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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
.;;,4^-.v,v •■l^,r^.« -'-■■■■.&-
HISTORY
OF
Intellectual Development :
ON THE LIXES OF
MODERN EVOLUTION.
BY
JOHN BEATTIE CROZIER.
Author of
" Civilization and Progress,'^ ^r., Sfc.
VOL. I.
SECOND EDITION.
REVISED AND WITH NEW INTRODUCTION
GREEK AXD HINDOO THOUGHT ; GRiECO-ROMAN
TAGAXISM; JUDAISM; AND CHRISTIANITY DOWN
TO THE CLOSING OF THE SCHOOLS OF ATHENS
BY JUSTINIAN.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.,
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1902.
London
Printed by the Army and Navy Co-operative Society, Limited,
105, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W.
V.I
PREFACE.
A WORD or tAvo, by way of preface, as to the materials I
-^ have used in this work, and as to tlie manner in which
they have been put togetlier. My plan has always been, where
possible, to go direct to the original authorities living at or
about the time of the events recorded, or those in some way in
contact with them, and having steeped my mind in these, to
reconstruct to the best of my ability some picture of it all, in
my own way, and from my own point of view. This done, I
then, \vith the view of repairing the gaps and oversights in-
evitable in the view taken of any large and complex subject by a
single mind, have had recourse to those great modern authorities
who themselves drew from the original fountain head, and
especially to the works of those specialists in the various
departments w^ho have devoted themselves to the elucidation
of some single period of history, or school of philosophy, or to
the lives of particular great men. AVhen the subject-matter
was more than usually complex, and the threads of connexion
more than usually involved or difficult to follow, my method
has been to construct diagrams, so as to represent more clearly
to myself the points at which, in my judgment, the connexions
were either satisfactorily established, or were left still incom-
plete. And it was not until I had got the lacunae filled up, and
the sprawling tag-ends of unrelated points connected with the
rest, and rounded into some sort of harmony, that I felt myself
justified in trying to discover the central law or principle of the
whole period or movement.
J. B. C.
January 1, 1897.
HISTORY OF INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
By John Beattie C]:ozier.
VOL. I.
SUMMARY OF CHAPTEES.
INTRODUCTORY.
PART I. — The Evolution of Greek Thought.
Cl^pter I.— The Kev.
II.— Up to Plato.
III.—Aristotle.
IV. — From Aristotle to Christianity.
PART II. — The Evolution of Hindoo Thought.
Chapter I.
II.
III.
-Hindoo Philosophy.
-Buddhism.
-Modern Theosophy.
PART III. — The Evolution of Judaism.
Chapter I. — Paganism and Christianity.
II. — Judaism. ....
III. — T])e Evolving Centres in Religion. .
IV. — The Evolution of Jehovah and of Jewish
Morality. ....
V. — The Evolution of Jehovah and of Jewish
Morality (continued.)
VI. — The Evolution of the Resurrection and of a
Future Life.
VII.— The Evolution of the Messiah and of the
Messianic Kingdom. . .
PART IV. — The Evolution of Ciihistianity.
Chapter I. — The Two Methods in Civilization. •
II. — Jesus Christ.
III. — The Kingdom of God.
IV. — Primitive Jewish Christianity.
V.-^Pauline Christianity.
VI. — Apostolic Christianity.
VII. — Gnosticism.
VIII.— The New Testament Canon.
IX. — Pagan Persecutions of Christianity.
X. — The Apologists.
XI. — Irenasus ; Tertulliau ; Ori.gen.
XII.— The Trinity.
XIII — Pagan Morality
APPENDIX. — Platoxism and Chuistiamty.
Parti. ....
Part II. ....
INDEX . . . ,
Page.
vii -XV.
1-15
19-31
32-53
54-68
64-78
81-101
102-119
120-147
151-100
161-1S7
188-196
197-208
209-218
219-231
232-246
249-273
274 308
309-H20
H21-839
340-352
353-363
31)4-381
■AX2- 104
405-412
413-420
421-442
443-457
458-477
481-497
498-519
521.538
End of Vol. I.
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS.
INTRODUCTORY.
Difference between the Method employed in the investigation of the
Laws of Civilization in general, and the investigation of the Laws of
a single factor, the Intellectual — Proof that the History of Intellectual
Development can be reduced to Scientific Law — How the intrusion
of Physical Science affects the predication of these Laws — Difference
between Religion and Philosophy in this respect — The attempts
made by Hegel, Comte, Buckle, and Herbert Spencer to reduce
Intellectual Development to Law, considered — The Unkno^vla
Power behind it all — Is it Providence or Fate? . 1-15
PART I -THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
CHAPTER L
The Key.
Tiie difference between Religious, Scientific, and Metaphysical Causes —
Greek Philosophy deals with Metaphysical Causes — The direction
these will take when confronted with Religious Causes on the
one hand and with Scientific Causes on the other — And why thaS
direction is different in Ancient and Modern Times respectively —
Why Hegel's solution is inapplicable to the Problem before us.
19-31
VlJl. SU3I3IARY OF CIIArXERS.
CHAPTEll 11.
Up to Plato.
The point from which Greek Philosophy must start and the direction
in which it must go, considered at different stages — Thales, Anux-
imenes, Anaximander, and Pythagoras base their philosophies on
]\latter — Xenophanes, Pannenides, Heraclitus, Zeno, and
Empedocles on Soul — Anaxagoras and Socrates on Intelligence
— Socrates makes for the Keligious Shore, Democritus for the
Scientific one — Plato — His colossal scheme statically perfect, but
wanting in Dynamics and Evolution. . . 32-53
CHAPTER HI.
Aristotle.
How Aristotle modified the scheme of Plato to get a theory of Evolution
out of it — His principle of Motion — His philosophy as a whole — His
doctrine of Form and Matter — His division of Causes into four kinds
— What category of Plato he had to sacrifice to make his theory a
dynamical one — ^Leaves Plato statically supreme. . 54-63
CHAPTER IV.
From Aristotle to Christianitt.
The Stoics in their attempts to get a more complete dynamical unity than
Aristotle still further confound Plato's great categories, and make
the search for a new kind of causation inevitable — This new kind of
causation formulated by Neo-Platonism — How it differs from ordi-
nary scientific causation — It preserves the full statical efiiciency of
Plato, and adds the necessary dynamical element — ^The single step
that separated Neo-Platonism from the parallel doctrine of the
Trinity in Christianity — St. Augustine as a witness. . 64-78
PART II.-THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
CHAPTER I.
Hindoo Philosophy.
All its Systems founded on Soul as Supreme Principle, rather than on
Intelligence, as in European Thought — Its doctrine of Re-incar-
nation impossible in Systems founded on Intelligence — The changes
that can be rung on the principle of Soul, correspond to its Vedanta,
Vaiseshika, and Sankhya Systems — These Systems described in
detail — The Nyaya, Mimansa, and Yoga philosophies, not systems
of World-philosophy — They deal with Logic, with the Vedas, and
with Asceticism. . . . 81-101
SU.M3IAHY OF CHAPTERS. IX.
CHAPTER II.
Bl'DDIIISM.
The Hindoo dislike to a re-incarnation from which he cannot escape —
Why Buddha denies the existence of Soul, whether human or
divine — The part played hy Mind-atoms in Buddha's System — Karma,
what is it? — Where Buddha got the philosophical basis for Karma —
His scheme for putting an end to Re-incarnation — Its originality —
His Noble Eight -fold Path — Nirvana, what is it ? Difference between
Buddhism and all the other Hindoo Systems — Its fatal defect —
Buddhism and Christianity contrasted. . . 102-119
CHAPTER III.
Modern Theosophy.
Not directly refutable either by Science or by Religion — Its pedigree
important in determining its intellectual status — The philosophical
method of the Mahatmas the same as that of the Spiritualistic
Medium and Thought-reader — ^The intellectual illusion involved in
this method — ^The doctrine of the Planetary Chain — Its plausibility
in appearing to have solved the [troblem of the end, aim, and destiny
of the World and of ]Man, in a more satisfactory manner than either
Physical Science or Cln-istianity — The intellectual illusion involved
in its construction — Its harmonies only paper-harmonies, its causes,
pseudo-causes — It makes no ai/dition to knowledge — Its Causes mere
duplicates of the effects to be accounted for. , . 120-147
PART I1I.~THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
CHAPTER I.
Paganism a\d CHniSTiANiTV.
The Soul of Paganism and of Christianity respectively — Illustrations
from the laws, institutions, and worship of Greece and Rome — Why
the gulf between Paganism and Christianity could not be bridged
over by any form of Philosophy, but only by the impregnation
of Paganism by some Religion outside of itself — And that religion
not a Polytheism — Analogy from the breeding of animals. 151-160
X. SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER II.
Judaism.
The Tribe of Israel, and the kind of experiences needed to bring it
to Monotheism— The Wandering in the Wilderness — Jewish
Idolatry— The Prophets— The Exile of the Ten Tribes of the
North — Idolatry in the South — Reforms of Hezekiah and of Josiah
—The Book of the Law— Exile of the Two Southern tribes to
Babylon— The Israel of God— The Return from Captivity— Idolatry
for ever gone — Advances in Morality — Parallel advances in the
conception of God— Effect of the Unity and Supremacy of the
Priesthood— Effect of the presence of the Ark at Jerusalem —
Effect of the destruction of Monarchy— Tlie Priestly Code— Why
the Morality of the Prophets ended in the Morality of the Scribe
and Pharisee ? — Popular fallacies — Why Judaism could not pass
over into Christianity ? . . • • 161-187
CHAPTER III.
The Evolving Centres in Religion.
Evolving Centres in Religion, What they are — Function of the Super-
natural or Ideal World — The Moral Code, the Kernel — Function of
the Conception of God and how it varies with the Moral Code — How
it fixes the Moral Code. .... 188-196
CHAPTER IV.
The Evolution of Jehovah and of Jewish Moralitt.
Jeliovah at first a tribal god only — Jealous and despotic — The
beginning of a moral relation between Himself and His people —
With rewards purely material and worldly — Moral relation between
Him and the Individual — The Jehovah of the Prophets not the God
of Jesus — The Moral Code of the Book of the Covenant — Its
differences from the Code of Deuteronomy— The Jehovah of the
Exile — The Social Grievances of the Prophets swept away by tlio
Exile. — The Supremacy of the Priests and its effects on the
Conception of Jehovah — The Introduction of Angels, from Persia —
The Evolution of Satan. .... 197-2u8
SUM.^rARY OF CHAPTKKS. XI.
CHAPTER V.
The Evolution of Jiihovau and of Jewish jMouality.
(ContbuKil.)
Causes of tlie rewards of Jehovah becoming- imiividual and not merely-
national — The Long Peace — ^^rhe Written Law — Rise of the Scribes
— Admission of Prophets and Psalmist into the Canon — The
Listitution of the Synagogue — The impasse to which the change
brought Judaism. .... 209-21S
CHAPTER VI.
The Evolution of the Resurrection and of a Future Life.
Judaism on the brink of ruin from its doctrine of material rewards for
virtue in the present life — Job — Ecclesiastes — Rescued by the
Persecutions of Antiochus — The ^Maccabees — The doctrine of
the Resurrection — Its consequences — Daniel — But only a resur-
rection to an eartldy kingdom — Why the Sadducees denied it. 219-2o I
CHAPTER VIE
The Evolution of the Messiah and of the Messianic Kingdom.
The conception of the Messiah corresponding to the fortunes of the
nation point for point — Illustrations from the Prophets — Tlie Pre-
exilian Prophets' picture of Him — The Exilian Prophets' picture —
The Messiah in the Persian period — In the Greek period — After the
Rise of the Maccabees and before the accession of Herod — During
the Roman Period — At the time of Christ. . . 232-246
PART IV.-THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
CHAPTER L
The Two Methods in Civilization.
Differences of Method in Ancient and Modern Tunes — ^The one indirect
the other direct — Illustrations — In Ancient Times, Morality bound
up with Religion — Reasons — Analogy with the process of cross-
fei-tilization by bees — The two causes of the direct method used
in Modern Times are the Scientific Spirit and the Spirit of the
Religion of Jesus — Illustrations and proofs — Necessity of Dogma
and of llieology — How they would iiave strangled Civilization — The
Reformation — ' Back to Jesus.' . . . 241)-27o
Xll. SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER II.
Jesus C]ii:ist.
Difference between the God of Jesus nnd the God of the Prophets
and of the Psahuist — Proofs — John tlie Baptist — The Esscnes — The
Vision of Jesus and its supreme importance in his life — The two
^Messiahs of the Okl Testament — Tlie Temptation in the Wilderness
solved for Jesus which of these two he was to be — Jesus as the
lowly Messiah, the Messiah of tlie poor, the sick, and the outcast —
Significance of Old Testament Prophecy — Jesus supported by
miracles in his new view of the Messiah — The conception of Jesus
as to the nature of the Kingdom of God — The Code of ^Morality
of Jesus — How it differed from that of John the Baptist — How
Jesus followed the path marked out for him by Prophecy — • Who
do men say that I am'? — Goes up to Jerusalem — Perplexities
of his Disciples — His own perplexities as to which of the two series
of Prophecies he was to follow — The Key to his actions and conduct
in .Jerusalem — His last hours — Effects on his disciples of their
belief in his resurrection and ascension. . . 274-3*78
CHAPTER HI.
TiiE Kingdom of God.
The difficulties of the problem as to what Jesus meant by it — Proof that
it was not a Heavenly but an earthly Kingdom — Objections con-
sidered — Xot a moral state or condition of the Soul — Proofs,
analogies, and illustrations — General considerations bearing on the
question. . . . * • 309-320
CHAPTER IV.
Primitive Jkwisii Christianity.
Some general considerations — Its key-note, ohcf/icnce — Reasons for this
— Epistle of James analyzed — First Epistle of Peter — Epistle to
the Heln-ews, a compromise — Founded on Jewish Sacrifice, not
on Jewish Law — A blend of Jewish and Pauline Christianity —
Transition to Paul. .... 321-339
CHAPTER V.
Paulixi: Chkistiaxitv.
Paul's instrument is Supernatural Grace as seen in faith — His problem
how to get rid of Sin in general — The insufficiency and break-down
of the Jewish Law — His vision of Jesus — How his method '.liffers
from that of Jewish Christianity — Christ the Archetypal TvLin, the
SU-M.MAItr OF CHAPTERS. xiiu
Second Adam — His Scheme of Salvation based on the Death and
Resurrectiou of Jesus — How his prol.leni differed trum that of
Josus — Paul's scheme and the scheme of the -writer of the Epistle
to the He])rews. .... SlU-Uoi
CHAPTER VI.
Apostolic Christianity.
In any scheme of Salvation founded on a Mediator, the INIediator must
be representative of both God and Man, must be very God and very
Man — Stages in the evolution of Jesus from being a Man to being
a God — As seen in the books of the New Testament — As seen in
Hernias, Barnabas, Clement, Ignatius — Angels stand in the
way. . , . . . , 353-363
CHAPTER Vn.
Gnosticism.
Description and Analysis of Gnosticism — Its historical and philosophical
antecedents — Introduces the new principle of geueratio/i as distinct
from the principle of emanation as cause of things — Valentinus —
Religions are philosophies with AVills as Causes — Christianity the
most complete and perfect of these — How Christianity would have
been torn to pieces by Gnosticism — The function and nature of
Christ in its systems — The heresy of Marcion and his system —
The Ebionite heresies — The Nazarenes — The Clementines — All
alike swept away by the Gospel of John. - . 364-381
CHAPTER Yin.
The New Testament Canon.
Significance of the 'Proof from Prophecy' — Paul an inferior authority
until the Canon was compiled — Reasons for this — ^The effects of
Heresy on tlio doctrines of the Apostolic Fathers — Apocrjq)hal
Literature a-nd Apocalypses — The Canon of Marcion and the esoteric
traditions of the Gnostics — Both suppressed by the Canon — Reasons
for selecting Matthew, JMark, Luke, John, the Acts, and the Epistles
of Paul — How Paul check-mated Marcion — The importance of the
Gospel of John to the Canon — The Pastoral Epistles — The im
portance of Apostolicity — The Book of Revelation — Effects of the
Canon on the future of Christian Theology — Evolution of the
Supremacy of the Bishops, and of the Primacy of Rome. 382-404
XIV. SU3I.MAKY OF CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER IX.
The Pagan Persecutions of Chuistianitt.
Not for religious but for political Reasons — How Polytheisms tend to
toleration, and Monotheisms to persecution — Proofs and illustrations
— Principle on which new Roman gods were introduced — Suspicions
attaching to Christianity — The Goddess of Rome and the Genius of
the Emperor — The Confraternities — Why the Jews were excepted.
405-412
CHAPTER X.
The Apologists.
Their Appeals to the Emperors — Their object to prove that Christianity
Avas the true Philosophy, and that it reallj proved what the Emperors
themselves merely believed about God, Virtue, and Immortality —
Their sheet-anchor the 'Proof from Prophecy'— Their identification
of the Logos of the Stoics with Jesus— The virtues of the Christians
a proof— Also the proof from Miracles— Scepticism of the Emperors
—No results. ..... 413-420
CHAPTER XI.
Iren^us ; Tertullian ; Origen.
Difficulties the Church had in forming a general Scheme of Salvation
before the compilation of the Canon— Irenajus bases his scheme
on the simple union of Paul and John — With him the Logos is
identified with the man Jesus— Why the personal acts of Jesus have
BO much imiwrtance with Irenjeus — His parallel between Jesus
and Adam, etc. — His docti-ine of the ' recapitulation ' — How he
kept himself from heresy by refusing to define — His doctrine a
simple, undifferentiated unity— The Key to the Theology of
Tertullian to be found in the peculiarities of the Stoic Philosophy
How Stoicism differs from Platonism, with its effects on Theology-
Doctrines of Tertullian flowing from his Stoic Realism— Antiquity
and Prescription— Church Tradition— The Bible not of itself
authoritative until interpreted by Apostolic Tradition — The
corporeality of God— How he was led to Montanism— How the
Bishops reaped the fruit of the Heresy— TertuUian feU into heresy
when he attempted to define— The first to lead the way to penance,
alms-giving, fasting, etc. as 'means of grace' through his doctrine of
the Justice as well as the Goodness of God— Causes of the wide
difference between tlie Theology of Origen and the Theology of the
Western Fathers— How and why Origen ran Christianity through
the mould of Neo-Platonism ratlier than vice versa as the Western
Fathers did— Proofs and illustrations of this point by point— The
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. XV.
effects of persecution on the question of post -baptismal sins-
Penance and ' meritorious works ' made ' means of grace ' — -
Confirmation of repentant heretics by the Bishops — Absolution —
The Lord's Supper as seen through Ignatius, Justin, Irenseus,
Tertullian and Origen — Witli Cyprian it became for the first time
a miniature sacrifice and led up to the Priesthood, and to the Mass.
421-442
CHAPTER XII.
The Trinity.
Effects of the elevation of Christ to the position of God, on the doctrine
of the supremacy of God the Father — Heresies in consequence
springing from the attempts to define the relations between Christ
and (iod — Sabellianism and Patripassianism — Theodotus, Praxeas,
Noetus, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, Arius — How Athanasius
routed the Arians by his distinction between the Logic of Eternity
and the Logic of Time — Heresies on the problem of the nature
of the union of the divine and human in Christ — Xestorius —
Eutyches — The Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and
Chalcedon settled it all. .... 443-457
CHAPTER XUL
Pagan Morality.
Causes that gave rise to the high morality of the Early Greeks in spite of
their Polytheism and the immorality of their gods — Why the Roman
gods abetted the vii-tues required by the State — Causes of the decline
of Roman Morality — Conquest — Slavery —Extirpation of the free
citizens from the soil — Luxury — Foreign Cults — The causes of the
rapid spread of these Foreign Cults and Mysteries of Isis, Cybele,
Mithra, Demeter, etc., in Rome — Their origin — The Morality of the
Stoics — Of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius — Of Plutarch — Decline of
the Oracles — The Morality of the Neo-Platonists — Evolution of Neo-
Platonism — Plotinus — Porj^yry — Proclus — Iamblichus--Suppression
of Pagan Worshiji and Sacrifice, of Magic, Sorcery, etc. — Closing of
the Schools of Athens by Justinian . . , 458-177
INTRODUCTION TO TPIE
SECOND EDITION.
TN issuing a new edition of this volume I desire at the outset
to express my thanks to the eminent scholars and specialists
who in their respective departments, and in the light of the
most recent researches, have assisted me in revising the various
sections of the work. For the trouble which they have taken
in offering suggestions on my chapters on Greek Philosophy
I am indebted to Prof. Burnet of St. Andrews, Prof. Muirhead
of Birmingham, Prof. Mackenzie of Cardiff, and the Rev.
R. G. Bury of Monaghan. The late Dr. Martineau favoured me
with his criticism of my chapter on Jesus Christ ; the Editor
of the Jewish Quarterhj has read over the chapters on
Judaism ; and to Dr. Sutherland Black I am obliged for point-
ing out various errors and oversights in the chapters on the
Evolution of Christianity : as well as for directing my attention
to certain special articles in the Encyclopcedia Bihlica* notably
the article on the Gospels by Dr. Abbott and Prof. Schmiedel,
the most severe and on the whole the most scientific and
thorough survey and analysis in condensed form of the com-
position, authenticity, sources, and probable dates of these
writings, which has yet appeared.
Premising then that my revisers are in no way pledged to
any of the theories or doctrines contained in this work, I may
say, speaking broadly, that the parts requiring most revision lie
mainly in those tracts of the subject where the materials that
* Encyclopcedia Bihlica, edited by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D., and
J. Sutherland Black, M.A., L.L.D. (London, A. A C. Black).
A 1
XVlll. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
have come down to us are either fragmentary or of uncertain
authenticity, owing to the original documents, now lost, having
been worked over by later generations, and the beliefs of these
generations having been unconsciously or by deliberate intent
transferred to the records of the earlier time. And, as is
natural, this twilight-region lies mainly in the earliest stages of
those world-movements which at the time appeared to have
little or none of the importance for men which afterwards
attached to them. Of such are the early histories of the life
of Jesus, the history of Early Christianity, and to a certain
extent. Early Greek Philosophy ; in all of which we can only
pick our way with difficulty by means of analogy, by the
balancing of probabilities, and by insight into the general
nature of man and the workings of that nature under special
circumstances and conditions.
And hence it is, that in the chapters on Judaism, where no
fresh documents adding to our knowledge of the earliest stages
of its evolution have been brought to light since this volume
was first published, and where criticism has been concentrated
mainly around those minuter details of Hebrew scholarship
which do not affect the general scope and character of that
evolution, I have not felt it necessary to make any alteration
of importance in the text as it stands. It is the same, too,
with the chapters on the evolution of Hindoo Philosophy and
Buddhism, where the material before us is so abundant and
precise that the historian is given comparatively little trouble
beyond that of correctly recording it.
But with the history of Early Christianity it is different.
When once we get into the middle of the Second Century and
to the period after the Fourth Gospel had been embodied in
the Canon, our records are ample and all is plain sailing ; and
in consequence the stages of the evolution, now emerged into
the open, are traceable with ease. But on all that bears on the
life of Jesus Christ himself and on the history of the Church
in the First Century, as well as on the authenticity, sources,
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XIX.
and dates of composition of the books of the New Testament,
wide room for differences of opinion still remains. And yet
amid all the fluctuations of opinion, there are certain con-
clusions which having passed through the scientific crucible of
the Higher Criticism are now pretty universally agreed upon,
and may be regarded as definitely and finally settled. The
first is that our present Synoptics, Matthew, ^Mark, and Luke,
are not original documents, but are compounded in various
ways and degrees of at least two kinds of sources, now lost,
namely, biographical narrative of the life of Jesus, and
collections of his sayings, or logia as they are called. Mark,
which contains little of the logia, and which draws part of its
account perhaps from Peter himself, gives us probably the most
trustworthy narrative as, indeed, it is the earliest, the simplest,
and the most free from bias. In Matthew and Luke, again,
which have many logia, and which are elaborations of ^lark
or of the unknown sources from which !Mark in part drew, the
materials are mixed in such a way as to best suit the different
sections of the Early Church with which their authors were
most in sympathy, namely the Jewish and the Gentile churches
respectively. On these points the Higher Criticism is, on the
whole, unanimous, but the critical dissection of these Gospels,
with the object of explaining special references in each of them,
has so grown under the patient and painstaking investigations
successively of Hilgenfeld, AVeisse, Holtzmann, Lipsius,
Wernle, Abbott, Schmiedel, and others, as to have attained
the proportions of a genealogical tree ; so that, what with the
* borrowing hypothesis,' the ' two-source hypothesis,' the
' Ebionite redaction,' the ' Apostolic source,' the ' little
Apocalypse,' and other ' subsidiary sources,' the simple-minded
reader who comes fresh to these Gospels for the first time
little suspects the wide diversity of ancestry through which
they had passed before they reached their present form. As
for the Fourth Gospel, again, the unknown author of which
has worked over the Synoptics in the interest of an abstract
XX. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
hypothesis, namely that Jesus Christ was the Logos of God ;
this Gospel, which with its apotheosis of love, and the sweet
solace it has been to the weary and heavy-laden of every age,
is the soul of Christianity, this Gospel which with its spirit of
Jesus transfigured and embalmed, carried the future of
Christianity in its bosom, and which the human heart cannot
resign without a sigh, and without wafting after it a farewell as
to a departed love, I too, like the rest, have been compelled
unwillingly to relinquish, as a document having historically
speaking little or no credibility. It is only another instance
of the truth which the study of Civilization forces on us,
namely, that the evolution of the world has not been based on
what was strictly true in the Past, but only on what human
souls movino; along the centuries believed to be true.
As regards the life of Jesus himself, since the first edition
of this volume was written the tendency of the Higher
Criticism has been, if anything, to approach rather than recede
from the standpoint of interpretation which I adopted in the
study of his life, — with the exception, perhaps, of the position
occupied by Dr. Martineau on the extreme left. I had been
in correspondence with him ofl' and on for many yeai's, and
when the original draft of my chapter was published In the
Fortnightly Revieio he was good enough to favour me with his
views on the subject. After objecting to my crediting Jesus
with Messianic claims, he went on to say that while fully
admitting tliat the prevailing opinions of critics supported me
in this, he was himself profoundly convinced that it presented
the whole ministry of Jesus in a false light. And he went on
to say further that In his judgment ' Jesus simply took up the
work of the imprisoned Baptist — namely, the message of the
coming kingdom with the baptism, — and that his claim to the
Messiahship, which on his i^art was distinctly refused and
deprecated, was made for him by venerating and perplexed
disciples who detected it on looking back over ill-remembered
words of his, now admittin of a simpler version.' Now, to
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXI.
believe tliat Jesus as a mere man, however virtuous he may
have been, however ^reat as a wonder-woi'ker, or however high
a code of morality he may have given to the world, could have
so profoundly convinced his disciples of his Messiahship
without believing in it himself, or giving them any hint of it
in his lifetime, is as incredible to me as that opposite belief of
the Docetists and other heretics of the Second Century, who
convinced themselves that Jesus was a mere appearance, a
heavenly vision, a ghost or phantom only, and that his body
had no real existence at all !
Setting aside, then, this extreme opinion of Dr. Martineau
as fatal to any credible or consistent theory of the life of Jesus,
we may say that the general consensus of the Higher Criticism
has steadily ajiproached the position which I have taken up in
my version of the life, namely that he Avas a man who
announced to men a new and higher code of morality and life,
and who, by proclaiming himself the Messiah of a ' Kingdom
of God ' which was to come to them on earth in the near
future, succeeded in getting himself and his work accredited
first by his disciples, then by the Graco-Roman Avorld, and
at last by Western mankind. Not that I deny either on the
one hand that Jesus was on one side of his nature a Divine
Being, or on the other that he was only a man differing from
other men in degree of inspiration or power. For, believing as I
do the more firmly the longer I contemplate the spectacle of the
world, that behind it all there is a great Spirit or Soul, call it
what you will, that coordinates all its parts and keeps them in
a moving and working harmony ; and believing further that it
is impossible to know how this Spirit acts, whether at points or
over vast interspaces, whether continuously or intermittently,
whether by incarnating itself in a few individuals, in one only,
or in none ; or whether, like a universal breath, it acts on the
wills of men without their knowino- whence it comes or whither
it goes ; believing all this, it is comparatively unimportant to me
what specially was the exact relationship existing between
XXll. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION,
Jesus and God ; and therefore I neither dare affirm nor deny
his divinity. But for the purposes of merely human science, I
am obliged to assume that, he acted on ordinary human motives
without regard to the agency by w^hich they entered his mind,
in the same way as a man in a hypnotic sleep carries out
faithfully when awake the suggestions that have been made to
him, although quite unconscious of their source. And hence
it is that I have represented the impelling circumstance which
started him on his great world-mission to be the call proclaiming
him the Messiah which he heard after his baptism by John,
and which he really believed to be the voice of God Himself.
This being granted, all the rest of his life as I have construed
it — the question as to which jSIessiah, the conquering or the
lowly one, the resolution of his doubts in the Temptation, his
following the course laid down for the lowly Messiah in the
texts of the Old Testament, his coming into Jerusalem on an
ass, and the like — all follow out of this, as in the parallel case of
Paul, by natural and almost inevitable sequence.
Now, up to the time when I wrote my chapter on the life of
Jesus, his life by Wendt was the one which seemed to me of
all others to be as a constructive scheme the most consistent
and harmonious in itself, as well as the one which demanded of
the reader not only the smallest exercise of credulity to accept,
but the fewest and simplest keys in the shape of natural human
motives to unlock. But owing to the large use made by
Wendt of passages from the Fourth Gospel, which even then
was widely discredited and which has since been shown to be
untrustworthy, as well as to the false conception which in my
judgment he held as to the nature and place of the Kingdom of
God, there were still a number of inconsistencies in his
presentation of the Life Avhich could not be bridged over
except by straining to the snapping-point many of the funda-
mental factors of his own interpretation. Accordingly, by
rejecting these Johannine elements as planks of dangerous and
uncertain footing, and by interpreting the nature of the
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXlll.
Kingdom of God more in accordance with the demands of
strict evolution, as -well as by a more severe analysis of the
texts bearing on the point, I was enabled after carefully
workincc over the whole material again, to still further reduce
the number of keys, in the shape of operative human motives,
by which Jesus was actuated in the various passages and
incidents of his life. And if the test of the truth of a frankly
human interpretation be the fewness and natui-alness of the
operative motives by which the complexities of a life are
reduced to harmony and unity, I have little to alter in my
presentation as a whole. All I would ask the reader to do
would be to soften as much as possible the precision and
definiteness of outline with which I have presented the
incidents of the Garden and the Cross, and bv standino^ back a
lit^e farther from the picture of his life as a whole, to look at
it all, as in an impressionist view, through a softening medium
of twilight or haze. But as by an unfortunate ambiguity of
expression, which however is absent from the ' summary of
contents" of the chapter, I have given room for misapprehension
as to the view I take of the Resurrection, I may at once
explain that what I intended to say on page 307 and elsewhere
was that it was the belief of the disciples in the resurrection of
.lesus that reassured them of his Messiahship after his death,
and not that I offered any opinion of my own on the point one
wav or another. For mv entire scheme of civilization, it is
necessary to observe, is everywhere based on what men believed
to be true at any given time and place, and not on the actual
truth or falsehood of these beliefs in themselves, or on how we
should regard them to-day. Indeed, if I were pressed, I should
say that up to the time that Modern Physical Science gave us
the power of prevision in all that class of facts to which it is
found applicable, and mainly in the sciences founded on
Mathematics, there was not, broadly speaking, and when looked
at sub specie ceternitatis as Spinoza says, a single ichole truth
among the innumerable half truths that have gone to make up
XXIV. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
the successive religions, philosophies, and sciences of mankind.
All were but steps or stages in a process, all true, not absolutely
but at best relatively, to the age and time. And therefore, if I
were asked my real opinion of the Resurrection, I should say
that from our present standpoint Jesus could not really have
risen, and the disciples' vision of him after death must have
been some kind of illusion of the senses or mind. But here
again, knowing well that there are more things in heaven and
earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, I cannot tell to
what extent these inner visions or illusions, if you choose to
call them so, have a place and appropriate function (as objective
vision has) in the structure and ground plan of the world. But
one thing at least is certain, and that is, that these visions or
illusions have in actual fact played a simply enormous part in
the great movement of progress and civilization, as is seen in
the case of Jesus himself and his disciples, of the Early
Christians, of Paul, of Augustine, of Mahomet, of St. Francis,
of Luther, and of many others. From which I am impelled to
conclude that modest inquiry in all these matters and not
dogmatism should be the watchword for the future of merely
human souls, and should be made the touchstone not only of
sincerity and truthfulness but of intellectual probity and of the
truly scientific spirit as well. As for myself, compared with
the few things in which my conviction has grown with my age,
and of which my knowledge has become more accurate and
defined as the years roll on, I am sensible of the immeasurably
greater number from which the dogmatism of my youth has
departed, never I hope to return.
As regards the evolution of Earlv Christian doctrine, again,
the tendency of the Higher Criticism since the first edition of
this volume was published has been on the whole to throw more
and more doubt on the Epistles as the work of the Apostles
whose names they bear, as well as to remove the dates of their
composition, or at any rate the dates at which they became
influential in the Church, to a later period than that formerly
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXV.
assigned to them, In spite of some signs of reaction to the
contrary. But however interesting all this may be from the
point of view of minute scholarship, it does not and need not
aiFect in any w^ay the substance of the account I have given,
in the text, of the different stages in the evolution of Early
Christian doctrine. What is of importance is that all the
stages of this evolution are clearly indicated in one or other of
these Epistles ; and if any or all of these documents could be
shown to belong to a later period than that usually assigned to
them, or to a period later than it would have been possible for
them to have been Avritten by the Apostles themselves, it
would only mean that they contain embedded in them those
earlier stages of the doctrine which have come down by Church
tradition from the earlier time. This is especially the case in
all the Ej^istles which purport to be written to the Jewish-
Clu-istian churches of the Dispersion, at however late a period ;
for among these churches it is questionable Avhether the
relationship of Jesus to God, Avhich was the very soul and core
of the entire evolution of Christianity up to the time of the
establishment of the full-blown doctrine of the Trinity, could
ever have reached beyond the very earliest stage of evolution,
or at any rate farther than It reached in the case of Paul for
example, w4io, it will be remembered, regarded Jesus only as
the Ai'chetypal Man of the early chapters of Genesis, pre-
existent in Heaven with God before the creation of the "World.
Indeed it would have been almost a miracle for a true-born
Jew either of Palestine or of the Dispersion to have brought
himself in those early ages to regard Jesus as on an equality
with God. And hence it is, that to however late a period
Criticism may assign the Epistles written to the Jewish-
Christian churches, Ave may always expect to find that the
relationship of Jesus to God is either not mentioned in them
at all, as in the Epistle of James, or shows traces that It has
not advanced beyond the most primitive stage, as in the
discourses of Peter in the Acts, or in the first Epistle of Peter,
XXVI. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
whoever the author of that Epistle may have been, or at how-
ever late a date it may have obtained circulation in the Church.
And it is just because the exact relation of Jesus to God is
either not mentioned at all in these epistles or is so lightly
dwelt on, that they were admitted into the Canon side by side
with the Fourth Gospel, in which the evolution of the con-
ception of Jesus has reached that high stage of development in
which he appears as the Logos of God. But it is not to be
overlooked that the fact that they were admitted at all, in spite
of their imperfect Christology, seems to indicate that these
documents were so old and had so much prestige that they
might well have been the work of the Apostles themselves
whose names they bear ; and so far would favour the view that
they are early i-ather than late documents. But either way,
my position so far as the discussion on these points which is
still going on is concerned, must remain entirely unaffected,
whatever may be the outcome of that discussion. And
accordingly, with the exception of an oversight like that on
page 360, where I erroneously represent Ignatius as being the
disciple of John, or on page 336, where I say that James
(instead of Peter) represented Jesus as ' exalted ' by God, the
only change I should feel disposed to make would be to
transfer the authorship not only of the Epistles of James,
Peter and Jude, but of many even of the Pauline Epistles,
from these respective Apostles to whom for convenience I have
referred them in the text, to the unknown authors of them
whoever they may have been, whether Apostles or not — notably
from page 331 onwards in the chapter on Primitive Jewish
Christianity, and from page 354 in the chapter on Apostolic
Christianity, and wherever, indeed, in the volume these
references may occur. So far as the aim and purpose of the
volume is concerned, these are practically the only changes of
importance which seem to me to be necessary to bring the
chapters on the evolution of Early Christianity up to date;
for after the formation of the Canon our documents are so
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXVU.
abundant and full that the succeeding stages of the evolution
offer few points of difficulty or controversy.
And now a word or two may be said as to the criticisms with
which I have been favoured on the volume as a whole. The
most general objection, and the one that has been most dwelt
on by my critics, is that having laid down at the outset of each
of the several sections the key or principle which was to
preside over the successive stages of the evolution of that
section — whether it be of Greek Philosophy, of Hinduism, of
Judaism, or of Christianity — 1 have professed that the key
once found, the successive stages of the evolution could be
predicted beforehand without reference to the historical facts ;
one of the most friendly of my critics happily characterising
me as like the naturalist who should profess to predict the
st^'ucture of an extinct mammal from a bone of its foot, when
all the time the skeleton of the mammal was starins; him in the
face in his museum I Now, nothing of course so preposterous
as this was dreamt of by me. Indeed, on page 152, I expressly
stipulated for help in the shape of historical landmark here and
there to act as finger-post on the way, and elsewhere also that
the beginning and end term of the particular stage of evolution
should be clearly defined. On page 3, at the very beginning
of the volume, I explained my position by saying that ' before
a history of the evolution of the great periods of human thought
can be said to be scientific in the proper sense of that term, it is
necessary that the law or laws which the evolution follows should
be so clearly grasped at the outset, and that the procession of
the facts should be seen to conform so closely to these laws, tliat
when regard is had to the great complexity of the subject-matter,
the result may be held to constitute a scientific demonstraton."
This is all I professed to do ; anything more would have been
a presumption of which I trust I am not capable.
Of the more detailed criticisms of this volume, the best,
perhaps, is that of Mr. Bailey Saunders in his Quest of Faith*
*The Quest of Faith, by Thomas Bailey Saunders. (London, A. ct C. Black).
XXVin. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
— a work which in my judgment has luirdly received so much
recognition as it deserves, for in no book with which I am
acquainted are the central fallacies in the theological writings of
men like Gladstone, Huxley, the Duke of Argyll, Balfour, and
others, dissected out with more insight, subtlety, and penetration.
In this work he has been p'ood enouoh to honour me with a
chapter entitled the ' Witness of History/ in which he contends
that although it is possible for natural selection to winnow out
the successive players in any particular game of thought,
philosophical or religious, until the possibilities of that particular
game are exhausted and it must make way for another founded
on a different principle, still, owing to the possibility of the
appearance of men of supreme genius at each or every point
in the game, there can be no guarantee that the development
shall be other than a haphazard one. He contends, in a word,
that although there may be a method of intellectual or religious
evolution through natural selection, there can be no key or
principle which can keep that evolution in a definite unbroken
line of development. And it is precisely this key or series of
keys which I profess to have found, and the existence of this
regulated line of development which I think I have demon-
strated. But as my remarks on the nature of the keys I have
used and on my method of applying them, lie scattered here
and there through several chapters, it is doubtless my fault
that so keen a critic as Mr. Saunders should have overlooked
them. Let me therefore explain here precisely what these
keys are, whence they are derived, and the way in which I
conceive them as workino^.
To begin with, I may remark that the key to any World-
system of Philosophy, whether it be Greek or Hindoo, whether
it be Modern Metaphysics from Descartes to Hegel, or Modern
Materialism based on the Physical Sciences, will always be
found in the way in which different peoples, or the same
peoples at different periods of their history, have figured to
themselves the nature of Man. For Man, being the most
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXIX.
complex entity in Nature, and containing in himself more
categories and qualities than any other object or creature, and
having besides in himself something corresponding to every
other object in Nature, namely a material body corresponding
to the physical Universe, and a vital principle corresponding
to the vital principle of animals and trees, as well as
a range of intelligence peculiar to himself : it is evident
that the key which will best unlock the nature of Man will
be the only key or principle adequate to the explan-
ation of the World as a Avhole. Now among the Greeks, Man
was regarded as a being compounded of Body, Soul and
Intelligence, each equally real, and with its own independent
functions, and each, too, with its own rank in an ascending
scale of efficiency — but all at first lying implicit in his inherent
ndture and as yet undeveloped by reflection. The problem of
Philosophy therefore being how to unlock the secrets of the
World with the fewest and most efficient keys, it is evident
that if Greek Philosophy starts at the bottom of the scale with
some form of Matter, say water, air, or the like, as its central
principle, it will when it finds one and all of these to be too
clumsy and inefficient, next ring the changes on some form of
Vital Principle or Soul, which being conceived by the Greeks
as a double-sided thing, half mental, half material, must be a
more efficient principle than any form of mere Matter ; and
that findino^ this ao;ain unable to satisfv, it will then trv the
principle of Intelligence, which existing as it does free and
apart from any of the objects which it contemplates and rules,
must be capable of manipulating Matter with much more
flexibility and efficiency than any form either of Matter itself,
or of mere Vital Principle or Instinct, such as the animals
possess. And it is further evident that having exhausted the
principle of Intelligence as its central principle, Philosophy
will have exhausted all the possibilities lying latent in the
nature of Man except one, and that is his Will. But to pass
from Intelligence to Will as the master-key to unlock the
XXX. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
mysteiy of Existence is, it is to be observed, to pass from
Philosophy to Religion ; for the very essence of Religion as
distinct from Philosophy lies in this, that it refers all things
ultimately to the will or wills of God or the gods, — of which
the Cosmogony of Genesis may be taken as a typical example.
Among the Hindoos, on the other hand, Man has always
been regarded as a mere episode in the life of the Universal
Soul which flows alike through him and all things, and alone is
real ; a mere time-bubble on this great ocean-stream of Soul.
And accordingly, when Hindoo Philosophy has rung consecu-
tively all the changes that are possible on the relations
conceived to exist between this World-Soul and the World of
phenomena, it can go no farther and must come to an end.
Like the marsupials among the higher mammalia, to which I
have compared it, it aborts, as it were, halfway, and no further
evolution is possible until the Hindoo mind has fundamentally
changed its conception of the nature of Man.
In Modern Metaphysics, again, which stretches from
Descartes to Hegel, not only Nature, but Man himself, body
and soul, inside and out, is regarded as essentially the product
of Self-consciousness or of a self-conscious Intelligence alone.
The key, accordingly, to the successive stages of its explanation
of Nature and the World consists in bringing the elements of
Self-consciousness from their position of rigid polar antagonism
to that of harmony and unity. It required all the interspace
between Descartes and Hegel to accomplish this feat, but once
successfully accomplished by Hegel the principle was exhausted,
and Modern Metaphysics, strictly so called, as an explanation
of the World came to an end. It could only include within
its circle of harmony the logical categories of the Understanding
and Reason, but left the nature of Man himself as a concrete
whole, with his range and scale of ascending moral attributes
and their antagonisms, outside of its purview, and so has left
the field of Philosophy open for the larger synthesis of the
future.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXXI.
In Modern Materialism, again, man is regarded as essentially
a material being, body and intelligence being but modes of
manifestation of flatter and Force. Its philosophy, accord-
ingly, consists in so manipulating these elements of Matter and
Force that by the operation of the principle of mechanical
equivalence as the nexus between cause and effect (instead of
the wills of the gods as in Religion, the mixtures of essences in
Greek Philosophy, the dominance of Soul in Hindoo Phihjsophy,
or of self-conscious Intelligence in Modern Metaphysics) it
shall reduce all the varied complexity of the World and Life
to unity and harmony. And this one-sided principle, too, has
at last found its consummation in Herbert Spencer.
With Religions, on the other hand, we have to look for other
keys, and in them all it will be found that it is not the nature
of Man but of God or the gods that is the central principle of
their evolution, and that ultimately fixes and determines all
else in regard to them. In Judaism, it is throughout the
nature and character of Jehovah which is the core of its
evolution, and by which its moral code is determined and fixed ;
in Christianity, the nature of Jesus exclusively in the early
period, and until the doctrine of the Trinity finally raised him
to a position of co-eternity and co-equality with God Himself.
That position once reached by Jesus, the evolution of the God-
head ceases, and the future stages of development consist in
gradually consolidating the system of Morality with which the
Religion is bound up, and in keeping the two in harmony with
each other and with the necessities of the great secular world.
Such are the keys or principles wdiich, laid down at the out-
set, will be found to dominate the evolution of the respective
Philosophies and Religions dealt Ayith in this volume. But in
all alike the method is the same, namely the use of ' natural
selection ' as the instrument by which the unfit are weeded out,
and the order of development is kept true and close to the line
of its inner principle. It is this that secures us against leaps
and breaks, inasmuch as should exceptional genius make its
XXXll, INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
appearance at any point in the line, it will, if it prove to be
erratic or take too great a stride, be washed away by perse-
cution, indifference, or neglect, until such time, at least, as the
evolution has traversed the intermediate stages necessary to
come up with it. On the other hand, and in actual fact, true
genius will never be found attempting to take the bit between
its teeth and escape from the burden of the age and time ; on
the contrary it differs from mediocrity precisely in this, that it
answers to the rein of the Time-Spirit more sensitively, and
feels the form and pressure of the age more acutely.
Mr, Saunders next objects that I have myself practically
admitted the insufficiency of ray own keys, inasmuch, as when all
is done, I am obliged to postulate an unknown Controlling Factor
at the back of all the special evolutions with which I am dealing
— a kind of Providence or Fate necessary to bring them all
together and constrain them all to co-operate towards a pre-
destined end. This is quite true, but it will be observed that
I do not allow this Controlling Power, as I have called it, to
mix or muddle itself up with the principles that preside over
the separate evolutions, or interfere in any way with their
proper development on their own lines, but keep it, like the
Nous of Anaxagoras, rigidly apart from them all, calling it in
only to effect their harmonious junctions at the proper place
and time ; like that mysterious instinct which enables certain
species of South African antelopes to find their unknown
mates at their proper season, and over vast interspaces of desert,
forest, and stream ; or say, rather, like that central intelligence
in our great railway systems which so arranges it that trains
running hither and thither, each independently of the other
over a wide network of lines, shall meet and separate, interlace
and conjoin, true and punctual to their destination and time.
Instances of this Controlling Power are seen, for example, when
Judaism, now transfigured and universalised by Christianity,
is brought into contact with Grajco-Roman Paganism, not only
at the time when it was necessary to supplant that religion if
INTRODUCTION TO THE SKCOND KDITIOX. XXXlll.
the world were to be prevented from retrogradinfr^ but at the
time wlien the Roman Peace had made it possible for the world
to be impregnated by the new spirit ; thus bringing together
three practically independent movements of the human mind,
with ail the generations of human souls Avho, like the coral
l)uilders, co-operated in the result, and for ends vaster than
those thev knew, into a sino-le harmonious union. Or ajjain,
this Controlling Factor is seen when Greek Philosophy, sailing
gaily along in its own boat, encounters dogmatic Christianity
sailing along independently in its, but with a crew animated bj
an entirely different spirit, and after coming nearer and nearer,
as thev touch each other it is found that for the first time it can
lojricallv unite with Christianitv, and have its crew taken over
l)y it ; thus making it possible for the entire Western World to
■cross the trackless forests of the Middle Ao'cs o-uided bv one
Religion, penetrated by one Philosophy, and animated by one
Spirit. Or, speaking generally, we may sa}' that this Controlling
Factor discloses itself when all the cataclysms and convulsions
•of States, all the effects of battles, and all the uncertainties and
vicissitudes of fortune are seen, when looked at from a sufficient
perspective, to issue as if by design in a single definite result,
namely a higher type of Civilization ; as Avhen, for example,
the barbarian invaders storming in from all sides on the Elmpire
-succeeded in impregnating it with a new principle of life,
namely Personal Liberty, a principle which was as necessary to
break up the old Roman State, as Christianity was to break up
the old Roman Religion ; and one, too, which started Religion
in the West on a new course of development, and one to which
the East never attaineil. It is seen, too. in the Reformation,
which slowlv raaturinii; on its own lines suddenlv broke in on
(Jatholicism and revivified the morality of Christianity at a
time when by its corruptions it had relapsed so far that it had
issued in a Neo-Pao-anism, differinir from tlie <»ld in little but
the name. Or, again, when the Si)irit of Liberty, wliich had
Jdccu gradually ripening for :'entiu"ies. foiuid in the [trinciples of
a2
XXXIV. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
the French Revohitiou a new ideal for re^'eneratino- the social
life of mankind, and in Napoleon a fitting instrument for pre-
paring the soil of Europe for a political enfranchisement based
on that ideal. And further, when we consider that these
movements when looked at fn)m any given point of time seem
to be either isolated, independent, and unrelated, — crossing and
recrossing each other without definite drift or aim, — or chaotic,,
revolutionary, and cataclysmal, yet when looked at from a
sufficient retrospect are seen to have left in their wake a quiet,
continuous, steadily increasing and never intermitted deposit
of Morality, Liberty, and Intellectual and Social Expansion
in those effective nations of the world to whom for the time
being the interests of Civilization have been entrusted ; when
we consider all this, it is evident, is it not, that the Unknown
Controlling Power which I have postulated as necessary to co-
ordinate it all, need not be altogether a dream. And further,
when it is remembered that I have nowhere, as I have said,
allowed this teleological factor to be projected into the evolu-
tionary movements we have been considering, so as to mingle
and confuse their currents, but have rather, as it were, drawn
it out of them tentativelv and after a survev of the whole field,
the existence of some Supreme Controlling Power of this kind
is entitled, I submit, to be accorded the rank at least of a
legitimate scientific hypothesis, a matter of legitimate belief, if
not of dogmatic knowledge. For although it is possible for
men of genius to grope their way to the higher reaches in their
respective lines of work, and at particular times and places in
the world's history, it is not possible for them either singly or
in combination, any more than for the working officials of the
separate lines of rail in a great railway system, to co-ordinate
the separate movements of Civilization into a working co-
operative whole. That nmst depend on some single ulterior
Power sitting at the centre, and behind them all, and giving
to each his appropriate place and function in the larger
harmony.
IXTRODLCTIOX TO TUK SECOND KDITIOX. XXXV,
As regards the section on Greek Philosophy, 1 luive to
remark that here, too, as in Chi'istianity, it is mainly in the
twiljo-ht regions of the early stages of the evolution that
difficulties have arisen. When we once get to Plato and
Aristotle, our original sources are so full that we can trace the
successive stages of the evolution with comparative ease. But
up to this pei'iod we have to pick our w^ay by a laborious recon-
struction from fragments of varying degrees of authenticity
embedded in the works of later writers. For the successful
extrication of these, so that we have at last an account so full
and accurate that all the stages of the evolution of early Greek
Philosophy in their most important aspects can be cleai-ly seen,
I am indebted mainly to the w^ork of Prof. Burnet on this
subject — a wTn"k, 1 may remark in passing, which by the
completeness Avith Avhich it brings together all the extant
fragments, its analysis and correlation of these fragments, and
the skill witft which it assigns to each of the sources its relative
degree of authenticity, has left all previous works in the shade.
So excellent, indeed, is this work in all important particulars,
and so full and complete are its materials, that I have thought
it advisable to rewrite the whole of the first chapter on Greek
Philosophy from the materials wdiich he has brought together.
But as much of it is highly technical in character, and as the
upshot of it all still further supports the view of the stages of
evolution which I have laid down in the text, I have thought
it expedient to relegate it to a place in a sepai'ate volume
dealing with Greek Philosophy, where the Avhole course of this
early evolution will be fully exhibited. But it is proper,
perhaps, that in this Introduction the main technical errors in
the text as it stands should be briefly alluded to and corrected,
for the benefit of those readers who may not be desirous of
making acquaintance with the more detailed presentation of
the various systems, as enlarged and to a certain extent
reconstructed in that volume.
The first to be noticed is on [)age 34, where I have
XXXVl. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
represented Anaximander as following Anaximenes, whereas he
really preceded him. The next is on page 35, where I referred
to Pythagoras himself those details in reference to the principle
■of Number which ought strictly to be referred to the school of
the Pythagoreans a century or two hiter, who probably derived
the germs at least of their doctrine from the teaching of their
master, transmitted to them in a more highly evolved and
elaborated form throuofh successive arenerations of the school, of
which now we have no record. Again, on p:ige 38, I have
represented Parmenides and Zeno as preceding Heraclitus,
■whereas their proper place in the evolution is more strictly
after him, as the Appendix will show. On page 42, I have
represented Anaxagoras as compounding the world out of ' an
infinite number of invisible atoms,' whereas it ought to read 'an
infinite number of infinitely divisible seeds.' Again, on pages
45 and 50, I have represented Socrates as exercising his
dialectic art on things as well as on moral qualities. I ought
to have restricted it to the latter, for it was Plato who, by
extending it to things in general, systematized it, enlarged it
and transformed it into a science. On page 47, Democritus is
made the first to start the new movement of Atomism ; 1
ought to have said Leucippus. On page 49, I represent Plato
as getting the hint of his principle of Change from Anaxagoras
and Democritus. It is more probable, as Prof. Mackenzie
and Mr. Bury point out, that he got it from the Pythagoreans,
but as in this I only partially agree, I shall discuss the matter
31101'e fully in the separate volume alluded to above.
I am reminded, again, by Prof. Muirhead, that what Socrates
■objected to in Anaxagoras was not so much the small place
iissiofned to a free creative and constructive Intelligence, as I
have represented it in the text on page 43, as to the absence of
tlie conception of end or purpose. With this I agree, and
iiccordingly, instead of reading ' free creative and constructive
Intelligence,' it would be better perhaps if we read 'free
creative and designing Intelligence,' as conveying, perhaps,
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXXvil.
better the idea of purpose or end. He also reminds me that
on page 48, I have represented Democritus as making his
atoms unite or separate ' by mere chance as it were, and by the
very necessity of their constitution,' whereas it was the
Epicureans who assumed the chance declension of atoms, not
Democritus. This is true, and besides of course they could
not act both by chance and necessity.
Mr. Bury, again, objects that I make Plato borrow his
conception of the Good from Anaxagoras alone, whereas it was
only in its character as intellujence that he borrowed it from
Anaxagoras ; in its character as good he borrowed it from
Socrates. This is quite true, and ought to have been so stated
in the text. He also has been good enough to point out that
on page 496 of the appendix on Platonism I have represented
air as made up of dodecahedrons instead of octahedrons ; and
on page 498 ^ the same appendix I have represented the
Creator or Demiurge as cutting up the Soul of the World into
*as many immortal souls of men as there were fixed stars or
angels,' and that I am confounding in this two distinct opera-
tions, that of the undifferentiated souls of the fixed stars or
angels on the one hand, and the individualised souls of the
planets on the other.
On coming to the chapter on Aristotle, Prof. Muirhead
objects to my saying, on page 58 in the text, that it is the
fragrance of the rose that is its Form in the Aristotelian sense,
whereas it is the organizing principle within the rose, or that
which makes it a rose as distinct, say, from a hyacinth, wliich
gives it its Form. I am inclined to think that he is right, and
that the fragrance alone of the rose is too restricted to embrace
the full conception of Form in this instance. He also objects
that when I say, on page 59, that ' with Plato virtue was to be
reached only by knowledge,' I ought to have said ' with
Socrates.' This also is true, or at any rate the opinion could
only have been held by Plato in his early years, and when still
dominated by the influence of Socrates.
a3
XXXVlll. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
A more important objection, and one in whicli my revisers
all agree, is that I make the motion of the ^ther in Aristotle
the immediate or ejicient cause of the evolution of things on
our earth — in spite of the fact that my own theory of the
development of Greek Philosophy at this point does not require
it. Now, while fully recognizing that Aristotle makes the
Supreme Intelligence the first and final cause of all motion
whatever, the reason why I sought to find in him some more
immediate source of supply for the movements on our earth,
was because I could not see how the Supreme Intelligence,
which is represented by Aristotle as existing beyond the bounds
of the Universe of Space and Time eternally engaged in con-
templating its own ideas, and itself unmoved, could in a scientific
system be the cause of motion to others, especially of the
irregular and discordant movement and flux of all thing-s on our
earth. For there was not in Aristotle a source of motion in
the Matter of the earth itself, such as Plato got, on the one
hand, from the restless unceasing movements of the little
triangles of the Apeiron (caused by their centripetal pressure
inwards towards the axis of the earth), and on the other, from
the World-Soul which, made up as it was in part of these little
triangles, was in itself a source of motion to the world. Nor
could I find in Aristotle that the Supreme Intelligence
although technically at rest, was so merely because it contained
in itself a harmony of motion so balanced and complete that,
like a sleeping top, it could be practically represented as at
rest ; for motion with Aristotle, as with Plato, belongs to
Space and Time, but the Supreme Intelligence is represented
as beyond the bounds of Space and Time. It is true that
Aristotle has supplied us with the reason for the eternal and
harmoniously perfect movement of the ^ther, lying on the
circumference of heaven and bearing on its bosom the fixed stars,
by representing it as the complement, counterpart, and moving
image in Time of the Supreme Intelligence itself, eternally
bound up with it and as a spatial existence as perfect in its
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXXIX.
own way as it ; and moved by the Supreme Intelligence in the
same way as a lover is by the presence of his beloved. But
what I wanted was to find some more immediate cause of the
up and down, to and fro^ right and left movements on the
earth, which had they been under the direct influence of the
Supreme Intelligence, one would have expected to find circular,
eternal, and harmonious as that of iEther ; and this I found in
the motion of this same ^Ether surrounding the world, which
could lend the earth the motion needed for its purposes, and
receivins' it back ajjain as fast as it was lent, would itself suffer
therefore neither diminution nor increase. And as Aristotle
had always taught us to separate, in form at least, his efficient
and immediate from his final cause, I felt that it Avould give his
system a greater harmony if I should make the jEther the
immediate or efficient cause of the motion on the earth, and the
Supreme Intelligence the immediate cause of the motion of the
u^l^ther, as well^as the Final Cause of the motions of both.
But as mv revisers will not have it so, but insist that the
metaphor of the lover and the beloved is not scientifically
ade([uate to cause the motion even of the ^-Ether by the
Supreme Intelligence, (in which I agree with them), there is no
course open to me but to fall back on my own principle of
development and to contend, as it demands, that Aristotle not
only could not find a place for Number, and all that it involves,
in his system, but could not find a place for Motion either,
which is still worse. And yet one is surprised that the great
Aristotle should have exposed so large a surface of Achilles'
heel to the enemy as the absence from his system of all that is
contained in the conceptions of both Number and ]\Iotion would
entail ; and so for the present we must leave it. But 1 had
another reason for attributing the motion of the earth to the
reservoir of Motion in the il^ther, and that was that the Stoics,
who took the next step in evolution in advance of Aristotle,
got their principle of Motion fnmi ^Ether ; and retrospectively
this looks as if they thought that Aristotle had done so too.
xl. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
As for the evolution of Greek Philosophy after Aristotle,
the materials are so abundant that I have not found it necessary
to make much alteration in the text. But there is one point
to which Prof. Mnirhead calls my attention, and on which a
word may be said. It is, that on page 72, I have pictured the
Neo-Platonic Trinity as a triangle with equal sides, whereas
the One, the Logos, and the World-Soul which compose it,
and of which the World is an emanation, were not equal in
rank, but were a hierarchy rather, a co-eternity but without
co-equality. This is, of course, true, and it was precisely at
this point of its development that the Neo-Platonic Trinity
passed over into the parallel Christian (but still hierarchical)
Trinity of Clement and Origen by the simple step of making
the emanations from its three principles centre in the man
Christ Jesus ; and so converting the One, the Logos, and the
World-Soul, which were essences in Neo-Platonism, into the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who Avere persons in Christianity,
before passing into and irradiating the world. The full-blown
Trinity of Athanasius, with its co-equality as well as co-eternity
of Father, Son, and Spirit, was an evolution not of Neo-
Platonism but of Christianity,
Rut before leaving the subject of Greek Philosophy, which
with me never grows stale, but entrances me the more the
more I return to it, I have a remark or two to make on the
opinion of some of my revisers, that in my endeavour to
construct a harmonious scheme of the philosophy of Plato I
have tended rather to ignore the Dialogues, and have concen-
trated in my Appendix on the Timaeus and the Republic alone.
And the reason they give for this oj)inion is that with Plato
the Timaeus was expressly put forward as a kind of allegory of
how the world might have been constructed rather than of how
it actually had been constructed, and so is not as reliable a
source for his opinions as it otherwise might have been. Now
anyone who has ever been engaged in an attempt to recover
the steps by which any complex thing whose early history
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. xli.
never can be known has attained its present form, must be
aware of the immense difference there is between this and
merely analysing out the separate elements of which it is at
present composed ; and can sympathize therefore with Plato
in putting forward his views with so much modesty. But to
imagine because of this, that Plato has not given us his real
belief on the nature, composition, and relations of the elements
Avith which he worked, to the very best of his insiglit and
penetration, is to me impossible. As well suppose that a
biologist who is doo-matic on the structure of an existing
quadruped, must not be taken seriously if he hesitates to
express an equally dogmatic opinion as to exactly how it got
here from the bemnnini'- of time. The truth is, that were it
not for the Timaeus, and did we depend only on the Dialogues,
we should wander forever in a maze of crude or half formed
opinions, hypotheses, and behefs of Plato, belonging to different
stages of his mental growth, with not only no certain clue to
the chronological order of his writings but with no certainty as
to which of them contained his real beliefs ; his material basis
of things, for example, receiving a somewhat different inter-
pretation in the P/ulhIo, the Foliticns, and the Philebus, and in
all of them being more or less different from Avhat it is in the
Timaeus. The same, too, is largely the case with his account
of the Ideas, of the function of the Demiurge, and the rest.
But with the TimaeAis to guide us, descending, as it does, to the
minutest particulars, and elaborated, as it is, with the greatest
precision and care, we see precisely the function of each
element or factor, the relative weight and importance attached
to each, and how he conceives them all to unite harmoniously
together. All that preceded it was (like the studies and
sketches made by artists for their great pictures), but
preliminary scaffolding — tentative hypotheses for the purpose
of testing the soundness of the materials witli wliicli he
was to construct his great temple, or analytic exercises for
the purpose of separating the wheat from the cliafl' in the
xlii. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
philosophies of his grecatest predecessors. But in the Timaeus,
like a judge summing up the arguments of opposing counsel, and
shearing away all the ingenuities, subtleties, and sophistries by
which the real issue is obscured, he sits in judgment on his own
past and on his own early writings, and tells us exactly what
we are to believe in regard to it all; and that there may be no
mistake, he projects it all like a magnificent image on the great
screen of the world. Being among the latest of his writings, it
contains his last will and testament written by his own hand as
it were ; and with this as a ])ossession, the Dialogues for the
first time become really useful, as enabling us to see his
opinions in the process of their formation and growth. Give
me the Timaeus and the Republic therefore, and, with the
exception, perhaps, of the Theatetus, the Sophist, and the
Parmenides, you may take all the rest of his writings as a gift.
And indeed if anything more were wanting to convince me that
Plato and the Timaeus are one, in so far at least as his ffreat
scheme of the world is concerned, it would be supplied by the
fact that not only the Neo-Platonists of the Ancient World,
but the Platonists of the Middle Ages, regarded them as such,
and constructed, modified, or reconstructed their own schemes
accordingly. It is doubtless true, as Aristotle asserts, that in
his old age he had a tendency more and more to identify his
principles of the Good and the Ideas, with certain numbers or
modifications of Number, after the manner of the Pythagoreans ;
but in doing so he must have mixed and confounded his own
categories in attempting to give them a factitious simplification,
and that, too, without altering in any essential respect the
natural course of development ; as is seen from Aristotle, who,
although he was acquainted with the new trend of Plato's
thought, in the construction of his own system regarded it not.
And finally, I may, perhaps, make a remark or two on the
chapter on Modern Theosophy, or Esoteric Buddhism as it is
called, which I have embodied in my section on Hindoo
Philosophy. For now that the Mahatmas, who were regarded
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. xliii.
as the revealers and sponsors of tliis Philosopliy, have become
hirgely discredited in the general mind, some other source for
it must be found in natural Evolution. When closely examined
the system will be seen to be only a composite of the old
Vedanta Philosophy described in the text, sprinkled here and
there with Buddhist elements, so that instead of Ijcing labelled
Esoteric Buddhism it would be more properly designated
as Neo-Vedantism. But there can be little doubt that by its
ingenious explanations of problems with which Modern Physical
Science is incompetent to deal, it has in its new form
marvellously enhanced the power of Vedantism to resist the
encroachments of the scientific spirit of the Western World.
The fault in the old system of Vedanta was, it may be remarked,
that it had in it no principle of movement or evolution ; its
seven planes or principles of Existence lying one above another
like so many strata, each and all unable to move. But by
rolling each of these into a ball or planet, and setting them all
at different poifits around tlie circumference of a wheel (our
own earth occupying the place at the bottom of the wheel)
and by making the spiritual influence emanating from the first
(to us invisible) planet or principle at the top, pass down and
around the wheel, gathering the spiritual properties of each ball
or planet as it passes along, and saturating our world with their
combined effluences each time it comes round, you get a dynamic
principle of development on our own planet which, were it true,
would account for the transformations the earth has undergone,
and for the successive types of creatures that have appeared on
its surface ; l3esides much else which you can get neither from
the old Hindoo Philosophies nor from Modern Physical Science,
as I have shown in the text. But the whole system, as I have
also shown, is only a paper-system, dealing merely with pseudo-
causes such as that involved in describing the Vital Principle
as the cause of life, or the loss of hair as the cause of baldness,
and not with real scientific causes at all ; and when once this is
seen, the system can have no future for the Western Mind.
INTRODUCTORY.
TN the present and succeeding volumes of this series I
propose to ask the reader to accompany me in a Historical
Survey of the Intellectual Development of the world. In the
introductory volume, " Civilization and Progress," I restricted
myself, it may be remembered, to exhibiting in a general way
the parts played in the complex movement of civilization by
the great cardinal factors of Rehgion, Government, Science,
and Material and Social Conditions, and to pointing out the
laws which regulate the interplay of these factors as they roll
alono- too-ether down the course of Time. In this and the
following volumes I propose to apply the general principles
there laid down, to the detailed evolution of one great factor
in Civilization, viz., Intellectual Development, under which
term I shall for convenience include the three great depart-
ments of Religion, Science, and Philosophy. But this change
from the investigation of the laws of Civilization in general,
to the laws which regulate the evolution of a single and
separate factor, must necessitate, it is to be observed, a wide
change both in method and in treatment. In determining the
laws of Civilization in general, as for example the laws that
regulate the relations subsisting between Religion and Science,
between Religion and ^lorality, and between both and ^Material
and Social conditions, it is obvious that when once these laws
are discovei'ed they ought to hold good at any time and in any
place ; in the same way as in Physiology Avheu once the laws
which regulate the relations between two or more organs of
the body are determined, as for example between the stomach
B
2 INTRODUCTORY.
and liver, or lungs and heart, and so on, they ought to hold
good at each and every period of life, from youth to age. A
detailed account, therefore, of all the factors at every stage of
their evolution, even if it were possible, would be superfluous ;
it is practically sufficient if, as in geology, on sinking a shaft
here and there into different quarters of the field, the results
are found to correspond to the law or laws laid down.
History, that is to say, though an admirable handmaiden, and
even a necessary instrument of investigation^ is of but secondary
and subordinate importance as a standard of interpretation, and
must give way to more direct methods of insight and penetra-
tion. But in investigations into the laws which determine the
evolution of any single factor, on the contrary, and more
especially of the intellectual factor with Avhich we are here
about to deal, an exact knowledge of historical sequences is of
the very essence of proof ; just as in physiology, again, where
the laws regulating the evolution of any particular organ, as
of the eye, say, are to be determined, they can be demonstrated
only by a detailed exhibition of the stages passed through by
that organ from the embryo omvards. The main question
therefore which concerns us here is whether there is at hand
a sufficient body of facts bearing on the history of intellectual
development, to justify the attempt to reduce them to scientific
laws, or to serve as proof of the truth and sufficiency of
these laws when found. The answer will, I am convinced, be
given by most competent authorities in the affirmative. For
by the patient labours of generations of students who have
devoted their lives to these subjects, the main facts of Greek
and Hindoo Thought, of Gra3CO-Roman Paganism, of Hebrew
Religion and Morality, of Early Christian Doctrine and
Practice, have been successfully disinterred, freed from
obscm-ities and foreign adhesions, marshalled in logical order,
and placed before the reader in their true sequences and
relations. And yet, as with the cataloguing of the planets
and stars before the law of gravitation was discovered ; or the
INTllODUCTORY. 3
orderly dividing of the animal and vegetable kingdoms before
Darwin: somethins: more than this mere cataloo-uino- and
arranirino-, however exhaustive and accurate, is needed, before
a history of the evolution of the great periods of human
thought can be said to be scientific in the proper sense of that
term. It is necessary, as well, that the law or laAvs Avhich the
evolution follows either as a whole or in its separate periods
and stages should be so clearly grasped that they can be laid
down at the outset ; and that the procession of the facts should
be seen to conform so closely to these laws, that Avhen regard
is had to the great complexity of the subject matter, the result
may fairly be held to constitute a scientific demonstration.
Now this is the task which I have set myself in the present
and succeeding volumes ; and in venturing to ask the reader
to follow me over so wide a field, I would crave his indulgence
for such crudities and imperfections as must necessarily attend
the attempt to break ground on so difficult and complex a
theme.
I am aware, off course, of the deep suspicion with which
many readers will regard any attempt to reduce to law those
products of thought or action Avhich would seem to depend on
the uncertain caprices of men ; and can fully realize the surprise
of the reader when he hears that an attempt has here been
made to anticipate the views which men like Plato, Aristotle,
Buddha, or Paul, were likely to hold on the great problems of
the world and of human life. So much so, indeed, that were it
not for the deep conviction which I have entertained ever since
writing " Civilization and Progress," that it was a thing possible
to be done, and that the time was now ripe for doing it, I might
well have shrunk from the attempt. But with the view of
lightening the weight of suspicion that may attach to the
undertaking, as well as of marking out more precisely the limits
of the enquiry, I have thought it well at the outset to indicate
a few of the reasons which have made me feci that the
enterprise was feasible.
4 INTRODUCTORY.
These reasons in the case of the purely philosophical parts of
our subject, such as those on Greek and Hindoo Thought, are
quite simple and a^jparent. In the first place, in none of
these ancient systems of Philosophy is the curve of evolution
liable to be deflected from its natural course, as it would
be in modern times, by the intrusion into the problem of the
discoveries of Physical Science — Avhich, like concealed magnets,
are at the present time liable to be sprung on you at any
moment, and must for ever render all scientific prevision
absolutely impossible. On the contrary, throughout the whole
period during which these systems were evolving, no scientific
laws, like those, say, of gravitation, of the Copernican
Astronomy, or of the connexion between the mind and the
physical condition of the brain and nervous system, had yet
been observed ; and the mind of the philosopher, in consequence
was left free to follow its own inner workings to their logical
results, undisturbed from without, and to weave its own airy
webs unobstructed by the intrusion into its dreams of the hard
and rocky facts of Physical Science. Then, again, as systems
of pure philosophy unconnected with action, they were not
liable to be disturbed in their logical evolution by the capri-
cious intervention of the human will. And lastly, as it is only
with the greatest thinkers that one has to deal, and as it is
these who, like the great chess players, follow most logically
the moves necessitated by the complex game of their pre-
decessors, there is no reason Avhy the same human mind which
has woven these airy flowing webs of speculation, should not
be able to interpret them and even to anticipate them also ;
provided always that the starting point be given, and that the
laws of the particular game of thought, as it were, that is being
played, whether Greek, Hindoo, or Modern, be fully and clearly
seen. For it cannot be too often repeated that although the
subject matter of all philosophy is the same, viz., the great
field of the world and of human life, the game that is being
played is never in these great world-systems twice alike ; and
INTRODUCTORY.
SO the same facts have in the different systems a quite difterent
value o-iven them, as in a o-ame of whist the same hand lias
quite a different vahie according to the card that is trumps.
Id the whole period of Greek Philosophy, for example, from
the time of Socrates, and in all European thought dow^n to the
advent on the scene of Modern Physical Science, the principle
of Intellect or Intelligence (voOs) is the supreme principle
around Avhich all thought is centred ; what is called the Vital
Principle or diflused Soul of things being regarded as but the
matrix for the growth and nourishment of Intellect ; the
foundation, of which it is the architectural crown ; the casing,
in which as a jewel it is set. All the problems of the world
and of life, accordingly, take their cue from this principle, and
from their relation to it receive all their own importance and
significance. With Hindoo Thought, again, it is just the
opposite. Here the Vital Principle {4'^xn) t^^e Anima jNIundi
which is the life of Nature, is the ^^ujjreme principle to which
all else pays homage ; the Intellect being regarded as but an
evanescent foam-bubble thrown up to the surface of its deep
and ever flowinir stream, and turning for the moment its
gleaming colours to the light, but coming into being only with
the lives of men, and Avith them passing aAvay. In modern
systems of philosoph}^ again, like that of ^Mr. Herbert Spencer,
it is evident that still another principle and one different from
both these, is king, viz., that of pure Physical Mechanism ;
masses and molecules and particles being the supreme pontiffs
whose dress not only the ' Vital Principle ' of Hindoo Thought,
but Intellect, Beauty, and Love itself must wear, before they
can have the entree to its high courts. Prom all of which it is
evident, that as in systems of pure philosophy things take their
value from a single supreme principle, avc ought, if only we can
seize what this principle is in any particular world-system, to
be able to lay down at the outset the laws of its procession and
the curve of its evolution, with a large measure of scientific
exactness and precision. But we ought to be able to do more,
6 INTRODUCTORY.
for just as when the past position of a planet or satellite is
disputed, the difficulty can be at once resolved by asking where
the law of gravitation would necessitate that it must have been ;
so in disputed questions as to the meaning to be attached to
certain controverted doctrines, say of Plato, of Ai-istotle, or of
Buddha — as for example to Plato's doctrine of Ideas, of Number,
of the oLTreipov, or of the twice bi-seeted line in the Republic ;
to Aristotle's doctrine of Matter and Form ; and to Buddha's
doctrine of Nirvana, Karma, etc. — we are helped to the right
solution by asking which of the disputed interpretations, if
any, is the one cut through, as it were, by the evolutionary
curve as it passes on its way.
The Reader will not be surprised, therefore, to find that in
most of the chapters of the present volume, dealing as they do
with the most controverted as well as with the most difficult
problems of the past, differences of greater or less importance
from the current readings and interpretations have been
introduced for his consideration. In regarding the facts of
the different pei'iods from a somewhat novel point of view, it
was inevitable that their significance, emphasis, and connections,
should undergo changes in accordance with that point of view.
So much for the reasons that seem to me to justify the
opinion that the line of evolution of all the great world-
systems of Philosophy that have arisen, culminated, and
declined before the advent of Physical Science, can be laid
down at the outset with a large amount of scientific precision.
With Religions on the other hand the problem is changed
and the method of solution difterent. For if Philosophies
may for the nonce be defined as games of thought played
by the abstract or logical intelligence. Religions may be
defined to be games of thought played by the whole human
mind — intellect, conscience, and heart. And although by
thus introducing into the problem the uncertain element of
human will, our difficulty in anticipating the line or curve of
evolution would seem to be indefinitely enhanced, if indeed
INTRODUCTORY. 7
the problem were not thereby rendered Insoluble, still in
reality it is not so. The problem can still be undermined,
if even it cannot be taken by a direct assault. For Religions
may be said to differ from one another rather in the spirit or
soul if we may say so, which animates them, than, as philo-
sophies do, in the purely intellectual dogmas in which that
spirit or soul is clothed. If, then, the sjjirit or soul of the
religion from which we start, say of Paganism, be determined,
and the spirit or soul of the Religion at which we are to arrive,
say , of Christianity, be likewise determined ; and if further
we divide the intervening distance into a number of sj^iritual
or moral stages as it were, each stage representing a step in
evolution, it ought to be as possible for the philosophic
historian to forecast the kind or kinds of experience through
which the tribe or nation must pass from stage to stage if it is
to reach the goal, as it is for the scientific dog or pigeon-
fancier to forecast the kind of crosses he must make between
his breeds before he can get a particular form of head or
colour of wing ; always allowing, of course, in the midst of so
much complexity, just sufficient historical landmark as finger-
post to steady him on the way, and give him a firm footing
for the next advance. This then is the nature of the attempt
that I am about to make in the following history ; but lest
the reader should be led by these introductory remarks to
strain the scope of my attempt to a larger reach than I ha^e
intended, I have been careful to lay down at the beginning of
each great movement, whether philosoj)hical or religious, the
precise positions which I think it possible to make good
asking only for such indulgence in minor particulars as may
be fairly granted to the pioneer who enters for the first time
on a new and untrodden sphere.
I am, of course, aware that at various periods during the
century, attempts have been made to reduce the History of
Intellectual Development to fixed and determinate laws ;
notably by Hegel at the beginning of the century, by Comte
8 INTRODUCTORY.
and Buckle in the middle, and in our own day by Herbert
Spencer. But there are various reasons, differing more or
less in each case, why these attempts, admirable and even
magnificent otherwise, were as scientific histories fore-doomed
to failure. In the first place it is only within our own time
that a sufficient body of historical facts has, through the
labours of the Higher Critics, been brought together, to
justify the attempt to reduce them to fixed and scientific laws.
Hegel, in consequence, was obliged to limit himself to the
enunciation of a single general law for the whole field of
intellectual development, instead of enunciating a number of
more closely-fitting laws for its separate divisions and sections.
And although his law, into which I will not enter here, was,
in my judgment, the true law of the movements of intelligence
in the abstract, it was nevertheless, like a hat too big for the
head, altogether too wide and general to be of any scientific
value for determining the line of evolution of the lesser
divisions of intellectual development — except perhaps in
relation to German INIetaphysics, from which, indeed, the law
was derived and to Avhich it is specially applicable ; in the same
way as the general Law of Evolution, although doubtless true
in itself, is much too wide to be offered as a serious explanation
of the special phenomena of the stock-exchange, or the law
of gravitation of the special phenomena of chemical affinity.
And hence, when he comes to trace the evolution of Greek
Philosophy, for example, instead of laying down at the outset
a law that should keep so close to the facts, that it would
enable us to track the course of that philosophy through its
various windings, side-spirts, and doublings, until it was at
last run to earth in Christianity, he offers us, instead, a law
so vague in its nature, so wide in its scope, and so general in
its rano;e, that it enabled him to do little more than to throw
ring-fences, as it were, around the various fields through which
it was destined to pass. And yet this is what he calls tracing
the evolution of Greek Philosophy. And for result we have.
rXTRODUCTORY. 9
as we should expect, a history in which underneath this huge
immeasurable metaphysical night-cap the real features of these
old Greek philosophies are as unrecognizable as the visages
of pigmies under the helmets of Brobdingnagians ! And
Avhen some of his followers, notably Strauss for example,
undertook to apply this abstract metaphysical law of his to
the evolution of a flesh and blood religion like Christianity,
and when instead of constructing their theory of its origin
and rise, out of such substantial human motives as hope, fear,
imagination, passion, tradition, devotion, and the like, as one
would construct a rope out of good substantial hemp, they
undertook to do it out of a network of metaphysical cobwebs,
bloodless, attenuated, and unsubstantial as shades or dreams,
the result was ghastly in its inappropriateness and absurdity.
The next great Thinker who undertook to trace in the
history of Intellectual Development a clear and orderly
evolution, was Comte. In his law of the " three stages," as it
is called, he has given us in my judgment, in spite of the
temporary neglect into which it has fallen, the most compre-
hensive, the most philosophical, andj I will add, the most
practically useful working conception of the march of human
progress as a whole, which has yet appeared. But, as in the
parallel case of Hegel and his followers, the very width and
generality of this law unfitted it for the purpose of scientific
prevision, and for determining the curve of evolution of the
special systems, which it is the last object of a scientific
history to achieve. For although in these " three stages " of
his, the Theological, the Metaphysical, and the Positive
respectively — he has accurately gathered up into their separate
categories and compartments, as it were, the facts of evolution
in the diflTerent periods of the world's history ; and although
in his splendid march across the centuries, he has supplied in
these " three stages " a torch which really lights up the
interiors of these compartments, so that the nature of their
contents is everywhere fully and clearly seen; and although,
10 INTRODUCTORY.
further, he has shown by means of them how the social and
moral phenomena of these several periods Avere connected
together, he nevertheless found his law too wide and general
to determine their intellectual curve and line of evolution, and
so has left this aspect of them almost a virgin soil for future
explorers.
The next great Thinker, again, who made an attempt to
reduce the history of intellectual development to definite laws,
was Buckle, but of his performance little need here be said.
He has not added anything to Comte's great classification, but,
on the contrary, has adopted it entire, only under a difi'erent
form and under other names. The Theoloo-ical and Meta-
physical stages of Comte, in which the mind starting from
unproven hypotheses of gods on the one hand, or of ' vital
forces,' ' essences,' or ' spirits ' on the other, reasons from them
downwards as it were, to the facts, he has called, when regard
is had to their intellectual aspects, the ' deductive ' method of
inquiry ; while the Positive or Scientific Stage of Comte, in
which the mind, beginning from the facts, reasons upwards by
means of observation, experiment, and verification, to scientific
generalizations and conclusions, he has called the ' inductive '
method. But while Comte applied his law to all the great
intellectual periods of the world's history, Buckle applied his
doctrine of intellectual method only to the period when
Science, like a young David, made its first appearance in the
field against the Goliath-like superstitions, as Buckle regarded
them, of Religion and Metaphysics ; and his work, in conse-
quence, in spite of the splendid powers of generalization which
it exhibits, must be regarded rather as a magnificent piece of
special pleading in the interests of a particular stage of
intellectual development and of a ])articular method of intel-
lectual inquiry, the Scientific — than as a scientific enquiry
into the evolution of them all.
The last of the great Thinkers who has attempted to reduce
the history of intellectual development to law and order, is
INTRODUCTORY. 1 1
Mr. Herbert Spencer, who, in his magnificent and colossal
work on Evolution, has, with a genius all his own, made the
world of Thought his eternal debtor. But here, again, as
in the case of Hegel and Comte, the law which he has
propounded, the great law of Evolution, is as we have
^aid, much too wide and comprehensive to be of scientific
value in the special problems of intellectual development
with which it is the object of this volume to deal. The
larger part of his work is taken up with exhibiting in detail
the great fact that just as in the world of nebulas and stars, in
the solar system, in the crust of the earth and in the animals
and plants on it, so, too, in the intellectual and moral world,
begin where you will, every new germ of thought, every new
ideal of morality that is dropped like a seed into the world,
will, like it, pass gradually from its first vague and indeter-
minate condition, into a highly complex and involved one,
wiU split itself, as it were, into endless differentiations, and
into ever and ever greater complexity and variety of form,
M'hether that germ be a religious precept, a form of govern-
ment, a principle of morality, a new style of painting, oj-
architecture. But this fact of endless differentiation, although
a truth of prime importance in its bearings on our conception
of the Universe as a Avhole, is barren and useless for the more
limited purpose to which we here wish to put it ; as the sky,
although spanning the world and being the abode of the
gods, is useless to protect the homes of men from the wind
and rain. For if in the first volume of this series " Civilization
and Progress," I have succeeded in showing that the jirogress
of civilization consists in the srradual establishment amons^
men of higher and hiirher moral codes, higher and hio-licr
ideals of life, it will follow that the interesting and important
point is not so much the knowledge (interesting and important
as it is) that when once a new germ of religion or morality is
sown in the minds or hearts of men, it will unfold itself in
endless differentiations and in infinite ramifications of organs
12 INTRODUCTORY.
and institutions (this is the case with all germs, and may as
confidently be looked for as an etcetera to them as tails may
to comets), what is most important to know is not how men
and their philosophies and religions and moralities developed
into other men with other philosophies, other religions, and
other moralities, important as this may be, but how the lower
form develops into the higher, plants into animals, animals
into men, the ' Vital Principle ' of Hindoo Philosophy into the
' Intelligence ' of Greek Philosophy, the morality of Paganism
into the morality of Christianity and so on. Now the only
section of intellectual development which, in this sense, Mr.
Spencer has treated scientifically, is the development from
dreams, etc, of men's primitive religious conceptions of God,
the Soul, and a Future Life, as seen in those savage races who
are the existing representatives of the thought and feeling of
Pre-historic Man. But he has stopped just at the point where
they become of interest to us, viz. when these primitive
conceptions are taken up into the thought of civilized nations,
of Hindoos, Greeks, and Europeans, and woven by them into
religions and philosophies. Into this Mr. Spencer nowhere
enters, and so he has left the field of investigation of the
evolution of these higher and more interesting stages of
Intellectual Development, still 02)en.
So much then for the aim, scope, and method of the present
work, and for the reasons which have made me believe that its
execution along the lines laid down, would be both opportune
and possible. But the reader may still ask what is to be the
upshot of it all, what the result, what light, if any, is it
intended to throw on the great and complex problems of To-
day ? To which I would reply, much in every way, if I shall
have succeeded in the enterprise. Starting out as I did
on this enquiry with a mind disengaged from all preconcep-
tions whatever, religious or philosophical, and with no notion
of what the outcome was likely to be, my one object being to
discover how far it were possible that the game of human
INTRODUCTORY. 13
thought, when played imcler defined and known conditions,
could be determined beforehand in the curve and course of its
evolution ; and feeling deeply at the same time the inadequacy
and even impertinence of a limited and finite product like the
human mind, with its few poor and limited avenues of
knowledge, professing to guage the infinite possibilities of that
Nature from which, as a time-begotten ephemera, it has been
cast up ; I had not gone far before I discovered that after all
ordinary scientific causes had done their best or worst in the
explanation of the phenomena under discussion, there still
remained a residuum which was unex})lained by all special
explanations ; some unknown Power, as it were, which held all
the factors too'cther, and constrained them all to a definite
and apparently pre-determined end. This Power, whose
nature was left quite undetermined, did not make itself so
plainly apparent in the evolution of the purely philosophical
systems — whether those of the Hindoos, of the Greeks, or of
the Moderns — for these were only the explicit and elaborate
unfolding of principles which were already latent and implicit
in the mind itself, requiring only to be drawn out into logical
sequence and form. But in religions, on the other hand, like
those of Judaism and Christianity, which deal not so much
with the purely logical intelligence as with the entire nature
of man, and therefore with his conscious will, the progress of
our enquiry not only disclosed the presence of the Unknown
Co-ordinating Power of which I have spoken, Avhose nature
had so far remained indeterminate, but this Power began to
clothe itself with certain definite attributes. It exhibited
for example a steady tendency to the production of higher
and higher moral and social relations among men ; a tendency
apparently never lost sight of for a single moment, but
visible everywhere to us now athwart all the impediments,
the immoralities, the stupidities, the delusions, and even the
frauds by which in actual history it was worked out. And
further it became evident that in the working out of this
14 INTRODUCTORY.
tendency or end, this Co-ordinating Power used means as
various and ingenious as those of the natural world; and
that just as the cross-fertilization of flowers is effected now by
bees, now by the wind, and now by animals ; so in civilization
the evolution of higher and higher ideals of morality is worked
out now by Religions, now by Government, now by Science,
and now by the Material and Social Environment ; each like
a good fairy bringing its own appropriate and peculiar gift,
and all, like the vassals of King Solomon, furnishing, though
unconsciously, one or other of the materials needed for the
building of the great Temple of Humanity. Now were the
active agents in working out these great designs conscious of
what they were doing, the whole achievement would be only
an instance of the activity of the human spirit working after
its own proper laws, and making for itself its own world of
religion, its own moral and social environment, according to
the ideal and pattern of its dreams ; and so would have no
further or ulterior religious or philosophical significance. But
when it is discovered that the individual men and women who
are the instruments by which these great ends of civilization
and morality are brought about, are no more conscious of what
they are doing or of where they are going, than the bees are
when in the search for honey they are made at the same time
to fertilize the flowers, but on the contrary are either intent on
their own private ends, or if on public ends not on the ends
which this Co-ordinating Power, this Genius of the World, is
workingr out throuoh them ; when we discover all this, we feel
that this Co-ordinating Power, this Unknown X in the
equation, which is not ourselves and which makes steadily for
moral ends, is what in the case of human beings we should
designate as both Intelligent and JSIoral. But although the
course of this History thus supports the belief in a stupendous
and overarching Supernaturalism everywhere enfolding and
pervading the world and its afljiirs, and giving scope and
exercise to all that is properly religious in thought and feeling,
INTRODUCTORY. 15
it nowhere lays emphasis on any particular one of those
Supernaturalisms which have prevailed among the different
nations and peoples, and in which poor belated human souls,
hard pressed by Fate, have in this rude world taken refuge
from the storm, and for a brief space found peace and solace
and rest. On the conti-ary it treats them one and all as means
and instruments merely to the one great end of Morality and
the elevation and expansion of the human spirit. Now these
conclusions Avhich are rather a bye-product of our study of
intellectual development than a part of its essential aim, have
in no way affected our treatment of that development, which
would have been the same had there been at the bottom of it
all nothing more than a blind and unmeaning Fate. They are
largely, I admit, personal conclusions, drawn from the im-
pression which the spectacle of so many generations of human
souls all moving unconsciously towards a predestined end, is
calculated to make on the contemplative spirit, and are not
necessarily transferable to other minds. They are nowhere,
therefore, pressed upon the reader as a thing once for all
demonstrated and done with, but are left rather to his deeper
moods Avith their finer and truer spiritual affinities and
intuitions.
PART I.
THE EVOLUTION
OF GREEK THOUGHT.
HISTOHY OF
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.
PART I.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES FOR THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS
ON THE
EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
PLATO
ARISTOTLE
DIOGENES LAEIITIUS
SEXTUS EMPIRICUS
HEGEL
ZELLER
SCHAVEGLER
BRANDLS
UEBERWEG
STOB^EUS
PLUTARCH
ERDMANN
KKOHX
SPENGEL
R'lTTEIi
HEINZE
STRUMPELL
3IARTIN
JANET
COUSIN
WINDELBAND
GOMPERZ
RITCHIE
V ACHE ROT
SIMON
LEWES
JOWETT
FERRIER
GROTE
MARTINEAU
BOSANQUET
BIGG
BURNET
BENN
C II A P T E E I .
THE KEY.
TN searching for the key to the evolution of Greek
Philosophy, a few general observations are necessary
perhaps, at the outset, to enable us to envisage as it were the
full scope of the problem before us, and to help us to the
direction in which we are to look for its solution. To bea-in
with, then, I would remark that the views which men are
likely to entertain as to the meaning and significance of the
World and of Human Life — the object of all Religion, Science,
and Philosophy — like those they entertain as to the meaning
and significance of a comet, a ghost, or an eclipse, will entirely
depend upon the notion they have formed to themselves as to
the nature of the cause or causes by which they conceive these
effects to have been produced. Now of the vast and multitu-
dinous complexity of causes of one kind or another that occupy
our attention from day to day, all may be reduced under one or
other of three distinct types, which for convenience we will
call Religious Causes, Metaphysical Causes, and Scientific
Causes, respectively. These Causes, as their names imply, are
the characteristic and typical modes of explaining the world
which are most in vogue with three types of thinkers — the
ReligioTis, the Philosophical, and the Scientific. The charac-
teristic of a Religious Cause is, that by it phenomena are
referred to the agency of Personal Wills like our own, whether
20 THE EVOLrXION OF GREEK THOUGHT,
of gods or of demons ; and its peculiarity is that it nnderlles^
or lies behind, as it were, the effects to be explained, in the
same way as a man's will may be said to stand behind the house
he has built, as its cause and explanation. To these lielioiou*
Causes, owino; to the analoiiv thev have with our own wills, the
unsophisticated human mind has, in the infancy of knowledge,
always yielded a full, free, and unhesitating assent. The
characteristic of a Scientific Cause, on the other hand, is that
it refers phenomena not to Personal ^^'ills but to Physical
antecedents; and its peculiarity is that it is the physical or
mechanical equivalent of the effects to be explained ; so that
when a given amount of wood, for example, passes over into an
equivalent amount of ashes, smoke, gases, and so on ; or when
so nuich heat passes over into its mechanical equivalent of
motion, or so much motion into an equal amount of electricity,,
or vice versa ; these various phenomena are said to be scientifi-
cally explained and accounted for. To these Scientific Causes,
too, when once demonstrated, the human mind is ahvays
prepared to yield the same ready assent that it does to the
proposition that two and two or three and one make, cause, or
pass over into four.
But it is to the third class of causes, viz., the Metaphysical
or Philosophical, that I desire especially to direct the reader's
attention, as it is on the chance of our being able to establish
some definite relation between the nature of these causes and
the Personal Wills of Eeligion, that the hope of our being able
to lay down beforehand the course which Greek Philosojihy is
likely to take in its evolution, will be found to depend. But
here it is necessary to pause and remark that the nature of
these Metaphysical or Philosophical Causes was quite different
in Ancient from what it is in IModern times. In Modern
Philosophy a Metaphysical Cause is in a manner identical with
a Scientific Cause, the only difference being that whereas a
Scientific Cause, as we have seen, implies a movement from a
physical antecedent to a physical consequent, a Metaphysical
THE KEY. 21
Cause implies a corresponding movement from a mental ante-
cedent to a mental consequent. But in the Ancient Times
Avith Avhicli alone Ave are here concerned, a Metaphysical or
Philosophical Cause differed from a Scientific Cause in being
the ' essence' or * spirit ' of a thing rather than the thing itself,
in underlubig it, as it were, and luiving an existence independent
of it. An illustration or two will perhaps bring out my meaning
more clearly. Take, for exami)le, the scent of a rose, and
the effects of a glass of wine respectively as the phenomena
requiring explanation. In Modern Times these would be
attributed to the oil in the rose, and to the alcohol in the wine.
In Ancient Times, on the contrary, they would be attributed
to the ' essence ' of the rose, and to the ' spirit ' of the wine
respectively ; and this is what I mean by a metaphysical cause.
So, too, the physical, chemical, and other activities of the
animal body would in Modern Times be regarded as the scientific
causes of the movements and activities which the body displays ;
in Ancient Times these movements would be referred to the
* vital principle,' or ' animal spirits,' as their cause ; and this,
again, is what I mean by a metaphysical cause. So too the exal-
tation or depression of mind which to-day would be regarded as
due to conditions of the stomach or liver, or of the brain and
nervous system, would in Ancient Times have been referred to
good or bad ' spirits ' as tlieir cause, while all those artistic,
poetic, and other intellectual productions which would now be
assigned to a larger quantity or better quality of brain-matter
as their scientific cause, would in Ancient Times be referred to
' inspiration,' the ' divine afflatus,' and the like, as if, indeed,
these were separate entities, having an existence apart from
and independent of the activity of the brain itself. These are
crude illustrations of what is to be understood as a Meta-
physical or Philosophical Cause in Ancient Times ; and if we
are to see how the understanding of the nature of these causes
is to help us to find the key to the evolution of Greek Pliilo-
sophy it will be necessary, perhaps, to first figure to ourselves
22 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
a system of Philosophy constructed entirely out of these Meta-
physical Causes. In a general way we may say that in its
crudest form it would be something after this pattern : — To
every object displaying any apparently spontaneous activity, or
exhibiting any unusual or distinct quality, a separate * essence *
or ' spirit ' would be assigned as its cause, as, for example, to
stones of unusual shape or appearance, special kinds of trees,
like the oak or elm, animals with well defined characteristics, as
the dog, the wolf, the bear, the fox, and so on ; and such a
philosophy, indeed, exists at the present day among the lowest
races, under the name of Totemism or Fetishism. If we now
advanced from a Metaphysical system of this kind to one more
generalized and less crude, we should find that besides each
peculiar object or quality having its special ' spirit,' all those
things or objects which seemed to resemble each other in some
Avay, or left the same or an analogous impression on the mind,
Avould be grouped together under a common ' spirit,' as it were ;
and we should then have the ' spirits ' of the earth, of the air,
of the rocks, the caves, the trees, the fountains, and the groves
and so on, as in the metaphysical aspects of the Greek or Fairy
Mythologies ; while in the most refined and subtle as well as
most generalized systems, we should find all the minor essences
or spirits reduced under a few great heads, and our inventory
of Metaphysical Causes would then consist of some such
categories as the following; — the ' essence ' of matter as such ;
the ' s])irit,' 'vital principle,' or ' soul' of the animal body with
its passions ; ' intelligence,' or the most abstract essence of the
mental power peculiar to man ; and lastly, perhaps, the ' spirit ''
of the Beautiful and the Good as being the highest spiritual
essences of the highest order of men. Further than this, or
into fewer categories, no Metaphysical Philosophy of the
Ancient World could o-o. For each of these catesrories of
essences, it is to be observed, has qualities and characteristics
impassable by the others, and therefore not to be further
generalized, or reduced to fewer types. The ' essence ' of
THE KEY. 2
o
Matter, for example, is a sometliing simple, single, and homo-
geneous; the 'vital principle' or 'Soul' of the animal body
A\ ith its passions, is on the other hand a double-sided thing ;
it is diffused through the body, and so, like Matter, has
extension, but it has passions and instincts also, and so is partly
mental. The 'Intelligence,' again, or most abstract essence
of mental power, unlike the ' vital principle ' and the animal
' soul,' has no extension ; and instead of being bound up with
and limited to a certain definite range of affinities, as the
instincts of the animal soul are, it is completely detached from
them all, hovering over them, as it were, and surveying them
all with equal freedom and ease ; while the ' spirit ' of the
Beautiful and the Good, which like a subtle essence pervades
the world, marks itself off from the body and its passions, by
its difference in qualitij, and from the intelligence, by its
difference in function. If then we regard the World as some
great and complicated lock, and the problem of all Religion,
Science, and Philosophy, l)e how to open it with the smallest
number of keys ; or varying the metaphor, if we regard it as
a vast symphony, and the problem be how to get its infinite
harmonies out of the smallest number of strings, it is evident
that the ideal solution would be one in which the lock could
be opened with a single key, the harmonies, were it possible,
got from a single string. But we have just seen that in the
most subtle and refined Metaphysical systems of the Ancient
World, the number of these strings could not be reduced to
less than those just enumerated, viz., the essence of Matter,
the Vital principle, the animal 'Soul,' 'Intelligence,' and the
' Spirit ' of the Beautiful and the Good. If then we can find
a solution elsewhere which will <jive us the same harmonies on
a smaller number of strings, it is evident, is it not, that one
and all of these Metaphysical systems, must in the course of
their evolution, if left free, pass over into it? And this solution,
as I shall now show, is furnished bv the Personal Wills of
Religion. For observe that just as in the human Will all the
24 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
essences, spirits, and activities, both of the body and mind, are
implicitly if not explicitly involved in the acts of that will,
each like a separate counsellor havino- given or refused its vote
before the final resolves are taken ; so in the Divine Will all
the essences, spirits, and activities that make up the vast com-
]ilexity and multiplicity of tlie AVorld and of Human Life
must have been implicitly present before the World could have
come to be : the only difference in the case of a number of
gods being that these essences and activities are distributed
among several wills, instead of being concentrated in one.
All Metaphysical Philosophies whatever, therefore, of the
type prevalent in the Ancient World, start them where you
will, must make for Religion as their ultimate goal ; all their
causes being included and embraced in one Supreme Will. If
it be a crude form of Metaphysical Philosophy that is
in question, as for example where each separate quality
and form of activity is represented by a separate
' essence ' or ' spirit,' then no inventory of these ' essences '
can be sufficiently complete to give the unity and
harmony that are implicitly involved in a Divine Will. Or if,
on the other hand, it be that most subtle and refined form of
Metaphysical Philosophy which we have just described, in
which all the infinite essences of the world are gathered up
and generalized in a few great categories, — in that case while
you have all the strings, you still require the Player, viz., the
unity of the Divine Will, to combine them into the one vast
symphony of the World. And hence we may lay it down as a
principle, that if during the prevalence of any particular
l^eligion. a Metaphysical Philosoph}- springing from the same
>tage of culture comes anywhere within the range of its attrac-
tion, that philosophy will, in the absence of countervailing
influences., a? those of Physical Science for example, be di'awn
to it with the directness with which a stone, or a shot bird, falls
to the earth ; while if, as in the case of Greek Philosophy, the
Metaphysical system is thrown off the prevailing Keligion in
TllK KEY. 25
re-action as it were, and in antagonism to it, it will still fall
towards Religion, it is true, but, like a bird wounded but still
struggling, it will reach it at some more distant point along
the field. This, then, is the key to the dii-ection which any
Metaphysical Philosophy will take, Avhen in the presence of a
religion springing from the same stage of civilization and
culture ; and we now have to see to what extent it is applicable
to the details of the evolution of Greek Philosophy.
Now in our introductory chapter it will be remembered that
we stipulated that two conditions should be supplied us, before
the successive stages passed through by Greek Philosophy in
its course and evolution could be laid down in advance. The
first was, the circumstances of the starting, and the second, the
rules and limits of the game, or as we may put it here, the
conditions of the starting and the conditions of the running.
As for the conditions of the starting, we may say that Greek
Philosophy was not imported into an alien religion but was, as
we have said, thrown off in re-action, as it were, against the
superstitions of the prevailing Polytheism ; while as for the
<'onditions of the running, the essential point is that it was free
throughout its whole course from the intrusion into it of the
disturbing element of Physi(;al Science — no great discovery
like that of the Copernican system of Astronomy, the Law of
Gravitation, the Correlation of the Physical forces, or the
intimate connexion between the Brain and the Mind, havins: as
yet a])peared, to modify men's conceptions of the World and of
Human Life. The game, accordingly, was a comparatively
simple one, between a hand, as it were, of Metaphysical Cards,
and a hand of Eeligious ones, or to revert to our other metaphor,
the running was between the purely Metapliysical Causes of
Greek Pliilosophy, and the Personal Wills of Religion. If,
then, we represent the river of Philosophy as flowing between
the two shores of Religion, on the one hand, and Physical
Science, on the other ; and if, further, we picture the religious
bank at the time of which we are writing, as thronged with the
2() THE EVOLUTION OF GIJEEK THOUGHT.
miscellaneous multitiKle, while the scientific shore is as yet
practically uninhabited and unexplored, it will follow from the
principles we have laid down, that if the little boat of Greek
Philosophy, in its reaction against the puerilities and absurdities
of the prevailing Polytheism, pushes out from the opposite
shore of Science, it must take a diagonal course, as it were,
across the stream, and finally run into that religious bank from
which, at its starting, it had sought to escape — but at a point
much lower down the stream ; at that point, in fact, where the
shore had already been prepared for its landing, by the passage
of Paganism into the new religion of Christianity. And it will
follow, further, that as we know the first move on startino-. viz
the hypothesis of Thales that the material essence of Water
was the essential principle of all things, we should know before-
hand that having failed to account by this single essence for
all the varied richness, beauty, and complexity of the Woild, it
would be logically pushed on to call in one after another all
those essences we have described, to its aid, until in the end,
having exhausted them all, and being still unsatisfied, it would
be bound in its own despite to pass over into the new region of
wills and so fall into Rehglon again. In the following chapters
I propose to demonstrate this in detail, by following the little
boat till it lands on the shores of Christianity.
But before doing so a Avord or two may perhaps be necessary,
to indicate the nature of the difference between the attempt I
am now making, and the parallel attempt of Hegel. In the
introductory chapter, I ventured, it will be remembered, to
assert that the law laid down by Hegel as that along the line
of which not only Greek Philosophy, but all Philosophies and
Religions whatever, had been envolved, was unfitted by its very
range and generality for the strictly limited and defined problem
of the evolution of Greek Philosophy. But after the preceding
dissertation on the nature of the difterent kinds of Causes
proper to Religion, Philosophy, and Science respectively, we
are in a position to go farther, and to assert that the law of
ruv: KEY, 27
Hegel Is not only not suitable to the use to uliich he would
put it in the problem before us, but is as entirely inapplical)le
to it as a door-key is to the purposes of a watch-key. The
real problem, it is to be observed, is not so much the mere fact
of the evolution and unfolding of Greek Philosophy as such,
nor even the law of that evolution, as it is its direction and goal.
For all germs whatever, whether of Philosophy or Religion,
as we have already said, differentiate and unfold in the same
way, and after the same law ; and this law is practically the
same whether in the form given it by Hegel, or in that given it
by Herbert Spencer ; the only difference being that the law of
the movement of ' Spirit,' of Hegel, is the inner or mental
side, as it were, of Spencer's Law of Evolution on its outer
or physical side. With Spencer the Universe with all it
contains is but the progressive unfolding and evolution of
a fixed quantity of Force in the antagonistic forms of attrac-
tion and repulsion ; with Hegel it is the same progressive
unfolding, only of Being or Existence in general, with positive
and negative poles ; the only difference being that while with
Spencer things unfold themselves on the flat, as it were, as an
egg into a chick, with Hegel they unfold in an ascending
spiral, step on step, like a staircase. But as for the movement
itself, it is the same In both, viz. "a continuous process of
differentiation and integration," as Spencer himself defines it.
If then the direction and goal of Greek Philosophy, and not
its mere evolution, is the main question, the existence of fixed
points outside itself, is absolutely necessary. In ancient times,
Religion was the fixed point towards which Greek Philosophy
was advancing, and Into which, as we shall see. It ultimately
fell. In modern times, on the other hand, as we shall see in
our next volume. Science is the fixed point towards which
Philosophy steadily moves, until It passes over Into and is
absorbed by it. Without such fixed points, indeed, from which
to take their bearings, neither Ancient nor Modern Philosophy
would have any defined goal whatever, but like a ship without
'28 THE EVOLUTION OF GKEEK THOUGHT.
a rudder, or an engine off tlie rails, would run their course of
differentiation or evolution, here, there, or anywhere. In
order, therefore, that the law of evolution, as laid down by
Hegel, should be of practical and not merely of speculative
value for purposes of Philosophy, it ought to include among its
repertory of 'causes,' not only the ' essences ' of Philosophy,
and the ' antecedents and consequents ' of Physical Science,
but the 'Wills' of Religion. But the difference in nature
between a will, an essence, and a physical antecedent, is in its
way, it is to be observed, as great as the difference between
the mind of a man, the perfume of a rose, and the angles of a
trianale. If therefore, Hejicl's law of the movement of
Thought were capable of grinding out in its evolution the
nature, say, of an ' essence,' or of a ' physical antecedent and
consequent,' it is evident that it could not by the same act and
movement grind out that of a ' will.' Nor indeed, to do
him justice, has he anywhere made the attempt. What
he did was to put all these causes into the smelting
pot together, and because they were all covered by
the one term ' cause,' to assume that the same move-
ment which had ground out one, had thereby ground out
them all — as if he were to assume that the same quality which
gave the colour to a rose would also give its perfume or the
form of its petals. And, indeed, even had he succeeded, the
result would have been of no value for our purpose, for by
smelting down all kinds of causes into one kind of cause, he
would thereby have left no objective points outside of itself, to
indicate the direction in which Philosophy was moving ; and so
instead of giving us a solar system, as it were, in which the
various planets get their practical significance from their relation
to the sun and to each other, he would have given us a Stellar
Universe with direction and goal, beginning and end, equally
unknown. It would have been like a world in which there was
nothing but white light, or, to use a metaphor which he has
himself used in another connexion, like night in which all cows
THE KEY. 29
arc alike Ijlnck. Dut if further presuniptive evidence were
wanted that Hegel's law of intellectual development conld no
more grind out in its revolution and ascension a cause of the
nature of ' will,' than it could the perfume of the violet, or the
colour of the rose, it Avould be found in the fact that Schopen-
hauer, following on Hegel, could construct out of his leavino-s^
as it were, a philosophy of the world and of life (and a very-
plausible one too), based on this very conception of ' will ' as
cause; and further that Von Hartmann could by taking the
law of the movement of Thought from Hegel, and the idea
of real causation or ' will ' from Schopenhauer, construct a
highly developed system of Philosophy, different from both.
Now in my work 'Civilization and Progress' I ventured to
go still a step further, and to take my stand neither on the
Logical Understanding of Hegel, nor on the Will of Schopen-
hauer, nor yet on both together with Von Hartmann ; but on
the Human Mind itself in its ensemble and as an organized wliole ;
and as the human mind contains in itself all kinds of causes,
this enabled me to get the three kinds of causes to which 1
have referred, and to point out those fixed relations between
them on which I shall now attempt to reconstruct the history of
Intellectual Development. Instead of dashing and confounding
the three distinct kinds of causes into one, I have kept them
apart, and so have been able to use each as a fixed point, as it
were, by w:hich to measure the movements of the others, as a
surveyor requires to use something outside the field he is sur-
veying, say a tree, or a stake, or a house, before he can take its
measurements and its relations to surroundinir things. And
hence, instead of regarding Philosophy, as Hegel has done, as a
swelling torrent which whirls into its own current Religion and
Science as its mere tributaries and spoils, like that king who
summed up the State in himself ; I have figured it as only one
form of thought among several. Religious, Scientific, and Poetic,
each of which has its own laws and modes of procedure. Or
we may compare it to a thin silver streak meandering betweea
30 THE EVOLUTION OB' GKEEK THOUGHT.
the great mountain ranges of Religion on the one side and
Science on the other, its little bark, far from being independent
of Religion and Science, being on the contrary deflected by
them as by great mountains of magnetic ore, now to this side
and now to that — to the Religious shore in Ancient Times, and
to the Scientific shore in the Modern World.
To sum up, then, we may say that by taking his stand on
the limited categories of the Logical Understanding alone,
Hegel was unable to get more than one kind or category of
cause, for use in his history of human development. He has
nowhere shown that things so different in nature as a ' will ' an
' essence,' and a ' physical antecedent and consequent,' are
either modes of one kind of cause, or modes of universal laws of
thought, in the same way as heat, electricity, and light, can be
shown to be but modes of universal laws of motion. Nor yet
has he shown how an ' essence,' for example, can develop
into a ' will,' or a * will ' into an ' antecedent and consequent.'
He cannot, therefore, fore-see that a Philosophy of essences will
under certain conditions eventuate in a Religion of wills, or a
Religion of wills in a Science of antecedents and consequents.
Although, therefore, his law may be the true law of thought-
in-general, as the Law of Evolution of Spencer may be
the true law of the Universe as a whole, it is nevertheless not a
law from which we can determine the direction or goal of Greek
Philosophy. But if, on the contrary, taking one's stand on the
Human Mind in its ensemble, as it were, we begin by frankly
accepting these causes as different in essential nature, and not
attempting to grind them down into forms of some one universal
law, or into modifications of some one kind of cause ; and if
further we can discover that although different in nature, like
love and jealousy, or religion and morality, they yet stand in
certain definite relations to each other, so that when one is
known the other may be fore-seen, we ought by using each as a
fixed point by which to measure the other — like the surveyor
who uses the height of a tree to measure the extent of a field.
Tin: KEY. ol
and the lengtli of a field tlie height of a tree, or the asti'onomer
who uses a planet to measure the distance of the sun, and the
distance ot the sun to get the position of the j)lanet ; we ought,
I say, by using Religion as a fixed point for Philosophy, Science
as a fixed point for Religion, and each in turn as a fixed point
for the other two, to be able to trace beforehand with a large
measure of scientific precision and detail, the great movements
of Intellectual Development, Ijoth in their general unfolding,
and in their several stas-es of evolution.
With these somewhat abstruse preliminaries then, with Avhich
I regret to have been obliged to afflict the reader on the very
threshold of our subject, we are now in a position to advance
with comparative ease to their detailed application to the course
and evolution of Greek Philosophy.
CHAPTER II.
UP TO PLATO.
^T^O begin with, then, one might anticipate that Greek
Philosophy originating as it did in the reaction of men of
culture against the absurdities of Polytheism, would, in the
violence of this reaction, go to the opposite extreme ; and
instead of starting from the multiplicity of wills of the gods of
Paganism, start from a single principle, and that this principle,
instead of being of the nature of a Fo^ee Will, would be at the
farthest remove from it, viz. something definite, concrete, and
Material. And we might go farther and anticipate that
taking its stand on a Material Principle as cause or essence,
Philosophy must inevitably advance to the next higher stage
of existence, viz. Vital Principle or Soul ("A^'X*/) then on to the
still higher Intelligence, and finally to the highest of all, viz.
Morality and Beauty ; and that having in this way gone the
whole round of the mind, and exhausted each of its broad
categories or divisions separately, there was nothing left for it
but to take its stand on them all, combined and knitted into a
living concrete whole by the unifying bond of AVill, which
degrading them all to instruments of its own design, would
use them all freely in its ex})lanations of the world ; — and what
is this but to pass over again to Religion ? All this indeed in
general outline one might have expected, but we can go still
farther and anticipate the details of each of these successive
UP TO PLATO. 33
stages with a surprising approach to accuracy. To take the
first stage, for example, viz. that in Avhich Philosophy takes its
stand on some ^Material Principle as the essential cause and
first principle of things, — one would know beforehand that it
could not pass into the higher stage of Vital Principle or Soul,
until all the potentialities of Matter had been exhausted ; and
further that as it would, as we saw, most probably begin at a
point the farthest removed from the free Will of the
gods, which was the efficient principle in Paganism,
viz. at some concrete and palpable form of Material
Essence, its next stao-e would be to somethino^ less con-
Crete and palpable, as being a more flexible and efficient
instrument, until it reached a principle of such a degree
of unsubstantiality and tenuity that it coiUd scarcely
be distinguished from the Vital Principle or Soul into which it
was inevitable that it should next pass. And this, as Ave shall
now see, is precisely what historically took place.
