Jesus And The Thought Of The 
 World 
 
 By' 
 
 The Habbi "'artin A. (Meyer 
 The Rev. Bradford Leavitt 
 The Rev. C. F. Aked 
 
 alifornia 
 
 ;ional 
 
 ility
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mary J. McDonald
 
 Jesus and the Thought of the World 
 
 By 
 
 The Rabbi Martin A. Meyer, Ph.D. 
 
 The Rev. Bradford Leavitt 
 The tReT?. C. F. Aked, D.D., LL.<D. 
 
 Sermons preached in the Temple Emanu-El 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 on 
 
 Sunday, January 25, J914 
 
 and 
 Sunday, February t, J9I4 
 
 Press of Thos. J. Davis & Son, S. F. 
 
 Twenty-five Cents
 
 Jesus and the Thought of the World 
 
 By 
 
 The Rabbi Martin A., Meyer, Ph.D. 
 
 The Rev. Bradford Leavitt 
 The <%>)>. C. F. Aked, D.D., LL,<D. 
 
 Sermons preached in the Temple Emantt-El 
 San Francisco 
 
 on 
 
 Sunday, January 25, 1914 
 
 and 
 Sunday, February 1, 1914
 
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 The Jewish Vielz> of Jesus 
 
 <By 
 
 abbi Martin A. Meyer, c Ph. D. 
 Sunday Morning, January 25, 1914
 
 THE JEWISH VIEW OF JESUS. 
 
 Friends, in one way I rejoice in the triunity, in which I 
 have the honor to be the first speaker ; in another sense 
 I regret it. I rejoice that we can discuss such a theme 
 that you have invited me, a Jew, to discuss this matter 
 with you. On the other hand I regret its futility, save 
 as regards the liberal attitude it may encourage, for, after 
 all is said and done, you are not going to be persuaded 
 by me, and I fancy I shall not be persuaded by you. It 
 reminds me of the public disputations held in the Middle 
 Ages between Jews and Catholics ; the futile result was 
 usually the same. The Jews went away feeling they had 
 presented irrefutable arguments on their side, and the Cath- 
 olics, to disprove these arguments, generally caused many 
 Jews either to be put to death or to be forcibly baptized ; 
 so, of course, the question remained just where it was for 
 both parties. 
 
 It goes without saying that we are talking as friends, 
 honest friends, one with the other, just as honestly as I 
 should expect that a Christian would discuss some point 
 in my Jewish belief with me differing from me naturally, 
 because he is a Christian and I am a Jew, agreeing with 
 me at certain points because he is a Christian and I am a 
 Jew. Yet each of us must frankly present his own point 
 of view without malice, with no idea of controversy, yet 
 each emphasizing his angle of vision. 
 
 Frankly, the whole matter of the world's views of the 
 person of Jesus is one of those subjects that I feel will 
 only be understood by the presentation of every point of 
 view. I have spent my last week, not in reading what the 
 Jews have to say about Jesus, but reading a Roman Catholic
 
 treatise telling me what the Catholic Church has to say 
 about Christ, so that I might thoroughly appreciate what 
 the orthodox view of his life is. 
 
 Orthodox Judiasm has nothing to do, absolutely nothing 
 to do, with Jesus or Christianity. No Jew could ever 
 understand how the religion preaching love could have per- 
 secuted the Jews and Judaism unfailingly, generation after 
 generation. The result on the part of the orthodox Jew 
 was an unqualified contempt for everything Christian. Nor 
 did he hesitate to express his feelings in this matter. It 
 crystallized itself in a Hebrew version of the life of Jesus, 
 in which all the facts of that life were explained on a 
 frankly naturalistic basis. It further expressed itself in 
 an abundant polemic and apologetic literature, in which 
 these bold spirits placed the Jewish viewpoint before a 
 hostile world. It indulged freely in criticism of Christian 
 doctrines ; contradicted the prevailing Christian exegesis 
 of the Old Testament and even did not hesitate to speak 
 its mind of Christian practices and persecutions. It was 
 the frank expression of a self-reliant, self-intelligent group, 
 who feared nothing more than faithlessness to its ideal. 
 Many a one paid for his boldness with his life, after hav- 
 ing been subjected to unspeakable torture; but once under- 
 stand the point of view of this little handful of rejected 
 and misunderstood people, as found in the literature of the 
 Jew of the Middle Age, and you can appreciate the spirit 
 of the Jew in all ages. If you want to understand that 
 remarkable age of history you must remember that the 
 dark ages of Christianity were parallel with an age of un- 
 paralleled spiritual and intellectual glory for the Jew; that 
 it was not until the year 1492, after the world seemed to 
 have refused its last resting-place to the Jew, that what 
 we regard as the dark ages of Jewry had their beginning. 
 
 In the era of the highest spiritual culture of the Jew, 
 there were great spirits who had a larger view of the 
 place of Christianity and Islam in the world economy, 
 consistent with their loyalty to Judaism. The great Span- 
 ish philosopher and poet, Jehuda Halevi (not to know his
 
 impassioned muse is to be ignorant of one of the greatest 
 souls of the world of song) and the no less distinguished 
 Maimonides, physician, philosopher and guide to the per- 
 plexed (to whose works such great lights of the Christian 
 world as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus did not hesitate 
 to resort for instruction) made the splendid point that both 
 of the daughter faiths of Judaism were doing a God-ap- 
 pointed work. They were disseminating Jewish truth 
 though in non-Jewish form ; partial, to be sure, but such 
 work would eventually usher in the final synthesis of the 
 Messianic era. 
 
 The beginning of the nineteenth century marked a new 
 era in Jewish thought and belief. We generally refer to 
 this as the era of modern Judaism, for it was then that the 
 Jews again turned their attention to their own literature 
 and their own history, and were permitted to mingle with 
 the world outside the ghetto and hear of its achievements 
 and learn its value. In the study of religion and the sources 
 of religion both from the ethnological and from the com- 
 parative point of view, the modern Jew learned much about 
 the Jewish elements of Christianity; but he recognized at 
 the very outset that the Jewish element was but one among 
 the many which went into the mosaic which is called 
 Christianity. 
 
 Regarding the question of the historicity of Jesus there 
 are many who deny it, and they are backed up by very 
 profound arguments we shall omit all such discussion and 
 shall assume for our purposes that Jesus did exist. 
 
 I take it as expressive of my whole point of view, that 
 Jesus the Jew is not the equivalent of the Christ preached 
 in the churches throughout the centuries. You who follow 
 recent theological literature may remember that this point 
 of view is not alien to the point of view of a number of 
 very earnest Christians. They hold that because of the 
 comparative failure of the attempt to find the actual words 
 and absolutely uncontrovertible facts of the life of Jesus, 
 as presented in the gospels and epistles, the real Jesus is 
 not to be found other than in the creeds of the churches
 
 as taught throughout the centuries. Scientific researches 
 had reduced the desired incontrovertible facts to a vanish- 
 ing minimum. Consequently, with the courage of despair, 
 they have set aside all the results of the historical school 
 and have taken refuge in the dogmas of the churches. It 
 is the Christ idea that is important; the historical character 
 less significant. But our view though apparently similar 
 is just the very opposite. We arrive at a similar statement 
 by a far different line of reasoning. 
 
 In the first flush of enthusiasm following upon the state- 
 ment of the newer attitude of sympathetic understanding 
 of the life of Jesus and of Christianity, many Jews lost their 
 traditional balance entirely. Many saw in Christianity a 
 fulfilled Judaism and so were ready to announce their al- 
 legiance to the daughter faith. Others not ready to go 
 to this extreme made themselves similarly conspicuous by 
 their loud protestations of the loss to Judaism of its cen- 
 turies-old attitude towards his personality and the faith 
 proclaimed in his name. They were keen to have Jesus 
 and his doctrine taught in Jewish religious schools, to 
 have Jesus hailed as a long-lost brother, as the last, if not 
 the greatest of the Jewish prophets. I do not believe tha'E 
 either of these extreme groups represents the judgment of 
 the best minds of modern Jewry. The attitude of these is 
 far more insistent upon the validity and the sufficiency of 
 Judaism as a system of faith and of life. 
 
 The matter of the modern Jewish point of view of the 
 life of Jesus is determined by careful study of the gospels 
 themselves. In the gospels we find a number of elements. 
 We find, first of all, an element indicating most markedly 
 what we shall call Gentile influence; for example, the in- 
 fluence of Alexandria upon the gospels cannot be gainsaid. 
 The influence of both Greek and Egyptian is evident upon 
 careful study of the gospel, for it is well established that 
 the gospels, etc., got their final form in Alexandria. We 
 might go further and say that there were evidences of 
 Babylonian and Hindoo influence. These influences we find 
 jointly expressed in the stories of the miraculous birth,
 
 of the atoning death and the miraculous resurrection of 
 Jesus; and as Jews we will have none of these. 
 
