The dawn of Christianity

Prefatory Note

The Ethical Culture movement is characterized, in part, by the freedom of its fellowship. Occupying a neutral position on all questions pertaining to theology and philosophy, it accords its lecturers entire freedom of thought and of speech, at the same time leaving the members equally free to accept or reject the platform utterances of leaders.

In the light of this cardinal characteristic of the Ethical movement, it will be understood that the views expressed in this book commit no one but the author, he having no right, as one of the leaders of an Ethical Society, to speak for anyone but himself.

>*jAi 4' Kl

Introduction

This course of lectures, delivered on Sunday evenings in the Meeting House of the Society for Ethical Culture during the winter of 1914, is a continuation of the series given in the preceding year and subsequently published under the title, "The Life of Jesus in the Light of the Higher Criticism." The purpose of this sequel is to carry the story of the origin of Christianity on from the death of Jesus to the birth of the new religion, noting the precise part played in this process by the genius of Paul and the unique contribution made by the author of the Fourth Gospel in supplementing the Christology of the Apostle to the Gentiles with an account of the historic Jesus in terms they could understand. The first two lectures relate to preliminary questions touching the formation of the New Testament as a collection of sacred books and the reliability of the record as a source of information on the development of religious thought and organization during the period under consideration. We shall then see how, after the crucifixion, the bereaved and despondent disciples came to themselves and under the inspiration of a great conviction concerning the immortality of their Master, rallied in Jerusalem to make converts to that con vie-

INTRODUCTION

tion and await the return of Jesus in the role of Messiah. We shall then take a survey of the Hfe and missionary labors of this primitive community of disciples and converts into whose midst came Paul after his religious transformation on the way to Damascus, How this quasi-apostle arrived at the conclusion that the heterodox Judaism represented by the Jerusalem church was not radical enough, and how, as a result of his controversy with the brethren, he achieved the advancement of their religion to its logical and necessary outcome in Christianity, — this will form the subject-matter of the fifth lecture in the series.

In the first half of the second century the Christian Church was confronted with a most perplexing difficulty. For nearly a hundred years the hope had been fervently held that Jesus would return from Heaven to usher in the heavenly kingdom. The church in all localities and in all its undertakings had been organized and maintained on the basis of this eschatology. But now that the great expectation had failed of fulfilment after a century of prayerful watching and waiting, the problem arose of meeting the disappointment and saving the newly-created religion from the danger of dissolution. The existing order of society, it was supposed, would soon disappear and many a belief and practice had been instituted on the basis of that assumption. Now that it seemed to be ill-founded, the problem was to readjust inherited beliefs and practices to a society that showed no signs of undergoing the expected miraculous transformation. The solution of that problem introduces us to Hermas, whose "Shepherd" furnishes illustration of how the read-

INTRODUCTION

justment was effected, and to this absorbingly interesting phase of the dawn of Christianity the sixth lecture will be devoted. Then will follow, in the two closing lectures, first, a discussion of the place of the Fourth Gospel in early Christian literature and, second, the unique and indispensable service rendered by its author in acquainting Gentiles educated in Paul's Christology, but knowing little or nothing of the historic Jesus, Tvdth the story of his life. This he based on the biographies of Jewish evangelists (the Synoptics), presenting Jesus in terras of a Greek philosophical concept long familiar to thoughtful Gentiles. By thus rounding out the work of Paul, adding to his doctrine of salvation an intelligible account of the person of the Savior, the author of the Fourth Gospel achieved the one thing needful to make Christianity a complete religious system, one of the great religions of the world.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Where Did the New Testament Come