The first systematic attempt to account for the World by
Philosophy rather than by the conflicting Wills of the gods,
was made among the Greeks, by Thales of Miletus, who looking
into the world around, and observing that the germs of all life
came from damp and moisture, boldly pushed his little
philosophical bark out into the stream, and announced that
Water was the first principle and essential cause of all things.
He might have selected Earth as a still more crudely material
principle, but it would have required a belief in miracles as
great as that of the Paganism he had abandoned, to have
imagined a principle so gross and stolid as Earth, capable by
its own nature of transforming itself into all the light and airy
beauties of the world. He was obliged accordingly to begin
with Water, as a material substance of sufficient fluidity and
flexibility to be at least conceivably capable of transforming
itself, under the influence of Heat and Cold, — those two great
del ex machind of all the early Greek philosophers — into the
multiplicity of Existence. But as even this failed to satisfy
D
34 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
the culture of the tune, to Thales, accordingly, quickly-
succeeded Anaximenes who from a different set of consider-
ations of no importance to us now, — such, for example, as that
the world was enbosomed in the atmosj)here as in a matrix, and
that the breath of the nostrils was the life of the body, —
advanced to a principle less concrete and palpable, and therefore
all the more flexible, and announced with equal confidence that
Air was the first principle and essential cause of all things.
And here, perhaps, it is proper to pause and remark that
Water and Air although to the reader they may seem more like
Scientific than Philosophic causes, in reality were not so. For
although undoubtedly material in their nature, they did not,
like scientific causes, i^vicede their effects, and pass entirely
over into them to be lost in them, as when wood, for example,
passes over into ashes, soot, and gas, in the process of com-
bustion, but were conceived by these philosophers to underlie
each and every transformation which for the time being they
assumed. That is to say they were philosophiccd essences, and
not scientific causes in the modern sense of the term. That this
is so may be seen in the position assumed by the Thinker who
took the next step in the solution of the Problem of the
World, viz., Anaximander. This philosopher, feeling doubtless
the diflficulty of transforming water or even air into all the
infinite variety of the world, thought to avoid the difficulty by
goins behind the concreteness of Water and Air, to something
more intangible still, to that infinite, indefinite substratum
common to them both when stripped of their special and
peculiar properties, that indeterminate something which is not
Water, or Air, or Fire, but of which these and all other things
are but the modifications. Now this intangible, indefinite sub-
stratum, the UTreipov as it is called, which is a still more flexible
and efficient cause of things than Water or Air, inasmuch as it
can pass with equal ease into each and every kind of substance
and effect, was regarded by Anaximander as being not like that
primitive homogeneous and nebulous Matter of Modern Science,
UP TO PLATO. 35
which precedes, passes over into, and is lost in the suns which it
throws off from itself, these suns, again, being, as suns, lost in
the planets thrown off by them in turn, and the planets again
in the moons, etc. ; nor like those anthropomorphic apes, our
ancestors, who passed over into primitive men and were lost in
them, and these again into civilized men, etc. ; but rather as an
invisible essence underlying at each and every point of time, each
and every quality of substance or thing, and transformable with
equal ease into them all.
With this indeterminate Substratum, accordingly, Matter in
so far as it has body or substance, exhausts itself, and can go no
farther. There remains, therefore, nothing more in Matter for
Philosophy to take hold of in its explanation of things, save
pure Form alone ; and this step accordingly, which Avas inevit-
able before Philosoijhv could advance to the hio-her stage of
vital Principle or Soul, was taken by Pythagoras, who, wliile
figuring, like Thales and Anaximenes, Water and Air — to
which he also added Earth and Fire — as the original essences
out of which all visible and sensible existences were composed,
and while conceiving these again, like Anaximander, as resting
on an infinite substratum common to them all, went a step
farther and announced that this again rested upon and was
made up of figures or forms — solids, planes, lines — all of which^
again, were but modifications of Number (the odd and the even,
the monad and duad, and the like), which, accordingly was the
cause not only of all material things, but of mental also ; — the
secret not only of the rhythmic movement of the starry spheres,
but of virtue, truth, health, happiness, friendship, justice;
even God Himself, being but the deep and everlasting harmonies
of Form and Number.
Philosophy having thus exhausted not only the Substance of
Matter but its very Form also, in its attempts to explain the
phenomena of the World, there was nothing for it on its way to
that principle of Will or Religious Cause to which its little barque
was inevitably drifting, but to pass to the next higher stage of
36 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
Vital Principle or Soul {^^xv) «is First Cause and primal essence
of the World. And so accordingly it did.
But before attempting to exhibit the evolution of the
successive stages of Soul or Vital Principle when used as
explanation of the phenomena of the world, we have to ask, as
before, how much of the detail of these stages could be
anticipated beforehand from those great general relations
between Religion and Philosophy which we have seen to exist.
To begin with, then, we may confidently assert that the evolu-
tion of Soul or Vital Principle as First Cause of Things will
follow an entirely different movement to that of the Material
Principle which it superseded ; and that instead of proceeding
in its explanation of the World, from the concrete and palpable
to the abstract and intangible, as we have seen to be the case
with the Material Principle, it will proceed, on the contrary,
from the indefinite and abstract to the definite and concrete.
And the reason of this is that Matter, being in its nature
comparatively stolid, becomes the more flexible, efficient, and
capable an instrument, the more ethereal and impalpable it is ;
whereas the Vital Principle or Soul, being by its nature
ethereal, becomes the more efficient, the greater are the number
and variety of the concrete (pialities with which it is endowed.
And we may go farther and anticipate that as the very con-
ception of a Vital Principle or Soul involves some kind of
body or Matter with which it is indissolubly united, all theories
of the World in which this Vital Principle or Soul is the
active factor, the positive pole, the right hand, must include
also some Material Principle which shall be the passive factor,
negative pole, and left hand as it Avere. And further still we
may anticipate that as Soul advances in the number, dif-
ferentiation, and definiteness of its qualities, the better to
explain the world, so, too, must the Matter which is bound
up with it, and which goes hand in hand with it ; much
in the same way as the better to render a piece of comjjlex
music, you require not only a greater number of players, but
UP TO PLATO. 37
also a greater number of strings ; or the better to explain an
obscure case of crime, you require not only a greater number
of special motives, but a greater consensus and circumstanti-
ality of incident with which to harmonize them. And lastly
we may go a step farther and anticipate that as the Soul or
Vital Principle is a double-sided essence, having as it were both
a material and a spiritual side, the successive philosophers who
embraced it, while following the general law of its advance from
the vaofuer and more abstract to the more definite and concrete
of its forms, must at the same time have laid particular emphasis
or stress, some on its material, others on its ideal side, according
to their special peculiarities of temperament, disposition, or
natural affinity. And all this, as we shall now see, is what
historically took place.
The first philosophers to take up the problem of the AVorld
at the point Avhere Pythagoras had left it, viz., at that most
abstract conception of Matter which is involved in Number and
Form, and to carry it on to the higher stage of Soul or Vital
Principle, were the Eleatics, who, conceiving this principle, it
must be remembered, as a something indivisible and incorporeal,
indeed, but at the same time as having extension, and pervading
the Universe in the same way as we conceive the Vital Principle
to pervade and animate the bodies of men and animals, began,
accordingly, by representing it, as we should anticipate, in its
most crude and abstract form, as pure Being — a principle which
under the designation of the One, or the Eternal Unity, was
made by Xenophancs the First Cause and animating principle
of all thinsrs. To him succeeded Parmenides who so over-
weighted this principle, so made it the be-all and end-all of
existence, that the opposite pole, viz., the Material World
which was indissolubly bound up with it, was degraded to a
mere succession of fleeting ephemeral existences, coming into
being, and passing away as in a dream, or, like the images in a
mirror, shadowy and illusory appearances without reality
or independent existence of their own ; his follower, Zeno,
38 THE EVOLUTION OF GEEER THOUGHT.
going so far as to maintain that not only the substance ol things
but the movement and change, the multiplicity and variety
which are characteristic of the Material World, had not and
could not have any real existence of their own — as he proceeded
to prove by the story of Achilles and the tortoise.
B%.t the tough Material World was too real and pressing to
be thus lightly disposed of, and the next step, accordingly, in
the evolution of Soul as prime cause of things, was taken by
Heraclitus, who. instead of conceiving it under the abstract form
of blank Being, gave it the more concrete form of a fiery
^ther ; and instead of regarding the Material side of things
with which it was bound up, as an illusion or appearance
merely, conceived it as a real but opposing force which by
diluting the fiery Soul produced what we know as Air, when
more strongly diluting it, Water, and when with its full force
entirely neutralizing it, Earth ; the everflowing stream of
Existence being regarded by him as due to the omnipresent
action in every substance of these two powers in varying
degrees of strength and activity. And thus the little bark of
Philosophy which had been so overweighted on its ideal side
by the Eleatics, that its material side was lifted high and dry
out of the stream as but illusion or appearance merely, now
became so overweighted by Heraclitus on the material side,
that the ideal or spiritual side was reduced to a fiery ^ther,
that is to say almost to a material substance.
With Heraclitus and the Eleatics the way was prepared for
Empedocles who took the next step in the evolution of Soul as
first principle of things by advancing to a point where both its
ideal or spiritual and its material side become more differen-
tiated, more concrete, and more definite ; while at the same time
the boat is held so level in the stream, that both sides receive
from him equal deference and consideration. Instead of a
sinsfle hand on the ideal side, viz., fierv TEther, we have a
pair of hands. Love and Hate ; instead of a vague antagonistic
Force on the material side diluting the fiery soul successively
UP TO PLATO. 39
down to Air, Abater, and even Earth itself, we have, for
the first time in Pliilosophy, Fire, Air, Earth, and
Water erected into separate immutable and eternal existences.
His mode of representing the World is, accordingly, to figure
these material elements as lying in their globe-shaped sphere in
undisturbed repose -from all eternity united by Love, until the
Spirit of Hate, entering from without like an evil demon,
brought Fire into a position where it could be attacked by
Water, Water by Air, and the like, and so broke up their
peaceful harmony and rest; giving rise to evil and sin, and
dooming all mortal existences to extinction, until the spirit of
Love descending into the chaos, brings all into peace and
harmony again. Having reached this point, the principle of
Soul, which began its career as interpreter of the World, in the
form of blank Being, with Matter as non-existent or as illusion ;
and from this advanced to the more concrete and definite form
of fiery JEther, with Matter as a real Force opposed to it ; and
on again to the still more concrete forms of the Spirit of Love
and Hate which by their affinity or repulsion dispose the still
more concrete elements of Matter — Fire, Air, Earth, Water —
into the harmony and discords of the World ; witli this. Soul
can go no farther as a first principle of things, and so comes to
an end as a stage in Philosophy. To have gone farther, and
differentiated the Spirit of Love into the still more concrete
forms of human love, benevolence, friendship, and the like, and
the Spirit of Hate into its human forms of jealousy, revenge,
and the like, would have been to have run the little bark of
Philosophy into the Peligious shore, in among tho^e Pagan
gods against whom it had already been for more than a
hundred years in revolt. For although its prow was moving
steadily in the direction of the AVills of Religion, it was not to
the eftcte old gods of Paganism that it was tending, but to the
God of Chi-istianity. This, however, was still beneath the
horizon in the far future, and in the meantime there was
nothing for Philosophy but to keep steadily on its way,
40 THE EVOLUTION OF GEEEK THOUGHT,
and to take the step next in order towards that idthnate
goal.
We have now to ask, then, what this next step must be, what
is the next stage througli which Philosophy must pass on its
way to that Eeligious shore to which, in the absence of Physical
Science, it was inevitably bound ? It started out, as we have
seen, with a single principle, Matter, as the prime cause and
essential principle of things, and advanced from that to the
higher and double-sided essence, Vital Principle or Soul, in
which were indissolubly bound up both the Vital Principle
itself and a Material Principle as its counterpart. The next
higher stage, it is evident, can only be that of free Intelligence,
conceived of as existing ajjart from Matter, and having an inde-
pendent sphere of life and activity of its own. Now the
difference between a Vital Principle or Soul as the First Cause
of things, and a free Intelligence, is practically the same
difference which we conceive to exist between the powers and
capabilities of Instinct and the powers and capabilities of
Reason. P'or while the Vital Principle is limited in its powers
not only by the range of quality of the Matter with which it is
bound by, but also by its own nature — the vital principle or
instinct for example of an oyster, or a fish, or a reptile, being
strictly limited to certain fixed and rigid modes of action
within which its powers are confined, and beyond which it can-
not go — free Intelligence, on the contrary, being conceived as
quite disengaged from Matter, has as many capacities or tools
with which to work, as it has range, variety, and combinations
of ideas. That is to say that while the Vital Principle or Soul
is doubly restricted, firstly by its limited range of function,
and secondly by the rigidity and obstinacy of the Matter with
which it is bound up — we have just seen that Empedocles had
to construct his theory of the World out of the two primitive
instincts of Love and Hate, acting on a hard and fast number
of materials, Fire, Air, Earth, and Water— Intelligence, on the
contrary, like a free untrammeled hand, is capable of the most
UP TO PLATO. 41
subtle, varied, and complex movements of its own. And
from this follows an important result.
It will be remembered that when Soul or Vital Principle was
the standpoint of Philosophy, and when in consequence, the
material side of the conception could no more cut itself loose
from the mental side, than the mental could cut itself free
from the material, those thinkers who by natural bias or
disposition leaned to a materialistic view of things, were unable
to eret out of the boat and start on their own account
unhampered by any spiritual principle, but at most could as we
saw, only weigh down their own side. But when once a free
Intelligence was made the standpoint of Philosophy, and
Matter, in consequence, divorced from Spirit, was left as free
and untrammeled as Intelligence itself, to account for the
World by principles of its own, it was possible and even inevit-
able that those thinkers who leaned to a materialistic point
of view should sail away in a boat of their own, to explore by
methods of their own, the great stream of existence for
themselves.
To return, then, to the point at which the problem was left
by Empedocles, viz., of a Vital Principle or Soul w'hose
spiritual side, Love and Hate, and the material side. Fire, Air,
Earth, and Water, were inseparably united together, — the next
to take up the problem was Anaxagoras, who perceiving that
the great principle of Design was so immanent and apparent in
Nature that any scheme of things which neglected to find a
place for it was doomed to incompleteness, opened a new era
by announcing that Intelligence was the first principle and
prime cause of all things. This principle, however, was held
by him more in the crude form of a disposing and arrangiufi
than of a creative Intelligence. And so, like the Vital Principle
or Soul which had been the standpoint of preceding thinkers,
it required some foundation or ground-work of Matter on
which it was to act. Now although an arranging Power is, like
a kaleidoscope, capable if it have the full number of pieces to
42 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
Avork on, of producing from these pieces the most varied, com-
plex, and picturesque effects, it cannot like a chemically com-
bining or constructive Power get these effects from a few
simple elements. The consequence was that Anaxagoras was
obliged to endow beforehand the Matter on which his Supreme
Intelligence had to work, with all those qualities which, in the
world, were afterwards to be explained ; he had, that is to say,
to pack as many qualities into his Matter at first, as he was
afterwards to bring out of it. He accordingly figured the
World as consisting originally of an infinite number of invisible
atoms of as many different qualities and kinds as there were
substances in the world to be explained, — flesh, bone, muscle,
sinew, blood, brain, wood, sap, bark, gold, iron, copper, stone,
and the like. These were all of the same size, and all mixed
together, and his theory was that when the whole of this
diffused, extended, universe of atoms was made by Mind (in
its character of principle of Motion) to revolve, the like parts
would by their own affinity separate out from the unlike, and
so form those visible masses of flesh, bone, brain, nerve, wood,
iron, clay, and the rest, of which the world is composed ; and
that then Mind in its character of a Supreme Intelligence over-
looking the whole, as it were, would bring the bone and muscles
and blood and nerve together, to form the endless species of
the animal kingdom, the wood and sap and bark of the vege-
table kingdom, and so on.
Now, that this Philosophy was an advance on that of his
I>redecessors who had made the Vital Principle or Soul the first
principle of things, may be seen in this, that it brings to the
problem not only a greater number of tools, but a greater
variety of material on which to work. To take, for example,
Empedocles who was the last of the Thinkers who had made
Soul or Vital Principle their standpoint, it will be remembered
that his only tools were the blind instincts of Love and Hate,
of attraction and repulsion; and his only material, the four
gross and tangible elements of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water.
UP TO PLATO. 43
But Anaxngorap, on tlie other hand, had in his principle of
Intelligence a tool of universal application, and one too of an
infinite flexibility, subtlety, and range of movement ; and in
his infinite variety of substances, existing not in crude un-
manageable masses but in freely moving atoms, a material that
could be moulded with ease into every possible shape, size, and
combination ; and so, like a painter with a greater variety of
pigments, or a musician with a greater number of more finely
modulated strinirs, he was the better able to reconstruct in
thought from their elements, the vast multiplicity of the worhl
which it was his function as a philosopher to explain.
That the appearance of Anaxagoras marked a new era in
Philosophy no one will deny, but as the great world was not to
be cramped within the limits of even this enlarged formula,
further advance was inevitable. To him accordingly succeeded
no less a personality than Socrates himself, who, pondering
deeply the works of Anaxagoras, objected to the small place
that was assigned in them to a free creative Intelligence as
Supreme Power, compared with the great use made of Intelli-
gence as a principle of Motion, i.e., a mere arranging and
disposing Power; and complained that it was only when the
principle of mechanism or arrangement had failed to account
for the phenomena, that recourse was had to creative design
at all. Accordingly he was himself forced to take the next
step, and to attribute the World to a Supreme Power that
Avas not a mere arranging and disposing j^rinciple like that of
Anaxagoras, but a free ci'eative and constructive Intelligence.
Now this step, apparently so simple and natural, was
attended with great and important results, deflecting the little
barque of Philosophy for the time being from its steady onward
course, and almost running it prematurely into that Religious
bank towards which of itself it was slowly but surely tending.
For when once the Supreme Power is conceived of, not as a
mere Arrano-ino; Intellisfence, but as a Creative and Designing
one, it can create the qualities and properties of Matter as it
44 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
needs them, just as easily as it can arrange them ; and the
precise constitution of Matter, in consequence, which was of so
much importance to previous thinkers becomes now, as it is in
all religions, a matter of little or no concern. It was natural,
therefore, that Socrates when in prison, and when thinking
over the probable reasons that Anaxagoras would have given
for his remaining there when he could so easily have escaped
beyond the territory of Athens to his friends at Megai'a ; it
was natural that he complained that Anaxagoras would most
probably have attributed his remaining to the particular
arrangement of the bones and nerves of his body, which kept
him to his seat, instead of to its true cause, viz., the feeling
that it was not only the right but the best and wisest thing to
do, to remain there and submit himself unreservedly to the
recognized tribunal of his country. Besides, for Socrates to
have given a definite physical constitution to ISIatter in the
face of a Sui^reme Creative Power, would have been to have
weakened and hampered the exercise of that Power as much as
the giving a free constitution to a conquered people hampers
the free activity of a Ruler who has hitherto been not only
nominally but absolutely supreme. And further, as Socrates
had not only advanced from the Arranging Intelligence
of Anaxagoras to a Creative One, but had taken the
additional step of making that Intelligence a power that
worked for moral ends, it is evident that any con-
stitution he could have given to Matter, must have been of
that neutral, vague, and indeterminate character which would
allow of its being transformed into anything, and so, practically,
be as good as no constitution at all ; getting all its distinctive
properties and qualities not from the Matter, but from the
Creative Power alone. Pex'ceivino- all this, and rememberino;
how all those previous theories of the World in which atoms
and elements played so conspicuous a part, had swallowed one
another up, and all alike become discredited, Socrates felt that
a sufficient account of the World would have been given if
UP TO PLATO. 45
you could discover in each instance, what good purpoi^e the
design everywhere apparent in Nature subserved. He accord-
ingly threw to the winds all theories and speculations about
Physical Nature, and took his stand boldly on a Creative
Intelligence or Providence working for moral ends as the be-all
and end-all of existence. Now in this, as we see, he came
perilously near running into Religion, the very note of
whose theories of the World (if we take the six days Creation
of Genesis as a typical example) is that it represents the
World as created out of Nothing, or some blank form of
Existence which is tantamount to Nothing, by the fiat of
Creative Power alone. Indeed one might almost go so far as
to say that had there been an accredited Revelation, like that
of Christianity, ready at hand and waiting to receive him on
the shore, he must have run his little barque into it. But, as
it was, naught but the figures of the old Pagan gods stood
confronting him there, and his only course was to remain
where he was, and try to discover what those moral ends were,
which the Creative Intelligence everywhere had at heart ; and
having once discovered them, to try and persuade men to
conform their lives to them. Now it is open to men to get at
these moral ends of the Creator either by direct Revelation, as
in Religion, or by the contemplation of Nature and the Human
Mind, as in Philosophy ; but Socrates as a philosopher was
restricted entirelv to the latter course, viz., of orettinii- at the
moral ends of the Creator from the truths of thinos. But
how to discover the truths of things? By the method of
Dialectics, says Socrates. Now this method consists simply in
taking a number of samples of diff"erent kinds of things, of
men, of dogs, of trees, of virtuous actions, of just dealiogs, of
temperate conduct, and the like, finding out what common
quality characterizes each of these kinds, and giving this
common quality its abstract shnpe or expression. In this way
we get the true definition, or in other words the truth, of man,
dog, tree, virtue, justice, temperance and the like; and these
46 THE EVOLUTION OF GEEEK THOUGHT.
truths, once discovered, will, in the opinion of Socrates, be the
counterparts in Nature and Life of the moral ends which
existed in the mind of the Creator in creating them ; so that
from the discovery of the former, we may indirectly, but with
certainty, know the latter. But he went further and con-
tended that when once the truths of things, and by implication
their moral ends were discovered in this way, men could no
more act in contradiction to them, when brought face to face
with them, than they could to the truths of the multiplication
table in any business or worldly transaction. Hence his great
and only watchword was Knowledge, knowledge, ever more
knowledge, as summing up in itself all that was essential to the
well-being of Man.
Such was the Philosophy of Socrates. And here we may
remark that however well these doctrines of his might, under
other circumstances, have served as the basis of a Religion, they
could not, in the absence of any theory as to the physical con-
stitution of things, long maintain themselves as a Philosophy.
The consequence was that after lingering for a little while
among his immediate followers — notably Euclid and the Megaric
School, who went beyond their master in adding Goodness and
Wisdom to the other attributes of the Deity, and in making
goodness, virtue, justice, wisdom, not only as with Socrates
the supreme ends, but the only realities of life (Evil with them
being an illusion of our sensuous nature, and having no real
existence) — they were lost in the sands, and never reached
that religious shore towards which they were bound. And it
was not until Plato had given a constitution to the Physical
World, and had extricated the Supreme Intelligence from its
dangerous resemblance to the old deities of Religion, reducing
it to the more abstract form of an Essence or Spirit of the Just,
the Beautiful, and the True, that Philoso^jhy entered again on its
old course, and continued in the line of its own proper evolution.
In the meantime, however, a movement had begun in quite
the opposite direction. For, as we saw, when once Intelligence,
UP TO PLATO. 47
which differs from Soul or Vital Principle in this, that both it
and the Matter on which it has to act, are conceived as existino-
independently of each other, — when once Intelligence was
made the first principle of things by Anaxagoras, it was open
to thinkers to take their stand on the Intelligence exclusively,
or on the Matter exclusively. And, accordingly, just as
Socrates and his followers had developed a theory of the
World on the basis of a pure Creative Intelligence, without
regard to the constitution of Matter, so it was open to any
thinker who inclined to a materialistic view of things, to start
a theory of the World on the basis of pure Matter alone, with-
out regard to a Creative Intelligence. And this, as we shall
now see, was what really occurred.
The first to start the new movement was Democritus, who
launched a boat of his own, which put off into mid-stream in
the direction of the Scientific shore, where it was lost for
awhile from view. Re-appearing some century or two later in
almost the same shape in the doctrine of Epicurus and his
followers, it thenceforward continued visible down the stream
until all systems alike were swallowed up in Christianity ;
after which, disappearing entirely from view during the
night of the Middle Ages, it again emerged in full sail and
in more scientific shape, in the Materialism of Modern
Times. Now to understand this theory of Democritus, it is
necessary to remark at the outset, that all theories of the
World ai'e at bottom but attempts to account for the qualities
of things, — the quality of Mind as distinct from Matter, of
animal as distinct from vegetable, of vegetable from mineral,
and the like — with all their infinite sub-divisions and shades.
And, accordingly, just as when a mere ai'ranging Intelligence
was made the First Cause of things, as with Anaxagoras, the
Matter on which it had to work had to be endowed at the
outset with as wide a range of qualities as there were qualities
m the world to be explained ; so when Matter is made the First
Cause of things, the infinite variety of its qualities and
48 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
properties have to be shown to be the effects of the size, shape,
weight, and other properties of the atoms, i.e., of relations of
quantity. And hence it was, that while Anaxagoras began by-
representing the World as made up of an infinite number of
atoms of the same size, but of different qualities, Democritus
began by representing it as made up of an infinite number of
atoms of the same quality but differing in quantity — in size,
shape, weight, and tlie like. And having separated these atoms
from each other by interspaces of vacuum in which they were
free to move, his theory was that if left to themselves, they
would by mere chance, as it were, and by the very necessity of
their constitution, unite and separate, separate and unite, to
form the world of things as we know them ; the light particles
separating from the heavy, to unite again with the light, those
of this shape with those of that, the heavy particles falling to
the bottom, the light rising to the top, and so on ; and that in
this way not only the properties of fire, air, earth, and water,
were to be accounted for, and the million-fold combinations into
which they enter, but mind and soul as well ; the gods, if they
exist at all, having no influence either on the course of the
world, or of human life.
With these two off -shoots, then, the one, of Socrates and his
followers who were making towards the Religious shore from
the off-side, and the other, of Democritus and his successors who
were making towards the Scientific shore from the near side,
both of which were lost, the first in the sands, for want of a
suitable Religion to welcome it on the shore, the last, in mid-
stream, for want of the necessary scientific proof to enable it to
land — Philosophy with the advent of Plato re-entered the old
boat, and continued on its old path.
Now in order fully to appreciate the nature of the great con-
tribution made by Plato to Philosophy, it is important to bear
in mind that the thinkers who preceded him had already
occupied every available standpoint or principle from which the
Problem of the World could be approached. Beginning with
UP TO PLATO. 49
crude Matter as first principle of things, they had advanced
from tluit to Soul or Vital Principle, from that again to
Intellisrence as an Arranging Power, and from that to a
Desio-ninf Intelliorenoe working under the still higher con-
ceptions of ^Eorality, Wisdom, and Virtue. No entirely
original standpoint, therefore, was left for Plato to occupy,
unless indeed it were to add the conception of the Beautiful to
those of Morality and Wisdom already included in the idea of
the Supreme Good. lie was obliged, accordingly, to content
himself with taking the principles that had been bequeathed to
him by his predecessors, and after freeing them from their
grosser impurities and adhesions and re-casting them into more
classic form, using them as pillars in the magnificent and
harmonious structure to be erected by himself. Indeed we may
safely say that there was scarcely a principle that had been
advanced by previous thinkers, which he did not adopt and find
some place for in his scheme, or which he did not make his own
by the new form that he gave it, or by the originality, beauty,
and brilliancy, with which he set it forth. And it is only
when we have traced the history of Philosophy up to his own
time, as we have done here, and have seen how poor and primi-
tive were the huts which his predecessors had built, that we
can fully appreciate the great Temple he has erected out of
their prostrate and sunken pillars, the vast and magnificent
cathedral-like dome with which he has spanned their ruins.
To take, for example, his first great principle, viz., the
a-eipov or principle of Change, the material basis and ground-
work of things — this Plato got from the atoms of Anaxagoras
and Democritus ; perceiving as he did the infinite superiority
of these atoms for purjjoses of philosophical manipulation, over
the relatively gi'oss and crude masses of fire, air, earth, and
water, of Empedocles. But while appropriating these atoms,
he arranged that the little invisible triangles of which they
were composed should have such shapes given them, that when
they were bound together by his second principle of Number
£
50 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
into solid figures — Fire, Air, Earth, and Water — these figures
would account for the jirojyerties of the fire, air, earth, and
water also; the cubes, for example, that constitute what we
know as earth, accounting for the stolidity of earth ; the sharp-
pointed pyramids that constitute fire, for the piercing nature of
fire, and the like. His second great principle, again, or
Number, he appropriated from Pythagoras, but he so extended
and altered its range and meaning, that while it no longer
accounted for moral qualities, justice, beauty, and the rest as
with Pythagoras — who by the way had only the one string to
his bow, viz.. Number, from which to deduce them — it was
made to explain not only the harmonious movements of the
spheres, as well as the shape and outward form of all inorganic
bodies, but the physical qualities of those bodies as well, as we
have just seen ; and was extended farther still, so as to explain
and account for those pure ideals of outward form of all objects
whatever, on which the Artist loves to dwell. The third great
principle with which Plato worked, viz. his chain or system of
Ideas, as he called them, which hung suspended from their
topmost link, the Supreme Good, like an inverted tree, and
which corresponded to the inner nature and soul of things as
distinct from their ouhvard visible forms, — this principle, again,
he borrowed from those general concepts or definitions which
Socrates extracted from things, by his method of Dialectics, as
their real viner nature or truth. And as in the opinion of
Socrates these logical concepts corresponded to the true nature
of things as they existed in the Creator's mind ; all that Plato
had to do in order to get the material he wanted with which
to explain the inner nature of things, was to transform these
general logical concepts into real essences having an actual
independent existence of their own. Had he left them,
indeed, like Socrates, as ideas merely in the mind of a Creator,
he would, like him, have been in danger of running prematurely
into that religious bank which he sought to avoid ; but by giving
them, from all eternity, a separate and independent existence,
UP TO PLATO. 51
he was able to keep his fourth great principle, the Supreme
Good, within the bounds of a strictly philosophical conception,
that is to say, as an Essence or Spirit of the Right, the
Beautiful, and the True, with disposing and arranging, but not,
as in Religion, with Creative power. This Supreme Good, too,
he borrowed like the rest — this time from Anaxagoras — but as
usual gave it an extension and range which completely altered
its character, and made it embrace not only an arranging and
disposing Intelligence, but one working for the higher ends of
the Just, the Beautiful and the True.
With these four principles of Plato, viz., the Good, Ideas,
Number, and the aTrapov , and the variations that may be rung
on each, Greek Philosophy, in the absence of Physical Science,
reaches its highest point as an analysis of the existing structure
of things. Beginning, with Thales, with a single principle.
Matter, it passed in the Eleatic School to Vital Principle or
Soul, made up of two elements, a mental and a material, in-
separably bound together, and culminating in Empedocles with
these elements still further differentiated, — the mental side
being divided into the two suboi'dinate elements of Love and
Hate, the material into the four elements of Fire, Air, Earth,
and Water. It then passed on to the Intelligence of Anaxa-
goras which gave the mental element a still greater range of
combination, while the material element, being made up of an
infinite number of atoms of every quality and kind, is capable
of being mixed and compounded in every proportion and
degree. And now that it has reached Plato, it is differentiated
into four distinct and independent principles instead of two,
viz., the Good, Ideas, Number, and the ar-apov each of which is
susceptible of as many combinations as there are properties of
Matter to be explained, as there are forms and shapes of bodies,
varieties of nature and disposition to be accounted for, and as
there are possible ways of realizing in Nature the supreme
ideas of Beauty, Justice, and Truth. So that whether you take
a man, a horse, a dog, a tree, or any other existing thing, each
52 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
alike will be found to be made up of a physical basis of n-'upM ,
on which a particular visible form is impressed by Number, In
which, again, a particular nature or Idea is implanted ; the
whole fulfilling the function ap[)()inted it in the great scheme of
things. The World-fan, which was closed up when Thales re-
garded Water alone as the sole principle of things, has been
unfolded by Plato until it shows its utmost rib ; and, indeed in
the absence of Physical Science I know not what more satis-
factory analysis of things could be given.
But however admirable this World-scheme of Plato may be
as a statical theory, it had this fatal defect, that it contained in
itself no dynamic quality, no principle of evolution. The com-
ponent principles of things, and the hierarchy of relations in
which they stand to each other, are as well marked in his theory
as the successive strata of rock in a railway cutting ; but as to
how they will evolve as time goes on, it gives us no clue. And
the reason for this is that the four original principles out of
which things are compounded, viz., the Good, Ideas, Number,
and the o.-K€ipr,v, are represented by Plato as having existed
quite independently of each other from all eternity, until,
persuaded by the Supreme Good, they came together to form
the World, There are therefore none of those relations or
connexions existing between them, Avhereby from their present
state their future state may be anticipated. That is to say, the
theory while giving us a solution of the question as to what
Is the actual existing structure or constitution of man, or horse,
or tree, gives us no hint whatever as to how man, or horse, or
tree, avIU evolve either from youth to age, or Into other forms
of life as In the Darwinianism of the present day. On the
contrary at every stage of Its existence each creature would
have to be rebuilt afi-esh, and would require a slightly different
amount of the dirapm to what it had in the former stage, to
which a slightly different Number would have to be united, on
which again a slightly different Idea would have to be Impressed,
and so on. I am of course aware that Plato thought he had
UP TO PLATO. do
provided for the incessant flux and cliange of things, by the
invisible little triangles of the aireipov, which, like particles of
ice in a bladder, are kept in continual agitation and movement by
the pressure from without : bur a« he still left the other dements
of Number and Ideas unaltered, the theory was felt by Aristotle
and his successors to be crude and inadequate. There was
nothing for it, therefore, but for Philosophy to discover such
connexions between these four independent principles, that
from their particular state at any one time, their future state
might be seen to follow ; to advance, in a word, from a statical
to a dynamical theory of things.
The World-fan having thus unfolded itself in Plato till
every rib of its structure was visible, it now remained to show
what those connexions were between the ribs, whereby they
Avere bound to gradually draw together until they finally
coalesced and closed into a single principle again. To exhil)it
this srradual closinsr of the fan until it shuts itself ur» in
Christianity, and to show the stages through which the little
boat of Philosophy, now in mid-stream, must pass before it
reaches that Religious- bank to which it is slowly but surely
tending, shall be my endeavour in die follov/ing chapters.
CHAPTER III.
ARISTOTLE.
"VT^E have just seen that in Plato, Greek Philosophy has
reached its highest point of statical excellence, the
highest point, that is to say, in the analysis of the great
factors of Nature and Life ; while at the same time preserving
unimpaired the relative hierarchy of these factors in the scale
of existence; the d-n-apov or groundwork of Matter at the
bottom, above that, Number or the outer shape of things,
above that again. Ideas, or their inner natures, and at the top
the Supreme (rood itself. But as these factors have no
natural relations or connexions amono; themselves, and each has
a separate and independent existence of its own, it is evident
that a change taking place in any one of them would not
necessarily be followed by those correlated changes in the
others, Avhich are involved in the conception of a sustained
and regulated evolution. For such evolution, indeed, two
things are necessary. In the first place the factors must be
grouped in such a way that a chnnge taking place in any one
member of a group, will draw after it corresponding changes
in the other members of the same group ; and in the second
place, some more steady and equable principle of Motion must
be supplied them, than that furnished by the dneipov of Plato,
whose movements it will be remembered were entirely deter-
mined by the haphazard pressure from without to which from
ARISTOTLE. '55
moment to moment its little triangular atoms might chance to
be exposed.
Now these deficiencies in the theory of Plato it was left for
Aristotle to supply, and so to advance the little boat of Philo-
sophy another stage in the direction of that Eeligious shore,
to which, as we have seen, it was bound. And what he did
was this. He took the four separate and independent elements
of Plato, viz. the Good, Ideas, Number, and the aireipov^
and dividing them into two groups, placed the Good and
Ideas on the one side, and the same Ideas and the a-n-eipov
on the other; leaving out Number altogether, for reasons
which we shall see farther on. He then took the Ideas of the
first group, and instead of leaving them outside of, and
independent of, the Supreme Good, as Plato had done, he
placed them inside it, that is to say in the mind of the Supreme
Good. After which, taking the a-eipov of the second group,
and freeino; it from the little triangular atoms of which it is
composed, and which would only have stood in his way, he
packed and loaded it with the same Ideas with which he had
endowed the Good. So that on the one side we have a
Supreme Intelligence, Immaterial, Immovable, but full of
Ideas, that is to say of the qualities and natures of all
substances, of all life, of all intelligence ; and on the other a
void and passive background of potential existence, extended,
divisible, and material, into which the same Ideas have been
packed, but so placed in relation to this material background,
that they cannot unite with it to form the world of real
existences until Motion has been communicated to it. But
Avhence this Motion ? For, as we have seen, Aristotle had
already emptied the utthpov or material basis of things, of
the little triano-ular atoms which with Plato were the source of
all its movements. There was notlilng for it, then, but to
discover some independent source of Motion, and a source, too,
which could be relied on to supply it with the e({uability and
regularity of the water to a mill. This regulated supply,
56 THE EVOLUTIOX OF GKEElv THOUGHT.
accordingly, he professed to have found in the great expanse
of iEther that fills the vault of Heaven, carrying on its
bosom the stars or gods with which it is inlaid, and revolving in
an eternal circle round the pole ; from whose perennial spring,
indeed, all the movements of this lower world are supplied,
and into wliich again they all sooner or later return.
With a Supreme Intelligence sitting outside the circum-
ference of Heaven, on the one liand, and a void expanse of
Matter packed with Ideas at the centre where our Earth now
is, on the other, the World-fan which in Plato had imfolded
itself until its utmost rib of structure was visible, now shows
signs of contracting and infolding itself for a dynamical
movement; and instead of tlie four independent pi'inciples of
the Good, Ideas, Number, and the UTrapov, we have now,
with Aristotle, only two, with an independent reservoir of
Motion between them. And liis theory is that when the
Supreme Intelligence opens the woi'ld of Time, by attaching
the great reservoir of iEther to the extended plane of Matter
here at its centre, the Ideas with which tliis Matter is loaded
are so arranged on its outer siu'face, as to be taken up by it in
its revolutions, one by one in turn : in the first revolution those
lowest Ideas which when united with it oive us the elements of
fire, air, earth, and water; in the next, the various combinations
of these, that go to the formation of the special qualities of
animal and ^ egetable tissue ; in the next, again, the Soul or
Vital Principle of these material bodies ; then the Intelligence
superadded to these Souls ; and finally the consummate flowers
of Beauty, of Justice, and of Truth. So that just as when the
motion contained in the mainspring of a watch is communicated
to the axle, the wheels, motionless before, begin to turn and
to mark out the hours in regular sequence on the dial-plate ; or
as when the water of the dam is allowed to get at the mill-
wheel, the machinery, silent before, begins now with its merry
hum to m-'md out the corn ; or as when the electric Avire is
attached to the battery, the message which has been transmitted
ARISTOTLE. 57
jilonof it, hitherto invisible, now beoins to write itself out in
mystic but visible characters on the tape ; so when the great
reservoir of TEther in the Heavens is tapped, and the Motion
therein contained is allowed to get at the vast expanse of
existence here below, void and silent as yet, but loaded with
the potentialities of all forms of hfe, this vast expanse begins
to turn, and gradually approaching the Ideas, at last unites
with and is interpenetrated by them as the warp by the Avoof
to form the world of changing reality as we know it ; the world
of earth, and sea, and air, of plant and crystal, of animal
and man; these mystic pictures in all then- variety, beauty,
and harmony, being one after another inwoven into it, as it
steadily tm-ns beneath them, like patterns on some swift-
revolving loom. In other words, the same Ideas which circle
round the mind of the Supreme Intelligence for His eternal
■contemplation and delight, are, Avlien Time begins, inwoven into
the texture of the world, and, as Time-pictures, are unrolled
before us in what are known as the ])hen()mena of the world
and of life ; their sensuous forms being but the visible
hieroglyphs of the invisible Ideas corresponding to them in the
Creator's mind, and requiring but ]\Iotion to develop them,
<ind, as on a jdiotographcr's plate, to bring them up into reality,
visibility, and actuality.
Such is Aristotle's theory of the World, and if held steadily
before the eye in its entirety, it will not only enable us to see
the origin of many of his favourite special doctrines, but will
clear up those difficulties of interpretation which have arisen
from the use of common terms in technical and unusual senses.
To take for exiunple, his use of the terms Furm and Matter,
which correspond respectively to the Idea and aTze/pov of
Plato, and which are the two elemental essences, positive and
negative, of which all actually existing things are composed ;
it will be evident that if Form corresponds to what Plato calls
Idea, it cannot mean with Aristotle what it means with us, viz.
the outer shape or form, but lather the inner nature or quality,
58 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
as for example, the tenacity of steel, as distinct fi'om its
composition, the use of a house as distinct from its order of
architecture, the quality of a chemical compound as distinct
from the elements of which it is composed. And so, too, in
organic nature, it is the fragrance of the rose that is its Form,
and not merely its botanical composition ; the function of the
hand or eye and not its shape or structure ; the soul or vital
principle of an animal and not its mere form ; the intelligence
of a man and not his bodily figure or sensuous and animal
existence. And hence we have Aristotle defininj]: it as the
something over, the new quality added to the elements of
which a thing is made up ; so that, to give his own instances,
the syllable ba is the Form of which the letters b and a are the
Matter, and flesh is the Form, the something over, of the fire
and earth of Avhich it is composed ; in the same way as we
might say that water was the Form, the quality added to the
oxygen and hydrogen which were its Matter, and the like.
And if, as we have seen, the primordial Matter when it begins
to revolve, takes up these Forms or Ideas in succession one by
one, as a snowball takes up fresh material as it goes along, it
is evident that just as each part of a rolling wheel is now on
the earth and now in the air, that which is now Matter, will,
Avhen it takes up an Idea become Form, which in turn will
become Matter again to the next Idea incorporated with it,
and so on ; each thing being both Matter and Form, according
to tlie point from which it is viewed ; the tree for example being
Form to the sap and juices of which it is composed, but
Matter to the house which is to be built from it ; that which
is Form to a lower Matter, beinij in turn Matter to a higher
Form.
Now if Matter and Form are with Aristotle thus inseparably
united, and tend naturally to pass each into the other in the
course of evolution, and not, as with Plato, distinct and inde-
pendent so that the Form has to be impressed afresh at every
turn on an alien Matter with which it has no tendency to unite,
AlUSTOTLE. 51>
as a seal on wax, — it is evident tliat virtue which is the Form,
the something over, the something superadded, as it were, to
the natural inclinations and passions from which however it
cannot be separated ; it is evident that virtue is to be reached
not by mere knowledge alone, as with Plato, but by the culti-
vation of good habits, and the exercise of moral restraint, i.e.
not by cutting off the natural desires, and making virtue alone
the object of pure contemplation, but by the assiduous care
and training of these desires, as one trains the straggling shoots
till they grow into the symmetry of the perfect tree. And it
further follows that in Politics the best Commonwealth with
Aristotle is not the one that is devised off hand and excogitated
from the brains of Philosophers, as with Plato, and then
realized by political arrangements which shall for ever cut off
citizenship from its natural basis in the family and the home,
but the one which is best adapted to the circumstances of the
time — climate, soil, locality, the moral and intellectual
character of the people, and the like — and which is administered
neither by Philosophers alone, nor by the Rich alone, nor by
the Populace alone, but by those who having competent means,
have been trained to habits of virtue and knowledge of the
world ; by those, in short, who are most likely to be on a level
with the best aspirations of the time, and avIio, in consequence,
are best fitted to guide existing conditions into a new and
hi2;her form.
And from this same fact, viz. that Form and ]\Iattcr, like the
poles of a magnet, are indissolubly united, and cannot, except
by a merely verbal abstraction, be conceived as having an
existence independent of each other, it follows that the Divine
Spark in man which is bound up with his animal instincts and
intelligence as the Form of which thov are the Matter, although
a ray from the Supreme Intelligence itself, cannot be immortal,
as it cannot exist apart from and independent of that Matter
of which it is the Form. As the animal instincts and intelli-
gence die with the body, so too must the Mind and Sou).
CO THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
Again, in the tliree great elements of Aristotle's Philosophy,
viz. the Supreme Intelligence, the Reservoir of Motion in the
iEther, and the matrix of Matter loaded with Ideas or Form
as its positive pole, we have the origin of another favourite
position of his, viz. the reduction of all things to either the
Actual, or the Potential. Now the Supreme Intelligence being,
as it is, an immateri d, immovable, and invisible essence,
insusceptible of change, must be an Actuality. So, too, the
great globe of il^^thcr which lills the vault of Heaven, and is
co-extensive with the bounds of the Universe, must be an
Actuality. It is a unity and totality which, moving in a circle,
is incapable of change, or of being aught but what it is and
has for ever been. But this Earth of ours, on the contrary,
with its two poles of Matter and Form, which however can
only unite on condition that Motion is supplied to them, must
have been a Potentiality. So, too, must have been each and
every thing on the Earth. For as all existintr thin2;s are made
up of the union of the two opposite essences, Form and Matter,
it is evident that, as there is always a chance of these essences
missing each other as it were, and not meeting full circle in
their revolutions, instead of the existino- thino- Ave mio-ht sret
the negation of the thing, its privation; for example, instead
of light Ave might get darkness ; instead of heat, cold ; instead
of beauty, deformity ; instead of life, death ; and so on. It is
the same in the moral region. If the two essences meet, we
have good, if not, evil ; if they meet, happiness, if not, misery ;
if they meet, love, if not, hate ; if they meet, forgiveness, if not,
revenge. And hence Ave have Aristotle saying there is no Evil
in the Eternal Actualities, that is to say, in the Supreme
Intelligence and the Moving Vault of ^F^thcr, but only on this
Earth of oui-s, this Avorld of Potentiality, Avhere by reason of
its two poles, two courses are always open, either to hit or to
miss, to meet or to pass, to make or to mar.
And lastlvit is in these three "'reat factors of the Aristotelian
Philosophy that Ave have the source of Aristotle's well-known
AUISTOTLE. 61
division of causes into Final, Eflicient, Formal, and Material.
The Supreme Intelligence, for example, correspond.s to the
Final Cause of thinus, that is to say to their end or aim, as a
man's end in building may be said to be the final cause of
the house. The Reservoir of Motion in the ^^Ether, aofain,
corresponds to the Efficient Cause of things, inasmuch as it is
the agenc}' by which the two poles of Matter and Form are
brought together; as the bricklayers and hodmen who bring
together the materials, may be said to be the Efficient Cause of
the house. The Ideas or Forms, again, with which the
primordial Matter is packed as its positive pole, correspcmd
to the Formal Cause of tilings, to their qualities, properties,
function, or vital principle ; as the formal cause of a house is
its use or function and not its mere external shape or archi-
tecture. And lastly, the primordial Matter of the world
corresponds to the Material Cause of things, in the same wa^-
as the bricks and mortar are the material causes of the house.
And here, perhaps, it may not be out of place, before
proceeding on our way, to indicate briefly the relative
excellences and defects of the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
Indeed these may all be summed up at once by saying
that while the system of Aristotle is superior as a dynamiccd
theory of the World, that is to say as a theory of the evolution
of things, of their movement and procession ; the system of
Plato still remains superior as a statical theory, that is to say as
an analysis of the great elements of which at any given time
the World itself as a whole, with all that it contains, is
composed. As a dynamical theory the system of Aristotle has
the same superiority over that of Plato, as the doctrine of
Evolution of our own day has over the six days creation of
Genesis. For while with Plato each new person or thing,
animal or man, requires a fresh exercise of the arranging
Intelligence, of the Supreme Good to constitute it, a fresh
application of Number to the r'.Trapov, of Ideas to Number,
and so on, in the same way as in the ^lo.-aic Cosmogony the
^2 THE EVOLUTION OF GlIEEK THOUGHT.
creation of each new species requires a fresh act of Creative
Power ; in Aristotle, on the other hand, wlien once the two
poles of Matter and Form are brought together and kept in
revolution by a continuous supply of IMotion, they will of
themselves and by their own natures evolve one after another
all the phenomena of the world and of life, of earth, and air,
and sea, of crystal and plant, of vegetable, and animal, and man.
But this superiority of the system of Aristotle over that of
Plato as a dynamical theory, Avas compensated by its corres-
ponding inferiority as a statical one. For having found an
independent source of Motion elsewhere, viz., in the great
reservoir of ^'Ether in the Heavens, Aristotle who was anxious
to pack his Ideas or Forms into the primordial Matter in such
a way that they would be indissolubly united with it, w^as
obliged to empty this INIatter of the little triangles with which
Plato hnd endowed it; as otherwise he "would have been as
much embarrassed by them as a weaver would be who sliould
be required to impress a new pattern on a warp still inwoven
with an old one. But these little triangles were to Plato not
only his source of motion, but, like the triangular wooden
bricks which children build into cubes and other toy figures,
were the elements with which, by the application of Number,
he built up the outward form and configuration of things ;
the first application of Number binding them into the sensible
forms of fire, air, earth, and water; the next building these
again into the infinite variety of animal and vegetable forms ;
and the last into the beautiful figures, the ideal shapes, out-
lines, and pi'oportions of things on which Art loves to dwell.
The consequence was that Aristotle, having got rid of these
little triangles from his primordial Matter, in order to make
room for the Ideas or Forms which he wished to pack in their
l>lace, had left himself no elements with which to construct the
outward shape of things as distinct from their inner essence;
and no place, thei'cfore, for Number, whose only function with
Plato was to bind these triangles into the infinite variety of
ARISTOTLE. t)3
forms. He was unable therefore, to find any place in his
system for a theory of outer forms, and hence it was that in
re-arranging the four great factors of Plato, viz., the Good,
Ideas, Number, and the r/'-e/f^ov as groundwork for his own
system, he left out Number as we have said altogether.
It is quite probable, indeed, that Aristotle would have argued
that the Ideas which were answerable for the use, quality,
function or vital principle of things, would be answerable also
for their external forms ; but this would have been to make
one essence accountable for two such naturally antagonistic
things as soul and body, mind and matter, which would have
been a poor and inadequate explanation. Indeed if further
proof be wanted of the superiority of the system of Plato over
that of Aristotle as a statical tlieory of things, it will be found
in the fact that Avhen a new dynamical princij^le other than
that of Motion, viz. the theory of Emanation, was introduced
by the Neo-Platonists, it was to the original factors of Plato
that they turned for the elements on which this new principle
was to act, and not to those of Aristotle.
But before closing this cliaptcr it is necessary to remark
that although the dynamical theory of Aristotle has a superficial
resemblance to the modern theory of Evolution, it really bears
only the same relation to it that a phantasm does to the reality.
With Aristotle the evolution of things, of earth, and crystal,
and plant, and animal, and man, is got by uniting and addhig
one shadowy Essence to another as shadowy as itself, and this
again to another, and so on ; whereas in Modern Scientific
Evolution, real forces that can be weighed and measured are
converted into their equivalent of other forces, and these
again into their equivalent of others, and so on ; so much
vital energy into so much chemical j)roduct, and the rest, —
quite a different matter.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM ARISTOTLE TO CHRISTIANITr.
TN the last chapter we saw that Aristotle by grouping the
four separate and independent elements of Plato into two
compound and connected ones, was enabled to account in a
measure for the procession and evolution of things over and
above their mere structure and composition ; and so pushed the
little barque of Philosophy a stage nearer that Religious shore to
which it was inevitably tending. We have now to see that its
next stage had to be reached by a continuation of the same
process, viz., by the drawing together again of this connected
pair of factors into a single concrete unity. Aristotle, we may
remember, had reduced the great factors of tlie World-process
to a Supreme Power possessed of Ideas, on the one hand, and
a basis of Matter packed with the same Ideas, on tlie other ;
and had filled the gap between with the great reservoir of
iEthcr which by communicating Motion to the wide expanse
of Matter, enabled it to incorporate into itself one by one tlie
Ideas with which it was surcharged or surrounded, thereby
precipitating the order and beauty of the phenomena of this
AVorld of Time as we know them. Now in this theory, God,
it is to be observed, is separated and kept apart from the
Universe, and can comnumlcatc with it only through the
intervening medium of the il^]thcr. If, therefore, we were to
suppose this intervening medium to be abolished, and the
FKOil ARISTOTLE TO CIlKISTIANITr. 65
Supreme Power instead of contemplating in eternal serenity
from outside the Universe the Ideas with which He is filled,
were to be introduced within the world of Matter, and sj
diffused throughout its substance as to act on it directly
everywhere and everywhen, would not this be the last step in
that unifying process which it is the aim of Philosophy to
consummate? For now, instead of two separate and compound
existences connected bv a third different from either, v*^e should
have only a single concrete existence, the World, but with two
sides or faces, as it were, a material or sensible, and a spiritual
or invisible ; the latter, as being diffused through the former,
being of the nature of a universal Spirit or Soul, and containing
within itself all those elements of which it is the representative ;
— the Supreme Power, Ideas, and the Motion-giving iEther.
Novv this is not only the general but the precise position taken
lip by the Stoics whose theory was that the World was a single
concrete entity witli two faces or aspects, a material and a
spiritual ; the Spiritual, which pervaded the Material, including
under the one term of a Universal Soul, conceptions so different
in essential nature as the Supreme Good, the Ideas or Reasons
of Plato, and the Motion-giving iEther of Aristotle. But
although the Stoics in this way were enabled to reduce the
World to a single concrete unity with two sides, it is evident
that owing to the number of heterogeneous categories which,
in this forcing process, they were obliged to dash and confound
together — categories so essentially distinct as God, Reason, and
the JEther — the unity tliey got was a merely formal vuiity
more apparent than real; and that here at least Philosophy
could not find its final rest.
What form then was Philosophy next to assume? Back it
could not so, without the sacrifice of those advantages which
had made each si'''.cessive step an advance on the last : and
farther forward than this Pantheistic Unity of the Stoics,
with its two poles or sides of Matter and Soul, the unifying
j)rocess could not go. What then was the next move to be ?
F
66 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
It will perhaps give us a hint as to the direction in which we
are to look, if we consider that a Philosophy, to be entirely
satisfactory, must not only account for the movement and
evolution of things, but must maintain unimpaired in the
process the hierarchy and independence of the ultimate factors
of which they are composed ; must have not only dynamical
efiBciency, but statical integrity. Now, as we have seen, each
step taken by Philosophy after Plato with the view of getting
greater dynamical unity and efficiency, was purchased by the
loss of the independence, the gradation, or even the very
existence of one or other of the factors or elements of which
things are composed. Plato, as we have already seen, had
reached the highest point of analytic and statical truth in his
decomposition of the structure of things into four separate and
independent elements ; — the Good, Ideas, Number, and the
r/.7r€ipov, elements which accounted in the broadest and simplest
way for the composition and hierarchy of the World ; the
a-n-apny accounting for their material basis, Number for their
external forms. Ideas for their inner natures, and the Supreme
Good representing the end to which they all worked. But, as we
saw, these factors had no connexion or relation with each other,
and could not therefore unite to explain the movement and evolu-
tion of things. To remedy this and to get a principle of movement
and evolution, Aristotle, accordingly, was obliged to represent
these factors as being united in groups wutli an independent
principle of Motion between, so that the movement of any one
element would draw the others after it, and so account for the
movement and evolution of them all. But in thus endeavour-
ing to find room in his theory for the movement and evolution
of things, he was obliged to sacrifice Plato's j^rinciple of
Number, and so to leave unexplained the entire range of that
quality of things which is included imder their external form.
With the Stoics it was worse, for, as we have just seen, in order
to get a still greater unity and dynamical efficiency than
Aristotle, they were obliged to confound together under the
FROM ARISTOTLE TO CHRISTIANITY. G7
single name of the Si)iritual Principle or Soul of things,
categories so separate and eternally distinct in nature, as God,
Eeason, and the fire-giving iEther ; so that the image of tlie
World Avhich Plato had set up with so much labour and con-
scientious care, with all its parts in their relative hierarchy and
subordination: — Godlike Reason and Ideas as tlie head:
Kumber in the beauty and proportion of its bodily form ; the
Kirapov in the material of which it was composed ; and the whole
figure pointing upward to the Supreme Good ; this magnificent
and perfect creation of Plato was left lying by the Stoics in
a prostrate and undistinguished heap, — God, Reason, Form,
and ^[atter vaguely showing through the fictitious unity in
which they were enclosed as in a sack, and all promiscuously
confounded together. The truth is, it is impossible on any
ordinary dynamical theory, to get the ultimate elements of
which things are composed to unite together to produce tlie
movement and evolution of the world, without doino; violence
to their real independence and statical integrity. Being
ultimate elements they can liave nothing in common into which
tliey are further resolvable ; and having nothing in common, it
is impossible by any artifice to so unite them as to make them
form a coherent unity ; as we have just seen in the case of the
Stoics w^ho imagined they had given unity to such different
categories as God, Reason, and iEthei', by the simple expedient
of putting them into a common receptacle, and labelling them
with a common name. On the other hand, even if it were
possible to make them unite so as to produce the movement and
evolution of the World, they Avould lose in the process all tliat
was distinctive in their nature, all their separate and self-
bubsistent virtue ; for it is the characteristic of an ordinary
dynamical movement, that the cause passes over into and is
lost in its eff'ect ; that when two things, for example, unite
together to produce a third that is different from either, they
cease thenceforth to exist as independent elements with dis-
tinguishable qualities, losing their old identity of the new
Q8 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
creation, as wlien oxvsyen and hvdroo;en unite to form water.
It is evident, therefore, that if no philosojihy is complete which
does not furnish us with a dynamical as well as a statical theory
of things, a theory of their movement and evolution as well as
of their composition and structure ; and if this double requisite
is impossible on any ordinary dynamical theory ; it is evident
that to release Philosophy from the impasse in which it was left
by the Stoics, and to give it a fresh start, some new dynamical
principle must be found, which shall at once account for the
etei'nal procession and evolution of things, and at the same time
preserve unimpaired the dignity, independence, and essential
integrity of their ultimate elements. AVliat then is this new
dynamical principle I
Up to this point, indeed, 1 had been enabled by means of
the principles which I had laid down at the outset, to antici-
]iate to the extent and in the manner we have seen, the succes-
sive steps taken by Greek Philosophy in the course of its
evolution and development, with a glance only here and there
to make certain on points of detail, and to assure myself that I
w^as keeping on the right track. But when I arrived at the
point which we have now reached, I confess I was at a loss to
know in what direction to turn. On surrendering myself,
however, unreservedly to the actual historical facts themselves,
I found that the next step taken by Greek Philosophy em-
bodied precisely the new dynamical principle which was wanted,
and which, indeed, I might with a little more patience have
foreseen. This was no other than the great principle of Emana-
tion which has played so great a part both in Eeligion and
Philosophy, and which, when once it was introduced, continued
to be made the basis of both, for over a thousand years. It was
drawn from the belief that there were causes in existence which,
unlike ordinary dynamical causes, could give rise to effects
without themselves passing over into these eftects ; but on the
contrary remained where they were, without change of place
or loss of substance. This kind of cause was to be seen, for
FROM ARISTOTLE TO CHRISTIAXITY. G9
example, in tlie mind, which although the cau<5e of endless
thoughts, 5(till remained the same mind; in the sun, which in
spite of its infinite radiations into Space, still remained the same
sun, without apparent loss of substance ; or in the parent wlio,
although the cause of a numerous offspring, still remained the
same parent ; all of which apparent instances of emanation or
begetting must, in the absence of a knowledge of the Physical
Sciences, have seemed just and reasonable. Now when
this kind of cause was introduced into Philosophy, it
at once solved the dilHcultv in which she had been
landed by furnishing a new dynamical principle which
should account for the movement and procession of things,
Avithout destroying the independence and integrity of the
great original elements of which they were composed. And
it became evident that if once you could get a true statical
theory, that is to say, a true theory of the structure and com-
position of things, a true inventory of the original, eternal, an 1
underived elements of all existence, all you would have to do
to explain their evolution and movement w^ould be to let them
emanate from each other, the lowest from that above it in the
scale, that again from the next, and so on until you came to the
highest of all from which all had originally proceeded. In
this way you would get a series of existences eternally pro-
ceeding from each other, without loss of substance, change of
place, or confusion of quality. You would get, in a Avord, a
theory which was at once dynamical and statical, which would
explain the movement and evolution of things consistently with
the integrity and independence of the ultimate factors of whicli
they were composed. Now of all the Greek Thinkers Plato
was the one whose philosophy, as we have seen, had reached
the highest point of statical perfection ; succeeding Thinkers,
like Aristotle and the Stoics, in their endeavours to account
for the movement and evolution of things, being oblio:ed either
to sacrifice one or other of the great factors of Plato, or to
confound them all together. If Philosophy, therefore, should
70 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
return to Plato for its statical basis, and instead of representing
his original factors, viz., the Supreme Good, the System of
Ideas, Number, and the uTreipov as isolated and independent
existences, as Plato himself did, were to represent them as
emanating from one another in the way in which thoughts
emanate and proceed from the mind, rays of light from the sun,
or children from their parents ; the System of Ideas from the
Supreme Good, Number or the Ideal forms of things from the
Ideas, and last of all the aireipov or Matter from these forms ;
would not this by accounting for the flux and evolution of
things without endangering the integrity and independence of
the original factors, be a Philosophy in advance of all that had
preceded it ?
Now this was precisely the position taken up by Neo-
Platonism, a school of philosophy inaugurated by Philo, a Jew
of Alexandria, about the time of Christ, and reaching its
culmination in Plotinus some two or tbree centuries later. The
Neo-Platonists boldly went back to Plato for the statical
elements of their system, ignoring all those Thinkers who had
Iain between them, and who had exercised the ingenuity of the
Schools during a period of four or five hundred years. Their
theory was that the AVorld Avas the emanation of an omni-
present activity, an intelligent Vital Principle or World-Soul
diffused through the Universe; that this World-Soul again,
Avas the emanation in turn of the pure Eeason which united in
itself the entire system of Platonic Ideas ; and this Reason,
ao'ain, or Locros, as it was called, the emanation of the
Eternal One, the Good, the Primitive Unity which was neither
Reason nor World-Soul, but included them both, and was itself
the Unthinkable, the Unspeakable One. Or to put it another
Avay, from the Eternal One proceeded, as first emanation,
Reason or the Logos ; and from this again as second, the
AYorld-Spirit or Soul whicli was the vital principle of all
things ; and these three are on the principle of emanation, one ;
in the same way that the rays of light in the sun and the rays
FKOM ARISTOTLE TO CHRISTIAXITV. 71
of light on the earth, though different are yet the same ; or that
a man's mind, the tliought of his mind, and the expression of
that thought, though unHkc are yet the same ; though three,
are yet one. And hxstly from this invisible Trinity in Unity
wc have as final emanation of all, the world of sensible things,
of Material Existence, as we know it and see it around us.
This is the first appearance in the Western AVorld, it is
interesting to note, of the doctrine of the Trinity, a direct
result as we see of the doctrine of Emanation ; and this
doctrine, again, not, it is to be observed, a religious conception
at all, but a purely philosophical one ; introduced as we have
seen, to meet the necessity that had arisen of finding some new
•dynamic principle, different from the old, which should explain
the movement and procession of things, without endangering
the independent existence of the elements out of which they
^vere composed.
And here we may pause to observe that as the soul of man,
like the World-Soul, is on the theory of Emanation one with
the Eternal Unitv, instead of being as in Plato different
from it, it is evident that the way in which the soul must reach
this Supreme Unity must be different in the two systems. In
Plato, where the chain of Ideas that lead up to the Supreme
Oood as their topmost link is so arranged that each lower Idea,
•while containino: somethino; In common with that above it, Is
3ilso different from it. It Is clear that you can reach the Supreme
Oood only by separating at each stage the like from the unlike,
and holding fast to the former ; in the same way as you can
reach the root of an inverted tree from any particular leaf on
its circumference, only by following u[) this leaf to the twig
that is common to manv leaves, this again to the branch that is
•common to many twigs, this again to the trunk that is common
to many branches, until at last you reach the root and source
of all. This process of reaching the Eternal Unity of things by
the continuous process of separating their differences, and
uniting their likenesses is known as the method of Dialectics,
72 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
and is the method of all science or knowledsre. The ethical
watchword, accordingly, of Plato was knowledge, or intellectual
definition. But in Neo-Platonism where the soul of man, like
the World-Soul, instead of being different from the Supreme
Good, as with Plato, is, on the principle of Emanation, really
one with it, and in consequence is only prevented from
becoming absorbed into and united with it, by the fleshly body
with which in man it is bound up, it is evident that if in life
you are to get a glimpse of the Supreme Good at all, it must
be not by climbing up the chain of Ideas by the laborious pro-
cess of separating the like from the unlike, (for the Ideas of the
Reason or Logos, as we have seen, are one with the Supreme
Good already,) but by the mortification of the flesh, of the
appetites, passions, and natural desires with which on its under
side, as it were, the soul is bound up, and to which in this
world of Time it is chained, — in a word by Asceticism.
With a Trinity in Unity, then, as the Godhead from which
the material and sensible world is a remote and inferior
emanation ; and with Asceticism or mortification of the flesh as
ethical code ; it is evident that the little boat of Philosophy is
at last drawing close to that Religious Shore to which from the
first it was destined. So close, indeed, has it come, that but a
single step more, a single plank as it were, is necessary to
enable its occupants to step forth on to the banks of
Christianity, where, after burning their boat behind them, they
will no longer walk apart as before, but for the next thousand
years, mingled and absorbed in the life around them, will be
imdistlngulshable in doctrine from the great human throno-.
What this single step was will be made more clear, perhaps,
by a simple pictorial representation of Neo-Platonism and
Christianity respectively. The Trinity of Neo-Platonism con-
sisting of the Eternal One, Reason or the Logos, and the
World-Spirit, we may figure as a triangle with equal sides,
from whose base lines of emanation stream, radiating down-
wards and outwards to form the great world of Time, of
FROM ARISTOTLE TO CHRISTIANITY. 7S
Material and Sensible Existence. As such, tlio theory is a
purely philosophical one ; the Eternal One, lleason and the
AVorld-Spirit, being purely abstract spirits or essences. But
Religion, as we have seen, differs from Philosophy in this, that
it deals with Wills and Personalities and not with Essences or
abstract Spirits. If therefore Ave are to turn Xeo-Platonism
into Christianity, we must manage in some way to
change the three philosophic essences of the Neo-Platonic
Trinity into the three persons of the Christian Trinity. Now
to do this, all that is necessary is to take the lines of emanation
that radiate from the base of the triangular Trinity, and bring
them to a point or focus somewhere between Heaven and Earth,
as it were, before allowing them to radiate downward and out-
ward to form the world, in the same way as one might pass the
folds of a handkerchief through a Aveddino--rins: ; and then to
represent this focus, this wedding-ring of mediation between
Heaven and Earth, by the man Christ Jesus. This simple step
is all that is necessary ; for if Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
it is evident that the first person in the Trinity instead of being
an abstract Eternal One, must be God the Father ; and the
tliird person instead of being an abstract World-Spirit, must
now be God the Holy Ghost. That only this single step of
the mediation of Christ Jesus, separated Neo-Platonism from
Christianity as a philosophy, is placed beyond doubt by the
testimony of St. Augustine. Himself brought up and nurtured
in the writings of Neo-Platonism, he admits when summing up
the advantages that Christianity had over it, that he found
practically the same doctrine of the Godhead in both ; that
Neo-Platonism equally with St. John contained such doctrines,
for example, as that ' in the beginning was the Word or Logos,
and the Word Avas with God, and the Word was God,' etc.,
that the Son being of the same substance, was in the form of
the Father, and 'thought it not robbery to be equal with the
Father; ' that God the Word ' was born, not of flesh and blood, but
of God ; ' and the like. What he did not find in Neo-Platonism,
74 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
he tells us^ Avas the Incarnation, the truth contained in such
texts as that ' the Word was made flesh and dwelt anions
us ' ; that ' He came unto His own and His own received
Him not ' ; that ' to those who believed on His name to them He
gave the power to become the sons of God ' ; that ' He took on
Himself the form of a servant', and ' in due time died for the
ungodly ' ; and the like.
Now, that the step from the abstract essences of the Neo-
Platonic Trinity to the personal wills of the Christian Trinity,
whether through the Incarnation of Chi-ist Jesus or not, had
first or last to be taken by Philosophy, a few considerations
will make manifest. In the first place, in the absence of
Physical Science and of the new conception of the Uniformity
of Law which it has since thrown as a necessary element into
all speculations on the problem of the World, no mere
Philosophy as such, employing abstract Essences as its subject-
matter, could go farther tlian Neo-Platonism. It was the
first, as we have seen, to introduce a di/namical theory of things,
which should be compatible with tiie continued integrity and
independence of the original elements of which they were
composed. It had besides absorbed the essences and abstract
principles of all preceding Thinkers, and had woven them into
a scheme more harmonious and complete than any that had gone
before. Backward Philosophy could not go, and it is equally
evident that forward it must. For, as we saw at the outset of
this survey, there are only two kinds of causation that can
permanently satisfy the minds of men ; either the Wills of
Religion, or the uniform antecedents and consequents of
Physical Science. Now the Essences and Abstractions of
Philosophy are neither the one nor the other of these, and as
in them the mind of man caimot rest, it must, in the absence
of Physical Science, make in the direction of the Wills and
Personalities of Religion. The law arovernino; the direction and
successive stages of this movement, I ventured to lay down at
the outset, and, as we have seen, the long train of individual
FROM ARISTOTLE TO CHRISTIANITY. 75
Thinkers have walked in the line marked out for them by this
law, as if by immutable decree. From the abstract Trinity of
the Neo-Platonists to the personal Trinity of Wills, Philosophy
was bound to go ; and whether by the dispensation of
Providence, or by the accident of Fate, Christianity stood
waiting on the sliore with every condition favourable for its
reception. Not that Cliristianity was the only religion into
which Neo-PIatonism could possibly have passed in its way
from a Trinity of Essences to a Trinity of personal Wills ; on
the contrary any religion with a like philosophical basis,
however different from Christianity in its historical basis,
would for philosophical purposes have answered as well.
Nor did Neo-Platonism pass into Christianity because
the latter was the only religion on the shore ready and waiting
to receive it ; on the contrary Paganism too was there ;
but althouo-li the later and degenerate Neo-Platonists
allied themselves with the Polytheism of Paganism, and
became its High Priests (much in the same way as the
Patriarchs and Bishops became the priests of the Christian
Trinity), it was a disgraceful and unnatural union which could
bear no fruit, and was, as a matter of fact, in a few years
swept away without a murmur or a sigh. Nor yet again did
Neo-Platonism pass into Christianity because, as has been
alleged, it had itself already in the early days of Christianity,
foi'ged and prepared the doctrines of the Godhead which it
was afterwards to appear to accept at the hands of its opponents ;
on the contrary Christianity as a philosophy must have assumed
a form similar to that which it did assume, had Neo-Platonisni
never existed. Growino; out of the historical fact of Christ's
being the Son of God, its philosophy must have been the
abstract expression of that concrete relation. Now as that
relation happened to be practically the same as the relation of
the Logos to the Eternal One in Neo-Platonism, this of itself
was sufficient to account for the likeness in form at least of
the two philosophies. It is true that those early doctors of
76 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
the Church who were most instrumental in formulatins; it»
philosophical creed, especially the relation of the first to the
second Person of the Godhead, were drawn from the schools of
Neo-Platonism, and that they gave to the historical fact of
Christ's relation to (iod, the tact of son-ship, the philosophical
form in wiiich they were accustomed to think. Indeed we
may go farther and admit that from the time that the Gospel
of St. John, which is closely moulded on Neo-Platonic lines,
was received into the canon of Scripture, the philosophies of
Neo-Platonism and Christianity became, as we should
expect, in form at least practically identical. But no mere
formal identity could have been permanently established
between the philosophies of Neo-Platonism and Christianity,
had there not been a real identity in principle ; that is to
say, had not the relation of the Logos to the Eternal One
been the same in principle as the relation of the Son to the
Father in Christianity. And what Avas that principle 'I It was
the principle of Emanation ; the only difference in the form of
this principle when applied to Neo-Platonism and Christianity
respectively being that in Neo-Platonism the relation of the
Eternal One to the Logos was drawn from the analogy of
the abstract Intelligence, which in giving off broods of
thought, remains itself the same ; whereas in Christianity
the relation of God to Christ is drawn from that of parent
and offspring, where the total personality or avIII of a man, as it
were, passes over Into the offspring, while itself remaining the
same as before. If once then the historical facts of Christ's
birth, death, and resurrection, could be believed in, it would
evidently be not only easy and natural, but inevitable, that
Neo-Platonism should fall Into and be absorbed in Christianity.
For If It were true that Christ really were the Son of God, and
that He had sent the Holy Spirit after He was gone, was this
not precisely what the philosophy of Neo-Platonism had taught,
viz. that the Logos or Word proceeded from and was the in-
carnation of the Eternal One, and the World-Si^irit again, the
FROM ARISTOTLE TO CIIUISTIAXITY. 77
emanation of the Logos? — but with this advantage on the side
of Christianity, that by turning the abstract Essences of Neo-
Platonism into a Trinity of real Persons, it not only gave, in
the absence of Physical Science, a more satisfactory Cause of
things than any mere abstract essences could supply, but
furnished also an object of reverence, sympathy, and love,
Avhich should engage equally the imagination and heart — a
thino- impossible in any merely abstract philosophy. For in the
Ionr>- run the human spirit can find comfort, consolation,
and sympathy, only in a spirit like its own; and in Christianity
this was supplied by the second person of the Trinity, the man
Christ Jesus, a man in all points tempted as we are, yet with-
out sin. And here again we may refer to the testimony of St.
Augustine, who declares that God of the excellency of His
m-ace, in sendino; His Son Christ Jesus to save sinners throu2:h
faith and love, gave to the minds and hearts of men a more per-
manent and abiding solace and peace than could be got from
the transient glimpses of God which were to be caught by
Neo-Platonism only after the most vain and laborious Asceti-
cism. Instead of having, like the Xeo-Platonists, to gaze from
the wooded hill-tops to the land of Peace, without finding any
wav to it, the Christian could, he says, by the grace of .Tesus
Christ, hold on his way straight through beneath the strong-
hold built by the Heavenly Commander ; instead of hearing by
the way the dreary whistling of the winds, the jingle of the
lifeless abstractions of Philosophy, he heard wafted to him
such sweet notes as these, " Learn of me for I am meek and
lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls." " Come
unto me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give
you rest." But beside these spiritual consolations which it
offered to cultured and uncultured alike, Christianity by its
adoption from Genesis of the doctrine of a Tempter, accounted
for the ever-present sense of Sin iu our inmost members, in a
way impossible to Neo-Platonism, w^hich, regarding the natural
world as the last and lowest emanation of the Godhead, could
78 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK THOUGHT.
not endow Sin Avitli that positive and absolute character which
it assumed when it was believed to be the fruit of a Spirit not
good, like the World-Spirit of Neo-Platonism, but, like Satan,
absolutely evil in himself.
For these and other reasons Greek Philosophy, encom-
passed on all hands by a religion which surpassed it not only
in moral purity and elevation, but in the satisfactions of its
])hilosop]iic creed, passed as was inevitable, though not without
prolonged struggles of self-interest and pride^ softly and
slowly into Christianity ; and with the closing of the Schools
of Athens by Justinian, disappeared, save as armoury for the
exercitations of the Schoolmen, or models for the pens of the
Humanists, for ever from the serious beliefs of men.
TART II.
TPIE EVOLUTIOiN'
OF HINDOO THOUGHT,
HISTOEY OF
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.
PART II.
LIST or AUTHORITIES FOR THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS
ON THE
EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
For Hinduism
vedic hymns wilson
yoga sutras muir
raja-yoga elphinstone
sankhya-karika max mullep.
VEDANTASaVA MONIER- WILLIAMS
SADDARMA-PUNDARIKA
For Buddhism
DHAMMAPADA
KHUDDAKA PATHA
UPASAMPADA-KAMMAVACA
BURNOUF
KOPPEN
WASSALIEF
SPENCE HARDY
OLDENBERG
RHYS DAVIDS
MAX Mi'LLER
BEAL
BIGANDET
For Theosophy
bhagavat glta besant
upanishads chatterji
blavatsky row
sinnett old
olcott mead
judge fullerton
CHAPTER I.
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
"FN" the folloAving chapters I pi^opose to pass briefly In review
the great philosophies and religions of India, Avith the
view of ascertaining the extent, if any, to which the doctrines
of these schools can be said to have entered into the compo-
sition and structure of European thought. And with this object
I shall make It my aim In the first place to determine, if possible,
the general level or plane oftlwught, as it were, on which these
religions and philosophies all alike lie ; as. If we shall once
succeed In doing this satisfactorily, we shall, like the naturalist
who has ascertained the family or order to which some extinct
but newly-discovered mammalian skeleton belongs, be able the
more readily to estimate the position occupied by these systems
in the great chain of World-Philosophy as a whole; and the
extent, in consequence, to which they are likely to enter as per-
manent elements into the Philosophical Evolution of the future.
But more than this, we shall be able to show, as we did In the
case of Greek Philosophy, that the evolution of these succes-
sive systems follows from, and can be anticipated, as It were,
by a law or principle of the human mind, which law we shall at
the outset without much difficulty be enabled to lay down.
Now It will be remembered that Greek Philosophy began
its evolution under Thales and his successors, by making some
one or other material principle, such as ^Yater, Air, etc., the
82
THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
Prime Cause and main efficient factor in its explanation of the
phenomena of the world ; that it then advanced under
Xenophanes, Parmenides, and their followers, to the stage in
which what is called Soul or Vital Principle was the First
Cause; and that from the time of Anaxagoras and Socrates
onwards it reached the point where pure Intelligence was
believed to be the best explanation of the phenomena of the
world and of human life. Like the embryo of man, which
passes rapidly through the lower stages of fish, reptile, and
mammal, to expend the best part of its life in the exhibition of
characteristics that are distinctly human, Greek Philosophy
ran rapidly through the lower stages of Matter and of Soul, to
expend the opulence and fertility of its genius on the changes
that could be rung on the principle of Intelligence as the First
Cause of things — and from that time to the present, the
Thought of Europe in its evolution and development has but
continued the process still farther on the same lines. But that
there may be no mistake as to the meaning to be attached here
to the terms Soul and Intelligence, respectively, I may as w^ell
explain at the outset that by Soul or Vital Principle is always
to be understood a double-sided principle, half material, half
spiritual — a principle which, when the spiritual side is most in
evidence, may be figured as a kind of ghost, as it were, which
although spiritual in one aspect has always the material
quality of extension on the other ; and when its material side
is most obtrusive, may be represented by that Vital Principle
of Nature w^hich rolls through things, giving them their life,
and of which the visible body of Nature is but the material
side or counterpart. Intelligence, on the other hand, is always
to be figured as an indivisible, immaterial entity, witJiout parts
or extension; and when it is a self-conscious Intelligence,
always involves the idea of a Thinker on the one side, and of
thoughts, images, and ideas which pass before it on the other,
on which its eye is transiently directed, but from any one
or all of which it is conceived as capable of detaching itself.
niNDoo niiLosoniY. 83
Now, that Greek Philosophy from the time of Socrates, and
that European Thought and Religion ever since, have made the
principle of Intelligence, in the sense in which it is here used,
the Supreme Cause and Prime Operative Factor in things, is
scarcely open to dispute. With Plato, for example, the
Supreme Cause, which he calls the Supreme Good, is repre-
sented as engaged from all eternity before the world began in
contemplating that golden chain of Ideas, or Types of Things,
on which the world was afterwards to be constructed — a chain
of Ideas which ran up to this Supreme Good as its topmost
link, but from which the Supreme Good, as a thinker from the
object of his thought, is represented as for ever free. This
Supreme Good, then, is obviously of the natui*e of an Intelli-
gence. With Aristotle, again, the First Cause of things which
is represented as letting loose that principle of Motion which
gives the world the primitive push needed to start it on the
path of evolution, and which carries with it those Types or
Ideas — Forms he calls them — which are to be deposited one by
one along the track of evolution, and one by one to be built
into the structure of the world — this First Cause of thino;s is
represented by Aristotle, as it is by Plato, as finding from all
eternity in the loving contemplation of these ' forms,' its sole
and supreme delight. It, too, therefore, is a principle of In-
telligence. And so too with the First Cause of the Stoics,
which althouirh workinof through laws of Nature fixed and
inexorable as Fate, and sometimes even identified or confounded
with these laws, was nevertheless represented as being conscious
of them as of so many thoughts and activities of its own mind ;
and so was a principle of Intelligence. It was the same when
Christianity took up the mantle of Greek Philosophy, for in its
speculative doctrine of the Trinity it still endowed the First
Cause of things with the attributes of a Supreme Intelligence,
to which it further added the concrete attributes of personality
and will. And not only did this attribute of Intelligence
remain through all the changes of that religion, bat it was
84 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
present also in the Deism of the eighteenth century, and in all
those Eeh'gious Philosopliies of more recent times that have
endeavoured to found a natural reh'uion on the analooies and
processes of Nature. If further proof, indeed, were needed
that the Religious Philosophies of Europe are all alike founded
and constructed on the principle of Intelligence as their First
Cause, as distinct from that of Soul, it Avould be found in
this fact, viz., that those systems of Materialism and Atheism
which have risen in reaction against the supernaturalisms
of prevailing religious philosophies, have always assumed
that the First Cause, whose existence they are assailing,
is of the nature of an Intelligence, and not of a mere blind
Vital Principle or Soul. And having once reached this
principle of self-conscious Intelligence as the First Cause of
things — a principle drawn from what is highest in the human
mind — it may be safely asserted that no system of Philosophy
which admits the supernatural clement at all, can ever again
return to the merely negative and featureless principle of Soul
as its starting principle, — a principle drawn, not like Intelli-
gence, from what is highest in ourselves, but from that mere
vitality common to all the works of Nature alike, the only dis-
tinction of which is that it is tvithout either emotion, self-
conscious intelligence, or Avill. It has neither the dignity,
elevation, nor realizable efficiency of a self-conscious Intelli-
gent Will, on the one hand, nor the reality and demonstrable
regularity and uniformity of the ' antecedents and consequents '
of Physical Laws, on the other. And if, as we shall now see,
not only Hindoo Philosophy, but its modern counterpart
Theosophy also, are constructed on this conception of Soul as
their supreme principle, we may safely predict that they wall
no more affect the evolution of Philosophy in the future, than
those present-day kangaroos and opossums of Australia, whose
ancestors were cut off by cataclysmic upheavals from the main
current of evolution in the Jurassic Age, will affect the future
evolution of the Mammalian Kingdom.
HINDOO riiiLCsoPHY. 85
Xow, tliat the stage of Soul is really tlie highest point
reached by Hindoo Philosophy and Esoteric Buddhism, that in
this principle they have found their last expression, their flower
and consummation, and tliere stopped, it must now be my
endeavour to prove. It is quite true, indeed, that on this
plane they have put forth their fruit with a richness and
luxuriance of detail unknown to Greek Philosophy in its
corresponding stage^ but this is only what we should expect.
For when an embryo stops short at the stage, say, of a dog or
pigeon, there to expand and live its natural and normal
existence, you may expect it to display there a gi'eater range
and variety of aspects than will be displayed at the same stage
by the embryo of a creature like man, who only passes through
these loAver stages on his way to his own proper life and
destination. And so, too, was it with Hindoo Philosophy.
As those marsupials of Australia wliich were cut off from the
general course of evolution in the Jurassic Age, and imprisoned
within a limited area of the globe, unfolded the type on Avhich
they were constructed into every variety of form ; so Hindoo
Philosophy, imprisoned within its own area and cut off from
the higher evolution of Europe has developed its systems with
an elaboration and subtlety of detail unknown to the
■corresponding stages of European Thought. But for all that
these systems are still only expansions of the principle of Soul,
not of Intelligence ; they are marsupials and not higher
mammalia; they are dogs and pigeons, and not men.
Now, that all systems of Hindoo PIn'Iosophy, including the
Esoteric Buddhism and Theosophy of the present day, are but
elaborations of the principle of Soul as explanation of the
phenomena of the Avorld and of human life; and that this Soul
is a purely negative principle, whoso oidy distinction is that
its spiritual side is entirely Avithout thought, emotion, or self-
■consciousness of any kind, except mere life, and its material
side is divested of every quality except mere extension — all
this might be known bcforehruid. and from the most careless
80 TUE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
glance at the general configuration and structure of these
philosophies. The first thing that strikes one in them all, is the
curious circumstance that Self-consciousness and Intelligence —
Reason, Judgment, Memory, Will, etc. — which are regarded by
us Europeans as parts of the Soul, if not indeed its very essence,
are in these Hindoo systems put down among the material
substances that make up the body ; they are regarded as a very
subtle differentiation of Matter it is true, but still Matter, as
much so indeed as fire and earth and water are Matter, or the
plants and flowers and animals and trees into which they are
built up; having as little permanence and stability as these latter,
and like them coming into being, blooming their little hour, and
then ceasing to be. From this alone it is evident that the
principle of Soul in Hindoo Philosophy must be something
quite diflTercnt from the Self-conscious Intelligent Principle
which it is with Western nations. Indeed we may safely sav
that no progress can be made in the pro[)er understanding of
Hindoo modes and systems of thought, until it is clearly realized
that when we Europeans speak of Soul, and when the Hindoos
speak of it, we mean two quite different and indeed opposite
things. With us. Soul, as we have said, is a principle of Self-
conscious Intelligence and Will ; with the Hindoos it is a mere
vague diffused essence pervading Nature, the distinctive quality
of which is that it is loitkout thought, emotion, will, self-
consciousness, or, indeed, any other quality whatever except
that of extension and life. That in these Hindoo Philosophies,
Soul must be something of this kind, would on reflection be
evident, if from nothing else, from this single fact alone, viz.,
that all their systems, in which it is the object of the individual
to unite with the universal Soul, require for their logicr.l
harmony and completeness some scheme of Transmigration and
Re-incarnation after death. Now while a scheme of this nature
is quite compatible with a principle which, like the Vital
Principle of Nature, can, from the absence of any definite
qualities of its own, unite with the bodies or minds of each
HINDOO riiiLOSoPHY. 87
and every species of animal or plant indifferently, it would be
quite out of keeping with a principle of Self-conscious Intclli-
o-ence. For a Self-conscious Intelligence, be it observed, is a
positive and higldy complex existence; a concrete, differentiated,
and composite entity; and can no more be transferred at
pleasure from one type of creature to another after death, so as
to unite harmoniously Avith it, than a lion's bead can be made
to unite harmoniously with an asses body — and in reality
is as absurd and impossible as the satyrs, mermaids, and
centaurs of fable. Hence it is, that in all European systems
of thought or religion. Re-incarnation and Transmigration ai'e
unknown, and the soul after death is obliged either to occupy
tiie same body that it had during life (or its incorruptible
counterpart), as was the view of the Early Christians ; or to
exist quite disengaged from any bod}- whatever. But even
were a self-conscious intelligence capable of re-incarnating
after death in other bodies than its own, it is evident that its
aim, which is that of communing for ever with the Infinite
Intellio'ence, would be baulked ratlicr than forwarded bv the
return again to Earth. For Intelligence and Love can only
grow into a greater richness and perfection by commune and
contact with Infinite Intelligence and Love, as one torch can
be lit only by contact with the fire of another. And hence it
is that in the Christian Religion, those believers who have
merited the Divine favour are translated after death, and after
the probation of but a single life on earth, to a Heaven where
they are destined for ever to remain, drinking the waters of
knowledge and love from the Infinite Fountain of Knowledge
and Love. And this is just what one would expect when both
the Supreme Soul and the Individual Soul are conceived to be
of the nature of Self-conscious Intelligences. But where both
the Universal Soul and the Individual Soul are blank
abstractions, essences characterized by the absence of all
thought, emotion, and self-consciousness ; and where intellect,
emotion, will, and self-consciousness are but differentiations of
88 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
the material world, the material side of Nature as it were ; it
is evident that the Individual Soul can only unite v.dth the
Universal Soul by cutting itself free not only from the gross
body Avithin which it is confined, but also from the intellect,
emotions, and will, which, like the body, fetter and confine the
soul — as the water in a bottle can only unite with the
infinite waters of the sea by which it is surrounded^ by breaking
the bottle in which it is confined. To do this only two ways
sutra'est themselves, either self-destruction wdiich would be of
no avail, for the soul would immediately re-incarnate and you
would be no farther forward than before ; or else that the soul
should be sent back to earth again and yet again, until the
Intelligence Avhich imagines itself in its ignorance to be the
Soul (as a man may mistake a ro])e for a snake in the dark),
realizes that it is not the soul at all, but is only a mortal
instrument as finite, transitory, and limited, as the body ; until
it realizes that all the aims and ambitions, the loves and hatreds
of the world are but vanities, illusions of its own making, and
due to that same ignorance. Until all this is seen and felt,
the soul cannot detach itself in a natural way like a ripe fruit
from that mind and body, those senses, intellect, and passions,
which bind it so strongly to the world, in order to resume its
union with the Universal Soul from which during its life in the
body it has been separated. And as this is precisely the
solution which is given to the prol)lem of existence by one and
all of the systems of Hindoo Philosophy, it is itself a proof
that what the Hindoos mean by Soul is not the Self-conscious
Intelligence of European thought, drawn from what is
hisfhest in man : but is a mere vague and indefinite essence, void
of all mental attributes except existence, and of all physical
ones except mere extension ; and drawn from that lower Vital
Principle, that Anima Mundi, which rolls through all things,
and is common alike to the vegetables, to brutes, and to men.
If then the general principle of Soul as distinguished from
that of Intelligence is the basis of the Hindoo Philosophy, the
HINDOO nilLOSOPHY. S\)
principle on tlic plane or level of which all its evolution has
taken place, it ought to be possil)le for us to mark out before-
hand the changes that can l^e rung on this principle, as seen in
its successive systems and schools of thought, in the same way
:as we liave found it possible to do for Greek Philosophy. The
principle of Soul, then, being a doublc-sidcd essence, one side
spiritual and the other material — a spiritual, vital, entity, that
is to say, Iniving the material quality of extension; it is evident
that, as was the case in the corresponding stage of Greek
Philosophy, three changes only can be rung on it; either the
spiritual side is made the efficient and all-important factor, the
material side with which it is bound up beino- deo;radcd to a
mere appearance or illusion ; or the material side is made the
active factor, the spiritual side, or Soul proper, arising from it
like an invisible mist, or exhalation ; or finally each side is
•equally real, and equally independent in function and activity.
No other combinations but these arc possible, and, as Ave t^hall
now see, to these great main divisions the three out of the six
systems of Hindoo Philosophy that arc chiefly speculative,
viz. the Yedanta, the Vaiseshika, and the Sankhya systems,
correspond.
To begin Avith the Vedanta. In this system the Spiritual side
of the Soul is all in all, and the Material side or factor Avith
which it is bound up^ is degraded to a mere illusion or
appearance. This philosophy, Avhich still remains the doctrine
of the most enliohtened Prahmins, o-reAV immediately out of
the Upanishads — that portion of the Vedas or Sacred
Scriptures of the Hindoos wjiicli deals Avith the more
speculative aspects of their religion, and Avhose doctrine can be
summed up in one simple proposition, viz. that there is but
one real Being in the T'nivcrse, the Universal Spirit or
Brahma, Avho is outside Nature and Avithin Nature and one
w^ith Nature : of whom all our individual souls are parts ; from
whom they have emerged, and into Avhom they Avill return ;
.rising from llim as a Aapoui- from the ocean, and returning
90
THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
to Him again as waters to tlie sea. Now tliese TJpanlshads are^
as I have said, part of the Religion of the Hindoos; and a&
the objects of Religion can only be beings endowed with
personality and will, and not mere metaphysical abstractions,
this Universal Spirit or Brahma is invested with all the
attributes of a personal Supreme Being, and is celebrated in
strains characterizing Him by such personal epithets as the
Ruler of Rulers, God of Gods, the Omniscient Lord of All
Things, with a thousand eyes, hands, and feet, the Immortal
One, uncreated, of spotless purity and light, diifused through
endless space and yet existing and abiding in the heart, and
the like.
Now Avhat the Vedanta Philosophy did with this doctrine of
the Upanishads on which it was founded, was, to strip it&
Universal Spirit, Brahma, of the personal attributes with which,.
as the object of Religion He had been endowed, and to reduce
Him to a pure Philosophical Essence or Soul again ; and having
done this, to attempt to explain from this Universal Soul, the
origin and constitution of the AVorld. And as this Supreme
Soul was the pure essence of immortal existence, without
intenigence, self-consciousness, emotion, or will, it was neces-
sary to account for the mortality and evanescence of all created
things which in endless succession come into being and pass
away — for the evil and misery, the passion and gloom tliat
everywhere intermingle with and cloud the purity of all earthly
joy, dashing and confounding it ; and for the grossness and
Ignorance that everywhere limit and darken the purity of
knowledge and truth. And this the Vedanta Philosophy docs
by the simple expedient of putting before the Supreme Soul a
series of parti-coloured veils, or coloured glasses if you will, in
Avhich it looks, to contemplate and enjoy the images and
reflections of itself which are seen there. Now these veils,
or domes of coloured glass, are Ave in number, and are each
made up of three separate qualities or colours, but in different
proportions, viz., of Goodness or Purity which may be figured
HINDOO riiiLOSornY. 91
as pure white ; of Passion and Activity which may be fignrcd
as red ; and of Ignorance and Darkness which may be fignrcd
as black. Of these veils the first is so nearly transparent that
the Supreme Soul when it looks through it, sees itself almost
in its naked purity; and when this veil is put on, the Soul,
although free from all emotion, feels itself pervaded by a
certain diffused happiness or bliss, as of a person in a light and
dreamless sleep. AVhcn the second veil is put on — the veil of
pure intelligence and self-consciousness we may call it — in
which the pure white of the veil is slightly tinged with the
redness of the passion which must inhere in every personality,
the Supreme Soul, which is without self-conscious inteUigencc,
emotion or will, which is pure and free from all evil and all
activity, sees itself as a self-conscious being, fully aware of its
own existence, and of its own feelings and activities, whether
they be good or bad. AVhon the third veil is put on — the veil
of K'orldhj intellect and judgment, the Supreme Soul, Avhich is
free from all doubt, hesitation, or passion, finds itself hoping
and fearing, wondering and doubting, sorroAving and rejoicing,
as the shifting, changing Avorld of objects and attractions pass
before its view. When the fourth veil, again, is put on — the
veil of vitality — the Supreme Soul, although devoid of all
motion, life, or activity, finds itself speaking and acting and
moving:, eatino- and drinkino- as in some strenuous dream.
And finally when the fifth and last veil — that of the material
hody is put on — a veil which is made up almost of pure dark-
ness, the Supreme Soul, which is infinite in extension, which is
immortal and unchnngeable and free from pain and decay, finds
itself cribbed and confined in this mortal cabin of a body, sub-
ject to pain, to birth, growth, change, decay and death. Or in
a general Avay we may say that when the first veil is put on,
the Supreme Soul is conscious only of a vague diftused hapiii-
ness, as of a dreamless sleep ; when the second, third, and
fourth are put on, it feels or imagines itself acting and suffer-
ing, hoping and fearing, doing and daring, as in a vexed and
92 Till': EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
troubled dream ; when the fifth, the material body is put on, it
sees and feels itself a thing of flesh and blood, standing there
awake and in the open day. .Vgain, when the veil is most
largely composed of whiteness or purity, the Soul is conscious
only of high aspirations, pure sentiments, and the nobler
exercises of the imagination and heart ; when it is mixed more
largely with the red and dark shades of passion and ignorance,
the Soul is conscious of the conflict of fierce passions, and is
filled with the lust of the eye, and the pride of life ; when it
is made up mainly of darkness, the Soul is conscious of dulness
and stupitlity, of pain, mortality and decay.
It is then, from these diiTerent veils that the Vedanta Philo-
sophy accounts for Natui-e, and for the great variety of
attribute, affection, quality, and condition of body and mind ;
it is from the blending of the different colours in these veils
that it accounts for the spectacle everywhere seen of joy dashed
with sorrow, of aspiration with baseness, of pure sentiment with
selfishness, of pure truth with falsehood and ignorance. The
pure white of the Universal Soul, which is without conscious-
ness, emotion, passion, intelligence, or will, is by the inter-
position of these parti-coloured veils or screens, seen as the
moving panorama, the brilliant phantasmagory of Nature and
life. But it is all an illusion. With the exception of Time
and Space, Avhose objective reality has only been denied in the
Idealism of Modern Philosophy, there is in reality, no parti-
coloured world of good and evil, of beauty and ugliness, of
happiness and misery, of light and darkness, such as we imagine
we see around us ; there is no "I " as distinct from " You," from
other men, and from the world of Nature; there are no separate
and self-conscious minds that perceive, and judge, and know,
and will, and do ; there is nothing, in truth, but the One
Supreme Soul, which is blank as Space itself, which is in all,
and through all, and one with all.
Such is the great Vedanta system of Philosophy so prevalent
among the higher Hindoo minds of the present day. And
HINDOO PHILOSOrnY. 93
before passing on, it may 1)C well to pause and to note tliat the
Supreme Soul in this philosophy has none of those attributes
of self-conscious intelligence and will which the Supreme Cause
has in Western Thought, and that these high attributes of the
mind are neither part nor product of the Soul, as with us, but
are, like the rest of Physical Nature, the offspring entirely of
those veils of illusion with which it has surrounded itself.
That is to say, Intelligence, Self-consciousness, and Will, instead
of being, as with us, parts or attributes of the Sujjreme Spirit,
arc in this Vedanta Philosophy, as in all the other Hindoo
philosophies, part of Nature, that is to say of the matenal side
of things with Avhich as its other side the Soul is bound up.
Individual salvation, in consequence, or that union of the
individual soul Avith the Supreme Soul Avhich is the end and
aim of the Hindoos, can only be attained by the perception of
the fact that the world of Nature and of human life and even
the world of intelligence itself, strange as it may seem, are but
the results of so many veils of illusion by which we are deceived ;
and that therefore all the loves and interests which appertain
to these things, must be entirely shut out from the mind and
heart. Or in other words, the Supreme Soul raises up an
intelligence which is no part of itself, in order to enable the
Soul to separate itself from what is not itself, and from this veiy
intelligence as much as from the rest ; as the seed, in the words
of the great Sankaracharya, purifies the water of its mud, and
then sinks to the bottom Avith the sediment when the work
is done.
With this great Vedanta Philosophy as starting point, a
philosophy in which tho Supreme Soul plays so important a
part as to reduce its material counterpart to a mere veil or
illusion, it is evident that Plindoo Philosophy cannot rest, but
must continue its evolution throuo-h a staoc In which the
o o
Material Factor shall have some more real and positive place
assio-ned it. And this we have in the next s-i-cat svstem,
the Sankhya. In this system the two sides have equal and
94 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
co-ordinate functions. The niateriul side, Instead of being
reduced as in tlic Vcdanta to a series of illusory veils, is
made up, on the contrary, of a series of real substances
corresponding to these veils In number and function, and like
them made up of a triple strand of Purity or Goodness,
Passion or Activity, and Ignorance or Darkness. And as in
the Vcdanta the first veil, the one nearest the Supreme Soul,
is represented as the cause of the other veils, so in the
Sankhya the first material essence or substance, called Prakriti,
with which the Soul is bound up, is the one from which the
rest are evolved, — the Higher Intelligence, the Self-conscious
Worldly Intellect, the Vital Principle, and last, the Material
Body itself — in practically the same order, and with the same
functions, as the veils in the Vedanta. The only diff"erence
between the two is that Avhilc in the Vedanta it is that portion
of the first veil which is made up of Darkness or Ignorance
which arouses the Passion that It Is the function of the Purity
or Goodness to countervail ; In the Sankhya, Passion is the
element In the triple compound Prakriti, which is the primary
moving power that sets In motion both Goodness and
Darkness,
As fort he Supreme Soul itself, Purusha, which is bound up
with this Prakriti, this material side of things, instead of being
all in all as in the Vedanta, where the material side is an Illusion,
it is reduced In the Sankhya to the position of a mere onlooker^
as indeed was almost Inevitable In a system In which the evolu-
tion of the material side accounted for everything — for the
World, Nature, Life, and the Mind Itself. Nothing was left
for the Supreme Soul to do, unless indeed It were by Its mere
presence, as of a concealed magnet, to Avake all those elements
into activity and life. Hence it is represented as absolutely
impassive, and unaffiected by anything occurring either in
Nature or in the body, mind, or heart of Man ; over all of
which, Indeed, It sits as a brooding spectator merely. It has
been compared In its relation to the evolving life of the world,
HINDOO niTLOSOrUY. 95
to the lame man who sits on tlie shoulders of the blind man to
be carried along with him to contemplate and enjoy the
"beauties and glories of the way ; Nature, the World, and the
Life of ]\Ian existing, as is said in the original, like the exhihi-
tions of a dancing girl, for the delight and contemplation of the
Soul. And here, too, as in the Vedanta, it is important to
observe that the Supreme Soul is devoid of Intelligence, Self-
consciousness, and Will ; and that these qualities instead of
being, as with us, parts or attributes of the Supreme Being, are
only parts or attributes of Nature, Prakriti, or that material
essence with which the Soul is bound up. And hence in this
system too, as in the Vedanta, individual salvation is to be
attained by a knowledge which shall clearly separate all that is
merely a product of Prakriti, from the Soul itself with which it
is the fate of untutored ignorance to confound it; and so
deliver the Soul from that bondage to sense, and in conse-
quence from those weary rounds of incarnation and re-incarna-
tion to which it is doomed, so long as by ignorance and passion
it is attached to mortal existence.
If then in the Vedanta the Supreme Soul is everything, and
its material counterpart only an illusion ; and if in the Sankhya
both Soul and Matter are alike real, the Soul beino- the
onlooker which by its mere presence stimulates into activity
and life the material side, Prakriti, which in its evolution gives
birth to Mind as well as Matter ; it is evident that the circuit
of Hindoo Philosophy cannot be closed until some system shall
arise in which the Material side of thino-s shall be made the all-
important factor, and the Soul in turn be degraded to an after-
product or effect of the Material Atoms to which it is attached.
And this system we have, accordini^lv, in the Vaiseshika
of Kanada, the " Atom Eater " as he was called, who figured
the world as made up of an infinite number of atoms of five
different kinds, fire, air, earth, and water — and mind. These
atoms are represented as invisible ; and under the wand of an
invisible Necessity, named Adrishta (which is itself the result
96 THE EVOLUTION OF IIIxNDOO THOUGHT.
of works and actions done in a previous Avorld), are arranged and
marshalled into aggregates, first of twos, and then of threes, at
Avhich point they form the visible pnrticlcs of fire, air, earth, and
water, as well as of what is called mind. Now it is important to
observe that this thing called mind, is, like the rest, built up
of invisible atoms of mind. It has a definite existence in time
and space, and will only allow one tliought at a time to pass
through it to the Soul ; and being, besides, only a combination
or aggregate of the original and eternal atoms of mind, it is
decomposable into its elements again, and so is as transient an
existence as any other natural product, coming into being like
all things else, and like them passing away. Now it is these
visible, tangible, and otherwise sensible masses or afjo-reo-ates
of fire, air, earth, w^ater, and mind, that, when still further
combined among themselves in different proportions, make up,
according to the Vaiseshika system, the infinite variety and
complexity of the world and of human life. And just as in the
Vedanta System the world of men and things is accounted for
as the result of the refractions of a number of parti-coloured
veils or glass domes of illusion with Avhich the Soul is sur-
rounded, and in the centre of which it sits enshrouded ; and as
in the Sankhya System it is these same veils that are transformed
into real substances made up of the same three qualities or
parts, viz., Purity, Passion, and Ignorance ; so in the Vaiseshika
it is again the same, or practically the same, veils or divisions
that appear, but in this case they are composed of infinite
a(TO'veo;ates of atoms, in difterent forms and staf>;es of combination
and complexity.
Such is the material side of this system. As for the other
side, the Supreme Soul, it is the same as in all the other
Hindoo Systems, that is to say it is infinite, eternal, without
self-consciousness, intelligence, or will, without pain, or
pleasure, or motion, or any other quality wdiatever except
mere extension. And as for the individual souls of men, they
are represented as each diffused through the infinite space like
HINDOO nilLOSOPIIY. <J7
iin ether ; and lilce vast and infinite balloons take their colour,
complexion, and qnality from the particular combination of
atoms, bodily and mental, to which at some point of their vast
extent they adhere, as the polyp takes its colour from that of
the particular rock to -which for the time being it is attached ;
taking a spiritual impress from its material counterpart as wax
from seal — good and evil, pleasure and pain, merit and demerit.
In this way the t-ouls of men pass from incarnation to incar-
nation, gathering up merit or demerit as they go along, from
the particular combinations of bodily and mental atoms with
which during their earthly pilgrimage they are bound up, and
transmittinor it accumulated and intact to the next : until at
last, purified from all grossness, and with colour, quality, and
■complexion now indistinguishable from that of the Universal
Soul in which they all alike float, they become merged and
absorbed in it ; and so escape at last from that weary round of
incarnation to which they appeared to be doomed. And here,
too, again, we may formally repeat that in this system, as in
the others, the Universal Soul is devoid of Self-conscious
Intelli2:ence and Will : that these hi<>h lumian attributes are but
us the vapours and exhalations that arise from the particular
•combination of bodily and mental atoms to which they are
attached ; and that salvation is only to be reached Avhen these
individual souls become as neutral in quality, pure in tint, and
free from all admixture, as the Supreme Soul itself.
These three systems being representative of the only three
radical changes that can be rung on the double-sided principle
•of Soul as the Supreme Cause of things, Avith them Hindoo
l*hilosophy, in so far as it is made up of speculative systems,
.practically ends. In the Vedanta system, as we have seen, the
Soul side was everything and the Material side nothing, an
illusion ; in the Sankhya, both the Soul side and the Material
side were real and independent entities, with distinct and
reciprocal functions ; and now in the Vaiseshika the Material
side is everything, and the Soul side, in its turn, is reduced to
H
08 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
a mere after-product or effect. But besides these distinctively
speculative systems, there are three otliers, the Nyaya, the
Yoga, and Mimansa, which are not World-systems, but which
beginning by accepting the current beliefs of the orthodox in
reference to the Supreme Soul and the like, or despairing of
finding the truth in systems made by human reason, concern
themselves rather with the kind of conduct or attitude of soul
necessary to obtain salvation, than with the knowledge which
in the systems we have just examined is the indispensable
means to that end. These more purely ethical systems have
existed in all ages, appearing in and among the speculative
systems, and keeping a kind of running accompaniment to
them Avithout in any way interfering with the natural course
of their evolution. Among the Greeks, for example, Socrates
was the first who, discarding the physical and metaphysical
theories of his time as problematical at best, and of but
secondary importance, made it his first concern to Instruct men
in conduct and virtue as the great aim of life ; the dialectic
method he employed, although afterwards used by Plato to
solve the problem of the Universe as a whole, being invented
by Socrates in the first instance for the more immediate object
of determining what in any given case was justice, and what
injustice, what was virtue, and what vice; questions which,
the sopliistries of the Sophists had so perplexed as to
make it almost impossible to determine. Among his followers,
the Cynics who constituted the left wing, made, like him, a
virtuous life the end of their philosophy, using the method of
dialectic rather to confii-m them in their contempt for the
ordinary decencies, the innocent enjoyments of life, than, like
Socrates, to find out by means of it what the golden mean was
in reference to all these things. The Stoics, again, although
they had a distinct speculative system of their own, still made
conduct and virtue and the best means of attaining them, the
great aim of their speculations ; Avhile in Christianity, while
the fathers and the doctors of the Church were engaged in
I
HINDOO rniLOSOPIlY. 9U
constructing its creed and philosophy, the great masses,
accepting the doctrines without question at their hands, sought
salvation by conduct cliiefly, and by tlie attitude of soul
known as faith, or conversion. In Modern Philosophy, too,
you have mystical systems like that of Boelnne, or systems
founded on faith and belief like that of Jacol)i, interspersed
among the purely speculative systems, or running side by side
with them. So, too, then with the Hindoo Philosophy.
Besides the Vedanta, Sankhya, and A^aiseshika systems which
were primarily theories of the World, you have the Nyaya
system which dealt chiefly with syllogism and logic ; the
Mimansa which made the Veda or Saci'ed Scriptures its only
God, representing it as having existed from eternity ; and
lastly the Yoga system of Patanjali. This system begins by
accepting the belief in the Supreme Being as fundamental, and
then goes on to ask by what conduct or mode of life, union
with Him is to be attained ? By distracting the mind from
worldly things is the obvious solution ; and in devising
expedients for doing this the ingenuity of this philosophy
exhausts itself. Among other things you are exhorted to
constantly repeat to yourself the mystic syllable Om, to
practise forbearance and religious observances, to put your
body in certain favourable postures, to hold the breath, to
restrain the senses, and, steadying the mind by contemplation.
to try and get into a trance by fixing the eyes steadily on tin;
tip of the nose ! And, indeed, so profound in many cases does
the trance become by means of these exercises, that, as Sir
Monier-WIlliams relates, men have been known to remain
immovably fixed for so long a time that birds have built nests
in their hair, and ants have thrown up nio'.nids as high as their
waists; they have stared at the sun till their sight was
extinguished, kept their fists clenched till the nails have grown
through their hands, and have kept their arms in the air until
they have become fixed there, and the flesh has witlicrcd to
the bone.
100 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
Now the object of nil these systems of conduct, whether
Modern, or Greek, or Hindoo, is to get rid of those cravings of
the senses and appetites which prevent the union of what is best
in us with the Supreme Spirit. Some, like the Stoics, accom-
plish this by trampling on the senses ; others, like the monks
and ascetics, by mortifying them or starving them ; others again
like the Yogis, by putting them to sleep in a trance ; but it is
only in Christianity that an attempt is made to accomplish the
same object, not by mortifying the senses and appetites, but by
drawing them off to a supreme object of love and devotion
elsewhere.
Such are the six systems of Hindoo Philosophy ; and with
them the principle of Soul as prime factor in the explanation
of the phenomena of the world and of human life, exhausts
itself. To turn these philosophies into the religions of the
great Hindoo masses, all you have to do is to give life to these
abstract essences by endowing them with personality and will.
For the Supreme Soul of the Vedanta, for example, you
substitute the god. Brahma; for the Supreme Soul, Purusha,
of the Sankhya system, and the material principle or Prakriti
with which it is bound up, you substitute the male god Siva,
and the goddess Sakti ; while for the multitudinous variety of
Nature, good and evil, through which the Supreme Soul is
manifested, you have the gods Vishnu the preserver, and Siva
the destroyer, with their numberless ears, and eyes, and hands.
With these preliminaries we shall now be the better able to
understand tlie great system of Buddhism, and to estimate
more justly the part that is likely to be played in the future
both of Religion and Philosophy, by the system now known as
Esoteric Buddhism or Theosophy. But before passing on to
this, it is necessary with a view to future developments, to
observe that in all these systems of Hindoo Philosophy there is
an entire absence of Science in the modern sense of that term.
As for Physical Science, there is of course absolutely none ;
there is nowhere any physical relation established between one
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY. 101
tiling and another, no line of connexion whereby when the first
thing or fact is given, the second may be foreseen to follow.
And as for Mental Science, instead of a system of relations
being established between any one part of the mind and every
other and the whole, by which you are able to predict that
when the first impulse or emotion arises the second may be
expected to follow, you have a mere list, catalogue, or in-
ventory of faculties or powers, — attention, memory, judgment,
love, hatred, envy, and the rest, — flung dow^n before you as ex-
planation of the mind ; much in the same way as the chemical
elements might be flung down in a heap as explanation of the
constitution of the material world, without any knowledge of
the laws of their special combinations and affinities. For
beyond the fact that you are told, as in the Vedanta and
Sankhya systems, that of the bodily and mental elements
which make up the different sheaths or veils that constitute
the world, the first ^jro(fuces the second, the second the third,
and so on ; or as in the Vaiseshika that from certain original
elements of body and mind all the differentiated powers,
qualities, and attributes of matter and mind are produced;
beyond this, neither the icJiy nor how required by Science in
its explanation of things is ever so much as hinted at ; — a fact
the supreme importance of which will be abundantly apparent
as the course of this evolution proceeds.
CHAPTEE II.
BUDDHISM.
