activity to the synagogues in foreign countries they would be more
successful. Here, as the fanaticism of race was less, the spiritual
ideal of Christianity would have fewer obstacles to overcome. Still in
all their dealings with Jews they probably met with little success.
To the Jews Christ crucified was indeed a stumbling-block which even
the promise of his second advent could not remove. But as soon as the
preachers of Christianity touched the Gentiles, they must have reaped
an abundant harvest. Such was the disorganization of religion at this
time in the Roman world that, notwithstanding the harsh exclusiveness
of Judaism, Gentiles in large numbers were becoming proselytes to it.
Under these circumstances Christianity, which had dropped all the harsh
features of Judaism, and had added to the remainder much that was in
harmony with Gentile ideas, must have easily made converts among them.
Though probably very soon the majority of Christians were Gentiles,
all the heads of the Church still were Jews, and its principles
remained wholly Jewish. This period of Jewish Christianity may fairly
be said to have lasted in full vigour until the death of St. Paul.

For more than the second half of this time the missionary activity of
the Church centred in St. Paul. After Christ himself, no man influenced
the circumstances and doctrines of Christianity more than he. The
stress laid upon faith as a means of salvation in early Christianity
was largely the result of his personal character. A renegade from the
most rigid legalism of Judaism, he naturally, as a Christian, passed to
the other extreme, and exalted faith above the righteousness of works.
The same recoil from Judaism made him the apostle of the Gentiles. But
though St. Paul was as little Jewish as an unhellenised Jew could be,
and strained the doctrines of Christianity greatly in the direction
of Gentile ideas, his religion was still essentially Jewish. In his
epistles—putting aside his references to the resurrection of the dead,
made because he was writing to Gentiles who were not familiar with
the doctrine—as well as in the other books of the New Testament that
belong to this period, we find stress laid chiefly on two dogmas, the
Atonement and the second advent.[61] These two dogmas were closely
connected, and were the strength of the early Church.

The doctrine of the Atonement was that Christ had died for the sins
of the world. “God was in Christ,” says St. Paul, “reconciling the
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”[62]
The term “world,” as used in this and kindred passages, can only be
understood by keeping the doctrine of the second advent steadily in
view. All the glories predicted by the prophets for the Messianic
times were transferred in the expectation of the early Christians to
the period of the second coming of Christ. They believed that when
their lord returned there would be literally “new heavens and a new
earth.”[63] This new world, then to be established in fulness, they
held to have been actually founded by the death of Christ, which had
rendered it possible by relieving man from the burden of sin. But
in their case only had sin been thus put away, and accordingly they
were the foundation of the world reconciled to God, which after the
second coming of Christ would remain alone, the old world of sin and
alienation from God which still survived beside the new being then
finally destroyed. Christ had left them to preach the gospel, that is,
to snatch souls from the perishing to the permanent world. The latter
seemed to them the real world, and the other, which existed for a time
beside it, only a vanishing shadow. For this real and permanent world,
then represented by the Church, they believed Christ to have died. The
more hopeful Christians might expect that the two worlds would yet
become identical, through the conversion of all men before the second
advent. Then Christ would come, not in wrath, but simply in love; not
to punish, but simply to reward. This, however, could only have been a
rare belief. In general the expectation of the Church was that Christ
would come speedily, and sweep away all men outside it, and leave it
alone on an earth renewed and glorified. Faith in him was the pass that
procured admission to the felicities of his Messianic reign; to those
outside Christianity his coming could only bring confusion and ruin.[64]

This new world, the creation of which was begun by Christ’s death, and
was to be completed by his second coming, the early Christians regarded
as a kingdom of light girdled on every side by the old world or kingdom
of darkness. It was their mission, they held, to extend its frontiers,
and continuously to encroach on the region given over to night. Every
inch of ground they gained they believed to be saved from an imminent
destruction. For the fervour of proselytism which possessed them rested
on the dogma of the second advent. To it they looked forward as a
blessing to themselves and a terror to the rest of mankind.[65] All men
outside the Church seemed to be walking on the brink of a precipice,
over which they were shortly to be hurled. Naturally to save as many as
possible of these from a danger so immediate and so vividly conceived
was to most Christians the chief object of life. Some of the sterner
of them, as we know from the book of Revelation, which was written at
the close of this period, expected with gladness the coming of Christ
to take vengeance on his enemies. But the harsh and exclusive spirit of
that characteristically Jewish work could not have been general; and we
may be sure that the Christians, as a whole, felt only pity when they
thought of the impending destruction of the proud non-Christian world.

Many strange ideas entered into the expectation of the coming of
Christ. It was even thought that at the last moment he would convert
and save those who had been unreached by his earthly envoys. St. Paul
believed that then, “after the fulness of the Gentiles had come in,”
Israel would at length be saved.[66] As to what was to follow the
second advent, opinions slightly varied. According to St. Paul,[67]
Christ would establish after it an eternal and heavenly kingdom of
the Christian living and risen dead; but according to the book of
Revelation,[68] he would then reign for a thousand years on earth,
afterwards beginning his everlasting rule.

From the new world then to be completed the Christians believed sin
to have been put away by the death of Christ. The doctrine of the
Atonement, as they understood it, meant actual deliverance from sin,
and not mere deliverance from its penalty. Nothing could be clearer
than St. Paul’s statement of this.[69] All St. Paul’s epistles are
pervaded by a tone of grieved surprise that sin should be found
existing within the Church. Sin in his eyes was essentially the mark
of the old world. If, then, a Christian sinned, he showed that he did
not really belong to the new world; he was under the law, and not under
grace, and by the law he would be condemned; he would perish with
the perishing world. Probably, under the pressure of such a belief,
the Church at this time was the purest society of men that has ever
existed. Considering the moral condition of the period, it is likely
that the distinction then made between believer and sinner almost
corresponded to actual fact. Practically within all was good, and
without all was evil. In modern evangelical Protestantism language of
the same kind is often used, but only as the shadowy semblance of what
was once substantial reality.

The belief in the second advent of Christ in another way must have
helped to maintain the purity of the early Christians. Living in the
constant expectation of his immediate coming, worldly pleasures seemed
too transient and unsure to be worthy of attention. Their belief too,
was invested with a vivid sense of reality. They expected to see
their lord in all his heavenly majesty, not under strange and unknown
conditions only to be experienced by passing through the gate of death,
but in the midst of the familiar associations of earth. They awaited
his appearance “in the very world which is the world of all of us,” and
the shadow of his coming lay on all the thoughts and actions of their
lives.

With the fading of so beautiful a dream the real corruption of
Christianity began. As the years passed by, and Christ did not appear,
the hopes of the Church gradually died away. The doctrine of his speedy
coming at length became the last refuge of fanaticism. With it “the
freshness of the early world” of Christianity finally perished; the
Church never knew again the simplicity and purity which marked this
period of its youth.

The expectation of the immediate coming of Christ was the sustaining
principle of Jewish Christianity. The loss of it threw the Church
completely into Pagan hands. While it prevailed, Christians cared
little about the explanation of their theology; existing conditions
were regarded as too provisional. But afterwards, when a long life
seemed to lie before the Church, theological “pseudo-science” was
born. New and complex doctrines were needed to engage the thoughts of
Christians, and these Pagan Christianity supplied.

Though the Christianity of this period was thoroughly Jewish in the
character of its doctrines, the preaching of it was addressed chiefly
to Pagans. St. Paul was their representative among the heads of the
Church, and preached almost exclusively to them. In turning to them,
Christianity had to a certain extent to adapt itself to their ideas.
The nature of this adaptation is clearly visible in the writings of St.
Paul.

I have said that, in preaching to Jews, the watchwords of Christianity
probably were “Jesus and the remission of sins.” In preaching to
Pagans, these watchwords would not have been worth much. Pagans looked
for no Messiah, nor were they likely to be inconveniently conscious of
sin. The great doctrine of the Church on which stress was laid when it
preached to Pagans, as we have clear evidence in St. Paul’s epistles,
was the resurrection. Christianity attracted Pagans mainly by promising
them the resurrection of the dead. This was naturally the case, as
to them, unlike Jews, it was a novel doctrine. But the strength of
Christianity in dealing with Pagans lay not merely in its assertion of
the resurrection of the dead, but in the proof of the resurrection it
professed to give. This, again, is plainly evident in the epistles of
St. Paul. He dwells so much on the resurrection of Christ that we might
suspect him to have been tainted originally with the scepticism of the
Sadducees. By this peculiarity, however, he was exactly fitted to be
the apostle of the Gentiles. With his writings before us, we may be
sure that he preached to Pagans, as he is made to do in the Acts of the
Apostles, “Jesus and the resurrection.”[70] To him the resurrection of
Christ was the evidence for the general resurrection of the dead; while
his conviction that Christ had risen from the dead rested on the belief
that he as well as others had seen Christ after his death.[71] And so
St. Paul could preach the resurrection to Pagans in a very effective
manner, declaring that the dead would rise again, and giving as proof
of this the fact that one man, Jesus, was known thus to have risen, as
after his death he had been seen by many credible witnesses, including
St. Paul himself. If God had raised Jesus, why should he not also raise
other men? Christ had risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits
of them that slept.

Thus while the watchwords of the Church in preaching to Jews were
“Jesus and the remission of sins,” its watchwords in preaching to
Pagans were “Jesus and the resurrection.” That the evidence on which
this preaching was founded should have existed is natural enough.
The disciples of Christ, as Jews, necessarily believed that he,
after his death, had ascended to heaven, and was living there with
God. Such being the case, there is nothing strange in their fancying
that he occasionally appeared to them.[72] The death of Christ must
have immediately weeded out of the Church all but his most faithful
followers. It is not surprising that these, in the midst of the
disturbance and excitement of those early days, should have seen
visions of their lord, should have imagined that he came sometimes from
heaven to console them and strengthen them in their weakness. People
so superstitious, in a period of so much supernaturalism, were almost
certain to see such visions. St. Paul’s own particular vision, which
played so important a part in the history of early Christianity, of
course can only be explained by referring to the peculiarities of his
personal character.

