The evolution of the New Testament

Preface

THE little volume which we call the New Testament has had more influence on the world than the whole literature of England or France. It consists of twenty-seven books, written eighteen centuries ago, in a degenerate form of Greek, by authors of Jewish race and scanty learning. Nevertheless, millions of persons still turn to the New Testament for guidance and for consolation. Such persons should surely wish to know in what order and in what circumstances these twenty-seven books were written; how many of them may be assigned to their traditional authors; what motives animated these men; whether any of the books are compilations from earlier documents; and how they came to occupy their unique position among Christian writings.

Such questions will also interest, if to a less degree, those who reject Christianity, but-+are yet too wise to neglect or despise a literature merely because they do not share the views which it expresses. Moreover, we have here to do with a literature which has been the textvook of that religion on which modern civilization has to a great extent been built up, a religion which remains to-day one of the greatest of living forces. Many of the critics who in modern times have thrown light on the New Testament have themselves been unbelievers; but they have realized that the subject is one of profound interest and importance, and they have devoted immense learning and ability to its elucidation. Forty years ago some of these critics attributed most of the New Testament books to unknown writers of the second century, put it is now generally agreed that this attribution was based on insufficient grounds. In some cases the old x PREFACE traditions as to the date and authorship of the various books have been successfully defended. In others the traditional view has been abandoned or modified, even by conservative scholars. In yet other cases it is felt that the evidence is not sufficient to justify dogmatism. But there has been at least an approach to agreement on many important points among those experts whose object is to get at facts, rather than to defend or refute some theological opinion, or to exhibit originality and ingenuity.

In my attempt to trace the evolution of the New Testament, its different books are dealt with as far as possible in their chronological order—an order which differs greatly from that of our Bible. My object has been to bring out those points concerning each book upon which modern critics have reached something like agreement; and when no such agreement has been reached to indicate the nature of the problems on which disagreement exists, the grounds for the conclusions at which I have arrived, and the degree of doubt with which such conclusions are held. I also deal very briefly with a few books like The Shepherd of Hermas, which, though ultimately rejected, were regarded as Scripture by many of the early churches. I then indicate the steps by which the twenty-seven came to be accepted as of paramount authority, and the general character of the problems connected with the text.

To each chapter a note is appended, with suggestions for supplementary reading, and a summary of the views of the chief modern critics on the more important of the points still under dispute. Finally, there is a biblio- — graphy of works published in English since 1890, which throw light upon the evolution of the New Testament.

The books, concerning which my conclusions differ from those of the majority of the critics, are: the Epistle of St. James, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Epistle to the Philippians, and the Apocalypse. I am also in a minority on points connected with the Epistles of St. John, and perhaps the Epistle to the

PREFACE xi

Ephesians; but in these cases I am confident that the minority will soon be turned into a majority.

I use the phrase ‘ higher criticism ’ in the sense which is generally accepted, but I do so under protest. The highest criticism is ‘the adventure of a soul among masterpieces.’ Jhis is technically included under “lower? criticism, and the word ‘higher’ is limited to attempts to get behind the masterpieces, to their sources, dates, authors, and editors. This is a useful and even necessary work, but it is only in a technical sense that I can admit it to be * higher’ than insight into the significance of the masterpieces as they are.

J. ’E. SYMES.

Mr. Symes died a few months before the publication of this book. With the aid of friends more learned than I am in matters theological, I have done my best to carry out the revision of the proofs and the completion of the Bibhography in such manner as my husband would have approved.

gf B.S. S¥MES.

October, 1921.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I, BEFORE THE NEW TESTAMENT (A.D. 29-51):

Christians and Jews - - - > ph The Growth of the Church - ~ - she Christians—Jewish and Gentile - - - - 9 A Universal Gospel = - - - - 9 The Election of Presbyters - - - ~ EX The First Christian Council 13 The Church at Philippi - - - - - 15 Paul and the Thessalonians - - . - 7

Il. THe New TESTAMENT BEGINS:

Chapter I Before The New Testament (a.d. 29-51)

THE date of the Crucifixion, and therefore of the foundation of the Christian Church, is generally given by modern authorities as A.D. 29. It was not until twenty-two years later that the earliest of our New Testament books was written. Some effort is necessary in order to realize that the Church could exist for even twenty-two years without any Gospels or any Epistles; and that even when these books had been written and were widely read, they did not rank as Scripture. It was only very gradually, and in the course of several centuries, that they were brought together to form an authoritative group of sacred writings.

