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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmAs en commenpant par la pramlAre paga qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la darniAre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un dee symbolas suivants apparaftra sur la darniAre image de cheque microfiche, selon Ie cas: la symbole -^ signifie "A SUIVRE", Ie symbols V signifie "FIN". Les cartas, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent Atre fiimAa A das taux de rAduction diffArents. Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul ciichA, il est filmA A partir de Tangle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite. et de haut an bas, en prenant la nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrant la mAthoda. 1 2 3 [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 y^i \ Origin and Development .OP THE.. NICENE THEOLOGY WITH SOME REFERENCE TO THE RITSCHLIAN VIEW OF THEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF DOCTRINE. g^ctnvc^ Delivered on the L. P. Stone Foundation at Princeton Theological Seminary, in January, 1896. .. BY .. HUGH M. SCOTT, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Chicago Theological Seminary. CHICAGO: Chicago Theological Seminary Press, 81 Ashland Boulevard. 1896. IbTTS.S^ ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1896, BY THE CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRESS, IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON, D. C. TCo The Reverend William Henry Green, D.D., LL.D., HELENA professor OF ORIENTAL AND OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT PRINCETON. N. J.. Ubesc Xccturcs ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN PERSONAL AFFECTION. AND AS A SLIGHT CONTRIBUTION TOWARD THE CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HiS APPOINTMENT AS INSTRUCTOR IN THE SEi^INARY. "As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee." (josh. i. S.) The Despialnes Press p. r. Pcttlbone & Co. Chicago PREFACE. These Lectures, written at the request of the Faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary, have in view especially students of divinity and young min- isters. For thib reason they present the origin and development of the Logos Christology with frequent reference to negative criticism — chief of all that of the school of Ritschl — which is most likely now to persuade students that the articles of their faith rest upon a very unsubstantial foundation. Through the influence of such scholars as Schultz, Herrmann, Har- nack, Wendt and Kaftan, whose lectures not a few American students have attended and whose chief works have appeared or are appearing in English, the agnostic, positivistic temper, which attacks the most precious doctrines of Christianity as essentially pagan, is making itself felt more and more among us. I may be permitted to say that my own student life and my professional duties have brought me into close contact with this new theology of Germany which in its historical investigations works such havoc with the beliefs of the Church. During my first year in Germany I heard the liberal conservative teachings of Dorner and Dillmann in Berlin. At the beginning of a three years' course in Leipzig, as long I ii PREFACE. ago as 1878, I heard Professor Harnack, side by side with such orthodox veterans as Luthardt, Kahnis, and Delitzsch, when that brilliant young teacher began his career. Later visits to Germany and Switzerland enabled me to "interview" such friends and ac- quaintances as Lechler, Delitzsch, Gregory, Victor Schultze, Harnack, Kaftan, Riggenbach, Overbeck, Stahelin, Biedermann and Schweitzer, not to speak of occasional lectures heard from Loofs, Kostlin, Zahn, Volkmar, Kaftan, Pfleiderer and others. The refer- ences to the literature, given in the course of the fol- lowing discussions, will show that I have carefully sought to learn from men of all schools the truth discovered by them respecting "our Lord and His Christ." In matters of historic detail, of literary research, of brilliant suggestion, every student of the early Church must acknowledge the greatest indebtedness to Harnack and men of his school. But it is this very ability and fruitfulness of investigation, which, put in the service of a defective theory of Christian- ity and its doctrines, force upon those who reject such a theory the somewhat ungracious task of opposing so frequently men from whom they have learned so much. The systematic, but radical views of Ritschl on revelation, the character of Christ as found in the Scriptures, and the rights of reason in theology, so color all the doctrinal thinking of the school that, at every turn in the historical or logical movement of religious thought, it becomes necessary for men of other schools to plant a caveat In one respect especially, must we recognize the great advance made in the method of treatment of PREFACE. Ill early Christian doctrine by Nitzsch, Thomasius and Harnack. I refer to the central position given to Christology. Not only is the old division of gen- eral and special History of Doctrine abolished, but the teachings of the early Church, as a whole, are found to receive their proper light and perspective only when set in immediate relation to the God-Man. "What think ye of Christ?" is the testing inquiry to be put to all doctrines as well as to all men. From this point of view these Lectures have been written. They treat the Nicene Theology, in genesis and growth, as it sets forth or shadows the Person and work of the Divine Christ. It is just jealousy for 'his cardinal doctrine, which leads us not only to give it everywhere, as did the early Church, the first place, but which requires us so often to notice the parallel treatment of it by the school of Ritschl, which puts the Logos Christology at the heart of doctrinal development, though not as the spirit of life and truth, but as the leaven of the Pharisees, the principle of secularization and error. Various influences at work in American religious circles make the ajiproach of this "undogmatic Christianity" especially dangerous just now. We are a practical people; and are apt to be caught by a theology which presents primitive Christianity as an "impression" and not a doctrine. We are a people in a hurry ; and too many of our pastors, and even teachers, are inclined to run after a " simj)le gospel" or " evangelical theology" rather than take the trouble to study a whole body of doctrine. We are a restive, democratic people; and the word " dogma" has a harsh, priestly sound, an autocratic claim to iv PREFACE. III! authority, all of which may turn some minds toward the " practical " views of the new theology. The ap- peals " Back to Christ," the claim to represent "the historic Christ," the play upon "the consciousness of Christ" — though there is little new in all these to English-speaking Christians — are often an " Open sesame " for these foreign teachings. Then, the new science of "Christian Sociology," which makes the Church instituti'onal, and emphasizes " environment " as well as " heredity," by its teachings about the Kingdom of God — though it be from quite another point of view — prepares the way for Ritschl's the- ology of Christ and the Church. When to these we add the fact that historic theology is probably the weakest department in the ordinary pastor's outfit — Ritschl claimed it was the strongest of his possessions — we may appreciate the better the danger for us of this new school, and its corrosive treatment of the doctrines of early Christianity. " If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? " So far as I know, these Lectures are the first at- tempt in English to outline the growth of the Nicene theology, with any real reference to the work of the school of Ritschl. They are sent forth with a due sense of the vastness of the undertaking and the con- stant danger of misinterpreting facts or doing injustice to men. But such a work was called for; and, though with much hesitation, I undertook the task. I am glad in this connection to remember that not a few of the dangers of this whole inquiry have been indirectly anticipated and obviated already in Pro- fessor Allen's work on The Continuity of Christian Thottght {lSS4i). I do not agree with that writer's PREFACE. condemnation of Latin theology; but what he 8ays of the "Greek theology" in it8 great outlines, and his discussion in general, is one of the best bits of work done in this generation by an American on the history of Christian doctrine. May it serve more and more as an antidote against the attempts to take away our Lord as a product of Hellenism. In the many references to the Sources and to Ger- man works, I have deemed it best to trans! nt^ nearly all quotations; partly because the originals, e^^t'jcially German periodical literature, are not alwa}3 readily accessible; and partly because not a ^ .tie of the Ritschlianli.'3rature is written in a style and tenuinol- ogy which call for more than one or two vcirs' study of uerman in orderto understand their mean in ir The limitations of these Lectures left far more material in my hands than is contained in this volume. In the notes a few selections have been added in support and elucidation of the statements in the text. Occasionally slight repetitions occur; but for pedagogical reasons it seemed well to allow these to stand. In conclusion, I desire to express my gratitude to the Faculty and students of Princeton Theological Seminary for their hearty appreciation, approval and encouragement during the delivery of these Lectures. Hugh M. Soott. Chioaqo, July, 1896. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. Critical and Biblical Prolegomena to the Development OF THE NiCENE TlIEOLOGY OF THE DiVINE ClIRIST. What ChriBtianity is. The issues Involved in the Nicene Theologv Monistic and Ritschl Schools. Inevitable Decay of Unitari- anism. Divine Christ central. Historical argument. Deism and the Neo-Kantian theology. Christ's consciousness of Uiinself. \ arious estimates of the same. Titles of Christ Christ and the Kosmos. Christ and the Kingdom. Christ n°^ , r* w'^^™ •°*- Christ and Missions. The Apostles and Chris . Worship of Christ. The Apostles and Revelation of PAGE LECTURE IL Laying the Foundations op the Nicene Theology, center iNG IN the Divine Christ, and in opposition to Pagan CULTURE represented RY GnoSTICIS.M, UNTIL THE FviTH OF THE Church was settled hy the Anti-Gng.tic Theo- logians upon a New Testament Basis. Christ and the Fullness of time. Christian philosophy of history. Chris- tianity and Natural Theology. Hermann and Natural Theol- S. r^'! *°?. ^''''"' Christianity. Hellenistic Judaism. Early Christian Literature. New Testament Theologv and History of Doctrin.. Theology of the Apostolic Fathers Conflict with Gnosticism. Teachings of Gnosticism. Errors' tiLm thT;. ^'r""'"' ""^ Tertull!.n. Results of Gnos- tii n; ^J'\^^"«V°*^ ''' ^"'^ °^ ^^^*^- The Church and the New Testament Scriptures. LECTURE in. Development of the doctrine of the Divine Christ lt-on the ground of the Christian Tradition, Use of The Old Testament, Contact with Greek Thought. AtJejI vU 65 Vlll CONTENTS. TO THE Collected New Testament, and Opposition to Heresy. Christology and Judaism. Mystery of the Incarna- tion. Expectation of a Mediator among Jews and Oreelss. The Memra and the Logos. The Christian Logos idea. Chris- tianity of the Apostolic Fathers. " Adoption " and " Pneu- matic" Christology. Logos doctrine of the Apologists, of Irenaeus, of the Monarchians. The Christology of the Alex- andrian School. Post-Origeuistic teachings. Arianism. Post-Nicene Christology. - - . . . LECTURE IV. Imperfect Apprehension of the Divine Christ in His Work OF Salvation, and, connected therewith, an inadequate VIEW OF Sin, a defective theory op Free-Will, and the consequent growth of Legalism, Sacerdotalism and Asceticism in the Early Catholic Church. Soteriology of the Greek Church chiefly Johannine. Baptismal Regenera- tion. Consequent Legalism. Loss of Pauline view of justifi- cation by faith. Reason of this. Greek view of sin. Its relation to free will, to Adam. Its ignorance and weakness. Views of Origen and Athanaaius. Fatalism and free will. Human ability. Non-reality of evil. Reference of sin to Satan. Christology and views of guilt. The Apologists and the doctrine of Redemption. Salvation according to Irenaeus, Origen and Athanasius. Influence of Athanasius. Hindrance of the Church system, of sacraments, of Gnostic and ascetic ideas. ....... LECTURE V. Tee Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity as neces- sarily involved in that op God and the Divine Christ. The Apostolic Church of the Holy Ghost. What this meant. Ritschl view of the Spirit. Monist doctrine of the Spirit. The Spirit in history of doctrine. Deposit of this doctrine received from New Testament Church. Change in the view of the Spirit right. The Apostolic Fathers and the Spirit. The Spirit and the Incarnation. The Apologists and the Spirit. Effects of controversies upon the doctrine of the Spirit. Ebionites and Gnostics. The Fourth Gospel and the Spirit. Montanism, Monarchianism and the Spirit. The Spirit and Trinity in the anti-Gnostic Fathers, in Origen and Athan- asius. Reasons for the incidental references to the Spirit in the theology of the first three centuries. Conception of PAOB 135 195 CONTENTS. k Christ by the Spirit and Pereonality of the Spirit as found in the earliest Creed. Elaboration of the doctrine of the Spirit by Nicene and post-Nicene theologians. ThJs doctrine not a product of Hellenism. - - . . . LECTURE VI. The Doctrine op the' Divine Chuist in its relation to the Rule of Faith and to Dogma. Christ and the baptismal formula. What this formula was. Its history. First bap- tismal confession. Its contents. Testimony of the Apostolic Fathers. The first Creed. Harnack's view of " only begot- ten" Son and "Father "in this Creed. Apologists ar i the Creed. Irenaeus, TertuUian, and the " Rule of Faith." The Creed and the Scriptures. Theological exposition of the Rule of Faith. Letter of the Bishop of Jerusalem. The Creed not Hellenized. Council of Nictea and Christology. R" echl criticism of Logos Christology. Reply. Test of doctrinal truth. Faith and knowledge. Christ and Christology, doc- trine and life Inseparable. Reasons for a dogmatic statement at Nicflea. Two views of dogma— both defective. False •Itemative set by Hatch. Conclualon. paob 253 818 LECTURE I. drificaf and BiBficaf {►rofc^omcna to f§g !E>e& The Church in Enghnxl from Will turn III to Victoria. London, 1886, Voh mo I, p. 394. 2 Thi suggests a couple of anecdotes told me by Rev. Thomas C. Hull of Chicago, it former pupil of Ritschl. Ac- cording to the one, Ritschl said to a visitor, who spoke of the difficulty of uuilerstanding his theology, that he did not want every Tom, Dick and Harry to know what he meant; accord- ing to the other, when Ritschl was asked about the future of his school, he replied that his followers would form two wings, neither of which would be right. 3 As soon as Bender, in his book, ^^Daa Wesen der Jleligion iDul die Gesetze dtr KirchenbildioH/,'''' 1885, put in clear, popu- lar form the ideas of Ritschl, starting from the fundamental conception of opposition to all Natural Religion, that is to the natural religious basis in human nature for moral development, and carried these ideas to their logical results, there was a great outcry from his party comrades. Bender says: " The question about God is not the central question of religion, but the question about man. The idea of God is tirst of all only the helping line which man pulls, in order to make his own ex- istence in this world intelligible. The prayerful looking up to God is only a means of help by which man in the battle of life I I II I II ! 14 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena proved the rule. Bender, however, says that such an isolated Christ is unthinkable, and sets Him aside that Christianity may be wholly explained on ration- alistic principles.* seeks to lay hold upon supermundane powers." (S 22f.) Cf. Plleidercr, in Jahrb. f. Protest. Theologie, 1891, IL 3. 1 Certainly an anti-supernatural, anti-miraculous spirit dominates this school. Schoen says {Les oriyines historiques de la theologie de llitschl, Paris, 1893, p. 47): "Ritschl is ex- traordinarily reserved on the question of miracles. What he especially avoids, in his lectures as in his writings, is making the Christian faith solidaric with belief in any kind of miracle" (quoted in Nippold, II, 243). Harnack, too, says: "Every single miracle is for the his- torian completely a matter of doubt, and a summation of what is doubtful can never lead historically to certainty." Here is the exact position of Hume. No amount of evidence can prove an objective miracle. It can be true only religiously and sub- jectively. But the historical Christ is a miraculous Christ. He was a wonder and He did wonders. To reject His works is to reject Himself; for He pleaded with men as a last resort to be- lieve in Him for the very works' sake (John xiv, 11). To re- ject the miraculous, supernatural Christ is to reject the only Christ we know; and is to leave the origin of Christianity in- explicable. It is to go with Renau and thiiik that a hysterical woman, Mary Magdalene, "next to Jesus" did "most for the establishment of Christianity " by starting the myth that He miraculously rose from the grave. Channing felt so strongly on this subject that he said: "The miracles are so interwoven with all Christ's teachings and acts that in taking them away there is next to nothing left." But this suggests another question, namely, " whether those who deny the miraculous in the story of our Lord have the right to call themselves Christians at all. This question is dis- cussed in the InternationaUonrnal of J^Jt/u'ca by Prof. Henry Sidgwick, tht famous English authority on Philosophy and legomena to the Nicene Theology, 16 such an im aside »n ration - 22f.) Cf. 3. ous spirit historiques tschl is ex- What he is making jf miracle" or the his- 1 of what is lere is the in prove an w and svib- Christ. He works is to F'sort to be- To re- the only itianity in- hysterical ost for the that He o strongly nterwoven them away ). jther those have the ;ion is dis- of. Henry sophy and 1 We have referred to the English Deists. Now it would be very unfair to put the theology of men like He mann and Kaftan on a level with the teachings of Toland and Tindal. There is much that ev^ery Christian can learn to his profit from this German school of divines; while the Deists offer little in- struction to believing men. And yet when we try to reach Jesus Christ, as taught in the Scriptures, and as accepted in the faith and profession of the Church, by the help of Ritschl, we find ourselves held back by presuj^positions and theories, that offer us little more than the moral kingdom of virtue so much praised by Lord Herbert, the founder of English Deism. Hume gave British rationalists a theory of " human under- standing," * which claimed it was psychologically imjjossible to get a theoretical knowledge of God, of immortality, and of miracles. Through Kant and Ethics, in a very careful paijcr on * The Ethics of Religious Conformity.' Christianity, he says, with its various creeds, has adapted itself lo many p'lilosophies. "There is much essentially modern about the Universe, its End and Ground and Mo' al Order, which will bear to be thrown into the mold of these time-honored creeds. But there is one line of thought which is not compatible with them, and that is the line of thought which, taught by modern science and modern historical criticism, concludes against the miraculous element of the Gospel history . . , Let them build their edifice of ideas, old and new, and make it as habitable as they can for the modern mind; but for the s:ike of the ethical aims whii-h we and they have in common, let them not daub it uith the un- tempered mortar of falsehood and evasion of solemn obliga- tion " (Quoted in llie Jndepe/ulent, April 9, 189G). 1 Cf. his Philosophical Essays concenilng human understhy ,1876, which of Ritschrs on to such a t\ ProtTh., leans simply and man is all theology iscussion in It the phil- osphere full the Ritschl ism, as well from the ght. latRitschl's doctrine, is b. f. Prot. lat we must terpretation mn on the Itan, as well lich beffius to the Nicene Theology. 17 to do, not with things as they are in reason or in nature or in history, not with truth in itself, but only with those personal, practical aspects of truth which are of worth in religious experience. This standard is called a " Werthurtheil,^^ or judgment of value. A recent critic' of this position maintains that Ritschl lands in only three fundamental doctrines, viz. — trust in God, faithfulness to duty, and universal love to man. If this be so, it is certainly little advance upon the five articles of religion laid down by Lord Her- bert; God, divine worship, life of ]Hety, repentance as condition of pardon, and future rewards and punish- ments.^ with subjective idealism, and, by a logical salfo mortahy leaps over into the most naive realism." This school plays fast and loose between idealism and realism, to get its peculiar views of God, Christ and the Gospel. Lipsius well exclaims (S. 6): " There can no more be a double truth than there can be a double reality. We demand one view of the Universe, which shall give totality to the whole world of our experience " (Cf. Traub's article on Ritechl's Theory of knoidedye, in Ztft. f. Til. u. Kirche, 1894, 11. 2). Or, as Pfleiderer describes this Ritschlian game of shuttlecock: Now we have theological ob- jective realities cast aside as mere products of the "vulgar, evil theory of knowledge and metaphysics," to put subjective phenomena of consciousness in their place, and again we are innocently assured that those subjective phenomena of conscious- ness are the effects and revelations of j)re8upposed objects, which are taken for granted as a matter of course, but only as objects having subjective and not real existence! 1 Cf. ^\^\io\.(\, Die theolo^, i,che Eimelschide ini Verluiltiiiss zur eoangel. Kirche. Braunschweig. 1893, I. S. 264. 2 Cf. Leland, Deistical icriters. London, 1764, 4th Edi- tion, p. 3. ^ili 18 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena But we naturally ask: What of Christ? The reply of Ritschl is that He is everything to the Chris- tian.^ It is the peculiar claim of this school, as we shall see, to identify Christianity with Christ. This very claim, however, is so presented as to greatly embarrass us in approaching Jesus through Bible and history. My heart burns within me as I read the Psalms of David or the propb icies of Isaiah ; but I am told the only revelation for the Christian is through Jesus, and not through the Old Testament. I think of the ^ Kattenbusch thinks the followers of Ritschl should regard "the new" in his teachings as above all in his method, which consisted in making Christ the center of theology. This method should be further developed, he says, and "frame Dog- mat ik from the fundamental idea, that we are to think of God as of Christ. God's historical self-witness to Himself should be the point of departure and not the conclusion of dogmatic reflection. To have given this idea prominence is the im- portance of Ritschl, which will remain, though much of his teaching should fall to the ground." [Von ISchleiermacher zu Hitschl. A lecture, Giesseu: Ricker, 1892, S. 80.) It is this extreme Christo-centric view, making Jesus the only revealer of God, that leads this school of necessity to reject the Old Testa- ment as a revelation — in spite of Christ's own words to the con- trary — (Mk. xii. 10; John x, 35) and ignore all natural revela- tion of God. This fundamental antagonism to both the Old Testament and Nature, forces these theologians also more and more in the way of Gnostic dualism and its consequent ascetic doctrine of rising superior to material things as the way to a perfect life. It is a great mistake of the Neo-Kantian theology to begin and end with Christ. Christianity is more than a revelation of God in Christ. It is a mediatorship by which believers are led to God Himself, the Father who sent the Son. Peter took broader ground when he said: " In every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to Him " (Acts to the Nicene Theology. ly heavens declaring the glory of God and the earth show- ing forth His handiwork ; but again we must remem- ber with Hume, that to know God in nature is impos- sible. I turn to the New Testament; but that is torn into pieces by critics, and the followers of Ritschl say we cannot build faith upon historical facts. I appeal to Jesus' own words; but Herrmann says there may be very few of these that can now be certainly identified.* I ask: What do the few sayings that Jesus probably did leave us teach? When Herrmann assures me I must get beyond these to the inner life and conscious- ness of Jesus. And when I still inquire, where is this X, 35). It is this narrowing of all Christianity to Jesus Christ, that has led men to liold that those who do not hear of the his- toric Christ in this world must have a second probation in a future life. Gran is nearer right when he says: " Communion with God is the one "enter of the Christian religion, and beside it there is no other ( liter." {Jahrh. f. Prot. T/ieoL, 1889, S. 352.) Jesus fulfilled Revelation as well as gave Revelation. The specifically Christian revelation, however, which Ritschl finds in Christ is little more than that of general religious faith in Providence. Lipsius {Jahrh. f. Prot. Theol., 1888, H. I.) says there is nothing new in Ritschl's idea of the Kingdom of God, and his Christology is essentially the same as that of all liberal theo- logians. He has no right, Lipsius maintains, to speak of the divinity of Christ. In other respects he is behind "modern theology " in teaching no proper life-relation between God and mankind, but only a communion of aim, which gives him finally only the trias of, confidence in God, faithfulness in calling, and universal love of mankind, all of which, Lipsius declares, is a more pitiful expression for the specific contents of Christianity than the trias of. the old Rationalism, God, Free Will and Immortality. 1 Der Verkehr cles Christen mit Gott. 2 A. 1892 S. 54 f. 20 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena mind of Christ to be found, I tm told that it comes through an impression that I receive within the Church, which is the moral Kingdom started by Jesus, while I read the supposed historical record of what Christ said and did.^ All the Revelation in Christy all the salvation that He secured was for the Church, for his Kingdom. He has no message for the in- dividual and the individual has no business with 1 Cf. Munchmeyer, Die Bedeutung der Christl. Thatsachen filr den Christl. Glauben; in Neue Kirchl. Zeitschrift. 1895, n. 5. The theory of Ritschl makes all that his school says about the iuner life of Jesus a product of the critic's own fancy; for it is considered wrong to treat the actions of Jesus as identical with His thoughts and motives. The Person of Christ is ignored, save as seen in certain acts. We may ask what He did, but not who He was; because we know nothing of a souljoer se, above or beyond the functions in which it is active [R. u. V. \\\^ S. 21). Here we are again in the track of Hume and are told we can know only "impressions" of Jesus but not Jesus Him- self. And yet we are assured that this soul of Christ, as that of every Christian, though only a sequence of acts, with no exist- ing unity, asserted itself, and is to asert itself, against all the transitory impressions of the world! The soul which Ritschl describes can never do what he requires of it. We are told to go back historically to Christ, but when w'e go back we are met at once by a theory of knowledge which makes Him but a phenomenon or series of phenomena, which has Oiily religious worth, and that only in so far as it affords a judgment of value to be tested by the feeling of pleasure or pain which accompanies it. Such a subjective standard of value leaves very little of the historic Christ to reward the student who has gone back so far. Herrmann is ever speaking of the "form of Jesus" ( FcrA;e/ir, 21, 49), "image of Jesus" (92, 99), "appearance of Jesus" (29, 31, 95, 100, 140), as if to the N^icene Theology. 21 Him. In the atmosphere of His Church man receives an impression, which produces faith in God as Father and a desire to overcome the world. In its last analy-, sis, therefore, this undograatic Christianity is an im- pression and an atmosphere^ neither of which can have much connection with Nicene Theology or any other rational statement of Christian doctrine.^ !na, which the historic Christ were nothincf but an "appearance." Are we not here again in the atmosphere of Docetism and Gnosti- cism? In this "appearance" we read that f-Jod is love, that lie is our God as He was the God of Jesus, and that we must fight \ho worUl as Jesus indicated; but there is a strange sense of unreality about such a way of approaching " the Fullness of the Godhead bodily." If a religious impression such as we get of Jesus in reading the New Testament be sufficient for Christian faith, regardless of historic certainty about Jesus, are we not back in the ration- alism of Do Wette, who advised us to return to pagan mythol- ogy, and learn that the creation of religious impressions and emotions comes from certain symbolical representations ? Schultz holds that it is indifferent for religion whether the his- toric Jesus was myth or man, landing not only in mythology, but in what Dorner calls " a contradictory certainty of twofold possibilities." {lirieficechsel, Bd. II, 193.) 1 Much of what the Gospels say Jesus said is rejected by both Monist and Kantian theologians. Each chooses his own "picture" of what Christ said and did. For example, his teachings about miracles, angels, power over nature, the Holy Spirit, His death for sinners, the Scriptures and eschatology are almost completely ignored. Hence we have, as F. Luther writes (iV. Kirchl. Ztft., 1895, H. 2), "the Bible doctrine of Christ and our redemption in Him opposed to a doctrine of ethics, which is a product of the modern view of the world, whose ideas are to be embodied in the modern portrait of Christ." 22 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena But let us now proceed to the great source of all faith and all theology and inquire what Jesus thought of Himself and His work. In so doing we are in liappy agreement with Christian scholars of es'(;ry school of thought. In nothing does the nineteenth century resemble the first so much as in the central, all -con- trolling position given Jesus by the Church. In Apostolic days, theology proper, or the doctrine of God, was little discussed — it came over slightly changed from the Old Testament — but we find a fully devel- oped Christology, bringing God, the Holy Spirit, the revel ati», Kiid was therefore Lord of both the sabbath day ( k. n. 28) and the temple (Matt. xii. 0). He knt r '} -.x v;ai greater than the temple, because He knew that Gu( really and truly Avas in Him as He never was in the teru^/e (John ii. 19; Luke iv. 17 f.).^ He put His name in place of the name of God. He taught His disciples to pray the Father in His name, thereby 1 Giffonl Lectures, II, 30. 2 This snme divine consciousness of being Lord of the temple, and h- above all its laws aa Jehovah is, shows itself in his claim to L '■'• free" from the temple tribute, which He paid only "lost V e should offend them," and not because due (Matthew xvii, 25f.). r T^^ 32 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena Hiili ':■ .^1 making Himself part of their worship, and His power part of the answer to their prayers. In John's Gospel (xiv. 13, 14), He absolutely identifies Himself with God. He says: " If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it," where the answer to prayer is declared to be His act. Such devotion to Christ is taken for granted here as involved in the relation of the believer to Christ; and this fact, Zahn says, is the "strongest proof that praying ' <» .Jesus was not a product of theo- logical reflection in '. 'st two Christian generations, but was the natural e.vpression of the religious life planted by Jesus in His disciples." * Jesus knew that He had life in Himself as God has life in himself (John v. 26). No limits of time bade him to cease work on the sabbath any more than they commanded God to stop. As Jehovah was omni- present with Israel so Jesus knew He would be with His Church to the end of the world. In the name of the Lord Old Testament saints did wonders ; so Jesus bade His disciples to cast out devils and do mighty acts in His name (Mk. ix. 39; xvi. 39). He came forth from God, He was one with God, He returned to God. What more can be said as to His consciousness of absolute oneness with God ? To call this a man having the religious value of God is to use words that have no meaning. To reject the Divine Christ be- cause He involves mystery and mystery is metaphy- sics, is not to get rid of the difficulty but only to put the mystery in the wrong place.'* To tell me that the 1 Skizzen aus dem Lehen der Alten Kirche. Erlangen, 1894, S. 33. 2 The Ritschl theologians all accept the theo.y of two kinds of knowledge, theoretical, which cannot be proven true, and to the Nicene Theology. 88 Jesus of history is to my knowledge a mere man, but must be to my faith God, is to put the mystery be- tween two parts of my own nature, and is to force me to accept two kinds of truth and two kinds of reality. And that is absurd: it is a doctrine which my common practical, which rests upon moral certainty. These give two '•ealities, Seinsnrtheile and Werthurthdle, to the latter of which religious knowledge belongs. Of the relations of these two realities of Sein and Werth, all that Herrmann and Kaftan can say is that they are not wholly separated (cf. Sperl, in iV. Kirchl. Ztft. 1890, IT. 8.). Hering says that " the most im- portant question at present in theology" is that of " twofold truth," that is of the relation of philosophical and religious truth (Lecture — Die Theologie umlder Voricurf der '■'■ dopjidtar Wahrheit,''^ Zurich, 1886). It is along this coast of two kinds of truth that the fleet of Ritschl is still moving, seeking for a haven of rest. Kaftan has recently come near the shore at the place where faith and knowledge meet. He is now ready to say that " faith has for the believer objective truth, and is the final and supreme truth for man," or, as he expLiins, "the statements of faith are practically-based theoretical statements" rather than "judgments of value" (Review of O. Ritschl, ''Ueber WertJmrtheile'" in Th. Lit. Zg. 1895, No. 7). He thus admits that statements of faith have a theoretical side, and that faith itself contains an element of knowledge. He Avrites; " there is only one truth, and all truth is from God " (cf. Ztjt. f. Th, ti. Kirchc, I. S. 601). Here we are back nearly or quite to the historical theology, which makes faith inseparable from certain facts and doctrines. Here the character of Clirist, His work, His teachings are ready to support faith and not leave it resting only upon our religious impressions of what He taught or was. The vicious alternative of living faith or a dead acceptance of dogmas, which the school of Ritschl present ad nauseam, is simply a man of straw; for no intelligent Christian, much less theologian, pretends to defend anything but both sound doctrine and a vital faith as the practical proof of such doctrine. i;i !il i hi i I : :- :' ! ] ! ': ! J' 84 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena sense instinctively rejects, and which can not he used in the work of convincing and converting men with any hope of success.^ The proper place of the mystery is where the New Testament and the Nicene theology leave it, in the person of the adorable Redeemer. But not only does the relation of Jesus to God set forth His divine Sonship. His relation also to the Universe and the Church illustrates the same truth. It is a fundamental position of scholars like Harnack that Christ and Christianity have nothing to do with Nature. Cosmological Christology he considers the great source of corruption in Christian doctrine. Through this opening Greek thought flooded and per- verted Christianity.^ And the only way to regain primitive religion is to give up all dogma, and return to Jesus teaching the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. Now it is plain at once that such a theory locks Jesus up in His own world.^ Peter calls out sinking: "Lord save me," but Jesus must answer with Ritschl that miracles of walking on the 1 Such a view leads us back to the scepticism and accepti- lation theories of Du: ■i Scotus which killed scholastic theology, and must kill all theology, because they bid us believe that what is historically and philosophically false may yet be re- ligiously and subjectively true. 2 Harnack, Dof/mcngeschichte, I, Ch. IV. 8 Harnack is forced to admit, however, that the facts of Christianity do involve a theory of these facts. He says: *' So far as God as the Father of Jesus Christ is to be the omnipotent Lord of heaven and earth, the Christian religion includes a particular knowledge of God, of the woi'lfl and of the purpose of created things " {Outlines of Hist, of Dogma, English translation, New York: 1893, p. 1). Herrmann also tries to get the feet of his faith upon the ground of historic facts but to to the Nicene Theology/. 8& water have no objective value, and that His revelation of the love of God cannot enter the realm of nature. He could not say, " Lazarus come forth," or " Damsel arise." The Romans crucified and buried Him, and Harnack says the testimony of Apostles gives " not the least occasion to think that Jesus did not remain in the grave." But what of the testimony of Jesus Himself? He knjw He could save Peter and said: "Where- fore didst tho'i doubt?" The wind ceased, the ship was at land, and the disciples " worshipped Him, saying, of a truth thou art the Son of God" (Matthew xiv 33). He knew all power was given Him, and so He gave all power to His followers, to command the forces of nature, disease and death. To get rid of Christ in nature, therefore, the Ritschl men must get rid of Him in history: hence Harnack says again, when pressed respecting Christ's resurrection, that " History can afford faith no aid." It is " folly to believe in any manifestations made to others." ^ The miracles of Jesus, His power as Son of keep the wings of his " disposition " so active that no weight shall rest upon these facts (Cf . his Wcirum hedarf unser Glaube geschicht. Thatsachenf 2ed. Halle, 1892, and Ztft.f. Th. u. Kirche 1894, H. 4). He says: "Our faith would cease to be Chris- tian, if it were not able to find in historic facts the ground of itself"; yet the facts are no part of the faith. He finally con- cuudes that Christian faith rests upon " a single fact, which we ourselves experience as such " {Ztft. S. 259); that is, it is an inner fact, which outer facts only occasion. We are left again in the air. 1 Dogmengeschichte. I. S. 14. Of the objection long ago urged by Lessing, and taken up by Harnack and others, that " accidental truths of history can never form the foundation for 1 :ii; 1 1 li il f f li '; ii ; ,!i 'i t ; " .'1 ; I ■ \ ^'\ ■, i '■'• 1' ■■ " ''. . j jLk. il 36 Critical and biblical Prolegomena God over the universe, form part of the history of Christ ; but all this must be cast aside on the flimsy pretext that faith and knowledge are different things. But if it is folly to let faith rest upon anybody's testi- mony, what shall we say to the fundamental claim of Ritschl to build all Christianity upon Christ's own testimony to himself ? Jesus tells me that God has given Him all things for me, power over nature, man and the devil: but how can I venture all upon the words of a man about whom my history and general knowledge give me little but uncertainty and contra- diction ? ^ The other point to be noticed is Christ's con- sciousness in relation to His Kir' dom. This is far- reaching. Jesus is not so much a founder of a new Kingdom, as Ritschl teaches, as a restorer and perfecter eternal truths of reason," Martensen observes {Brief wechsel, II, 199) that Nicodemus made a similar remark to Jesus; and re- ceived the nf ormation that the question here was about higher things, namely regeneration and redemption. The revelation of Christ, also, with its great facts is no *' accidental truth of history," but " the all-explaining centre of history, the unveil- ing of an eternal plan." A personal Christ is necessary; and He is necessary here and now for every sinner. The heart of Christianity is ever '< Christ and communion with Him. For only the personal can save the personal " {ib. ). Both Marten- sen and Dorner hold the saying of Luther: "We have no painted sin, therefore we can have no painted Christ," as de- cisive against all those who try to turn the real, historic, and divine Christ into an impression or an ideal. 1 Harnack attempts to meet this and other objections drawn from history against his view of Christ, in a lecture. Das Christenthum und die Geschichte, Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896. Cf. my notice of it in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, April, 1896. to the Nicene Theology, 87 of the Kingdom of God already planted in Israel.* His lofty conception can be seen in His consciousness of Himself as both Messiah of Israel and final Judge of all mankind. The hojie of the Old Testament runs along two lines, the ont that of the expected Messiah, the other that of the great and terrible day of the Lord. But these prophecies of joy and sorrow, of triumph for Israel and judgment upon their enemies, were not brought into connection or unity by Jewish theol- ogy. Jesus, however, at once knew himself to be fuliiller of both. He was the consolation of Israel, a light to lighten the gentiles, and beyond all the King, the Judge before whom " shall be gathered all na- tions," and whose divine sentence shall decide man's destiny forever (Matthew xxiv. 31f.). If the view of Baldensperger be correct,'^ that in the circles of Jewish pietists in vhe century before Christ, the Messiah was already spoken of as the Divine Judge and as sharing the titles and attributes of Jehovah, that fact would only increase our assurance that Jesus meant His words to be taken with their highest possible meaning. So ever-present was this con- sciousness of being Head over all things to the Church, and Judge over all things to the world, that when dragged before the high priest and asked: "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" He an- swered: "I am ; and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in » Cf. I Chron. xxix. 11; II Chron. xiii. 8; Ps. xxii. 28; Dan. vii. 18, 22, 27; Obed. 21. 2 Dai Sdhstbevniastaein Jeatiy 2d Ed. 1892, S. 85f.

ni)Sche Paralleltexte zit den Ev(i))gelien. Heft II, on IMatt. and Mk. 1894, S. 185, and Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, Edinburgh, 1892, II, 125). Wendt calls the words of Peter " the close of a period of development on the part of the disciples " (I, 886); and this culmination of their learning was a confession of "the Son of God in a pre-eminent sense." He well points out, further, that "this full, unique, mutual knowledge on the part of the Father and the Son," such as Jesus was con- scious of and Peter confessed, " stands in necessary connection with their Fatherhood and Sonship" (II, 120); though he falls away into Monarchianism. to make the relation of Father and Son ethical, a relation of love. NOsgen well urges in reply (I, 291) that the equal relation of Father to Son, a relation of knowl- edge as well as affection, implies more than ethical oneness; it in- volves sameness of being. All these mediating attempts be- tween the naked rationalism of Strauss and Renan and the teachings of the Church land in some form of Monarchianism, whether it be oneness with the Divine Consciousness, as Schleierraacher taught; or ethical oneness, as set forth by Rothe, Wendt and others of the Ritschl school; or Beyschlag, basing Christ's consciousness of a perfect relation of • Sonship to God upon the transcendental ground of an impersonal, divine-human principle, eternally preexistent in the Godhead {Leben Jesu I, 191). Every such attempt leaves Jesus either a mere man, however exalted, or else a mere mode of divine manifestation. (Cf. Orr, 1. c. p. 463). It does not meet the views of the I; \ lli 40 Critical and Biblical P rolefjomena 'I i- 1 'i -.I '■ ' I "1 ■kuiL^illli ; Jesus was that of His own Divinity. The other two passages in Matthew are xi. 27-30: "All things are delivered unto me of my Father," therefore, " Come unto mo all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest," and xxviii. 18-19: " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations." Here Jesus declares that He IJiblo or Hatisfy tlio consciousness of the Church. It makes the Incani.'ition einj)ty and meaningless. It makes the cruci- iixiou of small moment; for the death of a good man could be of little weight in solving the destinies cf humanity. It seta aside- as the school of Ritschl docs — the doctrines of sin, rcgonoratioii, sacrifice, personal relation to God, and cschatology, as taught in Scripture; because Jesus if only a great teacher, choosing the aim of God, and showing us how to choose by free Avill the same aim and enter God's kingdom, calls us only to a Hfe of virtue, wdiich each can begin and end as did Jesus Himself the work entrusted to Ilim. The whole system of Ritschl is, in the best sense, Moralism, or the t'ae- ology of an ethical Kingdom of God (cf. Grau, Jahrh. f. Protest. Tlieoloyie, 1889, II. H). Its first step is — no metaphysics in re- ligion. Its second step is — all Christianity in Christ. Its thin! step is — through trv.st in God and forgiveness as Jesus taugl t — entrance into an ethical Kingdom. Its final step is — rising by a life of love and virtue above all the limitations and hindrances of the natural life. We know that Christ and Christianity are true, first because of the impression which Jesus makes upon us, and second because that impression Is found to correspond to all legitimate demands of religion. In this last particular, however, Ritschl is forced to go to natural theology for the postulates by means of which he tests the religiom value of Christ and His revelation {R. n. V. I, 408; III, 14). Here again, his two kinds of truth divide his house against itself (cf. Orr, in the Expository Times, Sept. 1894; and Frank, Ueber die Kirchl. Bedeutxing der Theologie A. Jlitschls. 2d Ed. Erlangen, 1888, S. 39.) to the JVicenc TheoJotiy. 41 V knows God as woUas God knows Ilira. All that is di- vi!\e is in Him for tho hulvation of man, hence His call to the weary and ])urdened: all power for convert- ing sinners is also in Him, hence His conmiission to the Apostles: Go teach the nations.^ The Creed of the Cluirch, the call to the unconverted, the ministry of the gospel all rest upon the consciousness of the Divine Christ. He knows that a church is two or three gathered in His name; He knows that all doctrinal and discijdinary binding and loosing depend upon His presence in the Church (Matt, xviii. 17-20)-; He knows that through union with Him Christians reached greater spiritual joys than Israel did in the Covenant with Jehovah (John xvi. 23). lie knows that the Jews said, " Salvation belongeth unto the Lord"; but He also knows that henceforth salvation belongs to Him.^ Heaven and hell depend upon ac- ceptance or rejection of Him.* Home or friends or 1 111 like nuinner St. Paul was converted by the first vision of the Divine Christ (Acts ix. 6), and sent forth as a mission- ary Ly the second vision of the same exalted Lord, who said: " I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles" (Acts xxii. 21). 2 Cf. Beyschlag, Die Christ. Gemeincleverfassunrf, 1874. S. 7f. 8 It is important to notice that Jesus did not declare sins forgiven but imjxrrted forgiveness of sins, showing that He Knew He had the power to pardon. The scribes well felt that such a claim was blasphemy for ' * who can forgive sins but God only?" (Mk. ii. 7). 4 The tremendous import of Peter's confession of Christ and Christ's own claims as He sent the Apostles forth were at once recognized in the Church. Justin, as early as A. D. 140, appealed to the solemn state- ments that all things were given to Christ (Dial. C), saying: n r 42 Critical and .Biblical Prolegomena i! i life or the whole world art nothing compared with Him. He ia omnipotent as God, and none can pluck be- lievers out of His hand. He is omnipresent as God: " Lo, I am with you alway " (Matt, xxviii. 20). He and the gospel are one and inseparable (John v. 23f.). Our only hope, therefore, is in personal union with Plim as the Lord, who gave His life a ransom for us, and made atonement with His blood of the covenant for the remission of sins. To speak of His death as an accidental incident in His life of moral obedience, and our relation to Him as the recollection of the life He led as teaclier and example eighteen hundred years ago, as is done by Herrmann and others, is to aay that Jesus Himself and all the Church have mis- understood His mission. He staked His claim to be the Divine Christ upon the prediction that believers in Him as such, Hia elect, should come from every nation under heaven, past false Christs and false prophets, to meet the Son of Man in his gloiy "It is written in the Gospel that He said, 'AH things are d',iliv- ered unto me by my Father; and no man knoweth ibe Father but the Son; nor the Son bat the Father'"; and argues from these weighty pat sages tliat "we know Him to be the iirst- begotten ^f God who 'submitted to become man.'"' Side by side with these sayings of Jesus, Justin then puts the confes- sion of " Peter; since he recognized Him to be the Christ the Son of God, by the revelation of His Father; and since we find it recorded in the IVlemoirs of his Apostles that He is the Son of God." Justin here groups these classic texts of the New Testament in support of the Divinity of Christ, claims Apos tolic authority for their teachings, and shows a familiarity in the treatment of tlie question which must have sp?"ung from long recognition of the Divine Christ and the Apostles in the Church. I to the Nkene Theology. 43 (Matt. xxiv. U, 24, 30). The history of Missions is an ever growing proof in support of the Divine char- acter and work of our Lord. These remarks naturally bring us to the Apostolic Church and its apprehension of Jesus Christ and His gospel. We have seen the estimate which the Tvies- siah had of Himself; is that estimate accepted by Peter, Mati^hew, John, James, Paul ? And if so ac- cepted, what is the value or what the authority of their testimony? The replies to these cpiestions are very various; though when they are traced to their real source they form only two dances, namely, those that accept the Apostolic teachers and writera as inspired and authoritative ex])ounders of the gospel, and those, who regard them as good men who hap- pened to be among the first converts of Christ, but whose ideas of Christianity do not differ in kind from those of other Christians. This is a fundamental md far-reaching difference. If we consider the words of John and Paul as the Word of God, we not only learn thro\!2:;h them what Jesus said but also Avhat He meant; whereas, if they only give us their fallilde im- pressions, their explanations are of little value, and their mistaken view of Christ makes it very difficult to gather from their representations jus^t what Jesus really said. Pfleiderer, as we have seen, thinks all .iie Divine Christology which appears in the Nev,' 7 "ta- ment w^as made up by the Apostolic Church out of Je^vish Messianic ideals, figures of speech found in the Old Testament, Greek ideas and the religious experiences of the disciples (1. c, p. 18). In other words the Divine Christ is a myth. The Scho,)l of Kitsehl, })y making Christ's work apply to the Cliu.^ii I ^E ■ 1 1 ■!• ;*, ■* ■■: 1 i 111 SH . i ii ; i'L :i ! 't ' 'i 1 m 44 Critical and Blhlical Prolegomena as such, assigns more value to the words of Peter and Paul, as early members of the Church; but they have no revelation to supplement that of Christ. Such a revelation it is said is unnecessary and impossible.^ Men like Lipsius, Pfleiderer, Ilavef^ and Holtzmann are naturalists, whether of the theistic or pantheistic type; for them all theology is natural theology; the teachings of Jesus as well as of the Apostles are just the thoughts of religious sages. But the Ritschl school is peculiarly anti- naturalist in denying any revelation of God to man except in Jesus Christ. Such a theory smites in all directions. It casts out the Old Testament,** for that was not revealed through 1 So the English Deists. Cf . Lord Herbert, in Lelancl, 1. c. I, p. 2 f. 2 Le Chritstianisme, 1884. « Yet it should be observed, also, that, contrary to the requirements of his own theory, Ritschl was led by his exeget- ical colleagues, especially Diestel, and by his view of Chris- tianity as a Kingdom of God, a theocracy, to avoid the position of Schleiermacher, who practically ignored tlio Old Testament. But Ritschl makes the Hebrew Scriptures little more than a historic introduction to Christianity; and, true to his Kantian Moralism, violently explains out of them evcM-ytbing that speaks of expiation as proteciing from the just wrath of God. It is, in his view, a covering from the divine glory, which no man can see and live, and not a shield from the righteous indigna- tion of the Holy One of Israel. But in this connection PHeiderer asks two questions {Jidirh. f. Prot. Theoloffie, 1880, H. 2): (l)If God is only love and His love is revealed only in Christ (Cf. R. u. V. Ill, 20G), was there no revelation of God before Christ? If not, whence had Israel the knowledge of God? Is the Old Testament a natural growth? (2) If all God's revelation is love manifest in Christ, and if all moral action springs from love and goes on in love, to the Nicene Theology. 45 Christ. It leaves the theology of Israel, and all the piety of holy men of old the baseless fabric of a vision. It makes the virtues of the Greeks, and the civic glory of the Romans meaningless. It presents Christ Him- self so cut off from the Law and the Prophets which He came to fulfill, that the heart recoils from the arbi- trary claim made in His behalf. Finally the Apos- tles must have no authority in religion. It will be seen that such honoring of Christ as is here offered robs us of Old Testament, Natural Theology, Apos- tles, and practically of the New Testament also. Well, what have we left with which to compare the Apos- tolic consciousness? Hatch points us to the Sermon on the Mount as the Gospel contrast to the Nicene Creed. But Pfleiderer declares the Sermon on the Mount is a Catholic program of the Church of the second century. We may have left remaining, how- ever, the Gospel of Mark, or other sufficient Gospel material to give us an iiiqyression of Christ. How, then, does the impression of Jesus gained from the Apostolic Church correspond with that gained from the Gospels? I think we may take for granted that the twelve Apostles in a three years' course of study with the Lord must have acquired a rich deposit of instruction. The theological student of those days was expected to remember his teacher's words "as a plastered how did moral society arise and continue before Christ came? Such a theory makes the Law of Moses, the ethics of Aristotle, the Codes of Rome, impossible. Such a position outstri])S Augustine, who made Pagan virtues but splendida vitia. It also contradicts Paul, who held that the heathen knew God in both nature and conscience (Uoni. I, 20 ff). f^ 4G Critical and Biblical Prolegomena 1 i! cistern" holds water, neither adding to nor taking from them. Jesus doubtless referred to ample information when He promised the Spirit to bring to their remem- brance all that He had spoken to them. Luke assures us he got his information from eye witnesses (i. 2). Papias says Peter preached the Gospel of Mark, and Paul tells us of transmitting to the churches what he had himself received (I Cor. xv. 3).^ Now looking over this transmitted teaching of Christ in the Gospels, it seems clear that the Church consciousness is in full harmony with that of Christ. The questionings of Judas, or Thomas or others, but confirm this impres- sion. Hence Strauss says that the divinity of Clirist cannot be dispelled till the " thick, heavy cloud of Jewish delusion and superstition" wi'apped about Him by the Synoptists is l^lown away.^ But what is true of the Synoptists is true, as Ritschl,^ Wendt and many other liberal critics hold, of the Fourth Gospel;* and the Christology of the Fourth Gospel abundantly covers similar teachings of Paul.^ This dof ;, not mean 1 Cf. Jude V. 17. 2 N'eue Leheii Jesu, quot'id in Engelhard t, Schenkel u. StraKss. Erlangen, 1864. S. 48. 3 Nippold, 1. c. S. 236. * Ilarnack I, 85. 5 Tliere appears also a growl )ig conviction of the Divinity of Christ among the disciples. Philip at the beginning spoke of " Jesus of Nazai'eth, the Son of Joseph" (John i, 45); but after three years in the school of Christ, Thomas uttered the convic- tion of all: "My Lord and my God" (John xx. 28). The com- mand of Jesus early in His ministry to Ilia disciples not to proclaim His Messiahship helps explain the lack of reference to His official character in the earlier parts of the GosikIs. But to the JVicene TheoJogi/. 47 that there were not v^arieties of view among the first Christians; for it would be unreasonable to suppose that all classes of converts could soon grasp the im- port and fullness of the God -Man. National expec- tations, and many other imperfect conceptions of the Messiah, must gradually be set aside by spiritual views of His Person and work. As John the Baptist said: " He must increase but I must decrease" (John iii. 30). It was a time of transition, when Jewish and Chris- tian thoughts were mixed in all minds. In fact, though Peter and James and John and Paul held Jewish and Gentile believers in the unity of the faith, the two branches of the Church seem to have practi- cally held apart,* till finally the ritualism of the men of Israel gave up the Divine Christ for a Nazarene pro- phet rather than hold the Divine-Man in a Brother- 'iii )]r\ tliis silence went with firm belief in Jesus as the Christ of God. After the solemn confession of Peter: " Thou art the Christ, the ':io\\ of the living God," Jesus " charged His disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ " (Matt, xvi. 20). This commanded silence respecting Jesus as Christ makes all the more emphatic the confession of Jesus as "Son of the living God," when He solemnly called it forth. What was involved in this Divine Personality would not be clearly understood till aftf. tiie resunx'Ction. Jesus c.\])lains the post- ponement of His recognition for the very reason that he was to " bo killed and be raised again the third day " (Matt. xvi. 21). Only in the light of the glory of the resurrection and ascension, He leaches, could His followers fully see that the Son of God was manifest in the llesh. This is the triumjdjant argument of Peter, filled with the S})irit, at Penteoost (Acts ii. 22f). 1 Cf. Slater. The Faith and Life of the Early Church, London, 1892, Chap, x.; and Hort, Judaistic Christianity. 1804, p. 3G. t ;l I I I'f 1 48 Critical and Bihlieal Prolegomena hood wide as humanity. It is significant, however, as Harnack remarks in another connection, that the Apostolic men who recognized that Christianity was a triumph over the Old Testament religion, such as Paul, John, and the writer of Hebrews, all regarded Christ as a Being that came down from Heaven.^ It was their full consciousness of what Christ was that made them unable longer to overlook the emaciated christ- ology of the Jewish Christians, and provided most of the controversial "elements which are found in the writings of Paul and John." - But, notwithstanding these later developments, it still remains true that the great preponderance of Christian thought in the first two generations was essentially of one character and had its roots in a Divine Redeemer. Harnack says Paul's doctrine of Clirist took its departure from the "concluding confession oi the primitive Church, that Christ as Heavenly Being and Lord of living and dead, is ^vith the Father." Wendt says the Logos christ(jlogy can be " traced back to the very earliest Christian times. We find its foun, preached the same Jesus and the same gospel (H Cor. xi. 4). This leads me to notice that all the worship of the Apostolic Church centered in the Divine Christ. Jesus died saying: "Father into thy hands I com- mend my spirit." Stephen died saying: " Lord Jesus receive my spirit." Can we, then, pray to Christ ? Herrmann says it is a dangerous thing to do, and must be carefully held in check by judgments of value.'' But the New Testament Church has no such 1 Loofs says Harnack's view of the origin of the doctrine of Christ's preexistence is a mere groundless hypothesis. Cf. Deutsr.h-Evangd. Blatter, xi. S. 180 f. 2 Pfleiderer says their identical Christology was the bond of union between Paul and the Jewish Christians, 1. c. p. 130. 3 It must "be carefully limited if it is not to work great injury." ( FtT^cAr, S. 193.) to the Nlcene Theology^ 51 ;ir-'*' law scruples. Believers worshiped the crucified and risen Lord; and the bitterest accusation brought against them by the Synagogue was the adoration of two Gods.* Christians differed about meats, and holy days, and circumcision, and widows and orphans; but there is not a word of doubt about prayer to Jesus. Twenty-seven years after the death of Christ, Paul could write to the Corinthians, reminding them that they represented all believers, and greeting tliem as " sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours " (I Cor. i. 2). Zahn says:" "The Old Testament worshij) of Jehov^ah, with its religious significance undiminished and unchanged, passed over into the worship of Jesus" (S. 8). This is a marvelous transition, for the idea of man-worship was utterly abhorrent to Jews; and Gentile Christians from the first were ready to die rather than adore Caesar. John heard a voice (Rev. xix. 10) forbidding him to kneel to a glorified man; but when he fell down before Jesus (xxii. 9) he heard only words of comfort and joy. The earliest Christian hymns are hymns to Christ.^ The earliest Christipn blasphemy was blasjihemy against Christ.* 1 Cf. Weber, Altsynagogale Theologie. Leipzig, 1880, S. 148. 2 Die Anhetunf/ Jesu im Zeitalter der Apostel, in Skizzen, Erlangen, 1895, S. 5f. 8 Rev. V. 9, 12, 13; vii. 10; xiv. 4; I limothy iii. 16, cf. Pliny — " Carmen dicere Christo quasi Deo.'''* 4 James ii. Y; Acts xiii. 4?, ''contradicting and blasphem- ing" against Jesus; and I Timothy i. 13, where Paul, reviling Jesus calls himself " a blasphemer." Letter of Pliny — " Mali- dic&nmt Christo. ' ' 52 Critical and Bihlical Proleyomena I The earliest and only Christian sacraments were bap- tism in the name of the Divine Christ or of the Son of God as equal with the Father and Holy Spirit, and the Lord's Supper, which sets forth the remission of sins which God only can grant. To sin against the Lord's body here was to become liable to eternal con- deinuation (I Cor. xi. 1^2, 34). Such wide-spread, all-ein])racing worship of Jesus, extending far beyond and before Paul and other New Testament theologians, shows that the Church must have learned it from the Lord Himself. Harnuck frankly says: "He was every- thing lofty that could be imagined. Ev^erything that can be said of Him was already said in the first two generations after His appearance. Nay mOiC, men felt Him to be and knew Him to be the ever-living one, Lord of the world and operative principle of their own life."