The person of Christ; his perfect humanity a proof of his divinity, with impartial testimonies to his character

Foreword

The one interrogation pushing its way persistently into the hearts and minds of men is — "What think ye of Christ?" From this center move out the radii through every part of the theological world. It is the heart from which the veins and arteries of all Christian faith draw their life. This is the question of history, the question of the Bible, the question of the Church, the question of theology, the question of Christianity. A clear, concise and convincing answer is given to the world in the pages of this volume.

No man can afford to miss from his library or his life the ripened fruit of Dr. SchafF's mind. He has entered the Holy of Holies, and brought back to his fellow-men a divine message. He has replaced the sand of skepticism by the solid rock of Faith. He has shown that the central miracle of history is Christ Himself, that He is the divine-human Saviour, that in this fact Christianity securely rests.

For the man who desires to know Christ and desires to be more like Him, and desires to lead others to Him, this book is one of God's choicest gifts.

Cortland Myers.

Tbemont Temple, Boston, Mass.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

With the consent of Professor David S. Schaff, of the Western Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pa., literary executor of Philip Schaff, the American Tract Society has abbreviated the original work as it appeared from the hand of Dr. Schaff in 1865 and 1883. Some testimonies there given have been omitted, and critical notes, as far as retained, have been transferred for purposes of ready reference from the end of the volume to the pages where they belong. The tables of contents at the head of the chapters are new.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Foreword 3

Preface 7

Preface

"What do ye think of the Son of Man? 55 This is the religious question of the age. The result of the renewed struggle cannot be doubtful: in all theological controversies, truth is the gainer in the end. Though nailed to the cross and buried in the tomb, it rises again triumphant over error, taking captivity captive, and changing at times even a bitter foe, like Saul of Tarsus, into a devoted friend. Goethe says : "The conflict of faith and unbelief remains the proper, the only, the deepest theme of the history of the world and mankind, to which all others are subordinated. 55 This very conflict centers in the Christological problem.

The question of Christ is the question of Christianity, which is the manifestation of his life in the world; it is the question of the Church, which rests upon him as the immovable rock ; it is the question of history, which revolves around him as the sun of the moral universe; it is the question of every man who instinctively yearns after him as the object of his noblest and purest aspirations; it is a question of personal salvation, which can only be obtained through Jesus. The whole fabric of Christianity stands or falls with its divine-human Founder ; and if it can never perish, it is because Christ lives, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

The object of this book is to show that the Person of Christ is the great central miracle of history, and the strongest evidence of Christianity. The very perfection

8 PREFACE

of his humanity is a proof of his Divinity. The indwelling of God in him is the only satisfactory explanation of his amazing character.

Standing on this rock, we may feel safe against the attacks of infidelity. The Person of Christ is to me the surest as well as the most sacred of all facts; as certain as my own personal existence; yea, even more so: for Christ lives in me, and he is the only valuable part of my existence. I am nothing without my Saviour; I am all with him, and would not exchange him for the whole world. To give up faith in Christ is to give up faith in humanity; to believe in him is to believe in the redemption and final glorification of men; and this faith is the best inspiration to a holy and useful life for the good of our race and the glory of God.

P.S.

Chapter I Introduction

1. THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHRIST. Christ's

name above every name. Yet thought and argument needed.

2. FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE COMPLEMENTARY.

Central place of doctrine of Christ. The principle of genuine Protestantism.

3. TWO METHODS OF SHOWING CHRIST'S GODHEAD.

(1) From the divine to the human. (2) From the human to the divine. The second method used here. It is in line with present tendencies.

4. CHRIST'S HUMAN PERSONAL CHARACTER. Per-

fect in the midst of an imperfect world. Honest inquirers find the truth.

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he was commanded to put off his shoes from his feet; for the place whereon he stood was holy ground. With what reverence and awe, then, should we approach the contemplation of the great reality — God manifest in the flesh — of which the vision of Moses was but a significant type and shadow!