TN the preceding cliapter we have seen that three radical
changes only can be rung on the double-sided pantheistic
principle of Soul, where that principle is invoked as the Supreme
Cause of Things, and that these three changes are in fact repre-
sented in the three distinct stages through Avhich Hindoo Pliilo-
sophy has passed in its evolution,viz.,in theVedanta, the Sankhya,
and the Vaiseshika systems respectively. In the first system,
the Vedanta, we saw that the spiritual aspect of the Soul was so
aggrandized, that the material side of things was reduced to a
mere appearance or illusion ; in the Sankhya that both sides
came in for equal, independent, and co-ordinate shares in the
common result ; Avhile in the Vaiseshika, the material side was
so prominent that the Supreme Soul, although it existed, yet
played no active part in the system of things at all, while the
Human Soul was reduced to the dependent position of a mere
effect of the groupings and combinations of its mind-atoms,
which, strange to say, constitute its material side. With these
three systems the general principle of Soul exhausts itself as
Supreme Cause of things ; and the only position left for Hindoo
Philosophy to take up is to deny the existence of Soul altogether,
both Divine and human. And this was the step taken by Buddha.
Of the details of the Buddhist system, the researches of
scholars have furnished us with material in such abundance.
BUDDHISM. 103
that probably little more of importance remains to be known ;
but oi the successive links in the chain of thought and reflec-
tion by which Buddha, brooding and pondering over the various
systems of religion and philosophy around him, arrived at his
results, no sufficiently consecutive account has yet been given.
This deficiency I shall now do my best to su])ply, and shall
•endeavour so to re-arrange the great central ideas of his
system, that its lesser streams of thought shall be seen to flow
from them by a natural and spontaneous sequence. And this
can probably be best done by enquiring at the outset, what
that aim or end is, which not only the Hindoo Religion but its
systems of Philosophy propose as the result of their labour and
speculation? The answer in a word is, the attaining of that
state of bliss which is believed to follow from the union and
absorption of the human Soul in the Divine; and the no less
important consequence of this, viz., the escape of the individual
from the necessity of re-birth and re-incarnation on earth.
And this latter consequence introduces us at once to one of the
most curious differences between the Eastern and the Western
mind, and to a view of the world and of life which to European
nations is scarcely credible. With us, life itself and the con-
tinuance of life — and the more and fuller the life the better —
is an end in itself, to be bought, if need be, by the sacrifice of
iilmost all else besides ; but to those poor Hindoos, what with
ages of despotism, and a certain impassivity of nature inherent
or acquired, life, which to us is u blessing, is a real curse and
sorrow ; and the prospect of birth and re-birth on earth, which
would give us no great concern, is as cheerless and hopeless as
the rounds of an everlasting treadmill, or an endless iournev to
and fro across burning or barren sands. And all the more so,
perhaps, because with them the task of shaking off the burden
of life on earth is so difficult. To us this seems a simple matter
enough, and anyone who is prepared to chance the life to come,
jnay at any time get rid of life on earth once and for all, by a
bare bodkin. But to the Hindoo, neither death by his own
104 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
hand nor by that of another can avail anything, so long as the
merit necessary for union with the Supreme Soul has not been
attained. So long as any the smallest trace of selfishness, of
love of the world and its vanities, adheres to the soul, it must
descend again to the Earth for further rounds of re-incarnation ;
and hence the extremes of asceticism and self -mortification to
which the Hindoo will cheerfully submit, in order to escape
from that dreaded fate.
With these preliminary observations, which may serve as-
key-note to the Hindoo way of looking at life, we may now
remark that that union of the Individual Soul with the Supreme
Soul which is to free men from further re-birth on Earth, is
represented both in Hindoo religion and philosophy as a state
of supreme bliss ; and it was owing to the logical contradictions-
which Buddha encountered when pondering on this doctrine of
supreme bliss and the means of reaching it, that his own
system of doctrine took its rise. For in all these Hindoo
systems, it will be remembered, it was a main article of belief
that no union of the human soul with the Divine Soul Ava»
possible, until the former had purified itself of the last trace of
selfishness and worldly desire. Now it is evident that no act
done in the present with the object of a future reward, can be
altogether free from that secret self-regard which, according to
all these systems, must be got rid of before the Human Soul can
unite with the Supreme Soul. Buddha had already discovered
this in his own experience, for having retired to the forest to
put in practice the asceticism of the Brahmin hermits — their
penances, and fastings, and bodily and mental mortifications.
— he found that he was still as far from the goal as ever. For,,
however much these asceticisms may have chastened his bodily
desires and appetites, they did not enable him to get rid of that
secret pride, self-love, and complacency which such so-called
meritorious acts tended to engender — and certainly not at all of
that longing for future bliss on which the eye of the devotee
was for ever fixed. He saw, in short, that they were merely
BUDDI1IS3I. 105
the sacrifices of present bodily and mental pleasure, for the
sake of a greater pleasure by and l)ye. lie was accordingly
constrained to give them up, much to the disgust of his com-
panions. As for the rites and ceremonies, the prayers and
sacrifices of the Brahmins, these were still more palpably only
sacrifices of present bodily or worldly good for the sake of a
greater future good, and were equally of no avail ; while as for
the systems of the philosophers, they were still more con-
tradictory. For while on the one hand they represented the
union of the Individual Soul with the Supreme Soul as a state
of perfect bliss, on the other hand, as in the Vedanta, they
represented this supreme bliss as due to the first of the veils of
illusion which the soul puts on ; and as all these veils must be
stripped off the soul before it can unite with the Supreme
Soul, it is evident that that union cannot be one of bliss. So
that whether we take the religion of the people, or the doctrines
of the philosophers, it is evident that the bliss for which they
all ahke yearn, and the cessation from earthly existence which
was their dream, were on their own logic impossible. And as
this was due entirely to the belief in the continued existence of
a ])ersonal identity called the Soul, through all the changes
both of body and mind, Buddha was impelled to deny the
existence of any soul whatever, whether human or Divine. But,
as to take this momentous step was to break with the whole
tradition of Plindoo Thought which, as w'e have seen, was built
from foundation to roof on this double-sided principle of Soul,
it was natural that it should give him pause ; and indeed it
was not until after prolonged meditation under the Bo-tree,
that he saw his way to a scheme of the World superior in
harmony to the old Soul-theory, and equal if not superior to it
in meeting the intellectual and moral wants of the time : and
so Avas finally impelled to break away for ever from the
doctrine of Soul, and once and for all to repudiate it.
Now as to these wants of the intellect and heart, there were
three at least for which any scheme must provide, if it would
lOG THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
meet with acceptance either from the j)hilosoplicrs or the
vulgar. It must provide some plausible theory of the World
and of Life, some credible explanation of the origin and
significance of this moving panorama of animals and plants and
men ; it nmst provide means for the cessation of birth and re-
birth on earth ; and it must provide some state of blissful
peace and rest, here or hereafter. And all these wants Buddha
felt that he could satisfactorily meet without the belief in any
Soul whatever, Human or Divine, and without going beyond
the circle of the thought and speculation of his time.
The first thing, however, was to get rid of the doctrine of
the Soul. How was this to be done 1 How explain the world
without it f And how make the mind hold together as a possible
existence without it ? ...his was Buddha's first concern, and to
jiccomplish it he had recourse to arguments drawn from the
mouths of the philosophers themselves. For he pointed out
that the feeling of continued personal identity and self-con-
sciousness from which the belief in a soul was drawn, was,
according to all the systems, a part not of the soul, but of the
material counterpart that is always bound up with it, coming
into being like other material existences, and like them passing
away. In the Vedanta System, for example, it will be remem-
bered, the feeling of self-consciousness was produced by one of
the veils of illusion with Avhich the Soul surrounded itself; in
the Sankhya, it was produced by Prakriti, the material counter-
part bound up Avith the Soul ; Avhile in the Yaiseshika it was
produced by one of those temporary aggregates of mind-atoms
which, like the atoms of fire, air, earth, and water, existed
independently of the soul. According tlierefore to the philo-
sophers themselves, self-consciousness or the feeling of pei'sonal
identity was either an illusion, or it was only a temporary
aggregate of sensations, tui-ning up in the great flux of things.
It was thus but a broken reed on which to rest the belief in a
Soul which, instead of a temporary appearance, was an eternal
and abiding realltv : which instead of being one in nature with
BUDDHISM. 107
self-consciousness, as in our Western thought, was eternally
<listinct from it. In this way having convinced himself that
there was no real justification in the systems of the philosophers
for the belief in the existence of the Human Soul, and much less
for the existence of the Supreme Soul, Buddha had now to
show how both the World and the Human Mind could be satis-
factorily accounted for without it.
Now both in the popular Hindoo belief and in the systems of
the philosophers, the world with its animals and plants and
men, was wont to be explained by the hypothesis that these
existences were the rewards and punishments which were being
meted out to re-incarnated souls for the good or evil deeds
done in previous lives ; and if the very existence of souls was
denied it would indeed at first sight seem impossible to account
for this varied world of life. But Buddha was equal to the
difficulty, and again it was in the systems of the philosophers
themselves that he discovered a basis for a theory of his own.
In the Vaiseshika System, it will be remembered, there were five
different kinds of atoms that had existed from all eternity, and
were immutable and indestructible. These were the atoms of
fire, of air, of earth, of water, and of mind ; and the change
and flux of things, their coming into being and passing away,
was explained as due not to any change in the atoms theui-
selves, but only to the different combinations into which for
the time being they entered. These original atoms included,
as I have said, those of mind; and just as the infinite varieties
of material bodies were only different combinations of the fire,
air, earth, and water ; so the infinite varieties of thoughts and
feelings were but different combinations of these original
atoms of mind. And as these atoms of mind were indestructible,
and as mental combinations cannot be decomposed by fire, air,
earth, or water, as material combinations can, it is evident that
those relativelv fixed combinations of thouoht and feclinir, of
craving or desire, which go to make up what we speak of as a
man's genius or character, cannot be dissolved by death like
108 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
material bodies (where the fire, air, earth, and water, burn,
quench, and otherwise extinguish one another), but, unless
killed during life, must wander about the world of shades like
disembodied spirits, holding together like a swarm of liberated
bees, until they come across a suitable body, nidus, or taber-
nacle, in which to take up their abode, — or in other words, to
re-incarnate. Such Avas the train of thouo;ht and reasoning*
that gave rise to Buddha's great doctrine of Karma, the
doctrine, viz., which denying the existence of Sovd, still asserts
that the effects on a man's self of his speech and action, or in
other words his character, are indestructible and cannot die,
and are as inevitable and as sure to appear, as the effects of
violations of, or conformity to the Laws of Nature ; thus
accounting for the world and its inhabitants without the necessity
of a Soul, and explaining the world of the future from the
world of the present, as it explains the present from the world
of the past. As for the origin, age, and First Cause of the
whole Universe itself which so exercised those who believed
in a Supreme Soul, Buddha having satisfactorily explained to
himself the limited world we see, was content to dismiss the
larger question as a mystery beyond the range, as it was
unworthy the concern, of serious men.
Having in this way explained the World and the Human Mind
wdthout resorting to the belief in the existence of souls, Buddha
was also prepared with a complete and harmonious scheme
for realizing the other two prerequisites of any philosophy that
should hope for popular support, viz., the getting rid of re-birth
and re-incarnation on earth, and the attaining to a state of bliss.
It will be remembered that in the popular religion and
philosophies of the Hindoos, the escape from further re-birth
and re-incarnation on earth was to be attained only by the
laying up of sufficient merit, — whether through rites and
ceremonies, purifications, penances, and pi'ayers, as in the
popular religion ; or by the extremes of asceticism and self-
mortification as with the Yogi hermits ; or by knowledge alone
BUDDHISM. 109
as amono- the Vedanta and other philosophers — hut that none
of them were able so to purge the soul of its self-interest, crav-
ino-s, and vanities, as to fit it for that union with the Supreme
Soul which was the only condition of its escape from the
rounds of birth and re-birth on earth. And we have now to
ask how Buddha proposed to do it '? Evidently, by in some
way or other destroying the Mind-atoms, or their re-incarnating
ao-o-reo-ates. But how? These atoms could not be killed by
the death of the body, either as atoms or when united into
those more or less definite and constant aggregates which we
know as individual character. Nor could they be killed ])y
knowledge as in the Vedanta and Sankhya Systems, for
knowledge alone would not give virtue and character. They
could only be said to be killed when the cravings and desires
ceased to exist. But as no asceticism and self-mortification,
however extreme, even if it kiUed the bodily organs associated
with desire (and this it could never altogether do while life
lasted), could kill the mind atoms of desire, could kill pride, or
self-love, or that craving for future bliss which was the motive-
power impelling to these mortifications ; the only other possible
alternative was to starve them out, as it were, by withdrawing
conscious attention from them, and so, gradually allowing
them to die of inanition. Now the only way of preventing
the mind from dwelling too much on its own self, was to fix
it on the not self, that is to say on the happiness or welfare of
others. It was not necessary, therefore, that the attempt
should be made to kill the desires outright as the Yogis did,
by the direct method of extreme mortification and asceticism ;
but only that they should be so far disciplined and trained as
to keep them at every point overshadowed and overpowered, as
it were, by the higher motives ; to keep them so subdued, in a
word, that the mind could always be turnetl from them, and
concentrated on the hapjiiness and welfare of others. And
hence it was that Buddha, after trying a course of sell-
mortification, penance, and asceticism in the forest, and
110 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
finding it unavailing, came out of it, not indeed to cat and
drink, and love and hate like other men, but to practice a
bodily and mental regimen which, although extreme when
compared with the freedom of other religious reformers such as
Mahomet and Christ, was when compared with the extreme
asceticism of the Yogis, almost licentious. His plan, then,
was not to try and stamp out that smallest residuum of desire
necessary to life, but to so arrange matters that, like Napoleon,
he should be able at all times and places to concentrate an
overpowering force of unselfish motive on any point where
desire was likely to arise, and so to beat it off or keep it down ;
to so load the unselfish motives, as it were, that, throw the
man in what position you would, his love for others and
abnegation of self would always, as in a loaded die, turn face
uppermost. He would, in a word, out-manoeuvre selfishness
and desire, and starve them out, rather than attempt to kill
them outright by a direct attack, — which, as we have seen, he
believed to be for ever impossible. Now this method he
summed up in what he called his " noble eight fold path "
which consisted in the folloAving eight particulars : — Right
belief, right feeling, right speech, right action, right means of
livelihood, right endeavour, right memory, and right medita-
tion. And here it is evident that the word right must mean
that two sides exist, and that feeling, speech, action, modes of
livelihood, endeavour, memory, and meditation are not to be
crushed out altogether by extreme asceticisms and self-
mortifications, as Avas the endeavour of the Yogi philosophers,
but only tliat the nobler exercises of tlicse functions, and not
the baser, shall at every point be ke})t supreme; that our
feeling, for example, shall be one of love, not of hate ; that
our speech shall be charitable, and not envious or spiteful ; that
our action shall be for the good of others, and not of
ourselves ; that our mode of livelihood shall be one which
while enabling us to support life, shall not be such as shall
stimulate or Inflame desu-e ; that our endeavour shall be after
BUDDHISM. Ill
high and pure thonglits and resolves, and not bodily mortifica-
tion; that our memory shall dwell on the lives of the Saints
and Arhats, and not on vain repetitions of the words of the
Vedas ; and that our meditations shall be centred on the
noblest truths, and not, like the Yogis, on mere nothingness
and vacancy — with the eyes fixed on the tip of the nose ! In all
this we see that two terms are involved between which therifht
relationship or harmony has to be established, and not merely
one term, with the other crushed out. Not a Greek harmony
it is true, where the several parts of our nature are as evenly
balanced as the opposite sides of a circle, but such a treatment
of them that the unselfish side shall always keep uppermost.
This involves, no doubt, a good deal of severe discipline, and
to those who would reach the highest goal, what to our AYestern
rnindc would seem the extreme of asceticism. The novice, for
example, Avho enrolled himself in the order of monks which
Buddha established, was not to marry ; he was to beg his food
from door to door, dressed in a ragoed oranoe-coloured robe :
and, dwelling in a hut in the forest, was to spend long hours in
meditation on the sublimest truths, and on the best ways of
doing good. But as the selfish nature in man is naturally
stronger than the unselfish, something more was necessary to
make the higher nature the stronger than merely disciplining
the lower and stroking it over with fine ethical precepts, how-
ever golden. All religions have felt this need, and have pro-
vided for it some in one way some in another. Christianity,
for example, took the positive method of attempting to re-
inforce and redouble the natural strength of the hiiihcr nature^
by the stimulus of the enthusiasm aroused among men by the
pi-esence of a unique personal exemplar. But as, according to
Buddha, each man had to work out his own salvation for liiiu-
self, without God or Soul, this method was not available; and
the only alternative was, in some way or other, still further to
weaken the lower desires. His ])lau was to cause the decay
and death of our lower nature not so nuich by directly
112 THE EA^OLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
attempting to stamp out the desires as they arose, as by
starving them out throuo:h cuttino^ off the motives for them at
their root ; in the same way, and on the same principle, as we
feel that to the condemned man about to die, the motives for
imtruthfuhiess are Avithdrawn. Now as Buddha conceived
that the motive-power which kept up the existence of desire,
was the belief in the existence in us of a Soul, or continuous
thread of personal identity running alike through our present,
past, and future, so that the pleasure lost now, would be gained
in the future by the same continuous ego ; he made the denial of
it the first step in the programme of his " noble eightfold path ; "
— Eight Belief, viz. or belief in the non-existence of Soul, Divine
or human. Believing the soul, as we have seen, to be a mere
aggregate of more or less definite feelings and powers, — ' skandas'
he called them — sensations, abstract ideas, memory, reflec-
tion, attention, Avill, joy, covetousness, contentment, shame,
cftVontery, love, hate, doubt, delusion, vanity, pride, merit
and demerit, etc., etc., some ^2 of them in all, including, be it
observed, individuality or self-consciousness, from which, as
Ave have seen, the idea of a continuous soul arises — and
believing these faculties and sentiments, in turn, to be mere
aoo-reo-ates of mind-atoms in difterent combinations ; these
combinations coming into being and passing away like bubbles,
mirage, or the foam of the sea — he considered it to be as absurd
to imagine that the same soul or individuality, the same ' I am,'
that enjoyed or suffered to-day, would enjoy or suffer to-
morrow, as it Avould be to imagine that it would be the same water
that would make the river to-morrow, that makes it to-day.
By gradually starving the desires, then, by cutting off all motive
for their action through the denial of the existence of a con-
tinuous soul in man, Buddha hoped to be able to keep the
hio-her nature supreme at every point, and that in time the
craving and desire, the thirst for existence, would gradually
slacken, until it ceased altogether. He believed that the
disciple Avho had felt the incfiicacy of all the rites and
BUDDHISM. 113
■ceremonies, the prayers, penances, and self-mortifications of
the Brahmins, and who should begin afresh by denying the
existence of Soul whether Divine or human, and of individuality
and personal identity, would be able gradually to reduce all
sensuality and hatred, all clinging to existence here or here-
after to a minimum, and finally to get rid of them altogether ;
that he would then be fit to enter on the path of the Holy
Ones or Arhats, where, free from all clinging to life, from all
])ride, envy, self-righteousness, and sin, he would, like a mother
with her child, have nothing else to live for but love to others,
and universal good-will. He would have attained to holiness,
and would have put an end to all delusion and all sorrow. He
would, in Buddha's own beautiful metaphors, stand like a pillar
■of the city gates laimoved, like the broad exjianse of earth
unvexed, or like the pellucid lake unruffled ; and Avould not
only have reached a bliss, a mental serenity and peace passing
all understanding while he lived, but at the end of this life
there should be for him no more re-births on earth. All desire
and craving having become extinct, no more Karma in con-
sequence was being produced, while the old one was gradually
working itself out and becoming exhausted. Now this bliss
here on earth, followed by death, or rather freedom from re-
birth hereafter, is what Buddha means by Nirvana — an inter-
pretation of the term which, following as it does by logical
necessity from the whole of his doctrine, re-unites and
reconciles the views of those two hostile schools of commen-
tators the one of whom w^ould have it to mean only a blissful
peaceful state of mental serenity in which all desire is extin-
guished, and the other only annihilation, by making it to
mean both, only not at one and the same time — but first bliss
here and in this world, and afterwards annihilation and
extinction. And if, as the Northern Buddhists and some of
the sects of Southern Buddhism contend, Nirvana means also
the continuance of this blissful state into another sphere of
existence; this, too, would still be in harmony with the rest of
I
114 THE EVOLUTIOX OF HIXDOO THOUGHT.
Buddha's doctrine. For if the bud mind-aggregates, tlic
aggregates giving rise to desire, etc., must continue for ever to
exist and to cause re-birth on earth unless killed out, the good
mind-aggregates which help to kill these bad ones by drawing-
off attention from them, must also continue to exist througli
all time. And if these good aggregates can produce a blissful
state of mind even in this world and while the body still lives,,
much more must they jiroduce this blissful state when the
body no longer lives to oppose them.
If now we ask in a general wav how Buddhism differed in
these resjiects from the existing Religion and Philosophies of
the time, we must answer that while they held out to their votaries
and followers a blissful existence in another state of being in>
the union of their individual souls with the Supreme Soul, and,.
in consequence, a cessation from re-incarnation on earth, Buddha
held out to his followers, besides the same freedom from re-
incarnation, a blissful existence in tins life, now and here, even
if not in another life also. Besides, Avliile what the Hindoo-
Religion and Philosophies promised, although beautiful in
theory, was impossible of attainment while the existence of a
continuous and individual soul was assumed ; what Buddha
promised was within the reach of all. And all this he was able
to do for them, by a new synthesis, merely, of doctrines already
held in one or other of the existing Hindoo Systems, and without
violating any of the distinctive features of Hindoo thought, —
with the single exception, of course, of the denial of the
existence of Souls. But this denial of a continuous ^personality
or individuality, however scientifically true, was so opposed to
the intuitions of men, that Buddhism, after having over-run
the greater part of India, was driven out in turn again by
Brahminism ^^■hich, Avith its doctrine of the soul, was more \\\
harmony, at that stage of culture, with the intuitions and
consciousness of men.
And now perhaps it may be as well to sum up the general
significance of these Hindoo systems of Religion and Philosoph\^
BUDDHISM. 115
by contrasting tlicm in tlicir great characteristics with our
"Western modes of thought. And this cannot be better done,
perhaps, than by comparing them as to the way in \vhich they
propose to attain the great end of all religions, in so far, that
is, as religions affect the minds and characters of men. Now
as the lower faculties of our nature, our self-interest and passions,
are stronger than our higher feelings and our regard for the
welfare of others, we may say that the main object of all
religious and ethical systems has been to devise means whereby
these positions shall be reversed, and the higher instincts of
our nature be so re-inforced and strengthened, that notwith-
standing their relative weakness they may be made practically
supreme. And this, it is obvious, can be done either by
weakening and depressing our lower nature, or by stimulating
and streno-theninsr our hioher, or bv both together. Now the
scheme of the Hindoo Religion and Philosophy is one of pure
and absolute repression, a dead mechanical round of pure
asceticism, self-mortification, and penance, with such bodily or
worldly sacrifices as are involved in the offering of w^orldly
goods or in the refraining from physical and bodily comforts.
In this scheme, the higher nature is kept uppermost, as we see,
not by any direct re-info rcement of itself from without, but by
the direct weakening and depression of the lower nature. In
Buddhism, the whole of these rites, ceremonies, sacrifices, and
offerings are swept away, the extremes of asceticism and self-
mortification are avoided as useless and unnecessary, and only
such repression is put on appetites and desires as shall prevent
their intruding on the field of consciousness ; the main reliance
being placed on the process of starving them out, by denying
the existence of the soul, or continuous identity, in wliose
service they are yoked, and thus cutting off the motives
that keep up their activity ; trusting that when the motives
for selfishness are killed out, there will l)e no more
reason for withholding our natural sympathies from others, than
thi-ee would be for a condennied man withholding the truth on the
116 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
morning of his execution, or for a balloon not rising in the air
when the ropes that keep it to the earth are cut away. With
Christianity, on the other hand, all is different ; and the
difference is typical of the toto coelo difference between
Eastern and Western thought. Christianity differs from both
Hindooism and Buddhism in the same way as the principle of
love differs from the principle of asceticism, as the solicitude
of affection differs from the sordid calculations of hope and
fear. It acts, not by repressing the lower, but by stimulating
the higher nature ; raising it above itself, as it were, by holding
up before it for its contemplation a Divine ideal and object of
love, in whose presence the lower desires shrink into the shade.
In other words, while Hindooism would keep the higher nature
uppermost, by the direct but negative method of killing out the
lower, and Buddhism bv the indirect but still neo-ative method
of cutting away the motives that feed its root, Christianity
would accomplish the same object by the positive method of
directly stimulating, strengthening, and aggrandizing the higher
nature, by holding up before it a supreme object of devotion
and love.
Now if these differences correspond to differences in the very
genius of Eastern and Western Thought, it is not very likely
they will stop here, but will be found to run into every aspect
of practical life and conduct. Hindooism, for example, repre-
sents the extreme of Individualism. The one object of its
votaries is to save their own souls, not by working for the
welfare of others but by attending solely to their own salvation,
not by following through love the footsteps of a high personal
exemplar wherever they may lead, but by practising a low and
selfish asceticism, and by keeping a profit and loss account of
merit and demerit. It has no regard, therefore, for the
welfare of the family, let alone for that of the State, or the
world at large ; and to this disregard, the doctrine of re-Incarna-
tion, which means the Incarnation in their children not of their
own sculs but of the souls of other men, still further lends
I
BUDDHISM. 117
itself. InJeecl, neither Ilindooism nor Buddhism, being based,
the one on the doctrine of Soul as the Supreme Cause of things,
and the other on its mere denial, can find support in their
systems for any doctrine of love among men ; for that senti-
ment can only get inspiration from an intelligent, loving First
Cause, and not from a mere blind Vital Principle or Soul.
Now Christianity no doubt, too, is primarily individualistic,
for the first object of the believer is to save his own soul ; yet
owing to its o;ettin2; its constrainino; force from the love of
Christ, and the fatherhood of God, it permits and encourages
all that can make for the good of the family, the State, and the
World : feelino; that in this it is doino; the Avill of God. Asrain
the object of Ilindooism being to attain to bliss by the direct
suppression of all forms of desire, all the great work of secular
life which springs from the stimulus of one or other form of
desire — of wealth, of power, of fame, of applause — is directly
repressed; and life itself, with nothing on which to exercise
itself, must become a weariness, and re-birth therefore a misery
and sorrow. It is obvious, then, that Civilization, which is the
record of the achievements of man when pushed on by the
desire to satisfy his wants, — his want of what is good to eat,
good to Mear, good to ease the friction of life and of society,
good for peace of mind, good for the satisfaction <»f the eye
and heart, and the like, — it is obvious that Civilization, to men
who can live on a little rice, and with whom the satisfaction of
these desires could only serve to lay up a store of future
demerit, must be an anomaly ; and, since for the same reasons,
Science, in the modern sense of the term, and in its application
to the arts of life, has made no advance ; must remain stagnant
and unprogressive. Buddhism, too, has no need of Science ; for
although, like Christianity, it makes the good of others one of
its means of Salvation, it is not their bodily or mental welfare
but only the welfare of their souls that is its object, and not of
their souls in the sense of expanding and enlarging them, but
only in the sense of the merit or demerit, x\\v profit or loss tliey
118 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
are laying up for themselves aguinst the day of judgment or
re-incarnation. It supplies, therefore, no motive to forward
Science, or to apply it to the arts of life. And as the object of
Buddhism is the suppression of all de'sire, it gives no stimulus
to material progress or to Civilization. Indeed one may
observe here, that neither liindooism nor Buddhism could be
universal religions, were it for nothing more than that they
both require that others shall supply their bodily wants while
they sit in meditation ; and therefore their success, viz., the
getting rid of desire, is only possible on the condition that
others shall have enough desire to work to support them.
With Christianity, on the other hand, where the desires, instead
of being repressed, find their legitimate sphere in working for
the good of the family, the State, and the World, Science is
directly stimulated and encouraged for the sake of its practical
results ; and would be more so, indeed, were it not for fear of
its speculative effects on the Mosaic Cosmogony with which
Christianity happens to be bound up. Civilization, in con-
sequence, is to that extent directly promoted by Christianity.
Summing up, then, we may say of Buddhism, that it is the
most determined attempt ever made to solve the problem of
the world not onlv without God or the Soul, but without either
Civilization or the influence of environing conditions. The
attempt, however, to make of it a universal religion was
hopeless in the face of the higher point at which Western
Thouijht had arrived. For althoua-h its beautiful ethical
precepts were in many ways identical with those of Christianity,
still the difference in the position occupied by these ethics in
the systems of Buddha and of Christ respectively is as great
as the difference in the position occupied by the Laws of
Nature, in Stoicism and in Modern Science. In Stoicism,
although the Laws of Nature were held up as inflexible and
inviolable, as a Fate to which all must bow, still no attempt was
made to discover any of these laws ; and in the absence of the
knowledge of the particular laws, no ad\'ance was possible
BUDDHISM. 119
citlicr in knowledge of the world, in civilization, or in the arts
of life. So, too, with Buddhism. Although its central precept,
its in Christianity, is the doing good to others, that good
consists in the cutting away of all desire, and therefoi'c no
-effective motive is given for improving the material welfare of
men. Its power of really helping others, accordingly, could
go no farther than sitting idly weeping over them or witli
them, or in the barren comfort of wishing them well ; whereas
■Christianity, by encouraging Science in the application of its
discoveries to the welfare of the family, the State, and the
World, really does the good which Buddhism may desire
indeed, but which, from its very genius and spirit, it can take
no step to carry into effect.
CHAPTER III.
MODERN THEOSOPHY
TN the present chapter I propose to complete my study
of Hindoo Thought by some account of that curious
modern mixture of Hindooism and Buddhism which is known as
Theosophy. I do this the more readily inasmuch as it will not
only give me an opportunity of discussing certain great in-
tellectual fallacies by which the human mind has at all times
been deceived, but will also help to dissipate the exaggerated
pretensions which have been made for this particular system
by its modern disciples. For this ancient wisdom of the Eastern
Sages, this philosophy of the Mahatmas or Masters, professes^
it is to be remembered, to contain a more comprehensive,
harmonious, and sublime scheme of the Universe, than that
unfolded in the Modern Philosophy of Evolution ; and to
meet and satisfy the higher emotions and needs of the intellect
and heart better than the Religion of Christ. I had myself
stumbled on the subject during the course of my studies of
Hindoo Thought, and imagining that perhaps it would form
only a natural sequence or pendant to the other Hindoo
Systems, I entered on the perusal of Mr. Sinnett's " Esoteric
Buddhism," the work in which the Mahatmas first gave their
knowledge to the Western World, with somewhat languid
interest. But I had not gone far when I found that it con-
tained a system of Cosmogony, Ethics, and Metaphysics, more
MODERN THEOSOPIIY. 121
complex, ingenious, and harmoniously adjusted, than any I had
yet known; a system elaborated and refined to a point of
detail, of which there was no example in orthodox Buddhism
or in any of the other Hindoo Systems, and to which the
system of Evolution of Mi-. Herbert Spencer with its magnifi-
cent and far-related symmetries, alone in Western Thought
affords a parallel. I was amazed at the stupendousness and
harmony of the scheme, rather than convinced by it, but I
nevertheless felt that here was a system of Thought before
which one must pause, a system which one could not skip, but
Avhich would stand confronting one until it had been reckoned
Avith, and in some straightforward and legitimate manner put
out of the way. I had at that time been reading a
good deal about thought-transference, hypnotism, clair-
voyance, and the like, and Avas no doubt carried away
into allowing the j^owers of the ^lahatmas a greater range
than, as we shall see, can legitimately be claimed for them ;.
and it was not until I saw that the !Maliatmas had assumed for
these iDOAvers of clairvoyance, etc., an extension into spheres of
truth not legitimately open to them, that I perceived that the
picturesque symmetries and ingenious harmonies Avhich had at
first so much impressed me, were not necessarily the expression
of real facts at all — facts, that is to say, which could be seen by
us all if our faculties had been sharpened by training and
exercise to the due pitch — but, on the contrary, that they need
only be mere paper-harmonies ; harmonies, that is, Avhich if one
knew the precise difficulties to be overcome could be Avorked
out on paper, like prize puzzles, by successive generations of
ino-enious monks exercisins; their imairination and Avorking
perhaps, on some earlier design or pattern that had come down
to them. And then, too, I perceived that however high and
noble the aims of the Thcosophists might be, and this I readily
admit, if once this illegitimate method of the self-hypnotist
and clairvoyant, Avere to supersede the ordinary and legitimate
methods of Science, viz., observation, experiment, induction,
122 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
and verification — not only would men be perplexed with the
world of ghosts and shades and malignant spirits of the
departed which the Thcosophists have conjured up for us, but
it would bring back all those superstitions of the Middle Ages
which we have at last and with so much labour happily out-
grown. The witch and the black magician would again be
with us ; the sorcerer would take the place of the Scientific
Physician and of the careful observer of Natural Law ; and the
more nervous portion of mankind self-hypnotized by their own
superstitions, would again be Avhipped into madness by the
imaginary presence among them of hosts of malignant but
invisible foes. And now I saw why it was that the high priests
both of Religion and Science had passed by Theosophy in
silence. The truth is, it does not lay itself open to refutation
either by Physical Science or by Religion. Not by Science ;
for it professes to exhibit its harmonies on a plane to which
Science does not pretend to have as yet been able to penetrate,
and by means of mental powers to Avhieh Science with its
limitation to the five senses and the instruments that aid them,
is a stranger. Nor can it be refuted by Religion ; for it simply
and frankly opposes the authority and revelation of the
Mahatmas to the authority and revelation of Jesus and
Mahomet, and nothing more can be said. If refuted at all, it
would most easily be done by the method which the Zoologist
would use to refute the claims of some strange and newly-
discovered mammal that Mas being forced on his notice ; from
the ])oint of view, viz., of its philosophical genealogy, or the
position it occupies in the evolutionary chain of World-
Philosophy as a whole. And one Avould make the same reply
to Theosophy that the Scientist would to the stranger who
should come from Australia, bringing with him specimens of its
flora and fauna, and who should contend that their rich and
luxuriant foliage or their particular beauties of structure
rendered it probable that they would supersede the flora and
fauna of the AYestern "World. The Scientist would reply that
MODERN THEOSOPIIY. 12
o
this result must be for ever impossible, as the forms in question
— kangaroos, ferns, and palm-like trees — were the lineal
descendants and existing representatives of tliose earlier and
lower forms of life which during the Jurassic period covered
the entire globe, but which, owing to geological catachysms,
had become imprisoned in Australia and the adjacent islands,
Avhile the flora and fauna of the mainland had gone on to the
development of higher and higher forms. In the same way one
would endeavour to prove that Theosophy, like some opossum
among the higher mammalia, is the sole representative in the
Western World of a type and mode of thought which attained
its culmination in the East some two thousand years ago, but
Avhich cut off since then from European influences has
remained stagnant, while European Thought has steadily gone
on evolving into higher and higher forms. And one might go
farther and contend that far from superseding Vv^estern modes
of Thought as its followers believe, it will not even be able to
unite with them so as to take Its place as an element in the
philosophical evolution of the future. But I must limit myself
for the present to the direct treatment of Its two great cardinal
features, viz., its Method, and Its Doctrine of the Planetary
Chain. In doing this, I shall make no apology for treating the
matter seriously, ridicule of the system having already had its
day ; and the discussion, at any rate, will serve to throw Into
clearer relief some of those curious tricks of Intellectual sleight-
of-hand by which, in this motley age of Spiritualism,
liationalism, Scientific Materialism, and Religious Dogmatism,
the beliefs and imaginations of men have been entrapped,
fascinated, or subdued.
To begin, then, with the Instrument or Method by wliieh
the Mahatmas have arrived at their knowledge of the Con-
stitution of the World, and of tlie end, aim, and meaning of
existence. Now of all the characteristics of a system of
Philosophy, this of the ^Method or Instrument by which it
arrives at truth is by far the most important. Whether a
124
THE EVOLUTION OF HI>iDOO THOUGHT.
system relies mainly on the testimony of the outer physical
senses, as in Mr. Spencer's Philosophy of Evolution, or on the
testimony of the inner spiritual senses, as in the poetic philo-
sophies of Bacon, Goethe, Emerson, and Carlyle ; whether,,
with Cardinal Newman, it uses the " Illative Sense," or, like
the ^Metaphysicians, the merely logical and formal Under-
standincr : Avhether it makes the satisfaction of the heart its
main criterion, as in the higher religions, or employs the
method of clairvoyance and hypnotism, as is done by the
Mahatmas, — on this question of the " instrument " or method,
as on the right or wrong focussing of a camera, will depend
either the truth and reality of the resulting picture, or its false-
ness, exaggeration, and deformity. I shall not, therefore,
apologize for asking the reader to observe with me the cunning^
and dexterous manipulation with which the Mahatmas, in pre-
senting their system to the World, have substituted for the
genuine results of their method, totally different and illegitimate
ones, as if they were one and the same thing. Their method,
as I have said, is the method of the clairvoyant, the thought-
reader, the hypnotist, or the spiritualistic medium — it matters
not Avhich, for in essence they are all alike — and the one
indispensable condition to success is, that the things they
reveal while in the trance-like state shall be previously known
to some living mind or minds with whom the medium is able to
put himself en rapport. In this state, it is now generally
admitted, the medium can do many strange and wonderful
things. He can, for example, tell you the number of a bank-
note known only to its possessor, he can find his way to the
spot where a hidden pin lies, he can read the contents of sealed
letters, and can even recall circumstances and events in the life
of others which have passed quite out of their consciou;*
memory. Or, again, in his capacity of crystal-gazer he can
look at a finger-ring and tell you the romance of its history, at
the panels of a room and uncover again the deeds and scenes of
which they were the witness, at the ruins of a city wall and re-
MODERN THEOSOPHY. 125
trace the steps of its prosperity and decay. But all this he can
do only on one condition, viz., that the facts in question are
known to one or other of the persons present at the seance, or
to those -with whose mind he has been able to put himself in
communication. Now in all this, it is evident that there is no
increase of knowledge either of the facts or of the laws of Nature
or of human life, but only its transfer or exchange. The con-
tents of one mind are picked and appropriated by another, and
the sum-total of knowledge in the world remains the same as
before. And hence it is that no clairvoyant, thought-reader,
or mesmerist has ever professed to have added anything by his
art to the existing knowledge of Nature or of human life. He
has never made any discovery by it in mechanics, physics,
chemistry, biology, or botany ; has never by invention applied
discoveries in these sciences to the arts of life ; and has never
thrown any new light on history, or on the causes that regulate
the rise and fall of Societies or of States. Indeed, unless
someone whose thoughts he can pick has already known these
things before him, he can utter no word; and until the
astronomer, the zoologist, and the traveller have spoken, he
must remain dumb as to the constitution of the ^loon or Mars,
as to the life of the deep sea beds, and as to the interior of
dark and impenetrable continents. And as for his knowledge
of the laws of that human mind whose passing thoughts he can
pick so easily, one would as soon expect to get an essay of
Bacon or a play of Shakespeare from a schoolboy, as from
him. But to do him justice, he has made no pretence to be
able by his method to do any of these things.
And now observe the difference in the attitude and pose of
the Mahatmas. Their object is the same as that of the medium,
viz., to pass as quickly and easily as possible into that trance-
like state into which a hypnotized or mesmerized person is
thrown ; their means, too, are the same, viz., the fixing the
attention steadily on some object — in their case, as is recom-
mended by the Yoga Philosophy, usually on the tip of the
126
THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
nose ! There is no reason, therefore, why then' powers should
differ in kind from those of the ordinaiy medium, however
much, owing to their greater asceticism and more systematic
training, they may differ in degree, as for example in the clearness
of their trance-perceptions, the distance to which their mind
can be projected, and the like. And yet, with a hardihood ta
which I can remember no parallel, they have calmly assumed
that because they can read off with facility such facts and events
as are known to other minds, they could equally read them were
they altogether unknown. And, indeed, at the first blush the
two things seem so alike, and it seems to make so little difference
whether you can read off the facts from other men's minds or
read them off independently, that their disciples have been
completely taken in. And yet when you come to consider it,
there is as deep a gulf fixed between the two things,
as between heaven and earth. Tlie one, as we have
seen, gives no increase of knowledge, the other is the
virtual assumption of all knowledge ; the one goes no
farther than the modest claims of the thought-reader, the other
boldly claims the omniscience of a God. Once allow the
Mahatmas this omniscience, and it follows that nothing in
heaven or earth or sea can be concealed from their gaze. And
accordingly we find them claiming, and their disciples admitting,
that they could, if they would, settle for us all those disputed
questions about the inner constitution of the Sun, the nature of
the Ether and other elemental forces, and the like, on which men
and Science have been so Ions; eno-ao-ed : while as for what takes
place within the mere limits of our Solar System, they are as
familiar with it as if it were their own back o-arden. And this claim
of omniscience on the part of poor mortals like themselves, their
disciples instead of baulking at, have swallowed with as much
credulity and easy good faith as yokels at a country fair. Stiffly
upheld in their belief by the phenomena of hypnotism and
thought-transference which in all simplicity they imagine to be
the same sort of thing, but differing only in degree, they have
MODERN THEOSOPHY. 127
yielded themselves up to this claim to omniscience on the part
of the Mahatmas without a murmur of protest or suspicion, dog-
gedly upholding the claim themselves, and indignantly repudiat-
ing any doubt cast on it by others. And all because some
poor clairvoyant or thought-reader is able to read the passing
thouirhts of other minds ! For it must be remembered that
the belief in the ^Nlahatmas rests not on any personal experience
which the disciple himself has of these powers, but on the
false assumption that they are really and logically analagous
with those other powers of which he has experience, viz., of the
thought-reader and hypnotist. Probably no more successful
piece of intellectual legerdemain has ever been played off in
the history of human thought, and considering how gross and
palpable is the deception, when once pointed out, none more
readily or greedily swalloAved. How gross the deception is,
and to what ludicrous lengths it will carry the disciple Avheit
once firmly entertained, can nowhere be better seen than in the
case of the author of " Esoteric Buddhism."* If, like tlio
rest, he has been betrayed by a false analogy into believing
that the things that are seen by clairvoyants and thought-
readers in a trance are the real things themselves, and not the
mere thoughts of the things as they exist in other minds, then it
follows that these things must have a real objective existence m
fact. And hence we have him gravely declaring that the astral
plane is croAvded not only Avith all the thoughts, ideas, wishes.
and passions of all the human beings who have ever existed,
but that every mountain, river, or building has also left its
imao-e there, and will continue to leave it for immeasurable
periods of time. And not only these, but tlie ghost of every
shop window, market cart, and hansom cab, even of every old
hat and pair of trousers, is to be found there also I To such a
depth of absurdity has he been reduced by not perceiving that
to see the thoughts of things as they exist in other minds —
and this is all lie had any reason to expect from the method of
•Nineteenth Century, August, 1S94.
128 THE EVOLUTIOX OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
the Mahatmas — is not quite the same thing as the omniscience
involved in their claim to see the thino;s themselves.
But if there be still any doubt, and if further proof be wanting
that neither clairvoyants, thought-readers, nor Mahatmas can
see what to mortal men cannot be known, it will be found in this
fact alone, viz., that Avhat these ' Seers ' say they see in the other
world for example (and this is a good test case), is in each case
as different and contradictory as are the impressions and ideas
in which they have been brought up. The French Spiritualists,
it is admitted, declare that the departed spirits who revisit the
earth, re-incarnate in their own children ; the English Spiritual-
ists deny that they do so ; and yet both are reporting not what
they imagine, but what they have seen. Again, both the French
and Englisli Spiritualists assert that it is the real spirits of the
departed that appear in seance rooms. The Mahatmas, on the
contrary, are equally sure that these are only their cast-ofF
' shells ' or mortal passions, which have been wandering about
and have been caught up and re-animated for the time being by
the mind of the medium ; and that their real self-conscious
souls are far off in Devachan or Heaven, wrapped in illusory
•dreams, and sublimely unconscious of the things of Earth.
Even the great recognized seers, in describing Heaven as they
have actually seen it, dift'er as widely in their reports as do the
mediums, and see only the reflection of that which they have
been brought np to ex[)ect. The Mahommedan seers, for
example, describe it as a beautiful garden of the blest, where
the figures of the Ilouris may be seen rejiosing under the trees
in the shade ; the Parsce sees the Chinbat Bridge of Souls
guarded by the dread maiden and her dogs. Swedenborg,
again, declared that he actually saw in Heaven those conditions
and states which correspond to the letter of the Bible in which
he had been brought up, and in which he believed ; while the
Thibetan Mahatmas see in Devachan only the pure spirit freed
from all the passionate parts of the Soul, and dwelling in
peaceful reverie on all the higher experiences of what was good
MODERN THEOSOPHY. 121)
tind beautiful in its last incarnation on earth. Could anything
further than this be wantino; to the demonstration tliat what
cUiirvoyants, thought-readers, seers, and Mahatmas alike see,
is not tlie real existences at all, but only the imaginations or
impressions that have been formed of them in their own or
other minds ? When, therefore, the disciples of the ^lahatmas
in all simplicity, urge as a proof of the truth of their system of
Cosmogony, that it is seen precisely alike by all the brother-
hood, the humour and absurdity of the position are as great
as if the mesmerist should seriously appeal to the unanimity of
the mesmerized under his influence, in proof of the assertion
that the floor was covered with rats, or that the water they
were drinkino; was the most delicious wine !
Having, by this first intellectual illusion, led their disciples
to accept their practical omniscience, the Mahatmas, by a second,
have induced them to accept their omnipotence also. Now I
am quite prepared to admit the possibility that the body of a
medium may, owing to some reversal of its polarity or other
<jause, be made to levitate towards the coiling instead of
gravitating to the floor; and that chairs and tables may be
made to move from their places by magnetic or other currents
■emanating from his body, in the same way as magnetic currents
•capable of setting up mechanical movements proceed from a
bar of iron when it has been brought into the condition of a
magnet. But this no more implies a knowledge, in tJie human
medium, of the forces that play through him, than in the metal
one. Were it otherwise, we should long ago have got from
the medium a new science. But to do him justice he has, as I
have said, never professed to know any more than his audience
either as to the nature or the laws of the subtle and mysterious
forces that play through his body, and by which he, far from
being able to control them, is himself controlled. He becomes
merely, as his name implies, a medium for the time being for
supplying us with a new order of facts. To get to a
Ivnowlcdge either of their nature or their laws, he, like the rest
130 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
of ui^, would be obliged to hnve recourse to the old method of
observation, ex^jeriment, and induction ; in other words he
would have to drop the method of the Medium, Clairvoyant, or
Hypnotist, and take up the method of the Scientist.
And now observe how the Mahatmas have changed all this.
Starting from the power of the medium to levitate to the ceiling,
or to make chairs and tables move without personal contact, as
their premiss or basis, the Mahatmas have persuaded their
followers into believing that it is merely an extension of the
same sort of thing when they profess to be able to clothe the
spirit at pleasure in a new body of flesh and blood, and Avith
this body to pass through stone walls as if through air ; to call
the elements from the four quarters of the earth to make cigars
for them, cups and saucers for them, and pen, ink, and paper
for them — and all with as much ease as when Jehovah created
the world out of nothing, or man out of the dust of the ground ;
that is to say, they have by an intellectual illusion, persuaded
tliem into taking a leap across a gulf which is practically
infinite, the gulf, viz., that separates poor human powers from
omnipotence, the mere liberation of mechanical force when the
body or mind is in a certain state from the complete knowledge
of and control over all the forces of Nature. And all this as
if it were no logical or mental leap at all, but only the next
step in the common path of logical sequence ! With this
monstrous assumption, the reader will not feel surprised if I
here draw the line, and affirm as I venture to do, that all such
pretensions are and must be pure delusions of the mind. For
consider it well, to make out of the scattered elements of
Matter anything you please, you would require a complete
knowledge of and control over all the laws and forces of Nature.
So that in granting this power to the Mahatmas, their followers
have passed at a bound from the premiss in which a man is a
mere pipe through which certain new, and more or less unknown
forces of Nature play, to the conclusion that he can attain to
the knowledge and power of a God.
MODERN TIIEOSOPIiy. 131
In this way the Mahatmas, having by one intellectual illusion
induced their followers to grant them omniscience, and by
another to grant them omnipotence, had little difficulty thence-
forward in getting them to admit, what indeed must follow of
necessity from such superhuman insight and power, viz. the
truth of their great and elaborate System of Cosmogony, and
of the revelations they have given of the end, aim, and meaning
of human life. And finding in this scheme many subtle and
seductive harmonies, this again has re-acted on and confirmed
the belief in the omniscience and omnipotence of the Mahatmas.
What I now propose to do, accordingly, is to examine this
system of Cosmogony, to trace its genealogy, and mark out, if
possible, its place in the chain of evolution of World-Philosophy
as a whole. I shall also try and determine whether in its inner
structure it exhibits those marks which, humanly speaking, we
should expect in a System proceeding from omniscient and
omnipotent minds, or whether, on the contrary, as I shall
endeavour to show, its harmonies, like those paper constitutions
constructed in such numbers at the time of the French Revolu-
tion, are not more easily accounted for on the hypothesis that
they are merely paper-harmonies, ingenious devices for meeting
certain great cardinal wants and aspirations of the human soul,
but having in themselves, except on paper, no real existence
at all.
To begin with then — if it be asked what it is specially in
Theosophy that has so fascinated and subdued the many able
and competent minds who have embraced it, and that, too, in
spite of the absence from its demonstrations of those scientific
methods with which most of these minds have been familiar
from childhood, we shall be obliged unhesitatingly to answer,
the harmonies of what is known as the ' Planetary Chain.'
This Chain, which I shall presently describe, has as its com-
ponent parts the seven separate and independent principles or
j)lanes of being of which, according to Theosophy, the Universe
and the human mind are alike composed — the Material, the
132 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
Astral, the Vital, the Passional, the Intellectual, and the
Spiritual — each and all of them being but successive out-
breathings, as it were, in stages of increasing materiality and
condensation, as in the passage of steam to ice, of a single
Universal and Impersonal Soul ; outbreathings which beginning
with the spiritual, pass through the intellectual, the passional,
the vital, and the astral, to end in the grossly physical and
material. And these principles are so linked and interwoven
in the Chain, as to give to the Avhole an exquisite and subtle
harmony, all the parts mutually supporting and strengthening
each other, and the whole being upborne on the wings of that
hyjonotic clairvoyance which is the final guarantee with the
Theosophists for its absolute reality and truth. This chain is
the last perfection, the flower and consummation of Hindoo
Thought ; and whether wc clioose to regard it as the perfect
web or pattern wliieh lias been Avoven out of orthodox
Buddhism and the other systems of Hindooism when all that
is imperfect and inharmonious in these systems has been
thrown away, or as itself the original esoteric design from
which these systems have proceeded as separate individual
threads, is of no consequence to us here, and cannot in any
way aii'ect our estimate of its inner nature and significance.
That it is not the seven planes or principles in their separate
and uncombined state that have captured so many able minds,
may be seen in this, that they are the seven self-same principles
which lay at the foundation of all the old and outgrown
religions of the world — the Chinese, the Zoroastrian, the
Egyptian, the Hindoo. As seen in these systems they are a
mere inventory or invoice, and have no more of those organic
connexions and relations between themselves necessary to
constitute a scientific system, than have the items of an
auctioneer's catalogue. They may or may not be just divisions
of the World of Nature or JNIan, but you might as well
fling down the chemical elements one by one and call
this an explanation of the Physical World ; or the
MODERN TIIEOSOniV. 133
seimrate phrenological organs and call it an explanation
of jNIind ; as to put forward these seven unrelated planes
or principles of Theosophy as an explanation of the AVorld. It
is clear that it is not this old-world division of thino-s into
seven separate and unrelated categories or planes, that has
captured the minds of those European Thinkers who have given
in their adhesion to Theosophy. Xor is it that other great
doctrine of the system, viz., of re-incarnation and re-birth
through Karma which has sul)jugated them. For although
this doctrine may satisfy our sense of outraged justice, by
showing that the misery and sorrow we are reaping in this
present world are but the fruit of what we have ourselves sown
in a former existence on earth, still the doctrine is robbed of
all its practical virtue and efficacy, by their being no conscious-
ness in us of any continuity or identity between the persons
Avho reap and the persons who have sown ; much in the same
way as the paternal relation would be robbed of all its virtue,
if fathers and sons when they met were ignorant of the relation-
ship they bore to each other. Xor, again, is it their Heaven
or Devachan as it is called, which has attracted so many minds ;
for although Theosophy holds out to its devotees the promise
of a delicious opium-like dream of bliss for 1,500 years or so
between each incarnation on earth, and thiit, too, without the
unpleasant chance of any other Hell than that of re-birth in
case of failure; still this is not the kind of motive that would
most strongly appeal to the noble-minded, truth-loving men
who have adopted this belief^ and must be set aside as a main
or even secondary cause of the spread of Theosophy. Xo, from
no one or all of these causes can the spread of Theosophy be
accounted for among the best minds. The real cause of its
spread lies in the efficacy of these seven principles or planes of
existence when bound together into the Planetary Chain ; in
the harmonious solutions, viz., which this chain gives to those
perplexing problems of the World and of Life which Physical
Science has never been able quite satisfactorily to solve, and
134 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
which still haunt the mind nfter she has uttered her last word.
And although we should know beforehand that the mere mixing
and interweaving of these principles or planes, without the
establishment of real organic relations between them (and this
as we shall see has not been done), can give no more real insight
into the world than the same principles in separation ; and that
the so-called harmonies, in consequence, which result from their
intermingling, are but illusions, mere word-harmonies or paper-
harmonies with no existence in reality ; they are nevertheless
most seductive and alluring to that large class of professed
thinkers who are deficient in natural penetration, and to whom
the merely formal and logical concatenation or linking of
things, irrespective of the nature and value of the things
linked, is the main criterion of truth — a class of thinkers, I
may remark in passing, than whom none are more easily duped
and deceived.
What then are those unresolved doubts, suspicions, or cravings
wdiich Physical Science is unable to satisfy ; and to which
Theosophy claims to have given a complete and harmonious
answer in its doctrine of the Planetary Chain ?
First, there is the suspicion that as the bodily senses through
which all natural scientific truth is reached are few in number
and limited in range, even when aided and supplemented by the
highest powers of microscope and telescope, there must surely
exist somewhere in the world or in the mind of man, a method,
power, or point of view which, if you could once find it, would
let you at a bound into the whole inner truth of things, instead
of this weary plodding age after age and generation after
generation for infinitesimal increments of that truth which so
many generations have died and must die without attaining.
Now this natural doubt and suspicion, and the craving there is
to satisfy them, have hitherto been met by Eeligion ; Avhich in
its Cosmogony and its fixed and definite Revelation has given
man an entrance at once into the full-orbed plenitude of both
physical and spiritual truth. And it is to fill the gap left by
MODERN TIIEOSOPHY. 135
the discredit into wliich Religion has fallen in these latter days
among the most advanced minds, that Theosophy now steps
forward and professes, through its new method of direct clair-
voyant vision, to furnish us in its Planetary Chain with the full
iind final scripture of eternal truth.
The second doubt, which indeed springs out of the first, is
whether, the bodily senses being thus hmited poor and
imperfect, the explanation of the phenomena of life arrived at
by Science through them — natural selection, the survival of the
fittest, etc., — are not likely to be incomplete also ; and whether
somethinar more than the mere evolution and differentiation of
Matter is not required, to account for those new and higher
qualities of life and soul which in their successive stages of
development meet us in animals and men. This doubt also
was solved by Religion with its dogma of Special Creations,
where the prototype of each higher form is directly created by
Supernatural Will ; but now that this explanation, too, has
become outgrown, Theosophy again steps in, and professes to
explain the mystery of the ascent of life by its doctrine of the
successive currents of Life-waves which stream in on to our
Earth from those higher globes of the Planetary Chain con-
nected with the Earth, but Avhich are invisible to our senses
(although clearly seen by the clairvoyant vision of the Mahatmas);
life-waves which as they flood the Earth on their way round
and round the Chain, entirely alter the nature and character of
the creatures it contains.
The third doubt, and one allied to the other two, is as to
whether it is not probable that there should be a ditlercnt
and hhjher end and destiny for the human spirit than that
extracted by Physical Science from the birth, decay, and death
of all things in this world. This doubt and longing. Religion
also met in its doctrine of a Future Life beyond the grave.
Here, too, Theosophy comes to us with a fresh solution in its
<ioctrine of the progress of the human soul when emancipated
from the body, through those higher, more ethereal, and more
136 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
spiritual globes which, as we shall see, make up with our earth,
the Planetary Chain.
With these preliminaries we are now prepared to learn what
this Planetary Chain specially is which professes not only to-
supersede all existing lleligions, but to give a more harmonious
view of the world and of human life than can be given by
Physical Science. But first, to sum up clearly in the mind the
points of the problem which it is the boast of Theosophy tO'
have solved in this Planetary Chain. They may, perhaps, all
be included in the following : — Given a world which from all
geologic time has been a mateiixil world, that is to say a world
that can be seen, tasted, touched, and handled ; how to account
for the appearance in this material world at various periods and
stages of its evolution of Psycliic and Spiritual forces M^hich
seem to be eternally distinct in nature and attribute from those
of Matter ? Besides, although these forces are bound up with
and embedded in INIatter, they have this further peculiarity and
distinction, viz., that instead of lying on the sayne plane as
Matter, they are seen gradually working their way npivards in
ascendinsr staoes or terraces throuo'h hio-hcr and liiijher
creatures until they reach the surface as it were in ISIan.
Then, in the highest minds of the highest races of man, and in
the ideals of these minds, they are seen striving to free them-
selves as far as possible from the rigid body of Matter in which
they are embedded, in order that they may clothe themselves in
a more flexible and ethereal body. Such being the broad
outline of the facts to be interpreted, we have now to ask
Avhetlier Theosophy can legitimately claim to have given, in its-
Planetary Chain, a more harmonious explanation of them and
of their inner meaning and significance, than either Religion
or Physical Science ?
The Planetary Chain, then, is a revelation of the Mahatmas,
and is made use of by them to exhibit the way in which the
Seven Planes or principles of existence of Avhich, as we have
seen, the Universe in the system of Theosophy is composed.
MODERN THEOSOPHY. 137
are interwoven and bound together, so as to explain the
phenomena of the World and of human life as we know them.
For the sake of greater clearness, this Chain may be figured in
thouo;ht as some great wheel or circle around which seven
globes, each of which corresponds to one or other of these seven
principles of Nature, are suspended at regular intervals like
so many different coloured Chinese lanterns ; or say rather like
so many buckets, each of which is full and brimming over wit!)
the special quality of life peculiar to itself. Our Earth, as the
only material body in the chain, is situated at the bottom of
the circle, at the point, that is, "where the stationary wheel
would rest on the ground, and where the Life-impulses
streaming down one side of the wheel from the other globes
would be arrested before turning to go up the other side ; the
other six globes which represent the astral, the vital, the
spiritual, and the other principles of Existence, being, of course,
invisible to us, although clearly seen by the clairvoyant eyes of
the Mahatmas. Now, if we assume the successive Life-impulses
or principles of being, to start from the topmost globe of the
Chain, to' travel down one side, filling the successive globes,
like buckets, with their own peculiar quality of life or being,
and evolving and transmitting the accumulating result to
each globe in turn as they pass along ; and if Ave further
imagine that after reaching our Earth at the bottom, and
becoming embedded there in its Matter, thev then turn and
pass up the other side, filling the globes on this side too
with their accumulated life, until they reach the top ; and so
on round and round the Chain until the cycle of evolution is
complete ; — if we represent to oui-selves all this, it is evident, is
it not, that if at any particular circuit round the Chain, the life-
impulse or spirit, if Ave may so call it, Avhich swept OA'cr our
earth, Avere that, say, of the fish, then by the time it came
round again, having CA-oU'ed in the meantime and incorj)orated
into itself the life of the other six o-lobes, it Avould no longer
be the life-principle of the fish, but of something higher, say of
138 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
the reptile 1 And the consequence Avoukl be that tliis new
life-impulse of the reptile breathed into the bodies of the fish,
would change their entire structure and confio-uration, dissolvino-
them before our eyes and reconstituting them afresh — but
this time as a reptile ; and all with the rapidity of a
transformation scene, as one sees the tail of a tadpole melt
away as the creature turns into a frog and its gills are replaced
by lungs. In the same way, if a particular life-wave left the
earth at the stage of breeding monkeys^ for example, by the
time it came round the Chain again it Avould have evolved into
the life-impulse or soul, say, of a man. And the effect must
be the same as in the case of the fish ; the tails of the monkeys
would be whipped off, and their hands and feet altered to suit
the new conditions and environment ; and all so quickly, that
unless you caught the particular monkeys that were in the act
of turning into men, you would never again have the opportunity ;
for from thenceforth the monkeys would breed monkeys, and
the men breed men, and the missing links could never ao-ain
be found. In this way Theosophy claims to have given, in its
scheme of the Planetary Chain, a more harmonious view of the
World and the processes of jSature, than has been given by
Physical Science. For consider, it says, the alternative. If
* natural selection ' and the ' struggle for existence ' were the sole
causes of evolution, the whole field and expanse of Nature, instead
of being broken up into deep furrows and trenches, as we see it
in the great divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdom, the
molluscs, the reptiles, the mammals, etc., — divisions which,
unlike species, have remained practically fixed from immemorial
geologic time, — would be covered, as we see is the case within
the limits of any particular species, Avith all manner of inter-
mediate forms, — forms so fluid and indefinite, so subtly graded
in their shadings and markings, as to make the world more like
a vast waving cornfield, than the scarred and deeply trenched
thing we see it to-day. So that it seems a more probable
explanation, that at regular intervals in the life-history of our
MODERN THEosornr. 139
planet, fresh waves of life-impulse have swept over it, breathinj^
a new quality of life and soul, if we may so speak, into the old
forms, and changing at a bound, as it were, their entire structure
and character: changing mineral into vegetable, vegetable into
animal, mollusc into fish, fish into reptile, reptile into mamuial,
and mammal into man. And all this, Thcosophy claims, as we
have seen, to have beautifully and harmoniously accounted for,
and that, too, without breach of continuity or evolution, by the
scheme of the Planetary Chain ; accounting as it would seem to
do for the fixity and rigidity of type with the fluidity of
species, in a way that is inexplicable by ' natural selection '
alone.
Then again not only is Physical Science, owing to the vast
expanse of Universe to be explored and the poverty of its
instruments (the five bodily senses), unable to deal exhaustively
wuth the laws of Matter, but even could it give us a full and
complete inventory of these laws, we should still get from
them no hint of the end, aim, and meaning of the World.
For however much ]\Iatter may be broken up, differentiated,
and re-constructed aijain in the course of Evolution, it still
manifests in itself no drift or tendency from which one could
divine the goal towards which the world was moving. It is a
mere medium or vehicle for the exhibition of Psychic and
Spiritual Forces; and, like the marble of a statuary, permits itself
with equal indifference to be carved into the image of a satyr
or of a god. Although in ceaseless activity, contracting and
expanding, attracting and repelling — like the spring of a watch
it itself points nowhere, but is of use only as supplying
movement to the index fingers, those Psychic and Spiritual
powers which alone have any direction and tendency. It is to
a study of the nature and drift of these povrcrs, therefore, that
we must apply ourselves, if we are ever to find the end, aim, or
meaning of the World. For here, indeed, all is direction and
tendency ; and from the first dawning of sensation in the lower
animals to the appearance of the s^^iritual nature in man, there
110 THE EVOLUTION OF IIIMDOO THOUGHT.
is a steady and gradual ascent, stage upon stage, until when
we reach the highest ideals of the human mind, we see these
spiritual powers, like an Emperor come to his majority, asserting
their native sovereignty, and making that very Matter which
has hitherto restrained them, the free and flexible minister of
their own designs. And as the spiritual, aesthetic^ and moral
ideals, although still clogged with Matter, nevertheless strive
ever uj) wards to free themselves entirely from the body in
which they are imprisoned, tlicy would seem to demand for
the next stage of their evolution, a sphere of activity as spirit-
like and diaphanous as the texture of their own dreams.
And if we could only follow the flight of these ideals as they
pass, far out of sight, to their goal in other spheres, it is
evident that Avith both the beoinnino; and the end of the curve
or tendency in view, we could interpret the meaning of that
small broken arc or j)ortion of it known as our World, in a
manner impossible to Physical Science, which can deal only
with the aimless and indifferent Matter of our Earth in which
for a time these psychical and spiritual forces are imprisoned and
embedded. And this is precisely what Theosophy claims to
have enabled us to do, by its revelation of the Planetary
Chain.
To begin with, the Planetary Chain throws out Physical
Science as a possible method for finding out the meaning of
the World, by making our Earth the only one of the seven
globes in the Chain that is a material globe, and therefore open
to the methods of Physical Science at all ; and also by making
it the merest turning-point or corner, as it were, of the Chain ;
so that to give the same importance to the laws that control
the mere Matter of our Earth, as to those that control its
Psychic and Spiritual Forces, Avould be as absurd as to attach
the same importance to the dust thrown up by the strife of
horses and riders at the turning-point of a race-course, that we
do to the movements of the horses and riders themselves
around the whole extent of the field. But if there were any
MODERN THEOSOPIir. 141
method by which we covilcl mount these Psychic and Spiritual
Forces, and, borne round and round the course could explore
tlie whole extent of the field as we go, — would not this be,
indeed, the true method for interpreting the inner meaning
and sionificance of that little corner of the entire Chain known
as our Earth ? And this method, accordingly, is the method of
direct clairvoyant vision by which the Mahatmas claim to have
been able to rise to the different Planes or Life-waves of the
Universe, and, borne around on their currents, to have been
carried into the reoion of all Truth.
Not only does Theoso2)hy thus dispose of Physical Science
as a method for arriving at an understanding of the end, aim,
and meaning of the world, but it also attempts to dethrone the
Physical Laws of Nature from their present-day position as the
true causes, the true means and instruments by which the
phenomena of the world and of life are produced. And this it
does by representing these phenomena as due not to ' natural
selection,' ' struggle for existence,' and the like, hut to the
strife and collision of those psychic and spiritual impulses,
vital, passional, intellectual, etc., which clash and collide at
this their meeting point on our Material Globe on their way
round the Chain ; the gaps between mineral, and vegetable, and
animal, between mollusc, and reptile, and mammal, and man,
being caused, as we have seen, by the evolution that has gone
on in these life-principles on the other globes of the Chain, in
the intervals that elapse between their successive re-appearances
on Earth.
And lastly, Theosophy gets rid of Physical Science as a
method for determining the future destiny of man ; for it
represents the aspiration of the highest human spirits after the
ideal and the eternal, not as the ofF-spring of mere Matter with
which alone Physical Science can deal, and which would die
with the body, but as a foretaste and prediction of the time
when human life shall have run its course on this Earth and
shall take its fliglit to the next higher globe in the Chain — a
142 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
globe in which spiritual essences Avill exist in a medium which,
from its transparency and plasticity is scarcely distinguishable
from Spirit itself.
In this way Theosophy, in its great scheme of the Planetary
Chain (the most general outline only of which I have sketched
here), claims to have given a more harmonious view of the
World and of Human Life, of their end, aim, and meaning,
than either Physical Science or the old and decaying
Religions of the Avorld can give; to have given, in short, a
scheme which will satisfy those longings, aspirations, doubts,
and suspicions which still haunt the mind, as we have seen,
after Physical Science has uttered its last word. For, in place
of a few poor imperfect and limited senses groping amid
Matter for bodily provender mainly as Carlyle would have
said, as our sole means of knowledge, it substitutes the direct
clairvoyant vision of the Mahatmas ; for the causes and
instruments which produce the actual phenomena of the World
and Life, it relies, not on the laws of ^Matter — on 'physical
antecedent and consequent,' ' natural selection,' and the rest, —
but on psychic and spiritual Life-waves, — vital, passional,
intellectual, astral, etc., — coming round the Chain from other
globes where they have meantime been evolving into higher
and higher forms ; and for the end and destiny of Man, not
death, or the survival of the individual only in the work he has
done for the race, but an immortality of spiritual bliss, first in
Devachan or Heaven, and then in the hiofher and more
spiritual globes of the Planetary Chain. And indeed it must
be confessed that were the Planetary Chain a reality and not a
dream, it would have gone a long way, in appearance at least,
towards giving us a harmonious solution of the great problem
of the end, aim^ and meaning of the World and of Life.
But alas ! as we shall now see, the whole scheme is a myth, a
paper-system, a product of the imagination merely ; and has
no more solidity or reality than the plan of a bridge which,
symmetrical enough on paper, when turned into wood and iron
MODERX TIIEOSOPIIY. 14i>
i>
will not stand ; or of a house which, though beautiful as a
desiofn, is quite impossible to buUd. It expresses rather what,
if true, Avould be harmonious, than what because it is
harmonious must be true. Instead of dealing with the real
causes of phenomena, it deals only with lines and curves on
paper ; instead of genuine explanations of them, it gives u&
false and fictitious ones. In the early part of this chapter I
pointed out the intellectual deceptions which had been
practised by the ]\Iahatmas on their followers, when they led
them to believe that the power of reading clairvoyantly what
was passing in the minds of others, was in no way different,
except in degree, from the power of reading the facts them-
selves independently of their being known to any other mind ;
thus making it appear [)lausible that they, the Mahatmas, could
by clairvoyant vision see the Planetary Chain as an actual fact,
when what they really saw was merely the image or plan of the
Chain as it existed in the minds of those by whom they had
themselves been taught. I have now to point out the still
more insidious intellectual illusion by which they have
persuaded their followers to accept their pseudo-causes as true
causes, and their pseudo-explanations of events as bona fide
ones ; and as this particular illusion is one which is easily
played off on the unsuspecting when the subject-matter is
complicated, I shall offer no apology to the reader for asking
him to consider it for a moment with me. What, then, do we
mean by a bona fide cause, a bona fide explanation, of any
phenomenon or event ? If we take the human body as an
example, it is evident, is it not, that neither its functions
in health nor its symptoms in disease can be said to be
really understood or explaned, until the relations and coiine.vions
between its different organs are so well established that on any
change taking place in any one of these organs the effect on
the others can, as it were, be anticipated or foreseen; or, speaking
generally, until from the state of the body as a whole to-day,
you can, other things being equal, anticipate or foresee its
144 THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
condition to-morrow. It is the same, then, with the Worhl.
It can only be said to be explained as a whole, or in any of its
special departments, when the lines of relation between the
different powers or forces engaged in the production of its
phenomena are so well known, that from the present condition
of these forces, their future state may be anticipated or inferred.
And now in what way does a sham cause, a sham explanation
differ from this 1 In this, viz., that instead of giving us the
relations between the factors or powers involved in any given
phenomenon, it gives us merely a catalogue of these factors or
powers. Now although this catalogue may be said to account
in a way for the phenomenon as an existing fact, and if
complete, to fully account for it, it does so only in the same
way as the body may be said to be accounted for by a catalogue
of the functions of its separate organs ; or as a piece of music
may be said to be accounted for by a catalogue of its notes ; or
the sense of a sentence by the words in which it is exjn-essed,
and the like. These are what we may call false causes, false
explanations, and the main feature about them is that they
make no addition to our knowledge, but are the mere echo or
duplicate in another form of the effects to be explained ; as if
we should say that the cause of the phenomena of life is the
vital principle ! Now it is entirely of such causes as these
that the Planetary Chain, as we shall now see, is throughout
composed ; and it was for this reason that I said at the
beginning, that it was quite possible to construct the Chain on a
sheet of paper, by the exercise of ingenuity alone, and without
any fresh accession of knowledge. Let us now see in a rough
way how this may be done.
If then we regard the World, as the Theosophists do, as
made up of seven independent Planes or Principles of Existence
— the material, the astral, the vital, the passional, the
intellectual, the spiritual, and last of all the impersonal
Universal Spirit itself from which the rest are all emanations —
all we have to do to account for men and things generally, is to
MODERN THEOSOPIIY. 14.3
connect with the Earth or Material Principle, the other
principles as so many globes set round it in a circle ; much in
the same way as in making a pudding you would t^et around
you on the table the butter, and eggs, and milk, etc., of which
it was to be composed. This done, if you should then make the
principles represented by these globes pass severally and in
turn (as they came around the circle) into the flatter of the
Earth to be united with it, you would explain the world in
general, in the same way as you would the pudding by
bringing all its ingredients one by one into the dish. If you
wished to go still further into detail, and to account for the
great types or divisions of plant and animal, of fish, of reptile,
of bird, of mammal, and of man, all you Avould have to do
would be to count the number of the divisions to be explained,
and then let the Principles or Life-impulses pass around the
Chain a corresponding number of times, each round reprc-
senting the evolution of a type more highly develo])cd than
the one that went before : Avhile to get the varieties of species
into which each of these greater types are divided, you would
let the different principles before going round the Chain as a
whole, go as often around the separate and particular globe or
globes involved as there are numbers of species to be
explained. In this way you would get the Planetary Chain in
the rough, which you could then work up into finer and finer
detail, according to the number and variety of the forms of
life you were expected to explain. Xow in all this, one sees at
■Si glance, that the Planetary Chain is so constructed as to be
a mere duplicate, as it were, of the varieties of life it is called
upon to explain ; although as an explanation it is made to look
genuine on the principle that heat, for example, is explained if
only you can find a fire anywhere to account for it ! In essence
it amounts only to this, that the cause of the fish, or reptile, or
monkey, is the ' life-principle ' of the fish or reptile or mcmkey
coming round the Chain and taking up its abode in the Matter
of om' Earth; and that similarly the cause of the man, is the
14G THE EVOLUTION OF HINDOO THOUGHT.
Life-principle of the man. This is what I call a false and not a
gennine explanation of the World ; as if one should say that the
cause of baldness is the loss of hair ! To make it a genuine
one, you would have to show hoio and lohy it was that the Life-
principle of the fish on its way round the other globes of the
Chain, developed or was evolved before it reached the Earth
into the Life-principle of the reptile ; how and why the Life-
impulse of the monkey passed into the Life-impulse of the
man ; — but this, I need scarcely say, the Mahatmas have not
yet attempted to do. And so it has come about that the
followers of these Mahatmas, not satisfied with 'natural
selection,' the * struggle for existence,' etc., as sole causes of
the Evolution of the World, instead of seeking to discover
other genuine principles to make up for the deficiency, have
thrown them all alike to the winds, and duped by the
Mahatmas with their pretences to clairvoyant vision, have with-
out pause or hesitation rushed into their arms to be dazzled
and deceived by such poor and illusory harmonies as these.
But if further evidence were wanted to streng-then our
conviction that the Planetary Chain is but a paper-system, a
])roduct of imaginative ingenuity merely, it would be found in
the fact that with all the pretensions of the Mahatmas to clair-
voyant vision, this of the relations which subsist between these
different Planes, Principles, or Forces, and in which alone as we
have seen true knowledge consists, is precisely the one point
on which they are silent, and which is absent from the system
of the Planetary Chain. For if we consider it, both in Nature
and the Human Mind, these planes, principles, faculties or
powers, or by whatever name we choose to call them, are so
reciprocally inter-connected, that each acts on or is affected by
every other, as a flower is by its root, or the vintage by the
qualities of climate and soil ; and you can no more detach any
one of these principles from the rest, and treat it apart from
its relations to the others — you can no more for example,
detach intellect from passion, passion from sentiment and will.
MODEKN THEOSOPHY. 147
and all from the material body In which they inhere — than vou
can the heart from the lungs, the lungs from the liver, or any
or all of them from the rest of the body. The truth is, these
so-called Planes or Principles of Being have no real in-
dependent existence in fact, but only in relation to each other,
and like algebraical x's and y's, only exist as aids to the
processes of thought. But the Mahatmas, instead of binding
these abstract principles into a system of true knowledge by
living bonds of relation, have merely arranged them into the
pretty and harmonious wreaths, rings, and festoons of the
Planetary Chain, as so many cut flowers mechanically tied
together by invisible threads. And the consequence is, that
like butchers who have dealt all their lives with the organs of
the animal body, but who from want of knowledge of the
physiological relations of these organs leave off with as little
knowledge of tlie body as when they began, the ^Mahatmas,
although dealing all their lives with the principles and planes
of the Planetary Chain, can, from their want of insight into the
relations of these planes give us no true knowledge. And now
we can understand how it is that Theosophy with all its
pretensions has done nothing for the progress or civilization of
the world. Ignoring those relations in which true knowledge
consists, it has discovered no new relation, or what is the same
thing, no new Law of Nature or of Life ; no new law of
mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, or new application of
these to the arts and industries of life ; no new principle in
mental philosophy, in politics, political economy, or the arts of
Government and State. These they have left to Science
with its slow but steady and sure march through the ages,
with its method of observation, induction, experiment and
verification, to which we mainly owe the present high state of
European civilization ; while in no land are !Magic and the
Black Arts more universally practised than in Thibet the
chosen home of the Mahatmas, nor ignorance and superstition
more extensively diffused.
PART TIL
THE EVOLTITION"
OF JUDAISAi.
HISTORY OF
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.
PART III.
LIST or AUTHOEITIES FOR THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS
ON THE
EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
OLD TESTAMENT
APOCALYPSE OF ENOCH
APOCALYPSE OF MOSES
APOCALYPSE OF BARUCH
APOCALYPSE OF EZRA
JOSEPHUS
PHILO
TALMUD
EWALD
DELITZSCH
KUENEN
WELLHAUSEN
HITZIG
REUSS
SCHURER
NOLDEKE
KNOBEL
HENGSTENBERG
JOST
GRAETZ
STADE
NEUBAUER
KITTEL
RENAN
ZELLER
HILGENFELD
DIESTEL
DRIVER
CHEYNE
ROBERTSON SMITH
MONTEFIORE
DRUMMOND
HATCH
CHAPTEE I.
PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
TN the introductory chapter of this vohime, when discussing
the feasibility of the attempt to forecast tlie stages of
Evohition passed through by Religions as distinct from Philo-
sophies, it was pointed out that the problem presented quite a
different aspect and required quite a different method for its
solution in the one case from what it required in the other.
Philosophies being defined to be games of thought played by
the abstract or merely logical intelligence under definite con-
ditions, it was argued tliat if you could once seize the laws or
rules of the particular game that was being played, the course
of the Evolution could be anticipated, as we have just seen to
be the case with Greek and Hindoo Philosophy respectively,
with a large amount of scientific definiteness and precision.
But Religions being, on the other hand, games of thought
played by the lohole man, as it were, — intellect, conscience and
heart — their evolution far from depending like that of Philo-
sophies, on laws of pure thouglit, was dependent on other
elements as well — on tradition, custom, affection, sentiment,
and sensibility. And although, therefore, it w'ould seem that
the attempts to forecast the course and evolution of Religions
would be a much more difficult task than in the parallel case of
Philosophies, it was seen that this was not so. For although it
is true that the number and complexity of the elements of a
152 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
man's nature that have to be afFected before a chano-e will
occur in his Religion, are much greater than in the case of his
Philosophy, still religions have the advantage over philosophies
in this, that dealing as they do with the whole nature of man,
they can be reduced to some simple expression, to some spirit
or soul, as it were, which is their inspiration and life, and
which gives unity and harmony to all their parts ; much in the
same way as we may say of an individual, that the soul of all
his thoughts and actions is love, or ambition, or money-getting,
or pride, or what not ; or of a nation, that the soul of its
institutions is equality, or liberty, and so on. And from this it
was argued that if the Spirit or Soul of the particular religion
from which we start, say of Paganism, can be reduced to
some simple and expressive moral formula, and the Spirit or
Soul of the Ileligion into whicli it is destined to pass in the
course of evolution, say of Christianity, can be equally so
reduced ; and if further the moral distance, as it were, between
the two can be definitely mapped out into stages, each
representing a step or stage in evolution, it will be compara-
tively easy, with a little help in the way of historical landmark
now and then, to forecast the Jdnd of experience through which
the tribe or nation in question must pass from stage to stage,
until it reaches the end in view. At all events, this is the
principle on which I propose to proceed in the sections of this
History which are now immediately to follow — with what result
the sequel will show.
Our present theme, then, being the evolution of the Intellec-
tual World from Paganism to Christianity, and our problem
how it is to be done, I shall begin at once, in accordance with
the principles just laid down, by asking what is the Soul or
Essential Spirit of Paganism and Christianity respectively?
That of Christianity we already know ; for alike in its creed,
its institutions, its precepts and laws, in the nature of God and
of Christ, and in the relationship existing between God and
Christ, between God and Man, between Christ and Man, the
PAGANIS3I AND CHEISTIAXITY. 1j3
spirit which pervades it is that which may be best expressed in
the relationship of father and son, of parent and children ; and
from this its spirit and life, perennially proceeds a current
which flows for ever in the dii-ection of the Good, the Bene-
ficent, and the Merciful ; an impulse which tends gradually, as
the tyranny of material and social conditions is step by step
relaxed and dissolved, to draw mankind t02;ether into one jj-reat
family, with God its Father. This spirit it is which has covered
the world with institutions of charity and mercy, which in
morals broke at once and for ever the bondage to the letter,
and when the time was ripe, ojjened up to mankind political
liberty, and to the slave, emancipation and life. It is the Soul
of Christianity, as distinguished from the bodily accretions
which have become embedded in its structure — the Mosaic
account of Creation and the like, which have been the fruitful
source of all its woes. If now we could digest the soul of
Paganism into as brief, simple, and expressive a formula, and
one that should hold good throughout the institutions of Paaan
life, we should have vastly simplified our problem by the
establishment of two fixed and definite points, the point from
which we have to start, and the point at which we must arrive
in the course of evolution ; and by marking off carefully the
separate intervening points between these two extremes, we
shall be enabled to lay down approximately beforehand, the kind
of steps necessary to enable Humanity to traverse this ground
from stage to stage. What I propose then to do now is, to
show that the genius and essential spirit of Paganism, the moral
relationship or soul that runs alike through its Religion, its
Polity, its Jurisprudence, and its Social Life, may be accurately
represented and summed up in the relationship of master and
servant, master and slave, as that of Christianity can be by the
relation of 2^('^'>'^nt and child.
But before this can be clearly seen, it is necessary to
correct a certain false colourino; that has been mxcn to
the nature of the Pagan gods throuo-h our associations with
154 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
Christianity. We are too apt to imagine that, like the God
of Christianity, these beings filled the vast expanse of the
Universe with their presence, and we can scarcely be made
to realize how much they had in common with ordinary
humanity. The truth is, they were simply human beings of a
superior order, male and female, with greater powers and
passions than men, and of superior size, strength, and beauty ;
a kind of transfigured race of men, in short, living on a finer
kind of food, with bodies less gross, blood more rarified and
ethereal, and endowed with immortality. And far from peopling
the vast expanse of the Universe like the God of Christianity,
they inhabited only the upper regions of the air, that narrow
belt between earth and sky level with the summits of the
mountains, on which, accordingly, they were believed to have
their abode. And indeed in the absence of any scientific
pi-esumption to the contrary, it was natural both for the vulgar
and for the philosophers to believe that this region, too, had
its appropriate inhabitants ; as the sea was peopled with fish,
the air with birds, and the earth with animals and men. But
the vast expanse of the Uni\erse beyond this region, which to
Christianity is the abode of God, was, on the contrary, reserved
in Paganism for Fate which was supreme over all the gods ; or,
as in Plato, for those fixed stars and planets, immortal spirits
set in a galaxy of fire and carried round in the revolutions of
the Universe, dwelling for ever . n their own perfections, and
contemplating the pure form of Beauty as it is, — while markino-
out the years and hours for human souls, and by their periods
and conjunctions controlling not only the destiny of mortal
men, but of the immortal c:ods themselves. Now these erods.
living as they did so near the Earth, had gradually extended
their sway over human life, in the same way as man had done
over the inferior animals ; and when History opens they had
already partitioned out the whole earthly domain between them,
like the provinces and estates of a settled kingdom. Besides
the greater deities, the Dii Majores who presided over the sky,
PAGANISM AND CIimSTIANITY. 155
the sea, war, fire, love, wisdom, letters, the arts and the like,
there were deities over every the smallest department of Nature
and Life ; deities of Cough, of Fever, of Patrician Modesty, of
Plebeian Modesty, deities of the Koman State, of the Revenue,
of Child-birth, etc., as well as separate deities to teach the child
to cry, to eat, to drink, to speak, and to sleep. Tliese vast
swarms of deities formed a hierarchy among themselves with
Jupiter as King at their head ; and had their councils and
councillors of State, their messengers and cup-bearers, their
feasts, their loves and hates, their jealousies and wars, their
I'evenges and reconciliations, just like men. Like men, too,
they were almost entirely wrapped up in their own affairs,
regarding mankind much in the same way as we regard the
inferior animals, or as absentee landlords regard their tenants ;
as instruments, viz., to minister to their own appetites, pleasures,
or designs. If they entered, as they occasionally did, into the
wars and quarrels of mortals, it was, as with us, mainly for the
interest and excitement of the sport — taking sides, laying the
odds, or backing the winners. In fact they regarded men
precisely as we regard the inferior animals, neither loving them
nor hating them, but simply making use of them ; and were
angry or pleased with them, according as they furthered
their wishes, disappointed their appetites, or thwarted their
designs. If they happened to fall in love with any particular
luiman being, it was as purely a matter of personal caprice as
if one should love one's dog, and established no bond that
could not at a moment's notice be broken or dissolved. Tlie
essence of their relation to men was the same, in a word, as
the essence of our relation to the inferior animals, viz., that of
masters and slaves. They cared as little for the mere love of
mortals, provided their dues came punctually in, as a Despot
and his Court care for the mere love of the conquered in-
habitants of a distant dependency, provided their tribute is
punctually paid. The only relation, in conseqjience, in which
men could stand to them was one of fear and dependence,
156 THE EVOLUTION OP JUDAIS3I.
j)ropitiating them by incense, offerings, libations, sacrifices and
the like ; the amount and quality of the food, the time and
place of ofFerino- it, the mode of presentation and the form of
supplication accompanying it, being all elements of as much
importance in securing the good-will of the gods, as they are
in the parallel case of exacting and capricious human despots.
With this relation of master and slave as the essence of the
connexion subsisting between the gods and men, we should
expect the relations existing between man and man to be
fi-amed in the same spirit. And so indeed they were. It was
the old relation of master anil slave, of man and the inferior
animals, repeated in all relationships of life — political, moral,
legal, and social ; the father or head of the family representing
the master, and all the rest of the family being like animals, the
mere creatures of his will. It was the pure law of primitive
despotism, the law of the stronger, untempered or unsufFused
by any higher moral atmosphere ; and controlled only, where it
was controlled, by an nuthority equally cold, despotic and
unsympathetic, viz. the Laws of the State ; the only effect of
which was that, far from softening or modifying the despotic
spirit, it made it, like a river confined between its banks, run all
the more fiercely. In Greece, the father was restrained by
law from putting his son to death, but he could disinherit and
banish him. In Rome, on the other hand, his power was
absolute, alike over his children, his wife, his property, and his
slaves ; the only exception being in the case of any of the sons
who should happen to fill the office of flamen or priest. He had,
besides, practically unlimited power of divorce, subject only to
the merely nominal censure of the Censors, or the fear of his
wife's relations. In every relationship of life, political or social,
men's relations to each other were purely legal; and one no
more expected the Christian law of love and pity to enter into
the relations of man and man, than one expects them to enter
into a purely legal contract between landlord and tenant in the
occupancy of a house or estate. Here again then the genius
PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 157
and essential spirit of Paganism is seen to be that of master
and slave, of man and the lower animals, as distinct from that
of Christianity which is that of fatlier and son, of parent and
children. And a still more decisive evidence of this, perhaps,
is to be seen by a glance at the nature and functions of the
Priesthood. In a religion like Christianity, for example, where
the relation between God and man is, as we have seen, ex-
pressible by that of father and children, the inward state of the
heart towards God is as important in the priest who is to make
intercession, as in the worshipper for whom intercession is to
be made. The training of the moral and spiritual nature,
accordingly, is the most important end of the long novitiate
preparatory to entering the Church ; and the highest offices
were as freely open in the early ages to the sons of the peasant,
if they were men of devout and holy lives, as to the sons of
the lords of the soil. But in religions, on the other hand,
where the cpods are believed to care as little for the moral and
spiritual attitude of the priests and suppliants, provided their
dues be paid, as tyrants do for the feelings of conquered
tributaries, one would know a 2^riori that the spiritual or moral
character of the priest was a matter of no concern. And
so indeed it was in Paganism. ^len would as little have
thought of inquiring into the spiritual condition of those about
to enter the Priesthood, as they would of those about to enter
the Army. The pi'iests were drawn exclusively from the
Patrician families, as the supremacy of these in the State was
held to be a mark of their having been specially favoured by
the gods ; the sole qualification necessary to the priest, besides
that of good family, being that he had rendered good service
to the State. Instead, therefore, of depending on tlieir prayers
and holy lives for their success in making intercession with
the £rods, their sole function and dutv was analagous to that of
those Court Chamberlains who regulate the approaches to tlic
Throne, viz. to stand by the suppliant and dictate the form of
words to be used by him when presentiiig his offering or
158 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
petition, so that no word should be forgotten or used out of its
proper place, their sole concern being, lest by some irregularity
of form, they should draw down on themselves the wrath
and vengeance of the gods. In all other respects they went
through their function with as little spiritual or moral feeling
as the cicerones of a museum or picture gallery.
If, then, we have sufficiently shown that the soul and
essential spirit of Paganism may be expressed by the moral
relationship of master and slave, as that of Christianity is by
parent and children, my next point will be to show that there
was no possible way by which the one could pass into the
other by direct continuity, as it were, but that if the Grseco-
Pasfan World was destined to become Christian, it would have
to be impregnated from without^ as animals must be when we
wish to change the breed ; and that the spirit of Paganism could
no more change itself without outside impregnation, than a
negro could become white. For Keligions differ from
Philosophies, as we have seen, in this, that they are not merely
a set of abstract propositions, but are the expression of a soul,^
a spirit, a life ; and therefore although religions that express
the same spirit may become incorporated by force or conquest,
relio-ions like Paganism and Christianity which are the
expressions of two wholly different spirits — the spirit of force
or law on the one hand, and the spirit of love on the other — can
no more pass into one another in the course of evolution,
without outside mediation, than a cold-blooded animal can pass
into a warm-blooded one. Nor can such mediation be effected
by any form of Philosophy whatever. Stoicism which arose
out of the bosom of Paganism, attempted it ; and with its high
doctrine of One God of whom all the merely popular Pagan
deities in transfigured human shape were but transitory
forms, with its cosmopolitan spirit, its recognition of the
natural rights of man and of the inherent equality of master
and slave, was as well qualified as another to effect the change.
But although, animated by its spirit, high-born dames made
PAGANISM AND CHPcISTIANlTY. 151)
praiseworthy attempts to establish charities, to reclaim younij:
women from vice, and to help the aged and the poor; and
Emperors who had been trained in its Schools enacted laws
mitigating the lot of the slave ; these were all but as drops in
the ocean, and not only did not, but could not, bridge over the
gulf that separated Paganism from Christianity. For
Philosophies being attempts of the human mind — a part of
Nature — to comprehend the whole of that Nature of which it
is but the part, the merest passing product and limited
palpable effect, men cannot except from vanity or presumption
place sufficient reliance on their own theories of the great
totality kn6\vn as the Universe to enable them to repose on
them with full and entire confidence. It is true that on the
verified Laws of Nature, those laws that connect the different
parts of Nature together, they can place an implicit reliance,
whatever be their theories of the natin-e of the Supreme
Power, or of the Universe as a whole ; but in the absence of
the discoveries of Physical Science, the Pagan masses, even
were they all born philosophers, could neither singly or
too-ether have o-enerated sufficient faith and trust in their own
reasonings to turn the abstract God of the Stoics into the
living God and Father of Christianity. If this were to be
done at all it could only be done from the side of God, not
from the side of human reason ; from some authority, that is to
say, coming in the name of the whole Universe to instruct Man
the part as to what his relations to the whole Universe are ;
instead of from the side of man, presuming as in philosophy to
judge of that Avhole of which he is only a part. It could only
come, in a word, from Religion, not Philosophy.
But we may go farther and say that not only could Paganism,
as we have seen, owing to the nature of its essential spirit, not
pass of itself directly into Christianity, but it could not even
form the first link in any evolutionary chain that should even-
tually end in it. And for this reason — that for a chain that was
to end in a moral and spiritual bond so strong as that of parcnf
IGO THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
and children, some kind of reciprocal relation however rudi-
mentary must be secured as a first link ; and this is for ever
impossible in any religion where there are a multiplicity of
gods. For, with these gods regarded as but magnified and
transfigured beings of the same nature and passions as ourselves,
but with absolute power over us ; having besides their own ends
and aims among themselves to serve ; and caring nothing for
men beyond what in the way of incense and offerings they
could get out of them — with gods like these sitting at every
corner and turning point along the highway of life, to exact
toll from the passers-by from youth to age, from this one a
libation, from that one incense, from another prayers, from one
a cock, from another an ox. and from a third a whole hecatomb
of oxen ; — you could no more get a standing reciprocal relation
however crude and rudim'entary, established, than a simple
countryman could with the gangs of sharpers to whom on a race
course he is in turn delivered ; or than the helpless trader of the
Middle Ages, with the robber barons who swooped down on his
caravan, one after another, from their mountain fortresses as he
passed. For even the beginning of such a bond, you must have
only one god to deal Avith. Now this it is evident you were
not likely to get in any large Empire like that of Rome, or
Persia, or Assyria, where the gods of the conquered peoples
out of which the Empire was originally formed were almost
sure when the Empire was consolidated to be swept into one
great Pantheon — and so we have multij)licity again. To get a
starting point, therefore, from which to eflect from loithout the
transition between Grreco-Koman Paganism and Christianity,
we should be obliged to oo to some small tribe or nation which
had a single tutelary god itself — even although it admitted that
other tribes had other gods of their own to whom in their
perplexities they also could look for assistance or protection.
And accordingly, as we know from History, the transition from
the Pagan World to Christianity was actually effected by the
tribe of Israel.
CHAPTER II.
JUDAISM.
^Y\7"I'rH the Israelites then as our starting' point, we are now
prepared to show that if once we succeed in marking
out the different moral stages, as it were, that lie between the
religion of tyrant and slave of Paganism, and the religion of
father and son of Christianity^ we shall be able, given a minimum
of historical fact, to anticipate in a large measure the kind of
•experiences that must befall this one small tribe, in order to
advance it from stao;e to staoe, until at last, in the fullness of time,
it is ready to impregnate the great Pagan World with its own
spirit. These stages, then, we may Avith sufficient accuracy for
all practical purposes represent as follows : — Beginning with the
Pagan relation of desjDOt and slave, in which, between the
multiplicity of gods on the one hand and the world of men on
the other there can [)e no reciprocal bond whatever, nothing
but pure force and caprice, we have as first stage of evolution
the relationship between a single god and a single tribe, in
which the god, capricious and revengeful, gives aid and
protection in return for certain purely material services, —
offerings, sacrifices, etc., — a relation similar to that between a
feudal lord and his dependents, and one in which the moral
relations existing between the different individuals composing
the tribe, form no part of the contract, expressed or implied.
This is practically the I'elation existing between all small
M
1(J2 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
tribes and their single deities. The next stage is where the
god, still capricious and immoral himself, grants his aid and
protection only on condition that his worshippers do what Is just
and rio-ht among themselves, as in the relations existing between
a king and his people. The next stage is where the god
becomes moral himself, and becomes god also of the rest of
the world ; but while regarding his own tribe as the children of
his peculiar care, regards the rest of the world as at best but
step-children only. And finally we have the last stage which
brings us to Christianity, where God is not merely the
severe Moral Father, but a God of Love as well ; where not
only His own tribe are His full children, but all mankind
without prejudice of birth or nationality ; and where the sole
qualification for God's favour is the inward disposition of the
heart, — love, viz., for both -God and men.
Now if one were desirous of demonstrating that the Great
Power which makes use of men for its own ends, is not a mere
Fate, or abstract Order of the World, but a real and living
Providence, one could not find a better historical example than
the way in which the Jewish people were gradually prepared
and matured for the purpose of introducing a new and higher
religion and morality into the world. It was as if a gardener,
having some particular flower or fruit in his eye, should be
seen standing over his plants, watching the variations as they
arose, and picking, culling, rejecting, cross-fertilizing, until he
got what he wanted; or like some dog or pigeon-fancier
breeding and selecting from among his puppies or birds those
most approximating to the type he has in his mind until at
last the happy variation for which he has been working,
appears. And so it was with the Jews. It matters not how
they were brought to these several stages, whether by what we
should call chance or happy accident, by illusion, by
unconscious imposture, or even, as in one or two instances,,
by downright fraud, — all was alike seized on by a Power greater
than themselves, and who, through these means, was leadings
JUDAISM. 16
•>
them on to issues more vast than those they knew or dreamed
ot. If now we take the different stages through which the
Jewish nation had to pass before its end was reached, we shall
see that what actually befell it was precisely the sort of thing
necessary to befall it, if its fortunes were guided by a
Providential and Intelligent Power.
Given, then, a small tribe of Israelites with its tutelary god,
among a number like itself each with its o\ati protecting god,
we have to ask what kind of experience must befall this tribe,
over and above that of the other tribes, in order to enable it to
take the first moral step in that series of evolutionary steps
which should end in Christianity ?
The answer in a word is, just such an experience as we should
expect to befall the individual in a like case to produce a like
result, viz., that state of physical isolation in which the mind,
blown on alternately by deep gusts of hope and fear, looks
helplessly around for some object to which to cling ; and having
found it, yields to it an implicit reliance and trust. Now this
first indispensable condition to a closer relationship with their
god than the Pagan relationship of master and slave, was
fulfilled in the case of the Israelites by their long sojourn in
the Wilderness, — an experience, we may say, which, in spite of
the apocryphal matter mixed up Avith the narrative when
reduced to writing in succeeding times, must, from the abiding
impression left in the memory, have been, in its broad aspects
at least, true. A small band of Egyptian slaves who have just
narrowly escaped capture by their Egyptian masters, find
themselves wandering about, all unaccustomed, among the
desert solitudes, encompassed by danger and terror on every
hand — teiTor of lightning and tempest, famine and drought,
serjient and scorpion — and yet seeming, as their moving train
winds along beneath the blaze of their torches by night, and
the smoke of their camp fires by day, to be led on by some
mysterious and invisible Power, Avbich, now thundering to them
from the top ot Iloreb, now whispering in the ear of their
164 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
trusted guide, now nerving them to victory, now punishing
their disobedience by defeat, brings them, like some great
Captain, after many wanderings, to the Promised Land at last.
Such a novitiate in the solitude and desolation of the desert,
alone with Nature, and encompassed by terrors on every hand,
was calculated to attach them to their invisible Leader with a
bond more personal, and to burn the belief in his protecting
care into their minds with a brand more deep than was possible
to more settled tribes, who, distracted by other cares, Avere only
casually and intermittently, under the agitation of hope or fear
in war, driven to reliance on their protecting gods.
This of the Wandering in the Wilderness was the first great
experience in the history of the Israelites, calculated to
differentiate them from other and surrounding peoples, and to
prepare them for the high -part they were to play in World-
history ; and its effect, trivial at first, became as we shall see,
more and more powerful as time went on. It gave to their
belief in an over-ruling Power who had chosen them as his own,
and who had for weal or woe bound himself up with their
fortunes, a vitality and tenacity unknown to other peoples, and
only paralleled in later times by the belief of the early
Mahomedans in the power and omnipresence of God. But
when they at last had fought their way into Canaan and
settled there, both their religion and morality received a taint
from the surrounding idolatry which threatened to obliterate,
and indeed for many centuries really succeeded in obscuring,
all that the wandering in the Wilderness had done for them.
For, in taking over the land from the conquered inhabitants,
they took over their places of worship also. These were
usually situated on the tops of hills, or under the shade of
green trees — ' high places ' they were called — and there, side by
side with the pillars and sacred groves of Astarte the Syrian
Goddess of Love, and with the images of Baal the Sun-god,
they set up altars to their own god, Jehovah. With such
proximity of sacred rites and among peoples allied to them-
JUDAISM. 105
selves in blood and with whom they had begun to inter-many,
it was almost inevitable that the worship of Jehovah, which had
burnt ever more bright and pure in the wilderness, should
become mingled and polluted with these idolatrous cults ; and
that the people should relapse into that polytheism which, as
we have seen, so long as it lasts must preclude all hope of
relisfious or moral advance. But this was not all. For
connected with the worship of these heathen deities, and
indissolubly bound up with it, were a number of nameless
abominations and immoral practices sanctioned and upheld by
the religions of Avhich they formed a part. Now, the private
code of morality which the Israelites brought out of Egypt was
comparatively pure ; and when on the occasion of joyous
thanksgiving in the Spring, at Harvest and at the In-gathering,
they met at their altars to ofter sacrifice to Jehovah for the
good things he had given them, they ate the firstlings of their
flocks and the cakes of bread they brought Avith them (after
giving the best parts to Jehovah), and drank their wine, in
innocent joy and merrymaking ; returning to their homes
unpolluted and unstained by personal immorality or impurity.
But now that they had embraced the gods of the people of the
land, they adopted from them the practice of sacrificing their
children to Moloch by burning them in the fire ; they regularly
dedicated their daughters as prostitutes in the groves of
Astarte ; they polluted themselves with the nameless abomin-
ations which these religions enjoined ; and instead of listening
to the pure counsels of Jehovah, gave themselves u[) to
necromancers, soothsayers, Avizards and diviners, who, in the
delirium of ecstasy, polluted their minds as the others tlid
their bodies. But worse than all, once entered on this
downward course, there was no power anywliere available
to impede or arrest it. For the altars of Jehovah, as we
have seen, were not as they afterwards were, concentrated
at Jerusalem, but were found on every hill-top and under every
green tree ; and the priests, in consequence, who ministered
166 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
at them, scattered, isolated, without unity or organization, were,
except in the great sanctuaries like those of Bethel and Shiloh,
entirely in the power, as they were often in the pay, of the
rich and great. However desirous they may have been,
therefore, they were as impotent to put a stop to immoralities
which had been embraced alike by the people and by their
rulers, as ministers of religion in the slave states in modern
times have been to put down the iniquities of the traffic.
This, doubtless, could have been remedied, as indeed it after-
wards was, by the centralization and supremacy of the Priest-
hood, but here they were behind-hand, having been anticipated
by the Kings under whose sway the tribes had united when the
temporary and casual leadership of the Judges had failed to
cope with the continual inroads from all sides, — of Moabltes,
Edomites, Philistines, and other surrounding tribes. And as it
was the object of these Kings to keep all power, religious a*
well as political, in their own hands, their supremacy still
further tended to reduce the Priesthood to subservience ; and
that, too, at a time when owing to the impetus and encourage-
ment given to idolatry by the wives and concubines of these
kings (who caused images and altars of their own gods, of
Baal, Chemosh, and Astarte, to be set up in the very precincts
of the Palace and Temple), the authority of a united and power-
ful Priesthood was the more necessary to aid in repressing it.
Under circumstances such as these, what with the multiplicity
of gods with their attendant moral abominations, what with the
supremacy of the kings, and the subservience of the priesthood,
it would seem as if no point of support was to be found
anywhere ivithin the nation itself on which could be
planted a lever that should lift the people from their
degradation, — nothing, indeed, unless it were the deep
feeling of dependence on Jehovah, and the consequent
sense of sin on falling to keep His law, which in the
best spirits still survived from the traditions of the wilderness.
This feeling found its most burning expression in the great
JUDAISM. 107
Prophets who arose In the eighth and ninth centuries before
Christ, who thundered their denunciations of the prevailing
idolatry, corruption, and immorality into the ears of recreant
Kings and an unwilling People — denunciations of the Baal and
Astarte worship with their attendant moral abominations ; of
the servility, corruption, and even crimes of the priesthood, who
pandered to the lusts and caprices of kings, sold justice for
bribes, and abetted the great in their extortions and oppressions
of the poor; of the luxury, pomp, and frivolity of the Court,
which, instead of relying on Jehovah, the God of Hosts, who
had brought them out of Egypt and delivered them by a
mighty hand, relied on their arms of flesh, on chariots and
horsemen, on hollow j^olitical combinations and alliances — now
on Egypt, now on Assyria, now on Syria — broken reeds all,
that pierced their hands when they tried to lean on them when
the hour of trial came. Against all these the Prophets con-
tinued to hurl their thunders ; but although ultimately, and
when the time was ripe, they became, as we shall see, by the
sense of sin which they aroused, the main factor in the estab-
lishment of the Israel of God ; in the meantime they were of
little avail in the face of material, social, and political con-
ditions so hostile to their desiojns. For were not the ' liio-h
places,' the Idolatrous shrines, and sacred groves still there ?
And these the people had come to love. Were not the priests
still scattered. Isolated, and Avithout organization, and dependent
on the rich and powerful, Avho had every Incentive to keep
them so ? Did not the king and court rely on their chariots and
horsemen, and the people at large prefer to have it so ? If
then the Jewish people were destined In the order of Nature
or Providence of God to be the organ of Introducing a new
and higher religion and morality into the world, it would
seem that reformation must come from luithout, and jiot from
within ; and we have now to ask whether, with a minimum of
historical fact to guide us. It were possible, from the Laws of
Civilization In general, to indicate beforehand the kind of
1G8 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
experience that must befall them, to enable them to reach their
high goal.
To begin with, then, it is evident that the objects to be
aimed at are two, first, to put down the Idolatry which was the
parent of the immorality; and secondly, to secui'C the
Supremacy of the Priests over the Secular Power. 1 shall
begin with the first, the putting down of Idolatry. Now to
secure this end from loithout, only two possibilities were open.
The first was the complete conquest and assimilation of the
people by some foreign Power having a more exalted idea of
religion and morality than the Israelites; but no such nation
was, at the time, in existence. The surrounding nations Avere
either polytheistic like Egypt and Assyria, or if like Moab
and Amnion they had each their single god, it was j)recisely the
immoralities connected Avith the worship of these gods which
it was the problem to put down. The other alternative was
that some foreio-n Power should do with the Israelites as men
do Avith those domestic animals whose pure blood has been
mixed and polluted by some base and vicious strain, viz.,
destroy entirely the more corrupt specimens, and breed only
from the purer specimens that are left ; destroy the worst of
the oft-spring of these again, and again breed from the purest
and best ; and if in the end, as is said to be the case with
pigeons, it is impossible to keep a breed pure even in the
presence of other breeds, there is nothing for it but to remove
them from their native haunts, and start afresh on a pure and
virgin soil. Now this is precisely Avhat occurred in the case of
the Israelites. First, the ten tribes of Northern Israel, who
had been the worst ofi"enders, and who, after the revolt of
Jeroboam, had set up the golden calves at Bethel and Dan,
were carried wholesale into captivity by Sargon, King of
Assyria, in the year 722 B.C. ; the land being re-peopled by
tribes sent specially for the purpose from the region of Media
and tlie Euphrates, How precarious, indeed, had become the
hold of Jehovah on the minds of the Northern Israelites, and
JUDAISM. 169
how impossible it would have been, with blood so tainted, to
have weaned them from their idolatry and immorality, was
seen in the fact that in a few years they had quite forgotten
the God of their fathers, and had embraced the Assyrian
religion, melting into the surrounding population, and soon
leaving behind them no trace of their separate existence.
Northern Israel with its ten tribes being thus summarily wiped
out, the hope of Israel was centred on the smal' Southern
kingdom of Judah. But there, too, Baal and Aststrte worship
were as rife as they had been in the North ; and although the
prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah hurled their thunders against the
prevailing idolatry with a fierceness unapproached by Hosea
and Amos in the North, even their voices would have proved
as impotent as those of the Northern prophets, had it not
been for two very important facts. In the first place, owing to
the presence of the Ark of the Tabernacle in the Temple at
Jerusalem, the sense of Jehovah's invisible presence there
between the wings of the cherubim, was more indelibly
impressed on the minds of the people of Judah, than was
possible in the North at so great a distance from the Capital.
The sense of Sin, in consequence, was moi-e easily aroused by
the consciousness of any breach of Jehovah's law ; and the
word of God as announced by His mouthpieces the prophets,
fell on minds thus imbued with the sense of sin, with a
more profound effect than in the North. In the second
place, the remembrance that the captivity and exile of
the Northern tribes had been foretold by the Northern
prophets, and especially the fulfilment of the prediction of
Isaiah as to the destruction of the host of Sennacherib by the
power of Jehovah, lent to the prediction that Judah also Avould
be swept into captivity, the weight almost of a Divine
decree. But still the ' high places,' the pillars, and the groves to
which the people had been so long accustomed remained ; and
sanctioned as they were by all the force of prescription and
time, neither the exile of the Northern tribes for the like sins.
170 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
nor the weight of fulfilled prophecy, nor the keener sense of sin
following on any infraction of Jehovah^s law, could avail to
abolish them. There was little chance, then, of their being
abolished by the people themselves ; yet if a purer and nobler
religion and morality were ever destined to come out of Judah,
abolished they must be. The King alone had the power, if he
had the inclination, and accordingly when Hezekiah came to the
throne, and Isaiah succeeded in convincing him that some such
policy was necessary, he immediately took steps to carry it into
effect ; and without more ado removed the altars of Baal and
Astarte with the exception of those that Solomon had set up
on the Mount of Olives, broke in pieces the pillars, cut down
the sacred groves, and ground to powder the brazen serpent of
the Temple. But there he stopped, leaving still standing the
altars of Jehovah throughout the length and breadth of the
land. And thus the attempt failed, for as long as these altars
to Jehovah were allowed to stand on the spots where altars to
Baal and Astarte had so long stood beside them, the long
association of the worship of Jehovah with that of these
abolished deities, was too strong for the people to resist ; and
when, in the reaction under Manasseh, not only the Images,
pillars, and groves were set up again, but altars to the sun and
planets and all the host of Heaven were raised in the very
courts of the Temple, and children once more were passed
through the fire to Moloch, — it became evident that nothing
would exterminate idolatry and Its attendant immoralities, but
the wholesale abolition of all altars whatever outside of the
Capital, those of Jehovah as well as of the other gods, and the
removal of the attendant priests to Jerusalem where all worship
should henceforth be concentrated. But to carry out a reform
of this magnitude against the interests of the local priests, as
Avell as against the inclinations of the people, was an undertaking
more difficult than any that had yet been attempted ; and was
felt to require for its success a recourse to more than the
ordinary means of appeal. And so, when Josiah came to the
JUDAISM. 171
throne, and gave evidence of liis good intentions and zeal for
the cause, Jeremiah felt that the time was ripe for the supremo
effort. And then was put in practise a riise which for boldness
and originality, for the profound effect it produced on the minds
of men at the time, as well as on the relio-ion of all succeedina-
ages, is without a parallel, perhaps, in the history of the world.
The authority of both King and Prophet having failed in the
case of Hezekiah and Isaiah, it was now resolved to invoke the
supreme authority of Moses himself. And accordingly, in the
18th year of Josiah's reign, in the year 621 before Christ,
Hilkiah the high priest brought from out of the recesses of the
Temple, when it was undergoing repairs, a book which he
professed to have found there, and which purported to
contain the last instructions given to the children of Israel
by iMoses before his death in the land of Moab, and
before they crossed over into the land of Canaan. This
book was our present Book of Deuteronomy ; and the burden
of its injunctions, which were accompanied by cursings
and blessings, was to the effect that when the Israelites
should come to the place of worship which Jehovah should
choose for them, — to Jerusalem to wit, — they should offer
sacrifices at no other shrine, but should break down and
up-root all altars, pillars, and groves elsewhere throughout
the land, all worship of the sun and stars, all practice of
sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, in a word should do pre-
cisely what the prophets and the priests of the Temple now saw
was necessary to be done. Now although it is admitted on all
hands, by orthodox as well as heterodox divines, that however
much the book containing these injunctions may have embodied
tlic spirit of laws as old as the time of Closes, it was actually
concocted and written at this very time by the prophets or
priests about the Temple ; still, nothing of this was suspected,
and its effect on the public mind was immense. The nation, it
could no longer be doubted, had all this time been guilty of the
most heinous sin, and yet had been almost, if not entirely
172 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
unconscious of it! The King, when he heard of the penalties
that were to befall the nation for its sins, rent his clothes and sent
to Huldah the prophetess to find out whether they were indeed
likely to be inflicted. She replied that they were, but that he
himself should be spared on account of his humility and piety.