 We next notice what might be called the Judaeo-Hellen- 
 istic part of the New Testament, with particular reference 
 to the "logos" theory as expounded in the Fourth Gospel, 
 that of St. John, as well as the allegorizing and antinomian 
 tendencies in various parts of the Testament. This line 
 of thought had its inception in the attempted harmoniza- 
 tion of Greek philosophy and Hebrew prophetism which 
 was popular among the Jews of Egypt. The chief exponent 
 of this peculiar philosophy was the famous Philo of Alex- 
 andria. Philo, by the way, was a contemporary of Jesus, 
 but in all his numerous works he makes no mention or 
 reference to the work or life of Jesus. It is said that Philo 
 judaized Platonism and Platonized Judaism. Character- 
 istic of his work and that of all his school was the allegor- 
 ical method of Bible interpretation. The normal Jewish 
 development in Palestine saw in this method a menace 
 to its religious life, and consequently rejected it. They 
 saw its ultimate exaggerations and dangers, for it was a 
 short and easy step from sanity to wildness, and the Jew 
 has been sane at all times in his religious positions. Nascent 
 Christianity was deeply influenced by this school of thought. 
 In fact, Philo was popular with the Church Fathers rather 
 than with his own people. He has been claimed as a Chris- 
 tian, though there is no basis in fact for such a claim. 
 While we can trace the development of the philonic position 
 from Jewish sources, particularly from the Wisdom Liter- 
 ature of Israel, its position was more acceptable to Christ- 
 ianity than to Judaism. The strict monotheism of Judaism 
 felt itself compromised by the theories of this school. Later 
 Christianity felt the full force of the exaggerated position 
 assumed by the teachers of this line of thought. Further, 
 the antagonistic position held to the Law (as the Hebrew 
 word "Torah" is loosely translated) was decidedly alien to 
 the thought of the Jew. I can but refer you to that remark- 
 able little book of Travers Herford on Pharisaism (the 
 author is a Christian minister, mind you) for a presenta-
 
 tion of the attitude of the Jew to his Torah and to all 
 movements inimical to its integrity. So the Jew perforce 
 finds no share in that presentation of Jesus which was de- 
 termined by St. John and St. Paul, nor in that Christianity 
 which grew out of their teachings. And Christianity as 
 we know it through the centuries was profoundly modi- 
 fied by this point of view. 
 
 I next notice what we might call the chauvinistic Jewish 
 element of the gospel. It is but one of a half-dozen pre- 
 sentations of Jesus. There is evidence that there was one 
 interpretation one element of the gospel, which presented 
 a Jesus whose interest was wholly and solely within the 
 confines of Israel ; and we find Rabbis of that period such 
 as Shammai, the associate of Hillel, and Akiba, the rabbi 
 hero of the last war against the Romans, who held the same 
 point of view a mission of the Jew to the Jew himself. 
 It is the picture of a Jesus intent on the internal reform of 
 his people. In such passages as "It is not meet to take 
 the children's bread and cast it to the dogs" in reply to 
 the request of the Phoenician woman to heal her daughter, 
 and "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither 
 cast pearls before swine," a Jesus is presented to us who is 
 a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Let it be understood that even 
 the most intense Hebrew did not refuse to accept non-Jews 
 into the fold of his people and his faith, but such acceptance 
 had to be on the terms laid down by the Hebrews. And in 
 this same manner, too, have all historic religions of which 
 we have knowledge accepted converts. Catholicism will 
 not accept the convert unless he admit the primacy of the 
 Pope, nor will the Evangelical, unless the would-be pros- 
 elyte accept the typical doctrines of his position, such as 
 the Trinity and the atoning value of the death of Jesus. 
 That the Jew laid down the conditions on which others 
 might be admitted to his fold was well within his right. 
 And history tells us that there were large numbers who 
 were ready to enter Judaism under these conditions. The 
 Evangelist himself admitted that "Pharisees compassed 
 land and sea to make one convert." And in every town 
 
 10
 
 of importance in the Mediterranean world there were large 
 groups of proselytes and would-be proselytes. The intense 
 feeling against the Roman oppressor of Judea brought many 
 a fierce denunciation of the gentile to the lips of the Jew 
 which in milder times had never been uttered. Yet so in- 
 tense a Jew as Akiba, the great teacher of the literal method 
 of Bible exegesis, found it compatible with his zealous ad- 
 vocacy of Judaism to teach that the greatest verse in the 
 Bible was Genesis, v. 1, "This is the book of the generations 
 of Adam," "for," said he, "it teaches us who is our neigh- 
 bor." 
 
 We find yet another element an exceedingly important 
 element what I would call the Liberal Jewish Element, 
 such as is evidenced in the Lord's Prayer, and particularly 
 in the original Sermon on the Mount, not so much in the 
 version thereof as expanded by later writers. Here we 
 find ourselves in the company of Hillel, whose statement 
 of the Golden Rule is parallel to that found in the gospels ; 
 who interpreted the Golden Rule as the essence of the 
 Torah, of Jewish religious culture. His mildness was pro- 
 verbial, his influence widespread, not only because of his 
 profound knowledge of the technical interpretation of Bible 
 and custom, but because of his deep passion for morality 
 and for righteousness. We find ourselves in the company 
 of Jochanan ben Zakkai, that great teacher of the Recon- 
 struction of Jewish life, who taught that as the sacrificial 
 system was a thing of the past and forever done with, that 
 prayer and charity should take the place of this ritual. 
 Frankly, with this passionate ethical and spiritual presen- 
 tation of Jesus we find ourselves in the company of a phase 
 of Jesus which is most Jewish, Jewish in the best sense of 
 the term. Like his contemporaries he stood within the 
 House of Israel, but his vision was beyond the House of 
 Israel. He, too, stood on those heights which we recog- 
 nize as strictly Jewish, whose base was the House of Israel, 
 whose outlook was all mankind. 
 
 Of course, I appreciate that you may say that it is this 
 ethical presentation of Jesus which you recognize as most 
 
 11
 
 truly Jesianic, in which you find the Jesus that modern 
 Christianity is emphasizing as its very own. But my point 
 is that it is just this Jesus teaching the doctrine of repent- 
 ance and the Kingdom of God, the religion of the heart, 
 and of love, of the Golden Rule, of the supreme claim of 
 the ethical as against the strictly ritual who stands on 
 strictly Jewish ground, neither adding thereto nor sub- 
 tracting therefrom. It is the religion of the prophets of 
 Israel and their descendants which he is voicing. The 
 glorious vision of the second Isaiah foreseeing the ingath- 
 ering of the peoples of the world is never excelled in relig- 
 ious literature ; and Hosea's story of the prodigal wife is 
 no less tender than the parable of the prodigal son. I wish 
 to say a word of warning against the Jewish "man in the 
 street" who, ignorant of both New and Old Testaments, 
 not to mention the traditional literature of the Jew hardly 
 less precious in the eyes of the Jew and certainly of vast 
 significance at this point who essays to pass judgment 
 upon these important questions, who jumps at conclusions 
 because he sees superficial resemblances, and does not see 
 the processes behind the surface facts. In that wonderful 
 literature which the Jew produced, a veritable ocean, need- 
 ing the steady hand of a pilot as well as compass and knowl- 
 edge of the stars for its safe crossing, the informed Jew 
 finds all those elements of Jesus' teaching just enumerated, 
 and frequently the very language is identical. 
 
 For instance, the oft-quoted verse, so significant for the 
 Catholic Church : "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock do I 
 build my church." This is paralleled by a Midrash (i. e., 
 a popular Bible homily) in which the very language is 
 used with reference to Abraham, the father of the faith- 
 ful. Again, take the verse : "Judge not, lest ye be judged," 
 and compare it with the verses from "The Sayings of the 
 Fathers": "Judge no man till thou stand in his place" 
 and "Judge every man from the side of graciousness and 
 generosity." It is evident that the one has been borrowed 
 from the other, or probably, with more fairness, both were 
 derived from a common source. Jesus as a lad in the 
 
 12
 
 schools of Galilee had learned the old Jewish literature, 
 the literature of his people. That he quotes from that 
 source, that he adapts from that literature is no more to 
 be wondered at than that a modern should quote Goethe 
 or Browning, modifying the original to his own end. But 
 clever as the adaptation or anthology may be, one would 
 never think of attributing originality to such a writer or 
 preacher. Harnack, the great student of dogmatics, tells 
 us that he finds the emphasis new in the teaching of Jesus. 
 But we must differ from his conclusions for in the Jewish 
 literature contemporary with and even precedent to the 
 time of Jesus we find the very points which are singled 
 out as typical of his position, receiving more and more at- 
 tention. 
 
