of Paul and\nPeter, writing but a few years after their death, but a few years before\n1st Peter and Hebrews, one is struck by the grandeur of his aim. It is\ntrue he was not wholly without predecessors in the field. The work\nwhich afforded him at least the substance of his prologue, and in all\nprobability other considerable sections of his book, had already aimed\nin a more mystical way to connect the Pauline doctrine of Christ as the\nWisdom of God with the mighty works and teachings of Jesus. Duplication\nof a considerable part of Mark's story (vii. 31--viii. 26 repeats with\nsome variation vi. 30--vii. 30) shows that his work was one of\ncombination as well as creation. But outline, proportion and onward\nmarch of the story show not only skill and care, but large-minded and\nconsistent adherence to the fundamental plan to tell the origin of the\nChristian faith (Mark i. 1).\n\nConfirmation of the belief and practice of the church--it is for this\nthat Mark reports all he can learn of the years of obscurity in Galilee\nfollowed by the tragedy in Jerusalem. Not only belief in Jesus as the\nSon of God will be justified by the story, but the founding,\ninstitutions, and ritual of the existing church. He manifestly adapts it\nto show not only the superhuman powers and attributes of the chosen Son\nof God, but the germ and type of all the church's institutions. Its\nbaptism of repentance and accompanying gift of the Spirit of Adoption\nonly repeats the experience of Jesus at the baptism of John. Endowment\nwith the word of wisdom and the word of power is but the counterpart of\nJesus' divine equipment with \"the power of the Spirit\" when he taught\nand healed in Galilee. The Sending of the Twelve sets the standard for\nthe church's evangelists and missionaries, just as the Breaking of the\nBread in Galilee gives the model for its fraternal banquet. So for the\nJudaean ministry as well. The path of martyrdom is that which all must\nfollow, its Passover Supper of the Lord and Vigil in Gethsemane are\nmodels for the church's annual observance, its Passover of the Lord, its\nVigil, its Resurrection feast. The grouping of the anecdotes is not all\nof Mark's doing, for we can still see in many cases how they have grown\nup around the church observances, to explain and justify the rites,\nrather than to form part of an outlined career. But taking the work as a\nwhole, and considering how far beyond that of any other church was the\nopportunity at Rome, where Paul had transmitted the lofty conception of\nthe Son of God, and Peter the concrete tradition of his earthly life, we\ncannot wonder that Mark's outline so soon became the standard account of\nJesus' earthly ministry, and ultimately the only one.\n\nBut little space remains in which to trace the developments of gospel\nstory in other fields. Southern Syria and Egypt soon found it needful,\nas we have seen, to adopt the work of Mark, but independently and as a\nframework for the Matthaean Precepts. It cannot have been long after that\nAntioch and Northern Syria followed suit. For Luke, though acquainted\nwith the work of 'many' predecessors gives no sure evidence of\nacquaintance with Matthew. When we find such unsoftened contradictions\nas those displayed between these two Greek gospels in their opening and\nclosing chapters, and observe, moreover, that while both indulge in\nhundreds of corrections and improvements upon Mark, these are rarely\ncoincident and never make the assumption of interdependence necessary,\nit is hard to resist the conclusion that neither evangelist was directly\nacquainted with the other's work. Now no other gospel compares with\nMatthew in the rapidity and extent of its circulation, while Luke\ndeclares himself a diligent inquirer. He could not ignore the claims of\napostolic authority to which this early and wide acceptance of Matthew\nwere mainly due. The inference is reasonable that Luke's date was but\nlittle later than that of Matthew. If the probability of his employment\nof the _Antiquities_ of Josephus could be raised to a certainty this\nwould suffice to date the Gospel and Book of Acts not earlier than 96.\nInternal and external evidence, as judged by most scholars, converge on\na date approximating 100.\n\nThe North-Syrian derivation of Luke-Acts is less firmly established in\ntradition than the Roman origin of Mark and the South-Syrian of Matthew.\nAncient tradition can point to nothing weightier than the statement of\nEusebius, drawn we know not whence, but independently made in the\nargumenta (prefixed descriptions) of several Vulgate manuscripts that\nLuke was of Antiochian birth. However, internal evidence supplies\ncorroboration in rather unusual degree. If the reading of some texts in\nActs xi. 28, \"And as we were assembled,\" could be accepted, this alone\nwould be almost conclusive corroboration. But dubious as it is, it\nfurnishes support. For if an alteration of the original, it is at any\nrate extremely early (_c._ 150?) and aimed to support the belief in\nquestion.[23] Moreover the whole attitude of Luke-Acts in respect to\napostolic authority, settlement of the great question of the terms of\nfellowship between Jew and Gentile, and description of the founding of\nthe Pauline churches, is such as to make its origin anywhere between the\nTaurus range and the Adriatic most improbable; while if we place it in\nRome we shall have an insoluble problem in the relation of its extreme\nemphasis on apostolic authority, and quasi-deification of Peter, to the\nstalwart independence of Mark. Conversely there are many individual\ntraits which suggest Antioch as the place of origin. Next to Jerusalem,\nthe never-to-be-forgotten church of \"the apostles and elders,\" Antioch\nis the mother church of Christendom. There the name \"Christian\" had its\norigin. There the work of converting the Gentiles was begun. The Greek\nchurches of Cyprus and Asia Minor are regarded as dependencies of\nAntioch. Even those of the Greek peninsula are linked as well as may be\nto Antioch and Jerusalem, with suppression of the story of the schism.\nAntioch, not the Pauline Greek churches, is the benefactress of \"the\npoor saints in Jerusalem,\" and at the instance of Antioch, by appeal to\n\"the apostles and elders,\" the \"decrees\" are obtained which permanently\nsettle the troublesome question of the obligation of maintaining\nceremonial cleanness which still rests upon \"the Jews which are among\nthe Gentiles.\" As we have seen, the settlement is as far from that of\nMark and the Pauline churches on the one side, as from the thoroughgoing\nlegalism of Jerusalem on the other. As late as the Pastoral Epistles\nabstinence from \"meats which God created to be received with\nthanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth\" is to the Pauline\nchurches a \"doctrine of devils and seducing spirits\" taught \"through the\nhypocrisy of men that speak lies.\" Distinctions of meats belong to\nJewish superstition, because \"every creature of God is good and nothing\nis to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving\" (1st Tim. iv.\n1-5). Mark, as we have seen, takes precisely this standpoint. He is\nequally radical in condemning distinctions of meats as essentially \"vain\nworship,\" and a \"commandment of men\" (Mark vii. 1-23). In truth if we\ndistinguish one of Luke's _sources_ from Luke himself we shall find\nexactly this doctrine taught to Peter himself by special divine\nrevelation in Acts x. 10-16; xi. 3-10. Only, as we have already seen (p.\n59, note), this is not the application made by the Book of Acts, as it\nnow stands, of the material. To 'Luke' nothing could be more repugnant\nthan the idea of an apostle forsaking the religion of his fathers, of\nwhich circumcision and \"the customs\" are an essential part. His\ncancellation, in the story of Peter's revelation and the Apostle's\nsubsequent defence of it before the church in Jerusalem, of one of its\nessential factors, viz. the right to _eat_ with Gentiles, regardless of\nman-made distinctions of meats (\"what _God_ hath cleansed make not\n_thou_ common\") is quite as significant as his restriction of even\nPaul's activity to Greek-speaking _Jews_, until \"the Spirit\" has\nexpressly directed the church in Antioch, immediately after the\npersecution of Agrippa I, to proceed with the propaganda. Both\nalterations of the earlier form of the story are in line with a\nmultitude of minor indications, and furnish us, in combination with\nthem, the real keynote of the narrative. In Luke-Acts more clearly than\nin any of the gospels the writer assumes the distinctive function of the\n_historian_. He, too, would relate, like Mark, the origin of the\nChristian faith, and that \"from the very first.\" He even deduces the\npedigree of Jesus from \"Adam, which was the son of God.\" But the object\nis far more to prove the pedigree of the faith than the pedigree of\nJesus. Christianity is to be defended against the charge of being a\n_nova superstitio_, a _religio illicita_. On the contrary it is the one\ntrue and revealed religion, the perfect flower and consummation of\nJudaism. Yet it is not, like Judaism, particularistic and national, but\nuniversal; for while God at first made that nation the special\nrepository of his truth, it was his \"determinate foreknowledge and\ncounsel\" that they should reject and crucify their Messiah, making it\npossible to \"proclaim this salvation unto the Gentiles.\" The one thing\nLuke is so anxiously concerned to prove that he wearies the reader with\nconstant reiteration of it, proclaims it, argues it, in season and out\nof season, with his sources, against his sources, with the facts,\nagainst the facts, is that this faith was never, never, offered to the\nGentiles except by express direction of God and after the Jews had\ndemonstrated to the last extremity of stiff-necked opposition that they\nwould have none of it. Christianity, then, and not Judaism, is the true\nprimitive and revealed religion, the heir of all the divine promises.\n\n    Footnote 23: Note, also, how in Acts vi. 5 the list of\n    deacon-evangelists concludes \"and Nicholas _a proselyte of\n    Antioch_.\"\n\nWe can see now why Luke finds it impossible to adopt Mark's story of a\nmissionary journey of Jesus in \"the coasts of Tyre and Sidon\" and will\nnot even mention the name of Caesarea Philippi. His method in omitting\nMark vi. 45--viii. 26 is more radical than Matthew's, but his motive is\nsimilar. The central theme of this portion of Mark appears in the\nchapter (ch. vii.) recording Jesus' repudiation of the Jewish\ndistinctions of clean and unclean as \"precepts of men,\" and departing to\nheal and preach in phoenecia and Decapolis. This is the theme of Luke's\nsecond treatise; and, as we have seen, his solution of the problem is\nradically different. If he cannot admit that even Paul disregarded \"the\ncustoms\" or Peter preached to Gentiles until after express and\nreiterated direction of \"the Spirit,\" we surely ought not to expect him\nto admit the statement that Jesus repudiated the distinctions of\nMosaism, declared \"all meats clean,\" and departing into the coasts of\nTyre and Sidon first healed the daughter of \"a Gentile\" and afterward\ncontinued his journey \"through Sidon\" and \"the regions of Decapolis,\"\nrepeating the symbolic miracles of opening deaf ears and blind eyes, and\nfeeding with loaves and fishes. Even if this supposed ministry of Jesus\namong the Gentiles stood on a much stronger foundation of historical\nprobability than is unfortunately the case (_cf._ Rom. xv. 8), it could\nnot logically be admitted to the work of Luke without an abandonment of\none of his firmest convictions and a rewriting of both his treatises.\n\nLuke was probably not the first to divide his work into a \"former\ntreatise\" covering \"both\" the sayings and doings of Jesus \"until the\ntime that he was taken up,\" and a second devoted to the work of the\napostles after they had received the charge to proclaim the gospel \"to\nthe uttermost parts of the earth.\" \"Many,\" as he tells us, had already\nundertaken to \"draw up narratives\" (_diegeses_) of this kind, of which\nthe one Luke himself has chiefly employed, had originally, as we\nconcluded, a sequel like his own Book of Acts. There are even features\nof the Petrine source of Acts which particularly connect it with Roman\ndoctrine (_e. g._ Acts x. 10-15; _cf._ Rom. xiv. 14 and Mark vii. 18\nf.) and even with the person of Mark (Acts xii. 12). Its balance\nbetween Peter and Paul and its close with the establishment of\nChristianity at Rome, are also suggestive that the greater part of\nLuke's second treatise came _ultimately_ from the same source as his\nfirst. But the division of the work into two parts: (1) the gospel among\nthe Jews; (2) the gospel among the Gentiles, would have followed,\nindependently of any such precedent, from the whole purpose and\nstructure of the work. Christianity is to be proved in the light of its\norigin, and in spite of the hostility of the Jews among whom it arose,\nand whose sacred writings it adopts, to be the original, true, revealed\nreligion. To prove this it must be shown that the rejection and\ncrucifixion of Jesus by his own people as a result of his earthly\nministry was due not to his own failure to meet the ideal of the\nScriptures in question, but to _their_ perversity and wilful blindness.\nIf it is important to prove in the former treatise that the opposition\nof the controlling authorities among the Jews was due to this perversity\nand jealousy, it is at least equally so to show that the lowly and\ndevout received him gladly. Hence the peculiar hospitality of Luke\ntoward material showing Jesus' acceptance of and by the humbler and the\noutcast classes, the poor and lowly, women, Samaritans, publicans and\nsinners. The idyllic scenes of his birth and childhood are cast among\nmen and women of this type of Old Testament piety, quietly \"waiting for\nthe kingdom of God.\" During his career it is these who receive and hang\nupon him. Even on Calvary _one_ of the thieves must join with this\nthrong of devout and penitent believers. Jesus' preaching begins with\nhis rejection by his own fellow-townsmen only because \"no prophet is\naccepted in his own country\"; though before their attempt to slay him he\nproves from Scripture how Elijah and Elisha had been sent unto the\nGentiles. His ministry ends with his demonstration to the disciples\nafter his resurrection from \"Moses and all the prophets\" how that \"it\nwas needful that the Christ should suffer before entering his glory,\"\nand that after his rejection by Israel \"repentance and remission of sins\nshould be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at\nJerusalem.\"\n\nThe second treatise shows how this purpose of God to secure the\ndissemination of the true faith by the disobedience and hardening of its\nfirst custodians was accomplished, chief stress being always laid upon\nthe fact that it was only when the Jews \"contradicted and blasphemed\"\nthat the apostles said, \"It was necessary that the word of God should\nfirst be spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you, and judge\nyourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.