The religion of the Christ : its historic and literary development considered as an evidence of its origin; the Bampton lectures for 1874

Contents

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LECTURE I.

“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth tuy soul after Thee, 0 God.” — Psalm xlii. 1.

Preface

We can do nothing against the Troth, but for the Troth.

St. Paul.

PREFACE.

rpHE object of tlie following Lectures has been to unfold the significance, too often overlooked or forgotten, of the name Christianity, which is neither more nor less than the Eeligion of the Christ. As a matter of historic fact, the name by which this religion is known does not lead us back so much to Christ as its founder in the way that Muhammadanism leads us back to Muhammad for its founder, as it does to the Christ as the object and substance of the earliest ascertainable faith of the people called Christians. Whatever uncertainty, real or imaginary, may attach to the actual origin of this belief, there is and can be no question whatever as to its earliest expressions. These survive to us in literary monuments, which are imperishable and undoubted. The four great Epistles of St. Paul are themselves a treasury of evidence in this respect, and they must continue to be so until it can be shown on equal evidence, which as yet is not producible, that they represent only one phase, and that a partial and sectional phase, of early Christianity.

It is, however, commonly admitted now that we need not limit the genuine remains of the great Apostle to these four letters ; and it is certain, whatever our opinion as to the formation of the canon of the New Testament, or the degree of authority attaching to it when formed, may be, that the Eeligion of the Christ, or the belief in Jesus as

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the Christ, is not only common to every document com¬ prised in it, but is alike the very backbone and essential framework of all the documents.

We may take it therefore as a position which is unassail¬ able, that the distinguishing mark of Christianity, from the very first, trace it back as far as we can, was the belief that Jesus was the Christ. So manifestly true is this statement, that the mere expression of it has all the ap¬ pearance of a truism. And yet it is not by any means such ; because, what is not involved in the fact, undenied and undeniable, that a vast society was called into exist¬ ence, and held together, by the confession and belief that Jesus was the Christ, and that but for such a confession and belief this society would and could have had no exist¬ ence ? There are involved at least these two principles — 1. That the conception of the Christ, whether right or wrong, was a reality, and a reality fraught with the mightiest consequences ; and 2. That the features of the human life of Jesus were adequate to setting in motion the machinery which was latent in the Christ-conception.

And as to the strength and truth of this position, the evidence of the New Testament, whatever the date and authorship of its various parts may be, is conclusive and unimpeachable. Taking the very widest possible margin, we may say that within the first century and a half of our era this simple formula, Jesus is the Christ, had called into existence the whole of that literature, whatever its value, which is comprised in the New Testament. Within that period of time, from which we must of course deduct the thirty years of our Lord’s own life, there had, as a matter of fact, come into existence the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostolical Epistles, and the Revelation; that is to say, we have certain literary monuments which must have come into existence between a.d. 30 and a.d. 150, and their actual existence is the problem to be solved.

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Xlll

Practically, this period may be considerably lessened. No one wishes to prove the existence of any Christian docu¬ ment piior to a.d. 50, and it is making unnecessary concessions to suppose that even the latest book of the New Testament is so late as a.d, 150. IVlthin a period, then, probably at the most of seventy or eighty years! our existing documents were produced. To what was their production owing ? Solely to the belief that Jesus was the Christ. It is alike impossible to eliminate this funda¬ mental tenet from any one of the books in question, and to account for their existence without pre-supposing its belief.

The religion or belief, then, of which the books may be taken as the actual, and in some sense the natural expres¬ sion, may be called the Religion of the Christ. The immediate result of that religion or belief was the creation of a unique literature, for which no parallel can be found in the literary history of the world. The literature was the product, and is the witness to the existence, of a particular society known to us also from extraneous sources as the Christian society, whose very name brings us back again to the idea which was latent in every one of the books, that the Christ had come, and that Jesus was the Christ. It matters not now whether the society authenti¬ cates the books, or the books authenticate the society. To a certain extent the books, it must be allowed, have a testimony of their own; they are a fair index of the society which created them, and their relative position with respect to other books which were produced by the society is a proof of the estimate in which they were held by it; while in the case both of the society and the books it was not possible for either to have existed without the previous acceptance of the underlying principle that Jesus was the Christ. This was at once the germ of the society’s exist¬ ence, the means of its cohesion and support when formed

b

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and the root-principle to which the hooks bore witness, and to which alone they owed their being.