 And I want to call attention to a certain, to me sig- 
 nificant, fact at this point. In the career of every Jewish 
 teacher there were two marked and yet mutually dependent 
 activities. One is called the Halachic, roughly the inter- 
 pretation of the rules and the establishment of the norms 
 of the religious life, ritual, dogmatic and ethical. This is 
 frequently referred to as the legalistic work of the rabbis. 
 On the other side there was what was called the Haggadic, 
 which we can best describe as the popular, homiletic activ- 
 ity, in which Bible verses got their spiritual reading, the 
 lesson being driven home by the frequent use of parable, 
 aphorism and legend. We have both sides of the activity 
 of the rabbis preserved to us. Of Jesus we have but the 
 Haggadic element preserved due to the disregard of the 
 church of the nomistic tendencies of Judaism. Yet there 
 are evidences that Jesus knew and used the method of the 
 rabbis. It has been pointed out that his language can be 
 best understood when translated back into the terminology 
 of the schools, and his argument in proving the immortality 
 of the soul in debate with the Sadducees as reported in the 
 three gospels is to be taken as typical of the method of 
 the schoolmen of his day. If we had but the Haggadic 
 side of the rabbis of his day preserved, the parallels would 
 be still more striking. We Jews find much satisfaction in 
 
 13
 
 the thought of the priority of Jewish teaching along those 
 very lines which now you stress as typical of the Christian 
 position. 
 
 There is still another element in the gospels and the 
 Testament which I feel I must speak of. It might be 
 termed the anti-Jewish element. I can understand the 
 apologetics of these facts but the facts themselves furnish 
 an important element in the determination of our concept 
 of the person of Jesus and of Christianity too. We take 
 exception to the wholesale and intemperate denunciation of 
 the scribes and Pharisees. That there were hypocrites in 
 ancient Israel is as natural, I am sure, as there are hypo- 
 crites in modern America. That the Jews themselves 
 knew that there were such and set up the old standards of 
 a clean heart is known to every student of the literature 
 of that period. But these very scribes and Pharisees were 
 the teachers of Jesus and preserved that form of the relig- 
 ious life which survived temple and priesthood. We re- 
 cognize in these passionate passages not only the fervor 
 of moral disapproval of hypocrisy, etc., but also an attempt 
 to put the Jews before the Gentile world in as bad a light 
 as possible. Similarly, the picture tones down the asperity 
 of the truth about the Roman rulers of Palestine so that the 
 gospel might be the more readily accepted by the Gentiles 
 to whom it was presented. The ancient secular historians, 
 for example, are not sparing of the dark colors with which 
 they paint the portrait of Pontius Pilate. Rather than do 
 anything to favor the clamors of the Jewish public it was 
 his delight to thwart them at every turn, to humiliate them 
 beyond words. The gospel shows Pilate in such delicate 
 tones as to cause profound questioning as to the reliability 
 of the picture and to suggest that there was the desire to 
 throw the onus of the death of Jesus from the shoulders 
 of the Romans to those of the Jews. And we Jews must 
 reject such elements as these, as no doubt you will reject 
 everything I say this morning which does not agree with 
 your point of view. We cannot picture a Jesus, a Jew, who 
 curried favor with the Roman powers. If the picture is 
 
 14
 
 consistent, the heart which beat with such warm sympathy 
 for mankind, must have had that much Jewish loyalty in its 
 Jewish blood to feel for the shame and humiliation to which 
 his people were then subjected and to share in the hope of 
 the amelioration of their sad condition. We would not 
 like to see Jesus in the same class of dubious patriots such 
 as Flavius Josephus. 
 
 No doubt many of you will resort to the pragmatic argu- 
 ment and appeal to what has been done in Jesus' name as 
 the best justification of his life and works. It's a dangerous 
 argument, friends. It's a two-edged sword. You no doubt 
 can paint one picture of the world in the shadow of the 
 cross, we a startlingly different one. For you, there is the 
 vision of the poor, the suffering, the weary, finding rest 
 and refreshment under the symbol of your faith. For us 
 it is the sorry spectacle of generations of pain and misery 
 under the consecration of that same symbol ; and the suf- 
 fering not yet ended even in America itself. We hear the 
 heart cries of those who have been despised and rejected 
 of Christian men for all these ages ; we know with our heart 
 of hearts of the horrors of death, persecution and exile; 
 of the nameless tortures of children torn from their parents 
 and of the soul of a people crushed beneath the nameless 
 burden of discrimination, contumely and shameful disregard 
 of the primary rights of the human. Both sides are equally 
 true; only do you remember the other side. And I should 
 like to suggest that no doubt the early Christian propa- 
 gandists were met by a similar argument for the reality 
 of the gods of the nations. The Greek might urge with 
 equal truth and fervor that the achievements of medicine 
 under the aegis of Aesculapius were a sure sign of his 
 reality and the progress of horticulture, viticulture and 
 agriculture were eloquent testimonials to the validity of 
 the persons of Ceres and Bacchus. I do not believe that 
 this argument proves anything one way or the other. Every 
 religion could justify itself by a similar line of reasoning. 
 The value of the religion of the lowest savage is as real to 
 
 15
 
 him as is the highest interpretation of the religious life 
 to the most spiritual of Jews or Christians. 
 
 We Jews find in the history of Christianity certain facts 
 which we believe have not been sufficiently considered by 
 the world. Time and again there have been sectarian move- 
 ments within Christianity which have been termed judaistic 
 by their opponents, derisively but yet correctly. These 
 movements may at certain points be said to have been due 
 to the more or less direct influence of neighboring Jews. 
 In southern France at the time of the great Albigensian 
 heresy we know that the Jews maintained important and 
 significant schools and academies, but to mention one of 
 several such situations. But more important are those 
 movements which we cannot connect with such immediate 
 Jewish activities. Yet they too are numerous. To us 
 they represent the attempt of the Jewish elements, which 
 Christianity took along with it after its compromise with 
 the Gentile world, to reassert themselves and to throw off 
 the thrall of the other elements. More and more as the so- 
 called liberal Christianity expresses itself does it thrust 
 into the background these Gentile elements and assert more 
 and more strongly the Jewish elements of its faith and of its 
 life. It's a matter for earnest consideration. The elimina- 
 tion in this way of many of the miraculous and mystical 
 elements of the Christian position is the certain but no less 
 sure victory of the Jewish element which was carried along 
 despite the opposition of the non-Jewish elements in the 
 early church. 
 
 We Jews part company with the most advanced Christ- 
 ians on the subject of the personality of Jesus. To us he 
 is no more divine than he is unique or sinless. We recog- 
 nize in every human the divine spark of the Creator, but 
 no more in Jesus than in any one else. There are those 
 rare souls who spell out this divine in their lives by their 
 faith, by their works; but they are human, fundamentally 
 human even in the spark of the divine we find in them. 
 Nor unique; for we find him the result of a process in 
 which others shared with him, the process of spiritual de- 
 
 16
 
 velopment of which he was by no means the sole represen- 
 tative in his day and generation. Nor sinless ; for his re- 
 jection of his mother, his reliance upon miracles (rejected 
 by the best Jewish thought of his day), his belief in demons, 
 similarly refused by the leaders of his generation, his em- 
 phasis upon himself the oft repeated, "but I say unto 
 you" and the limitation of his outlook by apocalyptic and 
 millennarian considerations, all to be sure explainable upon 
 the ground of popular teaching. 
 
 Let us sum up. If he lived, Jesus lived and died a Jew. 
 The popular side of his teaching has been preserved to us 
 with but incidental reference to the other side of his activ- 
 ity and method. This Jewish picture of Jesus has sur- 
 vived despite the other elements in the presentation for I 
 doubt not that the ecclesiastics who so profoundly im- 
 pressed themselves upon the ages long statement of Christ- 
 ianity would, in their anti-Jewish zeal, have still further 
 suppressed these elements if they could. For the fourth 
 century witnessed the triumph of the Gentile influences of 
 Rome, Greece and Egypt. The compromise made Christ- 
 ianity immediately triumphant whereas the uncompromis- 
 ing attitude of the Jew, chiefly on the subject of the divine 
 unity, put it at a disadvantage which was further em- 
 phasized when the persecuted turned persecutor. As late 
 as the Middle Ages it was necessary officially to forbid the 
 Jew to make proselytes to his faith. Despite such oppo- 
 sition, the Jewish element in Christianity has flourished 
 through history, and I frankly believe it is this element in 
 Christianity, as well as in Islam, which makes it possible 
 for Judaism and its daughter faiths to flourish side by side 
 in peace today ; and that it is fundamental in the evolu- 
 tion of the Christianity of today. 
 