\" There\nis no interest taken in the subsequent fortunes of Jerusalem and Jewish\nChristianity, nor even in the fate of Peter and James, after this\ntransition has been effected to Gentile soil. There is no interest taken\nin the spread of Christianity as such, in Egypt, Ethiopia, Cyrenaica,\nCyprus, Mesopotamia; but only where the conflict rages over the\nrespective claim of Jew and Gentile to be the true heir of the promises,\n_i. e._ the mission-field of Paul. At the individual centres the story\ngoes just far enough to relate how the gospel was offered to the Jews\nand rejected, compelling withdrawal from the synagogue, and thereafter\nit is told over again with slight variations at the next centre. The\nbook concludes with a repetition of the stereotyped scene at Rome\nitself, in spite of the representation of the very source employed, that\nan important church had long existed there before Paul's coming, ending\nwith a quotation of the classic passage from Isa. vi. 9 f. to prove\nGod's original purpose to harden the heart of Israel, so that his\n\"salvation might be sent unto the Gentiles.\" The very fate of Paul\nhimself has so little interest for Luke in comparison with this\ndemonstration of Christianity as the one original, revealed religion,\nenclosed in Judaism as seeds are confined in the hardening seed-pod\nuntil disseminated by its bursting, that he leaves it unmentioned, like\nthat of all other leaders of the church whose death was not directly\ncontributory to the process.\n\nMany, and vitally important to the development of Gospel Story as we\nknow it, as were the sources of Luke, both by his own statement (Luke i.\n1) and the internal evidences of his work, he has made analysis\nextremely difficult by the skilful and elaborate stylistic embroidery\nwith which he has overlaid the gaps and seams. Nor is this a proper\noccasion for entering the field of the higher critic. Luke-Acts\nrepresents the completed development, not the naive beginnings of this\ntype of the Literature of the Church Teacher. We have seen reason to\nthink we may have traces of the earlier \"narratives\" (_diegeses_) to\nwhich Luke refers, not only in the great Roman work of Mark, but in a\npart of the Q material itself. If Antioch were the place of origin of\nthis early source, if here too were found those archives of missionary\nactivity whence came the famous Diary employed in Acts xvi.-xxviii., the\ncontribution of this church to Gospel Story was such as to make Antioch\nthe appropriate centre for the great \"historical\" school of\ninterpretation of the fourth and fifth centuries. When we consider the\ndominant motive of Luke and his extraordinary exaltation of 'apostolic'\nauthority we seem to be breathing the very atmosphere of Ignatius the\ngreat apostle of ecclesiasticism and apostolic order, discipline and\nsuccession. Ignatius' hatred of Doketism, too, is not without a certain\nanticipation in the opening and closing chapters of Luke's Gospel, and\nperhaps in the fact that the great exsection from Mark begins with the\nstory of the Walking on the Sea (Mark vi. 45-52).\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE JOHANNINE TRADITION. PROPHECY\n\n\nIn Paul's enumeration of the \"gifts\" by which the Spirit qualifies\nvarious classes of men to build in various ways upon the structure of\nthe church, the class of \"prophets\" takes the place next after that of\n\"apostles,\" a rank even superior (as more manifestly 'spiritual') to\nthat of \"pastors and teachers.\" The Book of Acts shows us as its most\nconspicuous centre of \"prophecy\" the house of Philip the Evangelist at\nCaesarea. This man had four unmarried daughters who prophesied, and in\nhis house Paul received a 'prophetic' warning of his fate from a certain\nAgabus who had come down from Judaea. There were also prophets in Antioch\n(Acts xiii. 1), though the only ones mentioned by name are this same\nAgabus[24] and Silas, or Silvanus, who is also from Judaea. In the\n_Teaching of the Twelve_ the 'prophet' still appears among the regular\nfunctionaries of the church, for the most part a traveller from place\nto place, and open to more or less suspicion, as is the case at Rome,\nwhere Hermas combines reverence for the \"angel\" that speaks through the\ntrue prophet, with warnings against the self-seeker. In 1st John the\n\"false prophets\" are a serious danger, propagating Doketic heresy\nwherever they go. In fact, this heresy was, as we know, the great peril\nin Asia. However, Asia, if plagued by wandering false prophets, had also\nbecome by this time a notable seat of true and authentic prophecy; for\nthe same Papias who shows such sympathy with Polycarp against those who\nwere \"perverting the Sayings of the Lord to their own lusts,\" and had\nturned, as Polycarp advised, \"to the tradition handed down from the\nbeginning,\" had similar means for counteracting those who \"denied the\nresurrection and judgment.\" Among those upon whom he principally relied\nas exponents of the apostolic doctrine were two of those same\nprophesying daughters of Philip the Evangelist, who with their father\nhad migrated from Caesarea Palestina to Hierapolis, leaving, however,\none, who had married, a resident till her death at Ephesus. As late as\nthe time of Montanus (150-170), the \"Phrygians\" traced their succession\nof prophets and prophetesses back to Silvanus and the daughters of\nPhilip.\n\n    Footnote 24: The mention of Agabus, however, in xi. 27 f. is\n    hardly consistent with xiii. 1 and xxi. 10-14. It seems to be due to\n    the editorial recasting of xi. 22-30.\n\nWe cannot be sure that the traditions Papias reported from these\nprophetesses were derived at first hand, though it is not impossible\nthat Papias himself may have seen them. However it is certain that many\nof his traditions of 'the Elders' had to do with eschatology, and aimed\nto prove the material and concrete character of the rewards of the\nkingdom; for we have several examples of these traditions, attributing\nto Jesus apocryphal descriptions of the marvellous fertility of\nPalestine in the coming reign of Messiah, and particularizing about the\nabodes of the blessed. Moreover Eusebius blames Papias for the crude\nideas of Irenaeus and other second century fathers who held the views\ncalled \"chiliastic\" (_i. e._ based on the \"thousand\" year reign of\nChrist in Rev. xx. 2 f.). We also know that Papias defended the\n\"trustworthiness\" of Revelation, a book which served as the great\nauthority of the \"chiliasts\" for the next fifty years in their fight\nagainst the deniers of the resurrection. He quoted from it, in fact, the\npassage above referred to; so that if reason must be sought for his\nplacing \"John and Matthew\" together at the end of his list of seven\napostles instead of in their usual place, it is probably because they\nwere his ultimate apostolic authorities for the \"word of prophecy\" and\nfor the \"commandment of the Lord\" respectively. Justin Martyr, Papias'\ncontemporary at Rome, though converted in Ephesus, and unquestionably\ndetermined in his mould of thought by Asiatic Paulinism, has, like\nPapias, but two _authorities_ for his gospel teaching: (1) the\ncommandment of the Lord represented in the Petrine and Matthaean\ntradition; (2) prophecy, represented in the Christian continuation of\nthe Old Testament gift. This second authority, however, is not appealed\nto without the support of apostolicity. Revelation is quoted as among\n\"our writings,\" like \"the memorabilia of the apostles called Gospels,\"\nbut not without the additional assurance that the seer was \"John, one of\nthe _apostles_ of Christ.\"\n\nFor 'prophecy,' however acclimated elsewhere, was in its origin\ndistinctively a Palestinian product. Its stock in trade was Jewish\neschatology as developed in the long succession of writers of\n'apocalypse' since Daniel (165 B.C.). Of the nature of this curious and\nfantastic type of literature we have seen some examples in 2nd\nThessalonians and the Synoptic eschatology (Mark xiii.=Matt. xxiv.=Luke\nxxi.). More can be learnt by comparing the contemporary Jewish writings\nof this type known as 2nd Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch. Older\nexamples are found in the prophecies and visions purporting to come from\nEnoch. For apocalypse became the successor of true prophecy in\nproportion as the loss of Israel's separate national existence and the\nenlargement of its horizon compelled it to make its messianic hopes\ntranscendental, and its notion of the Kingdom cosmic. Hence comes all\nthe phantasmagoria of allegorical monsters, spirits and demons, the\ngreat conflict no longer against Assyria and Babylon, but a war of the\npowers of light and darkness, heaven and hell. Yet all centres still\nupon Jerusalem as the ultimate metropolis of the world, whose empires,\nnow given over to the leadership of Satan, will soon lie prostrate\nbeneath her feet.\n\nSome such eschatology of divine judgment and reward is an almost\nnecessary complement to the legalistic type of religion. If Christianity\nbe conceived as a system of commandments imposed by supernatural\nauthority it must have as a motive for obedience a system of\nsupernatural rewards and punishments. Not merely, then, because for\ncenturies the legalism of the scribes had actually had its corresponding\ndevelopment of apocalypse, with visions of the great judgment and Day of\nYahweh, but because of an inherent and necessary affinity between the\ntwo, \"Judaea\" continued to be the home of 'prophecy' in New Testament\ntimes also.\n\nHowever, the one great example of this type of literature that has been\n(somewhat reluctantly) permitted to retain a place in the New Testament\ncanon appears at first blush to be clearly and distinctively a product\nof Ephesus. Of no book has early tradition so clear and definite a\npronouncement to make as of Revelation. Since the time of Paul the\nJewish ideas of resurrection provoked opposition in the Greek mind. The\nGreek readily accepted immortality, but the crudity of Jewish\nmillenarianism, with its return of the dead from the grave for a\nvisible, concrete rule of Messiah in Palestine repelled him. The\nrepresentation of Acts xvii. 32 is fully borne out by the constant\neffort of Paul in his Greek epistles to remove the stumbling-blocks of\nthis doctrine. It is no surprise, then, to find the 'prophecy' of\nRevelation, and more particularly its doctrine of the thousand-year\nreign of Messiah in Jerusalem, a subject of dispute at least since\nMelito of Sardis (167), and probably since Papias (145). Fortunately\ncontroversy brought out with unusual definiteness, and from the earliest\ntimes, positive statements regarding the origin of the book. Irenaeus\n(186) declared it a work of the Apostle John given him in vision \"in the\nend of the reign of Domitian.\" The same date (93), may be deduced from\nstatements of Epiphanius regarding the history of the church in\nThyatira. Justin Martyr (153), as we have seen, vouches for the crucial\npassage (Rev. xx. 2 f.) as from \"one of ourselves, John, an apostle of\nthe Lord.\" Papias (145) vouched for its orthodoxy at least, if not its\nauthenticity. There can be no reasonable doubt that it came to be\naccepted in Asia early in the second century, in spite of opposition, as\nrepresenting the authority of the Apostle John, and as having appeared\nthere c. 95. In fact, there is no book of the entire New Testament whose\nexternal attestation can compare with that of Revelation, in nearness,\nclearness, definiteness, and positiveness of statement. John is as\ndistinctively the father of 'prophecy' in second century tradition as\nMatthew of 'Dominical Precepts' and Peter of 'Narratives.'\n\nMoreover the book itself purports to be written from Patmos, an island\noff the coast of Asia. It speaks in the name of \"John\" as of some very\nhigh and exceptional authority, well known to all the seven important\nchurches addressed, the first of which is \"Ephesus.\" By its references\nto local names and conditions it even proves, in the judgment of all the\nmost eminent modern scholars, that it really did see the light for the\nfirst time (at least for the first time in its present form) in Ephesus\nnot far from A.D. 95.\n\nOne would think the case for apostolic authenticity could hardly be\nstronger. And yet no book of the New Testament has had such difficulty\nas this, whether in ancient or modern times, to maintain its place in\nthe canon. It must also be said that no book gives stronger internal\nevidence of having passed through at least two highly diverse stages in\nprocess of development to its present form.\n\nThe theory of \"another John\" is indeed comparatively modern. Nobody\ndrammed of such a solution until Dionysius of Alexandria hesitatingly\nadvanced the conjecture in his controversy with Nepos the Chiliast. Even\nthen (_c._ 250) Dionysius (though he must have known the little work of\nPapias) could think of no other John at Ephesus than the Apostle,\nunless it were perhaps John Mark! It is Eusebius who joyfully helps him\nout with the discovery in Papias of \"John the Elder.\" But Eusebius\nhimself is candid enough to admit that Papias only quoted \"traditions of\nJohn\" and \"mentioned him frequently in his writings.\" When we read\nPapias' own words, though they are cited by Eusebius for the express\npurpose of proving the debatable point, it is obvious that they prove\nnothing of the kind, but rather imply the contrary, viz. that John the\nElder, though a contemporary of Papias, was not accessible, but known to\nhim only at second hand, by report of travellers who \"came his way.\" In\nshort, as we have seen, \"Aristion and John the Elder\" were the surviving\nmembers of a group of 'apostles, elders and witnesses of the Lord' in\nJerusalem. If, then, one chose to attribute the 'prophecies' of Rev.\niv.-xxi. to this Elder there could be no serious objections on the score\nof doctrine, for the \"traditions of John\" reported by Papias were not\nlacking in millenarian colour. Only, it is not the 'prophecies' of Rev.\niv.-xxi. which contain the references to \"John,\" but the enclosing\nprologue and epilogue; and these concern themselves with the churches of\nAsia as exclusively as the 'prophecies' with the quarrel of Jerusalem\nwith Rome.\n\nThe second century is, as we have seen, unanimous in excluding from\nconsideration any other John in Asia save the Apostle, and if the\nwriter of Rev. i. and xxii. produced this impression in all contemporary\nminds without exception, including even such as opposed the book and its\ndoctrine, it is superlatively probable that such was his intention. The\ndeniers of the resurrection and judgment did not point out to Polycarp,\nPapias, Justin, Melito and Caius, that they were confusing two Johns,\nattributing the work of a mere Elder to the Apostle. They plumply\ndeclared the attribution to John fictitious; and since the internal\nevidence from the condition of the churches and growth of heresy in chh.\ni.