From? 1

II The Reliability Of The Record

The earliest extant manuscript of the New Testament is written in Greek. But Jesus and his Palestinian contemporaries spoke Aramaic and it may fairly be doubted if the Greek language was known to Jesus and his disciples. As for Hebrew, in which the ancient law, the discourses of the prophets and the traditions of the nation had been written, this had ceased to be commonly spoken in Jesus' day, except by members of the Rabbinical schools. Hebrew was particularly tlie language of religion. In it hymns were composed and chronicles written, but it was by no means generally understood. Even in the synagogues it was necessary, when the Scriptures were read, to have them translated, verso by verse, info the vernacular of the people. That this was Aramaic can scarcely bo doubted. For, in the j&rst two gospels a number of words are found which, even through their Greek spelling, show us that Aramaic was the language spoken by Jesus and his followers.* Add to this evidence the testimony of the author of the first chapter of Acts (I ;19) who uses the expression, "in the language of the dwellers in Jerusalem," when stating the name by which the field in which Judas was buried, "Akeldama," was known. As evidencing the general lack of acquaintance with Greek we have only to recall the Talmudic sentiment, "Cursed be he who teaches his child Greek" and the deeply rooted prejudice against all things Greek, generated in Hebrew hearts through three centuries of subjugation and oppression under Greek rule. Furthermore, we have the testimony of Josephus, to the effect that he found great difficulty in mastering Greek sufficiently well to write his books in that language. When, therefore, the gospel tradition was first given currency in Palestine, it was not in Greek but in Aramaic; and in the latter language not even a fragment of gospel-literature is known to us.

iSee Matt. 5:22; 6:24; Mark 5:41; 14:36; Matt. 16:17; 27:46. Compare Matt. 26:73 which points to the diflSculty of pronouncing gutturals, experienced by Gahleans.

RELIABILITY OF THE EECORD

Jesus left to posterity no written record of his own. The sole instance of his having recorded anything is reported in the eighth chapter of the Fourth Gospel. Here is an interpolated story of a conversation of Jesus with an adulteress, according to which, when her accusers slunk away under his stinging rebuke, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone," Jesus "stooped down and wrote with his finger upon the ground." But what he wrote vanished in the moment of its appearance.

Socrates had his Xenophon to jot down "memorabilia" of the master. Mohammed bequeathed to his followers "revelations" which, after his death, were edited by his dearest disciple, Abu-Bekr and since known as the "Qu'- ran." But Jesus, like Gotama the Buddha, was content with "speaking the word." His disciples were chiefly fishermen and peasants and from them no literary impulse could have originated.

Shortly after his death they returned to Jerusalem from Galilee, whither they had fled when he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then it was that oral tradition of his life and ministry })egan to take shape; and it was transmitted solely by word of mouth from, disciple to convert, year after year, for at least a decade. One would naturally suppose that so precious a tradition would have been committed to writing in the very year of the crucifixion and that delay would have been deemed an unpardonable sin. But the truth is, that, conservatively estimated, an interval of not less than ten years elapsed before written transmission of the gospels began. Just when the gospel-story first appeared in manuscript we cannot tell. The earliest of the four gospels as we now have it, was not written before 70 A.D., whereas several of Paul's epistles had appeared twenty years earlier. Yet in none of these are written gospels mentioned, neither is the existence of such presupposed. Nor again, in any other epistles of the first half of the first century, whether within or without the New Testament canon, is there any reference to written gospels. Incidentally, it may be noted that the theory, broached by Bruno Bauer, to the effect that a creative writer freely composed the entire record without any previous oral currency, is altogether fanciful and has never secured scholarly support.

Why then, it will be asked, should a period of ten or more years have been allowed to elapse before any data concerning Jesus were committed to writing? The immediate reason was that all his followers believed he would very soon return from heaven to earth and fulfil the function of Messiah. We shall have occasion to dwell on this belief at greater length in a later lecture, and so need note only the bearing of the belief on the lack of any written records concerning Jesus at this time. Living in hourly expectation of the return of Jesus from heaven, what interest could there be in the preparation of his biography? Better employ what little time remains to saving sinners from the impending doom that awaits the unrepentant and fitting them for membership in the new social order which Messiah-Jesus would soon inaugurate, than make literary provision for a future that will have no use for it. Such was the point of view which the Parousia or "coming of the Lord" produced, such the vital and practical issue that confronted the followers of Jesus in the first years of their life without him. Here, then, is the i)rimary reason for the failure to write an account of Jesus and his work. There was no occasion for more than oral transmission of what was known. A further reason for adherence to the oral method is seen in the acknowledged superiority of the voice to the pen as an effective instrument for communicating to poor and illiterate people the story of Jesus' life and gospel. And this class of society was the first to respond to his message, a people who could have neither purchased nor read manuscripts, had they been furnished.