 Like all true Jews, Jesus was a son of the prophets not 
 only according to the flesh, but also according to the spirit. 
 From his mother's bosom he imbibed the ideals of his peo- 
 ple and their faith. Firmly rooted in the heart of his peo- 
 ple his vision, like theirs, went beyond to the limits of the 
 world, to all the sons of men who would some day bring 
 
 17
 
 their tribute to the great God of Israel. He too like the 
 Jews of his day, like Jews before him and since him, 
 dreamed of the realization of the Kingdom of God. That 
 kingdom of God will not mean the rejection or suppression 
 of any of the valid elements of life. All truths will be re- 
 duced to their elements and finding a common denominator 
 will be reconstructed into a satisfactory whole. From these 
 elements the world will draw its faith, and through them 
 will be realized the dreams of the prophets and of all who 
 have had the spirit of the prophets in them. Moses and 
 St. Paul, Jesus and Isaiah, Augustine and Aquinas, Jane 
 Addams and Cardinal Newman, all sons of the prophets, 
 sons of men and sons of the divine, will contribute their 
 quota to the realization of the ultimate harmony of human 
 life. 
 
 We Jews stand firm not because of stubbornness or nar- 
 rowness of vision, but because we would emphasize the 
 validity of our faith; because we know that through the 
 heart of Israel the world has been given the glimpses of 
 the divine and the eternal which are sufficient for life and 
 for love, for salvation and for everlasting bliss, of the in- 
 dividual and the world.
 
 What do we really knoTto about Jesus; 
 and what does bis life say to us? 
 
 <By 
 
 'The <%ev. ^Bradford Leabitt 
 Sunday Evening, January 25, 1914
 
 WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT JESUS; 
 AND WHAT DOES HIS LIFE SAY TO US? 
 
 Text, Acts X, 36-38: "Jesus of Nazareth, whom God 
 anointed with, the Holy Spirit and with power, who went: 
 about doing good, . . . for God was with Him." 
 
 Nineteen hundred years ago a Jewish babe was born in 
 Palestine. He was born about four years before the year 
 one, as we now reckon time. He was the oldest son in 
 the family of Joseph and Mary. He had brothers and 
 sisters. His education was the common one for a Jewish 
 boy. When He grew up He was taught the trade of a 
 carpenter, and He worked at His trade with His father. 
 Little is known of His childhood. His public life began 
 when he was about thirty years old ; it lasted two or three 
 years, the accounts differ as to the time. 
 
 He travelled and taught in Galilee and in Jerusalem, and 
 He spoke with such simplicity and power, that He made 
 an impression on the world not equalled by any other 
 teacher of any age. He was put to death as a martyr 
 because He came into conflict with the ecclestiastical big- 
 otry and prejudice of His time. 
 
 Since that day He has been the central supreme figure 
 of the civilized world. In His name more kindnesses have 
 been done, more cruelties committed than in the name of 
 any other. In renown, in influence, in power there is none 
 who comes even second to Him. The story of His life 
 and teaching is familiar to millions to whom Alexander 
 and Socrates, Caesar and Shakespeare are mere names, if 
 known at all. All modern literature and laws have been 
 moulded by what men have thought to be His spirit. The 
 
 21
 
 greatest religion of the world, the religion of all the lead- 
 ing races of mankind is called after Him and occupied with 
 the thought of Him. It is nearly 1900 years since He died, 
 everything has changed He still remains, winning to Him- 
 self the love, the devotion, the homage of each new genera- 
 tion of men. 
 
 Beside Him no one may take his stand; not even that 
 other Christ of the Eastern world, Gautama Buddha, the 
 light of Asia, dear to so many millions of the human race, 
 in so many respects so like our Jesus. For without urg- 
 ing other differences, there remains always the preeminence 
 of Him whose lordship is over the nations which have 
 steadily advanced in knowledge, in civilization, in liberty. 
 
 But who was He, this greatest of men? The creeds can 
 give their answer as they have given it in the same words 
 these 1500 years. He is "God who descended from heaven 
 and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, 
 and was made man." And if this reply be accepted, all 
 curiosity subsides in adoring awe. 
 
 If this answer be true, still the question forces itself upon 
 us, What about the real, undeniable past? "He rose again 
 from the dead and ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the 
 right hand of God, from thence He shall come to judge the 
 quick and the dead" so say our brethren, repeating their 
 creeds this day. 
 
 Be it so; but who was He, what manner of man while 
 yet He lived upon the earth? We have for answer only 
 the stories of His life and sayings which were told about 
 among His first disciples and after the lapse of forty or 
 fifty years began to be written in short biographies which 
 we call gospels, four of which have come down to us com- 
 plete. It is commonly claimed for these that they are in- 
 spired and infallible ; but as there is no proof of it, and the 
 writers themselves do not even allude to such divine guid- 
 ance, the only one who tells us about his work simply as- 
 serting that "as many had undertaken such a narrative, it 
 seemed good to Him not to the Holy Ghost to do like- 
 wise, there being I say neither plea nor proof, but on the
 
 other hand much difficulty in admitting such an extraor- 
 dinary claim, we are bound, with all respect for such vener- 
 able documents to treat them as human and not divine, and 
 to subject them therefore to searching- examination. 
 
 The records we possess of Jesus are most scanty and 
 incomplete. They are undoubtedly vitiated by many flaws 
 inevitable among a people who had no notion of historical 
 or biographical accuracy. It is easy to show that they con- 
 stantly contradict each other, and expose to every student 
 their own many inconsistencies. Nevertheless we hold 
 them precious beyond all other literature in the world 
 because they give us the only accounts, the only picture we 
 possess of one whose influence has dominated human his- 
 tory and by whose thought and life the thought and life of 
 every one of us is modified at every moment of every day. 
 
 We have no testimony of eye witnesses to the events in 
 the life of this great religious teacher. An oral tradition 
 began to take shape soon after His death. It passed by 
 word of mouth from apostle to convert and from one church 
 to another. The tradition assumed different forms as it 
 was repeated year after year in different places some 
 parts grew dim, and some events and sayings were modified 
 and embellished, while certain new elements were added. 
 We must remember that this story was not told with a 
 mere historical intent but to win converts and to make peo- 
 ple believe in Jesus. 
 
 When afterwards, in the second generation of disciples, 
 attempts were made to commit the tradition to writing 
 Mark's gospel is generally recognized as the one giving us 
 that tradition in its earliest form. We can place that gos- 
 pel at about the year 70 A. D., 40 years after the death of 
 Jesus. Matthew's gospel and Luke's both of which are 
 later than Mark's, give us many of the sayings of Jesus not 
 found in the former. The gospel according to John was 
 not written until the second century was well advanced. 
 From this gospel, which is a philosophical treatise, very 
 little can be learned concerning the historic Jesus. There 
 are hundreds of existing manuscripts of the New Testa-
 
 ment, some in small fragments, others nearly or wholly 
 complete. There are thousands of different readings. The 
 oldest of these manuscripts goes back to the fourth century. 
 We know that as the writings were copied by scribes and 
 monks many changes were made, some through careless- 
 ness, some intentionally to clear up a doubtful passage, 
 some deliberately to make the reading conform to some 
 doctrinal bias. We know that a large number of gospels 
 were written in addition to the four in our Bible some of 
 these we have today, some have been lost and are known 
 only through quotations in other ancient writings. 
 
 Now what bearing have the numerous and radical dis- 
 coveries in regard to the real character of the gospels upon 
 our views of Jesus? We want to make our ideas about Him 
 square with the facts. We care not for the ideas of the 
 church councils of the Middle Ages .councils made up of 
 men far more ignorant than the scholars of today. 
 
 We want to find the real Jesus, and we ask liberty for 
 the hungry human heart to seek after Him. "We have got 
 to go back of the gospels and when we are there, as the 
 result of all the careful study and research of years, we 
 believe that we find Him the son of the carpenter in Naz- 
 areth; but, while the carpenter's son, the grandest of all 
 the sons of men, the flowering, the supreme result of the 
 life, the inspiration, the hunger and thirst of that nation 
 which has been distinguished beyond all other peoples for 
 its genius in the realm of religion the last and greatest 
 of the teachers and prophets, the holy men of the great 
 Hebrew race." 
 
 Suppose we revolt against the old dogmatic ideas in- 
 herited from the middle and dark ages, and side with the 
 interpretations that modern knowledge has given of man 
 and of his relations to the world and to God. We shall 
 then open these biographies of Jesus and find everything 
 natural, human, reasonable. No theological mists shall hang 
 over that life to distort its meaning or supernaturalize its 
 character. "We shall know that there was no fall, no in- 
 herited guilt, and therefore no divine anger to be ap- 
 
 24
 
 peased, and no need of a supernatural mediator. We shall 
 look upon those pages as human writings with the errors 
 and misinterpretations incident to human authorship. We 
 shall see in these strange accounts of a miraculous birth, 
 of singing angels, of the raising of the dead, only the 
 wonder stories that blossomed in the imagination of lov- 
 ing but credulous disciples." We shall lose the unnat- 
 ural and impossible Christ of theology ; we shall find the 
 real and living Jesus of history ; Jesus in the human line 
 of inheritance, born as any other man is born. It is not 
 strange that men have worshipped Him as God. He was 
 the highest and best of the sons of men, summing up 
 the best that the race is capable of man, the promise of 
 what is to come. Divine, yes, as all men are divine ; only 
 in Him there would seem to be all of the life of God that 
 could be poured into a human soul so that he was the 
 fullest expression of the divinity of man, and of the hu- 
 manity of God. 
 