-iii. and the imperial succession down to Domitian in chh. xiii. and\nxvii. strongly corroborate the date assigned in antiquity (_c._ 93), we\nhave no alternative, if we admit that the Apostle John had long before\nbeen \"killed by the Jews,\"[25] but to suppose that this book, like\nnearly all the books of 'prophecy,' is, indeed, pseudonymous. It does\nnot follow that he who assumes the name of \"John\" in prologue and\nepilogue (i. 1 f., 4, 9; xxii. 8) to tell the reader definitely who\nthe prophet is, was guilty of intentional misrepresentation. If anything\ncan be made clear by criticism it is clear that the prophecies were not\nhis own. They were taken from some nameless source. The \"pseudonymity\"\nconsists simply in clothing a conjecture with the appearance of\nindubitable fact.\n\n    Footnote 25: See above, p. 104.\n\nBut why should a writer who wished to clothe with apostolic authority\nthe 'prophecies' he was promulgating, not assume boldly the title of\n\"apostle,\" as the author of 2nd Peter has done in adapting similarly the\nEpistle of Jude? Why, if he assumes the name of the martyred Apostle\nJohn at all, does he refrain from saying, \"I John, an _apostle_, or\n_disciple of the Lord_,\" and content himself with the humbler\ndesignation and authority of 'prophet'?\n\nThis question brings us face to face with the most remarkable structural\nphenomena of the book, and cannot be understandingly answered until we\nhave considered them.\n\nThe outstanding characteristic of Revelation is its adaptation of\nliterary material dealing with, and applicable to, one historical and\ngeographical situation, to another situation almost completely\ndifferent. The opening chapters, devoted to \"John's\" vision on Patmos\nand the conditions and dangers of the seven Churches of Asia, employ\nindeed some of the expressions of the substance of the book. The\npromises of the Spirit to the churches recall the glories of the New\nJerusalem of the concluding vision of the seer. There is some reference\nto local persecution at Smyrna incited by the Jews (\"a synagogue of\nSatan\") and which is to last \"ten days,\" and there is an isolated\nreference to a martyrdom of days long gone by in the message to the\nchurch in Pergamum (ii. 13) recalling remotely the blood and suffering\nof which the body of the work is full. This we should of course expect\nfrom an adapter of existing 'prophecies.' But the converse, _i. e._\nconsideration for the historical conditions of Ephesus and its sister\nchurches, on the part of the body of the work, is absolutely wanting. On\nthe one side is the situation of the Pauline churches on the east coast\nof the AEgean in A.D. 93-95. The prologue and epilogue (Rev. i.-iii. and\nxxii. 6-21) are concerned with these churches of Asia, and their\ndevelopment in the faith, particularly their growth in good works,\npurity from defilements of the world, and resistance to the inroads of\nheretical teaching. The message of the Spirit, conveyed through \"John,\"\nis meant to encourage the members of these churches to pure living in\nthe face of temptations to worldliness and impurity. The epistles to the\nchurches, in a word, belong in the same class with the Pastorals, Jude,\nand 2nd Peter, as regards their object and the situation confronted;\nthough they are written to enclose apocalyptic visions which deal with a\ntotally different situation.\n\nThe visions, on the contrary, take not the smallest notice of\n(proconsular) Asia and its problems. Their scene is Palestine, their\nsubject the outcome of Jerusalem's agonizing struggle against Rome. From\nthe moment the threshold of iv. 1 is crossed there is no consciousness\nof the existence of such places as Ephesus, Smyrna and Thyatira. The\nscenes are Palestinian. The great battle-field is Har-Magedon (_i. e._\ncity of Megiddo, on the plain of Esdraelon, the scene of Josiah's\noverthrow, 2nd Kings xxiii. 29 f.). \"The city,\" \"the great city,\" \"the\nholy city\" is Jerusalem; though \"spiritually (in allegory) it is called\nSodom and Egypt\" (_i. e._ a place from which the saints escape to avoid\nits doom). When the saints flee from the oppression of the dragon it is\nto \"the wilderness.\" When the invading hordes rush in it is from beyond\n\"the Euphrates.\" When the redeemed appear in company with the Christ it\nis on Mount Zion; they constitute an army of 144,000, twelve thousand\nfrom each of the twelve tribes. Two antagonistic powers are opposed. On\nthe one side is Jerusalem and its temple, now given over to the Gentiles\nto be trodden under foot forty and two months, on the other is Rome, no\nlonger, as with Paul, a beneficent and protecting power, but the city of\nthe beast, Babylon the great harlot, at whose impending judgment the\nGentiles will mourn, but all the servants of God rejoice. Jerusalem\nrebuilt, glorified, the metropolis of the world, seat and residence of\nGod and his Christ, will take the place of Rome, the seat of the beast\nand the false prophet. The gates of this New Jerusalem will stand open\nto receive tribute from all the Gentile nations, and will have on them\nthe names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The foundations of the city\nwall will have on them \"the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.\"\n\nAll this is cumulative proof that the horizon of the seer of Rev.\niv.-xx. is that of Palestine. Its expansion in the introductory Letters\nof the Spirit to the Churches to include the seven churches of\n(proconsular) Asia, is as limited in its way as the original. The later\nwriter merely adds the special province where he wishes the 'prophecy'\nto circulate, with its special interests; there is no real interrelation\nof the two parts.\n\nIt is a problem of great complexity to disentangle the various strands\nof this strange and fantastic work, certain as it is that we have here a\nconglomerate whose materials come from various periods. Some elements,\nsuch as ch. xi. on the fate of Jerusalem, seem to date in part from\nbefore 70; others, such as ch. xviii. on the fate of Rome, show that\nwhile originally composed for the circumstances of the reign of\nVespasian or Titus, the time has been extended to take in at least the\nbeginning of that of Domitian.[26] The author rests mainly upon the\nHebrew apocalyptic prophets, such as Ezekiel, Daniel and Enoch, but he\nhas not been altogether inhospitable to such originally Gentile\nmythology as the doctrine of the seven spirits of God, and the conflict\nof Michael and his angels with the dragon. He intimates himself that his\nprophesying had not been confined to one period or one people (x. 11).\nWhen he translates the \"Hebrew\" name of the angel of the abyss,\n\"Abaddon,\" into its Greek equivalent (ix. 11), or uses Hebrew numerical\nequivalents for the letters of the name of a man (xiii. 18), it is not\ndifficult to guess that this prophecy had at least its origin in\nPalestine. In fact, there is no other country where the geographical\nreferences hold true, and no other period save that shortly after the\noverthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, that affords the historical situation\nhere presupposed, when worshipping \"the beast and his image\" is demanded\nof the saints by the earthly ruler (Domitian), and the overthrow of the\nseven-hilled city by one of its own rulers in league with lesser powers\nis looked forward to as about to avenge the sufferings inflicted on the\nJews. As regards this hope of the overthrow of Rome, we know that the\nlegend of Nero's prospective return at the head of hosts of Parthian\nenemies to recapture his empire gained currency in Asia Minor in\nDomitian's reign, and this legend is certainly developed in Rev. xiii.\nand xvii. On the other hand, the author, if he ever came to Asia, did\nnot cease to be a Palestinian Jew. He operates exclusively (after iv. 1)\nwith the materials and interests of Jewish and Jewish-Christian\napocalypse. He has no interest whatever in the churches of Asia. He does\nnot betray by one syllable a knowledge even of their existence, to say\nnothing of their dangers, their heresies, their temptations. He does\nmake it abundantly clear that he is a Christian prophet (x. 7-11), and\n(to us) almost equally clear that he is _not_ one of the twelve\napostles whose names he sees written on the foundation-stones of the New\nJerusalem (xxi. 14). But since his prophecy, with all its heterogeneous\nelements had to do with the final triumph of Messiah, and the\nestablishment of His kingdom, after the overthrow of the power of\nSatan--since it depicted \"the time of the dead to be judged, and the\ntime to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the\nsaints and to them that fear thy name,\" it could not fail to be welcomed\nby orthodox Christians in (proconsular) Asia. For the churches of Asia\nwere engaged at this time in a vigorous struggle against the heretical\ndeniers of the resurrection and judgment. Only, a mere anonymous\nprophecy from Palestine could not obtain any authoritative currency in\nAsia. To be accepted, even among the orthodox, some name of apostolic\nweight must be attached to it, as we see in the case of the two Epistles\nof Peter and those of James and Jude. The Epistles of the Spirit to the\nchurches are, then, as truly \"letters of commendation\" as though they\nintroduced a living prophet and not merely a written prophecy. The John\nwhom they present is not called an apostle for the very simple reason\nthat the visions themselves everywhere refer to their recipient as a\n'prophet.' The author of the prologue and epilogue does not disregard\nthe language of his material. As we have seen, he carefully weaves its\nphraseology into the 'letters.' So with his insertion of the name\n\"John.\" It occurs nowhere but in i. 1 f., 4, 9 and xxii. 8 f. All\nthese passages, but especially xxii. 8 f., are based upon xix. 9_b_,\n10, adding nothing to the representation but the name \"John\" and the\nlocation \"Patmos.\" In fact, xxii. 6-9 reproduces xix. 9 f., for the\nmost part verbatim, although it is clearly insupposable that the seer of\nthe former passage should represent himself as offering a _second_ time\nto worship the angel, and as receiving _again_ exactly the same rebuke\nhe had received so shortly before. He who calls himself \"John\" in xxii.\n8 is, therefore, _not_ the prophet of xix. 10. The epilogue itself has\napparently received successive supplements, and the prologue its prefix;\nbut he who inserts the name John has done so with caution. He may not\nhave intended to leave open the ambiguity found by Dionysius and\nEusebius between the Apostle and the Elder, as a refuge in case of\naccusation, but he has at least been careful not to transgress the\nlimits of the text he reproduces. The seer spoke of himself as a\n\"_prophet_\" writing from the midst of great _tribulation_, about the\n_kingdom_ to follow to those that _endured_. He had said that he\nreceived \"true _words of God_\" from an _angel_ who declared \"I am a\nfellow _servant_ with thee and with thy _brethren_ that hold _the\ntestimony of Jesus_\" (_i. e._ the confession of martyrdom). The\nprologue, accordingly, describes \"John\" as a _servant_ of Jesus, who\nreceived from an _angel_ the _word of God_ and _the testimony of Jesus_\n(i. 1 f.). He is a _brother_ and partaker in the _tribulation_ and\n_kingdom_ and _endurance_ which are in Jesus. When he comes to Asia it\nis \"for the _word of God_ and _the testimony of Jesus_.\" The spot whence\nhe issues his prophetic message is not located in Ephesus, or in any\ncity where the residents could say, \"But the Apostle John was never\namong us.\" He resides temporarily (as a prisoner in the quarries?) in\nthe unfrequented island of Patmos. Thence he could be supposed to see\n\"in the Spirit\" the condition of affairs in the churches of Asia without\ninconvenient questions as to when, and how, and why.\n\n    Footnote 26: Note the addition of an \"eighth\" emperor in ver. 11.\n\nWe may think, then, of this book of 'prophecy' as brought forth in the\nvicinity of Ephesus near \"the end of the reign of Domitian\" (95). But\nonly the enclosing letters to the churches, and the epilogue\nguaranteeing the contents, originate here at this time. The\n'prophecies,' occupied as they are exclusively with the rivalry of\nJerusalem and Rome, and the judgment to be executed for the former upon\nher ruthless adversary, bear unmistakable marks of their Palestinian\norigin, not only in the historical and geographic situations\npresupposed, but in the \"defiant\" Hebraisms of the language, and the\navowed translations from \"the Hebrew.\" They are an importation from\nPalestine like \"the sound words, even the words of the Lord Jesus\"\nreferred to in the Pastorals. The churches of Asia are feeling the need\nof apostolic authority against the deniers of the resurrection and the\njudgment, as much as against the perverters of the Lord's words. Such\ncentres as the homes of the prophesying daughters of Philip at Ephesus\nand Hierapolis were even more abundantly competent to supply this demand\nthan the other. Agabus will not have been the only Judaean prophet who\nvisited them, especially after the \"great tribulation\" which befell\n\"those in Judaea.\" There is nothing foreign to the habit of the times,\neven in Christian circles, if nameless 'prophecies' from such a source\nare translated, edited, and given out under cover of commendatory\nepistles written in the name of \"John\" at a time when John had indeed\npartaken both of the tribulation and of the kingdom of Jesus. They would\nhardly have obtained currency had they not been attributed to an\napostle; for a denial of the apostolicity of this book has always\ndeprived it of authority.\n\nOn the other hand, the actual (Palestinian) prophet has no such exalted\nopinion of himself as of those whose names he sees written on the\nfoundation of the walls of the New Jerusalem (xxi. 14). He is not an\napostle and does not claim to be. He shows not the faintest trace of any\nassociation with the earthly Jesus, and indeed displays a\nvindictiveness toward the enemies of Israel that has more of the spirit\nof the imprecatory psalms than the spirit of Jesus. He thinks of Jesus\nas a king and judge bestowing heavenly rewards upon the martyrs in a\nmanner quite inconsistent with his rebuke of James and John (Mark x.\n40). It is a far cry indeed from this to apostleship and personal\nintimacy with Jesus.\n\nThe chief value of Revelation to the student of Christian origins is\nthat by means of its clearly determinable date (Ephesus, 93-95) he can\nplace himself at a point of vantage whence to look not only around him\nat the conditions of the Pauline churches as depicted in the letters,\nvexed with growing Gnostic heresy and moral laxity, but also both\nbackward and forward. The backward glance shows Palestine emerging from\nthe horrors of the Jewish war, filled with bitterness against Rome, held\ndown under hateful tyranny and longing for vengeance upon the despot\nwith his \"names of blasphemy\" and his demands of worship for \"the image\nof the beast\" (emperor-worship). Here Jewish apocalyptic (as in 2nd\nEsdras) and Christian 'prophecy' are closely in accord. Indeed a\nconsiderable part of the material of Rev. iv.-xxi., especially in chh.\nxi.