This basing the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead on the
resurrection of Christ had nothing to do with the subsequent belief
that he rose on earth and stayed there for a time. St. Paul evidently
believed that Christ appeared to others as well as to himself by
coming straight from heaven, and that his resurrection had been his
entrance into heavenly glory.[73]

In another and a more important respect the influence of its Pagan
proselytes affected the principles of Jewish Christianity. In preaching
to Pagans it was necessary to determine the nature of Christ. For Jews
it was enough to call him the Messiah; their imagination supplied
the rest. But Pagans, who had no Messianic expectations, required an
explanation of his position as founder of the Church. This influence
naturally was most felt by St. Paul, and through him it had a
considerable effect in shaping the development of Christian doctrine.

St. Paul believed that Christ “was born of the seed of David according
to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God in power by the
resurrection from the dead.”[74] Thus St. Paul, as Strauss says, began
the deification of Christ. Of course, as Strauss also points out,
this was due to the fact that he had never personally seen Christ.
Entering the Church some years after its founder’s death, when already
legendary influences must have been active in exalting him, St. Paul
had no knowledge of Christ to check his natural tendency to glorify
the master whom he believed to have appeared to him in a blaze of
heavenly light. The other Christians who saw visions of Christ had
probably all known him during his life, and this must have interfered
with their impulses to magnify him. Naturally, then, St. Paul went
further than the other leaders of the Church, and, having seen Christ
only in a heavenly vision, thought of him only as a heavenly being.
The conception he ultimately formed of Christ in consequence of this
tendency to exalt him is somewhat obscure. The term “son of God” in the
mouth of a Jew might have only a vague meaning applicable to any man.
As employed by St. Paul, it evidently has a special significance. He
seems to have believed that Christ was the true Man, Man as he ought
to be. Adam was the first and imperfect man, Christ was the second and
perfect man. Thus God was the father of Christ in a fuller sense than
that in which he was the father of ordinary men, as he had imparted
to Christ more of his own nature. Through this possession of elements
of the divine nature, Christ was able to represent and redeem mankind
fallen under the power of sin. All faithful followers of him were to be
made partakers of his divine characteristics, were to become children
and heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, were to suffer and be
glorified with him.[75]

Christ was evidently regarded by St. Paul as made thus peculiarly the
son of God by his possession of God’s spirit. No idea of his having
had a miraculous human birth entered into this belief. God in the
fulness of time sent forth his son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the
law.[76] St. Paul, however, seems to have believed vaguely in Christ’s
pre-human existence;[77] but the pre-existence he assigned to Christ
was potential rather than actual, Christ existing from the beginning of
time as the destined deliverer of mankind.[78]

So the extent of St. Paul’s deification of Christ may be thus generally
described. He believed that Christ was in a peculiar sense the son of
God—that is, something more than ordinary man. Intermediate between God
and man, he was at once God’s agent and man’s representative. But St.
Paul clearly makes him inferior to God as well as superior to man, and
allows him no power except what is delegated to him by God.[79] Thus
as yet there was no sign of the doctrine of the Incarnation, though a
path for it was being prepared. For the doctrine of the Incarnation,
it must be remembered, is not a mere deification of Christ. It is
important, not because it deifies man, but because it humanizes God.
St. Paul undoubtedly, so far as he deified—it would be better to say
divinised—Christ, helped the Pagan tendencies of later Christianity,
but there was nothing actually Pagan in his belief.

The death of St. Paul marked the beginning of the end of Jewish
Christianity. As the Jewish leaders died off, the vast Pagan majority
seized upon power and impressed their ideas on the doctrines of the
Church. Between the undiluted Jewish Christianity of its origin and
the Pagan Christianity of the second century, Paulinism served as a
link which enabled them finally to remain in nominal connection. In
the spurious epistles attributed to St. Paul we can trace the steps
of advancing Paganism, and observe the struggle for reconciliation
which his followers inherited from him. Paulinism was ultimately lost
in the Paganism with which its Jewish opponents had identified it.
But it bridged the interval between the Jewish and Pagan periods of
Christianity, and so saved the Church from a rupture it could not have
survived.

CHAPTER V.

PAGAN CHRISTIANITY.

While the movement within Judaism with which hitherto we have been
mainly occupied was tending to create out of it a world-religion,
outside of it circumstances were preparing to make this tendency
succeed. The later additions to Judaism, the supernatural system of
dogma which formed the basis of Christianity, were, as I have already
said, favourable to its expansion by reason of their harmony with Pagan
ideas. About the time at which they entered strongly into Judaism,
began a steady break-up of the religions of the Pagan world. The
material power of Rome attacked them from below, by destroying the
national foundations on which they rested, while Greek culture and
philosophy, advancing under the protection of that power, assailed
them from above. Under the double pressure they faded away. In the age
of the apostles, over the greater part of the Roman empire religion
was a matter of sincere belief only with the lower orders of the
people. A few men of thought and learning put it utterly aside.
Between these two classes there was the great body of ordinary persons
mentioned at the beginning of our first chapter, who had lost faith
in the popular religions, but were themselves thoroughly religious.
The credulity which always characterizes periods of religious change,
when some form of religion is destroyed, though the religious spirit
retains its energy, was universal. Besides this break-up of the old
religions in consequence of the extension of Roman power, in another
way that extension of power more directly prepared a path for a great
proselytising system. As national limits were overthrown, of course
a religion that ignored national distinctions could more easily
overspread the world.[80] Thus when Christianity touched Paganism
everything promised it success. In fact, the critical period in the
life of Christianity was that which immediately followed its founder’s
death. While it existed only in Palestine, it was in great danger.
When it spread among the synagogues of Jews in foreign countries, it
had a surer footing. And when from these, which served as a means of
introducing it to them, it turned to Pagans, it was placed beyond
possibility of failure.

It is interesting to note that Christianity failed to conquer the
Judaism from which it sprang, while the Paganism seemingly foreign to
it everywhere succumbed to it. A few centuries after this time every
part of the Roman empire professed Christianity as its religion, while
the Jews remained still the same. Paganism was overcome and absorbed
by Christianity, but Judaism shook it off as an excrescence without
suffering harm. In this fact there is nothing surprising. Judaism was
too strong for Christianity to subdue it, while Paganism was a ready
prey. The Roman empire, outside Judaism, lay before Christianity like
a body without a mind; it needed a unifying religion to match its
political unity, and this Christianity supplied.

The general effect likely to be produced on Christianity by its
reception of Pagan disciples may now be considered. It is obvious that
Pagans, who were steeped in religious ideas very different from those
with which the Jews were familiar, would carry with them into Jewish
Christianity different principles of religion. To ascertain the extent
of this difference, we must compare Judaism and Paganism.

As a pure monotheism, Judaism stood alone in the world. A purely
monotheistic religion tends to produce humility and stress on faith.
The two great principles of human action, which Mr. Lecky names
as the alternative forces that underlie every important movement
of mankind,[81] a sense of human dignity and a sense of sin, are
distinctive marks of polytheism and monotheism. Monotheism, with
its one God so far removed from man, inspires a feeling of human
nothingness in comparison with him. Polytheism, with its far more
anthropomorphic and less awful gods, does not dwarf man thus, but
enables him freely to compare himself with the divinities he worships.
And monotheism, by making man appear nothing beside God, necessarily
exalts faith above good works as a means of pleasing him; for when the
distance between them is so immense, the best that man can do appears
a trifle. Both these tendencies of Judaism, as a monotheism, were more
than counterbalanced by other circumstances connected with it. The
humility the Jews might feel when conscious of the difference between
themselves and God was more than outweighed by the pride they felt in
their superiority to the rest of mankind as his chosen people who alone
had the knowledge of him.[82] Their superiority to other men naturally
affected them more than their inferiority to God. The strict legalism
of Judaism also prevented stress on faith from being developed in it,
as a multitude of petty observances made it peculiarly a religion of
works. But both these principles were latent in Judaism, and were only
checked by special circumstances attending it as a national religion.
These circumstances being removed, the latent principles were sure to
be developed. And, in fact, in Jewish Christianity, which was neither
formal nor exclusive, their development was unmistakable. Early
Christianity was essentially distinguished both by humility and stress
on faith, as a glance at the New Testament is sufficient to show.

Simplicity of thought also characterized Judaism. Mysticism was
abhorrent to a pure Jew, though a hellenised Jew like Philo might be
steeped in it. Simplicity of worship, too, was a feature of Judaism;
for the splendid ritual connected with the temple at Jerusalem was not
properly a part of it, but was merely the expression of national pride.
When away from Jerusalem, the Jew worshipped in the simplest and purest
manner. And, most of all, morality was closely bound up with Judaism.
Josephus justly boasted that his religion made virtue an indispensable
part of itself.[83] The Jews as a whole were certainly far more moral
than the Pagans as a whole.

The opposite of all these qualities characterised Pagan religions.
Pagans felt no religious humility, for there was no great difference
between their gods and themselves. Pride, a sense of human dignity,
distinguished them as men. They had not to lay stress on faith, for
this pride made them fully recognize the value of their own good works.
Mysticism marked their religious thought, and sensuousness their
religious worship. Between morality and their religions there was only
the loosest connection.

Keeping these facts in view, we can easily understand the change in
Christianity which now began. All the characteristics of Judaism just
mentioned distinguished Jewish Christianity. Humility, stress on
faith, simplicity of thought and worship, and the closest connection
with morality clearly marked the religion of the early Church. This
was evidently the case because the first Christians were Jews. When,
then, the Pagans came in, having wrapped up in their religious ideas
pride, trust in good works, mysticism, a love of sensuous worship,
and a loose regard for morality, and when before long they alone made
up the Church, Christianity could not remain unchanged. Christianity
became Pagan because Pagans became Christians. And this is the full
explanation of its corruption. The Jews, in a religious sense, were
more highly developed than the Pagans, and so when it passed from Jews
to Pagans it necessarily deteriorated.