 But whatever our views about Jesus, is it not clear 
 that the main thing, the important thing, is that we be- 
 believe in Him? We may hold very different ideas as to 
 Jesus' relation to his Father, as to the doctrines men have 
 put into creeds about Him, but it must be clear to us all 
 that to believe in Him and to follow Him it is not necessary 
 we should hold the same views about Him. 
 
 And now I ask, what is it this life of Jesus says to us? 
 Is it not clear that to follow Jesus Christ is something 
 more than to subscribe to a creed, take part in public 
 worship, support by money or service the institutions 
 of religion? Is it not clear that it is more than what we 
 commonly call religion? It is deliberately to consecrate 
 oneself to the cause of righteousness and truth in the 
 world, cost what that consecration may; to engage in 
 a life campaign against every form of iniquity political, 
 industrial, individual wheresoever that campaign may 
 lead. It is to make material civilization take its second 
 and rightful place. It is never to take the standard of 
 one's age as one's own, even for the sake of improving 
 
 25
 
 it. It is to (challenge every form of corruption in high 
 places or in popular prejudices, or expressed in popular 
 clamor. It means for the pulpit to rebuke Phari- 
 saism in its own pews the press to attack preju- 
 dices in its own party. It means for the lawyer to 
 be a minister of justice, the manufacturer to hate adul- 
 terations, the mechanic and laborer to hate dishonest work. 
 It means an infinite pity for the suffering, the poor, the 
 unworthy. And it means much more. 
 
 How rankly, intolerably false it is to hear men say, as 
 Christendom has said these 2000 years: Now I know I 
 am saved because I have the blood of Christ, the sacra- 
 ments of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ to intercede for me! 
 How pitiable to see men and women who fancy that to 
 bow at His name is enough; to kneel before the crucifix 
 is enough; to repeat his own prayer over and over again 
 is enough; to hold this or that view of his person is 
 enough; to acknowledge his supremacy is enough! How 
 pitiable ! And yet here is a profound truth beneath a 
 splendid lie. To bow one's own haughty selfishness be- 
 fore the divine meekness to kneel in awe before the 
 presence of the life that courted death thus to accomplish 
 its holy purpose; to say "Our Father, who art in heaven" 
 with the tender trust that he put into that prayer ; to 
 proclaim the perfect man, the anointed Son of God as 
 one's hero-pattern ; surely, this is, after all, to be saved ! 
 To hold that cross ever before one's eyes, is not that the 
 banner leading thousands to the crusades? Is not that 
 the flaming vision that led Constantine, that led Arnold 
 the schoolmaster, that led Gordon the soldier, that led Pea- 
 body the merchant, that led Dorothea Dix, the frail woman, 
 that led Robertson the preacher, that led Milton the poet, 
 and shone on the pathway of the Pilgrim who overcame 
 sea and savage to found an American commonwealth? 
 Wherever I see a man of passionate mould and fiery blood 
 making himself gentle ; wherever I see men who might be 
 idle, working seriously; wherever the scholar seeks and 
 proclaims the truth as he sees it; wherever the soldier 
 
 26
 
 is merciful ; wherever the rich are simple and gracious ; 
 wherever the poor are unaffected and cheerful; wherever 
 sorrow smiles through its tears; where disappointment and 
 failure still work on in trust ; wherever sin is defeated and 
 hope is triumphant there one sees the Cross again, bright 
 with the light that never fades, bringing the blessing of 
 God. 
 
 "Behold Him now where he comes! 
 
 Not the Christ of our subtle creeds, 
 But the light of our hearts of our homes, 
 
 Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs ; 
 The brother of want and blame, 
 
 The lover of women and men, 
 With a love that puts to shame 
 
 All passions of mortal ken. 
 "Ah, no! Thou life of the heart, 
 Never shalt thou depart! 
 Not till the leaven of God 
 Shall lighten each human clod; 
 Not till the world shall climb 
 To thy height serene, sublime, 
 Shall the Christ who enters our door, 
 Pass to return no more." 
 
 27
 
 By 
 
 The Rev. C. F. Aked, W., LL.D. 
 Sunday Morning, February /, J9J4
 
 JESUS CHRIST AS PREACHED BY THE LIBERAL 
 SCHOOL OF MODERN THEOLOGY. 
 
 In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. 
 
 John 1;4. 
 
 Nearly nineteen hundred years ago, in a remote corner 
 of the Roman Empire, in an Asiatic province bordering 
 upon the Mediterranean Sea, Jesus of Nazareth appeared. 
 He belonged to a working-class family. When He was 
 about thirty years of age He abandoned His day labor and 
 began to teach and preach. Soon the churches closed their 
 doors against Him. He gathered crowds and preached to 
 them in the streets and fields. In less than three years 
 He was arrested, charged with sedition, and after a short 
 trial in the midnight hours of a turbulent week a trial 
 the legality of which is more than disputable He was put 
 to death. Within three days a few women and many men 
 declared that He was not dead ; that He had risen from 
 the dead; and that they had seen Him. 
 
 Now the story of this life has profoundly affected the 
 life of the world. As a matter of fact civilisation has 
 grown up round the name of Christ. Historians, Christian 
 or non-Christian, have to speak of the movements and 
 developments of civilisation since the death of Jesus as 
 "Christian civilisation." This period of the world's history 
 is called the Christian era. Every letter which you wrote 
 yesterday was dated and every cheque which you will 
 sign to-morrow will be dated from the year of His birth. 
 You may be a Jew in San Francisco or a Christian in 
 Chicago or a Pagan in New York or a Christian Scientist 
 in Boston or an Atheist in Paris, but you will sign your 
 letters and date your cheques from the year of His birth. 
 You may write a book for the purpose of showing that 
 
 31
 
 Jesus never lived; and when you get the proof-sheets 
 from the printer you will find that on the title page in 
 the imprint has been inserted the year of publication, 
 dated from the birth of One you have tried to prove had 
 no existence ! Cities have been founded, have flour- 
 ished, and been swept away, kingdoms have been con- 
 solidated or torn to pieces, empires have crumbled to dust 
 and ashes and others have arisen, solely by reason of 
 forces upheaved by His influence, by the words He spoke, 
 and by the spirit He bequeathed. 
 
 Interest in Him and in His work is not waning. Four- 
 teen years ago the Dowager Empress of China decreed the 
 death of every Christian found within her realm. You 
 know the story : the Boxer rising, martyrdoms, massacres, 
 bloodshed unspeakable. Less than twelve months ago the 
 rulers of the new Republic of China officially, as a Govern- 
 ment utterance, asked for the prayers of Christian people 
 everywhere, prayers for wisdom and divine guidance and 
 the blessing of God upon the Republic. There are more 
 Christians in the world to-day than there were yesterday; 
 there will be more to-morrow than there are to-day. 
 
 Reflection upon the character of Jesus of Nazareth has 
 won from the thinkers of the ages, not by any means to 
 be ranked amongst His professed followers, tributes which 
 exhaust the powers of praise. 
 
 Goethe, for instance, looked for advance in every field 
 of human enterprise save in one. "The moral majesty of 
 the Gospels," he said, "could never be excelled." 
 
 In this Goethe was but echoing the deliberately ex- 
 pressed opinion of Spinoza, who saw in Christ "the temple 
 of man, where God stands most perfectly revealed." 
 
 Strauss, too, held up Jesus to admiration "as the su- 
 preme religious genius of time, who created and embodied 
 the absolute religion." 
 
 This phrase about the "absolute religion" recalls Renan's 
 great words to the effect that on the day that Jesus talked 
 with the woman of Samaria by Jacob's well "He founded 
 
 32
 
 the pure worship of all ages, of all lands ; not the best 
 religion, but the absolute religion, and was truly Son of 
 God." 
 
 Rousseau in his theatrical way contrasted the death of 
 Socrates with the death of Jesus, and said that while 
 Socrates died like a hero Jesus died like a god. 
 
 In less flamboyant speech John Stuart Mill toward the 
 close of his life declared that after all one can do no 
 better, when puzzled as to conduct, than ask what Jesus 
 would do under such conditions and do that ! 
 
 Obviously such a life cannot be understood in a moment 
 nor defined in a phrase. I love to fall back upon this 
 mystic word taken from the prologue to John's Gospel : 
 In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. I see 
 in Jesus of Nazareth the Christ of God, the Eternal Son 
 of the Eternal Father of us all. He is the consummation 
 of the divine purpose of redemption. 
 