-xii. is ultimately of Jewish rather than Christian origin. What the\ndevelopment of Christian 'prophecy' was in Palestine from apostolic\ntimes until the scattering of the church of \"the apostles and elders\"\nafter the war of Bar Cocheba (135), we can only infer from the kindred\nJewish apocalypses and the chiliastic \"traditions of the Elders\" quoted\nby Irenaeus from Papias. A forward look from our vantage point in Ephesus\n_c._ A.D. 95, shows the effects of the Palestinian importation extending\ndown from generation to generation, first in the long chiliastic\ncontroversy against the Doketic Gnostics, including Montanist\n'prophecy'; secondly, in the growth of a claim to apostolic succession\nfrom John.\n\n(1) In the chiliastic controversy for a century the chief bones of\ncontention are the (non-Pauline) doctrine of the resurrection of the\n_flesh_ (so the Apostles' Creed and the second-century fathers), and\nthat of a visible reign of Christ for a thousand years in Jerusalem. The\nnew form of resurrection-gospel which at about this time begins to take\nthe place of the apostolic of 1st Cor. xv. 3-11, centering upon the\nemptiness of the sepulchre and the tangibility and food-consuming\nfunctions of Jesus' resurrection body, instead of the \"manifestations\"\nto the apostles, is characteristic of this struggle against the Greek\ndisposition to spiritualize. Luke and Ignatius represent the attitude of\nthe orthodox, Ignatius' opponents that of those who denied that Jesus\nwas \"in the flesh after his resurrection.\" Revelation, like the\n\"traditions of the Elders,\" champions the visible kingdom of Messiah in\nJerusalem.\n\n(2) In the effort for apostolic authority the writings which came\nultimately to represent Asian orthodoxy have all been brought under the\nname and authority of the Apostle John, although for many decades after\nthe appearance of Revelation, Paul, and not John, remains the apostolic\nauthority to which appeal is made, and although the writings themselves\nwere originally anonymous. There was, indeed, a contributory cause for\nthe growth of this tradition in the accidental circumstance that a\nPalestinian Elder from whom Papias derived indirect, and Polycarp in all\nprobability direct, traditions, bore also the name of John, and survived\nuntil A.D. 117. Still, the main reason why this particular apostolic\nname was ultimately placed over the Gospel and Epistles of Ephesian\nChristendom, can only have been its previous adoption to cover the\ncompilation of Palestinian 'prophecies' of A.D. 95.\n\n\n\n\nPART IV\n\nTHE LITERATURE OF THE THEOLOGIAN\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE SPIRITUAL GOSPEL AND EPISTLES\n\n\nAsia, as we have come to know it through a succession of writings dating\nfrom Colossians-Ephesians (_c._ 62) down to Papias (145), had come to be\nthe chief scene of mutual reaction between 'apostolic' and Pauline\nChristianity at the close of the first century. Here at Ephesus had been\nthe great headquarters of Paul's missionary activity. Here he had\nreasoned daily in the school of one Tyrannus, a philosopher, and had\nfound \"many adversaries.\" Here he had encountered the \"strolling Jews,\nexorcists,\" and had secured the destruction of an immense mass of books\nof magic. Here, according to Acts, he predicted the inroads of heresy\nafter his \"departure,\" and here the succeeding literature abundantly\nwitnesses the fulfilment of the prediction. Ephesians and Colossians\nbegin the series, the Pastoral Epistles (_c._ 90) continue it. Then\nfollow the 'letters to the churches' of Revelation (95) and the\nIgnatian Epistles (110-117), not to mention those whose origin is\nuncertain, such as Jude and 2nd Peter.\n\nThe Pastorals already make it apparent that even the Pauline churches\nare not exempt from the inevitable tendency of the age to fall back upon\nauthority. The very sublimity of Paul's consciousness of apostolic\ninspiration made it the harder for the next generation to assert any for\nitself. Moreover heresy was growing apace. If even the outward pressure\nof persecution tended to drive the churches together in brotherly\nsympathy, still more indispensable would appear the need of traditional\nstandards to maintain the \"type of sound doctrine,\" \"the faith once for\nall delivered to the saints.\" Without such it would be impossible to\ncheck the individualism of errorists who took Paul's sense of personal\ninspiration and mystical insight as their model, _without_ Paul's\nsobriety of critical control under the standard of \"the law of Christ.\"\nIt is no surprise, then, to find even at the headquarters of Paulinism\nearly in the second century a sweeping tendency to react toward the\n'apostolic' standards. In particular, as Gnostic exaggeration of the\nPauline mysticism led continually further toward disregard of the\ndictates of common morality, and a wider divergence from the Jewish\nconceptions of the world to come, it was natural that men like Polycarp\nand Papias should turn to the Matthaean and Petrine tradition of the\nLord's oracles, and to the Johannine 'prophecies' regarding the\nresurrection and judgment.\n\nHad nothing intervened between Gnostics and reactionaries the most vital\nelements of Paul's gospel might well have disappeared, even at this\ngreat headquarters of Paulinism. The Doketists, with their exaggerated\nHellenistic mysticism, were certainly not the true successors of Paul.\nThey showed an almost contemptuous disregard for the historic Jesus, a\none-sided aim at personal redemption, by mystic union of the individual\nsoul with the Christ-spirit, to the disregard of \"the law of Christ,\"\neven in some cases of common morality. Paul was characterized by a\nsplendid loyalty to personal purity, to the social ideal of the Kingdom,\nand to the unity of the brotherhood in the spirit of reciprocal service.\nOn the other hand men like the author of the Pastoral Epistles, Ignatius\nand Polycarp, with their almost panic-stricken resort to the authority\nof the past, were not perpetuating the true spirit of the great Apostle.\nTheir reliance was on ecclesiastical discipline, concrete and massive\nmiracle in the story of Jesus, particularly on the point of the\nbodily--or, as they would have said, the \"fleshly\"--resurrection. Their\nconception of his recorded \"words,\" made of them a fixed, superhuman\nstandard and rule, a \"new law.\" Teachers of this type, much as they\ndesired and believed themselves to be perpetuating the \"sacred deposit\"\nof Paul, were in reality conserving its form and missing its spirit.\nSuch men would gladly \"turn to the tradition handed down,\" of the\nMatthaean Sayings, and the Petrine Story. But in the former they would\nnot find reflections of the sense of Son ship. They would find only a\nsupplementary Law, a new and higher set of rules. In the story they\nwould not discover the Pauline view of the pre-existent divine Wisdom\ntabernacling in man, producing a second Adam, as elder brother of a new\nrace, the children and heirs of God. They would take the mysticism of\nPaul and bring it down to the level of the man in the street. Jesus\nwould be to them either a completely superhuman man, approximating the\nheathen demi-god, a divinity incognito; or else a man so endowed with\n\"the whole fountain of the Spirit\" as to exercise perpetually and\nuninterruptedly all its miraculous functions. The story of the cross\nwould be hidden behind the prodigies.\n\nLeast of all could the importation of apocalyptic prophecy do justice to\nthe Pauline doctrine of the 'last things.' True, Paul is himself a\n'prophet,' thoroughly imbued with the fantastic Palestinian doctrines.\nHe, too, believes in a world-conflict, a triumph of the Messiah over\nantichrist. More particularly in one of his very earliest epistles (2nd\nThessalonians) we get a glimpse into these Jewish peculiarities. But\nthese are always counterbalanced in Paul by a wider and soberer view,\nwhich tends more and more to get the upper hand. His doctrine of\nspiritual union with Christ, present apprehension of \"the life that is\nhid with Christ in God,\" a doctrine of Greek rather than Hebrew\nparentage, prevails over the imagery of Jewish apocalypse. In the later\nepistles he expects rather to \"depart and be with Christ\" than to be\n\"caught up into the air\" with those that are alive and remain at the\n'Coming.' So even if Paul did have occasion again and again to defend\nhis Jewish resurrection-doctrine against the Greek disposition to refine\nit away into a mere doctrine of immortality, his remedy is not a mere\nfalling back into the crudities of Jewish millenarianism. Least of all\ncould he have sympathized with the nationalistic, and even vindictive\nspirit of Rev. iv.-xxi., with its great battle of Jerusalem helped by\nMessiah and the angels, against Rome helped by Satan and the Beast.\nPaul's doctrine of the resurrection of the \"body\" by \"clothing\" of the\nspirit with a \"tabernacle\" derived \"from heaven,\" his hope of a\nmessianic Kingdom which is the triumph of humanity under a \"second\nAdam,\" has its apocalyptic traits. It is a victory over demonic enemies,\n\"spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places\"; but it has the\nreserve of an educated Pharisee against the cruder forms of Jewish\nprophecy. It shows the mind of the cosmopolitan Roman citizen and\nphilosophic thinker, not merely that of the Jewish Zealot.\n\nHow salutary if Paul himself could have lived to control the divergent\nelements among his churches, to check the subjective individualism of\nthe Gnostics on the one hand, and the reactionary tendencies of the\northodox on the other. His parting words to his beloved Philippians are\nsadly appreciative of how needful it was for their sake that he should\n\"abide in the flesh\" (Phil. i. 24). Yet there was one thing still more\nexpedient--that he should abide with them in the spirit. And that is\njust what we find evidenced in the great 'spiritual' Gospel and its\naccompanying Epistles from Ephesus.\n\nDebate still rages over a mere name, attached by tradition to these\nwritings that themselves bear no name. The titles prefixed by early\ntranscribers attribute them to \"John.\" But they are never employed\nbefore 175-180 in a way to even remotely suggest that they were then\nregarded as written by John, or even as apostolic in any sense. And when\nwe trace the tradition back to its earliest form, in the Epilogue\nattached to the Gospel (John xxi.) it seems to be no more than a dubious\nattempt to identify that mysterious figure, the \"disciple whom Jesus\nloved.\" If, however, we postpone this question raised by the Epilogue,\nthe writings can at least be assigned to a definite locality (Ephesus)\nand a fairly definite date (_c._ 105-110), with the general consent both\nof ancient tradition and of modern criticism. This is for us the\nimportant thing, since it enables us to understand their purpose and\nbearing; whereas even those who contend that they were written by the\nApostle John can make little use of the alleged fact. For (1) the little\nthat is known of John from other sources is completely opposed to the\ncharacteristics of these writings. They are characterized by a broad\nuniversalism, and reproduce the mysticism of Paul. To attribute them to\nthe Pillar of Gal. ii. 9, or the Galilean fisherman of Mark i. 19 and\nix. 38, it becomes necessary to suppose that John after migrating to\nEphesus underwent a transformation so complete as to make him in reality\nanother man. (2) The meagre possibility that the basis of Revelation\nmight represent the Apostle John becomes more remote than ever. Now it\nis a curious fact that critics who hold to the much-disputed tradition\nthat the Apostle John wrote the Gospel and Epistles, although these\nwritings make no such claim, and have no affinity with the known\ncharacter, show as a rule remarkable alacrity to dismiss the claims of\nRevelation, which positively declares John to have been its author, and\nhas far stronger evidence, both internal and external, in support of the\nclaim, than have either the Gospel or the Epistles. We may prefer the\nstyle and doctrine of the Gospel and Epistles, but this playing fast\nand loose with the evidence can only discredit criticism of this type.\n(3) The value of the demonstration of Johannine authorship would lie in\nthe fact that we should then have a first-hand witness to the actual\nlife and teaching of Jesus, immeasurably superior to the remote and\nindirect tradition of the present Synoptic sources. But as a matter of\nreal fact those who maintain the Johannine authorship do not venture to\nassert any such historical superiority. On the contrary they consider\nthe Synoptic tradition not only historically superior to \"John,\" as\nrespects both sayings and course of events, but they are apt to\nattribute to this Galilean apostle an extreme of Philonic abstraction,\nso that he even prefers deliberate \"fiction\" to fact. Thus the reasoning\nemployed to defend the tradition destroys the only factor which could\ngive it value.\n\nOn the other hand it is possible to disregard these secondary disputes,\nwhich aim only to increase or diminish the authority of the writings by\nasserting or denying that they were written by the Apostle John, and to\napproach the interpretation of them on the basis only of what is really\nknown, accredited both by ancient tradition and by modern criticism. On\nthis basis we can safely affirm that they originated in Ephesus early in\nthe second century, 'spiritualizing' what we have designated 'apostolic'\nteaching, while at the same time strongly reacting against Doketic and\nAntinomian heresy. By such a procedure we shall be employing modern\ncritical methods to the highest practical advantage in the interest of\ngenuinely historical interpretation.\n\nEven those who find minute distinctions in style and point of view\nbetween the Epistles and Gospel of John will admit that all four\ndocuments emanate from the same period, situation, and circumstances,\nand represent the same school of thought. We shall make no serious\nmistake, then, if we treat them as written by the same individual, and\neven as intended to accompany one another. We shall have the example of\nso high an authority as Lightfoot, who considered 1st John an Epilogue\ncomposed to accompany the Gospel in place of the present Epilogue (John\nxxi.). Moreover the distinctions in the ancient treatment of 1st John\nand the two smaller Epistles are all subsequent to the attribution of\nthe Gospel and First Epistle to the Apostle, and a consequence of it.\nFor 1st John and the Gospel had always been inseparable, and having no\nname attached could easily be treated as the Apostle's. But 2nd and 3rd\nJohn distinctly declare themselves written by an \"Elder\"; and in the\ndays when men still appreciated the distinction between an Elder and an\nApostle it was felt to be so serious a difficulty that 2nd and 3rd John\nwere put in the class of \"disputed\" writings. In reality 1st John and\nthe Gospel are just as certainly the work of an \"Elder\" as 2nd John and\n3rd John, though no declaration to that effect is made. Moreover 1st\nJohn and the Gospel may safely be treated as from the same author; for\nsuch minute differences as exist in style and point of view can be fully\naccounted for by the processes of revision the Gospel has demonstrably\nundergone. This is more reasonable than to imagine two authors so\nextraordinarily similar to one another and extraordinarily different\nfrom everybody else.