As Christianity was preached in the Pagan world, it continually reached
lower strata of Paganism. At first only the best Pagans could have
entered the Church, but afterwards, as it grew in influence, Pagans
of a constantly inferior type must have joined it. Thus the corruption
of Christianity proceeded, not merely because Pagans in larger numbers
professed it, but because, as time went by, a lower, a more Pagan class
became included within its ranks. All during the period we are now
examining probably belonged to the great middle order of society before
mentioned, philosophers and peasants equally being absent. Christianity
clung to the cities, and the restlessness of city life contributed to
the growth of its theology. We will now trace the results of the direct
influence of Paganism on the dogmas of the Church.

This influence naturally showed itself in a tendency towards the
exaltation of Christ. He would seem to Pagans the real god of
Christianity. God, the purely Jewish divinity, the national deity of
Judaism, must have been from the beginning unattractive to Pagans,
who disliked Jews, and were accustomed to gods that differed but
little from men. The identification by Marcionite Gnosticism of the
Jewish god with the malignant creator of matter showed how strong this
feeling could become. But for the most part Pagans would simply put
God aside, and fix all their attention on Christ. They would honour
and exalt him, and regard him as the representative of heaven. Thus
Paganism must have tended to develop still further the Christology of
Paulinism. The first result of this probably appeared in connection
with the Pauline phrase “son of God.” A Jew could not misinterpret the
phrase and give it a literal meaning, but a Pagan might do so easily.
Familiar with ideas of extremely anthropomorphic gods, Pagans would
naturally consider Christ to be the son of God in the sense in which
Herakles was the son of Zeus. As the proportion of Jews in the whole
number of Christians grew less, the increasing Paganism of the Church
developed this tendency, until finally it resulted in the belief in the
miraculous conception of Christ, the first distinctly Pagan dogma of
Christianity.

The gospels supply us with almost certain evidence that this was the
way in which the dogma originated. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke
are clear proof that the earlier traditions of the Church made Joseph
the father of Christ, and of course the Church was less Pagan then than
it was in later times. The doctrine, as Dean Milman points out, is
utterly un-Jewish.[84] The Jews always expected the Messiah to be born
in the ordinary manner, and they reverenced God too much to put him in
the place of a human father. So the dogma shows plainly that it was the
first triumph of Christian Paganism. Jewish Christianity was only able
slightly to spiritualize it, and to found it in appearance upon an
absurd misinterpretation of a passage of Isaiah.[85]

While the beginning of the gospel narratives was being constructed
by one influence of Pagan Christianity, the end of them was being
constructed by another. When the expectation of the second coming
of Christ was abandoned, the Church had to assign a different
meaning to his resurrection. Originally, and especially by St. Paul,
this was closely connected with the second advent.[86] St. Paul
evidently regarded the appearances of Christ to him and to others as
preliminaries of the second advent, but now they seemed to stand in
another light. Examining the traditions which preserved the remembrance
of the visions of Christ seen by the early Christians, the Church found
them, of course, clustered most thickly in the period immediately after
his death, when the conditions likely to produce them were strongest.
Visions seen after that time were probably only occasional and rare,
and, with the exception of St. Paul’s, they were sure to have little
importance. Finding, then, that nearly all the appearances of Christ
had occurred within a short period after his death, the Church would
naturally make a distinction between this period and subsequent
times. Christ obviously seemed to have been more present then than
afterwards. It would not be long before the belief would follow that
he had actually stayed on earth during this period, before he had
ascended to heaven. With his second coming no longer expected, that
he should have done so would seem quite natural. The Church having to
face a long life without Christ, it was reasonable that, before leaving
it to its lonely struggle, he should have stayed with it for a time
to sustain its immaturity and to strengthen it for its work. A solemn
ascension of Christ in presence of his disciples would seem to be
demanded as a suitable close to this period, and with the addition of
it the dogma was complete.

As we can see by comparing Luke’s gospel with the Acts, this stay on
earth was made shorter by an earlier than it was by a later belief. It
was probably fixed finally at forty days, in order to include different
reports of visions with places other than Jerusalem as their scene,
and possibly, through the influence of expiring Christian Judaism, to
match the forty days of Moses on Mount Sinai. That Christ rose on the
third day after his death was a dogma of older times accepted by St.
Paul,[87] founded, it is likely, on a passage of Hosea,[88] and there
was no difficulty in connecting it with the belief in his stay on
earth. So the final doctrine of the Church was that Christ rose again
on the third day after his death, stayed then forty days on earth, and
afterwards ascended to heaven, not to return till the day of judgment
and the end of mortal things.

The evidence in favour of this explanation of the origin of the
orthodox doctrine of the resurrection of Christ is exceptionally
strong. The accounts in the gospels, so confused and contradictory even
in comparison with the rest of them, and telling only of occasional
appearances of Christ to his disciples, show us clearly the underlying
basis of dreams and visions on which the legend was founded. The belief
in the resurrection of Christ on earth, we may conclude with almost
historical certainty, arose from the late combination of the early
traditions of Christ’s appearances from heaven to his disciples.

Thus at the time to which we have now come the Church in general
believed Christ to be the divinely begotten and humanly conceived
son of God, who had risen after his death on earth, and then had
finally ascended to heavenly glory. Pagan principles had triumphed,
and Paganism was every moment growing stronger in Christianity. The
tendency to exalt Christ, already far advanced, had now nothing to
check it. Forces were at work which were inevitably destined fully to
deify Christ, to lift him to the level of the Jewish God. The Jewish
elements of Christianity, including monotheism, were thus in great
danger of utterly perishing. Christianity, in fact, was tending to
become a purely Pagan polytheistic religion, with a human being as its
most important god, when it was saved by the influence on it at this
critical period of a fortunate development in Jewish hands of Pagan
philosophy.

Philosophy, from the moment of its first existence, has always by an
irresistible pressure been driven towards monotheism. The consciousness
in the thinker of his own unity, and the inevitable conditions of
thought, alike force him to imagine one power as the cause of all
the phenomena of life. Philosophy, when it arises in the midst of
polytheism, at first allows the orthodox gods to be the subordinate
instruments of this power, but it soon develops a tendency to sweep
them utterly away. Then, having shaken itself free of popular religion,
it builds up a new religion of its own, in which it asserts the
existence of one supreme intelligence, the creator and governor of the
world.

When philosophy has got thus far, and has constructed its eternal God,
certain difficulties confront it. God, as the great first cause, has
to be made perfect, for if he were imperfect thought would have to
ascend higher to find a cause of his imperfection. But as the creator
of all things, God at one time must have existed alone, an absolute
being simply self-contemplative. When he began to create, he ceased
to be absolute, and became a relative being contemplative of his own
creation. If as an absolute being he was perfect, how did he remain
perfect when he became a relative being? The study of this problem has
generally driven philosophy into pantheism, but where it has maintained
its hold on theism, it has been forced to suppose that a change
occurred in God at the time of creation, by which he remained absolute
in regard to himself, though he became relative in regard to that which
he created.

Two Gods had thus to be imagined, one absolute and eternal, the other
relative and existing from the beginning of created things. But these
two had to be one, or else the first or absolute God would have been
relative to the second, and so the old difficulty would have been
revived. Hence there was need of a mystery; God was one and yet two,
two persons and one substance. The first was God as he was through
all eternity, the second was God as he was manifested in creation,
his representative with everything but himself. Thus the second was a
mediator between the first and the world.

While for purely philosophical reasons philosophy was thus compelled
to dualise God, other reasons also impelled it to this conclusion.
Holding him to be pure mind, it had to explain his action on matter.
Here, too, it was necessary to suppose, a mediator between the material
world and God. And in proportion as philosophy advanced in its theism,
it extended the attributes of God and raised him to a loftier height
above created things; and hence, to connect him with what was so far
inferior, a mediator again was needed. But in all cases this mediator
had to be a part of God himself, or no difficulty was met; and thus in
every way philosophy tended towards a divine dualism in mystery.

All Greek philosophy, except where it drifted into pantheism or pure
materialism, was more or less influenced by this tendency. In Platonism
especially it is clearly marked. The ideal world of Plato fills the
place of the second or relative God, and acts as a mediator between God
the absolute and the material world. God, according to Plato, is not
the creator of matter, which, so far as it is recognized in his system,
is given an eternal existence. The action of God is confined to the
ideal world, of which material phenomena are a distorted reflection. At
the time of the beginning of Christianity these features of Platonism
were strongly developed in the theology of an Alexandrian Jew.

Outside Palestine the most important centre of Jewish thought was
Alexandria. There from the time of the captivity a large colony of
Jews had been established. This colony became in many respects almost
independent of Jerusalem in religion; it formed and translated its own
canon of sacred writings, and even set up a temple of its own. Speaking
the Greek language and living in the most cosmopolitan city of the
world, the meeting-ground of eastern and western thought, the Jews of
Alexandria were naturally affected by the speculative activity of Greek
philosophy. The high development of Judaism encouraged speculation in
its adherents. The Jewish philosopher had not, like the Pagan, to cast
his religion aside when he began to seek out the causes of things;
on the contrary, his religion seemed to cover a great part of the
philosophical path. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that a
philosophy should have arisen among the Alexandrian Jews.

For us this philosophy is represented by Philo, who was born about
twenty years before Christ. A Jew by birth, and nominally always one in
religion, Philo was so steeped in Pagan thought that he really ranks
as a Greek philosopher. The chief object of his life was to reconcile
Judaism and Hellenism, to give a philosophical reason for every feature
of the Jewish religion. In fulfilment of this purpose, he handled
Judaism with considerable freedom, and bent its simple theology into a
mystical Platonism.