^ He adds: "The Gentile Christians received as the unanimous doctrine, that Christ was the Lord who was to be prayed to."^ Now what shall we say to these things? The Christology of the Apostolic Church abundantly confirms and illustrates the consciousness of Christ. It contains all the essentials of the Nicene theology. If Paul was right, then Athanasius was not wrong. If the New Testament is from God, then the Logos- Christ cannot be rejected as a piece of pagan met- aphysics. The general answer which Pfleiderer, Reuan, Harnack, and whatever their names, give is that the Divine Christology, whatever its source, 1 D. G. Vol. I. S. 66. 2 He elsewhere (I, 120) doubts direct prayer to Christ in the first century, a mistake which Loofs corrects. Deutsch-Evang, Blatter xi. S. 184. to the Kicene Theologij. 53 is a perversion of true Christianity. Tlioy pick out a few moral axioms and add tliem to their creed: "Jesus is the IMessiah," and declare that to be the Gospel; all beyond that is accretion. For Pfleiderer Christianity is Judaism with its national limits strii)ped off by Jesus. ^ For Ilarnack Christianity is "looking back" to Jesus in history till we become sure that God rules in heaven and on earth, and that "God the judge is also the Father and Redeemer.^ The beginning of this perversion — Ver-'^chiehimg — he iinds in the first Christians preaching who Jesus was, rather than the words whicli lie spake. Paul's gospel -was not identical with that of Christ.^ So the fatal drift went on, through the New Testament Church and out into the Catholic Church till it ended in the deadly dogma of a metaphysical Christ at Nica^a. 1 1. c. I, p. 82, 122. 2 Cf. Ritsclil, Avho makes our union with Christ a "remem- brance of the finished life-work of Christ. " Unterricht in d. Clirist. Bel 2d Ed. S. 23. 8 D. G. I. S. 93. Paul puts the death of Christ, it is said, too much in the foreground; as the first Apostles put the Person of Christ into too great prominence. These were the two early " Verschiebungen," which, according to Ilarnack, (1) made Christ the center of a circle instead of one focus of an eclipse with the Kingdom for the other; and (2) made the cross too much the symbol of all that Christ did for us. But such a view (a) ignores the fact that Christ before his crucifixion could not set forth the meaning of Ilis death fully, (b) passes by in silence the state- ments that Christ, after His resurrection (Luke xxiv. 26, 46), taught his followers about His death, (c) takes for granted that both the Twelve and Paul failed to get a true view of Christ's Person and work, and (d) fi:^ally holds that these "perver- sions" were as necessary in carrying on early mission work as they were wrong. If i; f 1 1 V ] ^' 1, ': :'' 1 ' 4 '' 54 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena Now the ol)jectioii8 which arise at once to such a theory are obvious and many. It proceeds on the as- sumption that it is wrong for reason, even the reason of Apostles, to unfold what lay in Christ's words. It rejects all legitimate development of doctrine, whether in the Ntnv Testament or out of it. It ignores the promise of Jesus to give his disciples fuller knowledge through the Holy Si)irit. It contradicts the experi- ence and teachings of the Apostles. It opposes the witness of the Spirit in the hearts of believers every- where and ahvays, who find the doctrines of the Apostles the poAver of God to salvation as the very teachings of Christ Himself. There are also two historical obstacles which lie in the way (^f such a theory. They are the Scylla and Charybdis of all rationalistic explana- tions of the origin of Christianity. I refer to the resurrection of Christ and the conversion of St. Paul. All leading liberal critics admit that the dis- ciples believed that Jesus rose from the dead. The Church was built on that belief. At this point Kaftan and Hering break out of the liitschl theory, and hold that the resurrection of Jesus was both a religious and historical fact. The conversion of Paul and his Apostleship rested upon it;' the conquest of 1 Cf. Weizsacker, Das Apostol. Zeitalter der Chrlstl. Kirche, 1886. S. GO. Renan also says that Paul regarded Jesus *' not as a man who lived and taught " but as "a being wholly divine" {St. Pmd, p. 310). Wendt (II. 266) admits that the disciples interpreted Christ's words (Math. xvi. 21; xvii. 23; XX. 19) to mean a bodily resurrection; but thinks they were mis- taken in Christ's meaning. He meant that after short delay in death he would resume the heavenly life with God. i \ to the X Ice tie Theolo surreetion essen- tial parts of His redemj)tive work. The Apostks declare they saw Ilim dead and saw Iliin risen. Here faitii and history meet and cannot be torn apart. But our critics attempt it. They make the resurrection a subjective illusion of the disciples, in spite of PauVs appeal to James and Peter, himself and five imndred others. As for Paul's relation to the risen Lord it wai ill in his own mind, llenan says: " The Christ who personally revealed Himself to Him is his own ghost; he listens to himself, thinking be hears Jesus."' lu other words, the Church was built upon first a vision or illusion of the Twelve, and second upon a similar illusion of Paul. It is true Holsten admits that Hiis is a very unsatisfactory solution;- it is also tru<^ til it it leaves the origin of Christianity amid clouds of impressions no better than the myths of Strauss. Still it must be accepted, for Harnack tells us, like Hume, that no amount of evidence can ever prove a miracle.^ But with the denial of the resur- rection and the rejection of Paul's account of his con. ^ History of the orifjins of Christianity, Bk. Ill, London: Mathieson and Co., p. 101. 2 Ztft, f. Kirchl. Wiss. u. K. Lehen, Article by Gebhardt, 1889, S. 443. 3 Cf. Ritschl, Entstehxing, S. 80. Kcim, though a radical critic, is compelled to say: "A sign of life from Jesus, a telegram from heaven was necessary after the crushing overthrow of the crucifixion, especially in the childhood of humanity." Hence he concludes that Jesus by the Spirit produced the appearances of Himself, which the disciples saw, and took for real bodily appearances of the risen Lord. (Geschichte Jesu, Zurich, 1872; ?!' M id I , . 56 Critical and Biblical Prolegomena version as objective history, there is undermined the doctrine of the Divine Christ. Pfleiderer says Paul manufactured the Lord in glory out of a combination iii. S. 604 f). It was a Christopliany to the souls of the dis- ciples; though not to their outer vision. But such a symboliz- ing and spiritualizing of the facts of early Christianity will not save them. If untenable historically they must be given up as supports of religious teachings. In the days of Paul many a pagan sage sought to defend the gods by presenting them as theophanies, or ideals, or symbols of the beautiful and good; but the attempt was fruitless. Neither will giving " values of judgment" to the miracles and other events objected to in the life of Jesus save them from utter rejection. The supposed religious value of a thing will always and of necessity sink gradually to the lower and real value which merciless reason declures it to possess. All the Apostles appeal to facts, not im- pressions, when speaking of Christ and his work. Not phil- osophy or moralism, but the historical reality of the death, resurrection, ascension and return of Christ was made the basis of redemption. To preach anything else, Paul declares, would make the Apostles and brethern " false witnesses " (I Cor. xv. 14 — 19). John makes eternal life and death depend upon faith or unbelief in the facts which he records about Jesus Christ (xx. 81; I John, i, 1, 3). Both Jesup and the Apostles warned against false projiliets, who should arise attacking the character and work of Christ (Matt. xxiv. 21: I John ii. 22). Harnack well points out tha^ the Jews had no idea of immortality apart from the body (I. 74); and yet we are told that it was the " conviction of the disciples that they had seen the (risen) Lord, that made them Evangelists" (I. 75 note). But if they saw him they saw him bodily. If they believed Ilim immortal, lie had risen from the grave. Then, in the face of Paul's appeal to facts, to eye-witnesses, Peter, James, and live hundred more, we are told that belief in the resurrection is the result of long Christian experience, and is not a primary question. "What the diHcii)lcs saw cannot help us at all." The contradiction of Paul is comi)lete. IK'it to the Nicene Theology. 57 loug of Messianic hopes and Plato's conception of the Ideal Man.^ The Ritschl school derive the divinity of Christ in the Apostolic Church from Rabbinical fancies about preexistent persons and things in the mind of Paul/' But Paul was just the man who most shunned Pharisaic traditions. The jDreexistence of the Messiah was not a familiar idea to the Je^vs; nor is it known in the New Testament except among Chris- ians. Jesus was a man of sorrows and as such the " Heavenly Man " would be no counterpart.^ Besides Paul's teachings respecting Christ are so wide that they include a post-existent, exalted, divine, preexist- ent Christ at every point in their presentation.'* The mind of man and the teachino's of all the New Testa- ment inevitably proceed from the risen Son of God l;o the Divine Son of God. It is only by making all the miracles of the New Testament allegorical or of mere 1 Pjiul's Christ l.s ^^ but the personified idea of man om the child of God'''' (1. c. 1G4). "The hellenistic mythological form of his Christology " belongs to what is transitory in Paul's teaching and can have " no binding authority for us " (ITI). '^ Cf. Ilarnack, D. G., I, 89—93; 710—719; and Baldeus- jttrger, I. c. 85 — 92. 3 Cf. Orr, The Christian View of God and the World. New York: Randolph & Co. Lect. vi. Note A. "* Bornemann, Avho seeks to keep closer to the teachings of the Church, thinks [Unterricht ini Christenthnni, S. 92 f.) that the tirst Christians not only expressed the jierniancnt value of Christ (1) by making Him ))reexistent, but also (2) by regarding Ilim as supernatural, and (3) by teaching that he was ilie int^ar- nation of the Eternal Divine Word of Kevelation. IJut, apart from the utter lack of proof that the doctrine ot a preexistent Messiah was widespread among the .Jews in the time of Jesus, and the consideration that we know very little aliout current 9. 1! Si ! 58 Critical and Biblical Prolego7nena sentimental value, as Weizsacker does/ that the Di- vine Christ and His resurrection can also be removed from their central place in the history of Christian Doctrine. Here we are face to face again with the irreconcil- able opposites of mere reason on the one side, and of reason and true revelation on the other. Or, as the alternative in this study of the Apostolic Church ap- pears, of the Greeks and the Germans on the one hand and the Apostles and the Church ever since on the other. Pfleiderer,'^ Hatch, Harnack all agree that the Divine Christ is an invention of the Greeks.'' The Jewish theology in those days, also the evidence afforded by writers such as Brousset {Jesu Preclif/t in ihrem Gegensatz ziim Judeutum, Gottingen, 1892) that primitive Christianity differed more from Pharisaic Judaism than it agreed Avith it, we must face the serious question, why it was religiously and historically necessary for the Apostolic Church to create a Divine Christ and build Christianity at once upon a false foundation. 1 1. c. S. 5 f . ; so llarnack in his lecture cited above. See p. 19 of it. 2 1. c. pp. 15G f. llarnack is also inclined to think that Greek thought colored the teachings of both Jesus and Paul. 3 According to Ilarnuck, the Jewish view was that "earthly things prcuxist with God just as they appear on earth." But it is plain that such a theory docs not tit the incarnation of Christ as conceived by Peter and Paul. They thought of the heavenly Jo.i'. J as in glory, but the incarnate Lord as in humility; it was the contrast of the eternal and the temporal with the Father and apart from the Father, divine and human that tilled their thoughts. The attempt to make the incarnate Christ a product of Rabbinical crudities utterly fails (cf. Orr. 1. c. p. 508). If sucli a view were true, we must hold that the Church, which Paul makes Christ's body, also prei'xisted in heaven before it appeared on earth. To help out this Jewish origin of Jesus as to the Nicene Tlieology. 59 Pfleiderer wing say that Hellenism got into tlie Mew Testament itself and led Paul and John to turn Jesus into a demi-god. The Ritschl wing say the real Jesus was a revealer who had the relicrious value of God to faith, l)ut in the second and third centuries became changed into a metaphysical deity through Greek tho^.iogians in the Church. Sclioen points out that in the first edition of Ritschl's liechtfertigunfj he oj)posed the personal preexistence of Christ, calling it a mere "help-line," but in later editions omitted this opposition (1. c, p. 83). But neither view is possible until an objective historical Revelation in Jesus is set aside, and the authority given the Apostles by Christ and claimed and exercised by them is decis- ively cast off.^ This last is of especial importance in view of the present currents of critical thought; for the the "Heavenly Man," the preexistent type of Jewish theology, which is felt to be inadequate, Ilarnack also brings in Greek inliuence, though he had expressly said that no specifically Hel- lenistic thoughts can be traced in the Jewish doctrine of pre- existence {Doymengeschichte, I, Appendix). Baldensi)erger (p. 89, Note) opposes such a position, especially the inclination of Ilarnack to drag Hellenism into early Judaism and into the very teachings of Christ, as well as of Paul (I, 63, Note, and 83). The vouuffer Ritschl also maintains that his father did not think that Paul "mixed Greek philosophy into the gospel" {Th. Lit. Z'j, 1895, S. 54). In this and other matters Ritschl was pro- voked by the extreme views of such disciples as Ilarnack. Cf. Frank. Geschichte d. neuer. Theologie, Erlangen, 1894. S. 327. 1 Pfleiderer frankly admits that Paul taiigiit a preGxistent, Divine Christ, who became incarnate and prcaclied the doctrine of Justification by faith in Christ, who made an atonement for sin; but declares both of these teachings ])ol()nged to the transi- tory and not the enduring elements in Paul's " Dogmatic theol- ogy " (1. e. 221). Such arbitrary treatment of St. Paul, not 'J 60 C'-itical and Biblical Prolegomena ■ I whole Nicene theology claims to rest upon Apostolic teachings, partly as their direct, historical continua- tion, and paril;- as their conscious, dogmatic reproduc- tion. We cannot discuss this subject in a paragraph at the close of a lecture, but may offer the following suggestions : (1) Je&^s chose the twelve Apostles, specially re- vealed Himself to them, gave them peculiar authority (Matt. X. 30; xvi. 19; xviii. 18), made them the twelve Patriarchs of the New Israel, and promiS jd them the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth about the Gospel (John xvi. 13).^ After His resurrection He imparted the Holy Ghost and taught them for forty days the meaning of His finished work. And the risen, I I I'* i f only utterly rejects his Aposiolic r.'ithority, but teai'S to pieces his most vital doctriues in the very face of his own protest and anathema (I Cor. i. 17; Gal. i. 8). And that is "scientific the- ology"! In like manner Kaftan holds that we cannot accept the Apostolic view of "inspiration," the atonement as " sacrifice," or any doctrine as revealed; for revelation is not of doctrine, even if Paul thought it was; "it is the education of men for eternal life, for sharing the Spirit and life of God." Cf. Was ist Schriftyemass? in Ztft. f. Theol. ti. Kirche, 1893, H. 2. 1 Matt, xxviii. 9 f . ; Luke xxiv. 13 — "ought not Christ to have suffered these things — ?";John xx. 13 f. ; Acts I, 3 f. Cf. Justin, Ap. I. 67: "Jesiis appearing on the day of the sun to His Apostles and disciples taught them these things, which we have transmitted to you." Gregory Npk,. thought the risen Lord taught the Twelve especially " the Godhead of the Holy Ghost," Oral, xxxvii. Cf. Luke xxiv. 49; John xx. 22; Acts i. 2. In the main they were right, tor Christ plainly saino0ficiBm, liff l§c 5ait§ of t§<> €§urc§ xoajs ziiiUl 6p t^e ;2lnii'^no0tic f ^cofoiaiang upon a "ISciD €c£5tam«nf Basijs. : "mil l^^ll 111 . ■ 31 lil 65 "Das grUsstc Ilinderniss, welches zur Zeit cinem gedcihlichen Stiulium der systeniatiscben Thoologlo sich entgegonslellt, ist die Unterordnung der theologisohen Erkenntniss uuter die je- weileu iibliche, iiatiirlich-jdiilosophische. Frank. Vademecum filr angehende Theologen. S. 202. i God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." " For in Ilim we live and move and have our being; as certain also of your own jjoets have said, For Ave are also his offspring." Paul, in Acts xvii. 20, 28. " Unter dera Ileiligsten ist nichts, als die Geschichte, dieser grosse Spiegel des Weltgeistes, dieses ewige Gedicht des gott- lichen Verstandes: nichts, das weniger die Beriihrung unreiner llllnde ertriige." Schelling. Methode des akad. Stadiums. "What is the origin of the idea of God? To this question three answers have been given. First, that it is innate. Second, that it is a deduction of reason. Third, that it is to be referred to a supernatural revelation, preserved by tradition." Hodge. Systematic Theology y I, p. 191. <« Bonus vir sine Deo nemo est." Seneca. 66 lllilS!i_ — LECTURE II. lit Laying the foundations op the nicenf theology, oentekino in the divine christ, and in oppo- sition to pagan culture represented uy gnosticism, till the faith of the church was settled by the anti-gnostic theologians up- on a new testament basis. Jesus Christ appeared when the ages met. He came, St. Paul says, in the fullness of time. (Gal. iv. 4f.) Judaism had seen her last king dethroned and waited as never before for the Son of David. Greek sages hadbelield speculation sink into tradition, and longed in ecstatic visions for the God-inspired man of Plato to reveal the truth. Rome had followed all paths of glory till they culminated in the Divine Caesar. Jesus was born under the first Emperor. The Kingdom and the Empire began together. The pagan deities, who once filled the sky and clouds with life and made the world joyful, had been shaken from their places by Rome; mythology was a mass of con- fusion; and an empty heaven meant an empty earth. With no sky -father more, humanity felt itself orphaned indeed. Never before could a Roman Judge sentence the Jewish Messiah to the cross in the city of Jerusalem. And never before could the superscription, " Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews " have been hung in Hebrew, Greek and Latin above the dying Christ. It 67 68 Foundations of the Kicene Theologij^ was not acciilental that the great Apostle to the Gen- tiles, who moved Christianity from Jerusalem, a national centre, to Rome, a world centre, was l)orn in the Dispersion, spoke Greek, was educated a Pharisee iu the Holy City, and had all the rights of a Roman citizen. There is a true Christian philosophy of history involved in such things, which makes Christ King of the kings of the earth, and taxes to Ctesar as much part of holy living as tithes to Jehovah. Baur closed his great work, on the History of the Trinitif and Incarnation^ with the words:* "As certain as the idea of humanity must realize itself; and as certain as it is to be put essentially in the union of God and Man; so certain can it above all else T>e realized only by entering at a definite point in a defi- nite individual into the consciousness of Humanity." We may not agree with the somewhat predestinarian, l)antheistic view of history held by Baur; but we must agree with him that Christ is a real Incarnation only as perfect spirit and perfect historical manifestation meet in Him; and Church history cannot be truly understood unless we recognize the presence of the Spir't of God moving through all its phenomena. It is the lack of such recognition by the school of Ritschl that makes the whole temper and outcome of its historical investigation unsatisfactory. Wendf^ and 1 Die ChristUche Lehre von der DreieinigJceit unci Mensch- xcerdung Gottes. Tubingen, 1843. Bd. III. S. 998. 2 Ueber A. IIarnack''s D. G. 1888, S. 22; though he remarks parenthetically of the growth of early Christology: " We may say it went on under the leading of Divine Providence " (S. 10). Ilis most significant statement is, that the question is not : ""Wntther according to Jesus' own judgment of Himself and Laid in Coi^Jlict with Ilelletusm. 69 ■i:0i|i|||i Harnack and McGiffert' assure us that the Church liistorian has absolutely nothing to do with the truth oi" falsity of the doctrines whose development he traces: ihat is matter of faith, and what can be said about it belongs to the theologian. The highest principle recognizer* is n teleological moral aim, which inovcH now to do ])resent duty; but the causal law whicii ])lnds phenomena together so as to make " die W(dft/esc/ii elite das Welttjerirht^'''' is ignored almost as much as was done l)y Ilume.^ Harnack tells us that the first Christians perverted the gospel by putting the the religious conco]>tions of Jesus as a whole, which we regard as the supronio staiichinl of Revelation for all Christian doctrine, the Logos-Christology appears true (giillig) and necensari/; neither are we to ask, whether it is poaslble to construct the Logos-Christology in such a form theologically, that it will he just lit once to a religious and historical estimate (Wiirdiguiig) of Jesus and also wrong no other justified interest, which must be recognized in the theological system; but we have solely to ask the question of history of doctrine (dogmengeschichtliche Frage) in what sense and interest as a inatter of fact did the Logos-Christology take shape from the second century on, and in how far in this actual taking of shape vas the essential ele- ment of the Christian religious view as a whole injured or pre- served." 1 Inaugural Address on Primitive and Catholic Christianity, New York, 18 9. '3. 2 Of course the history of doctrine cannot discuss the cor- rectness of all dcctrines described; that would be to make it systematic theology in the form of history. But it can recog- nize the Spirit of God in that history, and show what Christian truth moved steadily on in conflict with error. Neither of these is given its place by the school of Ritschl. Harnack dedicates his history of dogma to his brother, a professor of mathematics. His highest wish for it is that it may be a 70 Fov,ndcitio7i.s of the yicene Theology^ .i . ■!:!' Person of Jesus in place of His words. But he says it was necessary to do so. He points out how Pauline teachings respecting justification by faith alone -tried to revive in the fourth and fifth centuries, but did not (Ztft.f. T/i.ti. Xirche.lSdl, H. 2); he says they were not as well fitted to christianize the Goths as Catholi- cism. Herrmann shows 113 how much Nicene theology worthy successor of a similar work by his grandfather. He tells us that the spread of a doctrine everywhere in the Church is no test of its truth; and thinks the inrtuence of Theodosius was greater than all the supposed truth of the Xicene Chris- tology. He sees in the prevalence of a milder Creed than that of Nica^a in the Nicaja-Constantinopolitau Symbol only the irony of fate and the satire of history upon the orthodox Church. Everywhere the elements that gave rise to doctrinal discussion — bcafheu life, thought, superstition and prejudices — are made so prominent that the impression is left that the history of the Church was ^)ut a chapter of cruel and fatal accidents. The only spirit which he recognizes is the "Zeitgeist"; to speak of the Spirit of God guiding the Church unto any truth or the ever-present Christ in her midst woula be shocking to his con- science as historian. In the ])reface to the Knglifdi translation of the third edition of his History of Dogma (Boston: Roberts, 1895), he says; "In taking up a theological book we are in the habit of inquiringf first of all as to the ' stanupoint' of the author. In a historical work there is no room for such inquiry. The question here is, whether the author is in sym))athy with the subject about which he writes, whether he can distinguish origin.al elements from triOse that are derived, whether he has a thorough acquaintance With his material, whether he is conscious of the limits of his hititoricil knowledge, and whether he is truthful." Whether these requirements exhaust the Categorical Imperative for the historia.i or not, most critics are, I think, agreed that they are insuTiicient to explain such a history as riarnack's; for in it the anti-metaphysical, anti-pietistic "stand- point" everywhere makes theological "presuppositions shape Laid in Conflict witlt Hellenism. 71 Luther retained; hut, he adds, it would have heen impossible to bring in the Reformation in any other way. The thing that succeeds, according to this view of history, is for the most part the wrong thing yet the necessary thing. Now that is not the view of Gamaliel, who snid: "if this counsel or this work be of men, it avIII come to naught; but if it be of God, ye can not overthrow it" (Acts v. 38-80); neither is it the view which the Church has held frt..;.! the be- ginning; for, with all her mistakes, we cannot Ijelieve that her failure has been fundamental and permanent; and color the liistorioal presentation" (cf. I. ch. II). Frommel, a lil)ei'al himself, says of Ilarnack's work, that it is -'analytical rather than synthetical," and is emaciated by the intluence of KitHchl, which makes "defective the conception of primitive Christianity from which he sets out." Cf. Ucvkc Chretuiiiie. 1894, Jan. }). 40f. See similar criticism in the Clnnxh Qudrt. Review, Oct. 1884, p. 249, where the writer says thatlFarnack in his })ower to judge fact! "seems to fall helow the standard of an ordinary sensible Churchidan." Renan says [Soitreiiirs (PEtifance ct de Jewicsse, 1883, p. 285), that "the eye mns*^ be completely achromatic if it is to find truth in philosophy or politics or morals." But too [rreat in) partiality may be a dangerous virtue. This " acLAjuatic eye" in the head of Ilarnack or Herrmann sees no pre('xistent Christ, no Virgin birth, no true rcsurrectici), no real miracles, no coming again in glory of Jesus Christ. Color blindness may be as bad for the historian as any other blindness. It is this lack of vision for spiritual things in the life of the Church which we here de- plore. Since writing the above I have met similar criticism of the Ritschl view of history by the late Dr. Dorner. He says {Bricficechsel zvnschen Martens<.'ii uud Dorner. Berlin, 1888, Bd. II. S. 210) that he objects to Ritschl's view " especially because he sees in history really no progress, but beholds history run its course with utter disregard of any ruling principle. II' ! 1 72 F'oundations of the Xicene Tlieoloiiij, nor is it tlie conviction of all current etliics, which feels that "trnth is mighty and will prevail." Bnt such a pessimistic outcome is inevitable to the school of Ritschl ; for if all Christianity be only an impression of God as Father revealed in Christ, it is phiin there is for us no God in philosophy, no God in natun;, and no God in history. Pagan religion, Greek wisdom, Roman laws are utterly ii'religious, and that for a theology, whicli, on the other hand, denounces the doctrine of oi'iginal sin! Herrmann feels keenly this position with reference to the truth, which he admits the Cliurch lias assimilated from the natural virtues of Greece and Rome; and by a salto mortale he tries to connect it with Christ. He says, "■ it all belongs to the historical existence of Jesus" in greater or less (h^ffree.* But in that case Hinduism and Confucianism >it Aud he does so either intentionally or because such a position is necessary to his theory." Men even of the school of Ititschl cannot so treat the History of Israel. Stade {Ztft. j. Til, u. Khrhc, 1892, S. 412 f.) shows that the thought of a divine guidance of Israel towards a certain goal found ex))ression in the Messianic hope. Old Testament prophecy everywhere suggests God in the history of His people. Can we think God is not to be ecpially recognized in New Testament predictions and in the History of the Church':' Even heathen sages could not write history without referring to Diviiit! Providence — "the destiny that shapes our ends." Heroilotus tells us that the story of the i'"rsian wars with (ireece showed a divine guidance of the affairs of men, a Goii in human history. Hence Schnedermann {^X. Klrchl. Ztft. 1890, 11. :J) says the inquiry of Meinhold ( Wider den Kleiiujlaubtn, 1895, S. 1.3): "Who indeed would ask after the aim of Greek, or Roman or G man history?" is very wide of the mark, unless we are to regard all philo8oj)liy of history as groundless. » JJer Verkehr dcs Christen mit Gott, 2d Ed. S. 31. Laid hi Conflict with Hell ph ism. 73 must also belong in greater or less degree to "the historical existence of Jesus/' And as these re- ligions rest upon natural theology, natural theology- is more or less a revelation of Christ; and here we land in a cosmical ChristoloL-y and things utterly con- tradictory and horril:)le to men of this school. Har- nack declares it was the natural theology of the Greeks -with its Logos theory that corrn[)ted Christian doc- trine: no \v Herrmann tells him that this corrupt ele- ment was in greater or less degree from Christ. But Paul, while preaching God in nature, also set forth the gos])el as something utterly unknown to men. The revelaiion in Jesus, as taught by Ritschl, he de- clares the wisdom of the Greeks did not know; it was fooMshness to them. ~\ 'ithout going further into the spiritual philosophy of Cuui'ch history, it will be seen from these remarks that we must bear in mind that all the interpretation of the development of docti'ine given Iw Kaftan, Har- nack, Loofs and others of this party, while exceed- ingly suggestive, is everywhere warped by peculiar theoretical and a priori principles.^ 1 On the Hellenization of Cliristi;ui!ty, see Mosboira, De turlxtta per recentiores Platonicos Kcclcsia Commcntatlo, The iuriuence of Greek thought was already licKl by Cu:)nent of lieasoits, 1859, }). 114). Norton argued in the; line of Priestley [llistori/ of Early Opinions Concerniny Jtsns Christ) and other English 74 Foundations of the Nicene Theology^ f' But to return to our historical starting point. As the first generation of Jevdsh Christians sent forth Paul to lead a second generation of Gentile Christians to lay the foundation of a world-wide Church, and to frame a doctrinal statement for the Roman Empire, the most momentous step in the history of the Church was taken. The Divine Christ and three powerful races of reliijion and culture were involved in it. The Hebrews gave their knowledge of God and their Old Testament Scriptures. The Greeks presented their writers of the "Hellenistic" tendency, that the Logos-Christ- ology and the Trinity are a product of })agan corruption of Christianity, There is, therefore, nothing new in tho theory of Harnack and Hatch. Students of Deism and Arianisra in Eng- land, and of Unitarianism in America, will find in them all the essentials of the so-called "secularization" or " Ilellenization " of Christianity, to which the school of Ritschl now refers as if it were a great " Entdeckung." Ilarnack thinks that the Church, by clinging to the Old Testament and the God of the Old Testament as the true God, drifted slowly and not so far into Hellenism as did the Gnostics, who cut loose from the Jewish Scriptures. This drift is called " secularization " of Christianity. All students are ready to admit that the Church, in her worship, her sacraments, her or. ganization, and not a little of her teachings, did become to a large degree secularized; but it is still an open question whether every indication of Gnostic thought in the Church is a proof of secularization. Hilgenfeld argues strongly to the contrary {Ztft. 1890, H. I.). He holds Gnosticism, all the way from Simon Magus to Marciou and Valentine, ' ' was rather a renunciation of the world than a secularization." It was anticosmic. Only in a formal way can Hellenizing be ascribed even to Basilides and Valentine. On Ilarnack's theoretical presuppositions, and how they warp his supposed objective treatment of historic material, see Foster, /Studies in Christology, in JBihliotheca Sacra, April, 1892. Laid in Conflict with Hell cm ism. 75 splendid culture of the individual man. The Romans offered their colossal social system, claiming universal, infinite power. The body of the Empire was Latin; the intellect of tl:e Ein[)ii'e was Greek; the Spirit of the Empire — it^ Divine Revelation — was in the hands of the Jew. Then came the Divine Redeemer with His gospel for humanity, and 'irouglit, through His Church, that Spirit, mind and body into a unity never before known. The Roman system has left its mark unmistakably upon the Catholic Church. Pope and bishop and canon law and diocese are imitations of the tliiuijs of C.'i'sar. Tlie Greek mind has also given a stamp to the gold of the gospel, which it still retains. But through all the Church development from a simple brotherhood to a vast liierarchy, and especially in all the elaboration of the simple primitive faith into theological creeds, the Divine Christ and the Holy Scriptures have moved to keep godly men in the way of truth. The period covered by this lecture extends over about a century, or from the A})ostolic Age to the time of the anti- Gnostic theologians, Irenaeus in Gaul, his pupil Hi]t)polytus in Rome, TertuUian in North Africa, and Clement in Alexandria. It is a time of transition and development, in which the primitive churches ])ecame organized as the early Catholic Church, witli simple creed, collection of New Tes- tament writings, and bishops claiming to teach the doctrines of the A})Ostles. Baur thought the conflicts of a strong Jewish Christian party with the Gentile, Pauline party ended in a union under the name of John, which produced, late in the second century, the Catholic Church. Pfleiderer thinks the preaching of 11 ..'■11 WW SI 1 :!i •111 i 1 till' I 76 Foundations of the Nicene Theology, the gospel upon ground thoroughly hellf nized pro- duced the one Church. Ritschl takes a better posi- tion, holding tliat the differences between Paul riiid the Twelve were soon healed, that Jewish Christii aity greatly declined, and lost all power after A. D. 135, so that the Church of post-Gnostic days is a Gentile development, uninfluenced by Jewish Christianity, except through the study of the Old Testament mes- sianically interpi eted after the hermeneutics of Israel. It is especially important to notice the influence of Hellenic Judaism in the Dispersion, for it was the bridge by which Palestinian Christianity passed over to the Gentiles, and Jewish Hellenists, especially Philo and his school, attempted to solve the problem of the union of Old Testament theology with Greek philosophy before Greek Christian Gnostics tried to make the New Testament theologcv the culmination of Hellenistic culture. The Jews had gone out into the Roman world as missionaries before the time of Christ; their Bible was put into Greek; Moses was explained as the Plato of Israel ; even the synagogue system took shape and color from Greek municipal life.* This ex- perience of the Jews A\'as of two-fold interest to the early Church; first of all, it showed that sooner or later Christian teachers would be compelled to set forth the gospel in its relation to the learning and wisdom of the age; and second, by the conversion to Christianity of not a few Hellenistic Jews, whose Judaism had already imbibed much (Jreek thought, the discussion of this relation was br' nv inc\})\h^ which ]je- came in a uni(j[ue sense the text book of the Eastern Church. Out of the school of Origen, helped by critical tendencies from tlie school of Antioch, arose Arianism, in conflict with which the Nicene theology took shape. This brief outline indicates clearly that the storm center of Christian activity in the second century was at the point where the faith of the Church and the knowledo-e of the world met. There were external persecutions, which martyrs endured joyfully in the dungeon and at the stake. There were literary at- tacks of educated heathen, which the Apologists answered in the language of the schools. These were from without and could be met as open enemies. But when Gnosticism appeared largely within the Church itself, laying all its stores of Greek wisdom at the foot of the cross, and inviting the brethren at once to meet pagan attack by showing that Christianity was the true development of paganism, and to glorif}^ Christ by claiming all wisdom and knowledge for Ilini and A Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 79 His Church, then temptation came as an angel of light, and holy men roused themselves in all lauds to save the Ark of God. Ilarnack describes Gnosticism as "the acute secularization, that is, Ilellenization of Christianity." It was the offer of all the kingdoms of this world if the Church would hut bow down and worsliip culture and philosophy as the tSupreme God. Before entering, however, upon this bitter struggle in which the foundations of our theology were laid, we must go back a little and put ourselves in the gently-flowing current of post-Apostolic thought, which was so soon to be cut into diverging streams by the high-places of Greek and Roman wisdom. And here we meet with a difficulty at the very out- set. We have seen what the New Testament teaches about Christ and His work. We shall soon see VN'hat the Apostolic Fathers present as the gosj)^ to the churches. There is not a little difference between them. How is this to be accounted for ? Of course there is the consideration that the New Testament is the Word of God, and that these later writings are the utterances of unins})ired men. But the (piestion still returns: How could the Gentile churches, largely founded by Paul, so soon lose their hold upon his teachino;s? How could the slow moviiio; stream of post- Apostolic exhortation bean outflow from the high, strong fountain-head of New Testament theology? The answer to these (piestions must be that the History of Christian doctrine does not l)egin Avhcn'e the development of New Testament, especially Paul- ine, theology ends. The following considerations 1 Cf. Ilarnack, Theol. Literal. Zg. 1800. No. 2G. n h^ is so Foundations of the Xicene I'lieoloijij, M 1 1 !fi.N ij i I will make this evident. Many of the first clnirchos were converted by men from Pentecost, by Peter, Barnabas, Philip, Nicholas of Antioch and others, who preached a more elementary theology than appears in Paul's Ei)istles.' What Paul himself preached was a simple gospel about one true God and Jesus who redeeuK'd men and gained for them eternal life by His death and resurrection. After the death of Paul, John lal)ored in the East, and his gospel of love, light, life in Jesus Christ, supplanted largely the more systematic teachings of Paul. There is much truth also in the observation of RitschP that converts from heathenism, owins; to their iijnorancc of the Old Testament, which Paul's theology so largely presupposes, could not fully grasp his fundamental doctrines of law, guilt and sacrific(! as applied to the work of Christ. Hence the first Gentile churches must lay anew the fundamental things of monotheism and history of Revelation in the Old Testament, until, by learning the Bible meaning of justice, judg- ment, sin and redemption, they could come to the New Testament doctrines of the Kingdom of God and entrance into it through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This study of the Law and the Prophets was closely connected, further, with the growing conviction that the Church had taken the place of Israel as the people of God (Barnabas iv. 14; Justin, Dial. xvi. 18). Two important results followed this 1 Harnack (I, 161, Eng. Tr.) thinks Peter was in Antioch, Corinth and Rome, and John certainly labored both in Palestine and Asia Minor. ^E))UteJiunff der Alt - Katholischen Klrche, 1857, S. 282 f. jn4_. Laid in Conflict ivith Hellenism. 81 conviction: on the one hand the Old Tostamcnt cnme to be regarded more than ever as a Christian I took, and wan exi)hiined accordingly; and, on t!ie other, Jewish Christians were viewed with increasing suspi- cion, especially as they began to lose their faith in the Divine Christ. The New Testament [)lainly tells lis that the Apostolic churches never embodied in their faith and life the deep comprehension of Chris- tianity set forth by their founders. Lightfoot sa}s there were greater "theological differences and re- ligious animosities" in Apostolic days than now.* Hence Kolde argues that it is hardly just to speak of a "fall" in faith and knowledge among the post- Apostolic churches, for " this Apostolic elevation has never yet been proven."^ It seems plain, then, that our outline of Christian doctrine can not begin with New Testament teachings in their fullness; but must set out rather from that more elementary Christianity which was appre- hended by the first Gentile believers, and which passed with some loss into the post- Apostolic churches And yet it would be a great mistake to regard this transmitted gospel as other than a very substantial body of Christian belief. The numerous discourses of Peter, John, Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Ajwllos, Timothy, and their many helpers, must have filled memories of believers with the truths of Christ. Men who had seen the Apostles, like Clement in Rome, Ignatius in Antioch, Polycarp in Smyrna, and many others, 1 Comment, on Gcdatians, p. 374. 2 Ueber Grenzen des hist. JErkennens. Leipzig, 1891. S. G. A Lecture. 2(1 Ed. n 1 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1^ '" IS li£ iliio 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" ^ ■ Photographic Sciences Corpordtion 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 873-4503 m v \\ <^ r^>^ 1. %^ A 82 Foundations of the Nic3ne Theology^ lived on into the second century. The constant meetings of believers would instill those outlines of Christian doctrine, which are already mentioned in the New Testament, as " first principles of the oracles of God" (Heb. v. 12) and "principles of the doc- trine of Christ" (Heb. vi. 1), into the hearts of Christians. Godly women like Priscilla could teach men like Apollos Christianity as " the way," as a definite path of truth leading to everlasting life. The early appearance of works called "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," or "Preaching of Peter," and others, show how much brief oral teachings from memory were used. Tertullian delighted to speak of " the deposit" of doctrine, which Paul gave to men like Timothy for the edification of the churches.* We must also remember that much of the belief of tlie early Christians does not appear in post -Apostolic literature, but vas oral, personal, expressed in de- votion, and comes to our knowledge only later when it took form in Christian worship, or put itself on record against heathenism or heresy. What, then, is the theology of these Apostolic Fathers with whom we must begin? It is, as we might expect, a theology of fundamentals in religion. The transition from received to reproduced Christian- ity meant inevitably a return to first principles.'* Unaided human development of doctrine and knowl- edge, appropriating revealed teachings, must begin at fundamentals. The Apostolic Fathers, like the Apostles themselves, must learn through parables, * De praescr. hneret. xxv. a Cf. NitzHoh, iJof/mengeachkhte, Berlin, 1870, S. 33. Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 83 and through the Old Testament, the mystery of one God, who saves men through His Son. Bearing this in mind, the teachings of those early writers will ap- pear less unworthy. They show ( 1 ) that this common Christianity be- lieved in one God, the Creator of the Universe, the Father, Ruler of the world and of the Church, who chose Christians to be His people, who takes up His abode in their hearts and who guides their lives.^ (2) Here is also faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Clement calls Him Son of God above all angels (xxxvi.), and who came into this world (xvi. 2). Bar- nabas knows He was preexistent, active at creation (v. 5), became incarnate (xii. 10), and will return in divine power as Judge (xv. 6). Polycarp teaches plainly the Divinity of Christ (i. 2, viii. 1). And Ignatius loves to repeat " Christ 6 Qedi t/fidSy, Christ QeoiMov'''' (^}>7i. inscr.; xviii. 2), "the Lord," and "the only Son of the Father." (3). The doctrine of the Trinity is clearly held. Clement speaks of " God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost " as a connected formula (1 viii. 2, xlvi. 6), evidently echoing the form of baptism. (4). The work of Christ includes all the ele- ments later embodied in the Nicene Creed. He was sent by God to redeem us and make us His portion (Clem. R., Ixiv.). He is our High Priest, our Media- tor, through whom we see God and taste eternal wis- dom (xxxvi. 1). He shed His blood, gave His life for us. Barnabas calls this a sacrifice on the cross (v. 1), by which we gain everlasting life, forgiveness 1 Cf. Seeberg, Lehrbuch der D. G., Leipzig, 1895, S. 41. ':L in 84 Foundations of the Nicene Theology ^ of sins, and enter the covenant lost by Israel (xiv. 4). Ignatius lays stress upon His being born of a Virgin {Eph. xix. Smyr. i.), baptized by John, condemned by Pilate, nailed to the cross, raised from the dead, to bring Jews and Gentiles, " into the one body of His Church" (Smyr. i). To despise the blood of Christ was to fall under condemnation (Smyr. vi.). (5). Eschatology is prominent as in the Gospels. The end is near. The Kingdom of God is still future, and longed for. Heaven and hell appear as awful realities. (6). The weak side of this theology is its view of the application of Christ's work. What was involved in the redemption purchased by Him, andhow we be- come partakers of it were imperfectly understood, partly, as noticed, because tlie Old Testament's pre- suppositions were not comprehended. As we shall point out in another lecture, a certain moralism* had already grown about the saving doctrines of Chris- tianity and prepared the way for the much later monstrosities of Catholicism. But even these imper- fect views of doctrine are very valuable to us, for they show by their partial reproduction of original Chris- tianity, and by their mechanical use of words of Christ and the Apostles, that the fullness of New Testament teachings had already gone before; they also show how impossible it would have been for our Gospels and Apostolic Epistles to have been produced in the second century. The most commanding figure among these Apostolic Fathers is Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. He was 1 But see Kriiger, Waa/ieisstD. Gf Leipzig, 1896, S. 37f. Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 86 second bishop after the Apostles in this capital of the first Gentile Christians. He was widely known throughout the churches. He shows us the most de- lightful picture of that religious activity and power which enabled the Christian Brotherhood to face all the wisdom of Greece and all the power of Rome. The burden of his exhortation was devotion to Christ. A favorite saying of his was: "Christ my love is crucified" (Horn. vii. 2). When he looked abroad over the churches, he saw them threatened from within by the same form of error already warred against in the New Testament. It was on one side Jewish, on the other Gentile. It was Judeo- Gnostic, though as to the relation of these elements we can not speak with certainty. The prominent feature of this heresy was docetism (cf. Trail, ix). It made Christ's person and work an appearance and not historic reality. His revelation was only subjective or alle- gorical, and not objective and actual. Christ was made only an idea having religious value; personally He was not Redeemer and Lord. Barnabas writes from Alexandria referring more to the Jewish form of current error. Polycarp, the friend of Ignatius, and for years a disciple of the Apostles,* writes from Smyrna, condemning the docetic type of heresy (Ep. c. vii.). In opposition to all such incipient Gnosticism, Ignatius pointed to the two foci of Christian life and doctrine: the first is the real indwelling of God and the Divine Christ in believers; the second is the m. WA m 1 Cf. Zahu, Forach. z. Gesch. d. iV. Test. Kanoiia. Leip- zig, 1891, IV. S. 275. 86 Foundations of the Nkene Theology^ idea of the Church as the body of Christ, the guardian of order and purity among the members. The uni- versal Christ and the universal Church are the remedy for the narrowness of Judaism and tlie unreal breadth of Hellenism.^ Christianity is presented as the per- fect religion, compared with which all others show defects. The Jew was wroug in making Jesus only Son of David and the? glory of Israel. The Greek was wrong in seeing in Him only an ideal of wisdom and knowledge. In opposition to Jewish legalism the Church claimed liberty. In opposition to Gnostic anti-nomianism the Church magnified law. Here Ignatius, according to his light, struck into the golden mid^vay between the extremes of Jew and Gentile. His theology was Christo-cen- tric, and the test of truth was its agreement with Christ. All his words about bishops and presbyters and Church authority are subordinate to purity of life and devotion to the Lord as the supreme aim. Such a theological position was not taken for the promotion of rigid ecclesiasticism or gloomy pietism. It sought, however, to be true to both the Word of God in the Scriptures and the revelation of God in nature and human history. Those Apostolic Fathers would have condemned the theory of Schleiermacher, putting Christianity essentially in a feeling of dependence. They would have rejected the intellectualism of Hegel, or Pfleiderer's account of the gospel. They would also have seen a defect in the Christianity of Ritschl, centering it in man's will, and separating God in * Hence, as is well known, he first spoke of the *' Catholic Church." Smyr. viii. Laid in Conflict ivith Hellenism. 87 Christ utterly from God in the universe and man. At this very point Harnack, his pupil Von der Goltz, and others, criticise Ignatius and his successors. Be- cause they speak, as Paul did, of flesh and spirit, the earthly man and the heavenly man, especially because Ignatius says " nothing phenomenal is good " (Horn. iii. 3), we are assured that they had imbibed already ideas which " found in the Gnostics only their conse- quent theoretical expression."* In his conflict with Docetism, Ignatius began to develop his "simple thoughts of faith in general into a theology." " And this theology, V. d. Goltz calls a combination of "Hel- lenism and Johannine mysticism" (S. 151). All of which simply means that this school of critics labels everything lying outside some elementary teachings in the Lofjia assigned to Jesus, Hellenism, and, as such thought meets us on the very threshold of the post- Apostolic Church, we are assured that the whole his- tory of Christian doctrine has been a growing cor- ruption. Such an assumption throws into false per- spective the whole body of Christian teachings in their relation to contemporary thought as will appear in a brief survey of Gnosticism. The Gnostics were the men of knowledge in relig- ion. Some called themselves so ; others were so called by their opponents. They were known as a party among the heathen. There were Sa.maritan Gnostics as early as Simon Magus, from whom Justin traces the error. The school of Philo, who laid great stiess upon three doctrines — (1) the Absolute, Unknown S-l 1 V. d. Goltz. Igmitiua von Antioch., Leipzig, 1895. a ib. S. 163; S. 158. 88 Foundations of the Kicene llieology^ \ God, (2) Hi8 revelation by middle beings, especially by the Logos, and (3) the knowledge of God reached through asceticism and ecstasy — promoted Gnosticism among the Jews. And as early as New Testament times we hear Christians warned of this "science falsely so called," which led, on the one side, to spurious liberality of thought, and, on the other, to immoral lib- erality of behavior.* For about a hundred years this movement distressed, disturbed and divided the Church.'^ Its strongholds were in Asia Minor, in Alexandria and Rome. About the year 150, Gnosti- cism reached full development, according to Justin, in Marcion, according to Irenaeus, in Valentine. With these men it broke away from the Church, or rnther was cast out by the Church as inconsistent with the gospel. Valentine, who was ^philosophical, formed a sort of Unitarian, Ethical Culture society; while Marcion, who sought to be a religious reformer by going back to Paul, organized rival churches. The clubs of Valentine soon disappeared ; but the churches of Marcion lasted till the sixth century in the remote East. Great variety of views appears in these Gnostic teachings ; for they arose in a syncretistic period and reflect the diverse philosophical and religious thought of blended mythologies and schools. Harnack thinks Simon Magus and Cerinthus preached Gnosticism as a " Universal Religion" (1. 179) ; butHilgenfeld and Lip- 1 Gal. iii. 3; I Cor. v. 1 f. ; I Tim. iii. 9; vi. 3; Jude v. 4; Rev. ii. 14, 20. Cf. Lutterbeck, N. Test. Lehrbeyriffe. Mainz. 1852. II, S. 87 ff. 2 We hear warnings against it in Syria as late as the fourth century. Cf. Aphraates, 7t'.T^ w. Unters. Ill, 1888. Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. sius* justly question this view. A system offered only to a few, in secret mysteries, and which had to reject Paul's universal gospel, can not have first taught the Church that Christianity is the one Absolute Religion. The basis of Gnosticism was religious. It started from Semitic nature worship, which was closely allied to the Mysteries. This esoteric knowledge of nature, it was claimed, was the truth of which current paganism was but a coarse allegory. When it reached the West, this Oriental thought became oveilaid with Greek ideas, especially those of Plato, as can be seen espe- cially in the systeir* of Valentine (cf. Irenaeus, II, 14). A third side to this system was practical, sacramental, ascetic, the application of philosophy and religion to life. So the Gnostics might appear as prophets preaching, as philosophers in a school, as ])riests with magic rites, or as heathen monks seeking Nirvana by penances and prayers. Philosophy, especially Greek philosophy, has always run in one or other of two channels; either in that of Monism or that of Dualism, according as the unity or diversity of God and the universe was emphasized. This difference of view appears in Gnosticism. We do not know whether to follow liippolytus and regard the early Basilides as a pantheistic Monist, like Hegel, or Irenaeus, and con sider him a Dualist. In the one case, we would have emanation from God toward matter; in the other, we would have evolution from the material towards the spiritual.'^ It matters little, however, which way the thoughts run; the end and aim of Gnosticism was by 1 Die Apok. Apostelgeschich. Braunschweig, 188Y, II. S. 28 f. a Cf. Watkins, The Bampton Lectures, 1890, p. 366. ! ^f. I ' 90 Foundations of the Nicene Tlieohxjy^ I means of pagan wisdom, supplemented by Christian- ity, to solve the riddle of the universe. Tertullian says it asked: " Whence came evil, and why? whence came man, and how ? and especially the question put by Valentine, whence came God?" {de praes. vii). A wonderful cosmogony was elaborated to explain man as a creature of soul and body, for Gnosticism set out from man. Joined to this cosmogony was an equally wonderful "History of Redemption" (cf. Seeberg, S. 56). The cosmogony was chiefly pagan; the theory of redemption was a fantastic putting to- gether of Christian material ; and the system formed out of both was pronounced true Christianity.' Faith meant the belief that the knowledge of God and the universe thus reached was true. This belief, or relig- ious feeling, impelling to the new view of the world, was gained through a great variety of washings, charms, and other ceremonies and mysteries in the Gnostic meetings (Irenaeus I, 3, 1). Doubting Chris- tians were persuaded by appeals to secret Apostolic traditions, by allegorical exposition of the Old and New Testaments, and by Gnostic writings claiming Divine authority {ih. I, 18, If.; I, 20). The principal doctrines of this strange collection of ideas Wc;i*e: (1) Two gods instead of one. The eternal un- known Deity ,^ and the lower, derived being who made the world were quite distinct. To the question, why is this world so imperfect, so evil ? the Gnostic replied : 1 Cf. Irenaeus, I, 21; Pistis- Sophia, S. 1 f. » Sohm well remarks (S. 23) that by Gnosticism **the living God of Christianity was transferred back into the Unknown God of the philosophers and their mysteries." Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 91 it was made by a small god, who could not do any better. (2) The world of matter is eternal, and essentially opposed to goodness and God. (3 ) God and the universe come into contact through numerous middle beings, begotten by the All-Father, wlio thus reveals Himself in nature and man, though very indirectly. (4) Among these middle beings two are espe- cially noticeable, viz., the Demiurge, who built this worst possible world, and makes our life pessimistic on principle, and the Aeon Jesus or Christ, who ap- peared as a man to correct the work of the Demiurge. As matter is in itself evil, Jesus could not have a body; hence the docetic Christology peculiar to all Gnostics. (5) The Demiurge was the God of the Old Testa- ment and the Jews, as well as maker of this world ; thus the Gnostics from their division of men into three classes, hylic or pagan, psychic or Jews, and spiritual or true Christians, emphasized three sources of being: Matter, the Demiurge, and the Supreme God (^ib. 1,5,1). (6) The doctrine of redemption was peculiar to Christianity; and this Gnosticism got from the gospel. We may say that the three great felt needs of educated pagans in the second century, were: first, a knowledge of the Supreme, Unknown God; second, a Divine Revelation ; and third. Redemption from the world and its evil. And these are just what Gnosticism espe- cially magnified, and pushed into false proportions in Christianity. God was unknown until revealed in Christ; therefore creation, the Old Testament and its religion, as well as all natural religion were cast aside 92 Foundationa of the Nicene Theology j as belonging to the Demiurge. Christianity was an absolutely new revelation of the science of the uni- verse and man through Christ. It was "full knowl- edge of the unutterable greatness " which saved the Gnostic. Hence Irenaeus says: "There are as many schemes of ' redemption,' as there are teachers of these mystical opinions" (I, 21). (7) Participation in redemption or victory over the world of matter was gained through the secret rites of the Gnostic lodges (I, 21, 3f.). Initiation into the mysteries of marriage to Christ, of peculiar baptism, of magic names, of special anointing, by which the secret knowledge of Being was attained, formed the path to redemption. Gnosticism became more and more a system of religious mysteries and less and less a scheme of religious philosophy.* Hence its lapse into lax living. The initiated man was enlightened and what he did was not sinful. Nature was despised; Church discipline ignored; mar- tyrdom avoided ; and the glorious cschatology of the first Christians lightly esteemed (I, 7). The fundamental error of Gnosticism was closely connected with the first article of our Creed, that re- specting the one Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth.'^ Here, in an important sense, history *Cf. Schmidt, Gnost. Schriften in Kopt. Sprache, in Text, u. Utiters. 1892; and Zt/t. f. wiss. TheoL, 1894. H. 4. 2 Ritschl wrote to Nippold in 1867 (1. c. I, S. 18) that "the statement of the conception of God and of the attributes of God is still ever the key to every form of theology. " And here is where many of the errors of his own school begin. God as creator, ruler, just, holy, wise, omnipotent and omni- present, is set aside in favor of God who is love and revealed in Laid in Confiict with Ildleninm. 93 repeated itself. The Pharisaic theologians of tlie century before Christ set forth a transcendental view of Jehovah, which made Him practically the Un- known God, dwelling in the highest heavens, and very indirectly concerned with the things of earth and man. From such a theory of God flowed the other forbidding doctrines of Rabbinical Judaism, its almost fatalistic predestination of Israel tt) life and the Gentiles to death, its middle beings between Jehovah and man, as the Memra, the Metatron, and angels, its magico-legal worship of meritor; is exer- cises, and its unearthly ascetic life, trying to make man imitate the far-off, unearthly God.* In like manner the Gnostics put the ttupre?ne God infinitely tar away from man. The near Ood, the Dcuiiurge, was the devil of the Pharisees, who ruled this world. Fate had made some men Gnostics and others hylics. And religion was a mysterious charm by which a few men, like the six thousand Pharisees in Israel, attained unto the Pleroma and Paradise.'-^ Jesus only as love. Even in the fundamental, conception of God, Ritschl led his followers into confusion by his Kanlian- Lotze speculations. In .one place (III, 102) he says, "this reception of the idea of God is not practical faith, but an act, of theoretical knowledge"; in another, however (III*, 214), he says, " this reception of the idea of (iod is practical faith and not an act of theoretical knowledge" (cf. Schoen. in Nippold, II, 247). Here is absolute contradiction in the fundamental j)oint of de- parture, yet the system of theology in all three editions of the work remains the same. ^Cf. Baldensperger, Dtis Sdbstbewuaatsein Jesu. 2d Ed. Strassburg, 1892. S. 45 if. 2 The later book, Pistis-Sojyhia, however, shows that a gospel for all men, though all men were not litte.j to receive it. llJl I M ! -,*. 94 Foundations of the Kicene Theology^ But Jesus Christ utt red anathema over the pride and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The post- Apostolic Church, with equal clearness, denounced the Gnostics as turning Christianity into paganism, and the grace of God into lasciviousness. In all parts of the world, the Christian leaders opposed this heresy as new, as contrary to all previous teachings, as repugnant to the Christian consciousness, as plainly borrowed from pagan philosophy, and as utterly opposed to the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments. Ignatius saw the great error in his day to be the teaching that Christ only "seemed to suffer" (^Smyr. ii-iv; Tr. x; Phil, vi-ix). Agrippa Castor wrote, about A. D. 130, a work now lost, against the loose teachings, both theoretical and practical of Basilides.' Justin in his work, "Against all Heresies," written about A. D. 145, aimed especially at Gnostics, while he wrote a separate work against Marcion.'