\n\n\"The Elder\" does not give his name, and it is hopeless for us to try to\nguess it, though it was of course well known to his \"beloved\" friend\n\"Gaius,\" to whom the third letter (the outside envelope) was addressed.\nWe have simply three epistles, one (3rd John) personal, to the aforesaid\nGaius, who is to serve as the writer's intermediary with \"the church,\"\nbecause Diotrephes, its bishop, violently opposes him. Another (2nd\nJohn) is addressed to a particular church (\"the elect lady and her\nchildren\"), in all probability the church of Diotrephes and Gaius. It\nmay be the letter referred to in 3rd John 9. The third (1st John) is\nentirely general, not even so much modified from the type of the homily\ntoward that of the epistle as Hebrews or James; for it has neither\nsuperscription nor epistolary close. And yet it is, and speaks of itself\n(i. 4; ii. 1, 7, 9, 12-14, etc.) as a literary product. It is not\nimpossible that this group of 'epistles,' one individual, one to a\nparticular church, one general, was composed after the plan of the\nsimilar group addressed by Paul to churches of this same region,\nPhilemon, Colossians, and the more general epistle known to us as\nEphesians. They may have been intended to accompany and introduce the\nGospel written by the same author, just as the prophecies of Rev.\niv.-xxi. are introduced by the 'epistles' of Rev. i.-iii., or as\nLuke-Acts is sent under enclosure to Theophilus for publication under\nhis patronage. At all events, be the connection with the Gospel closer\nor more remote, to learn anything really reliable about the writer and\nhis purpose and environment we must begin with his own references to\nthem, first in the letter to Gaius, then in that to \"the elect lady and\nher children,\" then in his 'word of exhortation' to young and old, of\n1st John. Thus we shall gain a historical approach finally to that\ntreatise on the manifestation of God in Christ which has won him the\ntitle since antiquity of the 'theologian.'\n\nThird John shows the author to be a man of eminence in the (larger?)\nchurch whence he writes, old enough to speak of Gaius with commendation\nas one of his \"children,\" though Gaius himself is certainly no mere\nyouth, and eminent enough to call Diotrephes to answer for his\nmisconduct. He has sent out evangelistic workers, some of whom have\nrecently returned and borne witness \"before the church\" to their\nhospitable reception by Gaius. For this he thanks Gaius, and urges him\nto continue the good work. The main object of the letter, however, is\nto commend Demetrius, who is doubtless the bearer of this letter as well\nas another written \"to the church\" (2nd John?). This letter, the author\nfears, will never reach its destination if Diotrephes has his way. There\nis very little to indicate whence the opposition of Diotrephes arises,\nbut what little there is (ver. 11) points to those who make claims to\n\"seeing\" God and being \"of\" Him, without adequate foundation in a life\nof purity and beneficence. The letter \"to the church\" is more explicit.\n\nSecond John is perfectly definite in its purpose. After congratulating\nthe \"elect lady\" on those of her children (members) whom the writer has\nfound leading consistent Christian lives, he entreats the church to\nremember the \"new commandment\" of Jesus, which yet is not new but the\nfoundation of all, the commandment of ministering love. The reason for\nthis urgency is that \"many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even\nthey that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh\" (ver. 7).\nAnd here we come upon a very novel and distinctive application of an\nancient datum of 'prophecy,' clearly differentiating this writer from\nthe author of Revelation. The Doketic heresy is explicitly identified\nwith \"the deceiver and the antichrist.\" That must have been a new and\nsurprising turn for men accustomed to connect the antichrist idea with\nthe persecuting power of Rome. Satan, as we know, had been repeatedly\nconceived as operating through the coercion of outward force brought\nagainst the Messiah and his people through the Beast and the false\nProphet (Rev. xiii.). There was good authority, too, for a mystical \"man\nof sin\" setting himself forth as God in the temple (2nd Thess. ii. 4),\nor for connecting Daniel's \"abomination that maketh desolate\" with the\nsufferings of the Jewish war and the later attempts of false prophets to\ndeceive the elect with lying wonders (2nd Thess. ii. 9; Mark xiii. 22;\nRev. xiii. 14). But this was a new application of the prophecy. To\ndeclare that the heretical teachers were themselves antichrists was to\ncall the attention of the church back from outward opposition to inward\ndisloyalty as the greater peril. And the identification is not\nenunciated in this general warning alone, but fully developed and\ndefended in two elaborate paragraphs of the 'word of exhortation' (1st\nJohn ii. 18-29; iv. 1-6). When, therefore, we find Polycarp in his\nletter (110-171) quietly adopting the idea, almost as an understood\nthing, declaring \"For every one who shall not confess that Jesus Christ\nis come in the flesh, is antichrist\" (vii. 1), it becomes almost a\ncertainty that he had read 1st John.[27]\n\n    Footnote 27: Not 2nd John; for it is only in 1st John ii. 18 that\n    the elder speaks of \"many antichrists,\" identifying each separate\n    Doketist with the apocalyptic figure. In 2nd John vii. it is the\n    heresy itself as a phenomenon which constitutes _the_ antichrist.\n\nOur elder's warning \"to the church\" (perhaps more particularly its\ngoverning body) is to beware of these deceivers; not to receive them,\nnor even to greet them, because they \"go onward\" (are 'progressives')\nand do not \"abide in the teaching of Christ.\" To abide in this\n\"teaching\" is the church's only safeguard.\n\nIf next we turn to the more general epistle known as 1st John the lack\nof any superscription is more than counterbalanced by the writer's full\nand explicit declarations regarding motive and occasion. The epistle was\ncertainly intended to be read before entire congregations. Of part of it\nat least the author himself says that it was \"written concerning them\nthat would lead you astray\" (ii. 26). Comparison of the full\ndenunciation with what we know of Doketism from its own writings, such\nas the so-called _Acts of John_ (_c._ 175), shows very plainly what type\nof heresy is meant. Moreover we have the Epistles of Ignatius, written\nto these same churches but a few years later, and the detailed\ndescriptions of the Doketist Cerinthus and his doctrines given by\nIrenaeus, together with the explicit statement that the writings of John\nwere directed against this same Cerinthus.\n\nYet 1st John is far more than a mere polemic. The author writes to those\n\"that believe on the name of the Son of God, that they may know that\nthey have eternal life\" (v. 13). This certainly is the result of the\nconscious indwelling of the Spirit of Jesus. It is not evidenced,\nhowever, by boastful words as to illumination, insight and knowledge,\nbut by practical obedience to the one new commandment; for \"God is love,\nand he that _loveth_ (not he that hath _gnosis_) is begotten of God and\nknoweth God.\" This inward witness of the Spirit is a gift, or (to use\nour author's term) an \"anointing\" (_i. e._ a 'Christ'-ening), whose\nessence is as much beyond the Greek's ideal of wisdom, on the one side,\nas it is beyond the Jew's ideal of miraculous powers on the other. It is\na spirit of ministering love corresponding to and emanating from the\nnature of God himself. This is \"the teaching of Christ\" in which alone\nit is safe to \"abide.\"\n\nBut again as respects the historic tradition of the church our author is\nnot less emphatic. He values the record of an actual, real, and tangible\nexperience of this manifested life of God in man. The \"progressives\" may\nrepudiate the mere Jesus of \"the flesh,\" in favour of one who comes by\nwater only (_i. e._ in the outpouring of the Spirit in baptism), and not\nby the blood of the cross. For the doctrine of the cross was a special\nstumbling-block to Doketists, who rejected the sacrament of the bread\nand wine.[28] The actual sending of God's only-begotten Son into the\nworld, the real \"propitiation\" for our sins (so lightly denied by the\nilluminati), is a vital point to the writer. The sins \"of the whole\nworld\" were atoned for in Jesus' blood actually shed on Calvary. The\nchurch possesses, then, in this story a record of fact of infinite\nsignificance to the world. The Doketists are playing fast and loose with\nthis record of the historic Jesus. They deny any value to the \"flesh\" in\nwhich the aeon Christ had merely tabernacled as its \"receptacle\" between\nthe period of the baptism and the ascension--an event which they date\n_before_ the death on the cross.[29] They are met here with a peremptory\nchallenge and declaration. The experience of contact with the earthly\nJesus which the Church cherishes as its most inestimable treasure is the\nassurance, and the only assurance that we have, of real fellowship with\nthe Father; for \"the life, the eternal life\" of God in man, the\nLogos--to borrow frankly the Stoic expression--is known not by mere\nmystical dreams, but by the historic record of those who personally knew\nthe real Jesus. The manifestation of God, in short, is objective and\nhistorical, and not merely inward and self-conscious; and that outward\nand objective manifestation may be summed up in what we of the Christian\nbrotherhood have seen and known of Jesus.\n\n    Footnote 28: In the _Acts of John_ the Christ spirit which had been\n    resident in Jesus comes to John after he has fled to a cave on the\n    Mount of Olives from the posse that arrested the Lord. The sweet\n    voice of the invisible Christ informs him there that the blinded\n    multitude below had tortured a mere bodily shape which they took to\n    be Christ, \"while I stood by and laughed.\" In the _Gospel of Peter_\n    Jesus hung upon the cross \"as one who feels no pain\" and was \"taken\n    up\" before the end.\n\n    Footnote 29: See note preceding.\n\nIt is when we approach the Fourth Gospel by way of its own author's\nadaptation of his message to the conditions around him that we begin to\nappreciate it historically, and in its true worth. The spirit of polemic\nis still prominent in 1st John, but the Gospel shows the effect of\nopposition only in the more careful statement of the evangelist's exact\nmeaning. It is a theological treatise, an interpretation of the doctrine\nof the person of Christ, written that the readers \"may believe that\nJesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they may have\nlife in his name\" (xx. 31). In an age so eagerly bent on ascertaining\nthe historic facts regarding Jesus' life, and the true sequence of\nevents (Luke i. 1-4), it is insupposable that an author so strenuous to\nuphold the concrete reality of the church's historic tradition should\nnot give real history so far as he was able. He could not afford to\ndepreciate it in the face of Doketic myth and fancy and contempt for a\n\"Christ in the flesh.\" The idea that such a writer could deliberately\nprefer fiction to fact is most improbable; ten times more so if he was\nthe only surviving representative of the twelve, a Galilean disciple\neven more intimate than Peter with Jesus from the outset. But real\nhistory was no longer attainable. The author of the Fourth Gospel\nreports no event which he does not take in good faith to be fact. Yet it\nmust be apparent from his own statement of his purpose as well as from\nthe very structure of the book that he does not aim to be a historian,\nbut an interpreter of doctrine. He aims to give not _fact_ but _truth_.\nAnd his handling of (supposed) fact has the freedom we should expect in\na church teacher of that age, and of the school of Paul the mystic. The\nseven progressive \"signs\" that he narrates, culminating in the raising\nof Lazarus, are avowedly (xx. 31) illustrative selections from a\nmultitude of current tales of miracle, aiming to produce that faith in\nJesus as the Son of God which will result in \"life,\" _i. e._ the eternal\nlife which consists in his indwelling (1st John v. 20). They are not\ndescribed as acts of pity, drawn from one with whom the power of God was\nfound present to heal. Jesus does not yield as in the Synoptics when\ncompassion for trusting need overcomes reluctance to increase the\nimportunity that interfered with his higher mission. Their prime purpose\nis to \"manifest the glory\" of the incarnate Logos, and Jesus performs\nthem only when, and as, he chooses. Pity and natural affection are\nalmost trampled upon that this \"manifestation of his glory\" may be made\nmore effective (ii. 4; iv. 48; ix. 3; xi. 4-6, 15). As in Paul, there is\nno exorcism. This most typical and characteristic miracle of Petrine\nstory (Mark iii. 15; Acts x. 88) has disappeared. Or rather (as in Paul)\nthe casting out of Satan from his dominion over the entire world has\ntranscended and superseded it (John xii. 31-33; _cf._ Col. ii. 15). In\nJohn, requests for miracle, whether in faith or unbelief, always incur\nrebuke (ii. 4; iv. 48; vi. 30-36; vii. 4-7; xi. 3-15). Jesus offers and\nworks them when \"his hour\" comes, whether applied for or not (v. 6-9;\nvi. 6; ix. 1-7). His reserve is not due to a limitation of almighty\npower; for the power is declared explicitly to be his, _in his own\nright_ (v. 21; xi. 22, 25, 42). He restrains it only that faith may rest\nupon conviction of the truth rather than mere wonder (ii. 23-25; iii. 2\nf.; iv. 39-42, 48; vi. 29-46; xiv. 11). He is, in short, an omniscient\n(i. 47-50; ii. 25), omnipotent Being, temporarily sojourning on the\nearth (iii. 13; xvi. 28).\n\nThe dialogue interwoven with these seven signs is closely related in\nsubject to them. It does not aim to repeat remembered Sayings, but\nfollows that literary form which since Plato had been the classic model\nfor presenting the themes of philosophy. The subject-matter is no\nlonger, as in the Synoptics, the Righteousness required by God, the\nNature and Coming of the Kingdom, Duty to God and Man. It is the person\nand function of the speaker himself. Instead of the parables we have\nallegories: \"seven 'I am's'\" of Jesus, in debate with \"the Jews\" about\nthe doctrine of his own person as Son of God.\n\nThis uniformity of topic corresponds with a complete absence of any\nattempt to differentiate in style between utterances of Jesus, or the\nBaptist, or the evangelist himself, in Gospel or Epistles. Had the\nwriter desired, it is certain that he could have collected sayings of\nJesus, and given them a form similar to those of Matthew and Luke. He\ndoes not try. The only device he employs to suggest a distinction is an\noracular ambiguity at first misunderstood, and so requiring progressive\nunfolding. The main theme is often introduced by a peculiar and solemn\n\"Verily, verily.\"\n\nAs with the 'signs' the lingering Synoptic sense of progress and\nproportion has disappeared. At the very outset John the Baptist\nproclaims to his followers that his own baptism has no value in itself.\nIt is not \"for repentance unto remission of sins.