In primitive times there was no New Testament, just as there were no churches in which Christians could assemble for common worship. The early Believers gathered together in private houses, and, when they could obtain permission, preached in Jewish synagogues. They had, of course, their two great Sacraments: Baptism, whereby men and women and_ probably children were admitted into the Church; and the Eucharist, in which they broke Bread and drank Wine in obedience to their Master’s Institution, in token that His Body was broken and His Blood shed for the benefit of mankind. What further meaning they attached to the Elements we have no positive evidence to show. They believed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and they formed a sort of family, whose mutual affection found expression in mutual beneficence. At first they even tried the system of having all things in common, and distributing to the brethren according to their needs ; but this communistic experiment had very soon to be abandoned. Dishonest people tried to secure a share without surrendering their private possessions, and even apart from such dishonesty, disputes naturally arose as to the fashion in which the distribution should be made. Nevertheless, the central idea of the Church continued to be Mutual Love. Christians must bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the Law of Him in Whose Life and Death the principle of self-sacrifice had been for ever sanctified. They had, moreover, a common hope that their Master would return—somewhat in the fashion made familiar to them in those Jewish Apocalypses which had been poured out in the previous two centuries. ‘They had also a common ideal—to be perfect, even as their Father in Heaven was perfect. We must next notice that the earliest Christians were Jews, not merely by race, but also in religion. They were circumcised; they kept the Law of Moses; and when they were within reach of Jerusalem they attended the Temple services. ‘The early Christians were, in short, a sect or guild of Jews who had added to Judaism certain new elements, especially the belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah; that He had risen from the dead; and that He would shortly return to judge the world. From its very beginning the new sect suffered some persecution, but at first only the Jewish Sadducees were violently hostile. It was a fundamental principle of Roman Government to meddle as little as possible - with local religions, except where interference was found necessary for the maintenance of order or for the suppression of movements that might otherwise culminate in rebellion. This policy was manifest in the action of Pontius Pilate. It was mainly in the interests of law and order that he consented to the Crucifixion, demanded by

CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 3 the authorities of a religion in which he did not believe. As for the Jews—their attitude towards the infant Church was a varying one. They did not object to Christian sacraments or philanthropic activities. They did not object to the Church as a guild of Jews who held certain peculiar ideas. On two important points, indeed, the majority of Jews were in actual agreement with the guild. They believed in a Future Life and in a Day of Judgment. They believed also in the speedy coming of Messiah. They did undoubtedly object to the identification of Messiah with Jesus of Nazareth, but this only actively provoked them when it was accompanied by any threat of abrogating the Law of Moses. And of such abrogation the earliest Christians had no idea. By conviction they were ardent Jews, and as a matter of prudence as well as of principle, their attitude was conciliatory. But while the mass of the Jews were not violently hostile to Christianity, an exception must be made of the Sadducees, who, as they rejected a future life, were naturally antipathetic to the belief in a general resurrection, or in that particular Resurrection to which Christians attached so much importance. The Sadducees, though few in number, occupied high positions. They were the aristocratic party, contemptuous of their poorer and less educated co-religionists, among whom they classed the new sect.

The first serious outbreak against the Believers was provoked by Stephen. His declaration that the Temple Worship and the Mosaic Law had only a temporary value, and that they must be amended and indeed superseded by the new Society, naturally aroused a storm. When placed upon his trial, Stephen, far from adopting a conciliatory attitude, maintained that God’s Revelation is progressive, thus striking a blow at the cardinal Jewish conviction that the Hebrew Law and Worship had been given them by Jehovah once and for always. Stephen fiercely upbraided the Jews for their bigotry and narrowness, a provocative action which, however desirable or necessary, naturally resulted in the death of the offender. It was a defiance not only of the Sadducees, but also of all orthodox Jews; and as the Apostles did not repudiate Stephen’s teaching, a general persecution followed, with the result that the Christians were driven from Jerusalem and scattered abroad through Judza and Samaria (A.D. 35).