The tendency which inevitably characterized philosophy to push God back
from contact with creation, and to preserve his shadowy glory as an
absolute being, of course influenced Philo, who simply as a philosopher
was bound to be a pure theist. But as a Jew also, Philo was bound to
be a pure theist, with the most reverent conception of God. Thus two
forces acted on him, as a Jew and as a Greek philosopher, driving him
to the most refined theism, and this double pressure produced what
Professor Huxley calls Philo’s agnosticism. He was compelled to form a
conception of God utterly inconsistent with his character as creator
of the world. Philo could not imagine that God had any relations with
matter, or that he contemplated anything except the world of his own
ideas. So philosophy, helped by his monotheistic religion, forced Philo
to pursue the path of theological development which I have described
above, to leave God in his pure essence absolute and unknown, and to
attribute all the phenomena of creation to a mediator between this pure
essence and created things.

In Judaism, language had already been used which, taken literally,
almost described such a mediator. Wisdom had been spoken of as God’s
companion before creation and his assistant or agent in all that he had
done.[89] In a passage of the Psalms the word of God had been called
the maker of the heavens.[90] Language of this kind probably was merely
the result of the inveterate tendency of the Jewish mind to express
itself by means of personification and symbolism, and had no mystical
significance. But the passage last referred to, derived of course from
the formula of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, seems to have
guided Philo in his difficulty. He made the “Word” of God the required
mediator, God’s agent and representative in all his actions.[91]

Philo’s conception of the Word is shrouded in the deepest mysticism. In
language worthy of the Athanasian Creed, he asserts that it is neither
created nor uncreated.[92] At one time he makes it distinct from
God, at another a simple manifestation of God. These contradictions
reveal his meaning only the more plainly. He regarded the Word as
the modification of God which necessarily preceded creation, God
the relative, while God the absolute remained outside it and yet
not separate from it. Contradiction, of course, was inevitable. As
a monotheist, for him there could be but one God; as a theistic
philosopher, he had to push this God back from contact with the world.
Hence he was compelled to imagine a manifestation of God, distinct from
him and yet mystically one with him, to bear the burden of creation,
and to represent the divine nature with all outside itself.

On the theological system of Philo, which was widely diffused at
the period of its greatest danger from the pressure of Paganism,
Christianity now drew largely to avert its ruin. This product of Pagan
mysticism was exactly what it needed at the time. It was in danger,
through its deification of Christ, of losing its monotheism and of
worshipping a human God. By identifying Christ with Philo’s Word, every
difficulty was overcome. The doctrine of an incarnation of a divine
being in a human form had already entered into Asiatic religion, and,
in a more familiar shape, was a common feature of western Paganism.
Christ, as the Word made flesh, could be raised to the level of
God without destroying monotheism; the Jewish God, as the absolute
and unknown, could be reduced to the position of a constitutional
sovereign; by a mystery the impulses of the Church could be satisfied,
and yet the purity of Christianity be preserved.

“Philo,” says Professor Kuenen, “gave the Church a formula commensurate
with her ideas of her founder.”[93] But Philo really did much more. He
gave the Church a means of reconciling conflicting tendencies within
it, of satisfying at once the higher and the lower class of religious
instincts. And by doing so he saved Christianity. If this means of
reconciliation had not been provided, Christianity would have sunk to
the level of Paganism, and would have fallen among the ruins of the
empire. Still we must not conclude that the doctrine of the mystic
union of the persons of the Trinity was, except in a secondary sense,
derived from Philo. Primarily it was derived from the necessities
of Christianity. By deifying Christ, the Church prepared the way
for that doctrine and the dogma of the Incarnation depending on it.
Before Philonism entered into Christianity, Christ was man made God;
afterwards he was God made man; but before and after alike he was the
object of Christian worship.

The Church adhered closely to the philosophical basis of the doctrine.
Christ, as the Word, was made the sole instrument of creation,
God the relative; God the absolute, the Jewish God, was left in
lonely supremacy, unnoticed except in the theological philosophy of
Christianity. We can see the doctrine in its early shape best in the
fourth gospel, which was written about the middle of the first half
of the second century, in order to give it a basis in the life of
Christ.[94] The gospel was probably composed in Asia Minor, where
Gnosticism and the Asiatic fondness for mystery would naturally
facilitate the development of the doctrine. “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were
made by means of him, and without him was not anything made.”[95] That
is, at the beginning of creation, the Word existed with and as God, and
became the agent by whom all things were created. But of course to the
Church the Incarnation was the most important fact. “The Word became
flesh;”[96] Christ was God incarnate. The Church might now safely
worship its founder. As God, the human Christ could be adored, while
nominally monotheism was maintained.

It was long before the doctrine was finally settled. Not until early
in the fourth century, at the Council of Nicæa, did the Church define
the dogma in its fulness. During this period different opinions
prevailed respecting it, until at last, on the question of Arianism,
two great parties made it their battle-ground. In the controversy
the orthodox contention was philosophically justifiable. Christ, as
God the relative, had to be of one substance with God the absolute,
or no absolute God remained; while if in substance also he was not
eternal, he ceased to be God at all. Arianism, in fact, was simply
Christian rationalism; it endeavoured to explain the relationship
of God the Father and God the Son. But the essence of the dogma is
pure inexplicable mystery, and rationalism could not touch it without
destroying it. In the Nicene Creed it is stated in its proper form.
“I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and in one Lord
Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, begotten of his father
before all worlds, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of
one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” Here
the philosophical basis of the dogma is shown in the clearest manner.
God was modified and Christ produced before creation began, and by
means of Christ the work of creation was performed. We must carefully
remember that the Nicene Council did not assert the eternal existence
of Christ as a distinct being. He existed eternally, but in God the
absolute before the creation of things. This is declared plainly in
the damnatory clauses attached to the original creed by the Council,
one of which anathematized him who should say that Christ had not
existed before he was begotten. It was not until long afterwards,
in the Athanasian Creed, that the eternal existence of Christ as a
person of the then fully developed Trinity was made a dogma of the
Church, notwithstanding the absurd contradiction in terms involved in
its statement. As expressed in the Nicene Creed, putting aside the
misleading words “Father” and “Son,” inherited from an earlier belief,
there is no such direct contradiction in the doctrine. God as one
existed eternally; God as two persons only from the beginning of things.

Thus the mystery of one God in two became a part of Christianity. The
Church believed in God, and worshipped him as manifested in Christ.
The incarnation of God was henceforth the doctrine dearest to the
Christian. His God was thus brought near to him, and presented to him
in a form he could readily grasp. And, besides, the love felt by the
Church for its founder was strengthened by the belief that he had
renounced divine glory to come to the assistance of men. The God who
had become man in his love for men, and for their sakes had endured
suffering and shame, inspired the passionate devotion which, in the
darkness of medieval Christianity, shone with a blaze of light. As the
figure of the human Christ faded away in the dim distances of the past,
the figure of the divine Christ was able to replace it, and to kindle
anew the flame of zeal which had marked the beginning of the Church.

The second great dogma of Christianity had now been developed. The
Incarnation took its stand beside the Atonement in the doctrines of
the Church. Henceforth Christian theology was a mixture of Judaism and
Paganism. For when this new essentially Pagan dogma of the Incarnation
was added on, the old essentially Jewish dogma of the Atonement had
entered too deeply into the life of Christianity to be laid aside.
Both had to be accepted by the Christian. And, unfortunately, they
happened to be utterly inconsistent. The doctrine that Christ had borne
the penalty of human sins, and had died as an atoning victim, did not
harmonize with the doctrine that Christ was God. That God has forgiven
human sins and laid the penalty on a victim chosen for the purpose, is
a doctrine strange indeed, but perfectly natural when viewed from a
Jewish standpoint; but that God has forgiven human sins and laid the
penalty on himself is a doctrine which, viewed from any standpoint,
cannot be other than a hopeless puzzle.

Incompatible as the two dogmas are, Christian theologians of course
have endeavoured to reconcile them. Only one explanation of the
difficulty has been seriously offered. This is, that an absolutely
sinless victim was required to become an atonement for human sins,
and that such a victim could not be found outside the person of God
himself. A reference to Pauline Christianity at once disposes of this
explanation. Even if Christ as merely a man could not be sinless,
he might be more than man without being actually God. From its very
beginning, the Church regarded Christ, as the Messiah, as one greater
than ordinary men, though still thoroughly human. Long before the
dogma of the Incarnation was in existence, Christians looked on Christ
as sinless, and connected his sinlessness with the Atonement.[97]
Nevertheless, the explanation is the best available. It has created
the doctrine of the “contract in the council of the Trinity,” as Mr.
Arnold calls it. God the Father’s sense of justice could be satisfied
only by the self-sacrificing love of God the Son, and hence the death
of Christ upon the cross. It is certainly a characteristic example of a
theological explanation.

The two great dogmas remained really irreconcilable. The Jewish dogma
of the Atonement and the Pagan dogma of the Incarnation entered into
Christianity as the results of opposite religious tendencies, and
they could never be brought into harmony. The inevitable attempt to
reconcile them is chiefly responsible for the formation of the complex
mass of theology which so greatly distinguishes Christianity. One or
the other can strongly influence individual Christians, but it is
impossible for both at once to occupy the same mind.

Now that we have examined the chief consequences of the transition from
Jewish to Pagan Christianity, and dealt with the greater part of the
doctrine of the Trinity, we must investigate the means by which that
doctrine was completed by the inclusion of the third person, the Holy
Spirit.

Throughout the earlier books of the New Testament we find constant
references to the Spirit as a presence abiding with the Church. As
used most frequently, the term simply means inspiration, the influence
of God on individual Christians. This sense was derived directly from
the Old Testament. Jahveh’s messengers to his people are there often
described as filled with his spirit, as inspired by him for their
mission. Naturally the early Church believed that this inspiration
was continued under the new dispensation, and that the apostles, its
leaders, were filled with the spirit of God to enable them to perform
their work. But a new feature was introduced into the belief; the
Church held that not merely leading Christians but all Christians were
thus filled with the spirit of God. This was the natural consequence
of the Messianic prophecies. Among the glories of the Messianic times,
the prophets often included, as the result of the reconciliation of
Jahveh and Israel, the resting of the inspiration of God on all his
people, all being his servants just as they were themselves. Of course
the early Jewish Christians applied these prophecies to themselves, and
believed that the spirit of God rested on all the people of his true
Israel, the Christian Church.