Not, however, that the maintenance of this principle was the direct object of all the books. It was so with the four Gospels only. We may say of them that the purpose for which they were written was to proclaim Jesus as the Christ. St. John said of his own record of events, These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ J And the same might have been affirmed by the other Evangelists. But with the rest of the books this is not so much the purpose as the cause of their being written. In every one the position is accepted as a foregone conclusion which can only be referred to incidentally, but which is none the less present to the writer’s mind and to the minds of all for whom he writes. Eliminate from him and them the belief in Jesus as the Christ, and you destroy the peculiar and essential features of their existence.

And this, it must he observed, is altogether independent of the abstract truth of the principle they accepted. Here we have this obvious literary fact, the creation and exis¬ tence of a new and original literature solely in consequence of the belief in Jesus as the Christ. The rise of the Christ-religion proclaimed itself by the rise of a new literature which gathered round the central thought of Jesus as the Christ. This is an undoubted fact, independent alike of the genuineness and authenticity of the several books and of the actual truth of their central thought.

Nor can it for a moment be maintained that the move¬ ment thus expressing itself was trivial or unimportant. We cannot pass it by as an insignificant or an uninteresting phenomenon. As a matter of fact the movement which so early produced these literary monuments, and resulted in what we call Christianity, has lasted to the present day ; it has played a most prominent part in modern history ;

1 St. John xx. 31.

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xv by some means or other it supplanted the dominion of the Caesars, and established itself on the imperial throne; it has penetrated all the framework of our social, political, and educational existence, and intertwined itself with our civilisation, morals, and government. Moreover, it is even now from time to time forcing itself into inconvenient prominence, and superinducing complications with which it is by no means easy to deal, and suggesting problems it is hard to solve, and yet not easy to put by.

The fact, therefore, of the rise of this Christ-religion and Chris t-literature derives unquestionably an additional significance from the nature of its subsequent history. It cannot be treated as a merely transient or passing incident. Whether or not it was calculated to be followed by conse¬ quences so tremendous, these are the consequences by which it was followed. It is possible that the haze of distance may have concealed from view many of the circumstances connected with the rise of this religion which it must be hopeless for us ever to discover ; but the results produced are independent of this obscurity, and are what they are, neither more nor less, even though somewhere in the first oiigin of the movement there may have been something

faulty, or which, at all events, science now regards as un¬ satisfactory.

In the long run, however, it is a sound maxim that the work proves the workman, and it is an inference not alto¬ gether hasty or unreasonable that a movement such as that of the Christ-religion, which has wrought so marvellously, cannot have been inherently defective fpmi the first. No human agency or combination of human agents could have sufficed to produce the effects which have notoriously been produced, and therefore the effects may be estimated, not as the designed production of one or of many individuals, but as those great problems of history which are fraught with their own significance, and demand their own solution.

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We may hold our judgment in suspense as to whether this particular work is of Nature or of God, but at all events it unquestionably is not of man.

And the alternative is named advisedly, of Nature or of Gocl, because this with regard to Christianity is really the issue at stake. If the actual phenomena of the rise of the Christ-religion can be accounted for naturally, then there is an end to its claim to be in any sense the special expo¬ nent of the Divine will. Nature may be indeed another name for God, but God and Nature are not convertible terms, and to attempt to make them so is to destroy the special characteristics of both. God may have spoken, and doubtless has spoken, by all the religions of the world, but He has done so in a negative way, by showing us where they failed to apprehend the fulness of the truth, or to supply the actual craving of man’s heart. If He has spoken by the Religion of the Christ, He has done so in a special and a positive way, which differs alike in the answer given to the wants of humanity and in the manner of His giving it. If the Religion of the Christ can be resolved into a mere expression of natural religion — a mere variation of other expressions — then it forthwith comes to an end, because there is no room for the Christ-function, and no meaning in the Christ-idea ; then, in that case, God and Nature are absolutely identical, and what is done by Nature is done by God, and what is done by God is only done by and in and through Nature ; and then Christ is an anomaly in Nature, interfering not only with the free action of her laws, but antagonistic in the very principle and idea of His existence, as proposing to discharge a function for which Nature has no need.