Persecution often defeats its own objects, and so it did in this case. The chief results of the death of Stephen and the expulsion of the Christians were, firstly, that the new teaching hitherto confined to Jerusalem was carried throughout Palestine, and secondly that the purely Judaic character of Christianity began to be questioned. The fugitive Christians naturally made their first appeal to Jews, but when they were driven out of Jerusalem they came in contact with a mixture of races and religions that brought vividly home to them problems which, in the Holy City, had possessed comparatively ‘little urgency. This was especially the case in Samaria, for the Samaritans were partly, at least, of Jewish descent, although completely cut off from Judaism. The man who first faced this difficulty was Philip. The fact that the Samaritans, like the Jews, looked forward to the appearance of a Messiah may have determined his bold action in appealing to these outsiders. There is no reason to suppose that his course was prompted or even sanctioned by the Apostles. Probably, like Stephen before him, Philip acted on his own initiative; but when the news of his action reached the Apostles they sent their two leaders Peter and John to investigate such startling proceedings on the spot. These Apostles satisfied themselves that God was working through Philip, and where His Spirit led the Church must follow. They therefore laid their hands upon the converted Samaritans, and these received the Holy Ghost.

How deeply Peter was impressed by this incident may be seen from the fact that, having hitherto been the leader of the Church in Jerusalem, he now appears to have resigned this high position to James, in order that he might devote himself wholly to work in other places

THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH 5 beyond the city. This James was apparently not an Apostle—neither James the Greater nor James the Less, but James the ‘ brother of the Lord,’ afterwards known as the first Bishop of Jerusalem. Of Peter we are told that ‘he went through all parts.’ From Paul’s Epistles we learn that he travelled as far afield as Antioch and Corinth, but beyond such meagre references we know little of his evangelistic work. A still greater missionary was now entering the field, and the author of the Acts of the Apostles soon concentrates his attention on Paul.

The rapid growth of the Church may here be illustrated by a few figures. The first recorded number of the brethren is about one hundred and twenty (Acts i. 15). After Pentecost there are about three thousand baptized. A little later there were about five thousand men, apparently excluding women and children. But now that the work was spreading far and wide beyond Jerusalem, the author of the Acts ceases to make numerical estimates, and presumably neither the Apostles nor anyone else could do more than guess at the numbers. Nevertheless, we must suppose that the converts were still either Jews or Samaritans, and that the latter were accepted not because they were human beings, but because they were akin to Jews by blood, and by some at least of their religious doctrines, ceremonies, and hopes.

The admission of Cornelius is the next great landmark in the history of the early Church; the first practical assertion that the new religion was to be world-wide. Peter himself needed to be converted to this point of view. He had a Vision in which he was invited to violate the Mosaic Law by eating forbidden food, and when he naturally protested against the idea, he heard in his Dream a Voice which forbade him to call any God-created thing unclean. It might have been thought that this Vision was intended to abolish the Mosaic regulations as to meats, but Peter saw that it had a deeper and wider significance, and that he was really forbidden to regard any human creature as common or unclean. He therefore continued to observe the Mosaic regulations about food, but he recognized henceforth that Christianity could no longer be confined to Jews and Samaritans. Peter’s acceptance of Cornelius, which seems to us so obvious a matter, was a tremendous step towards the freedom and universality of the Gospel. It is at least possible that Cornelius and the early Gentile converts were expected to conform to Judaism as soon as they became Christians. No doubt the story is, on this point, rather obscure. The alternative seems to be that Peter soon fell away from the truth which had been taught him in the Vision, for it seems clear that he opposed, or at least hesitated to support, the bolder and more consistent policy which Paul was soon advocating— the policy of putting Gentile converts on a level with Jews, on the ground that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availed anything nor uncircumcision.