But in the early books of the New Testament we also find the term
“spirit” used in a sense applicable only to a distinct being. St. Paul,
in a remarkable passage, speaks of the Spirit as interceding with God
for man.[98] In order to understand the origin of this belief of the
early Church that the spirit of God, as a distinct being, sustained
it in its struggle with the world, it must be remembered that the
Jewish Christians regarded Christianity as a movement from among the
unconverted Jews similar to the movement of ancient Israel from among
the Egyptians. They continually looked for analogies between their
circumstances and what was related of the exodus from Egypt. An angel
was believed to have led the Israelites against their enemies,[99] and
the Church would naturally expect a corresponding representative of God
to watch over its progress. But by the prophets the name “spirit” had
been given to this angel;[100] and so the early Christians, believing
that the spirit of God rested on the Church, personified it vaguely
and made it a divine representative abiding continually with them.
They regarded it as the substitute for the personal presence of Christ
which had come to them immediately after his death. And thus the belief
in the Holy Spirit was connected with the expectation of the second
advent; it had come when Christ had left the Church, and when he
returned its mission would be ended.

When the expectation of the second advent was abandoned, and a stay on
earth after his death was assigned to Christ, the Church’s ideas of
the Spirit underwent a further development. As it was the substitute
for his presence, it could only have come after his ascension. Just as
the ascension had been imagined as a suitable close of Christ’s stay
on earth, so now a solemn ceremony was imagined to mark the entrance
of the Spirit on its mission. The day of Pentecost, the recognized
anniversary of the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, appeared the
fittest time for this ceremony.[101] As the founding of the law was
regarded as the true beginning of the life of Israel, the coming of the
Spirit seemed to match it and to form the true beginning of the life
of the Christian Church. The construction of this tradition, as we
have it in the Acts of the Apostles, was one of the last results of the
influence of Judaism on Christianity.

At about the same time this influence was shown in another doctrine
in connection with the belief in the Holy Spirit. I have already
said that, when the mainly Pagan dogma of the miraculous conception
of Christ was created, Jewish Christianity was able slightly to
spiritualize it. By making the Spirit the agent on the divine side of
that conception, the dogma was as far as possible purified from its
taint of grossness.

Until after the time of the Nicene Council, the general belief in the
Holy Spirit remained in this vague undefined form. The Church regarded
it as a personified influence, and gave it little attention. In the
Nicene Creed there is no dogma of the Trinity; only two persons of
the Trinity as yet existed. In the fully developed Creed merely vague
language is applied to the Spirit; it is spoken of as a distinct being,
but its union with the Father and the Son is not asserted. The phrase,
“Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,” shows, as Feuerbach
points out,[102] how loose an idea of personality was attached to it,
and is very different from the precise terms in which the Creed defines
the production of the Son. The subsequent dispute between the Eastern
and Western Churches in reference to the “filioque” of the Latin form
of this Creed rendered it impossible for Christian theology to remain
satisfied with the Nicene definition of the Spirit. Always regarded as
divine, there was now a natural tendency to declare it to be God. A
mystery of three in one was a puzzle no more perplexing than a mystery
of two in one. And so the Holy Spirit was included in the divine
Government, and the dogma of the Trinity was complete.

The full doctrine of the Trinity, philosophically expressed, is this.
God the Father is God the absolute, incomprehensible and unapproachable
by created things. God the Son is part of God the relative, the creator
and saviour of the world. God the Holy Spirit is the rest of God the
relative, the sustainer and guide of the world. Thus it is evident
that the third person of the Trinity philosophically has no existence;
its functions are only carved out of those of the second. And this
philosophical non-existence of the third person has its reflection in
theology. In spite of the Athanasian Creed, the Holy Spirit is only
a shadow in Christian belief. Intellectually the sincere Christian
is convinced of the existence of God the Father; emotionally he is
convinced of the existence of God the Son; but of the existence of God
the Holy Spirit he is not convinced at all, and he asserts it merely in
the empty forms of traditional dogma.

We have now dealt with all the chief dogmas of Christianity. The
Atonement, the Incarnation, the full doctrine of the Trinity, and the
more important of the circumstances believed to be connected with the
life and death of Christ—in fact, all the dogmas of the Creeds, have
passed under our review. Only minor doctrines, in regard to which there
are differences of opinion among Christians, remain to be noticed.

CHAPTER VI.

CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY.

From the time of the completion of the doctrine of the Incarnation,
Christianity steadily advanced towards Paganism. Gradually all the
characteristics of polytheism crept into the Church. Idolatry, embodied
specially in an important doctrine to be mentioned presently, was
embodied generally in the worship of images. The great principle of
local government in religion which distinguished Pagan polytheism
became Christian by the worship of saints. This was soon the chief
feature of ordinary Christianity. To the average Christian the local
saint appeared the representative of heaven, the appointed agent
through whom heavenly blessings were to be obtained. The Christian
doctrine of the soul’s immortality, originally derived from Judaism,
was Paganised into a resemblance to the ideas on the subject which had
vaguely entered into most forms of Paganism. The old belief of the
Jewish Church that dead Christians “slept” until the resurrection had
become heretical by the middle of the third century.[103] The doctrine
of purgatorial penance was introduced into Christianity. For this,
indeed, quite apart from Pagan influence, there was a very good reason.
In the early days of the Church, with the moral influence of Judaism
still strong on it, and the danger of persecution keeping it pure from
unworthy members, probably almost all Christians were fairly good.
Being good, they were fit for heaven or the heavenly reign of Christ;
and so there was no difficulty in making the simple acceptance of
Christianity the test of salvation. But when the Church became popular,
and especially when it became the acknowledged religious system of
the empire, it was plain that a large proportion of its members were
by no means fit for heaven. And yet, with its looser Pagan hold on
morality, it did not care to consign to damnation faithful believers in
its doctrines. The old ideas, latent generally in Paganism, and given
special expression in the mysteries, of penal purification from evil
exactly met the difficulty, and accordingly they were incorporated in
Christianity. As before in the case of the Incarnation, it was the
need of the Church that really created the doctrine; Paganism only
determined its form.

Christianity took all its supernaturalism of evil from Judaism, that
is, from the later developments of Judaism, with hardly the slightest
change. The belief in a chief devil, having subordinates under him, in
hell or some such kind of irrevocable punishment, characterized late
Judaism as much as Christianity. In general, this supernaturalism of
evil was less strongly developed in Pagan religions, or rather, to
speak more precisely, it was a feature of eastern far more than of
western theology. Still Christian Paganism, though mainly western,
had no difficulty in accepting it, and it afterwards became the chief
support of medieval superstition.

The decline and final ruin of the empire of Rome transformed the
outward structure of Christianity. The empire died under the hands
of northern barbarians, but it attained a resurrection in the shape
of the Papal Church. After the separation of the Eastern and Western
Churches, the line of Christian development passed through the latter
alone, the former remaining stagnant in consequence of its union with
political despotism. The free Church of the west, becoming the real
representative of Christianity, gradually embodied in itself all the
attributes of imperial power. The Pope succeeded the Emperor; bishops
succeeded the provincial legates; the religious tyranny of Catholicism
succeeded the political tyranny of Cesarism. The pomp and ceremonial
of the empire were transferred to the Church. The spirit of sensuous
worship latent always in Christian Paganism of course was encouraged
by this, and expressed itself in a complex ritual. But most of all
Catholic imperialism exalted the clergy above the laity.

This exaltation of the clergy was the direct result of the transference
of the imperial power to the Church. The long reign of despotism in the
empire had unfitted the people of it for any approach to freedom. Just
as formerly they had submitted to the material power which had had its
centre in Rome, so now they submitted to the spiritual power which had
its centre in Rome. Only by the slow training of many centuries was
part of the population of Europe prepared for resistance to clerical
tyranny. The Reformation rested on the political development of the
peoples among whom it was successful. The clergy were the guardians,
for good or for evil, of the childhood of the modern world.

The complicated system of sacraments which now arose in Christianity
was largely the expression of priestly power. The distinction made
between clergy and laity in the celebration of the Eucharist showed
this in its clearest form. But most of all the power of absolution gave
the priest an unlimited supremacy. Holding the keys of heaven and of
hell, he was the master of the Christian’s soul. The foundation of this
doctrine, as well as that of the general recognition of an authority
peculiar to the clergy, was laid in the willing reverence felt by
the early Church for the apostles, for the men who had actually seen
its founder. Clerical despotism cannot be ascribed to the spirit of
Paganism as distinguished from the spirit of Judaism. But still, in its
extreme development under the pressure of changes in the Pagan world,
it was a Pagan feature of Christianity.

A most important distinctly Pagan doctrine was connected with this idea
of clerical sanctity. I have already referred to the belief of the
early Church that the body and blood of Christ were really present in
the elements of the Eucharist. It is quite clear from the language of
St. Paul that this belief in the real presence was not a belief that
the elements were actually changed into Christ’s body and blood.[104]
By the faith of the communicant the sacrament was accomplished, and
without faith it had no existence. The Eucharist was evidently then
regarded as a constantly recurring sacrament of the once offered
sacrifice of Christ’s death, which it commemorated and declared until
he came again. That this was an exceedingly delicate doctrine which
could be easily misinterpreted is obvious. It naturally developed into
a grosser form when Paganism, with its leaning towards idolatry, became
paramount in the Church. The elements were then formally consecrated,
and were regarded as the actual flesh and blood of Christ. As his body,
they were laid on the altar and made an object of worship. This, of
course, was simple idolatry. United with the dogma of the Incarnation,
it enabled the Christian to adore God as visibly present in a material
shape. The doctrine was connected with the exaltation of the clergy,
as the power of consecration was confined to them. Thus the sacrament
of the Eucharist became the sacrifice of the mass. The elements being
actually changed into his flesh and blood, Christ was again made a
victim; his sacrificial death was repeated as often as the ceremony;
and so the Jewish dogma of the Atonement was linked with ideas utterly
antagonistic to Judaism.[105]

The deification of the Virgin Mary was another wholly Pagan development
of Christianity. Female divinities were common in Pagan polytheism,
and female saints replaced them in Christian Paganism. After Christ,
as man, had been made the God of Christianity, this tendency to give
both sexes divine representatives produced the exaltation of the Virgin
as his female correlative. She became the goddess of Christianity,
the real third person of the Trinity, as Feuerbach calls her.[106] As
mother and wife of God, she satisfied the human instincts of Pagan
religion; and so the Church ultimately put all heavenly power into her
hands. The asceticism of later Christianity at the same time created
the dogma of her perpetual virginity. At last, as a divine being, she
was encircled with an atmosphere of miraculous privilege even from
before her birth.