^ Melito of Sardis wrote on the Incarnation against Marcion,^ about A. D. 150. In the year 165, Rliodon, a pupil of Tatian, published in Rome a treatise against Mar- cion and his pupil, Apelles.* He urged the inability of the Marcionites to agree in their doctrines as a proof that they are false, and says every Christian teacher should be able to defend the faith. Philip, a bishop of Crete, and Modestus wrote about A. D. 175 against Marcion. And probably somewhat earlier, was taught by some Gnostics. Cf. Harnack, Das Gnost. Buch Pistis- /Sophia. Leipzig, 1891. S. 63. » Routh, Relujuiae Sacrae, 1846, I, p. 85. 2 Cf. Justin M., Dialogue, xxxv. 8 Routh, p. 121. See Lecture III. * Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 13. Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 95 Hegesippns, after traveling through the churches East and West to learn what they believed,* wrote his book against Gnosticism to give " the plain tradition of the Apostolic doctrine." ^ Then came the elaborate works of Irenaeus "Against Heresies," that is Gnos- ticism, of Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, which have come down to us, and show how thoroughly the Church in Gaul, Italy, North Africa, and Egypt was agreed as to the heathen char- acter of Gnosticism. Three points especially were opposed in this sys- tem: its theology,^ its Christology, and its eschatology, 1 ih. iv. ^2; ii. 23. 2 ib. iv. 8. Cf. Kriiger, Altchristl Litteratur, Leipzig, 1895, S. 90. 3 The Gnostics taught three Gods: the Absolute, who re- vealed himself by means of Christ, the Demiurge, the maker of the world, and the world itself. It is significant that Irenaeus took for granted all that the Gnostics meant by the Absolute and went on to identify the Creator with Him. Instead of three Gods, the Absolute, the Demiurge and Matter, he taught one God, all-powerful, all-wise, and benevolent, both Creator and Redeemer. The Gnostic pessimism, based on their view of the world, he regarded as blasphemy against God (II. 3, 2). Ire- naeus also contended that the whole direction of Gnostic thought was wrong (II. 25, 1). Instead of proceeding from God to His works, these heretics went always from the earth and man to God. Like the school of Ritsehl, they let their anthropology, incidentally their Christology, give shape to their theology. Their judgments of value decided what kind of God or gods they needed. From three classes of men — heathen, Jews and Chris- tians — they proceeded to three classes of gods — Matter, the De- miurge, and the Unknown — the last of whom revealed a cosmol- ogy through Christ by which the Gnostic could rise to God (cf Kunze, 1. c. S. 3f.). I m -. 'ilii i? i i U ■ fii ' m 96 foundations of the Nicene Theolofjy^ all of which wei*e perverted by paganism. The last two were a necessary outgrowth of the first. The theory of an eternal God, different from the Creator of the world, who moulded it out of eternal matter, led to docetic views of Christ, and a denial of the resur- The Gnostics sought to solve the problem of evil by placing its origin in matter; but against this Irenaeus urged the alterna- tive (1) that such a theory either dethroned God from being the Great Cause of all things, making Him unable to prevent evil, and, therefore, less than the Demiurge, or (2), if it left God Su- preme, it made Him the author of evil. The disgrace of Gnosti- cism was its degradation of God; a position not quite foreign to that of a theologian like Herrmann, who says it is immaterial theoretically what view we take of God, deistic, theistic, or pan- theistic {Die Heliy. S. 86). Irenaeus, in defending one God also defended one humanity against Gnosticism. All change and multiplicity and imperfection of action in human history came, he held, from man, who is a creature of time and subject to de- velopment and change (cf IV, 11, 2, and Kunze, 1. c. S. 45), while God is the one changeless Cause. One God, one Humanity was the watchword of Irenaeus against the three gods and the three humanities of the Gnostics, whom the school of Ilitschl present as the first teachers of " Christianity as the Universal Religion." Hilgenfeld {Ztft.lS^Q, II. I.) thinks Gnosticism arose outside Christianity, but under the influence of the gospel, and readily penetrated Church teachings. Kesslor {Mani, Forschungen,\%%Q) maintainsthat Gnosticism was pagan in origin, and only borrowed some Christian ideas, but ever remained essentially heathen. Harnack traces Gnosticism to a pre-Christian syncretism, which aimed at presenting "a universal religion" (I. I79f.). This movement towards a religion for all men received an impulse, he thinks, from Christianity, but did not at first, widiin the Church, get beyond a multiplicity of Jewish and anti-Jewish attempts of little imi)ortauce towards a universal religion, until the great Gnostics, Basilides, Valentine, and the Ophites took up the problem by means of Greek philosophy, and introduced an " acute secularization of Christianity" in opposition to which Luid in Conflict with Ilellenisni. 97 rection of Christians. It also made men dwelling in mortal bodies necessarily evil. In opposition to such theology, Irenaeus and Tertiillian urged (1) the unity of God, (2) the Divine Christ, and (3) free will in man the gradual secularization or Ilellenizing of Christianity took place, which resulted in Catholicism. In this movement Mar- cionis given a vei'y prominent place (Ilarnack, I. 162ff). Against this theory of Harnack, that the Gnostics first pre- sented Christianity as the "universal religion," following here Simon Magus, Ililgenfeld urges (1) that Paul and John — not Marcion — first raised the question " what is Christianity':"' just as Cerinthus did, answering it by the rejection of Paul's teach- ings; (2) Cerinthus was a Gnostic yet, instead of accepting the "universal religion" of Paul, he held to circumcision, the Sab- bath, and an earthly Messianic Kingdom; (3) the Gnostics by set- ting out from three classesof men, hylic, psychic, and spiritual — only one of whom was sure of salvation — betray a strange con- ception of a religion for all men, for man as man; to say with Harnack that this perversion arose from the influence of the mysteries, is to say tliat other influences were from the outset stronger in Gnosticism than its ruling idea; and (4) to explain these inconsistencies further by sharply distinguishing between the lesser Gnostics of the first century, who were not so Hellenis- tic, and the greater Gnostics — Basilides, Valcntiue, etc. — of the second century, who Mere thoroughly Hellenistic, and made aeons real ideas, is to build upon a difference which exists to a very small degree; for the ewota of Simon Magus was a real idea, "also the Logos, whicli appears already in Cerinthus" (S. 33). Hilgenfeld thinks Jewish Gnostic Christianity passed from a Nomistic stage (Cerintiuis) to an Anti-Nomistic (Car- pocrates, Cei*do), trying to keep within the Church, till Marcion saw this to be impossible and left the position of his teacher, Cerdo, to form an independent Church based on the ideas of Gnostic Paulinism (S. 4G). He taught a world Church. This was the levelopment, within the Church, which .Tustin made culminate in Marcion, as it began witli Simon M.igus. Looked at more philosophically it culminated in Valentine (cf. Lipsius lit! 98 Foundations of the Nicene Theology^ :i as taught in reason, in the Old Testament, and in Apostolic tradition.* Against men like Valentine, it was held that they must reject God either as the Ab- solute or as the Cause of all things.'^ To keep God from being the author of evil, they robbed Him of creative power and took away His Divine providence.^ He was weaker than the Demiurge. This left them with no God over all things, no Absolute. Irenaeus then went on to declare tliis unknown God of the Gnostics to be a mere fancy; and taught that the Creator whom they blasphemously made a middle being, was the only Supreme God (H. 30, 9). He is reason, the "mind of all." He is ^ight, and can be seen only in the radi- ance which reveals Him (IV. 20, 5.). In opposition to the supposed conflict between the justice and mercy of God, which Marcion put in two Gods, Irenaeus taught that both met in the love of the one God, which moved Him to reveal His power, wisdom, and goodness to man. Instead of the evolutionary theory of Gnosticism Die Apok. Apostelgesch. Braunschweig, 1887, II, S. 28ff, and S. 624). Gnosticism, however, was too confused and syncretistic to be called a system (cf. Thomasius, D. G. I, 84). The mys- steries, the esoteric nature worship, the elaborate ritual, the brotlierly meals of Gnostics were far more prominent and dan- gerous in the eyes of the Church than their theology. "Gnosti- cism is not a philosophical-speculative, but an ecclesiastical- religious development" (Weingarten, Zeittafeln zur Ivirchen- ffcschichte, 3d P2dition, Rudolstadt. 1888, S. 9). The Gnos- tics were theologians in the second century, but not " Me theo- logians " of the Church, as Ilarnack asserts. » See Harnack, D. G. I. 193. Note 1. 2 Irenaeus, II. 1, 1; 35, 3; III. 8, 3. 3 Cf. Kunze, Die Gotteslehre de^ Ireimeiis, Leipzig, 1891, S. 3 ff. Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 99 — that of Herbert Spencer in our day — which began with paganism having no God, passed through Juda- ism with a demi-god, and finally in Christianity first attained a knowledge of true theism, these Fathers taught that God was revealed in nature, and spake by His spirit in the Old Testament prophets, before He became incarnate in Jesus Christ (HI. 24, 2; Tertul- lian, Apol. xxi.)^ In this connection I am remind- ed of the practical objections urged by Tertullian 1 With this battle of the early Church in dofence of God as Creator of the World most Neo-Kautian theologians have little sympathy, because for them God the Creator is of no religious value. Philosophy studies God as the first Great Cause — so Plato; ethics studies God as the Summum Bonum; theology, as we see for example in Philo (cf. Pfleiderer, Gifford Lectures, ii. pp. 222 f.) unites both these conceptions, or did so till Kant and Ritschl (cf. Kaftan, Uas Christenthimi n. die T/icolof/ie, 1806) declared that God as Summum Bonum alone is the object of theology. Hence Engelhardt (1. c. 393) thinks that Barnabas in his inclination " to identify the Father God with the Lord and Creator of the World " was drifting away from primitive Chiis- tianity. That is, to make God the Creator an object of faith, love, and obedience is wrong; it is God as Redeemer, God in Christ, who is to be thus regarded. It is pretty evident that such distinctions cannot be followed in the worship of Old Testament saints or New Testament disciples. The very phrase "I believe in God the Father, Almighty," which opens the first creed, is on similur grounds attacked by Engelhardt and Harnack (See Lecture VI.). Yet good, innocent Clement of Rome goes on speaking of the "glorious and venerable rule" of faith, which was to do, "what is good and pleasant and acceptable in the sight of Him who made us." To say, as do Ritschlian theolo- gians (cf. V. d. Goltz, Ignatius. S. 155) that Ignatius, the first opponent of Gnostic errors, andMarcion, a Gnostic himself, were the only two men in the second century who thoroughly f>.\ V ii ;'!l 100 FoimdaUons of the Nkene Theology^ against Gnosticism. He charges (1) that it had no mission power, it could not form churches, and unite men in earnest work; (2) it could not produce holy character, because rejecting the fear, the wrath of God; and (3) it was fatally defective, because in re- jecting the Divine Christ and not fearing him as the subordinated all cosmical attributes of God to His revelation as "Futlier of Jesus Christ," and thereby recognized the universal significance of the gospel, shows the extreme position of this school, and its arbitrary statement of what true Christianity is. Yet even Ignatius was in danger. V. d. Goltz says his use of the phrase "nothing phenomenal is good" shows that he had a Gnostic germ, which needed only time to j>roduce the theory of Marcion. Surely this is heresy-hunting gone crazy. Could not any reader of Ritschl's books find scores of similar expressions, which, if found in Epistles like those of Ignatius, would give much stronger grounds for calling the writer a fairly developed Gnostic? If this be incipient Gnosticism, Paul and John and every Father and Reformer was a full-blown Gnostic. The attempt (1) to find Christian teachings in all Gnostic Fragments, and (2) to show that the development of the Church teachings themselves landed in Gnosis is pushed to an extreme length by the Ritschl critics. Pfleiderer traces it to Paul himself (1. c. 165) and thinks his " heavenly man" doctrine gave rise to Gnostic Christology. Bigg well observes, however, that " be- tween heathen gnostics and the gnostics known to Christian con- troversy there is no essential difference." Theology, as com- pared with the mysteries and the mass of superstition, was by no means so prominent a feature in Gnosticism '«s many critics sup- pose (cf. Leitz, in Ililgenfeld's Ztft., 1894, S. 34f.); while theol- ogy formed a very small part of Church thought, and theologi- cal literature but a small fragment of ecclesiastical religious literature. If all Christian thought were compared with all Gnostic thought, the few points of agreement would sink into insignificance compared with recent attempts to make the con- tents of early Church teachings more and more Gnostic. The fact is the Ritschl men fail to find Ka: ^.'s theory of knowledge 1:1 Laid in Conflict ivith Hellenism. 101 Judge of the living and the dead, it undermined all sound doctrine, and all principles of Cliristian living ( De Pra es. cc . 4 1 -4 4 ) . Similar dualism was rejected from Christology. TertuUian calls Christ the whole truth, divine yet with human body and human soul. And Irenaeus, though but one man's life away from John, speaks of the applied by anybody either in the New Testament or in Church history, and are forced everywhere to introduce it to apply it. Hence V. d. Goltz linds Ignatius sit once all wrong about God, and says he should have made "a fundamental change and deep, ened the ancient, basal conception of the Being of God and of the nature of the relation of man to Him" (S. 153). Von Engel- hardt, in like manner, traces nearly all that he linds wrong in the teachings of Justin to an incomplete view of God, borrowed from tlie Greeks, who ignored the Ritschl theory of two kinds of truth about God and religion. This test of what is Christian or Hellenic is carried all through Patristic theology. But Justin declared his contemporary, ]\Iarcion, had such a blasphemous view of God and Christ, that he must have heard it from devils (I ApoL Iviii.), just as P dycarp called him " the first-born of Satan" (Eusebius, H. E. IV, 14). The other anti-Gnostics speak in similar terms. Paul had strongly opposed spurious Gnosis, and science falsely so-called (I Tim. vi, 20); Ignatius fought Docetism; Justin called it an invention of Satan; Irenaeus shaped all his theology in opposition to Gnostic errors (of. Kunze 1. c. S. Y 1); TertuUian waged war against Marcion and like heretics. It seems very strange, then, to hear that through these men and their immediate successors Gnosticism perverted the whole sys- tem of Christian doctrine. From the beginning Christian teachers defended both faith and knowledge. Clement of Rome praised the Corinthians for their "steadfast faith " (I) and also for their "perfect and sound knowledge," the union of which gave "piety towards God and love towards men." His successors took the same ground; and it must not be called " seculariza- tion" of Christianity in these Fathers when they defend the rights of the intellect xs well as of the heart in religion. i I ,1 1 1 1 Ml Ml ■M II 102 Foundations of the Xicene Theology^ " Logos of God " as Calvin or Hotlge might have done. Kunze says, "he adopts from Christian tradition the already fully developed idea of the Logos" (S. 35). He never speaks of Christ as the mere Word of God, but ever presents Him as real, eternal Son of God incarnate in humanhistory. Christ in eternity, Christ in creation, Christ in the Old Testa- ment, Christ in redemption ; that is the teaching of Irenaeus and Tertullian ; and that is just the larger out- line of the teachings of the Apostolic Fathers. In like manner Gnostic fatalism which shut God out of the world and haman history, making it all a phantasmagoria, was broken down by the doctrine of gospel free-will, which called all men, hylic as well as psychic and pneumatic, to depart from evil, which was not necessary, and turn to God, who invites every man to believe and Hve.^ The body is not a tomb, a prison of the soul, but a temple of God; there is a resurrec- tion to glory far beyond all Gnostic dreams of the Pleroma, and there is a real coming again of Christ. What now was the outcome of this widespread con- troversy in the Church ? What effect did it have upon Christian thought and life? As is well known, the school of Ritschl replies that the result was stupen- dous. It was little short of the extinction of primitive Christianity We are told that the Hellenization of the gospel, which was successfully resisted when it first swept like a flood against the Christian ark, leaked in gradually during the second and third and fourth cen- turies, till, in the form of the Nicene theology, it turned living faith into dead dogma, and left the 1 Cf. Pressens^. 1873, p. 465. Early years of Christianity. New York. Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 103 Church water-logged to drift through the centuries. Most of this supposed process does not belong to the present lecture — we have now to glance at some preliminary questions only — but they are important and far-reaching in their character. Since the days of Neander the powerful action and reaction of Gnosticism upon the Church have been generally recognized. Its marvelous system of wor- ship, mysteries, magic and superstition, which was chiefly pagan rites poured into Christian worship, was the forerunner of much of the later Catholic sacramentar- ianism and priestcraft. Behind this imposing, esoteric ritual, was a strange philosophy of religion ; and this, too, though in much less degree, affected the thought of the Church. These two indirect results of Gnosti- cism, the Christian mysteries, and the presentation of the gospel under definitions as doctrine may be frankly admitted. It is the latter of these which must be briefly noticed here. What effect had this Hellen- ist heresy upon the theology of the Church before the beginning of the third century, when her faith was fixed upon the New Testament Scrij^tures ? We may reply as follows: (1) The anti- Gnostic Fathers simply repelled at- tacks upon their belief, but were not led by Gnosticism to formulate any rival system of theology. Not till danger arose really from within the Church in the time of Arius was a dogmatic statement elaborated. (2) No peculiar views of Gnosticism passed into the general belief of the Church of the second century.' Hatch devotes three lectures of his last work to the . i 1 Cf. Matter, Histoire critique du gnosticisme, III, 40. 104 fi 1 ■ I' ■I: Foundations of the Nicenp Theology^ influence of Hellenism upon post-Gnostic theology, only to reach the meagre conclusion that it produced " mainly a certain habit of mind," " a tendency to specu- late " (p. 133); so far as it discussed God as Creator, it only " found a reasoned basis for Hebrew monothe- ism," which had long been held in the Church.' He says that in the doctrine of God as "Moral Governor," Irenaeus united the Palestinian view of God as a great "Sheyk and Judge" with the Greek view of God as Fate, by the Stoic theory of free-will (p. 231). As if both Old and New Testament were not full of free- will teachings from which Irenaeus could draw ! ^ It is true the Apologists, Aristides, Justin and others, speak in lofty, almost transcendental terms after the manner of philosophers, and there is no doubt but such converted pagan sages do describe God in the language of the schools; but it is equally true that even Justin's theology is everywhere essentially Chris- tian. His God is always personal, always a moral ruler of love, justice, mercy, grace; and it was chiefly (1) opposition to heathenism and (2) a desire to make room for the Divine Christ that led him to speak of God in such transcendant terms.^ 1 Influet}ce of Greek ideas and vsages upon the Christian Church. London, 1890, p. 207. 2 He appeals at once to Scripture. Cf. IV. o7, 1. Justin says Plato got his theory of free-will from the Old Testament (I Ap. xliv.). This does not mean that they might not think Greek thoughts into the Bible; but it does mean (1) that they regarded the Bible as containing all that was necessary for re- ligion, and (2) that they knew the difference between revelation and Greek thought and the danger of confusing them. 3 Cf, Flemming, Zur Hedeutung des Christenthums Justitis. Leipzig, 1893, S. 71. \ Laid in Conflict with Ilellermm. 105 (3) We nuiat also boar carefully in mind the proper and necessary limitations to be observed in estimating the influence of Hellenism in general and Gnosticism in jmrticular upon early Christianity. Hatch regrets the loss of nearly all early heretical literature, which makes it impossible to trace the processes by which he thinks Christian teaching be- came paganized (p. 8f.). Ilarnack also speaks of the almost insuperable obstacles in the way of tracing the sujiposed Hellenization of the gospel through the kaleidoscopic syncretism of ancient philosophy and mysticism. We must also remember that the Gnostics as "the first theologians in the Church " swept the whole horizon and touched almost every possible <[uestion in Biblical theology and Greek speculation. They were especially devoted to the New Testament. Hence if they should be found first giving theological form to the thought that Christ is the source of all Chris- tianity, that the Apostles were transmitters of His teachings, that the gospel is above all else redemption from evil, that the New Testament is peculiarly the Word of God, that sin roots in the ver}'- nature of man, that hell is eternal destruction, or that pardou springs from trust in God's love — a point in which Harnack thinks they were more Christian than the Greek Church (cf. his Pistis- Sophia^ — it would be quite wrong to argue that such doctrines, because preached by Gnostics, are therefore of Hellenistic origin. But a still more important limitation lies in the nature of Gnosticism itself. This system stood for the rights of knowledge in religion. Hence the school of Ritschl thinks it was evil and that continu- ally. Hatch says the three great corrupters of early f i 1:.:. |l EJ' I f, / ■II: 106 Foundatlom of the yicene Theology^ Christianity were Greek rhetoric, Greek logic, and Greek metaphysics. That is a summary of his lop- sided view of theology and history of doctrine. But what is Greek rhetoric save the best form of human rhetoric? And what is Greek logic but just what Sir William Hamilton declared all logic to be, "the science of the laws of thought as thought." And what was the current philosophy of Greece other than just the philosophy which always appears when the best human reason turns towards the problems of God, man and the universe? What Christianity recog- nizes as true in natural theology, what reason de- mands respecting the origin, the person, the work of Christ, and what explanation man's mind must give of the meaning of the gospel and of the hope that is in us, cannot be labeled as Gnosticism and thrust out of our holy religion. To estimate, therefore, what foreign element Gnosticism brought into Christianity, we must subtract (1) what the Gnostics held in com- mon with all Christians, (2) what the Church held religiously but which was stamped theologically by the Gnostics, (3) what belongs to man's reason and any intelligent presentation and defence of Chris- tianity, and (4) what can be just as naturally traced to the Bible as to Hellenism.' * It is very important to see that Christian teachings formed the rule and foreign ideas the exception in the early Church. It must also be borne in mind that most of these foreign ideas were thoughts of natural virtue or theology already supported by Scripture or involved in its teachings. The Church arose when the disciples by sensible proofs were convinced that Jesus had actually risen and was in their midst. And that Church continued to teach the great essentials of the gospel. Zahn re- %'■ ':' ^ ;'; Laid in Conflict ivith JleUeaism. 107 (4) Througli tho struggle with Gnosticism, the learning of the Church passed from the con- venticle to the school. The traveling evangelist with a irift of utterance was Huccccdcd hy the converted pirdosopher or the preacher trained in classic wis- dom as well as in the Scriptures. The first theologi- cal senunary now appeared in Alexandria, where the opposition to Gnosticism, which ridiculed faith, de- manded Christian development of faith into knowl- edge. Three great schools of thought appeared as part of the indirect influence of the struggle with marks: "For the continuity of the development from that time (the resurrection) on to Irenaeus is unquestionable " {JCumm, 1. c). The complex of doctrines, customs and or- ganizations, which arose and g.-we Christianity a different aspect from its ori/inal form, could not arise in a day; hence to speak -^f the "origin of the early Catholic Church," as taking place suddenly in the second half of the second century — about A. D. 180 — is quite misleading. Zahn rightly insists that this Churjh of Irenaeus had "no prehistoric period;" but can be traced from the beginning. Hatch says (p. 252) that the Ebionites, Alogi (perhaps a dozen men or more in Rome), and the Clementines were "in the original sphere of Christian- ity"; but this modified Baurism exalts the exception into the rule, and covers the lack of proof of such statements by a lamentation over the loss of e.arly heretical literature (p. 9). The Church in opposing the Gnostics, and other early heretics, took the right weapons. Instead of setting up a rival phil- osophy or new speculations, the appeal was made to historic Christianity as always preached and believed from the Apostles down, to living tradition, to Apostolic writings, and to the fact that such errors had always been opposed. Ignatius, Irenaeus and TertuUian took the same position toward the Ajtostles that Ritschl, Herrmann and Ilarnack take toward the German Reformers. Neither were these early theologians less critical 108 Foundations of the Nicene Theology^ if !'■ Hellenism. Tertullian and his followers, both ortho- dox and Montanist, in North Africa and Asia Minor, preached practical duty, prayer for the Holy Ghost, and a defensive attitude towards secular learning, as the course to be followed against all heresy. Clement and the men of Alexandria founded a seat of learning in which to oppose worldly wisdom, by the higher Christian wisdom, making all Greek philosophy a slave-tutor to lead the ignorant into the school of Christ. A third party of teachers from Rome and Asia Minor, followers of Polycarp, viz., Irenaeus and than many of their modern successors. Justin says of " the opinions of the ancientB" {I Ap. ii.): "Reason enjoins those who are truly pious and philosophical to honor and love only what is true, refusing to follow opinions of the ancients, if these be worthless." He was converted, about A. D. 130, in Ephosus, by an aged man, who must have knoAvn Apostolic Christians, very likely John himself; hence Justin who wrote in Rome could appeal with confidence to the transmitted gos- pel, which came through the Apostles from Jesus Christ. He says Christianity must be sought by "reading the teachings of Christ" (II Apol. iii.); and these were contained in the "Memoirs of His Apostles " (I Ap. Ixvi. ; Dial. c.,ci.,civ.,cv., cvi). These transmitted teachings were easily distinguished from false doctrines. Paul had taught the truth in opposition to heresies (Gal. v. 20; Titus iii. 16); and all following Chris- tian teachers took the same attitude. It is especially important to notice the unanimity of belief on the great doctrinal essen- tials in the Church of the second and third centuries, when no great councils appeared to promote unity of teachings and all were free to leave the Church if its preaching were distaste- ful. Pressens6 observes of this common faith [Edrli/ years of (Jhristianitij, New York, 1873, p. 4): "We must surely regard this, not as a system composed and formulated by the authority of a school, but as the faith itself, in its truest instinct and most spontaneous r^anifestatiou." ''ll Laid in Conjlict with IIelle,Asm. 100 Ilippolytus, took the golden middle way, admitting truth both from reason and revelation, and pointed out the path which the Church has ever since fol- ic ed. Irenaeu8 sums up the anti-Gnostic the- ology as follows: "We hold that there is one Al- mighty God, who created all things by His Word and fashioned them, and formed from what did not exist all things that exist; as the Scripture saith, By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them l)y the breath of His mouth (Ps. xxxiii. 0). All things were made by Him, and with- out Him was not anything made that was made (John i. 3). Now from all things nothing is omit- ted: the Father made all things by Him, whether visible or invisible, objects of sense or intelligence, temporal, because of a certain character, or eternal. He made them not by angels nor by any powers separated from His thought — for God needs none of all these beings — but by His word and His Spirit, He makes and disposjes and governs and presides over all things. This GoJ, wdio made the world — for the world includes all--(lii3 God who fashioned man, this God of Abraham, this God of Isaac, this God of Jacob, above whom there is no other God, nor Be- ginning, nor Power, nor Pleroma, this God as we shall show, is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " (I, 22, 1; HL 4; HL 11, 7). L-enaeus calls this state- ment, "The Rule of Truth." He knew it expressed the mind of the Church. Its doctrines are set forth by Hippolytus(yV<'//. x. 32, 33), and Tertullian; they underlie the Alexandrian theology; and have con- tinued until ourday as part of the basis of Christian the- ology (cf. Tertullian, De jiyraes. her. viii. and xxxvi.). 110 Foundationa of the Nicene Theology ^ (5) But the greatest immediate effect of Gnosti- cism upon Cliristiauity came througli its challenge of the claims of the Church to represent Christ and His gospel. The men of knowledge with their " universal religion " consigned the heathen to destruction, ad- mitted Jews and ordinary Christians to the lower heavens; but reserved for themselv^es, as the only true disciples, supreme immortality.^ The indignant reply of the Church to such assumption was an appeal to history. Clement of Rome was ordained by Apostles. Polycarp was taught by John. Irenaeus learned from Polycarp. The Churches in Corinth, Rome, Galatia had the Epistles of Paul. The words of Christ were still remembered by old men who had heard them from the Twelve. In face of these things how could the Gnostics pretend to be the true Chris- tians? Their answer was manifold. They said they had a secret doctrine received from the Apostles ; " they rejected the Old Testament as a Jewish book, aiul appealed to the New Testament, adding apocryphal books to it; they renounced Apostolic authority when 1 Hence we hear heart-breaking inquiries in the tistis- Sophia about the fate of relatives who did not receive the light of life. But it was just on the practical side, o" conversion of sinners, gathering of followers, and training in holiness that the Gnostics utterly failed. They showed no signs of the "survival of the fittest" or of that perseverance that marks the saints. Ilarnack sees this fatal weakness of Gnosticism and re- marks (I, 180): " The inability to organize con tjregdt ions and dis- cipline them, which is characteristic of all philosophical relig- ious movements, doubtless greatly limited the Gnostic propa- ganda. " 2Cf. Clement of Alex. jStrom. vii. 100. Laid in Co7)flict with Hellenism. HI necessary ; * they led the way in exegetical, ethical and dogmatic theology, to explain away the Scrip- tures and traditional doctrines. What could be said in reply to such criticisms? The proldem was not very unlike that presented to the orthodox Church of our day by the theolo- gy of llitschl. Tertullian tells us''^ that the Gnos- tics, like the Neo-Kantians, set out from a Neo- Platonic theory of knowledge, which turned New Testament history into allegorical judgments of value. Both teach such a unique revelation of God in Christ as sets aside the Old Testament; on similar grounds, Baur called Schleiermacher a Gnostic' Ritschl would agree with Marcion that there is no 1 Irenaeus, ILier. I, 13, C; III, 2. 2 De Atihna, xvii. ; cf. Hatch p. 123. Tertullian argues that the phouoinenal theory of perception would (1) cast discredit upon the Revelation in Christ, for Jesus as a man might not really "behold Satan as lightning fall from Heaven," or "hear the Father's voice testifying of Himself," or be sure that ho " touches Peter's wife's mother," or know that he tasted the wine at the Last Supper. He adds, " on this false principle it was that Marcion chose to believe that he was a phantom, deny- ing to Him the reality of a perfect body." (2) Ho than shows that if the senses can tell only of phenomena to the soul, the Avitnoss of the Apostles about Christ is overthrown. Ho quotes I John i. 1, to show the actual knowledge to which the disciples testilied. s Comparatur Gnosticls/nKscion Schleiermncher. Tlicolofjicxie indole, reference in Hilgenfehl's Ztft. 189J, S. 220. Ncander, long ago, said of such a view of Christ that thereby "Christianity became an 'solatod fragment, for which no preparation had been made, and without any point of con- nection in either nature or history." [Planting and Training 112 I'^oundations of the 2^icene Theology^ knowledge of the Supreme God to be gained from nature or history or Greek and Roman paganism.' Both made Jesus Christ docetic, the one making His divinity only an impression, the .other making His humanity a religious picture for devotion. Both agree in rejecting eschatology and making Christianity a battle now for superiority over the world. They both especially set aside the Virgin birth of Jesus and His resurrection as non-esseitial to our religion; they make light of His prccxlot'mce. Both deny any per- sonal relation to the Supreme God; God can be approached only through knowledge of Christ, and that knowledge can be found only in the Church with her sacraments and moral atmosphere. The cry in both schools is " Back to Christ," ''Seek and ye shall find"; hence ihe inquiry of the Cliurch, then as now, has been: How shall we get back to Christ? The answer found to this question was threefold: (1) through the simple gospel confession of faith by which every Christian is admitted to the Church, the baptismal rule of truth; (2) through the New Testa- ment, which contains the words of Jesus and the teachings of the Apostles; (S) through the official leaders of the Church, especially the bishops, who came to be considered the true transmitters of Apos- ofthe Chr. Church. Engl. Transl. 1876, London, II, p. 492.) The truth which TertuUian set forth in opposition to such Gnostic dualism, and which must be still defended, was that of one God revealed in reason, nature, the Scriptures, his- tory, and Christ. 1 Marcion is the one man whom Haruack delights to honor. He alone partially understood Paul in the second century (I, 199 f.). Laid in Conflict with Ilellenisni. 113 tolic doctrine. In other words, a simple creed, like the so-called Apostles' Creed, came into use against heresy; the New Testament books were collected, and all nor -Apostolic writings excluded. Finally the early Catliolic Church took on its authoritative Epis- copal form. These are most important results of the Gnostic controversy; but they must not be pressed too far. We must remember in the first place that they are not all equally right or wrong; the adoption of a simple form of faith, and the collection of Apos- tolic writinojs as a standard of reliijious life and doc- trine rest upon words of Christ and sober inferences from them; while the growth of the Episcopal Church organization has no such basis, but is much more con- ventional and arbitrary, borrowing from Old Testament usages or even from current civil methods. AVe must remember, further, that it is misleading to speak as if the early Catholic Church with its Apostles' Ci-'jcd and its New Testament sprang suddenly into ])eiug over the graves of the Gnostics and Montanists. The remark of a French archaeologist, "An art never im- provises itself," is surely equally true of the so-called early Catholic Church. We cannot find any such transformation in the Christianity of the first two centuries as the school of Ritschl suppose. Zahn says " the continuity of development from the day of the resurrection of Christ on to Irenaeus is uncpiestioii- able."^ No group of events burst forth about A. D. 180, to make the Church quite different then from what it was between ISO-KIO.- The simple Rule of 1 Gesch. d. N. Test. luowns. I. S. 445. 2 He refers especially to the supposL'i)us, a Jewish Christian, even in the second century, regarded the doctrinal agreement of the bishops of the West with him as a full proof of their orthodoxy. The failure of Jewish Christians to retain the true teachings of the Apostles is no valid objection to Apostolic authority, any more than the failure of so many to receive the gospel from Christ Himself can be urged against His authority. 1 Cf. Epp. of Peter, Jude and James to Jewish Christians in the Dispersion, and Justin, 2>ta/. c. 47. 120 Ii\}undatio)ii of the Siccue Thcohxjy^ ii becuusc tlio work and toacLingsof Paul had disappeared leaving a vacuum which must he filled by Apostolic authority, because Christ's eschatolo^ical words meant the Twelve must have gone to the Gentiles, and be- cause an a[)ology must be mad(^ to the lu^athen for Christ's conlininLr His labors to Palestine. The Gnos- tics, we are told, " Hrst forged artificial chains of tra- dition and the Church followed them in this." His chief j)roof is the fact that Marcion, in departing from current Chuich t<'achings, rejectc'd on dogmatic grounds the claims of the orthodox to represent the Apostles. Such an undertaking Harnack thinks impossible', had reliable traditions of the twelve Apostles and their teachings been really extant and operative in wide circles. Ililgenfeld well replies: "Wonderful! Be- cause Marcion re'jected primitive Christianity no reli- able tradition of it existed any longer." ' The fact 1 He sayn [Zeitschri/t, 1894, I 1): "It was not agrinst an a priori constructed Christianity i. '' Marcion fought, but against a Christianity that actually spran^ ,m the first Apos- tles, and he did so by placing himself cxclusu 'v upon the side of Paul, and even going beyond him. His attempt would be incomprehensible, his success and the manner of his polemic against him would only then be unthinkable, had he fought against a merely manufactured Christ ia:uty ascribed to primi- tive Apostles, and against a Jewlnh tilivistianity already re- tired from the stage of history" (S. .,rr. The admission of a moderate influence to Jewish Chrisliunity still in the time of Marcion, as advocated by the later school of Baur, is also being recognized by some of the followers of Ritschl. (Cf. Loofs, in the second edition of his Dof/menyeschichte, and in his section on "Kirchengeschichte" in the Volume on German Universities (l)p. 197-208), prepared for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, cf. Nippold I. 249). Ritschl, as is well known, dated the over- throw of Jewish Christianity from the fall of Bar-Cochba, in m ! is 1 11 an jut JOS- ither did he dare to resort, like other Gnostics to secret tradition: there was nothing for him to do but begin anew, drop historical Chris- tianity, and construct a gospel for himself. Yet even here he could find no material save that offered in the de.-ipised Clun-ch tradition; he could only slightly alter it to serve his purposes (cf. Zahn, N. K. Ztft. 1891, II. 5). Meybooni thinks that, the Gnostic movement under Marcion was of little importance {Marcion en de JIarcioneten, Leiden, 1888). 1 Justin says the Gnostics claimed Apostolic origin, but de- clares that Marcion had no proof for his teachings. They were contrary to all traditional life and doctrine. They were also contrary to the Christian Scriptures; for Justin further says that true Christian teachings must be learned from "reading the 122 Foundations of the Nicene Theology^ the Apostles cannot be allowed to cover later teachings, which, though referred in a general way to Apostles, plainly contradict the writings of the New Testament.* (3) This Rule of Faith did not claim to be an official, literal production of the Apostles, but rather a brief summary of the gospel as heard from their lips at bap- tism, and binding because true and from Him who is the truth. It appears in various forms in Irenaeus, (I. 9, 4; III. 4, 1, 2), Tertullian {De Praes. xiii) and others ; neither does the same writer give it always the same way. It belonged to the custom of the " churches of God" of which Paul speaks (I Cor. xi. 16). Tertul- lian says it "was taught by Christ" (t5. ix.): it con- teachings of Christ" (II Ap. iii). This is also the position of Aristides, who lifteen years before the death of Polycarp, refer- red the Roman Emperor to the Christian writings as the source of their doctrines (cf. his Apology, cc. ii. ; xvii.). 1 The Didache was not written by the Apostles, but its title, "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," shows that on the threshold of the second century the churches already claimed to build upon the foundation of the Apostles in the exclusive sense. The so-called "Apostoli*^ Canons" of the third century, and the "Apostolic Constitutions" of the fourth, only show how the early idea of the authority of the Twelve was sought for vai'ious ecclesiastical regulations, but do not overthrow the proof for a legitimate recognition of the Apostolic origin of the Church from the first. There is a legend that the Twelve divided th"! world among them; but we find no trace of separate mission territory, beyond Paul going to the Gentiles and Peter laboring chiefly among Jews. All the Apostles were for all the CI urch. Irenaeus, who knew Polycarp, says he was taught not by John only, but by the Apostles (III. 3, 4), and was for years in intercourse with them (cf. Zahn, Forschung. zur G. d. iVl T. Kanonsy IV. S. 275, who thinks the time referred to was about A. D. 69 — 85) I Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 123 irow figin the 36 of Itiles ere I was I was \zur rred tained "what the Church received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God'' (xxi.). What differed from it was false because " contrary to the truth of the Churches, and Apostles of Christ and God." It was older than heresy,* contained the truth which the Gnostics sought after, and must be obeyed because it teaches what the Scriptures teach (^De Praes. xiv\, xix., xxxviii). Irenaeus speaks of its anti- quity, " from the Apostles and their disciples " (II- 9, 1; 1. 10, 2; III. 3, 1,); its universality (1 10, 1); its use at baptism (1.9, 4); its unity; and sums it up essen- tially as we have it in the Apostles' Creed (1. 10, 1). Harnack says this "Rule of Truth" saved Christianity from utter dissolution (1.262); for it was a test in op- position to the Gnostic Rule of Faith, as well as a barrier to the errors which clothed themselves in alle- gorical expositions of Scripture. It was defended then as we defend Scriptural Creeds now, but with closer reference to the Apostles who had just passed away. Before the Gnostic controversy it was a creed of de- votion ; now it became a test of doctrine. The other historical avenue to Apostolic teachings left open and clear by the anti-Gnostic theolugiaus was that of the JNew Testament as Word of God. We have seen already Iionv Jesus put His own word side by side with that of the Old Testament; and h(v.v lie gave and the Apostles accepted the same absolute re- ligious authority (cf. II Thess. ii. 15 ; II Cor. ii. 9). Now when we enter the post- Apostolic Church we find these lorty ."• .ma all recognized. The Second Epistle of 1 Hence the Gnostics revised it for thoir purposes. Cf. Miiller, Kirchengeschichte. Freiburg, 1892, Bfl. I. S. 74. /! ■t'i' \i« ill ; f 124 FoundatioriH of the Nicene Theoloaij^ Peter spoke of Paul's Epistles as " Scriptures." Bar- nabas calls the Gospel of Matthew " Scripture." (iv. ; xiv). Polycarp quotes Ephesians as in the Sacred Scripture (xii. 1). Ignatius appeals to the " Gospel" as the Christian archives (^Pliil. viii. 2; Smijr. vii, 2). The words of the Apostles were absolute authority for these holy men (cf. Zahn, I, S. 802 f.). They re- nounced all claim to similar dignity,* and repeatedly declared the Twelve were Christ's unique ambassa- dors, specially inspired by the Holy Ghost,^ equal to the Old Testament prophets,'' and sent forth to evan- gelize the world.* They were related to Christ as Christ to the Father. The Apologists speak in the same way, only now the written word of the Apostles is taking the place of their oral Gospel.^ But the authority is unques- tioned." It is very significant that not a word of hesi- 1 Cf. Clement R. v.. vi.; Ignatius, Rom. iv. 2 Clement, ii., xliv., xlv. 3 Hernias, Sim. ix, 15, 25; Ignatius, Mag. xiii; Phil. ix. * Ilermas, ih., Barnabas, viii. 6 Cf. Justin, I Ajwl. 39, 07; Died. c. 119. « Zahn tinils (I, 430) that before Marcion, A. D. 140, there was "an iron collectiou," consisting of the four Gospels, Acts, and thirteen Epistles of Paul, read everywhere in the Church as its New Testament. Church teachers of the second century "express without hesitation and without exception their con- viction, that the New Testament had from the earliest times of the Church performed the same service, which it did in their time" (I, 433). The test of New Testament books was both Apostolic tradition of the churches and agreement with the known words of Christ and the Apostles. Of what kind the New Testament must be the Church was fully agreed; the only question was as to the extent of the writings which fulftUcd Laid in Conflict with IleUeni-sm. 125 tation is heard respecting this transfer of authority from the spoken to the written New Testament. As soon as possible Apostolic writings were read in churches. From Clement of Rome, A. D. 95 on (c. 47, 1), we find this usage fast becoming universal. It had begun incidentally in Apostolic times (I Thess. v. 27; Rev. i. 3). The fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Christ and the gospel made the Apostolic writings at once appear as an inspired continuation of the ancient Scriptures, They are parts of the same sphere of Revelation; the one demanded the other. This is a leading thought of all early Fathers (cf. Thomasius, D. G. 2 Ed.,Erlangen, 1886, I. \rS). Of course the New Testament writings were not all found at once in any one place; but what Ignatius calls Canonical rcquiromenta. Surely also some weight should be given to the guidance of the Holy Si)irit in the collection of the New Testament, a book which has ever been owned by t}>nt Divine Teacher. As soon as known it became both sun and sliield of the Church. Irenaeus tills three of his live books agaiivt the Gnostics with extracts from the Old and New Tcsta- meni- ; expounding the latter especially and much the oftenest. Ha' i ;icK argues that the Gnostics iirst gave Apostolic tradition '.M V lUiiar character as Rule of Faith, and, proceeding from that. .;;i\. tlie Apostolic writings such authority as drove the Chui'ci o -'aim them all for herself as Canonical. But seri- ous dinicultios lie in the way of such an assumption: (1) l{e\- erence for Scripture, devotion to the Old Testament Canon and appeals to Apostolic writings and teachings jteculiarly marked the Church before Gnosticism could intiueuce her views. The Apostolic Fathers show this; so docs the Didar/ie. ('J) There is no hint in orthodox or Gnostic writings that the Church fol- io ,ied the Gnostics in appealing to Apostolic written authority. 'y] irly Gnostics, such as Basilidos, a]»pealed to secret tnidi- tioni'rom the Apostles; but tlie Church (cf. Tertullian) answered 126 Foundations of the Nicene Theology^ " the Gospel," and a collection of Paul's Epi8tle8 ap- pear in the first quarter of the second century ; and, in the last quarter, the New Testament essentially as known to us, was openly appealed to as supreme authority in Gaul, North Africa, Rome, Alexandria and Asia Minor (cf.Zahn, 1.430; Irenaeus,1.8 and often ; Tertullian, ^cZ. Prax.xx.; Theophilus, ii. 23; iii. 12). Such perfect agreement everywhere in the Church so early (180) cannot have been produced by a visit of that her appeal had ■ ~ ^ f^en open and known to all. It was the constant appeal oi . liurch to open, constant connection with the Apostles that le.^ the Gnostics to seek to get round Christian tradition by an appeal to a secret doctrine of Apostolic men. Yet when it suited their purpose they rejected Apostolic authority. Cerinthus and others disowned Paul (Eusebius, H. E. ix, 29); while Marcion followed none but Paul. The appeal to Apostles, therefore, was very arbitrary. (3) We hear of Gnostics using a grea<^ variety of writings, which shows that their idea of a Canon was very different from that of the Church. Basilides " dared to write a Gospel and call it by his own name" (cf. Oi'igen, Com. on Luke, iv, p. 87; Ed. Lom- matzsch). Their Gospels were many and extravagant in charac- ter (cf. Eusebius, iii, 25; and Nbldeehen and De Boor, Die Abfossmigszeit der Schr(ftenTerhillk(ns,Lei\)zig, 1888, S. 169). (4) Yet the Gospels which the Gnostics regarded as the sources of Christianity were just those which the Church ever held as valid. Basilides claimed to get his gospel from Matthew and Peter (Mark, cf. Clement Alex. St)'., vii, 17); Marcion built upon our Gospel of Luke; while Valentine followed the Gosjiel of John. The anti-Gnostic Fathers appeal only to our New Testament to convince Gnostics (cf. Tertullian , 7>tf Praes. xxxviii). (5) Zahn shows that it is very probable that Paul's Epistles were collected in the Church at least twenty-five years before (A. D. 117) Marcion began to form his Canon (cf. also Sanday, Inspiration., London, 1893, p. 3G4). Ignatius' reference to *' the gospel " may mean a similar collection. Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 127 Polycarp to Anicetus of Rome (154) or by any meet- ing of Greek, Latin and Syrian bishops. It must rest upon usage extending into Apostolic days. And this usage rested upon the ideas of antiquity, Apostolicity, and Canonicity, which Church Fathers of the second century " without hesitation and without exception " (Zahn, 1. 433) ascribe to the New Testament. They all regarded Apostolic writings as on a level with the Old Testament Canon.* They claimed that their submission (6) It would be very unlikely that a New Testament Canon should arise in a day, much more that in the midst of contro- versy with Gnostics the Church should go over to the ground of the enemy and borrow the theory of Apostolic writings. Gnos- ticism and Montanism may have hastened the collection of New Testament books; but its sudden formation Zahn calls "a mod- ern myth" (lu/noii. I, Iff.). Both Montanists and Gnostics pre- supposed the Apostolic Scriptures in the Church. TertuUian's rule of "the lateness of their date," urged against all heresies and novelties applies also to the Canon of the New Testament (cf. De Praes. xxxi, xxiv; Adv. Ifermog, i.). 1 When the New Testament Canon arose there was already ar Old Testament recognized as Scriptures in the Church, so that the idea of a Canon was perfectly familiar from the begin- ning. The only question, then, would be tchat books might be put into the New Canon (cf. Sanday, Inspiration, \). 5). llar- nack thinks .Justin (150) had no New Testament Canon; Irenaeus (180) had; therefore, he coneUidos, it arose suddenly in the thirty years between as "one of a series of deliberate measures taken by the allied churches of Asia Minor and Rome to check the inroads of Gnosticism or Montanism" (Sanday, p. 1-'^). Sanday holds ITarnack is wrong in setting a gulf between the spoken and written word. No such gulf exists. " It assumes a breach of continuity where there is no breach but simply the direct and inevitable development of conditions present from the first " (p. 62). .Justin writing to Pagans and Jews would not naturally appeal to Christian books as authority. There I m I * ! i ;«'i Y 128 Foundations of the Sicene Theolog.j^ to Apostolic authority was continuous, and, like the truth, was older than the errors of heretics. In oppo- sition to the spurious appeal of Gnostics to secret con- nection with Peter and Paul, they pointed to the pub- lic unbroken preaching of Apostolic Christianity by the elders and bishops of the Church.* They never referred the origin of the New Testament Canon to remains very little literature of the time of Justin; but because we suddenly find traces of a Canon A. D. 175, it does not fol- low that its origin was really sudden (p. 14). It could not arise, as Ilarnack thinks he discovers, and yet Irenaeus fail to detect its origin. 1 The Acts of the Apostles lays great stress upon the testi- mony of "eye-witnesses" to the facts and teachings of the gospel. Peter said: "Of these men who have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of the resurrection" (i. 21, 22). The Apostleship Avas thus to establish by personal testimony first of all the resur- rection, and with that the ascensi'^n, the wonderful baptism of Jesus, and every event and word of the Lord that fell between these points. \\\ preaching to Cornelius also Peter said: "We are witnesses of all thinc:s which he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: Ilim God raised up the third day, and showed openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Ilim after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead " (x. 39). Here in most striking words the Apostles are presented as otiicial witnesses to the resurrection, to the Last Judgment, and to all the miraculous life and teach- ings of Jesus. If the Acts were written at the beginning of the second century, it would make this appeal to eye-witnesses and Apostolic authority all the more emphatic and significant, Laid in Conflict tvith IleUenism. 120 the origin of the early Catholic Church; for they knew no such change in the Church as would produce "a new Bible" (Ilarnaclv, 1.277). They showed that the New Testament could not have been collected late in the second century, or it would show marks of re- daction and corruption , * such as they charged upon the Gnostics. Irenaeus and others admit that a flood of Apocrypha, chiefly heretical, set the Church to w8 showing that the historical position of Pau] was clearly ap- prehended bv the post-Apostolic Church. In the second cen- tury, as in our own day, desperate attempts were made to loosen the ties that hound Christianity to historical facts. Whether it be the allegorical methods of the Gnostics or the "religious value" methods of the school of Ritschl, the move- ment was very much the same. Facts were thrust aside for ideas, in the one case speculative, in the other case ethical or re- ligious. History becomes a parable. The reality of the idea had no vital connectiori with the reality of the event from which it was symbolically or subjectively deduced. Both schools of critics hold that ethics, religion must become inde- pendent of the historical basis of Christianity. And both schools of critics must fail to give historical continuity to their views, because they reject the real historical foundation of their faith. Zahn writes {Der Geschichtsschreiher nnd seiii ^Stoff, in Ztft.f. k. Wiss. u. K. Lehen, 1884, II. xi.): "Christianity is a complex of believed, experienced, and hoped-for facts; and all Christian theology is only substantiating, explaining and presenting these facts." I'he oldest records of Christiajiity present a gospel of teaching, of doctrine, of events bringing salvation, which form the marrow of our faith, and the removal of which leaves our belief but a skeleton of articulated ideas. The history of the Church shows the impossibility of a Christianity which does not include its fundamental facts with their ob- jective, i-eal value in them. 1 Cf. Irenaeus, IV. 33, 8; TertuUian, iJe Frae.s Zahn,1.440. 130 li'oiuidatlonii of the JVicene 27ieoIo(/(/, work more than before to decide the exact limits of New Testament writings. They battled for the Old Testament against the Gnostics, and luQd that such men could not and did not know the Apostles or have any true claim upon New Testament teachings. They everywhere ridiculed the idea that the Church bor- rowed her theory of Ajjostolic and New Testament authority from Gnostics as a means of defense in con- troversy; the reverse they declared was the true rela- tion.' There was no need to invent a New Testament Canon, for, as Harnack shows. Gnosticism made ship- wreck not upon it, but upon the Old Testament, the doctrine of free will and eschatology. These Fathers, especially Tertullian, appealed to the written records also the recollections of the oldest churches, as proof ii i: 1 Von der Goltz says (p. 149) that the ouly dogmatic trace in Ignatius which betrays the second century is the way in which "he values the Apostles and their injunctions, and looks with rev rential devotion up to them." Elsewhere we are in- formed that Ignatius "stands not behind the time of the Apostles in his assurance that he possessed the Holy Ghost and spoke in His name." If these things are so, then Ignatius was fidly convinced by the Holy Ghost that the Holy Ghost had given the Twelve jieculiar, unique authority, shared by none of their successoi's. It was just because the living word, the Apostolic tradition, was so prominent in the primitive Church that no need of a New Testament was felt, and a Canon not needed. It was Gnostic heretics, who broke with this traditional word, that first ap- pealed systematically to Christian writings, and quoted largely from the New Testament. The Church did not need to quote from them, for her living teachers could be appealed to. The u.se of spurious New Testament writings by heretics especially led to a New Testament Canon. It was a question of history, not of dogma (cf. Watkins, p. 14Gf.). :il;i Laid in Conflict with Ilellenimi. KU that Apostolic writings were supreme authority from the beginning. They allowed no post- Apostolic prophets, as the Ritschl men do, to detract from the honor paid the Apostles and their writings; even Montanism did not set aside but fulfilled Apostolic teachings.' Zahn accordingly asserts that all these secon*' century Fathers were convinced "that the New Testament had from the earliest times of the Church performed the same service which it did in their time."^ Harnack, however, questions this. He admits that Apostolic authority was held in the Church from the closing years of the first century on, that is long before the Gnostic controversy arose. But, he says, that Apostolic authority was not then put upon a New Testament Canon so as to make it equal to the Old Testament. This technical and artificial transfer of Apostolic authority to the col- lection of writings in the New Testament came, he holds, from the Gnostics and has revolutionized Christianity.^ It is a product of the Gnostic and Montanist controversies. In view of what we have just said, such a theory seems to stand the early Church on its head. The 1 Cf. Voigt. Eine Verschollene UrkxinOe des antimont. Kampfes, 1891. In Theol. JahresbericJit, xi. S. 140. 2 Kano7ilAZZ. The reception of the Epistles of Barnabas, of Clement of Rome, and the Shepherd of Ilcmas in some places very early as Scripture, shows also how Apostolicity was the test of Canonicity; for it is almost certain that it was the identification of their authors with the Barnabas, Clement and Hermas mentioned in the New Testament (Acts iv. 36; Rom. xvi. 14; Phil. iv. 3) as friends of the Apostles that gave these writings such honor at first in the Church. 3 Das N. Test, urn das Jahr 200, Freiburg, 1889, S. 112. FT i li ' !'?; 'i 132 foundations of the JVicene Theology^ following additional remarks, however, may be made. And, first of all, Harnack's own proof of Canonicity, viz., treating the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles as on a level with the Old Testament, is just what we meet with in all post- Apostolic writers;* second, the question of intensive Canonicity must not be confounded with that of extensive Canonicity, for New Testament Avritings were recognized as Scripture long before the extent of the Canon was settled; third, the theory of Har- nack, that the sacredness of Christian writings before A. D. 180 was of a general charismatic, "enthusiastic" sort, and not that of special inspiration, as held after- ward, is contradicted by the great current of early testimony; fourth, Harnack thinks it only "highly probable" — his followers think it certain (cf. Mc- Giffert, 1. c.) — that the Gnostics originated the idea of a New Testament Canon; but even if they did, it is plain such an idea came not from pagan philosophy, but from the Christian Church, hence the perfect agreement of the orthodox with them on this point from the beginning; and fifth, the process of what may be called this technical Canon formation can be traced back beyond the Gnostic struggle in which it is said to have been born. Justin says Marcion by cutting up the Gospels "mutilated the Scripture."^ Irenaeus, Polycarp and others lived right through the times of Marcion when this Canon transformation must have taken place ; yet less than twenty years after Marcion invented the New Testament Canon 1 See my article, The Apost. Fathers and N'. Test. Jievela- tion. In Preshy. and Ref. Jieview. July, 1892. s I Ajyol. xxvii. cf. Sanday, Inspiration, Bampton Lec- tures for 1893, p. 364. "^ Laid in Conflict with Hellenism. 133 on this theory, Irenaeus declares the Four Gospels were accepted by the whole Church, while Paul's Epistles, Acts and Revelation were everywhere used in public worship (III. 1).* It is simply impossible to believe what Irenaeus tells us, if this new hypothe- sis is true.'' We conclude, then, that with all their imperfections, those early missionaries, and teachers, and bishops were men of God ; their testimony and theirdoctrine respecting the subjects here touched upon are essentially true; and we with them across the ages may profess our belief in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Ir.l I IMf ,■■1 ■ d^ :, ^;! i% * *'1| v:i * The recognition of Paul's Epistles from the very first, and the appeal to him by Ignatius and others shows he v/as recog- nized as one of the Twelve, taking apparently the place of Judas. ' Cf. also Zahn, Einige Bemerkungen zu A. Hamack^a Prilfung der Gesch. d. N. Test. Kanom. Leipzig, 1889, S. 27f. ' I' m ill m '41 ill !' '1 m m :3l LECTURE III. ^mkipmixd of iijz IDocfrinc of <§c 9ii>in« €§rbf upoi? <§c (Sroun^ of l§c ^v^zi\d* ii> IScTQ) f <5«iamenl, atj& oppofjilion io jl^cw^j. It 186 «£it .ilJil '!.»