Moreover, it was a long-established Jewish custom to transmit the accumulated store of learning orally. That mass of exposition and commentary on the Pentateuch, known as the Talmud, had been handed down by word of mouth for two hundred years. The rabbis indeed, forbade committing it to writing and only after the final overthrow of Jewish national hope, at the end of the second century, was the prohibition annulled. The self-same method of transmission obtained among the ancient Hindus and Buddhists, though with this important difference, that whereas these people possessed a fixed deposit of teaching to be handed down and employed trained repeaters for the work of transmission, the gospel-story was still in the making and the men who formed it, far from being trained, came directly from the waterfront and the market-place. Even to this day, in Jerusalem, on the very site of Solomon's temple, Mohammedans may be seen teaching the illiterate the Qu'ran by the same repetitive process as of old. Before leaving the question of oral transmission as precursor of the written word, the testimony of the Apostle Paul must be recalled. In his letter to the converts at Corinth, he urges them to "hold fast to the traditions" and when he enumerates the various "gifts" to be prized, he mentions among others, teaching, healing, speaking with tongues; but not a word does he say of writing as one of these gifts. His omission of it would seem to indicate the absence of any literary activity among the immediate followers of Jesus.

Assuredly in the first half of the first century, no one had dreamed of adding a new series of scriptures to the Old Testament, nor even of drawing up a formal "life of Jesus." What then caused the precious tradition to be committed to writing? First, the non-fulfilment of the Messianic expectation. Jesus did not return to earth. In the third gos])el we find repeated reference to delay in Messiah's coming. It found expression in the parable of the unjust judge* and in the story of the nobleman who went away to a distant land to "receive for himself a kingdom and return." ^ The sense of disappointment appears again in the words.: "We trusted that it had been he who should redeem Israel." - And in the Second Epistle of Peter, latest of the New Testament books, written about the year 150 a.d., we find the faithful confronted with the question of scoffers: "Where is the promise of his coming f for since the fathers fell asleep, all things remain as they were from the beginning." Thus under the stress of disappointment and misgiving as to Jesus' return, there arose the spontaneous impulse to write down what could be remembered of his teaching and life.

A further reason for committal of the gospel to writing was the extension of missionary preaching beyond Palestine, among peoples who knew little, if anything, of Jesus and his message. Such scanty information as they would receive from itinerant preachers would make the possession of some permanent memorial eminently desirable, so that it might be studied and memorized. We have a hint of this in the preface to Luke's gospel. He refers to various attempts that were made to reduce the oral

RELIABILira OF THE RECORD

tradition to writing but as these were defective, the author proposes to "set in order and accurately" for the sake of the convert Theophilus, (to confirm him in his newly accepted faith) all that had been handed down from apostolic eye and earwitnesses.

Once more, successive persecutions of the infant Church, followed by flight of the members from Jerusalem and finally leaving the infant Church without a rallying center, these experiences made it imperative to have an authoritative written record of the gospel, precisely as the deportation of the Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon, in the days of Nebuchadrezzar, gave rise to the need of written law and history to serve as a standard round which the exiled people of Yahweh might rally.

Still one other reason must be noted for conversion of the oral tradition into written form. The rapid growth of the infant Church, increasing from the one hundred and twenty who constituted the original community in Jerusalem, to several thousand' would, of necessity, call for teaching-material that could be used in missionary work by men who had neither seen nor heard Jesus and for whom, under the circumstances, anything like vocational training was impossible. The primitive written forms which the first three gospels assumed furnished such teaching-material. But even when the oral tradition had thus acquired its incipient literary form, no one single composition would have embodied all the data in circulation among the churches. Various editions of the gospel-story must have been published, differing in substance and in style, the precursors of our first three gospels, in which we note not only such differences but also the absence of certain sayings of Jesus found elsewhere. It is, for example, in the report of Paul's speech to the elders at Ephesus,^ and nowhere in the gospels, that we find a quotation from Jesus, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Similarly, in the works of other early Christian writers, we meet with a number of sayings of Jesus not included in any of the gospel-biographies, witness, for example, the following: "Because of the weak I became weak and because of the hungry I became hungered." "They who would enter my Kingdom must lay hold of me through anguish and suffering." "If ye be gathered unto me and keep not the commandments, I will put you away, saying, depart from me ye who work iniquity."