The most striking feature of Pagan Christianity, monasticism, was due
to a variety of causes. In part it had its origin in the personal
character of Christ. His insistence on inward purity was not far
removed from asceticism. But though monastic asceticism may have had
some of its roots in later developments of Judaism, it was foreign
to Judaism as a whole. Judaism was remarkable for its clearness and
balance; it pushed nothing too far. Monasticism in reality was chiefly
derived from eastern Paganism, from the tendency towards asceticism
so common in Oriental religions. The same tendency produced another
important effect on western Christianity, namely, the celibacy of the
regular clergy. When this became an accepted doctrine, the finishing
touch was given to clerical power. Henceforth the Roman Church was the
most highly organized ecclesiastical system the world has ever seen.
With no recognized interests outside his calling, every priest belonged
body and soul to a vast disciplined mass which moved and acted like
one man.

Thus highly organized, the Church plunged into the darkest period of
the Middle Ages. For the evils of this period Christianity cannot
fairly be held responsible, except in so far as it contributed to the
ruin of the Roman empire. Throughout it, on the whole, the Church
was a centre of light, keeping alive the embers of civilization, and
softening the barbarous tendencies of the time. But in passing through
it Christianity suffered fearfully. The ignorance and harshness and
corruption of the age were stamped ineffaceably upon it. And this was
inevitable. In every civilized country at almost every time there are
sure to be two forms of the general religion, one popular, the other
that of the more educated classes. The popular religion, resting on
ignorance, is always a mere superstition; the other religion, kept
clear by partial knowledge from offensive crudities, is the recognized
form. But during the worst period of the Middle Ages there was no
such distinction; all religion was popular; even the highest classes
were hopelessly lost in superstition. The gloom of this superstition,
the shadow of the wretchedness of the age, left a lasting mark on
Christianity. The terror of life was transferred to death; death was
associated with the most repulsive images, and closely connected with
hell. The fear of hell became the motive power of religion; to escape
hell was to the Christian the end of life.[107] The superstitious
elements from which Christianity is now struggling to release itself
were mainly developed in its passage through this period.

During it the moral corruption of Christianity was enormous. The Church
laid stress, not on righteous conduct, but on orthodox thinking.
Heresy was irremediably damnable, but crimes and sins could be easily
compounded for. The immorality of the clergy, due partly to the general
corruption of the time, and partly to their legal celibacy, was closely
connected with the toleration of sin shown in the action of the Church.
Rotten itself, the ecclesiastical power was ever ready, in return for
material benefits, to open the gates of heaven to secular sinners.
The whole course of medieval Christianity was a progress towards the
doctrine of indulgences which immediately provoked the Reformation.

The moral decline of Christianity was the mark of its progress towards
Paganism. It receded further from its original basis in Judaism as its
dogmas became more complex and its hold on morality more uncertain.
The complexity of doctrine encouraged the decline in morality,
religious attention being drawn by it from practical conduct to the
consideration of nice points of theology. A reaction against this
tendency was inevitable. Christianity had shared in the descent of
European civilization, and when European civilization began to ascend,
Christianity had to ascend along with it. But the reaction, as it was
against a corruption which was inextricably linked with the Paganism of
the Church, could not fail to oppose itself to Paganism, that is, to
recoil back to Judaism. And this is the explanation of the Reformation.
It was the revival of Judaism in Christianity. As the revival of Jewish
Christianity, it was sure to occur sooner or later; once the thought
and knowledge of Europe awakened from their medieval slumber, the
revolt against Paganism was bound to begin. The renewal of intellectual
life involved the renewal of moral life. The restored conscience of
Europe would protest first against the later corruptions of Pagan
Christianity; but these were inseparably connected with earlier ones,
and so step by step reformers would have to ascend along the line,
until at last they would find themselves the champions of Jewish
Christianity, contending against the forces of Paganism.

Thus the great schism which the Reformation caused in Christianity was
inevitable from the first. Paganism could not be eradicated by the
revival of Judaism. The more ignorant and backward races were sure to
cling to it in opposition to the progressive spirit which revolted
from it. The schism in Christianity was as inevitable as the schism
which it occasioned in Judaism, the necessity of which was shown in
our second chapter. And just as the expansion of Judaism which Christ
made a practical success was in its main features quite independent of
the influence of his personal character, so the main features of the
Reformation were determined apart from the personal influence of the
Reformers.

From the time of the Reformation Jewish and Pagan Christianity stood
side by side. Protestantism revived the principles of the early Church;
Catholicism retained the principles of Paganism. Within the lifetime of
Luther the change was accomplished. He himself, because he assailed one
immoral doctrine of the corrupt Roman Church, was forced to travel back
along fourteen centuries of religious development.

Of course Protestantism cannot be exactly the same as the religion
of the Jewish Church. Just as Pagan Christianity was compelled to
retain Jewish dogmas, so Protestantism was compelled to retain Pagan
dogmas. It had nothing to rest on except the Canon of Scripture, and
part of the New Testament is Pagan in spirit. Accordingly, the dogmas
of earlier Paganism, which were developed while it was still mixed
with Judaism in the Church, were preserved in Protestantism. It kept,
for instance, the great Pagan dogma of the Incarnation. Still, so far
as general principle is concerned, Protestantism fairly represents
Judaism, and Catholicism Paganism in Christianity. This is evident if
they are fully compared with each other.

The Pagan character of Catholicism has already been shown. As
Catholicism—and this term covers more than the Roman Church—has
retained all the doctrines which we have examined as representative
of Paganism in Christianity, this is obvious. Similarly the non-Pagan
character of Protestantism is clear from its rejection of all the
later of these doctrines, from the worship of saints to the immaculate
conception. Its Jewish character must be shown by a reference to the
principles of our comparison of Judaism and Paganism.

The chief distinctive doctrine of Protestantism is justification
by faith alone. That in this it resembles Jewish Christianity, a
glance at St. Paul’s epistles is sufficient to show. It is also
plain that this doctrine is closely connected with the great Jewish
dogma of the Atonement. According to it, sins are washed away by the
blood of Christ, the victim offered to God. But the benefits of the
sacrifice are obtained solely by faith; the merits of the Christian
cannot enhance its value. Still more closely, however, is the
doctrine connected with the feature distinctive of Protestantism as
of Judaism, its loftier conception of God. This, as was pointed out
in our last chapter, is the peculiarity of monotheism, and it shows
the monotheistic character of Protestantism. Catholicism, having
inherited polytheistic ideas from Paganism, naturally recognizes the
value of man’s good works. In the saints whom he worships the Catholic
sees beings who, though they were once fallible like himself, have
yet obtained heavenly authority; and, as he is thus conscious of no
important difference between his divinities and himself, he is not
disposed to underestimate the worth of his virtue.

As a necessary consequence of its distinctive doctrine, Protestantism
is characterized by humility. It depresses human excellence and
heightens the sense of sin. In this it develops what were, as we saw
before, the essential tendencies of Judaism. And, curiously enough, the
phenomenon which appeared in Judaism—theological humility more than
counterbalanced by exclusive pride—appears also in the extreme forms
of Protestantism. The religion of the Puritans was ultra-Protestant in
its insistence on the utter sinfulness of human nature and the need
of faith; and yet no class of men were ever prouder than they. Like
the Jews, they felt their pride as the people, the elect of God, who
were honoured by him above the rest of mankind. The same phenomenon
can be observed at the present day among the extreme Evangelical sects
which keep the far frontier of Protestantism. In them we also find
theoretically religious humility, and practically the most intense
religious pride. And, indeed, both in these sects and in Puritanism
we see Protestantism fully developed in its likeness to its parent
Judaism, with the harshness and exclusiveness of Judaism thinly veiled
under a nominal Christianity.

Again, Protestantism resembles Judaism in its higher morality.
Protestants as a whole are certainly more moral than Catholics as
a whole. At first sight this seems remarkable, as morality is not
encouraged by the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone.
But, as a matter of fact, the priestly absolution of Catholicism is
a much more immoral doctrine. In practice, as might be expected, the
belief in justification by faith alone does less mischief than the
belief that sins can be got rid of by a visit to the nearest church.
Of course, in addition to this, the higher theology of Protestantism
favours morality, just as the higher theology of Judaism did. So far as
it is purer and more rational than Catholicism, it naturally is more
moral, and allies itself less easily with ignorance and animalism.

Protestantism, too, is like Judaism in having for its basis a written
revelation. The Bible is to Protestants what the law and the prophets
were to Jews. This feature of Protestantism is obviously connected with
its depreciation of human excellence. It makes men simply vessels for
the reception of a finished system of religious truth. Catholicism, on
the other hand, by its assertion of a continuously inspired Church,
which in every generation may develop new dogmas, plainly assigns a
higher position in religion to man.

As regards simplicity of thought and worship, there is clearly the same
opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism that there was between
Judaism and Paganism. Catholicism is remarkable more than Protestantism
for complexity of doctrine and sensuousness in worship. We will now
consider how far this opposition shows itself in their treatment of the
great dogmas which nominally are common to them both.