 The story which seems to begin with the birth at 
 Bethelem really begins with the postulate of all religion, 
 God! In the beginning God! But the Creator of the 
 heavens and the earth could not tolerate a solitary splen- 
 dor. Our minds refuse to think of Him existent and all 
 else non-existent. He utters Himself in the material uni- 
 verse ; earth and air and sea, suns and spheres and stellar 
 space, are His efforts toward self-expression. Upon this 
 planet He calls into being Man. He speaks in Man ; He 
 speaks to men. The human family increases, multiplies, 
 replenishes the earth. Nations thrive and branch from 
 clime to clime. And still God speaks to men. To the 
 sages of China, the dreamers of India, the warrier-seers of 
 Persia, the poets, artists, philosophers of Greece and Rome, 
 came the Word of the Lord ; and in every nation arose 
 prophets who spoke for Him, saints who lived for Him, 
 and martyrs who died for Him. Men of the ancient 
 Hebrew race caught His great accents clearest and spoke 
 them trumpet-tongued to the world. They are Jews and 
 we are Christians but we are what they have made us. 
 
 33
 
 Their literature we call not a literature, but a book, 
 and not a book but the Book, the World's Book, God's 
 Book, the Bible. Their genius was more glorious than 
 that of the race which gave Pheidias and Plato to the 
 world ; theirs was the genius of religion ; and their religion 
 is the imperishable possession of mankind. Their "stern 
 monotheism" has become our belief in the immanence of 
 the Living God. Their passion for righteousness is our 
 faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their Messianic Hope is 
 our assurance of immortality in Christ the Resurrection 
 and the Life. God having thus, in divers portions and in 
 divers manners, spoken of old time unto the fathers of the 
 race by prophets, has, in the climax of His incarnation, 
 spoken unto us by a Son, Jesus Christ, who has taught us 
 to call Him Father, who is Himself Mind of the Father's 
 Mind and Thought of the Father's Thought, who is to us 
 the Messiah of the Jews, the Desire of all Nations, the Hope 
 of the World, the Saviour of the Race, the Redeemer of 
 Mankind. 
 
 Some of these words call for definition. It would be 
 pleasant to continue this statement of the things most 
 assuredly believed amongst us in this spirit, in the mood 
 of positive affirmation, omitting the negative propositions, 
 speaking only of that which is. It could be done. But one 
 has to take into account the temperamental necessities of 
 many different persons, and for some it is necessary to 
 bring into prominence the things which are excluded or 
 omitted. The newest and most useful of the dictionaries 
 prides itself upon the introduction of what it calls 
 antonyms ; that is to say, the opposite meanings of words, 
 as though it were to define "dark" by "not light" or 
 "sour" by "not sweet." So I call your attention to the 
 words that are not used. 
 
 It is not said that Jesus Christ is God. That is a state- 
 ment of some of the ancient creeds. No New Testatment 
 writer ever spoke of Jesus Christ as God. It would have 
 
 34
 
 seemed to Evangelist or Apostle an unheard-of blasphemy. 
 He would have rent his clothes and flung ashes upon his 
 head in horror at the suggestion. I accept and make my 
 own and glory in every ascription of praise which the 
 inspired writers employed, every word of adoration, of 
 love and worship. Bring me any word of any New 
 Testament writer, with its largest, fullest, loftiest worship 
 of our Lord. I accept it, make it my own, glory in it. 
 But I will not be coerced into the use of language em- 
 ployed by the old creed-builders unjustified by the lan- 
 guage of the New Testament. "Very God of very God," 
 you may go on repeating as you repeat the Nicene Creed. 
 But you must not think that you are quoting the New 
 Testament. Creeds are changed in the changing centuries! 
 When the Council of Constantinople had done with the 
 creed set forth by the Council of Nicsea, of the one hun- 
 dred and seventy-eight words in the Constantinopolitan 
 Creed only thirty-three had been taken from the Nicene ! 
 And Dean Stanley, one of the noblest sons of that Church 
 which clings to creeds, says curiously : 
 
 "We might, if we chose, vex ourselves by the thought that every 
 time we recite the Creed in its present altered form we have de- 
 parted from the intention of the Fathers of Nioea, and incurred 
 deprivation and excommunication at the hands of the Fathers of 
 Ephesus. We might insist on returning to the only Catholic form 
 of the Creed, such as it was before it was corrupted at Con- 
 stantinople, Chalcedon, Toledo, and London. . . . The fact that 
 the whole Christian world has altered the Creed of Nicaea, and 
 broken the decree of Ephesus, without ceasing to be Catholic or 
 Christian, is a decisive proof that common sense, after all, is the 
 supreme arbiter and corrective even of (Ecumenical Councils." 
 
 It is wiser and safer to speak of Scriptural realities in 
 Scriptural phraseology. No Scripture writer ever spoke 
 of Jesus Christ as God.* 
 
 *Romans 9;5 must not be misunderstood. It is misunderstood when 
 read from the versions in common use. It is a phrase in the nature 
 of a doxology. Dr. Moffatt's translation gives it correctly : "Blessed 
 for evermore be the God who is over all ! Amen." 
 
 Dr. James Denney, the leading theologian of Great Britain, a 
 
 35
 
 The word "Trinity" is not employed. "God in three 
 persons, blessed Trinity," is a line from a popular 
 hymn and may represent the thought and the words of 
 the ancient creeds. But "Trinity" is not in the New 
 Testament, neither is any phrase about "three persons in 
 the Godhead." It has been found helpful to think of a 
 three-fold manifestation of God: as the Creative Intelli- 
 gence, incarnate in the Redeeming Son, operative in the 
 continuing activities of the Holy Spirit. It may be 
 more helpful to you to think of God in this way than to 
 confuse thought with phrases about three persons in one. 
 This morning before you left home you acted as a father. 
 To-morrow morning in your office you will act as an 
 employer of labor. The next day it may be, called upon 
 jury service or casting your ballot, you will act as a 
 citizen. Father, employer of labor, citizen : you act in 
 three capacities ; your individuality is one. We may think 
 of God as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the 
 Father who thinks and loves ; we may see in Jesus Christ 
 the incarnation of the Father's thought and love ; in our 
 own hearts without the aid of Church or preacher, creed 
 or ritual, we may realise the presence of God. So we may 
 think and so we may speak of Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit without introducing the confused and confusing 
 and un-Scriptural speech concerning a "Trinity" or "three 
 persons in one God." 
 
 Presbyterian, Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and 
 Theology in the United Free Church College, Glasgow, commenting 
 upon this verse ("The Expositor's Greek Testament," Vol. 2, 1900) 
 anticipates Dr. Moffatt's reading and says: 
 
 "If we ask ourselves point blank, whether Paul, as we know 
 his mind from his epistles, would express his sense of Christ's great- 
 ness by calling Him 'God blessed for ever,' it seems to me almost 
 impossible to answer in the affirmative. Such an assertion is not 
 on the same plane with the conception of Christ which meets us 
 everywhere in the Apostle's writings; and though there is some ir- 
 regularity in the grammar, and perhaps some difficulty in seeing the 
 point of a doxology, I agree with those who would put a colon or 
 a period at 'flesh,' and make the words that follow refer not to Christ 
 but to the Father." 
 
 36
 
 Here the question will obtrude itself upon your minds : 
 "Is it not said that Jesus was born in some way different 
 from us? Was he not born without a father? Has not 
 the statement of the creeds, 'conceived of the Holy Ghost, 
 born of the Virgin Mary,' Scripture to support it?" 
 
 The story of the virgin-birth of Jesus has priceless 
 value for the Church. It has made its way into our 
 creeds, our hymns, our Christmas legends. It would be 
 difficult to imagine the centuries and the ages and the 
 world of our day without the story of the Virgin-mother 
 and her Child. Yet the value of the birth-stories lies, not 
 'in their statement of fact, but in their effort to construct 
 a theory. In plain words, the stories of the virgin-birth 
 of Jesus in two of the Gospels and the dogmatic assertion 
 of the creeds represent the attempt of the Church, too 
 early made, in its fresh impulses of adoration, to explain 
 the inexplicable personality of Jesus. 
 
 It was not the attempt of the whole Church. It was 
 not the attempt of the complete Apostolic body. We have 
 four Gospels. From two of them the birth-stories are 
 missing. Matthew and Luke preserve the narrative of 
 the miraculous birth. Mark and John do not. Mark is our 
 earliest Gospel. He has not a word to say about the 
 virgin-birth. John has most to say about the incarnation. 
 From the Gospel which bears his name we take this noble 
 text: In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. 
 But John does not mention the incidents connected with 
 our Saviour's birth. Luke's Gospel, as Luke himself tells 
 us, is a compilation from previously existing material. 
 Luke had Matthew or Matthew's original before him as he 
 wrote; so that the sole authority for the stories in the four 
 Gospels is Matthew. And even so far as Matthew's 
 Gospel is concerned the case is by no means clear. In 
 the latest translation of the New Testament Dr. Moffatt 
 accepts without comment the reading from Von Soden's 
 edition of the Greek New Testament and boldly translates 
 
 37 
 
 285320
 
 (Chap. 1, v. 16), "Joseph, to whom the virgin Mary was 
 betrothed, the father of Jesus." 
 