1. The Life and Character of Jesus Christ is the holy of holies in the history of the world. Eighteen centuries have passed away since he appeared, in the fulness of time, on this earth to redeem a fallen race from sin and death, and to open a never-ceasing fountain of righteousness and life. The ages before him anxiously awaited his coming, as the fulfillment of the desire of all nations ; the ages after him proclaim his glory, and ever extend his dominion. The noblest and best of men under every clime hold him not only in the purest affection and the profoundest gratitude, but in divine adoration and worship. His name is above every name that may be named in heaven or on earth, and the only one whereby sinners can be saved. He is the Author of the new creation; the Way, the Truth, and the Life; the Prophet, Priest, and King of regenerate humanity. He is Immanuel, God with us; the Eternal Word become flesh; very God and very man in one undivided person, the Saviour of the world.

Thus he stands out to the faith of the entire Christian Church — Greek, Latin, and Evangelical — in every civilized country on the globe. Much as the various confessions and denominations differ in doctrines and usages, they are agreed in their love and adoration of Jesus. They lay down their arms when they approach the manger of Bethlehem where he was born, or the cross of Calvary where he died for our sins that we might live forever in heaven. He is the divine harmony of all human sects and creeds, the common life-center of all true Christians ; where their hearts meet with their affections, prayers, and hopes, in spite of the discord of their heads. The doctrines and institutions, the sciences and arts of Christendom, bear witness to the indelible impression he made upon the world; countless churches and cathedrals are as many monuments of gratitude to his holy name; hymns and prayers are daily and hourly ascending to his praise from public and private sanctuaries in all parts of the globe. His power is now greater, his kingdom larger, than ever; and it wiU continue to

INTRODUCTION 11

spread, until all nations shall bow before him and kiss his scepter of righteousness and peace.

Blessed is he who from the heart can believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and the fountain of salvation. True faith is an act of God wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, who reveals Christ to us in his true character, as Christ has revealed the Father. Faith, with its justifying, sanctifying, and saving power, is independent of science and learning, and may be kindled even in the heart of a little child. It is the peculiar glory of the Redeemer and his religion to be coextensive with humanity itself, without distinction of sex, age, nation, or race. His saving grace flows and overflows to all and for all, on the simple condition of faith.

This fact, however, does not supersede the necessity of thought and argument. Revelation, although above nature and above reason, is not against nature or against reason. On the contrary, nature and the supernatural, as has been well said by a distinguished New England divine, "constitute together the one system of God." 1 Christianity satisfies the deepest intellectual as well as moral wants of man, who is created in the image and for the glory of God. It is the revelation of truth as well as of life.

2. Faith and Knowledge are not antagonistic, but complementary forces ; not enemies, but inseparable twin sisters. Faith precedes knowledge, but just as necessarily it leads to knowledge; while true knowledge, on the other hand, is always rooted and grounded in faith, and tends to confirm and to strengthen it. Thus we find the two combined in the famous confession of Peter, when he says, in the name of all the other apostles : "We

1 Horace Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural believe and we know that thou art the Christ." 2 So intimately are both connected, that we may also reverse the famous maxim of Augustine, Anselm, and Schleiermacher, "Faith precedes knowledge," and say, "Knowledge precedes faith." For how can we believe in any object without at least some general historical knowledge of its existence and character? Faith even in its first form, as a submission to the authority of God and an assent to the truth of his revelation, is an exercise of the mind and reason as well as of the heart and the will. Hence faith has been defined as implying three things, — knowledge, assent, and trust or confidence. An idiot or a madman cannot believe. Our religion demands a rational, intelligent faith; and this, just in proportion to its strength and fervor, aims at an ever-deepening insight into its own sacred contents and object.