He therefore gathered the priests and prophets and all the
people of Judah into Jerusalem, into the Temple, and when the
words of the Covenant, as contained in the Book, were read to
them, they all there and then with one accord made a vow to
stand by them. This done, the king without further delay
began his reformation, and carried it out with a thoroughness
that left nothing to be desired. He first of all commanded the
priests and door-keepers to clear out of the Temple the vessels
devoted to the service of Baal, of the grove, and of all the host
of heaven, and to burn them in the fields of Kedron. He then
destroyed the high places devoted to the worship of Baal and
Astarte, not only throughout Judah but througliout Samaria
also, as well as those which Solomon had built on the Mount of
Olives. As for the priests that ministered at these altars, he
slew those of Samaria and put down those of Jndah, while
those that ministered at the altars of Jehovah throusrhout
Judah, he brought up to Jerusalem, where they afterwards
assisted the priests and had charge of the Temple under the
name of Levites. He also beat down the altars that Manasseh
had raised to the sun and stars in both courts of the Temple ;
destroyed the adjoining houses of the Sodomites, and defiled
Topheth in the valley of Hinnom, where the children were
offered up as sacrifices to Moloch. But not even the destruc-
tion of all the idolatrous shrines throughout the kingdom, the
slaying or removing of the idolatrous priests, and the removal
of the priests of Jehovali to Jerusalem, radical and thorough-
going as the reformation was, was sutficient. For the Court
was still there — the king, the aristocracy, the governors, and
the civil and military functionaries — and so long as it remained
men would still continue to rely on the arm of flesh, on their
JUDAISM. 173
chariots and horsemen, rather than on the might of Jehovah ;
and it only required the accession of a new king with less
pious leanings and less under the influence of the prophets
and priests than Josiah, to bring back much of the old
idolatry. And accordingly we read that his successors
did evil in the sight of the Lord, as their predecessors
had done ; not all the cleansings and purifyings that the nation
had undergone being able to purify the corrupted blood — not
the exile of the Northern tribes, the authority of the prophets,
the miraculous repulse of Sennacherib by the hand of Jehovah
as revealed by Isaiah, the destruction of the high places of
Josiah, the words of Moses himself as contained in the book
discovered in the Temple, nor lastly the complete destruction
of all altars whatever except the one at Jerusalem, and the
abolition of all priests except those who ministered at the
Temple there. Nothing availed so long as the secular State
by the existence of its arm of flesh, shared with Jehovah the
allegiance of men, as the old hill-tops still did by their
associations with idolatry. If the Jews, therefore, were ever
to become pure worshippers of Jehovah, it could only be by
removing them bodily and once for all from the polluted soil,
and giving them a fresh start elsewhere. And this indeed is
just what happened. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah, and in
597 B.C. carried off all the leading; inhabitants of Jerusalem to
Babylon; and in 586 burnt the Temple, broke down the walls,
and left the land a desolation and a waste. And now at last
that sense of the personal dependence of Israel on Jehovah
v»hich had been burnt into them, as we have seen, by their
sojourn in the Wilderness, and which was the first experience
needed to ditterentiate them from other peoples and to prepare
them for their 2:reat mission, beoan to exert its full eflect.
Fanned into a burning flame by the prophets who carried on
the tradition of the covenant between Israel and its God, it
gradually aroused in the nation a sense of sin so deep at the
recollection of the broken Law, that although at first of little
174 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAIS3I.
practical avail in the face of the many religious, material, and
social conditions hostile to it, it was destined in the end, and
when the time was ripe, to become the sole factor in shaping
the Israel of the future. So well indeed had the prophets
done their work in the century and a quarter that had elapsed
between the exile of the Ten Northern tribes and the exile of
Judah, that whereas in the North the deported populations in
a few years had melted away and were lost amid the foreign
populations ; in the South, exile, instead of making the captivea
forget their God, or feel as was usual in such cases that He
must be inferior to the Babylonian deity who had conquered Him,
served only to deepen their conviction that Jehovah was the
one and only true God, and that in all their humiliations,^
sufferings, and exiles, He was but using the other nations of the
earth as His instruments to chastise them for their sins. And so
they sat by the waters of Babylon weeping for their beloved
Zion, and in Psalms of immortal beauty wailing forth their
laments over their broken Law. There, absolved from all
political and material cares, and far from the associations of
idolatry that had been so seductive and fatal to their peace, the
last obstacles which up to then had prevented them from
realizing the prophet's ideal were removed ; and they were now
free to look up to Heaven and like Ezekiel to paint on its
pure azure the Israel of their dreams. And when at last they
returned to Jerusalem, still further purged of the worldly-
minded among them who were left behind, and indeed of all
except those who lived in these delicious visions of the future,
they returned a 'remnant' indeed, but one which cleansed from
all taint of idolatry, and purified by suffering as if by fire, only
needed to be kept apart from surrounding peoples for a while,
to realize the dreams of the prophets, and to form the nucleus
of what was afterwards destined to become a pure Theocracy,
the true Israel of God.
And so, for the first time in recorded history was taken a
real step in the advance of the Morality of the World to a higher
JUDAISM. 175
plane, and that, too, by a small Semitic tribe. For tlie first
time idolatry had been suppressed, and after centuries of effort
the belief in One God (without which, as we have seen, no real
advance in morality was possible) was firmly rooted in the
minds of men. If, then, we now ask what the particulars of
thnt moral advance were, we may tabulate them as follows: —
The getting adultery, prostitution, and other nameless heathen
practices (as well as the taking of human life), recognized by
men as sins, and not as mere civil offences in which you could
indulge if you were willing or able to pay for them ; the
making the parental relation a sacred one, at a time when in all
other countries parents were either the tyrants or slaves of
their children; the recognition of the human brotherhood of
the stranger and alien within their gates and of his claim to
kindness and consideration, at a time when elsewhere he was
regarded with dislike, or treated as an enemy ; the making of
sorcery, witchcraft, and divination, sins and crimes ; the aboli-
tion of human sacrifices ; the mitigation of slavery to the point
where it almost ceased to be slavery ; and the making of
philanthropy a religious duty binding on all, instead of leaving
it as a matter of individual caprice. Now these were all real
advances in Morality, not attained for centuries afterwards by
any other nation, and wrought out by the Jews, and by the
Jews alone, through such long ages of national and personal
humiliation, punishment, and sorrow, as we have just seen. So
that when Christ came there was nothinsr for him tj do but to
take peaceful possession of this vast estate which had been
already won and prepared for him, viz., the belief in One God,
freedom from Idolatry, and a code of Personal Morality which,
with the exception perhaps of the marriage laws, was identical
with that of the present day.
And now observe that these moral advances could only be
made permanent by parallel advances in the conception of
God; and these advances, again, in the conception of God
were necessitated by the same outer and inner experiences as
176 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
had led to the advance in morality and the putting down of
idolatry. Beginning, like Baal of the Syrians, and Chemosh of
the Moabites, as a cruel, capricious, and tyrannical god, standing
like all the Pagan deities, in relation to his people as a master to
slaves, Jehovah was believed, after the experiences of the Wilder-
ness, to have bound himself up in a more intimate and personal
manner in the fortunes of the Israelites, for weal or for woe,
than was the case with these deities and their worshippers, and
to have assumed a more paternal relation towards them ; and
so could be represented by the Prophets as one who would not
suffer any one of his children to be oppressed by the rest, but
who insisted that justice and mercy should flow equally among
all, like a running stream. It was the first step towards a real
paternal relation in men's conception of God, and found its
expression in the code of the Ten Commandments ; a code in
which the higher morality that usually only subsists between
family and kindred, was for the first time in history widened so
as to embrace a whole nation. Not only did no Pagan nation
reach this height, but in States where Society was built on the
relation of master and slave, and where fathers could put their
sons to death and masters their slaves, it was impossible that
they ever should have reached it. But it must be remembered
that, like Baal and Chemosh, Jehovah was still the god only of
a single tribe ; and to enable Israel to rise to the conception of
him as not only the god of their special tribe, but as God of all
nations, yet another great experience was needed, and this was
vouchsafed when the Northern tribes were, as we have seen,
carried off into exile by the Assyrians. For now there was no
alternative but to believe either that Jehovah was no God at
all, and that Assur the Assyrian god who had conquered him
was the only True God, or else that he was merely using the
Assyrians to punish his pcO|)]e for their sins, But under
the burning preaching of the Prophets it was inevitable that
the latter of these beliefs must prevail. And the consequence
was that henceforth Jelio\ali, altliough still having his
JUDAISM. 177
dwelling-place in Zion, was Ijclieved to be not only the God of
the Isriielites, but the Great and Supreme God of all the Earth
as well. That is to say, from a Monolatry, the religion of the
Jews had passed at a bound, almost to a pure Monotheism.
Kot quite to a pure jSIonotheism — for the existence if not the
supremacy of the gods of other nations was still recognized.
But it only required the Second Exile, with the sight of the
Babylonian gods in the old form of dead images — half wood
half god as Isaiah contemptuously calls them — to convince
them that Jehovah was not only the Supreme but the only God
of the Universe ; and with this belief the religion of Israel
passed at last into a pure Monotheism. And further, this very
belief of the people that Jehovah was only using the
Babylonians as instruments to punish them for their sins, itself
necessitated a still further advance in the character of Jehovah,
turning him from a god wilful and capricious though requiring
justice and mercy from his children, into a god himself
absolutely just and merciful. And lastly, the fact that he had
chosen the Jews as his own children, Avhile all the rest of the
nations stood to him as step-children merely, made him all the
more sensitive to neglect from his own people, all the more
tenacious of his own honour and dignitv, all the more exactinsf of
reverence and awe from them. Further than this of a God Just
and Kighteous, but with high ideas of his own honour and
dignity, the Jews did not go in their conception of the Deity.
Nor indeed could they have gone farther without renouncing
all that was distinctive of them as a people; all the teachings
of their history, all their memories and traditions, all that had
made them what they were, nil that had been ingrained in them
by centuries of humiliation and sorrow. To have taken the
next step, and conceived of .Jehovah as a God of Luve of
whom all nations alike were the children without prejudice or
favour, Avould have been to have passed over from Judaism to
Christianity itself ; and this step, until the millennium dawns,
and nations shall without compvdsion submit to sink their pride
N
178 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
and to freely admit their former inferiors to a position of
equality with themselves, they could not be expecied to take.
But neither the purging of the infected blood of Israel by
successive Exiles on the one hand, nor the sense of Sin branded
into the national mind by the Prophets on the other, would have
availed to raise the morality of the nation to the high point it
ultimately reached, or to have jjermanently kept it there, had it
not been for the parallel and steady advance of another factor
of scarcely less importance, viz., the unity and supremacy of
the Priesthood. For it is evident that had the successive exiles
purged and reduced the population of the kingdom to its last
two inhabitants, still nothing would have been gained had there
not been some provision by which these two should be compelled
to start afresh with a unanimity of practice and belief. Nor
would it have availed anything that the Prophets should have
aroused the conscience of the nation to its highest pitch, had
they left it without definite knowledge of precisely wdiat
men were to think and to do in the various circumstances of
life as they arose. Now if it was the function of the Prophets
to declare in general terms what the Law of Jehovah was,
viz., to do justice and hate iniquity, it was the function of the
Priesthood to frame rules for its application in detail, — to mature,
consolidate, codify and conserve it, — and this could only be
done by their gradual advance to unity and supremacy. For
it is clear that with a multiplicity of scattered priests, un-
organized, dependent, isolated, and without the guidance of a
written code, decisions as to what the Law of their one God,
Jehovah, specially was in any given case, were likely to be
almost as various and conflicting as if they had been the
decisions of the priests of different gods ; and a steady advance
towards any common goal of morality or conduct would have
been impossible. It will now be interesting to ask what those
chance conditions or circumstances in the life of the nation were,
which were seized upon and utilized by the Presiding Genius of
the World for the purpose of gradually raising the Priesthood
JUDAISM. 17S
from its isolated, unorganized and dependent position in
the time of the Judges, to its final unification and supremacy
over all powers in th3 State, under a single High Priest, after
the Babylonian Exile.
The first condition, and the one without which no start could
have been made and no foundation laid, was the fact that the
Ark or seat of Jehovah's presence, where his will was declared,
his judgments given, and his oracles delivered, w^as a single
structure that could neither be multiplied nor divided; and
that his presence between the cherubim was an invisible
presence. The consequence was that images of Jehovah could
not be multiplied at different shrines, nor various readings of
his Law given by the priests in charge of such shrines, as Avas
the case with the gods of the other tribes. It is true that
images of Jehovah, as of the other gods, had been multiplied
throughout the land, but these had always been regarded by
the prophets from the very first as idolatrous, and responses in
consequence given at their shrines must always have lacked the
weight and authority of those delivered before the Ark. And
accordingly when the Northern tribes, who after their revolt
had erected images to Jehovah at Dan and Bethel in the shape
of two golden calves, had been swept into exile, and with them
the little tera[)him or household images of Jehovah which
xvere also in common use in private families, the Ark which had
l>een removed by David to Jerusalem, and over which Solomon
had built his Temple, gave to the priests connected with that
central sanctuary, an authority and supremacy over the priests
of all other shrines which they had not before possessed. But
although after the building of the Temple the teraphlni v.ere
removed from the private families of Judah as well, and placed
Avithin it, still the altars to Jehovah remained on the ' high
places' throughout Judah; and the priests who ministered at
them, infected as they were with idolatrous practices, must
have given responses and decisions as impure a8 were their
idolatrous rites. And hence it was that when Hezekiah broke
180 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
the images of Baal^ destroyed the groves of Astarte, and pulled
down the ' high places ' devoted to the worship of these deities,
but left the altars to Jehovah still standing in the places where
the Idolatrous altars had been, nothing was gained. It was
only when Joslah had abolished the altars to Jehovah as well
as those to Baal throughout Judah, and had brought the priests
who ministered at them to Jerusalem to act as inferior clergy
or Levites about the Temple and in the service of the priests
there ; and especially when the whole Law of God, moral,
ceremonial, and civil, was reduced to writing, as it stands in our
present Book of Deuteronomy ; — it was only then that the
authority of the priests at Jerusalem abolished the last traces of
the authority of all the other priests. And yet, so long as the
Monarchy lasted it was impossible that the pure Law of Jehovah
should have free play, or that the Priesthood should have the
supremacy over all other powers in the State. It was not until
the Second Exile had destroyed the Monarchy and the last
vestige of Judah's existence as a secvdar State, that the priests
were able to return to Jerusalem with a High Priest as a centre
of unity at their head, and with full power to administer a
single code of law^s — moral, civil, and ceremonial — for all Israel.
This Code, still further elaborated in its ceremonial part by
inclusion in it of the Priestly Code found scattered through
the other books of the Pentateuch and brought by Ezra from
Babylon B.C. 444 (about 100 years after the return of the
exiles^, became and remained the sole code of the Jews ; while
the Priests who administered it, now at last organized, unified,
and centralized, remained henceforth In all matters, religious,
political, and ceremonial, the Supreme Power throughout Israel.
With idolatry at last abolished after centuries of eftbrt by the
combined action of repeated purglngs by Exile, of the sense of
Sin awakened and kept alive by the Pro^ihets, and of the steady
advance of the Priesthood to ascendancy ; with a new and
Iiigher Code of Morality inaugurated than any the world had
yet known; we are now prepared, before completing our study
JUDAISM. 181
of Judaism, to face the problem which has so long puzzled the
critics and commentators, viz., as to why it was that the great
cry kept up by successive generations of prophets from age to
age, the cry, viz., tliat what Jehovah wanted was not so much
.sacrifices and burnt ofTerings as the doing justice, loving mercy,
hating iniquity, and walking humbly with their God — that
this, which was quite on a level with the best Christianity of
our own age, should have ended after the Exile not in the
Christian doctrine which would seem to have been its natural
outcome, but in a devotion to outer observances and ceremonial
forms of the most puerile character, — in a state of opinion in
which the picking up of sticks on the Sabbath, or the touching
of a dead mouse, was considered as great a sin as adultery ;
circumcision as important as uprightness of character ; and
])urity of skin or of dishes as purity of heart? Now it must be
admitted that the absui'dity of such an ending after so glorious
a beginning is indeed glaring, but a few preliminary consider-
ations may perhaps explain the apparent inconsistency and
serve to put the matter in a new light. To begin with, it
is necessary to correct the false assumption that confronts us
on the threshold, and which, as I believe, is the root of all the
fallacies into Avhich the commentators have fallen, the
assumption, viz., that what the prophets of the 7th and 8th
centuries before Christ meant by the phrases to do justice, love
mercy, hate iniquity, etc., was much the same as what we
should mean by these phrases at the present day. With us
the words have a wide, universal, and cosmopolitan sense,
embracing the entire world, and one Avhich it would take ages
and centuries to realize. But with the Prophets they had no
reference to the -world at large at all, but were aimed at
certain definite moral and social grievances and injustices
existing among the Jewish people themselves. These may be
practically summed up as follows : — The extortions of the rich
and their oppression of the poor ; bribery and the sale of justice
by judges and priests ; the corruptions of the court ; falte
182 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
prophecy ; idolatiy and the moral abominations with which, as
we have seen, it Avas associated. Now my contention is that
the reform of each and all of these abuses was carried out long;
before the excessive devotion to ceremonial came into vogue,
and further that had the reform of the abuses not been
followed by this excessive devotion to outside ceremonial and
obserrances, idolatry would have crept iu again, bringing back
all the old immoralities in its train ; and so the Mission of Israel,
which was to prove so im])ortant for the whole after history of
the world, would have failed. Or to put it more plainly, 1
should contend that the ceremonialism of the Scribe and
Pharisee was as necessary to the great part that Israel had to
play in the world, as either the preaching of the Prophets, the
successive Exiles, or the work of the Priests ; and that without it
neither the conception of One God, nor the high code of Morality
which the Jews had realized, could have been maintained.
But I must first prove my point, viz., that the prophets in
their great cry of 'doing justice and loving mercy,' had in their
minds only certain definite moral abuses and grievances existing
among their oion people, and that these abuses had all been met
bv leo;islation before the excessive devotion to ceremonialism
set in. Indeed one may say in general terms that the fact that
with the prophets Jehovah was the god of a small tribe ot
chosen people with whom all his interests were boimd up, ought
of itself to be sufficient to prove that the words of this same
Jehovah through the prophets to do justice and love mercy,
could not have had an extension beyond the limits of their own
tribe, no more so indeed than if they had been the words of
Chemosh or of Baal. But, if wanted, a more direct proof is to
be found In the Book of Deuteronomy which was the work of
the Prophets themselves. Here you have it laid down as
Jehovah's command that the Jews, although they may exact
usury and the payment of debts from the foreigner, are not to
do so from their own people; and that they are to utterly
destroy without mercy the people of the land, the Canaanites,
JUDAISM. 183
the Ilivites, the .Tcbusites, etc., leaving nothing alive that
breathes ; all of which surely shows that the command to do
justice and love mercy was not intended to have a universal
extension to all peoples, but was to be strictly limited to the
affairs of the Jews alone. It is true that the second Isaiah,
sitting in exile long after the reform of all the moral abuses by
the Code of Deuteronomy, could indulge the dream that tlie
day would come when all nations should come to Jerusalem for
their Law, and when justice and mercy should radiate from
thence to all parts of the earth ; but this was only a dream of
the far future, a purely personal ideal which would no more be
permitted to force itself on an unwilling people until the time
for it was ripe, or to interfere with the orderly evolution of the
steps necessary to consolidate what had been already won
than in our own time the Christian ideal of universal peace is
permitted to interfere with the steady evolution, often through
conflict and strife, of communities and States. That the words
of the Prophets had but a limited application was further seen
in this, that when Josiah came to the throne, and the prophetic
party for the first time had full freedom given them to legislate
agains-t all abuses either in Church or State, the actual abuses
for which remedies were found and embodied in the Deuter-
onomic Code, were precisely those abuses against which the
prophets had so long inveighed — and no others. One of the
most pressing was that the rich had gradually added field to
field until the land of the country having passed into fewer
and fewer hands ; its produce instead of being distributed
among the people was exported for foreign luxuries ; the con-
sequence being that the people had fallen hopelessly into debt
from which they could only redeem themselves by borrowing at
usurious rates of interest, or delivering up their own persons to
their creditors as slaves. This abuse was one against which
the Prophets had inveighed from the first, and it was now
met in the New Code by the institution of the Sabbatical
Year and the Year of Jubilee, in which all d('l)ts were to be
184 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
cancelled, all slaves set at liberty, and the produce of the land
given to the poor ; as well as by the promulgation of laws
forbidding the taking of usury by one Jew from another, while
the gleanings of the fields at harvest were to be left
for the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger living among
them. Otliei- laws were enacted against the taking of bribes
by Judges and Priests, and the use of false weights and
measures by the Merchants and Dealers. The corruptions of
the Court, again, with its luxury and its dependence on the
arm of flesh instead of on Jehovah, were provided against by
the law prohibiting the King from accumulating much silver
and gold, from marrying many wives, and from keeping many
horses and chariots ; Idolatry and Witchcraft were put down by
the enactment of laws prohibiting the setting up of images
and of groves, and 'the practice of religious prostitution and
unnatural vices. !Now these were the particular abuses which
the prophets had in their minds when they spoke in general
1 erms of doing justice, loving mercy, and hating iniquity — these
and no other ; and they were all reformed or in the way of
reformation, by the laws enacted against them before the Exile.
If further proof of this were needed it would be found in the
fact that when, about a hundred years after the return from
exile, the new Code of the Pentateuch was brought by Ezra
from Babylon, there were no laws in it against usury, bribery,
idolatry, cruelty, adultery, religious prostitution, incest or
sodomy ; no provisions with regard to slavery, poverty, debt,
etc. ; showing that the old Law of Deuteronomy had done its
work, and that all the moral abuses against which the prophets
had so long railed had at last been reformed — so far, that is to
say, as it was possible for legislation to reform them. And
hence it was that after the Exile, the Age of Prophecy ceased,
until the new conception of God inaugurated by Jesus
demanded a new moral propaganda in accordance with it.
Having cleared the way of these preliminary misconceptions,
it will now be comparatively easy to show that instead of the
JUDAISM. 185
prophetic cry to ' do justice, love mercy, and hate iniquity,'
findini^ its natural sequel in the Christian doctrine, as indeed
it ou<rht to have done had it had a sjeneral Instead of a strictly
limited and local range of application, it was both right an<l
necessary that it should be followed by the ceremonial scrupu-
losity and regard for outward observance which is the very
antithesis of Christianity. In other words we may say that
both the belief in One God, and the moral advance that had
been so dearly purchased by the Jews, could only have been
permanently won for the world by something of the nature of
the ceremonial fastidiousness of the Scribe and Pharisee.
And here wc may lay down the general principle, that in
ao-es of the world when the actions of men are believed to have
their roots and causes in the will of the gods, so closely is their
morality, what they shall do or avoid doing, bound up with the
conception they have formed of these gods, that any change in
the character of the latter will be found to re-act immediately
on the former ; and, therefore, that if the morality reached at
any given point in the life of a nation is to be kept pure and
steady and prevented from retrograding, the conception of the
character of the god or gods which corresponds to that morality,
must be guarded with the most jealous care. If this be so, and
if the Jews were destined to lead both the relii^ion and the
morality of the world up to the very door of Christianity, but
like Moses, not themselves to enter in ; if instead of the God
•of Love of Christianity who required only a morality of the
heart, of upright intention and motive as best corresponding
to His character, they were to stop short at a God of Justice,
Righteousness, and Honour— it is evident that after the moral
reforms of the Prophets, which corresponded to His Justice and
Righteousness, were carried, the chief concern of the Jews
henceforth must have been to find the most fittinir form of
satisfying this dignity and honour. What special form this
should take, would depend, of course, on circumstances, on
historical antecedent, or on precedent. In the case of the Jews,
186 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
as we know, it happened to be Ceremonial Purity. It need not
necessarily have been so. More substantial things were included
in the worship — food and sweet smelling savours in the form
of incense and burnt oiferings (for traces of the old barbaric
and tribal God clung to Jehovah to the last) ; and the satis-
faction of his honour and dignity might have been a matter
of mere quantity of food, as distinguished from its quality and
from the cleanliness and purity of the priests and people by
whom it was offered, as well as of the vessels in which it
was served. But historical antecedent and tradition having
determined once and for all that the dignity and honour of
Jehovah were best to be consulted by ceremonial purity,
nothing was left now for Judaism to do, moral abuses and
grievances having been removed, but to carry out this
ceremonial purity to its last extreme. And accordingly in the
Priestly Code of the Pentateuch which Ezra brought with him
from Babylon after the Exile, this ritual of ceremonial purity
was wrought out with an elaboration and to a point of detail
beyond which it were impossible to go. Of this code, and of
the oral traditions which accompanied and overlaid it, the
Scribes were the official exponents; while the Pharisees set
themselves apart with the devotion of the early monks but
without their asceticism to carry out its precepts into the
minutest details of life. To Avhat a point of elaboration and
differentiation they carried it may still be seen by the variety
of nick-names with which they were characterized. There
was the ' bandy-legged ' Pharisee who knocked his feet against
the stones in the ecstacy of his devotions ; 'the bloody- brow'd*
Pharisee who, shutting his eyes that he might not see the
women, ran his head against the wall ; the ' pestle ' Pharisee
bent double in humility like a pestle handle ; the ' strong-
shouldered ' Pharisee with back bent as if he were
carrying the whole burden of the Law ; the ' what is there
to do and I do it ' Pharisee, always on the look out for
some new precept of the Scribes to perform, and so
JUDAISM. 187
on. Now although the Pharisees, and indeed the whole
Jewish nation, took these ceremonial trifles with the greatest
seriousness, and observed them with a scrupulosity and
devotion which they did not accord to the higher morality
and to the weightier matter of the Law, the point of
importance for us to observe is that all the while the World-
Spirit was getting out of it all precisely that at which it
aimed. For the effect of all these ceremonial observances,
embracing as they did almost every action of life, and
occupying the thoughts of men at every hour of the day —
observances which it was as difficult to keep -without falling
into sin on one side or the other as to walk on a razor's edge,
— the effect of all this, which did for the Jews in the settled
state what the wandering in the Wilderness had done in the
nomadic, was to keep Jehovah and His honour ever in the
mind's eye to the exclusion of almost all else beside, and to
so burn the idea of a single omnipotent God into successive
generations of men, that when Christ came this belief had
attained to the certaintv of an axiom of thought Avliich could
be assumed without controversy or dispute, and on which, as
on a sure foundation, he could build his new and stiU higher
conception of God. And further, and perhaps even more
important, together with this conception of one God of
Ivighteousness and Justice, there were preserved to the world
for all time those moral reforms which had been w^on imder its
inspiration, but which in the midst of heathen nations would
have been lost again bv anv relapse into idolatrv. With this
ceremonialism of the Scribes and Pharisees the religious
evolution of Israel practically ends.
CHAP TEE III.
THE EVOLVING CENTRES IN RELIGION.
^"^PIE attempt I am making in this work to lay down at
each sta^e of our iournev the lines alono- which the great
intellectual, moral, and social movements of the world will be
seen to have evolved, can only be justified on the assumption
which I have made throughout, viz., that the fact of Evolution
holds good in the spiritual and moral, as well as in the physical
Nvorld ; and that however catastrophic the means employed by
Society at certain periods of its history may have been, the
abiding results achieved Avill be found to have been deposited,
like geological strata, in the most orderly, gi-adual, and uniform
manner; no step in the long line of ascending terraces which
Humanity has built for itself and on which from time to time
It has rested, being omitted, but each being well and solidly
laid down before the next was entered upon. Accordingly, as
we saw in the last chapter, it took some three or four centuries
of Pharisaic puerilities, — ceremonial washings, purifications,
feasts, new-moons. Sabbaths, and the rest, — before the great
conception of the Unity and Personality of Jehovah was
sufficiently burnt into the minds and hearts of the JeAvs, to
enaljle Jesus to enter on it as on a sure inheritance, and on it
to build, as on an axiom of thought, his new and higher con-
ception of God. In the following chapters it shall be my
endeavour to ascertain from the study cf Jewish life and
THE EVOLVING CENTRES IN RELIGION. 189
thought iminediatcly preceding the appearance of Jesus, whether
it is possible to detei'mine what, on the hypothesis of Evolution,
the next development of Religion ought to be and must be :
and I shall then hope to use the knowledge so acquired to
clear up difficulties of interpretation in the doctrine of Jesus
and the Early Church, which, from the contradictory nature of
the existing records would be otherwise unresolvable. In
attempting this, it will not I trust be necessary to make any
apology to the reader, for 1 am only proposing to do what is
now done every day by Science, as for example, when the
law of gravitation is invoked to determine the exact position
of a planet or moon in times long past, and which in the
absence of all record would, but for the use of this law, remain
for ever unkno^Aal. Without some such outside help, indeed,
it would be impossible for us now ever to attain to a sure and
well-grounded belief as to the exact meaning to be attached to
the words of Jesus in those cases where his recorded utterances
are absolutely antagonistic and irreconcilable — as, for example.
in reference to the Kingdom of God, where some of his sayings,
as we have seen, would seem to indicate that he meant by it an
internal condition of the mind and heart, others, again, an
outer and visible kingdom to be set up on earth. Not indeed
that for our purpose here it matters so much, strange as it may
seem, what Jesus himself meant by this or that disputed point
of doctrine, as what the disciples and apostles who laid the
foundation of the Church understood him to mean by it ; for
if, in any instance, the thought of Jesus were over the heads of
his followers, or Avere premature, Utopian, or otherwise im-
practicable, to that extent precisely, even if it were true, would
it either be inoperative or be dropped until the time was ripe
from out the circle of the faith. And yet, although it be true
that not all the views of the Founder of a religion need neces-
sarily correspond with Avhat the principle of EAolution would
demand, still, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it does
seem natural that, imbued as he must be more deeply than
I
190 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
others with the spirit and wants of the age, he should be
credited with those doctrines which woukl follow most logically
and naturally out of all the preceding evolution. And this
leads me still further to remark that not every part of a
religion is from the point of view of evolution of importance,
but only those parts of it wliich Ave may call its nuclei or
evolving centres. And hence it is, that before the principle of
evolution can be applied with a prospect of success to the
passage of one religion into another, it is necessary to deter-
mine what, in general, these nuclei or evolving centres are ;
and to establish if possible such lines of connexion or relation
between them, that the character of one or more of them
being given, the nature of the rest may be scientifically
determined and forseen. To pause for a moment and institute
an inquiry into this indispensable preliminary to the true
imderstanding of the message and doctrine of Jesus, and
of the stages by which Judaism and Grsco-Koman Paganism
led up to it, will form the subject-matter of the present
chapter.
To begin with, then, a glance at the structure of all or any of
the great historical religions will show that they are all alike
made up of three main elements — a Supernatural Ideal, a
particular Conception o.f God or of the gods, and a more or less
definite Moral Code.
As for the Supernatural or Ideal Element, it is to be
observed that all religions alike hold up before the eyes of their
votaries some Ideal Kingdom, some bright Supernatural Realm,
some fairer and happier land that shall more harmoniously
meet the desires and aspirations of the mind and heart than
any the existing world affords. This ideal is an essential and
all-important factor in all religions, and is what chiefly dis-
tinguishes them from pliilosophies. It corresponds in the
economy of religion to the brightly-coloured corolla and
honeyed perfume which attract the bees for the fertilization of
flowers; and without it religions would never reach the masses of
THE EVOLVING CENTRES IN RELIGION. 191
men at all. Its distinguishing feature is tliat it is no pale cold
abstraction like Philosophy, but is always a warm concrete
reality in which the spiritual, moral and sensuouB sides are so
skilfully and harmoniously blended, as to fascinate and allure
the hearts and imaginations of men. It contains a sensuous
side, I have said, for just as in the carrying out of any great
secular design, fame, wealth, or power must enter as necessary
elements to draw on the imagination and keep men to their task ;
or as in the highest human love, as Montaigne has said, you will
hear if you listen closely some sensuous strain mingling with
its purest note ; so, too, is it with the Ideal element in all
religions. In Mahommedanism, for example, not only is there
opened up for the contemplation of the devout, a God awful in
majesty whose decrees are as unshunnable as death, but f(jr
the sensuous is provided as well a paradise of gleaming waters,
luxurious couches, Avaving palm trees and dark-eyed Houris.
In Buddhism, again, life-weary souls instead of being con-
demned to an eternal round of transmigration and re-incar-
nation, as in the prevailing Ilindooism, had opened up before
them a Heaven emptied of the monsters in the shape of gods
by whom it had been peopled, and converted into a Nirvana of
everlasting peace and rest. So, too, in the Heaven of popular
Christianity. Besides spiritual and holy joys for the pious and
devout, there are the golden harps, the precious stones, and the
gates of pearl, for those to whom such things appeal ; while for
those who can be acted on only by bodily fear the sidphurous
fires of Hell are kept perennially burning.
Now these Supernatural Ideals, answering to and reflecting as
they do the very various longings and desires of different
nations and peoples, grow like them out of a common root —
viz. the general Material and Social Conditions of the place and
time ; and besides take a tinge and complexion as we shall see
from the other two great elements in rclifrions which we have
now to consider, viz., their Moral Code and their conception of
the Nature of God,
192 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
The Moral Code that is bound up with and forms one of the
great evolving centres in the structure of all religions, consists
in the system of duties, obligations, observances, habits, and
customs of the different peoples ; and determines for those Avho'
live under it whether and to what extent their minds and
hearts shall be dwarfed and confined, or be allowed free ran ore
and expansion. It is the measure and index of the stage of
Civilization reached at any given time. Unlike the Super-
natural Ideals of which we have just been treating, and on
which the individual man has fixed his eye, these codes of
morality, of practical duties as operative between man and man,
are the real objects which the \^'orld-Spirit has most at heart.
They are the true kernels of all religious systems, the seed
which Providence or Fate so carefully guards and conceals at
the bottom of the beautiful corolla of supernatural delighta
opened up before the eyes of men to lead them on. They are
the real ends, we may say, towards which all this supernatural
paraphernalia is but inducement and means. The chief
superiority of Buddhism, for example, over the Hindooism out
of which it grew, consisted in it:< pure and simple morality — its
kindness, charity, mercy, and peace, — and although these
virtues were inculcated, as we saw in a former chapter, rather
for their negative value in helping men to escape the burden of
life than, as in Christianity, as the positive means to a larger
and fuller life, still they were a great advance on the cruel and
inhuman practices and rites of Hindooism — practices which
degraded and oppressed the souls of men while monopolizing
their lives and activities. The superiority again of Mahom-
medanism over the wild Arab life it superseded, consisted, as
we saw, in its almsgiving, its sobriety, its simplicity of life — a
code of morality which in spite of the polygamy and slavery
vvhich still adhered to and marred it, and the contempt for
Science with which it was bound up, and which in the end con-
demned it to stagnation and sterility, was nevertheless an
enormous advance over the wild, undisciplined life, the
THE EVOLVING CENTRES IN RELIGION. IDS
revenge, licentiousness, and bloody feuds Avhicli it replaced.
Take again Judaism. The superiority of its moral code over
that of" the Canaanitish inhabitants of the Promised Land
consisted in the purity of life which after centuries of exilr
and affliction it eventually reaHzed for itself, and which,
although in the matter of divorce, etc., still leaving much to be
desired, was nevertheless an immense advance over the incest,
the pollution, the unnameable abominations of the Syrian
Nature- Worship which it superseded and replaced.
The third, and fi-om the point of view of man, the all-
important element in Religion, the element on which the
Moral Code depends for its permanence and stability, is the
conception men have of the nature of God or the gods. In
saying that the stability of a ^Nloral Code is bound up with the
stability of a corresponding conception of God, I do not mean
to imply that religions always have their origin in some new
view of the nature of God. On the contrary, originating as
they always do in the depths of some individual mind, — Moses,
Mahomet, Buddha, Jesus — it will depend largely on the
individual genius and temperament of the Founder whether
the germ of the new religion is called into life by disgust with
or reaction against the prevailing morality, or against the
prevailing conception of God. But as the Code of Morality, as
Ave shall now see, always corresponds to and varies with
the conception of God, it matters comparatively little as to
which has had the precedence in the mind of the Founder.
There is nothing capricious or fortuitous in the connexion.
You cannot have a hioher moral code without its givino- rise to
a higher conception of God, or a higher conception of God
without its engendering a higher Morality. Where you have,
as in Paganism for example, a multiplicity of gods sitting at
every corner and bye-patli of life, and exacting toll in the
shape of offerings, sacrifices, and the like, from the passers by,
you would know beforehand, as we saw in a former chapter,
that from it no higher code of morality could arise than that
o
194 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
eugendered by the relationship of master and slave ; and that
on such a religion no institutions demanding a higher
conception of human duty or truer relations between man
and man, could ever be founded. In the same way, in a
religion like that of later Judaism, where the conception of
Jehovah was of a Being unapproachable in majesty, purity,
and holiness, dwelling high above all things earthly,
offensive, or impure, but bound up with the destinies of a
particular people, you have a morality which runs almost
entirely to external forms of adoration and homage, — purifica-
tions, fastings, abstention from contact with impure persons or
dead animals, from forbidden foods, from Gentile peoples, — in
a word you have the morality of the Scribe and Pharisee. On
the other hand, from a code of morality purely secular in
character, and professing to be based on a purely scientific con-
ception of the way in which men must be related to each other
if they are to attain to their highest welfare, as In the Religion
of Humanity of Comte, you would know beforehand that as
God is no longer needed in the system, it would end in a
practical, if not speculative, Atheism or Agnosticism ; while in
systems where, as in Nihilism, men are taught that there is no
future for them in another world, and that if ever they are to
get a glimpse of happiness it must be here and now in this, you
have the tendency — almost indeed the certainty — for the
disbelief in God to out-run the hesitations and uncertainties
of Agnosticism, and out-jumping the evidence to end in an
aggressive and absolute Atheism. And lastly, from the con-
ception of God as a God of Love, the common Father of all
mankind as in Christianity, you will of necessity have a code
of morality co-extensive with the whole human race, a universal
brothex'hood of Man. From all which it would appear that in
studying the origins of religions as they first take shape in the
minds of their Founders, it is practically of little importance
vvhether we begin with the conceptions of Morality, or the
conceptions of the Nature of God ; as owing to this reciprocal
THE EVOLVING CEXTUES IN RELIGION. 105
relationship existing between tliem the one must inevitably
accompany tlie other, or speedily draw it after it. The important
point to remember is, that until a particular code of ^lorality
has been fixed and stereotyped by a corresponding conception
of God, it cannot be regarded as secure ; depending as it does,
for its continued existence and vitality, on that conception, as
a tree on its roots.
With an Ideal World, then, of joys and delights as the
brightly-tinted corolla, the honeyed perfume with which to
fascinate and allure the hearts and imaginations of men ; with
a ;Moral Code as the real seed Avhich the World-Spirit most
carefully watches and guards, and exhausts all its ingenuity to
propagate and spread abroad ; with a Conception of God or
the gods corresponding to this code of morality, varying with
it, and giving it all its vitality — we have the three main elements,
the three evolving centres or nuclei in the organization of all
religions. It now only remains to be added, by way of
preliminary to our ap})lIcation of these conceptions to the
origins of Christianity and to the way in which Judaism and
Grajco-Roman Paganism passed into it, that before a new
religion, however superior, can replace an old one, it must find
means to secure a belief in its truth. For, as was asked
so penetratingly by Carlyle, what feeling in the mind is after
all so strong and operative as the feeling of belief f Now it
will be remembered that in the Ancient World, of which we
are treating, and in which all the great historical religions took
their rise, none of those laws of Physical Science which are
the glory of the Modern World had as yet been discovered ; —
no law of gravitation, no Copernican Astronomy, no law of
the correlation of mental states with physical conditions of the
brain and nervous system, — all of which were calculated to
profoundly modify, for better or worse, our views of the
World and of Human Life. All phenomena or events, in
consequence, the least strange or unusual, were referred not to
their natural causes as would be the case To-day, but to the
196 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
intervention and operation of supernatural wills, good or bad,
of angels, demons, and the like. No criterion or test that
could in any way be called scientific in the modern sense of
that term was available therefore, and belief, in consequence,
in tlie truth of one religion over another, could only be
established by such indirect methods as appeals to fulfilled
prophecy, or to the more striking nature or unique character
of tlie miracles recorded as was the case with Christianity ;
one of Avhose most powerful agents in conversion, as we learn
from Tertullian, was the power exercised by the name of
Christ in casting out demons when all else had failed.
With these preliminary observations on the inner structure
of Religions in general and the relations existing between their
difierent parts, we have now to attempt to determine what, on
the principle of Evolution, that new religion must be which
shall issue from Judaism — as seen in the light of its three
evolving centres, its Supernatural Ideal, its Code of Morality,
and its Conception of God — and to use the knowledge so
attained to clear up difficulties in the doctrines of Jesus and
the Early Church,
CHAPTER IV.
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH AND OF
JEWISH MORALITY.
~f"N the foregoing chapters I have treated the historical
Evohition of Judaism from the point of view of Civiliza-
tion in general, that is to say from the point of view of an
imagined Providence or Fate supposed to preside over it, — a
Power which having to attain its ends by successive stages of
orderly evolution, has to consider the means best adapted to
brino- them about. In tlie present and following chapters I
shall consider the same historical period from the point of view
of the Jewish people themselves, the actors in the drama, who,
guided in their ideas and conduct by the immediate circum-
stances of the time and hour, knew, in the large sense, neither
Avhat they were doing nor where they were going; I shall
consider this period, that is to say, not in the light and from the
point of view of Avhat is called, ' final cause,' but rather from
the point of view of those immediate scientific causes that are
seen operating in the three great evolving centres or nuclei of all
religions, viz., the Conception of God. the Code of Morality,
and the Supernatural Ideal. Rut as the Conception of (rod,
as we have just seen, always keeps in correspondence and line
with the Moral Code ; and as it is impossible to treat each of
them separately Avithout the risk of unnecessary repetition, I
propose here to consider them together, passing from one to the
other as occasion requires, and shall leave to a separate chapter
198 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
the evolution of that Supernatural Ideal which took shape in
the Jewish Conception of the Messiah and the Kingdom of
God ; — so bringing the history of each down to the point where
it touches, as it were, the line that separates it by but a step
from Christianity.
In a former chapter Ave saw that the Jewish conception of
Jehovah began by representing him as one only among a
number of other tribal gods like to himself — Moloch, Baal,
Chemosh, etc., — each of whom was bound up with the interests
of his own particular tribe. We saw, too, that although cruel
and capricious like them, Jehovah differed from them all in
this, that Avhat with persecution, oppression, isolation, and the
wanderings in the wilderness, he was drawn into a closer
relationship with his own people for weal or for w^oe, than was
the case with the gods of other tribes. We saw, too, that
with this closer relationship the germ was laid of a future
bond or covenant closer than was possible between the pagan
gods and their worshippers, the very essence of whose relation-
ship was that of pure caprice, as of master and slave. It
is true that this bond between Jehovah and his people was
at first only a very general one, a moral covenant, not between
himself and each individual as it afteiwards became, but
between himself and his people as a whole ; the consequence
beinsi: that in the event of anv infraction of the terms of the
covenant, punishment was visited not so much on each
individual as such, but only as he was part of the nation as a
whole ; the individual suffering not more for his own particular
sins than for the sins of the nation at large. In a word,
Jehovah concerned himself, not so much with the conduct and
moral relations of men to each other, as with their relations to
himself and his commands. But not only was Jehovah's
relation to his people and, In consequence, his system of
rewards and punishments national or tribal rather than
individual in character, they were also purely secular and
worldly. There was no life beyond the grave, no immortality
THE EVOLUTION OF JEIIOVAn. ]9'.>
citlicr of the soul or of the body ; and the blessings promised
for obedience to the covenant -svere in consequence of a
])urely material kind — the national possession of the
promised land, rich crops, smiling fields, rivers of -vvine
and oil, long life, old age, and a numerous and
happy progeny ; while the punishments -were national
disaster and disgrace, desohite fields, pestilence, famine and
captivity. This conception of the nature of Jehovah and of
his relation to his people, is the one reflected in the period of
the Judges; and it lasted far down into the period of the
Kings. But when the Northern part of the kingdom had
seceded imder Jeroboam and the rival courts of Israel and
Judah with their princes and nobility began to grind the faces
of the poor by usury and taxation, until burdened with dcl)t
they were forced either to sell their lands or give their own
bodies up to slavery ; when in consequence of this land-
monopoly the rich were able to buy up all the corn and to hold
it until it reached famine prices, and so still further to oppress
the poor ; when, further, these kings and courts began to rely
on their chariots and horsemen rather than on Jehovah, and to
ffo a-whorino- after other Gods, the Baals and Astartes of the
time, and to forget the God who had brought them up out of
Egypt and had delivered them by a mighty hand ; when, in a
word, the measure of their iniquity was full, and the great pre-
exilian Prophets arose to denounce them, Jehovah was the
only i)Ower to whom the Prophets could appeal. The
consequence was that they were obliged to represent Plim not
only as a jealous, capricious God, thinking mainly of His own
worship and honour, but as a God who loved mercy and hated
iniquity, and who was as much offended by tyranny and
injustice as by idolatry. From being a jealous, cruel and
capricious god, he had thus advanced in the conceptions of
men to being a God of Justice and Truth also ; and as we shoidd
expect, this change in the conception of God soon made itself felt
in the penal code and in the system of rewards and punishments.
200 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
Those were indeed still purely material and worldly in
their character (although the threatened loss of the Law of
God is made a great hardship by the Northern prophets), and
included national disaster, famine, desolation and exile; but
from this time onwards the people are no longer all lumped
too-ether in one condemnation, as was the case in the time of
the Judges, but a distinction is made between the good and the
bad, between the righteous and the wicked. It is only the
wicked now who will be cut off; the good and those who
repent will be saved and will return from the exile to which
the prophets had fore-doomed them, either as a holy ' remnant '
or as a purified and renovated Israel. But all this while, Jehovah,
although the only God of the Israelites, is still only one among
the many other gods of neighbouring nations and tribes.
The Jehovah of the Prophets up to the time of the Exile,
then, is a God of great power and majesty, loving justice and
hating iniquity, but of much loving-kindness and tender mercy ;
and at first sight this may appear not unlike the God of Jesus
and the Early Church. Nothing, however, can be farther from
the fact, as will appear if we turn to the Book of Deuteronomy
which was compiled and written shortly before the Exile — a
book in which the conceptions both of the prophetic and of the
priestly party are fuUy embodied. There we shall find that
the loving and fatherly character of God is purely in relation
to His own chosen people, and by no means extends to all man-
kind. For although the stranger in their midst is set down
equally with the widow, the orphan, and the slave, for gentle
and compassionate treatment and consideration, you will find
set down beside this the equally authoritative command of
Jehovah, to smite down and utterly exterminate all the original
inhabitants of the land, without pity or mercy. Jehovah, it is
evident here, is not yet regarded as the loving Father of all
mankind, but of his own people merely. And yet that there
had been a great advance over the old conception of Him is
seen if we compare the morality of Deuteronomy with the
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH. 201
morality sanctioned by Him in the Book of the Covenant In
Exodus, written some centuries before. This old code bears
all the marks of an early and barbarous Civilization, and of an
early and barbarous God — private revenge, cruelty to slaves,
incest, the destruction of crops and fruit trees, family feuds,
the ofFerlng up of the first-born as sacrifice, etc. Now in the
Book of Deuteronomy all these have been done away with,
owlno; to the advance made in the interval in jxeneral
civilization, and in the higher conce})tlon of God. The law
of retaliation, for example, is entirely done away with except in
the single case of false witnesses. Sons, again, are forbidden
to take their father's wives and concubines as part of their
inheritance, as had been done in the old times — as we see in the
case of David and Absalom. Itcligious prostitution, too, in
connexion with the Temple-service was forbidden ; and women-
slaves were ordered to be manumitted, as men were, after seven
years service. The crops and fruit trees of the enemy were to
be spared ; and parents were forbidden to ofter up their first-
born children to Jehovah in sacrifice, as had been the practice
in the earlier times. And instead of God belno- Himself the
Judge of causes, judges were now appointed to dispense justice
in His name, xlll these, it is plain, were immense advances in
Morality — the products of a higher civilization, and reflecting In
their provisions the progress men had made in their conception
of the nature of God. During the Babylonian Exile the con-
ception of Jehovah underwent, as we saw in a former chapter,
a still further change. Up to this time He had still remained,
in the popular mind, only one God among a number of others ;
but when confronted with the terrible disaster of exile and
captivity, the Jews had to face the alternative of whether this
great afiliction meant the victory of the Babylonian deities over
Jehovah (the most natural explanation according to the ideas of
the time), or whether Jehovah was using these other nations
as instruments in His own hands, to chasten His people for
their sins. Under the influence of the Prophets, and backed
202 THE i'.VOLLTION OF JUDAISM.
by the long record of pro})liecy fulfilled, the latter view pre-
vailed ; and when the exiles had made near accjuaintance with
the Babylonian gods, and found them to be only made of wood
and stone, they were still the more confirmed in their belief
that Jehovah was not only a God above all other gods, but
that He was the only real and true God — all the rest being but
dead idols or malicious demons. But this sudden advance to
a pure Monotheism was not attended as might have been
expected by any further advance in morality ; for although the
second Isaiah proclaimed that the elect of the Gentiles as avcU
as the Jews would be brought to the knowledge of the one true
God, and would come from every quarter of the earth to pay
Him homage on His Holy Hill of Zion; still the fact that the
Jews alone were believed to be His own children, while all
other nations continued to be at best but step-children who in
the ideal kingdom of the future were to be but servants of
the chosen race, prevented any further advance towards
equality in the relations between man and man — prevented in
other words any further advance towards justice and morality.
After the Exile, the captives who had returned to their
native land were free to carry out on virgin soil the high
morality of the Prophets which had already been definitely
formulated in the Deuteronomic Code, but which, owing tO'
the presence of unfavourable conditions, had only been partially
realized. With the Exile, however, all these imfavourable
conditions had completely passed aw^ay — the High-places, the
Land-Monopoly, the Court, the Army, the Monarchy, and all
the other instruments of iniquity and idolatry against which
the Prophets had thundered — and with them disappeared the
debt, the usury, the grinding poverty, the slavery, which had
grown directly out of them. In the re-constituted Israel,
which was constructed after the Exile according to the ideal
of their dreams — what with the equality of conditions involved in
its peasant-proprietary, what with its Theocracy, its Temple-
tax, and its fixed and onerous but cheerfully paid dues for the
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH. 20S
support of the priesthood — neither grinding poverty nor
licentious hixury had any place. The first result of this
condition of Society was that the conception of Jehovah as a
God of Justice and Mercy, a God of the stranger, the
fatherless, and the widow, now that it had no longer its
appropriate grievances to keep it alive, was, altliough never
entirely to be lost to Israel, allowed gradually to fall into the
background ; and was indeed practically forgotten for centuries
until revived by Jesus and widened so as to embrace all
mankind. That these cfrievances which had called forth the
denunciations of the prophets, and had given rise to this new
conception of Jehovah as a God of justice, love, and mercy,
had really been swept away by the Exile, will be seen at once^
as has already been shown, if we compare the provisions of the
Priestly Code of the Pentateuch which Ezra brought with
him from Babylon about a century after the Exile, with those
of the Deuteronomif Code about a quarter of a century
before. In the Priestly Code no mention is made of kings, or
courts, or of military service ; of ' high places ;' of pillars, asheras,
or the worship of other gods ; matters all of which are of
constant recurrence in Deuteronomy. And why? Clearly
because, as we know from history, neither king, nor court, nor
army, neither ' high places,' idolatry, nor ' other gods ' had any
existence in Israel after the Exile. In the same way no
mention is made of Sabbath Observance, of the Decalogue, of
Jerusalem as the only place of sacrifice, of the absence of
blemish in the animals oifercd — and that because all this had
long been taken for granted and acted on as a matter of course.
In like manner no mention is made of usury, of the opjiression
of the poor, the slaves, the widow and orphan or the stranger —
and that because the social conditions which had given rise to
these grievances had been completely swept away, and the
grievances themselves had no longer any existence or were of
such exceptional occurrence that they could be easily dealt with
by laws known and recognized by all. Another consequence of
204 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
the new state In Avhicli the Jews found themselves after the
Exile was that the great race of Prophets, being no longer
wanted now that the grievances which had given them their
raison d\'ti-e were removed, disappeared from Jewish history
and were no more seen. The Prophets gone, the Priests, who
had shared with them the authority and homage of the people,
stepped into the vacant place. Now the characteristic of the
priest as distinguished from the prophet is this, that, like a
lawyer, he is not expected to originate any new ideas or to
initiate any new line of policy or reform, but only to administer
and carry into ever finer subtleties the existing law — extending
its range it may be, but not altering its genius or essential
spirit. And, accordingly, the consequence of this decay of the
Prophet and rise of the Priest was that the prophetic conception
of Jehovah — tlie conception of Him as the righteous, loving,
and merciful Father of Ilis own people — fell into the back-
ground ; and the priestly conception of Him as the jealous,
exacting God, full of punctilio and tenacious of His own
dignity, came almost exclusively to the front. And this con-
ception of God, once ingrained in the mind, was supplemented
by another which grew out of the new political situation in
which the nation found itself. Protected from all danoer
of foreign aggression by the Persian suzerainty, and allowed to
freely develop its own Theocracy without interference and
indeed with the direct encouragement of the Persian Kins:,
the God who had walked in the garden with Adam, who had
been heard thunilering from the top of Sinai and through the
mouths of his chosen servants the Prophets, was now no longer
needed ; and this, togetlier with the exertions of the priesthood
to remove Him from contact with all that was earthlv, defilino-
or unclean, had the effect of raislncj Him to such a transcend-
ental height of holiness, aloofness, and unajjproachable dignity
that He was in danger of dissolving into space and dis-
appearing altogether from the lives and interests of men. And
this indeed would \\n\e been the result had it not been for two
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH. 205
very important considerations. The first was that the very
difficulty, in fact impossibility, of keeping the whole of the
ritual and ceremonial law without falling into sin on this side
or on that, was of itself sufficient to keep Jehovah ever present
to the mind; the second was the introduction into the vast
inter-space left between Heaven and Earth of a number of
subsidiary beings, neither gods nor men, as media of com-
munication between God and Man, and as messengers and
interpreters of the Divine Will. It was inevitable, indeed,
that some such beings should arise from the time when the
gods of the nations Avere seen to be nothing but blocks of wood
or stone, and Jehovah was left supreme in the Universe, alone
in his solitary isolation — it was inevitable, I say, that some
such beings should arise to carry out his behests and to watch
over the destinies of individuals and of nations, though stiU
strictly subordinate to His Supreme dominion and control. And
the particular order of beings most suitable for this purpose, as
being neither gods nor men, and so neither encroaching on the
dignity of Jehovah nor endangering his monotheism, were the
Angels adopted by the priests from the Persian religion and
brought back with them from Babylon. Now the Persian
religion was in so many points akin to that of the Jews both in
form and in spirit that one is not surprised that even a
people as stiff-necked as the Jews should have found many
things in it which they could utilize and embody in their own.
The Ormuzd of the Persians, for example, was, like Jehovah,
the Supreme God of all the World. Like him, too, he was
worshipped without images, and Avas to be approached only
after a course of purification identical almost with that of
Judaism. The Jews had already taken their stories of the
Creation and the Deluge from ancient Babylonian myths — with
the single exception that to keep up their monotheism they
were obliged to replace the hosts of Pagan deities who played
their respective parts in these dramas by a single Divine Will,
that of Jehovah, and a single Angelic Will, that of Satan.
206 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
They were also soon to adopt as a model for their synao-ogiies
the Persian meeting-houses where the sacred books were retid,
and hymns and prayers were recited and offered up to Ormuzd.
And now, at the period of wliich we are treating, tlie period
following the Exile, they had l)orrowed from the religion of
Zoroaster the seven heavenly spirits or angels who surrounded
the throne of Ormuzd and carried out his commands — the ' nou-
slumberers,' as they were called, who, according to some, make
their appearance in Zechariah as the seven eyes and seven arms
of the golden candlestick. They had each received special
names, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Uriel, and the like, and
formed a hierarchy among themselves with Gabriel at their
head ; each nation having its own special angel to Avatch
over it — that of the Jews being Michael, as we read
in Daniel. These seven angels surrounded, as I have said, the
throne of God, and were in the form of winged men. They
were the helpers of men in their perplexities, and became later
the guardian angels of Christianity. In the Persian religion
there were bad angels as well as good — ' devas ' they Avere
called — who were the special servants of Ahriman, the god of
Darkness. But here, again, the Jews had to draw a firm line
to protect their Monotheism. It was impossible for them to
admit the existence of a separate and independent God of
Darkness ; nor could they admit the existence of spirits, evil or
otherwise, who were other than the servants of Jehovah.
And accordingly with the Jews, Satan is only one among the
seven angels or spirits who surround the throne of God; his
special function being that of the 'accuser' of men. In
Zechariah, for example, we find him reproved by God for
unjustly accusing Joshua the High Priest. In Chronicles,
again, he has advanced a steji farther, and is now seen
provoking David to number the people. In Job, he has become
an active mischief-maker who puts pit-falls in men's paths to
trip them up ; but it is not until the time of Christianity that
he has escaped entirely from the control of God, and become a
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH. 207
Tempter on his own account. At no period of his history,
however, does he become a separate and independent God like
Ahriman ; Ijiit ever remains, although a fallen spirit and rebel
angel, the offspring and creation of God,
With the gods of the Nations thus su])planted in the Jewish
raind by angels, who were neither gods nor yet properly men,
but a higher order of being created by Jehovah for the
carrying out of His designs, and for acting as His inter-
mediaries in dispensing blessings and punishments to individuals
and nations, the Jews had at last attained to a completed
system of Absolute Monotheism in which one Supreme God,
Jehovah, was the God of all the AVorld, with themselves as His
chosen people — a God who, although occupying the vast
stretches of immensity, had still in some mysterious way his
dwelling in their midst on the Holy Hill of Zion. In thus con-
ceivins: of Jehovah as speciallv their God, and of themselves as
in a special sense his children, while all other peoples were at
best his step-children merely, the Jews had reached a point
beyond which their national pride would not pcn-mit them to
advance ; for however it might be with individuals, it is certain
that the nation at large \\ould never take the next stej)
needed to bring them to the conception of God as a God of
Love, the common Father of all mankind. Higher, indeed,
than a God of holiness, justice, and unapproachable majesty, of
high dignity, sensitiveness, and honour, who was to be
approached only with the most scrupulous attention to personal
purity, and with feelings of the most devout reverence and awe,
the Jewish conception of Jehovah, as we said in a former
chapter, could not rise. And corresponding with this con-
ception of God, as we should expect, was their Moral Code.
Not that the conception of Jehovah as a God of Justice
and Mercy which had been so dearly won by the J'lDphets,
with the code of morality founded on it, was ever again lost.
Although falling into the background, it was always there and
ready to spring up as we see in the Psalms in times of national
208 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
or personal perplexity and adversity. But it was practically
overshadowed for centuries by the other conception of Him ;
and the Code of Morality became almost entirely a ritual and
ceremonial one, in whicli all was done for the honour, dignity,
and glory of God, rather than for the essential well-being of
men. The consequence was that the better to secure the
blessings promised to obedience and to avert the penalties
threatened for disobedience to Jehovah's statutes, the Jews
had only to carry out the provisions of their Law with greater
and greater scrupulosity, and into finer and finer detail. And
as these provisions were mainly external and ceremonial, and
concerned such matters as sabbath observance, circumcision.
Temple-service, sacrifices, feasts, fasts, ablutions, and the like,
it is clear that in the end the Jewish life must have reached in
ritual and ceremonial a point of scrupulosity transcendental in
dearree — as indeed we know it did under the reo-ime of the
Scribes and Pharisees. Now this degeneration of morality
into ritual and ceremonial observances had already taken place
at the time of which we are speaking, that is, shortly after the
Exile, and was only less in degree than under the Scribes and
Pharisees. The rewards and punishments, too, for obedience
and disobedience were still national in their scope, and took the
form of material well-being in the present life ; while on the
other hand the rewards and punishments of Christianity con-
cerned the individual himself, and took the form of spiritual
blessings in another world. It is evident, therefore, that
although the post-exilic conception of God required only a
single step to bring it to the conception of the God of Jesus,
that step could not be taken until the gap between a system of
national rewards and punishments, and of individual and
personal rewards and punishments, between a national immor-
tality and a personal immortality, was bridged over. This
process, as we know, took fully four hundred years to
accomplish ; and to trace its successive stages shall be my aim
in the next chapter.
CHAPTER V.
EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH AND OP
JEWISH MORALITY.
(continued).
XN the last chapter Ave saw that at the period at which we
have arrived, viz., after the return of the Captives from
Babylon, the blessings and penalties which attended on
obedience to or infraction of the Divine Commands, were
conceived as relating to the Jewish people as a xoliole\ the
individual participating in them rather as a member of the
community at large, than on his own account. It is true that
men were beginning to feel, as did Ezekiel, that rewards or
punishments were or ought to be personal to the individual as
such, but as yet the thought existed only in germ in the
foremost minds and had not descended to the body of the
people. The conception of the rewards and punishments
themselves, on the other hand, remained as it had always been,
purely material and worldly in character, — riches, happiness,
long life, prosperity, and a numerous progeny, or their
opposites. But the gap between a stern and jealous God who
regarded only the nation as a whole, and who visited the
iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth
generation, and the God of Love of Christianity who looks
into the hearts and minds of each of his children, was too
great to be bridged over by a singU step of evolution. It had
P
210 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
to be led up to by a stage in which blessings and penalties,
while still purely material, and disjiensed mainly in considera-
tion of outward and ceremonial acts (on the simjile business
basis of a quid pro quo, in opposition to the free grace and love
of Christianity), were nevertheless, as in Christianity,
conceived to be personal to the individual, and not, as in the
earlier Judaism, general to the nation at large. Now the
agencies which were chicHy instrumental in inaugurating and
consolidatinoj this intermediate stage in the relations between
God and Man, between the older Judaism and Christianity,
may be formulated as follows ; — the Long Peace, the Written
Law, the rise of the Scribes, the admission of the Prophets
and Psalms into the Canon of Scripture, and the institution of
the Synagogue.
The most important of these agencies, perhaps, as being tho
indispensable basis of all the rest, was the long peace which the
nation enjoyed under the Persian Suzerainty for two centuries
after the return from the Exile, — a peace which was continued
practically for another century and a half under the Greek
Protectorate up to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Now it
is evident that so long as the nation was surrounded by foes on
every hand and was engaged in a ceaseless struggle to maintain
its independence, the greatest blessings which Jehovah could
bestow for obedience to his commands, must have been national
existence, the secure possession of the land, success in war, and
the rest ; and that He Himself would be regarded as the God of
the nation as a whole, rather than as the God of the individual.
But in the long peace of three centuries and a half which
followed the Exile, during which the Jews were permitted
under Persian and Greek protection to manage their own affairs
in their own way, and to organize their Theocracy on the pure
ideal of their minds Avithout the fear of foreio^n aaro-ression
or interference, — it Avas almost inevitable that their thoughts
should turn imoards on themselves, and should centre each on
his own individual hopes and fears ; and that God, in conse-
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAU. 211
qiience, should gradually come to be conceived of as interestino-
Himself in the affairs of individuals, Avatching their actions,
and keeping a strict audit of what each had done and left
undone. And this, which as a general tendency was almost
inevitable, was converted into certainty and actuality by the
other causes we have mentioned, viz., by the institution of the
Synagogue, the rise of the Scribes, and the admission into the
Canon of Scripture of the books of the Prophets and the Psalms.
Before the Exile, the worship of God had consisted, as Ave
have seen, chiefly in the sacrifices which were offered up at the
' high places ' to be found everywhere throughout the land,
on every hill-top and under ever}^ green tree, and within easy
access of all. But these ' high places ' had all been abolished by
Josiah shortly before the Exile ; and from that time onwards
sacrifice Avas permitted only in one place, the Temple at
Jerusalem. Noav this centralization of Avorsliip at the Capital,
far from bringing God's presence nearer to the heart and
conscience of each individual, Avould of itself have had
precisely the opposite effect ; — the three great yearly feasts of
the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, Avhich brought the
Jews in croAvds up to Jerusalem from all parts of the Avorld,
tending rather to keep up the conception of Jehovah as the
God of the JcAvish nation, than as the God of the individual.
But as these feasts and sacrifices occupied only a few Aveeks in
the year, the people from the country round, noAV that the ' high
places' Avere abolished, AA'cre left for the greater part of the
time to those ceremonial observances and laAvs relating to the
keeping of the Sabbath, personal purity, etc., Avhich could be
practised aAvay from the Temple, and Avhich from their
narroAvness and strictness kept the fear if not the love of
Jehovah for ever present in their minds. Now the agency for
the inculcation and enforcement of these private exercises Avas
the institution of the Synagogue, — an institution AA'hich the
exiles brought back Avith them from Jjabylon. During
the Exile, Avhen far away from their beloved Zion and
212 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
with their Temple in ruins, their only form of worship
was prayer, praise, and the reading and exposition of the
Law ; and this worship they practised in the little meeting-
places which they had constructed for themselves on the model
of those Persian houses of worship where were recited and sung
the holy songs and ancient prayers of the Zoroastrian faith.
After the Exile it was but natural that they should bring back
with them to Judasa an institution to which they had grown so
accustomed in Babylon ; and, accordingly, these Synagogues, as
they were called, were soon to be found in every village in the
land, and in the intervals of the great Feasts at Jerusalem were
the only places of worship. They had taken the place of the
ancient 'high places,' but differed from them in this important
particular, that while the ' high places ' were the scenes of
sacrifices as gross almost and purely external as those of
Paganism, the Synagogues were places of meeting for prayer,
praise, and the reading and exposition of the Law, — that is to
say of a worship purely inward in character. These meetings,
which were held twice a week, were opened with prayer and
with the reading of the Sliema, ' Hear, O Israel,' etc., after
which a portion of the Law was read, interpreted, and ex-
])Ounded by anyone present who felt he had something to say.
In this way the word of God was brought consciously home to
the heart and mind of each, — and it is interesting to remember
that these Synagogues were afterwards felt by Jesus to be
appropriate places for the exposition and propagation of his
own doctrines.
But the reading and exposition of the Written Law, the
Pentateuch, although it kept the fear of God before the indi-
vidual mind, would have had but little influence in making
religion a personal concern between each man and his Maker
had it not been for the addition to the Canon of Scripture of
the Books of the Prophets, and especially of the Book of
Psalms, — with their glorification of the loving-kindness of
Jehovah, and His forgiveness to all those who kept His
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH. 213
commands and put their trust in Him. Then, and then only,
did the full influence of the Synagogue in transformino- the
conception of Jehovah from a national God to a God of love
and mercy, a God who listens to the cries of the least of His
children^ begin to be felt. The Pentateuch itself, or Book of
the Law, the Thora as it was called, was a composite work,
made up of old and new portions, edited and in part fabricated
in Babylon by the Scribes, and brought to Jerusalem by Ezra
in the year 444 B.C., about a hundred years after the return
from the Exile. These Scribes were the descendants of the
priestly class who had gone into captivity, but who, owing to
the impossibility of sacrificing at any other place than the
Temple at Jerusalem, had been forced to turn their attention
to the study and exposition of the Law. They were, in a word,
a kind of transformed Priests. Now when the Temple worship
was re-established at Jerusalem after the return of the exiles,
those Scribes or religious lawyers who remained behind in
Babylon, set themselves to work to bring tlie great mass of
Sacred Literature that had for centuries been accumulating, into
one compact and as far as possible harmonious whole. The
materials they had at hand were many and various,
and consisted of old historical tales of the Patriarchs and Heroes
of the early world ; narratives of the nation's wanderings
and exploits in peace and Avar, taken from the history of the
Wars of Jehovah ; the old Covenant of Jehovah with His
people known as the Book of the Covenant, which had come
down from a remote past, and is now found in certain chapters
of the Book of Exodus ; the new Covenant or Book of the Law
found in the Temple by Hilkiah the High-priest in the time of
Josiah shortly before the Exile, and now known to us as the
Book of Deuteronomy ; and the elaborate Temple ceremonial
and ritual of feasts, fasts, sacrifices, music, etc., which we see
beginning to be planned during the Exile, and taking shape in
the ideal dreams of Ezekicl, and which, during the hundred
years that followed, hud been elaborated to the point of
214 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
minuteness that we find in the Priestly Code, especially In the
Books of Leviticus and Numbers. Now these separate portions
of the Pentateuch which had up till then existed only in scattered
copies, had been collected and worked over by the Scribes in
Babylon ; but as owing to their antiquity and the reverence in
which they were held, no one dared take the liberty of altering
them sufficiently to bring them into a compact, harmonious
whole, the only plan was to bring the separate portions together
side by side, and, after rubbing off the rougher angles of dis-
cordance, to fuse them into a solid mass, — filling in the interspaces
with a priestly and ceremonial medium which gave character
and colour to the whole and like the hardened sand between
the larger stones in a conglomerate mass, held it firmly
together. The effect of this was that when vinited into a
single book, — the Book of the Law, — an additional sanctity
and reverence was given to the whole, over and above that
which had formerly attached to the separate parts. But
as the Book was given out to be the full and complete
revelation of God to Moses, it became all the more necessary
to harmonize the various discordances that were to be found in
it. as well as to bring all its provisions up to date, so as to meet
the needs and necessities of the times. And as it was
impossible to alter, add to, or take from the Written Word, the
difficulty of stretching, bending, or otherwise twisting its
provisions so as to harmonize them with each other and to
adapt them to changing circumstances, was surmounted by
what was called the Oral Law, — the Law of Tradition, — whose
collected utterances were afterwards to form the greater part
of the Talmud. But it was necessary, besides, that this Oral,
this Unwritten Law, should have equal authority with the
Written Law. The Scribes, therefore, were obliged to resort
to the same expedient Avhich had proved so successful when
Hilkiah brought the Book of Deutei-onomy from the
recesses of the Temple, and when Ezra brought the
Pentateuch itself from Babylon ; — the expedient, viz., of
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH. 215
referrin"- It back to Moses. It was allejjed that !Moses had
received the Oral Law aloni>- with the Written one from
Jehovah on Sinai. And just as with us, Case-made Law, as it
is called, has existed from time immemorial alongside of the
Statute Law and on an equal footing with it, so this Oral Law
of the Jews from the time of Ezra onwards existed side by
side with the Pentateuch and enjoyed equal authority with it —
each generation of Scribes, like each generation of our own
lawyers, being bound by these oral decisions of their pre-
decessors as by so many sacred and authoritative precedents.
Now the Supreme Tribunal to which all disputes in reference
to the meaning, interpretation, or legal application of both the
Oral and Written Law were referred, was a body of the most
eminent of these Scribes sitting at Jerusalem, and known as
the Sopherim, or Men of the Great Synagogue. A commission
of this body shortly after the bringing of the Law fi-om
Babylon by Ezra, went about the country taking it with them
and explaining it to the people ; and afterwards when tlie
Synagogues were fully established, those who conducted the
services as well as those who acted as judges in administering
the Law, were in the habit of appealing to this body at
Jerusalem in all cases of doubt, difficulty, or dispute. But it
was only natural that the first generation of Scribes, the men
who had themselves taken part in adding the ceremonial and
ritual parts of the Pentateuch to the old original Book of tlie
Law, — the Book of Deuteronomy, — should not show the same
reverence for the letter of a Law which themselves had made,
as their descendants of later centuries. And accordingly we
find that not only did they overlay the Written Law with the
traditional Oral Law, but they did not scruple to lay sacrilegious
hands on the written text itself. Amono^ other things, for
example, they altered, as Kuenen has pointed out. the third of
a shekel which was the amount of the Temple-tax in
Nehemiah (x., 32), to the half a shekel which was the amount
in Exodus (xxx., 13). From the beginning, and indeed for
216
THE EVOLUTIOX OF JUDAISM.
many ages, tlie Pentateuch was regarded as the complete Law
of God, containing provisions, it was believed, which when
properly interpreted by the Oral traditions of the Scribes, were
svifficient for the regulation of every act in life. But finding
that the old Historical Books were capable, when properly
redacted, of yielding much matter serviceable for doctrine and
instruction, the Scribes added them one by one to the Canon ;
until as time went on they came to be regarded as having the
same kind of authority, although somewhat less in degree, as
tlie Pentateuch itself. Among others, the Book of the Judges,
for example, was redacted from the priestly point of view from
sources now lost, while the Books of the Chronicles were
simply a redaction from the same point of view, of the Books
of Kings. Fortunately, the reverence for the Books of Kings
was so great that they still form part of the Canon ; and in
minutely com2)aring the historical accounts with the parallel
ones in Chronicles, as has been so ably done by Wellhausen,
the fact that the one is but a priestly redaction of the other, is
put beyond all doubt. In the same way, the noble record of
fulfilled prophecies had made it evident to all that the Prophets
had been inspired by God ; and the Books of Isaiah, Ezekiel,
Jeremiah, and the rest, Avere added to the Canon.
Now it was only when these Prophets and the Psalms were
added to the Canon of Scripture, that the full power of the
Synagogue in bringing Jehovah home to the hearts and con-
sciences of each individual Jew, began to make itself felt. For
the Pentateuch, the Book of the Law proper, deals, it is to be
observed, mainly with matters affecting the well-being of Israel
as a nation, and only secondarily with those peculiar to each
individual. It deals, for example, with historical characters
like the Patriarchs and holy men of old, whose lives, though full
of idyllic beauty and charm, have still a historical and national,
rather than an individual significance ; or Vv'ith rites like Cir-
cumcision, and the observance of the Sabbath, whose main
object was to keep up a distinction between the Jews and other
THE EVOLUTION OF JEHOVAH. 217
peoples; or Avith the great festivals — Passover, Pentecost,
Tabernacles, — which drew the Jews up to Jerusalem from all
parts of the world, and made those who took part in them feel
rather their national relationship to Jehovah, than t\\e\Y personal
relationship to Him ; the individual being as it were for the
time lost in the crowd. So, too, the great Day of Atonement
was instituted for the cleansing away of the sins of the lohole
people ; while the continual burnt-offering was the expression
of the continued gratitude of the nation as a whole to their
God. It was only the sin and trespass offerings, the laws
relating to purity, etc., which primarily concerned the individual
as such ; but they were purely formal and outward acts,
calculated, it is to be observed, rather to appease the wrath of
God than to promote the personal communion of the individual
with Him. So far, therefore, as the mere reading and exposition
of the Pentateuch was concerned, the Synagogue, except that
it kept the fear of God before the mind of the individual Jew,
w^ould have been as far almost from brlns^ino; him into intimate
personal relationship with Him, as the old ' high places ' with
their merely outward, and in essence and effect Pagan, sacrifices.
It was only when the Prophets and Psalms, as I have said,
with that sweet resignation and trust in the loving-kindness and
tender mercies of God Avhich have made them so dear to the
afflicted, the sorrowing, and the wretched, in every age — it was
only when these were added to the Canon of Scripture, to be
read in the Synagogue and applied by each to the needs of his
own individual heart, that Jehovah became transfigured from
the Great and Supreme God of the nation as a whole, to an
intimate and personal God, near to the heart of each one of
His people, to comfort and bless them and to do them good.
But although at last through these various agencies Jehovah
had been transformed from a national or tribal cod to a God
near to the heart of each individual Jew, still the svstem of
rew^ards and punishments continued, as ever, purely material
and worldly in character —riches, happiness, health, prosperity,
218
TnE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
long life, old age, and numerous progeny, and their opposites ;
the consequence being that each man as reward for obedience
to the Divine Commands, looked to the promises of God for the
enjoyment of these blessings in himself and in his own lifetime.
Of the strange impasse to which this brought the Jews, and of
how, coming on it suddenly and quite unwittingly, as on an
cpen precipice, Judaism was brought by it to the very verge
of disaster and ruin — this, together with the consequences that
flowed from it, shall be our theme in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE RESURRECTION AND
OF A FUTURE LIFE.
TN the last chapter we arrived at that point in the Evolution
-^ of Judaism where but a single step intervenes to separate
the Jewish Conception of God and the Jewish Code of
Morality from those of Christianity ; and yet that single step
cannot be taken for some three hundred years to come. In the
present chapter, accordingly, I propose to institute an inquiry
into the causes that have interposed this delay ; and the
narrative will fomi one of the most interesting and instructive
chapters in the whole history of Judaism.
To beo-in with, it will be remembered that we found in a
former chapter that the active centres, the evolving nmld of
all religions might be reduced to three, viz. a Conception of
God, a Code of Morality, and a Supernatural Ideal. It would
seem probable, therefore, that if the conception of God and
the code of Morality of the Jews were, during the period of
Greek domination, or say about 300 B.C., separated by but a
single step from Christianity, the delay in passing over into it
was due to some incompleteness in the evolution of the third
factor, the Supernatural Ideal. And this a priori probability
will be found in actual fact to be true. That both the Jewish
conception of God and the Jewish code of Morality were at this
220 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
time Avithin a single step of Christianity, and that they
still remained practically where they were without any real
organic advance until the time of Christ, cannot, I think, be
disputed. The conception of God was of One Holy and Just
Being, of great majesty, aloofness, sanctity, and purity, resent-
ing any want of reverence or approach to familiarity as a stain,
but of great loving-kindness and tender mercy to His own chosen
j)eople. His ear ever open to the cries of His children. Now a
single step forward will take us to the conception of a God full
of grace, loving-kindness, and mercy, not only to His own
people, but to all mankind — and what is that but Christianity?
The moral relation, again, existing between God and man,
which in early Judaism had been a relation between Jehovah
and the Jewish nation as a lohole, had at the time of which we
are speaking become, as we have seen, a personal relation
between Him and each individual Jcav. But the terms of that
relation were still those that we should expect from a just and
jealous but loving God, who kept a strict audit and balance-
sheet of all the actions of His people, and who demanded, in
consequence, for each transgression a legal equivalent in offering
or sacrifice. Now if we take a step forward, you have a God
near not only to the heart of each Jew but to the heart of all
men, a God who pardons the sinner, not by ticking off each
offence as its legal equivalent is paid, but by freely and of His
OAvn grace wiping the slate clean from the outset — and this is
the God of Christianity. And now, again, Ave have to ask
what prevented this single necessary step being taken at once,
instead of requiring three hundred years of varying fortune for
its realization ? Tliat the delay was due to some arrest in the
evolution of that side or element in religion which we have
called the Supernatural Ideal — an element which in the case of
the Jews took the form of the rewards and promises held out
by Jehovah to His people — we have, as we have said, every
reason on d priori grounds for believing ; and that it was so in
actual fact we are now to see.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE RESURRECTION. 221
We have already pointed out that throughout the whole
period of Jewish History from the earliest times to the latest,
the promises and blessings held out by Jehovah to His children
for obedience to His commands were of a purely material and
worldly nature — the secure possession of the land, rich fields,
bounteous harvests, national freedom and independence, success
in war, etc. ; the penalties incurred by disobedience being also
of a worldly character, — defeat, exile, slavery, pestilence, famine,
and death. There was no immortality either of the soul or of
the body, no resurrection, no after-life of rewards and punish-
ments — nothing but national and worldly prosperity, or the
reverse. Now as the life of a nation, unlike that of an individual,
has no definite limit or end, the earthly felicity promised as
reward of obedience to God's Law, can, if not accomplished in
the existing generation of men, be postponed to a future
generation, without serious detriment to the religion which
announces it, or suspicion of bad faith on the part of the God
who has promised it. But from the time that the rewards and
penalties attaching to good and bad conduct were no longer
believed to be lumped together in the form of national pros-
perity or the reverse, but were believed to be strictly personal
to each individual Jew and accurately apportioned to each
according to his deserts ; and when in consequence of there
being no future life or immortality, these rewards and
punishments if made good at all must be made good
within the compass of a single human life; then, Judaism
all unconsciously to itself, had, by the strain it put on
Providence to realize its promises, brought itself to the
very verge of ruin — to the point, indeed, at which no
philosophy or mere external logic could save it, but where, if
saved at all it must be by the Providence or Fate which is
concealed in the secret and invisible logic of events. For
although it is true that at any age of the world the individual
could always appeal, even in his own single life, to a sjnritual
compensation, an expansion of heart and soul, an elevation of
222
THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
rank in the scale of being, following with mathematical
certainty and as by inevitable decree on all devotion to the
good and the true — still up to this hour it has never been
found to be true that material prosperity will in like manner
follow the track of the virtuous and the o-ood. To believe
otherwise and to teach it as an article of faith, was to put a
greater strain on Providence than it could weU bear ; and as a
matter of fact, from the time that these two streams of
thought, viz, — the worldly prosperity and the limits of a single
life — were seen like railway trains converging and approaching
each other, disaster and ruin were imminent, and had it not
been for what we have called the unforeseen logic of events,
the collision must have resulted in the complete break-down of
Judaism. For from the position thus taken up a logical
retreat was impossible. This dependence of each man's fortunes
on his own good or bad conduct had not been reached in a
night, but by gradual stages and slow evolution through many
centuries, and could not be revoked. Backward, therefore, it
was impossible to go, and to press forward was but to break
and shatter oneself against the hard rock of facts ; and falling,
to drag down again that belief in One God which had taken
long centuries of persecution and exile to laboriously and pain-
fully build up — together with all that it implied for the future
of the world. It is true that this inevitable consummation
towards which Judaism was steadily moving was delayed
for a time by the interposition of one or another of
those pleasing illusions, those consoling fictions which the
mind makes for itself when threatened with the
approaching ruin of its ideals or hopes. Among other
things, for example, it was said that the bad fortune which had
attended the good man up to the last hours of his life, would
be succeeded by a moment of supreme bliss which in itself was
sufficient compensation for all the sorrows and afflictions of a
life-time. Or, again, that if we could only see everything in
its true light and perspective as God sees it, we should find
THE EVOLUTION OF THE RESURRECTION. 223
much evil in the lives of those men who had been so afflicted,
but whom we had been in the habit of regarding as models of
all the virtues. These were, of course, pure fictions without
foundation in reality, but they served to postpone for a while
the inevitable doom that must sooner or later overtake any
religion which has had the imprudence to link its fate with a
hypothesis so viewy and unsubstantial as the reward of goodness
and virtue by material and worldly prosperity in the present
life. Now the most complete and elaborate statement in Jewish
literature of these fictions, especially of the one last cited, is
contained in the Book of Job — which could only have been
written at this period, that is to say at some point between the
return of the Exiles and the rise of the Maccabees. In this
book you have the problem stated in all its pregnancy, and the
question discussed in all its fulness — Why a good and
virtuous man like Job should be so afflicted by God ? There,
too, you see the sophistical fictions by which his friends try
to convince him that he must, in spite of his unconscious-
ness of all evil, have been guilty, even if unwittingly, of
some sin that has brought on him the displeasure of God.
But it is all in vain. No one is convinced by them ; and Job
himself is only saved from absolute scepticism by the reflection
that God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our
thoughts ; that is to say by giving up the problem as from the
Jewish point of view insoluble. But it could not end there.
By the time Ecclesiastes was written, all these hollow
sophistries had been thrown aside as worthless, and the finer
spirits had resigned themselves to an absolute pessimism
and scepticism. With neither a resurrection, a future life, nor
a reward in this life for their virtues, what could men do but
exclaim with the Preacher, ' Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity ' i
One event happens alike to all, Avhether they be virtuous or
wicked, therefore let us eat our bread with joy, anoint our-
selves with oil, put on white garments and enjoy the passing
hour. ' Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die,' for there
224
THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
is no wisdom or consciousness in the grave to which we are
fast hastening. So far indeed had it gone with the Preacher,
that in Ecclesiastes the Jews are no longer the peculiar people,
nor is God known as Jehovah, but only as Eloliim. It only
required a little time for this pessimism and despair of the
Preacher to reach the hearts of the many, and to end in the
open and avowed scepticism of all and the bankruptcy of the
Jewish religion. But this goal to which it all logically led, and
which it was impossible to avoid by any inner process of reason
(for it was the strict and logical outcome of all that had gone
before), was evaded, as we shall now see, by the help of
Providence or Fate in the shape of events from loitliout. The
manner in which this came about Ave have noAv to see.
Up to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes King of Syria, or
say to the year 170 B.C., the Jews, sheltered first under the
political wing of Persia and then under that of the Greek Kings
of Egypt and Syria respectively, had been permitted to enjoy
all the privileges and immunities of their religion, undisturbed
either by persecution within or interference from without.
They enjoyed, too, all the political privileges of the Greeks
who were the dominant caste both in Egypt and in Syria, and
were favoured by kings in many instances with high offices and
dignities. The consequence of this was that their harsh and
sordid lives began gradually to be softened, inter-penetrated, and
suffused with the genial radiance, the warm pulsating sunshine
of the Greek life which surrounded them like an atmosphere on
every side. More especially was this the case with the Jewish
Ai'istocracy — the Priestly Party — who in the long peace and in
the absence of persecution had, as the governing body of the
nation, been gradually transformed from servants of Jehovah
into men of the world and politicians, refined and worldly
aristocrats and courtiers. So far, indeed, had this inter-
penetration of Jewish customs and modes of life by Greek
influences gone, that many of the leading Jewish families were
willing and even anxious to introduce among their countrymen
THE EVOLUTION OF THE RESURRECTION. 225
the more brilliant and refined culture of the Greeks ; and
difficult as it must have been to all Jews after the persecutions
of Antiochus to realize it, there can be no doubt that the more
intimate the association of the upper class of Jews with the
Greeks became, the more ashamed did they become of their own
peculiar customs and modes of life. They tried to introduce
into their towns the baths, theatres, and gymnasia, of the
Greeks; and to avoid the ridicule of the heathen populace,
they even went so far as to submit to a painful operation in
order to conceal their nationality. All this, it is needless to
say, was viewed with deep disgust and a growing sense of
irritation by the great masses of the Jewish people, w^ho were
passionately attached to the ordinances of the Law and to
their own cramped and sordid modes of life, and who abominated
as much the social customs of the Greeks — their games, gymnasia,
baths, etc. — as they did their idolatry. Such was the state of
Jewish feeling up to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. But
during the reign of that monarch, matters were brought to a
crisis. It so happened that the office of High Priest, which
was held by one Jesus, or Jason as he was called in Greek,
was taken away from him by the king, and given to his brother
Onias or Menelaus. The people took the part of the
deposed priest, and in a riot which ensued, Menelaus was
obliged to fly from Jerusalem, and seek the protection of
the king. He then assured Antiochus that both he himself
and the priestly party at Jerusalem, were anxious to give up
the Jewish laws and customs, and to adopt those of the Greeks ;
going so far even as to ask the king's permission to build a
Greek gymnasium at Jerusalem. Now whether it were that
the passion of Antiochus for hellenizing the peoples of his
dominions led him, when he learnt how far the process had
already gone among the upper classes of the Jews, readily to
believe that the rest of the people could be weaned from their
religion by a sufficiently vigorous application of force — the
more so, indeed, as the Scribes, who were the leaders and
Q
22Q
THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
teacliers of the people, had as yet no voice in the governino-
body or Sanhedrim, but were confined to their purely academic
functions of expositors and interpreters of the Law — or
Avhether it were the fear lest if he delayed too long, the
discontented party in Jerusalem would call in the assistance
of the rapidly growing Eoman power ; or whether it was owing
to pecuniary embarrassments ; or mere greed ; or to disgust
with the internal tumults of the Jews and their attitude
towards himself, cannot perhaps be known ; but whatever
may have been the reason, certain it is that he seized the
opportunity afforded him by the riots in the city to march an
army into Judaea with the object of rooting out once for all the
Jewish religion and nationality. ' Thorough ' was to be the
policy, and in carrying it into execution ' terror ' the order of
the day. He burnt the finest buildings, razed the walls of
ihe city to the ground, and to overawe the population
built a fortress at .Vera on a hill close by, overlooking
the Temple, and in it put a colony of Greeks. He then rifled
the Temple, carrying away the golden candlesticks, the altar of
incense, the table of shewbrcad, and the curtains of scarlet and
linen ; and giving orders that no child should be circumcised, and
that all copies of tlie Law should be secured and burnt. But
worse than all, and horror of horrors to the Jews, he caused a
statue of Jupiter Olympus to be erected on the altar of burnt
offering in the very Temple itself ; and to this, the ' abomination
of desolation ' of Daniel, sacrifices of swine were offered daily.
The citizens were slain or sold into captivity, the women
strangled, and those who were caught endeavouring to make
their escape were whipped Avith rods, torn to pieces, or crucified.
This was in the year 167 B.C., and ought, one would imagine,
to have resulted in the complete bankruptcy of a religion which,
while promising worldly prosperity, happiness, old age, and
respect, to those Avho kept its precepts, could give even its
martyrs no better reward than the whip, the rack, the cross,
ignominy, infamy, execration, and death. But it had in fact pre-
THE EVOLUTION OF THE RESURRECTION. 227
cisely the opposite effect, and, indeed, was indirectly the means
of restoring to something like its pristine vigour that Jewish
religion whose heart, as we have seen, was being slowly eaten
out by scepticism. This it did by sweeping away once and
for all those puerile fictions, those hollow fatuities and sophisms,
with which in times of peace men may amuse themselves and
a religion hide for a while its bankruptcy, or postpone its
downfall, but which in the hour of trial and in the face of
calamities like these of the Jews under Antiochus, were felt to
be unendurable mockeries. Those dreams of a happiness in
this life to be the attendant of virtue ; those accusations of
guilt, as in Job, where there had been affliction ; those
promises of a happiness in the last moments of life which
should more than make up for a life's misery ; — all these fictions
it swept away for ever as convicted impostures ; and in despair
of finding justice in this life men boldly set sail for another,
preferring rather to cherish a pleasing dream of a future which
could not be disproved, than a lying unreality in the present.
And so we have the first entrance into Jewish religion of that
doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body and of a Future Life
on Earth, which when transformed and modified by Greek
speculation, was afterwards to play so important a vole in
Christianity. It first makes its appearance in the Book of
Daniel, which all scholars are now agreed in believing to have
been written shortly after the Greeks and Syrians were driven
out of Jerusalem by the Maccabees. It was just three years
to the day from the date of the ' abomination of desolation '
being set up in the Temple, that Judas Maccabeus who had
fought his way up to supreme command with the obstinate
valour of an old Roman, entered the city, broke in
pieces the statue of Ju[)iter Olympus, and destroyed
the polluted altar of burnt offering on Avhich it stood ;
restoring the altar of incense, the golden candlesticks, the table of
shewbread, and all the other appurtenances of the Temple, to
their former position. Now it was to comfort and console the
228
THE EVOLUTION' OF JUDAISM.
Jews in their desolation after the persecutions, and to
resuscitate the faith which had been so rudely shaken by the
death of the martyrs, that the Book of Daniel was written.
The writer pictures in apocalyptic visions the triumph of the
Jewish nation. "I saw," he says, "in the night vision, and
behold one like a Son of Man came with the clouds of Heaven
and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near
Him. And there was given him dominion and glory and a
kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve
him ; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not
pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."
Here, the ' one like a Son of Man ' is used, as is afterwards
explained, in contrast to the four figures of beasts, who represent
the Assyrian, Median, Persian, and Greek Empires respectively ;
and is meant to represent the Jewish nation, the ideal people
of Israel, the lambs of the Most High, — those who had fought
and died for the faith during the recent persecutions under
Antiochus, as distinct from the renegade Jews who had
adopted the Greek customs, denied their faith, betrayed their
nation, and been ashamed of their religion. But this
kingdom of the Jews which God Himself was to set up
through the instrumentality not of the Messiah but of the
angel Michael, was an earthly kingdom not a heavenly one.
And it was into this earthly kingdom that the martyrs who
had died for their God and His Holy Temple were to awake, —
as well as their teachers, the Scribes, who were to shine like
stars. It was into this earthly kingdom, too, that the
renegades were to awake to shame and everlasting contempt.
But what it concerns us esjiecially to note here is, that this
resurrection to an earthly and worldly kingdom of the future is
only a pai'tial resurrection, being limited strictly on the one
hand to those who had died for their religion and on the other
to those who had betrayed it. And being a resurrection into
an earthly kingdom, it was a resurrection of the body as well as
of the soul ; differing in this from the resurrection of the
THE EVOLUTION OF THE RESURRECTION. 229
Greeks, which, being to a place in the pure ether beyond the
stars, was a resurrection of the soul only. And when
Christianity took over the Jewish code of the resurrection of
the body as well as of the soul, but at the same time
transformed their earthly resurrection into a heavenly one,
the difficulty of determining what kind of body it would be
which should thus ascend to Heaven became a source of great
perplexity to the Early Church, as we see from the Epistles of
Paul, — and indeed has remained more or less a mystery and
perplexity to the present time.
Now this belief in a Bodily Resurrection to a Future Life on
Earth, as compensation for unrewarded virtue in the present
one, saved from extinction that Jewish religion on whose
existence so much still hung for the future of the world ; and
no sooner had it been announced by the writer of Daniel, than
it spread over the whole Jewish world like a breath of spring,
rescuing: them from the dilemma in which their doctrine of an
earthly felicity following on obedience to the Law had placed
them, and becoming for the Jews everywhere, with the single
exception of the Sadducees, a most sweet and precious posses-
sion. And here, perhaps, it may be as well in passing to
observe that the reason why the Sadducees could still continue
calmly and with the utmost sang-froid to stake the good faith
and honour of Jehovah on the prosperity and worldly felicity
which were to attend the virtuous in the present life (and that,
too, in the face of all observation and experience, and even
of the most damning evidence to the contrary), was, that
belonging as they did to those priestly families who were
endowed with all the authority, prestige, and power of a
governing caste, — a hereditary nobility, the special favourites
of Heaven, and supported at the public expense, — they
could fearlessly appeal to this very fact of their earthly
felicity and prosperity as evidence of the truth of their
doctrine. For were they not the virtuous and the good,
they seemed to ask, and had they not been rewarded in this
j>30 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
present life? What need, then, for a resurrection and another
life, if men get their deserts In this ? It was a pleasure to
them to maintain a doctrine which so flattered their self-love,
and could be applied, besides, with so much self-complacency
to the worldly misfortunes of their less favoured fellow-
countrymen ; — the fact of their scepticism as to the doctrine of
the resurrection, only going to prove that although individuals
may be found in every age and clime, who, surrounded with
luxury and power, will still give up all for the hope of an ideal
world beyond the grave, closes of men who are securely
entrenched in the privileges of wealth and power, whether
kings, or priests, or aristocracies, will always manage to get
through the world with much satisfaction to themselves, with-
out either the hope of a resurrection or of a future life.
The reason that the writer of Daniel represents the earthly
kingdom of God as inaugurated by the angel Michael rather
than by the Messiah, was because the Messiah had always been
represented by the older prophets as belonging to the lineage
of David, whereas the Maccabees, who were the leading spirits
in the revolt against Antiochus, were not of the Davidic line at
all. They were the sons of an obscure priest named Mattathias,
living at Modin ; and he in turn was descended from one
Asmonjeus, a priest of the order of Joarib, and living at
Jerusalem. And hence the dynasty to which he gave his name
was called the Asmonasan Dynasty.
With the introduction into the Jewish religion of a future
life on earth and a resurrection of the body, it would seem as
if the time were ripe for taking the last step which separated
Judaism from Christianity. Not so, however; for the doctrine
of the resurrection as contained in Daniel is not that of a
general resurrection, but of one strictly limited, as we have
seen, to a very small number of people — to the martyrs, viz.,
on the one hand, and the renegade hellenizing Jews on the
other. Time accordingly must elapse before this limited
resurrection can develop into a general resurrection for all ;
THE EVOLUTIOX OF THE TiESURRECTION. 2ol
and until tlien the frontier of Judaism cannot strictly be said
to be separated from Christianity along its entire line by but a
sinn-lc step or stage of evolution. For this evolution of a
resurrection and a future life of reward and punishment, of a
kingdom of God, etc., belongs naturally to that third main
element in all religions which is here called the Supernatural
or Ideal element; — the element which deals with that vast
complex of hopes, fears, imaginations, desires, consolations,
dreams, etc., which, like the honey in the flower, lead men on
to realize in action those successively higher and higher Moral
Codes which, as we have seen, it is the final end and aim of
all religions to achieve.
And with this evolution of the Resurrection and Future
Life, this evolution of the Kingdom of God, wes the
evolution of the person who Avas to mediate it, the Messiah,
viz. ; — and to this, which will complete our study of the History
and Evolution of Judaism, and bring it all along the whole
extent of its line up to the frontiers of Christianity, I propose
to call the attention of the reader in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VI I.
EVOLUTION OF THE MESSIAH AND OF THE
MESSIANIC KINGDOM.
FN a former chapter I pointed out that what I have called
the Ideal or Supernatural element in all religions, the
element to which in Judaism all that pertains to a Resurrection
and a Future life, to a Messiah and a Kingdom of God belongs,
is never a pale, cold, philosophical abstraction, but is always a
warm concrete reality, palpitating with life, instinct with hope,
fear, aspiration, and passion, and suited to every variety and
grade of temperament and genius, of taste, culture, and
refinement. And we may go farther and say that in no part of
Religion is the correspondence between the Supernatural and
the Natural, the things of Heaven and the things of Earth,
more intimate and exact than it is between our longings, hopes,
ambitions, and aspirations in the present world, and the nature
of the Heaven we shall construct for ourselves in the next.
So close indeed is it, that from a knowledge of the former the
latter can with a very great degree of certainty be forecast.
And as it is with other religions so it is with Judaism. Not
the Valhalla of the Norsemen with its heroes drinking mead
out of the skulls of the enemy they have slain in battle, not the
Paradise of the Mahommedan Arab with its beautiful houris,
its smiling oases, its luxurious couches, and its gleaming
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MESSIAH. 233
waters, were more exact counterparts of the earthly ideals of
these peoples than was the nature of the Messiah and of the
Messianic Kingdom of the earthly ideals of the Jews. This I
now propose to demonstrate in detail at the different stages
through which in their evolution and development the nature of
the Messiah and the Messianic Kingdom have passed, — and
mainly with the idea of throwing light on those disputed
passages in the gospel narratives which bear on the conception
which Jesus had formed for Himself of the nature of the
Messiah and of the Kingdom of God.
To begin with, one may affirm that before the Exile, the
ideal of the imagination in which the Jews lived, and on which
in all their calamities they loved to dwell, was not, as we saw in
the last chapter, a Heavenly Kingdom beyond the clouds like
that of Mahomet and the Early Christians, but was purely an
Earthly Paradise, variously figured by the Prophets in detail,
but always consisting of certain fixed and definite elements —
national independence, material prosperity, abundance of corn,
wine, and oil, long life and an abundant progeny. It was on
the one hand a purely material and worldly prosperity, and on
the other a purely national one, in which the individual Jew
was to share, and in the contemplation of w^hich he was to find
the ideal of his dreams. But these pre-exilian times were, it is
to be remembered, times of oppression — oppression of the poor,
of the stranger, of the widow, the orphan, and the slave, by a
luxurious and licentious court and a grasping and tyrannous
plutocracy. They were times, too, in which the nation now
enjoyed profound peace, and now was threatened from without
by cruel and relentless foes — Assyrian, Egyptian, Edomite,
Moabite, or Philistine. In the picture of their ideal future
the Jews, accordingly, would not look for a Messiah sent from
God for the conversion of their souls, as in Christian times ;
for as yet there was no doctrine of a resurrection or a future
life of reward and punishment for the individual Jew. The
utmost compass of their hopes Avent no farther than the dream
(
234 THE EVOLUTION^ OF JUDAISM.
of an Ideal King, and most naturally a king of the line con-
secrated by God, the line of David, a king who should put down
the corruptions and extortions of the great and powerful, who
should judge righteous judgment, and protect from oppression
the widow, the orphan, and the slave. How entirely tliis
was the case may be seen in the writings of the great
pre-exilian Prophets, where the Messiah is always represented
as a King of the line of David, with justice, wisdom, and
righteousness as the characteristics of his reign, and reliance
on Jehovah rather than on horses and chariots, his policy.
Whether he is to be warlike or peaceful (warlike until his
enemies are subdued, and peaceful afterwards), whether he
shall admit the Gentiles or not to the blessings of the
Messianic Kingdom, depends on the circumstances of the
time, the temper of the prophet, or the state of national
feeling at the time at which he wrote, and of which for the
time being he is the m^outhpiece. Listen to the war-like note
of Amos, who, with the Northern kingdom threatened by
the Assyrian, in his longing for the good old times of David
when Israel ruled over Edom, Syria, and Moab, writes
(chapter ix., 11) : " In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of
David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof ; and I
will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old ;
that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the
heathen which are called by my name, salth the Lord that doeth
this." On the other hand, hear the halcyon note of Isaiah
after the first struggles with the enemy are over, and the
oppressors are put down. In chapter xl., 1, he says : "And
there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a
branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the
Lord shall rest upon him. . . . With righteousness shall
he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the
earth ; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. . .
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
THE EVOLUTIOX OF THE MESSIAH. 235
lie down with the kid . , . and a little child shall lead
them." Or the note of Justice and Righteousness in Jeremiah,
who in chapter xxiii. 5, says: "Behold the days come, saith the
Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a
King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and
justice in the earth." Or the adumbration of a peaceful,
gentle Messiah, with the nation's trust placed in Jehovah, and
not in the strength of its armies, in Zechariah (ix., 9 and 10),
which Jesus in after times will interpret in reference to
himself. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O
daughter of Jerusalem : behold, thy king cometh unto thee ; he
is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and
upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot
from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle-
bow shall be cut off": and he shall speak peace unto the heathen,
and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from
the river even to the ends of tlie earth." This peaceful note
is continued in Micah, who makes Jerusalem the centre to
which all the nations shall come for worship and law. In
chapter iv. 2 and 3, he says : " And many nations shall come, and
say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and
to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his
ways, and we will walk in his paths; for the law shall go forth
of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And
he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations
afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruninghooks ; nation shall not lift
up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more."
As to whether the Gentiles will be allowed to participate in
the blessings of the Messianic reign, that depends much on the
individual temper of the Prophet and the state of public feeling
at the time of which he is writing. In Amos and Hosea,
with the Assyrians closing in around the Northern kingdom,
the blessings of the Messianic times are strictly limited to
236 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
Israel ; in Micah, Isaiah and Zechariah, in the pauses of
conflict, they are extended to the Gentile nations as well.
As to the time of the coming of the Messianic King in these
early prophets, it is vaguely foretold by them as ' in the last
days,' but was generally believed to be close at hand. In
chapter xxix., 17, seq. Isaiah says : "Is it not yet a very little
while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the
fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest ? And in that dav
shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the
blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek
also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor amono-
men shall rejoice." Zephaniah, too, writing it is believed in
the time of Josiah, considers it to be close at hand. " It is
near, it is near," he says, " and hasteth greatly."
And now observe the change that came over the dreams of
the Jews during the Babylonian Exile. With Jerusalem in
ruins, the leading families in captivity, and no possibility of the
Assyrians allowing the exiles to return, all hope of a restoration
of the Davidic line had to be resigned. And accordingly the
prophets who wrote during that period could see no possibility
of the realization of the national hopes except by the direct
interposition of God Himself. The problem was primarily how
to get the people back again to Jerusalem, and this it seemed
to Ezekiel and to the author of Isaiah (xxiv.-xxvii.) could only
be done by the resurrection of those who had died in Babylon.
And, accordingly, we have a doctrine of the resurrection
specially devised to meet this particular diflSculty, — a doctrine
good only for the particular occasion, and which, when it had
served its purpose, was not heard of again for four hundred
years. If we turn to Isaiah (xxvi., 19) we shall find him
writing, " Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body
shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, for
thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the
dead." Again, in xxv., 8, he says : " He will swallow up death
in victory; and the Lord shall wipe away tears from off all
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MESSIAH. 237
faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away fi'om
off all the earth ; for the Lord hath spoken it." As for the
Assyrians, on the contrary, their enemies and oppressors, they
shall die without hope of resurrection. In chapter xxvi., 14,
it is said, " They are dead, they shall not live ; they are
deceased, they shall not rise, therefore hast thou visited
and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish."
Again in chapter xxvii., 13 we read : " It shall come to pass
in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and
they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of
Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall
worship the Lord in the Holy Mount at Jerusalem." The
inauguration of the new Israel being celebrated (chapter xxv.,
6) by a feast made by God Himself to all peoples, " a feast of
fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of
marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." So, too, Ezekiel
sees no other way of establishing the Ideal Kingdom of the
future but by a resurrection. In chapter xxxvii., 12, he says :
'• Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you
to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of
Israel." As with Isaiah, it is God Himself who is to do it.
" And ye shall know that I am the I^ord, when I have opened
your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your
graves. And shall put my spirit in you and ye shall live, and I
shall place you in your own land ; then shall ye know that I the
Lord have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord."
Deutero-Isaiah, again, at the close of the Exile, also feels
how hopeless it is to expect deliverance from the Chosen
People themselves. God alone can do it through the in-
strumentality of Cyrus, whom He has anointed and specially
raised up for the purpose. And in passing it is interesting to
note that with Deutero-Isaiah as with Amos, it is God Himself
who does everything, evil as well as good. Amos, it will be
remembered, asks in chapter iii., 6, " Shall a trumpet be blown
in the city and the people not be afraid ? shall there be evil in
i
238 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
a city, and the Lord hath not done it ? " So, too, Deutero-
Isaiah, in opposition to the Persians who believed that a special
god Ahrinian was the creator of Darkness, declares in chapter
xlv,, " I form the light, and create darkness ; I make peace, and
create evil : I the Lord do all these things." As for the
" servant of God " mentioned in Deutero-Isaiah, it is now
generally agreed that this has no reference to an expected
Messiah, but is a collective name merely for those Jews who f
had remained faithful to their country and their God.
When we come to the Persian period, or say broadly
between the years 530 and 330 B.C., we shall find the close
correspondence between the political and social condition of
the Jews and the Ideal Future of their dreams still further
exemjjlified. For here, too, as during the Exile, the conception
of a Messianic King of the line of David is entirely absent —
but for a different reason. The conception of a Messianic
King disappeared during the Exile because of the apparent
hopelessness of its realization ; it disappeared during the
Persian period from want of sufficiently crying grievances on
Avhich to feed. With the restoration of the Jews to their
native land by Cyrus, Avith full liberty given them of
worshipping God in their own way, and with the absence of all
political or social oppression, there was no need of a Messiah.
The very idea, in consequence, fell into abeyance. And
accordingly in propliets like Haggai and Malachi we hear no
more of a Davidic King, or indeed of any future King at all.
Haggai concerns himself mainly with the rebuilding of the
Temple and the encouragement of Zerubbabel ; while with
Malachi it is the corruption of the priests and the luxury and
licentiousness of the surrounding peoples, that is the subject of
his invectives. And instead of a Messianic King, you have
Elias the prophet, the great destroyer of idolatrous priests,
coming to prepare the way for God Himself who in that great
and terrible day will destroy the wicked. But as the Priests
and Scribes are all-powerful in the Persian period, the ideal
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MESSIAH. 239
future Kino-dom is figured as the carrying out more rigorously
the observances of the Mosaic Law. And as that can now be
safely entrusted to the all-powerful organization of the priests
and scribes, Prophecy, having exhausted its function, becomes
extinct in Israel.
With the Greek period, beginning with the Macedonian
conquests about 330 B.C., the Prophets have given place to
the Apocryphal Writers, as they are called, who were in the
habit of assuming the names of one or other of the older
prophets with the view of giving greater weight to their own
reflections on current events; and in them, too, we find the
nature of the ideal kingdom accurately reflecting the political
and social outlook of the nation at the time in which they are
writing. The dates of the works of many of these Apocryphal
writers are very uncertain, but enough is known for our
purpose here. And accordingly we find that in the absence of
all political and religious persecution up to the time of
Antiochus Epiphanes, and with no greater anxiety than the
occasional passage through Jewish territory of hostile armies
who sometimes fought their battles on Jewish soil, no allusion
is made by these writers to any Messianic King. The Son of
Sirach, in his Book of Wisdom, looks to God Himself to
ofather all the tribes of Israel together at Jerusalem, and there
to bless them ; but instead of being heralded by a Kingly
Messiah, He is to be heralded, as in jSIalachi, by the prophet
Elias — the Messianic hope resolving itself into a vague general
anticipation of a happy future for Israel, with abundant
manifestations of the presence and goodness of God.
But with the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, and the
rise of the Maccabees, the Ideal Kingdom took quite a
different shape in the imagination of men, and one still quite
in accord with the new evils under which the nation was
suffering. For the doctrine of a Resurrection and a Future
Life, had, as we saw in the last chapter, now come in as
compensation for the ills, injustices, and oppressions, wliich the
240 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
virtuous had to suffer in the present life. The consequence of
this was, that to the function of King which had hitherto
been the office of the Messiah, was now added the function of
Judge also. But Judas Maccabeus had already realized in his
own person all the heroic glories of a Davidic King. There
was therefore no room for a Messianic King of the house of
David ; and accordingly, as we sliould expect to find, none of
the apocalyptic works Avrittea about this period, with the
exception of the Sibylline Oracles, make mention of a Messiah
at all. In Daniel (xii., 1) it is the angel Michael, as we have
seen, to whom the Jews were to look for deliverance, and in
chapter ii., 44, it is God Himself who shall set up the Jewish
Kingdom which shall not be destroyed; while it is to the
Saints of the Most High, that is to say to the faithful Jews,
that the judgment of the wicked is committed — the resurrection
being restricted as we saw, to the Saints and Martyrs who
were to enter into life everlasting, and to the renegade and
apostate Jews who were to suffer shame and everlasting
contempt. If we turn to the Book of Wisdom, also written
about this period, we find again no mention made of a Messiah.
It is God Himself who will reign for ever, and it is the Saints,
and not the Messiah, who are to judge the nations. Nor in
the first Book of the Maccabees is mention made of a Messiah,
but only of a prophet, Elijah or Jeremiah, who was popularly
expected to come and tell the people what they were to do.
And although in the Sibylline Oracles it is said that God will
send a King who shall confirm the faithful, and stay the whole
earth from war, it is now generally agreed that the allusion is
not to a Messianic King, but to the Maccabean High Priest
Simon who crushed the remnant of the Syrian party in
Palestine, confirmed treaties with Sparta and Rome, and gave
to the people a season of profound peace. In these Oracles,
too, it is not the Messiah but the Prophets who are to be
judges and just leaders of men. And so we see that in the
Maccabean period, as well as in the Pre-exilic, the Exilic, the
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MESSIAH. 241
Persian, and the Grecian, the nature of the Ideal Kingdom of
the Jews reflects the fortunes of the nation like a mirror, or
attends them like a shadow.
Dui'ing the next period, that is to say during the hundred
years or more that elapsed between the struggles of the
Maccabees and the accession of Herod, nothing had appeared on
the political horizon to alter in any way the conception of the
Ideal Kingdom, unless, indeed, it were the rise into greater
influence and authority of the Scribes and Pharisees. The
Scribes now had seats along with the Priests and Elders in the
governing body of the Sanhedrim, and so had become all-
powerful ; while the Pharisees were beloved by the people, like
the early mendicant Friars of the Middle Ages, as Holy !Men of
God. Now it was by the influence of the Scribes and the
Pharisees mainly that the Prophets and Psalms had been
added to the Canon of Scripture and were accorded the same
kind of authority and respect as the Books of the Law
themselves. And the effect of this admission of the Prophets
into the Sacred Book was to throw back the minds of the Jews
to the contemplation of the conception of the Messiah as a
King of the line of David as set forth by the Prophets, — an idea
which had fallen into abeyance for the last four hundred years.
So that although the political outlook had not materially
changed, and the Jews were still a nation free from political or
religious oppression, we find in writers like Enoch a recru-
descence of the old idea of the Messiah, althou2:h in a different
form and one more suited to the character of the times. For
we always have to boar in mind that since the time of the
older prophets the doctrine of the resurrection and of a future
life had been introduced into the Jewish religion by the writer
of the Book of Daniel. The consequence of this was, that the
function of judging as to who were to be considered worthy of
reward in a future life, had been added to the original and
natural function of the Messiah, which was that of establishing
the earthly Kingdom of God. In Daniel, while God Himself
R
I)
242 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
was to be King, to the Saints of the Most liigh was committed
the office of deciding- what Avas to be the future destiny of
those who were to arise from the dead. Since then, however,
the doctrine had advanced several stages. In Daniel the
resurrection is a partial one, being confined to the martyrs and
the renegade Jews ; in the Second Book of the Maccabees it is
confined to the Chosen People as a whole. But by the time
that Enoch wrote, the resurrection had become almost general,
including, besides the Jews, the Heathen powers also ; and
instead of being a resurrection of the material body was a
resurrection of the spiritual body or soul. These souls are
confined in four separate compartments, occupied respectively
by the souls of the martyrs, of the good, of the ordinary
sinners, and of the reprobates. God Himself sits as judge on a
high mountain and sends the wicked to the Valley of Hinnom,
or Gehenna, where the sight of their torments forms no small
part of the pleasure of the righteous in the Paradise close by.
In Enoch, then, although the ideal Kingdom of the Future is
to be established by a Messiah, God Himself is to carry on the
work of judgment and salvation.
But when the Romans were at last called on to interfere
in the struggles between the rival brothers Hyrcanus
and Aristobulus, and Pompey after taking Jerusalem had
desecrated the Temple by entering the Holy of Holies, the
Messianic conception of the Old Prophets, which had slept for
400 years, revived in all its force. In the Psalter of Solomon,
written about this time, the blessings of the future were to be
brought in by a Davidic King, who was to carry out the
judgments of God by destroying the Heathen who had
desecrated the Holy City, and by driving sinners out of
the Jewish inheritance. Like the Messiah of the old prophets,
he was to rule the people in righteousness and spread the
knowledge of God among the nations. Here w^e have the
revival of the old prophetic idea of the Messiah in all its
fulness — a Davidic King anointed by God and filled with His
HI
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MESSIAH. 243
Holy Spirit, who shall destroy his enemies, and cause the
Lord to be honoured at Jerusalem by all nations ; his own
people not only being righteous, but, now that the Scribes
and Pharisees are all-powerful, devoted as well to the
observance of the ceremonial law.