The Apostles seem to have been greatly perplexed by Paul’s attitude, but their hesitancy may have been partly due to a fear of alienating their own Jewish congregations. The leaders of the Christian Church have often taken a more liberal view than the majority of their followers, but from consideration for the prejudices of weaker brethren have refrained from acting up to their convictions. They have left it to men like Stephen and Philip to take the initiative, and they have then come to find themselves in a very difficult position. In the case of a single individual like Cornelius there was room for compromise. He might have been regarded as a man of such exceptional piety as to deserve exceptional treatment. But very soon it became a question of the treatment of whole classes of would-be converts, and many of these were Greeks with the active rationalistic minds of their race; men who would insist on applying logical tests to any compromise, and were not likely to submit to Mosaic restrictions. Moreover, the Church was now spreading far beyond the region wherein Jewish. authority was recognized by the Roman Government.

Matters came to a head at Antioch, in Syria, where a

CHRISTIANS—JEWISH AND) GENTILE «7

Church grew up composed mainly of Greeks, and where Judaism was not recognized by the authorities as the local religion, There seemed to be a real danger that Antioch would dissociate itself from Jerusalem, and thus create a precedent for a policy fatal to the Unity of the Christian Church. The difficulty was temporarily surmounted in a characteristic fashion. The Church at Jerusalem was normally poor. In the year A.D. 45 there was an exceptional drought, and the Christians of Antioch resolved to send money for the relief of the Mother Church at Jerusalem. ‘This seems a small matter, yet if bearing one another’s burdens was really fulfilling the Law of Christ, it was a practical assertion of Unity. It had the additional advantage of increasing the intercourse between the two bodies, the interchange of ideas, the removal of prejudices based on ignorance, the increase of knowledge, the growth of intimacy and mutual hospitality. This happy precedent was soon followed. Twelve years later we find the Churches of Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia, carrying out the same idea.

Paul and Barnabas were among those appointed to bear alms from Antioch to Jerusalem, and they took the opportunity of discussing with the Apostles there, the vexed question whether Greek converts should be required to conform to the Law. Paul gives some account of the matter in the second chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians. We gather from this that the discussions were private, and that the Apostles were quite satisfied with the explanations they received. They extended the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, recognizing them as fellow-workers, and in no way objecting to their liberal policy towards Gentiles. When Peter visited Antioch he seems to have wavered, but Paul withstood him to his face, apparently on the ground that it was from fear of the Jewish Christians that he would not fall in with the Pauline policy or eat with Gentiles.

This incident is a striking evidence of how difficult it was to convince a man like Peter that people who were not Jews could yet be very good Christians. Peter was no doubt partly actuated by a desire not to offend his own section of the Church, though we can _ hardly suppose that he would have taken such a.line if he had really grasped the great principles involved in the Vision that had led him to accept Cornelius. But the whole tendency of the age was with Paul. A Judaic Christianity would be practically limited to a few thousand disciples, whereas a Hellenistic Christianity could appeal to the whole world. The results of Paul’s policy were soon apparent. Antioch became a Mother Church, sending out missions and founding other churches, while Jerusalem passed more and more into the background, and Judaic Christianity gradually died out. We may here notice that it was at Antioch, in the early forties, that the disciples were first called Christians.

This Antioch was a city of Syria, but we must now follow Paul to another Antioch, known as Antioch in Pisidia. From a speech that he delivered there we gather that as yet the great Apostle to the Gentiles still regarded himself as primarily concerned with the Jews. When he reached Pisidian Antioch it was to Jews that he first addressed himself, accepting an invitation from the rulers of the synagogue to speak to their congregation. This congregation would consist of three classes— Jews, Proselytes, and God-fearers. ‘ God-fearers’ were Gentiles who had been attracted to Judaism by its _ doctrine of the one God, and by its insistence on a high ethical standard, but who had not gone so far as to become proselytes.

Paul began by addressing the congregation as two separate groups (Acts xiii. 16): ‘Men of Israel ’— whether Jews or Proselytes—‘ and ye that fear God,’ 1.e., ye that, though not included in Israel, are yet drawn towards Israel’s God; but he soon identifies himself with the former, and briefly sketches their history from the time of their deliverance from Egypt till the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. ‘Through this man,’ he

A UNIVERSAL GOSPEL 9 proceeds, ‘is proclaimed unto you remission of sins: And by him, everyone that believeth is justified from all things’ (Acts xiii. 38, R.V.).