As living faith in Christ is the soul of all sound practical Christianity and piety, so the true doctrine of Christ is the soul and center of all sound Christian theology. St. John makes the denial of the incarnation of the Son of God the criterion of Antichrist, and consequently the belief in this truth the test of Christianity. The incarnation of the eternal Logos, and the divine glory shining through the veil of Christ's humanity, is the grand theme of his Gospel, which he wrote with the pen of an angel from the very heart of Christ, as his favorite disciple and bosom friend. The Apostles' Creed, starting as it does from the confession of Peter, makes the article on Christ most prominent, and assigns to it the central position between the preceding article on God the Father, and the succeeding article on the Holy

2 John 6:69 — "We have believed and know." The reverse order we have in John 10:38: "That ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him;" and in 1 John 5: 13.

INTRODUCTION 13

Ghost. The development of ancient Catholic theology commenced and culminated with the triumphant defense of the true divinity and true humanity of Christ against the opposite heresies of Judaizing Ebionism, which denied the former, and paganizing Gnosticism, which resolved the latter into a shadowy phantom. Evangelical theology is essentially Christological, or controlled throughout by the proper idea of Christ as the God-Man and Saviour. This is emphatically the article of the standing or falling Church. In this, the two most prominent ideas of the Reformation — the doctrine of the supremacy of the Scriptures, and the doctrine of justification by grace through faith — meet, and are vitally united. Christ's word, the only unerring and efficient guide of truth; Christ's work, the only unfailing and sufficient source of peace; Christ all in all, — this is the principle of genuine Protestantism.

3. Two Methods of Showing Christ's Godhead. — In the construction of the true doctrine of Christ's person, we may, with St. John in the prologue to his Gospel, begin from above with his eternal Godhead, and proceed, through the creation and the preparatory revelation of the Old Testament economy, till we reach the incarnation and his truly human life for the redemption of the race. Or, with the other Evangelists, we may begin from below with his birth from the Virgin Mary, and rise, through the successive stages of his earthly life, his discourses and miracles, to his assumption into that divine glory which he had before the foundation of the world. The result reached in both cases is the same, namely: that Christ unites in his person the whole fulness of the Godhead, and the whole fulness of sinless manhood.——

The older theologians, both Catholic and Evangelical, proved the divinity of the Saviour in a direct way from the miracles performed by him; from the prophecies and types fulfilled in him; from the divine names which he bears ; from the divine attributes which are predicated of him ; from the divine works which he performed ; and from the divine honors which he claims, and which are fully accorded to him by his apostles and the whole Christian Church to this day.

But the divinity of Christ may also be proved by the opposite process, — the contemplation of the singular perfection of his humanity; which rises by almost universal consent, even of unbelievers, so far above every human greatness known before or since, that it can only be rationally explained on the ground of such an essential union with the Godhead as he claimed himself, and as his inspired apostles ascribed to him. The more deeply we penetrate the veil of his flesh, the more clearly we behold the glory of the Only-Begotten of the Father shining through the same, full of grace and of truth.

Modern theology owes this new homage to the Saviour. The powerful and subtle attacks of the latest phases of infidelity upon the credibility of the gospel history call for a more vigorous defense than was ever made before, and have already led, by way of reaction, to new triumphs of the old faith of the Church in her divine Head.

Our humanitarian, philanthropic, and yet skepticaj age is more open to this argument, which proceeds from the humanity to the divinity, than to the old dogmatic method of demonstration which follows the opposite process. With Thomas, the representative of honest and earnest skepticism among the apostles, many noble and inquiring minds refuse to believe in the divinity of the Lord unless supported by convincing arguments of reason : they desire to put the finger into the print of the

INTRODUCTION 15

nails, and to thrust the hand into his side, before they exclaim, in humble adoration : "My Lord and my God ! " They cannot easily be brought to believe in miracles on abstract reasoning or on historical evidence. But, if they once could see the great moral miracle of Christ's person and character, they would have no difficulty with his miraculous works. For a superhuman being must of necessity do superhuman deeds. The contrary would be unnatural, and the greatest miracle. The character of the tree accounts for the character of the fruit. We believe in the miracles of Christ because we believe in his person as the divine Man and the central miracle of the moral universe.