! 1 liPVI : 11; < '4: '''I if ooi SmKovovi Xpt6rot flcotT. Ignatius. Ad Smyr. x. <' Quum enim esset unlcus Dei filius,non gratia, sed natura, ut esset etiam plenus gratia, f actus est et hominis filius. " Augustine, Enchiridion, c. xxxv. Tti dpxccta eOr xparetrao. Nicene Synod. Can. vi. "Across the Night of Paganism, Philosophy flitted on, like the Lanthorn-fly of the Tropics, a Light to itself, and an Orna- ment, but alas! no more tlian an ornament, of the surrounding Darkness." Coleridge, Aids to Beflection. ApL. iv. 186 LECTURE III. Development of the doctrine of the divij, e ohrist UPON the ground of the christian tradition, UBE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, CONTACT WITH GREEK THOUGHT, APPEAL TO THE COLLECTED NEW TESTA- MENT, AND OPPOSITION TO HERESY. There is nothing more wor'^erful than that Chris- tianity, the religion of humanity, should have its source in the narrow exclusive religion of Israel. It is the maivelous Jewish legend to which Paul refers, turned into history; for here the cliff which poured forth water in the desert for Israel, has been broken off from the mother mountain and turned into the spiritual Rock of the Divine Christ, from which flow streams of living water to all nations. The history and the hopes of both Jews and Gentiles looked toward such a Brotherhood of man in the service of God; but they also spoke of the " birth pangs" of the New Age, and of the collapse of nationa as landmarks on the way to the Messianic Kingdom and the Repub- lic of God. The Church must now experieu o what was true in these things. The sword that p oiced the soul of the Virgin Motlier must also pierce the heart of the followers of Christ, that the thoughts of their new life might be revealed to many (Luke ii. 35). The Jews' religion centered in Monotheism ; the high- est philosophy rested also in one Supreme Being. 137 1/1 if •'if^i i 138 Dev€lo2?'nient of Christology, m> But the first Christians went out preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. Thomas called Him, "My Lord and my God"; the devotion and in- struction of the Church alike exalted Christ to be head over all things, the ever present Lord of His people. Here then was set for the early Christians an inevitable problem. Thomasius says: "The object toward which the dogmatic activity of the Church first turned was none other and could be none other, than the center of the Christian faith and of all Christian doctrines: Christ the God-Man."* But such a Christo- centric faith was full of ques- tionings. How can we believe in God and believe also in Christ? He was in the midst of two or three disciples making them a Church; did that mean that he was om- nipresent end omniscient? He was at the right hand of God. He was also with His peoj^le to the end of the world: how could these things be? The new in Chris- tianity is the Divine Christ, taking the place next God. The mystery of godliness was this Incarnate One; hence the fundamental problem pressing for solution was that of the Son of God and His relation to His Father in heaven. How could Christians believe in the absolute, eternal Jehovah, and also accept what seemed to be a second God, Jesus Christ? The reply to these questions is found in the historic development of Christology till finally formulated in theNicene the- ology. In the period before the council of NicfBa, chief attention was given to the relation of Christ to the Father, or Christology within the doctrine of the Trinity; the post-Nicene controversy took up the » Doymenyeschichte, Ed. 2. 1886. Erlangen, I. S. 165. m • 'I by Tradition^ Bible, Philoso2)7iy, Heresy. 139 :il:l the- tto Ithe the mutual relations of the divine and human natures of the Person of Christ Himself. We have observed that both Jewish and Gentile thought looked forward to some golden age when a Messiah or a Son of the Gods would bless the earth. This same thought also felt after Him as med- iator between the far-off God and the world and man. Jewish theology spoke of the Angel of the Covenant, the Divine Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, and the Memra or Word as ministers of God. Jesus cor- rected and approved of this teaching, turning it toward Himself and His mission. In like manner the Greek philosophers, or, as we would call tliem rather, theologians, spoke of middle beings,called ideas by the Platonists, and ^oyoi or reasons by the Stoics,who went forth from God to turn Chaos into Cosmos, and con- nect the Supreme Mind with the world of matter. According as these emanations were regarded as one with God or as identified with matter, they were spoken of as divine attributes or as dist' ict entities or personalities. The coming forth of those nit^diators was to help solve a twofold problem — first to relate God to the world as its Former or Creator, and second to explain the moral evil in the universe, to justify the ways of God to man. The Jews, as we have seen, made the Word of Jehovah an agent in creation, and ascribed evil to the devil, acting be- tween the free-will of God and the free-will of man. The Greeks held to the eternity of matter, and as- cribed its shaping to divine forces, while evil was re- ferred largely to resistance of matter, to fate, and only partly to man's free agency. Judaism, however, always exalted Monotheism; but Hellenism ever '■i-< f ill 140 Development of Christology^ drifted toward Dualism. We have seen how the Gnos- tics sought to solve the problem by setting up two gods, the one good, the other evil, the latter of whom made the world and is to blame for its defects. Back of all the higher teachings of both Jews and Greeks was a dark collection of superstitions, belief in angels and d«^- mons, magic and sorcery, esoteric Talmudism and heathen mysteries, gods and demigods; there was scarcely a fact or a doctrine of the gospel that did not seem to have a caricature of itself in perverted Juda- ism or in the mythology of paganism. It was only a question of time, as every missionary to the heathen well knows, when the life and thought of the Church must take an intelligent attitude toward the morals, the religion and the philosophy of Greece and Rome. The preaching of one eternal God meant the over- throw of polytheism. The first commandment of the Decalogue was a blast of doom against many gods; while the second commandment smote the foundations of idolatry. But the doctrine of one God was largely taken from Israel. The first Christians treated it, as Ritschl has done, as a fundamental presupposition, to be everywhere taken for granted ;^ the great message given them to deliver was salvation through Jesus 1 Fairbairn utters a warning still against accepting '* the In- carnation as the material and determinative doctrine" which is to test all Christian truth. " It is a derivative, or secondary and determined doctrine," he says, because it presupposes the doctrines of God and creation. It is " determinative," also, but because it is " the supreme act of revelation " {Place of C/irist in Modern Theolof/y, p. 609). Fairbairn finds the real source of all doctrine and doctrinal tests in the idea of God's Fatherhood. His theology is Patri-centric, rather than Christo-ceutric. hy Tradition^ Bihle^ Philosopliy^ Heresy. 141 le In- Ich is [clary the [, but Vtrist 3e of lood. Christ. It was Christ everywhere lifted up that drew all men to Him in faith and love ; it was, however, this same exaltation of Christ that attracted the op- position of both Jews and Gentiles. Here then was a double duty which the Church must gradually j^er- form ; first to become clearly conscious what the Son of God was to her, and then to show to the wise and the scribe of this world that all wisdom, the Fiillness of the Godhead had bodily appeared in Him. The dawn of Christianity shows believers clinging to Christ as God. Paul says, "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" (H Cor. v. 17). Harnack gives up the attempt to find the origin of such ideas (I. 92). But that only means that our historic sources cannot produce a merely human Christ. They are abundantly ample, however, to reveal the Son of God Incarnate. A belief in Him was part of the first Christian consciousness. Schaff well remarks:^ •'Christ was helieved to be divine, and adored as divine, before he was clearly taught to be divine." More and more as the brethren recalled the words of Jesus and prayed over them ; more and more as the preaching of the Apostles was impressed upon their hearts; more and more as the Old Testament Script- ures were s*:arched did the greatness of Christ grow upon the early Church. There was a growth, at least among the more spiritual and more intelligent Chris- tians, toward a real apprehension of the Divine Christ of Paul's writings, of the Apocalypse, and of the Fourth Gospel, before Apologetic considerations led certain teachers to present this same Son of God to 1 Christ and Chriatianity. New York, 1885, p. 51. a 142 Development of Christology, ; i cultured lieatben in the lofty terms of Greek phi- losophy.* The Christology of the Apostolic Fathers clearly shows the unquestionable faith in the Divinity of our Lord which passed from the Apostolic into the post- Apostolic Church. These men fairly represent the be- lief of all Christians. They lived East and West, in Home, Corinth, Egypt, Antioch, Smyi'na. They speak for every class of believers. Hermas was a ])ropheticman of Italy, Clement wrote a Church letter from Rome, the author of II Clement was a lay preacher, Ignatius was bishop, and indited his Epistles while on his way to martyrdom in Rome, Poly carp was a pupil of John, and wrote with the words of the be- loved disciple still in his ears. These Fathers lived just half way between the Apostles, from whom they received orally the words of Christ and their own ex- planation of them, and the close of the second century, 1 But it should be observed at the outset that it is a fal- lacy on the part of the Ritschliau school to ever go on the assumption that the theological expression of Cliristian faith, especially by the Greek Church, inevitably led to its corruption. Von der Goltz thinks the opposition to Docetism, which led Ignatius to state his belief in terras of the intellect, ot neces- sity introduced the "Greek view of the nature of the Divine and human, spiritual and carnal also into Christology." He finds in the Christology of Irenaeus "a realistic-mystical apprehension of redemption (S. 156); the simple thoughts of faith (Herrniann's term for Wert hurt heile) in general are devel- oped into a theology." Now such assumptions are ground- less and largely in conflict with admissions of these critics else- where recognizing the rights of theology. Faith expressed in the form of theology may be no more unchristian than a con- gregation of Scotch Covenanters, at the cry of "the dragoons," becoming a military company, ceased to be saints of God. lon- » by Tradition^ Bible, Philow2)hij, Heresy. 143 when the New Testameut books Avere collected, and could be systematically used as the basis of Christian teachings by Irenaeus, Tertullian and others. Poly- carp knew John, and Irenaeus knew Poly carp. The doctrinal position which they oecui)y re- flects the transitional period in which they lived. Their Bible was the Old Testament. They were well ac<|uainted with the contents of the Synoptist Gospels. They knew some of the Epistles. But their knowledge was not exc.,ct; it came chiefly from memory; and their doctrinal views were of a popular, edifying character, rather than bearing the marks of reflection and the stamp of theological precision. AVhat, now, did they think of Jesus Christ ? Clement of Home, who wrote perhaps before John died, says: " Our Lord Jesus Christ, the scepter of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride. . . as the Holy Spirit declared of Ilim," quoting Is. liii. 1 (xvi.). He adds Heb. i. 5, 13, "for thus it is written. . . But concerning His Son, the Lord spoke thus: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Th3e " (xxxvi.). He describes Christ as at the right hand of God, above all angels; Old Testament saints were saved through Him (1); He became man to re- deem sinners. His gospel ran: "Let all the Gentiles know that Thou art God alone, and Jesus Christ is thy Son, and we are thy people " (lix.). In the newly discovered portion of Clement's Epistle, he says: "God, the Lord Jesu.s Chris^, and the Holy Spirit are the hope of the elect," .vhere the Divine Redeemer is made the heart of the Trinitarian formula. Polycarp quotes I John iv. 3: "For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the !l''i i i I - 144 Develoiyment of Cliridoloijij^ flesh, is antichrist" (vii.). He prays, saying: "May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Him- self, who is the Son of God, and our everlasting High Priest, l)nild you up in faith and truth " (xii.). He knows that Christ will be final Judge (vii). He prays to Him, praises Him, and everywhere presupposes His Divinity. Barnabas calls Christ " Lord of the whole world, unto whom God said from the foundation of the world : * Let us make man.' " He was the " uncreated light, not the Son of a man, but the Son of God manifest in the flesh" (xii.). " Li Him are all things and unto Him." He is Lord of both the material and the spiritual creation of God. Upon this identity of rule by Christ, Barnabas bases man's redemption; for only the Creator could save a soul from death. Jesus gave His life for the life of man. He became incar- nate that men might see Him and so be saved ; for no mortal can behold the unveiled glory of God and live (vii.). The redeemed Cl'"rch takes the place of cast- off Israel as the people of God. Barnabas teaches that Christ was preexistent, from before the creation, became man, as was foretold by the prophets, and died to redeem sinners. He is Creator, Providence, Saviour and flnal Judge. Here we have both cosmo- logical and soteriological Christology taught by a man born in the lifetime of the Apostles.^ Ignatius, head of the important church in Anti- och, was the ablest of the Apostolic Fathers; his writings are the most numerous; and his utterances respecting Christ are the most striking and satisfac- * He wrote his Epistle between A. D. 96-125. a is hy Tradition^ Bible, Ph'ilosojih'jt Jleretaj. 145 tory. Writing to Polycarp, he calls Jesus "the Eternal, Invisible, Intangible, Impassible One, Who for our sakes became visible, was handled and suf- fered " (iii.)- He closes his letter with: "Farewell, always in our God, Jesus Christ." He loves to call Christ " our God," "my God," ^ and 6 0e6i absolutely (Smyr. i. 1.). He was "wiiih the Father before the ages" (^Mag. vi.). To reject Him was blasphemy (Smyr. vi.). Ignatius also knows all the details of Christ's earthly life. He describes the Incarnation thus: "Our God, Jesus Christ, was according to the dispensation of God conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost " {Ej^h. xviii.). He says the Virgin mother, Christ's birth, and His saving death were the three secrets of God finally cried aloud to destroy the works of the devil {^Epli. xix.). This passage, containing doctrines now held by some to be non-essential, was the one most quoted from Ignatius by subsequent writers.^ Ignatius opposed, on the one side, Ebionitic heresy, which assailed the Divinity of Christ, and, on the other, Gnostic speculation, which doubted His human- ity. Hence his repeated assurances chat the Lord was truly man and truly God. The one false doc- trine which he saw was imperfect views of the great- .less of Jesus Christ {^Ej^h. vi.).. To separate the preexistent, heavenly Christ from the historic Jesus he considered a dualism fatal to Christianity.^ His point of view for truth and error, personal devotion 1 Eph. inscr. ; xviii. 2 ; and lloni. iii. 3. 2 Cf. Lightfoot. ^t. Ignatius, 1885, in loco. 8 See V. d. Goltz, 1. c. S. 103. ':T \ i t' \\i i \ \ ' I' '" Hi 'ill 146 Development of Chriatology^ and Church discipline, was the Divine Christ, Re- vealer of the one living and true God.* Ignatius knew the teachings of Paul, for he names hira; but the fountain-head of his theology was the Apostle John. He must have known his writings;^ Von der Goltz thinks not, but admits that he was under " the permanent influence of church circles taught from John " (S. 130), though by setting aside John's writings he cannot tell how Ignatius in Antioch could be under "permanent influence" of the Johannine churches about Smyrna. The Pauline-Johannine Christology of Ignatius made prominent four doctrines, among others: first, the perfect God-Man, Jesus Christ — Lightfoot says Ignatius held " substantially the same views as the Nicene Fathers respecting the Person of Christ" {Apostolic Fathers^ Pt. II, Vol. II, p. 93); second, because "the Logos of God," the Fullness of the Godhead appeared in Christ, He was the center and source of Redemption — the end of Christianity was "to attain to Christ" {Rom. v.); third, the Incarna- tion fulfilled a plan, otuovo/xia of God * — this was so important that Ignatius promised to write a second essay upon it {Epli. xx.); and fourth, salvation means sharing the divine life of Christ. Boldly does he reproduce John's gospel: Jesus is the Christ, and we have life in His name {ih.). He says Christian il il 1 So Rothe, Anfiinge dec Christl. Kirche, 1837. I. S. YlSf. a So Baur, Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Holtzmann, Zahn, Light- foot. Cf. Watkins, Bampton Lectures, 1890, p. 400. » Cf. Paul, Eph. i. 10; I Cor. ix. IV; Ignatius, Eph. vi. 1; xviii. 2. !l» by Tradition^ Bible, Philosophy, Heresy. 14' hearts were "kindled in the blood of God";* and Christians were "imitators of the suffering of my God, Jesus Christ." Christ dwells in believers as their God in His temple (^Eph. xv.). Where Jesus is, there is the universal Church {Smyr. viii.). This immanence of God and Christ in the Church is very prominent in Ignatius; it is a continuance of the unity of man with God, which appeared in Christ.'' In the local church the bishop is related to the congregation as Christ to the universal Church ( Tral. xi ; Mag. i, vi, vii, X.). 1 Cf. Tertullian, ad uxor. ii. 3, sanguine Dei; Acts xx. 28; also Lightfoot, Apost. leathers, Pt. II, vol II, p. 29. 2 Ignatius calls Christ the "Fullness of God the Father" {Eph. i,, repeating Paul's words to that same church. Eph. i. 23; iii. 19; iv. 13; Col. i. 19. Harnack thinks the teaching of Ephesians is Pauline; cf. his essay in Ztft.f. Th. u.Kirche, 1891. H. 2). He speaks of Him also as '* Jesus Christ, the God who makes us wise" {Eph. viii.); and who is "God in Man." He dares to speak of ** the blood of God " (Eph. i.). But so does the Acts of the Apostles (xx. 28). And so does Tertullian, who was clear-headed and not *' naive " as Von der Goltz calls Igna- tius {ibid.). Clement of Rome(ii.) also speaks of God and continues: «' His sufferings were before your eyes " (cf. Light- foot's notes in loco). Ignatius speaks of the "Church of God the Father and of Jesus Christ," just as Paul writes Father and Son in his prayer (Philip, i. 2). In fact the test of sound doctrine for Ignatius was always what men held about Christ. He says {Eph. vi.): "Do not so much as listen lo any one, who speaks of anything except concerning Jesus Christ in truth"; and adds: "There is only one physician, of flesh and spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true life in death, Son of Mary and Son of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord" (vii.). The Divine Christ raised Himself from the dead {Smjr.\\.),zxi^ to reject Him was blasphemy {ib.\.). '■t % f . ! i i fi II! !iS: 148 Develojjment of Chrisiology^ Other Apostolic Fathers take similar ground with reference to Chrisu. The Didache^ though a little moral treatise, praises the Redeemer as " the God of David" (x. 6). And the Homily known as II Clement opens with the ringing words: " Brethren, we He says elsewhere, referring to Christ's two natures: <«He ate and drank with the Apostles in the flesh, though in the Spirit He was one with the Father" (*S'wyr. iii.). He was "eter- nal, invisible, intangible, omniscient, omnipresent, impassible," yet '*He was seen ard handled and suffered for our sakes." What can be said of Jetms Christ to exalt Him as God incarnate that is not said already by Ignatius? He follows Paul in calling Jesus *'the New Man" (cf. I Cor. xv. 45), and in speaking of "one faith and one Jesus Christ " as the way of life. He is as Christo-centric as Paul in his teachings; but while Paul must present Jesus as both Messiah to Israel and Son of God to the Gentiles, Ignatius was led to present chiefly the latter, and in doing so was naturally rather Johannine than Pauline in his pre- sentation. His adversaries the Docetics led him also to speak less of the prefJxistence of Christ, and to give most attention to His real humanity. And the fact that Ignatius defends espe- cially the humanity of Christ makes his references to the Lord's Divinity all the stronger, as presupposed, assumed, and not dis- puted in the churches of Rome, Antioch, Greece and Asia Minor. He opposes the errors referred to in the Apocalypse, the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles, and the £pistles to the Ephesians and Colossiane. Von der Goltz feels the force of the strong statements made by Ignatius about the Divinity of Christ, and seeks to weaken them, (1) by saying they are an "apologetic" against the Doce- tics; (2) they are " traditional sayings of the Church" (S. 100); and (3) they are results of Greek mysticism. It may be suflSi- cient to say in reply that the defence of the real humanity of Jesus did not lead necessarily to a strong aflirmation of His deity; neither does it weaken the doctrine of the Divine Christ to say Ignatius accepted it from the Apostolic Church in Antioch; iii '■•m tie by Tradition^ Blble^ Philonophy^ Heresy, 149 ought so to think of Jesus Christ as of God, 5is of the Judge of quick and dead; and we ought not to think small things about our salvation. For in thinking small things about Him, we also hope to receive small things from Him." vhile the argument from mysticism is crippled by the ad- mission of Von der Goltz, that similar mysticism is found in Paul and in the Fourth Gospel (S. 102). When the critics have thus set aside the anti-Docctic, traditional, and mystic elements in Christ, we find only a good man left. Vender Goltz says: *'The specific in the Christology of Ignatius lies precisely in his seeking after the Eternal, the Divine in time; in the historic form of the Lord His relation to the Divine Father is the chief thing, for it is the complete bodily and spiritual oneness with God." In other words, this post- Apostolic man is made to hold a Saviour who could give no " theoretical knowl- edge of God" (S. 28), except that lie exists and may be appre- hended — Plato could tell us more than that, — while the *' bodily and spiritual oneness with God " which Ignatius saw in Christ be saw possible for every Christian. The theology of Ritschl is what Ignatius really tried to teach (S. 22); but was not quite successful. "The religious Modalism, which sees God and Christ in One, belongs here," as M'ell as in the Fourth Gospel and Epistles to Ephesians .and Colossians by Paul. With all dissection of Ignatius, he is still found teaching what Paul and John taught about the Divine Christ (S. 109). He had made the world of Johannine ideas his own (S. 130) and was under their "permanent influence." It is worthy of notice also that Von der Goltz finds this Johannine Christology of Ignatius much higher than the "common Christian views" of Clement and Barnabas, and the "superficial" Adoption ideas of Ilermas. In reference to this whole struggle of Ignatius in defence of the Divine Christ and His humanity against Docetics, Foster remarks: "If now the plain teaching of the original Christian- ity was that Christ was a mere man, how will Ilarnack explain 150 Development of Christology^ The only apparent divergence from this high Christology appears in the Shepherd of Hermas. That allegory presents Christ as preexistent, the Son of God, who created and sustains all things (Sim. ix. 14), whose name the wicked blaspheme, but the Apostles proclaimed to the Gentiles [ih. viii. 6). Elsewhere, however (Sim. v. 2, 6), Hermas seems to identify the preexistent Son of God with the Holy Ghost, and speaks of the bodily nature of Christ as taken to dwell with God and the Holy Spirit, because it had not de- filed the Spirit. Upon this slender foundation the school of Ritschl erects what it calls "Adoption Christology," transferring the term from the Middle Ages to an Ebionitic type of heresy in the second century, and calling the current teachings of the Church " Pneumatic Christology."* The one view re- gards Christ as a man raised by spirituid merit " into the Trinity as companion of the Father and the Spirit " this tempoiary forgetting of the humanity? If there is this re- peated effort, under the influence of a ' fixed method,' derived from /^lexandrian apocalyptics, or even from the Platonic doc- trine of ' ideas,' to ascend from the phenomenal to the explana- tory 'rea^' which, in spite oi the tendency of the Church to re- verse the logical order, is always displaying itself by the unwel- come persistence oi' an idea of the original, simple Christianity, even down to the time of Arias (325), how is it that in Ignatius the divine is first, and the human is called into prominence by a definite doctrinal issue? These questions we deem unanswer- able, and they display the first element of the historical proof of the two positions which we think overturn Ilarnack's theory, (1) that the Christology is dynamic, and (2) that the forces de- veloping it are native to the Church and to original Christian- ity." {Blbliotheca Sacra, April, 1892.) 1 Cf. Ilarnack, I3, 182; Engelhardt, I.e. S. 425ff. In hy Tradition^ Bible, PhilosojyhiJ^ Heresy. 151 n re- el- ty, ins V a er- fof '■>' do- an- (cf. Link, S. 35). The other, according to tliis school, considers Christ as a, heavenly Leing, who came down upon Jesus, and then retarnedto heaven. But such a description seems just neither to Iler- mas nor to the Church. Hennas clearly speaks of a Trinity in his story of Lord, Sou and Servant; he iden- tifies the preexistent Son of God with the Incarnate Christ; he says that Christ was a preexistent Spirit, but not "the Holy Ghost."' Hennas knew the Trinitarian formula of baptism, and could not confound Christ and the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, Ilarnack says that to call Jesus " a mere man," as would be inn)lied in this adoption of Jesus by God, always shocked early Christians. Yet he and Hatch and all their followers go on repeating the groundless assumption (cf. Thovi'- asius D. G. L 109) that Jesus the man. raised in devo- tion to the place of God, was primitive Christoloixy."^ This right view they think was held by Ebionites, 1 Cf. Seeberg, 1. c. S. 22, and Doruer, Person of Chritit, 1. p. 130f. ? In his edition of the Apostolic Fathers (Adnot. in Vis. V, 2; Sim. viii, 33), Ilarnack thought the Holy Spirit of Hennas iden- tical with the highest archangel; but later {Dof/me/i(/esc/iichte I. 135) leaves this undecided, and identities the Holy Spirit with the preexistent Son of God, whose iiicarnatiGU is .Jesus. Schliemann, Dorner, Zahn, Driill defend tlie ortliodoxy of Hennas, while Baur, Schwegler, Lipsius, Nitzsch and Ilarnack think Hernias knew' no preexistent Son of (iod apart from the Spirit (cf. Link, Christi Person, it. Werk int H. des IIermu.s, Marburg, 1886, S. Iff.). This latter view regards Christ as an inspired man raised by merit to be Son of God tlirough the in- dwelling of the Holy Ghost. Jesus is the bodily nature; the Holy Spirit is the spiritual nature: is there, then, add^d the Divine Logos? Dorner, Zahn and others say. Yes; Link says, HI Bl ti ^U m '' ! ■ ■ " lit I'. 152 Development of Chrutolofjfj^ Hermas alone among post-Aj^ostolic men, then the Alogi, the dynamical Monarchians, and Methodius of Olympus, who ended the true succession fighting the errors of Origen. But leaving these so-called Adoptionists, who "never played a role in the Church" (Sohm, Eng. Tr. p. 50), we must estimate briefly "the spiritual," the divine Christology, which prevailed. Harnack admits that "the doctrine of the existence of a divine Logos was very widespread in the Church of post-Apostolic days" (I. 187). It came not from reflection, but from living apprehension of the historic Christ. Ignatius calls Him both Logos and Son of God, but always means the one great God-Man, of whom liis memory and heart were full. Wendt says th.e essen- No. The latter Iiokls that Ilcrmas did not go beyond this union of the Holy Spirit or Son of God with the man .Jesuy, leaving a dualism unsolved (S. 33). In that ease, there was room in the view of Hennas, also, for the Divine Logos. In fact what he says of a divine S])irit incarnate in Jesus just about describes the Divine Logos (as " door," " Hrst-boru of all crea- tion," coi){ieratiug with God in creation, "a foundation," "re- ceiving all potter from the Father"), but does not suit the per- son and work of the Holy Ghost. The Logos is for him a spirit; but not the Holy Ghost. Seeberg urges (S. 22) against the "Adoption" interpretation of Hernias, that Christ, the Son of God, is [) resented here as the original rock from which the tower of the Church was quarried, just as much as the new door through which men enter that tower. He was preexistent and far above all angels and powers, sustaining and ruling the uni- verse («SVw<. ix. 14, 5), and not a man exalted to be God. He was a Divine Being incarnate, and incarnate to redeem men. The Apostles "preached the name of the Son of God" and " fell asleep in the power and faith of the Sou of God" {Sini. ix. IG); as the martyrs " suffered for the name of the Sou of hy Tradition, Bible ^ Philo'^ophy, Heresy. 153 III ibout crea- ' ' 10- pcr- |im a tainst Son h the door and uni- Ile linen, and LS'//// . In of titil features of the Logos Christolog}'^ appear in most of the Apostolic Fathers; it took only firmer outline in the Apologists.^ We cannot, therefore, stop with any " Heavenly ISIan " theory; Ignatius calls Christ the " New Man," but never dreams that that fills up the measure of the Divine Redeemer. Every impulse led to the highest conception; he says again: "There is noLuing more glorious than Jesus" (Eph. xvii.). Harnack clearly points out the all-conquering charac- ter of this divine Christ. He says that a study of the Old Testament must lead Christians to believe in " a heavenly, eternal, spiritual being with God " (I. 140). He means by that an angel or spirit; but we mean by it what Thomas and the post- Apostolic Church meant, " my Lord and my God." He remarks further that the best informed men, such as Clement of Rome, Barnabas and Ignatius, clung to the "spiritual" and rejected the " Adoption " Christology. And the rea- son, which he frankly gives, is because this view alone God) {Ih. ix, 28), or " for the Name's sake." Worldly livinj; meant to blaspheme Christ {Sim. viii. 8). Hernias clearly teaches the Divine Christ incarnate, even if his views as to the relation of the preexistent Son of God to the Holy Spirit ai*e not perfectly plain. In spite of all Harnack's arguments from Hernias as the "only work," which "gives clear exi>ression to the Adoption Christology" (I. 191, Eng. Tr.), Link (1. c), and Weizsllcker (Harnack, ih.) declare his Christology to he directly " pneumatic," i. e., of a Divine Being incaniale, and oidy inci- dentally " Adoption," in speaking of "Jesus exalted into the Trinity" (Link, S. 35). Harnack himself admits that these two Christologios came very close together in the view of Hernias, that " the Spirit which appeared in Jesus was the preexistent Son of Goo<7?«e«f7t.sv'A/c7/?t;, I. 180). He rej)- resented "the oldest Palestinian tradition" of Christianity. But we are not told how this Egyptian .lew, trained in the philosopliy of Philo. got possession of liis oldest tradition, nor why this oldest tradition made him rejeet Paul, who claimed to agree in alldoctrir.es with the Twelve. 'I'lie truth seems to be that his views of the .Messiah lieing narrow, .lewish, and de- fective, his conception of Chrisiianity as the universal religion was also perverted and wrong. He couM not aece])t the Divine Christ of Paul; and, accordingly, the gospel for humanity preached by Paul olTended him. ill •\ ' li)6 Development of Christohxjif^ tLeology; faith could pray to Him, hut reason must pronounce Him man only. Here is the vicious root of the Ritschl theology planted in the post- Apostolic, Church. Here the fatal theory, that what is relig- iously true to the heart may be historically or theo- retically false to the understanding, is brought in to cleave Ignatius the Christian and Ignatius the theo- logian asunder. His Christology is called "naive Modalism," that is a simple form of Monarchianism, which took scientific shape half a century later; though else- where Von der Goltz admits that Avhat Ignatius says of Christ expresses " clearly both His distinction from the Father, and His personal preexistence, thus excluding every stamp of Modalism " (S. 15). All that he says about the Virgin birth of Christ, His preexistence. His Divine Sonship, His being Logos of God, His transcendence, came from traditional sayings of the Church, our critic assures us, and form merely the fringe of the teachings of Igna- tius. Rejecting these, the follower of Ritschl finds that the martyr regarded Christ as " the eternal, the Divine in time." All that he learns of God through Christ is that He exists and may be apprehended (S. 28). He does, however, speak of personrl relations to God, which Von der Goltz at once brands as mysti- cism, though he admits that the same oneness of man with God is taught in the Johannine writings. Christ with the religious value of God, not Christ bringing us to God, is what he tries to find as the Christology of Ignatius. Two points especially are urged: first, that this Father sees the revelation of God on earth especially l,<. hij Tradition^ Bible, Philosophy, Heresy. 1^ I or lis ill the death of Christ (S. 20), hence the phrases "God in man,"'^ "true life in death," "the blood of God," or " the sufferings of God." But these de- votional expressions only teach that the love of God was supremely shown in the death of Christ, not that the love of God there revealed was all of God that dwelt in Christ. The idea of Jehovah revealed in death is foreign to Old Testament and early Christian teachings. God was the living One. Ignatius' favor- ite view of Clirist as giver of life led him naturally to speak of Ilis purchasing it by His deatli. And a Greek, vdio was ever inclined to put reality into ab- stract terms, cannot, in the absence of positive proof, bo reijfarded as thinkino; that Christ had the reliixious l>ut not the real value of God. The second point urged is that as Ignatius regard- ed the M'ork of Christ as th(^ creation of " a perfect man," so he considered Christ's oneness with God as like that of every believer. That is, it was ethical not essential. But such an argument from analogy has no weight against the positive statements of Ignatius; and if it were valid it could be used equally well against Paul and Athanasius, both of whom take the same high ground respecting the " new man " in Jesus Christ.* 1 The so-callod Second Epistle of ClemeTitalso secTns to favor the view of the t" Adoption " Christoloi^y. After sayinu-: "Brethren, ve ought so to think of .lesus Clirist as of (iod ' (i.), the speaker says later (ix.): "If Christ our Lord who saved us, being first a Spirit, Ix'caiiu' flesh and thus called us; so also shall we in this llesli receive llie reward." Again, speaking (xiv. 2f.) of God making mini male and female, he says, " the male is Christ, the female is tlie Church." " The living CHiurch is the hody of Christ''; then he adds, " for though our Jesus was spiritual, yet He was manifest in these last days to save us." m % if ■ W St ft*: ,1? :J 158 Development of ChrUtology^ The Apostolic Fathers as men of the second century speak the language of their time; but they express in it no mean measure of Christian doctrine. The valley separating them from the New Testament Church is not so broad or so deep as many writers assume. They had We neeJ not lay stress upon the fact that Codex C. reads in ix. Xoyoi for Jtvev/ia, making it say, " being at first the Logos, He became flesh " — though this difference of reading in our two Greek Mss. of Clenient is not unimportant — but may notice that ix. 1-5 containing this passage, " Christ is . . . the first Spirit," " is quoted in several collections of Syriac frag- ments immediately after the opening sentence of the Epistle " (Cureton, in llarnack's Ap. FF., iti loco), which reads, "we must think of Jesus Christ as of God." Whatever was said of Christ as Spirit included the view that He was Divine. He is not spoken of here as the Holy Ghost; but as a great spiritual Being, who became incarnate. The words used, iyaysro ddph echoing the Logos teachings of John i. 14, show that the writer had New Testament teachings in mind, including the incarna- tion of the Logos. Clement was writing in o])position to here- tics who denied a bodily resurrection, and introduced the union of Christ, a spiritual being with a human body, to prove that the risen body of believers was real, though joined to man's im. mortal spirit. It was not a mere spiritual resurrection any more than the incarnation was merely spiritual, or docetic. This Apologetic reference to Christ as Spirit shows that His identification with the Holy Ghost need not be regarded as part of the theology of this Homily. In the last passage, both Christ and the Church are called "Spiritual," so that neither can be identified with the Holy Ghost; the Church " was spirit- ual as our Jesus also was." In the next paragraph, Christ and the Holy Ghost are clearly distinguished; for Clement says (xiv.), "the Church being spiritual, was manifested in the flesh of Christ, thus signifying to us that if any of us keep her in the flesh and do not corrupt her, he shall receive her again in the Holy Spirit." Then he falls into his contrast in general of flesh and spirit, and says of the worldly Christian w ho serves m hy lWiditio7i, B'ihle^ Philosophy^ i resy. 159 received much. The OUT Testament, discourses of Christ, Gospel history, sacred words of worship, and a substantial body of teachings passed into the post- Apostolic Church. We see from Ignatius, strong Pauline, and especially Johannine currents flowing the flesh, he " shall not partake of the Spirit, which is Christ." It was the aim of practical exhortation, and the current division of spiritual and bodily that led to this method of speaking of Christ also as Spirit. The opening words of this Homily — " We ought to think of Jesus Christ as of God, as of Judge of the quick and the dead " — seem to settle the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ in this practical discourse; but Ilarnack thinks otherwise. Instead of seeing the Divine Christ here taken for granted as a fact known to both the preacher and his hearers, Harnack sees in it " the indirect theolof/id Christi, which we lind unanimously expressed in all witnesses of the earliest period " (I. 130f.), growing out of the naive, earlier tradition which called Jesus, " Lord" and ''Son of God." lie finds here a transition point from the conception of the man Jesus to that of the Divine Christ. He is here quasi Divine, thought of as //'God; and so thought of because the Christian " salva- tion needed a great Saviour, one really a God, to effect it." To such a view of the man Jesus becoming God there are many objections. (1) First of all this Homily moves in thought just in the opposite direction — it makes the preexistent Christ become man (xx. 7; ix. 5; xx. .5); (2) it speaks of the Church as also preexistent, hence, Harnack argues that Christ also was only ideally preexistent; but the cases are not parallel, and Clement argues from tlie I'fxo'jnized ccrtaiuti/ of tfui case of CJirist to show the reality of that of the Church; (;5) Harnack holds that because tlie Christians expected great things from Christ, they, therefore, made Him Divine; but this Homily argues in the reverse order; it says: " Think of Jesus as God," " For if we think little of Him we shall also hope to obtain little of Ilim"(cf. Foster, Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1892); (4) Harnack admits that this Homily everywhere " introduces, without any ai)parent distinction, now God Himself and now 100 Decelopment of Cliristolo(jij^ V ■■> thr«)iigli the minds of teachers, and preparing sturdy opposition to Gnosticism and other attempts to per- vert the gospel. Especially important it is to notice that, before the conflict with Gnosticism raised the question of Christology from the philosphical, tran- scendental point of view of the Absolute God and F'lther, the post- Apostolic Church had shown the loftiest conception of the Divine Christ from the his- toric point of view of Jesus, the Sou of God, who be- came man. But, leaving the Apostolic Fathers, who show us the apprehension of God and Jesus Christ with which the Gentile Churches began the conquest of the world, we come to the Apologists, who introduce us to the Logos Christology, and mark a new departure in the history of this doctrine. Be30ud them is Iren- aeus, the first great anti- Gnostic writer, who with his Apostolic Rule of Faith, and his New Testament, sets forth the God-Man, Jesus Christ, essentially as it has been done by all theologians until our day. i ! ill; . \ts Christ" (I. 18G, Engl. Tr.), and only escapes the conclusion that Christ is divine by bringinn^ in the llitschlian theory "of the value" of God, a theory wliich is certainly foreign to the current thought of post-Apostolic days; (5) if the reedience to the law of the Divine Christ. Polycarj) urges al)ove all to fol- low the Incarnate Christ, and sees all error summed up in Unitarianism, in denial that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh; while Ignatius is Christo-centric in all his teachings. It is gratifying to see Loofs and Von der Goltz, pupils of Ilarnack, (Un'iate from liii i to show how directly the stream of Johannine thought flowed from Ignatius to Irenaeus. Especially notewortliy is it to see the rich, varied, perfectly human, perfectly divine Christology of Ignatius retaught by Irenaeus with full appeal to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. But a generation and more of busy men had been at work in the C'luirch between the Apostolic Fathers and the anti-Gnostic theologians. Some fought against paganism, others tried to make peace with heathen culture. We have here the Apologists and the Gnostics, who might be regarded as the two tlieological high- ways by which post- Apostolic thought travelled to Irenaeus and TertuUian. Seeberii; calls the Gnostics heathen in heart and Christian in head, and the Apolo- gists Christian in heart but still heathen in their modes I !;l| S'l fl U\2 Development of Chriatoloiii/^ of thought. Wo have spolcon already of the Gnostics and need not notice tlieni furtlier liere. Ilarnack tliinks they well-nigh ruined Christianity ])y "trans- forming the gospel into a doctrine, into an absolute philosophy of religion" (I. IHO). But they ^. 1.0 I.I *-|||IM IIIII2-5 >^ 1^ ill 2.2 1.8 1.25 1.4 J4 -* 6" - ► V] <^ /a ^ A5 ^. 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. MS80 (716) 872-4503 m \ \ \ f? €> \ > p\/» '^i t;^ v.4p I 6 i\ \ .. O \#'*. •:<■ ;\ <•> V ■ I . ( 5 ■■ * 176 Development of Ch'istology^ otxovoftia, imported from Greek into Latin to describe the Trinity, and not to the Divine Christ Himself. The Apostolic Fathers prayed to the Redeemer; even the Jewish Christians of the Clementine Literature did the same;' within fifteen years of the death of John, Pliny was told that Christians '^Carmen Chri.^to quasi Deo canimty This ^^qiiasi,^'' got by Pliny from the lips of lapsed Christians, has evidently a tone of contempt in it (cf. Zalin, Skizzen, S. 4.). He speaks as Irenaeus does of Simon Magus, honored by many '•'•qaasi Deus'''' (L 23, 1).^ But, as a man of the Apologists' days wrote, "all the psalms and hymns of the brethren, which have been written from the be- ginning by the faithful, celebrate Christ the Word of God, ascribing Divinity to Him/' ^ Christ was no quasi God for them, no man having the religious value of God; for they rejoiced in the sneer of Celsus that they prayed to " a crucified God," * and looked for i^ictory through the Galilean. The attempt of Harnack to float his "Adoption" Christology by identifying it with primitive eschatology is not suc- cessful; the fact is the glorious hopes of a kingdom to come were built upon a Christ of divine jiGwer and * Cf. Ep. to James, in the C/em. Horn. xvi. 15, 18, 19. 2 Zahn quotes in this connection {Ski'zzen, S. 288) Tertul- lian'e reference to Pliny's remark, where he speaks, howeve".', of ^^catienditm Christo nt Deo'''' {ApoL ii.), and continues: "The former expression {quasi Dens) was appro})riate in the moutli of renegade Christians and the judge who produced literally their words; the second {lit Deus) was appropriate in the mouth of the Church herself." 3 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 28. * Origcn, Cont. Cela. ii. 37f. hy Tradition, Bible, PhilosopJnj, lie res tj. ^T 177 majesty, while the splendor of that coming age also reflected new glory upon the King who was to bring it in. No martyr could die for less than a Divine Christ. Stephen saw heaven opened and Jesus at the right hand of God; then he prayed, " Lord Jesus, re- ceive my spirit." Polycarp died praising "the ever- lasting and heavenly Jesus Christ." ' Apollonius, a contemporary of Tatian (180), before the Roman Senate confessed first the Incarnate Logos of God, and when led to death praised " Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," repeating his baptismal faith. Justin saw these things, and said the refusal of Christians to pray to any Son of God but Clirist was what caused their death (cf. also Irenaeus, IV. 33, 9). (y). We reach, then, the important conclusion that the Logos teachings of the Apologists were re- garded as but a theological statement of the Christian teachings of all believers. The first converted scholars, within the lifetime of men who were taught by Apostles, gave an intellectual expression to the re- ligious estimate of Christ cherished in the Church ; and that expression has never since been challenged by any great body of Christian men. We agree with Professor McGiffert (1. c.) that the essential ehmients of the Nicene theoloi;y, centerini; in tlie Loi'os-Christ, and supported by appeals to reason, (Christian tra- dition, and Scripture, were all active in the Church in this Apologetic Age; but of the amazing "trans- formations " by which Jesus, a prophet teaching love to God and man, became the Divine Christ creating. Martyrdom of Pvlycarp, c. xiv. ;;-n I MMsf^: f 'A i 178 Develo^mient of Chriatology^ governing and redeeming the world, we find no trace.' The theory of Strauss, accounting for the miracles of the New Testament, fell to vhe ground because no time could be found for the growth of the necessary myths; in like manner the Divine Christ, the mystery of the gospel, finds no time or place to grow up in the Church; and if not there frt)m the beginning is abso- lutely inexplicable on historic grounds. But while Christ is not a product of the devotion or the specu- lation of Christians, the doctrine of Christ, tlie grow- ing apprehension of what He is and what the Script- ures say He is, does form an important chapter in the history of Christian thought. This is clearly seen when we pass to Irenaeus, who took up the Christology of Ignatius in the light of the Apologists and in opposition to the Gnostics. Harnack well remarks (1. 464) that " in the develop- ment of Christology lies the liistoric importance of Irenaeus. The Christology of the Church is still what he set forth." The writer of "the little labyrinth," who spoke of the hymns of the post- Apostolic Church centering in praise to Christ, tells us that the Apolo- gists defended "Christ as God," while Melito and Irenaeus " teach that Christ is God and Man " (Eusebius, //. Jil. v. 28). Whether that be an in- tentional distinction or not ;'^ it indicates the progress now attained. Melito says of Christ: " Inasmuch as ^ Renan says by the year 180, Catholic Christianity with all its dogmas was coinplete. It is impossible that the pretended transformation could take place in one man's life from the Apostles (cf. Renan, Origins of Christianiti/, Book VII. Pre- face'.). 2 Harnack thinks it is. I. S. 434. ny • i by Tradition., Bible, Philosophy, Heresy. 171) ■I.'' He was man he needed food ; but inasmuch as He was God, He ceased not to feed the universe." ' Irenaeus took up this view, and, as none before him, fully brought out the God-manhood of Christ. In un- broken connection with the belief of primitive Chris- tianity,* " faithful to that fruitful doctrine of the Word, which combines in such deep and living harmony the human element and the divine" (Pressense, 1. c. 375), he presents in the richest way the perfect manhood, * Cf. fragment of Melito'a writings from Cureton's Spie. S>/r., in McGiffcrt's edition of Eusebius, //. E. p. 247. Another fragment of Melito's Apologies, clearly reclaimed for him hy Harnack {Die Ueberllefeninrf der Griech. Apolof/eten, Leipzig, 1882, S. 254f.), reads as follows: ♦* There is no necessity for those who have understanding to prove, from what Christ did after Ilis baptism, the true and real character of his soul and body (against Marcion who declared the body of Christ ' un- real '), of His human nature among us; for t'le things done by Christ after His baptism, and especially the miracles, manifested His Godhead hidden in the flesh, and convinced the world. For being both perfect God and perfect man together. He assured us of His two natures (owtfats). He showed His Godhead by miracles during the period of three years after His baptism, and His humanity during the thirty years before His baptism, when through the limitations which belong to the flesh the sigiip of His Godhead were hidden, although he was the true eternal God." There is not a moie striking testimony to the Divine Christ in Origen or Athanasius, than is found here as early as A. D. 150 in Melito. The "Godhead," the two "essences," human and divine, the perfect humanity, the full deity, all are here, and that in the teachings of a man who was honored by post-Apostolic Christians, both East and West, as a saint and prophet of God. Harnack makes it very probable that Tertul- lian largely followed the teachings of Melito in this high Christology, but both followed John and Paul. 2 See Miiller, Kirchengesch. I. S. 91. IS 180 Development of Christologyy I IN tbe perfect Godhead of our blessed Lord and their absohite unity in Him. God is "all mind and all Logos " (IL 28,5) J hence what He thinks and says are identical. The mind of God is the Father; the Logos is the Son; but how the Son comes from the Father, Irenaeus says, no man can tell (H. 28, 6). The Creator God, however, and the Divine Christ were held against the Gnostics as the two fundamentals of all tlieology. His faith rested in "one God, the Father Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (I. 3, 5). From this vantage ground he refuted Ebionites, holding that Jesus was son of Joseph, (HI. 21, 1) and Gnostics who dissolved Christ into a cloud of aeons (HI. Preface). Faith in Christ is as essential as faith in God. All God's revelation was mediated by Christ, and this truth was first re- vealed to Christians. Irenaeus held that the Old Testament prophets were inspired by Christ; he thought that Mosaic legislation also came from God through Christ (cf. Ritschl, S. 317). This opened a door for allegorists, like Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, to find wonderful things in both law and prophets. But the center of all his thought was the Incar- nation. He says no heretic believed that God was manifest in the flesh. Neither did he think the Apologists fully set forth this truth (IV. 6, 2 ; V. 26, 2 ). He rejected their emanation view of the Logos, especially their statements that He was first dis- tinguished from the Father in time (II. 30, 9). He did not believe in Gnostic aeons; neither did he accept the Divine Reason sending forth the Word, as held by Tatian, Athenagoras and Theophilus (cf. Thomasius, hy 2'racIUion, Bible, Philosophy, Heresy. 181 I. ITOf.). We cannot compare, he said, God and the Logos to man's liiind and his speech (11. 13, 8; II. 29, 3), for the Divine cannot be measured by human standards. ' His creed is of " one Christ Jesus the Sou of God, who became incarnate for our salvation " (I. 10, 1). This historic ^on of God, however, was really the Divine Christ, the Logos incarnate to reveal God and redeem man. He was not the world idea, the Divine consciousness, or the Creator Word, but the self-revelation of the self-conscious God and the principle of Divine revelation. He was of the same substance with the Father, eternally God's Revealer, 1 Irenaeus rejected the emanation view of the Gnostics, (II. 13, 4-C) as well as that of Tatian, Athenagoras and Theop' ilus, who regarded the Divine Logos as Hrst Reason, then the Divine Word articulate. He held these statements, comparing the origin of the Logos with the birth of man's word from his reason, are niisleaon: " The fact is, heresy has rather taken it from truth in order to mould it into its own counterfeit." He appeals at once to the fact that the Word was sent forth from God, quotes freely from the New Testament in proof, and says we must carefully separate the Christ of the Bible and what is involved in His Person from the errors of the IMonarchians. • Cf. Matter, Kr\t. Gesch. d. (rnosticismus. Germ. Trans. Heilbron, 1864. Bd. HI. 8. 'JSOf. by Tradition, Bible, PhiloHophij, Jlerestj. 185 divine powers; ))Ut this view was soon succeeded by the more plausible theory that He whs u tenii)orary but real incarnation of God. The Dynamic party be- gan with Theodotus, a rationalist and unitarian; it ended with Paul of Samosata, who again, under the influence of Origen, applied the term Logos to Ciirist, and held that by ethical development the will of Jesus became morally one with the Divine Logos or Spirit, so that after the resurrection he could be called (lod.' This attempt to make Jesus grow into a God, as yEsculapius or Jupiter did, was at once denounced by the Church in Rome and Antioch. The conviction of Ignatius and Irenaeus — " Christ is God " — 'vas now 1 The ethical oneness of Jesus with God was declared to be the highest kind of union with the Father. Werner says {Ztft. f. Kirchentjesch. xiv. II. I.) that dynamical Monarch ianisni was deepened in ethical nieaning by taking up the Logos idea, not as a divine person but as an impersonal power, connected with the man Jesus by an act of will. His mind had the same aim as the Divine Mind. And " this etiiical apprehension of the divine character of Christ stands as high," we are told, "above the current religious ' Physik,' as the comnumion of soul be- tween two persons stands above that of the tlesh." Here, after the RitschI method, dynamical Monarchianism is set forth as true Christianity. The term "pliysics" is introduced to do- scribe evangelical theology in its two great errors: First of all the holding that Christ was by nature as well as by will one with God; and second in maintaining that we may become so one with God in holy communion, that it is not wrong to speak of being "partakers of the divine nature." l)oth these are horrors to the Kitschl men — the horrors of the " Logos Chris- tology and of Mysticism." In both cases, however, as can J»e seen in Ilarnack's Jlistori/ of JJof/mn atid Uitschl's (iincliichte des Pietismus, it is dogmatic preconceptions rather than historical considerations that lead to these one-sided views of Christ and the Verkehr of the soul with God. Werner is riglit in saying I* I I m • -1 ■.!■ r V.'; -i M ■■'■■■ f:i 186 Developinent of Chr'iHtoJog}/^ the settled belief of Christians both Ea^t and West. But this was just what the Modal Monarchians also laid stress upon. They were religious rather than ethical in temper. They regarded current Chris- tology as wrong because too subordinative; and, in making Christ identical with God, gained much sympathy in the Church. As soon, however, as it was seen that the personal Christ was lost, the defects of this view were promptly condemned. Tertullian said to deny the Son was to deny the Father, and to have no Father and Son was to destroy the whole "plan of salvation'" (^Adv. Prax. xli.). Dynamic Monarchianism made Jesus a mere that rationalistic, and not religious interest, led the Dynam- ical MonarchianH to present a Christ of merely human-moral development. Ilarnack is also abundantly right in pointing out that the appeal to the Scriptures, so often made by men like Tertullian, easily led the Monarchians into absurdity (I. CIS). The Gospel of John was unanswerable in sui/h a controversy. * An anonymous Monarchian (Eusebius v. 20) claimed that all early Christians held this view of Christ; but the orthodox Christian who refers to his contention, at once replies that (1) the Scriptures, (2) the writings of the early Fathers, as well as (3) all the psalms and hymns of the Church contradicted this claim. In them OeoAo;'cirai d ;tP'<^rds; "Christ was considered God,'* and the Logos of God. Loose and incomplete statements might be made about Christ (cf. Irenaeus, I. 10, 3); but whenever they were challenged the reply came clear and true. Harnack says {Pat. Apost. L p. 126): "It is well known that the Apologists and Fathers of the second century, who flourished before Irenaeus, although they constantly defended the Rule of Faith, yet made no sure distinction between the Holy Spirit and the preexistent Christ. But in controversies with those who favored Modalism (180-250) they distinguished Xoyoi Oeov and nvevna Oeov a6vyxvrle})rimitiv(' Christian ideas" (S. 51). I Jo further thinks that Modalisni was only a r^ 'taphysical expression of the religions judgment of Christ held hy men like Ignatius. It was lower philosophically than the Logos Christology,l)ut liigher religiously. Such a separation of reason and faith, however, making it all right to say Christ is God devotionally, and all wrong to call Christ Divine in terras of history and intellect, is simj)ly reading Kitschl's theology again into the development of Christology. Kriiger, a writer of the same school, says Monarchianism failed because it was not timely.' It has never been timely. The Ai)ostolic and post- Apostolic Church made no distinction between the Christ of prayer and the Christ of thought. Tlie Monarchians, instead of having a more religious view of Christ, were in general men of worldly character.- 1 Die Bedeutung des Athanasius, in Tahr. f. Prot. Tiieol., xvi., H. iii. ' A point which Harnack greatly overlooks in praising tlicir Christology. 11 ,i : I Ui ' 'V 188 Development of Chrifdohyjy^ The New Testament, especially the writings of Paul and John, as soon as brought to bear upon this theory drove it from the field.* The Christian consciousness at once took offence at it. And its advocates, thonirh claiming to restore primitive Christianity, showed no power of propagandism.'^ Monarchianism passed away, but the question out of which it gre^v — the relation of Christ to God — was still unanswered. It was the Alexandrian school that resumed the discussion, and Origen especially who now moulded the thouc^ht of the Church. He felt that to meet the Monarchian altei'native, of Christ divine only in power or else identical in person with the Father, the Church must either admit that Christ was only man or else the difference between the Father 1 Cf. Ilarnack, I. S. 561,619; and Wendt, 1. c. S. 16. 2 IIow fruitless the attempt is to trace the gradual develop- ment of a Divine Christ in the early Church appears in the history of so careful a scholar as Prof. Allen of Harvard. He thinks the Church first believed in the Logos as a Divine attri- bute. Then the word within us was spoken of as the Word of God or Son of God. Next this subjective word M'as made objective. After that the objective was regarded as Incarnate in Jesus; and finally He was considered to be a Divine Deliv- erer. To find time for such a development, Allen must put the Fourta Gospel in the middle of the second century and run in the face of all recent criticism on that question {The Unita- rian Jieview, 1889). Equally fruitless is the attempt of Norton {iStatement of Jieasons, 3d. Ed., Boston, 1859, p. 94f.; 333f.) to trace the Logos Christology to Philo. Harnack admits (1. c. L 66.) that the Logos teachings of the Fourth Gospel did not come from Philo. Norton docs not venture to quote the early litera- ture, but refers to Clement of Alexandria and Augustine, and then quotes the Cambridge Platonizers as proof that the Chris- tian doctrine of the Trinity came from Greek philosophy. hy Tradition^ Bible, Philosophy, Ilcrcxy. 189 id and Son must be found in the Beirnj: of God. He pressed in the latter direction. He followed Clenieiit in exalting the love and Fatherhood of God. Christ was the expression of the life, the love of the Father, as well as His creative AYord. From this point of view, and with reference to the absolute changeless- ness of Divine relations, Origen elaborated his great thought of the eternal generation of the Son.' This idea had been touched by Justin, and uttered by Irenaeus, but now was clearly taught, and without special Church action passed into the teachings of theology. Origen described Christ as 6noov6io% rw narpi-^ therefore not i\ ovk ovtoov. He was eternal, and it could be said of Him oi.h eany ore OVK r/v. Origen first distih::ruished the words ovdix and inoeTdcn, to make the first apply to the one divine essence and the second to the personal mode of existence of Christ.^ He thus brought Christology to the place of Homoousian Hypostasianism. But the subordination element, though elevated by Origen, was not brought into harmonious re- lations with the consubstantiality of Christ. He exalted the causality of God; Jehovah was sour(;e of Christ, as the torch of the ray; and the Son proceeded from the Father by an act of will. He was God but not awrJ&eos as the Father. He was one in will and one in essence with God. Only Origen's double use of the word God, and his view of emanation within the Godhead enabled him (cf. Thomasius I. S. 202) to com- bine these ojiposing ideas of Christ as God and Clirist • In Jercra. Horn. ix. 4. 2 In Ep. ad IM. V. :}00, Lomtnatzsch Ed. 3 In Jv >.n. ii. 6; cf. Sccberg, S. 108. ^Iii ^i if ■ « m \i im Si f 190 Develojyment of ChristoJogy, as product of God.* But, it should be added, it was his adherence to Scripture — " My Father is greater than I," "None is good save one" — that made him teach the subordination of the Son "svithin the God- head and not merely in liis earthly life.