\" It is _only_ to make\nthe Christ \"manifest\" (i. 19-34). Christ's atonement alone will take\naway the sin (i. 29), Christ's baptism alone will convey real help (i.\n34). Jesus, too, proclaims himself from the outset the Christ, in the\nfull Pauline sense of the word (i. 45-51; iv. 26, etc.). He chooses\nJudas with the express purpose of the betrayal, and forces on the\nreluctant agents of his fate (vi. 70 f.; xiii. 26 f.; xviii. 4-8;\nxix. 8-11).\n\nAll this, and much more which we need not cite, makes hardly the\npretence of being history. It is frankly theology, or rather\napologetics. We have as a framework the general outline of Mark, a\nGalilean and a Judaean ministry (chh. i.-xii.; xiii.-xx.), with traces of\na Perean journey (vii. 1 ff.). This scheme, however, is broken through\nby another based on the Mosaic festal system, Jesus showing in each case\nas he visits Jerusalem, the higher symbolism of the ceremonial (ii. 13\nff. Passover; v. 1 ff. Pentecost; vii. 1 ff. Tabernacles; x. 22\nff. Dedication; xii. 1 ff. Passover). There is in chh. i.-iv. a\n'teaching of baptisms' and of endowment with the Spirit corresponding\nroughly to Mark i. 1-45. There is in ch. v. a teaching of the authority\nof Jesus against Moses and the Law, corresponding to Mark ii. 1--iii. 6.\nThere is a teaching of the 'breaking of bread' corresponding to Mark vi.\n30--viii. 26 in John vi., though this last has been related not merely to\nthe brotherhood banquet ('love-feast') as in Mark, but anticipates and\ntakes the place of the teaching as to the Eucharist (_cf._ John vi.\n52-59 with John xiii.). There is a Commission of the Twelve like Matt.\nx. 16-42, though placed (with Luke xxii. 35-38) as a second sending on\nthe night of betrayal (xiii. 31--xviii. 26). There is dependence on\nPetrine Story, and to some extent on Matthaean Sayings. In particular\nJohn xii. 1-7 combines the data of Mark xiv. 3-9 with those of Luke vii.\n36-50; x. 38-42 in a curious compound, making it certain that the\nevangelist employed these two--and Matthew as well, if xii. 8 be\ngenuine (it is not found in the ancient Syriac). Yet our Synoptic\nGospels are not the only sources, and the material borrowed is handled\nwith sovereign superiority. In short, as even the church fathers\nrecognized, this Gospel is of a new type. It does aim to \"supplement\"\nthe others, as they recognized; but not as one narrative may piece out\nand complete another. Rather as the unseen and spiritual supplements the\nexternal and visible. This Gospel uses the established forms of\nmiracle-story and saying; but it transforms the one into symbol, the\nother into dialogue and allegory. Then by use of this material\n(supplemented from unknown, perhaps oral, sources) it constructs a\nseries of interpretations of the person and work of the God-man.\n\nOf one peculiarly distinctive feature we have still to speak. Where the\nreader has special need of an interpreter to attest and interpret a\nspecially vital fact, such as the scenes of the night of the betrayal,\nor the reality of Jesus' propitiatory death (denied by the Doketists),\nor the beginning of the resurrection faith, Peter's testimony is\nsupplemented and transcended by that of a hitherto unknown figure, who\nanticipates all that Peter only slowly attains. This is the mysterious,\nunnamed \"disciple whom Jesus loved\" (xiii. 23 ff.; xviii. 15 f.;\nxix. 25-37; xx. 1-10; _cf._ Gal. xx. 20), a Paul present in the spirit,\nto see things with the eye of spiritual insight. There is no\ntransfiguration-scene and no prayer of Gethsemane in this\nGospel--Transfiguration is needless where the glory shines uninterrupted\nthrough the whole career. Prayer itself is impossible where oneness with\nthe God-head makes difference of thought or purpose inconceivable. Hence\nthe prayers of Jesus are often only \"for the sake of those that stand\nby\" (xi. 41 f.). The same is true of the Voice from heaven at the\nscene which takes the place of Transfiguration and Gethsemane in one\n(xii. 27-33). Jesus will not ask for deliverance from that hour, because\nhe had sought it from the beginning. His prayer is \"Father, glorify thy\nname.\" The Voice, which some take to be an angel speaking to him (_cf._\nLuke ix. 35; xxii. 43) is for the sake of the bystanders. The Voice at\nhis baptism likewise is not addressed to him (the incarnate Logos does\nnot need a revelation of his own identity) but to the Baptist.\n\nSo again and again Synoptic scenes are retouched and new scenes are\nadded in a way to present a consistent picture of the \"tabernacling\" of\nthe pre-existent Son of God in human flesh. As we review the whole, and\nask ourselves, What is the occasion of this strange new presentation of\nthe evangelic message? we begin to realize how indispensable is the key\nwhich the evangelist has himself hung before the door. Many and complex\nare the problems which confront us as we move through this heaped-up\ntangle of anecdote, dialogue, and allegory. There is room for the\nkeenest scrutiny of criticism to determine, if possible, when, and how,\nand from what sources these meditations were put together. But nothing\nthat critical insight, analysis, and comparison can furnish avails so\nmuch to throw real light upon the work as what the evangelist himself\nhas done, by setting forth in a prologue (i. 1-18) the fundamental\nprinciples of his conception.\n\nIn a word evangelic tradition as it had hitherto found currency still\nlacked the fundamental thing in the Christology of Paul--the Incarnation\ndoctrine. Paul conceived the story of Jesus as a supernal drama,\nbeginning and ending in heaven at God's right hand. Even Matthew and\nLuke, carrying back the adoption to Son ship from the baptism to the\nbirth of Jesus, had not essentially changed the pre-Pauline point of\nview. Still there was no pre-existence. Jesus was not yet shown as the\nWisdom of God, through whom all things were created, the \"heavenly man,\"\nthe second Adam, taking upon him the form of a servant, humbling himself\nand becoming obedient unto death, rich, and for our sakes becoming poor.\nHe was still, even in Mark, just the prophet mighty in deed and word,\nraised up by God from among his brethren, and for his obedience exalted\nto the messianic throne of glory. How _could_ this satisfy churches\ntrained in the doctrine of Paul? We should almost rather marvel that the\nSynoptic narratives ever found lodgment at all, where Paul had preached\nfrom the beginning a doctrine of the eternal Christ.\n\nAnd the transformation is not one whit more radical than we ought to\nanticipate. The Transfiguration story had been a halting attempt to\nembody Pauline doctrine in Petrine story. But apart from the obvious\nhold afforded to mere Doketism, how inadequate to Paul's conception of\nthe \"Man from heaven\"! The Fourth evangelist depicts the person of Jesus\nconsistently and throughout, despite his meagre and refractory material,\nalong the lines of Pauline Christology. There is no concession to\nDoketism, for in spite of all, and designedly (iv. 6; xix. 28, 34),\nJesus is still no phantasm, but true man among men. There is no\nhesitation to override, where needful, on vital points the great and\ngrowing authority of 'apostolic' tradition. Tacitly, but\nuncompromisingly, Petrine tradition is set aside. The \"disciple whom\nJesus loved\" sees the matter otherwise. In particular, apocalyptic\neschatology is firmly repressed in favour of a doctrine of eternal life\nin the Spirit. The second Coming is not to be a manifestation \"to the\nworld.\" It will be an inward indwelling of God and Christ in the heart\nof the believer (xiv. 22 f.).[30] The place of future reward is not a\nglorified Palestine and transfigured, rebuilt Jerusalem. The disciple,\nlike Paul, will \"depart to be with Christ.\" The Father's house is wider\nthan the Holy Land. It has \"many mansions,\" and the servant must be\ncontent to know that his Master will receive him where he dwells himself\n(xiv. 1-3; xvii. 24).\n\n    Footnote 30: Some few passages inconsistent with this are found in\n    the body of the Gospel. Like that of the appendix (xxi. 22) they are\n    later modifications of a doctrine too Hellenic for the majority.\n\nTo realize what it meant to produce the 'spiritual' Gospel that comes to\nus from Ephesus shortly after the close of the first century we must\nplace ourselves side by side with men who had learnt the gospel of Paul\n_about_ Jesus, the drama of the eternal, pre-existent, \"heavenly Man,\"\nincarnate, triumphant through the cross over the Prince of this world\nand powers of darkness. We must realize how they found it needful to\nimpregnate the 'apostolic' material of Petrine and Matthaean tradition\nwith this deeper significance, preserving the concrete, historic fact,\nand the real manhood, and yet supplementing the disproportionately\nexternal story with a wealth of transcendental meaning. The spirit of\nPaul was, indeed, not dead. Neither Gnostic heresy could dissipate it,\nnor reactionary Christianized legalism absorb it. It had been reborn in\nsplendid authority and power. In due time it would prove itself the very\nmould of 'catholic' doctrine. The Fourth gospel, as its Prologue\nforewarns, is an application to the story of Jesus as tradition reported\nit of the Pauline incarnation doctrine formulated under the Stoic Logos\ntheory. It represents a study in the psychology of religion applied to\nthe person of Christ. Poor as Paul himself in knowledge of the outward\nJesus, unfamiliar with really historical words and deeds, its doctrine\n_about_ Jesus became, nevertheless, like that of the great Apostle to\nthe Gentiles, the truest exposition of 'the heart of Christ.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nEPILOGUES AND CONCLUSIONS\n\n\nFew of the great writings cherished and transmitted by the early church\nhave escaped the natural tendency to attachments at beginning and end.\nIn the later period such attachments took the form of prefixed\n_argumenta_, _i. e._ prefatory descriptions of author and contents, and\naffixed _subscriptions_, devoted to a similar purpose. These, like the\ntitles, were clearly distinguished from the text itself, and in modern\neditions are usually not printed, though examples of 'subscriptions' may\nbe seen in the King James version after the Pauline Epistles. Before the\ntime when canonization had made such a process seem sacrilege they were\nattached to the text itself, with greater or less attempt to weld the\nparts together. We need not add to what has been already said as to\ncertain superscriptions of the later epistolary literature, such as\nJames and Jude, where the relation to the text impresses us as closer\nthan is sometimes admitted; nor need we delay with the preamble to\nRevelation (Rev. i. 1-3). That which has been added at the close, in\ncases where real evidence exists of such later supplementation, is of\nspecial significance to our study, inasmuch as it tends to throw light\nwhere light is most required. For that is an obscure period, early in\nthe second century, when not only the churches themselves were drawing\ntogether toward catholic unity under the double pressure of inward and\noutward peril, but were bringing with them their treasured writings,\nsometimes a collection of Epistles, sometimes a Gospel, or a book of\nProphecy, sometimes, as in the groups of writings attributed to John and\nPeter, a full canon of Gospel, Epistles and Apocalypse, followed but\nlittle later by 'Acts' as well.\n\nThe most ancient list of books authorized to be publicly read that we\npossess is that of the church of Rome _c._ 185, called after its\ndiscoverer the Canon of Muratori. From this fragment, mutilated at\nbeginning and end, we learn that Paul's letters to the churches were\narranged in a group of seven[31] of which Romans stood last. It is\nprobably due to its position at the end that Romans has been\nsupplemented by the addition of Pauline fragments, which did not appear\nin some early editions of the text. The letter proper ends with ch. xv.\nthough xvi. 21-23 probably followed, perhaps concluding with ver. 24,\nwhich some texts insert after ver. 19. Ver. 25-27 is another fragment\nomitted in some texts.\n\n    Footnote 31: The personal letters formed a separate group. Two\n    letters to the same church (1st Cor., 2nd Cor.) were counted as one.\n    Marcion (140) counted ten in all, and had a different order.\n\nWe have seen above (p. 200) how Revelation has received conclusion after\nconclusion, so that the relation of personalities has become almost\nunintelligible. We have very meagre textual material for Revelation, and\ncan scarcely judge whether any of the process represented in Rev. xxii.\n6-21 belongs to the period of transmission, after the publication of the\nbook in its present form. Until the discovery of new textual evidence\nthe phenomena in Revelation must be treated by principles of the higher\ncriticism, as pertaining to its history before publication. At all\nevents we know that the attribution to \"John\" (ver. 8 f.) was current\nas early as Justin's _Apology_ (153).\n\nThe longer and shorter supplements to Mark belong again to the field of\ntextual criticism. The manuscripts and early translations carry us back\nto a time when neither ending was known; though only to leave us\nwondering how the necessity arose for composing them--a question of the\nhigher criticism. Mark xvi. 9-20 shows acquaintance with Luke, and\nprobably with John xx. It is noteworthy, however, in view of the\nauthor's attempt to cover the resurrection appearances of these two\ngospels, that he betrays no sign of acquaintance with John. xxi. In this\ncase of the Roman gospel, however, textual evidence enables us to trace\nsomething of the history of supplementation. The so-called 'Shorter'\nending provides a close for the incomplete story, resembling Matthew,\nwhile the 'Longer' is drawn from Luke and John. i.-xx. Subsequent\nemployments show that the 'Longer' ending had been attached (perhaps at\nRome) not later than _c._ 150. It is the first evidence we have of\ncombination of the Fourth gospel with the Synoptics; for even Justin,\nthough _affected_ by John, does not _use_ it as he uses Matthew, Mark\nand Luke. Parity among the four is not traceable earlier than Tatian\n(_c._ 175), the father of gospel 'harmonies.' The 'Shorter' ending, if\nnot the Longer as well, would seem to have been added in Egypt. The\nsupplements to Mark have this at least of singular interest, that they\nshow the progress of a process whose beginnings we traced back to\nPalestine itself in the church of the 'apostles, elders and witnesses of\nthe Lord,' where \"the Elder\" in the tradition reported by Papias is\nalready offering explanations of the disagreements of Matthew and Mark\nwith a view to their concurrent circulation.\n\nAfter the addition of Mark to Matthew it was comparatively easy to take\nin Luke-Acts as a third, and to form composites out of the three such as\nthe _Gospel of Peter_ (North Syria _c._ 130) and the _Gospel of the\nNazarenes_ (Coele-Syria _c._ 140). Justin at Rome (_c._ 153) is still\nsuch a three-gospel man, though affected by the Fourth; whereas his\npredecessor Hermas (125-140) seems to rest on Mark alone, though perhaps\nacquainted with Matthew. The step was a harder one which aimed to take\nin the Fourth gospel. Tatian at Rome (_c._ 175) and Theophilus at\nAntioch (181) are the agents of its accomplishment; and, as we have\nseen, it was not effected without a determined opposition, led at Rome\nby the presbyter Gaius, and answered by Irenaeus (_c._ 186) and\nHippolytus (_c._ 215). Such opposition from the side of advocates of\nPetrine apostolicity is anticipated in the most significant and\nimportant of all the epilogues, the so-called Appendix or Epilogue to\nthe Fourth gospel (John xxi.).