The gospels, then, as they have come down to us, are not verbatim reports, nor were their authors personally acquainted with Jesus. Rather are the gospels the net result of a complex process, the genesis of which we can trace as far back as the crucifixion. And the culmination of that process was the recognition of these gospels as scripture, as part of the New Testament canon — the sole and final authoritative source of information concerning Jesus and his gospel. Clearly, then, we must not think of the gospels as literary units, but as literary aggregations. They "grew as grows the grass," taking up into themselves ingredients from the soil and atmosphere. For, many influences were at work in the first century to color, enlarge and distort the tradition. There was, for example, the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, the mould in which the synoptic biographies were shaped. There existed also the belief that the Hebrew prophets had foretold every detail concerning Messiah- Jesus' life. Hence the spontaneous turning to the Old Testament for prophetic confirmation of reported incidents and deeds as well as for data to supjjly what was lacking

4 37 in the tradition. Again, there existed intense admiration and reverence for the person of Jesus, sentiments that gained in strength and depth with the passing of the years and that did their part in amplifying and modifying the original tradition. It would carry us too far afield to enter upon a detailed discussion and illustration of these and other agencies that operated to give the gospels the final form they assumed as part of the New Testament. Suffice it simply to bear in mind the fact that there were such influences at work and to ask whether or not we are to see in them indications of the unreliability of the gospel-record. For, I take it, that the two facts already noted, first, the prolonged oral transmission of the tradition prior to its committal to writing, and second, the lack on the part of Jesus' followers of such safeguards as were employed by the early Aryans for the accurate preservation of their sacred books, to guarantee correct transmission of their Master's message, these facts cannot but have roused suspicion as to the reliability of the gospel-record. And our sense of distrust deepens when we recall what occurred in the process of successive copyings of the original record, not to mention the translation from Aramaic into Greek when this was called for. Even the best-intentioned scribes made mistakes. One has only to attempt the copying of a modern manuscript to realize what the chances of error in the transcription are. Even so careful and painstaking a copyist as Tischendorf discovered he had made a number of mistakes when he compared his copy of certain leaves of the Sinaitic manuscript with the original.

And the scribes who wrote that manuscript were considerably more handicapped than is the copyist of a modem manuscript. For, as I observed in my recent inspection and study of the "Codex Sinaiticus" in the imperial library of St. Petersburg, the oldest extant manuscript of the New Testament, there is no spacing either between the words of a sentence, or between the sentences; no division of the text into verses or paragraphs, simply a continuous stream of letters, with frequentcontractions of words, making accurate transcription all the more difficult. Add to accidental errors of the copyist clianges or additions intentionally introduced into the text (for reasons we cannot now discuss) and the doubt with which our study began deepens still more. The margin of the Revised Version of the New Testament supplies the rondcr with a sroodly number of such intentional additious to the record. Occasionally the insertions were on a very liberal scale; witness the section, John 7:53-8:11; the "appendix" to the Gospel of Mark (lG:9-20); the "doxolop:y" at the close of the Lord's Praj^er (Matt. 0:13) ; the words of Jesus on the cross, as reported in Luke's gospel (23:35). And when, in addition to these causes of misgiving as to the reliability of the record, we learn that in the three thousand extant manuscripts of the New Testament there are one hundred and fifty thousand cases of variation in the text, we instinctively grow alarmed and feel that the last thread in our cord of confidence has been broken.