 It was the flash of Peter's insight and the flight of 
 his inspiration which aroused such joy and thanksgiving 
 in the heart of Jesus when at Caesarea, Peter, speaking as 
 man had never spoken before and as perhaps man has 
 never spoken since, burst forth, "Thou art the Christ, the 
 Son of the Living God"; yet Peter makes speeches and 
 preaches sermons which are recorded and writes epistles, 
 but never mentions the birth-stories. Paul lived and 
 loved and died, won barbarian tribes for Christ, argued 
 with the university men of Athens and with patrician and 
 plebian in Rome, compelled the admiration of Roman 
 judges and senators and the love of soldiers, slaves, and 
 slum-dwellers in the City of the Seven Hills, and caused 
 the Cross of Christ to flame through the darkness of 
 Paganism in every city of the Mediterranean but, as 
 far as the record tells, he never once referred to the virgin- 
 birth. One of two conclusions is obvious and indis- 
 putable. Either Mark, John, Peter, and Paul never heard 
 about the miraculous birth ; or else, being familiar with 
 the story, not one of them felt that it was necessary 
 to repeat it. 
 
 We cannot hope to love Christ more tenderly than did 
 the disciple whom Jesus loved. We cannot hope to 
 preach Christ more faithfully, bravely, and effectively 
 than did the Apostle to the Gentiles. We cannot write a 
 better Gospel than Mark's. We cannot rise to the height 
 of a loftier inspiration than that of Peter. And these all 
 were what they were, did what they did, lived their splen- 
 did lives, died their glorious deaths, and they sit on 
 thrones, giving laws to humankind ; but they never once 
 found it necessary to ground their faith in the virgin- 
 birth of Jesus nor fortify their preaching by it. It is not 
 open to question that these men believed in the divinity 
 of Christ. One might almost say that they believed in 
 nothing else! If they did not passionately accept Him as 
 
 38
 
 divine, if they did not believe in His divinity with all 
 their heart and with all their head, language has no mean- 
 ing and history is a riddle. They believed and their 
 belief turned the world upside down. 
 
 If you are helped by the story of the miraculous birth 
 as it appears in Luke and in Matthew, so be it. If it 
 helps you, hold to it. But if, on the other hand, you choose 
 to say, as for myself I do say, "I am on the side of Mark 
 and John, of Peter and Paul ; they could accept His 
 divinity and serve Him through life and death without 
 grounding their faith upon the stories of the virgin-birth 
 and so can I" if a devout student of Scripture speaks in 
 this sense to us to-day Christian charity is bound to 
 accept that view as permissible within the limits of our 
 Christian liberty.* 
 
 * There is nothing strange in this view of the birth of Jesus. 
 What is strange is that persons familiar with the life of the Churches 
 should find anything strange in it. Dr. Washington Gladden, in his 
 grand old age, has just published a volume entitled "Present Day 
 Theology." The following extracts are taken from pp. 142-3 : 
 
 "The Scriptural proofs of the doctrine of the virgin birth are 
 rather dubious. In only two of the New Testament books is it re- 
 ferred to. 'The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke contain 
 allusions to it. The Gospel of Mark, which is, by all, now admitted 
 to be the earliest gospel, and the foundation of both Matthew and 
 Luke, does not mention it. The Gospel of John, which is regarded 
 as the chief proof of Christ's divinity, has not heard of it. The 
 Apostle Paul, who is the author of thirteen of the twenty-eight books 
 of the New Testament, never speaks of it. No word of Jesus re- 
 ported in any of the gospels alludes to it. There are two genealogies 
 of Jesus, in Matthew and Luke, and both of them make Jesus the 
 son of Joseph. The story of the virgin birth in Matthew and Luke 
 contradict each other at several points. There seems, certainly, to 
 be much justification for the conclusion of many great Christian 
 scholars that the stories in Matthew and Luke are late legendary 
 additions to these gospels. 
 
 "I confess that I should be glad to know that He was one with 
 us in the origin of His life as in the maintenance of it. It seems 
 to me that this idea of the virgin birth tends to throw some dis- 
 credit upon the sacredness of marriage, which is a tendency to be 
 deprecated." 
 
 Dr. Gladden quotes from Dr. Mackintosh, a Scotch Presbyterian, 
 
 59
 
 What then do we mean by the Divinity of Christ? In 
 what sense is He divine? 
 
 In every hyman being there is somewhat of the divine 
 nature; in Him that nature has taken full and complete 
 possession of the whole being and God has tabernacled 
 in the flesh. In all of us there is divinity and divinity 
 of the same nature as was in Christ; but His being is 
 full, saturated with that divineness whose lightest impress 
 is all that some of us have known. We are all sons of 
 God ; but once in the history of the world the ever Living 
 God took entire possession of One born of woman, and 
 manifested Himself as never before or since for the 
 redemption of the race; and the Christ is supremely the 
 Son of God. 
 
 I know that many of you are ready with the question : 
 "Then is the difference between us and Jesus Christ one 
 only of degree and not of kind?" I beg you to consider 
 very seriously the meaning of the words you use. 
 You employ them so often that you think they convey 
 a meaning to you ; but they do not. A difference of what 
 you call "kind" is most frequently created by an accumu- 
 lation of differences of what you call "degree." What is 
 the origin of species the origin of kinds? Variations 
 amongst individual members of the species, variations 
 transmitted, becoming more marked, accumulating until 
 you have a new "kind." 
 
 Consider this: even preserving your own words "de- 
 gree" and "kind," then an accumulation of differences of 
 "degree" is often more than a difference in "kind." For 
 instance, if you were to take a savage digged out of the 
 heart of some cannibal tribe, the lowest, most undeveloped 
 specimen of a man that you could find ; if you were to set 
 him side by side with a gorilla or baboon, one of the 
 
 the writer of a book which Dr. Gladden describes as "one of the 
 most staunchly orthodox books on the Person of Christ." Dr. Mack- 
 intosh writes : "For my own part I should not think of regarding 
 an explicit belief in the virgin birth of our Lord as essential to 
 Christian faith ; otherwise St. Paul was no Christian." 
 
 40
 
 higher apes; is it not likely that you would find a greater 
 difference between the lowest kind of man and the highest 
 kind of ape than you would find between that unde- 
 veloped specimen of a man and, let us say, an Emerson or 
 a Lincoln, a Gladstone or a Browning? It seems simple 
 to say that the difference between the baboon and the sav- 
 age is a difference of "kind" and the difference between the 
 savage and Plato is a difference of "degree." But ponder 
 quietly the sentence I have just employed: an accumulation 
 of differences of degree is often more than a difference of kind. 
 Jesus Christ is different from us, peerless, unique ; in 
 Him is a fullness of divine nature, so exceptional, so 
 supernal, that He stands alone. If you care to mark 
 these differences by varying phrases, then it is easy to 
 say that in us is divinity ; Christ is divine. Or, if you will, 
 you may say that you believe in the divineness of man and 
 in the divinity of Christ. 
 
 In what sense is Jesus Christ our Saviour? What must 
 we think of the Atonement? 
 
 Now observe once more that the word "atonement" 
 does not appear in the New Testament. And again I re- 
 mark that it is wisest and safest to speak of Scriptural 
 realities in Scriptural language. The New Testament uses 
 the word "reconcile" and "reconciliation." Jesus Christ 
 reconciles us to God. He does not appease God's anger: 
 there was no anger to appease. He does not propitiate 
 God : God was always propitious. God's willingness to 
 forgive us was not procured by the death of Jesus : He 
 was always willing to forgive. God does not love us 
 because Jesus died for us: Jesus died for us because God 
 loves us. Christ does not reconcile the Father to us : the 
 Father never needed to be reconciled. He reconciles us to 
 the Father. 
 
 The distinction is of enormous importance. If it were 
 possible to draw a line at any point between the old 
 theology and the new it would have to be drawn here. 
 The question is : "Was the atonement something done 
 
 41
 
 toward God or toward men?" The answer which the 
 preaching of our day makes is perfectly clear. It is some- 
 thing done toward men. It effects no change in the atti- 
 tude of God toward us, for God loves us and God is Love. 
 It effects a change in our attitude toward God, for we 
 were disobedient, unfilial, ungracious. And through the 
 Cross of Christ and all that it represents we turn to seek 
 filial relations with God. 
 
 Let there be no mistake about this. Much depends upon 
 it. Let us make our appeal to that great doctor of the 
 Christian Church, the Apostle Paul himself. Language 
 could be neither clearer nor more emphatic than his. 
 Weigh carefully these extracts from his writings : 
 
 Romans 5; 10, 11 : 
 
 "For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to 
 God through the death of His Son, much more, being 
 reconciled, shall we be saved by His life ; and not only 
 so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, through whom we have now received the recon- 
 ciliation." 
 
 Ephesians 2; 16: 
 
 "And might reconcile them both in one body (Jew and 
 Gentile) unto God through the Cross, having slain the 
 enmity thereby." 
 