4. Christ's Human Personal Character. — It is from this point of view that we shall endeavor to analyze and exhibit the human character of Christ. We propose to take up the man, Jesus of Nazareth, as he appears on the simple, unsophisticated record of the honest fishermen of Galilee, and as he lives in the faith of Christendom ; and we shall find him in all the stages of his life, both as a private individual and as a public character, so far elevated above the reach of successful rivalry, and so singularly perfect, that this very perfection, in the midst of an imperfect and sinful world, constitutes an irresistible proof of his divinity.

A full discussion of the subject would require us to consider Christ in his official as well as personal character; and to describe him as a teacher, a reformer, a worker of miracles, and the founder of a spiritual kingdom universal in extent and perpetual in time. From every point of view, we should be irresistibly driven to the same result. But our present purpose confines us to the consideration of his personal character ; and Lhis alone, we think, is sufficient for the conclusion.

Infidels, it is true, are seldom converted by argument; for the springs of unbelief are in the heart and will rather than in the head. But honest and truthloving inquirers, like Nathanael and Thomas, will never refuse, on proper evidence, to receive the truth.

Blessed are they that seek the truth; for they shall find it.

Chapter II Childhood And Youth

5. INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD. Christ comes before us

as a child. Combination of humility and grandeur. Yet no unnatural prodigy. Ennobling influence of the Christ-child at Christmas.

6. BOYHOOD. Scene at twelve in the Temple. Contrast

of the pseudo-gospels.

Jesus passed through all the stages of human life from infancy to manhood, and represented each in its ideal form, that he might redeem and sanctify them all, and be a perpetual model for imitation. He was the model infant, the model boy, the model youth, and the model man. 3 But the weakness, decline, and decrepitude of old age would be incompatible with his character and mission as the Regenerator of the race and Prince of life. He died and rose in the full bloom of early manhood, and lives in the hearts of his people in unfading freshness and unbroken vigor forever.

5. Infancy and Childhood. — Let us first glance at the infancy and childhood of Jesus. The history of the race commences with the beauty of innocent youth in the garden of Eden, "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," in

a This idea is almost as old as the Christian Church, and was already taught by Irenseus, who, through the single link of his teacher Polyearp, stood connected with the age of St. John the apostle.

beholding Adam and Eve created in the image of their Maker, — the crowning glory of all his wonderful works. So the second Adam, the Redeemer of the fallen race, the Restorer and Perfecter of man, comes first before us in the accounts of the Gospels as a child, born, not in Paradise, it is true, but among the dreary ruins of sin and death ; from a humble virgin, in a lowly manger, yet pure and innocent, — the subject of the praise of angels and the adoration of men. Even the announcement and expectation of his birth transforms his virgin mother, the bride of the humble carpenter, into an inspired prophetess and poetess; rejuvenates the aged parents of the Baptist in hopeful anticipation of the approaching salvation ; and makes the unborn babe leap in Elisabeth's womb, — the babe who was to prepare the way for his coming. The immortal psalms of Elisabeth, Mary, and Zacharias combine the irresistible charms of poetry with truth, and are a worthy preparation for the actual appearance of the Christ-child, at the very threshold of the gospel salvation, when the highest poetry was to become reality, and reality to surpass the sublimest ideal of poetry. 4 And, when the heavenly child was born, heaven and earth, the shepherds of Bethlehem in the name of Israel longing after salvation, and the wise men from the East as the representatives of heathenism in its dark groping after the "unknown God," unite in the worship of the infant King and Saviour.