But it behooves us to beware of misconstruing the significance of these disquieting discoveries. Consider, for example, these hundred and fifty thousand variants in three thousand manuscripts. Taken at its face value the fact of these differences tends, not merely to shake, but positively to shatter our confidence in the record. But, when we come to closer quarters with it, we find that this immense number of variants is largely due to the difficulty of copying an entire manuscript without blunders. Hence the cases of really vital variation are comparatively few. It has been suggested that it would be an immense advantage had we only one manuscript of the New Testament to consult; but the truth is that, far from being a boon, it would be most unfortunate and deplorable to be thus restricted. For no matter which the sole manuscript in our possession be, we are certain it contains errors, and we should be totally at a loss to determine where they are had we only this one text. Given a large number of manuscripts and we are in a position to locate scribal errors. For many of the transcripts will be right where one is wrong, simply because it very rarely happens that two or more scribes make precisely the same mistake in their copying. Let me take an old illustration to make this truth clear. Suppose we have one hundred manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, each written independently of the other. Suppose each manuscript has ten accidental blunders, and honoe different in each copy. If, now, we consult only one manuscript, we shall have a text with ten unknown errors in it. Take a second manuscrii)t and we have twenty various readings in all, the true reading being in one or the other. Take a third manuscript, and we have thirty various readings. But the probability is that two of these manuscripts will agree as against the third. Take a hundred manuscripts, and we have a thousand various readings. Yet, in the case of any one passage, ninety-nine will have the same reading and the variation visible in the hundredth will be a blunder. Hence the possession of a large number of manuscripts is a decided advantage. Nay more, our waning confidence in the record begins to regain its strength when we apply this illustration to the texts of the New Testament. Thanks to the labors of Professors Westcott and Hort and the late lamented von Soden — scholars who have specialized in this field of investigation — we now know that seven-eighths of the total various readings are of altogether minor importance, having only orthographic or verbal significance, while but one-eighth concerns differences of real importance, involving some forty passages in all. Commenting upon the ratio of these variants to the rest of the text, Dr. Hort remarked that, if we imagine the New Testament to consist of five hundred pages, the various readings that relate to points of vital consequence would occupy not more than half a page.

First, then, among the sources calculated to inspire confidence in the gospel-record is this remarkable result of the comparative study of extant manuscripts.

It strengthens our confidence still more when we find words and phrases preserved in the vernacular of Palestine, the Aramaic of Jesus' day, expressions that could not have been invented by Greek-speaking writers but were transmitted direct and unaltered from the living memory of disciples. Recall, for instance,^ Raca, "thou empty-headed one"; Mammon, "wealth"; Talitha cumi, "maiden arise"; Ahha, "father"; Eli, Eli, lama sahachthdni, "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Aramaic scholars tell us that the names in the Gospels beginning with Bar, such as Barabbas, Bar- Jona, Bartholomew, are all Aramaic names. Moreover, it has been observed that in the Greek version of the gospels there are idiomatic Aramaic phrases, and tlie fact that these can be translated back into the original goes far toward establisliing their genuineness. Again, it is significant that, when Jesus (juoted from the Old Testament "Law and Prophets," it was invariably froni ili(i Palestinian Hebrew, nof ilic

Alexandrian Greek Version, or Septuagint. If any of these quotations should agree with the Greek version as against the Hebrew, suspicion would be cast upon its genuineness.^ In the sjTiagogue of Jesus' day the Hebrew Old Testament was read and then paraphrased in Aramaic, sentence by sentence, for the benefit of the audience. The Septuagint version, which dates from the year 275 b.c, found no favor in Palestinian circles where the standard of canonical scriptures was stricter than at Alexandria and where Greek was not the language of the people. Finding, then, that quoted sentences from the Old Testament in the gospels have a Palestinian original gives additional strength to our confidence in the record. It is noteworthy, too, in this connection, that all the characteristic ideas in the Synoptic Gospels are essentially Jewish. There is a conspicuous absence of Greek ideas. The Messiah, the kingdom of heaven, a day of judgment followed by the meting out of rewards, and punishments — these are (luite foreign to Greek thought. Were we to find any one of them associated with a Greek idea, it would instantly rouse suspicion as to its genuineness. Prof. Burkitt cites an interesting example of such association. The saying, "Lo, the kingdom of heaven is in your midst," appears in a Greek-Egyptian fragment, coupled with the Delphic maxim, "Know thyself," whereas in Luke's gospel it stands in immediate connection with the speedy coming of the kingdom, a characteristic Jewish idea. And this latter association testifies to the genuineness of the saying as against what we read in the Egyptian version.