As the strain between the Jews and Romans became the
more intense, the more intensely burned the desire for
vengeance, and the more did the coming of the Messiah who
was to deliver Israel and to restore the Earthly Kingdom
announced by the Prophets, become the desire of every heart.
This was especially the case after the deposition of Archelaus
the son of Herod by the Romans, when Judasa was made a
part of the Roman province of Syria under the rule of a
procurator; and still more so when the Jewish religion was
outraged by the putting up of the golden sliields dedicated to
Tiberius in the palace of Herod close to the Temple, and the
bringing of the Roman standards bearins; the imaffe of Cassar,
into the city. And the conception of the Messianic Kingdom
to which these outrages gave rise, was the conception cun*ent
among the Jews at the time of Christ, as we have it reflected
in the Gospel narratives, — viz., a King of the line of David,
born at Bethlehem and anointed by God and filled with His
Spirit, who should be heralded either by Elias, as we have it
in Malachi and the Son of Sirach, or by the Prophet spoken
of in the First Book of the Maccabees : a Kino* who should
deliver the Jews from the yoke of the heathen, and should
reign a thousand years, during Avhich time the old Jerusalem
was to pass away and be replaced by a New Jerusalem, to be
followed by a resurrection and judgment of all who had lived.
So deeply, indeed, had the Messianic kingdom of the Prophets
entered into the Jewish consciousness, that the authors of the
early Gospels felt it necessary, if their message was to be
received by the Jews, to represent Jesus as having been born
at Bethlehem, and to construct long genealogies for him,
demonstrating his descent from David.
244 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
Further than this, the Evohition of the Messiah and the
Messianic kingdom could not go. The National Hopes were
satisfied by the Messiah's coining as an earthly King of the line
of David, subduing the nations, and bringing back glory and
material prosperity to Israel. The hopes of the individual
.Jew were satisfied by a judgment and resurrection in which
the good should be rewarded with the good things of this
world, while the wicked should burn in their sight in the
valley of Hinnom. The religious ideal of the Prophets was
satisfied by the righteousness and justice which the Messiah
was to bring with him ; while that of the Scribes and Pharisees
was satisfied by the holy ordinances of their religion —
Sabbaths, feasts, purifications, etc. — being embraced by all
nations. And this view of the Messianic kingdom, varying in
detail according to the temper of the writer, remains almost
constant up to the break-up of the Jewish State and the final
dispersion of its people. In Fourth Ezra and Baruch the
Messianic kingdom lasts through a world-period and then
comes to an end, — to be followed by the consummation of the
hopes of individuals in an eternal life, in which the paradise of
delights lies always in sight of the fires of Gehenna. So that
the Messianic kingdom, which at first was all that the Jews
looked forward to, became at last but a prelude and pre-
liminary to a future Immortality of reward and punishment to
the individual Jew. In the same way, too, this resurrection to
a future of reward and punishment, which began by being a
limited resurrection in Daniel, goes on in Enoch to embrace the
heathen, until by the time of Christ it has become a general
one of all those who have lived. To sum up then we may say
that the Ideal Element in the Jewish religion, that on which
the imagination dwelt and which was the heaven of all their
dreams, — the Kingdom of the Messiah, — varied at the
different periods of their history with the conditions under
which the people found themselves. Beginning with a
glorious future of a purely earthly and matarial prosperity
THE EVOLLTION^ OF THE MESSIAH. 245
Avhicli under a King of the House of David was to be
enjoyed, if not by the existing generation, then by their
posterity, it ended by becoming, about the time of Christ, an
earthly kingdom of the Messiah for the nation, with a
resurrection and future kingdom of Heaven for the individuals
who had kept the commandments of God — these command-
ments being resolvable mainly into the more strict observance
of the ceremonial law. In the Sibyl, too, this future kingdom
is a moral kingdom, consisting mainly of sacrifices and ritual
observances ; while in the Book of Jubilees and the Targums
it is also to consist in the stricter observance of the ceremonial
law.
As regards the admission of the Gentiles into this future
kingdom of God — in the Sibyl and Enoch they are allowed, in
the Psalter of Solomon thev are excluded, while in Ezra and
Baruch nothing but hatred and vengeance is to be shown them.
In the Talmud, again, all Gentile proselytes may come in of
their own accord; in the Targums all peoples whatsoever.
And in all, the agency, it is to be observed, is the Holy Spirit,
or Spirit of God, as it was in the old prophets, — in Isaiah,
Zechariah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah, and Joel.
But it is in the opinions of the Rabbis that we get the best
conception of the differences that existed between the Jews
and Jesus in reference to the nature of the Messiah, and
of the Kingdom of God. With the Jews as with the
Christians there was to be an universal resurrection of
the righteous and the wicked, but with the Jews they were to
be raised clothed, and to be judged by the Messiah in
Jerusalem, the wicked being sent to the fires of Gehenna
close by in the Valley of Hinnom, while the faces of the
righteous were to shine, and they themselves, with crowns on
their heads, were to enjoy the light of the Shekinah. There
were to be only a few exceptions to the absolute universality of
this resurrection, and these were as follows : — Those who denied
the resurrection ; those who said the Law was not from Heaven :
246 THE EVOLUTION OF JUDAISM.
the Epicureans ; the readers of books outside the Canon of
Scripture ; the makers of incantations ; the generation that died
in the wilderness : tlie Assembly of Korah ; the men of a city
destroyed for idolatry ; and those who had kept themselves
away from the Law.
As for the Messiah himself, he was to be mortal like other
men, but filled with the spirit of God, and was to die at the end
of a triumphant reign. The Rabbis admitted that the Messiah
might have to suffer, but never that he should be crucified, as
that was a mode of death accursed by God Himself. That the
celebrated Rabbi Aquiba should have believed that Bar
Cocheba who led the insurrection in the time of Hadrian, was
the Messiah, proves that the Messiah was believed by the
Jewish Rabbis to be only a man among men, although a man
more than usually endowed with the Spirit of God.
And finally we have to remark that in all the Apocalypses,
Jewish and Christian, the coming of the Messiah is heralded in
much the same way, viz. by portents, such as swords in the
sky, blood trickling from rocks, the desecration of the Temple,
sun and moon, day and night, and the seasons, changing their
courses and functions, the nations drunk with idolatry and
wickedness till the cup of their iniquity was full.
PART IV.
THE EVOLUTIOIsr
OF CHRISTIANITY.
HISTOEY OF
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.
PART IV.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES FOR THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS
ON THE
EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Original Authorities
NEW testament ACTS OF THECLA
1st AND 2nd EPIS- JUSTIN MARTYR
TLBS OF CLEMENT PISTIS SOPHIA
BARNABAS
SHEPHERD OF
HERMAS
PAPIAS
IGNATIUS
POLYCARP
TEACHING OF THE
TWELVE APOSTLES
BAUR
BEYSCHLAG
BIGG
BOISSIER
BRIGHT
BRUCE
CARPENTER
DALE
DAVIDSON
DIDON
DORNER
FAIRBAIRN
GIBBON
HARDY
HARNACK
EPISTLE OF PTOLEMY
ATHENAGORAS
TATIAN
THEOPHILUS
CLEMENTINES
CYPRIAN
CLEMENT
Modern Guides: —
HATCH
HAUSRATH
HAVET
HOLTZMANN
HORT
KEIM
LIGHTFOOT
MAHCUS DODS
MARTINEAU
MOMMSEN
MOSHEIM
NEANDER
NEWSMAN
NITZSCH
PFLEIDERER
ORIGEN
IRENAEUS
TERTULLIAN
HIPPOLYTUS
TACITUS
LETTERS OF PLINY
EUSEBIUS
SOCRATES
SOZOMEN
EPIPHANIUS
PRESSENSE
RAMSAY
RENAN
REVILLE
RITSCHL
SCHMIEDEL
SCHURER
SEELEY
STRAUSS
VOLKMAR
WEISS
WEIZSACEER
WENDT
WESTCOTT
CHAPTER I.
THE TWO METHODS 12^^ CIVILIZATION.
STANDING as we here do at the parting of the Avays
between the Ancient and the Modern World, it is
necessary if we wonld understand aright the part played in
Civilization by Christianity, that we should at the outset
endeavour to distinguish with something like precision between
the parts played in the complex result by the Spirit of Christ
on the one hand, and by the Doctrines and Institutions of the
Church on the other.
To begin with, then, we may remark that just as at the end
of all investigations into life-processes generally, however
profound and exhaustive these investigations may be, a
mysterious something has to be assumed to account for that
residuum of unexplained phenomena Avhich neither physical,
mechanical, nor chemical principles will fully explain; so in all
enquiries into the history of civilization we are bound to
assume, if only for purposes of distinction and clearness, some
great Power, — call it Providence, Fate, the Order of Nature, or
what you will, — which has brought the world from its rude
unconscious forms up to man, from man savage and uncivilized
up to man cultured and refined, and which is working steadily
and unweariedly upwards to its end of a perfected humanity
athwart all the to-and-fro confusion and conflict of individuals
and of races which would seem as if thev must baulk and
250 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
defeat it — we are bound, I say, to distinguish between this
great Disposing Power which co-ordinates the works of
individuals and of races and subdues them to its own ends,
knittins: together into one single evolution the work of
successive ages and generations, and these same ephemeral
individuals and races themselves, who are the means and
instruments used by the World-Spirit to work out its own ends
step by step and stage by stage without a link intermitted in
the long chain, but who, far from having any conception that
they are working for these ends, are conscious only of working
for their own individual and personal ends, good or bad — the
wars, the conquests, the patriotisms, the self-interests, the
personal ambitions, or what not, of the age or hour. Or, to put
it in another way, we may say that while men and races con-
sidered as individual units are engaged in working out their
own private and particular ends, the Presiding Genius of the
World has so arranged it that by these self-same actions they
shall, quite unconsciously to themselves, work out its ends
also — ends more vast and sublime than those they know.
With this difFerence then between the work of the World-
Spirit in civilization, and the work of the individual units,
kept well in mind if only for the sake of clearness, we shall
now be enabled to advance to the first of the main propositions
which it is the object of this chapter to illustrate and uphold,
the position, viz., that just as Nature though steady to her own
aim of fertilizing the plants and flowers at any cost, still uses
different means for that end according to the requirements of
the different species ; — now using the bees, now the wind, now
birds, and so on;— so the Genius of the World moves to its
steady end of a perfected civilization, not by one stereotyped
and invariable method, but by quite different and even antago-
nistic methods, according to the necessities of the time, the age
of the world, and the stage of culture and progress reached.
These methods, however they may vary in their minutiae, may
for practical purposes all be reduced to two, the direct and the
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATION. 251
indirect method, — the method of the Ancient, and the method
of the ^lodern World. Christianity, which is the most important
product of the Ancient World, naturally did the work appointed
it in civilization on the indirect or ancient method, but as this
method is toto coelo different from the method by which civil-
ization is advanced in Modern Times, it is evident that no account
of the rise and triumph of Christianity can be regarded as true
or final in which these methods are confounded. And as this
is precisely what has been done in a greater or less degree by
many who have hitherto written on the rise of Christianity, I
shall make no apology to the reader for asking him to accompany
me in the attempt to understand precisely what these two
different methods of Civilization are, and how they work. I
shall take what I have called the direct method first, — the
method used by the Genius of the World in ^lodern Times.
It will be noticed that at the present day when good men
and women become fired with a noble enthusiasm to leave
the world better than they found it, they set to work to
accomplish their object by the dii^ect propaganda of the reforms
they wish to see established ; advocating them and urging their
acceptance on men, not because they are prescribed by any
religious code, but for their power to lead naturally and
inevitably to the higher life they have in view. Hence we find
them proclaiming abroad without further recommendation than
the good results on civilization and morality which they
believe must flow from them, such reforms as the abolition of
slavery, the extension of the suffrage, socialism, the closing of
public-houses, the eight-hours day, and the ' living wage.' That
is to say they aim directly at the mark they wish to hit, and not
indirectly through the medium of something else, — as through
lleligion. If they want democracy, they preach democracy ; if
they want socialism, they preach socialism ; if they want the
abolition of slavery, or the 'living wage,' they preach the
abolition of slavery or the ' living wage.' This course seems,
indeed, so natural to us at the present day that we can
252 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
scarcely realize that it could ever have been otherwise. And
yet, strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that in
ancient times no one would have dreamt of trying to carry
any serious social, moral, or political reform by the mere
demonstration of its power to correct some abuse, or to promote
human welfare generally. For Morality in ancient times was as
intimately bound up with Religion as an infant with its
mother, and you could no more reach Morality without first
striking at Religion than you could reach an infant without
first strikino; at the mother at whose breast it huno^. To
inculcate a higher morality, therefore, you must begin by
destroying the old religion which safe-guarded and sanctioned
the inferior morality and customs you wished to reform, and
putting a new religion in its place ; making the practice of the
new morality which it w^as your object to introduce, the
indispensable condition to the entrance on the supernatural joys
which the new religion held out to its votaries ; — much in the
same way as Nature by its cunning expedients makes the
cross-fertilization of the flowers the condition obligatory on the
bee before it can enjoy the honey they conceal. To extirpate,
for example, the type of civilization which grew up
under and was sanctioned and upheld by the Brahmins
in India, — with its degrading superstitions, its human
sacrifices, its widow-burnings, its idolatries, its sensual
orgies, and its iron system of caste within which the
human spirit was confined as in a prison — and to replace it
by a regime of celibacy, temperance, gentleness, and equality,
it was necessary for a new religion like Buddhism to arise,
which should abolish the gods in whose honour and by whose
authority these degrading immoralities were instituted, and
should deny the very existence of souls in men to be dis-
tributed into a hierarchy of caste-inequality according as they
were believed to spring from the head, the limbs, the body, or
the feet of Brahm. Buddhism, it is true, failed in the end,
but in so far as it succeeded, it changed the primitive type of
THE TWO METHODS m CIVILIZATION. 253
Hindoo custom, morality, and life. Again, to break up the
Arab civilization before Mahomet, — with its superstitions, its
idolatries, its licentiousness, and its internecine feuds, — and to
allow civilization to advance another stage, a new religion had
to arise which in place of the Black Stone and the painted
idols, substituted One God terrible and sublime as Fate ; and
in place of an uncertain future, opened up a new and assured
Heaven of smiling oases and dark-eyed houris for the delect-
ation of those who were prepared to follow out the precepts of
its more simple and pure, though still far from ideal morality.
Even the corruptions of society under the Medieval Church,
where payment in money was sufficient to cover and condone
the most scarlet sins, could only be removed and a new and
hio-her morality introduced, by what was practically the new
relio-ion of Calvinism and the Reformation, — where the sinner
having at last obtained personal access to the Scripture, found
himself confronted, not with a Church which in ceasing to be
independent of Emperors and Kings and Nobles, had become
too often, it is to be feared, the mere echo of their vices, but
with the terribly real and immediate judgments of God. So
difficult is it for mankind to make even the simplest advance in
Morality and Civilization ! To get the Ten Commandments
respected and observed as they are by the majority of respectable
people to-day, hundreds of generations of men and women had to
be whipped and scourged and stoned ; and to be tortured by
supernal and infernal terrors through long ages. A new and
higher code of morality differing in any degree from that to
which men have been accustomed, is a pure burden laid on the
neck of the unregenerate spirit ; and the masses of men will no
more embrace it for its own sake, or for the sake of its effects
on civilization, or indeed for any stimulus less potent than
some personal hope or fear, than they will clear forests or
drain morasses for their own sake.
If then in Ancient Times the great moral and social reforms
of advancing civilization could only be carried out indirectly
254 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
under cover of Religion, Avhile at the present time they can be
carried out directly by the simj^le demonstration of their power
to effect the end in view, — we have now to ask what those great
s-eneral causes are which made so great a transformation of
method inevitable.
To begin with, in Ancient Times none of those great laws
of Nature which have so profoundly revolutionized our views
of the Universe and Man, had as yet been discovered, no laws
by which the course of Nature and of Human Society could be
satisfactorily explained, — no law of gravitation, no Copernican
Astronomy, no law of the connexion between thought and the
state of the brain and nervous system, no law of Evolution, of the
correlation of forces, and the like. Stoicism and Epicureanism,
it is true, as well as Buddhism, taught the inviolability and
constancy of the laws of Nature, but only in general terms ; and
in the absence of knowledge of the particular laws by which
things were to be explained, men were forced to refer what they
did not understand to the agency of the only other kind of
cause of which they had immediate evidence, viz., to wills,
o-ood or bad,' — and so to the agency of gods^ demons, and the
like. Not only were all unexplained natural phenomena such
as thunder, lightning, earthquakes, comets, etc., referred to the
ao-ency of the gods, but in the absence of any knowledge beyond
that of dim and uncertain tradition, the origins of States also,
and their continued existence and preservation, were necessarily
referred to the special care and protection of tutelary deities
who were believed to watch over them. These deities were not
only believed to have founded these Cities and States, but to
have settled their institutions, their orders and hierarchies of
men, their morals and customs, the laws they were to obey, the
relations of the different classes to each other, what the citizens
were to do and avoid, the number of wives they were allowed
to marry, and so on ; so that when national calamities and
misfortunes threatened or overtook the State, — famine, pesti-
lence, earthquake, defeats in war, etc., — they were believed to
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATION. 255
be due to the answer of the offended deltv at the interference
with these institutions which he had established. It is evident,
therefore, that you could no more alter or destroy these institu-
tions (in which, be it remembered, the stage of civilization
reached by a people at any given time consists), by the mere
demonstration of their effect in retarding development, without
first of all destroying or discrediting the Religion and the gods
which were believed to have instituted them and still continued
to countenance and support them, than you could destroy or
alter the institutions of a Russian village or province, without
first of all discrediting the authority or discarding the allegiance
of the Czar. How true this is will be apparent if we consider
those Eastern countries in which Religion continues at the
present day to preserve the same relation to the institutions of
society as it did in Ancient Times, and reflect how hopeless it
would be to attempt to reform theii* moral and social institutions,
without first of all destroying or reforming the religion which
gave rise to and sanctioned them, and on which they depend.
How hopeless, for example, to dream of abolishing (unless by
physical force) the Caste system of India with its widow-
burning, child marriages, Siva orgies. Juggernaut immolations,
Thuo-gee and the rest, without first abolishing the Religion of
Hindooism which originated and perpetuated them? How vain
to dream of convincing the Mahommedan of the evil of his
concubinage and polygamy, his belief in the sword, and his
contempt for Science and the Arts, without first convincing him
of the falsehood of the Koran and its Prophet ! How convince
the Jew that his tribal exclusiveness, his circumcision, his
abstinence from meats, his Sabbaths, and the rest, are not the goal
of civilization and culture, without first of all destroying the letter
of the Law, with its Messianic hopes and the promises given to
the Fathers ? It was a true thouirh unconscious instinct that
led the missionaries of the Gospel in foreign lands, to begin
their propaganda by trying to change the religion of the heathen
before attempting to change his civilization or morality.
256 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
And thus we see that the method by which the Genius of
the Woi'ld got its work of civilization done in Ancient Times
corresponds, as we have said, to the method by which Nature
gets the work of fertilization done by the bees. The super-
natural Ideals of the various religions — the Paradise of
Mahomet, the second coming of Christ in his Kingdom on
Earth, and the like — all of which were calculated to dazzle the
minds and draw on the hearts and imaginations of men,
correspond in our analogy to the honey by which the bees are
attracted, and of which alone they are in quest. The new
Codes of Morality again Mdiich these religions prescribed — •
the Sermon on the Mount, of Jesus ; the alms, prayers,
ablutions, limitations of polygamy, etc., of Mahomet, and the
like — and which men must obey if they would enter these
delightful realms, correspond to the seed which the bees
must scatter if they would enjoy the honey which the flowers
conceal. They are the real ends, these Codes of Morality,
which the Genius of the World has at heart, and for which all
this apparatus of supernatural machinery is but the means ;
in the same way as the scattering of the seed and the
fertilizing of the flowers are, in their purely physical aspect at
least, the real ends for which all this beauty and sweetness of
honey and flower exist. And thus we see how profound is the
error of those Theologians and religious teachers of the present
day, who taking for granted that the method by which
civilization is advanced must be the same in all ages (instead of
being as we have seen, exnctly opposite in Ancient and
Modern times), naturally enough iinngine that a superior Code
of Morality like the Sermon on the Mount must have been as
€fl"ective in drawing on the hearts and imaginations of men in
the time of Christ, as a like propaganda would be To-day. In
consequence of this error they represent the sublime ethics of the
Sermon on the Mount as the chief cause of the rise and triumph
of Christianity, — whereas in reality the chief cause of that rise
was the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and that His follo'w ers
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATION^. 257
would sit with Him, in their own life-time perhaps, in His
earthly Kingdom of God. Tlie effort to live up to his high
moral ideal (which was the real end the World-Spirit had at
heart) was merely the price they were willing to pay for this
glorious privilege of sitting with the Messiah in his Kingdom,
which had so filled and fascinated their imaginations and hearts.
To imagine otherwise, and to believe that a number of peasants,
publicans, and fishermen, would leave their work, throw down
their nets, and rise as by a common impulse to establish a few
very high but also very abstract moral principles and precepts
about the blessedness of the poor and the meek, and the duty
of forgiveness, charity, and love — for their own sake alone, —
is a dream of the pulpit and the closet merely.
And now we come to the problem so important to Humanity
from its bearing on the part played in Civilization by Keligion,
the problem, viz., as to the causes which have made it possible
in Modern Times for the great ends of civilization and progress
to be advanced by the direct method of attacking abuses or
advocating reforms on the around of their natural results alone,
instead of, as in Ancient Times, indirectbj through the medium
of Religion. These causes then may be reduced to two. The
first, the active and positive cause, is the prevalence in Modern
Times of what is called the Scientific Spint. This spirit is now
so extensively diffused, the uniformity and constancy of the
Laws of Nature are so recognized and taken for granted by the
most active and influential minds, that when once men have
decided that any particular material, moral, or social condition
— as for example slavery, despotism, polygamy, intem])erance, or
poverty — is by its very nature an obstacle to a higher state of
civilization and culture, they no longer allow former religions
or theological rulings on the point to stand in their way, but
unhampered and undeterred by ancient dogma, go straight to
their mark and attack the enemy openly and in full face,
and for its own evil cftects alone. This first cause, viz.,
the Scientific Spirit, is already a potent one, and is daily
S
258 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
exercising more and more influence over the most intelligent
and cultured minds.
But the second cause is more important still, for without it
the Scientific Spirit would have been strangled at its birth, or
if allowed to live at all would have met with little or no
sympathy from the great mass of the people, and would have
exercised as little authority over the affairs of life as it does
to-day among a population of Turks and Hindoos. This second
cause is the spirit of the Religion of Jesus ^ as distinguished from
the dogmas of the Christian Church .
Now Christianity, so far as its supernatural organization and
structure are concerned, is a religion of Ancient Times, and had
it followed the example of the other religions of antiquity, we
should expect to find it laying down a number of fixed,
definite, and inelastic rules of conduct and behaviour for all the
relationships of life. But in reality it did quite the opposite,
and set itself from the outset to emancipate men from
existing forms and ceremonies rather than to impose on them
new ones. Fully one half of Christ's teaching consists in
inculcating a morality not of the letter but of the spirit, not of
outward mechanical observances but of the inward condition
of the heart. It did not, that is to say, profess to lay down a
fixed and written code of moral and social relations, of what
men were to do or avoid in all the relationships of life, as
Judaism had done before it, and as Mahommedanism was to do
after it ; nor did it fix once for all the hierarchy of personal
and social relations in which men were to stand to each other,
as in the Caste-system of Hindooism. On the contrary its
deliberate purpose was to counteract all this, and once for all to
put an end to it by leaving Morality so freely and flexibly
moveable that it would offer no obstruction to any course of
action or conduct which could be shown to be for the spiritual
well-being of man. Now this morality of the spirit, if we may
call it so, is connected as we shall see by an inner and necessary
logic with the very soul and core of Christ's teaching ; but as
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATION. 250
this connexion has not. in my judgment, been sufficiently
dwelt upon, and as on it will depend the view we are to take of
the part played in Civilization by Christianity, 1 may ask the
reader to pause with nie here for a while to consider it.
Taking the Ten Commandments and the other precepts of
the Mosaic Law as his pomt of departure, Jesus began his
propaganda by shifting the emphasis of his teaching from the
<icts a man does to his motices in doing them ; from the words
of his mouth to the thoughts and intents of his heart — and in
so doing raised at a bound the whole plane ot Ancient morality.
Not only were you not to kill, but you were not to think of
killing ; not only not to commit adultery, but not to dream of
committing adultery ; not only not to covet your neighbom^'s
goods, but not to set your mind on earthly goods at all. But
he went farther, and pushing boldly across the frontier that
separates this more or less passive and Buddhistic attitude of
the spirit from the active powers and the will, unfurled his
banner of positive reform by boldly proclaiming his new
Gospel of universal benevolence, forgiveness, and love, — with its
ideal of a self-renunciation so lofty and intense that when struck
on the one cheek men should glory in turning the other also,
when asked for their cloak should joyfully give their coat also ;
rising at last to heights so difficult for poor human nature to
scale, as the loving of one's enemies, the blessing of those that
curse you, the doing good to those that hate you, — in a word
to the becoming perfect even as your Father in Heaven is
perfect.
Such was the burning enthusiasm aroused in the heart of
Christ and his disciples by the fierce light of the near approacli
of the Kingdom of God on Eartli : and one sees at once that
the morality it enjoined was in its nature purely ideaK in the
sense, that is to say. that it cannot be reached by poor
humanity all at once and at a bound, but only slowly and by
successive approximations through long periods of time. Now
it was p-p.ciscly from these two facts, viz., first that the
260 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
morality preached by Jesus was an internal movaMtj, a. moralitj
of the will and intention and not of the external act, and
secondly that it was an ideal morality, that all the charac-
teristics of his teaching are strictly and logically deducible.
To begin with, being ideal, the high self-renuuciation it
demanded is as difficult for the unregenerate heart to rectch as
are the high ideals of poetry and art by the untrained intel-
ligence. In the second place being a thing of the heart and
imagination and not of the mere outward act, one has only to
consider the infinite variety of character, temperament, genius
and bias among men, to see that the conditions necessary to
the o;reat act of renunciation are as inscrutable and difficult to
determine in any given case as those needed to rouse the
passion of human love ; and that, like love, this act of
renunciation can only be reached by each individual, by secret
affinities peculiar to himself and known to himself alone. It
follows therefore that if men are to arrive at the goal at all, no
set forms or prescribed rules of conduct and behaviour will
avail, but each must be permitted to reach it by the path most
suitable to his particular character, temperament, or genius.
And hence it was that Jesus if he would see his ideal become
a reality in the lives of men, was as logically obliged to allow
them the utmost liberty of choice as to the ways and means by
which they Avere to attain to it, as one would be if one were to
insist that every man should experience in his life-time the
passion of love. And thus it was that the spiritual ideal of
Jesus carried logically with it the law of perfect liberty; the
only condition imposed by him being that the mode of life or
course of conduct pursued by individuals should be felt by them
to be a help towards the realization of this ideal, and not a
drawback or obstruction. And accordingly we see in the
earlier days of Christianity the disciples of Jesus making their
way to the same goal by quite diiferent routes, and through quite
different modes of life and thought. Some, like Jesus himself,
found the greatest help and stimulus in cheerful intercourse
THE TWO METHODS IX CIVILIZATION. 2()1
with the world and their fellow men, and in going aljcnit
doinij cjood. Others, like St. Paul, found in a mild but not
excessive asceticism the condition most favourable to their life
in the ideal, and to their steady growth in grace. Some,
again, like St. John, got most help from imagination and
meditation, and from hanging on the discourses of the Master ;
others, like St. James, in an even more scrupulous and careful
observance of every detail of the Law than before. And hence
also we find Jesus proclaiming as his constant theme that neither
sabbaths nor new moons, neither first fruits nor alms, neither
sacrifices nor public prayers, neither things clean nor things
unclean, can have any binding authority whatever, except on
such individuals as feel that they are being helped by the per-
formance or observance of them to the ideal life. It was the
first time in the history of the world that a religion had
appeared which liberated men from their bondage to the letter,
to fixed and inelastic external acts and observances, and allowed
them to freely find their way to the moral ideal through an
inner experience based on individual peculiarities of character,
temperament, or genius ; and Avas as great an advance in the
moral sphere on all that had gone before it, as the free reason
of man was, over the fixed, rigid, and inelastic instinct of the
brutes in the intellectual. And it all followed, as we have seen,
in strictly logical sequence from the fact that the morality of
Jesus was an ideal one, and that it was an affair not of the
cuter act, but of the inner condition of the will, imagination and
heart. And if going further we ask whv the moralitv of
Jesus was ideal, the answer can scarcely be doubtful : it was
due to the belief that the Kins-dom of God was near at
hand. To believe otherwise and to imagine that society
could have been kept at this high pitch of tension for long
ages and centuries would be to credit poor humanity with a
liigher degree of virtue than it can fairly lay claim to. It
will be interesting to see how this doctrine, fitted and indeed
intended for a short spurt only, became adapted to the
2C)2 THE EVOLUTION OF CHEISTIANITY.
needs of a society Avhich should have an existence through
indefinite ages.
For it is probable that in preaching this morality of the spirit
and not of the letter, Jesus had in view the salvation of the
individual merely ; as it is unlikely that with his belief that the
Kingdom of God and the end of the World were ahnost within
sight, he should have given a thought to the effect of his Gospel
on the long evolution of society that was to follow him. Be-
this as it may, it is certain that the same doctrine that led tO'
the salvation of the individual, led, when once embraced, to the
salvation of Society also — and so revolutionized the world. For
in the same way as Nature, if she is to reach her end by the
process of ' natural selection ' in Time, must take advantage of
every the smallest variation in the long process of upward
development, and so must give free scope to every flowery
animal, and tree, to bring forth its special and peculiar quality
of fruit, to yield up its special and peculiar beauty of structure
or form ; so in the moral world if you set up an ideal standard
of life which society can only reach after long ages of painful
and laborious efTort, you must be prepared to welcome and
embrace every the smallest increment of goodness, beauty, or
truth that miiy chance to arise, as material for the next
advance ; and so must suffer no new truth to be crushed under
the brutal weight of authority and dogma, no new sentiment to
be chilled and repressed by the traditions of an outworn and
obstructive past. And hence it was that Christianity by the
very logic of its ideal aim, which was always being approached
but never reached, was pledged to open up before men an
infinite horizon, and to give free and untrannuelled range and
expansion to the human spirit.
And so it came about that a doctrine which was originally
devised for another purpose, which was intended only for a
comparatively few individuals and for a very limited period of
time, was seized on by the Genius of the World as the very
variation it wanted for its own ends, and became when
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZ \T10N. 263
expandecl, modified, and transformed to meet the needs of
Society as a lohole, a doctrine for all men and for all times.
And now we see why it is that Christianity in its essential
spirit and genius as it existed in its Founder's mind, not only
offers no obstruction to, but actually encourages the di7'ect
preaching of political, moral, and social reforms for themselves
alone, and without reference to Religion ; and why, when those
purely seculai- reforms which took their rise in the Scientific
Spirit began to be agitated, it was able to aid and abet them
and not to thwart them as other religions must have done —
provided always, of course, that these reforms could be shewn
to lead directly, and by their own nature, to the amelioration of
the material, social, or spiritual condition of man.
And here we may pause for a moment to answer an objection
that must have occurred to the mind of the reader — the
objection, vis., that the morality and precepts of Jesus had
already been anticipated by Buddhism. Now Buddhisnj
denying as it did the existence of all gods whatever, as well as
the existence of souls in men, Avas rather a system of Atheistic
Philosophy than a Religion ; and its sole aim and inspiration was
the purely negative one of escaping from the rounds of re-birth
and sorrow which all evil whether of thought or deed entailed.
Its only means of salvation, accordingly, was to lay up a
sufficient stock of 'merit,' not only by reducing all evil thoughts
and deeds to a minimum, but by the cultivation and exercise
of deeds of goodness, justice, and charity to all men. In so
far then, it may seem to resemble, if not to be identical with, the
precepts of Christianity. But the resemblance is no more real
than is the resemblance between the sleep of death and the
sleep of fullest life, between the goodness of the criminal who
is trying to shorten his term of imjn'isonment, and the good-
ness of the man who goes about his work as ■' ever in his great
task-master's eye." And labouring as Buddhism does for the
extinction of the individual and of humanity, instead of for
their ultimate enlargement and ])erfection, its spirit is purely
2134 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY"
passive and inert, and could no more unite with the forward
spirit of jSIodern Science, as Christianity can and does, than
the wheels of an engine can unite with a boiler filled with ice
instead of steam.
But before going farther it is necessary to remark that
although Christianity by reason of the nature of its moral ideal
has in effect withdrawn Morality from the fixed and positive
dogmas and precepts of Religion^ and has handed it over to
knowledge and experience, or in a Avord to Science, it must not
therefore be imagined that in its origin this morality was
scientific and secular. On the contrary like all other systems
of Morality of the Ancient World, it grew up under the wing
and protection of Religion : and it is not too much to say that
without the burning hopes aroused by the belief in the coming
of the Kingdom of God in the life-time of men then alive, it
could never have got a foothold with the masses of men at all.
So diflScult is it, as we have said, and so vast an expenditure of
supernatural hopes and fears is necessary, for Humanity to talce
even the smallest step in Morality ! The truth is, Christianity
in spite of its higher representation of God as a Father and
God of Love was not so much a purely ideal religion, as it was
a purely ideal morality, adapted to all time, but growing up
under the stimulus of the now outo-rown belief in the immediate
comins: of the Messiah to establish on earth the Kingdom of God.
So far then we have regarded Christianity as it existed in its
primitive purity and simjjlicity in the mind of its founder Jesus
Christ himself. To fully realize what an immense step was
taken in civilization when Jesus for the first time in history
implicitly handed over Morality to Science, Knowledge, and
Experience, and withdrew it from the fixed and rigid decrees
and ordinances of Religion, we have only to reflect for a moment
on the disasters that befell Christianity itself, when the Early
Church, as much from necessity as choice, was betrayed into
the very error from which it was the special mission of Christ
to for ever deliver it, the error, viz., of giving fixed and rigid
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATION. 2G5
answers to questions of belief and practice, which from their
very nature ought to have been kept fluid, flexible, and free
to mould and adapt themselves to the continually changing
needs of life and society. Instead of allowing these doctrines
and practices to stand freely around the religion of Jesus as so
many temporary props to be taken up, used, and laid aside
again Avhen they wei'e no longer suited to new times and
conditions, the Early Church in order to prevent divisions that
would have been fatal to its unity, and so to its very existence,
was obliged to build these doctrines and practices into its own
structure, as part of a supernatural revelation from God. In so
doing it gave them that absolute, fixed, and unalterable character
which made them sacred in the minds of men, and would have
perpetuated them as eternal truths for all time.
The first of these great, though, as I have admitted, neces-
sary and inevitable errors was committed when the disciples
and early converts took over from the Old Testament of their
fathers the Mosaic Cosmogony, and permitted it to be built
into the structure of the new creed. Jesus himself, in his
recorded utterances, taught no special doctrine of Creation, no
special philosophy of the origin and genesis of men and things ;
and it is probable that his mind being turned entirely on the
future, and on the speedy coming of the Kingdom of God, he
gave little thought to the matter, but accepted without question
the traditional account of Creation and the Fall of Man that had
€ome down to him in the Scriptures of his own people. But as
every religion must give some account of the Origin and Destiny
of Man, must embody in itself some philosophy of the AVorld
and of Human Life ; and as no religion can continue to exist
unless it makes that philosophy binding on all ; Christianity was
obliged first to choose for itself some philosophy from among
those current at the time, and liaving chosen it, to make it
authoritative by representing it as an absolute and eternal
truth. And this it could only do by making it part of a Super-
natural Revelation from God. As to the particular })liil(>sophy
2()G THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
and cosmogony wliicli would be chosen there could be little
doubt. Most of the early converts to the new religion were
either Jews or Greek proselytes to Judaism — and indeed but
for the influence of St. Paul who threw open Christianity to
all the world, the broad emancipating S[)lrit of the Gospel
would have been crnslied under the weight of Jewish tradition.
It was inevitable, therefore, that when a cosmogony was
wanted for the infant Church, none but the Mosaic one in
which they all already believed, could have been for a moment
entertained. Besides, what other cosmogony was there in the
field, that on its own merits was qualified to compete with it?
If they turned to the cosmogony of the Greek Philosophers,,
of Plato, for example, or Aristotle, or the Stoics, they found
there the Supreme Cause of the World, although represented
as spiritual and intelligent, yet too much of the nature of a
philosophic abstraction to be suitable for the purposes of
Religion — which always requires in the Supreme Being a will
and personality like that of man. The Greek and Roman and
Egyptian mythologies on the other hand Avhich furnished the
religion of the masses of the Roman World, Avere polytheisms,
and therefore altogether impossible. Buddhism, again, had no
cosmogony at all, having swept the Heavens of all the gods as
it had swept away the souls of men, and was, as we have seen,
more a system of atheistic philosophy than a religion ; while
the Persian religion, with its good and evil Principles, its God
of Light and God of Darkness, Avas already represented in the
Mosaic Cosmogony (derived like it from a common Chaldean
source) by the parallel though no longer co-equal powers of
God and the Devil. There Avas practically, therefore, no
cosmogony in the field that could seriously compete Avith the
cosmogony of Genesis in the minds of tlie early con\erts, and
it was inevitable that it should become bound up and incorpo-
rated under one Divine Revelation in the structure of the rising
creed. Once so incorporated, it thenceforth assumed for all
time the character of an absolute truth — fixed, unchanging, and
TUE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATIOX. 207
beyond the reach of human doubt as part of a written reve-
lation from God. And so it came to pass that instead of man's
beliefs as to the origin, nature, and constitution of the world
being left freely open to his intellectual integrity and to the
progress of Physical Science (as we have just seen, his moral,
social, and s))irltual welfare were left freely open by Jesus to
his moral Integrity and the progress of Moral Science), they
were kept tightly in the hands of Eellglon , and were thence-
forth imjiosed on man as fixed, absolute, and eternal truths,
from which there was no appeal. What a curse this became
when Physical Science many centuries afterwards began to
make inroads into this cosmogony, and when in consequence it
could no longer be genuinely believed as it had been in the
earlier time, the long history of religious persecution from the
days of Bruno and Galileo onwards almost to our own times,
only too sorrowfully bears witness.
But this adoption of the Mosaic Cosmogony into the
Christian Religion, and the imposing of it on the minds of men
by binding it up under one cover with the rest of the
Scriptures as a single Divine Revelation, had effects of a
different but no less momentous kind. St. Paul made its
doctrine of the Fall of Man one of the pillars of his great
"Scheme of Redemption" ("As in Adam all die," etc.), and
on it founded that doctrine of the Atonement Avhich, the
same in substance although slightly dltl'crent in form, was
passed on from himself to St. Augustine, from St. Augustine
to Calvin, and from Calvin again down to the orthodox
believer of our own time; and it is onlv within recent vears
that this harsh and gloomy doctrine which overshadowed the
Christian conscience for centuries, has been discarded by the
best minds in the Church and allowed quietly to drop into
oblivion.
The next series of errors committed by the Early Church
arose from the giving Supernatural Authority to replies made
by the Disciples and Apostles to personal questions on social or
2(38 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
political matters — replies which, however just and expedient
under the circumstances of tlie age and time, became false and
pernicious when bound up afterwards as part of the Word of
God, and so made sacred and binding* on all men, under all
circumstances, and for all time. Fortunately, however, as
these replies were comparatively few in number and only in
answer to questions of the most urgent and personal concern,
and as they often ran in the Ijne of advancing civilization, the
harm they did under the changed conditions of later times was
not as great as it might have been. But unfortunately the
results Avere most disastrous precisely where the replies were
most simple and ingenuous, and most in harmony with the Spirit
of Jesus — as in reference to Slavery for example — and the reason
of this unlikely phenomenon it will not be wholly irrelevant or
uninteresting^ to discover.
The teaching of Jesus, although as applicable in the long
run, as we have seen, to society as to the individual, was in the
first instance a gospel of personal and not of social or national
salvation or regeneration. It was intended not so much to put
national society right (for this was believed to have but few years
to last) as to give to individuals on certain conditions, pass-
ports which would admit them, perhaps in their own life-time,
into the Kingdom of God. Hence it was that Jesus preached
a communism which could only have been possible among
little bands of men wandering about and preaching from place
to place during the comparatively short interval that must
elapse before the second coming of Christ in His Kingdom.
Indeed were there nothing else to prove that the Gospel was
not intended by Jesus either for society as a whole or for after
ages of the world, these communistic views of his would of
themselves be sufficient. For when once Jesus had gone from
among them, and the time of his coming began to loom vague
and uncertain in the minds of the early converts — many of
whom, indeed, had already died Avithout seeing that glorious
day of the Lord — St. Paul, setting aside the question of the
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATION. 269
second coming, although not doubting its reality, conceived the
great design of meantime making the Spirit of Christ a Gospel
of Salvation for the Avhole Roman world ; and from that time
forward we hear no more of Communism. Conversions were
now to be made on the great scale ; and with this object in view
the labours of the Church were to be restricted entirely to the
work of securing personal salvation to the individual, politics
being left entirely alone ; all the more so indeed as the high
ideal morality of Jesus in which you were to turn the other
cheek also, could be obtained with as much ease under one form
of political or social institutions as under another — as easily
under the lash of the slave-driver as under the full liberty of
Roman citizenship. The consequence was that when asked by
the faithful as to what they were to do under this or that
political or social regime, as, for example, under Slavery, the
reply of the teacher or apostle was quite straightforward and
unembarrassed. They were to accept the existing social and
political situation in all humility and without murmuring or com-
plaint, their sole concern being to do their duty in it in the Spirit
of Christ. In a word, they were in all ways, except in matters of
faith and belief, to endeavom* not to overturn institutions, but to
moralize them. And it was not until the State united itself
with the Church under Constantine, that the Church, except
in the di-eams of some of the Apologists, so much as dreamt of
interfering with the institutions of the State. And now what
was the eiFect of this tolerance of the Apostles for the political
institutions of the time, this non-interference of the Church
with the affairs of State, when once the letters or speeches of
the Apostles were bound up as parts of the Word of God ?
This, viz., that political or social institutions which had
hitherto been tolerated because of the inexpediency of trying
to remove them, were now legitimized for all countries and all
times. AVhen St. Paul, for example, who had grasped the
spirit of Jesus more fully than any of the other a^jostles, gave
his countenance to the Slave System which lay at the base of
270 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRTSTIANITY.
the Roman State, and ■which could not have been abolished
without shaking society to its foundation ; — when St. Paul
insisted only that the relation of master and slave should be
moralized on both sides in the Spirit of Christ, his words, from
the time that they were made part of the Divine Revelation,
gave the world liberty and authority to perpetuate slavery to
all time. What a curse this became in other times and under
other social conditions, the great war of liberation in America
when slavery was defended by the ministers of the South from
the mouth of St. Paul himself, will be our witness. It was the
same, too, with the prohibition of the practice of Usury which
Christianity had accepted from the Old Testament, and which,
if it could have been enforced, would have destroyed the
nascent industries of the world and put back the progress of
Civilization for a thousand years. It was the same even in
personal matters. When St. Paul from his own personal
predilection enjoined a state of celibacy as preferable to that of
marriage, he little thought of the consequences to civilization
that hung on his words. And yet what great results for good
and evil came out of them ! What retreats on the one hand for
the pious and contemplative, what asylums for the oppressed in
ages of violence ; and on the other, what haunts of vice,
gluttony, corruption, and all uncleanness ! We might go on
multiplying instances of the same kind, but the above perhaps
are sufficient to show what a dangerous experiment it is to
fasten on the neck of Civilization obiter dicta like these, which
vmder the wing of Religion are made authoritative and final as
Divine Revelations, and which thenceforth are stereotyped and
made sacred for all time.
With the exception of instances like the above, created as I
have said by the necessities of the Early Church, Christianity
was in its essence a religion of the Spirit and not of the
Letter ; and it was because it was so, and because the masses
have always assimilated the spirit of a religion more than its
•dogmas, that (to revert to the problem with which we set out)
THE TWO iMETIIODS IN CIVILIZATION. 271
it has offered no obstacle to the open and direct preaching of
social and moral reforms for themselves alone, and by direct
appeal to experience, knowledge^ and Science — instead of, as in
Ancient Times, by the appeal to fixed dogmas made sacred and
binding by the supernatural authority of Religion.
It is true, of course, that an ideal spirituality like that of
Jesus, ^vith its morality of the spirit and not of the letter, if
it is to unite men into a lasting Church must, as Cardinal
Newman says, have some authority to interpret and apply it
to the varying circumstances and conditions of life ; the only
dispute is, who is to be the interpreter ? On the one hand to
truly apply the spirit of Jesus to the varying circumstancas
and conditions of differing times and places, would require
a complete and perfect knowledge of physical, mental, moral,
and social laws — that is to say a complete and perfected Science.
On the other to have waited until such perfected knowledge
appeared, would have been to have dissipated and destroyed the
nascent religious community altogether. There was nothing for
it, therefore, but for the Church itself to assume the authority ;
and in order that its decisions might be placed beyond the
reach of cavil or dispute, tlicy must be represented not as
temporary expedients to be altered as circumstances altered,
but as eternal verities true for all time. The first act of the
Church accordingly was, as we have seen, to bind the sayings
and doings of the apostles and disciples into a book, and to
make that book sacred. Then when the Church became too
extended, and discipline too elaborate for the Bible to cover
and meet all the complications that arose, difficult questions
were handed over to Synods and Councils to decide — and these
decisions in turn became sacred. And when at last these
Councils and Synods themselves became so distracted by
divisions of opinion as to threaten the unity of Christendom,
the final authority in all debated questions of faith and morals
was handed over to the Pope when sitting in his chair of
St. Peter. But it was inevitable that with such poor
272 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
and imperfect knowledge as this?, masquerading as complete
knowledge by the simple expedient of fathering it at
each stage on the Divine Spirit, these doctrines and
practices built up around the simple faith of Jesus Avould at
some point of time be found to be incompatible with the
scientific knowledge which had been slowly accumulating
during the centuries. The Mosaic Cosmogony which had
satisfied the early disciples was felt to be untrue to fact ; such
laws as those against Usury which were well enough among
the little community of Judea, were seen to be entirely
unsuited to the industrial necessities of the world. And
finally that great body of doctrine and practice which had been
added by the Papacy, and which was conceived as but the logical
extension and development of the doctrine of the Incarnation —
all those doctrines and practices, viz. which were believed
capable of communicating Divine Grace by reason of their
participating like Christ himself in the Divine Spirit, as, for
example, the authority of the Pope, of the Church, of the
Sacraments, of Purgatory, of Baptism ; the worship of the
Holy Mother, of the Saints and Angels, of the blessed
Martyrs, of images, of relics, and the like — all these were
beginning to be denied when it was felt that " the Spirit
bloAveth where it listeth," and that if there be any depositary
of the Divine Spirit among men, it must be in the men of
genius in the intellectual world, and in the men of uprightness
and purity of heart in the moral world, and not in the bread
and wine, the relics, the Holy Water, etc., which have been
touched by priest or Pope, or in priest or Pope who have been
touched by those who in turn have been touched by him to
whom Jesus himself gave the keys.- But as these decisions
of disciples and apostles, of synods and popes, once given, were
inflexible and could never again be revoked, CiviHzation itself
and the progress of knowledge would have been strangled by
them had they not at last been rudely set aside. And then
began the slow dismantling of the grand and imposing edifice
THE TWO METHODS IN CIVILIZATION. 273
which MedioBval Catholicism had erected above the simple
shrine of Jesus. The first to fall was the great superstructure
of dogma, ritual, and practice, which, as we have seen, had
grown out of the doctrine of the Incarnation and the efficacy
of Sacramental Grace, viz. — the authority of the Pope, the
doctrine of transubstantiation, of purgatory, the worship of
images, of the Virgin, of Saints and Angels, of relics and the
rest. These the Reformation and Calvinism rudely destroyed,
but left still standing for some centuries yet the old Mosaic
Cosmogony, with the doctrine of the Atonement resting on it ;
the verbal inspiration ; and the belief in a material Heaven and
Hell. And now that these too, within living memory, have
begun to crumble and are slowly dropping from the beliefs and
imaginations of men, is it too much to hope that the universal
cry of the new century will be ' Back to Jesus ' — back to his
pure and sublime spirituality, and to that morality of the spirit
which, although it has to be interpreted by the growing and
ever widening Science and experience of the woi'ld, is itself
applicable to all places and true for all time.
CHAPTER II.
JESUS CHRIST.
XN the following chapters I j^ropose to make use of the
results we have just gained from our study of the history
and evolution of Judaism, to throw light on those points in
the doctrine and development of Jesus which are still unre-
solved, as well as on the general evolution of that Christianity
to which the history of Judaism is prolegomena and preparation.
And if in our study we have been successful in seizing the
state of religious thought and feeling among the Jews at the
time of the birth of Jesus, in the three primary essentials — viz.,
its Conception of God, its Code of Morality, and its Super-
natural Ideal — we ought to be able to bring the reader by a
single step forward, to those essential elements of Christianity
which are destined to carry the future with them.
To begin with then, the reader will remember that in a former
chapter we tried to show that the vital and seminal element in
all religions, the element which for ever fixes and defines their
essential character, is the conception Avhich they present to us
of the nature of God or the gods. We also saw that it was
not necessary to determine in any particular case whether this
conception had arisen in the mind of the Founder as a re-action
against the conception of God set forth in the prevailing-
religion, or whether it had arisen from disgust with the code
of morality bound up with that religion — and for this reason,
JESUS CHRIST. 275
that give it but a little time, and a new and higher conception
of God must inevitably draw after it a new and higher morality,
as, on the other hand, a new and higher conception of morality
must inevitably act and re-act on the conception of God, until
it has moulded it into conformity with itself. But we went
farther, and showed that in whatever Avay a religion may take
its rise, it cannot be said to be fully equipped for entering on
its conquering career, until it has formed for itself a fixed and
definite conception of the nature of God. As an instance of
this we saw that before the Unity of God could be sufficiently
iirndy established for there to be no danger of its being eaten
iiway by the surrounding Paganism, before it could be so firmly
held that on it as on an axiom of thought new and higher
conceptions of the nature of God could afterwards be built,
the Jewish Religion had for four hundred years to stoop
from the sublime conceptions of God and Morality of the
Prophets, to the ceremonial puerilities and absurdities of the
Scribes and Pharisees. Now the conception of God that
corresjjonded to these puerilities and absurdities was that of
a stern and inflexible Censor and Judge, of such majesty,
aloofness, and purity, that offences against his dignity or
honour could only be atoned for by appropriate acts of
purification and propitiation. It is true he was believed to
love his own people, but this love Avas so bound down by the
multiplied restrictions, exactions, and ceremonial rites with
Avhich the Scribes had surrounded it, that instead of turning
towards the sinner on the sliirhtest show of contrition or
repentance, as was the case Avith the God of the Prophets and
Psalms, He presented the fixed and stony gaze of the exacting
Tyrant and Judge, who ^-ields nothing of grace but all in
consideration of compensation given; and Ilis love was of that
cast-iron quality that for the goodness and mercy it dispensed,
an exact legal equivalent in the shape of sacrifices, fasts,
devotions, etc., had to be supplied it. Now it was this
Pharisaic conception of God that enveloped the youth and
276 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
early manhood of Jesus like an atmosphere ; it was an echo
of this that he heard from the official expositors of religion
on every hand, as, in youthful meditation, he wandered pensive
and serene amono* the flower-strewn fields of Galilee — and his
gentle heart would not believe it. For there was another God
of whom he had also heard, a God of kingly majesty, too, it is
true, but one Avhose love for His children was so full and free
that it flowed out to them as from a living stream. It was the
God of the Prophets and the Psalms. This was no stern and
inflexible tyrant, demanding for his satisfaction hecatombs of
sacrifices and burnt offerings, but a God of Love and Mercy,
whose ear was ever ready. His heart ever open to the cries of
those who put their trust in Him. And yet had Jesus gone no
farther than this God of the Prophets and the Psalms,
Christianity would have remained unborn. But in reality he
had shot beyond this, and had got a vision of a Father under
the robes of the King ; of One whose loving care for all His
creatures was so all-pervasive and all-embracing that without
His will not even a sparrow could fall. And this loving-
Father it was that he found everywhere reflected to him from
the peaceful face of earth and sky, from the sunshine and
refreshing rain dispensed alike to the evil and the good, from
the up-springing lilies in their chaste and modest beauty, from
the gentle cooing doves, and from the religion of simple faith
and pious hearts in the humble folk about him.
The difl'erence between this God of Jesus and the God of
Prophets and Psalmist, although apparently slight is yet real,
and in its eff'ects far-reaching. With the Prophets and
Psalmist, God is primarily the King, whose honour demands
that the first advance towards reconciliation shall be on the
side of the sinner; with Jesus, God is primarily the Father
whose dignity and honour are lost in His joy at the return of
the prodigal. With the Prophets and Psalmist alike, God's
love is always conditional ; with Jesus, it is practically uncon-
ditional and a matter of free grace and favour originating in
JESUS CHUIST. 277
His own heart. That with the Prophets and Psahiiist God's
love is always conditional on obedience and on their attitude
towards Himself, a few texts will show. Among the Pre-exilian
Prophets this love, as we saw in the last chapter, is, like all
other relations between Jehovah and Israel, a relation between
Him and the nation as a whole. In Amos iii. 2, for example,
Jehovah is made to say, "You only have I known of all the
families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your
iniquities." Repentance and return to Him are the conditions
of His mercy and pardon. Hosea says, chap. xiv. 1, " O Israel,
return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine
iniquity." In chap. vi. 1, " Come and let us return unto the
Lord, for He hath torn, and He will heal us ; He hath smitten,
and He will bind us up." So, too, in Joel ii. 12, we read " There-
fore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your
heart, and with fasting and Avith weeping and with mourning ;
and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the
Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and of great kindness." And lastly, Micah vil. 18, asks " Who
is a God like unto Thee that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by
the transgression of the remnant of His heritaije. . . . 1'hou
wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham,
which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old."
If we turn now to the Prophets who wrote during the Exile, we
shall find that a new note is beginning to be heard, and that
the promises of Jehovah begin to be addressed to each
individual Jew. But the mercy and pardon though leal,
are, it is to be observed, still conditional. Deutero-Isalah
says, in chap. Iv., 7, " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the
Lord and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for
He will abundantly pardon him." But this personal note of
the love of .lehuvah for each individual Jew is most distinctly
heard in the post-exilian Psalms, which, though Christian in
spirit in many passages, always make it conditional on the attitude
278 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Avlilcli the individual assumes towards God. Take Psalm ciii..
11 as example, "For as the Heaven is high above the Earthy
so great is His mercy towards them that fear Him;" verse 13,
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
them that fear Him;" verse 17, " But the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and
His righteousness luito children's children to such as keep His
covenant, and to those that remember His commandments to
do them." Now in all these texts we see that while the concep-
tion of God is of a God of love and mercy to His own chosen
people, that love is still conditional on repentance and sub-
mission. In a certain sense, of course, it may be said to be the
same Avith Jesus — but there is this difference, that wdiile with
the Prophets and Psalmist, Jeho\ah, like a King, Avears his
front of Justice and Majesty towards the world, while His
TiOve is always ready to swing round to the front on the least
show of repentance ; with Jesus, on the contrary, God, like a
Father, wears His front of Love towards the world, while His
Justice, turned inwards as It were, Is but the means by which
He would ])ersuade His errant children to return to Him. This
new conception of God as Father came over Jesus as an
Inspiration, an illumination, a revelation ; and boi'ne along witk
It and the inner joy and ecstasy It caused, He moved over the
dewy morning grass with such light and airy step, that the
flowers sprang up again behind Him as if but bent by the
wandering breeze. And then it was that He saw that the old
Mosaic Law, with its Sabbaths and fasts, its feasts and sacrifices
(to all of which He seems to have had an instinctive aversion,
especially when put forward as the true worship of God), was
given the Jews, as he said later of the Mosaic Law of Divorce, on
account of the hardness of their hearts — given, as Paul afterwards
saw, because of their proneness to idolatry, and not because God
Himself wished these outward observances for His own honour
and glory. And accordingly he felt himself free henceforth tO'
re-construct those older ordinances contained in the Mosaic Law
JESUS CHRIST. 279
according to the new conception of God that had been revealed
to him ; and was ready when the time came, not only to clear
away by a stroke all the multiplied oral traditions with which
the Scribes had overlaid the Mosaic Law, but to lay hands, as
■we shall see in his treatment of Sabbath and divorce, on the
Sacred Law itself ; so that although the " men of olden time,"
as he called them, may have said this or that, he, seeing that
their words were only of temporary validity and not final and
full expressions of the truth, could boldly brush them aside,
and with equal authority substitute his " But I say unto you."
It was when his heart and imagination were filled with this new
life-ffivino; vision of God and human dutv, that he first heard
of the preaching of John the Baptist ; and he Avas immediately
drawn to him. For the first time in his life he heard his own
thoughts in a measure reverberated back to him from this fiery
preacher of the Wilderness ; and his meeting Avith the young
prophet marked the opening of a new epoch in his life. As to
the mental history of .John, one must in the scantiness of the
records be content to remain In doubt. Many authorities have
considered him to have been connected with the sect of the
Essenes, but in the way of this theory there are many and
serious difficulties. The Essenes Avere a simple, harmless,
Quaker-like kind of folk, plain in dress, lovers of peace, averse
to oaths, speaking the simple truth, and given to long periods
of silence ; John, on the other hand, Avas a fiery orator full of
fierce invective, and abounding in denunciations of the evils of
the time. They lived in a community together and had all
things in common ; John Avas a hermit. They believed, like
the Greeks and Pllndoos, In the Immortality of the soul, and
its separate existence from the body after death ; John Avas
thoroughly JcAvIsh in his psychology — to him men were total
entities either good or bad, and Avould after death be rcAA-arded
or punished for their actions in both soul and body, Avithout
too curiously Inquiring as to Avhich Avas the guilty member of
the partnership. The Essenes, again, lived in a community
280 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
together, and were remarkable for their personal purity
and Sabbath observances; John was an ascetic, livinsf in
caves and feeding on locusts and wild honey — and in all
probability cared as little for Sabbath observance as Jesus
himself. They were sticklers for the Mosaic Law ; John
preached baptism and repentance only. Nor did he belono-
to the sect of the Pharisees ; for these Pharisees were not
ascetics, and they spent most of their time in the contemplation
of the deliverance of Israel from a foreign yoke. John, on
the contrary, abstained entirely from Politics, urging men
to repentance as a condition of entrance into the Messianic
Kingdom. It is probable that he was of priestly origin ; and
what with his sincerity, inflexibility, and general elevation of
aim, it is not unlikely that he had of his own initiative taken to
this kind of life in order to play the role of prophet in imitation
of Elijah ; and, like the mendicants of the Middle Ages,
retained in his retreat the spirit of his religion without its
organized ritual. That the conception John had formed of
God was not essentially different from that of Jesus is proved
first of all by the fact that Jesus consented to be baptized by
him, and secondly from the similarity in their views of
morality. They both preached repentance for the remission
of sins, and not ceremonial purity and observances ; a change
of heart, and not of mere outward action and behaviour.
They both had collected the same sort of people around them —
the poor, the outcast, the despised, puljlicans, soldiers, tax-
gatherers, etc. — and both heartily hated the Pharisees, whom
they characterized as a generation of vipers. But when the
people asked them what they were to do after repentance, a
difference for the first time makes itself visible. John told
those who had tv/o coats to give one to him who had none, and
to do the same with food. He told the publicans not to exact
more than was their due ; the soldiers not to do violence to any
man, or to bear false witness against any man, and, moreover,
to be content with their condition. Now tliis itself is good
JESUS CHRIST. 281
Christian morality — as good indeed as you can expect to find
in a world which has to go on existing from age to age and
from century to century — but Jesus raised this morality, for
reasons which we shall see presently, to a higher power if I
may say so, to a transcendental or ideal lieight. Kot only were
you to give one of your coats to him who had none, but
you were to give both your cloak and your coat also.
But what we have to point out here is that both these codes
of morality resulted, and could only result, from the idea of a
God of Love — the only difference between them being that
while with John, God was rather the God of the old Prophets,
that is to say a God with a stern face of Justice towards the
world ; witli Jesus, God carried His face of love towards the
world, the Justice being but means and instrument of it. The
consequence was that while John came mortifying himself with
every form of austerity and asceticism, as a propitiation of
God's justice preliminary to the out-pouring of God's love ;
Jesus came, as his enemies said, eating and drinking — and that
because in all the creations of a God of Love he found beauty,
harmony^ and joy, but no asceticism.
And now occurred the incident whicli of all others had in
the view I am presenting the most momentous effects on the
future of Jesus, He had gone to John to be baptized, and on
coming out of the water he saw in vision the heavens open, and
heard the voice of God himself saying, 'Thou art my beloved
Son in Avhom I am well pleased.' Now in those pre-scicntlfic
days the one thing of all others wliich liad the power of
crystallizing a vague uncertainty of opinion or belief into a
perfect assurance, or what Cardinal Newman would have called
a real 'assent,' was the vision. Nearly all the ijreat and fiery
propagandists of the early ages of Christianity were converted
by visions ; St. Paul, for example, by the vision of the risen
Christ on his way to Damascus ; Augustine, who had wandeied
for years in the perplexing mazes of Nco-Platonism and
Manicheeism, ever drawn to Christianity and yet never quite
282 THE EVOLUTION OF CHKISTIANITY.
able to accept it, by a voice he heard from a neighbouring
garden saying and oft repeating the woi'ds, ' Take, read.'
Tertullian indeed declares that nearly all the conversions of his
time from Paganism to Christianity, were brought about by
visions, sleeping or waking. Now Jesus must long have felt
that, in the language of the time, the Spirit of God was ujjon
him to reveal to others the good tidings that had been
vouchsafed to himself, viz., that God was a God of Love, and
not merely of stern and inflexible justice ; a God of the poor,
and not of the proud, sanctimonious Pharisee. But it is
probable, from the circumstance of his going to John the
Baptist to be baptized, that it had not yet occurred to him
that he was himself the Messiah. It is more probable that, like
John, he had only felt himself called upon to preach the good
news that had been revealed to him of the nature of God. But
when he heard John with all the authority of a prophet,
announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and
perhaps that the Messiah was even now in their midst, it is pro-
bable that he felt within himself that if tlie Messiah were, as was
believed, a man more endowed with the spirit of God than were
other men, and if the Kingdom of God as a God of Love were
coming, who so likely to inaugurate that kingdom as the man to
whom the true nature of (xod had been revealed.
That Jesus was recognized by John as the Messiah is im-
probable, and is perhaps one of those pious legends that arose
after the fact ; for when John afterwards sent his disciples to
ask him plainly whether he Avere indeed the Messiah or no, it is
evident he must still have been in doubt. It is more than likely
that John still held to the old conception of the Messiah of the
Prophets, as one who was to come in earthly power and glory,
a king of the line of Da^id ; and it is not at all improbable that
tlesus, in spite of His new-born conception of (jod as a God of
Love, a conception Avhicli demanded a different kind of Messiah
from the popular one, should nevertheless have still been deeply
imbued with that idea of the Messiah which he had drunk in
JESUS CIIIJIST. 28.3
with Ills mother's milk. So that the vision in Avliich he saw the
Heavens opened and heard the voice of God Himself proclaim-
inn- him to be the Messiah, must have been to him at first the
source of no little perplexity. The liabbis, it will be remem-
bered, taught that the Messiah would lie perdu in some out of
the way place, until suddenly emerging fi-om his hiding-place,
he would be clothed with majesty and power, and coming on
the clouds of Heaven wovdd destroy his enemies by the breath
of his nostrils. Could it really be possible then, that he, the
carpenter's son, avIio had grown up among the people from his
infancy, and \\\h) had followed his father's trade openly and in
the sight of all from his youth upwards, could be the Messiah?
It seemed unlikely from the point of view of the current con-
ception of the ^lessiah. But besides the lordly conquering
Messiah of Scripture, was there not another ; the lowly, loving
Messiah, that lay concealed in Isaiah, Zechariah, and the
Psalms — the Messiah of the poor, of the humble, of the
wretched? This latter view, ^vhich was first announced by
Jesus himself, was the only view of the ^Messiah, it is to be
observed, which was consistent with his new-boi"n conception of
God as a God of pure Love. Or might it not be still possible
that God should intend him to enact the ivlc of both these
Messiahs — to inaugurate the Kingdom of God, as the first, the
lordly and conquering Messiah, and to continue it as the second,
the peaceful, the loving Messiah, the Messiah of Zechariah,
who should enter Jerusalem on an ass, bringing peace and
salvation with him? He Avas perplexed, and, like Mahomet,
retired to the Wilderness to consider himself, and by fasting,
prayer, and pondering the Avords of Scripture to wait and learn
what God should be pleased to vouchsafe to him.
The result was decisive. AVith the passages and texts of
Scripture bearing on both types of Messiah filling his mind and
heart, it first seemed to him in his fastino- .^tate that if God
intended him for the roh- of a Conquering Messiah He would
command the stones to be made bread for him. But no miracle
284 THE EVOLUTION OF CnillSTIAXlTY.
being performed, he remembered the words of Deuteronomy
that man " should not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He next imagined
himself taken up into a high mountain, and being shown all
the kingdoms of the World which the Conquering Messiah was
to make his own ; and the thought, perhaps the wish, crossed
his mind of how glorious it would be to possess them. It may
have been but for a moment ; but if the real Messiah were to
come to exhibit not God's Power, but rather His conquering
Love, this was clearly a temptation of his lower nature, a
temptation of the Devil as it was called, and must not for a
moment be entertained. For he immediately remembered the
words of Deuteronomy, " Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy
God" — the God of Love — "and Him only shalt thou serve,"
that is to say, he realized that the Kingdom of God, as
he had newly conceived it, must be his aim — and not a material
and earthly, conquering kingdom, the kingdom of the Devil.
Again, in his trance or ecstasy he remembered the passage in
Psalm xci. 11, 12, where it is said of the Messiah, " He shall
give His Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up lest thou dash thy foot against a stone,"
and immediately imagined himself on the pinnacle of the
Temple, only to wake up to i-ccoil at Avhat seemed like an
attempt to force the hand of God in his doubts as to whether
His word could be relied on. He remembered how the children
of Israel at Massah, when they were disappointed at finding no
food, began to question whether the Lord Avere really with them
or not, and the words of Deuteronomy referring to that event
came to his mind (chap. vi. IG) ; "Ye shall not tempt the Lord
your God." Once and for all he put behind him the base
thought and the struggle Avas over. It was clear that the
^Messianic role he had to play was that of the gentle, lowly
Messiah, come to reveal the nature and heart of God, and not
the kingly Conquering Messiah of the great mass of his
countrymen — and from that hour he never wavered in his
JESUS CHRIST. 285
belief, or, except perhaps at the very last, shrank from the
sacrifices it demanded of liini.
Accordingly, in his first act on his return to Galilee after his
baptism by John, he struck the keynote of his whole future
mission. Entering the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke iv. 18),
and taking up the Old Testament roll, he opened at Isaiah
(chap. Ixi. 1) and read, ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ;
because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor :
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,' and
closing the book returned it to the attendant, remarking as he
sat down, ' This day Is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.' In
these few words we have his view of what the Messiah should
be ; this was the kind of Messiah he himself professed to be ;
and from this conception he never again swerved. For when
John, as we have seen, afterwards sent his disciples to ask him
whether he really were the Messiah or no, he simply said, ' Go
and show John those things which ye do hear and see, the
blind receive their sight, and the lame walk^ the lepers are
cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the
poor have the gospel preached to them.' Indeed, the more he
pondered, the more he was convinced that the only kind of
Messiah that could possibly be sent from a God of Love
must be a comforter of the poor, the weak, the lowly,
the broken-hearted ; a healer of the deaf, the lame, the
blind ; a teacher and preacher of the good news of the coming of
a kingdom of the people of God, the organizer of that kingdom
and judge of the fitness or unfitness of those who sought to
enter It. To him the old conception of the Messiah as a
Conquering King was now an anachronism, an absurdity, a
contradiction in terms. So deeply, Indeed, was he convinced,
not only that the Old Testament would bear him out In his
new view of the Messiah, but also (especially after his
marvellous miracles of healing) that it would bear him out in
286 THE EVOLUTION OF CHIUSTIANITY.
his assertion tliat lie himself was the Messiah, that he could
refer the Jews who rejected him, with the utmost confidence,
to the Scriptures for confirmation. Now of all the Scriptures,
the passages relating to the Messiah that harmonized most with
his conception of a God of Universal Love, and seemed as
time went on more peculiarly to refer to himself, and had the
deepest influence in shaping his course, were those we have
quoted from Isaiah — as well as the whole of chapter liii.
beginning with the third verse, " He is despised and rejected of
men ;" and those, again, which jSIatthew quotes, chapter xii., 18,
as having guided the conduct of Jesus at a certain juncture,
*' Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved in
whom my soul is well pleased ; I will put my spirit upon him,
and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not
strive nor cry ; neither shall any man hear his voice in the
streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax
shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.
And in his name shall the Gentiles trust."
Here it were well to pause for a moment to consider the
deep significance the words of the Old Testament had, not
only for the Jews, but for Jesus himself. To begin with then,
we may say that from the time the Canon of Scripture was
closed, the words of the Old Testament were believed by all
the Jews to contain the complete will of God in regard to
every thought and action of their lives. So much indeed
was this the case that when the plain obvious sense
of a passage was exhausted, secondary meanings of
all kinds which could be construed into figures and types,
hints and forecasts of things to come, were supposed to
lurk behind the superficial sense, ready to be extracted from it
by the skilled interpreter. Now to this purpose certain parts
of Scripture lent themselves more readily than others, either
because they were couched in language more mystic and
unintelligible, or because the meaning they had had for
the people to whom they were originally addressed was now
JESUS ciiiasT. 287
from lapse of time quite irrecoverable. Such, more especially,
were the Prophets and Psalms, which accordingly, when
interpreted in a mystic, allegorical sense, could be shown by
the ingenious interpreter to yield solutions to all the perplexing
problems of the time. Of these problems none were more
interestino; than the nature of the Messiah, the time of
his coming, and the vole he was to play ; and on them all the
Rabbis were full of the most ingenious subtleties. With
Jesus, too, the Old Testament, especially in its prophetic
portions, was of unimpeachable authority, and especially on
the question of the nature and functions of the Messiah.
Accordingly, when it had been revealed to him that God was
a God of Love, and in general terms that he himself was the
Messiah, there was no way by which he could learn what
specially he ought to do at critical junctures of his life, but by
searching the Scriptures for passages that seemed to bear on
these situations. And hence the meaning of the constantly
repeated assertions of the Evangelists that Jesus did this or
that "in order that the Scriptures miglit be fulfilled" is that
he did it in obedience to the will of God as laid down
beforehand for his guidance in the Scriptures.
But to return. If any further test were required to convince
Jesus that he was indeed the ^Messiah of God, it could only be
the degree to which he Avas supported in his action as the
Messiah of the poor and the wretched, by God Himself. And
here the result ao;ain was decisive. For if God would not
interfere to justify his claim to the Messiahshlp after the old
type, that is to say as a Conquering King of the line of David,
Jesus yet found himself supported in his true role of the teach-
ing and healing Messiah by the whole power of the Almighty.
If his Heavenly Father had failed to turn stones into bread
for him, to bear him up if he threw himself into space, or to
give him all the kingdoms of tlie world ; on the other hand, as
the Messiah of the poor, of the afflicted, of the oppressed, he
found himself backed by invincible power. Simple hearts
288 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
flocked to him in crowds to hear the blessed words that he
spoke ; at his lightest word the lame walked, the blind saw,
the dumb spoke, the dead rose, the demons were cast out ; and
amid all the dangers which surrounded him from the populace,
the priests, the Scribes and Pharisees, he walked in and out
unharmed.
With this confirmation in the external world of that of
which he was already convinced in his own mind, his belief in
himself and his mission was now complete ; and justly so, for
all the tests which in a pre-scientific age could be appealed to
as witnesses to truth had held good in his own case. First and
most important was the vision itself after his baptism, in which
he saw the heavens open and heard the voice of God Himself
proclaiming him as the Messiah. This direct declaration and
testimony of God Himself to his Messiahship would naturally
have been the strongest evidence, the most unimpeachable
certificate of truth; but falling on a mind imbued with the
traditional idea of the Messiah as a king, coming in earthly
power and glory, it produced only bewilderment and perplexity,
and o-ave rise to a world of doubts, hesitations and uncertain-
ties which it needed the experiences of the Wilderness to
resolve. These doubts as to which kind of Messiah God
intended him to be having been resolved in the Wilderness in
the way we have seen, he again emerged clearly convinced —
first that he was the Messiah of God, and secondly that he was
not the kingly Messiah of the Pharisees, in whose kingdom the
Priests and Scribes should have the first place, but the lowly
Messiah of the prophets, with whom the poor, the outcast, the
simple-minded should occupy the chief seats, together with all
those still capable of that child-like love of God which with the
Pharisees had been eaten out by f oi'malism and spiritual pride.
And this conviction was still further deepened, as we have seen,
not only by the testimony of Scripture itself, but by the
marvellous success that attended his labours, and the train of
miracles and wonders that accompanied him. With the Word
JESUS CHRIST. 289
of God Himself out of Heaven, with the Word of God in
Scripture, and with the Word of God fulfilled in works of
mercy and power — with all these uniting their assurance that he
was the Messiah of God, the faith of Jesus in himself was
henceforth unclouded, and his confidence in his own power of
imparting his spirit to those whom he should choose, unbounded.
So entirely indeed had the event justified his own faith that he
expected like results to follow when it was communicated to
others. He told his disciples that if their faith was but as a
grain of mustard-seed they should be able to remove moun-
tains ; and he straightway, and without the least hesitation,
proceeded to confer on them the power of handling deadly
serpents, of treading on scorpions, of drinking poison without
beins: harmed, as well as of healino; the sick, castino- out devils
and the like — and all without betravinn; the least doubt of the
efficacy of his gift or of his power to communicate it to others.
With this deep and well-founded belief in his own jMessiah-
ship went an equally clear conception of the functions of
the Messiah and of the nature of the ^lessianic Kingdom ; and
as his belief in the one strengthened, so his conception of the
others cleared — all thought of the one involving: some corre-
spending thought of the other. And here again his beliefs
were the outcome at once of historical evolution and of his new
conception of the nature of God. But to see this distinctly
we must again refer to our studies of Judaism in the preceding
chapters. To begin with then, it will be remembered that up
to the time of the Maccabees the ^Messianic Kinodom was to be
a period of peace and worldly prosperity for the Jews as a
nation, and was to be inaugurated either by God Himself or by
a. Messiah of the line of David. But either way it was an
Earthly Kingdom under a sovereign exercising earthly sway.
After the time of the Maccabean revolt, when the doctrine of
the resurrection had come in with the prophet Daniel, the
Messianic kingdom, while still an earthly one, was to be
inaugurated by a Messiah who should play the double role, first
V
290 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of King, to put down the heathen powers around, and then of
Judge, to sit in judgment on those who had died before the
Messianic Age, and who were to rise again in their bodies to
receive punishment or reward for the deeds done in their
former earthly existence. In both the old and the new
conception the Paradise was an Earthly one and situated in the
neighbourhood of Jerusalem, w^hile the Hell was in the Valley
of Hinnom or Gehenna, close by the western valley of the city.
The next stage of evolution we should expect then would be
that of a purely Judicial Messiah, as the first had been a purely
kingly and the second a kingly and judicial combined. Still
there was the work of organizing the kingdom to be done
before the world could be judged ; and without a temporal
king it was most natural that the judicial Messiah should him-
self do the work of organizing and directing. And for a merely
judicial and organizing Messiah to be believed in at that time
when all hearts were waiting for a kingly and conquering one,
the nature of God must change, so that His kingdom, to be one
with that nature, should be one not of secular power but of
mercy and love. And this, which was the next step in
evolution, is precisely the position into which Jesus was forced
by his new conception of God as a God of Love. And as in
the kingdom of the proud Jewish Jehovah the Chief Priests,
Elders, Scribes and Pharisees would naturally have the supreme
place, as they had already as members of the Sanhedrim in
the existing Jewish State ; so the Messiah of a God of Love
would so organize his kingdom that the weak, the lowly, the
wretched and all who were still capable of reciprocating that
love should have the supreme seats. Both the function, there-
fore, of the Messiah and the nature of the Messianic Kingdom
had been marked out for Jesus beforehand, as it were, by the
course of evolution, which demanded as its next step a total
change in the conception men had of the nature of God.
The Kingdom of God, then, as we shall see more clearly in
the next chapter, was a kingdom that was to be established on
JESUS CHRIST. 291
earth by God Himself in the near future, and was to consist of
all those who were capable of reciprocating the Father's love,
whether Jew or Gentile — the poor, the humble, the down-
trodden, the outcast, the broken-hearted, and the slave. Jesus
himself as the Messiah, was to be the organizer of this
kinjrdom, and his function was to teach men what were the
characteristics of mind and heart necessary to enter it — he
himself being their exemplar, as well as being the judge as to
who should be considered worthy of a place in it. This
Kingdom of God was not only at hand, as it was with John,
but from the moment that Jesus himself set out to organize it,
it could be said in a sense to be already here; and when it
should have been preached to all nations, and those who were
worthy had been got together, it would then be ushered in in
its visible aspect by God Himself, to the sound of trumpets
and with every demonstration of majesty and power. Jesus
would then take his place on the throne, and on his right and
left would sit his disciples as judges of the twelve tribes of
Israel ; the good being rewarded by the society of angels and
saints, the bad being punished in their sight in the fires
eternally smouldering in the Valley of Gehenna. To go about
among men preaching the reality of this kingdom, which it is
probable Jesus believed would come in his own life-time, and,
like a schoolmaster, to prepare men to pass into it by his own
example, was henceforth his one all-absorbing function in his
capacity of Messiah of a God of Love.
And now we have to ask what the Code of ^lorality was
that was necessary to all those who should strive to enter this
kingdom of God? To begin with, we may remark that as we
saw in a former chapter, it must have been a deduction from
the conception which Jesus had formed to himself of the nature
of God. And as for the first time in the history of the world,
God had proclaimed Himself by Jesus to be a God of Love, so
for the first time, love to God and to all God's people, Gentile
and Samai'itan as well as Jew, became the supreme duty of
292 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
man. But John the Baptist, it will be remembered, had already
l^reached the practical doctrine of loving your neighbour ; for
when asked by his followers what they were to do, he replied
(Luke iii. 11) that those who had two coats were to give one to
him who had none, and the same in regard to food. Now not
only is this good, sound morality, but, as we have said, good
Christian morality as well ; and indeed it is probably as high a
code as can ever practically be realized in the existing state of
human nature, and in a world that is expected to continue. But
Jesus had heard from John the Baptist that the Kingdom of
God was at hantl, even at the door ; and believing that he him-
self was the Messiah, and that it should be brought in during
his own life-time, he was compelled to go a step farther and to
preach a morality adapted not to a world that might continue
indefinitely, but to a kingdom of God — a world unhampered by
earthly restrictions, where the heart was free to follow its own
better nature, free from all the temptations and necessities
which in this life for ever pull it down. It was a transcendental
morality in a word, a morality too high for the present world,
and fitted only, as indeed it was intended, for a world where
there was, as Jesus said, neither marrying nor giving in marriage,
but where men should be as the angels in Heaven. This code
of morality Jesus illustrated by every variety of concrete
image. Instead of giving one of your coats to the man who
had none, as John had enjoined, you were to give both cloak
and coat. With him who compelled you to go a mile you
should go twain. You were not only not to kill, but not even
to be angry with your fellow-man, not even to call him a good-
for-nothing, much less a fool. Not only must you not commit
adultery, but you must not even be tempted to it. You must
not only not forswear yourself, but you must not swear at all ;
not only not resist evil, but turn the other cheek also. You
must not only love your friends, you must love your
enemies. And why? That you may be perfect like your
Father in Heaven. So, too, all exhibitions of vanity,
JESUS CHRIST. 2y
o
self-love, ambition, were to be repressed as inconsistent with
the conception of the kingdom of God. You were not to give
alms in the sight of men and to the sound of trumpets as
the Pharisees were wont to do, but in secret; not to pray
standing in the market-place or synagogue to be seen of men,
but in your closet ; not to make long prayers nor put on
a long face when you fasted, but to wash the face and anoint
the head as if going to a festival. And with the Kingdom of
God even at the door, yon were not to lay up money, nor take
thought for your life, your food, or your raiment, but to leave
all, like the birds and beasts, to your heavenly Father. Such,
in brief, was the Code of ^Morality that Jesus demanjded of all
those who were candidates for entrance into the Kingdom of
God — a Code of Morality not for the present world or for
mortal flesh and blood, but for a future Avorld and the
companionship of angels and saints ; not for a worldly but for a
millcnial kinodom ; not for a world which has to climb to
its goal by slow stages of civilization and progress, but for
a world-consummation close at hand ; not for a society where
political economy rules, but for a society where money
is of no value and where, in the language of one of
the old Apocalyptic writers, the earth is so fruitful
that one vine produces a thousand branches, one branch a
thousand bunches, one bunch a thousand grapes, and one grape
a thousand measures of wine ; not for a society where pride,
vanity and ambition rule, but for one Avhere the last shall be
first and the first last, and he that is greatest of all shall be the
servant of all — and all following as corollaries from the two-fold
fact that God was a God of Love, and that the kingdom for
which the morality was designed was close at hand, even at the
very door. And with this the Religion of Jesus becomes a
complete, consistent, and harmonious whole. It contains
each of the elements which we have seen to be essential to all
religions, a new Conception of God, a new Code of morality,
and a new Supernatural Ideal. The new conception of God was
11
294 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of a God of Love, and not merely a God capable of Love on
commandments kept, or on consideration given, as in Judaism.
The new Code of Morality corresponded to this conception of
God, and consisted in the duty not merely of universal love,
but of a love raised to the transcendental pitch and fitted
rather for the society of angels and saints for which it was
instituted, than for the work-a-day world of fallible men and
women. The new Supernatural Ideal^ again, was the Kingdom
of God which was to be inaugurated in the immediate future
not by a conquering kingly Messiah, but by a lowly suffering
one ; and was to consist not of Priests and Pharisees, but of the
poor, the outcast, the weary, the heavy-laden, and all the
wretched. This kingdom was to be ushered in by some great
manifestation of Divine power in the life-time of Jesus, and
Jesus himself was to be the judge as to who were or were not
to be received as its members.
Such was the new religion of Jesus Christ, with the new
and ideal Code of Morality founded on it — a code of morality,
we may remark in passing, which was not laid aside like an old
coat of mail when the kingdom for which it was intended and
fitted failed to appear, but was emblazoned on high, as an ideal,
to draw on the nations to hio^her and hig'her reaches of
civilization and progress — like a star which, although always
approached, is never reached.
So far then the religion of Jesus was consistent, harmonious,
and complete in itself. But changes were now to be made in
it which, although in no way affecting its essential character,
were destined to furnish the starting-point for an evolution
which was to alter the whole future of Christianity. For both
external events and the progress of his own thought
necessitated a further and more advanced position than that
which he had up to now held. At the outset it is probable
that Jesus was imbued with the idea that the Kingdom of God
would come in his own life-time. But the reception he met
with from the rulers of the people, from the priests, the elders,
JESUS CHRIST. 295
and the Pharisees, and the knowledge of the violent end that
must befall all those who could be proved to have tampered in
any way w^ith the Mosaic Law, or attempted to alter the
established worship; — he himself having publicly declared that
it was part of his mission to set aside the Mosaic ritual as well
as many of the ordinances in reference to the Sabbath, divorce,
etc., even while fulfilling them in a higher sense and carrying
them to a higher and more ideal completion, — all this was more
and more borne in on his mind as time went on, and made him
forebode that his life might be forfeited before his mission was
fulfilled. But this, although an operative, was not the only or
indeed the main factor in determining the new course of action
on wliich he was about to enter. For, as w^e saw, from the time
that he heard God's own voice out of heaven proclaiming
liim the Messiah, he had no way of knowing what specially he
was expected to do at the diflferent junctures of his life,
except by searching the Scriptures for the supposed references
to the Messiah. Of these, all those passages that refeiTcd to a
kingly Messiah might now be rejected at once as unworthy of
the new conception of the nature of God Avhich had been
revealed to him, but all those passages that seemed to point to
a peaceful ]\Iessiah, to a Messiah of the poor and the lowly, to
a teaching, organizing, and judging Messiah, all these he felt
to have a direct and peculiar reference to himself ; and these
he pondered deeply at each stage of his work and mission, in
order to learn what the will of God in reference to himself and
his future course of conduct specially was. Now of all these
references, those in Isaiah on the suffering " Servant of God ''
seemed to him to be the most explicit and pointed. It is
probable that, at the outset of his ministry, he considered him-
self commissioned to bring salvation to the Jews alone. At
any rate, he is reported to have said to his disciples that they
were not to go into the cities of the Gentiles or to the
Samaritans ; and to the Canaanitish woman, who wished him
to heal her daughter, lie said that he was sent only to the lost
296 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
sheep of the house of Israel. But the more he pondered the
supposed references to himself in Isaiah, as well as the logical
implications that flowed from his new view of the nature of
God, the more he became convinced of two things. First, that
his mission was to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews; and
secondly, that he must suffer and perhaps die for the cause.
In Isaiah, chap. xlii. is written, " I, the Lord, have called thee
in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee,
and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light to the
Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners
from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison
house," etc. Again, in Hosea, vi. 2, it says, "In the third day
he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight." In Isaiah^
chap. liii. 5, 12, " Himself took our infirmities and bare our
sicknesses. . . . He was wounded for our transgressions and
bruised for our iniquities," etc. " And he was numbered with
the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many and made inter-
cession for the transgressors," etc.
Accordingly, for about six months or a year before his
death, he began to announce to his disciples his intention of
going up to Jerusalem to carry out the programme marked out
for him by the Prophets. This programme is given in almost
the same words by all the Evangelists, and, according to them,
was as follows : He was to be delivered up to the chief priests
and scribes, who were to condemn him to death and deliver
him over to the Gentiles, who in tm-n would mock and scourge
him, and spit upon him, and kill him, and the third day he
should rise again. Now, as with the exception of the passage
from Hosea, where he was to rise on the third day, the
other details of his being delivered to the Gentiles to be
mocked, and scourged, and spat upon, and crucified, are nowhere
definitively stated by the Prophets, it is probable that they
Avere not foreseen by Jesus, but were added by the Evangelists
after the event. But, be this as it may, it is certain that the
thought that he was to go up to Jerusalem to suffer, and
JESUS ciiniST. 297
perhaps to die, now took entire possession of his mind. Not
that this new plan made any diflference in his religious scheme.
His conception of God remained the same; his Code of
Morality the same ; the Kingdom of God on earth the same ;
and Himself, as judge of those who were to be admitted into it,
the same. The only difference was that instead of living to
see it and inaugurate it, he should first suffer death and go up
into heaven, to return again, as he told the High Priest, " on
the clouds of heaven and seated on the right hand of power."
But although this new conviction of Jesus that he should
have to suffer and perhaps to die before the Kingdom of God
could come, made no difference in his scheme of salvation for
men, still when his suffering and death actually came to pass,
they had the most profound effect on the future of Christianity.
His resurrection and ascension into Heaven, there to remain
with God vmtil his second coming, had this as its first result, —
that it gave Jesus a relationship to God, the relation of
Son, peculiar to himself alone ; and when this had had
time to sink into the minds of men, it was inevitable that it
should raise the conception of the Messiah from that of a man
more highly endowed with the Spirit of God than other men, to
that of a God himself. That a man should die for other men
would have been glorious, but that God Himself should die for
men (unlike all the Pagan deities who lived only to exploit
them)j — this it was that made the future of Christianity. Not
Jesus the mediator, organizer, and inaugurator of the kingdom
of God, but Christ crucified and risen — this was the thought
that contained within itself the germ of all future develop-
ments. The mere abstract idea of a God of Love would have
soon been eaten away, as it was in the case of Job, by the
corroding spectacle of the injustice and evil in the world ; but
the conception of a God dying for man, while it admitted the
existence of evil in the world (with which an omnipotent God
of pure Love would have been inconsistent) showed man also
the way to conquer it, viz., by reinforcing himself against the
298 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
€vil both In himself and others by calling into the field the
great Captain of his Salvation who had suffered and died for
Him. But this which made the fortune of Christianity in the
Pagan world, rent it violently from Judaism ; for a crucified
Messiah was to the Jews a stumbling block, an absurdity and an
impossibility. For did not God Himself lay it down in His own
Law (Deuteronomy, chap, xxi., 23), " He that is hanged on a
tree is accursed of God." And yet in this crucified and risen
Christ the whole of Pauline Christianity, as we shall see in a
following chapter, and the entire future of the Church lay
concealed.
But to return : — ^let us now consider the effect of this new
conviction of Jesus as to his sufferings and death on his
disciples. It is probable that it was only shortly before he
went up to JeiTisalem for the last time, that the disciples fully
realized that Jesus was himself the Messiah that should come,
and not merely, like John, the preacher of his coming ; and
this belief they had reached by the most gradual stages. It
was only, indeed, after the exhibition of his marvellous powers
as a miracle- worker that Jesus could venture to declare that
He was himself the Messiah. Before that, there was nothing
to suggest any connexion ; and you might as well have seized
the first man you met and expected them to believe that he was
the traditional Messiah as that Jesus was. He was a poor
carpenter's son, known of all from his youth upwards, without
wealth, connexions, birth, or personal appearance to distinguish
him from the miscellaneous multitude of his countrymen.
He had not come on the clouds of Heaven to the sound of
trumpets, but had been born in their midst and had Avalked In
and out among them from his boyhood upwards. And it would
appear almost certain that even after the vision in which he
had heard the voice of God saying to him " Thou art my
beloved son," he had kept his conviction of his Messiahship in
his own breast, and had gone about ostensibly as the preacher
and announcer of the kingdom of God merely. For the train
JESUS CHRIST. 299
of thoutrht by which he liad been led to a belief in his own
^lessiahship was all so personal and peculiar to himself, that
without a long novitiate it was not easily transferable to other
minds. The new conception he had formed of the nature
of God, for example, Avhich was the starting-point from
which all else followed, was in a manner incommunicable ;
and, except in connexion with after circumstances and
events, was not demonstrable by any human arguments.
The vision, too, in which he saw the spirit of God descend-
ino- on him, and heard the voice from Heaven proclaiming
him the Messiah, was a quite peculiar and personal experience
not transferable to others. So, too, the conception which
he had formed of the Messiah as a lowly, humble, and
Tin warlike Saviour, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
had to be extracted piecemeal from detached passages in the
Psalms, minor Prophets, and Isaiah. The suffering " Servant of
God " in Isaiah, to which Jesus appealed in support of his
claim to be the Messiah, was believed by the Jews then, as it is
by modern critics, not to refer to the Messiah at all, but to the
Jewish remnant, the ideal Israel, the Israel of God. It is
reasonable to believe, therefore, that this conception of the
Messiah could only have been very gradually instilled into the
minds of the disciples. Indeed, had it been boldly announced
bv Jesus fx'om the first, and before his wonderful success as a
Healer had prepared the minds of the disciples for it, he would
l)robably have been taken for a madman rather than for the
Messiah. Not only was his character of wonder-worker the
mainstay of the belief of the early Christians in his Messiahship
(as we see from the earliest Gospel, that of Mark, where the
Sermon on the Mount is entirely absent, and where he figures
mainly as the great Thauniaturgist), but it has been, together
with the resurrection, the mainstay of the faith of the Church
in his Messiahship down to this day.
It was, then, only after his preternatural powers had been
demonstrated to the belief and satisfaction of all, that he felt
300 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
himself justified in hinting to his disciples that he himself was
the Messiah who was to come. It came about in this way.
He w^as on the way to Caesarea Philippi just before his last
journey to Jerusalem, when he suddenly turned to his disciples
and asked them who the people thought he was. They replied
that some thought him to be John the Baptist, some Elijah,
and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets that were to
precede the advent of the Messiah. lie then went on to ask
more pointedly who they tliought he was, to which Peter,
speaking probably for the others as well as himself, replied,
" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." So
pleased was Jesus with this reply, which he felt could only have
come from the Spirit of God putting it into the mind of Peter,
and that flesh and blood could never have imagined it, that he
forthwith blessed him and gave him the keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven, that is to say, made him the judge along with
himself of those who were to enter the coming Kingdom
of God. And now that this Avas understood by his disciples,
he began to unfold to them those portions of his scheme which
had long been silently maturing in his mind, and which
referred to the course events Avere taking, as well as to the role
which the Scriptures had mapped out for him. For from this
time, according to the testimony of Matthew, Jesus began to
show his disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem, there to
suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and Scribes,
and to be killed, and to rise again the third day. But the
disciples, although able without too great a shock to their
traditional prejudices to exchange a Kingly Messiah for a
Miracle-working one, were not prepared to accept with the
same readiness a Messiah who, with all these miraculous powers,
should allow himself to suffer and die at the hands of the people, —
much less at the hands of the Gentiles. For on any hypothesis,
whether as King or Wonder-worker, the Messiah was one who
was to deliver Israel from Gentile domination, as well as to
introduce a reign of justice and righteousness on the earth.
JESUS CHRIST. 301
Accordingly when this remark of Jesus as to his suffering and
death was made to the people standing round, Peter, who was
unable to conceive of a jSIessiah who should die, feeling that it
would ruin the cause and prevent people from believing him to
be the Messiah at all, took him aside and expostulated with
him on the imprudence of speaking thus openly of his sufterings
and death, as being sure to alienate from him the sympathy of
many of his followers. But Jesus turned on him and said,
*' Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savoui'est not the things
of God, but the things of men." And then it was that the
effect of this chano;e of outlook be2:an to show itself in his
relations with his disciples. The tone was no longer pitched
in the joyous, happy strain of the eai-ly days of Galilee, when
he sent them out into the world on their evangelical mission,
telling them to take with them neither money nor changes of
garment, to have no care or anxiety for the morrow, but to go
from door to door joyously proclaiming the glad tidings of the
coming Kingdom of God, and lightly shaking the dust off their
feet from those places that would not receive them — ready
when the Lord should come to rush in with impetuous violence,
and in triumph to take the Kingdom of Heaven by force, and
to seat themselves on the rioht and left hand of Jesus as
judges of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Now all was changed,
and the tone was one of gloom, foreboding and sorrow. Tliey
were told that they, like himself", would have to pass through
much tribulation before the Kingdom of God shoidd come ;
that they would have to take up their cross, prepared like him
to lose their life now, if they were to attain to life eternal in
the Kingdom of God, when he should return with his angels to
establish it in the glory of his Father. And so they journeyed
up to Jerusalem, pausing here and there, while Jesus worked
miracles of healini>; as he went alonsr, or discussed with his
disciples his future prospects ; still in his uncertainty charging
them not to make known to the multitude that he was the
Messiah. In this way they journeyed on, he firmly resolved in
302 THE EVOLUTION OF CHEISTIANITY.
his own mind to carry out to the letter the course marked out
for him by the Prophets, while leaving the means and the issue
to God ; they, hopeful and confident in their Master's power.
When they came within sight of the city the difficulty the
disciples felt in understanding the attitude of Jesus does not
seem to have lessened. They were convinced, in spite of hia
repeated protestations to the contrary, that the Messiah would
not be permitted to die either at the hands of the Jews or of
the Gentiles. There was no warrant, either in popular tradition
or in Scripture, for a Messiah who should have to come a
second time to complete a work left unfinished at the first
coming ; and this was what his death would mean. Jesus was
either, therefore, not the Messiah at all, or if he were, he would
not be permitted by God to die. But since Caesarea Philippi
they had no longer the least shade of doubt as to his Messiah-
ship. The conclusion then was obvious — he was not to die.
Jesus, on the other hand, although filled with the conception
of the suffering that lay before him, if not of his death, was
more or less perplexed and distracted by the conflicting bearings
of the various texts which he believed to refer to himself — and
it is in this perplexity, as we shall now see, that I find the key
to his whole subsequent procedure. The general tenor of most
of them was that he should suffer and probably die ; and if so,,
his second advent, although foreign to the Jewish conception
of the Messiah, would be rendered certain by the prophecy in
Daniel which he now often quoted as referring to himself, the
prophecy, viz., in which the Son of Man was to come on the
clouds of Heaven. Accordingly, when the little party had
come in sight of Jerusalem, and the disciples began to exult in
the immediate prospect of the kingdom being ushered in (Luke
xix. 11), Jesus was again obliged to repress their ardour by
assuring them that he should have to die and leave them for a
while, and that much would have to be done and endured both
by them and himself before the Kingdom of God should come.
To enforce the lesson he told them the parable of the nobleman
JESUS CHRIST. 30S
who on going Into a far country, left his servants ten, five, and
one pound respectively, with the charge that they were to
occupy till he returned, and pointed out to the disciples, who
appai'ently imagined that there was nothing for them to do but
to enter in and take their seats beside him, that like the man
who hid his one pound in a napkin, they would be punished
for any slackening of their efforts in the cause by exclusion
from the Kingdom. But he hastened to give them assurance
that he would not leave them always, but would soon again
return, by adding, " Verily I say unto you, that there be some
of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they
have seen the Kingdom of God come with power " (Mark ix. 1).
So far all seemed clear and explicit. But observe there were
other passages which seemed to imply that the kingdom would
be established by God Himself without the necessity of the
death of the Messiah; and it so happened that the passages
suggesting this view were precisely the ones which Jesus had
selected for himself to regulate the mode of his public entry
into Jerusalem. One of the passages in question is Zech.
ix. 9, where it is said, " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ;
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; behold, thy king cometh
unto thee ; he is just, and having salvation : lowly, and riding
upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." And
that it was to be a peaceful kingdom established by God
Himself without any necessity for the Messiah's suffering
and death, is apparent from the next verse, where it is
said, "And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and
the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle-bow shall be cut
off : and he shall speak peace unto the heathen : and his
dominion shall be fi'om sea even to sea, and from the river
even to the ends of the earth." So deeply indeed was Jesus
convinced that this prophecy referred to himself, that he had
an ass brought him, and rode into Jerusalem on it amid the
shoutings and hosannas and waving of palm-branches of his
disciples and followers ,• and when reproached by the Pharisees
304 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
for permitting this demonstration, he replied that it was out
of the mouths of simple folk like these that God proclaimed
the truth, and that, were they to be silent, the very stones
would cry out that he was the Messiah.
Here then were two series of apparently conflicting
prophecies, bearing evidently each on himself ; and between
the two he seems to have fluctuated in restless alternation ;
now, in his happier moments, and perhaps under the stimulus
of his disciples' hopes, seeming to feel that God would come to
his assistance and bring in the kingdom without the necessity
of his death ; and now, in his deeper and probably more
habitual mood, resigning himself to those that seemed clearly
to foreshadow his suffering and death. The effect of this
strain and tension of mind, of this uncertainty as to what amid
these cross-currents of prophecy should next befall him, was a
state of agitation, anxiety, exaltation, and impatience, which
was unknown in his earlier time, when as the simple bringer of
the ffood tidinors he walked calm and serene among the fields
and beneath the skies of his beloved Galilee, not yet having
assumed his high Messianic role. He became uncertain and
■capricious in his moods, stormy gusts of violence and suspicion
alternated with and passed again into his old habitual calm;
the old sweetness, dignity, and serenity intervening as lull and
pause between the conflicting and rapidly alternating fits of
violence, pathos, exaltation, and despair. The first recorded
outbreak was shortly after he had entered the city, when
going to the Temple and seeing the money-changers and
sellers of beasts of sacrifice chaffering and haggling over the gains
which the Temple brought them, and remembering the words
of Isaiah that God's house was a "house of prayer for all
people," and of Jeremiah that they had made it " a den
of thieves," he forthwith proceeded to violently overturn the
tables of the money-changers and the seats of those engaged in
selling doves, and stopped all those who were to be seen carrying
vessels through the Temple Courts. All his actions are now
JESUS CHRIST. 305
performed in this high state of tension and exaltation. He
goes out to Bethany and coming to a fig-tree with leaves on it
and no fruit, he, beins; hunjjrv, condemns it as if it had been a
conscious offender, to a state of sterility for ever. Highly-
strained metaphors and f^trong hyperboles can alone express
the intensity of his feelings. The Scribes and Pharisees he
denounces as serpents, vipers, hypocrites, whose chance of
entering the kingdom of God, when compared with that of the
very publicans and harlots, is small. Even the Temple he
speaks of with scant respect ; and its perpetuity, which to the
Jews was as secure as if its foundations were rooted in eternity,
he disposes of by a wave of his hand, as if it were an air-castle
or a dream. His ideas are so boundless, his exaltation so intense
and keen, that he feels himself equal to a world in arms. He
talks much and frequently of his coming on the clouds of
Heaven ; parries and thrusts Avith the Pharisees and Saducees
with the greatest lightness and dexterity ; disposing with the
ease of a skilled fencer of all attempts to entrap or puzzle him
on such questions as the authority of Caesar, the resurrection
in relation to the Levirate law, etc., going into the infinite
subtleties of the Jewish law, and meeting the objection that
the Messiah was to be the Son of David, etc., with a zest
and subtlety worthy of the Scribes themselves.
But as time went on, and still no sign of the intervention of
God anywhere appeared, the intermittent hope of a continuous,
peaceful triumph, which the Zechariah prophesy had inspired,
began to grow dim and cold ; and the old habitual feeling that
he must suffer and die, with all the texts in which he was to
give his life a ransom for many, came back to him in all its
force, bringing Avith it all the old sweetness, dignity, pathos
and resignation. With the sure premonition of his doom he
prepared his last meal with his disciples ; breaking the bread
and drinking the wine with Avords ever memorable for their
dignity, beauty, and sweet serenity. But his feelings Avere at
too high a pitch of tension to maintain except for moments this
AT
306 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
serenity and repose ; and before they had well sat down he had
begun again, while admitting the necessity of his death, to heap
denunciations of woe on those who should betray him. The
meal finished, after singing a hymn they went out into the
street, and as they wandered along, Jesus knowing the shock
of horror and disappointment with which his disciples would
receive the news that he had been taken, said to them, " All ye
shall be offended in me this night," justifying himself,
however, as usual, by the words of prophesy which he felt
were intended for him, " I will smite the shepherd, and
the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad "
(Matt, xxvi, 31). But at the same time to recover the
ground which, in spite of their protestations, he knew must be
lost by his admission, he appealed to the Jewish belief that
none could rise from the dead but the elect of God, by adding,
"But after I am raised up I will go before you into Galilee."
And when they had all begun protesting their undying
allegiance and devotion (Peter, as usual, with special ardour),
he turned on him and said, " Before the cock crows thou shalt
deny me thrice." Arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane, his
suspicions heightened to the preternatural pitch by the move-
ments of Judas, he charged the rest of them to watch and pray,
lest they, too, should enter into temptation to betray or desert
him. In this extreme agitation of mind he completely loses for
moments his self-control, twice falling on his knees, praying
fervently to God that He would take away this cup of bitter-
ness and death from him, and only completely resigning himself
to the Divine AMll w hen he saw the armed multitude with Judas
at their head approaching him from tlie distance. This tone of
resignation he maintained throughout his trial, claiming for
himself with great dignity and impressiveness, when challenged
by the High Priest, the title of King of the Jews which he
had received from Zechariah ; but exhibiting a glimpse of the
burning fanaticism which had now become a settled conviction
of his life, when he quietly but proudly added, "And
JESUa CHlilST. o07
henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right
hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." But
however violent and sudden may have been the fluctuations
and alternations of mood during these last hours, Jesus
aiever seems to have let go the secure thread of Prophecy as
guide in the maze of conflicting alternatives, but at each
Juncture up to the very gate of death, if we are to believe the
Evangelists, let his conduct and action be guided by it down
even to the most trivial particulars ; as, for example, when on
the cross, knowing, as the Evangelist says, that all things were
accomplished, he said " I thirst," in order that the Scripture
might be fulfilled, which says, " In my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink." All, however, was now soon to be over,
and Jesus, still hoping against hope that the Zechariah
prophecies would prove true and that God would even yet
intervene for his rescue and release, but finding that it was not
so to be, with the loud cry of despair on his lips, " My God, my
God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " expired.
And so passed away in his prime and with a cry of anguish
nnd despair, this great and beautiful spirit, more fruitful for
humanity in his death than in his life ; leaving his poor
disciples not oidy mourning and forsaken but utterly dumb-
founded and perplexed. For a Messiah to die had seemed
to them simply impossible, and now that he was dead, his
resurrection would have been to their minds an equal
impossibility. But this mood did not last long, for the
resurrection, in which they firndy believed, following closely
after, swiftly reassured them. It was the one thing needed to
enable them to weave too;cther the scattered threads of his
eventful life and teaching, never before really understood by
them, into a single, continuous, harmonious, and consistent
whole. It was the last proof needed to convince them of his
Messiahship ; for, as we have said, no one could be conceived
as rising from the dead before the Judo-ment, unless he were
indeed like Enoch and Elijah one of the elect of God; and
308 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
they were satisfied. And this it was, which now uniting with
the memories of his miraculous powers and of those appeals to
Scripture in which they now saw every action of his life fore-
shadowed ; this with the remembrance of his beautiful
character, his serene wisdom, and the new and blessed emotion
inspired by his revelation of the Father's love ; this, together
with the aroma left behind by it all, and which has sweetened
the centuries — all this, with the steady light shining in the
surrounding gloom, of his return in glory when they should
take their seats by the side o£ their beloved Master, united to
produce a con\dction which never again wavered or grew dim,
but kept alive by the Holy Spirit and the very presence of
Jesus himself in the ever-recurring sacramental meals, launched
Christianity on its world-conquering career. How it fared
with it afterwards, what evolution it underwent in the minds of
men as time went on, and what the principles were which
guided the course of that evolution — all this will appear in the
following chapters.
CHAPTER III.
TPIE KINGDOM OF GOD.
l^rOTHING now remains to complete our study of the
-^^ doctrine of Jesus, in so far, that is, as is necessary for
the pur230ses of this history, but the attempt to settle from the
standpoint we have gained, the outstanding dispute as to
the precise meaning attached by Jesus and his disciples to the
phrase the ' Kingdom of God.' To do this satisfactorily it is
necessary at the outset to put out of our minds the ideas which
we ourselves have been accustomed to attach to the phrase ; as
these ideas, like so many of those we hold in reference to
various doctrines of the Church, are not the reflection of the
original ideas of Jesus and his immediate disciples, but the
higlily elaborated product of many ages or centuries of
modiflcation and evolution. The first question is one that
exercised chiefly the mind of tlie Early Church, viz., as to
whether by the Kingdom of God was meant a kingdom on
earth or a kingdom in heaven : the second is one that divides
the opinions of men in our own time, viz., as to Avhether it was
a visible or outward kingdom at all, either earthly or heavenly,
that was meant, and not rather a moral state, an inner condition
of the mind and heart.
Now if we are to get the advantage of any light thrown on
these questions by our studies in the foregoing chapters, we
must first ask what is the view of the Kino-dom of God which
310 THE EVOLUTION OP CHRISTIANITY.
would natunilly arise out of the Jewish conception of the
Messianic Kingdom when that conception was modified by the
new view of Jesus as to the nature of God, by his new Code of
Morality, and by his new conception of the Messianic functions.
To begin with then we may say that so far as the new con-
ception of Jesus as to the nature of God is concerned, that is
to say his conception that God is a God of Love making His
rain and sunshine to fall alike on the just and the unjust — this of
itself would not necessarily have had any influence in modifying
the traditional view of the Messianic kingdom, viz., as an out-
ward, visible, earthly kingdom ; except in so far perhaps as this,
that instead of being a powerful and triumphant kingdom of
outward pomp and pride, under a prince of the house of David
reigning at Jerusalem, and with other nations as its vassals, it
would be a kingdom of the poor and the lowly, of righteousness,,
piety and peace. It will be remembered that in the Messianic
reign the earth was of itself and without labour to produce all
things in abundance for the use of man ; and as all stimulus, in
consequence, to the acquisition of money or to worldly
ambition and power would be withdrawn, the kingdom, although
a kingdom of righteousness and peace, need not necessarily he
a kingdom in the heavens, but might Avith equal propriety be a
kingdom on the earth.
It is not till we come to the Moral Code of Jesus as embodied
in the Sermon on the Mount, that we are confronted with any
serious difficulty and perplexity. For when we remember
that the Sermon on the Mount was not so much a code of
morals for the existing world of fallible men and women, as a
transcendental code, fitted rather, like a counsel of perfection,,
for the society of angels and saints ; and when we further
remember that Jesus himself said that in his kingdom there
would neither be marrying nor giving in marriage, but that men
should be like the angels in heaven ; and Avhen, lastly, we find
him in the passage in which he gives the keys to Peter, giving
him along with them the power of binding or loosing in heaven
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 31J
those whom he bound or loosed on ca'-th ; it would seem as if
in the mind of Jesus at least, the Kingdom of God was a
heavenly and not an earthly kingdom. And this conclusion
receives additional support from the fact that ^latthew in his
Gospel deliberately uses the phrase 'Kingdom of Heaven' in
those instances where 'Kingdom of God' is used bv the other
Evangelists ; as, for example, when in describing the mission
of .Fohn the Baptist, he uses the words " repent, for the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," for the parallel passage of
Mark, " repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." And
this agaia is still further strengthened by the reply of Paul to
the question aSked him by the Corinthians as to the kind of
body with which the believers should rise, when he says (I.
Corinthians xv., 35 seq.) that those alive on earth at the time
will have their bodies chano;ed from natural bodies to what he
calls spiritual bodies, as if to fit them for some other sphere of
existence than this Avorld ; or again, when in I. Thcssalonians
iv., 16, he says that "at the Last Day the Lord Plimself will
descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch-
angel and with the trump of God ; and the dead in Christ
shall rise first, while those alive at his coming are to be
caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air and so be for ever with the Lord" — where the
implication again would seem to be that the kingdom of God
was to be established not on the earth, but somewhere in the
heavens.
Now this convergence of authority so strong, would at first
sight leave little room for doubt that the Kingdom of God Avas
a heavenly and not an earthly kingdom ; and yet I am con-
vinced that a wider survey of all the evidence will reverse this
conclusion and lead us back to the belief that in the minds at
least of Jesus and his disciples, the Kingdom of Gotl was a
kingdom not of heaven but of earth.