It must be observed, however, that, supposing God to have spoken by all the religions of the world, and to have spoken in the same sense by Christianity too, then the message of Christianity must be in virtual harmony with

Preface.

XVII the message of other religions; it may surpass or excel, hut it cannot contradict them. Now, the question whether or not it does contradict them is unhappily not a matter of opinion, hut a matter of fact, and capable of conclusive demonstration. The history of Christianity from the first has been a history of conflict — of conflict, however, not sought, but encountered ; and the severity of this conflict was originally felt in the contact of Christianity with the elder religion from which it sprang, or at least with those who were the professed and devoted adherents of that religion. Nor has Christianity proved to be more acceptable to the other religions with which it has been brought in contact — whether with the paganism of Greece and Nome, or with Islam, in the middle ages, or with Brahmanism or Buddhism in the East. It has never been received as an ally, but always been rejected as a foe. We may assume, therefore, that the message of Christianity is not in accord¬ ance with, but opposed to, the message of other religions. There is a point where it comes into collision with and contradicts them on their own showing; and this is the point which is expressed in the foundation and central idea of it as the Religion of the Christ. As long as Chris¬ tianity is content to be placed on a par merely with other religions, there is no offence ; it is when she asserts her inherent superiority because of her Divine election, it is when she takes her stand upon Jesus as the Christ or chosen of God, that the cause of offence arises. Then it is that the Master’s words begin to verify themselves, as they so often have, I am not come to send peace, but a sword.2

And Christianity may historically be regarded as the Religion of the Christ. The earliest monuments of it show that its most essential feature was the recognition of the Christ character of Jesus. But when we come to examine 2 St. Matt. x. 34, 35; St. Luke xii. 49, 51.

Preface.

this Christ character we find, it was by no means peculiar to Christianity, but was in fact the legitimate and special offspring of Judaism, so that Christianity grew like a young and tender plant out of the soil of Judaism. This also is a fact which cannot be denied. If the Christ idea had not existed in Judaism, the actual foundation of Christianity would have been wanting, and its rise would have been impossible. The Religion of the Christ, therefore, may be regarded as reaching both before and after the time of Jesus of Nazareth • for it is certain that the very earliest records of the Jewish nation either exhibit traces of the Christ idea or manifest features which supplied the actual foundation of the idea. The Religion of the Christ, then, is not merely that which we commonly understand by Christianity, but much more the complete phenomenon of the idea regarded as a whole, and embracing the earliest traces of it, as well as its full development in the writings of the New Testament. And this phenomenon is a literary fact established by literary monuments extending on the lowest possible computation over a period of a thousand years, from the earliest document in the Old Testament to the latest in the New. It is alike impossible to account for the literary existence of the New Testament without assuming the reality of a Christ element in the Old, and to account for its existence on the assumption that it is a mere exaggeration and the natural development of that Christ element.

It is obvious, moreover, that these two positions are mutually destructive. If the books of the New Testament can be accounted for on the supposition of the intensity and fanatical ardour of the Messianic anticipations of the Disciples, then those anticipations presuppose a sufficient foundation for them in the books of the Old Testament, inasmuch as they can be referred to nothing else; we

Preface.

xix must acknowledge the existence of a Christ idea, which can only have been derived from them. If, on the other hand, we may assume the non-existence of any such ele¬ ment, then it is clear that the New Testament cannot have been caused by the exaggerated development of this ele¬ ment. Or if, once more, it is affirmed that the Disciples had indeed these anticipations in an extravagant degree, but that there was no valid foundation for them in the Scrip¬ tures, which can be critically explained otherwise, then we must admit that historical phenomena which are most remarkable, and literary phenomena which are unique, were alike the direct and natural consequences of a mis¬ apprehension so complete, of a blunder so palpable and gross.

It appears, therefore, that the actual historic rise of faith in Jesus as the Christ, and the historic and literary results of that belief, may legitimately be allowed to have a retrospective value as evidence of the true meaning of the Scriptures. It is hardly possible to account reasonably for the character and prevalence of the Messianic an¬ ticipations, of which we have literary proof in the first century of our era, on the assumption that these antici¬ pations were not warranted by the language of Scripture — were even a deviation from it. At all events, the Scrip¬ tures alone must be held responsible for their existence. It is surely, therefore, a daring course to adopt, to say that the historic result was one which ought never to have been produced. May we not rather say, that if the voice of God is ever to be heard in history, it may be heard in this historic result ? And is it not a further confirmation of its actual truth, that these ancient Scriptures, even when read now-a-days after so long an interval, are still found to be replete with an inexhaustible treasury of meaning which they could not have had for their original possessors, but which is derived solely from their relation

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to and association with Jesus as the Christ ? If He has thus shown Himself the light of prophecy, may we not infer that His was the light for which prophecy waited, and to which it was designed to point ?