Thus to a congregation of Jews, Proselytes, and God-fearers Paul definitely proclaims a Universal Gospel. ‘Everyone that believeth’ is to be made righteous by Christ. No conditions are attached. There is no hint even that they must become converts to Judaism.

This proclamation evidently startled the audience, but it neither converted them en masse nor provoked them to summary rejection of the new doctrine. It merely led to an invitation to Paul to speak again on the following Sabbath. Evidently the Jews of Antioch in Pisidia were more open-minded than those of Palestine or even of Syria (cf. Gal. iv. 15). We are told that ‘almost the whole city’ flocked to hear the second speech. Now at length the Jews took alarm. The concourse of outsiders probably brought home to them the full significance of the new doctrine, or at least the fact that it was actually putting Jew and Gentile upon the same level, for we are told that ‘ when the Jews saw the multitude they were filled with jealousy’ and began to resist. ;Then Paul and Barnabas boldly told them ‘it was necessary that the Word of God should be first spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you . . . we turn to the Gentiles.’ A critical moment had come. In one city, at any rate, the great Missionary was to concentrate his energies upon the Gentiles. He was to leave the Jews to Peter and James, while he turned to the greater task of converting the Pagan world; a world dominated by Roman arms but permeated by Oriental mysticism and Greek philosophy. :

This brings us to A.D, 46. The Jews had sufficient influence to secure the expulsion of Paul from Antioch, but it seems to have taken them some months to secure their object, and in the interval a flourishing Christian Church was established in that city. It was filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. Paul, writing long afterwards, describes the fervour which characterized the

Galatian Churches in the beginning, and of these Galatian Churches Pisidian Antioch was the first.

In the spring of A.D. 47 Paul and Barnabas were expelled from Antioch, but we are not told the exact ground of their expulsion. Certain ladies—wives, apparently, of leading citizens—were somehow influenced by the Jews. The ladies doubtless brought pressure to bear upon their husbands, some of whom were presumably Roman officials. The charge brought against them can hardly have been their Christianity, as the Christian Church was allowed to continue both in the city and in the regions round. The Roman Government had always a hard task to preserve the peace in its colonies and provinces. Its general policy was to acquiesce in isolated acts of injustice, if by so doing riots and popular discontents could be avoided. To expel the leaders of the new movement, without attempting to suppress the movement itself, may have seemed to them a reasonable compromise. ‘To strike at individuals rather than at classes is a favourite policy of despotism, and has often a low sort of wisdom about it. At any rate, Paul and Barnabas were driven from Antioch, and they decided to cross the mountainous region which separated that city from Iconium.

Their experiences here were very similar. Once more they began by preaching in the synagogue. Once more there were many converts, both Jew and Gentile. Once more the unconverted Jews stirred up an opposition ; but this time they appealed to the mob rather than to the leading citizens. Paul and Barnabas were warned of a plot ‘ to entreat them shamefully and to stone them.’ They decided to depart to the neighbouring Lycaonia with its two great cities of Lystra and Derbe. These cities, like Antioch and Iconium, were included in the Roman province of Galatia. Their population consisted of a few Romans forming the local aristocracy, a few Greeks and Jews, and a number of Asiatic natives. The great mass of the inhabitants of the towns of Asia were neither Roman, Greek, nor Jew. They were compara-