But before entering on this it may be well perhaps to consider
first what can be legitimately said in a general way with the
312 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
view of minimizing or destroying the force of the above. And
in the first place we may affirm that although the Sermon on
the ISIount contains a code of morality adapted rather to a
society of angels and saints than to the work-a-day world of
imperfect human beings, and therefore to a heavenly rather than
to an earthly kingdom, still it does not follow that this code
should not find a fitting place on the rejuvenated earth which,
according to all the apocalyptic writers, was to be the scene of
the Messianic reisrn — an earth on which, in the lanofuase of one
writer, men were to lead a life of easy blessedness under green
trees, in magnificent fields, with joyous feeding flocks and flying
angels clothed in white. On the contrary there are several
considerations which directly support the view that it was
intended for an earthly kingdom, and that, too, in spite of the
express declaration of Jesus himself that his kingdom was not
of this world, and that in it there should be neither marrying
nor giving in mar-riage, but that men should be like the angels
in heaven. The first is that Jesus, as a Jew in all probability
untinctured with Greek thought, and therefore a believer in the
resurrection of the body as well as the soul, could scarcely have
dreamt of a kingdom in Heaven, as that would only have been
a fitting abode for angels and spirits. The second is that in
his Moral Code Jesus did not propose to eradicate the natural
desires by bodily asceticism, as he would have done had he
intended to train men for a kingdom in Heaven (and as the
ascetics of the Middle Ages did when once the hopes of the
immediate coming of Christ had vanished) ; on the contrary he
came eating and drinking, as his enemies said, leading a joyous
but purely natural life, and proposing rather to fit men for a better
life on earth by the power of a transfiguring love, than to
prepare them for a future life above, by the mortification of the
body Avhile here on earth. Again, as for the use of the phrase 'the
Kingdom of Heaven' by Matthew, instead of the corresponding
phrase ' Kingdom of God ' used by the other Evangelists — this,
under all the circumstances, need carry but little weight in the
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 313
solution of the question ; for as the faithful at the time this
Gospel was written were in hourly expectation of the coming
of Christ from heaven, it was not unnatural that the kingdom
which he was to brin^ clown with him from heaven should be
described by a disciple as the Kingdom of Heaven. Then
again, as to St. Paul's conception that the dead in Christ were
to be raised with incorruptible bodies to meet the Lord in the
air — this may be regarded rather as the first stage in the
evolution of the doctrine, than as the original doctrine itself as
it existed in the mind of Jesus and the disciples. Indeed some
such evolution must almost inevitably have taken place so soon
as the Jewish conception of the resurrection should come in
contact with Greek thought. With the Jews, as we have seen,
the resurrection was always conceived as a resurrection of the
whole man, body as well as soul ; of a being, therefore, fitted
for life in the natural world. With the Greeks, on the contrary,
the after-life was a life of the soul alone, which was fitted only
for the abode of souls, viz., for Heaven. Now Paul was imbued
with the Greek conception of immortality as well as with the
Jewish conception of the resurrection, as is seen in his accept-
ing the Greek division of man into body, soul, and spirit. The
consequence was that in the endeavour to gain some clear con-
ception of the matter for himself, as well as to adapt it to the
comprehension of his Greek converts, he was forced to a com-
promise in which, while retaining the Jewish resurrection of
the body, he at the same time changed that body into a ghost-
like incorruptible one, whose natural abode was neither frankly
on earth nor yet among the pure spirits in heaven, but at that
intermediate point in the air where the incorruptible bodies of
the saints should in their ascent meet Jesus in his descent from
the throne of God. As a compromise, therefore, it cannot
fairly be regarded as rej)resenting the original view of Jesus
himself and his disciples, but rather as the first stage in tlie
evolution of the doctrine, when impregnated and modified by
ideas familiar to Greek thought. And lastly, as to the passage
314 THE EVOLUTION OF CIIllISTIAMTY.
in which Jesus in giving the keys to Peter, gives him the
power as well of loosing and binding in heaven those whom he
had loosened and bound on e:irtli — 1 can only suggest that if
not a later interpolation, the words were probably used meta-
phorically, to express the moral distinction existing between
the two worlds of earth and heaven, rather than to indicate
their topographical distribution ; much in the same way as
when he said that his kingdom was not of this world, it is
open to us to believe that he was referring to a kingdom not of
outward power and pride like that of Cjesar, but to a kingdom
of righteousness, piety, and love.
If then the difficulties suggested by the above passages have
been more or less satisfactorily met by the arguments we have
ventured to bring forward, we may now proceed to consider
the positive proofs that may be adduced in support of the
proposition that the Kingdom of God was not a heavenly but an
earthly one. And here, perhaps, the most genei-al consider-
ations will be found, as is so often the case in questions of this
kind, to have the greatest weight. To begin with, then, it will
be remembered that it is said by Luke (chap. xix. 11), that
the disciples just before the final entry into Jerusalem were
convinced that the Kingdom of God was immediately about tO'
appear, and that Jesus to dispel the illusion was obliged tO'
narrate to them the parable of the nobleman, who before going
away to a far country to receive a kingdom that had been
given him, called his servants together and gave them each a
sum of money which they were to put out to some pi'oductive
use until his return. Now as in the parable the analogy
evidently was that Jesus was to go to Heaven to receive his
kingdom, it is clear that it was to the earth that he was to-
return in glory to establish it. Again it is related immediately
after, that when they came in sight of Jerusalem, Jesus to carry
out the prophecy of Zechariah, sent for an ass on which to ride
into the city to establish there his kingdom of righteousness
and peace. And as it Avas in Jerusalem that the kingdom of
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 315
Zccliarifili was to have its seat, it is surely just to infer tliat in
the mind of Jesus it was in .Teru.*alem that his kingdom was to
be established also. Again, in Acts i. G, we find it recorded,
that when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his
resurrection, they asked him whether he were now going to
restore the kingdom to Israel. Now if this account be true,
it is scarcely possible to believe that the question coming as it
did, after his death and after his many expositions of the
Kingdom of God, could have been asked, had it not been
taken for granted by all, that the Kingdom of God was to bo
an earthly and not a heavenly one. Indeed the general fact
that Jesus after having ascended into Heaven was for o-enera-
tions hourly expected to return to earth, ought of itself to be
sufficient to convince us that in the mind of the Early Church
the Kingdom of God was a kingdom on earth and not a
kingdom in Heaven. Even John, who must have known the
mind of Jesus as intimately as any other, has, if the Book of
Revelation which was Avritten some thirty or forty years after
the death of Christ, be his, represented the New Jerusalem,
that is to say, the Kingdom of God, as descending from
heaven to be established on earth, and not vice versa. But it
may be asked why, if by the Kingdom of God an earthly
kingdom were really intended, it should ever have come to be
represented as a heavenly one ; the answer will, I imagine, be
found in the following circumstances. Firstly, that as Jesus
did not return to earth as he had promised, men's minds
naturally sought consolation in the idea that perhaps after all
a heavenly kingdom rather than an earthly one had been
intended, and laid stress on those texts which supported the
view that the kingdom was to be a heavenly one, to the neglect
of those which represented it as an earthly one. And secondly,
that as the Saviour who should give his life a ransom for many,
must himself, as we shall see in the next chapter, be a God,
and not merely a man more fully endowed A\ith the Spirit of
God than other men, it was more natural that as a reward for
316 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
virtue men should have the privilege of going to him, than that
he should come to them.
If then we have made good our contention that in the mind
of Jesus the Kingdom of God was meant to be an earthly and
not a heavenly kingdom, we may now pass on to consider the
arguments of those who hold that by it was meant neither an
earthly nor a heavenly kingdom, nor indeed any outward
visible kingdom at all, but only a state oj the soul^ an inner
condition of the mind and heart. This view, it may be said in
passing, is one that is held largely by that great body of
rationalistic thinkers of the present day, who, otherwise sound
in the faith, feel that neither a Heaven nor a Hell in the old
materialistic sense in which our forefathers believed in them,
is any longer tenable. But just as we have maintained in
opposition to the orthodox view, that the Kingdom of God was
to be an earthly and not a heavenly kingdom, so in opposition to
the above-mentioned thinkers we shall have to maintain that it
was an outward, visible kingdom ; and that the condition of the
soul referred to, and on which so much stress has been laid, was
not the kingdom itself, but the means, the indispensable
condition, of entrance into it. It may perhaps serve to make
our demonstration more conclusive, if we first clear the way by
asking on what authority these thinkers rely, in their assertion
that by the kingdom of God, Jesus meant, not an outward,
visible kingdom, but an inner condition of the mind and heart.
The main authority, I believe, is to be found in that passage in
Luke (xvii. 21), where Jesus on being asked by the Pharisees
when the kingdom of God was expected to appear, replied that
it would not come with observation, that is to say with outward
show or demonstration ; that they were not to look here or there
for it, because it was within them or in the midst of them. And
as corroboration and support of this view, the appeal is made
to the authority of St. Paul, who when rebuking those
of the Judaizing party of the Church who laid so much stress
on Avhether what they ate was ceremonially clean or no, said
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 317
(Romans xiv. 17) "the Kingdom of God is not eating and
drinking, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost." Now I must confess that at first sight these passages
do indeed support the view that the kingdom of God is not
something outward and visible, something in the future, but is
something at present existing, some condition of the mind and
heart. And in face of testimonies so conflicting as those we
have considered, and on each side so distinct and decided, I
should despair by any mere collating and comparing of
passages of ever arriving at any conclusion. My aim is rather
to see if some general statement cannot be found, which will
exhibit these conflicting and aj^parently contradictory passages,
as merely different aspects of one harmonious whole. In
attemjjting this, an analogy will perhaps help to make our
position the more clear. If then we picture to ourselves a
detachment of the Salvation Army going for the first time into
the slums of some great city, it is evident that although the
salvation which they off'er is really something to be enjoyed in
a future life, it may still in a secondary sense be said to have
come nigh to their hearers, to be something present and in the
midst of them, and to already exist where a certain disposition
or attitude of mind and heart is found. Now the same may
be said with equal and indeed with greater truth of the
Kingdom of God. For whereas Avith the Salvation Army the
continuity of the offered salvation is broken by the change of
place from this world to the heavenly world after death, Avith
the kingdom of God there is no such break: for if we are rioht
in believing it to have been a kingdom on earth, the
promised kingdom is conterminous as it were with the
preparatory kingdom ; the men who are members of the
Church and who are alive at the coming of the Messiah,
being the same men who after his coming will make up
the kingdom of God, no change of place or personnel
having occurred, nothing having happened save the sudden
advent of the Messiah in their midst together with the
318 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
chang-es in Nature and in the conditions of human life which he
was to bring with him. All the metaphors and analogies
therefore which can be used by the Salvation Army as
descriptive of their mission, could with even greater
appropriateness be used by Jesus of the Kingdom of God — as
for example, when thinking of its small begmnings from him-
self and a few followers and its rapid growth and spread, he
compared it to a mustard seed which from the smallest of
seeds grows till it becomes a tree, or to a piece of leaven which
mixed in among the meal will in time leaven the whole lump.
Or again looking at the Kingdom of God from the point of
view of its composition and quality, and figuring it to himself
in its progress growing like a snowball and drawing into itself
from all sides the bad as well as the good, as an army draws
after it camp-followers and adventurers, he could appropriately
compare it to a man who sowed good seed, but in whose field
tares were sown also, which must continue to grow along with
it mitil the harvest ; or to a net cast into the sea, which drew
up fishes of all kinds, the good being kept and the bad thrown
away. Or thinking of its priceless value he could compare it
to a treasure hid in a field which, to get, you sell all you have
to buy the field ; or to a pearl of great price, which to possess
men are willing to give all they are worth. In the same way,
too, the kingdom may be defined in reference to those qualities
of mind and heart necessary for entrance into it — and which, as
we have seen, our modern commentators imagine to have been
the kingdom itself. These qualities have been abundantly
indicated by Jesus by a number of concrete types and con-
trasts — as for example the mental attitude of the poor, the
sorrowing, the peace-maker, in contrast with that of the vulgar,
purse-proud rich; of the self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees
in contrast with the publicans and harlots conscious of sin and
open to a higher life : of those who do the will of the Father
in contrast with those who cry Lord ! Lord ! but do not do it ;
of the repentant prodigal in contrast with his immaculate
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 319
brother ; of the Good Samaritan and the unneighbourly Levite
and Priest who passed on the other side ; of the Virgins who
had kept their lamps trimmed in contrast with those who had
fallen asleep ; of those who make use of their gifts and oppor-
tunities in contrast with those who hide them in a napkin — in
all of Avhich types and contrasts one sees clearly mirrored the
qualities of mind and heart necessary for admittance into the
kingdom. And yet although the kingdom may in a secondary
sense be said to consist of these qualities, it is evident that
they are the conditions necessary for entering it, and not the
Kingdom of God itself.
But that the Kingdom of God was no present thing, neither
an existing organization, nor existing qualities of mind and
heart, but was a future condition of man either in heaven or on
the earth, may be clearly seen if we apply to the problem the
simple principle that although what is future may be spoken
of metaphorically as present if, like a tree, its germ is already
here, no present reality can by any metaphor be spoken of as
exclusively in the future. If then we remember that by the
hypothesis which we are discussing, the Kingdom of God was
ah-eady present among the disciples, that they already liad the
kingdom both as having the qualities required and as being
members of the Christian Community — it would be absurd for
them to ask, as they did in ]Matthew xxiv. 3, what were the
signs of its coming, as it would also be for Jesus to say as he
did (Matthew xvi. 28), that there were some standing there who
should not taste of death till they saw the Son of Man coming
in his kingdom ; or again as in Matthew xxvi. 29, at the Last
Supper, where he gave the cup to his disciples, saying " I will
not drink henceforth of the fniit of the vine until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom." Or
how on the same hypothesis could it be reported of the
disciples that they (who were the kingdom) should expect the
kingdom to appear after their entry into Jerusalem ; or that
they should ask Jesus for permission to sit down with him on
320 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
the right hand and on the left in the Kingdom of God; or
more than all that Jesus himself should say of a kingdom that
was already here, that no one but God knew when the coming
of the kino-dom should be ?
But if no other reason were to be found for believing that by
the Kingdom of God was not meant any inward moral state,
this of itself would be sufficient, viz., that the great masses of
men of every age (and it was these that made the fortune of
Christianity), are led not by any merely abstract moral per-
fections however high, but always by some composite concrete
ideal, some objective future world that leads captive the
imagination by blending into a harmonious whole all those
motives that appeal to the composite nature of man. The
truth is, all mere codes of morality or abstract virtues, failing
as they do to inspire the longings which these concrete ideals
arouse, are felt as an infliction and a bore by the unregenerate
human spirit, and can no more be used as a lever with
which to move the torpid imaginations of men, than can the
catalogues of virtues, of the philsophers. To imagine therefore
that the kingdom of God could have meant to the disciples and
the Early Church merely some internal state of the soul which
was to be pursued as an end in itself, and for its own
perfections, is a dream of the modern mind. Such a doctrine
is a product of evolution, and not the original idea as it existed
in the minds of Jesus and his disciples. The condition of the
mind and heart was a means merely of entrance into the
kingdom of God, and not the kingdom itself.
CHAPTER lY
PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY.
XXAVING in the preceding chapters attempted to exhibit
the views whicli Jesus had formed to himself of the
nature of God and of his own ]\Iessiahship, as well as those with
which he had indoctrinated his disciples in regard to himself
and the coming kingdom of God, we liave now to consider the
chan2;es which these beliefs were destined to undero;o in the
minds of men, before in their developed form as Christianity
they were fully equipped for their great mission of giving a
new and higher morality to the world. By changes I mean
not so much changes in the essential spirit of Christianity as
changes in its outward form — those changes in doctrine that
were needed to remove the contradictions, limitations, and
imperfections of statement wlilch interfered with its success,
and which had to be removed before it could satisfactorily meet
the full demands of the intellect and heart of tliat great Pagan
world which it was ultimately to subjugate and subdue. I
propose accordingly to trace these changes from stage to stage,
exhibiting first the difficulties to be overcome and then the
manner in which the Church overcame them — beiiinnino; with a
few words of recapitulation and introduction in order that the
full scope of the problems before us may be clearly seen. It will
be remembered, then, that v.e laid it down at the outset that
one of the main purposes of this history v/as to show that the
322 THE EVOLUTION OF CPIIIISTIANITY.
great end and aim of Civilization was the gradual establishment
among men of higher and higher codes of morality, of intel-
lectual, moral, and social expansion; and that to this end religions,
philosophies, and political systems are but the means — much in
the same way as in the cross-fertilization of flowers by bees, the
sweetness of the honey, the brightness of the flower, and the
fragrance of the perfume are but cunningly devised means of
attraction and allurement, while the real end is the scattering
of the seed and the propagation of the species. Now the
great work done by Christianity we defined to be the
carrying of the Pagan world across the gulf which intervened
between a state of society in which politics, custom, social
life, jurisprudence, private morality, and indeed the entire
ensemble of relations between man and man, were all alike
founded on the type of the moral relation lietween master
and slave, to a state of society founded on the type of the
moral relation of parent and child, in which men being
children of a common father are all alike brothers and moral
equals. Not that if we were to cut a section out of the Pagan
and Christian worlds respectively at any given time, and were
to subject each of them to a minute and careful scrutiny, we
should find this result verified in every individual. On the
contrary we should find that personal generosity and kindness
of heart, and the Stoic doctrine of ' natural rights ' with which
the later Roman jurisprudence was imbued, operated as power-
fully in the Ancient World in mitigating the harshness of the
real spiritual relations in which men stood to each other
founded on the relationship of master and slave, as in the
Modern World the division of classes, and the inequalities of
political, social, and industrial power have operated to postpone
the reign of moral justice and brotherly love between man
and man. But we cannot proceed in this way by a comparison
of individual instances. To do so would be to confound all
categories of social and moral judgment — to confound the laws
which regulate the lives and actions of individuals with the laws
PKIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIAXITY. 323
that regulate the movements and activities of commmiities or
men in the mass, — a prime error in political speculation and one
which gives your opponent the opportunity of stepping like a
circus-rider from one argument to the other as occasion or
necessity requires, to the confusion of all sound and just
thought. No, if we are ever to reach a true philosophic view
of the progress of Civilization, it is necessary not that we
should dissect and curiously compare the actions of particular
individuals of one age with those of particular individuals of
another, but rather that we should compare the spirit of one
age with tliat of another — by which I mean that spiritual
something which surrounds individuals like an atmosphere,
which approves or disapprov^es, applauds or censures, urges on
or restrains, and by the ideal it sets before them either draws
them upwards and onwards to higher reaches, or confirms them
in their immorality, superstition, or stagnation. Now that
there was when viewed In this wav a moral o-ulf between
Paganism and Christianity as great almost as the entire breadth of
heaven, is scarcely open to doubt ; and may be seen on the most
casual glance at the great characteristics separating the society
of the Middle Ages from the society of the lloman AVorld. At
the time of Augustus the civilized world consisted (jf a number
of separate nationalities kept in the unity of outward peace l)y
the gigantic despotism of the Cresars, but sunk in the lowest and
most debasing immoralities, — the unnatural vices of Greece and
Rome ; the abominations of Syrian Nature worship with its
Bacchanalian rites, its obscene orgies and mystery cults ;
universal slavery with the consequent absence of respect for
man as man, — all not only tolerated, it is to be remembered,
but encouraged and even consecrated by the religions of the
Ancient World. So much so, indeed, that Seneca in his own
time could say that "in Rome the intending sinner addressed to
the deity of the vice which he contemplated a prayer for the
success of his design ; the adulterer imploring of Venus the
favours of his paramour ; the thief praying to Ilcrmes for
324 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
aid in his enterprise, or ofFciing up to him the first fruits of his
phmder; youths entreating Hercules to expedite the death of a
rich uncle," etc. If from a state of morality like this we jump to
the Middle Ages, we shall find that although there was as yet
no policeman like the Ctesars to keep the formal and merely
external and political peace among nations, still, under the
beneficent despotism of the Church all alike were kept up to a
single and uniform standard of high morality — a morality
always and everywhere the same, recognized by all, binding on
all, restraining all, judging all, and impelling all to realize on
earth as far as possible the Kingdom of God as it is in Heaven —
and this religion far from encouraging and consecrating vice,
as was the case with Paganism, execrated and condemned it,
and was everywhere and always its relentless and untiring foe.
The difference between the morality of Paganism and the
morality of Christianity is well exemplified in the difi'erence
between the morality of the native States of India under the
British rule, and the morality of Europe at the present day.
In British India as in Europe in the time of the Caesars, we see
a vast Empu-e composed of the most heterogeneous nationalities
and kept in a more than Koman peace under the mild despotism
of British Rule, but which long covered the most abject
superstitions and moral abominations, — Nature- worship as
immoral as that of Ancient Syria, with rites as obscene ; wife-
burnings, Thugee, etc. — a state of morality encouraged, hke
that of Paganism, by Religion instead of being repressed by it^
and unknown in Europe since the break up of the Roman
Empire.
If this be so, and the above comparison and contrast fairly
characterize the immense moral advance made in the world by
the genius and spirit of Christianity, we have now to enquire
whether any, and if so what, changes in the externals of
Christianity — in its doctrinal creed, its special applications of
morality, the peculiarities of its supernatin-al ideal and the
like — are necessary to enable its spirit to have free course
rrjMITIVE JEWISH CJlRISTIANITr. 325
through all the quicksands of Pagan philosophy, politics, and
morality that it has to encounter from stage to stage as it comes
<lown the ages ; and -vvhethcr by a careful examination of its
structure and composition any law can be discovered along the
line of which these changes will be found to have proceeded.
This task I am now to undertake, and in the present and
succeeding chapters of this volume I shall endeavour to trace
these changes in detail down to the point where the great
•common elements of the Christian creed received that doomatic
impress which, through all the schisms and heresies that have
arisen, they still retain. But here again a few words of summary
and recapitulation by way of keeping the various threads
together, are necessary as introduction to what is to follow.
To begin with, then, we have seen that before Humanity
•could traverse the vast moral interval which separates Paganism
as typified in the relation of master and slave, from Christianity
as typified in the relation of parent and children, it must first
have reached the conception of, and belief in, One Supreme God
the common Father of all mankind. We have seen, too, that
Polytheism or the belief in many gods, each of them presiding
•over his own special department of Nature and of human life,
could give rise neither to a high code of morality nor even to a
single, uniform, and universal one. Not to a high code — for
the relationship of tlie gods to men being that of so many
tyrants to subject pojjulations who existed for their good
pleasure and profit, and who were as much subject to their
caprices as dogs to the caprice of their owners, could only be one
of arbitrary power on the one hand, and fear on the other — that
is to say of master and slave, tempered perhaps by the casual
good nature and generosity of the masters or o-ods. Not to a
single, universally recognized code — for as there Avere as many
gods as there were aspects, angles, and turning-points in life,
and as the modes of propitiating them were of necessity as
various as their appetites were peculiar, no conunon rule of lite
could equally satisfy all ; and in consequence no commonly
326 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
recognized uniform code of morality was possible throughout
the whole society over which they bore sway. But by the
time that .lesus arrived on the scene, the Jews had already
o-lven to Humanity the conception of a single Supreme God
and Father — a belief up till then held by themselves alone.
This itself was a ])recious possession for the world, and on it
Christianity entered as on its own peculiar inheritance ; its
task being so to enlarge and extend this conception that from a
single favoured people it should be made to embrace all man-
kind. This was the special work of the Apostles and the Early
Church, and we have now to ask how and by what stages it
was accomplished.
To begin with, we may remark that all the elements
necessary to the composition of a single code of high universal
morality already lay in germ in the original deposit of Jesus to
his followers and successors, But tlie conception of God as
the loving Father of all His children would, as we have seen,
have been gradually swallowed up again and lost, eaten away
by the accumulated sorroAvs, evils, and miseries of the world,
had it been left to depend for its continued existence on its
own merits as an abstract speculation. Something more was
necessary to the doctrine If it were to prove an enduring
buttress and support to a permanent universal code of high
morality ; and Ave have now to consider what It was that had to
be added to It to make it as sure and certain a belief for all the
world, as it had already been in a more limited sense for many
as-es for the Jews themselves. And as the source of the belief
that God was the loving Father of all mankind was the
authoritative testimony of Jesus himself — as being sent from
God to proclaim It — it is obvious that the fortunes of the
doctrine, so far as the Avorld was concerned, must turn entirely
on the opinions men formed of the character, nature, function,
and authority of Jesus himself. AVe have seen that the new
faith was almost Avrecked at the outset by the death of Jesus,
and that it Avas only saved by his resurrection and ascension.
PRIMITIVE JEWISn CHRISTIANITY. 327
The death of a ^Me.s.siali, or of one specially commissioned by
God Himself to reveal His nature and will, was as contrary to
the whole conception of the disciples as it was to the rest of the
Jews. At the very mention of it by Jesus they were amazed
and perplexed, and as it came within visible distance they
became utterly demoralized. One of them betrayed him ;
another denied him ; and man}' of the rest forsook him and
ried. But the resuiTection and especially the ascension, by
srivino; them assurance that the man who had returned to God
nmst have been sent by God, stopped the demoralization and
rout, and by proving to them that he was the Messiah, and in
consequence that the account he gave of the nature and will of
God was true, gave to their belief such a burning intensity as to
fairly start the Church on its conquering ^vay, and prevented the
little band, after its dispersion at the death of Stephen, from being
gradually swallowed up and absorbed in Judaism again. But
this belief in the Messiahship of Jesus although it might have
availed with the Jew, could under no circumstances have had
in itself any weight with the great Paga7i world that lay around.
For it must not be forgotten that the Messiah, whether he were
conceived as the conquering Messiah of the old Prophets and
of Daniel, the suffering Messiah of Isaiah, or the peaceful
^Tessiah of Zechariah, was regarded by all the Jews, the
disciples included, as a man — a man it is true more highlv
endowed with the Spirit of God than other men, and .specially
equipped by God for his mission, but still only a man, and by
no means God. With the Jews there was onlv one God :
all other beings were merely His creatures; and the mere fact of
Jesus having ascended to Heaven would no more have convinced
them that he was a God than it convinced them that Enoch
and Elijah were gods. But the great Pagan and Gentile world
knew nothing of a Jewish Messiah ; and the mere announcement
that a man had after his death ascended to Heaven A\mdd only
have put him among the number of other men — heroes, emperors,
etc. — who had ascended to Heaven after their death to swell the
328 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
ranks of tlic immortals ; and so would not have disturbed in the
least the prevailing Polytheism. With the Jews on the other
hand, the difficulty was in believing Jesus to have been the
true Messiah — Scripture and tradition alike having familiarized
them only with the idea of a kingly, conquering Messiah and
not with that of a lowly, suftering One, which was an entirely
new idea, originating with Jesus himself. Could the Jews
once have convinced themselves that Jesus was indeed the
Messiah, there can be no doubt that his new code of morality
and his dream of a universal brotherhood of men under the
common fatherhood of God, would have been accepted by them.
Indeed their whole contro\ersy with the disciples turned
precisely on this point, as to whether Jesus were really the
Messiah or no. Now to decide this there Avas but one court
of appeal, and that was Holy Scripture itself — and especially
the books of the Prophets who had announced him and to whom
they were indebted for all that was known or believed about
him. The battle accordingly resolved itself into a conflict of
opposing texts rained by each on the heads of the others like
hailstones, until at last Avhat with the number of them, their
contradictory character, and especially the allegoric interpret-
ation that was allowed to each minutest Avord and phrase of
Holy Writ, the air was filled with a whirlwind of dust that
obscured the very sky and made all chance of agreement
impossible. In the face of confusion like this, the issue so far
as the Jews as a nation were concerned was inevitable. To
imagine that as a nation they would consent to admit that a
man who proclaimed to tliem that all men and nations were
equally with themselves children of a common Father, could be
their long expected Messiah, was a dream of unsophisticated
enthusiasm, and in the nature of things could not be. National
pride itself, were it nothing else, would for ever have forbidden
it — as indeed it would under like circumstances with any other
nation or people. And when one remembers that with the
admission of the common and equal brotherhood of all men
PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY. 329
under a common Father, would have gone never to return :dl
the glorious traditions of their past, all that through centuries of
l^ersecution had made them what they were — their Holy City
and Temple, their priests and altars, their circumcisions and
Sabbaths, their Book of the Law, and their very Scribes and
Pharisees, all of Avhich had as their very genius and soul that
Ood was especially their God and they especially His children
— one sees that it must have been impossible. But although in
the nature of things it was impossible that in their collective
•cai)acity as a nation they should have regarded a man with such
a history, coming with such credentials, and preaching such a
■doctrine, as the JNIessiah of God ; it was not necessarily so with
individuals. There will always be found men in every age and
nation to -welcome alike the liighest or the lowest innovations of
the time. Incredible as it must liave seemed to a Jew of the
time of Jesus, it is nevertheless true that in the age of the
^Maccabees, as we have seen, many individuals, nay whole
families, and those too of the priestly class, were ashamed of
their religion, their nationality, and their customs, and would
gladly have welcomed any change that would have assimilated
their institutions to those of the Greek world around them ;
much as in our day there are to be found individual English
Buddhists and jMahommedans among ourselves. Mormons
among Americans, Christian Turks, Protestant Spaniards and
infidels and atheists everywhere. So too among the Jews at
the time of Christ there were to be found those who believed
that Jesus was the Messiah of God. But the question we have
to ask is, what it was that in opposition to such an array of
national prejudice, passion, and 2>nde, kept these individuals
(few in number it is true) constant in their conviction that
Jpsus was the Messiah, and, in consequence, constant in their
loyalty and devotion to the new Code of ^lorality which it was
part of his mission to proclaim.
To begin with the Disciples themsches — with them there
•was no difficulty; they had been eye-witnesses, or believed
OoO THE EVOLUTION CI CHRISTIANITY.
themselves to have been so, of the resurrection and ascension of
Jesus ; and on comparing in retrospect the particulars ot his
life and death with v.hat they found written in the Fropliets
concerning the Messiah, they found the two to correspond.
Nothing could be more convincing, and indeed to a .Jew
nothing more was needed. A more important question is, by
what were those Jews converted who had not known Jesus in
the flesh'? To begin with there were still living among them
the eye-witnesses themselves who Avcre vouchers for the truth
of the resurrection and ascension, for the miracles of healing,
for the casting out of devils and the like — all of which, if true,
proclaimed Jesus to be a man sent from God. Of equai
importance Avas the close correspondence and agreement of the
texts adduced by the disciples from Prophecy, with the
admitted incidents of the life of Jesus. And lastly, and as
explaining the hold which the new faith had taken on the
simple-minded, the lowly, the pious, the poor — who indeed
formed the bulk of the converts, and whom by a secret affinity
as of a magnet it drew from among the worldly Jewish masses —
was the bright Heaven it opened up before the Aveary eyes of
the down-trodden and heavy-laden ; the object of ideal love it
gave them in the person of the Saviour, when contrasted with
the austerity of the Jewish Jehovah; as well as the hourly
expectation of the return of Jesus to earth to establish the
kingdom in Avhich they were to sit as honoured guests.
But before Ave can use these considerations to throw liofht
on the Avell-known dIfFerences between JevA'ish and Pauline
Christianity, it is necessary to pause here and remark that,
given in the hearers the particular frame of mind and temper
of heart to Avhich Christianity Avas adapted and for Avhich it
had an affinity, nothing more Avas needed in this early stage of
the new belief to convince men of its truth, than the application
of the ordinary and natural canons of belief and probability.
The belief Avas a quite natural and liinnan one, and required nO'
help of a supernatural kind as it did later, as Ave shall sec, Avhen
PEIMITIVE JKWisri ClIKISTIANITV. 331
it was presented for acceptance to the Pagan world. And now
observe the effect of all this on primitive Jewish Christianity.
All things being left jnst as they were before the death of the
Master, and no strain being put on natural belief, the conditions
of entering the kingdom were the same as during his life-time,
viz., obedience to his commands and imitation of his example.
Now this note of obedience is the key-note of all Jewisli
Christianity as distinguished from Pauline Christianity whose
watchword was faitli. This 'faith,' containing as it did a
supernatural element which had to be communicated by Divine
Grace, would have Ijeen an unnecessary and unmeaning pre-
requisite with the Jewish Christians, but Avas absolutely
indispensable, for reasons wliirh we shall presently see, before
Christianity could make its way with the Pagan world.
This is perhaps best seen In the Epistle of James, one of the
earliest documents of Jewish Christianity. Here one sees as In
a mirror the ideas witli which Jesus had indoctrinated his little
band of disciples and followers during his life-time almost
entirely unaffected by the fact of his death. Ills second
coming is eagerly waited for, not without grumbling and
impatience it is true, and a tendency to fall into temptation,
but still with their faith and ho[)o sure and strong. The
watchword of their lives Is still the same as when .fesus
was with them, viz., obedience to his precepts and imitation of
his example. The Epistle, accordingly, is practically a trKuine
of his teaching In the Synoptics In reference to all such
matters as prayer, confession, the taking of oaths, judging, the
not taking thought for the morrow, meekness, patience,
humility, forgiveness, and the like. The poor, as with
Jesus, are practically the sole inheritors of the kingdom,
and the rich are reprimanded and unceremoniously warned
off. All the old piety, humility, and piu-Ity of life of the
disciples In the life-time of Jesus are still noticeable, but
the sweetness and charm of Jesus are not felt as a pervasive
atmosphere in the picture; Avhile his occasional harshness has
332 THE EVOLUTION OF CIIIIISTIANITY.
degenerated here, especially when the rich are mentioned, into
a kind of envious, puritanic sourness, mingled Avith a querulous
impatience at the delay in the second coming. The emphasis
laid by James on Works rather than Faith is no mere re-action
against the one-sided teaching of Paul, but is a direct corollary
from the doctrine of Obedience which as we have said, is the
key-note of all Jewish Christianity — although doubtless it was
made more pointed and brought into more direct antagonism by
the echoes of Pauline teachinn; wdiich reached the Jewish
Christians in Jerusalem from the outlying Gentile World.
Indeed to the members of the Church of Jerusalem, many of
whom had been eye-witnesses of the miracles and of the death
and ascension of Jesus, the ' faith ' which Paul demanded must
have seemed as much a matter of supererogation as a means of
salvation, as it would if demanded as a means of seeing the sun
at noonday.
In the first Epistle of Peter, again, the standpoint is still the
same, viz. that of the Jewish Christian, and of one besides who
had been himself an eye-witness of the miracles and of the
death, resurrection, and ascension of the Master. The key-
note, accordingly, is still Obedience — obedience to the precepts
of Jesus as well as imitation of his example. In waiting for
the second coming they Averc to imitate his patience, and in the
midst of j)ersecution and trials his forbearance ; when reviled
they were not to revile again ; and hypocrisy and guile they
were to put far from them. They Avere to abstain from fleshly
lusts, to love the brethren, and to honour the king — and besides
were to offer up to God for the gift of salvation obtained
for them by the sacrifice of his precious blood, their OAvn lives
holy and pure.
But in the ideas of Peter there is a certain evolution
noticeable over and above those of James. The blood of Jesus
is set forth more distinctly and firmly as a sacrifice for sin, not
only for past sins but for Sin in general. Jesus himself,
besides being a man 'exalted' by God for his obedience and
PRIMITIVE JEWISH CURI8TIANITV. 333
death to a seat in g'loiy at His right hand, is represented also
as ' pre-existing ' with God before the worhl began. And
writine- as Peter does to the distant churches of the Jewish
Dispersion in the midst of Pagan populations far beyond the
immediate circle of eye-witnesses, his doctrine of Obedience is
dashed to a certain extent with a doctrine of Faith as well.
But it is not the faith demanded by Paul of his Pagan
converts which, as we shall see, is a gift of God — a supernatural
virtue to be imparted by the Holy Ghost to the believer. It
is rather an extension of ordinary belief, if I may say so, to
thino-s which they were to take on trust from him as an eye-
witness. Owing probably to the influence of Paul, his devotion
to the observances of the INIosaic ritual was less marked than
was the case with James, for he charges his readers especially
not to let their freedom from the Law be made a cloak for
license and sin, but rather to let it be an opportunity for
transferring their allegiance from the service of jNIoses to
the service of Christ — to the end that by obedience and
patience and the imitation of the example of Jesus they may
ffi'ow in ffrace and become living stones in the temple which
they were to have ready for him at his coming.
The Epistle to the Hebrews again, written, as many believe,
by Apollos or Barnabas immediately after the Neronlan
persecutions, is thoroughly Jewish in texture, but so inwrought
and overlaid with elements drawn from Paul as to be with
difficulty distinguishable from the writings of that Apostle.
It was a highly evolved, elaborately polished, and carefully
constructed document, intended to span like an arch the two great
separate and frowning pillars of Jewish and Pauline Christianity,
and to build them into a compact, harmonious whole. Although
its deep Jewish substratum everywhere crops up like a rock
through the light surface soil, it is both in method and
substance a compromise between the two. A compromise
in method — for while on the one hand the ordinary laws of
probability were ground good enough for the belief of the
odi THE EVOLUTION OF CIIllISTIANITr.
Jewish Christians, and while on the other hand a supernatural
grace was essential to the faith required by Paul, the writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews draws on both, without altogether
identifying himself with either. Ilis readers were too far off both
in time and place for the events recorded of Jesus to be accepted
in a natural way without question ; and some measure of faith
or trust was in consequence necessary. But this faith spanned
the entire interspace between the faith of Peter and the faith of
Paul, that is to say between a faith which is a mere extension
of ordinary belief — a taking on trust the things hoped for in the
belief that events will justify the trust — and an act of blind trust
which required the supernatural grace of Paul to justify it.
As examples of the first kind he adduces the cases of Abel
whose sacrifice was proved to be more excellent than that
of Cain by the fact of its having been accepted ; of Enoch
who was proved to have been well-pleasing to God by
the fact of his having been translated; and of Noah whose
faith was justified by the events of the flood — all of whom
lived to prove in their own persons that their faith was
justified. As instances of the second kind of faith he adduces
that of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Jacob, of Joseph and
Moses, of Rahab and Gideon, of Barak and Jephthah, of David
and Samuel, of the Prophets and of the Martyrs who died in
the Jewish persecutions ; — all of whom having died without
having themselves received the promises, served as exemplars
for a faith which would almost demand as a pre-requisite a
special manifestation of divine grace.
In matter and substance, too, the Epistle is a compromise
between the extremes of Jewish and Gentile Christianity. It
is an attempt to eifect a reconciliation between these two
hostile camps by shifting the controversy from the question of
the observance or non-observance of the Jewish Law in
reference to circumcision, Sabbath observance, meats, etc. — a
question on A\hich the cleavage was so deep as not to be
bridged over — to the question of Sacrifice, about which little
PR13IITIVE JEWISH GHIilSTIANITY. 335
controversy had as yet arisen , and thus to build a bridge by
which not only the Jewish Christians could meet their Gentile
brethren, but by which anconverted Jews themselves if so
disposed might find their way to Christianity. Jesus himself, it
will be remembered, followed the older Prophets in degrading
sacrifice to a secondary position ; and of his own initiative
minimized the importance of many provisions of the Mosaic Law.
After his death, James and the Jerusalem Church who now
regarded Jesus himself as the perfect and all-sufficient sacrifice,
could afford to dispense with the imperfect sacrifices of the Law,
but continued rigidly to conform to its ceremonial observances
in reference to food, to personal purity, to the Sabbath, to
circumcision and the like — at the same time that they carried
out faithfully in addition the precepts and commands of Jesus in
reference to patience, meekness, poverty, humility, brotherly
love, forgiveness, and so on. With Peter too, as with James, the
sacrifices of the Mosaic Law were superseded and abolished in the
greater sacrifice of Jesus, but the obligation of observing the
ceremonial part of the Law was, doubtless under the influence
of Paul, greatly relaxed if not altogether abrogated. Paul
himself swept away as by a wave of his hand both the sacrificial
system and the ceremonial law as hindrances rather than
furtherances of salvation ; holding that the only merit they ever
had was the merely negative one of forcing those who practised
them to see how impotent they really were for their purpose.
Now to the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews who is
addressing Jewish Christians who have been in the habit of
carrying out faithfully the Jewish ordinances in reference to
circumcision and the like, this extreme position of Paul — which
had a tendency to alienate completely the Jewish from the
Pagan proselytes to Christianity — is avoided, and stress is laid
on Sacrifice, and especially on that aspect of it in which the
idea oi pmity is the central point, as on this not only has there
been no dispute, but it is the point on which the most harmonious
scheme of Christianity having a Jewish basis, can be built.
336 THE EVOLUTION OF CHKISTIAXITY.
Accordingly the sacrificial parts of the Law (and doubtless also
the ceremonial parts), instead of being represented, as by Paul,
as positively detrimental to salvation, and as even hiding it from
men as if it were in eclipse, are represented by the writer of
this Epistle as having had in their time and place a real and
positive value, although now superseded by the greater sacrifice
of Jesus himself. They are represented as being good in
themselves, although but imperfect and blurred copies of the
perfect sacrifice of Christ — as shadows when compared with the
perfect image. Besides, by taking the point of sacrificial
purity as the point of compromise, and by representing
Jesus himself as the pure and spotless High Priest who
was slain for our redemption, he is obliged to represent God
as a God of Purity after the manner of the Jews, ratlier
than as the God of Love of Jesus. The Epistle, in short,
is as we have said a highly evolved product of Jewish
Christianity interwoven with Pauline elements, the whole being
clipped and trimmed like a close-cut hedge, and polished to
an almost perfect symmetiy and proportion. Jesus, for example,
who in the Synoptics exhibits many a human trait, who is weary,
and hungry, and tempted, and depressed, and angry, and does
not know when the day of the Son of Man will be, becomes
with the author of our Epistle, the holy, the unspotted, the
sinless, the perfect — almost a god in his abstract perfections.
Indeed, instead of the man exalted by God, of James, and the
man 'fore-known' by God from the beginning, of Peter, he has
now become the veiy image of God Himself and the effulgence
of His Glory. Instead of the Jewish atonement of bulls and
goats which had to be repeated once a year on the great Day
of Atonement, you have the sacrifice of the pure and spotless
High Priest himself, which once done, remains complete,
perfect, and eflficacious for all time. And instead of the new
Law of Liberty in Christ being mixed up with the old Mosaic
Law, as in James and Peter, like new wine in old bottles, it
is kept sedulously apart in bottles of its own — the old Law being
PEI311TIVE JEWISH CUEISTIANITY. 337
a preliminary, inferior, and imperfect distillation which is to be
thrown away now that the new and better has come. The
whole Epistle, indeed, is a blend of Jewish and Pauline
elements, of Pauline Christianity on a Jewish basis ; and
seemed once and for all to bind toi^ether into an indivisible
unity and as parts of a progressive Divine plan, the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testament — a unity which the Pauline
Theology would, when pushed to its extreme point, have
destroyed (as we see in the heresy of Marcion which nearly
wrecked the Church in the second century), and to which the
teaching of the Jerusalem Church, with its doctrine of Jesus
as a mere man like the other prophets of the Old Testament,
would have been equally fatal — had it not, as Ebionitism, been
left isolated as a heresy on the soil of Palestine, to lose itself as
the centuries advanced in the desert sands, there to become
the parent of that Mahommedanism which was afterwards
destined to play so great a part in the history of the World.
But to return to early Jewish Christianity and the simple
natural belief which resting on the testimony of eye-witnesses
and the fulfilment of prophecy — and founded therefore on the
ordinary laws of probability — was sufficient to keep the hopes of
the faithful alive and aglow, their brotherly love warm, and
their patience and endurance strong, during the short period
that must elapse before the return of the Master. Now tliis
natural belief althousrh sufficient for the Jews of Palestine,
was of little or no avail when the scene was shifted to the
great Pasan world outside. With Greeks and Romans who
knew little and cared less for the affairs or persons of a distant
and despised dependency, neither the disciples nor the ordinary
eye-witnesses had any influence Avhatever ; while as for the
Old Testament and its prophets and prophecies which with the
Jews were the seat of all authority, the touchstone of all truth —
with the Pagans these had no authority at all. The problem,
accordingly, of the conversion of the Pagan world was quite a
different one from that of the Jewish world, and required an
Y
338 THE EVOLUTION O^ CHRISTIANITY.
entirely different set of considerations to successfully meet it.
To convert a Jew to Christianity it was not necessary to prove to
him that there was One Supreme God who loved His children —
for that he already knew and believed. But it was necessary to
prove to him that the Messiah he should look for was not the
conquering Messiah of the older prophets, but the lowly, suffer-
ing Messiah of Isaiah, and that this Messiah had already come in
the person of the man Jesus, to make by his death atonement for
the sins of all. To convert a Pagan, on the other hand, it was
necessary first of all to show him that there was only one true
God, and that this God loved him ; and that his own gods who
exploited him were either no gods at all, or else were bad gods
whom the Supreme God was permitting for the time to work
their evil will on him. But how was this to be proved ? Clearly
it would go a long way if it Avere shown that the sin and evil
and misery of the world were not a natural condition of things
(as was proved by the revolt of the conscience against them),
but that they were something extraneous, something that had
been fastened like a foreio-n voke on the human soul ; and that
the gods to whom men prayed for deliverance were the very
demons by whom they had been enthralled. So far, well. But
how know that the Supreme God, if there were such a Being,
had either the power or the will to deliver them ? It would go
far to solve this question, too, if it were possible that the
Supreme God should send a man who on the one hand could
defy the power of their gods or demons by a life free from sin,
and on the other could defy death by raising his own body from
the grave. And if tliis deliverer of men, who thus suffered
and died for them to deliver them from the power of the gods,
were the son of the Supreme God Himself — would this not
prove that He not only liad the power, but that He wished to
save men, rather than to exploit them as the gods did; in a
word that He loved them ? And if, further, credible inform-
ation had reached the Pagan world that a man proclaiming
himself to be the Son of God had come into the world and
PKI3IITIV^E JEWISH CIIUISTIANITY. 339
had announced that he had come to save men from the
tyranny of their gods ; and to give proof of the truth of his
mission had lived without sin and died only to defy the
power of death to keep him in the grave — would not the report
of this add greatly to the probability that it all was true ?
And when it came over the mind, would it not come like a
sudden illumination in the darkness, which would leave behind
it dim visions of something that would haunt the memory ?
And yet what proof that there was any truth in it ? Had the
events recorded occurred Avithin recent memory and in the
presence of accredited eye-witnesses, they might have been
believed and laid to heart as other natural facts ; but as the
years waned and faded, and the Second Coming was still
delayed, and the actual eye-witnesses sank one by one to their
rest, the belief which had arisen in a natural way with them
would have died out with them. At each remove the tradition
would have become fainter, the evidence more and more
hollow and uncertain — the faith of the oris^inal believers beino;
more and more untransferable to their descendants of the new
generations, — until soon it would have been swallowed up again
in the great Pawan nioht that surrounded all. How then was
the belief to be kept alive and aglow so as to be able to
propagate itself down the centuries ? Evidently primarily by
its own inner illumination — bv that something which would so
light up the mind that the darkness of itself would seem to lift
and all become clear ; that somethino; which was so strong
in itself that instead of depending as Jewish Christianity did
on evidence, it could exist on the barest minimum of fact,
being sufficient of itself alone — a supernatural rather than a
natural belief. This is what St. Paul means when he says " by
faith are ye saved, it is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God."
In the next chapter we shall see the part this illumination by
the Holy Spirit, as Paul conceives it, plays in his scheme of
salvation as adapted by him to meet the intellectual and moial
wants of the Pagan or Gentile world.
CHAPTER V.
PAULINE CHRISTIANITY.
A FEW years after the death of Jesus, Paul was converted
■^^ by a vision, — a form of evidence, as we have said, more
convincing perhaps in the Ancient World than any other, and
one which in itself and without further accessory was sufficient
to engender the most fixed and endurino; belief. But beinij- a
purely personal and private experience it was not transferable
to other minds, and the consequence was that if he wished the
world to believe his doctrine with the same fervent intensity
and assurance with which he believed it himself, he would be
obliged to draw on other sources of conviction. The upshot
of his meditation was, as we know, a body of doctrine which
for subtlety, penetration, harmony, and completeness, is un-
surpassed in the history of religious speculation. It bears the
same relation to dogmatic Christianity that Platonism does to
Greek Philosophy, being the source to which Christianity has
aad to return for refreshment and renewal at every crisis of her
history. It proceeds on the assumption that if Christianity is
to be fitted for universal acceptance, it must rely on something
more than the mere testimony of eye-witnesses, or the
demonstrations of fulfilled prophecy — or even of such chance
TAl LINE CIlItlSTIANITY. 341
virions as he himself had had, which however important and
convincing to liimself could liave availed little with the grreat
Pagan world which it was his mission to convert. Any doctrine
which aimed at being embraced by the world in after ages,
must be one mainly a priori, that is to say it must be one
which by its own inner illumination carried its credentials with
it, needing only sufficient historical guarantee to bring it
<lown from the i-egion of vague hypothesis to that of credible
luthenticated fact.
The Pauline Scheme of Salvation, it is to be premised, is
constructed entirely on a Jewish framework, into which Pagan
ideas and pre-suppositions could with a few necessary modifi-
•cations be logicallv fitted and arranged so as to form one jjreat
and harmonious whole. It began with the assumption of all
Jewish theology, viz., that there was One Supreme God who,
orood Himself, made all things o-ood : and that all thinijs what-
ever, whether devils or angels, gcjodness or sin, whether made
by him or not, could only come into being and continue in it
by His permission and at His good pleasure. ]Man himself was
created by God, and like all else was created good, but owing
to the weakness of the flesh in which his spirit was confined, he
fell when exposed to temptation into disobedience and sin, and
so incurred the penalty of death. This disobedience and sin
were not, it is to be observed, a matter of compulsion or
necessity (for the flesh although weak is not necessarily evil)
but were a matter of man's own free will — the seductive asrent
in his fall being represented by Paul when addressing Jewish
audiences, as the Devil, Avhen addressing Pagans, as the demons
whom they worshipped as gods. And furthermore this sin
which perenially reproduced itself by heredity and by the weak-
ness of the will under the influence of temptation, was the source of
all the sorrow, misery and degradation under which the world lay
groaning. This condition of things, according to Paul, had been
permitted by God for His own good purpose for a time ; but at last
He had determined Himself to undertake the redemption of man.
342 THE EVOLUTION Or CIIRISTIANITV.
The process was to involve several stages, and in a general way
might be said to follow the lines of the Fall ; that is to say, as
that had been brought about by man's own free will under the
temptation of the Evil One, so his redemption should be
brought about by his own free will under the inspiration of the
Spirit of God Himself. The first stage consisted in selecting
from among the fallen nations some one man who should be the
father of the race of men through whom salvation for the world
was to be achieved. That man was Abraham, who by the
inspiration of God received in simple trust and faith the
promises made to him. This faith was not an ordinary faith
depending on ordinary laws of probability. On the contrary,
it being quite against all probability that at his age he should
become the father of a race of men, it was a supernatural faith
rather, a faith inspired by the grace of God — and it is this kind
of faith that is the key-note of the whole Pauline scheme of
salvation. But the descendants of Abraham, to whom the
promises had been given, ha\ing fallen into unbelief, and from
unbelief into idolatry, that is to say, having gone over to the
belief in and worship of those very gods or demons who had
originally been the cause of their ruin, there was no help for it
but for God Himself to intervene to save them from plunging
deeper and deeper into degradation and sin. This time it was a
Law which He gave them for their guidance — the Law of Moses,
viz., with rewards and penalties attached to obedience and dis-
obedience of its precepts. The object of this Law was, according
to Paul, not their salvation ; but so to deepen the sense of sin on
every infraction of its manifold injunctions, as to kcc]) the fear
of God ever before their eyes. In other words it was to
prevent idolatry and the forgetfulness of God, until the time
was ripe for Salvation itself to be offered to mankind. For
observe, it did not help men to break the power of Sin as
such, — that was so deeply rooted in the w^eakness of the flesh
as to be beyond the power of man without outside help — the
most it could do was to enable men to atone in a way for each
PAULINE CIIRISTIANITV. 343
particular sin as it arose, by some outward act of observance or
sacrifice, the great body of sin remaining the same as before —
much in the same way as the bubbles thrown up on the surface
of a stream, although extinguished one by one as they arose,
A'ould still leave the great body of water rolling onward as
before. It was evidently only a make-shift therefore, operating
piece-meal and in a hand-to-mouth kind of way until the real
scheme of redemption should be ushered in. As to its actual
value there was, as we have seen, a difference between the view
of Paul and that of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
With the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews the Law was
good in its time and place, although useless and to be abolished
now that the more perfect sacrifice of Christ himself had been
accomplished. It was, in his owu words, a shadow rather than
an image of the better things to come. In Paul's opinion on
the contrary, it had proved an obstruction throughout to the
people to whom it had been given, a pure hindrance rather
than an aid to their salvation. Leaving, as it did, the great
body of sin untouched, while labouring desperately to make
atonement for particular sins after the penalty had been
incvn-red, its operation was like that of a treadmill, on which
when you have once started you neither can make any progress
nor can you get off it again without danger of falling into a
deeper abyss. The more the Jews became conscious of sin, the
more desperately they struggled to hold on to the Law, for fear
of falling off into eternal perdition if they left go. Hence it
was that Paul felt that his own people were practically hopeless,
and that the future of Salvation lay with the Gentiles — as
indeed it proved. How then, according to Paul, was the
Redemption of the World to be brought about?
The problem being how to break the power of Sin in itself,
rather than how to atone for each ])articular sin after it had
been committed, it is evident that redemption could not come
from the side of the flesh, which, although not in itself evil,
was very weak, and now that it had given itscif into the hands
344 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of the devil or demons could of itself do nothing. If help were
to come, it would have to come through some influence that
would so reinforce the higher nature of man and so fortify his
will that he would be able to resist the solicitations alike of the
flesh and the devil. There were various possible ways in
which this could be done, the most simple perhaps being that
men should rest and trust in the power of God in simple faith,
as children in their father. This was the method of Jesus, but
although quite right and natural to men who were in the very
sight, as it were, of the Kingdom of God, it was unsuitable as
a means of World-redemption ; for w^ithout the constant inter-
vention of Providence to ensure its continued influx and
presence, this trust could not sustain itself in face of the
colossal iniquities and evils of the world. What was wanted,
therefore, was something more abiding and permanent, some-
thing which would ensure the continued presence of the Spirit
of God in the soul, and not leave it either to the ebb and flow
of mere subjective feeling, or to casual and capricious human
inspiration, — some objective fact or facts in short which could
not be dissolved by doubt or frittered away in speculation and
hypothesis, but like the Serpent in the Wilderness would ahvays
be there to give refreshment to the weary spirit, and to heal
and save whosoever should look thereon. Something of this
kind we now see must have been indispensable to the success of
any scheme of redemption which was to be suited to all men
and to all times. But it is not jirobable that the various
abstractly possible modes of man's redemption had occurred to
Paul. So far as he was concerned the matter had already been taken
out of the region of speculation and theory, and been brought
home to his mind and heart in the shape of concrete experience
and fact. He had come to Jerusalem shortly after the death
of Jesus and found that it was a matter of common notoriety
there that a man named Jesus had some years before given out
that he was the " man of sorrows " of the Prophet Isaiah ; and
that he had been sent by God to redeem men from their sins.
PAULINE CHRISTIANITY. 345
This man had suffered death by crucifixion, had risen the third
day according to prophecy and according also to his own pre-
diction and promise, and had appeared after his resurrection to
his disciples — who now went about Judaea preaching salvation
and the remission of sins in his name. Paul himself had not
seen Jesus in the flesh, but on the way to Damascus to
persecute the rising Church he was confronted by him in a
vision, and from that moment to doubt that the man Jesus had
really risen was impossible. The question for him now became
who was this Jesus who had been raised from the dead, and
what was the modus operandi of the scheme of salvation which
he professed to have brought to men ?
To begin with, it was within the knowledge of Paul that the
Rabbis had all along held that there was a primitive representa-
tive and Archetypal Man of whom the actual Adam Avas but the
inferior copy and image. This was the Heavenly Adam of the
first chapter of Genesis, who was made in the image of God
And who had a spiritual body, as distinguished from the Earthly
Adam of the second chapter, who was made out of the dust of
the ground. It was this primitive Archetypal ^lan whom we
find represented in the later books of the Old Testament as the
Word, the Wisdom, the Angel who stood by the throne of God
and who was the instrument used by God in executing His
Will. It was he and not God Himself who had appeared
to Abraham and to Moses, and who, according to Daniel, was to
come as Messiah on the clouds of Heaven. And It was this
Second Adam, this Lord from Heaven, wath whom Paul now
identified the Jesus whom he had seen in vision and who
had risen from the dead. We now have to see how, in
Paul's view, this Jesus was instrumental in bringing salvation
to men.
The problem, as we have said, was how to get rid of the great
body of Sin from which, as from some tap-root, the particular
sins that arise from hour to hour, perennially flow. Now
according to Paul, the flesh although not Itself necessarily evil,
346 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
was the root of all evil. So long as that evil was unconscious
it Avas, as in the case of the lower animals, not sin. To become
sin it must be a transgression of some Divine Command. Adam
disobeyed God's Command and was therefore guilty of sin ; and
from this sin came the death which was bequeathed to all his
descendants. When the Law of God was given by Moses to
the people of Israel, it still further deepened the sense of sin
by the multiplicity of the demands it made on men*&
consciences and lives. The Gentiles, on the contrary, who had not
received any Divine Law, although participating in the evil which
sprang from the body of flesh and from Adam's transgression,
were not in Paul's view technically guilty of sin. But sin or
evil, the problem of redemption for both Jew and Gentile was
practically the same ; and the question, as we have said, for
Paul was, how did tlie death and resuiTCCtion of Jesus as the
Arclietypal Man, the Christ, the Messiah, the Word, the
Wisdom of God, etc., bring redemption and salvation to men ?
The fitness and completeness of the answer given by Paul will
best be seen by a series of progressive suppositions. If we
suppose, for example, that the Archetypal Man, the Messiah
who had a spiritual body, were to come in his representative
capacity as Ideal Man, and to assume a body of flesh,
be born of woman, and go through life as a man ; if
we suppose further that he should conquer the flesh,
keep the Law, and remain through life pure and free
from sin ; and so in his own person having gained an exemption
from the death which was the penalty of sin, should ascend
again to God, — how, we ask, would this help mankind ?
Clearly, not at all. It would have been a single-part play
with only a single actor, a drama in which no one would b(
interested or affected but the Archetypal ISIan himself ; and
so far from helping Man, would by the very fact of its having
been carried out by a being who was aided in the combat against
evil by all the power of a Divine nature, have had for poor
human souls, weak in flesh, tempted of devils, and tainted by
PAULINE CHRISTIANITY. 347
sin, no interest -vvhatever. But now if we suppose further that
having subdued the flesh, and kept the Law, and so found
reconciliation with God and inununity from tlie penalty of
death, he had nevertheless voluntarily suflTered the death Avhich
he had not deserved, and laid down his life as the Representative
Man for his suffering follow men and in their stead — how, we
now ask, would this added fact of his death and resurrection
affect the result? In every way. To begin with, in Jewish
Law ordinary sin could be atoned for vicariously by the blood
of some innocent animal that was without spot or blemish.
Much more, then, would this be the case if instead of an
animal it were the life of some pure and spotless man ; and
still more if it were the life of some angel or Divine being.
And if the death of some pure and good man was regarded as
an atoning sacrifice for the sins of other men, the death of the
Representative Man, the Archetypal ^lan, might justly be
regarded as an atonement for Sin itself, and for the sins of all
men. Now this is precisely the point of view taken by the
^vi'iter of the Epistle to the Hebrews who, like Paid, figures
Jesus as the Archetypal Man, the effulgence of his Father's
Glory and the express image of His person ; as the pure and
spotless High Priest who, in contrast to the bulls and goats of
the Jewish sacrifices, gives his own life once and for all for Sin
itself and the sins of all men ; and who having come down
from heaven for this purpose has again ascended thither, and
now sits as of old at the light hand of God. Now were God
conceived by Paul as He is by the writer of the Ejiistle to the
Hebrews, viz., as a God primarily of Purity, Holiness, and
Righteousness, with whom all sins must be expiated before
reconciliation was possible or approach to Him permissible, this
solution of the Archetypal ]Man, the Word, the Messiah, who
assumed a body of flesh, appeared in the form of man, kept the
Law intact and himself free from sin, and then died for the
sins of others, would have been complete, and adequate, and
logic-proof at all points. But with I'aul, God, as with Jesus,
34b THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
is primarily a God of Love and only secondly and indirectly, as
it were, a God of strict unbending Righteousness and Justice ;
and we now have to ask how the conception of the incarnation,
death, and resurrection of the Archetypal Man or Messiah had
to be modified for Paul by this change of view ? Mainly in
this way — that instead of God being represented as stand-
ing coldly looking on while another offered up his own life for
man, inexorably exacting His dues in the shape of sacrifices,
etc., for sins committed, but careless of the sinner, so long as
His own honour and purity were untouched. He will now have
to be represented as longing like a father for someone or some-
thing to take away the dark wall of sin that stands like a screen
between Him and Plis erring children. And the effect of this
again will be to turn the suffering and death of the Messiah
from an e.rjnation or sacrifice needed to redeem men from sin
and the wrath of God — and in Avhich the initiative need not
necessarily come from God at all — to an act of obedience; the
Messiah being represented as having been sent by God to
remove the Sin which prevents the sinner from seeing Him as
He is — a God of Love yearning by His Divine grace to take
him again to His heart. That is to say, while with the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, God is represented mainly as a
God of Purity and Holiness, and the suffering and death of
Jesus mainly as an expiation and sacrifice, with Paul He is
represented as mainly a God of Love, and the suff"ering and
death of Jesus as an act of obedience havino- its orioin in the
Will and Love of God. But this is perhaps too rigid and
stringent an estimate, and needs some modification to bring it
into accurate correspondence with the truth. For, from the
recurrence of such phrases as that Jesus was a "propitiation for
our sins," that he was a " sin offerini»-," that he was ** made a
curse for us," that we were " bought with a price," etc., it is
evident that there was still a verv laro;e element of old Jewish
theology in Paul, and that althougli God with him as with
Jesus, was mainly a God of Love, He was, as with the
PAULINE CHRISTIANITY. 349
Psalmist and Prophets and the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, a God of Justice also. If then we unite these two
conceptions we shall probably come nearer to Paul's full
view of the work of Jesus, and shall have to remodel our
hypothesis thus — that Jesus, while beinoj sent by God to
exhibit the Father's love, also laid down his life willingly and
cheerfully of his own great love to men.
And here perhaps it may be as well to pause for a moment to
clearly define the relation in which this ' Scheme of Salvation'
of Paul stands to the work and teaching of Jesus.
With Jesus, God as we have seen was a God of pure Love
who made His sunshine and rain to fall alike on the just and the
unjust. The only thing he required from men as a condition of
entering the Kingdom of God then almost in sight, was simple
trust in God, and the turning away from sin to do that which
was well-pleasing in His sight. He could therefore brush away
the Law altogether, as a mere temporary make-shift given to
men, as he said, because of the hardness of their hearts. Kow
this simple scheme of Jesus, it will be observed, was quite
independent of his own death, and would have been the same
had he not died at all, but had lived on until God should have
come in glory to inaugurate the Kingdom with himself as
Messiah. The scheme of Paul, on the contrary, was necessarily
quite different. It was based on and took its rise in the death
and resurrection of Jesus, and had to be so constructed as to
embrace this death and resurrection as essential elements in the
problem of salvation. So that even had the God of Paul been
a God of pure Love as He was with Jesus, still the plan of
salvation of Paul must necessarily have been different from the
plan of salvation of Jesus. The plan of Jesus was adapted as
it were to an emergency ; that of Paul having a historical basis
and being the end of a series of historical stages, was adapted
to ail time. But to return : — If this scheme of Paul besides its
power of inner illumination, its logical completeness and
adequacy to the problem to be solved, could also be shown to
350 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
have been realized In an actual historical transaction, to rest on
a fact, that is, that was not within the power of imagination to
colour, of speculation to undermine, or of so])histry to fritter
away — that simple cross of Christ, viz., to which the soul of
man could always turn amid a sea of doubts and perplexities —
would it not enable the human spirit in its gratitude and joy
at its new-born deliverance from sin, to rise above the
temptations of the flesh and the devil, and to at last find
salvation and reconciliation with God ? All of course turned
on whether the incident on which Paul's scheme was based
had really occurred ; and of this he had not the slightest
doubt, nor indeed, in tliat age of the world was it
likely that he should have doubted. For had he not
actually had a vision of the risen Jesus — and wdiat could
be more convincing evidence that he was really the Messiah of
God? Besides, that Jesus had been crucified and had risen
again the third day and been seen of his disciples, he had heard
proclaimed from the mouths of hundreds of eye-witnesses
within a few years of these events ; and the words of the dying
Stephen when that martyr looked up to Heaven and cried out
that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, still rang
in his ears. When he turned to the Prophets to whom the
disciples perpetually appealed, there again he found confirmation
of his belief. To Paul, Jesus was indeed the ' man of sorrows' of
Isaiah and the Psalms; and with evidence so patent from eye-
witnesses and prophecy, all of which must have been working
on his conscience before the vision, he realized how appropriate
were the words of Jesus, " it is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks." And when he remembered the teaching of the
Rabbis as to the Archetypal ^lan, the Word, the Messiah, the
Son of Man, the feeling that Jesus was he, must have come on
him as by a flash of illumination, lighting up all the obscurities
and perplexities of Jewish prophecy and history. Fact and
theory, inner illumination and outward testimony, intellect,
imagination, and heart, all alike conspired, all alike said Amen
PAULINE CHRISTIANITY. 351
to a belief which was lienceforth for Paul unshakcable by man.
And then it was that he saw that the Gospel which had
converted him, had all the requisites for converting that great
Pagan world which lay around him. He saw that the gods
whom the Pagans so worshipped and feared, were only other
names for the devil or demons — mere creatures of God,
subordinate beings who had themselves fallen like man from
their high estate through disobedience, and whom God had
permitted for His own good purposes to work for a time their
wicked wills upon men, until now at last their power was
broken and for ever shattered by the death and resurrection of
His only Son. He saw that this would be to the Pagan world,
as to himself, a real illumination, something hitherto undreamt
of in their philosophy, something that by the longings it
satisfied, the hopes it raised, the anxieties it appeased, the
explanation it offered to the mysteries and enigmas of their
lives, would realize the ideal of their dreams, and shooting like
an electric flash across their mental sky, woidd lighten up the
darkness of their minds and hearts. And as this inner
illumination was referred by Paul to the direct action of the
Holy Spirit of God, he saw that the consciousness of this
presence of God in the heart of each, comforting and consoling,
and strengthening and supporting, would add infinitely
to the sense of gratitude and love. And as the historical
facts themselves on which it was based, were as well
accredited as any other historical facts, and did not then
run counter, as they would now, to any popular prejudice
against the occurrence of miracles, he felt that the belief
in Jesus and his mission of salvation for the world was
assured. But although this sclicme of salvation of Paul was
well fitted in itself to weather the storms of Paijan relio-ion and
philosophy which in its voyage down the ages it was fated to
encounter; and although it remains the basis of all Christian
theology, even to our own time ; still it was not sufficiently
definite in the view it presented of the nature of Christ in his
352 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
relation to Crodto be entirely satisfactory, when once the several
parts of the scheme had been brought into relation with each
other and with the whole. In the next chapter I shall
endeavour to lay down the line which the evolution of
belief as to the nature of Jesus is likely to follow, and shall
trace the history of the changes in that belief up to Apostolic
and post-Apostolic times — a task to which this study of Paul
may serve as a fitting introduction.
CHAPTER VI.
APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY.
XT would seem impossible that any scheme of salvation
founded on Pauhne lines, that is to say on the woi-k of a
Mediator between God and man, should be complete and
harmonious at all points until the Mediator who is to reconcile
God and Man is possessed of a truly 7'epresentative nature and
character. He must, that is to say, be both very Man and
very God, perfect ideal Man and infinite eternal God. Very
man he must be, if his sufferings and death are to win for him
the sympathy of suffering human souls ; perfect man he must be
if he is to stand before a Pure and Holy God to make inter-
cession for the sins of men. Very God, again, he must be if
his suffering and humiliation are to take the deepest hold on
the heart of humanity ; Eternal God he must be if his
mediatorial function is to resist the encroachments of all-
devouring Time which in its onward flux washes away with it
the memory of all mortal things. If this be true, we should
expect to find Apostolic Christianity bridging in its evolution
the gulf that separates the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels who
is represented as subject to temptation, to weakness, to passion,
to anger, ignorance and despair, from the Jesus of John, who
is the Eternal Logos of God come down to earth as complete
and perfect man. This interval, it is needless to say, was not
bridged by a single step, but its successive stages may be seen
z
354 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
gradually evolving themselves all along the course of the first
and second centuries. Beginning with the conception of Jesus
as a man more filled with the Spirit of God than other men,
but made lower than the angels, we pass to the conception of
him as a man exalted after his resurrection and ascension to a
position above the angels. From a man exalted after death to
a position above the angels and at the right hand of God, we
pass to the conception of him as a man who occupied that
position before his birth into this lower world — that is to say
who had ' pre-existence ' as the Archetypal Man. From this
Archetypal Man pre-existing with God and created by God,
we pass to the Son of God begotten by God from all eternity ;
and from that to God Himself. This brings us to the point
reached in the Gospel according to John, after which we pass
to the doctrine of the evolution of the Trinity itself.
To begin with, then, we may say that the advance in the
conception of Jesus from that of a virtuous man highly
endowed with the Spirit of God for a particular mission to
mankind, to that of a perfect ideal man, took place very early,
probably immediately after his death and resurrection — so early
indeed that it is implied in all the abstract characterizations of
him from the earliest times. It resulted fi'om the light thrown
back upon Jesus from the fulfilled prophecies respecting him ;
and is well seen in the difference between the accounts given of
the actual Jesus in the Synoptics — who at times, as we have
said, was weary, and angry, and violent, and suspicious, and
ilespairing — and the accounts given by Peter, for example, who
in chapter i. 19 of his Epistle speaks of him as a "Lamb
without blemish and without spot," and in chapter ii. 23 as one
who, "when he was reviled reviled not again, when he
suffered threatened not, but committed himself to Him that
judgeth righteously." From this perfect, sinless man, the next
stage of evolution was initiated by the fact of his ascension to
Heaven after the resurrection ; and made of him a man exalted
and glorified and given a position above the angels at the right
APOSTOLIC CIIIilSTIANITY. 355
hand of God. But it is still a man that is exalted, it is to be
observed, and not a God. Peter still speaks of him in Acts ii.
22, as " a mayi approved of God unto you by mighty w^orks, and
wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of
you ;" and afterwards (chapter iii. 22) quotes Moses as saying
in allusion to Jesus that a prophet like unto himself would God
raise up, whom they were to hear. Nor is the present
exaltation what it afterwards became, viz. co-existence with the
Father before the world began, but it is a new dignity con-
ferred on the man Jesus since his death for his obedience and
virtue. Peter in Acts ii. 36, distinctly states that this Jesus
whom ye crucified, God hath made both Lord and Christ.
In Acts ii. 32, he speaks of God raising Jesus from
the dead and exalting him ; and again in chapter v. 30,
in his answer to the High Priest he reiterates that God had
raised up Jesus whom they slew and had " exalted him to be a
Prince and a Saviour," and (chapter ii. 33) that it was then
only that he received the promise of the Holy Ghost which he
poured forth on Pentecost — in other words he was not Prince
and Saviour, Lord and Christ, until after his death. Before
this he was merely a servant. Peter speaks in Acts iii, 13, of
God having glorified his servant Jesus, and again in chapter iv.
30, the Apostles pray that signs and wonders may be done
''through the name of Thy Holy servant Jesus." Indeed with
some of the Apostolic Fathers Jesus still remains far into the
second century the man who was chosen by God for his virtue
to perform a special mission to mankind, and who for his obedi-
ence was afterwards exalted to glory and honour far above the
angels, to a seat at the riglit hand of God. Th''^ opiniun was
held not merely by the Ebionites who were eventually
denounced as heretics, but by men like the Shepherd of
Hermas who was held in the hiiihest esteem, and was much
quoted by the Fathers of the early Church all through the
second century. With him (Similitude v.), curiously enough,
it is the Holy Ghost who is the Son of God — Jesus remaining,
356 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
as with the Early Christians, merely the virtuous man chosen
by God and to whom the Spirit of God had been given in
larger measure than to other men. Indeed the fact of the
baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist for ever precluded in the
minds of many Christians of the first and second centuries any
other conception of Jesus than that of a man specially favoured
by God and endowed with His Spirit. And yet one would
know beforehand that if Christianity was to have a future,
the doctrine could not be permitted to rest here. For
in the human mind there is alwavs and ever a vague
perception, an unconscious but ineradicable and instinctive
recognition of the great law of change, a feeling that
nothing that is done or transacted at a particular time and
place can keep its original significance undimmed, but
must in its relations with after ages in its perspective
and outline undergo enlargement and exaggeration or suff'er
diminution and loss ; and furthermore that if in human thinos
any particular circumstance or event is to maintain its lustre
untarnished, it must be raised above time and place and
be given an immutable, fixed, and eternal character. So
long as the coming of Jesus was expected from day to day^
almost from hour to hour, the question as to what he speciall}
was before his birth on earth, if indeed he had any pre-existence
at all, was not likely to arise — except perhaps with a man like
Paul who being a thinker of commanding genius could not
rest till he had planned a scheme complete and harmonious at
all points. But as decade after decade passed away and those
to whom Jesus had said that they should not taste death until
they saw him returning in the clouds of Heaven sank one by
one to their rest, it was inevitable if his death and resurrection
were not to grow dim and pale in the receding years until at
last they passed out of sight altogether ; and if the Father's
love and the new morality it carried with it (of which all this
paraphernalia of doctrine was but the protecting sheath) were
not to be swallow ed up in Paganism again ; it was inevitable,
APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY. OOi
I say, tliat the relation of Jesus to God on the one hand and
to mankind in general on tlie other should be given a fixed,
determined, and immutable character, and one quite independent
of his life-history at a given time and place on earth. And
accordingly signs soon begin to appear of a movement ascribing
to Jesus not only an existence with the Father in Heaven after
his death, but an existence with Him before his birth, and this
movement went on increasing until, long before the century had
closed, the new doctrine had matured in orthodox Christendom
into a fixed article of faith. It first makes its appearance
in the Epistles of Peter and Paul, but then only in an early
stage of evolution and in a form quite rudimentary when
compared with that which it afterwards assumed. For just as
in the first stao-e the exaltation of Jesus after the resurrection
and ascension to a place at the right hand of God was his
exaltation as a man, so in the next stage, again, his exaltation
to the same place before his appearance on earth, was also as a
man. This, indeed, is precisely the form that his pre-existence
would naturally take in the Jewish mind. For as Harnack has
so admirably shown, ' pre-existence ' with the Jews was always
a pre-existence of the object as a whole, whether man or thing,
and not merely, as was the case Avith the Greeks, of its
invisible spirit or soul. The object, that is to say, had with the
Jews the same outward and visible form in Heaven as it after-
wards had on earth, whereas with the Greeks it had no
outward or visible form at all until it Avas united with the
Matter of this lower world. Jerusalem, the Temple, the
Tabernacle whose furniture Moses was instructed to make after
the pattern shown him on the .Mount, all existed beforehand in
heaven precisely in the same form in wdiich they afterwards
appeared on earth ; in other words the earthly object was with
the Jews a " manifestation " or coin/ of its heavenly original,
whereas with the Greeks it was an " incarnation " or embodiment
of it. And hence it is that we find that when Peter and Paul
and John as Jews attribute pre-existence to Jesus, they always
358 THE EVOLUTION OF CIirvlSTIAMTY,
picture him as a man. Paul, it will be remembered, represent*
Jesus as the Archetypal Man, the man from heaven, the second
Adam in contradistinction to the first Adam, our progenitor
who was his earthly counterpart. So, too, John, in Revelation,
(chapter xiii, 8,) speaks of Jesus, not as a pre-existing spirit,
but as " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ;" in
the same way as in the old Apocalypses of Ezra and Enoch the
Messiah is represented as lying hid with God until the time
was ripe for his manifestation on earth. So, too, Peter in
chapter i. 20, of his Epistle speaks of Jesus as being
"foreknown" from the foundation of the world, but as
" manifested " at the end of the times for your sakes, — adding
with a characteristic Jewish touch " that your faith and hope
might be in God." Farther, indeed, than this of Jesus as a
Pre-existent jNIan, Jewish Christianity of itself cannot go.
But, as we have seen, before Jesus could be a true Mediator
between God and Man he must become God as well as man..
It was an absolute necessity of thought, therefore, that the
doctrine should not be permitted to rest at this temporary
halting-place, but should be pushed on until Jesus became
God, or rather a side, aspect, or part of the Godhead. Up ta
the present point he was, as we have seen, still man, — however
exalted he may have been, — and therefore a creation of God ;
whereas what was wanted was that he should share the very
nature and life of God, and so in a way be himself God. Now
this point was not fully reached until the appearance of the
Gospel of John at the end of the first or beginning of the
second century, but the first transition and approaches to it are
perhaps to be seen in Paul, who, while figuring the Clirist as in
essential nature a Man, and as such, a creation of God,,
figures him also as having an incorruptible body. Indeed in
I. Corinthians xv. 45, he distinctly declares that he is a life-
giving Spirit. But it was impossible that the doctrine should
remain long at this ambiguous, indeterminate, and transitional
point, as indeed we see the moment it came seriously into-
APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 359
contact with Greek modes of thought. It is no part of
my intention here to discuss the question us to the authorship
of the Epistles to the Colossians, Philippians, and Ephesians;
but if they really are genuine works of the Apostle Paul, it is
evident that his doctrine has in them made a great advance,
viz. from his old conception of Jesus as the Archetypal
Man with a spiritualized body created by God, to the con-
ception of him as a spiritual being begotten of God. In
Colossians (chapter i. 15) Jesus is represented as "the image
of the invisible God," " the first-horn of all creation," all other
things having been created through him and by hira. The
early Pauline idea of the Archetypal Man could only be
" manifested " not " incarnated," but in Philippians, (chapter
ii. 6,) Jesus Christ, it is said, being originally in the form
of God, took the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of man ; that is to say he was a spiritual being
who became incarnate as a man.
Now from the time of the Apostles onwards this advance in
the evolution of the nature of Jesus fi'om being a pre-existent
man to being a pre-existent God, that is to say from a Being
created by God to a Being begotten by God, nowhere
retrogresses, but excepting in the case of the Shepherd of
Hermas, who as we have seen regards Jesus as a man exalted
by God for his virtue, is everywhere steadily maintained.
Clement, for example, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians
says (chapter xvi. 2) that " Christ is the Son of God exalted
above the angels," and in chapter xxii, 1 "that he is he who spoke
in the Old Testament through the Holy Spirit." Barnabas,
too, in his Catholic Epistle says (chapter xii. 10), " Jesus is not
the Son of man but the Son of God made manifest in a type and
in the flesh," and (in chapter v. 5) " that Jesus is Lord of the
whole earth and is he to whom God said before the beginning
of the world. Let us make men after our own imao;e and like-
ness." In the second Epistle to the Corinthians, too. Clement
says (chapter ix. 5) that " Christ was a spirit who took flesh tind
360 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
saved us." So that up to this point the evolution of the nature
of Jesus has ai-rived at the stage in which he is the Son of God,
begotten by God, and having pre-existence with God from
before the foundation of the world. Only a single step more
is necessary to bring us to his being a part of God Himself, an
inseparable part, aspect, or function of the Deity; and this
step accordingly was taken by John. With him Jesus
becomes as a real personality, what the Logos was in the
abstract systems of the philosophers, viz., the Reason of God,
who not only was begotten by God, but was in the beginning
with God and indeed Avas God. He was at once both the
means and the end of creation, both the life of the world and
the light and life of men. And accordingly the metaphor
used to describe his nature now suddenly changes. From being
in the Acts, a Servant ; in Peter and John, a Lamb ; in the
Hebrews, an eternal High Priest ; in Corinthians, the Man
from Heaven ; in the Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians,
the Son of God — all of which imply a Being inferior to and
apart from God — he now becomes the Light of the World, the
Eternal Logos, and the Bread of Life ; that is to say he
becomes a part as it were of God Himself, though still, it is
true, not quite equal in dignity to God the Father, inasmuch as
his manifestation and incarnation take their rise in the will and
on the initiative of the Father. This view of his nature and
office is continued by Ignatius the disciple of John, who in his
Epistle to the Magnesians (chapter viii. 2) says, " There is one
God who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son,
who is the Eternal Logos; " and in chapter vii. 2, "There is
one Jesus Christ who proceeded from the Father, and exists in
One, and is returned to One." Again, in his letter to the
Ephesians (chapter vii. 2), he says, " There is one Physician
Jesus Christ our Lord, both fleshly and spiritual; made
and not made ; God incarnate and true Life in Death ;
both of Mary and of God; first passible and then im-
passible," etc.
APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 361
But before this point was reached many enemies had to he
put under foot; indeed although in tlie end inevitable these
successive stages in the evolution of the doctrine did not take
place spontaneously, but were drawn forth by hostile opinions
current at the time — opinions which had to be met not only by
argument but by Holy Writ embodied in texts Avhich were
freighted with all the weight of a Divine Authority. And it
will be observed that in no point of this evolution, from a good
man to a perfect man ; from a man lower than the angels to a
man exalted above the angels ; from a man glorified and exalted
after death to a man glorified and exalted before birth ; from a
Being in the image of God but created by God, to a Being
begotten of God and therefore the Son of God ; from the Son
of God to God Himself — at no point in this evolution is the
full personality of God, or the full personality of Christ broken,
at no point does God the Father become dissolved into a
philosophical abstraction like the Supreme Good of Plato, or
the Abyss of Gnosticism ; or God the Son, into the Logos of
the Neo-Platonists, or into one of the ajons of the Gnostic
sects. In the next chapter I shall endeavour to exhibit some
of the phases of the conflict of the Church with Gnosticism ; in
the meanwhile we may deal with another great obstruction
which had to be overcome in raising the conception of Jesus
from that of a man largely endowed with the Spirit of God, to that
of a God, viz., the popular belief in Angels and other heavenly
powers, who were not only supposed to bear rule over the
different departments of Nature and human life, but, under the
designation of Principalities and Powers, were believed to
belong to a higher race of beings and to have more power than
men, or indeed than any mere man, even Christ himself. This
struggle first makes its appearance perhaps in Paul, who in
wi-iting to the Romans says (chap. viii. oS), " I am persuaded
that neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor any other
creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Peter, too, in impressing
362 THE EVOLUTION OF CHEISTIxVNITY.
on the readers of his Epistle the great exaltation and dignity-
conferred on Jesus after his resurrection as he sits at the risht
hand of God, feels it necessary to add (I. Peter iii. 22), that
" angels and authorities and powers were made subject to him."
So deej)ly is this difficulty realized by the writer of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, that he feels obliged to demonstrate to his
readers by a variety of considerations that Jesus is indeed
higher than and has more power than the angels. In the first
place he says (chap. i. 5) that Jesus is called the Son of God,
whereas the angels were only creations of God and ministering
servants to those who were to be saved throuo;h Christ.
Besides, he was anointed by God above his fellows, and the
angels are commanded to worship him ; then again he has a
position at the right hand of God with his enemies as his foot-
stool ; and while the angels are ministering spirits Jesus has a
throne for ever and ever, etc, — from all of which he argues that
if the Law which was given by these angels was steadfast, so
that none escaped punishment who violated its provisions, much
more would those be punished who neglected the greater
salvation brought by Jesus.
But not only were the Apostles obliged to vindicate the
superiority of Jesus over these heavenly beings, but they were
obliged if people were not to be drawn away by them, to assert
also his power over them. In Colossians ii. 15, it is said that
Jesus having put off from himself the principalities and the
powers made a show of them openly, triumphing over them
in his cross. And again (ver. 18), " Let no man rob you of your
prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels,"
instead of holding fast by Christ the Head. Of the universal
belief in the power of these angels and principalities and powers,
no doubt can be left after the declaration (Ephesians vi. 12),
that " our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against
the principalities and powers, against the world-rulers of this
darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places." But that Christ has power over them
APOSTOLIC CIIRISTIANIXr. 3Ga
notwithstanding, is further made good by a text from Colossians
where it is said (chapter i. 16) that he created them, and existed
before them. And that this authority might be seen to embrace
not only the angels and principalities of the Jewish heavens,
but the jeons and emanations which made up the fidness of
the Godhead in the various svstems of Gnosticism, the writer of
the Epistle to the Colossians after warning the believers against
philosophy and the vain conceits of men, winds up with the
declaration (Colossians ii. i)), "for in him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full
who is the head of all principality and power." Having in this
way got rid of the hosts of angels and heavenly spirits who, in
the popular mind, stood in the way of the full recognition of the
supreme power and Godhead of Christ, we have now to see
how the Church disposed of the subtleties of Pagan philosophy
which were imported into it by the more intellectual and
cultured of the Pagan converts, and which by dissolving the
personality both of God and Christ into abstractions, would
have strangled Christianity before its triumph had yet begun.
CHAPTER VII.
GNOSTICISM.
XN tlie evolution of the conception of Jesus from the point in
which lie was primarily a man to that in which he was
primarily a God, Early Christianity had more dangerous foes to
deal with than those Angels, Principalities, and Powers of the
popular belief, which so exercised the minds of the Apostles
and the Apostolic Fathers. Men of culture drawn on the one
hand to Christianity by the spectacle of its sublime and glorious
martyrdoms, and repelled from it on the other by what they
conceived to be its simple and unsophisticated philosophy — a
philosophy in which God, as with children, does everything
and makes everything at Ilis own will and pleasure — felt
impelled to seek some scheme of salvation which while includ-
ing Jesus and his work as a main or important factor, should at
the same time be more in harmony with the enlightenment and
culture of the time. And as result we have those heresies
which in the history of the Church are included under the
general name of Gnosticism. So complicated, however, are
the details of many of these systems that it would be as useless
as it would be tedious to enter into any minute description of
them here. The purpose of this chapter will be sufficiently
served, if I shall succeed in indicating in a general way the main
features of their structure, and the elements out of which they
were composed.
GNOSTICISM. 365
To begin with, then, we may say that the general framework
of them all was that great system of Platonic Philosophy
which ruled the Pagan world from its inception by Plato until
its absorption by and extinction in Christianity — that great
system to which nearly all the schools except the ^Materialists
^ *' *■
were indebted, and to which as to a fountain they had again
and again to return to replenish their exhausted streams — a
system, it may be said in passing, without a knowledge of
which no understanding of intellectual Paganism is possible.
In its reach and magnificence it often seems to me to resemble
the great scheme of Pauline Christianity to which the Church
has had to revert at eyery crisis of its history for weapons
either of offence or of defence, and to which orthodox and
heretic alike, whether it be a ^larcion, an Augustine, or a
Luther, haye triumphantly appealed. Now Gnosticism was the
latest of those semi-religious, semi-philosophical systems which
were fitted into this colossal framework and mould of
Platonism. It consisted of yarious and complex elements,
drawn not only from Syrian and Egyptian Nature- worship, but
from Pythagorean philosophy, from Judaism, and from
Chi'istlanity ; and all so subtly and ingeniously compounded,
so skilfully and harmoniously inlaid, as to form a figure not
only of Oriental richness and comj^lexity, but also in some of
its systems (as for example In that of Valentlnus) of rare poetic
beauty. To bring out the meaning and significance which
these systems had for Christianity, as well as their connexions
with other forms of Platonism, a few general remarks drawn from
former chapters will perhaps be necessary. In the chapters on
the Eyolutlon of Greek Thou2:ht we saw that the reason why
Ancient Philosophy could neyer get beyond the great frame-
work of Platonism, and why the utmost it could do was to
unite by different causal principles the original elements drawn
from Platonism, was because Platonism was at once the most
comprehensive and the most subtle analysis of the statical
constituents of the world and the human mind, possible before
366 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
the great discoveries of ^Modern Physical Science. Plato him-
self had laid all his predecessors under contribution, taking
from one and another some old element or principle, but so
modifying, re-arranging and co-ordinating them all as to pro-
duce not only a most logical and symmetrical but a most
beautiful and poetic whole. From Anaximander he got his
great basal principle of the dirapov, the vague indefinite
principle of all Matter, but, as we saw in a former chapter,
instead of conceiving it as made up of tangible masses of fire,
air, earth, and water as Empedocles had done, he figured it
rather with Democritus and Anaxagoras as made up of
invisible atoms or particles ; modifying these in the way we
have seen. His second principle, viz., that of Number,
not only combined these atoms into the tangible elements
of fire, air, earth, and water, but these elements
aorain into the different forms and figures of the
visible world. This lie got from Pythagoras, but he so
■extended it as to make it explain ideal and artistic forms also.
His third and still higher principle, his system of Ideas, that
is to say the inner and invisible natures of things as distinct
from their outward and visible forms, he arrived at by taking
the general ideas of man, dog, horse, tree, etc., which Socrates
had got by abstraction from particular men, dogs, horses, trees,
€tc., and giving to them an independent, objective existence of
their own as real individual entities. So, too, his last and
highest principle of all, the Sujireme Good as he called it, which
corresponded to our idea of God, he got from Anaxagoras ;
but in his hands it grew from a mere arranging and disposing
principle to be the Soul also of the Good, the Beautiful, and
the True. Now these four principles of the Supreme Good,
the system of Ideas, Number and the a-n-eipov were believed by
Plato himself to have lain in the still eternity as so many
isolated and separate existences until Time began, when they
were mixed and compounded by the Supreme Good or First
Principle — in his capacity of Demiurge — into the immense
GNOSTICISM. 367
miscellany of things known as the world. But although as a
statical theory of the world, that is to say as an analysis of the
existing constitution and elements of things at any given point
of time, as for example, of a horse, a tree, a dog, a man, this
is as just and comprehensive a scheme perhaps as could possibly
have been framed in the absence of Physical Science, still there
was in it no principle of evolution, nothing to explain the
regulated changes gone through by things in their progress
through birth, maturity, and decay. It was, as we have said,
a mechanical union merely, the only pretence of a principle of
change in it being the unregulated movements among the little
triansfular atoms of the d-:raf(jv. caused like the movements of
the pieces of ice in a bag, by outside pressure merely. Now
it was to remedy this dynamical deficiency in the philosophy of
Plato that Aristotle entered on his labours. Taking his stand
on the great elements bequeathed to him by Plato, he tried to
introduce among them a principle of evolution, that is to say
of orderly and regulated change — or in a word, of physical
causation. To do this he had recourse to the ordinary laws of
motion, and so arranged it that by their own movements alone
Matter (the fourth principle of Plato) and the system of Ideas
(the second principle) would by their action and interaction
mutually generate each other as they rolled on together. But
in doing this he sacrificed entirely Plato's great principle of
Number ; and so while explaining by his new theory the orderly
movement and progression of things, he left the entire
range of phenomena included under outer visible form quite
unaccounted for. The Stoics who followed him fell into a
different error. In their anxiety to get a pure Pantheism, with
Matter on one side and Spirit on the other, they mixed
and confounded together the carefullv distinouished elements
of Plato, and used such heterogeneous and widely difterent
categories as God, Ideas, Fire, Ether, Motion, and Fate, as if
they were interchangeable terms — a fatal confusion of thought.
It was evident that there was no way of getting a theory of
368 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
the world that should be at once statically and dynamically
satisfactory on the ordinary laws of Causation and Motion,
without sacrificing one or other of the great statical principles
of Plato, or confounding them together. There was no alterna-
tive left to Philosophy therefore but to go back to these
principles of Plato, and to try and find some new principle of
Causation or Motion to account for their dynamics, that is to
say for their regulated evolution and change. This new principle
Neo-Platonism found in the theory of Emanation which was
drawn from the analogy of Light and differed from the
ordinary laws of causation in this, that whereas in ordinary
causation the cause is lost, as it were, in the effect and passes
over into it — as for example fire and wood into smoke and ashes —
in Emanation the cause still remains as cause even after it has
produced its effect, as the light even after it has reached the
earth still remains, and as the Ancients believed undiminished,
in the Sun. So that in the Neo-Platonic theory we have the
first principle of Plato— the Supreme Good — for ever radiating
from itself the second principle, viz., the System of Ideas, or the
invisible and inner natures of things ; and from these again, the
'vital principles' or 'souls' of things, which were always conceived
as havino; extension like ghosts : which again ai'e radiated out-
ward until they are embodied in Matter, the fourth principle, to
give them their physical characteristics of solidity, texture, and
so on. Now this philosophy of Neo-Platonism was the rising
philosophy of the Schools at the tinie of which I am writing,
viz., about the beginning and middle of the second century ; but
being a pure philosophy dealing with essences and abstractions,
and not a religion dealing with j^ersonal wills, it held its course
alongside of Christianity and parallel to it, without being
absorbed by it. It was not until Christianity, partly by its own
inner development, and partly by borrowing from its rival, had
developed a Trinity of Wills (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit),
corresponding to the Neo-Platonic Trinity of Essences (the
Supreme Cause, the Logos, and the World-Soul), that it was
GNOSTICISM. 369
able to absorb Neo-Platonism into itself. And in passing it
mav not be unnecessary to remark that the reason why a
system of personal Wills must for ever displace in the popular
mind a parallel system of Essences or Abstractions, and
Religion therefore must displace every form of Metaphysical
Philosophy when it comes into collision with it, is because the
only conception or experience which the human mind has of
cause is that of will — all other causes, however fantastically
dressed up by philosophers to look like real causes, being names
merely for orderly effects doing duty as causes for the time
being, and for convenience only.
But to return. In Gnosticism we have still the same frame-
work of Platonism, but with its great elements connected
too-ether by yet another principle of Causation. This time it
is the principle of generation, a principle which operates
through pairs of opposites, male and female, and which was
adopted from the Syrian and Egyptian Nature-worship as seen
in the worship of the popular deities Baal and Astarte, Isis and
Osiris, and the rest. And here we may observe that whatever
proceeds on the analogy of generation and has male and female
elements in it, is susceptible of being invested with a kind of
quasi-personality, and so any system of thought founded on it,
unlike one founded on the mere emanation of abstract essences
as in Neo-Platonism, is capable of Ijeing incorporated with
Religion. And hence it was that while Neo-Platonism pursued
an independent existence alongside of the Church until the
time was ripe for the Church to absorb it, Gnosticism crept
into the Church from the very first, and had to be violently
expelled if Christianity were not to come to a sudden end. A
brief description of the most influential and ingenious of the
Gnostic systems, that, viz., of Valentinus, will serve to bring
out the main characteristics of their structure, and the subtle
poison Avhich lay concealed at their heart. But first a word or
two of contrast with Neo-Platonism may be useful, perhaps,
to exhibit more clearly the purely religious side of Gnosticism.
A A
370 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
In Neo-Platonism from a single ineffable centre of Light,
rays are shot out to an indefinite distance into the surrounding
darkness. It is evident, therefore, that at no definite point can
Evil or Sin be said to have suddenly entered the world. In
this system, accordingly, there can be nothing catastrophic like
the Fall of Man, which in Christianity resulted from a
momentary and conscious act of the will in choosing evil rather
than good ; at most there can only be a greater or lesser admix-
ture of the rays of light with the darkness which surrounds them
and which makes itself felt the more, the farther the distance
from their source. Evil, in consequence, enters softly and
imperceptibly like the gradual passage of noon into evening
and evening into twilight and night. The problem of re-
demjition, accordingly, in this system consists not in au}'^
sudden rioht-about-face of the heart and wi'l as in the
O
' conversion ' of Christianity, but in getting hold of those
enfeebled rays which, farthest from their source, are sunk and
embedded in the darkness of the material world around us,
holding on to these until by thought and abstraction we climb
successively through their vital principles or souls to the
invisible, archetypal ideas and principles at their core (the
farthest point that can be reached by conscious thought), and
then by asceticism, mortification, and subjugation of the body,
so etherealizing the soul as to reach that state of ecstasy
through Avhich alone a glimpse may be had of the ineflTable
Centre of Light itself.
And now if we substitute for this Neo-Platonic principle of
Emanation, the Gnostic principle of Generation from male and
female opposites, it is evident that in the normal process of
o;eneration Evil could not enter at all, for what is bred of the
pure elements must always be pure and true. It is also evident
that if evil did enter, it must enter by some flaw in the process
of generation ; and moreover it must enter as in Christianity
suddenly at the point where the flaw in generation occurs, and
not, as in Neo-Platonism, gradually and imperceptibly from the
GNOSTICISM. 371
<yreater and 2;reater admixture of darkness with the li2;ht.
Accordingly in the system of Valentinus which these pre-
liminaries will have prepared the reader to follow without
difficulty, instead of a single Ineffable Being and Centre of
Light, we have a double Supreme Cause, as it were, made up
of male and female elements. The male element is known as
the Abyss, the female, his partner, as Silence, and from the
union of these two issue the second couple, viz., Intellect and
Truth, and from these two the Logos and Life. Now these
three couples constitute a Gnostic Trinity as it were, corres-
ponding to the Supreme One, the Logos, and the World-Soul
of Neo-Platonism, and to what Avas afterwards to become the
Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in orthodox
Christianity. From these again proceeded in regular genea-
logical succession ten or twelve couples of aaons as they wei-e
called, male and female — spiritual existences, half personal, half
abstract, who corresponded in their way to the angelic hosts of
Christianity, and who with the Trinity above-mentioned made
up the Pleroma or fulness of the heavenly existences and
powers. And now we have to ask, how in this system did our
sublunary world arise, with its evil, imperfections, and sin '?
It did not arise as in orthodox Christianity from the rebellious
will of one of the angelic spirits, and the subsequent weakness
of will of the first man ; nor did it arise as in Neo-lMatonism from
the darkness closing in more and more around the pure efful-
gence of the Supreme Cause; but was due to the aspiration of the
female partner of the last and lowest of the couples of reons or
angels of the Heavenly "World (Sophia, she was called) to know
the Supreme Cause of all, the xYbyss Himself, and to be united
with Him, instead of resting satisfied with her own partner ; —
a hopeless aspiration, for the Supreme Cause could be known
by one of the Trinity, His own first-born offspring Intellect,
and by him alone. Now the result of this unsatisfied desire
of the female angel Sophia, was the birth of an abortion named
Achamoth, who being sprung from the female alone was a
372 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANlTlf.
thing of mere desire and passion without knowledge, and in
consequence had to be flung out beyond the bounds of Heaven
and the circle of light and glory, like Satan the rebel angel of
orthodox Christianity. It was from the feelings of this
offspring of a fallen angel that the world, in the Gnostic system
of Valentinus, was believed to have been precipitated ; his
sadness forming its material element ; his tears the streams,
rivers, and fountains; his joy, the light; and his despair, the
empire of the demons, and so on. But the actual mingling and
compounding of these elements into separate concrete existences,
— men, animals, and things, — was the work of a special creation
of Achamoth called the Demiurge, whom some Gnostics
believed to be the same Being as the Jehovah of the Jews, but
whom others identified with the Devil himself. But as some
sparks of the heavenly nature which Achamoth had inherited
from Sophia had got mixed up with the other elements in the
compounding of Man, the Avhole problem of Redemption was
centred in how to get this Divine spark released from its
bondao^e to the Deraiuro;e who had created man and was now
his lord and master, and to re-unite it with the Divine Beings
from whom it sprang in the Heavenly Pleroma. And this was
done by the whole company of the roons or angels combining
to produce the perfect Christ who descending on the man
Jesus at his baptism, came to give men a glimpse of their
heavenly home. But in these Gnostic systems a different
destiny was in store for the different classes of believers. To
the ignorant and vulgar who accepted Christ and his work in
simple faith, and to those who were converted by his miracles, a
lower position was assigned ; it was only to the elect, to the
cultured, and to those who were indoctrinated with the scheme
which I have now presented, and who, in consequence, hieiv
the mystery never unfolded before, viz., that the Supreme God,
first revealed by Christ to the chosen few, was a different Being
from the Demiurge or Jehovah of the Jews whom until now
they had believed him to be ; — it was only to these that
GNOSTICISM. 373
permission was given to unite eacli with his or her angelic
partner in the Highest Heaven, and to have a place, as it were,
in the immediate presence of God.
The above is only a rough general sketch of one of the most
important of the Gnostic systems, but it is quite sufficiently
detailed for my purpose here, Avhich is to so exhibit their
general structure that their relations to orthodox Christianity
may be clearly seen. There were many of these systems,
associated with such names as that of Basilides, Ptolomajus,
Cerdo, Heracleon, etc., all of them differing more or less in
detail, and each with its own circle of influence and authority.
What we have now to do is so to exhibit their main
elements that, when compared with the corresponding doctrines
of Christianity, the reason why the Church was obliged for its
own preservation to extrude Gnosticism from its midst may be
clearly seen.
To begin with then we may say that Heligions in general are
Philosophies of the World constructed out of the elements of
Personal Wills rather than out of Essences and Abstractions
as in Metaphysics^ or out of general Laws of Nature as in
Science ; and further that other things being equal, that
religion is the most perfect in which these Wills are most
nearly reduced to a connected unity, to a single complete and
harmonious Avhole. From this point of view Christianity
may be said to be the most perfect of all extant religions,
having had all its parts moulded into harmony in the course
of many centuries by the most ingenious, subtle, and original
minds. For although the very essence of Will is that it
should be able to do as it chooses, the most superficial glance
at the structure of Christianity will show that in it are no
altoo-ether unrelated wills, but that however wide mav be
their range and however errant their course, they are all
rounded in by some controlling Will at the centre of things ;
like comets which, however far they may seem to stray
beyond the planetary range, must all in the end be drawn
37-1: THE EA'OLUTIOX OF CIIRTSTTAXITY
back to the Sun ao-ain. It was bv tlie Will of God, for
example, that the world was made ; It was by His Will
too that angels and men were created. It was by the
rebellious wills of these same angels and men that Evil and
Sin entered the world, and Ijy their wills too that it is
perpetuated. But it was only by the Will of God that they
were permitted to have their will in rebelling ; and it is still
by God's Will that a scheme of redemption has been devised
which shall ensure that these rebellious wills shall be drawn
back to harmony and accord with His own again. It was
the Will of God that made the body and passions of Man ;
and these same passions that are the ministers of Evil can
be transformed by His will (or by the will of Man wrought upon
by His Spirit) into ministers of Good. At all points the unity
is unbroken, the harmony complete. There are three Wills
in the Trinit}', and yet these three Wills are but One Will.
Jesus is matter and spirit, body and soul, Man and God^
and yet, being animated by one will, these are one and not
two ; having one will, his humanity is all Godlike, and his
Godhead all human, and so on. And lastly, Salvation is not
a matter of trying to separate the soul from the body, but
is merely the turning from evil to good of the one will which
is common to both.
And now we have to see how this scheme of harmonious
unity would be rent in twain by Gnosticism. To begin with,
the God who created the world and man, viz., the Demiurge,
is not the same but a different and inferior God to the Supreme
God who created the angels and the heavenly powers ; and is a
Being over whose will the will of the Supreme God has no
control. He was the God of the Jews and of the Old Testa-
ment, while the Supreme God was the God of Jesus and of the
New Testament — and that too at a time when the proofs of the
truth of the New Dispensation had mainly to be drawn from
the Old Testament Scriptures, and when, in consequence, the
same God must be the inspirer of both. And further, while
GNOSTICISM. 375
this inferior God, this Demiurge, this Jehovah, liad a real
personahty and coukl be worshipped, the Supreme God in spite
of male and female elements had none, but was an abstract
Being whom it would be as difficult to worship as the Law of
Gravitation or the North Pole. So, too, the body with its
passions being made by one God, and the soul or spirit by
another, there was no possibility of the sin and evil of the one
being acted upon by the spii'itual nature of the other. And
accordingly in these Gnostic systems Jesus is never a single
undivided personality, the God-Man, but is either as with the
Ebionites a mere man on whom the spirit of God descended at
his baptism, to leave him again before the passion ; or a mere
Spirit, as with the Docetists, a ghost, a phantom, an appearance
merely, whose body had no existence at all. In the same way
the body and soul of man being the creation of two different
Gods, Salvation could not be accomplished as in orthodoxy by
the Spirit of the one God transforming both body and soul
through the will common to both, but only by first mortifying
the body and extirpating its passions by maceration and
asceticism, and then relying on the effect which the mere
knowledge of the existence of another and a holier God than
the one who made the body, would have on the character and
life.
The function of Jesus, therefore, in these systems Avas not
to put down the kingdom of Satan or the Demiurge by a
change of the heart and will through the transforming S[)irit
of God ; but only to draw off the minds of men, as it were,
from the Devil and all his works by concentrating them on the
ineffable Being or Abstraction who was only to be known
through his teachino-. The Gnostic scheme of salvation, in a
word, v/as not for the world at large, but only for superior
persons ; not for the simple-minded, but for the intellectual, the
cultured, the elect. So that whereas in orthodox Christianity
we have a hierarchy of wills so related as to form a consistent
and harmonious whole — a scheme in which although all wills are
376 THE EVOLUTION OF CHKISTIANITY.
free yet none are isolated or independent ; where the same will
that made the soul of man made the world : the same will that
conferred free-will on man and so permitted evil, arranged also
for the suppression and extinction of that evil ; where the
same will that constituted the spirit of Jesus God-like and
pure, kept his flesh also God-like and pure ; a scheme where it
is the same will in man that having enlisted his spirit to the
service of Christ, has power to enlist his flesh also ; — in
Gnosticism instead of this union and harmony of wills we have
everywhere distinction and division; the God of Nature and
Man different from the Supreme God; the body of Christ
divided from his Spirit and beyond its influence ; the body of
man separated from his spirit and outside its control; a
diff^erent scheme of salvation for the vulgar and the elect : a
diflferent destiny for those who are saved by faith and for those
saved by knowledge ; a Code of ]\Iorality not depending on the
support which the Holy Spirit can lend to the human mind in
overcoming temptation, but left to the mere impulses of nature ;
and a destiny, in consequence, not within the reach of all, but
depending on the ability and capacity which were only vouch-
safed to the few. One sees, in fine, that had Gnosticism not
been extruded from the bosom of the Church, it would have
torn it to pieces. By its two different Gods it would have
brought back the Polytheism and Devil-worship of Paganism ;
by its contempt of the body, the extremes of asceticism or
sensuality ; and by its separation of the body from the spirit it
would have made of Christ either a God or a Man, but not the
God-Man.
And now to return to the more immediate object of this
chapter, which is to show how it was that Gnosticism stood in
the way of the evolution of the conception of Jesus as a man to
the conception of him as a God equal to the Father. From
the above outline of the doctrine it is at once apparent that in
this system Jesus far from being the only Being who knows the
Father and is on an equality with Him, as in oithodox
GNOSTICISM. 377
Chiistianlty, is subordinate even to the thirty ajons or angels
who hold the lowest rank in the hierarchy of the heavenly
powers. He is formed by them and so is inferior to them ; as
they in turn are immeasureably inferior to the persons of the
Godhead, one of whom alone, Monogenes or Intellect, knows
the mind of the highest God of all.
Now Gnosticism while easily creeping into the Church on
account of the semi-personality of its active agents, male and
female, its asons, etc., was when seen to be dangerous, easily
expelled again, on account of the metaphysical, half-unreal
nature of these same powers. It was not until its hierarchy of
lifeless emanations and abstractions were swept away and their
place taken by real personalities, that it became a standing-
menace to the Church. This transformation was effected
during the middle of the second century by ^larcion, the most
dangerous enemy the Church had yet known, and the one
whose influence was the deepest and most far-reaching. What
he did was to take the general framework of Gnosticism such as
1 have described it, and brushing away all the impalpable
emanations of male and female essences which made up the
Godhead, to put in their place the Supreme God alone — a full
and living personality. This Supreme God was all Love and
^lercy, but had created nothing ; our world of sin and evil and
imperfection being the work of the Demiurge whom ^larcion
identified with the Jehovah of the Jews. AYith this as basis
and skeleton he then follows the Apostle Paul — especially in
his distinction between Law and Gospel, Nature and Grace,
Works and Faith, Flesh and Spirit, Sin and Kighteousness,
the Old Dispensation and the New. But instead of seeing
with Paul that these were but different stages, an earlier and a
later, a preliminary and a final, in one single scheme of salvation
for men, the work of one and the same God adapting His means
to different stages of civilization and culture, he boldly cut the
process in two, ascribing the sin and misery of the world,
together with the Mosaic Law and the ordinances devised to
o
78 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
remedy the existing state of things, to the Demiurge or Jewish
.Fehovah, whom he figured as the God of Nature, of Law and
Justice, etc. ; while reserving salvation to a Supreme God
unknown until Jesus came to reveal Him ; a God of Love and
Mercy quite different from the other ; a God not of Works
but of Faith ; not of Wrath and Justice but of Love ; not of
Creation but of Kedemption. And accordingly he refused to
consider Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, who as he believed was
still to come as an earthly potentate. Now^ from these main
positions all the rest of Marcion's system naturally follows —
Matter and Flesh being entirely the creation of the Demiurge
or Jehovah, it follow-ed that Jesus who came to reveal the true
God could have had no real material body, for this would have
been a degradation ; he was a pure Spirit, he alleged, whO'
came down from Heaven in the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius, having a body which was one only in appearance. In
reality he was a pure feon or heavenly Spirit who neither was
born, suffered, nor died. Salvation accordingly was in this
svstem, as in the other Gnostic systems, a matter of hioioledge
and illumination, and not, as In orthodoxy, a matter of faith
and trust in the sacrifice of one who while he was the Son of
God and himself God, was at the same time a man like our-
selves.
Such was the heresy of ISIarcion, a heresy especially
dano-erous from the narrow line that separated it from orthodoxy
and from the teaching of the Apostle Paul. Had it succeeded
In establishing itself It would have rent the Church In twain,
as Indeed for the time l)eing It was well nigh doing. It
would have separated the God of Creation from the God of
IJedemptlon, the Earthly nature of Christ from his Divine
nature, the body of man from his spirit and soul. It had to
be expelled, and we have now to ask how this was accomplished.
The main Instrument and authority In putting down this as
well as all the other Gnostic systems was the Gospel of St.
John, which although written before many of these systems were
GNOSTICISM. 379
promnlgatetl, contnined, especially In its prologue, texts Nvhich
while framed in the first instance to meet earlier systems of
Gnosticism, were equally decisive against these later and more
elaborate forms. In Gnosticism it will be remembered, Christ
is not one of the Godhead nor did he exist in the beginning
with God, but is merely the offspring of the subordinate reons
or angels. This was at once swept away by the first words of
the first chapter of John : " In the beginning was the Woi'd "
or Christ, " and the Word was with God and the Word was
God, the same was in the beginning with God." In Gnosticism,
again, Intellect is the only begotten of the Father ; in John
(chapter i. 14) Christ is the only begotten of the Father.
With both the Gnostics and Marcion, again, it is the Demiurge
who Is the Creator of the World ; with John (chapter I. 3)
all things are made by Christ. In Gnosticism Christ is not
the lio-lit and life of the world but only the revealer and
announcer of the light ; in .Toiin (chapter i. 4) he is himself
the lio'ht and life of men. In Gnosticism and with Marcion
the body of Jesus was either separate from his Spirit or was
only an appearance ; John identifies the Logos, the Light and
Life of men, with the man Jesus Christ as a whole man, body,
soul, and spirit, a single undivided personality.
But besides heresies like that of Gnosticism, which hindered
the ascent in evolution of Jesus from a man to a God by reason
of the angels and asons who thronged the upper flights of the
staircase of existence, there were other heresies that hindered
his ascent by reason of the heavy human clogs with which they
weighted his humanity — heresies, viz., that refused him any
hioher status than that of a man hiirhly favoured b}' God, but
still a man. These were a survival of the old original Chris-
tianity of the primitive .Icrusalem Church whom the siege and
destruction of Jerusalem 1)y Titus had driven for refuge beyond
the Jordan. There in the little (own of Pella, they continued
to teach the doctrines which had been delivered to them by the
personal disciples of the Lord — doctrines which the longer they
380 ' THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
lasted reverted more and more to the Judaism from which they
originally sprang. These doctrines although varying in detail
among the different sects, and in the degree to which they
approximated to pure Judaism, Avere afterwards lumped to-
gether under the general name of the Ebionitic Heresy. The
ground common to nearly all of them was that Jesus was a
mere man born of Joseph and Mary who had been raised by
his piety to his present exalted position, but whose life-work
and teaching formed no break, but were a mere continuation of
the Law of Moses which still remained as binding as before.
The stricter of these sects, the Ebionites proper — those who had
remained beyond the Jordan far from the contact of the
Gentile world, and who accepted the traditions of the Pharisees
as well as the Law of Moses — made circumcision and the other
rites of the Law binding on Gentile as well as Jew. But the
more moderate of them, the Nazarenes as they were called —
those who had returned to Jerusalem after the re-building of
the city by Hadrian and who had come in consequence more
into contact with the Gentile Christians — rejected the traditions
of the Scribes and Pharisees, and made circumcision obligatory
only on converts of Jewish birth. A third section again,
represented by the author of the Clementine Homilies, was
allied in many points of doctrine to the Essenes, of which sect,
indeed, they were in all probability an offshoot. Their doctrines
might be described as a kind of universalist Judaism, as that of
St. Paul was a kind of universalist Christianity. According to
them there was only one Divine religion, the same throughout
from Adam to Jesus, (except that it had been now and then
corrupted by false prophecy) and that religion was Judaism;
Christianity being only a part of it, an extension of it. Jesus
himself was not divine, but was a prophet and perfectly holy
man. He had appeared before in history ; first as the ideal
Adam of Paradise who was made in the image of God ; then as
Moses ; and now in these later times as Jesus. In this system
baptism took the place of circumcision; ablutions as with the
GNOSTICISM. 381
Essenes the place of sacrifice ; and salvation was a matter of
legal observances and not of faith. The system was in frame-
work a kind of Gnosticism, filled in with Jewish rather than
with Pao-an elements. For instead of a Godhead consistino- of
sets of Divine principles male and female, there was but one
God, who however had a body and was enclosed in a vast void.
Instead of Evil existing outs>ide of Him, it was contained within
Him. Indeed, they believed He was made up of good and bad
elements, male and female, AVisdom and Satan ; and in this way
they accounted for the dualism that bisects Nature and runs
through all existence; Heaven and Earth, Day and Night,
Angels and Demons, Judaism and Paganism, Monotheism and
Polytheism, and so on.
Now these Ebionite heresies, again, like those of Gnosticism,
were all alike brushed aside by the authority of the gospel of
St. John, as enforced and interpreted by Irenaeus, Tertidlian,
and others of the early Fathers, where Jesus instead of being
represented as a man, is everywhere represented as the incarnate
Logos, as God Himself and the Son of God. In chapter x.
30, it is said, " I and my Father are One." In chapter xiv. 9,
" He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ;" in verse 10,
" I am in the Father and the Father in me," etc.