The Atonement being the chief Jewish dogma of Christianity, we should
expect it to be more prominent in Protestantism than in Catholicism.
And this is strictly the case. Catholicism lays no stress on the
doctrine. In a very able work by Mr. S. Baring-Gould, which presents
the religion of Catholicism in its truest form, the Atonement is made
simply symbolical, and the death of Christ is regarded as hardly
necessary to his work.[108] Protestantism, on the other hand, makes
the Atonement its primary dogma. “The blood of Jesus,” is its central
cry. It links the dogma with its distinctive doctrine; justification
by faith in the reconciling death of Christ is the essence of its
theology, and sums up its multitudinous preaching.

We also find the great Pagan dogma of Christianity, the Incarnation,
more prominent in Catholicism than in Protestantism. That God became
man is the central assertion of Catholicism, on which it bases its
higher estimation of human dignity. This can plainly be seen in the
work last referred to, where the Incarnation is regarded as the
condition of theistic religion.[109] But it is still more evident
in the tendency of Catholic theology to exalt the divinity at the
expense of the humanity of Christ, for manifestly the doctrine of the
Incarnation is expanded and made more important in proportion as the
difference between it and the original Jewish belief in the simple
humanity of Christ is increased. The Athanasian Creed is thoroughly
Catholic, and its definition of the nature of Christ involves the
destruction of his human personality. Catholic theologians have boldly
adopted this conclusion, and assert that his personality is wholly
divine.[110] Instinctively the Catholic always thinks of Christ as God.

Protestantism, on the contrary, never dwells on the Incarnation. The
extreme Evangelical sects, in which its principles are fully developed,
are perpetually drifting towards Unitarianism. But, as in the case
of Catholicism, its interpretation of the doctrine best reveals its
tendencies. It exalts the humanity at the expense of the divinity of
Christ. It holds him up as an example in a manner which implies his
human personality. Instinctively the Protestant always thinks of Christ
as man.

In their treatment of the Eucharist the respective characteristics of
Catholicism and Protestantism are also evident. We have already seen
the Paganism of the Catholic doctrine of the real presence. Equally the
two Protestant doctrines show the influence of Judaism on Christianity.
The first, the Evangelical doctrine, which allows the Eucharist no
sacramental value, and makes it simply a commemoration of the sacrament
which accompanied the sacrifice of Christ’s death, was probably the
belief of the Jewish Church at its very beginning; the second, and more
general one, which asserts the real presence, but only in a spiritual
sense through the faith of the communicant, we know to have been the
belief of the later Jewish Church in the time of St. Paul. If it were
not for the pressure of Catholicism, it is likely that the second would
be the doctrine of all forms of Protestantism. But when Catholics have
so exaggerated the real presence, Protestants, by a natural reaction,
are tempted to deny it altogether.

Thus the two systems of religion which Christianity seemed to unite
have plainly parted again. The Judaism in which it was born, and the
Paganism in which it reached its maturity, stand once more side by
side. And not merely does Christianity reveal so manifestly that great
opposing forces met in its history, but in reality every important
feature of the long course of development which has been the subject
of our survey, is recorded as clearly in its present structure as
the chief conditions of the past evolution which has produced it are
recorded in the structure of an animal organism.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PERMANENCE OF DOGMATIC RELIGION.

In the course of our inquiry, one fact has been made strikingly
manifest, namely, the persistence of religious ideas. We found that
Christianity at its beginning was only the result of a tendency long
latent in Judaism, that its doctrines were wholly Jewish while its
adherents were chiefly Jews, and that afterwards, when Pagans in large
numbers entered the Church, they carried with them and made Christian
the principles of their Pagan religions. Similarly we saw that no new
religion was created by the Reformation, that it was merely an instance
of reversion, of the falling back of part of Christianity to an older
type. In fact, from our study of this subject, we might conclude that
religious ideas are practically indestructible, or, at least, that they
can only be modified by gradual processes working during long periods
of time.

This conclusion would be unquestionably correct, and it especially
needs to be insisted on at the present moment. A conviction is general
among enlightened men that we are on the threshold of a great religious
revolution, which is to be effected by the speedy destruction of
Christianity and the consequent abolition of supernatural religion.
There seems to be some reason for this belief. Within the last
half-century Christianity has declined considerably. Thought and
culture have broken loose from it. Fifty years ago the vast majority
of the men of letters and science of Europe professed some form of it;
now only a small minority do so, and even this minority is steadily
growing smaller. We might predict with almost absolute certainty that
fifty years hence hardly a single believer in dogmatic Christianity
will be found among the leading men of European literature and science.
Christianity is dying at the top.

There is a certain resemblance between this state of things and the
condition of the Roman world at the time Christianity was beginning to
conquer it. Pagan religions then were dying at the top. Philosophers
despised them and wits laughed at them; the thought of the age was
as completely agnostic as the thought of our own day is tending to
become. A thinker, studying the phenomena of the period, might then
have reasonably concluded that supernatural religion was destined
speedily to perish, that, as men of learning had abandoned it, after
a short time their views would spread downwards, and be adopted by
all classes of the people. How exquisitely this conclusion would
have been exposed by the irony of history! Ten centuries later the
religious ideas then current among the populace were common to every
class, and the descendants and representatives of the philosophers who
rejected super-naturalism were employing their philosophical powers
in determining exactly the nature of angels. Perhaps the future is
preparing a similar exposure for the philosophers of our own day, who
are confident that supernatural religion will soon be a curiosity of
the past. A few centuries hence, if esoteric Buddhism shall take the
place of Christianity, perhaps philosophy will be engaged in explaining
the meaning of “karma,” and science will be occupied in ascertaining
the exact nature of an astral body.

Supernaturalism has just as much vitality now as it had a century
after Christ. Even if within the next few hundred years Christianity
were to become wholly extinct, the ideas underlying it would simply
be transferred to some other form of dogmatic religion. The decline
of Christianity now, like the decline of the Paganism of the Roman
empire, so far as it is real, is the prelude to the formation of new
religions. If the support to which the religious ideas of a generation
have attached themselves is overthrown, they soon find another system
to sustain them. The fall of an old religion is the signal for the rise
of a new.

Signs of this transfer of religious allegiance are distinctly visible
at present. There is the same mixture of credulity and scepticism
now that there was in the first century of the Christian era. We,
too, have a philosophical class intensely sceptical, but we also
have a class of people who are eager votaries of new religions and
excessively credulous. The credulity of the many is the consequence of
the scepticism of the few, and is the mark of religious change. It now
characterizes those whose faith in Christianity is shaken, but in whom
religious ideas are as strong as ever.

The religious ideas now embodied in Christianity and stamped
on the general mass of mankind come under the head of dogmatic
supernaturalism; they are most of them concerned with God, personal
immortality, heaven, and hell. This dogmatic supernaturalism began
with the earliest illusions which created religion thousands of years
ago. Since then, with every step of his upward progress, man has been
more and more the slave of religious dogma. The higher religions of
historical times have multiplied assertions about unknown phenomena;
Christianity, the highest of religions, has done so most of all. Having
inherited, then, this vast inheritance of belief in supernatural
dogma, which began to accumulate in the remotest ages, and has since
been enlarged and made sure by the great religion which for fifteen
hundred years has been identified with the main civilization of the
world, how can men of our own day lightly shake off supernaturalism!
A few here and there, as variations from the general type necessarily
limited in number, may manage to put it aside after a severe contest
with the irrational instincts which they have inherited. But so far as
the mass of mankind are concerned, ages must elapse before the work of
ages can be undone.

Just as in the first century the disbelief of philosophers had
discredited the Pagan religions, so now the disbelief of men of
thought is discrediting Christianity. And as a certain class of Pagans
then turned from the discredited religions to find another basis for
their religious ideas, so now a certain class of people are seeking
a basis for their religious ideas apparently surer than discredited
Christianity. There is a difference of degree between the two periods;
Christianity is not yet as much discredited as the Pagan religions
were when it attacked them. We have not yet reached the condition of
the time when the mysteries were the last props of Paganism, and the
importation of foreign religions was one of the recognized industries
of Rome. But the seeds of the development of such phenomena are
plainly visible. Spiritualism and the Psychical Research Society are
the rudiments of Christian mysteries, and certainly attempts on a small
scale are being made to import religions into London from Syria and
India.

Here in England between the large class of those who still believe in
Christianity and the small class of those who put the supernatural
wholly aside lies the class, continually increasing in numbers, of
those who have lost faith in Christianity, but have not lost faith in
the ideas which form the essence of it. Books like “Esoteric Buddhism”
and Mr. Laurance Oliphant’s “Sympneumata” are written for and by
members of this class. The absurd weakness of such attempts to give the
supernatural a natural basis does not in the least detract from their
popular power.

Life is full of inevitable illusions, and only a few are in a position
to detect their illusive character. In regard to these illusions,
the belief of the great majority of mankind must be determined by
authority; they can only choose between alternative authorities. And
their choice cannot rest on strong grounds of personal conviction. The
class of people just mentioned, for instance, who have lost faith in
Christianity, for the most part could give but poor reasons for their
refusal to accept its dogmas. They simply feel that it is discredited,
and they do not like to be on the losing side. Any system which
embodies their religious ideas, and does not appear to be discredited,
they will believe in readily, even though it has not a particle of
evidence to support it.

Moreover, when men in general have to choose between authorities whose
real weight they are not in a position to determine, their wishes
naturally affect their choice. If one alternative is pleasanter than
the other, they are sure to decide in its favour. Take, for instance,
the belief in personal immortality. This rests on an illusion which
can be seen through only by the exercise of a certain amount of
philosophical imagination, namely, the impossibility of conceiving its
own extinction inherent in the mind’s consciousness of life. As every
one wishes to be immortal, that is, shrinks from the return to his
pre-natal non-existence; and as nearly every one, besides, has lost
some loved relative or friend whose death he cannot bear to think of as
a final effacement, most people are quite ready to accept this illusion
as valid evidence of the truth of the belief. Thus a religious system
which asserts the immortality of the soul so far has mankind on its
side. And the long influence of Christianity, which from the beginning
has been built on the doctrine of personal immortality, has of course
co-operated with its primary attractiveness in stamping it deeply on
the nature of men of our times. Life seems unbearable to many people
unless it is assumed to be true. It is a prominent feature of all our
new religious growths. The Psychical Research Society seeks to confirm
it by the evidence of ghost-stories. Many generations will have to pass
away before mankind in general can renounce it, and till then, if only
to supply it with an apparent basis, dogmatic religion must survive.