THE ELECTION OF PRESBYTERS = 11 tively barbarous subjects of Rome, whose language was either a form of Greek or some dialect of their own. Of | this class we have as yet heard little in the Acts. But at Lystra they come to the front, convinced by the cure of a lame man, that their visitors were Jupiter and Mercury—gods of whose existence they had learned from their Roman conquerors. Sacrifices in honour of Paul and Barnabas were hastily prepared, but Paul explained that their object was to turn men from such deities as Jupiter and Mercury to the worship of the one true God, Who had already been sending them His cood gifts of sunshine, rain, and harvest. [The simple people were moved, but only for the moment. Hostile Jews arrived in haste from Antioch and Iconium, and persuaded their hearers to stone Paul. They dragged his body out of the city, ‘supposing that he was dead. But as the disciples stood round him he rose up and entered into the city : and on the morrow he went forth with Barnabas to Derbe.’ ‘Thence they decided to retrace their steps in order to visit the churches they had already founded. It was a dangerous journey, but love of their converts constrained them, and neither the Roman officials nor the populace seem to have harassed them. The previous expulsions and persecutions were perhaps due to temporary causes. At any rate, the Christian missionaries were allowed to return to the Syrian Antioch without molestation. In the course of the journey they arranged for the election by the Galatian congregations of ‘ presbyters,’ who were apparently a sort of clergy appointed to teach, organize, and administer the Sacraments. They were probably chosen by the vote of the whole congregation, and confirmed in their office by the laying on of the Apostles’ hands. We have no earlier evidence of the existence of any class of officials in the churches outside Jerusalem.

Paul returned to Syrian Antioch probably at the end of A.D. 48 or early in A.D. 49. It was then that Peter made his famous visit thither, when he began by living familiarly and even eating with Gentiles. But certain men came down ‘from James,’ sent, that is to say, by the head of the Church in Jerusalem, and told Peter plainly that if Gentiles wished to enter the Church they must do so by way of Judaism. Peter was probably still wavering between the two opinions. His vacillation drew down upon him a rebuke from Paul, and it was ultimately decided to submit the question to the Apostolic Church in Jerusalem.

This brings us to the first important Council of the Church (A.D. 49). James presided at its deliberations. Paul and Barnabas represented the Gentile point of view. On the other side the lead was taken by certain Pharisees who had accepted the Faith, but maintained that every Christian must conform to the whole Mosaic system. After much discussion Peter made a weighty speech, reminding his audience how they had first been led to preach to the Gentiles, ‘and God which knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us. ... Now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?’ Every humble and pious Jew knew in his heart that he had not really obeyed the whole Mosaic Law. Peter’s speech was followed by a silence which secured for Paul and Barnabas a fair hearing. ‘Their earlier remarks had apparently been shouted down. Then James followed up Peter’s argument with a definite proposal, which, in the form in which it has come down to us, was of the nature of a compromise. Let the Gentiles abstain from idolatry, ‘ blood,’ fornication, and from the eating of things strangled; but let no further demands be laid upon them. This proposal was approved by the Council and embodied in a formal decree.

There are difficulties in the way of our accepting this record as correct. It is inconceivable that James and the Council should have put the eating of things strangled on a level with fornication. Moreover, there is not the slightest evidence that, in this form, the decree was obeyed by Gentile Christians, for however

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COUNCIL 1g short a period. Nor do the Epistles ever refer to it. H, however, we regard the prohibition of things strangled as a later Judaic interpolation, the whole difficulty vanishes, for the other three prohibitions may be regarded as purely ethical. Cruelty, Impurity, and Superstition were the three great blots on Paganism. They formed, in fact, a part of many heathen religions, as, for instance, the worship of Moloch and Belial. Yet no one could rightly be baptized while stained with any of the three sins. The decree of the Council would in this case be, in effect, to affirm the Moral Law of the Old Testament, but to decline to enforce any of its ceremonial rules. This is so plainly accordant with the spirit of Christianity that it appears most reasonable to regard the ‘things strangled’ as an interpolation, in which case ‘ blood’ would naturally mean bloodshed, and ‘pollutions of idols’ (Acts xv. 20) would mean idolatry. On this supposition the decision of the first great Christian Council would stand out as a landmark of Christian Law and Christian Liberty. Its significance becomes even greater when we remember that the decree was made, not by a General Council, but by that Jerusalem Church which would be least likely to depreciate the ceremonial Law of Moses. There is no reason to suppose that the Galatian delegates were allowed to vote at the Council. The voters were the Apostles and Elders of Jerusalem. ‘They boldly claimed that their decisions were prompted by One higher than themselves: ‘It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.’