And so, with this ascent of Jesus from being a man to
beinsr the Son of God and a Person of the Godhead — and the
consequent abolition of all angels, principalities, a^ons, and the
like who stood in the way of his full Divinity — the age of
Apostolic Christianity closes. The next stage will consist in
the evolution of Jesus from beino- the Son of God begotten of
God but not yet equal or co-eternal with God, to the point
where he is both co-equal and co-eternal with Him ; and in
the evolution of the Holy Ghost from being an emanation or
effluence of God merely, to being a Person of the Godhead
co-equal and co-eternal with both the Father and the Son.
CHAPTER Vlir.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON.
A T this point it may be as well perhaps to pause with the
-^-^ view of bringino- into line certain aspects in the
Evolution of Christianity which have unavoidably been allowed
to lag behind in the course of this history, as preliminary to a
further advance. Many if not all of these will most fitly find
their jjlace in connexion with the formation of the New
Testament Canon, some account of which it is now necessary
that I should lay before the reader. It will be remembered
that our uniform contention throughout this work has been
that the supreme importance of Christianity to the world lay
not so much in the present or prospective joys which it
opened up before the imaginations of men for their contem-
plation and delight, stimulating and sustaining as these have been,
as in the precious cargo of morality with which it was freighted
as trustee for the whole human race. And it has been our
furtlier contention that before it could supplant the high
civilization and culture of the Pagan world, it was necessary
that its ' Scheme of Salvation ' should not only be harmonious
and logic-proof at all points, but that it should be capable of
being given like some rare gem an appropriate setting in a
great scheme of World-thought — that is to say that it should
be callable of being expanded into a World-philosophy as well
— as into a World-religion. But on enquiring as to how this
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 383
was to be effected, it was found tliat it could only be done by
taking the life and work of Jesus and lifting them out of their
relations to time and place, to circumstance and environment,
and making them a mere episode as it were in some great
vScheme of Redemption let down from on high for the salvation
of men ; and so giving them an immutable, fixed, and eternal
chnracter. And yet when one came to consider it carefully,
it seemed clear that however necessary some scheme of this
kind might be for the subjugation of the great Pagan world,
still the truth or falsehood of Christianity must primarily and
always be a question of historical fact ; and further that before
any philosophical framework in wliicli it could be set could
have the least chance of success, not only the facts of the life,
death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, but above all the
meanino; and sio-niflcance of these facts, must be so safe-guarded
at all points as to be put beyond the reach of change, cavil, or
decay. But it soon became evident that what with the deep-
lying scepticism with which the pi'etensions and claims of one
coming in the humble guise and environment of Jesus were
sure to be met among the cultured both of the Jews and
Greeks ; what with the corroding effects of Time in dulling the
impact and obliterating the memory of all mortal things ; — it
was evident that when once the original eye-witnesses and the
generation immediately in touch with tliem had passed away
something more than the mere traditions of the Church, or eve-
the personal memoirs left by the Apostles, was necessary if the
precious facts of the life and death of Jesus with all they
meant for the world and mankind were to retain their oris^inal
integrity and purity undlmmcd. And yet where else was the
Church to look for proof — to Avhat else could she appeal?
Many of the converts, it was well known, as well as many who
had been in doubt and perplexity, had been vouchsafed visions
of the risen Jesus, persuading, comforting, and consoling ; but
although many conversions had been due to these visitations,
and the faith of many had been indcfmitely strengthened
384 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
thereby, stili in spite of the burning enthusiasm and belief
which they engendered in those thus privileged (as notably in
the case of Paul), they were at best but individual and personal
experiences, and so were untransferable in their full impres-
siveness to other minds. Some external evidence or authority
more relevant than this was clearly needed if the doubts and
perplexities of the Pagan world were to be removed.
Now if it could be shown that some person or persons
laying claim to supernatural vision or acknowledged to be the
recipients of Divine communications, had in writings accessible
to all, and of undoubted antiquity, predicted that the facts of
the life and death of Jesus should take place in the way in
which they had taken place, and with the meaning and
significance which Jesus himself had claimed for them — would
not this be a form of proof which if it could be substantiated
ought to and would carry conviction to Jew and Greek alike —
and all the more so if the facts and their significance were of
that exceptional character which removed them fi'om the range
and power of all merely natural human penetration and insight?
Clearly it ought and would ; and hence it was that the ' proof
from prophecy ' as it was called, which had been of first
importance for the Church from the earliest ages, became now
that the eve-Avitnesses and the first o-eneration of believers had
passed away, the very citadel of the faith. And hence, too,
it was that the Old Testament Scriptures which safe-guarded
and enbalmed these prophecies, retained with the Christians as
with the Jews, their character as a first-hand Revelation from
God. Indeed, for the Church to have repudiated the Jewish
Scriptures along with the Jewish Religion would have been
to have destroyed the very foundation on which Christianity
itself reposed ; and must not and could not be. For if one
circumstance more than another could show how essential the
proof from prophecy was to the very existence of Christianity
it was this — that these early Christians should in the face of
the bitter persecutions which they met with at the hands of
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 385
the Jews, have consented to receive In all humility and on
bended knee these Scriptures of their dearest foes along with
the kicks and curses with which they were accompanied. As
well expect the souls of the Armenians butchered by the
Turks, to approach the throne of Grace Avith the words of the
Koran on their lips ! From all of which it will be readily
understood that compared with the Old Testament Scriptures
which was the source of these prophecies, even the memoirs of
the Apostles themselves must have held in the esteem of the
Church a position of quite secondary and subordinate im-
portance.
Of secondary authority too, when compared with the Old
Testament — although of very high importance to the Church
itself in all that concerned disputed questions of doctrine and
practice — must have been the Epistles of those Apostles who
had been the bosom companions of the Master, or who had
received their authority and commission from him. And yet
curiously enough, the Epistles of Paid which as the ages rolled
on became more and more the mainstay of the Church — so far
that is to say as its dogma was concerned — were in his own
time and so long as the eye-witnesses were alive (and especially
60 lono; as the safe-ouardins; of the historical facts was of life
and death moment for the Church), held in compai*atively little
esteem except of course in those mother-churches which he
had himself founded, or those daughter-churches which had
sprung from them. And this for several reasons. In the first
place he had not himself personally known Jesus in the flesh —
a point of much moment witli these early Christians and one
not lightly to be countervailed. In the second place although
his ethical teaching generally was one with that of Jesus, he
nowhere dwells lovingly like the other Evangelists on the facts
of the Life, and scarcely, if at all on those proofs from
Prophecy which alone could give these facts their real signifi-
cance either for the Church itself or for the world at lars^e. On
the contrary he eveiy where in his writings regards the mission
B B
386 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of Jesus and his appeai'ance among men as but mere episodes in
a great world-scheme of redemption planned in Heaven and
having its full significance only in the secret Councils of God.
And hence it Avas that during the long period in which the
historical facts of the Life and the Proofs from Prophecy were
the most pressing necessities for the Church, his writings were
relegated to an inferior and subordinate position — inferior not
only to the memoirs of the Evangelists, but to all those other
writings in which the facts of the Life and the proofs from
Prophecy were insisted upon. What befell them subsequently
we shall see further on.
In the meantime, with tlic second generation of believers a
new necessity had arisen for the Church — and that was that
the Historical Facts of the Life and Death should be g-iven
such a setting as would enable them to dovetail harmoniously
into some larger scheme of Thought, that is to say, into a
system of World-Philosophy. Now to meet this necessity the
Gnostics had already anticipated the Church, and had en-
deavoured in the way we have already seen, to fit the Gospel
into a complex syncretic scheme made up of Platonism,
Pythagoreanism, and Oriental Mysticism generally — a scheme
however which brought with it from Egyptian and Syrian
Nature-Worship so many impure and divergent elements, so
many elements that were incapable of amalgamating with the
simple faith of the Gospel, that had these heretics succeeded
in their endeavour to erect Christianity into a harmonious
system of philosophy, they would have wrecked it as a religion.
And accordingly we find that the Apostolic Fathers who
belong to this period — Clement, Barnabas, Hernias, Ignatius,
Polycarp, Diognetus, Papias and the rest — were so distracted
by the confused whirlwind of opinion blowing in on them from
all sides, that while holding on desperately in their extremity
to the Church Tradition as embodied in the ' Rule of Faith ' of
the Baptismal Confession, and clutching convulsively now at
this and now at that aspect of the faith, they managed to lose
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANOX. 387
both the whole-heartedness and simplicity of the Evangelists
and the all-round symmetry and completeness of Paul. Some
like Barnabas, for example, while clinging to the Proof from
Prophecy, degraded into a mere allegory the very Old
Testament which was the basis of that prophecy I Others
again, like Papias, clung to the Second Coming and the
immediate hopes of the Millenium, and ignored Paul and his
scheme of Salvation altogether. Some, again, like Ignatius
and Polycarp, imitated Paul in parts, but showed no signs of
having accepted his doctrines as a whole. But it is significant
of the trend that Christian thought was beginnino; to take,
that the only document perhaps to which all alike were agreed
in paying homage and respect, and on which they all seem to
have based their faith, was the Epistle to the Hebrews — in
which, it will be remembered, Jesus as the central point in the
Scheme of Eedemption is figured as a Sacrifice — the perfect
sacrifice wlio had * shed his blood for us ' after the manner of,
and as an analogy with the old Jewish sacrifices.
In the meantime a vast Apocryplial Literature had been
springing up, rank and luxuriant as a Brazilian forest, and over-
spreading the whole field of tradition, threatening by its very
thickness and density to bury out of sight the simple idylls of
the Gospel. These writings were for the most part based on
■our own Gospels, and were constructed generally on the simple
plan of taking the names of those characters who had received
bare mention in the Gospel narratives, tricking them out in all
manner of fantastic and legendary guises after the manner of
the Jewish Haggada, and filling in their original baldness of
incident with all manner of sentimental or pious details drawn
from the writers' own imaginations. Such were the histories
of Joseph, of Nicodemus ; the Acts of Pilate, of Philip, of
Thomas, of Paul and Thecla, and many others. One of the
favourite themes for the pens of these romancers, and around
which a world of fables hung, was the Infancy of Jesus — the
wonders which he performed in his cradle far out-doing the
388 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
classic exploit of the strangling of snakes by the Infant
Hercules. But all these histories were purely apocryphal, and
were, as Renan says, more like the verbiage of old gossips, and
the familiarity and vulgarity of nursery maids and wet-nurses,
than serious contributions to Christian Thought. Yet like the
legends of the Saints and Martyrs of Mediasval Catholicism,
they pleased the people by the free play they gave to sentiment,
imagination, and piet}' ; and it was from these Apocrypha that
the Apostles received each those special characteristics which
cluno; to their names down throuo^h the Middle Asres. It was
from them, too, that came the Church Festivals of the
Assumption, the Presentation of the Virgin, and the rest, as
well as those beautiful legends which have made the Christmas
season the joy of the year. Then again there were the
Apocalypses which were constructed on the model of the books
of Daniel and Enoch — Apocalypses of Ezekiel, of Elias, of
Moses, of Abraham, of Setli, of Paul, of Peter, of John, and
indeed of nearly every prominent figure In the Old and New
Testaments — of all of which onl}- the Apocalypse of John
received a place in the New Testament Canon. Sooner or
later of course all this legendary and apocryphal literature
would have had to be put under a ban by the Church, and its
further manufacture suppressed, If Christianity were not to
become the laughing-stock of the whole cultured world. But
its multiplication might have gone on for an Indefinite period
yet, had it not been for a crisis which occurred in the history
of the Church, and which brought it all to a sudden termination.
It appears that Mai'cion — the most dangerous of the
heretics — on finding himself unable to bring over the bishops
of the Church, and in consequence the great body of their
flocks, to his own peculiar views, had hit on the ingenious
expedient of selecting from the great mass of Christian
literature then in circulation, such works only as lent support
to his own side in the controversy ; binding these Into a Canon
of his own ; and rejecting and condemning all the rest as being
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANOX. 389
either apocry])ha], un-apostolic, or in some way wanting in
real authority. In making liis selection of books he had
restricted himself entirely, it is true, to writings of apostolic
orio-in and of unquestionable authenticity — admitting none
that were not afterwards admitted into the orthodox Canon,
although indeed excluding many that were regarded by the
Church as of vital importance to the faith. In these exclusions
he seems to have been guided practically by one consideration
only, viz. as to whether the documents in question did or did
not lend countenance and support to the Old Testament. If
they did, they were ruthlessly excluded ; if not, they were
admitted. Acting on this principle he excluded Matthew and
Mark because of the way in which they had connected the
facts of the Life of Jesus with the fulfilment of Old Testament
Prophecy. The Epistle to the Hebrews, again, he excluded
because of the recognition accorded by that document to the
Old Testament Dispensation as having had for its time and
place in its system of sacrifices a real atoning eflScacy ; while
the Acts of the Apostles were excluded, because of the recog-
nition that was accorded in them to the Jewish party in tlie
Church, in the account given of the Council at Jerusalem.
Meantime the Gnostics also had been busy with other
schemes. Finding themselves excluded from conununion by
the power and authority of the bisliops, they had hit on a
different expedient from that of Marcion, the expedient,
viz., of denying that the traditional interpx*etation of the
Gospels was the true one, and maintaining on the contrary
that it was adapted only to those simple souls who indeed
formed the bulk of the Church, but who they alleged could
only be made to feel by means of sensuous symbols, and only
be led by sensuous satisfactions, here or hereafter. To get at
the real truth hidden in the letter of the Old, and what was
afterwards to be the New Testament, these works, they said,
had to be interpreted allegorically, and even cabalistically,
partly by means of numbers, and partly through a mystic and
»
390 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
secret process to wlncli they alone liad the Icey. They further |
professed that they were the recipients of a secret and esoteric
tradition -which had descended to them by a kind of free-
masonry through a long line of initiates from Jesus himself —
who it was affirmed had communicated these precious secrets
to those of his disciples who were capable of receiving them,
and by Avhom they had again been passed on through a chosen
number of the Uhmiinati from generation to o-eneration until
they had reached these latter-day Gnostics themselves, and by
them had been given to the world. Among l)ooks of theirs,
one — the Pistis Sophia — has come down to us, and in It the
curious can still see the great part played In these systems by
those numbers and symbols which were so dear to the genius
of the East.
Now In taking up this aggressive attitude towards the
Church, the Heretics do not seem to have perceived that had
they been successful they would not only have destroyed the
Church and orthodoxy, but would by the same act have
annihilated themselves and their own heresies as well. For
they would have torn up by the roots the only proofs on which
a Christianity of any kind could rest, — the proof from
Tradition and the proof from Prophecy ; the Gnostics, by
supplanting the Church tradition by a secret unprovable
tradition of their own ; ]Marcion, by repudiating the authority
of that Old Testament which gave to the proof from Propliecy
all Its value.
Now It was to checkmate these moves on the part of the
heretics, that the New Testament Canon was compiled. The
principles which guided the unknown compilers in the
selection of the books which were to be included in it may
practically be reduced to three. The first was the necessity
of safe-guarding the Historical Facts by documents support-
ing the open traditions of the Church as against the secret
tradition of the Gnostics. The second was the necessity of safe-
guarding the authority of the Old Testament from which the
THE NEW testa:\[ent canon. 391
proof from Prophecy was drawn, as against the repudiation of
both by Marcion. The third was the necessity, now becoming
every day more urgent, of giving to the facts of the Life sucli
a philosophical setting as would commend tliem to the culture
of that great Pagan World which it was tlie mission of
Christianity ultimately to subdue. There were other minor
considerations to which we shall have to refer presentlv, but
the above were the three most consciously present to the
minds of the compilers — and we now have to ask what those
special considerations were which in each case guided them in
the choice of the particular books of the New Testament.
To begin with then we may say that in all probability tlie
Gospel of Matthew was selected for the first place not so much
for the testimony which it bore to the facts of the Life of
Jesus, nor yet for the very complete account it gave of his
moral teaching as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount — for
in a general way both the details of the Life and the Sermon
on the Mount were given by LidvC also — but it was given the
first place rather because of the persistence with which
Matthew everywhere connects the main episodes of the Life
and Death with Old Testament Prophecy in his ever recurring
phrase "that the Scriptures might be fulfilled." Mark, again,
the earliest in time as well as the most simple, na'ive^ and
unsophisticated of the Evangelists Avas given a second place
in the Canon in all probability because he has everywhere kept
in the foreground of his narrative those purely thaumaturgic
and miraculous powers of Jesus which have been found so
necessaiy in all ages and times for securing at once the awe
and the admiration of the multitude. Luke, again, in spite of
his variation and in parts divergence from the other Synoptists,
was given a place in the Canon in all probability because he
had everywhere extended the privileges and promises of the
Gospel to the great outlying Gentile Avorld — in contra-
distinction to Matthew who in several [)assages had definitively
restricted them to the Jews, and in all had given the Jews the
392 TEfE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
first place in the heirship to the kingdom. He had also in
harmony with this view emphasized the fact that the original
Gospel of Jesus was a gospel for the poor and the hungry,
rather than for the 'poor in spirit' and the 'hungry and
thirsty after righteousness ' — which was the gloss that
Matthew had given to it. As a further testimony to this
broad and universal spirit of Luke, it may be noted in passing
that while Matthew traces the pedigree of Jesus up to David
and Abraham, the fathers of the Jews alone ; Luke carries it
back to Adam himself, the father of all mankind.
The Gospel of John again is assigned the fourth place in the
Canon, not so' much on account of its age or its doctrine, for in
both these respects its natural place would have been at the
very end, but rather because being mainly a record of the Life,
it naturally found its place among the other memoirs of the
Life. Of its real sionificance we shall see more in another
place.
The Acts of the Apostles, again, were admitted into the
Canon, to meet a "want which was unexpectedly sprung on the
Compilers when confronted with the necessity of constructing a
Canon which should be complete and satisfactory at all points.
For it was a matter of the first ini[)ortance, it is to be remem-
bered, if all gaps for the entrance of heresy were to be closed,
that each and every article of faith, doctrine, or tradition,
should have had the unanimous support of all the Twelve
Apostles. Now it had been a tradition in the Church from
very early times, that the split alleged to have occurred
between the original Church of Jerusalem and the Apostle
Paul on the question of circumcision and other observances of
the Jewish Law, as well as of the extension of the Gospel to
the Gentiles, was in reality only a myth, and had no existence
in fact at all. But when the Compilers came to look for
documents of the Twelve to support this contention, it was
found that many of the Apostles had left no authentic docu-
ments of any kind behind them. What then was to be done?
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 393
After some search it -was discovered that there was a work in
existence which in part at least was of undoubted age and
authority and which went far to meet the difficulty. This -was
the Acts of the Apostles. For although it is now all but
universally agreed that this document is a very mixed and
heterogeneous one, it is also all but universally agreed that the
log-book giving us an account of the journeys of the Apostle
Paul is authentic, and that the doctrine of the early chapters —
in which Jesus is figured rather as a man chosen by God and
exalted for his obedience, than as God Himself or the Son of
God — could only have been a production of the Apostolic Age.
But the immediate and pressing interest the Acts of the
Apostles had for the Compilers of the Canon was that it
contained just such an account of the reconciliation between
Paul on the one hand, and the Twelve as represented in the
Council of Jerusalem by Peter, James, and John, on the other —
on this matter of circumcision and of the extension of the
Gospel to the Gentiles — as was fitted to meet the difficulty.
It was accordingly added to the Canon.
The question of whether or not the Ejiistles of Paul should
be included offered less difficulty to the Compilers. For it
was not now with Paul as it had been in the earlier days when
owino- to his not havinir known Jesus in the flesh, and not
having lent much support to the proof from Prophecy, his
writings had been a source of some perplexity, and had been
regarded with very mixed feelings by the Church at large.
The time had now come when, as we have said, it was a vital
necessity to the Church that the significance for mankind of
the Life and Death of Jesus should be so exhibited as to be
capable of fitting harmoniously into some scheme of Philosophy
adapted both to Jews and Greeks, and able to enter the lists
as a rival to the other philosophies of the time. In our
next chapter we shall see tliat it was in its character as a
Philosophy, that Justin and the other Apologists laid their
views of Christianity before the great Pagan Emperors and
394 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
plillosophers, the Antonines, for their serious consideration and
judgment ; and it was as supplying a partial basis for such a
Philosophy that the writings of Paul now laid claim to the
distinction and prominence which as the ages rolled on they
were more and more to receive from the Church. Only
partially, I have said, not fully ; for with him Jesus is still
only a creation of God — the second Adam, the man from
Heaven, having a body although a glorified and ethereal one,,
the Angel and Wisdom of God who stood at His right hand
to do His will — but not a Being spiritually begotten of God, the
Son of God, the Logos, a pure Spiritual Essence, as he after-
wards became with the author of the Fourth Gospel. In the
writings of Paul therefore, Christ could not as yet take hi&
place as one of a Trinity of pure spiritual essences ; — and this
he must become if Christianity were ever to hope to take
over and absorb into itself the highest production of Pagan
Philosophy, the Neo-Platonic, viz. which was now running in
full sail alongside of Christianity, but gradually approaching
it, and presently to be amalgamated with it. It was only
partially, therefore, that Paul could fulfil the necessity laid on
the Church Ijy the spirit of the time. His real merit con-
sisted in this, that when once the writer of the Fourth Gospel
had taken the step which made of Christ not a pre-existent
man — the second Adam, the man from Heaven, created by
God— but a pure Spirit, the Logos, the Son of God; when
once, I say, the scheme of Paul was re-constituted with thi&
alteration and addition, it became the most complete and
harmonious scheme of the World which the Church had yet
known, the great model to which Augustine and Luther alike
had to return when they sought to repair the breaches that had
been made in the faith, or had to bring Its theology more into
harmony with the needs of the time.
But apart from this, the writings of Paul must have been
added to the Canon to meet an even more pressing and immedi-
ately urgent necessity, viz., to checkmate Marcion. Now to
TUE NEW TESTAMENT CANOX. 395
appreciate fully the wariness and sagacity with which the
Church moved in its life and death struggle with this great
heretic, a few observations to bring clearly into view the points
in the dispute, and the difficulties that had to be overcome,
will perhaps be necessary.
It will be remembered that Paul while abolishing the old
Jewish Law in favour of the Law of Liberty in Christ Jesus,
still held that both the Jewish and the Christian Dispensations
were but different stages in a single Divine plan, the work of
one and the same God. But ^larcion finding that the God of
the Old Testament was represented as a Being rpiite different
in nature from the God of the New — being rather a God of
stern justice, and even of cruelty and revenge than a God of
mercy and of love — and perceiving that Paul by the very fact
of his havino- set aside the Law of the Old Testament Jehovah
in favour of the Law revealed by Jesus in the Xew (and more
especially by his having denied the efficacy of the Old Law for
the remission of sin), had practically admitted a difference of
authority in the authors of them, boldly advanced to the
natural and in its way logical conclusion, that the God of the
Old Testament and the God of the Xew could not be one and
the same Being, as Paul had implied, but must be two different
Beings. And as a consequence of this he declared further that
Jesus was not the Messiah of the Old Testament at all— for
that Messiah being a conquering, kingly ^[essiah, was still to
corne — and indeed that he had no connexion whatever either
with the Old Testament, its Prophecies, or its Messiah. Now
In taking up this position it is obvious that Marcion had quite
overleapt the fence of orthodoxy within which Paul had
managed to confine himself, and had fallen on the other side.
For in thus denying the authority of the Old Testament, he
tore up by the roots that proof from Prophecy on Avhich, as we
have seen, not only orthodoxy but even his own heterodoxy
must ultimately repose if it should ever hope t(» remove the
scepticism or escape the destructive criticism of the great
396 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Pagan World. To arrest this imminent danger to the faith,
the Church accordingly, wary as usual, executed one of those
strategetical movements for which in all ages she has been so
justly celebrated. Unable to take Marcion in front by making
a direct breach in his logic, she managed effectually to turn
his flank by inserting in the new Canon those very writings of
Paul on which he had relied for the support of his heresy ! In
this way the Compilers brought divine authority to the support
of orthodoxy, which by making the Old and New Dispensation
stages merely in the providential plan of One God adapting
his means to the different stages of moral advance of different
ages and peoples, had stopped short just at the point where the
proof from Prophecy was still available. And here again we
may pause to remark that if yet another proof were wanted
(beyond that of their accepting tlieir Bible at the hands of their
greatest enemies the Jews) — of how essential to the very
existence of the Church Avas this proof from Prophecy, it
would be found in the promptness with which she expelled
Marcion as a heretic in sjnte of the fact that the deductions
w-hich he drew both from the Old Testament Scriptures them-
selves and from the avowal of Paul, were at once logical and
reasonable, and must have been accepted were it not for the
blow which their admission would have struck at the very
foundations of the Faith.
And now, returning to the Fourth Gospel, we are in a position
to appreciate more fully the reasons which made it so important
an addition to the Canon. It was not only because by advancing
the conception of Christ from that of a creation of God, the
man from Heaven — where it had been left by Paul — to that of
a pure spirit begotten by God, the Logos or Son of God,
it first made possible, although as yet only in general
terms, that future evolution of the Trinity which received its
final and perfect shape from Athanasius, and which was
absolutely necessary if Christianity were ever to absorb and
replace the thought of the Ancient World. This no doubt
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 397
was the ultimate and final reason for its Inclusion in the Canon ;
but, as in the case of Paul, there were other reasons of more
immediate and pressing importance. Of these the most
important Avas that it htid identified Christ not only with God
but with the real man Jesus — the Jesus of the Synoptics — and
so had swept away at a stroke all those heresies which still
huno- like Cossacks on the flanks of the Church to perplex and
harass her. Besides sweeping away the Ebionites — who
believed that Jesus was a man and not a God — by Its doctrine
of the Logos ; It now by Identifying Chiust with the real man
Jesus swept away the Docetists and Marclonltes who regarded
the body of Christ as a phantom, a spectacular Illusion, and
not real flesh and blood at all ; as well as the Gnostics, who
reo-arded the body and soul of Jesus as two distinct and
separate entities, with different origin and destination, occupying
like lodgers the same dwelling-house for a season, but unable
to combine so as to form a real hwnan personality. For
although In the Fourth Gospel the facts of the Life are
everywhere given such a setting as shall keep in erldence the
Divinity of Jesus rather than his humanity, and although the
human weaknesses so patent in the other Evangelists are
studiously kept In the background In John, and only such
traits of love and mercy as are consistent with a Divine nature
are permitted to appear ; still throughout the Gospel, the Son
of God Is so Identified with the man Jesus as to leave no doubt
of his real and true manhood ; and so for the first time in the
history of the Church, Christ appears not as the man sent from
God, or as the angel that appeared to Abraham, Moses, and
Joshua, but as the God-man. In our next chapter we shall see
Irenreus starting from this new conception of the God-man, and
after fitting it Into the great framework of Pauline Thought,
constructing out of it a new system of Theology.
With the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the
Epistles of Paul, as its mainstay, the Canon might so far as
the chief doctrines of the faith are concerned, have been
398 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
practically closed. But the necessity for an uniformity of
discipline was in its way almost as pressing as the necessity for
an unity of doctrine. Among other problems there was the
great political one of the relation of the Church to the Empire,
as Avell as the social one of the relations of the members of the
Church to the Pagan world by which they were surrounded
and in which they still lived as strangers and aliens. Then
again there were the perplexing rpiestions as to the relation of
master and slave when one only was a Christian, and between
husband and wife when the marriage was a mixed one. There
were the problems too of Church Government, of the authority
of the Bishops, and of the duties of the members to each other ;
as well as of husband to wife, jmrent to child, and vice versa.
Then again there was the whole field of practical morality to be
considered, and answers to be given to such questions as whether
marriage or celibacy, moderation or asceticism, temperance or
total abstinence were preferable, and so on, — to all of Avhich
the Church, holding on as usual to that wise moderation, that
golden mean in all things which has always characterized
her when circumstances were not too strong for her, replied by
the inclusion of the Pastoral Epistles — the Epistles to Timothy
and Titus — in the Canon.
If evidence Avere wanted of how important it was to the
Church to have the hall-mark of Apostolicity stamped on
all its documents, it could nowhere be better seen than in
the inclusion of the Epistles of Peter, James, and John, in
the Canon. There is nothing distinctive in doctrine in any
of these productions; at the same time there is notiiing
heretical, and nothing to stand in the way of further develop-
ment. The Ethics of them all, too, are sound and orthodox ;
and in James and Peter the hopes of the Second Coming
are strong. The style, tone, and sentiment of the Epistles
of John, which mark them out as in all probability productions
of the author of the Fourth Gospel, strengthened rather than
otherwise the authority of that Gospel now that it was added
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 399
to the Canon. Otherwise there was nothing distinctive about
any of these writings. Whether they were the genuine
productions of the authors Avhose names they bore Avas but
of secondary importance to the Compilers. It was enough
that they had long been in circulation as such, and that they
contained nothing that was incompatible with the then existing
standard of orthodoxy. This may seem a strange assertion,
but if proof were wanted that mere authenticity alone was
not sufficient to ensure admission into the Canon, and that
nothing, however old or sacred, could be allowed to stand
in the way of the existing requirements of orthodoxy, it
would be found in the fact that the ' Gospel of the Hebrews,'
which was the earliest of all the documents of the Apostolic
Ao;e and is reo'arded as the original of our Matthew, which
had been in circulation from the very earliest times, and
from which many of the quotations from the Fathers not
to be found in our Gospels were believed to be drawn —
this Gospel, which on every ground of age, authenticity,
and authority, ought to have occupied the first place in the
Canon, was excluded from it and ruthlessly suppressed. And
for what reason ? Because it supported what had indeed
been the doctrine of the immediate followers of Jesus, but
which by the time the Canon was compiled had become
the damnable doctrine of the Ebionites, that is to say of those
who denied the Divinity of Christ.
And lastly there was the great body of the faithful to be
considered — simple souls who had been living all these years
in the delusive expectation of the second coming of Christ to
establish his kingdom at Jerusalem on the ruins of the Roman
Empire, now believed to be given over entirely to the power of
Satan. These hopes had been growing more and more dim
and uncertain as the years passed away, and much murmuring
in consequence was to be heard among the faithful at the
delay, but the slightest breeze on the political horizon had
alwavs been sufficient to fan tlicm into life again. In tliis way
400 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
they had been kept aglow far into the second century, and long
after the generation to whom the promises had originally been
given by the Master had sunk to rest. To meet the hopes of
so many earnest and pious souls who had staked their all on it,
and to fulfil promises of which the Synoptics and the Epistles
of Paul, now that they were included in the Canon, were the
perpetuated pledge and reminder, the Book of Revelation —
an old Jewish Apocalypse with a Christian beginning and
ending superadded, and with some internal alterations made in
it to suit Christian sentiment — was added to the Canon. Other
books again like the Apocalypse of Peter, for many ages yet
hung uncertain, partly within and partly without the Canon, as
it were, but in the end, somewhere in the fourth or fifth
century, were either positively excluded, or quietly allowed to
drop out of the divinely inspired circle of the faith.
The Canon thus compiled, the Church was now not only
safe-guarded at all points from the enemies within her fold, but
was prepared to confront the Pagan World with a scheme
which should account for the World and for Human Life in a
manner not possible to the other philosophies of the time. The
historical facts of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension o£
Jesus were safe-guarded by the Synoptics ; and their meaning
and significance for mankind by the ' Old Guard ' of the faith
— the proof from Prophecy. The authority of the Old Testa-
ment, again, on which this proof from Prophecy itself reposed,
was secured by the authority of Paul and the Synoptics. The
Fourth Gospel answered for the full Divinity of Christ as well
as for his real and true manhood ; while the Acts threw over
all the common mantle of the Twelve Apostles. The Politics
of the Church, too, in its relation to the Empire, its internal
organization and the code of morality it was to follow amid the
difficulties and complexities of its environment, were made
uniform and final by the Pastoral Epistles and by the genuine
Epistles of Paul ; while the Second Coming to which all with
varying degrees of longing looked forward, was guaranteed, in
I
THE NEW TESTiUIENT CANON. 401
a way that could be literally or allegorically construed according
as the event turned out, by the Book of Revelation.
And now we have to ask what effect the compilation of the
Canon had on the future of the Church and her Theoloov ?
To begin with we may say that its most immediate effect was
to weed out from the congregations those heresies that had
grown up among them, and to compel the heretics to cut them-
selves off from communion with the Chui-ch, prior to their
final condemnation a century or two later by the great
Councils. Its next effect was to put a stop once and for all to
the manufacture of that Apocryphal Literature on which these
heresies had so long lived and thrived ; and, by makino- the
Canon alone of divine inspiration, to degrade all other Christian
literature to a subordinate rank as merely human productions,
good or bad as the case might be, according as they did or did
not lend support to the current orthodoxy. But not only did
the Canon degrade all Church literature outside of itself to a
secondary and merely human rank ; it relegated even the Old
Testament Scriptures to a place in the dim and shadowy
background. For although both Testaments were theoretically
of equal authority as being both divinely inspired, it was found
as time went on that while the New Testament could be
interpreted literally for purposes of instruction in doctrine or
discipline, the Old Testament could only be applied through
the most far-fetched, strained, and allegorical interpretations,
which would unsettle everything and could settle nothing.
The consequence, again, of this decline in the relative authority
of the Old Testament, was in the first place to divert the future
evolution of doctrine from the old Jewish channels within
which it must more or less have continued to be confined so
long as Old Testament Scripture alone counted for anything,
and to throw Christianity freely open to the reception of as
much Greek Thought and influence as could be made to
harmonize with its own creed. Another effect was to lower the
value of the proof from Prophecy— now that the Gospel
cc
402 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of Jesus Christ could stand alone on documents of its
own, and which were dictated by the very Spu'it of God
Himself. Another important result of the formation of the
New Testament Canon was to make it the main theatre and
battle-ground on which all future heresies were to be fought
out, and from which all sides alike drew as from an armoury
weapons for the fray. The Montanists, for example, drew
support for their belief that the Holy Spirit had descended
on some of their members and had made them the medium
for Divine revelations, from the promise of Jesus in the Fourth
Gospel that he would send the Paraclete after he had gone.
The Monarchians, as we shall see in a following chapter,
appealed to the passages in .John and Paul where the Son
is made subordinate to the Father in all things ; the
Trinitarians, again, to those in wdiich the Father and Son
are assumed to be co-equal and co-eternal. And thus it
would appear at first sight that the formation of the New
Canon and the subordination of the Old to it was calculated
to deflect the even course of evolution from its old path
on to new lines ; but in reality it was practically pre-
served from this by three main influences. The first was
the persistency with wliicli the Church clung to the ' rule
of faith ' and the simple facts of the gospel as a clue to
guide it through all its perplexities. The second was that,
although interpreting all things by the words of the New
Testament texts, the Church still claimed that the meaning of
these texts was to be got only through her own Tradition. And
the last was that as the Canon had been formed of documents
embodying each and every stage of Christian doctrine from the
time of Jesus onwards, so passages were always to be found some-
u'here that would suj^port any or every view which could be
taken of the Trinity, of the nature of God or of Christ, of
Redemption, of Sin and Grace, of Faith and Works, and so on.
But the compilation of the Canon, although a matter of
the most pressing necessity for the Church at the time,
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 403
nevertheless carried in itself the germs of future mischief.
For by its doctrine of the verbal inspiration of each and
every part, the Church consecrated the bad as well as the
good, the transient and local, as well as the universal and
abiding; and so gave fixedness and perpetuity to contra-
dictions and errors that in after ages were to be fatal to her
peace. Besides, by making it appear that the Book had
been dictated by the Spirit of God Himself, it entirely
destroyed its character as a historical document, the product of
different ages, of many minds, and of various phases and
stages of thought and development — all of which will more
clearly appear as the course of this evolution proceeds.
But before closing this chapter a word is necessary, perhaps,
on the evolution of the centre of authority in the Church during
the period we have been traversing, and up to the formation of
the Canon — but only a word. For what happened with the
Church was what happens with every association, society, com-
munity, or nation, which originally voluntarily formed finds
itself obliged to protect itself either against internal enemies or
foreign foes. It had to organize itself, and the method of
doing this is pi-actically the same whether it be in a joint-stock
enterprise, a revolutionary movement, or an established govern-
ment. Beginning as a pure democracy in which all its members
(always of course excepting the Apostles) had an equal voice,
the Church passed to the stage where a number of elders were
elected from the rest with a purely delegated authority and for
the purpose of doing the necessary business connected with the
society ; and from that again to the stage where a president
appointed from among these elders took the initiative and
retained the casting vote — the great body of the Church being
only occasionally consulted on matters of more than ordinary
importance. From that again it is but a step to the point
where this President or Bishop has full administrative and
executive powers given him in the name and on behalf of the
Church ; and but another (especially when heresy begins to
404 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
appear) to his being invested with full Apostolic power by the
gift of the Spirit, for the decision of all questions of faith and
morals. The Bishops thus set apart as an order by themselves,
the same process repeats itself with them as had taken place
with the Church at large. Beginning at first as equal in
authority among themselves, presently to one of the Sees —
either from its age, its historical or political associations, its
geographical position, or its economic resources — is yielded the
position of referee in any disputes that may chance to arise.
From this it is but a step to its becoming the initiator of new
policies, and the referee in disputed questions of doctrine or
discipline ; and from this, again, but a single step to the
Popedom. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of
the Jerusalem Church, the Churches of Rome, Alexandria^ and
Ephesus took the lead ; but presently among these again, Rome
became first the mediator, then the referee, then the Dictator.
But at the time of the compilation of the Canon these latter
developments had not yet arisen ; and the bishops although
supreme in their own dioceses were still more or less on an
equality among themselves ; the lead being in the hands of the
Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Ephesus, or Antioch, but already
with a pronounced tendency in favour of Rome.
II
C H A P T E E IX
THE PAGAN PERSECUTION OF CIIKISTIANITY.
"OUT before proceeding further with our History, another
"^ important and much disputed question remains to be
considered, viz., as to how it was that of all the religions
of the time the Christian i-eligion alone was persecuted
by the Eoman State ? Historians have in the main
been inclined to regard the problem as one connected with
Religion and not with Politics, misled in this doubtless
by the fact that the persecutions ensued on the refusal
of the Christians to oiler up prayers to the Pagan gods
or burn incense before the images of Ca'sar, as well as by the
fact that it was ever a main article of the Christian creed to
render unto Ca\sar the things that were Ca?sar's, a doctrine
Avhich would naturally have made them politically inoft'ensive.
But as I believe the question to have been a purely political
one and one not bearing on religion at all, I must ask the
reader's indulucnce while I make a few observations with the
view of clearing the subject from the complications which
siu-round and obscure it.
At the outset then we may lay it down as a general
principle that Polytheisms by their very nature tend to religious
toleration, as Monotheisms do to religious persecution. In
Monotheisms, where the very existence of more gods than one
is denied, the worship of any other god is a direct insult to the
406 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Deity, and is of itself sufficient to arouse the deepest passions
of the human heart. But in Polytheisms, where the existence
of other gods is freely admitted, this difficulty does not arise ;
and where the conquest of another people carries with it the
conception of the conquest of the gods of that people, it
is evident that if you wish to incorporate that people and
not to exterminate it, there is no more reason for suppressing
its peculiar worship than for suppressing its peculiar manners,
customs, and laws. It is enough if the gods of the conquered
people arc admitted into the Pantheon of the conquerors on a
lower footing and with subordinate rank. And indeed this has
been the policy of all the great Polytheistic Empires of the
world. When the Assyrians and Babylonians, for example,
incorporated a subject people, they gave the gods of that peo];)le
a place among their own ; and it was because the last king of
Babylon attempted to confine the worship of the conquered
gods to the Capital, and to suppress it altogether in their native
homes, that the invasion of Cyrus was regarded by the people
as a delivei-ance, and his entry into Babylon as a triumphal
progress with open gates, rather than a conquest. The Romans,
too, before besieging a city were in the habit of proj)itiating
the gods of the city ; and when they had taken it by assault
they usually left behind a number of their own priests to
keep up the sacrifices in honour of these gods after their
departure. So natural to polytheisms is the practice of
religious toleration. Nor was the Empire itself any exception
to the rule. Owing to the extensive colonizations first of the
Greeks and then of the Romans, the gods of Greece and
Rome were worship[»ed everywhere throughout the wide
dominions of the Empire; but besides these gods there were
the gods peculiar to the separate nationalities — Syrian gods,
Egyptian gods, Phoenician gods — and all alike enjoying full
and equal toleration. It is true that in Republican times
some of these foreign cults, notably those of Isis, Serapis,
and Bacchus, were driven out of Rome — but that was because
THE PAGAN PEESECUTIOX OF CHKISTIAXITY. 407
of the immoralities connected with their worship, and not
from motives of religious intolerance. It is true, too, that
the early Cajsars, Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius, looked
with disfavour on tlie swarming of these foreign cults toKome,
and that they did all that was possible to discourage and
suppress them — but that was because they were aggressive
and propagandizing. Even the Jews, who, if they hud had
the power, would, like all other monotheists, have remorse-
lessly suppressed the worship of all other gods but their o\vn
Jehovah, were equally M'ith the rest protected in the worship
peculiar to them. It was only when they entered on an
active religious propaganda in Rome itself, as was the case
under Domitian, that they roused the Imperial jealousy and
were persecuted. They had originally been favoured l)y
Alexander the Great and by the Syrian Kings who followed
him : even the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, Avhich
called forth the noble patriotism of the Maccabees, being
instigated not so much by religious motives as by political,
and being really the attempt to gain political ends through
religious means. In Egypt, too, the Jews under the
Ptolemies enjoyed exceptional privileges ; the Jewish quarters
in Alexandria and Cyrene being under the local control of
their own judges and administrators. Julius Cassar, too,
confirmed them in their [)rivileges both in Alexandria and
Rome ; and not only protected them in their peculiar worship,
but exempted them from service on the Sabbath. From all
of which it would seem, in spite of appearances to the
contrary, that the Christians who were not more stifl-necked
in their religious opinions than the Jews, could not have been
persecuted for these opinions. On the contrary I have now
to show that they were really persecuted for political reasons
enly.
We may begin then by pointing out that the Romans con-
structed their gods out of the abstract virtues found to be
essential to the welfare and prosperity of the State, whether
408 THE EVOLUTION OF CHUISTIANITY.
for defence against foreign aggression or for internal
well-being. There were the gods of Public Honour, of
Commercial Integrity, of Landmarks and Boundaries, of
Domestic Purity ; and to these Ave may add the gods
or goddesses of Patrician Modesty, of Plebeian Modesty,
of the Safety of the Age, of the Genius of the
Custom House, of the Safety of the Roman People, and the
like. Hence it was that when any new duty or function had
to be assumed by the State it had to have a new god to
consecrate it and to give it permanence and stability. Now
when the Empire succeeded to the Republic, it directly
assumed two additional functions. The first of these, which if
not absolutely new was now for the first time brought into
distinct prominence, was the duty of keeping the peace among
the many and diverse nationalities that made up the Empire ;
of protecting the rights of Roman citizens everywhere through-
out these vast populations and regions ; and of administering
the principles of equity, the jns gentium, in all cases which fell
outside and beyond the range of the local jurisdictions. In all
other respects the Empire allowed these nations to freely
follow their own religions, customs, laws, and modes of life ;
the only exceptions, perhaps, being in those cases where the
religious rites were of a brutal and inhuman character — as for
instance human sacrifices — or where the religious code was
of unnatural harshness — as among the Jews, who in consequence
were not allowed to carry out the death penalty prescribed in
the Laws of Moses without the prior sanction of the Imperial
authorities.
The second duty assumed by the Empire was an entirely
new one, viz., that of securing the allegiance of all the subject
peoples to the Roman State and to the person of its living
representative, the reigning Ca3sar.
Now the assumption of these two new duties or functions
was, as we should naturally expect, attended by the creation of
two new deities to represent them, viz., the Goddess of Rome
THE TAGAN PERSECUTION OF CHIUSTIANITY. 409
and the Genius of the Emperor. And as these two new
functions could not be localized, but were co-extensive with the
Empire itself, the statues of the two new deities Avho were to
consecrate them were erected everywhere throughout the
length and breadth of the Empire — in the market-places of
cities and towns, and ai'ound the chimney-corners and hearths
•of private houses. The worship of these deities either Ijy
supplicating the goddess of Rome, or by burning incense and
pouring libations of wine before the image of the Emperor, was
accordingly made, like our oath of allegiance, the test of
political loyalty. From all of which it would appear that in
spite of appearances to the contrary this was not a religious act
at all but a purely political one.
Our next question then is, what were those political
suspicions which attached to Christianity and which caused
it to be persecuted by the State ?
To begin with then we may say that the suspicions and
misunderstandings which gave colour to the persecution of
•Christianity must to the Roman official mind have been many
and cumulative. The Christians were constantly repeating
that Christ was their King, and constantly giving umbrage to
the Imperial authorities by declaring that he had been raised to
the position of a God — an honour then practically reserved for
the Ca3sars alone. This apparent rivalry to the reigning
Emperor was still further accentuated by their predictions, as
in the Apocalypse, of the near destruction of the Empire and
the triumphal return of Christ in glory to take over the govern-
ment of the world. So deeply, indeed, were the Imperial
authorities affected by these predictions that Domitian himself
had the two grandsons of Judc the brother of Christ, Avho
were living in Batanea, brought to Rome to be personally
interrogated by himself as to their claims. And it was only
when he found that they were poor peasants, their hands
gnarled with toil, and who on being questioned as to whet her
dhrist was their King replied simply that he was, but that his
410 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
kingdom was not of this world, that the Emperor dismissed
thein with contempt as beneath his notice. But a still graver
clement of suspicion and one that brought them directly into
conflict with the laws of the State was that they were a secret
society or confraternity — the being a member of Avhich, unless
by special license, was to subject oneself to the penalty of death.
That Christianity was not only a confraternity but a secret
confraternity was evident from this, that for several centuries
the catachumens as they were called, were allowed to be present
at tJie meetings only during prayers and the reading and ex-
position of the Scriptures, but were excluded Avhen the real
mystery, the mystery of the Eucharist, was celebrated. Now
these secret societies or confraternities were for political reasons
Avatched by the authorities with the most jealous eye. They
were only permitted, when permitted at all, to the lowest and
poorest classes of the population, including the slaves, and only
for certain harmless and defined ends such as burial, etc. Even
then they were only legal when they had been licensed by the
authorities ; when their membership was limited in number ;
when they contained no patrician elements ; when they had
no common fund and no continuous president ; when
they were attended by no religious performances ; and when
no common vows were taken. Now in all these particulars
it is clear that Christianity as then constituted was an
illegal confraternity. Its meetings were unlicensed, its
membership unlimited ; they had both a common fund
and a continuous president ; its members met for religious
observances and took vows in common, although onlv for such
harmless and praiseworthy objects as abstaining from theft,
from adultery, from highway robbery, from false swearing and
the like. They carried on, too, an active religious propaganda
through all parts of the Empire ; their most sacred mysteries,
as we have seen, were conducted in secret ; and it was
extensively believed among the populace that when the lamps
were overturned, horrid orgies of incest and adultery, and even
THE PAGAN PERSECUTION' OF CHRISTIANITY. 411
banquets of human flesh, Avound up the proceedings of the
night. And when in the face of all these accusations and
illegalities — the claim that Jesus Avas king, his apotheosis,
the expectation of his second coming, the secret meetings, the
active propaganda, the wide ramifications of the society — they
obstinately refused to remove the suspicions of infamy and
treason entertained against them bv burnino* incense and
pouring out wine before the image of the Emperor, what could
the authorities when pushed on by po])idar suspicion and hatred
do, even if like Pliny they had found no evidence of any crime
against them, but punish them for their obstinacy and
perversity in defying the law ? It is true that the Jews were
equally obstinate, but then they were a privileged people who
for ages had been protected in the exercise of their own
peculiar worship and observances by numerous edicts and
enactments. Besides they met openly in their synagogues ;
they were insignificant in numbers when compared with the
vast populations of the Empire ; their habits and customs
were repellent to the Gentiles ; they lived in separate
quarters of their own in the great cities and towns ; were a
distinct race easily identified ; and were not given like the
Christians to an active propaganda. They were not, in
consec|uence, a source of political danger, and were not per-
secuted, except indeed for personal reasons and from preter-
natural suspicion, as under the Emperor Doraitian. Their
motives being well known and their fanaticism being purely
religious in character, they were not required to salute the
Pagan gods or to offer incense to the images of the Emperor.
And even had they done so there woukl have been no danger
of the action being mistaken for other than a merely formal
acknowledgment of political allegiance, without religious signifi-
cance. To have imagined that a Jew would have put any
man, even the great Cnesar himself, in the same category
with Jehovah the One and only God of all the earth, would
have been felt both by Jew and Gentile to be ludicrous.
412 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
With the Christians, however, it was quite otherwise. For
however much they may have wished to testify their political
allegiance to the Emperor — as indeed in all their apologies
from Justin and Athenagoras to Minucius Felix and
Tertullian they did most humbly — it was impossible that they
should do so in the only way recognized by the State, viz. by
burning incense and pouring out libations before the goddess
of Rome and the Genius of the Emperor. For a Christian
to worship the image of any man, however exalted, would have
been felt by himself, if not by others, to be a disloyalty
and treachery to the one man of all others to whom his
love and reverence were due, the man Christ Jesus. And
when, as was generally the case, the Christians were asked
not only to worship the image of the Emperor, but to curse
the name of Christ as well, it is evident to what an impasse
matters had been brought. Between Christianity and the
Roman Government, therefore, no compromise on these terms
was possible ; and with the new religion spreading through
the Empire with ever-increasing rapidity, there was but this
alternative — either the extermination of the Rclio-ion or the
submission of the State. The result is well known. With
Constantine the persecutions ended ; Christianity entered
into an alliance with the State and became persecutor in
her turn — with results which we have yet to see.
CHAPTER X .
THE APOLOGISTS.
"YT"riTPI the New Testament Canon as a permanent rampart
against the Heretics who had by its means been
extruded from the Church, but who still hung on her outskirts
ready to seize and carry oflf any stragglers who might chance to
wander bevond the fold, the Fathers of the Church who had all
along, like the builders of the walls of Jerusalem, been
equipped with both trowel and sword, now set seriously to
work to repair those breaches in its internal structure which
the heretics had made, as well as to give to its doctrine such a
philosophical presentation and setting as should commend it to
the srreat Pagan World that lav around. The first of these
objects was accomplished by the Old Church Fathers as they
are called — Irenajus, Tertullian, and others — and consisted in
giving to the great questions of the nature of the Godhead, and
of the union of the human and Divine Nature in Christ, a
greater definitiveness and completeness of statement than they
had yet received — a statement however which only received its
perfect and final form at the hands of Athanasius and the great
Councils of the Church. The second was accomplished by the
Apologists — Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian, Tertullian, and the
rest — and consisted in showing that even as a philosophy
Christianity was superior in depth and truth, in harmony and
completeness, to all the Pagan philosophies of the time. Now
414 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of these Apologies — written usually in the form of appeals to
the Roman Emperors deprecating the persecutions from which
the Church was still suffering — some it is true had been written
before the Canon was formed ; but as in a controversy on the
relative merits of philosophic Paganism and Chi-istianity only
the most general characteristics of each could be compared, the
finer subtleties which came in after the Canon could lend no
additional weight to the broad general argument, and so were
not employed. So great, in consequence, was the similarity in
the line of argument adopted by those Apologists who wrote
before and those who wrote after the formation of the Canon,
that in the generalized form which I am about to give it, it
may fittingly find its place at this point in our history.
At the outset then it is necessary to remark that the main
speculative object of these Apologies was not to controvert or
to set aside the doctrines of the great Pagan Schools on the
questions of God, Virtue, and Immortality ; for on these great
problems the best of the Pagan Philosophies were so far as
they ivent in accord with the doctrines of Christianity. The
Stoics, for example, and notably in the persons of their latest
representatives, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, were believers
in God; and in Virtue and Righteousness as the highest
good ; while the Platonists following their great Master had
all along held to the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul.
It is true, indeed, that Christianity had raised the conception
of God from that of the vague and cloudy Abstraction of the
Stoics and Platonists, to that of a Creator and Father of all
men ; that it had added to the list of high virtues of the Stoics
the still higher ones of renunciation, forgiveness, and self-
sacrifice ; and that instead of leaving Immortality as a vague
and shadowy hope to be entertained or not according as the
balance of argument and opinion swayed to this side or that,
it had erected it into a fixed dogma, a sure and certain hope, a
precious possession within the reach of all. Of all this the
Apologists were well aware, and they were prepared when
THE APOLOGISTS. 415
opportunity offered to enter the lists in defence of their own
views ; but what they specially set themselves to do in these
letters to the Emperors was not this, but something of much
more value and importance, viz., to prove to them that these
beliefs of the Pagan philosophers were even in their imperfect
state not mere opinions to be put on or olF like garments
according as the arguments swayed this way or that, but were
livinof and burning realities. For, as I have contended
throughout this work, no mere Philosophy as such can ever be
relied on either to deeply stir the Imaginations or to radically
affect the lives and actions of men, and for this reason — that
except in individual instances of over-weening vanity, pre-
sumption, or fanaticism, the human mind with its restricted
outlook through Its paltry five senses and their adjuncts, can
never feel sufficient confidence in itself to rely on its own
unaided powers to comprehend in all its vastness, subtlety,
and complexity, this great Universe of which it is but an in-
finitesimal part, and wliich stretches on all sides of it into an
Infinitude where neither the microscope nor telescope, neither
the outer senses nor the Inner vision can follow it. And hence
it was that the Pagan Philosophers although holding in a
misty, vague, and imperfect way, those general doctrines on
God, Virtue, and Inmiortallty, which to the Christians were
sun-clear and eternal truths, could get neither out of their
philosophies nor out of their mode of proof that something
which was necessary to convert their opinions Into burning
beliefs, on the issues of which they were prepared to stake their
lives for time and for eternity. Now this was precisely what
the Early Christians believed they had secured — and it was this
that the Apologists proposed to demonstrate to the great Pagan
Emperors, the philosophic Antonlnes.
The form of proof, then, which was to work this marvellous
transformation in their thouuhts and feelino-s was, as miucht
have been expected, the same proof that had converted the
Apologists themselves and indeed the Church generally, the old
416 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
sheet-anclior of the faith — the Proof from Prophecy. But a&
this proof depended rather on certain exceptional incidents
and experiences rising like mountain peaks above the ordinary
plane of human life, than on the generalized uniformities and
sequences of Philosophy, it was necessary in refurbishing it for
the consideration of men of the philosophical eminence of the
Antonines, to give it the form and semblance at least of a
scientific demonstration. And accordingly it was necessary to
impress on the Emperors at the outset that the Logos which
they in common with the whole Stoic and Platonic Schools
regarded as the active life-principle of things — inasmuch as it
contained the seeds and principles of which men and animals
and all the multiplex variety of Nature were alike the offspring
or emanation; — that this Logos was in reality not the mere
abstract and shadowy essence which they had imagined it to
be, but was a real Being, a real Person, and no other than the
Son of God. In testimony whereof they appealed to the Sacred
Scriptures of an ancient race wherein his actual appearances
among men were recorded. These appearances and visitations
were casual and intermittent it is tme, but their object was
always the same, viz., to instruct men in the knowledge of
things of supreme importance to them, but which they could
not find out for themselves. Among other things this
Being had told them what God was, both in His own nature
and in His relation to man ; that He was not the shadowy
essence whose ghost-like reflection was all that men could
catch of Him by their own natural faculties, but that
He was a Father, that He was his own Father as well as
the Father of all mankind. He had told them, too, what
men's duties were; and it Avas he who had instructed them
in those very virtues which they, the Emperors, as Stoics
prized so highly, and to which, without knowing why, they
yielded so sincere a homage. These duties and virtues he
had first announced to Moses, who recorded them in the
Sacred Scriptures of his nation faithfully as they had been
THE APOLOGISTS. 417
delivered to him ; and from these Scriptures they had been
copied and adopted as models by the rest of the world — and
notably by those philosophers and sages of Greece from
whose writings the Emperors had themselves derived them.
This Being had further instructed men by the mouths of
the Prophets as to the reason why God, Avho was their
Father and friend, had yet made them subject to that Death
which they so feared and hated : — that it was because they
had been disobedient to His commandments and had broken
His laws. But how were the Emperors to know that tlii:?
Being had really come from God, and that all this was not
a mere fable ? By consulting these same Scriptures, said
the xlpologists, where, in Avritings of an antiquity going far
back beyond their own recorded annals, they would find that
he had inspired these prophets to utter predictions about
himself and others which centuries later had been literally
and exactly fulfilled. Among otner things he had announced
to these Ancient Prophets that when the time was ripe, and
when the floral Code, which he had formerly given to
Moses as a preliminary and imperfect instalment adapted
to the low stage of culture and morality of the times, had
run its appointed course, and men tempted by the demons
still fell into idolatry, still continued the slaves of sin, and
still suffered in consequence the penalty of death; — he had
told these Prophets that in due time he would come in
person to the earth to give men a New Law, and one
which should make good the deficiencies of the Old ; one,
too, which should have the power not only to deliver men
from idolatry and sin, but from death. But for the natural
operation of this law two conditions were necessary. The
first was that the deep-dyed stain of sin should be washed
away ; the second, that the demons, who tempted men to
sin and kept them in consequence under the fear and don^inion
of death, should themselves be overcome, and should hence-
forth lose their power. Now the old dye of Sin was washed
DD
418 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
out by the blood of Christ on the Cross ; while the power
of the demons was broken by his leading a sinless life and
by his resurrection from the dead. And all this had been ,'(
literally and exactly fulfilled just as it had been foretold , 4
in those old Scriptures which he had himself inspired. Now
the man in whom the Logos appeared and took flesh, con-
tinued the Apologists, was the man Jesus Christ, who
suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, and whose every
act, as can still be read in the memoirs of the disciples
who were his constant companions, was thus the fulfilment
of what he had himself foretold through the Prophets some
centuries before. And as for the demons over whom in his
life and death he triumphed, and in whose interests you are
now persecuting us — these, added they, are your Pagan gods !
Now as the power of prediction is admittedly the highest
test of Scientific or Philosophic Truth, the Apologists as
philosophers addressing philosophers might have stopped here,
but in addressing the Emperors who were men of the world and
of affairs as well, something more was necessary before their
demonstration could be said to be complete at all points.
Christianity was an existing fact, and a very stubborn and
significant one ; and it might well occur to the Apologists that
it was still necessary to prove that the moral results which were
to flow from the alleged redemption brought to men by the
death and resurrection of Christ had actually been realized in
their lives and conduct. This then they now proposed to
demonstrate by a direct appeal to facts within the reach of all ;
and to show that the Spirit Avhich Christ promised to send his
followers after his death to keep them from sin was everywhere
at work in the minds and hearts of his followers ; that the
freedom of soul to which the Stoics aspired, but which they
rarely reached, had been achieved ; that the sin to which they
so often succumbed had been overcome ; and that the death
which was so feared and hated had lost its terrors and was '
welcomed as an entrance into that immortal life for which all
THE APOLOGISTS. 419
longed, and which was now lui abiding possession. To prove all
this, the Apologists in face of the false and terrible accusations
under which the Christians lay — of incest, the eating of
<'hildren, and other nameless atrocities — boldly challenged the
Emperors to the most severe and searching scrutiny of their
lives and morality. They asked them to consider well what
was an unquestionable fact, that men and women many of
•whom had once been criminal, reprobate, and vile, most of
whom were poor and illiterate, and nearly all of whom were
drawn from the lowest and most despised of the population —
barbarians and freednien, cooks, cobblers and slaves — that these
men and women were to be seen exhibiting in their daily lives
a purity, virtue, and simplicity, a joyous elation and exaltation
of soul, a reliance on God, and in the face of martyrdom and
■death an inward serenity and peace, which had been the very
ideal of the Stoic's dream. All tliis they invited the Emperors
to contemplate and consider, and if on satisfying themselves of
its truth they should still desire further proof that the Spirit of
God was with these persecuted, despised, and rejected people,
they would find it in the open challenge which the bolder of
their leaders proudly flaunted before their Pagan persecutors,
viz., that the humblest of these Christians would without
sorcery, magic, or other unlawful aid cast out demons and evil
spirits from all and sundry who were afflicted with them — and
that too after all the priests and philosophers, all the pro-
fessional sorcerers and mao-icians of Pao-anism had tried in vain.
Such in rough outline and with its matter more or less
rc-arranged to suit our present purpose, was the chain of
demonstration which the Church submitted to the philosophers
•of the Pagan world as proof that the doctrines which in an
imperfect form the best of them held on the great problems of
■God, of Virtue, and of Innnortality, were living and eternal
truths. It was this chain of demonstration that had converted
the Apologists themselves, most of whom had been philosophers
and had worn the pallium or philosopher's cloak; and it was
420 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
this that they believed ought to, and in the end must, convert
the world. And indeed it must be confessed that if each link
in this chain should prove to be strong enough to stand any
strain which criticism might bring to bear on it, the chain as a
whole ought in the then state of culture, when the belief in
miracles, omens, prophecies, demons, and supernatural inter-
ferences generally was as prevalent among the cultured as it is
to-day only among the lowest and most ignorant of the popu-
lation — this chain of demonstration ought to have been
accepted as conclusive and convincing, ought to have been
embraced not only as a true Religion but as a true Philosophy.
But the Emperors remained unconvinced and obdurate — even
the good Marcus Aurelius. Whether it were that they felt
that the whole demonstration was more like a chain of air-
balloons held together by a continuous thread, than a solid and
well-jointed structure ; and that a series of predictions in which
the Old Testament drew on the New for support, at the same
time that the New was drawing on the Old for the same
pui-pose^ were of no more value as proof than those present-day
' accommodation ' notes drawn by business men on each other,
which, mimicking as they do the forms of business transactions,
have all the apj^earance of genuineness without the reality ;
whether it was that they saw or suspected that much of the
New Testament had been consciously enacted for the very
purpose of fulfilling these Old Testament prophecies so that its
value as testimony was lost ; or whether indeed they ever
read them at all — cannot be known. But certain it is that the
Emperors rejected the proffered demonstration ; and Christianity
delivered over again to her enemies to wade for another century
and a half through martyrdom and blood before her final
triumph was assured, had no alternative but to retire into herself
again, and using the trowel rather than the sword of controvers}",
to seek to repair her own internal structure and to make it har-
monious and logic-proof at all points. In the remaining chapters
of this volume we shall see in detail how this work went on.
CHAPTER XI
IREN^EUS; TERTULLIAN ; ORIGEN.
"TTP to the time of the compilation of tlic Canon, say,
roughly, about 180 A.D., what with the multiplicity of
•documents and doctrines all laying claim to the allegiance
of the faithful — Apostolic Memoirs, open Church Traditions,
secret Gnostic Traditions, Old Testament Scriptures, Ebionite
and Marcionite Gospels, Pauline Theology, and the endless
apocryphal writings — and what with the difficulty of finding
any common standpoint amid this bewildering and distracting
promiscuity, no general ' scheme of salvation ' was possible ;
and the Church was obliged, as we have seen, to rely for
her propaganda on the ' Rule of Faith ' as embodied in the
Baptismal Confession, and on the 'Proof from Prophecy.'
NoAv in putting these into the forefront of her teaching, the
Church bore testimony only to the general fact that salvation
had been brought to men by Christ Jesus; but as to how
or in what way — as to who or what Christ was in his essential
nature, how he was related on the one side to God and on
the other to Man, or as to how the human and Divine in him
were united — all this in the confused medley of doctrines
and traditions had to be left unresolved. It is true that Paul
had formulated his great ' Scheme of Redemption ' from the
very eai'liest days of the Church ; but owing partly to its
being only one among a number of other schemes claiming to
422 EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
be of equal, if not greater, authority, and partly to the fact
that it Avas constructed on the basis of the insufficiency
of the Old Jewish Law for the purposes of salvation,
and not on the Proof from Prophecy, it could not, and in fact
did not, take effect. That it had not as yet been adopted by
the Church as the basis of Orthodoxy will appear from
a number of considerations. In the first place, Justin, who
wrote his Apology to the Emperors shortly before the
compilation of the Canon, distinctly declares that the Jewish
Christians who held that Jesus was only a man who had
been adopted by God and afterwards * exalted ' for his
obedience, were, equally Avith those Gentile Christians
who believed with Paul that he had had ' pre-existence *
with God before the World began, entitled to the privileges
of Communion, provided only that they did not insist on
the Gentile Christians conforming to their peculiarly Jewish
rites and traditions. The Church, therefore, could not be
said as yet to have taken Paul as the standard of Orthodoxy.
In the second place this same Justin represents salvation a*
conditioned by repentance and obedience to the new and
higher Law of God as revealed by Christ, and not as
depending on supernatnval grace as was the case with Paul.
And in harmony with this, too, we find him representing
Baptism, not as a means of grace as it was with Paul,
and as it continued to be with the Church after the
formation of the Canon, but as a sign of repentance merely.
And further, as we saw in our last chapter, it was on its
conveying a more full, perfect, and complete hioioledge
of God and of Human Duty than Pagan Philosophy did,
that the Apologists in their appeals to the Emperors rested
their claims for the truth of Christianity, and not on its
being a means of grace through faith and the operation
of the Holy Spirit, as it was with Paul, — and, indeed, as
it has ever been with the Catholic Church since the Canon
became authoritative.
i
IRENJEUS ; TEUTULLIAN ; OPJGEN. 425
But from the time that the Canon had thinned and reduced
the dense and bewiklering thicket of Christian Literature to
tlie comparatively few books of the New Testament, it was
possible for the Church, with the area of controversy thus
narrowed and brought within manageable compass, to construct
out of the materials before it, a general scheme of salvation
which should be at once apostolic in origin and authority, and
divinely inspired ; and one too that should be more or less
complete and harmonious in itself. And all the more so indeed
when the P'athers on settino- to work to sift the documents
before them, found that practically the scheme of salvation
rested mainly on two authorities only — the Gospel of John and
the Epistles of Paul ; Paul supplying the general basis of the
scheme, and John the conception of Christ as the Logos or
God-man, in the place of Paul's conception of him as the
Archetypal Man, the Second Adam. On these two sets of
documents, accordingly, with the other books of the New
Testament as running connuentary and illustration, the Old
Church Fathers, as they are called, some of whom were them-
selves Bishops, and all of whom were more or less in touch theo-
logically with the Bishops, set to work to construct each in
his own way a general scheme of salvation which shoidd be felt
to be on a level with the feeliniis and necessities of the time.
A general scheme I have said — for until the scheme as a ichole
had been presented to the Church from different points of
view, it was hardly probable that the Fathers should proceed
to the more exact dehnition of the relations of the different
persons of the Godhead to each other, or to the mode of union
of the divine and human natures in Christ — problems on which
we shall find them engaged in our next chapter, and which
were definitively settled for the Christian Church for all time
by the great Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and
Chalcedon.
The first of the Fathers, then, to imdcrtake the task was
Irenjeus, Bishop of Lyons, and his work consisted essentially
424 EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
in what we may call the simple Pinion of Paul and John, without
further attempt at differentiation or development. He took,
that is to say, the Jewish ' Scheme of Redemption ' of Paul,
founded, as we have seen, on the inadequacy of the Jewish Law
for purposes of salvation, and taking out of it the conception of
Christ as the Archetypal Man, the Second Adam — a creation
of God — replaced it by the Greek conception of Christ
as the Logos, or Son of God, of John ; and having pared off
the rough edges, attempted to give to the whole such a setting
as should bring it into harmony with the rest of Christian
doctrine and tradition. His first position, accordingly, is that
the Being, Christ, who was with God from all eternity and who
created the World, was not a purely Spiritual Being, the Logos
of John, who came to Earth and entered a body of flesh at
a particular point in Time ; nor yet the Second Adam of Paul,
who was a purely abstract Human Entity or figure-head, if one
may say so ; but was the identical Jesus who was born of the
Virgin Mary, who passed through life, was crucified, rose from
the dead and ascended into Heaven — a combination, as it were,
of the two conceptions of John and of Paul. This is the first
distinctive feature of Irenajus' Theology, and by its very
absence of definition it saved him, it may be observed in pass-
ing, from that modified Gnosticism into which Tertullian,
Origen, and nearly all the other Ante-Nicene Fathers fell, when
they tried to separate and define the relative parts played in
the life and work of Jesus by his human and by his Divine
natures respectively.
His next main position, and one too in harmony with the
last as arising out of the union of Paul and John, was to give
to the personal acts of Jesus an importance and significance
which they had not hitherto received. But for this a word or
two of preliminary is necessary, to bring out fully the contents
of his thought.
It will be remembered, then, that Paul, the object of whose
writings was to press on the acceptance of men his scheme of
IREX.EUS ; TERTULLIAN ; ORIGEN. 425
salvation as a lohole, naturally regarded Jesus as the mere
abstract organ or instrument of God for bringing that salvation
to men, and in consequence considered the detailed actions of
his livinff and working life as having in themselves little or no
importance or significance. Indeed except in the most general
way he rarely refers to them at all. John, on the contrary,
whose object it was to prove that the man Jesus was the
Logos and a Divine Being, naturally laid special emphasis on
those particular incidents in his life which went to demonstrate
his divinity — notably his exceptional miracles of the raising of
the dead, and of the converting of water into wine, as well as
on those speeches in which he enforces at great length the fact
that what he does and savs is what his Father in Heaven had
sent him to do and to say, and so on. The Apologists, again,
who as we saw in our last chapter made salvation depend on
the fuller and more complete knowledge of God, Duty, and
Immortality revealed by Jesus, (on the ground that Jesus had
received the full Logos or mind of God, whereas the Pagan
Philosophers and Hebrew Prophets had only received what
Justin calls ' the seed of the Logos ;') — the Apologists naturally
regarded Jesus as the mere vehicle or pipe by which this
knowledge was to be distributed, and so, like Paul, looked
upon the particular acts of his life as having little or no
significance in themselves, ahvays excepting of course the great
facts of the Crucifixion and Resurrection ; — another proof,
indeed, if one were wanted, that until the compilation of the
Canon bi'ought John and Paul together, no further evoluti<m of
Christian doctrine was possible.
But when the Canon was compiled, and Irenaius came to
unite the doctrine of John with that of Prail, and when Christ,
in consequence, figured no longer as a mere abstract organ or
vehicle, but as a living flesh and blood Divinity, Irenajus found
that he had not only a general scheme of salvation in the death
and resurrection of Jesus, but a model of obedience and
imitation as well, in his life. And hence it was that in
426 EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
representing Christ, not as the mere abstract, grace-conferring
Eedeemer of Paul, nor yet as the mere Teacher and Revealer
of Justin and the other Apologists, but as the Teacher,
Redeemer, and Exemplar of Paul and John combined, Irenieus
was enabled to give a fresh start to the Christian Scheme of
Salvation on its way to further stages of evolution.
The general outline of his scheme will perhaps be best seen
by an analogy. For in the same way as in a railway train
which is about to run into an obstruction on the line, the
salvation of the passengers will depend on the driver's reversing
the engine and returning from point to point by the way he
came ; so in the scheme of Irenasus, Jesus is made to take the
first and main step towards the salvation of men by reversing
the incidents of the Fall, point by point. Irenaius draws out
the parallel at length, and with almost mystic significance.
Among other particulars he tells us that just as Adam pro-
ceeded from the Vii'gin Earth, so Jesus proceeded from the
Virgin Mary ; as Eve was disobedient, so Mary was obedient ;:
as Adam was tempted in the Garden, so Jesus was tempted in
the Wilderness; as Adam succumbed to temptation and there-
by transmitted to us mortality, so Jesus triumphed over tempt-
ation and brought to us everlasting life. Again, as Adam fell
through unbelief and disobedience to the God who made him,
so Jesus conquered through faith and obedience to the Father
who sent him. While Satan, again, Avorked through guile,
villainy, and hate; Jesus worked through truth, sincerity, and
love, and so on. Jesus having done all this for us, and having,
as Irenaius is so fond of reiterating, become man for us in
order that we might become as he is, our part in salvation
accordingly consists in our following in his footsteps and 're-
capitulating/ as it were, his example of obedience and virtue
point for point at each and every stage of our lives, in child-
hood, youth, and maturity ; and so reversing like him the
disobedience of our First Parents. And the power which is to
enable us to eff"ect this is to come not through knowledge as
IREN^US; TERTULIJAN; ORIGKN. 427
with the Apologists who preceded Irena^us, but tlirough Faith,
Baptism, Grace, and Love, as with John and Paul.
On the problem, again, of the relation of Christ to God, the
docti'ine of Irena^us may be briefly stated tluis : — that God
being a God of Love, Christ, or Jesus, must have been co-
eternal with Him as the eternal object of that love, and not, as
with TertuUIan and most of the Ante-Nicene Fatliers, a Beinu'
begotten only before Time began, for the purpose of creating
the World. In taking up this position he lent, it may be
remarked, the weight of his authority in after times to the
doctrine of Athanasius as against the Arians, and so remained
an orthodox Father.
As to the problem, again, of how the human and Divine
were united in Christ, Irenscus contents himself like John
with the simple statement of the fact, without any attempt
at explanation. It is a secret, he says, for God alone, and not
for mortal men to know. And here again we see that by
refraining from all attempts at explanation he avoids the
difficulties both of those who, as we shall see in the next
chapter, held the two natures so loosely apart that they could
not be made to combine into a single personality, and
of those who, in their efforts to knit them into an unity,
confounded them together, and so made of Christ neitiier
a God nor a Man, but a kind of tertium quid, a sometliing
different from both — and so, useless for Salvation, which if
it were to be eftective, and Christianity were not to fall to
pieces, demanded that Christ should be at once very God
and very Man. And hei'e again in simply affirming the unity
of God and Man in the person of Christ, antl refraining
from all attempts to explain it, he lent support to that doctrine
of the Fathers which received its final settlement at Chalcedon ;
and so remained orthodox. But his orthodoxy, it is necessary
to repeat, is the faith of the child who simply believes
and affirms without further attempt to distinguish or define, as
distinct from the faith of the grown man, who in his anxiety to
428 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
inquire too curiously into the nature of mysteries beyond
his reach is apt to fall into pitfalls on this hand and on that —
and so into heresy.
His scheme, in a word, forms a simple, homogeneous,
and undifferentiated unity — the first as it was the last that
the Church was to know until her o-reat Councils gave
exact definitions to the problems of the nature of the Godhead,
and of the nature of the union of the human and Divine in
Christ, and so brought Church doctrine into unity and harmony
again after a long period of confusion, contradiction,
differentiation, and complexity. The scheme of Irenjeus is
mainly a mixture or amalgam of old elements, rather than
a new product : and gets most of its value for orthodoxy
from the absence in it of any attempt at definition, and
not from its having resolved all the difficulties and
contradictions into a higher unity. It were easy to point
to the many instances in which this simple unsophisticated
scheme breaks down when pressed by criticism — and of some
of these, indeed, Irenajus was himself conscious — but they
need not detain us here ; and we may now pass on to remark
that before Christianity could hope to conquer the entire
culture of the Pagan world it must first show itself arrayed
in turn in the trappings of the dift'erent Pagan Philosophies
of the time. These may practically be summed up in the
Stoic and the Neo-Platonic respectively. We have now to see
the figure it presents when it has received the Stoic impress of
the brilliant and eloquent Tertullian.
Now the key to the theological position of Tertullian as
distinct from that of Irena^us, and from what was afterwards to
become the orthodox doctrine, is to be found in the one broad
distinction which separates the Philosophy of Stoicism along
its entire length from each and every form of Platonism. And
that distinction is this ; — that whereas in Platonism there are
alwavs three elements enterins; into the constitution of thino-s
— Body, Soul, and Spirit — of which one only. Spirit (an
IREXiEUS; TERTULLIAN; OKIGEN. 429
indivisible and immaterial entity) is pure and good, the other
two, Body and Soul (both, we may observe, having extension, >
beinsf the source of all evil: in Stoicism there are two element"-
only — Body and Soul — of which Soul is good and pure, and
Body alone evil. The effect of this on the respective
theolojjies of Irenasus and TertuUian is, that whereas with
Irenasus who is a Platonist — inasmuch as he holds by the
Pauline distinction of body, soul, and spirit, — besides the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Bible alone as due to the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit is pure and good ; with TertuUian
not only Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and the Bible are pure
and good, but Nature, the Soul of Man, and the Conscience in
Man also. In a word, while Avith Irenajus, all earthly things
are evil, only heavenly ones Ijeing good ; with TertuUian, all
earthly things are naturally good — as all alike are pervaded
and informed by Soul ; and if, with him, since the Fall, Man is
bad, it is because the demons, or the Devil, have enslaved his
will to the pleasures of the body, and because his soul has
become weakened through hereditary taint and transmission.
And accordingly while with Irena^us the truth necessary for
salvation can only come from the ideal world — from Heaven,
the realm of pure Spirit, and therefore from Revelation alone
and fresh infusions of Suiicrnatural o-nice throug-h the Holv
Spirit ; with TertuUian, (now that Christ by His death and
resurrection has overthrown the demons), it comes from the real
world, — from the will of ^lan himself, reinforced and!
strengthened, it is true, by the Holy Spirit as well as by
certain niatenal means of grace. But if we ask what specially
those real things are, which according to TertuUian contain
the truth necessary for our salvation, and how and where they
are to be found and recognized, his reply is that as all thing.s
are in the beginning good, the oldest and earliest of written
records are those which contain the truth. Antiquity and
Prescription therefore are his watchwords and his criteria of
truth. And hence we have him declarinsj that the Old
430 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Testament Scriptures ai'e the record of the Truth, because of
their antiquity alone; having all been written, as he thinks,
(very erroneously as we now know) before the Greeks who tried
to embody their wisdom, began to philosophise. Church
Tradition, too, contains the Truth, because it can be traced
back through the Apostolic Churches to Jesus Christ himself ;
wdiereas all the various forms of Heresy have sprung up since
then. The New Testament Canon, on the other hand, he does
not regard as hy itself authoritative ; for although containing
in itself all the truth, it can, he thinks, be made to support
anything or nothing — a fact for us Modern Protestants to
consider ! Miracles, again, ai'e proofs of the truth of Christianity,
as being real and palpable witnesses to the presence of the
Holy Spirit. Baptism, too, has real efficacy, because, among
other things, the water used in it contains part of that original
Soul breathed into it at the Creation ! Indeed to so gross a point
•does he carry his Stoic Realism, that we find him laying stress
on the Crucifixion, mainly because it was * the blood of God '
that was shed ; while its spiritual efficacy counts with him for
little or nothing ; — that mode of death being merely the form of
obedience to God's will which Avas best adapted to impress the
carnal mind.
Another important variation made by Tertullian on the
Theology of Irenaeus and the Church, and one too which followed
directly out of his Stoic doctrine that Soul has extension,
is this, — that while with Iren?eus, as with all the Platonist
Theologians, God is a Spirit; with Tertullian, He is a Corporeal
Being ; and not He alone, but the Son and Holy Ghost as well.
So strongly, indeed, does he hold to this opinion, that we find
him figuring the Son and Holy Ghost as being detached and
cast off from the substance of God the Father, in a sense almost
as real and palpable as the successive detachments of the rings
of Saturn from the body of that planet. The Word, he says,
who, as Reason, had all along been in the bosom of God the
Father, was first cast oiF as a separate entity for the purpose of
i
IREN^US ; TERTULLTAN ; ORIGEX. 431
creating the World ; and the Holy Ghost, from the "Word in
turn after his ascension, for the purpose of keeping the Church
up to its high vocation and guiding it by new revelations from
time to time as necessity arose. And here it was that the
peculiar views of Tertullian led him into that heresy with
which his name will ever be associated in the history of the
Church — the heresy of Montanism. But to see clearly the
stages by which he was led to this, we must remember that it
was part of his doctrine of Antiquity and Prescription that the
Bishops were merely the guardians and depositaries of Church
Tradition, with no right to add to, or take away from, the
sacred deposit in any particular. If, therefore, the Holy Spirit
had really been detached from Christ after His ascension, and
if its presence were to be looked for, as he had promised, for the
guidance of the Church, it must of necessity find for itself new
organs. And, accordingly, Avhen Montanus announced that he
and his two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla, had received
the Holy Ghost, and that the message the Spirit had com-
missioned them to deliver was that men should fast, pray,
remain unmarried, and welcome martyrdom with joy, while
waiting for the New Jerusalem which Avas shortly to descend
from the clouds and to establish itself in the city of Pepuza in
Phrygia ; Tertullian Avho had long looked with horror on the
increasing laxity of Christian morals, who was himself a
believer in the Millenium, in martyrdom, and in bodily
asceticism, and who felt that if the Spirit blew wdiere it listed,
as it did of old in the days of the 'gift of tongues,' there was
no reason why Montanus and his prophetesses should not be the
organs chosen for these communications, gave in his adhesion
to the new movement — and so fell into heresy. For now that
the Canon was compiled, and all truth present and future as
well as past, was to be found within its sacred rolls — to have
allowed these unlicensed vaij-aries of the imao-jnation to intrude
themselves into the finely-poised and delicately-adjusted
wheel-work of orthodoxy Avould have been to have wrecked
432 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
the Church and to have thrown all its orderly doctrines and
practices into chaos and anarchy again, — another proof, if one
were wanted, that the Christian Scheme of Salvation w^hich
carried in its bosom the precious jewel of a higher Morality
for the World, must be safeguarded at all hazards, however
natural or logical might be the doctrines or practices that
would have upset it, however strongly supported by early
precedent or by Scripture, and however praiseworthy in them-
selves. But the Bishops as usual soon found a way to turn all
this to the advantage of the Church. For perceiving with
their accustomed sagacity that fresh revelations of the Divine
Spirit were continually being called for by the increasing
complexity, laxity, and confusion of the times, — in which new
questions both of faith and of morals were continually
demanding solution, — they boldly stepped into the gap left by
the expulsion of the Montanists, and saying in effect, ' Not
Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, but ice are the organs of the
Holy Spirit,' quietly annexed the new territory, and added it
to their own domain. For although they had always secretly
modelled the faith, as well as the discipline and practice of the
Church, in conformity with the necessities of the times, they
had never openly avowed it. But from this time forward they
claimed the right, as the legitimate organs of Divine Inspiration
for the Church, to give fresh definitions to all questions
of Faith and Morals as they arose.
On the problem, again, of the union of the divine and human
natures in Christ, Tertullian in endeavouring to distinguish and
define the relative parts played by each in the life and work of
Jesus — as for example when he says that it was the human
nature only that suffered on the Cross, while the divine remained
untouched ; that it was the human nature that appeared in his
weaknesses and weariness, and the divine in his miracles, and his
words of wisdom and power — fell into a dualism and heresy,
from which Irenteus saved himself by the simple expedient of
refusing to make any attempt at definition or distinction at all I
IRENyEUS ; TEKTULLIAX ; OllIGEX. 433
The last peculiarity of Tertullian wliicli we have to mention
here is, that he was the first to pave the way for an entire
change both in the doctrine and in the discipline of the
Church, by drawing certain preliminary conclusions from a
doctrine which he himself hekl with great tenacity, and
propagated with great eloquence and fervour, — the doctrine,
namely, tliat God was a God of Justice as well as of Love.
Marcion, it will be remembered, had declared that God was a
God of pure Love, but not of Justice. Justice, he said, was an
attribute of the Jewish God, .Jehovah, — an inferior agent of
the true God, and a God with whom the Christians had
nothing whatever to do. But Tertullian to prevent the fatal
divorce between the Old and Ncav Testaments which would
have ensued on the acceptance of this doctrine by the Church,
boldly announced in opposition to Marcion, that God was a
God of Justice also, and that evidences of this justice were to
be seen on every hand in the Works of Nature as well as in the
Conscience of J\Ian; and moreover that without it, Love which
is holy and condemns its opposite, would cease to be love.
But the controversy with Marcion, and the way in which that
heretic had united the Justice of Jehovah with his Cruelty and
Revenge, and had lumped them together in one condemnation,
Avere too recent for the Church boldly to advance to the
conclusion that the offended Justice of God, equally with his
Love, had to be satisfied by the death of Jesus on the Cross.
That step accordingly was left for much later Theologians to
take, in the doctrine of the Vicarious Sacrifice. In the meantime
Tertullian contented himself with taking the first step only
towards that goal, by declaring that penance, fasting, alms-giving,
public confession, celibacy, martyrdom, etc., equally with love
and prayer (which up till then had been the only sacrifices
required of a Christian) were not only accessory 'means of
grace,' but were ' propitiations ' for sins as well ; and so by his
Stoic Realism opened the door to the doctrine not only of
the efficacy of Baptism as a means of grace, and of the Lord's
E E
434 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Supper as a sacrifice, but to the efficacy of ' meritorious works*
also ; and from this to a Priesthood as the spiritual medium
for dispensing the forgiveness of sins through these sacraments
and works, was but a step — a step which his successor Cyprian
was not slow to take.
We have now to see the variations which were made in the
general scheme of Salvation when it was passed through the
Neo-Platonic mould of Origen, the great Alexandrian Father.
Now, in reading Origen we have not gone far before we
perceive that the extent of his departure from the Theology of
Irenseus and Tertullian, is greater than can be legitimately
accounted foi by the differences between his Neo-Platonisra
and their Platonism and Stoicism respectively. And on
searching for the causes of this divergence, we discover it to lie
in the broad fact that whereas Irenseus and Tertullian have
taken the Pauline scheme of Salvation as their basis, and have
inwrouffht it, the one with Platonism and the other with
Stoicism ; Origen on the contrary has taken the philosophy of
Neo-Platonism as his basis, and has worked into it only as
much of the Gospel scheme of Salvation as it would allow — a
radical difference of procedure, it is to be observed, and one
that will give rise to the widest divergences of doctrine.
When once this is recognized, and when the causes that have
given rise to it are clearly seen, we shall then have found the
key to the Theology of Origen, and can almost anticipate his
particular doctrines point by point. Now the first observation
we have to make bearing on this question is, that a very
considerable period of time must have elapsed before the New
Testament Canon which was the work mainly of the Churches
of Eome, Asia Minor, and the West, was accepted as
authoritative at Alexandria, This was chiefly owing to the
circumstance that Gnosticism and other forms of heresy were
•so strongly massed and entrenched in that city, that the
authority of the Bishop alone was not sufficient to expel them.
And as Gnosticism, especially Egyptian Gnosticism, held, as
IREX.EUS; TERTULLIAN; ORIGEN. 435
•\\e have seen, by Pliilosophy and Knowledge, rather than by
Faith, which was the watchword of Paul, it was with great
difficulty that a Canon which made the Pauline scheme its
basis of Salvation, could make its way amid surroundings so
hostile. And accordingly in the interval that elapsed between
the formation of the Canon and its full acceptance at
Alexandria, a School of Theologians holding to the simple
facts of Gospel History (and so, unlike the Gnostics, orthodox)
had time to arise ; and basing their theology on the Gospel of
John rather than on Paul, on knowledge and faith rather than
on faith alone, had, before they could be put down by the
orthodoxy of the West, constructed vast and far-reaching
systems of their own. These men had originally come to
Christianity from the Schools of Neo-Platonic Philosophy
which had made Alexandria their home, and which, indeed, had
60 many points of affinity with Christianity that it was quite
easy to pass from the one to the other. But as John had
formulated no scheme of salvation, and had contented himself
mainly with identifying Jesus Avith the Logos of God, it was
natural that these Neo-Platonic Thinkers, with the Scheme of
Salvation left open for them as it were, should construct one
for themselves ; and that they should do this rather by pouring
their religion into the mould of the Neo-Platonic Philosophy in
which they had been brought up, and which prevailed every-
where around them, than by pouring their Philosophy into the
mould of a purely Jewish scheme of Salvation like that of
Paul, which was alien to their entire mode of thought, which
they had scarcely heard of, and which had had no great
authority anywhere until the Canon had stamped it Avith the
mark of Divine Authority. And they were still more disposed
to take this course, inasmuch as between their own philosophy
and the Logos Christology of John there was no wide gap
in crossing which their whole past would have to be abandoned,
but only the simple and easy step of turning the abstractions of
the one into the wills of the otlier, — the Supreme One of
436 THE EVOLUTION OF CHKISTIANITY.
Keo-Platonism into God tlie Fatlicr, tlie Logos into Jesus^
Christ, and the Soul of the World into the Holy Ghost,
Now had the Canon been regarded as authoritative in
Alexandria before they began their labours, they would
have been blocked on the threshold; and the Alexandrian
Theology, it may confidently be affirmed, could not have
arisen at all. As it was, it had scarcely had time to
over-run the East — as it quickly did by reason of its profundity
and subtlety, by the vast amount of simple Christianity which
it contained — when the Canon overtook it, as it were, and the
great Origen who had been the pride of the Church and the
teacher and guide of so many of its dignitaries and leaders,
was deposed from his throne, and condemned to a lower circle
in the Inferno of Heretics than any of his predecessors. For
in the meantime, the doctrine of ' sacramental grace ' which was
started by the Stoic Realism of TertuUian, had been extended
by succeeding Fathers until it embraced not only the water
and the bread and wine, but relics and images as well ; and was
soon to over-spread the whole field of ecclesiastical discipline
and ritual. But the Stoicism of TertuUian which ousht to
have accompanied the extension of these practices as their
theoretical basis, was inconvenient, by reason of its insistence
on the corporeality of God. It was replaced, accordingly,
by the Philosophy of Aristotle, which, while it possessed the
advantage of everywhere making bodily things instinct with
spiritual power, at the same time made of God a Spirit, and
not a body. It became, in consequence, the official philosophy
of the Catholic Church, and has remained so, down through the
Middle Ao-es to our own time.
With these preliminary observations, we are now in a position
to proceed to consider the variations which were made by
Origen in the theology of the time. And perhaps we cannot
better bring out their peculiar features than by instituting
a running comparison between them and the Neo-Platonism
which moves throughout on parallel lines with them, and in
IREN.EUS; TERTULLIAN; ORIGEX. 437
the mould of wliicli he consciously cast them. If, then, -vve
begin with his viev/ of the great problem of the nature of
the Godhead which was soon to rend the Church in twain, we
shall find that just as in Neo-Platonism the Logos and the
World are both emanations from the Supreme One, and are, on
the analogy of rays from their central source, co-eternal with
that Supreme One ; so with Origen^ God the Father must
always have been a Creator, and the World always have
had an existence ; and, therefore, God the Son as the creator of
the World must also have been co-eternal with the Father —
and not, as with Tertullian and most of the Ante-Nicene
Fathers, begotten by God, only when he was wanted for
the creation of the World, In taking up this position, Origen
happens to fall into line with orthodoxy. In his second
position, however, he is less fortunate. For, again, just as
in Neo-Platonism the Logos was inferior to tlie Supreme One,
and the Soul of the World to the Lo2:os — as beino- emanations
at the first and second removes respectively — so with Origen,
God the Son is inferior to God the Father, and God the Holy
Ghost to God the Son — and here he falls into heresy. But by
reason of this very inferiority of the Son and the Holy Ghost
to the Father, Oi'igen is enabled logically to assign a division
of labour to each of the three Persons, which greatly reduces
the complexity of the Problem of Salvation ; for in accordance
-with this idea of inequality and inferiority, he makes God the
Father preside over the Universe as a ichole, God the Son over
the narrower field of rational svuls — the special province of
salvation — and God the Holy Ghost over the members of
the Church only. Having in this way thrown out the
Universe as a Avhole from his purview, we find that just as
in Neo-PIatonism the reasonable souls of the Universe — stars,
planets, sun, and moon (all of whom are gods), demons,
men, etc. — are all of the same substance and nature as the
Logos from whom they are emanations ; so too with Origen, his
national souls, who consist of gods, thrones, principalities,
438 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
powers, stars, angels, demons, anil men, are of the same nature
as God the Son who created them and bears sway over
them. And as, further, In Neo-Platonism, the niimher of these
souls Is strictly limited, so too Is It with Orlgen — the only
distinction being, that Avhereas In Neo-Platonlsm the angels
and men who fell did so because of the mixture of matter
in their composition ; with Orlgen they fell, because of their
rebellious and disobedient loills. And just as In Neo^
Platonism, too, bodies were given these fallen spirits, of a.
nature and quality coiTCsponding to the depth of their fall, and
the amount of matter in their composition ; so, too, is it
with Orlgen — the angels having bodies of ether given them,,
men bodies of flesh, and demons bodies of darkness. And
60 the parallel between Neo-Platonism and the theology of
Orlgen, goes on with almost wearying monotony. For just as
with Plato, again, human souls have to purify themselves
by successive rounds of re-incarnation*; so, too, Is it with
Orlgen — the only difference being that whereas with Plato
these re-incarnating souls have to plod their weary eternal
rounds of punishment and sorrow, until bitter experience
has purged them of the last trace of Injustice, disobedience, and
folly, and so they regain their lost homes among the stars ;.
with Orlgen, the process of re-incarnation which had been
going on until the appearance of Christ on the scene, is
then suddenly arrested ; for by the work he has accomplished
by his death on their behalf, he lifts fallen angels and fallen
men alike from their degradation, by the power of the
Holy Spirit, to their homes in Heaven. But Instead of
this being done through faitJt — as with Paul, Irenseus, and
Tertulllan — it Is done through hioidedge primarily, as with
the Gnostics, by the knowledge of who and what we are ; and
secondly, by the ransom which was paid by the death of Christ,,
not to the oftended justice of God as in later theology, but ta
the demons for setting men free. Indeed, if the death of
*See Appendix.
IKEX^US ; TEUTULLIAN ; ORIGEX. 439
Christ is with Origen a sacrifice at all, it is in the sense, a
he says, in which the martyrdom of the faithful is a sacrifice
naraelv, as a victorv over the demons.
On the problem, af)jain, of the nature of the union of the
divine and human in Christ — Origen, like TertuUian and all the
other Ante-Kicene Fathers, is unable to make the two unite
without falling into heresy. He tries to solve the diflSculty by
making the Logos unite himself only Avith a pure and spotless
human soul to form the man Jesus ; but as the souls of men
needing redemption are by no means pure and spotless, it is
evident that unless the Logos took on himself our impure
nature, for the purpose of making it pure and good by
irradiating it with his own perfect purity and obedience, his
victory would for fallen human souls be a barren one — and
so void of effect for pm-poses of Salvation. In this, too,
Origen is heretical.
On the question of Church Government, again, Origen who,
after the manner of Neo-Platonism, regards the visible Earthly
Church as but the copy of an Invisible Heavenly one, is in
consequence not disposed to submit it — except in mere exoteric
matters of Church tradition and administration — to the guidance
of the Bishops; but only to that esoteric wisdom of divine
things, which can come fi'om knowledge alone. As regards
those who have been guilty of 'mortal sins,' they cannot receive
pardon on Earth, but can appeal only to that Invisible Church
which is in Heaven.
As for the second coming of Clirist on Earth — it had no place
with the Alexandrian Fathers, as it had with Irenreus, TertuUian,
and the Fathers of the West. Montanus, with his prophetesses
and his New Jerusalem descending on Pepuza, had well-nigh
killed it ; and the theology of Clement and Origen practically ex-
tinguished it in the East. Caius the Presbyter made an attempt
to extinguish it in the AVest; but it was premature; and the
expectation of the Millennium lingered on there until the end of
the Third Century, when it seems to have died a natural death.
440 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
In the meantime the Bishops of the Great Metropolitan Sees
were drawing to themselves more and more power and authority-
over all matters of faith, discipline, and morals; while the great
See of Rome was slowly but steadily and surely marching to
supremacy. But practical difficulties of administration were
constantly arising, and tending to push the Church further and
further from her old landmarks. In the early days, when
Catecliumens were not allowed to be baptized until after a long
and searching novitiate, Baptism itself was believed to be
sufficient to preserve the believer ever after from the com-
mission of ' mortal sins.' But from the time that raw and
unseasoned converts began to pour into the Church from all
sides — and especially when the sword of persecution swooped
down upon them — many of those who had been baptized were
found to fall away in the time of trial, and to deny their Lord
and Master — and so fell into Avhat was regarded as the most
heinous of mortal sins. To meet crises like these, the Church
was obliged to abandon her old position — of the efficacy of
Baptism to protect from sin — and accordingly after a number
of preliminary and tentative deliverances of the same nature on
the part of other Fathers, Ave find Cyprian boldly coming
forward and declaring, tliat only sins committed before baptism
were washed away by it, but that those sins committed after
baptism were left untouched by its cleansing efficacy. What
then was to be done with those who had been guilty of these
post-baptismal sins % After the Decian persecutions, it would
appear that the number of tliose who had been guilty of abjuring
the faith and denying their Lord, was so great, that to have
extruded them wholesale from the Church — leaving them to the
tender mercies of God, as Novatian and others of the stricter
sort recommended, or to the Invisible Church in Heaven, as
Origen had advised — would have been to have driven hundreds
back into Paganism again. After much controversy and even
schism in consequence, the difficulty was met by Cyprian, who,
acting on a theory of ' meritorious works ' let fall by his great
IREN.EUS; TERTULLIAN; ORIGEX. 441
master Tertulllan, freely openeiT a way of pardon to all, by
announcing that these meritorious works were to be regarded
as so much to the credit side, as it were, in the balance sheet of
good and evil ; on the one hand, as atonements for sin, and on
the other as laying up a store of rewards for the future; making
the distinction, however, that while ordinary good works such
as Almso-ivins were efficacious as a set-off against ' venial sins,'
Penances, and the more rigorous mortifications were absolutely
essential for the atonement of the mortal sins which were now
mainly in question, viz., the sacrificing to the Pagan gods, and
the denying of Christ. And he further contended that when
these penances had been accepted by the Church as satisfactory,
the Bishops had the right, on the theory of ' the power of the
keys,' to grant absolution. They had already claimed and
exercised the right to allow repentant heretics to enter the
Church without re-baptism, provided only that they underwent
the ceremony of Confirmation or ' the laying on of hands' — a
ceremony which was valid only when performed by the Bishops
themselves. Absolution, in consequence, had now become a
means of grace equal in value to Baptism ; but this absolution,
requiring a priest, is still qualified by the belief in the efficacy of
Penance and Meritorious A\'orks also. From this time, then,
the Bishops had become a Priesthood, after the manner of the
old Jewish Priesthood, as the necessary intermediaries between
God and Man for the remission of Sins.
With these variations in the matter of Ecclesiastical
Authority, the theory of the Lord's Supper had to keep pace.
With Ignatius, it had been a real conversion of the elements into
the very body and blood of Christ ; with Justin and Irenaius,
it had been an offiiring of thanksgiving for the fruits of
the earth, getting all its value from the deposition of the
believer, quite apart from the intervention of any priesthood to
administer it ; with Tertullian, it had been at once a spiritual
communication, and (in accordance with his Stoic Realism)
a siqjetmatKval influence produced on the body by the ingestion
442 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of the elements, and preparing it for immortality. But with
Cyprian, it became a sacrifice — a duplicate in miniature of
the suffering of Christ on the Cross, and having in itself all
the virtue that attached to that sacred sacrifice. It had
not only a special, but a general expiatory value, as in-
corporating the Church and all its members with Christ. But
with him, the Lord's Supper is more than a sacrifice ; it is
an imparting of Divine gifts as well — a pledge of the in-
corruptibility of the body, of the resurrection, and of the
union of the flesh with the Holy Spirit ; it is the nourishment
of the soul ; and, as containing Christ, is the bearer of truth,
of knowledge, and of sanctification — and out of this speedily
arose the celebration of the Mass. With Origen, on the
contrary, it remained a feeding of the soul on the Son of
God merely ; bearing the same relation to Christ that the
symbol does to the thing symbolized.
CHAPTER XII.
THE TKlNITr.
"TTP to this point In our history we have seen that the line
^^ of development of Christian doctrine, especially in
reference to the person of Christ, was marked out beforehand
by necessities inherent In the mediatorial scheme of Redemption
and Salvation ; so that if tliat Scheme were to be complete and
logic-proof at all points, Christ must be regarded as at once
Eternal God and complete and perfect Man. But at the point
now reached, with the Gospel of John in the Canon, and
Christ from being as he was originally a man more specially
favoured by God than other men, now become God or the Son
of God, quite a new element enters to determine the future
course of evolution of Christian doctrine, — the necessity, viz.,
of malntainino; the Unitv and Soverel^ntv of God. The
necessity of enforcing this doctrine did not arise so long as
Jesus was regarded as the Messiah and a man, but now that he
was proclaimed to be a God, it was felt that in the midst
of Pagan polytheism the doctrine of the unity and sovereignty
of the Deity must be upheld at all costs. For the period
accordinglv on which Ave are now enterinsj, it is evident that
the narrow line along which orthodoxy must travel, will be
bounded on the one hand bv the doctrine of the unitv and
sovereignty of God the Father, and on the other by that of the
co-eternity and co-equality of the Son : and that the tendency
444: THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
of heresy in consequence will be to overweight the unity and
sovereignty at the expense of the co-eternity and co-equality,
either by overloading and aggrandizing the person and office of
the Father, or by degrading the nature of the Son. The first
of these errors took form in the heresy of the Sabellians, the
latter in that of the Arians.
The feature common to all forms of the Sabellian heresy 13
that it was God the Father Himself who assumed our flesh and
suffered and died for us, and not a historical person known as
the Son ; and for this reason the adherents of this doctrine
were in the West called Patripassians. In taking up this
position they ])rofessed to be able to preserve the unity of God
without derogating from the full divinity of Christ. This
heresy first made its appearance in Rome and Asia Minor about
the year 200 A.D. and is associated with the names of Noetus,
Praxeas, Cleomenes, and Sabellius. Its simplest form perhaps
was the doctrine of Noetus, who contended that the Christ
who suffered and died was the Father Himself; the passages
by which he supported this view being mainly those of John,
X. 30, " I and my Father are One ; " and John xiv. 0, " He
that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Cleomenes took up
practically the same position and contended that it was the
same God who was now visible, now invisible ; now tangible,
now intangible; now mortal, now immortal; and that when He
was unborn He was the Father, when born He was the Christ.
To support this view he appealed to the Theophanies of the
Old Testament where God appeared to Abraham, Moses,
Jacob, and Joshua. Praxcas, again, declared that there was no
difference between Father and Son but the flesh of the man
Jesus, and appealed in proof to the same text to which Noetus
liad appealed, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ; "
as well as to Isaiah, xlv. '2^, "lam God, and there is none else."
And lastly Sabellius from whom the heresy took its name,
preferred to say that it was the same God who played like an
actor the successive parts of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In
THE TKIMTY. 445
adding the Holy Gliost to tlie Father and Son, and so givhig
the appearance of equality to the Father, Son, and Spirit,
Sabellius we may remark in passing, prepared the way for the
recognition of the real equality of these three Persons of the
Godhead when the question at lust came up for discussion
during the Arian controversy.
And thus it was that in their anxiety to safeguard the unity
and sovereignty of God, the Sabellians so aggrandized the part
played by God the Father as to destroy the mediatorial efficacy
of Christ in the scheme of Redemption and Salvation. For
not only was the incarnation of God the Father too great a
shock to traditional feeling, but the belief in the separate
existence and personality of the Son as distinct from the
Father had by this time become so deeply embedded in the
doctrine of the Church, that the heresy although a wide-spread
and a tenacious one, was easily enough put down when once
its real slsfnificance and the havoc it would make in the scheme
of Salvation began to be clearly seen.
^leanwhlle another heresy which had the same aim and
object as that of the Sabellians, — the safeguarding of the
unity and monarchy of God, — was arising, but this time from
the opposite quarter of the theological field. For while
Sal)ellianism tried to gain its end by aggrandizing the Father,
the new heresy tried to gain it by depreciating the Son. This
heresy was Arianism. The broad general position which it
took up was that the Son far from being co-equal and co-eternal
with God the Father was only a creature, made like other
creatures out of Nothing, and liable to error and change ; that
he was the Son of God in name only and by adoption, and not
by nature; and that he differed from angels, men, and other
created beings only in this, that he was nearer to God the
Father than they.
Now this doctrine had its historical root far back in the days
of the primitive Church, at a time when it was believed that
Jesus was a man who had been olorlfied and exalted to the
446 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
right hand of God for his obedience and good works, and would
soon come again as Judge under the Kingship of God Himself.
But now that the Son had in the Gospel of John attained to
the rank of a God, jealousy for the unity and sovereignty
of God the Father was for the first time definitively aroused ;
and a determined attempt was in consequence made to degrade
the Son to the rank of a man again. This attempt was first
made at Eome by one Thcodotus, a leather-dresser from
Byzantium, who, while admitting that Christ had grown up
under the special influence of the Holy Spirit, nevertheless
boldly denied his Divinity ; appealing in support of this
position to the Old Testament prophecies, which declared that
the Messiah should be born of a woman, and to the Gospel
declarations of his humanity , and affirming that the union
between the Divine and human in Jesus was a moral union
merely, and that only a moral superiority separated him from
other men. Artemon, too, allowed the moral and spiritual
oneness of Jesus with the Father, but denied his Divinity;
while Paul of Samosata who was afterwards dejDOsed for heresy
by a Council at Antioch, contended that instead of having any
real pre-existence with the Father, Christ only pre-existed
as an idea in the mind of God the Father, not existing in his
own proper essence until his appearance on earth. Jesus could
therefore only be called the Son of God through holiness, and
not in his own proper nature ; and the truth was that instead
of God becoming Man in the person of Jesus, Jesus the man
had become God. All this led up to Arianism proper, which
descended traditionally through this same Paul of Samosata to
Arius by way of Lucian his teacher who was himself a pupil
of Paul. But it was not until Orio^en and the Alexandrian
School, building on St. John's Gospel and Avith the support of
the Western Fathers, had enunciated the doctrine that the
Logos or Son had come forth from the bosom of the Father
for the purpose of creating the world, that Arianism assumed
its own proper expression, which was that the Son although
THE TRINITY. 447
with the Father before the workl and for the purpose of creating
the world, was nevertheless only a creature made by God, and
neither co-equal nor co-eternal Avith Him. As was naturally to
be expected during the long continuance of the controversy
various stages of degradation were observable. The pure
Ai'ians would not even admit that the Son was like the Father
in nature ; the Eusebians or Court party, again, while admitting
a general likeness of nature denied any likeness of substance ;
while the Semi-Arians going so far as to admit a likeness of
substance (homoiousion) refused to admit the identity of
substance (homoousion) which was the test of orthodoxy.
Now this heresy unlike Sabellianism which was refuted by the
explicit declaration both of Scripture and the tradition of tho
Fathers that the Son was a distinct personality separated from
the Father, found such abundant support not only in the Gospel
of John, in Tradition, and in unguarded expressions of the
Fathers, but also in the reigning philosophy of Neo-Platonism,
that before it was finally exi^elled it had well-nigh rent the
Church in twain.
The Gospel of John it will be remembered, although
opening boldly with the broad declaration that " In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was Avith God, and
the Word was God," nevertheless contains so many detached
passages pointing to the subordination of the Son to the
Father, as to neutralize the force of the original declaration,
or afford room for interpreting it in a spiritual or allegorical
rather than in a literal sense. It was said that the identity of
the Son with the Father was a moral rather than a natural
identity ; and that " in the beginnino- " meant not from ever-
lasting but from a point of time immediately prior to the
creation of the world. And indeed these views are largely
borne out, not only by many isolated passages, but by the
general spirit and impression of the Avhole gospel. For
although it nowhere definitively countenances the heresy that the
Son is difi'erent in nature or substance from the Father, still
448 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
in all that concerns the speech or action of the Son we find
distinctly stated there that the Father suggests the words
which the Son is to utter, and gives the command which
the Son is to obey ; so much so, indeed, that the impression is
everywhere left that the Son is the purely passive instrument
in the hands of the Father, or else His echo and mouthpiece.
Among other instances, for example, we may take John v. 19,
where Jesus states that he can do nothina; of himself but
what he sees the Father do ; or again, John xii. 49, where
he says " I spake not from myself ; but the Father which
sent me, He hath given me a commandment what I should say
and what I should speak." In everything he follows the
Father's initiative. "As the Father hath sent me, even sa
send I you into the world" he says in reference to his
disciples (John xx. 21). Even his life is derivative. " For
as the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the
Son also to have life in himself " (John v. 26). It is nowhere
said, as Dr. Martineau points out, "that all things that the
Father is am I," but only " all things that the Father hath
are mine." And although it is said that the Father is in
the Son (John x. 38), it is also said (xiv. 28) " the Father
is greater than I ; " and (xvii. 3) that to the Father alone
belongs the name of true God.
But besides these passages from the Gospel of John, the
Arian heresy of the inferiority of the Son to the Father
receives support from many passages scattered throughout the
Old and New Testaments. In Matthew xix. 17, for example,
Jesus himself is made to say " why callest thou me good, there
is none good but One, that is God." In Mark xiii. 32 again he
goes so far as to declare that no one knows the time of his
second advent, neither the angels in heaven, nor himself, but
only the Father. So too again in I. Corinthians xv. 28, Paul
declares that in the last times the Son himself shall be subject
to " Him that put all things under him, that God may be all
in all." Atlianasius in his orations against the Arians singles
THE TlilMTY. 449
out for refutation many passages quoted by them in support of
their doctrine. Among others lie mentions Hebrews i. 4 where
it is said Christ was made so much better than the angels — the
implication being that he is a creature and inferior to God the
Father. Also Hebrews iii. 2 where his faithfulness is compared
to that of Moses, as if he were merely a man like him. Again
Acts ii. 3G where it is said that God had made Jesus both Lord
and Christ. And a favourite passage of the Arians to prove
that Christ was not co-eternal with God, viz., Proverbs viii. 22
" the Lord created me in the beginning of his ways for his
works," and so on. Now although many of these passages may
be said to have an allegorical interpretation, or to refer
exclusively to the huinan nature of Christ, still they were
sufficient in number and importance to justify the existence of
the heresy Avhen once the question of the relation of the Son to
Father had been definitively raised.
But besides being strongly supported by Scripture, the
Arian heresy received the support in one or other of its main
positions, of practically all the earlier Fathers of the Church
both in the East and West. The heresy, as we have seen,
differed from what was afterwards to be the orthodox doctrine
mainly in two points, viz., in its denial of the co-eternity of the
Son with the Father, and in its denial of his co-equality — the
Western and Asiatic Fathers denying the co-etemity, the
Alexandi'ian Fathers the co-equality. A few words on the
causes of this phenomenon may not be out of place here, and
will help perhaps to make the nature of the controversy
more clear.
At the outset then it is necessary to remark that it was the
Neo-Platonic Philosophy which furnished the mould or frame-
work into which the Fathers of the Church cast their
speculations on the Godhead, when once Christ had been
elevated to the position of a God, and the three persons of the
Trinity, — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, — were seen to
correspond in nature and function to the three abstractions of
F F
450 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITV.
Neo-Platonism, — the Supreme One, the Logos, and the World-
Spirit, respectively. This Neo-Platonic philosophy it may be
mentioned in passing had been inaugurated at Alexandria by a
Jew named Philo, about the time of Christ; and its main
contentions were tliat the Logos emanated from the Supreme
One at a first remove, and the World-Spirit from the Logos
again at a second remove, — much in the way in which a ray of
light emanates from the sun, or a spring from its fountain
head — and being like these coeval with their central source. Now
it was the author of the fourth Gospel who was the first to
definitively identify Christ with the Logos of Neo-Platonism ;
but whether it were from the general impression left by that
Gospel, or from the tradition of the Church, or from the
difficulty of conceiving a Being possessed of will and personality
like Christ without a definite beginning ; certain it is that with
both the Western and Eastern Fathers, with Justin, Tatian,
Tertullian, Novatian, Hilary, and the rest, it was taken for
granted that although the Logos might have existed with the
Father from eternity, the Son had not, but on the contrary
had come into existence only when he was wanted as the
instrument of the Father for creatins; the World. Tertullian
put the matter in his direct and pregnant way when he affirmed
that there was no need of a Son before there was a world to
create or sinners to judge ; from which he argued (contra
Herraog. iii.), that there must have been a time when the Son
was not — a main position of what was afterwards to be the
Arian heresy.
With the Alexandrian Fathers, again, the case was different.
They were more deeply imbued and interpenetrated with the
Neo-Platonic philosophy which flourished side by side with them
at Alexandria than were the Western and Asiatic Fathers;
and accordingly more closely identified the Father, Son, and
Spirit with the Supreme One, the Logos, and the World-Spirit
of Neo-Platonism. The consequence was that just as the Logos
was co-eternal with the Supreme One in Neo-Platonism, so they
THE TiilNlTY. 451
made the Son co-eternal with the Father in their theology —
and not, like the Western and Asiatic Fathers, dating merely
from before the creation of the world. But while thus keeping
clear of heresy on the question of the co-eternity of the Son
with the Father, tliey fell into it on the question of the co-
equality. For with their passion for carrying out to its full
extent the analogies between the Trinity of the Godhead and
the Trinity of Neo-Platonism, they made the Son inferior to the
Father as being begotten of Him, in the same way as the Neo-
Platonists made the Logos inferior to the Supreme One as
being an emanation at the first remove from it. They thus
denied the co-equality of the Son with the Father, and so fell
into what, when once the question was raised, became a heresy.