 2 Corinthians 5; 18-20: 
 
 "But all things are of God, who reconciled us to Him- 
 self through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of 
 reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling 
 the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their 
 trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of 
 reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of 
 Christ, as though God were entreating by us : we beseech 
 you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God." 
 
 Colossians 1 ; 20-22 : 
 
 "Through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, 
 having made peace through the blood of His Cross; 
 through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or 
 things in the heavens. And you, being in time past 
 
 42
 
 alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, 
 yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh 
 through death, to present you holy and without blemish 
 and unreprovable before Him." 
 
 To return : I have used the word "atonement." I have 
 done it deliberately. For I believe in the Atonement. 
 Do you know what it means? It is at-one-ment. This is 
 not a trick, a mere splitting up of the word into its 
 syllables. This is what the word is in its birth, in its 
 origin, in its essential meaning. It means at-one-ment, 
 bringing together persons who were separated, making 
 them "at one." Tyndal speaks of Christ as "an advocate, 
 intercessor, or at-one-maker between God and man." 
 Atonement is a comparatively new word, probably not older 
 than the beginning of the sixteenth century. Shakespeare 
 uses it frequently. Desdemona says that she would 
 like to atone her husband and Cassio, meaning she will 
 try to get them to patch up their quarrel and be "at one." 
 Buckingham in "Richard III" tells the queen that the 
 king is seeking to make atonement between Gloucester 
 and her brothers. 
 
 This is the real sense of the Atonement. We who were 
 in time past alienated and enemies are now "at one" with 
 God. 
 
 Christ reconciles us to God by revealing to us the true 
 nature of God. Did we think Him harsh, unjust, or even 
 indifferent? He is our Father and He loves us. The 
 first words of Jesus in His earthly life and His last 
 breathe the Father's name. He never speaks to Him by 
 any other name than "Father." Five prayers of His are 
 recorded in the New Testament. In each one God is 
 addressed as "Father" and in no other way. In one 
 prayer which is contained in three verses of Matthew's 
 Gospel "Father" occurs five times. In such terms He 
 would have His followers pray. 
 
 The Father loves His children, loves all His children, 
 desires all His children to live in love with Him. He seeks 
 and saves His children. With Him "lost" only means 
 
 43
 
 "not found yet." The Cross represents an agony of love 
 in the Father's heart, His desire to seek and save His 
 children. Jesus Christ is our Saviour and our Redeemer 
 because He is the supreme revelation of the Father's will 
 and the Father's love. 
 
 A question not of the first importance is nevertheless of 
 sufficient consequence to claim an answer here. May we 
 think of Jesus as a miracle- worker? What of the New 
 Testament stories? 
 
 Without doubt I think of Him as a miracle-worker. The 
 real miracle would be if such a being as He was had not 
 the power to work miracles. What you can do with your 
 life depends upon the quantity and quality of it. In Him 
 was life ! I do not pledge myself to an unhesitating accept- 
 ance of all the miracle stories as they appear in the New 
 Testament. In the matter of some there may be a misun- 
 derstanding of metaphor, in others an accretion of legend. 
 About some of the miracle stories I have no manner of 
 doubt whatever. Some of the others in the form in which 
 they are now related I do not accept in the same un- 
 hesitating way. About some of the others I hold my 
 judgment in suspense. That "He healed many that were 
 sick of divers diseases and cast out the demons by His 
 word" I am quite sure. I am not by any means so sure 
 that He caused a fish to be caught with a silver coin in 
 its mouth ! That He had power under certain conditions 
 to call back the dead to life I should on sufficient evidence 
 be prepared to believe. I hesitate to say that in the cases 
 related the evidence is sufficient. The picture of Jesus 
 as a miracle-worker I take to be a true picture. From 
 a transcendent personality transcendent results were 
 bound to flow. 
 
 These considerations lead us naturally to the question 
 of the Resurrection. 
 
 His personality was so powerful that death could not 
 kill Him! It had so powerfully impressed itself upon His 
 disciples that after He was dead they knew He was alive. 
 
 44
 
 They were more conscious of His presence than ever be- 
 fore. He rose from the dead. It is impossible for me to 
 think of Him as dead. In the whole round of thought and 
 experience and history, of transcendent and eternal things, 
 nothing seems to me so certain as the fact that Jesus 
 Christ triumphed over death and the grave ; that He lives 
 on still, ruling and reigning in His Church and in the 
 hearts of men. 
 
 So, in outline, calling to my aid lucid and simple speech 
 instead of academic phraseology, I have tried to show you 
 how Jesus Christ is conceived and preached by the liberal 
 theologian of our day. If I had not authority on my 
 side I modestly hope that I should still have the courage 
 to say these things. As a matter of fact I did say them in 
 a book, now out of print, published more than twenty 
 years ago. But I am not without influential support. Con- 
 gregationalists accept no creed imposed by authority. No 
 Congregational Church can say to another Church what 
 it must believe. No teacher, however honored, and no 
 assembly, however elected, can prescribe to us our beliefs. 
 Nevertheless we are perfectly willing, as I have shown in 
 this sermon, to tell anybody who is interested what we 
 believe.* And so the National Council of the Congre- 
 gationalists of America, meeting in Kansas City last 
 October, accepted and published a statement of the things 
 most assuredly believed amongst us at the present time. 
 The proposed new Creed had been long debated in the 
 denomination. It was adopted with practical unanimity, 
 with great heartiness and enthusiasm. This is how it 
 runs: 
 
 "We believe in God the Father, infinite in wisdom, goodness and 
 love ; and in Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord and Saviour, who, for us 
 
 * "There is a point at which caution passes over into insincerity ; 
 and, for a Church, insincerity is the unpardonable sin. If the preacher's 
 word can not be trusted with regard to the seen, who will accept it 
 with regard to the unseen? This is the rock upon which ignoble 
 orthodoxies are broken ; neither God nor man is served by a lie." 
 The Nation (London), January 24, 1914. 
 
 45
 
 and our salvation, lived and died and rose again and liveth evermore ; 
 and in the Holy Spirit, who taketh of the things of Christ and re- 
 vealeth them to us, renewing, comforting, and inspiring the souls 
 of men." 
 
 Mark the things which are not stated. It is not said in 
 this Creed that Jesus Christ is God. There is no word 
 about the Trinity. The miraculous birth is not mentioned. 
 The old dreadful views of the atonement are not there. 
 It is not strange that a monthly magazine widely read 
 by preachers in its issue for this very month cites this 
 Creed as an admirable example both of things omitted and 
 things stated, and praises the Congregationalists for omit- 
 ting "the dozen and more doctrines over which theologians 
 have spilt good ink and bad blood." 
 
 But let us go on with the Creed: 
 
 "We are united in striving to know the will of God as taught in 
 the Holy Scriptures, and in our purpose to walk in the ways of 
 the Lord, made known or to be made known to us. We hold it 
 to be the mission of the Church of Christ to proclaim the Gospel 
 to all mankind, exalting the worship of the one true God, and 
 laboring for the progress of knowledge, the promotion of justice, 
 the triumph of peace, and the realisation of human brotherhood. 
 Depending, as did our fathers, upon the continued guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth, we work and pray for the 
 transformation of the world into the kingdom of God ; and we look 
 with faith for the triumph of righteousness and for life and glory 
 everlasting. Amen." 
 
 This is the glorious programme which stirs our hearts 
 to-day. Theology can only contain an account of the 
 things we think about God. Religion is life. The real 
 matter is for us to be on the side of Jesus Christ. The 
 real matter, in the language of the new Congregational 
 Creed, is "to proclaim the Gospel to all mankind," is to 
 labor "for the progress of knowledge, the promotion of 
 justice, the triumph of peace, and the realisation of hu- 
 man brotherhood." Jesus Christ is the constructive force 
 in human life and in society. He who is on His side 
 makes, builds, raises up. He tunnels through mountains 
 of human misery when he cannot cast them into the 
 depths of the sea. He flings across gulfs of dark despair 
 
 46
 
 bridges of eternal hope. He makes straight through the 
 dreary desert of an uncivilised civilisation a highway for 
 the march of an emancipated people. He who yields himself 
 in simple loyalty to Christ and seeks to live in His spirit 
 is a medium of light, a source of health, a centre of knowl- 
 edge, a saving energy, a redemptive force, a power making 
 for righteousness and making for love. If you will become 
 a fellow-worker together with Him, seeking to bring His 
 mighty kingdom in, difficulties which you may have ex- 
 perienced with regard to creeds will seem immeasurably 
 remote and controversies about them unspeakably futile. 
 Before you can define to your own satisfaction "justifi- 
 cation by faith," Faith will justify herself in the un- 
 challengeable sanctity and glory of her works. Before you 
 can adjust with niceties of theological debate the relation 
 of His perfect humanity to His effulgent divinity, with 
 your life of love and service you will crown Him Lord of 
 All. 
 
 47
 
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