If the decline of Christianity continues with the rapidity of the
last half-century, a perilous crisis lies before the population of
the civilized world. Old religious ideas seeking a new basis will
produce new upheavals of religious imagination, and a period of intense
superstition will ensue. Whatever might result from such a period, in
itself it could be nothing but evil, a time of darkness and disquiet,
of relaxed morality and charlatan prophets. Fortunately the fall of
Christianity is not likely to be so rapid in the future; the great mass
of mankind may cling to it long after it has parted from the world’s
intellectual life.

The religion of the future certainly will not be the curious system of
Comte. Positivism is only a philosophy masquerading in the garb of a
religion. Its fundamental principle is hopelessly at variance with the
craving for supernatural dogma which has possession of ordinary men.
Equally, of course, a refined Christianity, with the juice of dogma
squeezed out, cannot become the religion of mankind. Religious ideas
need a dogmatic system, and in some form or other their need is sure to
be supplied.

Indeed, it is probable that dogmatic religion will always be a
phenomenon of human life. Man framed it in the beginning, and man is
likely to preserve it to the end. The conditions of existence secure
it an assured tenure. The actual business of living must occupy all
the thoughts of the vast majority of men. In regard to the matters
which lie beyond this they can only walk by faith, and the illusions of
life furnish ample material for faith to work on. A few may have the
leisure to examine phenomena themselves, and thus may attain freedom
from the influence of illusion, and may see things as they really are.
But they can never be more than an infinitesimal minority. And so, from
generation to generation, with the shadows of their hopes and fears,
their loves and hates, men will people the impenetrable darkness which
closes around the mystery of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Against Apion, ii. 40.

[2] See Kuenen’s “Religion of Israel,” i. 226 (Eng. trans.).

[3] See Gen. xxxi. 53; Josh. xxiv. 15; Judges xi. 24; cf. Exod. xv. 11.

[4] Ezekiel (xx. 8) says they were corrupted by the Egyptian religion,
but this is very improbable.

[5] “Religion of Israel,” i. 281 (Eng. trans.).

[6] See Curtius, “Hist. of Greece,” bk. ii. ch. 4.

[7] Acts vii. 22.

[8] See an article by Professor Huxley, _Nineteenth Century_, April,
1886, p. 498.

[9] See, in particular, Lev. vi. 1–7.

[10] Jer. vii. 22; Amos v. 25.

[11] Isa. i. 11; lxvi. 1–4; Hos. vi. 6; Micah vi. 6–8.

[12] Isa. xlv. 12.

[13] Exod. xix. 5, 6; Lev. xxvi. For correlative covenant, see Gen.
xxviii. 20, 21.

[14] “Religion of Israel,” ii. 267 (Eng. trans.).

[15] Lev. v. 11, 12.

[16] Ibid. xvi. 21, 22.

[17] Heb. ix. 22.

[18] 1 Sam. viii. 7.

[19] Josh. xxiv. 15.

[20] Judg. x. 6.

[21] Jer. ii. 28.

[22] See Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” i. 360 (Eng. trans.).

[23] Isa. i. 11.

[24] Isa. xli. 8.

[25] See Exod. xix. 5, 6.

[26] Isa. lix. 1, 2.

[27] See Isa. xlviii. 18, 19.

[28] For an endeavour to secure future obedience to the covenant,
see 2 Kings xi. 17. From this idea that all Israel’s calamities were
due to the violation of a divine covenant, probably arose the Jewish
explanation of the “origin of evil.” Calamities in general falling on
mankind they would naturally ascribe to the same cause, namely, the
disregard of the commands of God. Hence the story of the fall of man as
we have it in the opening chapters of Genesis.

[29] Jer. xliv. 15–19.

[30] Isa. xxx., xxxi.

[31] 2 Kings xxiii. 29.

[32] For the influence of the captivity on Judaism, see Ewald, “Hist.
of Israel,” v. 24, _seq._ (Eng. trans.), and Kuenen, “Religion of
Israel,” ii. 139 (Eng. trans.).

[33] “History of Israel,” ii. 35 (Eng. trans.).

[34] Jer. xiv. 19–22.

[35] See Ezekiel xxxvii. 24, 25; and cf. Micah v. 2–9. Bethlehem, as
David’s birthplace, was to be the birthplace of David the Messiah.

[36] _Ibid._

[37] Jer. xxxi. 31–34.

[38] Amos iii. 2.

[39] Isa. ii. 2–4; xi. 9, 10.

[40] Ibid. lx. 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18.

[41] Ibid. lxi. 5, 6.

[42] Jer. xvi. 19.

[43] Micah vi. 6–8.

[44] Isa. lxvi. 1–4.

[45] See Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” iii. 276 (Eng. trans.).

[46] Isa. lxvi. 18–23.

[47] Isa. lii. 14.

[48] See Tobit iii. 8. How different from Isa. xlv. 6, 7.

[49] 2 Macc. xii. 43–45.

[50] See 1 Macc. xiv. 41.

[51] See Ewald, “Hist. of Israel,” v. 360, _seq._ (Eng. trans.), and
Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” iii. 277 (Eng. trans.).

[52] See Milman, “Hist. of Christianity,” i. 82.

[53] “Religion of Israel,” iii. 273 (Eng. trans.).

[54] Dan. vii. 13, 14.

[55] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” sects. 38, 39.

[56] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” sect. 36.

[57] See Matt. xxvi. 26–28, and Mark xiv. 22–24; Luke xxii. 19, 20, and
1 Cor. xi. 23–25; cf. 1 Cor. x. 16.

[58] See Exod. xii. 3–30.

[59] Isa. liii. 10, 12.

[60] 1 Cor. x. 16.

[61] Rom. iii. 24, 25; v. 6–11; viii. 3; 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17; cf. 1
Pet. ii. 24.

[62] 2 Cor. v. 19.

[63] Isa. lxv. 17; cf. Rev. xxi. 1.

[64] See Milman, “History of Christianity,” i. 378.

[65] 1 Thess. v. 1–10.

[66] Rom. xi. 25–27.

[67] 1 Cor. xv.

[68] Rev. xx., xxi.; cf. 2 Esdras vii. 28–33.

[69] Rom. v., vi.

[70] Acts xvii. 18.

[71] 1 Cor. xv. 1–20.

[72] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” section 49.

[73] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” section 98; 1 Cor. xv. 5–8.

[74] Rom. i. 3, 4.

[75] 1 Cor. xv. 45–49; Rom. viii. 16, 17.

[76] Rom. viii. 3; Gal. iv. 4, 5.

[77] See Baur, “Church History,” part iv., and “Life of Paul,” part
iii., chaps. vi. and viii.

[78] 1 Cor. viii. 6.

[79] Of course no importance can be attached to the “God blessed for
ever” of Rom. ix. 5, which either, as is generally thought, does
not refer to Christ at all, or, if it does, is obviously a late
interpolation suggested to the copyist by Rom. 1. 25.

[80] See Renan, “Les Apôtres,” chap. xvi.

[81] “History of Rationalism,” ii. 203.

[82] See Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” iii. 271 ($1–$2.).

[83] Against Apion, ii. 17.

[84] “History of Christianity,” i. 94, note.

[85] Matt. 1. 23.

[86] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” section 98.

[87] 1 Cor. xv. 4.

[88] Hos. vi. 2. It may also have been founded on the accepted date of
the earliest vision.

[89] Prov. viii. 22–30.

[90] Ps. xxxiii. 6.

[91] There can be little doubt that δ λὁγοςδ in Philo means the word
rather than the reason of God. He evidently used the term as a Jew,
with the language of Genesis in his mind. This language itself is
an interesting product of eastern anthropomorphism, which naturally
conceived God as working like a despot by simply issuing his commands.

[92] Quis ... Heres, 42.

[93] “Religion of Israel,” iii. 202 (Eng. trans.).

[94] The gospel being written in order to satisfy a need of the Church,
it is obvious that this need would ensure its immediate acceptance.
The Church was not likely to question the genuineness of a document
which contained exactly what it required. So we may safely assign the
composition of the gospel a date immediately preceding that of the
first trustworthy evidence of its existence.

[95] John i. 1, 3.

[96] Ibid. i. 14.

[97] 1 Pet. ii. 22–24.

[98] Rom. viii. 26, 27.

[99] Exod. xxiii. 20–23.

[100] Isa. lxiii. 9, 10; Haggai ii. 5; cf. Neh. ix. 20. It was probably
with reference to the storm as the most destructive phenomenon
of nature that the name “breath of God” was given to the angel
commissioned by him to destroy the enemies of his people.

[101] Milman, “History of Christianity,” i. 352.

[102] “Essence of Christianity,” chap. xv.

[103] See Eusebius, “Ecclesiastical History,” bk. vi. chap. 37.

[104] 1 Cor. xi. 29.

[105] The origin of this doctrine must not be confused with the
scholastic defence of it.

[106] “Essence of Christianity,” chap. vi.

[107] Before the beginning of this period, Christianity was inspired
chiefly by the hope of gaining heaven; since the beginning of it,
Christianity has been inspired chiefly by the hope of escaping hell.

[108] “The Origin and Development of Religious Belief,” ii. 307 _seq._

[109] “The Origin and Development of Religious Belief,” vol. ii. ch. 7.

[110] See Liddon’s “Bampton Lectures,” p. 259 _seq._, 7th edit.

THE END.

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