Here we meet, at the very beginning of the earthly history of Christ, that singular combination of humility and grandeur, of simplicity and sublimity, of the human and divine, which characterizes it throughout, and dis-

4 See Luke 1:41-45; the Magnificat, or the Virgin's Song, vers, 46-55; the Benedictus, or the Song of Zacharias, vers. 67-79.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19

tinguishes it from every other history. He appears in the world first as a child, as a poor child, in one of the smallest towns of a remote country, 5 in one of the lowliest spots of that town, in a stable, in a manger, a helpless fugitive from the wrath of a cruel tyrant, — thus presenting, at first sight, every stumbling-block to our faith. But, on the other hand, the appearance of the angel, the inspired hymns of Zacharias and Mary, the holy exultation of Elisabeth, Anna, and Simeon, the prophecies of Scripture, the theological lore of the scribes at Jerusalem, even the dark political suspicion of Herod, the star of Bethlehem, the journey of the Magi from the distant East, the dim light of astrology, the significant night-vision of Joseph, and God's providence overruling every event, — form a glorious array of evidences for the divine origin of the Christ-child. Heaven and earth seem to move around him as their center. What a contrast ! A child in the manger, yet bearing the salvation of the world; a child hated and feared, yet longed for and loved; a child poor and despised, yet honored and adored, — beset by danger, yet marvelously preserved; a child setting the stars in heaven, the city of Jerusalem, the shepherds of Judaea, and the sages of the East in motion, — attracting the best elements of the world, and repelling all that is dark and evil ! This conception is too deep, too sublime, too significant, to be the invention of illiterate fishermen.

Yet, with all these marks of divinity upon him, the infant Saviour is not represented, either by Matthew or Luke, as an unnatural prodigy, anticipating the matu-

* Bethlehem was indeed the ancestral seat of the house of David (Ruth 1:1, 2), but remained an insignificant place, and is not even mentioned among the towns of Judah in the Hebrew text of Joshua, nor in Neh. 11:25.

rity of a later age, but as a truly human child, silently lying and smiling on the bosom of his virgin mother; "growing" and "waxing strong in spirit," 6 and therefore subject to the law of regular development, though differing from all other children by his supernatural conception and perfect freedom from hereditary sin and guilt. He appears in the celestial beauty of unspotted innocence, a veritable flower of paradise. He was "that Holy Thing," according to the announcement of the angel Gabriel (Luke 1: 35), admired and loved by all who approached him in a childlike spirit, but exciting the dark suspicion of the tyrant king who represented his future enemies and persecutors.

Who can measure the ennobling, purifying, and cheering influence which proceeds from the contemplation of the Christ-child, at each returning Christmas season, upon the hearts of young and old in every land and nation ! The loss of the first estate is richly compensated by the undying innocence of paradise regained.

6. Boyhood. — Of the boyhood of Jesus we know only one fact, recorded by Luke ; but it is in perfect keeping with the peculiar charm of his childhood, and foreshadows at the same time the glory of his public life as one uninterrupted service of his heavenly Father. When twelve years old, we find him in the Temple, in the midst of the Jewish doctors ; not teaching and offending them by any immodesty or forwardness, but hearing and asking questions: thus actually learning from them, and yet filling them with astonishment at his understanding and answers. There is nothing premature, forced, or unbecoming his age, and yet a degree of wisdom and an

e Luke 2:40, "And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit;" precisely the same expression which Luke used, 1:80, of John the Baptist.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21

intensity of interest in religion which rises far above a purely human youth. "He increased," we are told, "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). He was subject to his parents, and practised all the virtues of an obedient son ; and yet he filled them with a sacred awe as they saw him absorbed in "the things of his Father," 7 and heard him utter words which they were unable to understand at the time, but which Mary treasured up in her heart as a holy secret, convinced that they must have some deep meaning answering to the mystery of his supernatural conception and birth.

Such an idea of a harmless and faultless heavenly childhood, of a growing, inquiring, and yet surprisingly wise boyhood, as it meets us in living reality at the portal of the gospel history, never entered the imagination of biographer, poet, or philosopher before. On the contrary, as has been justly observed, 8 "in all the higher ranges of character, the excellence portrayed is never the simple unfolding of a harmonious and perfect beauty contained in the germ of childhood, but is a character formed by a process of rectification in which many follies are mended and distempers removed; in which confidence is checked by defeat, passion moderated by reason, smartness sobered by experience. Commonly a certain pleasure is taken in showing how the many wayward sallies of the boy are, at length, reduced by discipline to the character of wisdom, justice, and public heroism so much admired. Besides, if any writer, of almost any age, will undertake to describe, not merely a spotless but a superhuman or celestial childhood, not having the reality before him, he must be

T See Luke 2:49, R. V. margin.