- We are now within sight of tlie council of Nica^u. which will be noticed in another connection. The peculiar philosophic views of Origen — his doctrine of eternal creation, preexistence of souls, extreme free will and spiritual resurrection — were drop})ed from Church l)elief ; but liis Christology was retained. It was not necessary to give up all his theology to get rid of his errors. Dionysius of Home corrected Dion- ysius of Alexandria for pushing the subordination views of Origen too far against Sabellianism, and ^ Sohra thinks (p. 54 Eniilish Translation) that the Hellen- izing theology of Origen regarded Christ as *'the incarnation of the rational law (the ' Logos ' of the philosophers) that works in the world, its governor and creator. Christ is the incarnate Law of Nature, the law of all material, or of all spiritual and moral things." He concludes, accordingly, that "As the ideal source of creation, as the cosmic principle — a principle which is no longer a unity, but contains in itself the multiplicity of the universe — Christ is of necessity a divine person subordinate to the Father." From this Hellenizing of Christianity the Church was saved by Athanasius. 2 Cf. Bigg. 1. c, p. 181. Gore says: <' It cannot be too often emphasized that Origen's errors — so far as his opinions are cer- tainly errors — were mainly due to an overscrupulous literalnesa in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, that, for instance, his doctrine that the Son was not the absolute goodness, as He was the absolute Wisdom, was due to his interpretation, more literal than true, of the text, "There is none good but one, that is God" {Dissertations on ISuhJects Connected with the Incarna- tion. New York, 1895, p. 114). hij Tradition^ Bille, Philosophy^ Heresy. 191 18 brought him back to both Unity and Trinity in God. On the other hand, Methodius of Olympus (d. 311) differed from Origen in teaching that Christ was be- gotten before all time, but " after the beginningless beginning" of God. He expressed, however, rather the indecisive thoughts of a man like Dlonysius of Alexandria, who needed only to be sharply questioned to fall into more definite statements. But this ex- change of views between the bishops of Rome and Alexandria shows that soon after the death of Origen the leading minds in all the Church were agreeing upon three great points respecting Christ: first. He was of the same substance with God; seconu, He was ])er.sonally distinct from the Father; and third. He was eternal. Only one point of indecision remained; that was the question of Subordination, which Origen left unsettled. Lucian of Antioch, the teacher of Arius, adopted the Monarchianism of Paul of Samo- sata; Christ Avas for him ethically God. Arius went to Alexandria and joined this Monarchianism to the subordination elements in Oriijen's theology- And so, as Thomasius says (I. 211), when the full current of Church thought ran away from Subordination and towards Homoousiauism, Arius turned in the opposite direction, and sought to develo[) SuV)or(lination })ack- wards so as to deny the true divinity of Christ. Christ equal with the Father, or Christ essentially subject to the Father was the remaining inquiry. Before leaving the school of Origen, one other line of thought must be briefly referred to. That great theologian not only led the Church to see that the relation of Father and Son was eternal — as he de- scribed it, an eternal generation of the Son; he also ^ HH", w H I 1 (^c) i. >' ^ Development of Chri-sfolot/}/, took steps toward the solution of the further inquiry into the relation of the Divine and human natures in Jesus Christ.* He approached this doctrine from the point of view of the preiixistence of all human souls, which he doubtless learned from Plato. If the soul of Jesus preexisted in the presence of God before it became incarnate in the man Jesus, and if the Divine Logos preexisted from all eternity, the inquiry arose, how were these related before either became flesh and dwelt among us. Orisreu explains it as follows: The Divine Logos created all things. To '' His ra- tional creatures " He imparted " invisibly a share of Himself" (De Prin. ii. H); but in different degrees according to the love which each soul had for Him. There was one soul, that of which Jesus said, "No man shall take my soul (animam) from me," which became " through love inseparably one " with the Divine Logos from the very creation (he quotes I Cor. vi. 17). By means of this soul — for the soul is by nature intermediate between God and matter — the Divine Christ was born and became the God-Man. He can be called the Son of God " either because it (the soul) was wholly in the Son of God, or because it received the Son of God wholly into itself." He compares the soul in the Logos to iron in a furnace, which becomes so hot that it impresses us as Are rather than as metal ; it becomes " God in all that it does, feels and understands." This exaltation of the soul of Jesus to union with the Divine Logos was not arbitrary, but was a reward for its virtues (Ps. xlv. 7, quoted). Origeu approaches the doctrine of the ^ Be Prin. ii. 6; C. Cd. iii. 41; i. 60; iv. 15. Cf. Patrick, Apology of Oriyen, Edinburgh, 1892. p. 188f. }>y Tradition^ Bible ^ Philosophy^ Heresy. 193 use He ice, fire tit the not ^Iv. the [ick, Communicatio Idiomatum^ in holding that both the human and divine natures of the Lord may be includ- ed in the title, Son of God. Hia relation of the human soul of Jesus to the Divine Logos was also analo2;ou3 to that of the " Adoption " Christolosrv in its view of the Son to the Father. This infusion of the Divine Logos passed also to the body of Jesus, so that the whole Divine-human personality became as it were one being. Origen first used the word OedvOpoaTco?, OF God-Mau. The supernatural conception and this transforming indwelling of the Logos of God gradually transfigured Jesus, till at the resurrec- tion He passed into the full spiritual state of exist- ence. In three respects at least was this view of Origen important: First, it sharply distinguished the reasonable soul in Jesus Christ from the Divine Logos; second, it turned attention from the body as point of union between the human and the Divine to the soul as the place of meeting; and, third, it made the bond of union between the Son of Man and the Son of God consist in love, in spiritual fellowship. It is true these imijortant ti aths were built upon the erroneous presuppositions of the preexistence of souls, their ante-natal fill, and the beginning of the incarn! c n of Jesus in a previous state; but the Church did get from Origen a clear conception of n true, human, reasonable soul in the Saviour. And this conception offered standing ground for rejecting later errors in Christology. Arianism, which taught that the Logos took the place of the rational soul in Jesus, Apollinarianism, which put the Logos in place of ihe human mind in Jesus, as well as Monophysitism, i I 194 Development of Christology, which merged the soul of Jesus in the Logos, and Nestorianism, which made the soul of Jesus only " conjoined " to the Divine Logos, were all anticipa- ted and more or less invalidated by the teachings of Origen. The Synod of Bostra approved of Origen's Christology; and Eusebius (vi. 33) and Socrates (H. E. iii. 7) say that the Christology there sot forth was but " an exposition of the mystic tradition handed down by the Church." These Fathers all agreed with Origen (De Prin. ii. 6; iv. 30ff.) that " the thoughts " of theologians on these subjects were of value only as they could be '• proven from the Holy Scriptures." 71 I i I LECTURE IV. ^af^ation an^ connected l^.ro^it^, an inaDoqul .ioto of ^m. a ^.fccti&. t^corp of Jr.o.t^iff, anD t§. con^.. qu^Tjf 3roTx>t^ of fe^afim, ^ac.r^of a Pbm, and 4«cclicbn? in i§c (Jtarfp C^urc^. 105 ' 1:1 i"!r "Apud Ciceronem et Platonem, aliosquc cjusmodi scrip- tores, multa sunt acute dicta, et leniter caieutia, sed in iis om- nibus hoc non invenio, Venite ad me (Matt. vii. 28). Augustine. "The Spirit of Romanism is substantially the Spirit of Hu- man Nature." Whately. Errors of liomanism^ 1830. p. 20. Pi \L '■f m " Indulgentia perpetua pro vivis et defunctis." Inscription over the Church of S. Maria Maggiori and others in Rome. " Ich bin dem Ablass und alien Papisten entgegen gewcsen, aber niit keiner Gewalt. Ich babe allcin Gottes Wort getrie- ben, gcpredigt und geschrieben." Luther. Second sermon after leaving the Wartburg. " O Christe, Fili Dei, liberator clementissime, qui toties populum ab angustiis liberasti, libera nos raiscros ab hac Baby- lonica Antichristi '^aptivitate, ab hypocrisi ejus, tyrannide et idolatria." Servel aS. Bestitutio. 106 LECTURE IV. Imperfect apprehension of the divine ciirist in his work of salvation, and, connected there- with, an inadequate view of sin, a defective theory of free-will, and the consequent growth of legalism, sacerdotalism and asceticism in the early catholic church. It will he well for the student at the outset of this Lecture to remember that the soteriology of the Greek Church, so far as it was biblical, followed especially the teachings of St. John. With the Fourth Gospel, it regarded Christianity as summed up in two princi- ples: ( 1 ) Jesus Christ the Divine-human bringer of eternal life, and (2) man saved by sharing that divine life through union with Christ (John xx. 81 ). Corres- ponding to this conception of the gospel, it saw the chief enemies of man to be the devil, the Antichrist, from whom the Lord delivered his saints, and death, which was swallowed up in the life and immortality 'Drought to light by the gospel. Athanasius loves to present the work of Christ as God becoming human that man might become divine. Here the highest thoughts of Christian revelation are reached; for only those who know all the elements of humbler doctrine can safely seek to become partakers of the Divine Nature. It is a true instinct which sees in the Johannine writings a view of the gospel, that presupposes the plain narratives of 197 (f1 '1 *' !i ■■■■ .: i H u t i m i W 198 Defective View of Iiedeiiiption^ the Synoptists, and the doctrine of justification hy faith which Paul preached. It was just here, however, that the early Church made her first great mistake. She saw clearly enough that the end and aim of Christian- ity was l)le8sed oneness with God through Jesus Christ; but she failed to see adequately that the true wa}'^ to this Divine Communion was through personal justify- ing faith in Christ, that faith which works by love and purifies the heart. Not that faith was lost sight of; it was only more and more obscured by its own symbols, by other virtues, especially hope and love, and by the good works which were its fruits. This obscuring and limiting of justification by faith appear at once when we observe the baptism and admission of converts into the post- Apostolic Church.^ Barnabas says: "Bap- * Baptismal regeneration could find support in the words of Jesus to Micodemus (John iii. 5), and in His great commission (Matthew xxviii. 19, 20), which made baptism the turning point from paganism to keeping the commandments of Christ. The gift of the Holy Spirit was also associated with baptism (Acts X. 47; I Cor. vi. ll;xii. 13). It was a sign of union with Christ (Gal. iii. 27). Especially noticeable is the connection with the death of Jesus, which all felt was the key to salvation. The Lord had called His own death a baptism (Luke xii. 50; Mk. x. 38, 39); and Paul declared (Romans vi. 3) that Christians were baptized into the death of Christ. This last statement sank deep into the heart of the Church and was widespread early (cf. JieschjAussercanonisch. Pandleltei'te zu den Evangelien. II Heft zu Matt. V. Mark. Leipzig, 1894. S. 416). Ignatius said {Eph. xviii) Jesus "was born and baptized, that by Ills passion He might purify the water." Then followed confused ideas as to how the water in baptism might be connected with regeneration. Tertullian said the Holy Spirit sanctified it (Z>e bap. iv. ; De Paen. vi.). The body was identified with the soul so as to be defiled by it; hence, both forming one personality, both were Legalism, Sacerclotali-wiy Asceticiwi. 199 tism bears remission of sins" (xi. 1 ). Hermas says of converts: " They go down into the water dead, and come up alive " (6^ classes of ' nil' ; 1 ; 1' ■ m 200 Defective Vie id of Jieilemption, m 1 'I Innocent as tlicse views niic^ht appear, they really involved what Paul calls a fall from walvation by grace into salvation l)y works. Man's life was cleft in twain, and the work of Christ divided. Beflace for second repentance for the worst sins. ^ Pfleiderer acutely observes that if original Christianity were what Ititschl thinks it was, with God only love, sin only ignorance, and the kingdom of heaven only an ethical society, the Apostolic Church would have a very short step to take, and I f ■ 'I ! i,'l ^t; •St Leijaliism^ Sacerdotalitim, Asceticism. 201 ingsof the Apostles, especially of Paul and John, hut the New Testament thought is ever hanipcrcil in their view of it ])y a gentle IMoralisni or Legalism, whicli adds something to faith in justitioation and unduly exalts good works. Clement says: " Through faitli we are justified" (xxxv.), and again: " By works we are just" (//a). By faith he did not mean solely personal union to Christ, but also knowledge of Christ\s law and obedience to it. Icjnatius savs that faith and love unite to form the new man (^Kpli. xx; S/tii/r. y\.), where meritorious love shares with faith the founda- tion of the Ciiristian life. By faith he understands rather a conviction of the trutii of God and confidence in Christ than appropriation of the finished work of Christ, as Paul taught. Barnal).'is calls the commands of Christ " the ue\ / law" (ii. 0), which is a " law of liberty," an ' the keeping of which is " a ransom for thy sins" (xix. 10). The Church, he taught, took the place of Israel as the true covenant peo])le; hence faith in Christ brings the convert under the new law, and puts a hope of the kingdom in his heart.' Polycarp, need very little help from Ilellehism, to fall into the moral ism which Ilarnaek and others bo groatly deplore (cf. Jilble Ground of liitschCs Theolofiy, in Juhrh. f. Prot. Theoh*(jie,\\\. \\. I.), In this essay Pfleiderer shows the violent and arhitrary iiielhotl employed by Kitschl to extort his Dogmatics from the Bible. 1 Barnabas Jinew that to become a Christian was " to have the soul of children," to be born again, to liave Christ in us, ''manifested in the flesh to dwell in us," and make us "a holy temjdc unto the Lord " (^xvi.). Ho knows that this new life was ptirchased on the cross, for Jesus offered " the vessel of His spirit a sacrifice for our sins." He gave " His flesh for tiie sins of my new ])eople," who took the place of Israel. He was the scapegoat. But the application of Christ's suffering was that ! w 202 Defective Vieiv of Medemption^ like Barnabas, gives sin-atoning merit to alms, and Hermas writes: "Thou shalt live if thou keep my commandments" (^Man. iv. 2). Back of all this moralism and self -redemption, there lay of course the work of Christ. Clement says: "The blood of Christ, being shed for our salvation, won for the whole world the grace of repentance " (vii.). And again: "We being called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works, which we wrought in holiness, but through faith, whereby the Almighty Father justified all men that have been from the beginning" (xxxii.). Here is a plain reproduction of Pauline teachings; hence the view of Ritschl is ex- treme which rejects an objective atonement as part of Clement's gospel (1. c. S. 29). Christ ^^?.'vii " His life for our life " (xlix.); but Clement sees Him as our High Priest with only our gifts to offer, and regards the gift of "immortal knowledge" as an especially im- ** they who desire to see Me, and to attain unto ray Kingdom, must lay hold on Me through tribulation and affliction " (vii.). "They who set their hopes on Him (that is, Jesus on the cross) shall live forever" (viii.). Here the heart of the matter is ob- scured, and personal faith in Christ set aside by an imitation of His sufferings for us, or a hope of immortality through Him. He says "there are three dogmas (ordinances) of the Lord for us" (i.); and they are. Lope of life, which is the beginning and end of our faith, righteousness, and love. Here he falls back into his view that Christianity is a new covenant taking the place of the old covenant made with Israel (iv. xiv.). We enter it by faith in Jesus; and this faith produces hope, which seals the covenant upon our hearts (iv.). The sufferings of Christ gained for us both "forgiveness of sins," and "renewal "of nature (vi.); but Barnabas cannot relate these things directly to free, justifying faitL. Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Ascei 'cism. 203 portant part of Christ's work. Barnabas regards* the death of Christ as procuring for us forgiveness of sins (v. 1). But he does not know how to connect the sinr ^ with that death. He says, " hoping in the Name (of Christ) we become new " (xvi.) ; then he goes on to present our union with God in a moralistic way, as His dwelling in us by His word and ordinances and doc- trine. Hermas tries to connect the new Law with the Gospel by saying: "The Law is the Son of God preached unto the ends of the earth"; yet he seems to think that true faith and true works miglu exist apart. Ignatius especially set forth Christianity as the life of Christ in man's soul.^ The bond of union with Christ is faith, which shows itself in love.^ The Gospel is ^ Eph. ix. 2; X. 11; xv. 3: Mag. vii. 12. 2 Ignatius echoes Paul, saying (Eph. xviii.): **My spirit is made an offscouring for the cross, which is a stumbling-block to the unbeliever but salvation and life to us." He regards the work of Christ as a gift of life, immortality and deliverance to us through His cross and passion {Eph. xix, xx; 3 fag. ix.). This last is central. He says: "Jesus Christ died for us, that believing on His death,, ye might escape death " {Trull, ii.). Hence the view of Von der GcUz, that Ignatius lays stress upon the resurrection and not upon the death of Christ is questiona- ble. Lightfoot maintains that for Ignatius, the passion of our Lord was "the one central doctrine of the faith" {Comment, on Eph. Inscrip.). The cross was ever before his eyes. He did not grasp all that the death of Christ meant, but of its supreme im- portance he was fully conscious. In opposition to heretics, he said, "but as for me my charter is Jesus Christ, the inviolable charter is His cross and His death and His resurrection, and faith through Ilim" {Phil. viii.). Through faith Christiana were " nailed on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, in flesh and in spirit"; and adds " of which fruit are we — that is, of His most blessed passion" {Smyr. i.). lleresy meant departure n- ''-'iitf \i 204 Defective View of JRedernption^ i' I l|Mi:l " the perfection of immortality {Phil. ix. 2) compared with the hopes of the Old Testament. But even Igna- tius had no such idea of sin and the need of expia- tion aswouldlookto the full atonement of Christ. The fact that he put next to his love for Christ the Church and submission to her officers in discipline and the distribution of sacraments, shows rising Ecclesiasticism. He does build the new Christian life upon forgiveness, and forgiveness he traces to the cross of Christ; but of the doctrine of justification which joins man's sins to the mercy of God in Christ, Ignatius has no clear conception. It means for him moral righteous- ness, not the imputed merits of the liedeemer. These Fathers everywhere teach that Christ was the Re vealer of God and the Redeemer of man ; they connect this revelation and redemption very closely with Christ's cross and passion ; but they do not know how to inter- pret the sacrifice of Christ. Ritschl thinks they failed here because they lacked the knowledge of Old Testa- ment sacrifices necessary to understand Paul. But these men were not coni^cious of such failure. They took for granted that they knew what the oifering of Christ, His blood, His sufferings meant. They took for granted that their hearers knew the same thing, without going back to the Old Testament, or e^^en ex- from the Passion (Phil. iii.). He connects forgiveness with the cross of Christ (against Harnack I. 695), and, on the ground of this forgiveness for Christ's sake, heseesfaitn and love grow, working a transformation of the Christian into the likeness of Christ. But he nowhere states Paul's doctrine of justification by faith alone. Ci. Phil. viii. 2; Zahn, Iffnatius von Antioch)e}i, 1873, S. 405; and Behm, Ztft.f. Kirchl. Wiss. u. Kirch. Leben. 1886. S. 296. Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 205 pounding the New. The frequent references to the blood of Christ and the cross^ are much more than fos- sil phrases left by once living conceptions. In view of these facts, the explanation of Behni seems more probable, that these Gentile Fathers unconsciously- transferred current ideas respecting sacrifice to the offerinc: of Christ.- The blood of the sacrifice was re- garded by the heathen as removing the guilt of sin when sprinkled on the sinner, bestowing regeneration, and giving eternal union with God.^ But especially 1 Cf. Clem. Rom. xxi. 6; xlix. 0; Ignat. ^ph. i; Smyr. 1; Barn. viii. 2 Ztft. f. h. Wiss. u. k. Lehen. 1886, S. 295f. This view does not directly o])pose that of Ritschl, but adds to it. The ignorance of the Old Testament may not have been so great as he supposes; and other motives may have led to a conscious neg- lect of the Jewish views of sacrifice. Philo was very familiar with the Old Testament, yet did not explain sacrifices and Legal- ism as found in Jewish teachings; but, led by ])hilosophy and allegory, gave them quite a different application. Ritschl says the Legalism of the Apostolic Fathers must be . ?sted first of all " by the significance which they attach to the death of Christ" (^Entstehung, S. 269). That is true: and yet there might be great knowledge of the Old Testament without the power to grasp Paul's doctrine of Christ's sacrifice. The sacrifice of a man, the offering of the Messiah, were ideas foreign to many minds full of Old Testament teachings. Paul seems to have found his Jewish brethren quite as unable to hoM on to the true view of Christ's death as were his Gentile converts. Legalism and Moralism overran Jewish Christianity just as swiftly and surely as they overtook that of the Gentile churches. Justin says that the Gentile Christians were both "more numerous and more true" than those from the Jews and Samaritans (-Ijt). I, lii). ^ Cf. Anrich, Das antike Jfi/sterienwesen hi setnem EIuJIkss auf d. Chi'istenthum. GOttingen, 1894. S. 15, 53. 206 I! W^ :ll Defective View of Medemptlon, the hero, the patriot offering himself for his people might be taken to explain the sacrifice of Christ. Cle- ment speaks of kings " by their own blood" delivering their fellow- citizens (Iv.). Barnabas makes Christ die as King "for the sins of His new people" (vii. 5). Gentile thought would regard Christ, the Captain of our salvation, dying for His people, as having the value of an expiatory offering. Such heroes were called itspjipjj/jara^ and HaOdpuara b/ which guilt was re- moved. With such a vievr the Old Testament sacrifi- cial types would have little connection in the minds of these Fathers. Jewish atonement meant a covering of sin here and now ; the Greek atonement meant deliv- erance from sins of other days. This mode of thought would lead naturally to the position that the death of Christ acted retrospectively in blotting out sins that were past. The hero freed the people from some tyrant or danger; but once free they must take up the work of their own defence. This is the view taken of Christ's work of deliverance, especially as we find it elaborated by a man like Origen, to show how Christ our King met and overthrew our great enemy the Devil." Such deliverance naturally ends with the hero's death; hence perhaps the reason why the Apos- ^ Cf. Ignatius, of himself, ^ph. xviii; just as Paul used both terms of himself. He was "the filth of the world," he was also the ' 'offscouring of all things " for Christ's sake and the Church (I Cor. iv. 13). 2 Origen says the disciples recognized the analogy between a patriot dying for his country and Jesus dying for His people. He says: "that the voluntary dying of one just man for the common weal has power to drive off evil spirits which create pestilence and kindred evils, is probably a law inherent in the Legalism, Sacerdotalism, Asceticism. 207 e tolic Fathers cannot connect anything that Christ did after His crucifixion — His resurrection, His high- priestly reign — with His work of atonement. ^ Such a retroactive view would also very easily explain the idea that Christ's atonement covered only sins commit- ted before conversion and baptism. The unique value which these Fathers saw in the death of Christ was that it took place according to the will of God', that it was a Divine plan for renewing Humanity^, that it was foretold and fixed by prophecy, and that it was actually realized in the sufferings of Christ. The obedience of Jesus unto death and the declaration of God made the sacrifice of the cross a sacramental act of objective value for men like Clement and Igna- tius. Repentance found in it pardon for sin ; hence the sacrifice of Christ was regarded from the point of view of its effects upon the believer rather than from tliat of its relations to God. Here was the great limit to the Moralism which was creeping in; for so long as the pardoned man felt that his relation to a gracious God depended upon his relation to the death of Clirist, and that his new life sprang from the sacrifice of the Lord, so long must Legalism, which is self -redemption, be bounded by the thought that vital union with God is inseparable from the death of Christ (Behm 1. c). nature of things, in accordance with certain principles of a mys- terious order, hard for the multitude to grasp." C Cel. i. 31. Cf. Patrick's remarks on this, The Apology of Ori(icn. Edin- burgh. 1892. p. 229f ; and Behm's, 1. c. 1 See Ritschl, 1. c. S. 280,290; and Von Eugclhardt, Justin der J/., S. 395. 2 Clem. Rom. xlix. G; Barnab. vii. 3, 5; xii. 1, 2. 3 Ignatius, Eph. xviii. 2; xx. 1. m n m !■■ w 'i Ms i m^ t'l- 1 1 1 208 Defective View of Redemption, But, on the other hand, because the atonement was not grasped as an ever-present, ever-effcacious source of pardon and life, the post-baptismal iife was largely given over to salvation by merit and good works.* When we pass from the Apostolic Fathers to the Apologists, we find wider- reaching conditions and con- siderations, which led them to present the gospel in more direct relations to pagan thought. They natu- rally make prominent the things which Christianity held in common with Hellenism (and Judaism). Hence they speak much of one God, and religion as the perfection of ethics. Christ is the Divine Teacher, and the Christian is the ideal philosopher or theolo- gian. All the culture and wisdom of Greece were re- garded as a dim foreshadowing of Christ, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. But this very world of Greek ideals, which prepared so many to accept Christ as the Divine Logos Incar- nate, became for multitudes a stumbling block when they heard of sin, regeneration, and redemption at the foot of the cross. The Greeks as a people never took life seriously; they were naturally Epicureans. In 1 Harnack is right in saying (Ztft.f. Th. ti. Kirche, 1891, 2) that post-Apostolic sources are about unanimous in teaching that man is justified by faith and deeds of love. lie refers especially to Clement of Rome and Hermas. As to the latter, Zahn {Der Ilirte, S. 189f.), however, does not agree. These Fathers put faith at the acme of their thoughts, but it was not regarded as complete in itself as the saving doctrine for man. It included rather, Harnack says, obedience, knowledge and hope. It could be thought apart even from love. Love was its natural companion; but Paul's view of true faith inevitably 'vorking by love was not fully grasped. ! Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 2C9 ii ,2) Fers ter, lese not Ian. md its ,ly like manner, the Greek Church never saw the heinous- ness of sin, and the need of sovereign grace in Christ, as did the Latin Church through Augustine. Barna- bas is the only post- Apostolic man who speaks de- cidedly of the new birth as the starting point in Chris- tianity (see Ritschl, S. 315). Man's free will and moral ability were everywhere presupposed in all religious discussions. Accordingly, in order to under- stand the growth of soteriology in the Nicene theol- ogy, we must first glance at the doctrine of sin which prevailed. We may consider Justin as a fair specimen of the Apologists, for he knew the Church, East and West, he wrote for both Jews and Gentiles, and was given the first place among the early defenders of the faith. The trouble, which he sees in the world is threefold — first man's subjection to Satan, second to death, and third to a sinful tendency.' This is the order of importance, an order which makes the prob- lem of evil center in a conflict between God and the devil, and in the struggle of life with death rather than in the crisis of the soul conscious of sin against God. This identification of sin with Satan shows Justin's chief departure from New Testament haniar- tialogy. He thereby set the power of sin outside man in Satan and demons, much as was done in Greek philosophy and the mysteries, and failed to grasp the idea of sin as personal guilt. He saw man bound by the devil, instead of morally impotent. The sinner is so helpless that Christ's work alone can save him. Justin's view, that Old Testament saints and some 1 Dial. xcv. ; cf. Clem. Alex. Paecl. iii. 12. :ir , ^1 210 Defective View of Medemption^ heathen like Socrates were saved, need not imply that he regarded the atonement of Christ as non-essential.^ He admits that men cannot attain unto perfect knowl- edge of God ; but he holds that perfect knowledge of God is not necessary in order to choose Christ and live. He opposes the Gnostics, in denying that the evil in man springs from necessity of nature. It came from the free choice of Adam first, and then of each man in his turn ; for Justin has no doctrine of inherited sin. God, who made all things, allows evil as a dis- turbance of creation, but allows it as the result of man's free moral action.'^ Like all the other Apolo- gists,^ he contends that both Scripture and reason make moral responsibility and moral freedom insepa- rable. Adam chose Satan rather than God; that was the beginning but not the cause of all other sins. Death and misery began with Adam ; but not till men make his sin their own by free choice are they guilty before God. In this connection, Justin saw the deeper problem of universal death pointing toward a uni- versal penalty of sin, and tried, but vnih. little success, to explain it by his theory of free-will. Irenaeus, in the full light of the New Testament, ^llt li 1 See Flemming, S. 26, against Von Engelhardt and Weiz- sacker. 2 Dial. Ixxxviii. Considering the sinfulness of man, Justin traces it (1) to evil desires (I Ajy. x.); (2) to evil environment, bad example, bad customs (I ^'l^j. Ivii. ; Ixi; Dial. cxix. ) ; (3) to the work of demons (I Ap. x. ; xiv., cf. Flemming, S. 16); and (4), back of all these, though not organically connected with present evil, was mentioned the fall of Adam {Dial. Ixxxviii). 3 Cf. references in Schmid-Hauck, Dogmengesch. NOrd- lingen. 1887. S. 123. ; iiii Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 211 took up the problem of sin where the Apologists left it. He believes with them that man is morally free; but he sees more clearly than they did that all men died in Adam.^ The central position which he gives Christ as the restorer of all humanity in contrast with Adam, who ruined the race, led him to lay stress upon the disobedience of our first parents. But having done this, he tries to roll the guilt upon the devil, and makes Adam's fall a pedagogic provision of God, because only by knowledge of both good and evil could man choose one or the other. The results of the fall are ignorance, misery, imperfection ; but they, although the fruit of our own choice, are not proofs of personal guilt, but part of a condition of humanity graciously planned by God for the education cf the race.^ In other words, mankind is guilty, but not the individual. The individual suffers enough misery from Adam to stir him up to follow Christ, to live virtuously, and return to God. By the fall he lost Paradise and the image and likeness of God; but he retained his free will and his ability to live justly before God, and merit Paradise, which Christ, having overthrown the tyranny of Satan, will restore to the saints. i ^ Ilaeres. III. 18, 1; V. 16, 31; V. 17, 1. 2 See Werner's book, Der Paulinismus cles Irenaeus. Leipzig, 1889, to which I am much indebted for help in the study of Irenaeus. He sums up Irenaeus' un-PauIine view of original sin thus: We have "instead of Adam's responsibility, decep- tion of Satan; instead of selfishness, seduction; instead of the wrath of God, divine pity; instead of separation from God, loss of his gifts. Not sin as personal guilt, but the result of sin as general loss is the central thought of the view of Irenaeus " (S. 137). "*■ 212 Defective View of Hedemption^ The great defect in this view is that it fails to rec- ognize personal guilt and personal relation to Christ. The human race is guilty and the human race is re- deemed by Christ; the individual can partially save himself within the atmosphere of the Church. When we enter the early Alexandrian School, a similar circle of thought meets us. Clement says " there are two sources of all sin — ignorance and weak- ness" {Strom, vii. 8, IG). The remedy is instruc- tion and mastery of desire. The principle of all wrong doing and right doing is moral ability and free will. In one important respect, however, this school took a new departure respecting the doctrine of liberty. The Gnostics held that Adam would not have fallen unless he had V)een imperfect, and if he were imperfect he could not have l)een created by the Supreme God. To meet this objection, Clement and Origen taught a lib- erty of indifference, and put their theory of the will, as a power in man choosing independent of reason or truth, at the foundation of their theology.^ The motives of man, the nature of man did not decide the choice; neither did God's predestination nor His crea- tion; all came from the sovereign, self-moved will. Hence evil acts followed from evil choices. There is no evil in man's nature. Adam's transgression was the type, not the cause of sin.^ Origen, by his theory 1 See Bigg, The Christian Pkttonists of Alexandria. The Bamptoii Lectures for 1886, p. 78, 2 Clement, like Ritschl, made God only love; and creation, the work of the Divine Logos, a product of love. Therefore, sin is not necessary; it arises from the hindrance of natural things. Redemption, too, requires no sacrifice, because it springs from a God of love, and love needs no atonement. Hi Legalising SctcerdotaUsmy Asceticism. 213 of preexistence, put the fall of souls in a previous life; the evils which reach us through Adam he refers chiefly to bodily weakness, though he also speaks of inheritance of character. He here presents two con- tradictory theories, one making each soul fall for itself, the other tracing the fall to Adam. The opponents of Origen, especially Methodius, took a semi-Pelagian view of sin and moral ability. But the later Alexandrian school, as represented by Athanasius, laid more stress upon the guilt of sin and the need of grace. He traces sin and death to Adam's transgression.^ Man's nature is perverted, so that Christ must become man to "undo the perversion of the devil." The exercise of man's will must be sup- ported by the Holy Spirit from the outset in order to choose God.^ Here Athanasius approaches the doc- trine of the new birth as preceding the exercise of will in conversion ; but elsewhere he falls into the view that man's mind is only obscured ; that he can still know God and keep His law. He is confused between the thought that the Logos in every man enlightens him, and that the Logos dwells especially in Christiana, making them sons of God (/Z». iii. 10). In the one case, natural endowment can guide man in the way of Clement did not understand the Old Testament sacrifices to a God of justice. Neither did Philo; or he allegorized them away. Ritschl, also, strange to say, after finding the misappre- hension of the Old Testament sacrifices to be the reason why the primitive Gospel was perverted, has to set aside the atoning element in them, and practically rob them of meaning, to reach what he holds to be the primitive gospel. ^ Cont. Apoll. i. 15; C. Ar. ii. 6, 1. 2 C. Ar. i. 51; ii. 65. 11 fl 1 U'.H^. In n p 214 Defective View of liedemption., virtue; in the other, special grace is necessary. Here Athanasius halts between two opinions respecting man's ability to choose the good himself and salvation as a gift of God. Like Irenaeus, he traces sin to two sources, to the freedom of the will and exercise of rea- son, and to the sinfulness of the human race, without trying to explain their divergence.* Greek theology believed in the fall of man, in universal sinfulness as the result, and in a totality of human guilt which was connected with Adam. But it failed to give definite- ness to these doctrines ; it could not estimate the degree of man's sinfulness, the relation of actual transgression * The "Western Church followed rather the soteriology of Irenaeus than that of Alexandria. It agreed with the East in the freedom of the will to choose good or evil (cf . TertuUian Ad. Marc. ii. 5) ; but felt also that the human race was repre- sented in Adam and greatly affected by his fall. The physical continuity of mankind and the consequent transmission of Adam's sins to his descendants were main ined. TertuUian's view (traducianism) of the soul of the chii«.. "'^ceeding from the soul of the parent, brought the sins of men i. ^ vital one- ness with the sin of Adam. Augustine did not auv \)t this view; but did hold that the fall of our first parents imparted a sinful nature to all men {Cont. Jul, iii. 24; Civ. Dei, xiii. 3), TertuUian and others taught, however, that the darkness of sin in man was not unbroken. A spark of original ri^-btoousness is left, which grace can blow into a flame. firaoe cooperates w'th the power of good still left in man. A ^mall place was left for human merit {Ad. Marc. iv. 26). The Eastern Church laid stress upon freedom and moral ability; the Western Church laid stress upon sin and grace. The one spoke more of reason; the other more of the soul. The Greeks looked rather to knowledge: the Latins spoke more of faith. The aberrations of the East ran toward rationalism; the mistakes of the West inclined more toward superstition (cf. in general, Seeberg, S. 150f.). Legalism, ^'acerdotalUnif Aaceticiam. 215 t a to an evil state in man, and how the guilt of the race was connected with the sin of Adam (cf. Thomasius, I. 48-4). The reasons for this iiu perfect grasp of human sinfulness were various. (1) And first of all may be noticed the Greek conception of God and the universe, whicli colored the thought of the Church. The Absolute alone was perfect; man as finite must of necessity be niorally limited and weak. Demerit came to be regarded as misfortune rather than guilt, a mistake or defect through lack of knowledge or power. And as man's limitation was most felt in the body, that was re- garded as the seat of evil. It was the tomb, the prison of the rational soul — tfwyua 6^/na. Sin was, ac- cordingly, related first of all to the nature of things, and not to God. Such a view of sin led men to look in the wrong direction for its removal. Instead of thinking of the Divine Redeemer ever present to for- give, theologians spoke of the knowledge which would lift the soul into the vision of God, or tlie asceticism which would free men from the fetters of the body. The drift of all such moralism was toward pessimism, as appeared in Origen (cf. Bigg, p. 206); for if sin springs from the limitations of human nature, no escape is possible till death shall set us free.* ■u\ he of he :f. ^ This view of sin as springing from the limited nature of man — revived in modern times by Leibnitz — (1) weakened the wrongdoer's sense of demerit, (2) inclined him to put sin in the bodily nature, (3) removed evil from its relation to God, (4) offered little hope for its extinction, for man would never cease to be finite — hence Origen, pressing in this direction, taught an endless series of possible falls and restorations of '^'\ "ill m \F 216 Defective View of Redemption, (2) The Greek view, that only by union with God can finite man become good or remain good, also modified tlie Church view of sin. It was right to hold that the Logos of creation is the Logos of re- demption; nature and grace are both in the power of Christ. We believe that the unio mystica is taught by the Bible, history and experience to be a doctrine of Christianity. The saying of Paul, "we are the offspring of God," was often quoted in proof of original relationship between man and his Maker.* But there was another view of the union of humanity with God which landed in fate and necessity. The good and the ill in man's lot were regarded as both alike fixed by God and nature. On this theory the Gnostics based their hylic and spiritual distinctions among men. And, though Gnosticism was rejected by the Church, its fatalistic temper lingered some- what in Christian theology. (3) It was in opposition to this Stoic neces- sarianism, which practically made whatever is right and confounded moral distinctions, that men like Irenaeus magnified free vrill and moral ability. They admitted that enough of the Divine is in all men to enable them to do right; they admitted also that only through God can man please God ; but they declared men, (5) looked in the wrong direction for salvation, viz., by the removal of the limitations of ignorance by knowledge, of the body by asceticism, and (6), by identifying the perfect with the infinite, led m'^jn to seek salvation by ecstasy or absorption into the Absolute. 1 See Justin's Logos spermatikos, II Ap. vi., xiii. ; Tei'- tullian's "man by nature Christian"; and Irenaeus' view that Jesus is the ideal man. Legalism^ Sacerdotalism., Asceticism. 217 ., by of I with )tion iTer- that that the relation to God mu8t be free if it was to be responsible. Origen adopted his doctrine of free will, as we saw, in direct opposition to Hellenic teachings; for determinism and particularism re- gardless of consequences were the foundation of Greek ethics; while personal freedom was felt to be both a doctrine of Scripture and a demand of sound reason, therefore fundamental to Christianity. There were thus two movements in Hellenism, which, by similarity or contrast, led the Church unduly to exalt ability and free will; the first was the general view of man's reason as a divine endowment which en- abled him to choose the good and do good — this was in the line of Platonism; the second was Stoic-Gnostic fatalism, which led the Alexandrian School to recoil too far toward man's perfect freedom and responsi- bility. Tliere was no need apparently to emphasize man's impotence and need of divine grace; Natural- ism, Fatalism, Dualism of the most dangerous sort, pressed the Church into preaching, almost exclusively, ability and obligation. (4) Another side of ancient thought — springing partly from Plato — was that evil had no real exist- ence; because, being sepurate from God who is the good and the principle of all being, it is essent^/illy unreal. Origen greatly pi'omoted this view*, and it was adopted by others (of. Harnack H. 125.). Its partial application was that as reason is the divine in man , so sin consists only in forsaking reason to follow the un." .lities and shadows offered by passion and bodily pleasures. 1 Cf. Klein, Die Freiheitslehre des Origenea. Strassburg. Notice in Theol. Jahreaberichty xiv, S. 1Y2. 218 Defective View of Redemption^ !■: > (5) Besides these rational considerations whicli obscured the conception of sin, there were Bible teachings which were taken to shift the responsibility of evil. The chief of these, as already noticed, was the reference of the origin of all sin to the devil. From Justin on, Greek theology attributed all the enmity between God and man, all physical and moral evil, death of body and soul, as well as all temptation to unbelief and superstition, every impulse to passion and lust, to Satan. ^ Belief in demonology and in- fernal agencies of every sort greatly attenuated the doctrine of sin in the ante-Nicene Church. (6) Even the very Christological development, which is the glory of Greek theology, hindered a full apprehension of evil and guilt. All controversy moved about the Person of Christ; and there was no discussion in the East, as that about Pelagianism later in the West, to lead to a sharp analysis of what was meant by the lost estate of man. On the one hand, the Greeks must press human freedom and responsi- bility; on the other, they must exalt the Divine Christ. Their theology might be summed up in the full liberty of all men to accept eternal life in the God-Man. They found the counterpoise to the radi- cal doctrine of freedom in those objective truths which group themselves about the fundamental tenet of the Incarnation of God. ^ Man is perfectly free; union with God is the goal of humanity; but only through the God-Man can this fellowship of man and God be restored. So ran this early thinking. Fac3 1 Cf. Justin, I Ap. v; Athenagoras, Suppl. xxv; Tatian, vii; Irenaeus III. 23, 3; and Thomasius, I. 470 f. 2 See Moeller, Prot. E. Encyk., xi. S. 40P. Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 219 pe; in. to face with Christ, man sees the need of grace ; but he sees it, not from the point of view of his own help- lessness, but in the presence of the marvelous incar- nate grace of the Son of God. The recognition of all in Christ, made these Fathers see no danger of laying too much stress upon man's free will in the appro- jpriation of salvation. Since the bringing of it was all of grace, the taking of it might be perfectly free. Hence all that was said about receiving it was that both man's will and divine grace wer6 active in it. An inadequate view of sin led Greek theology every- .vhere to teach that grace cooperates with free will in man's salvation. The will, though free, was weak- ened by sin; hence the need of divine aid in the life of virtue. ^ We are now prepared to notice the view of redemp- tion held by the Apologists and their theological successors. We have seen the defective soteriology of the Apostolic Fathers, and traced the imperfect apprehension of the need of salvation, which spread in thf ivhurch, owing to the exaggerated importance atta* sei to the doctrine of free will and natural vi. vn aid the desire to meet pagan attacks upon muQ'h 'i-ponsibility. The division of the mediatorial work /iirist — as Reason and Revelation, as Teacher and Redeemer — which we observed from the point of view of man's sinfulness, comes into stronger relief in a consideration of what He was supposed to do to save men. The Apostolic Fathers we^e unable to connect both man's sinful state before ptism and his battle with evil after baptism, with » bee Justin, II Ap. xiii; I Ap. x; Irenaeus, III. IV, 2; IV. 37, 2; V. 9, 3; Clem, Alex., Strom, v. 13; vii. 7. w 1/ i-:i'^ I* J; '. ! 1 1,1^; ,i !tt 220 Defective View of Redemption^ the one complete work of Christ. The result was a similar inability to connect what Christ did for man in general, enabling him to become a Christian, with what He does for man as a Christian. ^ When this problem passed over to the Apologists, it was further complicated by a discussion of the divine and human sides of Christ's person and Avork, which was now thrust upon the Church. The analysis of Christ into the Divine Logos and Jesus the Messiah, to meet heathen and Gnostic crii :" •"% instead of bringing greater unity into the tet ags about salvation, rather promoted a kind of dualism. From Justin to Athanasius, there run more or less parallel, but more ^ The greatest problem in the internal history of the early Church was that of sins committed after baptism. Connected with it, appeared Montanism, schisms, asceticism, sacraments, penances, etc. The solutions reached were various and, in an inci'casing degree, unsatisfactory. (1) In opposition to Montan- ism, many Catholic Christians grew content with a lower stand- ard of living, became more unholy, and trusted in general belief in Christianity and doing one's duty. (2) In recognition of a certain truth in the attitude of separation from the world preached by Montanism, ascetics and later monks sought pardon of post-baptismal sins in the anchorite life. (3) The Church that did not flee to the deserts magnified more and more the sacraments and mysteries as means of blotting out yins. The number of sacraments was increased, a penitential system (from Cyprian on) grew up about them, and a mathematical calcula- tion of good works arose, which reckoned the alms, prayers, and other exercises, required for the removal of every kind and de- gree of post-baptismal sin. Sacraments especially got between the soul and the Saviour, till, by a strange combination of super- stition and a longing for the Divine Redeemer, the doctrine of the Mass arose in the Middle Ages — the one dogma developed in that eclipse of faith — and brought the penitent, kneeling Legalism^ Sacerdotalism, Asceticism. 221 le im la- id e- jn r- )f Id g or less unrelated, sometimes almost antagonistic, the naturalistic and the evangelical conceptions of Christ and His work. Justin speaks of Him usually as a teacher, as "the new Lawgiver," the perfect Reason and Wisdom of God ; but he also describes Christ as the Redeemer, whose blood atones for sin. The re- s'llt is conflicting statements about salvation : now man is saved by grace; again he seems to save himself by virtue. From Irenaeus on, the Greek Church pre- sents two unmediated views of Christ's work. Ac- cording to one. He came, (a) in harmony with a Di- vine Plan, and (b) as the second Adam to restore all that had been lost by the first Adam. Here Jesus is the ideal Man, related by the incarnation to humanity before the bread and wine, to bow also to Christ crucilied. The supreme central position attained by the Mass, with all its errors, helped fasten the faith of the worshiper upon Christ, even though the very prayer addressed to Him was part of a system of legality. (4) But above all and crowning all, was the thought that good works earned the pardon of post-baptismal sins. 'Cyprian said, "we wash away by alms " such defects. He summed up religion in "prayer and good works" {Ep. xvi. 2). These, he said, satisfied God. The Lord's Supper, which Irenaeus called "a gift" (IV. 17, 5), Cyprian called "a sacrifice," offered by "a priest " and only in the Church {Ep. Ixiii. 14). It was the great aid of good works. Here wc find the clear outlines of early Catholicism, with its " utter materi- alizing of religion " by legalism and priestcraft (Sccborg, S. 115). The result was a two-fold morality, of " secular " Chris- tians, who did as Avell as ])0ssible in the world, and " regular" Christians, who assumed the Virgin, the ascetic life. Heaven was the reward of such good works; hence eschatology now became prominent with its resurrection to crown the saints with immortality, and the rich payment for all faithful serv- ices. The Kingdom of God passed more and more into this future of hope. 222 Defective View of Redemption^ ' '} ■V \ as a whole. According to the other view, Christ's death is the central thing. He bore the curse of sin and paid the penalty which redeemed His people. He is related to the Church in a way unknown to the rest of mankind. The Adam view fell easily in line, from a Bible standpoint, with the thought of Christ as Teacher, Lawgiver, u .d Restorer of humanity by instruction to iue knowledge and favor of God ; while the teaching of Christ as Saviour from the devil and death sought to do justice to all the evangelical ele- ments of Church tradition and especially of the New Testament, which with Irenaeus and the Alexandrian School became a test of doctrine. These lines of thought, the one essentially natural theology, resting upon the will and virtue, the other above all a revealed theology of redemption, are not, as the school of Ritschl holds, incompatible, but need only to be properly related to form legitimate parts of syste- matic theology. The revelation of God in the imi verse, the testimony of a man's own nature on moral ques- tions, cannot be kept apart from the teachings of Christ. The great work of Origen, as of every Christian theol- ogian, seeks to set all knowledge in relation to Divine revelation. If the Divine Christ as Redeemer and Lord be put at the center of our thinking, then nature telling of God, conscience telling of sin and need of salvation, and reason giving arguments for following after Christ, become His ministering angels. The Apologists fighting paganism, and Irenaeus and the Alexandrian men battling against Gnosticism, were convinced of the unity of all the truth whicli Lhey knew about Christ; but they could not put it in proper adjustment. They related what the Old Testament Legalism^ SacerdoUdisin , Asceticism. 223 aral ther t, as )nly ste- rse, es- ist. leol- 'ine ord ure I of iug he the ere ew [per lent taught about the Son of God, and what Greek phi- losophy shadowed forth about the Divine Reason, with the Incarnate Christ by means of the Logos spermatikos. But when they turned to the simple faith of the Church in the God-Man, who resisted the devil, who died on the cross, who gave life to His new Israel, who rose from the dead granting a pledge of immortality to all believers, and who would come agaL. to take His people to glory, these early theolo- gians found a phase of Christianity which they could not relate directly to the Logos Christology, and which, from their Apologetic point of view, they found no need of so relating. The moralistic type of gospel, which the A])ostolic Fathers show, became more pronounced in the philosophical thought of the Apologists, and probably received an additional Hellenistic tone to make it more acceptable to educa- ted heathen. The recently discovered work of Aris- tides presents Christianity as pure living according to the ten commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. This pure living should incline toward asceticism and the virgin state. He tells the Emperor that Christians " labor to become righteous as those who expect to see their Messiah and receive from Him the promises made to tliera, with great glory.'' ' But he shows also the evanojelical side of Christian teachinixs, saying: " Christ came down from Heaven . . . for the salvation of men." '^ He came according to an oiHovonia of God ; and " through the cross He tasted death of His own free will, according to His great plan ''\oiKovoniav). i See p. 50 of R. Harris' Edition. '^ C. XV. 1. u. p. 110. VM 224 Defective Vie to of Hedemption^ l-fl-i In much greater variety does Justin present these two sides of the work of Christ. His Apologies, ad- dressed to heathen, show more the Christianity of rea- son; his Diahjgue with Trypho the Jew presents the more Biblical aspect of the Lord's work. He may be said to show Christ and His mission from five points of view: (1) He is first the Divine Logos, who gave the Law to Moses, the revelation of God to the prophets and their "svisdom to the Greek sages. (2) Beyond this incomplete manifestation. He is by His Licarnution the giver of a New Law {Dial, xi; xxi; xlii.), not national bntimiversal, not temporal but eternal, not ceremonial but spiritual, th'> Law of the Absolute Good, ^ which the Greeks longed after. This Summuiii Boniun^ first given by Christ, was absolutely perfect and made Christianity the absolute religion. (3) Justin next presents PauTs idea (Eph. i. 10) of Christ as tlie Kecapitulator of all created things, especially of al races of men and persons of all ages; and sees in the Incarnation the unity of mankind with God restored, after being broken by the Fall. So far the reference is chiefly to Christ as the Logos and Teacher of knowledge. The other two views set forth by Justin refer to Christ as Redeemer. (•i) He is conqueror over the devil, who de- ceived Adam and led man into bondage to demons, who, under the name of gods, still ruled the heathen world ; and (5) He is vanquisher of death, the giver of im- mortality to all who believe in Him. It is at this point ^ It is summed up in the Sermon on the Mount, I Ap. xv; Dial. xlv. Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 225 !;es; ith far land .rth |de- ms, I en iin- [int Ixv; especially that Justin fails to grasp the New Testament doctrine of redemption. He knows that salvation is a plan of God and that it centers in the atoning death of Christ' — it was an "offering in behalf of all sinners who are willing to repent " — but he relates the work of the Saviour so closely to the work of the devil that sin itself anu man's guilty connection with it fall into the background, while redemption appears above all as a crushing defeat of Satan.-' He cannot tell how the overthrow of Satan is related to man's redemption. He finds the Bible speaking of salvation as deliverance from the evil one, and he knew that the Greeks regarded a life of virtue as a battle with demons; but he was unable to connect such ideas with " the saving blood" {Dial, xiii.), which works forgiveness through baptism (of. Flemming, S. 30). Deliverance for man must mean deliverance from guilt; but deliverance from guilt means to satisfy divine justice, the right of God against ^^•hicll all sin is committed. Now Justin and his theological successors, instead of relating Christ's atonement to the divine justice, put the rights of the devil in man as his property in the foreground, and made the sacrifice of Christ something paid to Satan, that he might not be unjustly robbed of his human subjects.^ Man had deliberately fallen into the power of the devil, and justice required that a ran- som be given for his deliverance. Such a view, looking 1 Cf. J)ial. cc. 90-96; 111, 134, 13, 54, 74; and Von Engol- hardt, S. 292. 2 2>ja;. xliii; Ixiii.). Ritschl adds, that Justin followed " the common Apos- tolic view" of redemption "through the blood of Christ," and Legalism^ S ace r dotal iiim,, AsceticiHm. 2'>7 m more, however, than u fuller revelation of Greek wis- dom or Old Testament prophecy. He lays the empha- sis upon 7ieio rather than upon Law; he includes all the gospel as taught by Christ in it; he traces it di- rectly to Old Testament prophecy and sets it in con- trast to Old Testament law (referring to Is. ii. 3; Jerem. xxxiii. 31; and Ezek. xi. 19); he explains it as essentially love; he identifies it with Christ Himself; and teaches that to obey it man must be created anew, (I Ap. x.), repent, believe in Christ and be bap- tized. It is not correct, then, to hold with Von Engel- hardt (S. 452) " that Justin regarded the Revelation of Christ as simply completing man's knowledge of God and giving a foundation to doctrines of virtue." received by faith — though he fell short of Paul's high doctrine. We may admit a moralistic element in Justin's gospel, and see also that he cannot connect thi;. consistently with salvation through faith in Jesus Christ; hut that does not mean that his Christianity was only Judaism with its ritualistic elements stripped off. To the Greek he presents the gospel as, lirst, faith and repentance; and, then, as a life of virtue according to a new law, which all men can obey. But to the Jews he shows that Christianity is redemption through Christ, the conqueror of demons and death. The difficulty is that Justin cannot bring these two conceptions into harmony. This defect is common to all the Apologists. Further, when Justin says {Dial, xiii.) that Old Testament saints were saved "by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death, who died for this very reason," and else- where repeatedly declares that salvation came through the cross and passion of Jesus, it is certainly a wrong view of his teach- ings to sum them up in a revealed philosophy. He says: "Our Teacher was crucified and died and rose again and ascended into heaven " (I Ap. xxi.). He died and rose again that " He might conquer death" (Ixiii.). Trypho taunted Christians with ^p *; ■,l it iiv i;-. 228 Defective Vietv of Jiedetnpfion., lie teaches more than a revealed nat\iral theohigy ; nnd t^ie somewhat negative teachings of other Apologists should not be taken to prove that Justin did not fairly represent tlie general thought of tlie Church (against Harnack, I. 399). But when all this is admitted, we still see that the idea of Christianity as a " new Law " here introduced must bring moral ism in its train. Christ as teacher means ultimately that man can be saved by learning a lesson of wisdom. It is true Jus- tin speaks of Abraham and others as saved by per- sonal faith (Dial, cxix; xci); but he is ever inclined rcHting all their *' hopes on a man that was crucified," and be- cause of this expected "some good thing from God" {Dial. X.). This shows that the Jews knew Christ crucified to be much more than a Tc-icher to Justin and all Christians. Both Christ the Teacher and Christ the Atoner were held by Justin, though not in clear, consistent relations. And this confusion as lo Christ reappears in the teachings about Man's relation to Christ. The entrance upon s(>[)hical errors were larartaking of Christ has Ijoen born a Christ," they "had been made Christs." Seeber<^(S, 149) calls tlie teaching of Metiiodius "a ))eculiar niixtnre of thoughts from current Greek philosojihy, every-day Cliristianity, glowing desire for the ascetic-ideal, and interest in the problems ])re- sentcd by Origeii.'" Because of the position given Clnist, llarnack calls this '' the theology of the future." In an im- ]>ortant sense tlnit is true; for the Alexandrian theolotry with its ,'ri-ors stripi)ed olf, as was largely done by MeUiodius, the exaliwtion of the Divine Christ, as here taught, over the Church as Creator, over the Old I'estament as revealer ol' (iod l»y the jtrophets, as object of worship by the saints, as tiie source of life and light to every Christian and to the whole Church {/idiif/'fct, iv; v.), such theology wa< essentially and truly Christian; but when, on the other hand, it made Christ only " the Head before all tin e," jjroceeding from the will of the Father (/^. ix. .']), it fed into Arianism, which, all critics admit, Avas far less Christian than the position of Origen, not to speak of Athanasius. 240 Defective View of Hedernption^ .1. Not till Athanasius appeared was a decided step taken toward New Testament teachings. His cen- tral doctrine was that Christ became man that man might become partaker of the divine nature (^JJe I'ticarn. liv.).