But if so, nothing can be more obvious than that such a combination of results is not to be reckoned as the pro¬ duct of nature ; because the only interpretation of it can be, that this is the expression of personal will manifesting itself through the results of history and the facts of litera¬ ture. Given the phenomena of prophecy as they are, and the human life of a person in whom, supposing his Christ-character to be a true one, their meaning is not only realised, but intensified and heightened to an infinite and before inconceivable degree, is it possible to regard the juxta¬ position of the two as an insignificant and casual incident ? If it is fraught with any meaning at all, the meaning is one which can only be other than natural and above nature. It is an expression of God’s will such as is not elsewhere found, in the order and harmony of the natural world, in the ordinary course of history, and the like ; it is expressive of moral and spiritual truths which are not to be derived from other sources, and it teaches lessons which nature is incompetent to teach.

How this is the position which we claim for the Beligion of the Christ. It finds its place naturally among the religions of the world, for it was the direct descendant of one of the oldest of them, and it has been brought into contact with all of them. But it stands on a different footing from all. For no religion can point to the same historic and literary development which the Beligion of the Christ can show. In no other case has the supposed fulfilment of the promises of an earlier religion produced anything like the phenomena which were produced by the first preaching of Jesus as the Christ ; in no other case has the similar proclamation of such a fact, or supposed fact.

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xxi produced within fifty years after it was first proclaimed anything like the literary phenomena which we know for a certainty were produced in various writings of the New Testament. These two features, the one historic and the other literary, are unique in the case of the Religion of the Christ. May we not then fairly claim this historic and literary development of the religion as a patent evidence of its origin ? It is useless to point to any other literary monuments — such as the Vedas, the Kuran, or the like — because, independently of the inherent and intrinsic differ¬ ence of their substantive message, they differ fundamentally in the known circumstances of their origin. The Kuran, no less than the Christian books, may be regarded as the literary offspring of the Old Testament ; but who has ever found in Muhammad the analogue or antitype of the Jewish Messiah, and who would for a moment compare the literary origin of the New Testament with that of the Kuran ? One was the spontaneous growth of circumstances, and the product of many minds ; the other was the deliberate production of a single mind for a definite and deliberate purpose. To confound in any degree the two productions would be to lack altogether the faculty of discrimination • — the critical faculty. But if their literary and historic difference is so great, it is impossible that the two religious they represent can stand on the same basis. To imagine that they do is to reject the evidence of facts.

And it is to this broad evidence that we point in attestation of the claims that were undoubtedly advanced by those who first proclaimed the Religion of the Christ. We have a marvellous historic and literary result distinctly traceable to no other cause than the supposed fulfilment in a particular person of the obvious and known require¬ ments of prophecy. Of the nature of this fulfilment we are to some extent competent judges ourselves. According to one view, the degree of the fulfilment is only to be l

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regarded as infinite; it is continually revealing itself to every independent student and disciple. According to another view, the fulfilment is simply nil , and purely imaginary. But this we may safely affirm, that the known results of the supposed fulfilment of prophecy in Jesus of Nazareth cannot be accounted for on the supposition that there was no more apparent correspondence between the person of Jesus and the character of the Messiah than those who hold this latter view would have us believe, or on the assumption that the correspondence was unreal. The Gospels, as we have them, which point to this corre¬ spondence, may more properly be regarded as the outcome of the belief in Jesus than as the cause of it. The belief itself is still to be accounted for, even if we reject the Gospel view of the character of Jesus, and so likewise are the consequences which followed the belief.

It is important, therefore, to remember that it is not merely with literary monuments that we have to deal, but with the known historic fact of great results produced, of which the literature itself, however regarded, is the surest proof. Can the supposition of falsehood in the character and claims of J esus adequately account for these results ? or, rather, can they adequately be accounted for on this supposition ? Certainly not.