\n\nJust when, or where, this supplement was added is one of the most\ndifficult problems of the higher criticism. On the side of external\nevidence we have the fact that it shows no effect in Mark xvi. 9-21,\nwhere John xx. is employed, and that there is a great change about A.D.\n170 in the treatment of this Gospel and its related Epistles, those who\nuse them before this time showing no disposition to treat them as having\nhigh apostolic authority. On the side of internal evidence there are\nsuch data as the use of the second-century name for the Sea of Galilee\n(\"Sea of Tiberias,\" xxi. 1), and references to the martyrdom of Peter at\nRome (xxi. 18 f.) and to legends of John as the 'witness' who should\nsurvive until the Coming (xxi. 23). Whether these data suggest an origin\nat Ephesus, or at Rome, and at just what date, are problems for\ntechnical research. That which is of chief interest for us is the motive\nand function of this supplement to the Ephesian Gospel, and the light it\nthrows upon conditions in the church at large.\n\nIt is quite apparent that John xxi. forms a subsequent attachment after\nthe formal conclusion of the Gospel proper in xx. 30 f. For, apart\nfrom differences in style and doctrinal standpoint, it makes a complete\nnew departure along the lines of Mark's story of Galilean resurrection\nmanifestations; whereas the Gospel follows the Lukan type, and brings\neverything to a close without removal from Jerusalem. The message to the\ndisciples by the women at the sepulchre is here given by Jesus in person\nas in Matt. xxviii. 10, and is actually delivered as in Luke xxiv. 10\nf. It is followed by the promised manifestation to the disciples with\nthe overcoming of their incredulity, and by the great Commission,\naccompanied by the Gift of the Spirit. The story has thus been brought\nto a formal conclusion, the invariable and necessary conclusion of all\nevangelic narratives. The author's recapitulation of the nature and\ncontents of his book and assurance in direct address to the reader of\nhis purpose in writing (\"that _ye_ may believe\") follows appropriately\nas a winding up of the whole. It is not conceivable that the same\nwriter should resume immediately after this, at an earlier point in the\nnarrative, where the disciples are still scattered in Galilee,\nunconscious of their vocation and commission. For in spite of the\nendeavour of the supplementer in ver. 14 to make this out \"the third[32]\ntime that Jesus was manifested\" they have manifestly returned to their\noriginal means of livelihood unawakened to the resurrection faith.\nMoreover the story culminates with a restoration of Peter to favour,\nwith unmistakable reference to his humiliating failure to live up to the\npromise (xiii. 36-38), \"Lord, why cannot I follow thee even now? I will\nlay down my life for thee\" (_cf._ xxi. 15-19). If it had been the\nevangelist's intention to tell this he would have told it before the\nCommission in xx. 19-23. In short, we have here two widely variant forms\nof the tradition of the rallying of the disciples from their unbelief by\nthe risen Christ and commissioning of them to their task. The two\ncommissions, one a general commission of all \"the twelve,\" like Matt.\nxviii. 18, the other a special commission of Peter like Matt. xvi. 19,\nare attached one after the other, with the curious infelicity that the\nrestoration of Peter from his defection, together with his installation\nas chief under-shepherd of the flock, comes _after_ the commission in\nwhich he has already appeared with the rest, restored to full faith and\nfavour, and gifted with the inspiration and authority of the Spirit.\n\n    Footnote 32: A miscount for \"fourth,\" unless we disregard xx. 11-18,\n    or else (with Wellhausen) consider xx. 24-29 an insertion later than\n    the Epilogue.\n\nIt is true that the function of \"tending the flock of God\" (_cf._ 1st\nPet. v. 2) committed to Peter in xxi. 15-19 is a more special one than\nthe apostolate conferred on all in xx. 21-23; but the Epilogue has\npreviously (xxi. 1-14) given to Peter a special and commanding part in\nthe apostolate (extension of the gospel to the world). No one will\nquestion that in such a writer as the Fourth evangelist (and if anything\nstill more the writer of the Epilogue) narratives of miracle are\nintended to have a symbolical sense. Nor will it be denied that the\nmiraculous draft of fishes, which in Luke v. 1-11 attends the original\nvocation of \"Simon,\"[33] is here applied to the work the twelve are to\naccomplish in the now opening future as \"fishers of men.\" The\nparticularization of the number of the fishes, and the statement that\nthe peril of the rending of the net (_cf._ Luke v. 6) was happily\navoided, are, of course, also intended to convey a symbolical sense,\nwhich Jerome makes still easier to grasp by informing us that 153 was\ntaken by naturalists of the time to be the full number of all species of\nfish. John xxi. 1-14 is therefore a primitive story of the appearance\nof Jesus after his resurrection \"to Peter and them that were with him,\"\nin Galilee (not in Jerusalem as in John i.-xx. and Luke), having a\nrelation to Luke v. 1-11, and probably also to Matt. xiv. 28-33 (_cf._\nJohn xxi. 7). It is also nearly akin to the fragment at the end of the\n_Gospel of Peter_. It symbolizes the work of the apostolic mission under\nthe figure of the fishing of men (_cf._ Mark i. 17; Matt. xiii. 47-50),\nand gives to Peter the leading part. In fact Peter not only comes to the\nLord in advance of all the rest, and alone maintains with him something\nlike the intimate relations of the past, but performs after his private\ninterview with Jesus the gigantic feat of bringing unaided to land the\nentire miraculous catch. The great and various multitude, which all\nworking in common had enclosed in the net, but had not been able to lift\ninto the boat, Peter, at Jesus' word, brought safely home. The writer\nwho so employs the already conventionalized symbols of ecclesiastical\nimagery, surely had no mean idea of the apostleship of Peter. In at\nleast as high degree as the author of Acts he conceives of Peter as\ncommissioned in a special sense to be the great director and leader of\nall missionary activity, to Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts xv. 7), and\nto have been the saviour of the unity of the church in the hour of its\nthreatened disruption. When in addition he is invested by Jesus with the\ninsignia and office of chief under-shepherd of the flock of God, the\nstain of his threefold denial wiped out by a threefold opportunity to\nprove his special love by special service, and the ignominy of his\nprevious failure to \"follow\" (xiii. 36-38) atoned for by the promise\nthat in old age he shall have opportunity to follow Jesus in martyrdom\n(xxi. 18 f.), there remains nothing that the most exacting friend of\n'catholic' apostolicity could demand in the way of tribute to its great\nrepresentative.\n\n    Footnote 33: The addition in ver. 10_a_ and the plural \"they\" in\n    ver. 11, are mere editorial adaptations of the story to Mark i.\n    16-20.\n\nAnd yet the main object of the Epilogue has not yet been touched. It was\nnot written, we may be sure, merely to glorify Peter; though it is, of\ncourse, insupposable that the Gospel in its primitive form simply left\nPeter in the attitude of a renegade after xviii. 27, to reappear quite\nas if nothing had happened in xx. 1 ff.[34] It pays its tribute to\nPeter as chief witness to the resurrection, chief apostle, chief saviour\nof the unity of the church, chief under-shepherd of the flock of God, in\nthe interest of that catholic apostolic unity which all churchmen were\nso earnestly labouring to achieve in the writer's time, and for which\nthe name of Peter was increasingly significant. But the chief object of\nthe Epilogue is something else. It was written primarily to commend and\nfind room for another authority, the authority of the Gospel to which\nit is appended, and which repeatedly sets over against Peter a\nmysterious unnamed figure, who always sees when Peter is blind, believes\nwhen Peter is unbelieving, is faithful when Peter and all the rest have\nfled in cowardly desertion. The object of the Epilogue is to find room\nalongside the growing and salutary authority of Peter for the authority\nand message of \"the disciple whom Jesus loved.\" Its purpose appears in\nits conclusion, \"This (the disciple whom Jesus loved) is the disciple\nwhich beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things, and we\n(the church which cherishes and gives forth this 'spiritual' Gospel)\nknow that his witness is true.\"\n\n    Footnote 34: We must conclude that _both_ these data from Synoptic\n    tradition, the denial (xiii. 36-38; xviii. 15-18, 25-27) _and_ the\n    restoration (ch. xxi.) are supplements to the original form of the\n    Gospel.\n\nThe writer does not explicitly say that he means the Apostle John\n(reputed in Ephesus the author of Revelation); for such direct\nidentification might well endanger his own object. But he makes it clear\nin two ways that John is really intended, as, indeed, subsequent writers\nimmediately infer.[35] (1) \"The sons of Zebedee\" are introduced for the\nfirst time in the entire work in xxi. 2, among the group who are present\nwith Peter. An easy process of elimination,[36] then, leaves open to\nidentification as \"the disciple whom Jesus loved\" (ver. 7) only John, or\nelse one of the two unnamed \"other disciples,\" who could hardly be\nreckoned among Jesus' closest intimates.\n\n    Footnote 35: The _Muratorianum_ bases its legendary account of the\n    writing of the Fourth gospel by \"John\" with the endorsement of \"his\n    fellow-disciples and bishops\" on John xxi. 24.\n\n    Footnote 36: The early death of James the son of Zebedee (Acts xii.\n    1) excludes him from consideration.\n\n(2) The scene of the prediction of Peter's martyrdom (xxi. 18 f.) is\nfollowed immediately (ver. 20-23) by a reference to traditions which we\nknow to have been current before the close of the first century\nregarding the martyrdom of the two sons of Zebedee, in particular\nregarding John. Peter in xxi. 21 raises the question as to the _fate_ of\n\"the disciple whom Jesus loved\" (literally, \"and as to this man,\nwhat?\"). The pregnant command of Jesus to Peter, \"Follow me,\" is clearly\nintended to have reference to martyrdom (_cf._ xiii. 36 f.), and it is\nobeyed by \"the disciple whom Jesus loved\" as well as Peter. Peter's\ninquiry and the Lord's reply had given rise \"among the brethren\" to the\nbelief that this disciple would \"tarry\" till the Coming. Now it is of\nJohn, son of Zebedee, and only of him, that we have a curious\nvacillation of ancient tradition between belief in his martyrdom in the\nsame sense as his brother James (Mark x. 39), and a belief (probably\nbased on Mark ix. 1) that he would tarry as an abiding witness until the\nComing ('white martyrdom'). The writer of the Epilogue has manifestly\nthese traditions about the fate of John in mind. He would have his\nreaders understand that the enigmatic prophecy of Jesus neither\npromised the permanent survival of John, nor his violent death, but was\nat least capable of an interpretation which set John alongside of Peter,\nnot as a rival of his leadership, or directive control, but simply as a\nwitness ('martyr') to the truth. Peter is willingly granted the office\nof 'ruling elder' in the church, if only \"the disciple whom Jesus loved\"\nmay have the function of the prophet and teacher 'in the Spirit,' the\nman of faith and insight, whose function it is to interpret 'the mind of\nChrist.'\n\nFew things could be more significant of the conditions of Christian life\nand thought in the earlier years of the second century than this\nEpilogue, appended to the 'spiritual' Gospel to commend it to general\nacceptance in the church. It is not vitally important whether the\ncautiously suggested identification of the Beloved Disciple with John,\nthe son of Zebedee, be correct or not. It is important to a historical\nappreciation of the great literary contribution of the churches of Paul\nto the 'catholic' Christianity of the second century, that we realize\nwhat Petrine catholicity had then come to mean, and how the Pauline\nspiritual gospel came half-way to meet it. On this point a study of the\nepilogues is rewarding, but especially of the great Epilogue to the\nGospel of John.\n\nWe have reached the period for our own concluding words. The process of\ncombination and canonization of the New Testament writings, which\nfollowed upon the consolidation of the churches in the second century\nfalls outside our province. We have sought only to give some insight\ninto the origins, considering the Making of the New Testament to apply\nrather to the creations of the formative period, when conscious\ninspiration was still in its full glow, than to the period of collection\ninto an official canon. As we look back over the two leading types of\nChristian thought, Pauline and 'Apostolic,' the Greek-Christian gospel\n_about_ Jesus, and the Jewish-Christian gospel _of_ Jesus, the gospel of\nthe Spirit and the gospel of authority, we cannot fail to realize how\ndeep and broad and ancient are the two great currents of religious\nthought and life that here are mingling, contending, coming to new\nexpression and clearer definition. Each has its various subdivisions and\nmodifications, Pauline Christianity in the Greek world has its problems\nof resistance to Hellenistic perversion on the one side, to reaction\ntoward Jewish external authority on the other. Apostolic Christianity\nwhether in its more conservative form at Jerusalem, or in broader\nassimilation to Pauline doctrine at Antioch and Rome, has also its\ndivergent streams, its more primitive and its more developed stages. The\nliterature, as we slowly come to appreciate it against the background of\nthe times, more and more reveals itself as an index to the life. Not to\nthe mere idiosyncrasies of individuals, but to the great Gulf-stream of\nthe human instinct for social Righteousness and for individual\nRedemption, as it sweeps onward in its mighty tide.\n\nThe literature of the New Testament must be understood historically if\nunderstood at all. It must be understood as the product, we might almost\nsay the precipitate, of the greatest period in the history of religion.