^ All that Christ did — His birth, life, death, resurrection — He did for us; or rather we did it in Him (C. -^1/'. i. 13). Only God could save; only man needed to be saved: therefore the God-Man alone could bring redemption. Harnack says that the doctrine of the God-Man was a necessary product 1 The scheme of salvation according to Athanasius was essen- tially as follows: (1) Sin brought man into the way of death or gradual annihilation, because by the loss of the Logos or the image of God in man, he is on the way toward dissoluil^n {iJe Incarn. iv; v). To be separate wholly or partly from God is to be sei)arated from what is, and therefore to be in process of destruction. (2) I3ut to let man be annihilated Avould defeat God's plan for humanity. (3) To forgive man, ignoring tlie penalty of death which was threatened against sin, would violate God's word (vi). (4) Neither could repentance by man satisfy the just claims of God, nor redeem man from his evil nature. Therefore (5) the Word of God must become incar- nate (vii). (G) Mis work was (a) to concpier death and (b) to restore lite (viii). (7) He conquered dentk by dying to pay the debt of death (xx), and by His resurrection became a first-fruits giving life. (8) He died on the cross to bear the curse of sin in death (xxv). But Athanasius does not know how Christ's death killed death; he only appeals to the experience of Chris- tians that no\v for them death has no terrors. (9) Christ could not have immortality (liren to Himself, because He has all things, therefore He received it for mankind {C. Ar. i. 47; cf. the view of Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, ii. 19). (10) The union of Christ with mankind was real. He was the . i. 22; iii. 9). He knows that salvation comes from communion with Christ; but he cannot €xtend the work of redemption over post- baptismal sins.^ He sees that all salvation flows through Christ; but he magnifies the mysteries of the sacraments to make them a channel of eternal life also. The Divine Christ was exalted sufficiently to blot out the dis- tinctions of faith and knowledge; but not enough to set aside sacerdotalism, sacramentarianism and the monkish life. The New Testament Church was a brotherhood with the ever-present Christ in their midst. But Ignatius put the Bishop and presbyters in the midst. Barnabas called the brotherhood a new Israel. Clement called the primitive clergy Levites. Irenaeus made the Episcopacy guardians of truth and purity. The drift from republic to Empire in Rome was re- flected in the life of the Church. Priests and bishops came in to rule the Church because the thouc-ht of Christ as head and constitutor of every group of be- lievers into a Republic of God was lost. This loss of liberty was accompanied by a loss of holiness. The Church with Christ consciously in the midst must be a body of saints. The Church ruled by a bishop, who claimed divine right in life and doctrine, showed itself at once a mixture of converted ^ What Christ really added to man's life of virtue was "the way to Paradise" {ih. i. 22 a view like that of Irenaeus). ^^^ilB M Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 245 and unconverted men. It is not accidental that Callixtus, the first Hierarch conscious that he was such, was the first to declare that no sin should keep a man out of the Church who submitted to the bishop. A very important factor in this transition was the changed view of the sacraments which appeared. We have seen how baptism was regarded as blotting out all previous sins, and as imparting the Holy Ghost. This holy washing was called Regeneration, Illumi- nation, and tli(} Seal. Harnack (I. 151), and Hatch (1. c. p. 295) think these terms, used as early as Justin (I A2). Ixi. ; Dial, xiv.) and Hermas, were bor- rowed from the pagan mysteries. But Anrich shows that this view is improbable (1. c. S. 119). The baptism of John and that taught by Christ looked toward repentance and entrance into the Kingdom of God. Jewish proselyte baptism was regarded as a washing away ot sins and a " new birth." * The words of Christ to Nicodemus and his reference to his own death as a baptism show further that there are suf- ficient points of departure in the New Testament for the early diversion of baptism, without calling in heathen influences.^ Ignatius says Christ's sufferings purified the water {J^l^h. xviii. 2); later Fathers identified the water organically with the Holy S])irit, so that washing in baptism was considered one with regeneration.^ What Paul regarded as incidental, Hermas declared so essential that Abraham could not 1 Cf. Weber, Systetn der altsynagog. Thcologle, Leipsisr. 1880, S. 75, 320. 2 See Acts x. 47; I Cor. vi. 11; Gal. iii. 27; I Cor. xv. 29. 8 So Tertullian, De Bap. iv. ; Cyprian, Ep. Ixxii. '\ F 4 '!| . I!.; it, 1:1) II ii!i !^'li' :i' ■'. Mir 246 Defective View of Redemjytion^ enter Paradise till he was baptized. The symbol largely thrust out the Saviour. Instead of personal faith followed by baptism, it was henceforth baptism, presupposing teaching and faith. Baptism was called a seal, partly because the Jews so spoke of circum- cision, as Paul and Barnabas also did (Rom. iv. 11; Barnab. ix. 6), and partly because of the heathen custom of branding slaves or prisoners, and especially soldiers when they took the sacramentum^ or oath of allegiance. The New Testament uses the same figure to express the work of the Spirit (Eph. i. 13; iv. 30; Rev. vii. 2). The term "illumination" suggests the heathen mysteries, and Clement of Alexandria refers to it in that connection. But there is no proof that the baptismal use of this word came from Paganism (cf. Anrich, S. 123). What Justin and Clement found given in baptism was knowledge, and not a sudden enlightenment such as the heathen meant by (pooTi6jiio?. The New Testament idea of passing from darkness to light (cf. Heb. vi. 4; x. 32) gives all that Justin thinks of; while Clement ever introduces Christ as the Great Mystagogue, showing that little more than the form of his thought was Greek. But, whatever the source of these wrong ideas about baptism, the serious error in them arose (1) in bri»js,irig the sinner only indirectly into relation to the Saviour, and (2) in practically bidding Christ, as Redeemer, farewell at the waters of baptism. More closely connected with heathen mysteries and more dangerous to the doctrines of redemption were the perverted views of the Lord's Supper. It arose in connection with the Passover, which — the school of Ritschl to the contrary — made it stand from ■if Ml Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 247 rom all uces ittle But, ibout in on to irist, iption It —the from the first for the remission of sins through the sacrifice of Christ.^ It was also a brotherly meal, such as Essenes and pagan collegia celebrated ; it was eaten at night, and by the baptized alone. Persecution made this meal more secret, till, from Justin on, it ap- peared much like the pagan mysteries in the eyes of 1 Harnack, following Spitta and others in his effort to take the vicarious teaching from the Lord's Supper, tries to show that the early elements used in its observance were bread and water. From this " a new general view is gained" (Texteund Untersuch- ungen, Bd. VII. 2, S. 115-144) according to which "the Lord consecrated the weightiest function of ordinary life (eating and drinking) by designating the nourishment as His body and blood" (S. 142). ButZahn {K Kirchl Ztft. 1892, IL 4) gives good reasons for rejecting such a theory. The text of Justin (I Ap. liv; lix.) upon which Harnack builds, also Clement, Irenaeus and others, speak of water used for wine in the Lord's Su[)per, but always as a heretical practice. Schultzen [I)od; so d as a of an t was of the nd tlie ^en, to 3ecRme 18 called autidote U of life ith Bap- ancl put avticipa- S. 181). read and gthened Legalism^ Sacerdotalism^ Asceticism. 249 " entirely transformed," as was done at Cana in Gali- lee (cf. Thomasius, I. 434). The chief factors in this change of view were the prominence given in the Supper to the death of Christ, the assumption of priestly functions by the clergy, some influence from the pagan mysteries, but especially a failure to grasp the finished redemption of Christ as ever present to the believer. The real preseii^e was limited to bread and wine, instead of being found in every Christian; it was put in the hands of the clergy and not in the hearts of all believers. The result was that the merits of the one sacrifice for sin were overlooked, and man re- garded it as a merit on his part to cause the sacrifice of Christ to be repeated.^ This Moralism, which captured the sacraments, took most striking form in Monasticism. The monk followed a leading idea of Greek theology, which regarded salvation as separation from the world.^ He interpreted this to mean, first, imitation of Jesus and then imitation of Christ. Asceticism, a life of poverty, chastity, obedience, meant following the lowly Jesus. Contemplation, ending in the beatific vision of God, meant to ascend to heaven with Christ. New Testament teachings, historic circunistauces, the in- fluence of heathenism all helped produce Monasticism; but none of these weighed so much as the false theory of man's relation to Christ. The pupils of Origen regarded the Gnostic and the ascetic as the true ty|)es of Christian living (cf. Harnack, II. 424); that is, knowledge and the life of superiority to the world 1 Cf. Tertullian, De Corona., iii; Cyprian, De liesur. viii. 2 This idea had also, of course. New Testament support. Cf. II Cor. vi. 17; Ileb. vii. 26. IT" 1\ ^l f r hi i< ■# ii U'^ ilj^ it I I! 250 Defective Vieiv of Medemjytioriy made the ideal man. But it is plain such a theory lands us in the place of learners, with Christ as nothing but a great teacher. The monk needs no Saviour; he is a self- redeemer like the Stoic or any other moralist.* In the fourth century, when worldliness was pressing hard into the Church, ev^ery form of piety was combined againstit; hence asceticism, which was fully developed among the heathen, with no Christ in it, when adopted by Christians did not find a place for Him as Redeemer. The Neo-Platonist thought that through the contemplation of nature he became partaker of God; so the monk in rapt de- votion might reach God without the saving help of Christ. The Church fell again into two classes; ordinary Christians who were saved hj the potent mysteries of the sacraments, and ideal Christians — the monks — who saved themselves by good works and ecstasy; but both had lost sight of Christ as perfect Kedeemer of men.'^ 1 How strong the spirit of self-redemption was among Western monks can be seen (1) in their rejection of justification by faith alone when taught by Jovinian, and (2) in tbeir ad- vocacy of semi-Pelagianism against Augustine. 2 The loss of the gospel conception of personal, li . :ng union throughout life of the believer with the exalted Christ was followed inevitably by the wrong soteriology of the early Church: (1) Because He was not felt to be the head of every Christian man and every congregation, bishops and other heads arose. (2) Because direct personal communion with Him was obscured, the Church and the Sacraments came in between the soul and the Saviour, thus not only bringing in a hierarchy but perverting the whole conception of man's relation to Christ. (3) Because constant, direct approach to Christ was lost, a thousand indirect approaches by washings, fastings, visions. • Christ early I every I heads was jn the ly but yhrist. host, a lisions, '•"} Legalism, Sacerdotalism, Asceticism. 251 ascetic practices, confessions, came into use. (4) Because the witness of Christ by His Spirit in the heart was largely over- looked, too much stress was laid upon intellectual forms of faith, philosophical proofs of Christianity, and theological creeds. (5) This loss of the present Christ in the midst of the worshiping congregation was followed by a more formal worship, in which liturgies, elaborate ceremonies, and theo- logical statements, too much took the place of the free charismatic prayers and teachings of the primitive Church. (6) Iji life also, as the thought was obscured that Christ dwells in each believer, a loss of holiness followed. To have the rules of the Church, to follow her discipline, was a lower standard than to "have the mind of Christ." From the individual this view spread to the Church. For the New Testament, believers were a temple of God; for Callixtus, the Church was the ark of Noah, full of both clean and unclean creatures. (7) Finally, this loss of Christ as King in each Christian changed the whole missionary character of the Church. Instead of all preaching — " let him that heareth say, come" — the clergy preached and the laity listened; or monks went out, spreading their defective views of Christianity. 1' " %■■ ¥ ij hi h:^ LECTURE V. f §(5 Boctnni o! f^e H>ofp Spirit anJ» f§s f rinifp ag n(5«0Mrifp in&o£&«i» in ii)od and i§i&iTje €§mf. 268 " No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." Paul. I Cor. xii. 3. *' Nee enim ignoramus unum Deum esse et unum Christum esse Dominum, quern confessi sumus, unum Spiritum Sanctum, unum episcopum in catholioa ecclesia esse debere." Ep. of Cornelius of Rome, in Routh, III. 19. r hi W:' I Jin if' ' "Die gewaltige craft des vatters, die wisheit des stines, die minne des heiligen geistes muse uns unser herze und unser sele mit craft besitzen. Amen." Treatise of Nicolas of Basle, of the year 1356. " There is nothing peculiar to the doctrine of the Trinity, anything near so perplexing as eternity is; and yet the gentle- men who are for discarding mysteries are forced to believe it." Waterland. Works, vol. I. pt. II. p. 225. Hi 254 \U '!i! LECTURE V. The doctrine of the holy spirit and t'ie trinity as necessarily involved in that of god and the divine christ. A characteristic test of a man's theology may be found in his doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Apostolic Church was born at Pentecost, and went forth preaching salvation, sent by God the Father, brought by the Divine liedeeraer, and wrought in the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit. The course of thought in the Church for the following four centuries was little more than an attempt to defend and elabo- rate the teachings of the primitive baptismal formula. The Nicene theology culminated in the doctrine of the Spirit. "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost (I Cor. xii. 3)"; that was the teaching of Paul. No man can believe that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, without also accept- ing the full divinity of the Holy Spirit; that was the conclusion of the Nicene theologians. All men are agreed that the New Testament Church was pre- eminently guided and inspired by the Spirit; the only question is: What was meant by this inspiration of the Spirit, and what was the Spirit that filled the Church ? Harnack describes the indwelling of God in the first Christians as " enthusiasm." They were charismatic, enthusiastic and, therefore, s[>iritua]. 256 miv i w^^ 'ill ' m ' I '< r. 1 ■ ^ 250 7Vie II(^hj Ghost and Trhiltij This enthusiasm belonged to all Christians. Kaftan tells lis with emphasis * that the Apostles j^ossessed the Spirit in no way different from other believers;^ and there is no reason why this charismatic Church might not have continued to our own day. Extra- ordinary gifts of the Spirit, such as prophecy, miraculous power, the inspiration and revelation im- plied in the Mew Testament Scriptures, are set aside. The spirituality of all Apostolic Christians con- sisted in a vivid impression of the character of Christ, and a triumphant but inexplicable conviction that, though He had been put to death, He was still alive in their glad hearts. In other words, the Spirit in believers is only their subjective apprehension of Christianity as life; the "principle of their own personal life." ^ That is, the Holy Ghost is not a person 1 Das Wesen der Christl. Heligion. 2 eel. Basel, 1888. Bd. II. S. 346. 2 As long before him, Reuss had done ( Gesch. der heil. Hchrifttn N. Test. 4 ed. Braunschweig, 1864, S. 281). 3 Kaftan, 11. 345. He says further (S. 259) that " the Spirit means in the Scriptures first of all the working of God in the world, and is then further the expression for the immaterial Being of God set in contrast to the world." For Paul, he says, the Spirit was ' ' above all principle of a morally new life " (lb.). It is not personal, save as it acts in the personality of the believer; yet its work is a continuation of the personal revelation of Christ (II. 345). Its illumination is the crowning act of divine revelation in every Christian. "All true Chris- tianity in the world is the work of the Holy Ghost" (II. 351). But how an impersonal Spirit, a mere principle of light, can be a higher revelation than Old Testament prophets enjoyed, or than Jewish saints possessed, who basked in the light of Jehovah's countenance, is not made evident. Hx ^f Involved in the Divine Christ. 257 .•2 Bd. heil. at all, but is a mode of divine activity. * The school of Ritschl fights shy of clear statements on thissii))ject; but Nitzscli finally breaks out with the words: "There remains for the theologian nothing but to regard the Holy Spirit as a real, divine potency which is not created, but also not perconal."^ There is a personal God, who reveals Himself as Father to all men. There is a man Jesus, who is personal, and stands in an ethical relation to God. There is also a Divine Spirit, which has, however, neither divine nor human personality, and is, therefore, nothing ])ut a potency for good. Nitzsch admits (BO. S. 42G) that Christ and the New Testament^ teach the Trinity, and that for three hundred years in the Church the doctrine was never doubted (DO. S. 427); but he thinks the Ritschl theory of religious and theological values 1 So Professor Peabody, an American Unitarian (Lectures on Christian Doctrine, p. 130), declares the Holy Spirit is " but a name .... for divine influences and operations and es- pecially for the influence of God upon the soul of man." 2 Lehrbuch der evangel. Dogmatik. Frt^'burg, 1892, S. 441; BO Ritschl V. u. R.y III. 493. 3 Matt, xxviii. 19, and II Cor. xiii. 13 are referred to. The personality of the Spirit is clearly set forth in the conception of Jesus, where parental activity is ascribed to the Holy Ghost (Matt, i. 18-20; Luke i. 35). He is teacher (Luke xii. 12), can be blasphemed against (Mk. iii. 29), lied to (Acts v. 3), and both forbade (Acts xvi. o)and commanded the Apostles (Acts xiii. 2). Throughout the New Testament, the Spirit is part of a Trinity as taught by Peter (I Peter iv. 14), Paul (II Cor. xiii. 13), John (xvi. 3, 7, 14, 15), Jude (v. 20-21), and Hebrews (vi. 4-6; X. 29). ZOckler, therefore, well concludes (Z<j at the [ form igious s only : Har- narcli- modes Involved in the Divine Chri.^t. 259 es and mam- vers." 2 rsonal, be one )sopliy, God in ise the ngdom cli. In thought etl said. )proach of it. Braun- \n by no or with are tlis- ally and As if he same ng heart 11 To men holding such opinions, the history of Pneumatology, as well as that of Christology, must seem one long sequence of errors. The school of Ritschl confesses that such is the case; the result ])e- ing that men like Nitzsch, Harnack and Schultz are everywhere inclined to exaggerate differences of view in the Church, and place in an unfavorable light all that does not agree with their theory of what the gospel should have been. ^ The Monistic school ai/proachcs history from the same point of view; Li[)sius says the alternative is Modalism or Tritheism, according as personality is ascribed to God, or to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. ^ In other words, all these so-called liberal theologians occupy professedly or essentially Unitarian ground ; and are forced more and more to confess that " a deep chasm" separates them from the historic faith of the Church.^ I notice this radical difference of view at the outset of this lecture; for I \vish to lay some stress upon the deposit of doctrine respecting the Holy Spirit, wl'ich passed over from the x\j)ostolic to the post-Apostolic Church; and it seems to be theological prejudice which leads Harnack and others to ecive it so little weight. '^ In the cas'^' of the Person of Christ and the 1 Cf. Harnack, I. 455; 11. 213, 275. 2 Lehrhtch der evangel. Dogmatik. 2 Ed. Braunschweig, 1879, S. 272. 3 Cf. Mchlhorn, quoted in Theol. Jahresbericht, 1805, S, 455. '" Loofs says (Z>. E. Bl. XT. S. 182) that the fundamental idea of Christian doctrine, accord. .ig to the Ritschlian theory, wliiili Harnack follows, is that it si)rings from a union of Cliristianity Avilh the philosophical theories of the universe held by the I K( 260 The Hohj Gh- jectively 'existent, and, though created, the Mediator of Jehovah in creation, in revealing the Scriptures — as both Rubjectivv) and objective voice of God to prophets and holy men — the giver of life and the administrator of the commands of God.^ Gentile Christians, learn- ing from the Old Testament, would find the Apostolic docifii'o of the Spirit much more directly than tliey would discover Christology from the same source. The extraordinary charismatic life of the Ap,ostolic Church, also, certainly left a lasting impression of the real, per- sonal, divine Spirit in the hearts of believers. As if ^ Jewish theology regarded the work of the Holy Spirit as chiefly threefold: (1) creative — He was the divine j^ower in the universe (Gen. i. 2), an I Cor. xiii. 13; Col. iii. 13, 14. Cf. Niisgen, 1. c. II. 272. v.l ^f!r ^T1 Involved in ihe Divine Christ. 2G5 11 Ignatius says the Spirit tauglit all the prophets to look for Christ {Mag. ix., cf. Barnabas, v.). (2) These Fathers taught next that the Spirit ex- isted witli God before the world was, and took part in the work of ci'eation (Hernias, Sim. v. 0). (3) They saw further the whole scheme of man's redemption as vitally dependent ui)on the personal Spirit of God. Here they speak more fully, for all their teachings took slia[)e from the practical point of view of Christ and the new life in Him. Barnabas says the material imiverse was created through Clu'ist, but the equally great re-creation of the soul of man took place by the Holy Ghost (c. (>). Hernias dwells upon the personal indwelling of the Spirit, who may be "grieved," "saddened," and "af.licted."' Only within the Church is the renewing ])()wer of the Com- forter felt, for He dwells only in those that lielieve {ih. V. 1, 3).- It is the "one Spirit of grace," Clem- ent says, that united Christian brethren (c. 40); and they were strong "in the power of the Holy Ghoi^t " 'es to Iching it and levela- mi. c. I spake Iment. I. 272. 1 M(unl. X. 2. lie " has power," and is not si)okou of as be- ing a })0\ver, Maud. iii. 4; v. 1. 2 Apart from his i\\)\)\ rent confusion of Son and Spirit, Hernias is luueli nearer the Pauline and .Tohanniue doctrine of the Spirit, also the Church doetrlne of his time, tlian hr is to any Ebionite or Gnostic or Monarchiau tendencies (Zik-kler, S. 42). Neither does he or any other Apostolic Father speak as did the Simonites, Oi»hites and others, of the Spirit as a fennile power; but always as rui independent, active being, after the manner of a man {ib.). Origen, speaking of the Spirit (/>e Prlii. ii. 3), refers to the IS hep herd oi Hernias, but sees nothing in it different from the doctrine of an eternal, personal, divine Spirit, distinct from both Father and Son. , : > Rl; ;.- I J 5 i hi ;'i:;,. ^l^ 2CG 77i6 Jloly Ghoat and Trinity (Ignatius, Sm.yr. xii.). Ignatius compares church work to ))uikling a temple. God is the great builder; the cross of Christ is the machine by which the living stones are lifted into place; and the Spirit is the rope which fasten v-d the stones to the machine. Hermas not only describes at length the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost {Maud. v. 1, 2; x. 2), Imt in his allegory lays stress upon the prophetic Spirit. In the true prophet the personal Spirit spoke of His own motion and not to satisfy curiosity; in public, to edify the assembly of saints, and not in private; and showed His presence by the humble, holy lives of those to whom He was sent. Believers should "trust the Spirit of God" and shun all earthly S2:>irits (//>. xvi). (4) When we come to the relation of the Holy Ghost to God the Father, these early theologians offer little light. They take for granted what the Old Testament says of God and the Spirit of God; but are not led to inquire further into the subject. Ignatius describes the Holy Ghost as " from God," and as possessing divine perfection of knoAvledge (P7i?7. vii.). Barnabas says, in our Greek text, that the "Spirit was poured fortli from the rich Lord of love," but, in the old Latin version, ^^ video in vohis infusum Spiritum ah honesto fonte Deiy^ This latter view makes the Father the source of the Divine Spirit acting in the world, and looks toward the doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Ghost. (5) Much more interesting, however, is it to 1 I. 3. Cf. Swete. History of the Doctrine of the Pro- cession of the Holy Spirit, Cambridge, 187G, p. 13. For the help derived from this reverent and scholar y writer, I wish to record my gratitude. irf^ Involved in the Divine Christ. 267 it to Pro- )r the Hell to notice the way in wliich these Apostolic Fathers, scattered in Asia, Africa, and Europe, put the Divine Christ and the Divine Spirit in inseparable fellowship. The figures of speech which describe them as the Divine Breath and the Divine Word making that Breath articulate, are not so close as is the Divine unity found between the Son and Spirit. The Gos- pels present two aspects of the incarnation of Christ. In the Synoptists, the Virgin Mary is described as conceiving ])y the power of the Holy Ghost, so that the holy thing born of her was called the Son of God.^ In the Fourth Gospel, we are told that the Word of God, the personal Divine Logos, Ijecame flesh and dwelt among us, the only begotten of the Father (i. IG), full of grace and truth. Now both these conceptions appear in the Apostolic Fathers; but they are not delinitely related. Ignatius says: " Our God, Jesus Christ, was according to the dis- pensation, conceived in the womb by Mary; but by the Holy Ghost" (^Eplt. xviii.); and else- where: God "manifested Himself through Jesus Christ, His Son, who is His Logos" {Mag. viii.). How were the Holy Spirit and the Divine Logos re- spectively active in the Incarnation? The Gospel to the Hebrews, in a solitary instance, calls the Spirit the Mother of Christ.'^ In speaking of His atoning death, Barnabas calls the body of Jesus " the vessel of the Holy Ghost" (vii.), rather than of the Logos 1 Matt. i. 21, 23; Luke i. 35. 2 The text is given in Illlgenfekl, JV. Test, extra Canonem receptu7n, Lipsiae, 1866. Fasc. iv. p. 16. (Jesus said): "Then my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one of my hairs and carried me to the great mountain Tabor." h !: fffT lib H< lli: 'ill •' 268 27te llobj Ghotst and 2'rinitij as was later the custom. Ignatius and Hennas take a still bolder step; the one saying, "the Spirit (who) is Jesus Christ" (^Mag. xw.^\ and the other, "The Son is the Holy S[)irii " {Sha. v. G; ix.). Out of these brief statements Baur and his school, fifty years ago, sought support for their contention that original Christianity was an outgrowth of E})ionitisni;* and from the same slender materials Nitzsch, Harnack- and WeizsJicker have elaborated what they call Adoption and Pneumatic Christology in Apostolic and post-Apostolic times. Their i)osition is that Hernias combined these Christologies and regarded the Son of God as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, giving us what Nitzsch calls a JJhiitas instead of a Trinit((s;^ or that Jesus by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was adopted into the Godhead, giving us the Socinianism of the school of Ritschl. Now ao-ainst such a view there are very serious objections. We have noticed some of them in the lecture on the Person of Christ; and, without going into details, may add the following here: The identilication -of the Spirit and Christ could not have been absolute, for Hennas and Ignatius in numerous other places dis- tinguished the preexistent Spirit and the preincarnate Christ.^ The same remark is true of Barnabas (v. 12) and Clement (i. 22). Again, the text of the pas- sages in Hermas is not certain, and his explanation of 1 Dogmengeschichte, 1865, I. S. 504. 2 1.2 156; Q,\\(X Pair. Apost. p. 157. 3 D. G. S. 18(3; cf. Harnack, I.2 167 * Sim. ix. 12; Vis. ii. 2; iii. 1; ,67m. ix. 24; Mag. xiii.;^;A. xviii. lLii;J, Involved in the Divine Christ. •2G9 ; Ei^h. the Trinity of Father, Son and Servant is not ck'ar.* Athanasius, wlio was most jealous of the honor due both Son and Spirit, saw nothing unscri{)tural in the teachings of Hernias.- To hohl that Hernias taught that the Holy S[»irit was the first hypostasis to be recognized in the Godhead, and that the Church grasped the idea of a preexistent, personal Spirit be- fore she did that of a preexistent Christ, is to run counter to all the thought of the £.ge, which made the divinity of the H(dy Ghost follow hat of the Sou (cf. Dorner, I. 888). ^ He olsewhcrc speaks of holy men inspired by "a spirit of deity." The Holy Spirit " spake ... in the form of the Church "to Hernias (»S//yi. ix. 1). He continues, "for that Spirit is the Sou of God." This same Spirit spake to Hennas also throuLili an angel. The general identitication of the Spirit with the Church, an angel, and the Son of God, shows that Hernias spoke in general terms. It is not safe to press a pro- fessed allegory too far to extract fine doctrinal distinctions from it. Cf. Dorner, Person of Christ, I. 124f. Herraas also sharply distinguishes the exalted Son of God from the Spirit dwelling in believers, saying, " your seed will dwell with the Son of God; for ye have received of His Spirit " (ix. 24). The Spirit strengthened Christians making them able to see the "glorious angel," who seems to mean Christ [Sim. viii. 11). Hermas says it was the Spirit of God, speaking to him, that is the Son of God; the word need not be taken to mean absolute identity. Hence NCisgon says of the apparent identi- tication by Ignatius, the Spirit is " the medium through which the exalted Christ penetrates and tills men with His own Being" (II. 2G0). This Son of God, however related to the Spirit, was for Hermas eternal (so also Ilarnack I.'- 167). Clement of Rome clearly distinguishes the preexistent Christ from the Holy Spirit (I. 22). Cf. also II. Clem. ix. 5; xiv. 4. 2 De Decret. c. 4. ■,%. &. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) <9 1.0 I.I 1^ M IIIIIM «^» 1^ 1 2.2 2.0 If 1^ 8 1.25 1.4 JA -^ 6" -- ► y] ^. o^ %^ ^. -(S Hiotographic Sciences Corporation s. S^ \ 4- :\ 23 WEST MAIN »iRE: < WEBSTER, N.Y. M580 (716) 872-4503 \ ^1%''^. <^.^*\ ■# nark ality the And ,lted ae to ,8gen, us as heat and light in the same ray from the Sun of Righteousness. When we pass to the writings of the Apologists we find everywhere the same presupposition of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit; l>ut also the same incidental reference to it only as involved in the de- fence of the true God and His Divine Christ. In opposition to the charges of Atheism, Justin (I ^l^;.vi.), and Athenagoras (Zt'j/^^^. x.) set forth the Christian be- lief in God, the Logos, the Holy Spirit, and " the host of good angels." The angels are named by Justin be- fore the Spirit; but that does not mean, as Nitzsch thinks, that Justin considered the Holy Ghost to be an angel." ^ He speaks of angels to show the heathen that Christians have heavenly beings far better than their gods. As the argument from prophecy was given the very first place by the Apologists, they made the "prophetic Spirit" more prominent than did the Apostolic Fathers. He is given the " third place " after the Father and Son. ^ He spoke through the prophets and foretold all the work of Christ.' The Spirit has absolute knowledge, so that not only Old Testament prophets and New Testament writers 1 2>. G. S. 344. He thinks Ilermas {Sim. ix. 12) did the same. Elsewhere, however, (S. 293) he thinks the Spirit in Justin {Dial, cxvi.) is different from the Angel. Cf. Thom- asius, I. 248. 2 Justin I Ap. \\n\ Athenagoras, Legat. x. Theophilus, 1. c. 3 Justin, I Ap. xl; xli-xliv; Dial. Ivi., Ixi. According to Semisch (quoted in Smeaton, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 1882, p. 256f.), Justin speaks twenty-seven times of the "Prophetic Spirit," thirty-two times of the '' Holy Spirit," and ihroo times of the " Divine Spirit." 1: ' I* V 272 llie Holy (jrhoat and Trhiity were taught by Him, but all the truth in Greek phi- losopliy came also from the Holy Ghost. * Having thus laid the foundation for their defence in :he doctrine of the Holy Spirit as giver of the Scriptures, the Apologists advance to their great theme, that of the Logos Christology. It is in connection with Christ and His work that their further references to the Spirit ai»- pear. They know all about the preexistent Christ and the eternal Spirit that we find in the Apostolic Fathers; but, as they enlarged the horizon of thinking about the Divine Logos, they raised more and more the question as to His relation to the Divine Spirit. Their Apologetic argument led them especially to tlie Old Testament, and here they found especially t\vo conceptions — the Word of God and the Wisdom of God — which they felt described the Son of God and the Spirit of God, but which they could not apply uniformly or consistently. Justin says the Holy Ghost foretold Christ as Wisdom (2>iai. Ixi.); while Theophilus seems to regard the Spirit as Wisdom (i. 7; ii. 10). He says God "begat the Word," and with him "emitted His own Wisdom," thus making the Son and the Spirit active with God at creation. But elsewhere he seems to identify them, saying the Word "being a Spirit of God, and Beginning and Wisdom . . . came down into the prophets" (ii. 10). The preexistent Spirit and the preexistent Word which He uttered could not be clearly distinguished. Tatian says " God is a Spirit,'"^ from whom came the Logos, who is "a spirit emanating from the Father" (vii.). * Justin, I Ap. xliv. ^ Oratio ad Graecoa. Beoensuit £. Schwartz, Leipzig, 1888, o. 4. Involved hi the Divine Christ. 273 1888, But Tatian speaks also of the "Divine Spirit'' (xiii.); and Theophilus clearly distinguishes elsewhere the Word and Spirit. He describes the Trinity hy that name, rpidi^^ and says it consisted of '^ God and His Word and His Wisdom." At creation, God said to them: " Let us make man " (ii. 18). Justin, in describing Christ's ])irth from the Virgin (I Aj). c. 33), calls the Holy Spirit the Logos; but, as Von Engelhardt urges (1. c. 143), does not thereby identify them;^ he only rejects the view that it was the "Prophetic Spirit" and not the Logos who became incarnate. Christ could be called also a Holy Spirit because He was of spiritual character. But when, on the other hand, the Logos is described as the power active in the prophets, we see the same territory given to both Son and Spirit. Yet there is a difference: Justin means that Christ was the medium of all Revelation, while the Holy Ghost took the things of the Logos and showed them to the prophets.^ Ii is im- portant to notice that this tenacious grasp upon the personal, divine distinction of Son and Spirit by the Apologists, when their philosophical training and their elaboration of the Logos doctrine made it more and more difficult for them to hold these apart in their thinking, shows how strong was the traditional belief of the Church in both the Divine Christ and the Divine Spirit. With all their hesitation in utterance » Ad. Autoly. ii. 15. 2 Against Nitzsch, D. G. S. 290. 8 Semisch remarks of Justin: <'0f a continued operation of the Spirit on Christians he has nothing to say; he also re- gards the heathen world as hermetically sealed against it." (Justin der Miirtyrcr^ 1842). 274 The Holy Ghost and Trinity •*. i m these Apologists agree in two things: first that the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, and second that He came forth from the Being of God. Athenagoras presents this latter doctrine very clearly.* He calls the Spirit "the effluence " (^dn6ppoia)iTom. God, flowing from Him and evermore returning to the foun- tain of the God-head . . as a ray from the sun" {Legat. x.).'^ He goes on, teaching the view of cir- cumincession, to say the " Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, by the unity and power of the Spirit." Here the eternity of the Spirit with Father and Son is 1 He says: "We acknowledge a God and a Son, His Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence" (xxiv). And Justin remarks: *'\Ve are called Atheists; but we are not Atheists respecting the most true God, the Father of righteous- ness . . . and the Son who came forth from Him, and the Prophetic Spirit, whom we worship and adore." (I Ap. vi.). He says again (I. 13), we honor "the Son in the second place and the Prophetic Spirit in the third place." 2 This term " effluence" came from philosophic thought as far back as Empedocles (cf. Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, 4th Ell. I. S. "723), in which it expressed the supposed outstream- ings from objects by which the mind perceived external things. The Book of Wisdom (vii. 25) calls wisdom " an exhalation of the power of God, and an effluence of the pure glory of the Almighty." Familiarity M'ith Greek religious philosophy led Athenagoras, as it led the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon, to thus express what he believed to be the Christian doctrine of the Spirit (cf. Swete, p. 2G). The Greek Fathers were especially fond of illustrations of the Trinity drawn from external nature, as fountain, stream and river; sun, light and radiance (cf. also TertuUian, yldi}. Prax. viii.); but Augustine turned to the nature of man himself, made in the likeness of God, and saw in the trichotomy of memory, intelligence, and will or love, the best analogy to the Trinity. {De Trinitate, ix. 1, 3f.). ym f vi.). Ions of im and \Prax. made Imory, pinity. Involved in the Divine Christ. 275 involved. Theophilus in like manner makes both Word and Spirit proceed from God; l)oth were .kvStdfierot before they became npotpoptHot. The effort of Von Engel- hardt (I.e. S. 142f.) to show that Justin believed the Son and Spirit to be divine beings, like pagan gods, who were to be adored and worshiped, but not regarded as of the dignity of God the Creator, fails because it builds upon the mere Apologetic coloring which Justin gives his descriptions of Father, Son and Spirit for pagan readers, and because it does not recognize the horror of polytheism which animated Christians, espe- cially men like Justin, familiar with Judaism. It is true, however, as we have seen already, that these Apologists could not grasp the real significance of the Holy Spirit in Christian experience. Justin ascribes regeneration and conversion to the Logos and not to the Spirit (I -^Ij*^. xxxii). Theophilus traces only man's natural life to the Holy Ghost (ii. 13.). Tatian sees in the Spirit the way to holiness, to prophe- cy, and union with God; but regards it as something which the Christian should seek after, rather than as the source of his life (c. 15.). Of the controversies which agitated the Church in the second and third centuries — Gnosticism, Mouta- nism and Monarchianism — each contributed to the de- velopment of the doctrine of the Spirit. Gnosticism, with its abstract conception of God, helped make prom- inent the thought that the Son and Spirit are divine emanations.^ Montanism called the Church toremem- * Though the Gnostics by rejecting the Old Testament denied that the Holy Spirit of the Old Testament was the same as that of ♦'^e New, hence the special emphasis which the Church laid upon the Holy Ghost, " who spake by the prophets." .' I ■ U ■K. m «' 1 3 'M liMi' V 276 The Holy Ghost and Trinity ber that the well-known Paraclete was still working in believers; and that all higher Christian life depend- ed upon Him. The Monarchians, in their most de- veloped teachings, declared the full personality and Divinity of the Holy Ghost.^ The chief things said of the Spirit in the New Testament are clearly reflected by the Gnostics. They know that He is a power of God^; this power is frequently described as motherly'; the Spirit is called the Paraclete, as in the Fourth Gospel; and was felt to be so one with God that Basi- lides in his speculation objected to calling the Spirit consubstantial (cJ/ioou'tfios) with Him. Valentine made the Father send forth as the last pair of aeons, vitally 1 Cf . Harnack, I. 629. He says that one of the differences between the Sabellians and the earlier Patripassiaus was in embrucuig theologically the Holy Spirit. Sabellianism here " sim- ply followed the new theology which began more thoroughly to take notice of the Holy Spirit." Heresy, however, did not start this "new theology"; it was the attempt of the Church to explain to herself and others the doctrine of the Holy Ghost as held from the beginning. The emotionalism of the Montanists, especially, led the Church to take a more intellectual view of the Spirit. The Monarchians helped kill out Montanist prophecy, and would also merge the prophetic spirit in God as a Spirit; but against this extreme the Church protested also. Athanasius, for exam- ple, took up most decidedly again the position of Sabellius re- specting the Spirit, but insisted on both equal divinity and per- sonal existence, "^ot Movoovdtov but d/tioovdioy was his watch- word (cf. Expos. Fid. xxv). Still earlier, as Swete points out (p. 47), Dositheus took the same attitude toward the Mouarchian view of the Spirit. He held ^^ Pater enim ingenitus, Filius genituSf Spiritus Sanctus jirocedens ex Patre coaegualis per omnia Patri et Filio^* {Praedestinatus I. 41). 2 Hippolytus, Philos. vi. 13. 3 Origen, on John ii. 6. w Involved in the Divine Christ. 211 II ii connected and co-equal, the Son and Spirit (Irenaeua, I. 4, 2). Here there shines through, evidently, the mission of Christ and the Holy Ghost to save men, though this mission is confused with the eternal gener- ation and procession. * Connected with the Gnostics, partly by contrast and partly ])y similarity, were certain circles of thought among Jewisli Christians, whose views of the Spirit were imperfect. Those called Nazarenes might l»e said to give a one-sided representation of the Holy Ghost as found in the Synoptists. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus calls the Spirit His mother. ^ At His Ijaptisra she descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and her union with Him seems to have terminated with His earthly ministry. The other wrong tendency in Jewish Christianity, that of the Ebionites, ran more in the direction of the Fourth Gospel, and was perverted l)y Gnostic notions. It represented the Holy Spirit as an aeon, sometimes identified with Christ, and again made a "female power" distinct from Him. The Clementine Homilies teach a Divine Dyad of Father and Spirit or Wisdom of God. The Recognitions distinguish the Son from the Spirit, but make the latter the creature of the former (iii. 11). For this reason Dr. Swete sees in this Ebionite heresy the source of the Arian error respecting the Divine Spirit (p. 42). In opposition to these inadequate views, the Apostolic tradition of the Trinity, a grasp of Ijoth Synoptist and Johannine teachings, and some philosophic train- ing, which helped toward more consistent thinking, 1 Cf. Swete, Doctrine of the Procession, p. 35. 2 ^QQ Ililgeufeld above, and Oiigen on John ii. 6. 278 The Hohj Gho^t and Trinity i| ■ ! 11 kept the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists, though with some hesitation, true to both the Divine Christ and the Divine Spirit. From the middle of the second century on, the Fourth Gospel was steadily molding Christian thought. We saw how true this was in the development of the Logos Christology. It is also true, though in a less degree, respecting the Holy Spirit. Montanism appeared protesting against worldly living, and preaching the mission of the Paraclete as the first thing in Christianity. Such preaching presupposed and found faith in the per- sonal, divine Spirit, and must have deepened the same. Indeed Tertullian, in a well-known passage (Adv. Prax. ii.), tells us that it was the fuller in- struction by the Paraclete and respecting the Paraclete that led him into clearer views of the Trinity and of all truth. And it was just this Johannine teaching about the Spirit which called forth the earlier forms of Monarchianism. The Alogi attacked the Fourth Gospel as well because it taught the Divine Paraclete, as because it set forth the Divine Logos. Irenaeus says of them: "They would frustrate the gift of the Spirit . . . because they do not accept that aspr^t of Christianity which appears in John's Gos- pel, where the Lord promises to send the Paraclete; but set aside at the same time the Gospel and the Prophetic Spirit" (III. 11, 9). They found no place for the Spirit except in the Virgin birth of Christ. They felt truly that if Christ were God incarnate, the Divine Spirit must also be accepted; accordingly they rejected both, and the Gospel that supported them. It will not be amiss to say that in this conflict Involved in the Vivine Chrint, 27U ourth aclete, enaeu8 rift of that Gos- iclete ; d the place ihrist. e, the orted )nflict the spiritually minded men were those who believed supremely in the Holy Ghost and in Christ as God. The Montanists died everywhere as martyrs. One of the confessors in Lyons, who defended others before the governor, was called "Advocate of the Chris- tians"; and, it is added, "having himself the Ad- vocate, the Spirit."^ But the first Monarchian,Tlieo- dotus, denied Christ in persecution, and then said he had not denied God, but a man upon whom the Spirit came down at baptism. The character of otlier Monarchians, such as Paul of Samosata, is familiar. These men represented preeminently intellectualisra in Christianity, as the Montanists stood for enthusiasm a J ecstatic devotion. Yet the cold, white light of the intellect as well as the ruddy glow of the heart led finally toward the personal divine S])irit. The earlier Monarchians tried to identify the Father and Son; they were nicknamed " Patripassians." But the full development of this school, called Sabellian- ism, saw that even the subordination of the Spirit held by Church divines must be surrendered, and the Persons of the Trinity regarded as equal in power, wisdom and glory. Such a position made the con- ception of the Spirit as a creature of the Son unten- able.^ The fatal lack in this view was, however, ^ Eusebius, //. E, \. 1. The confessors in Lyons were in sympathy with the Montanists in their exaltation of the Holy Spirit. 2 Even the Clementine Homilies, so Jewish-Christian in tendency, speak of the rptdnaxapia iitovouaeia as essential to baptism (iii. 72; ix. 19, 23). But these Ebionitio writings anticipated Arianism in their estimate of the Son and the Spirit (of. Swete, p. 41). It is said: "The Holy Spirit has what He is |5! ii Mi' , ::i I) t:U' 111 ill 1} i 280 27ie Jlohj Ghont and Trinity that it made the (iodhead unipersonal, novoovaioy, witli no j)lea for tlie «««>u(»ia of Father, Son and Spirit. Here, tlieu, were the converging currents over which Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen sought to steer the faith of the Church in the Holy Ghost. Gnosticism, with its great (xod, its Demiurge, and all its little gods called aeons, led the jVIonarchians to fight for the unity of God, for Unitarianism; as the fanatical, un- historical orthodoxy of Montanism impelled them to demand a place for reason in religion. The anti- Gnostic Fathers recognized some truth in the views of all these adversaries; they accepted the full, co- equal divinity of the Spirit from the Monarchians, and the largeness of His work from the Montanists. Tertullian says we mus'„ not hesitate to use theologi- cal terms or thoughts introduced by Gnostics or others, if they help us the better to understand ilw truth of Christianity (Adr. J*r<(.i'. viii.). Irenaeus in a like spirit set himself to write the earliest defence of orthodoxy against heresy. Athenagoras had spoken of the first four creative days as standing for the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and Mankind, for whose redemption the Trinity was revealed. Irenaeus pursues the same order of thought,' and from the point from the only begotten .... even as the only begotten is . . . the image of the innnutable, unbegotten Virtue." Further '< the Spirit can not be called Son nor tirst-begotten; for it was matle by creation, but is reckoned in subordination with the Father and the Son" (liecof/nitiona, iii. 11). 1 Cf. IV. C, 1; IV. 20, C; IV. 38, 3. So does Clem. Alex. {Faed. ii. 2), who says Father, Word and Spirit are " one and the same everywhere"; and one with them the Holy Church. point [tten is Further it was ith the Alex. tne and irch. 1 lie sees salvntion pained (1) through C'lirisi giving' "Kis 80»il for our boiiif, IIIh th;sh for our tltsh." His (leji,;i '*Het8 free II' 8hive8"aiul makes them Iii» hi'irs. Then (2 » must follow the "pouring out of the Spirit'' (V. 0. 4), who (a) en- lightens and (b) Hanctities the soul, inaking (."hrist to ho dwell in us that now, though we are of tlesh and blood, wo ean in- herit the Kingdom of God. The Sjiirit blends with the '♦oul, which He breathed into man at creation, and restores the like- ness of God, which Avas lost by sin. Man retained the "image" of God as a trace of the Divine Logos left in him; but he lost the "likeness" (V. G, 1). This latter the Spirit restores, adding the slrctng meat which the soid needs, and im- parting spirituality to the soul and incorruptibility to the body; so that we look forward through the Spirit to both the im- mortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body (V. 7, 1). Irenaeus alone among the early Kathers fornjed a clcstr con- ception of the work of the Sjiirit in the j)lan of salvation (IV. 20, 1; cf. Schmid. />. G. S. Uy Gnostics.* lie claims for the Spirit all that is taiitrht respecting Ilim in the Old and New Testa- ments. He is carefully distinguished from the Logos in creation, Providence, the Old Testament, the In- carnation, and at the baptism of Jesus.- The (inostic theory of emanations regarded (iod as materiul or capable of division (II. 13,5); and the pn i ■ *>sion of aeons, finally of the Son and Spirit, as a nece-i.vity, as the result of a defect in creation. But 'lenreus 'I' w it •ifi |;l , V' ■ t'\ i 1^ r f ill 282 The Holy Ghost and Trinity says that is all wrong. The Son and Spirit belong to the Being of God. They are essential and not acci- dental, eternal (V. 11, 2) not temporal, a great reality and not what Ritschl called God, a " Hilfsvorstellung," in man's religious experience. The Spirit is equally divine w^ith Father and Son (III. G, 4), is to be prayed to, especially at the Lord's Supper, that He may show us the sacrifice of Christ, and proceeds from the Son as the Son from the Father (V. 18, 2), for each Person of the Godhead " contains all " of God (III. 11, 8; 12, 13; V. 18, 2). Irenaeus knows of the three great fields in which the Apologists saw the Spirit active, namely, (1) the history of revelation,* (2) creation,^ and (3) redemption, but dwells especi- ally upon the last. In creation he sees the Son and Spirit active as the hands of God (IV. Pref. ; V. 28, 4); but they were ever personal with God, hence He said to them: "Let us make man." The Spirit gave man " the image and inscription of the Father and the Son (III. 17, 3). On the work of the Holy Ghost in personal salvation, however, Irenaeus is not clear. He confounds regeneration with baptism. He knows that the Spirit enlightens believers (IV. 31, 1), sanctifies them and makes them heirs of im- mortality as the Spirit of a new life (V. 18, 2); yet it is only a helper of man, the strong meat added to the milk of the Incarnation (V. 7, 1).^ He clearly grasps the Incarnation of the Logos by the Holy Ghost of X.; Justin, I Ap. vi; xxxii; xliv; * Cf. Athenagoras, liii; IrenaeuB, I. 10, 1. 2 Justin, I Ap. lix; Dial, vi; Athenagoras, vi. "So Clem. Alex., referring to I Cor. iii. 1.; cf. Paed. i. 6. Involved in the Divine Christ. 283 n [grasps lost of i; xlivj gf?. i. 6. the Virgin Mary, and teaches that Christ is the Mediator of the Spirit for all men (III. 11, 8; 17, 1); but is not clear as to how far reason in man is the Spirit, and how it is related to the Spirit which works only in the Church. In two lofty passages Irenaeus rises to "sublime speculation" (so Harnack I. 455) upon God's reve- lation and man's redemption (IV. 20, 5 and V. 36, 2). In the first, the Old Testament is presented as the period in which the Spirit revealed God prophetically, and the New Testament as the place where the Son revealed God adoptively; while the future kingdom of heaven will show God paternally. Corresponding to this revelation of Spirit, Son and Father is the work of redemption. Irenaeus says, the Spirit "pre- pares man in the Son of God; the Sou leads him to the Father; while the Father grants immortality." This "ladder of ascent to God" (III. 17, 3), we are told, was taught by " presbyters who were disciples of the Apostles." ^ To these teachings of Irenaeus, Tertullian gave sharpness and precision. He was a Roman lawyer and sought for exact statements. Hence he introduced the terms Suhsitantia for God, and Per^onae for Father, Son and Spirit. No better man appears in the Church of the second century from whom to in- quire on these subjects. He was educated and widely read. He knew the life of Africa; was at home in the Roman Church ; had the writings of Greek Chris- tians in mind; and knew Asiatic thought through the Montanists. He sought every^vhere for the doctrines 1 See V. 36, 2, where I Cor. xv. 23f. is quoted. ■ % rilll %m'\ I;:- -V " It 284 The Holy Ghoist and Trinity which had been handed down in the Church ; he tested them by the New Testament ; and he used common sense as well as the Christian consciousness in ex- pounding them. Much modern theology tries to tear apart knowledge and faith ; but TertuUian most vigor- ously defended both. As Montanist, he preached the religion of the Holy Ghost in man's heart. As op- ponent of Gnostics and Modalistic Monarchians, he recognized the rights of philosophy and theology. As thoroughly informed Catholic Cliristian, he shows, in the year A. D. 200, all the essential features of the doctrine of the Trinity which w^ere not preached by the Greek divines till two centuries later (cf. Har- nack, II. 287). Father, Son and Spirit are for him unius suhstantiae^ that is, 6iAoov6iot or cousubstantial, while they are distinct " persons." The traditional view that the Spirit was related to the Son, as the Son to the Father, ^ was maintained by TertuUian against Monarchians. The Divine Logos and the Divine Spirit, he felt, stand or fall together. ^ He first called ^ John xvi. 14; cf. Adv. Prax. xxv. 2 Harnack holds that *' two hypostases of the Godhead, not three, are known" in the second century. lie appeals to Iren- aeus, who sometimes calls the Spirit "gradus " or " unctio" or "scala," and to Hippolytus, who calls Father and Son "per- sons," but the Spirit "grace." Such reasoning alone would make the Spirit impersonal in every Christian who speaks of His being " poured out " or "shed," or being " baptized in the Spirit. " But Irenaeus elsewhere clearly speaks of the Spirit as personal, as "revealing" God (IV. 6, 7; V. 9; IV. 20, 1;V. 6, 1), and active in many ways. Hippolytus does the same. The Spirit "perceives," "makes sensible" things tons; and, further, itis " impossible to praise God rightly except in the recognition of the whole Trinity." "The Father has subordinated all Hi Involved in the Divine Christ. 285 the Spirit " God," but he only uttered what the Church had ever believed {Ado. Prax. ii.). He protested against the theory of the Son and Spirit be- ing only divine principles. He declared that to make these have but the religious value of God, would be to make what is said of them and their work in creation, revelation and redemption meaningless. The revealed Trinity, he holds, is also a Trinit}' immanent in God. Within the Monarchy of God there is an unfolding, an oiHovonia, God from God, as light from lig^t, and this unfolding preserves divine unity in the Divine Trinity. " Unitatem in Trinitateni di.yyonit " (ib. ii; XV.). There was a difference of order, c egree, manifestation, but none of substance, power and glory. ^ He says: '•'■ Spirituni non aUnnde puto^ qua in a patre per filiiDii''' (iv). Elsewhere he things to the Son, except Himself and the Holy Spirit" [Phil. viii. of. ZOckler S. 48). He says, furtliLr: "We know the Father, we believe in the Son, we worship the Spirit " {Ado. Koet. 12). The doctrine of the Holy Spirit Mas not developed in the second century, but it was jdainly present in the Church, both East and West. The theological statement of the Spirit in the second century did not use the terni hypostatic; but all that was meant later by that term is clearly involved in the teachings of the Apologists and the Anti-Gnostic writers. 1 Hence Swete (1. c. p. 55) terms Tertullian founder of the Western doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. He developed the doctrine that both Son and Spirit are personal emanations from the "one substance" of God, basing his view upon John xvi. 14, especially. He, and Origon after him, speak of the Spirit after the analogy of the doctrine of the Logos (Harnack, H. li^T); for it was felt that the attacks of Mou- archianism were equally valid or invalid agaim ■, both. But such analogy of view, Harnack admits, comes from the New Testament itself (I. 535). rii I •li I "'■! -'' : 1; ■ C »^ ', : J »' i i ' (1 286 The Holy Ghost and Trinity continues: "The Spirit is third from God and the Son, just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root" (viii.). Tertullian then argues at length from the Scriptures in defence of Christ, the Spirit and the Trinity (^ih. xif.), * so that there is no ground for Ilar- nack's sweejiing remark that " the factor of the per- sonality of the Spirit is for Tertullian an acquisition arising entirely from pushing logical consequences to extremes" (I. 450). Origen carried the doctrine of Tertullian respect- ing the procession of Son and Spirit a step farther and described it as before all things, or eternal, though he fell short of the Latin Father's conception of consub- stantiality. He thought that God was always Father, the generation of the Son was eternal, and, he added, "the same thing must be said of the Holy Spirit." Their relations had no "before or after"; they were ' As the work of Christ as the Word of God was more ap- preciated, and He was regarded as the revealer of the Old Testa- ment also, the work of the Spirit was considered as especially that of Inspirer of the Prophets and other holy writers (so Justin, I A}), vi. ; xxxii. ; xliv. ; liii. ; Athenagoras, x. ; Irenaeus I. 10, If.). The question of God as Spirit, and God the Holy Spirit oper- ative in the world and history, also led to discussion in the early Church. The Spirit was known as upholding power in the uni- verse (Justin, I Ap. lix. ; iJiiiL vi. ; Theophilus, i), as life-giving providence (Athenagoras, vi.), and governor of all; yet Tatian speaks (iv.) as if this were different from the Holy Ghost (cf. Nitzsch D. G. S. 290). Irenaeus (V. 12, 2), and other Fathers down to Augustine, also distinguish the Spirit of Life in the world, the immanence of God, from the Holy Ghost. When the Logos and the Spirit were spoken of in Nature, the former was regarded as the creative and the latter as the preserving power. li i... Involved in the Divine Christ. 287 necessary and eternal. The Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. But, again, in tracing the revelation of the Spirit through the Son, Origen is not sure whether the Spirit was "born or innate"; though he says the Scriptures never teach that the Holy Ghost is a creature (De I^ri?t. m. 'd). None can be saved "unless with the co-operation of the whole Trinity" {ih. i. 3, 5). The eternal Spirit is ever becoming/, as breathed from God through the Logos (on John ii. 6), and this glorious doctrine of the Holy Ghost he de- clares to be the distinguishing prerogative of Christian- ity (cf. Bigg, p. 171). Origen is peculiar in making the activity of the Trinity move within concentric cir- cles. The Father and Son work in " both saints and sinners, in rational beings and dumb animals," as well as in the material universe; but the Holy Spirit works only in men, "who are already turning to a better life and walking along the way which leads to Jesus Christ" (//a). He dwells only in the saints;^ and forms the completion of God's revelation to man. The Father creates, the Son gives the rational nature, but the Spiiit gives holiness of character, so that Christ, the righteousness of God, can dwell in us. (i. 8, 7). Beyond Origen, but two important steps were taken in the East in refen iice to the doctrine of the Spirit: u^.. first was that of Athanasius and his friends, who saw that the 6/itoovaia of the Son involved that of the Spirit also; the second was that of Basil and his followers, who carried out theteacliinsfsof Orii^en and Athanasius so as to give us the enlarged form of the Nicene Creed. Lookins: back now for a moment we i r. p ai'f' 1 ^lere Origen reproduces the New Testament doctrine. Cf. Gunkel, 1. c. S. 30. \m \m \in m 4 288 The IIol'j Ghost and 7rinUt/ can see how the doctrine of the Holy Gliost, given in Apostolic preaching and in the New Testament, grew toward the statement in the Nicene theology. The Apostolic Fathers believed the Spirit to be divine and personal.^ Justin described Him as in the "third place " after the Father and Son. Irenaeus presented the Spirit as active in revelation and creation, but especially in redemption. Tertullian does the same ; but lays more stress upon revelation and creation. He also took the important step of clearly saying that the Spirit is of the same substance with the Father and Son. Origen taught that the Spirit is eternal, and that all of God is in each Person. Then Athanasius combined the teachings of his predecessors to make the Holy Ghost personal, eternal, prophetic, redemp- tive and consubstantial with the Father and Son. The incidental reference to the Spirit in the the- ology of the iirst three centuries is familiar to all stu- dents; and not a few recent critics have used this fact to produce the impression that a doctrine of the Spirit was not formulated, because faith in a personal Holy Ghost did not exist. The following considerations may help to show the groundlessness of such an infer- ence : (1) And first of all the Holy Spirit is that reve- lation of God, the most vital and teuder, which takes place only in holy men as a matter of experience, and which especially refuses to be described in terms of the intellect. God is here subjective in such a way as man cannot fully describe. (2) The extraordinary manifestations of the Holy Ghost in New Testament days led the brethren to look 1 Cf. Ignatius above p. 145, and Clem. Kom. in Lecture VI. Involved in the Divine Christ. 