There must have been other causes at work which we are at a loss to conjecture for these known results to have been produced, on the supposition that there was a lie in the alleged character of Christ ; while, on the supposition that His character was what it is represented to have been, all the phenomena to be accounted for are fully explained.

The question of the genuineness of particular books is altogether a separate matter, to be decided on other grounds; but it would appear that these considerations are still of weight, however, in particular cases, this question of genu¬ ineness may be determined.

Preface. xxiii

And the wholly anonymous character of the first three Gospels would seem to corroborate this position. That the first Gospel is known by the name of St. Matthew does not pledge us to establish his traditional right to be the author of it before the narrative can be received as one substantially trustworthy, any more than it can be justly regarded as a claim advanced by him to have written it. And unless it can be shown that the original results pro¬ duced by the preaching of Jesus were owing solely to the publication of this and the other existing Gospels, which is absurd, it cannot be maintained that we are bound to substantiate their genuineness as veritable productions of the men whose names they bear, before we can insist upon or appeal to their authority ; because, as a matter of fact, the acknowledgment of these Gospels from a very early period as authentic narratives by the Christian society can be proved,3 and because the known existence and phenomena of that society cannot be accounted for but on the suppo¬ sition of substantial identity between the narrative of the present Gospels and the very earliest Gospel narrative that was proclaimed. The existence and peculiar features of the earliest Christian society as we know them can only be explained on the supposition that a particular story was everywhere accepted, the central facts of which it is easy to discover. This story was unquestionably proclaimed by the first disciples of Christ ; and whether the record that we have of it emanated immediately from them or not, it is absolutely impossible that it should be substantially different.4

3 See Dr. Westcott on The Canon of the New Testament.

4 Compare, for example : “ If the Gospel of St. Matthew, such as we now possess it, is undoubtedly the work of the publican who followed our Lord from the receipt of custom, and remained with Him to he a witness of His ascension ; if St. John’s Gospel was written by the beloved disciple who lay on Jesus’ breast at supper; if the other two were indeed the com¬ panions of St. Peter and St Paul ; if in these four Gospels we have inde-

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For example, it is impossible that the st^ry of the resur¬ rection should not have been a substantive part of the primitive and original Gospel. Wherever St. Matthew preached, we know as a fact that this is what he must have preached. Whether, then, or not he wrote the Gospel that bears his name is a matter of secondary importance, com¬ pared with the absolute certainty there is that his testimony on such points as the resurrection and Messiahship of Jesus cannot have been intrinsically divergent from that of our existing record. This consideration, which is perfectly valid, is quite sufficient to show that a doubt thrown on the genuineness of one or more of our existing Gospels is inadequate to disprove the essential truth of the Gospel, because certain known effects could not have been brought about but by an agency in all material and important

pendent accounts of our Lord s life and passion, mutually confirming each, other ; and if it can he proved that they existed and were received as authentic in the first century of the Christian Church, a stronger man than M. Kenan will fail to shake the hold of Christianity in England.” — Froude, Short Studies , i. 242.

Of St. John’s Gospel he himself observes afterwards: “It is enough to say that the defects of external evidence which undoubtedly exist seem overborne by the overwhelming proofs of authenticity contained in the Gospel itself.” — Ibid, p. 252.

This latter is a very considerable admission. If it is granted that there are “overwhelming proofs” for the Gospel of St. John being written by the beloved disciple who lay on Jesus’ breast at supper, then we have in the admitted genuineness of the Gospel a strong ground for its authen¬ ticity, the strongest that can be desired. It may be a matter of question how far the credibility of the ordinary events recorded in the other Gos¬ pels is dependent on the fact of their being by the several authors whose names they bear. It is certain that no one of them professes so much of itself. But at all events we must not forget that there are certain features of our Lord s life and character for which we are not dependent upon the fact that St. Matthew’s Gospel was written by St. Matthew, or St. Mark’s by St. Mark, but much more upon the known phenomena of an early Christian society, whose very existence would have been impossible with¬ out the underlying framework of the life of Christ, and whose phenomena determine within certain limits what that life and character must have been.

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xxv points identical with that which they represent and express. When, however, it is borne in mind that any such doubts are virtually baseless and unwarrantable, it is satisfactory to know, not only that the main issue is independent of them, as it really is, but also that, if it were not, they are not deserving of the serious attention we are willing to bestow upon them.