\nIt represents the meeting and mutual adjustment of two fundamental and\ncomplementary conceptions of religion. The antithesis is not merely that\nbetween the particularism of the Jew and the universalism of the\nGentile. It is an antithesis of the social ideal of Law and Prophets\nagainst the individual ideal of personal redemption through union with\nthe divine Spirit, which lay at the heart of all vital Hellenistic\nreligious thought in this period of the Empire. Christianity as we know\nit, the religion of humanity as it has come to be, the ultimate\nworld-religion as we believe it destined to become, is a resultant of\nthese two factors, Semitic and Aryan, the social and the individual\nideal. Its canonized literature represents the combination. On the one\nside the social ideal is predominant. It perpetuates the gospel _of_\nJesus in the form of Matthaean and Petrine tradition, supplemented by\napocalypse, which tradition attaches conjecturally to the name of John.\nThe goal it seeks is the Kingdom of God, righteousness and peace on\nearth as in heaven. On the other side the individual ideal predominates.\nIt perpetuates the gospel _about_ Jesus in the form of the Pauline and\nJohannine doctrine of his person, regarded as the norm and type of\nspiritual life. The goal it seeks is personal immortality by moral\nfellowship with God. Its faith is Son ship, by participation in the\ndivine nature, without limitation in time, without loss of individual\nidentity. Both types of gospel are justified in claiming to emanate from\nJesus of Nazareth; but neither without the other can claim to fully\nrepresent the significance of his spirit and life.\n\nThe unity of the New Testament is a unity in diversity. Just because it\npresents so widely divergent conceptions of what the gospel is, it gives\npromise of perennial fecundity. Studied not after the manner of the\nscribes, who think that in their book of precept and prophecy they have\na passport to rewards in a magical world to come, but studied as a\n\"manifestation of the life, even the eternal life\" of the Spirit of God\nin man, it will continue to reproduce the spirit and mind of Christ.\nStudied as a reflection at various times and in divers manners of that\nredemptive Wisdom of God, which \"in every generation entering into holy\nsouls makes men to be prophets and friends of God\" (Sap. vii. 27), and\nwhich the Greeks, considering it, unfortunately, in its intellectual\nrather than its moral aspect, call the Logos of God, it will prove, as\nin so many generations past it has proved, an \"incorruptible seed,\" a\n\"word of good tidings preached unto\" the world, a \"word of the Lord that\nabideth for ever.\"\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\n1. General Introductions to N.T. Literature.\n\n    MOFFATT, JAS. _\"Internat. Theol. Library\" Series._ Scribner's, 1911.\n    Standard, comprehensive, progressive. Best compendium of the subject\n    in English. A book for experts. 671 pp., 8vo.\n\n    JUeLICHER, A. Engl. transl, by D. A. Ward, from 4th German ed.\n    London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1903. The most serviceable of modern\n    German Introductions, based on the standard work of the \"liberal\"\n    school, by H. J. Holtzmann. 650 pp., large 8vo.\n\n    ZAHN, THEO. Engl. transl. from 3rd German ed., by M. W. Jacobus.\n    Scribner's, 1909. Standard \"conservative\" work. Immense scholarship\n    in the harness of apologetics. Total, 1750 pp., in 3 vols., large\n    8vo.\n\n    BACON, B. W. _\"New Test. Handbook\" Series._ Macmillan 1900. Similar\n    to Moffatt's in standpoint, but without the survey of the\n    literature. For readers less technically advanced. 300 pp., small\n    8vo.\n\n    PEAKE, A. S. N.Y., Scribner's, 1910. 250 pp., 12mo. An excellent\n    primer of the subject, generally conservative.\n\n\n2. Critical Treatments of Pauline Literature.\n\n    SHAW, R. D. _The Pauline Epistles, Introductory and Expository\n    Studies_, 2nd ed. T. & T. Clarke, 1904. 518 pp., large 8vo. Sober\n    and cautious. For general readers.\n\n    RAMSAY, W. M. _Pauline and other Studies in Early Christian\n    History._ Hodder & Stoughton, 1906. 425 pp., large 8vo. _The Cities\n    of St. Paul_ (1907, 468 pp.) is by the same author, an eminent\n    geographer and archaeologist ardently enlisted against German\n    criticism. Interesting but diffuse.\n\n    PFLEIDERER, O. _Paulinism._ Engl. transl. by E. Peters. 2nd ed.\n    1891. Williams & Norgate. 2 vols. 8vo. Total, 580 pp., 8vo. Still a\n    standard exposition of Paul's system of thought. A book for experts.\n\n    BAUR, F. C. _Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ, his Life and Work,\n    Epistles and Doctrine._ Engl. transl. of Zeller's (2nd), German ed.,\n    by A. Menzies. Williams & Norgate, 1876. Two vols. 8vo (375 + 350\n    pp.). An epoch-making book, the starting-point of modern criticism.\n\n    SCHWEITZER, A. This able, though one-sided, critic has issued\n    already (1912) the conclusion to his study of modern Lives of Christ\n    (see below, _The Quest of the Historical Jesus_) under the title\n    _Geschichte der Paulinischen Forschung_. It may be expected that\n    this comprehensive survey and searching criticism of the literature\n    of Pauline study will soon be made accessible to the English reader.\n\n    WREDE, W. _Paul._ Engl. transl. by E. Lummis. P. Green, London,\n    1907. 190 pp., 12mo. A brief, brilliant, popular sketch, radical,\n    suggestive. Needs the balance of more cautious criticism.\n\n    WEISS, J. _Paul and Jesus._ Engl. transl. by H. J. Chaytor. London\n    and New York, Harper & Bros., 1909. 130 pp., 12mo. An effective\n    answer to Wrede's view of Paul as the real creator of Christianity,\n    by a progressive and able critic.\n\n    Lives of Paul by Cone, Clemen (German) and others are abundant in\n    recent years. See the _Encyclopaedias_ and _Dictionaries of the\n    Bible_, s.v. \"Paul.\"\n\n\n3. Critical Treatments of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts.\n\n    STANTON, V. H. _The Gospels as Historical Documents_, Parts I and\n    II. Cambridge University Press, 1903-1909. 297 + 400 pp., 8vo. A\n    standard survey of Gospel criticism from a conservative standpoint,\n    the work of a scholar for scholars.\n\n    CONE, O. _Gospel Criticism and Historical Christianity._ Putnam's,\n    N.Y., 1891. 375 pp., small 8vo. Liberal, semi-popular.\n\n    BURKITT, F. C. _The Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus._\n    Houghton & Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1910. 130 pp., 12mo. Simple\n    and popular. Burkitt is a leading progressive scholar.\n\n\n4. The Johannine Writings.\n\n    DRUMMOND, JAS. _Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel._\n    Scribner's, N.Y., 1904. 544 pp., 8vo. The ablest recent defence of\n    the traditional authorship. Scholarly discussion of the literary\n    history.\n\n    BACON, B. W. _The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate._ Moffat,\n    Yard & Co., N.Y., 1910. 556 pp., 8vo. A similar discussion of the\n    evidences reaching the reverse conclusion.\n\n    SCOTT, E. F. _The Fourth Gospel, its Purpose and Theology._ T. & T.\n    Clarke, Edinburgh, 1906. 386 pp., 8vo. Admirable in temper, lucid in\n    style, semi-popular.\n\n    SCHMIEDEL, P. W. _The Johannine Writings._ Engl. transl., by M. A.\n    Canney. London, A. & C. Black, 1903. 295 pp., 12mo. Brief, popular,\n    radical, by one of the ablest of N.T. critics.\n\n\nGeneral.\n\n    REUSS, E. _History of the N.T._ Engl. transl. from 5th German ed.,\n    by E. L. Houghton. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884. 649 pp. 2\n    vols. large 8vo. A standard treasury of scholarly information.\n\n    WERNLE, P. _The Beginnings of Christianity._ Engl. transl., by G. A.\n    Bienemann. London, Williams & Norgate, 1904. 388 + 404 pp., 8vo. 2\n    vols. Able, scholarly, advanced.\n\n    PFLEIDERER, O. _Christian Origins._ Engl. transl., by D. Huebsch.\n    New York, B. W. Huebsch, 1906. 295 pp., 12mo. Popular lectures\n    showing something of the views of the modern school of critics known\n    as _religionsgeschichtlich_. Pfleiderer's critical opinions are\n    fully expressed in his _Primitive Christianity_ (Engl. transl., by\n    W. Montgomery, in four vols., 8vo. Putnams, 1909).\n\n    MUZZEY, D. S. _The Rise of the N.T._ New York, Macmillan, 1900. 156\n    pp., 12mo. An excellent primer for beginners.\n\n    WREDE, W. _The Origin of the N.T._ Engl. transl. by J. S. Hill.\n    Harper & Bros., London & New York, 1909. 151 pp., 12mo. An admirable\n    primer by a brilliant leader of advanced criticism.\n\n    VON SODEN. _The History of Early Christian Literature. Writings of\n    the N.T._ Engl. transl., by J. R. Wilkinson. Williams & Norgate,\n    1906. 476 pp., 12mo. A book for beginners by a great N.T. scholar of\n    liberal views. A closely connected field is covered by various\n    _Histories of the Apostolic Age_, of which the most recent and\n    important are those of Weizsaecker (Engl. transl., 1895) and\n    McGiffert (1897). Less technical and more orthodox are those of\n    Vernon-Bartlett (1899) and J. H. Ropes (1906). _Critical Lives of\n    Christ_ present the results of critical study of the Gospels. A\n    survey of this field of research, keenly analytical and severely\n    critical, is given by A. Schweitzer in _The Quest of the Historical\n    Jesus_ (Engl. transl. by W. Montgomery. A. & C. Black, 1910. 416\n    pp., 8vo). Schweitzer writes with great scholarship and power, but\n    decided polemic interest as a \"consistent eschatologist.\"\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  Abomination, 161, 218\n\n  Acts, 57 ff., 64 ff., 174 ff.\n\n  Agabus, 185, 202\n\n  Allegory (in John), 224\n\n  Angelology and demonology, 95\n\n  Antichrist, 217 f.\n\n  Anti-legalism (of Mark), 166\n\n  Antinomian heresy, 149, 214\n\n  Antioch, 71, 175 ff., 183 f.\n\n  Apocalypses, 29, 51, 87, 188, 197\n\n  Apostolic Christianity, 42, 126, 129, 246\n\n  Apostolic Commission, 238 f.\n\n  Apostolic Council, 60, 63, 67\n\n  Apotheosis doctrine, 49\n\n  Appendix to John, 107, 147, 211, 236 ff.\n\n  Asia, Churches of, 197 ff.\n\n  Athanasius, 29 f.\n\n\n  Babylon (= Rome), 115, 196\n\n  Baptist (in John), 225\n\n  Bar Cocheba, 204\n\n  _Baruch, Apocalypse of_ 188\n\n  Baur, F. C., 37 ff.\n\n  Beloved disciple, the, 227, 243 ff.\n\n\n  Caesarea, 85\n\n  Calvin, 37\n\n  Canonization of the Law, 12\n\n  Cerinthus, 219\n\n  Chiliasts, 187\n\n  Christological Epistles, 97\n\n  Christ-party, 45\n\n  Clement of Rome, 19 f., 79, 115, 119\n\n  Clement of Alexandria, 25\n\n  _Clementine Homilies and Recognitions_, 148\n\n  Colossians, 98\n\n  Corinthian Epistles, 76 ff.\n\n\n  Decrees of Jerusalem, 60\n\n  Diary of Acts, 183\n\n  Dionysius of Alexandria, 191\n\n  Disputed books, 30\n\n  Doketism, 21, 110, 126, 153, 163, 184, 186, 214, 217, 219\n\n\n  Elder (of 2nd and 3rd John), 215\n\n  Elements, 76, 99\n\n  Ephesians, 98\n\n  Ephesus, 76, 97, 111 f., 191, 201, 211\n\n  Epiphanius, 131\n\n  Epistles (Major), 43\n\n  Epistles of the Captivity, 42, 85, 100\n\n  Eschatological discourse, 161\n\n  Esdras (Apocalypse of), 188\n\n  External evidence, 38\n\n\n  False brethren, 41\n\n  Feasts (in John), 226\n\n  Fornication, 60, 77\n\n\n  Gaius (3rd John), 215 f.\n\n  Gaius of Rome, 31, 237\n\n  Galatians, 56, 74\n\n  Gentile liberty, 61 ff.\n\n  Gnosticism, 40, 108, 207 f.\n\n  _Gospel according to the Hebrews_, 135, 145\n\n  _Gospel of the Nazarenes_, 132, 145 ff., 236\n\n\n  Harnack, 98\n\n  Hebrews, 107, 116 ff.\n\n  Hebrews, Apostolic authority in, 18\n\n  Hebrews, Canonical standing of, 31\n\n  Hegesippus, 105 f., 111\n\n  Hellenistic religion, 247\n\n  Hermas, 21, 28, 119 f., 237\n\n\n  Ignatius, 20 f., 23, 111, 124, 126, 208\n\n  Incarnation Doctrine, 49, 154, 229, 231\n\n  Infancy of Jesus (in Matthew and Luke), 152\n\n  Internal evidence, 38\n\n  Irenaeus, 81, 133, 219\n\n\n  James, 104 ff., 107, 112 f., 130\n\n  Jerusalem Conference, 67, 71\n\n  Jerusalem succession, 105 f., 119\n\n  John, the Apostle, a martyr, 104, 194, 243\n\n  John, Gospel of, 25, 31, 43, 54, 206 ff.\n\n  John, Revelation of, 30, 43, 63, 107, 131, 187, 189 ff., 235\n\n  John, Epistles of, 43, 111, 126, 211 ff.\n\n  John, _Acts of_, 219 f.\n\n  John, the Elder, 26, 131, 133, 236\n\n  Josephus (used by Luke), 174\n\n  Judaism _v._ Hellenism, 52 f.\n\n  Judaizers, 68\n\n  Jude, 19, 80, 107, 130\n\n  Justin Martyr, 187, 190, 235 f.\n\n\n  Kindred of the Lord, 164 f.\n\n\n  Laodiceans, 98\n\n  Law _v._ grace, 8, 14, 66, 74, 81, 123\n\n  _Logia_, 136, 141\n\n  Logos-doctrine, 55, 221, 232\n\n  Lordship (of Christ), 96\n\n  Luke, 27, 139, 173 f.\n\n  Luke, his omissions from Mark, 178 f.\n\n  Luke, his purpose in writing, 180 f.\n\n  Luther, 37\n\n\n  Magic, 93 ff.\n\n  Marcion, 22 ff., 40\n\n  Mark, 129, 134, 159 ff.\n\n  Mark, Duplication in, 172\n\n  Mark, Endings of, 168 ff., 235 f.\n\n  Matthew, 131 ff., 187\n\n  Melito of Sardis, 19, 190\n\n  Michaelis, 35\n\n  Missionary Journey, First, 58 f.\n\n  Missionary Journey, Second, 72\n\n  Moffatt, Jas., 151\n\n  Montanus, 28 f.\n\n  Muratorian Fragment, 30, 234\n\n\n  Nepos, the Chiliast, 191\n\n\n  Offering for the poor, 69\n\n\n  Palestine, Origin of Revelations, 195 ff.\n\n  Papias, 26, 105 f., 130 f., 186 f., 190, 208\n\n  Parables (in Matthew), 149 f.\n\n  Passover, 101, 173\n\n  Pastoral Epistles, 19, 31, 83, 108, 111, 123\n\n  Patmos, 191, 200 f.\n\n  Paul, Original Apostle of Asia, 205\n\n  Paul, his religious experience, 16\n\n  Paul, martyrdom, 105\n\n  Pauline _v._ Petrine gospel, 49\n\n  Paulinism of Mark, 162\n\n  Persecution, 13, 122\n\n  Peter (the Apostle), 24, 26, 106, 133, 146\n\n  Peter, _Apocalypse of_, 29 f.\n\n  Peter, Commission of, 240 f.\n\n  Peter, Epistles of, 41, 108 f., 112 ff.\n\n  Peter, _Gospel of_, 171, 221, 236\n\n  Peter, _Preaching of_, 139\n\n  Pharisaic Judaism, 121\n\n  Philemon, 88\n\n  Philip, Daughters of, 185 f.\n\n  Philippians, 89 ff.\n\n  Phrygian heresy, 28\n\n  _Pirke Aboth_, 141\n\n  Polycarp, 26, 110, 130, 186, 218\n\n  Porphyry, 106\n\n  Post-Reformation dogma, 33 f.\n\n  Precepts (of Jesus), 137\n\n  Prologue (of John), 231\n\n  Prophecy, 188 f., 209\n\n\n  Q-material, 141 ff.\n\n\n  Reconciliation with God, 103\n\n  Redeemer-gods, 50\n\n  Redemption doctrines, 86, 93\n\n  Reformation, 37\n\n  Repentance (the Great), 156 f.\n\n  Resurrection-doctrine, 73, 78, 125, 155, 158, 204, 210\n\n  Revelation (_See_ John, Revelation of)\n\n  Romans, 75, 80 ff.\n\n  Rome, 120, 129\n\n\n  Satan, Dominion of, 157\n\n  Scripture, Use in Paul, 17\n\n  Scripture, Use in John, 25\n\n  Second Coming, 230\n\n  Sermon on Mount, 9\n\n  Signs in Fourth gospel, 223\n\n  Simon, Richard, 35\n\n  Spirit, Doctrine of the, 17, 67, 101 156, 220\n\n  Subscriptions, 233\n\n  Superstitious Judaism, 93 f.\n\n  Symeon, son of Clopas, 105\n\n  Synoptic writings, 44, 107\n\n  Synoptic writings in John, 228\n\n  Syria and Cilicia, 61, 129\n\n\n  _Teaching of the Twelve_, 28, 63, 185\n\n  Tertullian, 19, 29\n\n  Thessalonian Epistles, 73\n\n  Timothy (_See_ Pastoral Epistles), 78\n\n  Titus (_See_ Pastoral Epistles)\n\n  Transfiguration, 165, 167, 228, 230\n\n  Tuebingen School, 43 ff.\n\n\n  Unity of the Church, 70, 103, 120\n\n  Unity of the N.T., 248\n\n\n  Way (= sect), 8\n\n  Weak (party of the), 45\n\n  Wisdom of God, 99, 209, 229\n\n  Wisdom of Solomon (Sap.), 51\n\n  Words of Jesus, 19, 129 f., 144 f.\n\n\n  Zahn, 115\n\n\n\n\n_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._","title":"The Making of the New Testament","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":58564}