Again, when we compare the three earliest extant manuscripts of the New Testament with one another — the Sinaitic, the Vatican and the Alexandrian, the first two dating from the middle of the fourth century (350) and the third from the fifth century (450) — we observe a remarkable measure of agreement in their readings throughout. The footnotes to Tischendorf's edition of the New Testament* afford striking illustration of this general unity of version and it contriljutes in no small degree to our confidence in the record. None of these manuscripts were known to the translators of the King James, or "Authorized" version of Ifill ; yet such was thoir imj)ortancc as a means of bringing us closer to the original text that in

* Tauchnitz Library, Volume 1,000. 45

1885 a "Revised" version was published correctinii: many an error by reference to the readings found in these earliest extant manuscripts.

Compare, further, the reading in these with what we find in Papyri fragments, also written in Greek, but antedating them by a hundred years, and we see new and striking resemblances that inspire still more confidence in the reliability of the record. Turn, for example, to that eleventh leaf of a Greek papyrus manuscript, discovered in 1897 at Oxyrhyncus (the modem Behnesa.) A relic it is of the oral gospel-tradition in its earliest written form. This leaf contains the following sayings, or "logia," of Jesus, three of which, it will be observed, tally with what we read in the gospels :

1 and thou shalt see clearly to

cast out the mote that is in thy brother's eye (fragmentary).

2. Jesus saith. Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in nowise find the kingdom of God ; and except ye keep the Sabbath, ye shall not see the Father.

3. Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and none

EELIABILITY OF THE RECORD

found I athirst among them, and my soul grieveth over the sons of men, because

they are blind in their heart

(fragmentary). 4 poverty (fragmentary) .

5. Jesus saith, Wherever there are and

there is one alone, I am with him. Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find me, cleave the wood, and there am I (fragmentary).

6. Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them that know him.

7. Jesus saith, a city built upon the top of a high hill and stablished, can neither fall nor be hid.

8. Hearest with one ear

The first of these has its exact parallel in Luke 0:42. The first half of the sixth has its equivalent in Luke 4:24. The seventh is quite like what we read in Matt. 5:14. The remaining five represent additions to the syno])ii('. tradition, taking tlieir ]ilaco in the same class as that saying (juoted by the apostle Paul, to which reference has already been made. The second of these "logia" (and they are not to be confused with those referred to by Papias which were written in Aramaic) is a supplement to the injunctions recorded in Matt. 6 :16-18 and 9 :14:, 15. The third expresses that sorrow, which from gospel-sources we learn, Jesus felt on finding Pharisees unresponsive to his teaching. The fifth reminds us of the omnipresent Logos- Jesus of the Fourth Gospel and of its mysticism. The eighth provokes comparison with Mark 7 :16 ; of which it may have been a variation. In so far, then, as we find in this papyrus fragment — older by a century than our oldest extant New Testament manuscript — phrases and sentences that parallel what we read in the gospels, they serve as a further justification of our confidence in the genuineness of the record. Some fifty years before these "logia" were written, an unknown representative of the early Christian Church prepared a document known as the "Didache" or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." The original document, long since lost, was written about the year 150, the approximate date for the latest of the New Testament books. It was, moreover, cited by Clement of Alexandria as "scripture," i. e. he quoted from the Didache as he did from the gospels; in his time and place the work had canonical authority, appearing as part of the New Testament along with the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. In 1884 Bryennios, Metropolitan of Serne in Mesopotamia, while browsing in the library of a monastery near Constantinople, discovered a copy of this document written in 1056 by one who signed himself, Leon, notary and sinner. Our interest in the Didache centers upon its first six sections which contain sentences that appear in the gospels but not from the gospels. No one can read these passages without seeing their value as attestations to the genuineness of the originals. And the Didache antedates the Sinaitic manuscript by tv^'^o hundred years.