8 Horace Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, p. 280.

somewhat more than human himself if he does not pile together a mass of clumsy exaggerations, and draw and overdraw, till neither heaven nor earth can find any verisimilitude in the picture."

This unnatural exaggeration, into which the mythical fancy of man, in its endeavor to produce a superhuman childhood and boyhood, will inevitably fall, is strikingly exhibited in the myth of Hercules, who, while yet a suckling in the cradle, squeezed two monster serpents to death with his tender hands ; and still more in the accounts of the apocryphal Gospels on the prodigious performances of the infant Saviour. These apocrj^- phal Gospels are related to the canonical Gospels as a counterfeit to the genuine coin, or as a caricature to the inimitable original; but, by the very contrast, they tend, negatively, to corroborate the truth of the evangelical history. The strange contrast has been frequently urged, especially in the Strauss-controversy, and used as an argument against the mythical theory. While the Evangelists expressly reserve the performance of miracles to the age of maturity and public life, and observe a significant silence concerning the parents of Jesus, the pseudo-evangelists fill the infancy and early years of the Saviour and his mother with the strangest prodigies, and make the active intercession of Mary very prominent throughout. According to their representation, even dumb idols, irrational beasts, and senseless trees bow in adoration before the infant Jesus on his journey to Egypt; and after his return, when yet a boy of five or seven years, he changes balls of clay into flying birds for the idle amusement of his playmates, strikes terror round about him, dries up a stream of water by a mere word, transforms his companions into goats, raises the dead to life, and performs all sorts of miraculous

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23

cures through a magical influence which proceeds from the very water in which he was washed, the towels which he used, and the bed on which he slept.

Here we have the falsehood and absurdity of unnatural fiction ; while the New Testament presents to us the truth and beauty of a supernatural yet most real history, which shines out only in brighter colors by the contrast of the mythical shadow.

Chapter III Training

7. WITHOUT ADVANTAGE OF SCHOOLS OR LARGE

INFLUENCES. Humble location at Nazareth. No natural cause for final result.

8. CONTRAST WITH LUTHER AND SHAKESPEARE.

Luther the son of poor peasants. But he had schools, professors, libraries. Shakespeare, a Warwickshire youth. Yet had access to books and lived in London.

9. CHRIST'S INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY. Christ ac-

quainted with only the Old Testament. He confined himself strictly to religion. Yet sheds light over whole world of man and nature. Speaks from divine intuition and is the truth. Has an authority that commands attention.

With the exception of these few significant hints, the youth of Jesus, and the preparation for his public ministry, are enshrined in mysterious silence. But we know the outward condition and circumstances under which he grew up ; and these furnish no explanation for the astounding results, without the admission of the supernatural and divine element in his life.

7. Without Advantage of Schools or Large Influences. — Jesus lived among a people who are seldom and only contemptuously named by the ancient classics, and were subjected at the time to the yoke of a foreign oppressor. He grew up in a remote and conquered province of the Roman Empire; in the darkest district of Palestine; in a country town of proverbial insignifi-

TRAINING 25

cance. He spent his youth in poverty and manual labor, in the obscurity of a carpenter's shop; far away from universities, academies, libraries, and literary or polished society. He had no opportunities, except the parental care, the daily wonders of nature, the Old Testament Scriptures, the weekly Sabbath services of the synagogue (Luke 4: 16), the annual festivals in Jerusalem (Luke 2: 42), and the secret intercourse of his soul with God. These are indeed the great educators of the mind and heart. The book of Nature and the book of Revelation are filled with richer and more important lessons than all the works of human art and learning; but they were accessible alike to every Jew, and gave no advantage to Jesus over his humblest neighbor.