289 « Holy ) look iro VI. at the effects of His work rather than at the personal agency operative in them (cf. Giiukel, S. 48f.). (3) The work of the Spirit, too, was so w*ell known that description and definition seemed needless. It was thr wonderful outpouring of the Holy Ghost, so long described and foretold in the Old Testament. (4) The further fact that the indwelling of Christ in the hearts of believers was so inseparably connected with the Spirit of Christ made a doctrine of the latter difficult for the early Church. Gunkel thinks (S. 82) it was because the revelation of Christ and the Spirit came to Paul as one divine manifestation that he said : " Now the Lord is the Spirit." (5) The doctrine of the Spirit, as Origen observes, being peculiar to the Bible and the great characteristic of Christianity, found nothing in heathenism — as Christology did in the Logos — to provoke discussion and lead to theological definition. (6) It is also true, as Von EnjT^t'lhardt remarks (S. 145), that the adoration of the Holy Ghost aroused no opposition from heathen or other critics, except a few extreme Monotheists, because it could easily ])e regarded as a divine power or manifestation; hence there was no demand for explanation of the Spirit. ' 1 It is also true within proper limitations, as Nitzsch ob- serves (D G. 293), that during the first three centuries, in the case of the Holy Spirit as in that of the Logos (cf. Theophilua, i. 5; ii. 10), just in the degree that Wis. i^ersonal character was brought forward. His coordination with the Fatlier and even with the Son fell back. On the other hand, His absolute Deity seemed then most secure when His special Personality fell back. Of course, the more the Son and the Spirit were identified personally with God, the less question there could be of their absolute Divinity; and the more the attempt was made to do if i I'm It: (if i I &' III: I 290 The Holy Ghont and I'vinity (7) The natural development of doctrine also postponed this inquiry. There were but two great controversies in the first three centuries: the first was Gnosticism, which had to do ahove all with God. Its ultimate (question was, uncle Deus? It centered inter- est upon the one God as related to creation, the Old Testament, and the work of Christ as philosophy. The other controversy was that which began in Mon- archianism and ended in Arianism ; the center and cir- cumference of which were Jesus Christ. Not till the doctrines of God and the Divine Chiist were formu- lated was the Church led to investigate critically the Holy Ghost. (8) Finally, the solemn words of the Lord about blasphemy against the Holy Ghost as a sin that would never be forg'ven (Matt. xii. 31), are referred to at once by Origen (Z>e Prin. i, 3, 2), Athanasius,* CyriP of Jerusalem and others as a warning against prying ifif justice to the personal or hypostatic character of each, the more a subortliuatiou element was liable to come in. The early Fathers saw clearly this connection of thought; but so convinced were they of the non-Christian nature of Monarchianism, that Origen, who knew all past thought of the Church, opened hia De PrincipUs with the statement that the doctrine of the Trin- ity was the foundation of Apostolic Christianity. lie says the Apostles taught that the Holy Ghost was " associated in honor and dignity with the Father and the Son," not only in the New Testament but also in the Old (Z>e Prin. i. 4, 2). He also re- marked that he had heard of heretics who "dared to say that there are two Gods and two Christs (the Gnostics), but we have never known of the doctrine of two Holy Spirits Vjeing preached by any one" [De Prin. ii. V, 1). 1 Ep. ad Serap. iv. 8, and often. 2 Cdtech. Lcct. xvi. 1. Involved in the Divine Christ. 291 more early inced , that ed his Trin- ays the honor ! New ilso re- y that e have eached into the mystery of the Spirit. And yet the very fear here expressed, a fear which regarded an offense against the Spirit as the most awful sin against God^ shows how firmly belief in this Person of the Trinity was presupposed in the Churches. Before leaving the references to the Spirit in ante- Nicene belief, I think it important to notice that the earliest creed of the Church declares that Christ "was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary," while in its third article it says solemnly: " And (I believe) in the Holy Ghost." This creed was written in Greek, but appeared first not later than A. D. 150, perhaps as early as A. D. 125, in the Church of Rome.^ It cannot be traced so early in the East; but, resting as it does upon the Trinitarian formula of baptism, it certainly contains nothing foreign to the faith of the Church universal. Here we have two important truths about the Holy Spirit: first, that the miraculous birth of Jesus from the Virgin was due to the per- sonal, parental activity of the Holy Ghost; and second, that the first Confession of Faith was " in God the Father almighty, and in Christ Jesus, His only begot- ten Son " " and in the Holy Ghost." The Coun- cil of Nicaja, after two hundred years more of Church life, only said: "We believe in the Holy Ghost." Thus there ran, before and under and with the doctri- nal development of the second and third centuries, the personal confession of every Christian — " I believe in the Holy Ghost," till the venerable Council of Nice, speaking for a thousand churches, said: " We believe in the Holy Ghost." Now all this looks very seriou& lijfe! J Cf. ZOckler, Zum ApostoUkum-Streit. Munich, 1893. i 292 The JIolij 0/ioH and IrifiUy for those who suppose that both a Divine Christ and a Divine Spirit are Greek corruptions of original Chris- tianity; hence Harnack sets himself with full vigor to prove ^ that the miraculous conception of Christ was no part of New Testament teachings, and that the Holy Spirit here professed was not personal, but a " power and gift'' of God (S. 2<)). As to tlie Virgin birth of Jesus, he admits at once upon the clear testimony of Justin, Aristides and Ig- natius (cf. Ep/f. xix; Trail, ix; Smyr. i), that it was " a fixed part of Church tradition " by the end of the first century. Still he thinks it "does not belong to the original proclamation of the Gospel"; and that for two reasons — first the positive fact that the gene- alogies of Jesus lead to Joseph and not to Mary, and second the negative argument drawn from the silence of Mark and the supposed silence of John and Paul. ^ Of course, we cannot enter into this discussion of New Testament teachings at length ; but the following re- marks may suffice to show that the miraculous birth of Jesus from the Holy Ghost, as plainly confessed by the Church of the second century, was part of the de- posit of doctrine received from Apostolic men. So far as the argument from the genealogies is concerned, * Das Apost. Glauhensbekenntniss., 2Gth. Ed. Berlin. 1893. S. 22 f. 2 Ramsay makes it very probable {The Church in the Roman Empire^ New York, 1893, c. xvi.) that the Acts of Paul and Thecla is essentially historical, especially as in the Syriac ver- sion. In that book (p. 61) we find Paul presented as explain- ing "the birth and resurrection " of Christ as two points of great importance. He '* refreshed the souls of his hearers with the greatness of Christ, and was forever recounting to them how He was manifested to him." Involved in the Pi cine Christ. 293 it may })e sufticient to say tliat it is the very two Gospels which contain thoni that also tell of the Virgin birth. Matthew and Luke, the one represent- ing the Jewish Church, the other standing for a wider community, saw no contradiction between the origin of Jesus in the genealogies and I lis supernatural birth of the Holy Ghost.* In both, the personality and the Divinity of the Spirit are recognized; and such narra- tives could never have arisen if the idea of the super- natural, personal Spirit had not been most familiar in the Church.^ The other argument, from silence, is, as all men know, very precai'ious. Ilarnack urges that the proclamation of the gospel began in the New Testament with the baptism of Christ, and that Paul does not refer to the birth of a Virgin, therefore the latter is no j)art of Christian doctrine. I might sug- gest in this connection the argument of Pastor Ilering,^ who holds that because Protestant divines 1893. )laiii- Its of wi th I them * Luke claims to have gained this information, as all else, from eye-witnesses of the life of Christ (i. 2). We might imagine the elimination of such an account from a Gosj)cl, but its insertion in the lifetime of those who must have known the truth in the matter is very improbable. The fact that very early the Jews circulated ^X^mXevH {^Toledoth Jeschu) ahout the Virgin birth shows how thoroughly it was accepted. Harris (1. c.) makes the very credible suggestion that the term Panthera, applied in early Jewish slanders to the supposed sold- ier betrayer of Mary, is but a perversion of the word TtapOevoi, after the well-known habit of the Jews to slightly change a name to make it a term of opprobrium. Thus every effort to fasten the charge of unfaithfulness upon her, presupposed the belief in the Virgin birth. 2 Cf. Ziickler, 1. c. S. .30f. 3 Ztft.f. Theol. u. Kirche. 1895, II. 1. 294 ii m- Hi 7'/(6 //o/// Ghont and 2'rinUy from Luther down have preached ao little about the miraculous conception, it cannot be essential to the gospel.'' The comparative silence of well-known Trinitarians shows the invalidity of the reasoning based upon the comparative silence of John and Paul. These Apostles naturally did not speak first of the Virgin birth, for they were witnesses of Christ's pub- lic ministry, and tliey had not been eye-witnesses of His infancy. Apologetic reasons, also, led them to put in the foreground for Jewish hearers the gospel in its relation to Monotheism and the resurrection of Jesus, rather than to press at once the Divinity of - lu connection with the contention of these rationalistic theo- logians that the Virgin birth of Jesus has no religious connection withthelncarnation, it maybe well to observe that, in one passage at least, of our Revised New Testament the opposite position is taken. Dr. David Brown, one of the revisers, says [Presby- terian and lieformcd Hevieip, 1896, p. 232) of Luke i. 3, 5: *♦ ♦ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God ' : I know of nothing for which we have to thank the revisers more than the change which they have made in the sense of this great verse. According to the Authorized Version, Jesus of Nazareth became the Son of God, if not exclusively, yet in a new sense, ' the Son of God,' by the marvelous conception of His mother; whereas the uniform testimony of the New Testa- ment is that when ' God sent forth His Son, made of a wo.nan' in- stead of thereby iccomtn^ His Son in a new sense, He simply clothed Him with ourhumannature. Now, hear the Revised Version: 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore, also, that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.' According to this reading of the verse it was not His Sonship, but His holi' ness, from His very birth, which was secured by the miracu- lous conception of the blessed Virgin." Involved in the Divine Chriiit. 295 p -^ od': I more this 8U8 of in a ion of Testa- an' in- othed 'The Most is to ng to 1 holi' liracu- Christ and Ilis miraculous birth, which would have aroused opposition. When once men learned of Christ the Redeemer, who died and rose again ; when once they knew II im as the Fullness of the CJodhead bodily, belief in His supernatural origin would follow easily and naturally. Who can read of the Incarna- tion in the Fourth Gospel and not feel that it was mir- aculous? And the Apostolic Church knows of no miraculous birth of Christ save that by the Holy Ghost. Similar considerations ai>l)ly to St. Paul. lie knows of Christ the Heavenly Man, the second Adam. He feels instinctively, as we all do, that if the beginning of humanity needed the direct creation of the first man, much more did the creation of the second man call for the full supernatural interposi- tion of the Holy Ghost. But Paul was not writing a history ol Christ; his doctrinal discussions presup- posed the Trinity and the Divine Spirit everywhere, and his supposed silence upon the Virgin birth is no evidence against the plain teachings of Matthew and Luke. The other reference to the Spirit in the earliest creed is still more important — "I believe in (the) Holy Ghost." The Holy Spirit, who brought Christ into the world is the Holy Spirit who brings Christ into the heart of the confessing convert. " I believe in the Holy Ghost, ia the Holy Church," so the con- fession runs. Harnack finds in this relation of the Church to the Spirit a proof that the Spirit was im- personal to the Church of the second century. He says, "I believe in the Holy Ghost" is not as in the two others — of Father and Son — enlarged by personal but by material terms; that is, by "Holy i .'I, iMii M 111-! ';.' 4^ 296 77/ f //o^y Ghost and Trhiity Church, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the flesli " — therefore the Spirit is "a gift," the same as the Church or pardon of sin, and is not personal, save as ^'the Spirit of God is God Himself" (Das. Ajwst. S. 27). That is surely most astonishing reasoning. It takes the marvelous ground for a Bible student, that an impersonal predicate is proof that the subject is impersonal also. David says God is " my rock and my salvation : lie is my defence." Does that mean that Jehovah was impersonal? (cf. Zockler, S. 39). We might ask further: How can Holy Church or resurrection be regarded as a predicate of the Holy Ghost, as " Almighty " is of the Father, or " only Be- gotten" of the Son ? The creed looks upon them in another light entirely. The Church, forgiveness and eternal life are effects of the work of the Spirit, and there is no inference to be drawn from the material character of the gift to the impersonal character of the Giver. ^ The order of Father, Son, Spirit, and Church is just that found in Athenagoras, who wrote 1 Ilarnack tries to argue further that the absence of the article before ' ' Holy Ghost " in the earliest creed indicates the impersonal nature of the Spirit (S. 26). But such omission, as early usage shows in this case as in the case of " Christ," where the reference is not to definite manifestation in the work of salvation, did not in any way deny the personality of the Spirit (cf. ZOckler, 1. c. S. 32). Kattenbusch admits this and says it means " not merely an instrumental, material power, but the power of personality" (Z(3ckler, S. 23). Zahu maintains (/u/m/)/" nm das Apostolikuin, Niirnberg, 1893) that it is Harnack's utter rejection of the supernatural that animates his attack upon the Apostles' Creed. Hence his strenuous efforts to get the Divine Christ and the Holy Ghost out of the Creed, before Irenaeus and TertuUian appear with Apostolic writings in their hands. H.trnack says Irenaeus attempted the impossible, in trying to »•■ w Involved hi the Divine Christ. 297 about the time this Creed arose, and in Irenaeus (IV. 6, 7; IV. 20, 1 ; V. 18, 2), who v.rote a little later, both ^f whom had decided views on the Trinity. The opinion of Harnack that the Spirit is personal only because "the Spirit of God is God Him?elf," and that apart from the Father, the Spirit is only a " power and gift," runs counter to the traditional thought, prayers, benedictions, doxologies, and bap- tismal formulas of the Church. The tradit'onal faith could even at times think of the Spirit p,s a creature, and often as subordinate; but ever fought tendencies known as Monarchian, which, like Harnack, identified the Spirit with God as Spirit. Even the Arians, the logical outgrowth of Monarchianism, felt the faith of the Church so strongly that they never assailed the personality of the Spiriv. They called Him the Paraclete; He was one of three ov6iai or vno6Td6Bt%.'^ We now come to the first theological discussion of the Holy Spirit, and its lormai elaboration by Nicene and post-Nicene Fathery. The student will do well at the outset to bear some leading facts in mind: (1) And, first of aM, this controversy arose about the year 350, in opposition to Semi-Arianism, which follow the New Testament in teachiiii? that the Divine Logos became incarnate by the Holy Spirit overshadowing the Virgin >Mary (I. S. 498); and calls the attempt of "all the Fathers since Irenaeus" to explain what the Holy Spirit did in the incarnation of Christ " the most wonderful speculations"; not recognizing that these very attempts show the full and firm conviction that both the birth of the Virgin and the con- ception by the Holy Spirit were essential factors in primitive faith. ' Cf. Gwatkin, Studies of Aria)nsm, Cambridge, 1882, p. 28. m liii mm |i:i I fc'Ml :- 298 The Holy Gliont and Trinity claimed more and more to believe in the Divinity of Christ, but less and less retained faith in the Deity of the Spirit. ^ (2) The question was approached, accordingly, pret'minently from the side of the Divine Son of God; for if lie were equal to the Father, it was felt the Spirit also could not be less than God. If. w:- r-i-r ' Harnack finds the beginning at the Council of Sirniiuni, A. D. 351 (II. 278). Cf. Basil, Ep. cxxv. He says of Eu- nomius, who had called the Holy Spirit a creature: "He is the first of all those who have attacked the truth from the day when the preaching of the true doctrine was promulgated, who has dared to put forth this word of the Holy Ghost. For we have never heard any one up to this day call the Holy Spirit a creature, nor in the works they have left do we find such an appellation" (Cont. Eunom. II. 270, quotr^d by Jen- kins, From the death of St. Athanasius to the death of St. Basil. London, 1894, p. 25). In opposition to such errors, Jenkins thinks Basil caused the addition respecting the Holy Spirit to be made to the Nicene Creed (p. 27). He did fi>r the doctrine of the Holy Ghost what Athanasius did for that of the Divine Christ. All the additions made to tho Creed are found in the writings of Basil. His friend A} ollinaris took similar ground, and defended the Jlomoousia of the Spirit (cf. Drliseke, yij^ollinarios von Laodicea, Leipzig, 1892, S. 214f.) against Eunomius. But Athanasius held that what the Cappa- docians elaborated respecting the Spirit was all involved in the decision atNicaja [Ad Afros, x\.). The doctrine thacthe Spirit was created, he says, was there rejected; because after the full Deity of Christ was proclaimed the words were added, "and we believe in the Holy Ghost," thus " confessing perfectly and fully the faith in the Holy Trinity," as "the exact form of the faith of Christ, and the teaching of the Catholic Church." It is interesting to find the East Syrian Church, in the time of Athanasius, and remote from Greek speculation, holding ten- aciously the full divinity of both Son and Spirit; though the 1 Involved in the Divine Christ. 299 (3) The unfolding of the doctrine of the Spirit was seen also to involve the completion of the doctrine of the Trinity ; hence theologians like Basil and the Gregories hardly did full justice to the Person and work of the Spirit, because of a desire to expound the Trinity. (4) All the Church Fathers who took part in this discussion, V)oth East and AVest, appear as Apolo- gists and defenders of an ancient faith.' 1'hey pro- test against the paganism and Judaism, the Sabel- lianism and Arianisni of those who denied the Divine Christ and the Divine Spirit. They claimed simply to expound and expand the baptismal confession of West Syrian Church led by Anlioch and in a Greek atmosphere, l)ecaine largely Arian. The semi-Arian opposition to tlie Holy Spirit appeared in a time of growing religious demorali- zation in the Church. Gwatkin says {Studies of Arianisfn, 1882, p. 248) that the Ilomceans " as a body had no consistent principle, exco{»t they would not define doctrine." They fell into a chaos of opinions, and "in this anarchy of doctrine the growth cf irreligious carelessness kej)t pace with that of party bitterness." It is not too much to say that in this confusion of thought and life, both consistency of doctrine and purity of life were on the side of men like Basil and the Gregories, who de- fended the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. 1 Aj)ollinaris in an epistle to Basil (in Driisoke, S. 118) wrote (A. D. 3G2) that " the Fatliers put the Spirit in the same faith with God and the Son because He is in the same Godhead." He a])i)eals to Paul (II Cor. xiii. 1:3) and the baptismal formula (S. 233). "The Spirit with God and the Son is glorified." lie is eternal (23G), omnipotent as God (238), and there is no eternal life apart from llim (240). ather. Son and Spirit form "the same Triad forever," and "each hy])0Stasis has its own charac- ter " (echoing Ileb. i. 3; cf. S. 244). Cf. also Gregory Naz. Ortff. xxi. 'if I F" il ,(:• J ill! ii irf r; (1 { ; ■ 1 ' ;: £ 4 h ' i 1 1 ■ I ' m »i S, h ' 1 iu^ 1 u 300 The Holy Ghost and Trinity it faith by which Christians had entered the Church from Apostolic days down. (5) They appealed, further, unceasingly to the Scriptures, and to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and they shrank from using terms and definitions not found in the Bilde or capable of derivation from the teachings of Revelation. They were inclined to associate philosophy with heresy. (6) In the case of Hilp,/y and Athanasius, but in a less degree of the Cappadocian bishops, the doctrine of the Holy Ghost and of the Trinity was approached and canvassed Avith direct reference to the work of man's redemption, especially as imparted in baptism and enjoyed in Christian experience.^ * Swete (p. 85) shows that Marcellus, the friend of Athana- sius, held the procession of the Spirit from both Father and Son as from one divine dpxv- He took this position in opposition to Eusebius of Caesarca (Z>e Eccles. Theologia HI, 6, in Swete p. 85), who held the Spirit was created by the Son and His proces- sion meant only original nearness to God and His mission in the work of salvation. Marcellus almost lost the personality of l)oth Son and Spirit in the oneness of their divine life; but he first in the Greek Church taught the double procession of the Spirit. Epiphanius aloiie, however, among the Greeks clearly and fully taught that the Spirit proceeded "from both" the Father and the Sou (Swete, p. 98). Athanasius was satisfied to speak of both the Divine Christ and the Divine Spirit proceeding from the Father. The Spirit comes from the Father through the Son and "cannot be parted cither from Him that sent or from Him that conveyed Hiin" [De /SenfcHtM Dion t/sii xvii.). He argues that since the Son possesses the Spirit equally with the Father, He must be divine as is the Father. Christ as God gave the Spirit to Himself as Man (c. ^Ir. i. 46). It was not the gift of the Si)irit that made Christ divine; the Spirit re- ceived what He gives in salvation from Christ (iii. 24). Only Involved In the Divine C/tri.'^f. 301 the St 111 »irit. and kof ;rom the Ifroin He the God not lit ve- [)nlv (7) The chief difference l)etween Athauasius!, who opened this discussion, and the Cappadocians, who closed it, was that the former was satisfied with the v'noov6ia of the Spirit as a test of orthodoxy, while the latter i)roceeded to analyze the immanent relations of the one Divine ijvcia into three Divine vTiodrddeii of Father, Son and Spirit. ' Here the doc- as men receive Clirist through the Spirit have they the grace that saves. Hence to reject the Divine Christ was to lose also the Divine Spirit, cease to be Christian, and fall back into Judaism. He reiterates the view that the Spirit is related to the Son as the Son to the Father (Ad. Scrap, i. 21). Against Semi-Arians, he said the question was "Trinity or Duality" ( Ih. i. 29). To reject either Son or Spirit was to "blaspheme the Sacred Trini- ty." His argument is: the Trinity is a fixed doctrine of Chris- tianity, fixed by Scripture, tradition and experience; hence to deny the divinity of the Spirit was to make the Trinity part divine and part created, which was absurd. He says the Gnos- tic Valentine first invented the notion that the Spirit is ar an- gelic being. He got it from passages like I Tim. v. 21 (i. 10). He says the Bible nowhere calls the Holy Spirit an angel. He is "above all creation and one with the Godhead of the Father" (i. 12.). We must be content with what the Scriptures say of this mystery (i. 19). Jle urges, however, the argument from experience: the indwelling of the Spirit makes us temples of God, and " if the Holy Spirit were a creature there could not be through Him any transfer of God to us" (i. 24); for being joined to a created thing would never make us {)artukers of the Div ine Nature. He builds here on I John iv. i;L The bond uniting the Church to Christ and (iod was the Spirit; if that is not Di- vine and Almighty, all is lost (i. 28). How could men cling to the "creature of a creature" (Christ)? Cf. P^piphanitis, //. Ixix. 56. » In a valuable note (A". Gesch.y 1845, I. 2, S. 63) Gieseler makes plain that the Nicene Synod regarded ov6ia and v7ro6rddti as synonymous. Athanasius said they meant the same. Gregory s,' r 11'> 302 The Jloly Ghost and Trinity Si trine of tlie Holy Gliost passed over mto that of the Trinity. ' (8) Finally, while most Trinitarian theologians follow the analytical teachings of Basil and Gregory of Nazianzeii thought this was done because the Latin had only one word Substantia for both (Gieseler sees here the influence of Ilosius). Hence the phrase, "three beings" or "three hypostases," sounded Arian in Alexandria and Rome; though when Athanasius admitted that we might speak of God as one hypostasis, or F'atlier, Son and Spirit as tliree hyj)Ostases, he opened the door for all that the Cappadocians felt it needful to say. Basil represents a de])arture from this terminology. He said {Ej). 230): " Outtia and Hypostasis have the difference which exists between what is common to several and what ' peculiar to each." Hence he held Ousia should be applied to the Godhead as such and as belonging equally to Father, Son and Spirit, while IFijpostasis should be employed to indicate the peculiar personal character of Father, Son and Spirit. Yet he anxiously asks his learned friend, Apollinaris of Laodicea, (cf. Drfiseke, S. 101) whether "the Fathers used" the term Oxisia in reference to God, or if the Scrii)ture8 containe \ it. The only case of a non-Trinitarian creed in the first three centuries of the Church is that of Aphraatcs (337-345), whose Homilies are the earliest after those of Origen handed down to us (cf. Translation by Bert, in Text. u. Unter. Bd. III. 1888). His creed has a seven-fold division, professing faith in (1) God, (2) the Creator, (3) Lawgiver through Moses, (4) who sent the prophets, (5) who sent the Messiah, (G) the Resurrection, and (7) Baptism. He adds: "That is the faith of the Church of God." He then gives practical directions and says: "That is the work of faith, which is built upon the true Rock, which is Christ, upon whom the whole building rests." This shows that the relation of creeds to practical faith was closer than Harnack assumes, when he says that directions for Christian life were not taken into the short forms of confessions (cf. Bert. S. 18). ^ Cf. Thomasius, L 262. The difference between Athanasius and the Caj)padoeians was not in the doctrine held, but rather in I ill Involved in the Divine Christ. 303 Nazianzonus, still the doctrine of the Holy Spirit goes into no metaphysical details, but simply declares that the Holy Ghost is " Lord, giver of life, who pro- ceeds from the Father, and with the Father and Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets." The course of this controversy respecting the Spirit was complicated ; for it was part of the fifty years war of Semi-Arianism in which the Emperor supported heterodoxy and rival synods divided the Church. It was especially serious that just when not a few Semi-Arians began to accept the Divine Christ and return to the Church, loyalty to truth led Athanasius and others to put an obstacle in their way by teaching that the Homoousia of the Son in- volved that of the Spirit also. In exile he wrote his Upi-stles to Serctpion, against the Tropici, who made the Scripture teachings on the Spirit meta- phorical; he showed that two persons in the God- head was a caricature of Christianity. Returning to his diocese in 302, he called a synod, which de- clared no man could reenter the Church, who held that the Spirit is a creature, or separate from the Being of the Son.' Synods in Antioch (8r>2), Rome (four between 808-331), Illyria (375), Icoiiium and elsewhere, agreed with the belief of Athanasius and the Church of Egypt.^ But the Semi-Ai'ians were strong; Macedonius (deposed 3<')0) declared the Holy tlie terms by which to express wliat both held in common. See Waterlanil, Works, Oxford, 1823, III. ]). 404ff. 1 Cf. the Synod Letter, in Tom. ad. Antioch. 2 Jerome says the whole West accepted it as expressing their belief. {^Adc. Lucifer, p. 302). fw i I ,?^. I 304 The Holy Ohost and Tt'inity Ghost but a ministering angel of God, while Eunomius united all heretical parties to teach that the Son was only a creature, while the Spirit was a creature of that creature. Everything was in confusion — creeds, parties, religion and morals (cf. Gwatkin, p. 248). The rising tide of Monasticism, favored by Athanasius and Basil, helped restore purer living, while these same champions of orthodoxy fought also for the sanctifying doctrines of the Divine Christ and the Eternal Spirit. The General Council of 381 finally (1) reaffirmed the Nicene Creed, (2) condemned all Arians and Pneumatoraachoi, and (3) revised the baptismal creed of the Church in Jerusalem, with its fuller teachings upon the Holy Spirit, and made it an Ecumenical Symbol for all time.^ The chief considerations urged by these Nicene theologians in support of the doctrine of the Spirit were: ( 1 ) The impossibility of the Trinity being partly divine and partly created. Athanasius said: "The whole Trinity is one God.'"^ (2) Christian experience proves (a) that the Spirit is divine, for He gives eternal life and holiness, which God alone can grant, and (b) must be of one substance with Father and Son because His work is inseparable from theirs. Basil says:^ "This same- ness of operations shows clearly the identity of nature." 1 Cf . Hort. TicQ Dissertations, Cambridge, 18V6; and Har- nack's Article in Real. Encyk. f. Prot. TheoL, 2 Ed. An. Konst. Symbol. Harnack, however (II. 266), doubts if the matter was voted on here. '^ Ad Scrap. I. 2, 17, 20. ^ Do Spiritu tSaucto, vii. m Involved in the Divine Christ. 306 (3) They appeal to baptism, because this would be in vain without the Holy Ghost. The Spirit can- not be torn from the Father and Son in this sacred formula. (4) While the personality of the Spirit is not dwelt upon, it is everywhere implied. Athanasius and Basil teach that "all things are effected and given from the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Ghost " (ib. xvi.). The Spirit is " in all," the " per- fecting principle " in both creation and man. (5) And this economic position of the Spirit is a manifestation of His immanent oneness with the Father and Son. Athanasius uses the old illustration of the sun, light, and radiance of light (1. c. i. 19, 20) to describe the relation of Father, Son and Spirit. (6) Beyond this point we are led by the Cappa- docians into the Unity of God and the Trinity of Per- sons or Hypostases. Harnack tries hard to find here a Trinitarian scientific theology, which overthrew largely the Homoouaia of Athanasius, by setting it in the Neo-Platonic framework of Origen. He says that as late as the "middle of the fourth century " the doctrine of a personal Spirit " was unknown to most Christians."* It was a product of "the scientific Greek theology," especially that of the Cappadocians. Now it is true that they revived the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son; they set forth His cos- mical as well as His soteriological relations; they un- folded what was meant by Athanasius in the Homo- ousia of the Spirit; they introduced more definite terms to escape what Harnack calls " the terminolog- ical helplessness of Athanasius" (H. 50). But in all » Das. Apost. Glaub., S, 26. ii r 1 \h ti i 30C 77te llolif Ghoat and Triyiity i\\\% they wrought no such revolution as the Ritschl critics suppose.' Neither consciously nor uncon- sciously did these fourth century theologians fatally pervert the faith of the Church; not consciously, be- cause they all solemnly declare that they set forth the belief of Christians as found in tradition and the Scriptures; not unconsciously, for we iiud the same 1 Ilarnack thinks the view of Athanasius respecting the Son and Spirit differed from that of the Cappadocians, by seeking to drop the whole "Trinitarian speculation of Origcn, of which Athanasius wished to know nothing," but which tlio) " rehabili- tated" (II. 258). Athanasius, however, fought for all the ])hilosophy involved in Christianity itself and necessary to defend the real divinity of both Son and Spirit (cf. J'Jp. de >^!/nod. v. and often). Neither is it right to represent the vic- tory of ^asil over Eunomius as " the triumph of Neo-PIatonism over Aiistotleism." Such a i)Osition can be taken only by a historian who proceeds on the assumption that all " scientiHc'' theology is unchristian, and that the "union between faith and science " is but a dream (II. 259). The orthodox Fathers accused the Semi-Arians of being led into error by Aristotelic ideas, showing how little the former were conscious of being diverted from Scripture teachings by i)hilosophy (cf. Baur, JC G. I. 387; Gieseler, K. G. IV. Auf., Bd. I. 2 Ab., S. 58). The Council of Constantinoj)le did not revise the Creed of Niciea, but declared its satisfaction with it (cf. Canon I.). Gregory Nazianzen says the most that Council would have done to the N icene Creed would have been to enlarge the article on the Holy Spirit (II. Ep. to Cledonius, cf. Kattenbusch, Confess iotis- kunde, Freiburg. 1892. I. S. 255). These later Fathers were not conscious in any respect of differing from those of Nicaja in their views of the Trinity. And the Nica^a men declared they held the views of holy men before them. Yet Ilarnack keeps on repeating that the efforts of Aristides, Justin, Irenaeus, and all later Fathers to be true to the teaching that Christ was born of a Virgin by the Holy Spirit, and that lie was also the w : I'- ll !| Involved in the T>icine C/iri-^t. 307 ISO the doctrines of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity taught as well before the Cappadocian philosophers did their deadly work as after they taught that God exists as Mia otcia iv Tpi6iv vTioCrdaediv. I can, in closing this lec- ture, but give you a few proofs of this last statement.' (1) We have seen that as far back as TertuUian the Trmitas was spoken of theologically, and the term " persons " applied to Father, Son and Spirit. He knew that each Person had His " {property " [pro- j9?'iV^^^s), just as the Cappadocians said each had His i8ioona\ and spoke of the second and third Persons having their source in the First. The Senii-Arianisni, which Harnack finds in the Cappadocian Trinity, could be found in TertuUian; the Father is God, self- existent; the Son and Spirit are "caused" by Him; not because of philosophical speculation, but because the Bible taught the begetting of the Son and the pro- cession of the Spirit. Divine Logos incarnate, and combine all that the Synoptists and the Fourth Gospel say of the Incarnation attempt "to unite the ununitable." Eiforts to combine "Adoption" and "Pneumatic" Christology, though both may come from the New Testament, he pronounces "the strangest speculations." The attempt, finally, to add a Divine Spirit to this Christology, to reach aTrinity, he really considers to be " nonsense " (II. 2 i:J). Goethe has said somewhere: "He who will understand the poet must go into the land of the poet." Harnack has not yet gone into the land of religious philosophy. He shuns it on princi- ple. If love alone can truly reveal, it is plain that antipathy on principle to philosophy in religion will make a man blind even to the truth that lies in it. * I follow here, in the main, Swete, The Apostles* Creed. London. 1894. p, 30ff. To this very able reply to Hamack's Das Apostol., I am indebted for not a few valuable sug- gestions. II 308 The llohj OlwHt ami TrhiHy (2) We saw that Origen tauglit the personality of the Spirit and His eternal reflation to the Father and the Son. Tie says: "No relation of the Trinity can be called greater or less" ( I>e /*rirt. i. 3, 4). (3) Before Athanasius discussed the S))irit, the Synod of Siriniuni (351) decided: "If anyone calls the Father, Son and Holy (xhost one Person, let him be anathema." * It further declared that the S[)irit is not part of the Father and Son; neither are there three Gods in the Trinity. (4) The Arians clearly admitted the personality of the Spirit; as Lucian of Antioch before them said in his cre(»d that " the names of Father, Son and Holy Ghost are not mere idle titles, but accurately represent the hypostasis, order and glory proper to those who bear them; so that they are three in hypostasis but one in harmony" (cf. Swete, p. 39).'^ m iP v^ v\\^' W:r- liU' 1 Cf. Ilefele, IliHtory of the Chin.. "Councils. Engl. Tr. Edinburgh, 1870, Vol. II. p. 106. 2 Tlie Semi- Arians held that Christ was a cre..tnre of God, and the Spirit a creation of Christ. He was the Paraclete through the Son, who was sent and came, according to promise, to instruct, teach and sanctify the Ajiostles and all believers (so decided at synod of Sirniium, 35',', c'". Nitzsch, S. 295). Hence the question of the creatureshit) ot the Spirit was the center of controversy between Athana.iii's and the later Arians. It was first discussed at the Synod of Alexandria (.302), and Macedonianism condemned. It was held that the Spirit, as the Son, was consubstantial with the Father. The opponents of Semi-Arianism moved cautiously, not because they thought they were teaching anything new, but (1) because they did not want to repel many Semi-Arians who accepted the Divine Christ and were returning to the Church; (2) because they shrank (cf. Basil's letters to ApoUinaris) from applying wrong terms to the lit Jiivulved ill til* />icine Cliri-st. 309 rl. Tr. (5) The ChiiroL of Jcriisaleni, roprtNontcd hy Cyril, and with a coiifesstioii of faith running ))ack into the third century, far from Cappadocian perversions, taught tliat tlie Spirit is "living and su]>sisting and ever present with the Father and the Son," a "real substance, speaking Himself," and "personal."' As S|»lrit ami feared to Mas])hcmc, by saying more than was taught ill tho Scrii)tur('s; and (:V) becauBo, as the doctrino had not l)e('n discussed in tiu' Church, it was feared a sudden and strong stalcnient of it might trouble less intelligent Christians (cf. IJasil, J'Jjj. cxxv., Gregory Nazianzen, Ontt. xli. 6). The Senii-Arians, on the other hand, tried to keep as close as jjossi- ble to the Church docirine, showing plaiidy what was felt to be the ancient views that preoccupied the ground (cf. Sirmium deliverance), (iregory Na/ianzen, it is true, says some thought the Spirit only an "energy." But he says it was *' philosophers" who held this view, the inference being that it was Semi-Arian speculation and not Church faith to which he referred [Orat. xxxi. 5). Others feared to speak definitely because they thought the Scriptures did not speak definitely. But Gregory calls such indecision "a very bad way to take." This passage from him must not be ])ressed, therefore, as is often done, to teach that the doctrine of a personal, divine Spirit was some- thing new in the Church. In this very place he calls those denying the Spirit "Sadducees" and "Greeks" (cf. UUman Gref/oriKS I'on Xtcihuiz. Gotha., ]S()0, S. 204). It should be borne in mind, also, that the Trinitarian teacliings of the Cap- padocians were not fixed by a General Council, l)ut have been followed essentially ever since by the Church because believed to be true. 1 Catech. Lecturer, xvii. 5. Cyril says: He is "a real sub- stance, speaking Himself, and working and dispensing and sanc- tifying." Ephraim the Syrian, though later, represents the traditional belief of the far East. lie says: "If I in my heart think the Father greater than His Son, may He not have mercy on me, 310 The Iluhj Ghost and Trinity 5 ' ■i t 1 t , ii 0' Hi !'' It: I early as 348, Cyril said of the Trinity: "We preach not ^:hree Gods, but one God through One Son togeth- er with the Holy Spirit — we neither divide the Holy Trinity, as some do, nor work confusion like the Sabel- lians " (iv. 16). Ephraim the Syrian, born under Constantius, shows that the East- Syrian Church had received similar doctrines by tradition. (6) The same is true of the Latin Church. Swete well observes (p. 37): " It is remarkable that this vital alteration in the Faith" — that is, the altera- tion supposed by Harnack — " was not followed by an alteration in the Western Creed. That Creed was in a fluid state until the eighth century, yet no Western Church showed the faintest desire to modify the arti- cles which relate to the Son and the Holy Ghost. It would have been easy and even natural to transfer to the W estern Creed the definitions of the Creed which w^as believed to have been accepted at Constantinople ; and it may be with some confidence assumed that this would have been done if there had been the least con- sciousness on the part of the Western Church that she had executed the change of front imputed to her. But there was no such consciousness, either in East or West." ' and if I tliink the Holy Ghost is less, may my eyes grow dim before my God." He says " the Holy S2:)irit proceeds from both Father and Son " (cf. Eiraiuer, Der heilige Ephrdm^ Kempten 1889, S. 45f.). 1 The doctrine of the Trinity, far from being a matter of ab stract dogma, promotes all our religious thinking: for (1) it is involved in the self-consciousness, knowledge, and revelation of God. Knowledge involves self and non-self, subject and object. The knowledge of God points toward both subject and object " 'rinity preach ogeth- i Holy Sabel- under ch bad vhurcli. >le that altera- d by an , was in ^^estern ;he arti- lOSt. It insfer to id which tinople ; hat this ast con- hat she to her. in East rrow dim (rom both [empteu ter of ab- (1) it is llation of |d object, id object Involved in the Divine Christ. 311 in God Himself, or an "I" and a "Thou" in Doity (cf. also Martineau, Seat of Authority, p. 342). (2) In God's relation to creation and the universe in both the Bible and philosophy, as seen in Philo and the Greeks with their Mediator Logos, God above the world and God in the world are distinguished. The Neo-Platonists even went on to a kind of Trinity. (3) The Fatherhood of God involves Sonship in God. (4) The charac- ter of God as love points to one who loves and one who is loved, or a distinction in the Godhead admitting of an affection which is not self-love. (The first lecture which I heard the late Dr. Dorner deliver was on this subject.) (5) The Trinity is involved in a religion of redemption, as Anselm showed in his Cur iJeus Homo. God must save; He must save in Humanity and for Humanity. He must then recreate man that he may accept this salvation. The history of Christianity with her preaching of Father, Son and Spirit is a proof of the vital character of the doctrine Into which every r;mvert has been baptized. (G) It is objected that the Trinity came from philosophy; that is not true, as we have seen; but if some of the deepest students of human nature, such as the Neo-Platonists, Augustine, Bohme, and Hegel, found their profoundest thoughts about God, man and the universe taking Trinitarian form, it is certainly a sug- gestion that the Bible doctrine is not irrational (cf. Orr. 1. c). Finally (7) the impossibility of setting forth New Testa- ment teachings apart from constant and vital reference to both one God, and Father, Son and Holy Spirit, shows the practical and indispensable nature of the Trinity. laike hud a Trinity (xxiv. 49); so had Peter (Acts ii. 33; x. 38; J Pet. i. .3f; iv, 14), and Paul (II Cor. xiii. 14; Rom. viii. 11; I Cor. xii. 4f.) and John (xiv. 16f. ; xiv. 20; xvi. 13f.). .JA. 1 i It* li n^ ■mRHMHHP LECTURE VL of Jaif§ ant) fo j[E>oama. i r 818 m i\ }i *'To believe, therefore, as the word stands in the front of the Creki), and not only so. but is diffused through every article and proposition of it, is > " -snt to the whole and every part of it, as to a certain and lu. Ae truth revealed by God, and delivered unto us in the wriuugs of the blessed Apostles and Prophets," Pearson. Exposition of the Creed, Art. I. '•En supprimant le dogme Chretien, on supprirae le Chris- tianisme; en ecartant absolutement toute doctrine religieuse, on tue la religion elle-mene. Un^ vie religieuse qui ne s'exprimer- ait point, ne se connaitrait point, ne se comniuniquerait point." Sabatier. J)e la vie intime des dogm.es, p. 25. « ' America can never do better than continue true to the principles of the Pilgrim Fathers." Harnack. Remark in a lecture. 1891. 814 LECTURE VI. THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE CHRIST IN ITS RE- LATION TO THE RULE OF FAITH AND TO DOGMA. It is a merit of the theology of Ritschl, and one for which we cannot be too grateful, that it everywhere gives the Per&on and the teaching of Jesus the very first place, and presents the gospel as an overwhelm- mg impression of the altogether lovely One, which makes Christians delight to obey the laws of His Heavenly Kingdom.^ But with this great merit goes » Pfleiderer sees the real significance of the theoWy of Ritschl in this that it -is tlie theological expression and mirror ot the general consciousness of the time, accor ling to its stroncr and justifiable, as well as truly also according to its weak and dangerous sides (quoted in Nippold, iJie Einzdschnle, II l) fechoen shows very elaborately that it is the culmination of all previous theology. It is a wonderful complex of i,leas from Kant, Lotze, Schleiermacher, Menzen, and even contemporaries and colleagues, such as Biodermann, Lipsius, Diestel and others It must not be overlooked how much stimulus of a good kind Ritschl gave to theological and historical study. He on posed the extreme positions of Baur. He calle.l men to leave philosophy and study the Scriptures. He defended the Apus- tohcity of most New Testament books. He placed Christ, and the Revelation in Him, in the center of all theology He pointed to the importance of Christ's teaching of religion as a holy kingdom of heaven. He laid great stress upon Christian 815 tm il 316 The JS^ieeue Christology u ■ ^ 1 \^^BM H '* Is \ i *■» wmt] : 1 m ^' Wi t* the great defect of really rejecting the Trinity from which Christ came to save men, and whose co- operation is everywhere involved in the teachings of the New Testament and the doctrines of the Church. Jesus said to the laboring and heavy-laden: "Come unto me, .... and I will give you rest." Paul said to the convicted jailer: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and .hou shalt be saved" (Acts xvi. 31). Jesus was the door, the way to eternal life. When, however, the convert looked toward the new life upon which he was to enter, he was told that the bath of regeneration took place "into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost " living. There are also many single truths which Ritschl pre- sents that are very important. Some of these are: the aim of justification is the begetting of true morality; faith in justifica- tion makes us free rulers of all things; the certainty of recon- ciliation through Christ must precede joyous faith in the pa- ternal providence of God; the idea of the Kingdom of God'is made prominent, also the Chuich, in contrast to all individual- istic piety; faith preserves its power, not in renouncing tlie world, but in a sound rule over the world; the Christian life is a process of becoming divine; the evangelical Christian life has its decisive mark in the quality of its moral exercises in the free air in Avhich it shows its love; Christian perfection has its es- sential condition in the presentation of a unity of our course of life; joy is to forin the fundamental tone of a life which has justifying faith; and our knowledge of God must begin not from above, but from beneath, from the humanity of Christ (cf. F. Luther, J)ie I'hcoloyie Eitschh, A Lecture, 1887). Nippold says in general of the theology of Ritschl (Ges- chichte dcr Deiitschen Theologie. Berlin, 1880. S. 441): "There can be no doubt, that the joy of proclaiming the gospel full and free, and proclaiming it alone, has been awakened by no theologian of the last decades in a greater degree than by Ritschl." the Rule of Faith and Dogma. 317 (Matt, xxviii. 19). Christ was the mediator of the fullness of God the Father, and mediated this fullness through the Spirit. This is not an empty formula; but a great doctrine inseparable from the Incarnation and every part of the work of the divine Christ. If Christ came from the Father and as Son on earth could pray to the Father; if He promised that the Holy Spirit would come and do what He had left unfinished; then it i^ clear we have the work of man's redemption through Jesus built everywhere upon the eternal re- lations of the Trinity. Instead of this view springing from theological abstractions, we can see from the ex- perience of the first Christians that it lay in the most primitive gospel. The Apostles, though educated as severest Monotheists, did not stumble at the Trinity; for as they partook of the life of Christ it grew within them in threefold relations as naturally as food pro- duces flesh and bone and brain, or as wise education feeds mind and will and heart. They came through the Son to the Father, and later to know of the Spirit — this might be called their more outer experience; then through the Spirit of Pentecost they were led afresh to see what was the work of Jesus and His re- lation to the Father — this was their more inner expe- rience.^ And what was true of them haii been true of all Christians since. AVe apprehend these deep things of God first through spiritual fellowship) with Christ; through Him we receive the Spirit of adoption, which tell us that we are the sons of God ; and as Ave confess the Son, we know that Ave have the Father and the Spirit also (I John iii. 23). ^ Cf. Gore, The Incarnation of the Son o/ God. Bampton Lectures for 1891. p. 144. The \i^ il) 1':' ill M 3 ^"ii. l^'.. ;,i 318 77/6 Nicene Clwistology It is not at all surprising, in view of these things, to find the earliest Confession of Faith in the Church professing belief in Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or to learn that this Confession was alluded to also as professing the name of Christ. The starting point in the history of this Christo-centric, Trinitarian Creed is of course the famous passage Matt, xxviii. 1*.): "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." This is a most pregnant utterance. If these be the words of Jesus they are His oAvn solemn claim to be the very center and heart of the Trinity, the Omnipresent, Divine Revealer of the love of God and the communion of the Spirit. We are not surprised, then, to hear Nitzsch, Ilarnack,^ and others, in spite of all the Trinitarian teachings of the New Ti tament, ^ deny that this is a saying of Jesus. But Kesch has made it very evident by tracing this passage through early literature back to Apostolic days, that it is a part of the genuine Logia of Christ. ^ The great objection urged against it is that the New Testament elsewhere speaks of baptism "in the name of Christ." Such an objection, how- ever, proceeds on the assumption that " in the name of Christ" and "in the name of Father, Son and 1 He says "it is no word of the Lord," I. 56, 68. 2 Cf. inter alia, I Cor. xii. 4f.; II Cor. xiii. 13; Eph. iv. 4fi'.; See Clemen, N. Kirch. Ztft. VI. II. 4. S. 326. 8 Aussercanon. Paralleltexte zv d. Evangel. H. II. Leii)zig. 1894, S. 303f. W^Y the l^nJe of Judith and Dogma. 310 Spirit," meant different things, or that the use of the one meant that the other was not employed. That neither was the case Resch has abundantly shown. The same writers all the way from the New Testa- ment to Eusel)ius speak of both formulas, using " in the name of Christ" as a plain al)breviation of the Trinitarian statement. AVhere ba})tism is ceremoniaUif spoken of, as in Matt, xxviii. 19, in the; Didache (vii. 2), in Justin Martyr (I .1;?. 61; />/fi''''<^io)b of faith is the ])rominent idea, there the briefer form " in the name of Christ" appears. * Far from the formula " in the name of Christ " beinsf the oriccinal of which the Trinitarian fornmla is an enlargement, the fact that John came from God, j^i'eparing the way of Christ by preaching baptism of the Holy Ghost, and that Jesus Himself was baptized beneath the revelation of the Father and the Spirit, show that the commission which He re- ceived as "the Great Apostle" was the same that He gave the Twelve, to baptize into the name of Father, Son and Spirit. It may be also observed that the two cases mentioned in the Acts (viii. IG; xix. 5) of baptism in the name of Christ — the bap- tism of the Samaritans and the disciples of John — ^vere hasty and irregular; as if a forerunner of the later heretical formula found in the third century.'^ There is, then, not the least ground for finding a 1 Ilermas, Vis. iii. 7, 3; Bid. ix. 5. 2 ZOckler, Ziim Apostolikum, S. 13. Cf. Cyprian, Ep. Ixxiii. 18; Ixxiv. 5; Firrailian, Ep. ad C\fpr. vii; xi; and Swaiuson, Greek Liturgies, 1883. ' .3 41 I If. 320 ^Tif Xicene Christoloyij non- Trinitarian baptismal formula in tlie new Testa- ment, and there is no gap between the Apostles and the outspoken Trinitarian theologians where the origin of such a thing can l)o discovered. After most minute research into the literature of the first four centuries, Resell is convinced that in ante-Nicene Christendom, orthodox l)elievers, extra-Canonical Scriptures, litui-gical formulas, Patristic writers, heretics — whether Ebionites, Montanists, Gnostics, Monarchians, Priscillianists, or Manichseans — are perfectly unanimous in presupposing a Trinitarian confession of faith as the primitive form of belief in the Church. ILf says: "Not one of tlie numerous heretical tendencies of the primitive Church moved toward the Trinity; and yet we find (onoiuj almost all heretical tendencies^ 'Trinitarian l*{qftisnial for- mulas in use, formulas which are out of all connection with their peculiar heretical tendencies, and often in direct contradiction to them" (S. 425). Now the important point in all this for us is, that the Divine Christ is here found enthroned with the Father and the Spirit in the first expression of the con- fessional consciousness of the Church. Even within the New Testament itself the outlines of such a con- fession appear, crowning Him Lord of all. ^ The baptismal formula, when answered by the convert, formed naturally a rudimentary creed of three mem- bers. But with this arose also a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and acknowledgment of His work of redemption. We would thus have such articlcb as ( 1 ) I believe in Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and (2)1 * So llausleiter, Zakn, Lemme, and Ilarnack formerly. Cf. his article iu P. li. E. '^ I. S. 571; and Clemen. 1. c. ,1} ft ▼▼I the Mule of Faith and Dogma. \V1\ believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This second article grew much faster than the first, and simply collected bits of confesision about Christ already current in the Apostolic Church. Without going beyond the New Testament, we get a confession of faith in Christ, who suffered "under Pontius Pilate" (I Tim. vi. 1.')), who was dead, buried, risen on the third day, ascended into heaven, sitting at the right hand of God (Mk. xvi. 19) representing us, who will come again to judge the quick and the dead. * Clemen thinks it very likely that St. Paul already knew a two-membered creed which contained nearly all that is here said about Christ. Thus the confession of the Church was es- sentially: " I believe in the Trinity," and "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." Tt would be a short and easy step, next, whether the Creed were regarded as a rule in preaching (so Ilarnack), or for instruction of young converts, or for baptism, to make the con- fession of Christ thus enlarged simply the second member of the Trinitarian creed — and so the essentials of the so-called Apostles' Creed would have taken outline already among Apostolic converts. Caspari, the greatest authority on this subject, says: " The baptismal Symbol in its whole eoiitent>< goes back beyond all question to the Apostolic age." - In the Apostolic Fathers we tind this view con- firmed. Clement of Rome, in a most striking passage of the Greek conclusion of his Epistle recently recovered, writes in the name of the Church in Rome (Iviii. 2): '* As God liveth and as the Lord Jesus Christ liveth, 1 1 Pet. iii. 19; iv. 5; Eph. iv. 9; II Tim. iv. 1; Acts x. 42. 2 Qiielleu zur Gesch. d. Tauf symbols, 18G6, i. S. v.; also Ritschl, iJii(ste/aa)f/, S. 340; and Thoinasiiis, JJ.G. I. 152. m i m ut it is just these facts ■vvhicL trouble men who eliminate the supernatural irom Christianity. Professor Harnack thinks the ascension, the session of Christ at the right hand of God, and especially the term " only begotten Son," mf aning God Incarnate, must be expounded out of thif- Creed. {Das Aiyost.^. 20f.) Of this last he says that it meant, in the middle of the second century, only "the historic Christ and his earthly appearance." To regard the Son of God here as divine and preexistent is, he holds, to read post-Nicene ideas into this primitive creed. Now, notwithstanding Ilarnack's assertion that there is only a human Son of God in this confes- sion as understood by its framers, 1 am convinced that the weight of evidence lies in the opposite scale. For ( 1 ) first of all the New Testament applies the term novoyevT^i Oso? to Christ in the true reading of John i. 18, as elsewhere He is spoken of as Movoyevtjivioi (Johniii. 16) and preexistent. (2) Ignatius speaks in like man- ner of the nuvoyevrii Oeo? and of "Jesus Christ who was with the Father before the wovld was" {Mag. vi.). (3) It is true that the Apologists often speak of the Di- vine preexistent Christ as the Logos, and the Incarnate Christ as Son of God; but they ever leav-^h that both Mary." They also formed new Rules of Faitk; which uA the Church to be more careful as to the form of her Ru' « and to apply it more literally as a tc.^t in opposition to the ii kgorical teachings of the Gnostics. This anti-heretical use of the early Symbol naturally gave it an exact form, hut its fjonteits were the same as in the Apostolic days. Irenaeus (II. 0, 11) rays it was hell by the universal Church as "received from the Apos- tles and their disciples." As he knew disciples of the Apostles, his words should carry much weight. :.)\, 326 The Xicene ChrL^tology i' * '* ii)\i m terms belong equally to the Divine -Human Messiah. Harnack's argument is that because the Creed does not use both terms to describe Christ, He is, therefore, not what contemporary literature describes Him to be by both terms. Aristides, who wrote in Athens at the very time this Creed is supposed to have appeared in Rome (c. A. D. 145), says in his recently discovered Apology: "The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself Son of God on high, who was manifested of the Holy Ghost, came down from heaven, and was born of a Hebrew Virgin."^ Justin, who was familiar with the churches in both Asia Minor and Rome, at this same time, wrote " that Jesus Christ is the only proper Son, who has been begotten of God^ being His Logos and first-begotten."^ Other testimonies of the same sort could be given. (-4) But, without discuss- ing them, I may add the argument from the Creed itself. It believes in " God the Father "; it also be- lieves in " Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son." Har- nack tries to think that Father here is used only in a cosmical sense, as " Father of the AVorld "; but to hold that it does not mean above all, " Father of the Lord Tesus Christ," would be to take the ridiculous position that a Church of martyrs and confessors left out of their Creed a view of the Divine Fatherhood which is domi- nant in the New Testament Epistles and is a peculiar feature of the Gospels. ^ Of course the Ritschl school ^ Cf. Rendel Harris' Edition, in Texts and Studies, I. 1, Cara- bridge, 1891. p. 32. See also Seeberg, Der Apohget Aristides, Leipzig. 1894, pp. 26f. 2 Ap. I. 23; cf. also 21, 6, 6; Ap. II. 6; and passages collect- ed by Harnack in Apost. leathers, I. 2, p. 128f. 3 Matt. vii. 21 ;x. 32: xi. 27; xvi. 17; Luke xxii. 29; John v. 17; ■w 'T^ ■ the Hide of Faith and Jhxjma. 327 cannot let this earliest Creed, this untheological ex- pression of primitive faith, teach a Divine Christ; be- cause this Creed arose before Gnosticism and Hellen- ism appeared; and their fundamental principle is that xvi. 17; vi. 65, and often elsewhere. It is important to notice that the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God in His relation to Jesus, and through Ilim to those who receive power to become sons of God, is the very doctrine which recent scholarshij*, even of the liberal school (cf. Brousset, Jesu Fredif/t, 1892, S. 41f.; Wendt, Te'ichinr/ of Jesus, I. 184f.), regards as the most characteristic of all the teachings of Christ, and the most in contrast to the transcendental, Creator-Father conception of Judaism, Only the most positive proofs, therefore, to the contrary, can con- vince us that the post- Apostolic Church at once lost the most unique and striking doctrine that Jesus taught. It should be observed further, (1) that even if the Apologists freipiently speak of God as the Father of the Universe, as Jupiter might be spoken of, it would be wrong to argue from such Apologetic language, and from a minimum of Christian doctrine, that the Church teaching of the second century did not mean in its Creed that God was Father in the evangelical sense. (2) iarna)> * 4i He was pierced by the Jews: He died and was buried, The third day He rose again; He ascended Into Ivaven: He is about to come to judge." Athenagoras. his contemporary, describes a similar Creed. He says that Cliristiatis believed ia "God the Father and God the Son, and the Holy Spirit (x); they "held their power iu union and their distinction in onler." This rich plurality of personality in God he urged against the charge of Atheism (cf. xiii; xxiv); and not as a philosophical personitication but ns.the way of salvation. He says (xii.): " Christians areconducted to the future life by this one thing alone, that they know God and the Hide of Faith and Dogma. 829 Fathers, Irenaeus and Tertullian leading, present the same baptismal Confession, but with this important change of attitude: Irenaeus calls it the "Rule of Truth," which was held by all churches, and rested upon direct tradition from the Apostles through the elders and bishops; it was a summary of Scripture teachings, and therefore was a proof that heretical doctrines were both novel and unscriptural; * while Tertullian, under the influence of Roman and juristic thought, turned the Rule of Faith into an injunction against all heretics. He not only urged with Ii'enaeus that it was Apostolic in doctrine and had ever been held by the Church, but he maintained that it should be used both as an argument and as a legal club to smite down all heresy, without going beyond it to the Scriptures. Now this was an innovation, which the school of Ritschl regard too much as a step in the gi'ad- ual growth of doctrine.- It put a Church Confession and Church tradition in placeof theBible, and became the forerunner of Catholicism. The West followed this method very slowly, otherwise the death blow would have been given at once to all further theolog- ical development; but the East never adopted such a 1 Creed. 2r and er pow ility of [sm (cf. as. the ited to lod and His Logos, what is the oneness of the Son with the Father, what is the communion of the Father with the Son, what is the Spirit, what is the unity of these three, the Spi.it, the Son, the Father and their distinction in unity." Thcophilus (ii. 15) iirst used the word ''Trinity "; but offers no exphmation of it, regarding it as a familiar thought in the post-Apostolic Church. 1 Cf. I. 9, 4; III. 1, 2; 2, 2, and others collected by Ilar- nack, 1. c. p. 123f. -' Cf. Kunze, 3/(/?'c?^s^re/«;7«, Leipzig, ISO.'j, S. 185. Irenaeus knows uo such innovation. Cf. III. 1; IV. 35,4. 0^ W; 11 ii'' ■ ] ■V' 1 l- s ' ^h nii 330 77k? jViceyie Christohnjy principle in the discussion of doctrine. All tlie Church, both East and West, held a simple baptismal Confes- sion from the earliest days; ^ but the Greek Church never claimed that it was the Apostles' Creed, - neither was Apostolic authority appealed toby the Eastern theologians, apart from their written teach- ings, in theological debate. The appeal of these men is to the Scrijitures and not to creeds. They defended the traditional Rule of Faith, as we see in the case of Origen ( De Prin. Preface, and c. I.), their most spec- ulative theologian, for they regarded it as orthodox and ever preached in the Church; but their final court of appeal was always the Holy Scriptures. Cyril of Jerusalem, who lectured on an ante-Nicene Creed, writes at the outset of his course: "As the faith to be learned and known, take what is delivered to thee by the Church and is established by all Scriptures" (v. 12). He says: "The Articles of Faith were not com- posed at the good pleasure of men ; but suitable })or- tions were collected from all the Scriptures, and make the one Doctrine of Faith." The same is true of Athanasius and Clement of Alexandria, who never fly to the " short cut" of Tertullian in dealing with here- tics; but refute them by reasoning out of the Script- ures. In o[)position to Harnack, who doubted if there were a baptismal Confession in the Alexandrian Church in the time of Clement, Caspari not only ^ See Irenaeus, I. 10, 2, who was an Eastern man, also Justin, who was familiar with both East and West. Cf. Oehler. Lchr- buchder SymboUk. 2 Ed. Stuttgart. 1891. S. 45; also Caspari, ii. 96, 108. 2 It was quite otherwise in the West, where TertuUian's view of the Rule of Faith grew stronger, till Rulinus tells the story of the Apostolic authorship of the Creed. v:\¥'- the Rah of Faith and Dogma. \VM shows* the existence of such a Confession, but points out further that every convert regarded it as a cove- nant with God, in wliich l)y confessing Christ he also professed to accept a summary of the teachings of the Scriptures. Thus, instead of following Ilarnack and Kattenbusch,- to regard the " Roman Symbol," and Tertullian's Roman-legal application of it as norma- tive for later doctrinal development, we must defend the essentially Protestant position taken by the Greek theologians and the Greek l)aptismal practice, in ever refusing to test belief by a traditional creed only, and demanding proof of orthodoxy from the Scriptures, These observations will help us to see how far the baptismal Creed of the Churches was affected by op- position to heresy or by the Alexandrian speculative theology, and how far philosophy thrust a metaphysi- cal Christ into it, thereby opening a way for the Ni- cene Dogma. We have seen that Irenaeus made the Rule of Faith a test of sound doctrine; that was his step forward. Tertullian then made it a legal in- junction; but his innovation lies to one side of the de- veloj^ment of Creed life. The Eastern theology con- tinued in the line of Irenaeus, and the new advance made here in respect to the ba])tismal confessions, es- pecially of their Christological center, was in the di- rection of theological e.vpotirit, having His subsistence from God and being made manifest by the Son the Holy Fount. . . .in whom is manifested God the Father .... and God the Son. There is a perfect Trinity in glory and eternity." He says "there is nothing either created or servile in the Trinity" (Schaff 1. c). Here is all that Athanasius and the Cappadocians contended for — one Goetter than translate parts of this Epistle and let these Fathers of Jerusa- lem spt'ak al)out Christ for themselves.' After saying what they believed about God the Father, they pro- ceed: "And we confess and preach, as we are taught in ])oth the Old and New Testaments, that [Jesus Christ] is the begotten Son, only begotten, being im- age of the invisible God, first born of all creation (Col. i. 15), Wisdom and Word and Power of God (I Cor. i. 24), being before all worlds, not God ac- cordinjT: to foreknowledije, but in Beincf and in Person (^ovGiaxdi vno6zd6Ei)^ God, Sou of God. And wllOSO- ever objects to the Son of God, and does not believe and confess that He was God before the foundation of the world (cf. Eph. i. 4), saying that it is to pro- claim two Gods to preach that the Son of God is God, such an one we consider an alien to the Church Canon;- and all the Catholic churches agree with us." Then these good bishops add a page of quotations from the Scriptures in support of their doctrine;^ and continue: "This Son, who was always with the Father, we believe to have fulfilled His Father's will in the creation of all things. For, ' He commanded 1 See the original text in Routh, 1. c, III. 200. 2 That is, the Rule of Faith. Cf. Caspari, Ztft. f. K. W. u. k. Zieben, 1. c. 8 Such as Ps. xlv. 6; Is. xxxv. 4, 6, 14; and Rom. ix. 5. il i 3.'5<; 77/^ Nicene Clivh' ^\ ]' n\ fl !* ii; for the Apostolic doctrines Christians were ready to die. It was this devotion to primitive teachings, how- ever, that forced these Fathers into theological discus- sion ; for they could not surrender Bible truth ; but they did believ^e it capable of development and rela- tivity to all other truths; hence cheir constant readi- ness to enlarge their articles of faith to show that all knowledge could have a connection with the fullness of the Godhead in Christ. There is no doubt, as we saw in the theology of the early Alexandrian school, but that in the first attempts to relate Christianity to phi- losophy and faith to knowledge, Christ and His work were not always kept in their absolutely central and exclusive place; but it is also to be rememl)ered that wht:n we pass to the Nicene teachers we meet at once a criticism, a correction and a limitation of the theol- ogy of Origen. Harnack uses the very suggestive word " reduction "to describe the limitations which Atliunasius set to discussions about Christ, and his successful effort to put the Consubstantial Christ upon the thronv* as Saviour of sinners rather than as Kuler of the Universe. We now come to the Council of Nicaea and are prepared to see what is meant by the statement that the growing Christology of the Confessions of Faith received here the stamp of Dogma. This first general Council was cer^^ainly epoch-making. It was called l)y the Emperor; it spoke for many lands; its Creed was authoritative; and what it declared true, Constan- upon a perverse interpretation of tliose passages of Scripture, wliich concerned the state of Christ's humiliation, and upon an impious antipathy to those which prove Ilia Divinity and equal- ity with the Father." 1 ^ V. "■■■ the Mule of Faith and Dogma. 339 . are that [Faith eral lied ICreed iistan- ja [ipture, l)on an equal- tine was ready to enforce with civil penalties. But these changed relations did not mould the decisions of the Nicene theologians. Men of all creeds and of ro creed are now about unanimous in the belief that Athanasius Vvas right and Arius was wrong in claim- ing to speak for historical Chrii^tianity. * We saw that Origen had brought Christology to the phice of Homoousian Hypostasianism, but with the element of Subordination connected w^ith it. Now Arianism, as Pfleiderer says, ^ in leading Christianity back into pa- ganism and Judaism^ by deifying a creature, thus abol- ishing the unity of God, and by making the union of man and God impossible through the intrusion of a third being who is neither God nor man, brouglit the Nicene Fatners with practical unanimity to see that ^ Cf. the opinions of Matthew Arnold, Carlyle, Renan and others, in Gore, Barapton Lectures, p. 100, and Stanley, Christ. Institutions, London, 1882, p. 273. Professor J. H. Allen, a Unitarian, says (Unitariati lieview, Sept. 1887) the doctrine of the Trinity was not a mere "corruption " of Chris- tianity, "but a development out of conditijns and demands of the soul fundamentally religious." Athanasius, we are told, was nearer modern theology than Arius with his pagan logic. Unitarians, Allen adds, must make great concessions, because they now see God in humanity in a way very much as Athan- asius saw God in Christ. Pfleiderer takes the same view (1. c. IL 284f.). John Stuart Mill says (in Stanley, I.e.): "It is the God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or of Nature, who being idealized, has taken so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind." 2 1. c. IL 282; cf. Ilarnack, 11. 218. 3 This was also the criticism of Athanasius, and Eusebin^, who {Demonstrat. Eimtigel., in (rallandi's Bibliotheca Patrum, Venice, 1788, IV. p. 404) declared that true "Christianity is neither Hellenism nor Judaism." m 11 r". t;^'. Ik mt ■ 340 The Nicene Christology Christ as Divine Redeemer must be fully equal with God; for none but God could give the perfect Revelation of Jehovah which Jesus brought. * Alex- ander of Alexandria said of Christ: "In this alone is He inferior to the Father, that he is not un- bejyotten."^ Athanasius also admitted the subordi- nation of the Son, but only in His humanity, only in His voluntary self -emptying of Himself; in respect of His Divinity He is consubstantial with the Father, equal in power and glory. The Council of Nicjiea ex- pressed this doctrine by the terms fwvoyEvr)?, rovrd^rtv hi TT/i ov6ia? Tov IJarpo?, Oeoi ek Qeov, 6/.ioov6ioi rep narpi; and summed uj) His work in Creation, Incarnation, and 1 Gwatkin gives the following striking criticism of Arianisni {I. c. p. 264): It "was an illogical coraproniise. It went too far for heathenism, not far enough for Christianity. It con- ceded Christian worship to the Lord, though it made him no better than a heathen demigod. As a scheme of Christianity it was overmatched at every point by the Nicene doctrine; as a concession to heathenism it was outbid by the growing worship of saints and relics. Debasing as was the error of turning saints into demigods, it seems to have shocked Christian feel- ing less than tiie Avian audacity which degraded the Lord of Saints to the level of His creatures." He says Arianism failed especially Ijccause of the incurable badness of its method. Its doctrine was "on one side a mass of presumptuous theorizing, supported by altornata scraps of obsolete traditionalism and un- critical text-mongering; on the other, it was a lifeless system of uuspiritual pride and hard unlovingness." Opposed to all this was Athanasius whose work was "a faithful search for truth" from all sources — Nature, Bible, Man, Philosophy. " In breadth of view as well as grasp of doctrine he is beyond com- parison with the rabble of controversialists who cursed or still invoke his name" (p. 266). '^ In the Epistle named above. He quotes Ileb. i. 3 for his authority, as well as other passages. the liule of Faith and Dogma. 341 un- 111 of this ith" "In 3om- still his Redemption, tlirongli suffering, resurrection, ascension, and coming again to judge the world. Now the first impression which one receives on reading this brief Creed is that it is simply the primi- tive Rule of Faith with two or three theolocfical terms introduced to shut out Arianism. The words, " God of God Light of Light," remind us of Origen and Gregory Thauniaturgus; but only in the terms, "of the substance of the Father" and " consubstantial," do we meet the language of philosophy;' and these Athanasius defended'^ on the ground that the Church was flgliting a frivolous speculation in Arianism, and must employ the language of dialectics to do so.' It was a battle for life and death to save Christianity ^ Newman says {^Grammar of Assent, p. 138, in Fisher's History of Chr. Doctrine, New York, 189C, p. 32) that the use of the term " consubstautial " by the Nicene Council is " the one instance of a scientific word having been introduced into the Creed from that day to this." A third plirase, " begotten not made," was questioned by Eusebius of Ciesarea, in addition to the two already referred to; hence we may regard these three terms, "substance," "consubstautial," and "l)egotten," as the theological words introduced at Nicjca into the Creed of Ciesarea, to make it a defense against Arianism. The Creed of Caisarea, which was thus given a dogmatic stamp at Nicasa, had been long in use and went far back into the third century. Its venerable character, its orthodoxy, and the great learning of Eusebius, bishop of Caisarea who offered it, led the Fathers to take it as the basis of their Confession of Faith. - De Synod. Ar. xlvi; cf. TerluUia.;, Adr. Piitx. vii. 8 We may notice, also, that Aphrahat, who was born A. D, 280, and wrote in Persia, far from Greek j»hilosophic intluences, calls Jesus "our Lord, God, Son of God . . , , Light of Light," etc. Cf. German translation of his Homilies, by Bert. Leipzig, 1888, S, 280. I ;; -1 1 111 Ik i.!t| ri;| ' 1;' m: 342 7'Ae iV«ce?ie Christolo(j>/ from polytheism, from worship of a creature; it was also a fight to save even Theism, for if the creature Ciiiist of Arius were adored, Christianity would sink 1)elowthe level of even educated heathen- ism, which believed in one Supreme Being. The burning focus of this whole controversy and of all historical criticism of it is the Incarnation of Christ. If that be accepted all questions about Hellenism in thought or language are easily answered. If Jesus is God in the flesh, then all the antithe&es which the school of Ritschl set forth between the cosmological and soteriological Christ dissolve into happy har- mony. Kaftan frankly admits that Christianity so tran:-formed the philosophical elements which it ab- sorbed that it reached dogmatically the true Bible position " that the lather created the world through the Son." ^ The Nicene Fathers did not know that 1 Ztft.f. Theol u. Kirche, 1893, 11. 6, S. 442. He says the history of doctrine is "a progressive elimination and trans- formation of the original philosophical elements in a Christian sense"; and " a glance at the development of the doctriu'is of the Trinity and Christology shows this." Cosmological specu- lations were more and more left out. Overbeck, a radit.-al critic, takes the same position (cf. Ueber die Chrintiichkeit tniserer hexitUjen Theologcn, Leipzig, 1873, S. 7). He shows that from Origen on, knowledge in religion was more and more pushed back by faith, in the teachings of the Church, seeking the true balance of both. This re'^ult, he says, was not a mix- ing of heterogeneous elements, as the followers of Ritschl con- tend. In this view Sohm, a conservative theologian, heartily con- curs. He says (S 39) of post-Nicene controversy: "The fundamental direction of the Church faith moved on unconfused by Greek rejection," for "the divinity of Christ had from the beginning constituted the faith and hope of the Church." At the Rule of Faith and Dol ' ' 344 77*6 JVicene Christology gospel and believed on in the Church. In I'eaching these conclusions it was taken for granted that the mind of the Church found in them the fullest expres- sion. There were bishops present at Niciea from Egypt, Asia Minor, Palestine, Pannonia, North Africa, Italy and Spain, besides over a thousand pres- byters, deacons and private Christians.^ Athanasius and other leaders ever appealed to the consciousness of the Church ; and professed in their Creed to teach nothing l>ut what had ever been held by Christians. Arianisni, as all other heresy, was fought as an inno- vation. Hence the statement of Hatch that the Coun- cil of Nictiea led the w^ay in deciding what was Chris- tian docti'ine " l)y the majority at a meeting " of " Church officers assembled under certain conditions," (p. 331) is misleading.- ■''Athanasius contra man- dum'''' for forty years refused to regard majority votis of synods as the voice of God. After half a century of discussion the Nicene theology was reaffirmed at Constantinople (381), and in the next century at Chalcedon. These decisions were practically unani- mous, for they said just ^vhat "the Great Church"^ 1 Of. Ilefele, Councils, Engl. Tr. I. 2V0f 2 Elaborate doctrines about the Divine Christ w^re not the .esult of great councils. In fact it was the various churches all through the East tliat unanimously formulated statements against false teachings as they arose. The "■old oriental baptis- mal confessions contain without any exception anti-heretical ad- ditions " (Caspari, iii. 3f.). At Nictva, Constantinople and (Chalcedon only a minimum, and that rather negatively and de- fensively, was expressed of the theology set forth in much greater fullness in baptismal creeds and pulpit teachings. 3 So Celsus termed it. Cf. Origen, Cont. Ceistmi, v. 59; and Keim, Celsus' Wahres Worf, Zurich, 1873, S. 222. the Rule of Faith and Dogma. 345 , " 11 Inot the Inirchcs tenieiits |l)ai)tis- lical ad- )le and ind de- much V. 59; had always thought. There was " a corporate con- sciousness "^ expressed in Ignatius as well as in Atlianasius, in Irenaeus as well as in Gregory of Nyssa, which was ever true to the Divine Redeemer. It x.as this corporate consciousness that rejected Gnos- ticism, Ebionitism, Monarchianisra, Arianism. It was this Spirit of Christ in the Church, which Ilar- nack and his school quite ignore, that produced the calm, serene, well-balanced teachings of the Nicene Creed in an age of discord and excitement. " I know that this Creed closes with "anathema" aerainst those v/ho denied the Eternal Christ or who said He Avas of " another hypostasis or of another substance (than the Father)," or that He was mutable; Init I also know that the second great Council, or the Creed called after it, omitted the anathemas; and if this liad not been done, those Fathers could appeal to New Testament authority for such strong condemnation of opponents of the Divine Christ. The only anathema that Paul knew was that of separation from Christ and His gospel.^ And what is true of this matter is true of the whole contents of the Creed. It lias l)een bitterly assailed, and the theology which led u}) to it and grew out of it, as a corruption of primitive Chris- tianity by Greek philosophy. But 1 have not yet met 1 As Saiiday well styles it, in Gore, 1. c. p. 3. 2 It is worthy of mention that Eusebius, the great historian of the Nicene Age, who lived tlirongh its controversies, in his Preparatio, his Demonst. Evangel. , and elsewhere, especially dwells upon the circle of thought which we call " God in His- tory." Cf. Lightfoot's article on Eusebius, in Diet, of ChriM. Bioostolic origin, while his first is from Paul who never had a " personal impression " of Christ as the first eye-witnesses had, and whose theology is suj)posed by Harnack himself to be colored by llabbinism, if not also by Hellenism! 2 Ztft. f. Th. u. Jurchc, 1803, II. 6, S. 4G4. Ilarnack in- sists more than ever in the tliird edition of his "History of w w ! i \\- III 350 77ie Nicene Chridology with eyes of evangelical faith and not with eyes of dogma. Here is a further attempt to e«ca[)e from the doctrine of the Divine Christ by giving Him only the religious value of God. In order to do so, both Bible facts and Bible doctrines must be rejected from the contents of faith; and of course this process of cleav- ing the Bible asunder is everywhere pursued in the Dograa " upon the decisiveness of the words " on the soil of the gospel " as part of his definition of dogma as "a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel " (English translation, 1895, I. ]». 21). He says "the foolishness of ide'uifying dogma and Greek philosophy never entered my mind; on the contrary, the peculiarity of ecclesiastical dogma seemed to me to lie in the fact, that, on the one hand, it gave expression to Christian Monotheism and the central significance of the Person of Christ, and oi^ the other hand, comi)rehended this religious faith and the historical knowledge connected with it in a jihilo- sophic system." Little objection can be made to this state- ment; and none to the remark which follows, that " Christian- ity without dogma, that is, without a clear expression of its content, is inconceivable." What he objects to is "the un- changeable ])ermanent significance of that dogma which has once been formed under deiinite historical conditions " (p. 23). That is, his ' * criticism refers not to the general genus dogma, but to the species, viz., the defined dogma, as it was formed on the soil of the ancient world." The only question then is: Does the Nicene theology truly represent the contents of Chris- tianity so far as it goes? Elsewhere, however, Ilarnack for- gets this recognition of true dogma, and says: "The Reforma- tion, that is the conception of evangelical faith abolishes dogma" (III. 58(5). lie here identities all dogma with that of Nicjea and, as Kriiger HAyn {Dof/menf/esckichte, S. 13), "shriv- els up his genus into a species " to get rid of dogma altogether. Here again the des})erate attempt to keep belief and knowledge apart tangles up the critic, as it does every man who tries to carry out Ritschl's inconsistent theory of knowledge. m. logy the Hale of Faith (Did Dogma. 351 es of 1 the y *^i® Bible n the jleav- n the ^ries to history of doctrine. Here we land in great confusion, although tlio school of Uitschl have written thousands ci" pages to ex[)huu how a man can believe in Christ without making his faith rest on the Bible, or history, or theology, or creed.' Everything human, we are told, must be stripped off to get genuine Christianity. 1 It is sins^ular that as lonu: as Uitst'hl lived (till 1889) his school stoutly (jt)v'iif/es- chichfe, in JV. Kirchl. Ztft. 1890, II. 11), that man must think over and mako his own new impressions I'eceived from others, 111 order that they become real to him and his own free, mental posses ion. And unless strong impressions made upon men take shape in defir ite conceptions and motives, they disappear and lose their ])Ower. Hence creeds meet a natural and spiritual need of the Church. They are the mind, expressing in .X Hay to make permanent and portable, the sweet experiences of Lilt gospel, which unless put in terms of the intellect could not be transmitted for edification and defence to the generation following. To take the contrary view, which seems to be that of many Ritschlians, is to reject any true growth of Christian doctrine, and to make Christianity an absurdity in a wovld of legitimate development. 2 Cf. Bois, Le Dof/me Gvc, Paris, 1803, j). to. He says, in putting what is most important in character first in time, the Ritschl men fall into the very error which they charge upon the primitive Church, of making the exaltation of .lesus lead on to Ilis preexistence. But F. Luthe.- {Aiif Auktoritat iind Erfaliriaxj f/ef/ri'didete (jllanbensijeifisshcit^ in N. Kirchl. Ztft., 1895, II. 2) finds the difference still further back. He says the question is not whether we assent to truth or trust in Christ first; but rather "in tlie act oi faith does assent, does the thoroughly as.*urel:ice, iiuily ord- ady ript- liavo 'ject- (ling liis- 1894, u-ts," uiwite 1 1 be- iaith. , i,o- liich |ity to ■Me, choice can be made. We must know who and wliat Jesus is 1)efore we can trust Him; then, after we know Him hoth liistorically and in our exj)erience and in the experience of the Church, we can take the fur- ther step of formuhiting this knowh-dge in terms of the S. 15), that the facts and teachings of (.'hrist's life arc cssontially iuitouch(!d by criticism. "I cannot find," he says, "that his- toric criticism lias changed aught in these tilings. 'I'he same is true of Christ's witness to Himself. If liistoric investiija- tioii had jtroveu that he was an Apocalyptical fanatic cr dreamer, whose word and image must be lifted to the level of pure inlciilions l>y the idealiziiigs of the generations that fol- lowed, then all would be very ditfereut. But who has proven that, or who can jirove it? Besides the four written (Gospels, we have a fifth, unwritten, and it speaks in many respects more clearly and more inijiressively than the other four — I mean the total testimony of the jjrimitive Christian Church." He con- tinues: "The plain liible reader should go on reading the (tosjjcIs as he has always done; for the critic himself can at last read them in no other way." In all this he tinds, liow- cver, that " the spiritu.il contents of a whole life, of a Person, is the one historic fact "' of the New Testament history for us. Now with all I Farnack's flourish about "accidental truths of history " upon which " we cannot build houses, not to speak of all eternity," we are still left face to face with this alterna- tive: (1) either the great facts of Christ's life and doctrine are historically and morally certain, and we can build upon the Christ revealed by them — here Ritschl men and orthodox all agree; or (2) they are individually uncertain, unable to staml before criticism — as llitschl men largely hold in particular cases, and fully demand in theory: and tiien, with the elements out of which the historic Christ is composed all made un- certain, there is not enough of a rtdl Christ left to iinprct's the thinking and inijuiriiig mind permanently. It cannot be too often repeated that, though the school of Ritschl bases all Christianity upon the revelation of God \n Christ, this revelation is interpreted by two means, (1) th« II 358 Tlic Sicene Chvlntoloij ij intellect, as was done at Nicaca. Kaftan has finally come to see that " ever and always faith is at the same time knowledge" {Ztft.f. Tli. u, Kirche, 1891,H. G; and 1893, H. G); but if this be so, then, as a French critic urges, we are back once more " on the founda- tion common to all systematic theologians, common Werthurtheil, and (2) the Church, which include reasoning in a circle and land us iu pure sul>jcctivity. We have revelation in C'hrist, but that revelation teaches in the Keo-Kantian view nothing biit how man is to rise superior to the world; and that is a merely ethical truth such as the Stoics had without any such revelation. It is plain, then, that we have to do here with notliing but speculative concepts which have no necessary reference to historic Christianity. (1) The Werthurtheil de- cides what helps to victory over the world and what not; that is, what is revelation and what not. But this is a mere private judgment, and lands in mereoj)inion and a chaos of subjectivity. To avoid this danger, Ritschl brings in (2) the Church, to help his Werthurtheil. Herrmann says (criticism of Lipsius iu Studien n. Kritiken, \%11, H. 3): " Revelation for the indi- vidual as such there is not. That we call not I'evelation but hallucination." Revelation must be tested also "from the point of view of the Christian congregation" [11. ^^ V. iii. 0). Btit, as Pfennigsdorf convincingly shows ( Ver/jleich der dorpwit. ^ysteme von iJpsius u. liitscld. A prize essay, Gotha, 1300, S. IGO): "This can afford no \\e\\), for it really does not exist and is nothing but an unconscious projection of his own per- sonal Werthurtheil.^^ The Ritschl theologians always iind the consciousness of the churches about them to reflect their own Neo-Kantian Moralism; hence this supposed check on our sub- jectivity is no check. It is a cirrulus ritiosus, in which Ritschl goes from his own judgment of value to the supposed judgment of value of the congregation, and then back to his own judgment of value again, without finding any certainty and confidence. Here is an unbridged chasm, which, Pfennigs- dorf says, makes this theology on one side "material Rational- ism " and, on the other, " formal Positivism." the It ale of Faith and Doijhia. 359 ir own |lu' sub- Avhich kpposed to his [rtainty lenuigs- itioiial- to all the orthodox, who set out from the idea that the gospel addresses itself first of all to the niiud, the gospel is first of all truth."' To take the con- trary position, putting an impression of Clirist first, bases religion upon feelings, and unless feelings have a doctrinal element in them they cannot l^e religious. It is this preexistent belief, inseparai)le from feeling, that demands logical treatment, and such logical treat- ment leads necessarily to a system of doctrine. Only as religious impressions with the reasons for them are thus formulated, is growth in faith possible; and a history of doctrine possible. Hence in the life of the Church, the experience and gospel of the first preachers became the theology and creeds of the third and fourth generations. This was not a matter of learned industry, or hierarchical tendency, or intention of in- dividuals, but the result of a felt need. The Nicene Creed was no political product of calculating meta- physicians; but a legitimate growth of Christian thought expressing itself for self-protection and progress.- 1 Astic', in Bois, 1. c. p. 26. 2 Wo refuse to aufcpt the alternative of hokling all the ancient theology or ntni;. We will hold of the transmitted doctrine only what is truly Christian, the great essentials; and, in order the bettor to appreciate these great truths which are part of our heritage, we wish to keep alMo'Mvhat is best capable of making us comprehend those essciilials " (Bois, p. 299). Greek thought is the casket in which the jewels of truth have been borne to us. It is folly to be such Tiojans an would forever cry: "7V/«co Ikiuaos ct do/infcrentes.'''' Vet it is that folly which men like Hatch commit, when, under the name of Hellenism, they reject those rational elements, which make us best comprehend intellectually the very fundamentals I 360 The Nicene Clu'UtoIogij w %■ m : my ,14- If^ It assumed this dogmatic form (1) because the humau miud in all its processes moves toward short, sharp, clear formulations. Man must reason on re- ligion as on all else, and will sum up his conclusions for his own satisfaction. Hence, after three hundred of Christianity. Without these fundamental doctrines, Bois observes, Christianity would evaporate like some subtle licjuid, when the vase containing it is broken. But the Kitsclil theologians oppose any authoritative statement, even of truth itself, llarnack says the great mistake in the relation of theology and creed in the early Church was (I '- lOf.), that their places were transposed. Dogma was made the basis, not the re- sult of theology. By that he means tliat when once a doctrine was decided to be true, it became a test in theological discussion of other opinions seeking recognition as Church doctrines. Now, within proper limits, surely that is a true method of procedure. Every scientitic man makes ascertained results, tests of further experiments and hypotheses; for, as all truth must be consistent, the supposedly true may bo tried by the admittedly true. Only the assumption that all fixed doctrines are wrong, will justify an objection to testing theological novelties by well-known Christian principles. In opposition to Gnosticism, IMonarchianism and Arianism, it was surely legitimate for Irunaeus, Tertullian, Origen and Athanasius to appeal to the Rule of Faith, to the long-proven, accepted and recognized doctrines of one God and the Divine Christ. " The doctrinal statements embodied in the Creed were not so many formula' devised first by the ecclesiastical authority, and then imposed upon the members of the Church. They were things which were first in the consciousness of the Christian people, and then in the Creeds " (Sanday 1. c). (1) In reply to the claim that Nicene theology is an unfolding of the gospel, Ilar- nack urges that the original gospel had nothing to do with creation and cosmology and Christology. But such a position simi»ly i»icks out a few words of Jesus about God being Father, repentance being the way to forgiveness, and the Kingdom of God being for the humble in heart. It utterly ignores Christ's the Rule of Faith and Dogma. 861 years of thought, the Nicene Creed of one hundred and forty words of statement. (2) To meet the world of Greek tliinight an intellectual creed was necessary. This is admitted by men of all schools; the school of Ritschl call it a his- torical necessity; we prefer to say it was necessary because man is a rational beiuir. What was called ilole was looked upon as the proof of orthodoxy;^ hence a mininuim of doctrine was put in the Creed as an outline of fun(himentals, within which the full teachings of the Scriptures might be fully jjlaced. It did not, as Ilarnack inti- mates, take one product of Hellenism — the Divine Christ — and exclude the rest to prevent "the complete Hellenization or secularization of Christianity." ^ It just the peculiarity of all Christian thinkers now, save a few Positivists of the school of Ritschl. (3) The so-calleil " Hellenization" of Christianity is so much a part of legitimate', rational evolution of the gos})el, and so colored by necessary processes of thought that no man can describe or detect sup- posed aberrations. That this secularization cannot be traced or its evolution followed is admitted. The causes are named but the evidence is "scanty in regard to the process of change" (Hatch, p. 5); it is "singularly imperfect" (p. V); it is "r«ot only im- perfect, but also insufficient in relation to the effects that were produced." Yet in spite of these frank and full admissions, the conclusion that our early theology is chiefly i)agan phi- losophy is confidently held. Harnack occupies similar ground. He says the " History of Doctrine "is " one of the most compli- cated of historical developments" (Preface); and he makes it more complicated than is necessaiy by mixing into it all heathen life, thought and superstition, that out of such troubled waters he may fish just the kind of Hellenistic results for which his hook was baited. 1 Cf. Kunze, Marcus Eremita, S. 184. 8 The whole current of this ne^ tendency runs away from a 11 -ii' the Rule of FaHli and Dmjma, nor; simply selected the heart of the gospel, the Divine Redeemer, and covered that with n theological shiehl; l)iit left the great number of other Christian doctrines to be defended by the practical life of the Church. (4) And this Creed expressed the fundamentals of Christian doctrine as a test of orthodoxy. This is the point that attracts most attention and opposition. The position is first taken ; that the Christology of th(? Ci'ced is not that of the primitive Church; and second if it is, it is not stated so as to satisfy the Christian con- sciousness of the nineteenth century. Why, we are in- full theology, authoritative doctrines, and above all, the Divine Christ, as real both to the mind and to the heart. Hence, (1) Ilarnack says Ztft. f. Th. u. Alrc/ie 1891, II. 2) that all religious history shows a development toward nicikiiif/ rtl!(ii(»> e(i.-!i/ by a readjustment of its own principles. This is usually done, he adds, by " blunting the practical demands of religion through the construction of theories of dogmatics " (S. 89). That is, when men get tired living the gospel they take refuge in writ- ing theology, and put an intellectual assent to certain doctrines in ])lace of repentance, faith, and good deeds. But such reason- ing is only the old talk about theory and })ractice. Of course it is easier to understand a doctrine than it is to embody it in ac- tion. But that is no reason why Christians should not study and set forth all the words of eternal life. Prof. Ilarnack's own si)irituality would doubtless be ly recognized once for all the changeless laws of aesthetic proportion. There 1 Cf. p. 332; also Loofs, IJ. E. BL, S. 189. 2 Cf. Nerrlitu, Das Dognut vom klasaisch. Alterthiim. Leipzig, 1894. a Verkehr, S. 195. 372 The Nicene Cltristologtj is no reason why Greek theology should not have rec- ognized, once for all, the changeless truth about the Divine Christ.* Kaftan says the new dogma must spring from an * It was part of God's plan that Christianity arose in Judaism, but spread in a world of Greek thought. It was part of His plan that the Renaissance of Greek thought led back both to Hellenic studies and primitive Christianity, thus bringing in the Kefonnation. Plato helped Luther to set aside the Papal Middle Ages and get back to Paul and the i»ure gospel. The right of private judgment came from Greece; as the doctrine of justification by faith came from the gospel. Hence Renouvier says (in Bois, p. 145): "Classical history is a part of modern history; it is the history of the Middle Ages alone that is ancient." This is just as true of the history of thought. Hence the objection, that Christian doctrine must be recast because of the culture of our day, is groundless, for there is no element in our thinking that was not known in ante-Nicene days; " to study Greek philosophy is to study contemporary philosophy" (p. 108). Bois adds that to be urged "to reconstruct dogmas with the help of current philosophy, is simply to urge us to re- construct them with the help of Greek philosophy; to urge us to construct Greek dogmas." Hence the Nicene theology must be discussed on its merits, regardless of when it was formulated. What was false then is false now; and what was true then is true now. The question is not, is it Greek, or German or English? but is it true? Bois (p. 290) quotes Raub saying: "None of the Empiricists pretend to answer the question as to the value of beliefs by a genetic study of these beliefs;" he adds: "And none of the Positivist opponents of Greek the- ology do anything else for theology." Before denouncing Nicene theology as Hellenism, it should be shown, (1) what doctrines in it cainiot be legitimately deduced from the teachings of Christ and the Apostles; (2) or that, Hellenism had crept into the words of Jesus Himself and the preaching of the Apostles. No critic attempts to answer the first; Pfleiderer replies to the second, that Paul was largely the Rale of Faith and Dogma. 373 experience of faith ; we may well inquire how long it will be before the experience of modern theologians will rise higher than that of men like Athanasius and give us the true dogma of Jesu8 Christ. Herrmann and many others of his school declare Ilellenizcd. Hatch passes the whole problem by. Then Bois* remarks: "We would like to know how he would answer these questions: Just at what point did the theology of St. Paul cease to be original? and, Are there any ideas whatever in the Nicene Symbol which cannot be carried back to St. Paul?" Uitschl {Unterricht, 36), Wcndt(l. c. II. 520), and B.aldensperger (1. c. 153f. ) all agree that what the Apostles preached was in full accord with the facts of Christ's life and teachings. This is especially true of His redemptive death. Hatch does not try to answer tiie questions asked by Bois, and by every careful reader of his writings, yet he closes his lectures by saying that "the point of most importance" in his book is that his investigations show it to be impossible to hold the Nicene theology to be "part of the original revelation — a theology divinely communicated to the Apostles by Jesus Christ Himself " (p. 332). This avoidance of comparison with Jesus and the Apostles is a j)rime defect in the Kitschl account of early Christian doctrine. Schcrer remarks that the theory that Hellenism " had part in the origin of the Christian religion is a mere assertion for which not a shadow of proof is offered." Kriiger quotes this statement (p. 79), and then goes on to show that the position of Harnack, Hatch and others, who cut off the history of early doctrine from its roots in the person anil teach- ings of Jesus and the Apostles, means that we " lose connection with New Testament theology, especially that of Paul; that we get a false view of the post-Apostolic Jige as a great "fall" from primitive Christianity; that we ignore the difference be- tween the times and the people who heard the preaching of the Jewish Apostles and the Gentiles who later received the gospel; and that we look entirely upon the dark side instead of upon the positive helpfulness of ancient thought and culture " (Kriiger, Was heisst D. G. S. 53.). 374 The Nicene Chrlstohnjy the only fundamental article of faith is: "I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God." That, then, is the new dogma. But that is simply a reduction of the old dogma of Nicrea. The ancient Creed teaches that Christ is both really and religiously Divine Son of God ; the modern Creed affirms that He has only the religious value of God. Harnack, however, objects to the contents of the Nicene theology. Two things especially he finds defective in it; first that it omits what he calls "the highest concepts, those of the moral good and blessedness, from the system," and second that it presents a perfect caricature of the historic Christ." We have noticed in a previous lecture the first of these, the imperfect view of salva- tion and its relation to ethics in the Nicene Church ; but it should be added that the whole doctrine of the atonement and Christian life is left outside the ancient Creed.* It defends the Divinity of Christ and leaves all men free in their views about His gospel. As to * This ehould be borne in mind by those who rail against dogma. The Church has no dogma of the Atonement. Tli3 great doctrine of "Justification and Reconciliation," which Ritschl makes the center and sum of Christian teaching, is left perfectly free by all the ancient creeds. On the other hand, what the ancient Symbols teach was accepted by the Reformers, not as Dogma but as Confession, and as based upon the Script- ures and Christian experience. Gore (Bampton Lectures p. 113f.) urges three other con- siderations respecting the early creeds: (1) their attitude was negative rather than positive, to defend essentials; (2) their framers felt driven by necessity and in order to save Christian belief from deadly error, to put their faith in terms of theology; and (3) the appeal and temper of the creed-makers were always less intellectual than those of the heretics, though the results were deeper and more rational. the Hale of Faith and Doijma. 375 rainst vhich 8 left and, lers, ript- icou- was their stian rays suits the second ol)jection, it may be cnougli to ask, If the Christ of Nictea is a caricature, how can the Christ of Paul, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Fourth Gospel be treated with respect? To limit faith to the historic Christ, to a mere man, is, I repeat, not to gt^t a new dogma, but only to apj^ropriate a fragment of the old. It is also to laud us in irreconcilable op- position to the learning and experience of all the Catholic Church and of all the Reformers. Hutch claims to be a pioneer in tracing theChristiunlty of the Divine Christ to Hellenism' — though i« lad been at- tempted by others long before his day'' — and llarnack thinks it iilmost hopeless to try to stem tlii tradition of the Logos Christology. Especial difficulty is found with Luther. He held to the Divine Christ and the Trinity of the Nicene Creed, and built upon them his glorious doctrine of justification by faith. Luther and the ileformers did not know it, but Ritschl and his followers have now discovered that such a union of knowledge and belief " confuses and darkens our faith and makes it void.'" The Reformation spread in spite of the fundamental contradictions which ever}^- 1 llarnack, too, says his is the "first attempt to stem false tradition '* and show that only what is found in the gospel be- longs to Christianity. But, as we liave seen, he nowhere dares to compare Avhat he regards as Christianity, step by step, with what Jesus and the Apostles set forth as the gospel. Neither is it an argument in favor of his position, to suggest that he is the first to discover that the Christology believed in the Church from the Fourth Gospel to the present c ly, is heathenish in its origin and secularizing in its influence. 2 Cf. Nippold, in Hilgenf eld's Zeitschrifty 1801. H. 3, S. 318. » Harnack, D. G. III. 742. 376 The Nicene Christology I'PI J5 'iHi where burdened it. The Ritschl iiien iinist cut asunder Luther the Reformer, nnd Luther the School- man; the man with an impression of Jesus must be parted from the theologian who knew what (Jhrist was — and all because of their theory that Christianity is " not Biblical theology, not doctrines of councils, but the dis2)osition which the Father of Jesus Christ awakens in the heart by the gospel." * However much that may sound like the gospel, the fact that in its application it must cleave asunder every Christian teacher from Paul to Augustine, from Augustine to Luther, from Luther to Delitzsch and Frank and Hodge, shows a fatal conflict between its principles and the necessary movement of intelligeni; Christian life.- Luther opened up the same fountain » Harnack, III. 700. 2 llerrinann says {Die Geicissheit des Gknihcns it. die Frciheit dcr Theolofiie, 1887, pp. G4f.) of Luther that he " simply would not have been able to work upon his contemporaries, lie would have remained a stranger to his age, had he not been also a scholastio" (p. 10). That is a little better position than that of Ritschl, Avho made Luther cling to dogma or theology for ecclesiastical and j)olitical reasons; yet even Herrmann says "we should join ourselves to Luther the evangelical Christian, but not to the scholastic Luther." He puts in Luther's " scholastic school bag " nearly all his Christir.nity, however, for he assigns to it " the dogmas in which Luther knew himself to be one with the old Church." These dogmas of the Trinity and Chris- tology Hermann calls but the "egg-shells of the Reformation " (S. 20), and of no more value than Church organization. They wei'e a "superficial and injurious cloaking" of the gospel, which must be stripped off to complete the Reformation! But stripping these oft leaves only a human Jesus teaching natural theology, and all revelation of salvation in Ilim vanishes away; for if, as Herrmann holds, Greek philosophy, and the " organi- stologij ist cut School - [lust be (Christ 5tianity ;ils, l)iit Christ pel, the asunder le, from ich and ^-een its elligent 'ountain ! Frcihdt »ly would would 1 also a lan that logy for lys "we ian, but holastio assigns be one a Chris- ation " They gospel, i! But natural bs away; organi- the Itule of Faith and .Dogma. 377 of living waters as did the Nicene theologians. He used the tools of a somewhat different philoso])hy and learning, ])ut he reached the same Divine Redeemer, and by deeper study of Paul struck a doctrine of re- demption much richer than that of Athanasius and the Gregories. In his doctrine of sin he learned from Autrustine; in his doctrine of Christ the Saviour he learned from Athanasius; but now the new gospel tells us he learned error from both. This is very sad to hear. For many years the New School tlieology of English-speaking lands has been tigliting Calvin- ism and Augustinianism, and setting forth, though somewhat one-sidedly, the bright Biblical character of the Greek theology.^ Now comes the school of Uitschl zation of sot'ioty by the Roman stalo," as well as the Old Tes- tament, all " belong to the historical existence of .Jesus" (S. 31), more or less, then all is revelation and nothing is revelation in the proper sense (cf. Luthardt, in Ztft. /. Kirclil. W. n. K. Lthcti, 1887, II. 4). Frank well says (.V. Aln/d. Zf/f., 189-2, 11. 10) that Luther and all the Reformers "recognizcMl most decidedly and unequivocally the theology of the early Chunh — recognized it, that is, in the sense, that real, evangelical, saving faith does not exist apart from those fundamental principles of faith out of which it grows." The constant apjieal to Luther shows a fear that this new theology cannot stand alone. No man can separate Luther's theology of Christ from his gospel of justitication by faith, and preach to plain people so as to he in- telligible and effective. This manifest failure of followers of Ritschl to show that Luther was a non-metapliysical theologian and Reformer, strengthens the presumption against their con- tention that the Nicene Christology was a jtroduct of Greek philosophy. 1 Allen, a liberal Episcopalian, says that instead of the Ni- cene theology being obsolete, the freshest impulses in recent re- ligious tho ight are but recalling some of its leading features. «>;*^- „./■ 378 The Nicene ChrUtologij *;■.! If: P' k III' ' and declares that this early Greek apprehension of the gospel, this happy harmony of Christianity and culture, so needed in our day, was a pagan seculariza- tion of the primitive faith. And we are left with no theology save that of reminiscences of Christ and im- pressions which refuse to take expression in terms of knowledge. Seeberg well remarks* that such a new dogma sets aside good doctrines, now doing a blessed work, for others, which have not yet proven their right to be; makes most of our hymns, books of de- votion, and worship of Christ unusable; offers the Church new doctrines for which her worshipers and workers are not asking; and, by robbing the Trinity and the Divine Redeemer of all reality, does violence to the consciousness of the most godly men.'^ Among these are the view that the Church is not identical with any form of ecclesiastical organization, the little stress laid upon priestly mediation and sacramental grace, that baptism is not absolutely necessary to salvation, the freedom of the will in religious choice, the love of God in Christ rather than the sight of the law showing men their sins, that redemption is the im- parting of the new life of Christ rather than paying a debt to the devil or to justice, that the appearance of Christ is the great supernatural revelation of God carrying His miracles with it rather than making them proof of His revelation, and, above all, that the incarnate and glorified Christ is the sum and center of all doctrine and life. These ideas, he says, so much heai'd of in modern times, were all familiar elements in the Nicene theol- ogy (cf. Cuntimiity of Christ. ThoiKjht, Boston. 1884. p. 17f. 34ff). These views are adopted by Heard {Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theology contrasted, London, 1893), who dwells at great length u[)on the Greek theology as the " New Theol- ogy," which we now need. » N. Kirchl Ztft. 1891. H. 7. 2 Dr. James Martineau, the leader of Unitarianism in Eul;;- the Hide of Faith and Dogma, 3 TO Ent{- Harnack is plainly embarrassed (III. 743) ny what he calls " the strongest argument" urged against his ante-Nicene view of Christianity, viz., that it is the preaching of the old theology which produces "a deep knowledge of sin, true penitence, and a living Church activity." He can only answer that such a chalh-nge is Pharisaic — forc^ettino; what Christ said about trees being known by their fruits — and by the plea tliat the orthodox hold possession of the churches,' forget- ting again that Kantian rationalism held possession land and its greatest theologian in the English-speaking worM, at the celebration of his ninetieth birthday (18'.>C , among other remarks said (I quote from a newspaper reixjrt): " I am coii- straiiiod to say that neither my intellectual preference, nor my moral admiration, goes heartily with the Unitarian heroes, sects or productions of any age. Ebionites, Arians, Socinians, all seem to contrast unfavorably with their opponents, and to exhibit a type of thought and character far less worthy, on the wliole, of the true genius of Christianity. I am conscious that my deepest obligations, as a learner from others, are in almost every department to writers not of my own creed. In ))hi- losophy, 1 have had to unlearn most of that I had imbibed from my early text-books, and the authors in chief fa\or with them. In Biblical interpretation, I derive from Calvin and Whitl)y the help that falls me in Crell and Belsham. In devotional literature and religious thought, I lind notliing of ours that does not pale before Augustine, Taylor ami Pascal. And, in the poetry of the Church, it is the Latin or the (merman iiymiis, or the lines of Charles Wesley, or of Keble, that fasten on my memory and heart, and make all else seem poor and cold." 1 llarnack does add athird reply, viz., that "living Church activity " offers no guarantee of uncorrupted evangelical faith. If activity alone decided, he says, then Luther was wiong when he iilunged the old Church into a revoh:t.ion. But (1) the activity shown by orthodox Christians in all kinds of mission work and in holy living is recognized l>y their opponents to be 380 The Nicene Chriiitolofjy It";: ; 1:1 fl? of most of the German churches a couple of genera- tions ago, till the judgments of God, recognized in the Napoleonic wars, and the revival of Bible religion and orthodoxy brought the churches once more into pos- session of believing men. genuine Christian activitj^; (2) it shows itself in the same way that the primitive gospel appeared in action, viz., in much prayer, in adoration of Jesus, in revivals, in i)ersonal work by all believers. The horror of Pietism, Methodism, and all re- vivalism shown by the Kantian theologians indicates the differ- ence of spirit. (3) The case of Luther is not parallel, for lie and his followers became at once more active than the foUowt rs of the Pojjc;' hence Germany became so largely Protestant. The orthodox activity shows that it is successor ot Luther by bearing the saiue fruits. No man could imagine Ritschl stajid- ing at Worms; but Ilengstenborg, or Luthardt, or Kahnis, or Von Ilofmann might be supposed speaking the words of Luther there. It was "Old Lutherans " that seceded in Prussia and came to America seeking liberty of conscience. They were not the men who would reject every article of the Creed of the Church and j'^et show their activity in eating her bread and breaking down her bulwarks. (4) It may not be true that all religious activity springs from truth; but it does spring from conviction of truth. The Ritschl school, above all else, claim to preach the gospel and practical religion. They have done so for over twenty years; will their most brilliant advocates now inform us (a) in what respects, if any, their followers show deeper piety, and more Christlikeness than the followers of "dogma;" and (b) how far does the quality of their work and its extent, in pastoral duties, home missions, city missions, re- form activities, foreign evangelization excel that of their ortho- dox brethren? We are in a practical age, and from a practical school of theologians may well demand practical proof. I have read the Zcitschrift f. Missionskunde u. litUtjioHswissenschoft, since it began its career in 1885, to learn what the liberal the- ology can do in winning "the nations of culture" to Christian- ity; but have as yet found no indication that "judgments of genera - 'tl iu the jion and a to pos- lamo way in niiu'h work by d all re- lie cliffi'p- 1, for he ollowcrs Jtostant. ither by il stand- hnis, or Luther ssia and ey were lecd of 3ad and that all g from , claim lone so es now s show ers of 'k and ns, re- ortho- ictical [ have vfoift, il the- stian- lt8 of the Bale of Faith and Dogma. sgi What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? Hatch says (p. 35) it is either to go back to a Chris- tianity which is only "trust in God," a way of moral living; or to regard the Gospel as a development still going on; in either case, Hellenism will be value" or an anti-metaphysical gospel or a Monistic view of faith IS moving the hearts of the Japanese as much as the tra- ditional gospel has done. In America especially, we feel the importance of a theology that has legs, that can run on its own mission; and unless the teachings of Ritschl show "livincr Church activity" greater than the -secularized" Churchel against which they are hurled, wc may well pause and await turther the testimony of time. Brought face to face with infidels and materialists what shall we preach? Herrmann replies in a paper addressed to s.i'ch classes called lieligion unci Socialdemok'ratle (in Ztft f. Th n Kirche. 1891, H. 4). He tells them that external facJs such as Christ s resurrection "arc but a legend or at most very doubt- ful stories." But he says there is one great fact, namelv love, which governs all. He suras up Christianity thus: - Our fiith rests upon nothing but the fact that in this\vorld the i>orsonal life of Jesus Christ is to be found. Whoever has still a minrd and ingelists ords by back in whether 8 divin- is. Cf. INDEX. Allen, a. V. G., on Greek theology 37^ Anen, of Harvard, on Logos, 188; on Trinity 339 f°f^^^ '.'.'.'.'.'..*.' 205 Apologists, teachings of on Theology, 162; Philosophy, 165; Christology, I66f., 177; Soteriology, 208f.; Holy Spirit, 272f. Apostles, view of Jesus, 43f., authority of, 60f. Arianiam, 242f., 260, 337f, Athanasius, on Christ, 11, 235; on salvation, 197, 214; on Holy Spirit 276, 300 Baldenspergeh, on Messianic hope, 37; on Hellenism, 59; on Jewish theology Baptism, 198f /[ Baur, on Ebionites, 25, 268; on Christ, 68; on Apostolic Church, 75; on Atonement. Behm, on Apost. Fathers. .204, Bender, on Religion 13] Bert, on Aphraates 302' Beyschlag, on Messiah, 38, 39; on Church Constitution * Bigg, on Gnostics, 100; on Otigen 190,212, Blass, on Luke Bois, on Dogma, 355f., 372f.. Bomemann Brown, on Virgin birth 93 318 225 205 14 341 41 PAGE 215 263 383 57 294 Buchrucker, on Jesus, 38; on liberal theology 300 Cappadocian theologians, 300f. Caspar!, on Creeds, 321, 3J2, ^,' •.•••••••••• :«4,335,'344 Christ, and the Kini,'dom, 7; uniqueness of, 8f.; preexist- ence of, 57; divinity of, 46, 137f.; In New Testament^ 141; in Apost. Fathers, I42f.; in Apologists, leOf.; in Alex' theology, I88f.; in Nicene doctrine, 338f.; work of Christ, 197f, Christianity, the religion of Christ and the Church, 7; more than Christ, 18; in 'the Old Testament, 18; in Nature, 19; "undogmatic,"21; proof of, 40; various views of 53 Christology, proved by his- tory, 11, 12; Apostolic view of, 43f.; anti-Gnostic, 101; " Adoption " and " Pneu- matic," 150f.; of the Apolo- gists, 166f.; of Irenaeus, 178f.; of Melito, 179; of Ter- tullian, 183; of Alex. School, 188f.; of Athanasius, 338f. Church, and Christ, 7, 38; Confession of Christ its foundation, 39; Constitution of, 41; Apostolic, 43f.; Wor- ship of, 60f. 380 INDEX. ! ' PAOE Clemen 818 Coleridge, on Unitarianism. . . 12 Crord, ApoBtles', 113f.; 318f.; Nlcene, 83; of Irenaeus, 109; Ilort on, 304; necessary, IJOOf. Cremer 11 Dkism 12, 15 DiMinc}' 04 I)e Wotte 21 Doctrine, History of, 63, 68, 69; beginning of 70 Dogma, in New Testament, 318f.; in Apost. Fathers, 821; in Apologist'^, 326f.; in anti- Onostics, 329f.; under in- lliience of Origen, 332f.; at Niciia, 338; Ilarnacls on, 349; Ritsclil on, 353; Bois on, 855f. Dorner, on Ritschl, 7, 21, 71; («n llprraas 151, 269 Driiscke, on Apollinaris, 298, 299, 302 Drpyer 258 En(»elhardt, on Justin, 99, 150, 173, 207, 225, 227, 273 Faiubairn, on Fatherhood of Go.l 140 Fathers, Apostolic, theology of, 82f.; 143f.; 198f.; 264f.; anti-Gnostic, 94f., 103f., 178f.; Nicene 297, 388 Flemming, on Justin 104, 210 Foster, on Ilarnack, 74; on Iguatius 149 Frank, on Ritechl, 40, 59; on Luther 377 Free Will, Greek view of, 212f. Gnosticism, 85f., 87f.; effects of, 103f 275 Godet, on Jesus 24 PACK Goltz, von der, on Ignatius, 87, 99, 100, 130, 142, 145, 148, 155 Gore, on Origcn, 190; on di- vinity of Christ, 317, 840; on Hatch, 370; on Early Creed, 374 Gospels, Sy noptist 24 Grau, fin Moralisni 40 Gunkcl, on Holy Spirit.. . .263, 287 Gwatkln, on Arianisin 297 299, 840 Hall, T. C 13 Harnack, radical in views, 13; opposed to miracles, 14; on New Test. 24; on Jesus, 25; on Baur, 25; on facts of Christianity, 31; on resurrec- tion, 35; on Paul, 48; on Christology, 49, 159, 170; on Christianity, 52; on prei'xis- tence, 5S; on history of doc- trine, 63; on Hellenism, 74; on Gnostics, 88r.; on ApoHtol. tradition, 114, 119; on New Test, Canon, 127, 131 f.; on Holy Spirit and Christ, 150f.; on Apologists, 173; on death of Christ, 204, 208; on Iren- aeus, 235; on God-Man, 240; on Lord's Supper, 247; on Apostles' Creed, 258, 291 f.; on Monarchianism, 276; on Ni- cene theology, 305; on Christ in Creeds, 325; on Christ in history, 356; on Dogma, 367 f. Harris, R., on Aristides, 223, 326; on Panthera 293 Hatch, on gospel, 45; on Christ, 58; on Hellenism, 104f., 334; on Alogi, 107; on Holy Spirit, 151; on Christol- ogy, 175; on primitive Christianity, 346, 349, 352; on Nicene theology 869, 871 Havet 44 INDEX. PAfJK natiuB, i5, 148, 155 •n dl- 146; on Ureed, 374 24 40 ..268, 287 . .297 ..299, 840 13 8, 13; i; on 3, 25; is of irrec- i; on 0; on i'xis- doc- I, 74; IHtoI. New ; on 50f.; eath ren- 240; ; on ■ ; on Ni- irist It in t67f. 223, ... 293 on 3m, on tol- tive 1 on 169, 371 ... 44 Heathenism 9 j^q Hefele, on Church Councils,' 808, 344 Hellenism, 10, 102, 104, 139, „ 346,301, 372 Herbert, 15; his summary of religion j^ Hering, on "double truth," 33; on resurrection 54 Herrmann, 15; theory of linowledge, 16, 33; conscious- ness of Jesus, 19; " impres- sion " of Jesus, 20; on Zahn, ,27; on historic facts, 84f.; on worship of Christ, 50; on Luther, 70; on natural theol- ogy, 72; on Apologetics, 162; on resurrection, 352; on faith and facts, 350; on revelation, 868; on Niccne theology, 371 • on Luther, 376; to Socialists,' 381 Hilgenfeld, 23, 77; on (Jnos- ticism, 96; on Ititechl, HI; on Apostolic tradition, 120; on New Testament 037 History, of Doctrine, 63, 68, " 69; philosophy of, 70; begin- ning of, 79; Eusebius on, 345; God in 372 Holtzmann, on liberal Chris- tianity, 12, 44; on Fourth <^8PeJ 263 Hope, Messianic 37 Hore, on Deism 12 13 Hort, on Nicene Creed 804 Hume 15, iq/oq" 55 387 PAOE Incarnation, the, 7, 9, 11, 27, 29, 47, 68, 83, 101, 138, 143, 145, 169,180, 317 Jesus, Consciousness of Him- self, 22,23,28f.; real knowl- edge of, 32f.; and God, 28; and universe, 34; and Church, 36; and history, 85; forgives Bins, 41; view of Church ; when appeared 67 John, Gospel of, 24, 46, 148, I'O, 188, 197! 349 Judai8m,9; Helleuistic 7(] Justification, li, los; Harnack on Justin, on Peter's Confession, 42; theology of, 166f. 36 15 Kaftan, 16; against Herrmann, 16; on Apostolic teaching, 60; on history of doctrine, 63^ 842; on theology, 99; on Apologetics, 162; on death of Christ, 247; on Holy Spirit, 256; on Nicene Creed, 849; on New Dogma 3(57 Kant Kattenbu8ch,on Kitschl's meth- od, 18, 23; on Nicene Creed, 306; on tirst Creed 324, 331 Keim 55 Kruger, on History of Doc- trine, 84; on Christian Litera- ture, 95; on Aristo, 171; on Monarchians, 187; on "arnack 350, 375 Kunze, on Irenaeus, 95, 98, 281; on Marcus Eremita, 329, 333, 363 LiGnTFOOT, on Apost. Church, 81; on Apost. Fathers, 146, 203; on Eusebius 345 Link, on Hermas 15 j LipsiuB, against liitschl, 16, 19, 347; on Jesus, 26; on Gnos- tif^'sm 89, 97 Literature, Christian 77 Lobsteiu, on Luther, 365; on Lord's Supper 247 Logos, Doctrine of, 83, 85, 167f.; relation to Hellenism, 172f 181, 223L 388 INDEX. m I F\v!'! * ; tj- PACK LoofB, on Ilarnack, 60, 52, 2S9, 840; oo Jewiuli Cbriatianity, 120; on teachings of John, 101; on ApologlHts, 175; un MouarchimiH, 187; on Iren- ao>i8, 231; on early Soteriol- o; on New TeBt. Canon 182 MesHiunic lio|)e 87 Metaj)hy8ic8 27 MirucleB 14, 85, 57 Moeller, ou Incarnation 218 Monarchiauism, of Uitschl School, 80; in early Church, 184; character of, 187, 278; anu "Adop- tlonhits," 152; on