In this Avay then the Western and Asiatic Fathers by denying
the co-eternity of the Son witli tlic Father, and the Alexandrian
Fathers by denying the co-equulity, lent, either directly or by
implication, either wittingly or unwittingly, the weight of their
great authority to the Arian heresy. But a main support of
the heresy, especially with the thoughtful, was its logical con-
sistency, if it may be so called, its harmony with the laws of
just thinking ; whereas the orthodox view was encompassed
with difficulties on every hand, and outraged all the laws of
ordinary human thought. If, for example, the very conception
of a son is of one born later than his father how could it be
said that the Son was co-eternal with the Father ? To be co-
eternal he would have to be an emanation, he could not be a
personality, and so not one of the persons of the Godhead. On
the other hand if he were a person and not a mere emanation,
he must have had a beofinninsj of existence, and if so then there
must have been a time when he was not. In other words he
must have been created by the Father, and so could have been
God in name only or by adoption, and not in nature and essence.
If on the other hand he really were God, then there must be
two Gods, and so on. And the same kind of reasoning applied
equally to the Holy Ghost.
452 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
And yet in spite of the fact that Scripture, the tradition of
the Fathers, and human reason itself were all arrayed on the
side of the Arian heresy, so deep was the necessity if the
Scheme of Salvation were not to perish, that the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost should be one God and not three, and that the
Son and Holy Ghost should be of one substance and one with
the Father, should be co-equal and co-eternal with Him, that
the heresy had to be put down and refuted at all hazards. Now
it was to Athanasius that the Church was indebted for this
service ; and it must be confessed that he did it with an
originality, penetration, and acuteness that left nothing to be
desired, and with a fulness and completeness of thought and
arcjument which have left all the succeeding Fathers but
pensioners on his bounty. We have now to see how this was
done.
We may begin by frankly admitting that the Arian arguments
when applied to the ordinary Avorld of Time and Space are
irrefragable. A son being born after his father cannot be
co-equal in age with him, nor among a people to whom the
Koman Law of the absolute power of a father over his children
was an axiom of thought, can he be co-equal in power and
authority with him. But Athanasius pointed out that Time
and Space themselves are but creations of God, having their
beginning with the creation of the world ; and are not, therefore,
co-eternal with Him. A logic of Time and Space therefore is
only applicable to questions involving the relation of the Son
to the world of Time and Space which he created ; but not at
all to questions involving the relation of the Son to the Father
who by the hypothesis exists in an Ever-present Eternity beyond
the realm of Time and Space. So that instead of figuring
Existence as the Arians did, as liaving a beginning in Time with
the Father, and going on in Time to the creation of the world,
Athanasius figured it as an eternal A^ou; — tapering off" at the
creation of the world into the little drawn-out tail as it Avere
of Time and Space in whicli we now dwell. He argues
THE TRINITY. 453
nccordingly that to all existences lying before this point of
creation the logic of Eternity alone is applicable ; and only to
tliose existing after it the logic of Time and Space, that is to
say the logic of the ordinary human understanding. Now tlie
relation of the Father to the Son, lying as it does before this
point, is a relation of Eternity, and is to be determined by the
logic of Eternity, and not bv that of Time. Athanasius
accordingly taking the Arian doctrine of the relation of the
Son to the Father as that of posterior to anterior in Time, and
eliminating the element of Time as illegitimate, got instead a
relation of co-eternity. Again, taking the Arian doctrine of
the separation of the Son from the Father in Space as a ray is
t?eparated in place from its source, and eliminating the element
of Space, he got from it a relation of co-inherence ; that is
to say a relation in Avhicli the Son is in the Fatlier and the
Father in the Son — a relation ^vliich to ordinary logic is as
incomprehensible as a box which at one and the same time is
inside another and yet outside of it ! And now observe that as
superiority in point of dignity or authority is a matter quite
independent of Time and Space, tlie Church has always been
able without contradiction to uphold the primacy of the Father
while admitting the equality and sameness in nature of the
Son — a j)osition expressed by Hilary in the paradox that " the
Father is the greater without the Son being les.s," and explained
by Gregory Nazianzen as follows : — That the Father was both
equal to and greater than the Son, greater in reference to His
being the initiator and cause, but equal as to His nature. In
this way then Athanasius defended the unity, co-eternity,
co-equality, and co-inherence of tlie Father, Son, and Spirit
against all attacks from Scripture, Tradition, and the laws of
ordinary human thought ; and so prevented Christianity from
becoming disintegrated by the degradation of the Son to a
creature, or by a return to a modified Polytheism.
But in stationing the Son at the point between the eternal
Now of the Father on the one side, and the World of Time
454 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
and Space on the other, Athanasins was able to account as well
for those passages in Scripture which were adduced in support
of the Arian heresy. For while that side or aspect of the Son
Avhich is turned towards the Father explains his real nature,
viz., his unity, co-equality and co-eternity with the Father ;
the side or aspect turned to the World of Time and Space
accounts for what Scripture says of him in his relations with
the World. It explains all those instances of grace and con-
descension on the part of the Son, in which he appears less than
he is in his real nature ; — indeed without this very condescension
of his in framing the world, we should not, as Newman says,
have been here to be instructed in the mystery of the Godhead.
It accounts for his appearance in the form of an angel to the
patriarchs of the Old Testament. It accounts for the numerous
passages quoted by the Arians to show that he was a creature
born in Time, as for example when, in Proverbs viii. 22, it is
said that " God created him in the beginning of his ways for
his works ; " or when Paul, in Romans viii. 29, says he was the
'* First-born among many brethren ; " or again, in Colossians
i. 15, Avhere he calls him the " First-born of creation ; " or again,
in Revelation iii. 14, where he is called the " Befjinnino- of the
crention of God," and so on ; in all such passages it will be
observed he is not called the first-born of God but the first-
born of creation. AVhen he is spoken of in relation to God it is
always as the Only-begotten.
By this distinction Ijctween what the Son was in his
essential nature and what he was in relation to the world
of Time, Athanasius completely outflanked his opponents, and
placed the mystery of the Trinity on a basis which, so far
as Christian thought is concerned, it securely occupies to
this day. He establislied the doctrine of the unity, co-eternity
and co-equality of the Father, Son, and Spirit against the
apparent sense at least of Scripture, the traditions of the
Fathers, and even the logic of human reason itself ; against
8abellianism and Patripassianism, which would have reduced
THE TRINITY. 455
the Son and the Spirit to the merely temporary manifestations
or masks behind which the same God the Father appeared ;
and against the Arianism which would have made of the
Trinity a polytheism of three separate Gods, of whom the
Father alone would he real and the other two decjraded to
the rank of mere creatures.
The full godhead of the Son having been settled by
Athanasius, it was inevitable almost that controversy should
next centre on the question of his Manhood ; and this
naturally turned on the difficulty of conceiving how the Divine
and human could exist side by side in one personality without
some sacrifice either of the full divinity or of the full
manhood. The full divinity having been conceded, doubt
was accordingly next thrown on his complete manhood ;
and ApoUinaris of Laodicea broke ground on this issue by
boldly declaring that although Christ had a human body and
passions he had no human mind or will, — that principle being
supplied him by the Logos of God Himself. But as it was
necessary if the scheme of Ecdemption was to be efficacious
that Christ should be full and complete man as well as full
and complete God, this emasculated conception of ApoUinaris
was condemned as heresy by the Council of Constantinople,
381, A.D.
The attempt to make the human and the Divine in Christ dove-
tail more harmoniously by paring away parts of his humanity,
having failed, there was nothing left but to determine how the
full divinity and full humanity could conceivably be bound up
in a single personality. And in this only two alternatives weic
open for heresy. Either tlie two natures could be kept so
distinct that sufficient inter[)cnetration to keep them parts of one
single personality was not possible, or else the two natiu-es
could be so confounded as to lose all that was distinctive in
either. The first was the Xestorian heresy, and among other
things it asserted that although Mary was the mother of Christ
she was the mother not of the God in Christ but onlv of the
456 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
human part of his nature. In the same way while admitting
that it was Christ who suffered and died and was buried and
rose again, it held that as God was impassible and incapable of
suffering, it could only be the human part of Christ that
underwent these experiences. And in this it was supported by
John li. 19, where the temple of his body is distinguished from
him who should raise it up. Then again, while admitting that
worship was due to Christ, it held that it was only to the God
in him and not to the man. In this way by keeping the Divine
and human in Christ so far apart that like oil and water they
could not interpenetrate, it made it impossible for the ' Scheme
of Salvation ' in which Christ died for man to have any efficacy.
It was accordingly condemned as a heresy at the Council of
Ephesus, 431 A.D.
Nestorius having failed, by keeping the two natures in Christ
80 far apart that it was impossible to unite them for any object
in which both were needed, Eutyches next attempted to solve
the problem by combining the two so intimately that, as in a
chemical compound, although the different elements were there
in full, they formed a compound nature different from either.
To this compound nature each and every act of Christ was
referred. But in taking up this jiosition Eutyches practically
admitted that the human nature which Christ came to redeem
was different from his own, and so made the scheme of re-
demption of no effect. Accordingly this too had to be condemned
as heresy at the Council of Chalcedon 451 A.D. The only
position left to occupy was the one on Avhich this Council put
the seal of orthodoxy. The dual nature of Christ as settled by
this Council may be compared to electricity which, itself one,
exists equally in two independent and opposite poles. In this
Council it was declared that " one and the same Son and Lord
Jesus Christ is to be acknowledged as being perfect in his God-
head and perfect in his humanity ; truly God and truly man
with a natural soul and body ; of like essence with the Father
as to his Godhead, and of like essence with us as to manhood;
THE TRINITY. 451
in all things like us, sin excepted ; begotten of the Father from
all eternity as to his Godhead, and of Mary the mother of God
in these last days for us and for our salvation, as to his man-
hood ; recognized as one Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten ; of
two natures, unconfounded, unchanged, undivided, inseparable,
the distinction of natures not all done away by the union, but
rather the peculiarity of each nature preserved and combined
into one substance, not separated or divided into two persons,
l3ut One Son, Only-begotten God, One Word, the Lord Jesus
■Christ, as the prophets before taught concerning him, so he the
Lord Jesus Christ hath tauoht us and the creed of the Fathers
hath transmitted to us."
And so the first four General Councils, viz., of Nice,
'Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon having placed beyond
the reach of attack the great doctrines of the Trinity, and of
the full Divinity and full humanity of the person of Christ;
the Scheme of Salvation which carried in its bosom the precious
freicjht of Christian Movalitv which was the condition of entrance
■on the joys of that salvation, and was the great end the World-
Spirit had at heart, was at last secure ; — and with it the
Intellectual Develo]>mcnt of Antiquity practically reaches its
•close. Such minor modifications of Christian doi>;ma as were
made by Augustine and succeeding Fathers will, in so far as
they are necessary to connect Catholicism with the Keformation
and the rise of Modern Thought, receive attention in the next
volume of this History. In the meantime a chapter or two
exhibiting in rough outline the insutficiency of the successive
codes of Pagan morality to advance Civilization, as Avell as the
impossibility of their liolding the field in the presence of the
new and higher morality of Christianity, is still necessary if Ave
-would fully realize that Christianity in taking over all that was
true in Pagan j)hilosophy, took over also all that was good in
its morality, at the same time that it raised Morality itself to a
ihigher plane.
I
CHAPTER XIII.
PAGAN MORALITY.
"I N the Immediately preceding chapters we have traced from
stage to stage the changes which were necessary to be
made in the original deposit left by Jesus to his disciples before
the Gospel scheme of Redemption was secure against attack
from within and from without. These changes we traced in
strict connexion with their immediate natural causes and with
the intellectual and moral necessities of the place and hour
which called them forth, until at last they were all merged in
the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity. But before the
task which we have set before us is finished, it is necessary that
we should also briefly trace the evolution of Pagan Morality,
account for some of its anomalies, and indicate some of the
considerations which made it inevitable that in one or all of its
forms it should at last be swallowed up in Christianity. And
that this may be presented with the greater clearness, it may be
well to gather up into a compact and orderly sequence some of
those general principles which lie scattered here and there in
the course of this History.
In a general way then we saw to begin with that the great
end which the Genius of the World — call it Providence, Fate,
or what you will — has at heart in Civilization; is the establish-
ment of higher and higher codes of morality and of social
relations among men. These codes we saw, too, were laid
PAGAN MORALITY, 459
down like oreolnijlcal strata in the most re<jular and oideilv
manner, no step or stage being intermitted or lost, but each
having its representative somewliere in this or that tril)e or
nation. But the agencies, on the other hand, by which these
moral deposits were brought about, we saw to be various, and
like the different modes of cross-fertilization in flowers — now
by bees and other insects, now by the wind, now by animals
— to be diff"erent in different ages and stages of culture. In
Ancient Times, the main agency in initiating and establishing
new codes of morality was Iveligion ; in Modern Times, and
amoncf the most civilized nations, it is Science and Social Utilitv.
Now in our study of the two religions that presided over the
evolution of Morality in the ancient world, viz., Paganism and
Christianity, we saw that the genius of Paganism upheld and
tended to perpetuate the moi-al relation of master and slave in
every department of life ; Christianity, the relationship of
father and children. And we saw further that if the orderly
evolution of Morality was not to come to a standstill, the
former must in some way or other be got to pass over into the
latter. But on enquiring how this was to be done, it became
apparent that it was as impossible for Pagan Polytheism of
itself to evolve into Christianity, as it would be for a popu-
lation of negroes of themselves to give i-ise to a population of
whites. We saw, therefore, that if it were to be done at all, it
would have to be done by impregnation from icifliouf, as it
were ; by the selection of the most favoured of the offspring,
as in animals ; and by the breeding from them again in turn ;
until at last the whole society had become impregnated with
the new moral ideas. And on considering the various
possibilities of the case, we found that for many reasons it
was likely that the agent employed for the purpose of im-
pregnating the great Pagan world with a higher moral ideal,
would be some small tribe with its sino-le tribal god — which
tribe should itself by a variety of exceptional experiences
first be led on to a pure Monotheism. This tribe, as we now
460 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
know, was the tribe of Israel. And having traced those
chano-es in its fortunes which advanced the evolution of its
o-od from one among other gods to the sole God of all the
earth ; from a revengeful God to a God of Justice ; from a
just God to the God of Love of Christianity ; we next
proceeded in our study of Christianity to exhibit those changes
in the doctrine concerning the nature and person of Christ
which were necessary to make the Gospel Scheme of
Redemption, and the New Morality it carried in its bosom,
good against the world ; — changes which, beginning with the
conception of Jesus as a man more highly favoured by God
than other men, gradually advanced from point to point as
the doctrine was pushed on by the attacks of Judaism and
Gnosticism within, and of Paganism without, until it ended
in the fully elaborated scheme of the Trinity on which at
last it could rest secure.
With the foregoing summary we are now in a position to
approach some of the problems connected with Pagan Morality.
The first that arises is as to how it was that the early Greeks
and Romans should have attained to so high a standard of
morality, public and private, under a Polytheism which by our
hypothesis ought to have engendered a low one ? To answer
this question we may begin by remarking tliat just as individuals
may have the seeds and principles of vice so deeply implanted
in their nature as to bring them in the end to moral bankruptcy,
and yet under the special stimulus of love of children or home
may flash out on occasion into great and unexpected virtues — so
the morality of the early Greeks and Romans, although linked
to a Polytheism which in the end must bring it to stagnation
or corruption, was, by reason of exceptional circumstances, for
a time raised above itself into a world-historic grandeur and
sio-nificance. This was due mainly to the pressure put on
these peoples by an all-absorbing Patriotism, which in the
struggle of the infant States to maintain their independence
and even their very existence in the face of threatening and
PAGAN 310KALITY. 461
relentless foes, hiitl the effect of counteracting for the tmie
being the corroding and deteriorating influences of Polytheism.
And the way it operated Avas by compelling the morality of
the gods to take the colour and form for the time being of
the virtues needed for the well-being of the people, instead
of, as in ordinary times, the morality of the people taking its
form and colour from the morality of the gods. It was as if
these races had been cut off from the Homeric Heaven by :i
dome on which were painted for their veneration and love, not
the pranks of the gods with their feastings and love-makings,
their adulteries, treacheries, and revenges, but the strong
practical virtues needed for internal solidarity and external
resistance in the presence of untiring foes — personal honour
and respect for oaths, courage, manliness, and simplicity. In
this way Patriotism acted for the time as a filter, and allowed
only such religious influences as were a stimulus to heroism and
virtue to pass as it were into the current of the nation's life.
In Greece, for a variety of reasons, this period of high practical
virtue was of much shorter duration than the corresponding-
period in Rome, and compared with it, was but as a transient
and passing gleam to a long unclouded morning. This wa^
due not only to the earlier extinction of the national inde-
pendence in the case of Greece, and to the natural decay
of the patriotic virtues dependent on it, but to dift'erences
in the form of their religion, and in the temper of the
peoples themselves. In Greece the gods who were practically
the same gods as those of the Homeric Olympus, themselves
set the example, as Plato complained, of adultery, treachery,
and immorality ; and when once the little dome of Patriotism
which for the time being had shut them out was shattered,
their malign influences streamed down on the people with
a fatal seductiveness. In Rome, on the other hand, the
gods, as we have seen, were from very early times endowed
with the virtues, public and private, which were wanted for
the Avell-being of the State. Jupiter was sovereign protector.
462 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Juno the goddess of conjugal fidelity, Argentarius of honest/
in trade, Fides of public honour, Vesta of domestic purity,
Terminus of landmarks and boundaries, and so on ; and they
lent in turn to the virtues of which they were the concrete
embodiment, all the weight and influence of Divine authority.
Like a pure as distinguished from a corrupt Court, they put
a premium on, and gave an impetus to, public and private
virtue and morality, instead of discountenancing and under-
mining them, as did the gods of Greece.
But besides this difference of Religion between the two
nations, therii were differences in the character and temper
of the peoples themselves which directly affected the duration
of the virtues which Patriotism had engendered. The Greeks,
especially the Athenian Greeks whose influence was after-
wards to be so paramount in the Roman world, were an
aesthetic, imaginative, pleasure-loving people, fond of having
their own way in all things, and with a tendency to
subordinate everything to personal and individual caprice. In
their play of imagination, nothing could remain fixed and rigid,
but was subject to infinite extension and enlargement, so that
in the hands of their rhetoricians and orators a very broom-
stick would have blossomed like a rose ; neither the authority
of the gods, therefore, nor of the laws and constitution of the
State, the Family, or the Home, could long retain their original
severity of outline, but were subject to endless transformations
according to the whim or caprice of the time and hom\ The
consequence was that when the Macedonians had destroyed
the liberty of the Greek States, and the severe traditions of
honour and virtue were no longer kept aglow by the Patriotism
which had engendered them ; when Philosophy, now turned
to Scepticism, had reduced everything to a mere matter of
personal opinion and caprice ; and when Sophists and Rheto-
ricians undertook to show that wrong was right and right was
wrong, and to make the worse appear the better reason on
every topic human or divine — Morality, with its heart thus
PAGAN MOKALITY. 463
eaten out of it by political dependence and philosophical
scepticism, could find no point of resistance in the minds of
the people to the seductions of immoralities stimulated and
sanctioned by the example of the gods themselves.
The Romans on the contrary were a gloomy, morose,
unimaginative, and severely practical people, more inclined to
yield obedience to authority than to indulge their merely
private and personal inclinations and caprices. With them a
broomstick would always I'emain a broomstick ; and the conse-
quence was that having originally made their gods to correspond
to the abstract virtues needed for their own stability and
preservation as a State, they would have kept these gods fixed
and rigid in their outlines, and confined to the special functions
over which they were called to preside, to all time, had nothing
occurred to shake them. And as their gods, unlike the gods of
Greece, were from the earliest times of the Republic the
inspirers of virtue, so they continued to favour it long after
the circumstances Avhich called forth these special virtues, and
so determined the characters of these gods, had passed away.
From these several causes, then, — viz., the longer duration of
militant Patriotism In Rome than in Greece; the difference
in the nature and character of their respective gods; and
the differences of national temjierament and character, — we may
explain the longer duration of high virtue in Rome than In
Greece.
And now we have to remark that these Roman virtues even
in their morning glory were never virtues of universal
humanity. They were hard and loveless, limited in range and
at best strictly legal in character; so that In the highest ages of
Roman morality we find Cato the elder selling off his old and
worn-out slaves with as little concern or after-thouoht as if
they had been cattle. They were the virtues of war, not
of peace ; of aristocracies, not of peoples ; of a society founded
on the relationship of master and slaves, not of one founded on
the brotherhood of men. So that even had the Roman o-ods
464 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANIXr.
retained throughout their original form and character as
representatives of public and private honour and vii'tue, they
must in the end have been swept away in the rising tide of
Christianity. But when Rome, gorged to repletion by the
wealth that poured into her from her conquered provinces, had
ruined Italian agriculture by her importation of cheap foreign
corn, so that the small independent proprietors, pressetl by
debt and taxes and otherwise exploited, were forced to sell
their estates to the great nobles who worked them with gangs
of slaves ; when the population of the kingdom, thus divided,
consisted of a few thousand families, many of them rich
as kings, on the one hand, and a miscellaneous multitude of
freedmen, clients, and slaves, on the other ; when the
aristocracy corrupted by riches and the slave-system, fell into
effeminacy and luxury and then into debt, dissipation, and
corruption ; when the State as the result of its successful wars
became so strong, and the ruling class so rich, that they were
able to dispense with the high patriotic virtues which had
originally made them what they were, and to rely largely on
hirelings for the support of the national honour; when all
industry being carried on by slaves, Usury was the only
legitimate business, and, in consequence, the traditions of
commercial honour and integrity had no soil in which to take
root — when a State thus bankrupt of morality, as the mere
outcome of its material and social conditions, at last adopted
the gods of Greece along with the rest of Greek culture, and
thus infected its own gods with the immoralities of the
corresponding Greek Gods ; Morality both civic and private,
deprived of its last refuge and support, soon decayed and
died out among the vast populations of the Roman world, and
left the field open and uncontested to the new and higher
influences of Christianity.
But in the Roman World which Christianity was ultimately
destined to subdue, there were other cults besides the official
ones ; religions within these religions as it were, rising sweet
PAGAN MORALITY. 465
and refreshing as the Groves of Daphne out of the arid rocky
soil of Paganism; little islets of the heart, where the weary
and suffering and sorrowing, shut out for the time from the
stony stare of Olympian despots intent on sacrifices and offerings
mainly, found respite from their sorrows. These were the
Mystery Cults and the imported Foreign Cults of Egypt,
Syria, and the East. In origin they differed from the religions
of Greece and Kome in this, that while these religions took
their rise in the worship of the heavenly bodies, of those fixed
stars and planets who controlled the years and destinies of
mortal life but who by their union with the daughters of men
had given rise to a race of gods standing to the race of
men in the same relation as capricious and irresponsible
despots do to a nation of slaves; the Mysteries, the Syrian
and Egyptian cults grew originally out of the phenomena
and processes or Nature — that Mother Nature who has
ever somewhere in her bosom a healing balm for the
sufferings and sorrows of her children, and who in the
phenomena of the return of Spring after Winter, of morning
after night, and of life after death, gives fresh hope to human
souls, and is to them a perpetual reminder of immortality. But
at the time of which we are writing, these phenomena of
Nature had long been transformed and personified into myths
of human suffering and destiny — into little dramas of gods and
goddesses, in the representation of whose griefs and sorrows
the mass of the people found comfort and solace for their own.
There was the natural phenomenon of the earth dying down in
Winter and being restored to new life again in the Spring, —
this was transformed into the little drama of Cybele mourning
for her beloved Attis, and rejoicing again when he had been
found. Then there was the phenomenon of the Dawn dispelling
the Darkness — this was transformed into the Persian myth of
the Sun-god Mithra striking the evil spirits, the spirits of
Darkness, with his club. Again there was the great fact of the
Unity of Nature torn to distraction by the multiplicity of
G G
466 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
individual objects, and only to be restored to harmony again by
poetic sympathy, insight, and imagination — this was transformed
into the cult of the Thracian Dionysus who was torn to pieces by
the Titans but whose heart preserved by Athena was given a
new divine body by Demeter, while the Titans amid the
rejoicing of the worshippers were destroyed by the bolts of Jove.
And lastly there was the worship of Isis which had its origin
in the phenomenon of the periodical overflowing of the Nile,
whose stream dried up by the summer heat was believed to
disappear into the under-world, returning again in due
season to revivify the parched and exhausted soil. This
natural fact was transformed into the tragedy of Osiris,
who being murdered by Typhon is mourned for by Isis
who wanders up and down the shades in search of his
dismembered limbs, and when she has found them returns
with them rejoicing to the upper world. Now in all
these myths one sees the same story repeated, — the story
of gods and goddesses in distress. And in the contemplation
and representation of their sorrows, their worshippers found
comfort and solace for their own, — together with the hopes
common to them all, of immortality after death. Compared
with the gods of Olympus, with their lust, greed, cruelty, and
revenge, and with Hades and its departed shades — here,
indeed, was comfort for the lonely and despairing heart. It
is not surprising, therefore, that these Mysteries should have
so quickly over-run the Avhole Roman world ; and tliere can be
little doubt that but for the advent of Christianity on the
scene, they would in the end have replaced the old Greek and
Roman Paganism altogether. It is true, indeed, that in the
old orthodox Paganism there were gods who had received their
apotheosis for their sympathy with men and for their exertions
on their behalf — as for example, Hercules for his labours,
^^sculapius for his care of the sick, and so on; but these
were but episodes in the colossal tyranny and extortions of
the gods, and had little or no influence on the minds of men.
PAGAN rMORALlTY. 407
But although tliose Foreign Cults, with their mystic and
occult rites, exhibited a sympathy with human suffering and
sorrow unknown to Greek and Roman Pao^anism : and altliouirh
CD ^ O
this sympathy could be paralleled only by that of the suffering
Jesus of Clu-istianity ; still tliere were circumstances connected
with these cults which for ever prevented them from becoming
serious rivals to Christianity Avlien once that religion had
appeared upon the scene. In the first place Christianity not
only offered solace to the sufferings and sorrows of men by the
spectacle of a God in distress, but it aroused in them feelings
of love and gratitude by the reflection that he had voluntarily
given his life for men, — and that, too, not as the passive
instrument of a cruel and relentless Fate, as in the Mystery
Cults, but by the Father's Will, and as an expression of the
Father's Love. In the second place, Christianity not only
lifted the burden of human sorrow by its sympathy with the
sufferings of a sorrowing God; it lifted also the burden of
human guilt by the sacrifice which Christ had made for the
sins of men, and so satisfied not only the heart, but the
conscience as well. Now this the Mystery Cults did not
attempt to do, nor could they have done it had they wished ;
for having their roots, one and all, in the phenomena of
Nature transformed into little dramas of personal joy and
sorrow, they could not jump their origin and free themselves
from ' their birth's invidious bar ; ' and as the very genius of
Nature's operations and of that fertilizing of earth, animal,
and tree on which man depends, lies in the union of the male and
female elements ; and as in the celebration of these Mysteries
sexual symbols were everywhere in evidence to stimulate and
excite the passions ; Immorality in consequence received a kind
of consecration, instead of being the main object of detestation
and censure, as it was in Christianity. And further as there
can be no general advance in morality until the relations
between the sexes are put on a pedestal far beyond the reach
of caprice, and receive from men reverence and respect ; it is
468 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
evident that ithese Mystery Cults took away in morality with
the one hand what they added in sympathy with the other — and
80 could not resolve the perplexities of the time. Indeed in
the days of republican simplicity and before the Romans had
lost their early virtues, some of these cultSj notably those of
Isis and of Bacchus, had been expelled the city on account of
the immoralities which they brought in their train, and which
their rites stimulated and encouraged. It was with a just
insight, therefore, that the Early Church placed unchastity
among its deadly sins. Indeed in reading Tertullian, Clement,
and the Early Fathers one seems to feel that with them all
immorality is but another name for unchastity. It is identified
with it by them in a way which we who have entered into their
labours can scarcely now be made to und-erstand. If then
without some refuge from sin as well as from suffering, the
human heart could not be at rest; and if the Mystery Cults
instead of being a refuge from sin supplied direct motives to it;
it is evident that with the appearance on the horizon of
Christianity, with its destruction of the power of sin as well as
its sympathy with and worship of suffering and sorrow, these
Mystery Cults were doomed to decay and to ultimate
extinction — all alike being swallowed up in the greater mystery
of the Cross of Christ.
But besides Patriotism, with the high virtues it called forth
in the early Greeks and Romans, and which for a time
obscured the real effects of Polytheism on the human mind;
besides the Mystery Cults and the Oriental Religions, with their
refreshing waters springing up in the harsh and barren soil
of Gr£eco-Roman Paganism — there were the Moral Systems
of the Philosophers, which for a time threatened to become,
among the cultivated at least, formidable rivals to the nascent
Chi'istianity. These systems may for all practical purposes
here be summed up in the Epicurean, the Stoic, and the
Platonic, respectively. The Epicurean wliich represented
the World as the result of the fortuitous concourse of
PAGAN MOHALITY, 469
ritoms jo.'tling each other to form by their infinite comlDinations
the vast multiplicity of Nature and Life, frankly made
Pleasure as such the end and aim of human life. And
although it stipulated that the range and scope of this Pleasure
should include intellectual and moral as well as sensuous
enjoyments ; and although its one concern was how to arrange
our lives so as to get not so much the greatest amount of
pleasure at any given point, as the greatest amount compatible
with its continuance over tlie longest period of time ; still it
raised no lofty ideal, evoked no deep enthusiasm ; and may,
therefore, like the ethics of the average sensuous man every-
where, for the purposes of this History, be practically left out
of account.
It was different with Stoicism. For although much abused
by impostors, it was nevertheless the religion of nearly all the
great and noble spirits of the Roman decadence — of the men
who retiring into themselves in defiance of a world which they
were impotent to subdue, found in its proud contempt of tyranny
and death the only defence against the evils of the time. But
relying as it did entirely on the unaided strength of the
individual soul, it could at best only have been a religion of the
nobler spirits and not of the great masses of men. Besides it
was founded on Philosophy, not on Supernaturalism ; on human
reason, and not on divine authority. And just as all Philosophy
properly so called, ])eing the attempt of the limited human
understanding, with its limited range of senses and its limited
avenues of knowledge, to gauge and impound the infinite
possibilities of Nature and Life, must for ever be as imiiotent
and hopeless as would be the attempt of the part to comprehend
or enclose the organized whole of which it is a pai't, or of the
conditioned j)roduct to com])rehend the Unconditioned Cause
which has produced it ; so all systems of ^lorality founded on
Philosophy merely, and resting therefore on the mere strength
of the unaided human spirit, must prove in the end as imjootent
to wrestle with Time and measure themselves against the forces
470 THE EVOLUTION OF CIIKTSTIANITY.
of Nature and Fate, as is the human body Itself. For however
bravely men may set out on the conquest of the world in the
heyday of youth and hope, the invincible years will slowly but
surely grind them down, will stoop their backs and bend their
heads until they are forced to bite the dust at last. Although
therefore Stoicism in taking its stand on Nature and Virtue
alone, occupied a position in its nature unassailable by gods or
men, and one good for all time ; still as it took up an attitude
of antagonism to the world and not of sympathy, and depended
for its success on the varying strengths of individuals to
maintain this lofty isolation, it could do nothing in the event
of that strength proving insufficient, but set its teeth firm,
l^rotest, and die. While good therefore for men like Epictetus,
Marcus Aurelius, and the more nobly constituted spirits ; and
while for certain types of disposition and chai'acter good even
to-day ; it nevertheless in the absence of any external support,
wanted that universality of application necessary to make it a
religion for the great masses of manlvind. Indeed it is only by
striking out from the purview of our dreams at the outset all
attempt to comprehend the great circumambient Universe with
its deep unfathomable night of mystery and gloom ; and instead
of opposing the course of Providence or Fate, drawing the
curtains close, and in full sympathy and brotherhood with our
fellow-men, in the belief that all goes well, trusting like Jesus
and little children in a Father's love and care, — it is only thus
that the great masses of men can in the unequal fight with
Fate and Death find in their short sojourn here the solace
necessary to enable them to lie down to sleep and rest.
Neo-Platonism again, having a different system of Philosophy
from Stoicism, had in consequence a different system of morals
growing out of it. In our section on Greek Philosophy we saw
that Stoicism was a Pantheistic system, having Matter as one
side and an Universal Soul diffused through Matter as the other.
This Soul was got by knocking together and confounding in a
single indivisible unity, the great separate and independent
PAG.VN MORALITY. 471
categories of Plato, viz., the Good, the System of Ideas,
Number, and Matter. And as the human soul was a part of
this Universal Soul, it too was a single indivisible unity. If
therefore it permitted itself to be overcome by ^Matter, it was
bad ; if on the other hand it was able to overcome Matter, it
was good ; but it could not be partly good and partly bad at
the same time. And being the Universal Soul confined witliin
the limits of an individual being, it followed that if in one
person it proved too weak to resist the solicitations of the flesh,
it might be stronjj enough in another. Tliere was nothing
therefore for it, if you felt yourself too weak to live u]) to the
lofty principles of the school, but to die and leave it to others
who were more favoured by Nature than yourself to carry aloft
the torch of virtue as an example to mankind. In the Neo-
Platonic system on the other hand, the Soul was not a single
indivisible unity, but was made up of a higher Divine part and a
lower sensuous one. Instead therefore of attempting like the
Stoics to solve the problem of the World by a desperate eft'ort
of the will which should lift the whole soul at a bound into the
realm of virtue, or succumb in the attempt — Platonism sought
to do it by a double iiiovement ; first starving out the passions
by Asceticism, and then rising through this asceticism by con-
templation to the ecstatic vision of the Supreme One. But as
this could be done only by killing out the natural instincts
instead of yoking them in the service of virtue, the difficulty
was solved only in the sense in which death is a solution of the
difficulties of life ; and the ecstatic vision even when attained,
which at best was only at rare intervals in the course of a life
— Plotinus only rose into it on four occasions — could give, as
Augustine found, no steady and abiding support to the human
spirit in its single-handed conflict with the world. The con-
sequence was that when Christianity appeared, and reinforced
the human soul in its conflict with sin by a power not its own ;
when it enabled its followers to encounter martyrdom with the
firmness of the Stoic and with the joy of the Neo-Platonist
472 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
lost in his mystic dreams — when it did all this not in a state of
death-in-life from emaciation and asceticism, but in the joy of
the fullest life ; Stoicism and Neo-Platonism alike and all the
other systems which depended on the unaided strength of the
individual soul had to go down before it.
And finally we come to the Moral Systems of what we may
call the Religious Philosophers — of the men who in their
systems find a place for the activity or interference of the old
Pagan gods. Such were Seneca, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius,
Porphyry, lamblicus, Proclus, and others. They were all
primarily philosophers, more or less closely identified wath the
reigning schools. Seneca was almost a pure Stoic, but he was
deeply imbued with the feeling that the stars were of the
nature of gods and must therefore play some part in the
phenomena of the world and of human life — although exactly
what part he was not prepared to say. Plutarch, again, was
mainly a Platonist ; Marcus Aurelius a Stoic ; lamblicus and
Proclus, Neo-Platonists, and so on. But unlike the older
philosophers who explained the world on purely philosophical
principles — unlike Plato himself, for example, who explained
the world as we have seen, as a mixture in various proportions
and relations of such abstract essences as the Good, Ideas,
Number, and Matter; or the Stoics who explained it as
resulting from abstract laws of Nature or Fate — unlike these
philosophers who if not denying the existence of the gods, at
any rate gave them no place in their systems, the Religious
Thinkers with whom we are now dealino; reo-arded the world as
constituted both of warp and woof, as it were; the warp having
indeed its origin and explanation in natural and philosophical
causes, but being everywhere in-worked with patterns traced
by the fingers of the gods. Like a hieroglyphic all scrawled
over with hidden and symbolic meanings, it not only had to
be explained by natural laws and causes, but it had to be inter-
preted also. This was the position taken uj) by Plutarch, who
compared the world to a sun-dial which had not only a natural
PAGAN MORALITY. 473
cause as reason for its existence, but a symbolical one as
well, as a mode of indicating time. God manifests Himself,
he declares, not only in the natural world and in the
conscience and heart, but by dreams, omens, and those trance-
like states into which the priestesses of Apollo, for instance,
were thrown by the intoxicating fumes of the Delphic
cave. The world, accordingly, is to be interpreted not only
by Natural Science but by the Science which more especially
holds the key to these secrets, — the Science of Divination.
Hence he regrets the decay of the Oracles which in his time
had become dumb in his own native land of Boeotia, and which
even at Delphi employed now only one priestess instead of
three, and delivered responses in plain prose and no longer
in verse as formerly. But there is no more reason, he thinks,
for denying that the responses were the result of Divine
inspiration, merely because of the bad verse or prose in which
they were expressed, than for denying that a man's thoughts
were the results of a true judgment because they were expressed
in bad style. The decay of the Oracles he thought was due,
not as was generally believed to their convicted imposture, but
to some interference with the subterranean fumes, or perhaps
to the death of the Demon him.-elf who was the agent of Aj^ollo,
but who at the same time was mortal like man. As for the
gods themselves, they were not identical with the popular gods
of Paganism; on the contrary the popular gods were allegorical
representations of them, or like the rainbow, broken and
refracted lights reflected through a semi-barbarous medium
from the real gods who were all pure and good. It was only
the demons who waited on the gods, and who had sprung from
the unhallowed union of the lowest o-ods with the daughters of
men, who were bad, and for whom bloody sacrifices and obscene
rites were the natural modes of propitiation. From the true
gods themselves men had nothing to fear ; and the only service
they required of man was that of a pure heart and an upright
life. But the advantage which Plutarch got from thus uniting
474 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Religion with Philosophy was lost again from the Impossibility
of moralizing the gods by any process of explaining away or
allegorizing their vices ; and the impossibility in consequence
of getting from them any help or refreshment for the human
spirit. So that the purity of heart and uprightness of life
which Plutarch enjoined must rest at last on the unsupported
strength of the individual soul. Like Stoicism and Neo-
Platonism, therefore, his was a religion for the strong and pure
not for the weak and worldly souls, and like them it had
to go down before the superior genius and attractions of
Christianity.
The last of the Pagan Philosophers whose moral systems
were more or less intended to rival or supersede the rising sun
of Christianity, were the degenerate Neo-Platonists, — Porphyry,
lamblichus, Proclus, and the rest. They were the last
representatives of Philosophy left in the Grjeco-Roman world
before the final closing of the Schools of Athens by Justinian ;
and it was their disciples who persuaded Julian to re-establish
Paganism for a time throughout the Empire. But for the
better understanding of their systems it may be as well to
recall to the reader's mind for a moment the colossal skeleton
of the world devised by Plato. In this system all things were
represented as being the result of the mixing and compounding
in various combinations of four great principles, the Supreme
Being or the Good, the System of Ideas, Number, and Matter
or the aTrapov. In the system of the Neo-Platonists on the
contrary the world is regarded as due not to the mixing and
compounding of these four great principles, but to the
emanation or radiation of these principles from one another;
the system of Ideas being the emanation from the Supreme
One at the top, the Soul of the AVorld (as extended by
Number) from the System of Ideas, and all at last embedded
at the bottom in Matter as a common matrix in which they
take bodily shape, tangibility, and visibility. Now although
both these systems are severely scientific and philosophical in
PAGAN MORALITY. 475
character, nevertheless, at the hack of their skeleton figures
may be seen looming in shadowy outline the forms of the
popular gods of Paganism ; and indeed it is in the relations
which these gods are made to hold to the purely philo-
sophical framework of the systems of Platonism, tliat the key to
the evolntion of the later degenerate systems of Neo-Platonism
is to be found. With Plato himself, it will be remembered,
the erods, althoujih allowed a formal existence in the
Timaius, were evidently regarded as pure myths which
had been handed down by tradition from the earlier
times. With Plotinus the chief of the Nco-Platonists,
they were accorded a real existence it is true as higher
embodiments of the Divine Intelligence than man, but they
were allowed to play no part in his scheme of the World ;
the sole object of his philosophy being to discover how to
climb up the Chain of Ideas by means of Intelligence, and
thence to catch a sight of the Supreme One by ecstatic
Vision and Asceticism. But in the meantime Plutarch, as we
have seen, had let fall the idea that the world was not only
the result of natural causes and principles, but was all
scrawled over as w-ell with characters written by the fingers
of the gods, and surcharged in consequence with mystic and
symbolical meanings for the instruction of men. This hint
of Plutarch's took root in the minds of the later and
degenerate Neo-Platonists — Porphyry, lamblichus, Proclus,
and the rest — who felt themselves iustified accordinuly in
brinffinjr the gods forward from the background in which
they had been kept by Plotinus, and giving them a part
to play in the main action. To efl'ect this object they even
went so far as to lay sacreligious hands on the colossal figure
which Plato himself had bequeathed to the world, and which
in the irreat elements of its structure had remained unaltered
since his time. Both Porphyry and lamblichus it is true
kept the head, the Supreme One, but lamblichus cut away
the very body of Plato's system, viz. his Chain of Ideas,
476 THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
and replaced it by the cliain or hierarchy of the Pagan gods.
But as the Supreme One still stood as head above all these
lower deities, and so was apt to divert attention and worship
from them, both Porphyry and lamblichus declared that the
soul in its ecstatic vision could never hope to reach the
Supreme One, but stopped sliort at these created deities.
The Supreme One having thus become an empty figure-head,
Proclus took the next step in the work of decomposition of the
Platonic philosophy, and declared that the Pagan gods were
themselves the Absolute, the Supx-eme Being. The colossal
skeleton-figure of Plato's philosophy having thus melted away
and been replaced by the old gods of Paganism, there was
nothino^ for it but to relegate it to the background of con-
sciousness, where no longer ministering to the intellectual or
moral life of the individual soul it at last faded away altogether.
And so were left standing in place of the splendid figure which
the o;enius of Plato had oiven to the world and which had
weathered untouched the stormy seas of philosophical specida-
tion for a thousand years, the old figures of the Pagan gods as
the last word both of Philosophy and Religion ! And with them
came back all the old paraphernalia of divination, magic,
Chaldean sorcery, and the black arts, in the stead of morality
and virtue, as the best means of pleasing the gods and solving
the problem of life. But Christianity meanwhile had already
advanced far on the road to the conquest of the world. Con-
stantino had prohibited all sacrifices, and Constantius going
still farther had ordered all temples to be closed on pain of
confiscation and death. With the exception of Rome, Alex-
andria, and Athens, the towns had become Christian; and
before the death of Valentinus, Paganism survived only in the
country districts. After the death of Gratian, the title of
Pontifex Maximus ceased to appear on the imperial coins, and
the statue and altar of Victory were removed from the Senate
House in Rome. In the reign of Theodosius, the Senate formally
declared its adhesion to Christianity ; and in Alexandria the
PAGAN' MORALIXr. 477
world-famecl Serapion was razed to the ground. Shortly after,
the gladiatorial shows were abolished ; Paganism was suppressed
in Alexandria ; the offering of incense and libations was
punished by confiscation of goods ; sacrifices and divination with
death ; and by the year 420 A.D. Paganism was extinct in the
Graeco-Roman world. And with men like Oi'igen, Athanasius,
and Augustine to replace the degenerate race of thinkers who
had degraded the noble philosophy of Plato into the mere body-
slave of an old, toothless, and decrepit Paganism, — there was
nothing for it but for Justinian in 520 A.D. to shut the Schools
of Athens and bring to a close the Ancient World.
In the succeeding volumes I shall ti-eat of Mahommcdanism,
Mediaeval Catholicism, the Revival of Learning, the Refor-
mation, Modern Metaphysics, and Modern Science, with the
Doctrine of Evolution ; and shall brino- the results of our loner
survey of Intellectual Development to bear on the great
problems of to-day in Religion, Philosophy, Politics, Political
Economy, and Sociology.
END OF VOLUME L
OF
History of Intellectual Development
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
PART I
IN the following study of Platonisra and Christianity I have
endeavoured to compass a number of ends, all of them from one cause
or another more or less important and interesting at the present time.
In the first place I have attempted to show how it was that a great
scheme of the World and of Human Life like that of Plato — a scheme
so much more highly evolved and subtle, so superior intellectually
speaking to the simple scheme of Christianity — should nevertheless have
been superseded and driven from the field by Christianity, not only in
the minds of the vulgar, which one can in a way understand, but in the
minds of the cultured and enhghtened also. My second endeavour has
been to meet, as far as I may be able, a want, which has long been felt
in the literature of Platonism, by exhibiting his system in such a
way that the connexion of its different parts may be more clearly seen.
And now that a revival of interest in Plato seems to have set in. it
has seemed to me that if the younger students of Plato could bt
supplied at the outset with a skeleton of his philosophy as a whole,
80 that they could bring the conception of this whole to the under-
standing of each part, they would be enabled to pusli their studies
into the details of his scheme with much greater facility and
advantage. My third object has been to extract from this study of
Platonism and Christianity those lessons and warnings, those philo-
sophical pitfalls and fallacies, which niust ever be kept in mind by
all those who in this new time would solve for themselves the problem
of the world.
Many years ago when suffering from a prolonged period of mental
depressiort consequent on the perusal of Mr. Spencer's "Principles
of Psychology " and on the ensuing conviction that however much tho
materialism inculcated in liis pages might revolt the higher intuitions of
H H
482 ArpENDix.
the mind, it was nevertheless logically irrefutable, I began to cast about
me on all hands for something that might be of use to me in my mental
perplexity. Orthodox Keligion I had already discarded, as much per-
haps from what is called ' the spirit of the time ' as from any special
attention I had given to the subject ; and, indeed, had it been otherwise,
any remnant of authority that might yet have remained to it from my
early traditions, would have been completely discredited by Mr. Spencer's
teachings. Accordingly, not knowing very well where to look for
assistance, I fell back on the circle of literary influences that lay nearest
me — the prominent reputations of the time — and began with men like
Mill and Ruskin, who were sufiiciently serious to encourage the hope that
somewhere in them I might find a solution to my difficulties. But aa
in this I was disappointed, I next tried the philosophic poets and
novelists — writers like Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, Wordsworth, and
George Eliot — but finding that they gave for the most part but a plaintive,
melancholy, or pessimistic echo and expression to my own doubts and
perplexities, instead of resolutely setting to work to solve them, I was again
obliged to turn elsewhere. Into Carlyle and Emerson I had only just
dipped, for finding that at that time I could neither understand the
* Sartor Resartus ' of the one, nor the ' Essays ' of the other, I put them
aside as mystics, with the feeling that whatever truth they might have
for men, that truth was not conveyed in a way that would reach and
convince me. And then it was that I bethought me of what ought to
have occurred to me from the beginning — that the best chance of finding
A reply to philosophic doubts was the study of the great Thinkers of the
World ; and, accordingly, with fresh access of hope and determined
to leave nothing unread that might assist me in the solution of my
difficulties, I started at the beginning, and opened, I remember, with
Plato. But I had not gone far before a fresh crop of complications
and perplexities arose in my path, although of a somewhat different
nature from those through which I had just passed. For a long time, as
I have said, I had flattered myself that I had left ReUgion behind me as
an useless and outworn garment with which I had no further concern,
when, to my surprise, here in Plato I was suddenly confronted by what
looked to me as much like a religion as a philosophy. Now Religion and
Philosophy I had always regarded as things quite separate and apart, as
quite different in nature, and as appealing to distinct faculties of the
human mind ; but I now discovered to my surprise that Plato had his
' scheme of salvation ' and redemption as well as the Bible, and (what I
nad not thought of before) that the Bible contained in its Mosaic
account of Creation, a Philosophy of the World and of human life as
well as Plato. That it was not unnatural that I should have imagined
Philosophy to be something distinct and separate from Religion is shown
by the experience of all ages, in which philosophers have been accused
of sneering at the religions of the vulgar, while the vulgar in turn have
uniformly pelted or crucified the philoso^jhers. It is shown also in that
discontinuity of culture in the various strata of Society whereby you have
APPENDIX. 483
such a curious spectacle as that of Ancient Rome, where the masses sunk
n rehgious superstitions listened to the mummeries of the augurs as if
they were Divine oracles, while these same augurs winked at one
another as they passed in the streets. It was the same in ancient
Greece, where the philosophers, sitting high and apart in haughty
isolation, looked doNvn on the religious multitudes at their feet as on
beings of a lower order, while these again in turn, to punish the
philosophers for their insolence and for their temerity in denying or
satirizing their gods, made one or other of them every now and again
wander about the world in hopeless exile or drain the cup of hemlock to
the lees. In our own time the case is still worse, for there is now as
wide an intellectual gulf between the religion of the cultured and the
same religion when held by the A-ulgar. as there formerly was between
the churches and the philosophers. For just as for centuries after
Christianity had become the religion of the Roman world, the people in
country districts still continued to worship the old gods of the Pantheon
as if Christ and his gospel had not yet appeared ; so at the present day
you have the spectacle of Salvationists, Revivalists, and other orthodox
believers, sitting on a brood of spurious or doubtful texts, and with a
pathetic sincerity still hoping by prayer and devotion to warm them into
life, long after the leaders of tlieir own Churches have given them up as
hopeless ; still lifting up their voices and lilting their hymns by the sea
long after the guides whose fathers had brought them thither have
hfted anchor and sailed away in other ships and to other shores. Xow,
that in the same community and at the same time, classes of men should
be so sedulously kept apart from each other not only in thought and
culture, but in the veriest rudiments of knowledge and criticism ; that
they should have to look at each other through prison windows athwart
a gulf, across which no word is permitted to pass ; so that you have
whole populations of believers who have never even heard that there is
any doubt as to the authenticity of this or that portion of the gospels or
prophecies ;— that in the nineteenth century this should be still possible
has always seemed to me, as I have watched these poor confiding souls
looking up from their texts in all simplicity and nothing doubting, to be
a real tragedy ; and I have been tempted to ask in indignation who has
done all this ; who has connived at this deception, and how long is it to
continue ?
All this of course was a fresh source of perplexity to me, and, in my
then humour, I felt that I coukl not advance until I had removed it out
of the way. I have thought it advisable, therefore, for the benefit of
readers who are in the same predicament, to endeavour to clear up this
confusion between Religion and Philosophy by a concrete presentation
of their essential differences as seen at the outset of Western Civilization
in Platonism and Christianity respectively ; and to show why Platonisni
in spite of its vast superiority to the Christian scheme in subtlety and
refinement, in philosophic and poetic insight and harmony, should have
been driven from the field by Christianity.
484 APrENDix.
Now in the Mosaic account of Creation which was afterwards-
adopted bj' Christianity as the basis of its Philosophy of the World and
of Human Life, Ave have three elements out of which all the varied
phenomena of the world ai-e composed, three strings from whose mingled
tones all the harmonies and discords of human life are produced. These
three are on the one hand God and the Devil, and on the other that
wide waste of uncreated possibility, that empty void of vast and
unrelieved vacancy which from its intangible, viewless, and incorporeal
character may be fitly called Nothing. Of these three, God and the
Devil are the active spirits, and Nothing and what afterwards comes out
of Nothing, the plastic and passive background of Being on which
one or other of these high-contending powers plots his unhallowed
schemes, or works out his inscrutable decrees. And as in the following
pages it will be necessary to draw a detailed comparison between
Platonism and Christianity, a light pictorial outline of the latter,
although it can contain nothing but what is familiar to the reader, may
prove serviceable perhaps for the after purposes of our argument and
accordingly I have inserted it here.
Beginning then with Nothing, that void and empty Nothing over
which from all eternity the Almighty had sat brooding, the World of
Time by a fiat of His will is ushered in, and presently the empty void is
seen to stir and move, then to cloud and thicken, and anon to seethe and
roll, a turbid tempest-tossed sea of confused and conflicting elements;
over which again the Almighty moving, works by a second fiat, a second
transformation; and the troubled elements are seen to lift and clarify
above into the wide and blue expanse of firmament and sky, in which are
afterwards set the sun, the moon, and the stars. But all below is still
confused ; and over this again the Almighty passing, stoops, and with His
wide and invisible wings parts it into land and sea, still standing in the
gap between to keep them there, until each is on its own foundation
fixed ; and then withdrawn apart, looks round and smiles to see the earth
in beauty clad, and from the ground upspringing, fruit, and flower and
tree. "With joy still unconstrained He views His work and finds it good ;
and then once more His will goes forth ; and straightway from the earth
and sea that gender them, myriads of moving populations teem; from
the waters fish, and from the earth, fowl and beast and creeping thing;
and last of all from the dust beneath, and in the image and likeness of
Himself, He moulds the form of Man. To this with sweetest joy as
crown and consummation of His high ideal He again draws near, and
bending o'er it breathes into it a living soul. Thus fashioned, thus
created, Man stands in unfallen grandeur in the morning of the world in
pristine innocence undimmed, and all the woods and earth around with
gladness filled return to him his silent hallowed joy, and breathe forth
peace^ and harmony, and rest.
And now begins the second act of the great Mosaic drama ; for from
among the angelic host which from all eternity had quired their
immortal harmonies round the Eternal Throne, one Spirit more degenerate
APrENDIX. 485
than the rest, bitten by envious pride, turns recreant ; and at the very
gates of Heaven and in the face of God Himself, all unabashed sets up his
standard of revolt. Recruited by an impious crew of fallen Spirits, he
boldly marches on the Eternal Throne, but is in the end disconitited and
put to flight ; after whicli considering with himself how best to spite and
thwart the Eternal in His work, filled with his new design, he springs
from the threshold of Heaven into the dark abyss of Space, and sailing
through the empty night, threads his way downwards tlirough this
Universe of Stars, until the green and flower-enbosomed earth in morning
■freshness opens on his sight. Over this, pausing awhile and looking
round, lie then alights, and making his way across the glistening morning
grass to the thresliold of Eden, enters, and disguised in a serpent's form
creeps close to the ear of Eve ; and in an unguarded hour whispers
treason to her heart. She falls, and with her falls her husband ; and
both alike confounded in their shame the Almighty then surprising
drives from the bowers of Eden, — their minds defiled and all the
purity of their immortal .spirits smirched and besoiled, — to roam the wide
world the prey of death, and to transmit through all the succeeding ages
their devil-tainted and sin-begotten progeny, the fruitful parents of
cruelty and crime, of vice, of misery, and of shame.
This is the Fall of jNIan ; and in its curse and bondage long continuing,
the unhappy ages pass away ; when the Ahnighty moved again by eternal
love and the confounding of his own decrees, once more descends to
earth, and taking on Himself the form of ^Nlan again confronts the
Tempter ; not now as then on the high battlements of Heaven, but in
the invisible arena of the human heart; and by walking sinless through
the sin-spotted world of human souls, and rising deathless from their
diath-doomed destiny, He, in death itself victorious, returns again
triumphant to the skies. And now that He has gone, He leaves behind
Him as .sweet and precious possession to all succeeding times, tlie deathless
image of Himself fixed and graven on the soul: an image which by its
silent presence there, like an altar crueilix. breathes inward to the heart ;
shedding comfort on those wlio mourn, consolation on those who weep,
and everywhere to tlie weary and heavy-laden, giving rest ; an image too
which raised on high as a battle-standard, gives fresh courage to the
drooping heart, fri'sh spirit to the despairing, and to which by Divine
(irace of their own iivij will turning, the sin-oppressed of every land may
be enabled to vanquish inborn sin, and rise above themselves ; and thus
regain once more their lo.st estate — that blissful Eden which tliey knew.
Such is a rough pictorial outline of the Philosophy of the World and
of Human Life with which Christianity has familiarized us ; but though
rough and general, it will have served its ])urpose if it have brought into
clear prominence the two important points to which before proceeding
to the parallel view of Plato I especially desire to direct the reader's
attention. Tiie lirst of tiiese is that tlie whole scheme is absolutely
uuxcieidijic in the modern sense of that term ; that is to say, tliat while
telling us ichai is done at each stage of tlie \Vorld-proces.s, it uowhere
4SG APPENDIX.
gives us any hint as to loic it is done : and it is in this Itow, it must be-
remembered, that all scientific explanation consists ; not in the absolute-
how, for that is inscrutable to mortal men, but in that relative how which
links together the particular facts or processes in question with others
of a like kind, so as to bring them into the same category with them.
Out of Nothing, the Almighty first makes Something; out of this
Something, other things ; and out of these, others again, and so on ; but
as to hoir it all comes about, no explanation is given, and indeed it is
impossible, scientifically speaking, to understand. But more important
than this is the second point to which I would draw attention — the deei?-
and wide-ranging influence of wliich will only become manifest farther
on — and that is that each particular scene in this world-drama is made
the direct outcome and effect, not of what are called scientific causes, as
motion, force, affinity attraction, repulsion and the rest, nor yet of
metaphysical abstractions, as spirits, essences, or vital principles, but of
real personal beings, God and the Devil respectively — beings who in the
first instance at least have bodily form, and like ourselves are endued
with passion, sentiment, and will, to be moved by supplication or prayer,
by love or hate, by jealousy or revenge. That is to say these world-
processes are represented as being the effects of the only kind of cause
of which we can have any immediate knowledge or experience, the only
kind therefore which is entirely human and realizable, viz., that of
personal icill.
Carrying Avith us then these two conceptions of the Christian Phi-
losophy of the World, viz., its mtsclenlljic character and its making the
world the outcome and result of the intervention at each stage and point
of the process oi personal ivills, we may now tuiu to Plato, when it Avill at
once become apparent that the speculative world in the interval has not
been idle, but that in the exchange and intercourse of nations the crude
conceptions of the Mosaic Cosmogony have been gradually replaced by a
much more subtle and complex, more highly evolved and differentiated
range of conceptions — conceptions which in their combination at once of
breadth and subtlety reach their flowerage and consummation in Plato.
For in place of the three crude elements or strings with which as we have
Been the Philosophy of Christianity produces all the harmonies and dis-
cords of the world — God, the Devil, and Nothing — Plato begins with at
least four singularly complex and refined ones, each of which in its
many-sidedness, blends and unites in itself various shades and semi-tones,
so that from the whole, as from some exquisitely modulated harp, all the
more subtle harmonies of nature and life are seen to be produced.
Of these four, the first is what he calls the Good, which in a rough
general way we may call the Spirit of God. Like God, this Good not only
includes the essence of the Good itself, but of the True ; not only of the
True, but of the Beautiful ; not only of the Beautiful, but of the Just ; thus
uniting within itself the separate and jjeculiar essence and fragrance of
all those aspects of the soul that are distinctive of man as man ; stretching
like an eternal sky athwart the entiro belt and compass of the faculties- f
.Si
APPENDIX. 487
from horizon to horizon, and free from all that is subject to mutation and
decay, to time ;ind change, to passion, discord, and death. But to give it
a link of connexion witli the second great factor, viz., the Chain and
System of Ideas, Plato is obliged to figure it not only as an Emperor
sitting higli aloof, from whom all the other elements take their initiative
and word of connnand, falling into line and order with each other to fornt
the world ; but also like a Constitutional King at the head of his Court,
as the first and highest link in that hierarchy of Ideas which lead up to it
and which partake of its essence, as being of like nature with itself.
What then is this chain or system of Ideas Avhich is the second great
element with which Plato works, and from wiiicii he constructs the World.
It is a chain or hierarchy each link of which may be regarded as the
essence of one or other of the endless species of created things —
essence of man, of horse, of dog, of the oak, the olive, or the rose — it
corresponds in a word to what we mean when we speak of the inner
nature of a thing, of a man, a horse, a dog, or the idea of a thing, as of a
bed or a table, and not of the visible form in which it is embodied ; to that
which can neither be perceived by the senses, nor seen by the bodily eye
nor the eye of the imagination, but can only be apprehended by abstract
thought ; that essence in a word of whicli all visible bodily form,
all imagined ideal form, is but the expression and manifestation. Before
Time began, these Ideas lay like the Good in the still Eternity as
invisible uncreated essences — formless, colourless, incorporeal, intangible,
indivisible — having neither parts nor magnitude, and like a ring of hoops
one within the other, quite independent of each other, yet so related thai
each wider ring partakes of the natui-e of all within it ; so that
when Time begins, and they are separately drawn out into a figure like a
hoop skirt or crinoline, you would have the smallest and topmost hoop
representing the Good itself, and each lower and wider one partaking in
the nature of all those above it, but with sometliing added tliat is special
and peculiar to itself, until the one lowest and widest would contain the
essences of all those above it. and be itself the most complex and highly
differentiated of them all. This system of Ideas indeed may be
compared to an inverted zoological tree ; with the root at the top
corresponding to the Good, the next lower division corresponding
to and containing within itself the two great branches of the
Vertebrate and Invertebrate ; the next again containing the Classes into
which each of these sub-kingdoms is split ; the ne.xt the Orders into
which each class is broken up ; then the Families of each order, and the
Species of each family ; until you come down at last to the individuals
themselves of which these species arc composed ; the only difference
between this zoological tree and Plato's chain of Ideas being that while
the zoological divisions are founded ou physical resemblances of form
and structure, the Ideas are the Inner natnres of which these forms arc
the mere embodiment ; or say rather, they are the complex internal
unities of which in the fox, for example, cunning would be the most
prominent characteristic ; or in the lion, boldness; and of which every
488 APPENDIX.
detail of bodily form and structure is either the instrument or the
expression. But these Ideas of Plato are not limited to merely
intellectual categories, but like the Good stretch athwart the entire range
of the faculties; so that you have a parallel hierarchy in the moral and
pesthetic order, each quality partaking in the nature of those above it,
as for example self-reliance of courage, and courage of justice, and all
at last of the nature of the Good. And here it is important to remark
that these Ideas, like the relation of species before Darwin, although
arranged in an orderly logical chain, eacli partaking in the nature of
those above it, are nevertheless quite independent of each other, and
have none of that organic or vital connexion by wliich from one you can
by a process of thought generate the next, and from this the next again,
and so on. To do this indeed is the aim of all speculation, and the
successive approximations made towards it in the field of cognition,
constitute the history of Philosophy from Plato to Hegel and Herbert
Spencer.
The third element with which Plato works is Number, which differs from
his system of Ideas in this — that whereas the Ideas are the very essence
and soul of things, their innermost invisible nature which can be
perceived only by abstract thouglit, Number deals with their external
and visible figure, not as it is actually seen in any particular thing (for
each individual object is mixed with a portion of the fourth element — the
formless — which offers resistance to its perfection), but rather in the
ideal Jiiinre or type of that thing, in the perfect form of round or square
with which Matliematics deals, the perfect form of man or horse which it
is the function of Art, as of the sculptor, to discern. Now these Numbers,
like the system of Ideas and the Good of which they are the visible
expression, have many shades of meaning, and are stretched so as to
cover not only figure and form, but all that concerns magnitude,
number, position, parts, distance, and the like. Like Ideas and the
Good, too, they lay through all Eternity in a sphere of their own, until
they were aroused by their Lord and Emperor the Good, and bidden to
come forth and take their place as elements in the composite and visible
world of Time.
The fourth and last element of Plato is what he calls the r^ireipov or the
Formless, the Illimitable, the Indefinite, the womb and matrix of all that
is visible and tangible — or, in a word, of Matter. This, too, like the
other elements, the Good, Ideas, and Number, stretches athwart the
entire breadth of that aspect of life with which it is spiritually, if
not scientifically, identified, and includes on its phijsicai side such
poetically and spiritually similar (but scientifically very different) con-
ceptions as the blank field of extension or Space on the one hand and the
empty principle of Time and change, of vague and indefinite Motion, on
the other ; all that range of conce2:)tions whicli are comprised in. 'coming
into beine' and ' ceasinsr to be ' ; the raw material in a word of all that is
vague and chaotic, multitudinous and formless, extended and divisible.
On its tnural side again it covers such various shades of meaning as
APPENDIX. 489
-vague sensation, vague pleasure and pain without thought, vague
emotion without object of love or hate, blind energy of will without
direction or goal ; it is the basis and raw material of Evil, of ugliness, of
stupidity, of deformity, of necessity ; in the same way as Number is the
basis of the outward harmony and beauty of things, the Ideas of their
inner harmony and beauty, and the Good itself of all that is Beautiful,
and Just, and True.
Now from these four leading elements, pigments, or strings, or by
whatever metaphor we choose to designate them — the Good, rlie
Ideas, Number, and the c/.TTdpnv or Formless — it is easy to see how,
according to Plato, the physical and moral characteristics of the World
and Human Life are compounded, their harmonies and discords evoked,
their beauties and deformities bleuded ; and still more easy when wc
come to consider what World it was which these elements by their union
and admixture were deemed adequate to explain. It was not the world
to which the long intervening years have brought us at the present day —
•with its scientific Astronomy, Physics. Chemistry, Biology, Psychology,
and the rest — but a world in which tlie Earth as in the old Ptolemaic
Astronomy was still believed to be the fixed centre of the Universe,
■with the sun, moon, planets, and stars revolving around it; a world ia
which (except perhaps among the Jews, owing to their early ^Vlono-
theism) these planets and stars were believed to be created Gods, either
Angels or Demons, who shed their baleful or beneficent influence like a
Fate over the whole course of human life. It was a world in which the
Sciences, except Mathematics, were in their infancy ; in which Physics
and Chemistry had practically no existence; and in which scientifio
PI ysiology and Psychology as we know them were still unborn. It was
a world in which mind and thought and feeling, instead of being
indissolubly associated in Time witli a brain and nervous system, were
regarded as being separate and independent existences, entirely distinct
and apart from them. All the other parts of the soul, as the will, the
passions, the appetites and desires were known as 'animal spirits/ and
were believed to be made up of the finer i)arts of the blood mixed with
ether to give it lightness and vivacity, and so were figured as occupjing
space, and having extension, like other material things. It was this
worhl then — a world to modern eyes practically as simple as the world
of Genesis — which Plato had to explain by the union .nnd admixture of
his four primary elements, tlie Good, Ideas, Number, and the r7-fior,v
or Formless ; — all of which, existing apart, as they did from all Eternitj',
were now called on by the Good to come together and form the world of
Inne.
Before however we can fully see the deep inner harmonics of Plato's
great Scheme of the World and of Human Life, we must take it to
pieces and reconstruct it in terms of modern thought; and to do this it
is necessary that we should clearly seize his peculiar point of view ; a
point of view indeed so peculiar that to it all tlie troubles and per-
2)lexities of his commentators arc mainly due. AN'e are so accustomed
400 APPENDIX.
ourselves to think of God as a pure Spirit, that in spite of the Mosaic-
account of his walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, and of
his appearing to Moses on the Mount, we can scarcely realize that until
long after Plato's time, indeed until Christianity had purged the earlier
conceptions of God of most of their grossness, the gods of almost all
nations and peoples were believed to exist in the form of Man, except
indeed when as with the Bull of the Egyptians, the Sun of the Persians,
and the Stocks aad Stones of the Fetish worshipi)ers of Africa and the
East, they were embodied in still lower forms. They were in a word
anthropomorphic, that is to say, they were constructed in the image and
configuration of man ; and in precise proportion to the grossness of thfr
peoples by whom they were worshipped, was the emphasis laid on the
physical prowess, the stature, senses, appetites and passions of their
gods. The gods of the savages for example were and still are, it is
scarcely necessary to remark, merely great chiefs, bigger, braver, fiercer,
more powerful, or more revengeful than the rest of the tribe ; and their
anger had to be appeased, and their good will secured, like that of living-
chiefs, by food and drink, by incense and flattery, by women and slaves.
As civilization and culture advanced, the gods of the nations were
constructed less exclusively on the model of the merely physical and
sensuous elements of man's nature ; and — as we see among the Homeric
Gods — to their physical prowess Avere superadded large endowments of
intelligence, of refinement, and of beauty. In the Mosaic Jehovah too
v>'e have the God still represented in the form of a man, still jealous and
revengeful ; but as time goes on, more and more emphasis is laid on
His justice and mercy, and less on His jealousy and revenge ; until in
Christianity the sensuous side of His nature entirely disappears and the
God in Christ becomes the pure ideal of all the virtues.
In the above and other the like instances, the Deity, we at once
perceive, is constructed and conceived in the image and from tho
standpoint of Man. But with Plato all this is reversed. For although
he believes — for reasons which will appear further on — that if the Deity is
to have life and movement at all. He must be more than a mere Spirit,
and must have a body, like the gods of the Greeks and of neighbouring
nations ; still, taking his stand as he does, not on the nature of Man, but
on that of God (or the god-like in man), and seeing things not from the
point of view of Time, but under what Spinoza would call ' the form of
Eternity,' he feels that if the Deity is to include -within Himself all
essences of all forms, and all forms of all creatures, so that in Him
all things shall live, move, and have their being, it would be absurd to
give Him the shape of a poor creature crawling between heaven and
earth, even although that creature were privileged to be the highest of
created things. For these organs and structures of man's body which
make up his physical frame — his eyes, his nose, his hands, his feet, etc. —
are not of this or that shape or form primarily on their own account, or
from any abstract beauty tliey may ciiance to have (as we are toa
apt indeed to imagine when we isolate and idealize him in works of art).
Al'PEXDIX. 41*1
but because man has an environment outside of himself, on his nice
adaptation to wliich his very existence from moment to moment depends ;
and because these ors^aus are precisely the forms that are best adapted to
that environment ; — legs and feet to carry him from place to place ; nose
and eyes and ears and hands to enable him to analyse, examine, and test
the qualities of things about him. and to appropriate them or put them
away from him according as he finds tliem beneficial or injurious ; voice
and tongue and expression to enable him to unite with his fellow-men in
mutual sympathy and labour, or to protest against and defy these same
fellow-men in their unscrupulouaness. injustice, or oppression. Indeed
were there no environment outsidr of man, or were that environment as
in the case of the fish or bird different from what it is, he would either
have none of these organs at all, or they would be entirely different
in shape and form from what they are. Now this is precisely the case.
Plato thinks, with the Deity. Being by the hj-jjothesis co-extensive with
the Universe and with the uttermo.st extremities of Space, He can have
no environment outside of Himself, and can have no need, therefore, of
eyes, or mouth, or nose, or hands, or any other organ ; and as He fills
all Space, and can, therefore, neither move forward nor backward,
upwards or downwards, or from side to side. He can have no need of feet
or legs to carry Him about. It would l^e as absurd, therefore, Plato thinks,
to give him the form of man. as it would that of bull, or goat, or crocodile.
Wliat form of body then, the reader asks, would Plato give the Deity,
if He must have a body and is to liave life and motion ? Nothing simpler
says Plato, for embracing as He does and containing within Himself the
essences of all created things, and, of necessity therefore, tlie forms of
these essences, we should know beforehand that His bodily form would
be that most perfect of all forms, the form which contains all other
forms within itself, viz., the spherical, and that His movement, all
other movement being impossible, must be that most beautiful and
comprehensive of all movements, viz. the circular, or movement on
Himself.
And how are the parts of His body disposed in relation to each other?
As His body has to be eternal and beyond the reach of decay, it cannot
be like the bodies of man and other animals, a mere composite of fire and
air and earth and water all mixed together, and by their incessant
movements and fluctuations running into each other and destroying each
other, and so dooming the creature to dissolution ; but each element
must be kept apart in its own sjihere, so that the whole, like the layers
of brick and mortar, earth and concrete, in a well-ordered building,
may be placed beyond the reach of time and change, of dissolution
and decay.
But what about the soul, and where ought its seat to be in the body
of the Deity? Nowhere, says Plato, but on the contrary the body ought
to have its seat in the soul. It is one of the chief illusions that result
from our taking our stand on Man and not on tlie Deity, that because
the soul in ourselves is supposed to be placed somewhere in the bod\.
492 ArrEXDix.
and therefore sliares in a way the fortunes of the body, we imagine that
it is the same Avith the soul of the Deity. Plato on the contrary
conceives it to be just the reverse. For as the soul of the Deity must
exist before the body which it rules, ami which is only an afterthought
and appendage, as it were, by which it manifest?; its existence, thus
making visible the Deity to His creatures, it is evident that instead of
•existing in some corner or other of His body, it on the contrary ought to
pervade the body from centre to circumference, and surround and enclose
it like an atmosphere with its own life-giving S2)irit.
But as knowledge pertains to the soul of the Deity, and not to His
body, and as this soul is to pervade the body and enclose it all round ;
and as further, as we have just seen, it can have no organs like the
■senses of sight, touch, smell, and hearing which by their contact with
the environment are the sources of knowletlge for human souls — how then
the reader asks almost in despair, can the soul of the Deity attain to that
'Complete and perfect knowledge and wisdom which by the hyijothesis is
•demanded of it ? Nothing simpler, says Plato ; for all you have to do is
to imagine this spherical soul to consist of two envelopes and a central
<;ore, and that the outermost of these envelopes which occupies the
•circumference should contain within itself those eternal laws, principles,
■and essences of things which are the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever ; that the inner envelope should represent the infinite variety of
forms which exhibit and express these principles in time-pictures or
symbols like variations of a musical theme; Avhile the ceutre or core
should be the womb or matrix in which these essences and ideal forms
become manifest and visible to the senses, for ever coming into being
and for ever passing away ; and if further you make the outermost
■envelope, that which represents eternal suiucness, revolve in one way,
and the inner one repi'esenting the eternal differences in their time-
pictures or symbols, revolve in the opposite, while the core or centre in
which they ajjpear and pass away remains fixed — is it not evident, asks
Plato, that a soul composed of these different circles whicli meet one
another in their opposite courses like travellers on the way, and toucli
each every other with, as it were, the spiritual eyes, should and must
contain Avithin itself all wisdom, all knowledge, all insight? And if to
glorify and enjoy this Deity, you were to strew the different envelopes
with children native and appropriate to eacii element ; the outermost
envelope with offspring who should carry those eternal laws and principles
that are eccr the same, round and round in circles of eternal harmo)iy
and joy ; and the inner envelope with offspring who should meet these in
the opposite direction, carrying on high the ideal time-symbols and
representations in which those laws are to have visible manifestation ;
and if in the core and centre of all, these eternal ideas and their time-
symbols in tlie form of beast and bird and creeping thing and man
b.imself, were to take shape and visibility in an element of change and
decay, ever coming into being and ever ceasing to be — would not this,
asks Plato, be just what we should expect the Deity to be, if by the
AITEXDIX. 49o
hypothesis He was to contain within Himself all essences of all forms, all
laws of all phenomena, all i^rinciiiles of all facts, all mind of all intelli-
gence, all species of all things ; and if besides He was to lie rendered
visible to His children who should live, move, and have their being
in HimV
But has such a Deity any existence in fact, asks the astonished reader?
Yes, says Plato, the visible Universe is that Deity ; and indeed if we bear
in mind the astronomical conceptions of the time, it corresponds to it point
to point. For look you on a starry night at the wide concave of Heaven,
and see how perfect is its sphere as it turns for ever on itself, built and
lined from earth to sky in alternating expanse of earth and air and fire,
moving freely on themselves, but so yoked and harnessed to tlieir
appointed spheres that they keep for ever their eternal round unwearied,
secure against tlie inroads of mutation and decay. Tlieu look again and
see how thick its outmost rim of fire is strewn with stars — a race of
heavenly Gods indeed, immortal as their Sire, within whose ample boson,
as, unborn of Time, with noiseless foot He in eternal sameness moves,
they are borne around; still turning inwards on themselves in virgin
purity, as in joy and contemplation lost, they see the eternal form of
Beauty as she is. Then note again how on the inner border of this fiery
sphere the wandering planets with unequal pace meet and traverse the
outer stars by whom they are controlled ; and with sun and moon among
them to light up the world and mark out the months and years for mortal
souls, make of Time itself which they create and carry on, the moving
image of Eternity. And then again within this inner rim of fire behold
twixt us and it the vacant realm of air. and nearer still the waters of the
clouds above, and last of all, as inner coi'e, the Earth itself on which we
move, fixed and rooted in eternal rest. But on this Earth how great a
change ! For on its surface mark how earth and air and sea and fire (in
their masses, elsewhere kept apart,) meet and mingle in perjietual flux as
if the very genius of vicissitude bore rule, and as wind and frost, fire and
flood, scorch and quench and wither; so that not man alone but the
birds and beasts and creeping things embarked and floated ou its ever-
moving tides are seen hastening through Xature to decay ; and not
eternal Beauty only and the eternal laws of Truth and Right, but the
Ideal Forms in which they seek to clotlie themselves in Time, have to be
snatched from these fleeting shadows as they pass, or smelted from the
soulless dross in which they lie, like veins of finest gold, through long
years of patient human toil.
Such is the Universe as seen by the eye of Plato and, in a general
way, by his contemporaries, and is it not clear, he asks, that corre-
sponding as it does point to point to what we should expect the Deity
to be when looked at from the standpoint of what is Godlike in man
and not from what is merely human, from the standpoint of Eternity
and not of Time, from the standpoint of the Creator and not of the
creature ; is it not clear that this Universe is and must be the one and
only God ?
494: ArrENDix.
Now that the Universe, which Ave moderns figure as a vast realm of
Extension and Space strewn Avith gross masses of mere inorganic
Matter called stars and planets and suns and earth — that this Universe
should be conceived of as in any sense a Deity does indeed sound strange
to modern ears. And even more astounding perhaps is it when we hear
Plato speaking of the Deity, whom we regard as the Creator of all things,
as being Himself created ! But if we consider how in man the soul
pervades and unites organs and parts of the body so different and apart
in composition, structure, and function, as heart and liver, lungs and
limbs ; there is no reason in the nature of things why the soul of the
Deity should not also pervade, and have as its body, elements so different
and apart, as stars, and suns, and planets, together with earth, air, and
sea and all the races with Avhich they are peopled. And as for the
Deity being Himself created, in this, too, Plato is essentially harmonious
and coherent with himself. For drawing his analogies from created
things while taking his stand on the Creator's thought, he sees no reason
why, if in man that continuous thread of consciousness which we call his
soul may be figured as made up of a succession of definite thoughts and
feelings floated on an indefinite basis of motion or change to carry them
on and give them life and movement, it should not be so too with
the soul of the Deity. And as with Plato, as we have seen, the chain of
Ideas, Number or Form, and the principle of indefinite Motion or
Change would, if not brought together by some extrinsic cause, lie as
primordial and independent elements or principles in their original
isolation, separate and apart to all eternity ; so it is evident to him that
the Good which, as we shall see, brings them together and so disposes
them that they shall be a living, active Being or God, must be the
one and only Creator, and that the Deity thus formed, mixed, and
compounded, must be Himself created.
With these preliminaries to put the reader at the right angle and point
of vicAV for seeing the harmony, beauty, and profundity of Plato's great
scheme of the World, it is necessary perhaps, before passing to his views
on Human Life and his ' scheme of salvation ' for Man, to say a few words
as to how this great Deity — the Universe — is compounded by him out of
the four original elements with Avhich he works, viz., the Good, the system
of Ideas, Number, and the aTrnpov or principle of mutation and change.
Now these original elements were, as we have seen, conceived by Plato
to be separate independent existences that had lain in their repose from
all eternity, and would indeed have continued to lie to all eternity, had
it not been that the Good — the only one of the four that has executive
power and initiative — being free from envy and desiring that everything
should as far as possible resemble Himself, induced the rest to come
forth from their repose and allow tliemselves to be united into a body
and soul so as to form a Deity or Universe Avhich should be visible and
tangible to the offspring who were to be created to enjoy it. And the
first question Ave have to ask is, hoAv does He compound this Soul of the
Universe or Deity out of these four original elements ? He does it in
APPENDIX. 495
"this way : He first takes the chain and system of Ideas, or the Eternal
principles, laws, and essences of things, and mixes them with the UTreipov
on that side of it which represents indefinite motion or change, and so
by setting Ideas on the wings of motion, forms what we call a continued
consciousness. lie then takes the same element of the aTreipov but on
that side of it wliich represents vague and indefinite extension, and mixes
it with Number or that system and gradation of ideal forms in which
these Ideas are afterwards to take visible shape (as when the Idea of
cunning, for example, is represented in the extended but ideal figure of
a fox), and by again mixing these two separate mixtures he gets a spirit
or soul that has both movement and extension although invisible, a soul
that shall be made up equally of eternal Ideas always the same, their
ideal Time figures, symbols, or appearances, and the r7Treii>nv or bhmk
principle of motion and change whicli is to give them life and movement.
This Universal Soul, accordingly, which although invisible has extension,
is then spread out by the Good or Creator into a great globe or sphere,
and is so arranged that although each and every part of it shall be made
up of Ideas, Number, and the a-n-npovy these elements shall be more
heaped up and concentrated in one part of the sphere than in another.
As for the eternal Ideas they are to be concentrated on the outermost
rim and circumference and, as we should expect, this part of the
circumference is made all of a piece, undivided, and moving in one'
direction in a perfect circle on the principle of eternal sameness, but
with just sufficient Number and a-jreipov to give it movement, and tliat
movement in the definite form of a circle. The inner portion of this rim
and circumference again is dedicated to the pure element of Number, to
those purely ideal forms and figures, in a word, which unlike the Ideas
have extension, and occupy space, and accordingly move in the
exactly opposite direction, on the principle of difference. This
part of the soul is divided by Plato into different minor circles
moving in different periods and at different distances apart, but so
arranged that like the gradations of form in the different allied species
of animals, the intervals between them shall, like a number of musical
strings struck in unison, give out a complete and Divine orchestration
and harmony. As for the core or central part of this Universal Soul, it
is set apart for the r'.T^eipnv, or principle of incessant fluctuation and
change, as on our own Earth ; but with sufficient Ideas and Number
mixed with it to ensure that in the end, out of it order will be educed.
So far, however, this Universal Soul is invisible and intangible. To
give it visibility and tangibility therefore, so that it maybe seen, touched,
and handled by the mortal and immortal creatures that are about to be
created, the Creator — the Good— plants, according to Plato, in its
various circles visible bodies — fire, air, earth, and water— and so dis-
tributes them in their respective circles that they cannot intermix to
dissipate, quench, or otherwise destroy each other.
How then, we have now to ask, does Plato compound this fire, air,
earth, and water out of the original elements of the Good, the Ideas,
49fi APPENDIX.
Numbers, and the d-mipov with which he constructs his system of the
AVorld? To begin with he makes tlie Creator— the Good — take as his
basis and matrix the dvapM and this o'-n-eipw as ho now with more
particularity explains consists not of chemical atoms or molecules like
the primitive atoms of later philosophers, but of an infinite number of
triangles — equilateral, isosceles, and scalene right-angled — all huddled
together, all having extension and occupying space, but so small as to be
as invisible as blank Space itself, and yet so subject to external pressure
as to be kept in a chaotic and incessant movement and change. But by
mixing Number with these, that is to say by binding them into bundles
with regular crystalline forms, they become according to Plato large
enougli to be visible ; those that are built up into the form of pyramids
being seen by us as fire, those in the form of cubes as earth, those in
the form of dodecahedrons as air, and those in the form of icosahedrons
as water ; and thus a body is given to this Universal Soul.
Body having thus been given to the Soul of the Universe by the
implanting within it of earth, air, fire, and water, the Creator according
to Plato has now to do two things further — He has to light it all up as by
a kind of general illumination in order that it may be seen by the
creatures, his offspring, who have still to he created ; and this he does by
the special creation out of fire of the Sun and Moon, which are then
placed in the inner ring of the outer circle of fire. He has also to give
that time, periodicity, and regularity to all the movements of the
Universe which are necessary if His creatures both mortal and immortal
are to have a standard of order according to which they shall regulate
and conform their lives ; and this he does, as we should expect, not by
interfering with the outermost region of the Universal Soul which is the
seat of those Eternal Ideas which by their nature are beyond Time, but
by adding Number to the movements of the inner circle which is
peopled with the Sun, Moon, and Planets that are concerned with those
ideal time-figures in which the Eternal Ideas are to clothe themselves —
Time itself being formed out of Number united with that Eternal Unity
of which it henceforth becomes the moving image. As for the gods ot
his own country, Zeus, Hera, and the rest, Plato can find no place for
them in his system of the "World, and accordingly contemptuously dis-
misses them as the mongrel descendants of the union ot Heaven and
Earth ; having strength and beauty, indeed, superior to mortals, but with
none of the purity of the Heavenly Gods ; and to be believed in by men
not because of any evidence that is forthcoming for their existence, but
because it is so ordered by the laws of the State 1
The Sold and Body of the Deity, the Universe, being thus illuminated,
regulated, and prepared to receive the creatures who are to inhabit its
different circles of fire, air, earth, and water — we have now to ask who
and what are these cr tures and how are they mixed and compounded V
The outermost rim of the circle of fire was peopled, as we have seen,
with the fixed stars, a race of heavenly gods, pure, immortal children of
the Good, or Creator Himself, and made up of fire, the purest of the
APPENDIX. 497
elements, mixed with the Spirit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the
True. The innermost rim of tliis same circle of fire is peopled, as we
have seen, with the planets (including the sun and moon) made up
of fire and Number, and on these are to be distributed the mortal souls
afterwards to be created, including I\Ian himself. As for the birds
which are the children of tlie air. the fish of the waters, and the beasts
and creeping things of our Earth itself ; and how with Plato they are all
the transmigrating souls of men who have fallen from grace and are
expiating their sins in those lower forms — all this introduces us at once
to the most important part of Plato's Philosophy, the part too which we
shall more especially have to contrast with the Christian scheme, viz.
his doctrine of the Origin of Man, his Fall, and the Scheme of
Salvation by which he is to be redeemed: — and to this, having already
sufficiently prepared the way, I now desire to direct the readers
attention.
T I
I
PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
PART II.
BEFORE entering, however, on Plato's views of tlie Origin of Man
(as preliminary to the thorough understanding of his doctrine
of the Fall and Redemption), it is necessary to premise that the Creator
does not with Plato as with the author of the Mosaic Cosmogony make
Man simply and frankly in his own image, both body and soul, but only
the immortal part of his soul ; leaving his body with its appetites,
passions, and desires, to be made by those fixed stars or junior gods as he
calls them, who correspond in a way to the angels of the Christian
Cosmogony, and who are carried around the eternal throne hymning
like them their Creator's praise. And we have now to show how,
according to Plato, both the body and soul of Man are compounded.
It would appear from his account, then, that the Creator, or the Good,
after having formed the Soul of the One and Only Deity, the Universe,
in the manner we have seen, found that He had some of the original
elements or ingredieuts — the Ideas, Number, and the aTreipov — left
over; and that by mixing these in the same bowl in which He had
compounded the Soul of the Deity, He produced a soul of the same
composition indeed, but somewhat weaker in strength, owing to the
disproportionate share of the aireipov — the wayward and turbulent
element — in its composition, and one, therefore, that was less able to resist
the solicitations of temptation and desire. This diluted soul He then
cut up into as many immortal souls of men as there were fixed stars or
angels, and seating them each beside one of these angels to be carried
round the outermost rim of Heaven, pointed out to them the harmonies
of the created Universe and the eternal laws of 1 ate. This done. He
then informed these immortal souls of men that they were destined
to be planted on the earth, moon, and other planets, but in bodies
subject to decay and death ; and that in order that they might be able to
protect themselves from fire and flood, from frost and wind and storm
without them, and from all manner of distemperatures of their own
APrENDix. 499
toodies within, and so be enabled to jiick their way through this thorny
thicket-encompassed world and keep their footing for a few brief years
on its ever-rolling tide, they were to be equipped with a whole armoury
of instincts, passions, appetites, and desires, which, moving in unison
with the bodily changes, should by the feelings of pleasure or pain
which accompany these changes apprise the reason — or immortal jiart — of
what is going on in the body, of what is good or bad for it, and of what
it ought to pursue or avoid. But as these pleasures which are thus but
the mea7is to the one supreme end of right living, are apt to be made
ends in themselves, and so to degenerate into folly and excess ; and
as these pains, which are normally to be avoided, may yet be so ignobly
avoided as to lead to moral cowardice and the desertion of what is
good ; it is evident that the undue pursuit of pleasure, instead of
making for man's welfare, may become his greatest bane and lure
his soul from its highest good. The Creator accordingly announced,
both as encouragement and warning, that those who should succeed in
subduing the excessive pleasures of aj^petite and sense should, after
living their appointed time on earth, return to their home in Heaven
with the angels or fixed stars ; but that those on the other hand who
should be subdued by their appetites and passions should be compelled
to wander in painful exile through lower forms of life — of beast, of fish,
and of bird — in successive transmigrations, until taught by stern
necessity they should come to themselves again, and return to a life
of reason and virtue ; that they should in their first transmigration after
death take the form of woman (such was the want of gallantry of the
time), hut, should they not cease from evil even then, in their next life
they should be changed into those brutes whose natures most
resembled the various kinds of excesses to which they were addicted ; —
those for example who, although free from vice, were light-minded
and curious about things above, and who imagined that they could
see into Divine things by the mere eye of sense, being changed into
birds ; those again who, from following their lower appetites, ceased to
care for Philosophy or to know the nature of the Universe, being
turned into quadrupeds with lieads turned to the earth as suited their
proper nature, the more unwise of them even grovelling on the earth
with their bellies, in the form of reptiles : while the most ignorant and
unthinking of all, whose souls were so saturated with sin that they were
not worthy to breathe the pure air of beasts, were driven into the water
to lead the lives of oysters or fish ; all alike continuing to migrate into
each other according to the measure of their intellect or folly ; — and so
the world was peopled with animals as the temporary forms of fallen
human souls passing through it, and expiating their sins in tlifse rounds
of unceasing transmigration.
The Creator or the Good having thus legislated for the immortal souls
of men, and having placed them on the Earth and other planets, then
delivered them over to his offspring, the junior gods or fixed stars, to be
fitted not only with mortal bodies but with mortal passions, appetites.
500 APPENDIX.
and desires ; after which, like Jehovah when his six days work was
done, He returned to His repose, leaving His faithful children to
complete His task. They accoi-dingly after the manner of the Creator,
whose work in compounding the Deity or Universe they were instructed
to imitate, took portions of fire, air, earth, and water, from the body of
the Universe, on the understanding that these would be restored again
when the creatures died, and out of these elements they compounded
the bodies of men. But these human bodies differed from the body of
the Universe in two important particulars, so important indeed that, as
we shall now see, they became to man the fruitful parent of all his woes.
In the first place, unlike the body of the Universe which as we saw had
no environment, the bodies of men were surrounded by an environment
of fire and frost, of flood and wind and storm, to whose ravages they
were a prey ; and in the second place the fire, air, earth, and water, of
which they were composed, instead of being kept distinct and apart each
in its own proper sphere, as in the body of the Universe, were all mixed
together, or kept in their places on'y by the finest invisible tacks or
nails as Plato calls them ; so that when fire or frost or storm burnt or
pinched or drenched them from without, or when from within the least
disturbance agitated them, they were in danger of running into each
other as it were, — the fire of running into the solid structures and
inflaming them, the cold into the moist ones and freezing or stagnating^
them, and the water into them all, and soaking them with dropsies and
other disorders, — and so in the end, of bringing the body to disease,
decay, and inevitable death. Xow it was this tendency to disease and
decay, that by rendering necessary some more special medium of
communication between body and soul than existed in the body of the
Universe (which as we saw was able from its compact sta'ucture
and the distribution of its parts into distinct and separate zones which
cannot intermingle, to exist eternally of itself) ; it was this tendency tO'
disease and decay that necessitated the presence of those mortal
passions, appetites, and desires which in the Deity or Universe, as not
being needed, were absent. And furthermore it was to the existence of
these appetites and desires, or rather to the pleasure and pain which
accompanied them (and through which nlone the immortal soul or reason
could get to know how it Avas faring with the body) ; it was owing to the
existence of these pleasures and pains, I say, and to the tendency to
pursue or avoid them on their own account and to erect the pleasures
into ends of themselves, that all kinds of wickedness, folly, and excess
ensued for Man ; and so what was intended to be a light to his feet, and
a guide to his path, became to him the source of all his miseries, and the
predisposing cause of his Fall.
But before exhibiting the Avny in which, according to Plato, this Fall
was brought about, we must ask how the junior gods compounded these
mortal passions and desires? Now to answer this it is necessary to
remember that the difference between mind and matter, body and soul,
was with Plato, as with the ancients generally, much less accentuated
ArrENDix. 501
than with us moderns. The Soul of the Deity or Universe, we may
remember, was spread abroad on all sides to the extremities of Space,
and moved in rotation on itself, and so had both extension and movement
just as Matter has ; the only difference between them being tliat while
Matter or Body is made up of the little invisible triangles of the «7re/po»
Tjound up by Number into various figures — pyramids, cubes, octohedrons
and the rest — which are large enough to be visible, and are known to us as
fire, air, earth and water ; Soul is made up of the same invisible f'-n-etpov
in the restless movement of whose little triangles Ideas are floated which
are also invisible ; and also Number, in tlie sense of ideal but invisible
Time-symbols, is carrie<l along ; and so although having, like Body, both
movement and extension. Soul is itself quite invisible. All therefore
that the junior gods had to do in constructing the mortal soul as Plato
calls it, i.e., the passions, appetites, and desires of men, was to take the
-'finr- , in the sense of vague movement and change, and leaving out
Ideas, to float Number on it to give it regularity and rhyth m (instead of
binding its particles together by Number which would have made body),
and so to unite it with the liuman body that all the changes going on in
the body should be faithfully transmitted to the immortal soul or
Reason ; as when in some electric conductor or telephone the shoutings
•of the voice at one end are faithfully reproduced in the ear at the other.
Having in this way compounded the appetites, passions, and desires of
men as well as their bodies, and having located courage in the chest, and
■the other passions in the abdomen ; the junior gods then took the im-
mortal soul which they had received from their Father and Creator, the
Good, and dividing it like the Soul of the Universe into two circles, one
of eternal ideas, principles, or essences, always the same, and the other
of the different Time-symbols in which these ideas are to be embodied,
placed it in the head ; and this head again as it was to contain a soul of
the same nature though weaker in strength than the soul of the Deity or
Universe, they made round in shape like the immortal Body of this
Universe itself. And so at last Man was formed, complete and entire in
all his parts, and for the first time became what in the language of
Scripture is called a living soul. But no sooner had all these various
elements come together, than the immortal part or Reason, consisting of
the two circles of Eternal Truths and their Time-symbols, was so stormed
in on from all sides, both from within and from without, that in only a
few favoured natures could it hold its own. In all infants, indeed,
without exception, the stream of bodily nutrition was so overpoweriivg as
practically for the time being to quite overwhelm the reason and in-
telligence ; but as these infants grew to childhood and youth, and the
stream slackened and became more calm, reason began to emerge and
give signs of its existence, asserting itself more and more as they grew
into manhood and maturity, although never (except in a few men) over-
coming the weakness of its original composition sufficiently to resist the
temptations of sense or to see through its illusions, and so to attain that
goal which its Creator, the Good, had prescribed for it. So badly indeed
.502 APPENDIX.
did it fai-e with this immortal soul of Man that it at last began for its own
comfort and satisfaction to entertain delusions and to huo- them as if
they were realities ; began, for example, to imagine that the glamour of
the senses and passions which had so misled it, was itself the true
criterion of right and wrong ; so that at last, like a man looking at the
world from between his legs, it saw things upside down, calling that
wliich was prudent and expedient, right and just; that which was merely
painful, wrong ; that which was agreeable, beautiful ; tliat which was
unusual, miraculous ; regarding that which had might as also having
right; and worst of all, that only which could be seen, touched, or
handled, as having any existence or reality at all 1 Now it is in these
illusions of the intellect, and not in the corruption of his will, that the
Fall of Man, according to Plato, primarily consists ; and from this fact,
as we shall see, his great scheme of Redemption, on which 1 am now
about to entei", is easily and logically deducible.
If the Fall of Man, then, his misery and sin, is with Plato due not as
in Christianity to any vice of the will, whereby a being originally
entirely good aiad made in the image of his Creator, becomes by a
sudden turn of the will under the influence of the Tempter entirely evil
and a child of the Devil ; but is due rather to the mixture in his original
composition of the UTeipov, of that blank principle of change which
appearing in life, as it does, in the form of unregulated passion and
desire, continually alienates the mind by its glitter and illusion from the
simplicity and purity of the Right, the Beautiful, and the True ; — if this
be so, it is evident that, with Plato, the redemption and salvation of
Man must be secured, not as in Christianity by transferring the allegiance
of tlie mind back again from the Devil to God by Divine Grace (whether
through an Apostolic succession residing in a visible Church and ita
Priests as in Catholicism, or through the power of the Word as in
Protestantism, or even through the Holy Spirit Himself whispering to the
private heart when the will is on the turn, as in the most subtle and
refined form of Modern Christianity), but only by strijiping off those
illusions of sense by which the pure intellect is led astray, and by-
climbing up the chain of Ideas to the First Cause — the Eternal Good —
through long and laborious stages of thought. And this, unlike the
right-about-face of the will in Christian ' conversion,' cannot by its
very nature be a sudden impulse, but must for the majority of ignorant
sense-beridden and often semi-brutish human souls be a matter of time,
and involve successive lives of transmigration and re-incarnation.
But what, it may be asked, is the stimulus which incites man to make
this attempt to reach the Good by scaling the world of Intellect and
Thought? Love, says Plato — love of those divine Ideas which the
immortal part of his soul remembers to have seen when, sitting with the
angels or fixed stars on the outermost rim of the world, it was carried
around with them in their revolutions, to watch the eternal harmonies of
the Universe and behold as it were the face of the Creator Himself.
And this Remembrance or Reminiscence, as Plato calls it, by what is it
APPENDIX. 503
suggested or awakened? By the images, says Plato, of the Good, the
Beautiful, and the True, which the mind sees as in a glass darkly
in their maimed and imperfect human types— those Ideas or Eternal
Essence or Principle of eternal Law and harmonious Number, which tlie
immortal soul of Man bears trailing with it into this dusky, confused, and
ever-shifting and vanishing existence. It is these divine Ideas, according
to Plato, or in a word what we should call these Ideals, that by their
own inherent and unsullied beauty, and by the hungering desire we have
to realize them, fire the spirits of fallen human souls to reach them, and
so to regain once more their immortal seats in that bright Heaven from
which they came.
"With Love then as impelling power, and this love kindled and set on
fire by the remembrance of divine Ideas caught from or suggested by
their glancing intermittent apparitions in earthly things, we have now
again to ask how, according to Plato, the Redemption and Salvation of
Man, his return to his first estate among the stars, is to be accomplished ;
and to answer this our already too long introductory exposition of his
general Theory of the World has sufficiently prepared us.
The Universe, as we have seen, was pictured by Plato as com-
pounded of four original elements or principles — the Good, which alone
like the God of Christianity has initiative and creative power ; the Chain
of Ideas ; Number; and the aTreipov or formless princijile of extension und.
change — and that each of these iu their order was necessary to give
variety or expression to those that preceded it ; that the differentiated
chain (or family-tree rather) of Ideas was necessary to give variety to the
different sides of the unity of the Supreme Cause — the Good — in whose
essence these Ideas all participate ; that Number was necessary to give
ideal expression (in symbolic form as it were) to the Ideas ; and that the
o.-tipov with which the others were mixed, was necessary to give visible
and tangible reality to the whole. If then we reverse this order and
begin from the outside, as it were, i.e., from visible tangible creatures of
flesh and blood, it is evident that in order to reach the Good or Supreme
Cause — the Spirit of the Kight, the Beautiful, and the True — we must
be led on by ascending love from the desire for the merely sensuous
beauty of Bodily Form which by its glitter and illusion misleads the soul
and when too hotly pursued and indulged in turns to gall and bitterness,
breeding vexation and disgust — we must be pushed on, I say, from this
merely sensuous beauty which, as slave of the tyrannous years, fades and
withers, yielding no solid fixture on which the immortal soul of man may
rest, to the love of the Beautiful Soul inhabiting this body, of which
this passing bodily form, being mixed as it is with the d-rrtipov, is but the
fleeting and imperfect embodiment — that Beauty of Soul, in a word,
which is not a merely saintly or ascetic beauty, but the harmonious blend-
ing and combination of the mortal and immortal parts in due subordin-
ation ; of courage and self-restraint and noble passion, as well as the pure
devotion to the Right, the Beautiful, and the True ; that pure beauty of
soul, in short, which it is the object of Art to seize with the eye of the
504 APPENDIX.
imagination and to embody in sill the glory of form and colour to the
eyes and senses of men. But this Beauty of Soul, made up as it is of
mortal as well as immortal parts, is closely dependent, it must be
remembered, on youth and strength — in a word on the body with which
it is bound up — and with the failure and decay of the body must lose much
of its morning freshness and charm ; so that here, too, there is no rest for
the weary wing of love until all that is merely mortal and human is stripped
from the soul, and we come in sight of those pure eternal Ideas with
which Philosophy deals; those Ideas which give to these beautiful souls
all they have of beauty and charm, and which can neither be seen by the
bodily eye, nor pictured by the eye of the imagination, but can be appre-
hended by pure Thought alone. And these the soul of man once behold-
ing, it cannot rest until it has scaled them to their summit and come in
sight of that august eternal Cause in whose essence they are all alike
participant, the Good, viz., or the Spirit of the Right, the Beautiful, and
the True. And this, in turn, once seen, like the God in Christ of
Christian conversion, henceforth becomes the most precious possession
of the soul and the one most immediate to the heart, the sight of which,
indeed, is man's highest privilege, his most blessed and entrancing
delight; for in it not Art and Science only, but Philosophy and Religion
also find their final and eternal rest.
This Supreme Good once attained, Man is then invited to descend
again along the path by which he came, along the chain of eternal
Ideas to the infinite variety of forms into Avhich they break and split
themselves — forms which mixed as they are with Number and the urretpov
constitute the world of Time ; to enjoy them, to live in them, and to
participate in the eternal beauty which they symbolize. And with this
our next question becomes, how according to Plato are we by the most
easy, natural, and spontaneous evolution to pass through the successive
stages of culture necessary to come in sight of the Supreme Good ?
To begin with, it is evident that as Plato makes each of the four elements
with which he deals, only the symbol or expressioti of the next in order,
the aTretpov of Number, Number of the Ideas, and the Ideas of the
Good ; or to put it differently, makes each end only a temporary means,
as it were, to a higher end, — beautiful Body a means to lead us to
beautiful Soul, beautiful Soul to the beauty of Ideas, and beautiful
Ideas to the Good — it is evident, I say, that if we are to reach the final
end of all, viz., the Creator or the Good, in the surest, most complete,
and most systematic way, each of these temporary ends, before we can be
weaned from it or it can fall off, as it were, and be superseded by a
higher end, must, like the different envelopes surrounding the seeds of
a fiower, be made to realize its entire function and to reach its full
fruition and development. Now, as the first of these ends to be brought to
its highest development is the Human Body, this as far as merely physical
beauty goes can be done by Gymnastics and Athletics alone ; but as Plato
thinks it impossible to have true bodily beauty Avith a low and degraded
soul, he would, to produce beauty of face and expression, true beauty of
ArPENDix. 505
attitude and figure, employ !Music, which with him is tlie art of arts, and the
one which as being the purest expression of Number and Ideas combined,
is the most calculated to keep all parts of the soul, composed as it is of
mortal and immortal parts, iu their due and natural subordination and
harmony. This part of education completed, and the youth whom we are
supposed to be training, having received from Music and Gymnastics not
only a sound body, but also right habits and customs, those true modes
of thinking and feeling which, when he attains to years of conscious
reflection, he will not be obliged to unlearn or discard ; having arrived
too at a period of manhood when his former ideals, Athletics on the one
hand and merely natural or customary Human Virtue on the other, have
received from him their due mood of admiration and culture ; he is now,
according to Plato, ready to pass from the unconscious or but semi-
conscious love of beautiful things to their conscious scientific analysis
and investigation, to those abstract truths of Eternal Xumbcr and
Eternal Ideas wliich have given those beautiful human souls all
they have of beauty, loveliness, or charm ; to pass, in short, from
the Arts to the Sciences. And what are these Sciences, we have
now to ask? The two great sciences, says Plato, of Mathematics
and Logic or Dialectic — the only two, indeed, practically known in
his time — the one, jNIathematics, dealing with number and figure and
magnitude and all things having extension; the other, Dialectic, dealing
with the eternal Ideas, Principles, or Essances, of which these figures
of Mathematics are but the Time-symbols and expression. Xow, as
to Geometry or Mathematics — Plato argues that as its deductions,
however true in tlieir way, are founded on axioms and definitions,
all of which, relating as they do to figure and magnitude, assume
r.3 their basis the blank field of extension or space ; and as this
extension or space belongs, as we have seen, to the aireipov ; and as
the r/.-:Ttipov possesses only that vKjative or hypothetical reality, which
pertains to it as the matrix or background for the exhibition of
those essences which, though invisible, alone have positive reality,
viz., the Good, Number, and tlie system of Ideas ; from all this it
is evident, he thinks, that even the deepest and most comprehensive
deductions of Geometry or -Mathematics can have only the same
negative or hypothetical character as the definitions and axioms on
which they are based ; and that to get across to those pure eternal
Ideas or Essences of things which have neither parts nor magnitude,
neither form nor colour, neither body, tangibility, nor divisibility,
Geometry, with its diagrams and Time-figures, cannot a^•ail us, and
we mu-^.t have recourse to some other Scicmce or method entirely
different in nature. And what is this method V Dialectic, says Plato,
or the Logic of the Ideas.
Now to illustrate the way in which this method of Dialectics works,
we may begin with any merely hypothetical Time-figure, say a dog,
and if we proceed from its outward bodily existence to its inner
nature or essence, we come to something that is not merely hypothetical
506 APPENDIX.
but real ; and this is what Plato would call the Idea of the dog. Once
having found this link in the chain of Ideas, all we have to do is to
ascend to that quality which is common to the dog with other allied
species, and which constitutes what we call the genus dog. This common
quality once reached, before proceeding farther, we then turn round
and run down all the other branches which spring from it and
participate in it, as, for example, the canis wolf, the canis fox, and
the like; leaving out no natural branch or division. Then starting
afresh, but this time from the genus, we ascend to the Family to
which it belongs, after which we turn around as before and run down
into all the other genera of the same Family ; leaving out no natural
branch or division. Now, if we do the same in turn with the
Order, the Class, the Sub-kingdom, and the rest, it is evident that
we must at last reach an essence in this Zoological tree which is
common to every individual of every species, of every genus, of every
family, of every order, of every class, of every sub-kingdom, of every
kingdom of Nature ; and this essence is what Plato calls the Good,
or the Spirit of the Right, the Beautiful, and the True. Now these
classifications which we get from the outside are precisely the classifi-
cations of the modern Science of Zoology ; and it must be remembered
that as all the Physical Sciences, had they existed in the time of Plato,
would equally with Mathematics have been debarred by him from the
sight of real essence or existence, inasmuch as being concerned only
with the relations of Matter, IVIotion, and Force, all of which involve
extension or space, they can in consequence, like the diagrams of
geometry, have only a hypothetical and negative, not a real and
positive existence ; —it is evident that to get a true concejition of
Plato's system of Ideas, we must substitute, as I have said, for
these outward bodily figures with which Zoology deals, their inner or
mental attributes : so that for fox, for example, you would read cunning ;
for the lion, boldness ; and so on ; and that we must use the bodily
classifications only as hints, as it were, to guide us to the inner classifi-
cations, on the principle that likeness of visible organization must
naturally involve a likeness of inner essence.
The above is the way in which we reach the Supreme Good by Dialectics,
from the outside as it were, but if, with Plato, we regard the whole
animal kingdom as the visible embodiment of the jjassions, appetites,
ambitions, and desires of what were once active living principles in
degenerate human souls, it is evident that we can equally begin from
within, and taking the first mental quality we happen to alight on, say
Boldness, we can run it up to a quality common to it and other allied
attributes, say Courage, and then run down again into all these allied
attributes, omitting none ; then starting afresh with Courage, we can run
it up say to Justice, then Justice down again into all its varieties ; and
beginning again with Justice run it up into the Good itself. Or we can
begin with an jesthetic quality, say Taste, run it up into the Beautiful,
then the Beautiful down again into all its varieties, and up again into the
APPENDIX. 507
Good, and so on. In this way, begin where you will, all qualities will at
last by successive distillations of their common essence on higher and
higher planes, land you in sight of the Supreme Good as the soul and
apex of them all, and of whose nature iu greater or less degree all things
partake. Once arrived by this severe intellectual process at the
Supreme Good, who is not only the highest link in the chain of Ideas
but is the Creative Power who persuaded the Ideas, Number, and the
aTT^ipov to come together to form the Universe, we can theu run down at
our ease this inverted world-tree of Ideas to its remotest extremity in
individual existences ; giving ourselves up in freest abandonment to the
harmony and beauty which everywhere pervade it ; and seeing every-
where shining through it the image of the Supreme Good in one or other
of its aspects of the Right, the Beautiful, or the True.
The above is Plato's 'scheme of salvation' for Man, and in it, as
we see, men having fallen from their first estate in Heaven, not as
in Christianity by yielding their wills to the solicitations of the
Tempter, but through the excess of waywardness or dTreipov in their
original composition, can still in their degeneration regain their blest
estate, not by a sudden change of the will through Divine Grace,
but by long years, successive lives rather, of patient and protracted
Thought.
As for Plato's scheme of Retribution : — Should men fail in their
first life to reach the Supreme Good, they are to be degraded in
their second incarnation, as I have said, to the forms of women ; and
if they fail a second time, to the forms of those different species of
brutes with whose natures their own evil dispositions are most allied.
Between these successive incarnations a thousand years are supposed
to elapse, during which period they must descend to the shades for
expiation, experience, and purification; and there they iiave to suffer
ten-fold for each sin or evil act committed during their sojourn on earth.
At the end of each of these periods another chance is given them,
and they are called upon to choose the kind of life which they desire
next to lead on earth, whether in the form of man or brute ; there
being no restriction on their freedom of choice except, indeed, that
with the life they choose they must take its natural surroundings, so
that if they should choose the life of a dog or a slave, they cannot
at the same time have the trappings and finlotirar/e of a king; or of a king,
not the accessories and environment of a slave. Having made their
free choice, their destinies are then hitched on to the Spindle of
Necessity, and the junior gods — the Planets and Stars to whom this
Spindle is attached — weave out for tliem their fates. In this way,
choice after choice having been give ii them, they continue to wander
like belated spirits from transmigration to transmigration until the
last illusions of sense, appetite, and desire, having been scourged out of
them by bitter experience, they are at last found fitted to resume
their ancient seats among the stars. But tliis can only be attained, it is
important to remark, by devotion to Science and Philosophy. J^o
,508 APPENDIX.
devotion to Art or Poetry will suffice, for however beautiful the products
of these may be, they are still the result of what Plato calls a Divine
Madness; the artists themselves being sunk in the illusion of appearances,
as not having consciously arrived by Mathematics and Dialectics at
that chain of Ideas which leads up to the Good. Nor will a merely
good disposition or desire to do right avail, unless this desire is irradiated
and enlightened by conscious knowledge, laboriously bought by successive
lives devoted to Philosophy. So strongly indeed does Plato feel that
mere noble impulse, good will, high aspiration, steady habits, and
the like are of no avail for getting on the track of Ideas (if they
hit the mark one day, they miss it the next, he says), that he
contemptuously declares that such people will be found in their next
incarnation, inhabiting the bodies of bees, ants, and other steady-going,
well-meaning, industrious, and harmoniously-working creatures !
Should mortal men, however, in spite of the experiences got in these
successive transmigrations, prove entirely recreant and incorrigible, they
are thenceforth to be confined for ever, as in Christianity, to the kingdom
of perpetual night, never more to behold the blessed sun or taste again
the poor ephemeral joys of their debased and besotted lives.
Such is Plato's great scheme of the World and Human Life ; of the
Origin, the Fall, and the Redemption of Man ; as well as of the retribution
that awaits him if he gives himself up to the solicitations of temptation
and desire. And now, returning to the problem with which we set out,
we have to ask how it was that a scheme like this, which is as superior
in point of evolution and subtlety to the crude conceptions of the Mosaic
and Christian schemes, as the many-stopped organ of to-day is to the
rude tomtom of the savage ; how was it that this highly-evolved product
of Greek civilization and genius, was superseded by a plain, simple, and
unsophisticated creed like Christianity, not only in the minds of the
vulgar and uncultivated, which one might naturally expect, but in the
minds of the cultured and enlightened also '? And to answer this
fully we must draw more tightly together the great cardinal principles
of each from the general body of doctrine which we have just passed in
review.
But before the points which I more specially desire to emphasize can
be plainly seen, it is necessary to clear the ground by a few preliminary
remarks on Avhat is now almost the sole topic of modern philosophical
controversy — the reconciliation of Science and Religion. How little
chance there is of this reconciliation ever being effected from the peculiar
.standpoint of either side of the controversy will be apparent when I
point to a fact which up to this time has been neglected by both, the
fact, viz., that the kind of causes by which Science and Religion
respectively seek to explain the phenomena of the World and of the
1 luman Mind, although called by the same name, ' cause,' are as I have
elsewhere pointed out, in essential nature mutually antithetic to, and
exclusive of, each other, belonging as they do to different categories of
the human mind. Tlie kind of 'cause' with which Science deals is
APPENDIX. 509
always of tlie nature of a physical antecedent, and has besides, this
characteristic, that there must always be a complete equivalence established
between it and its consequent or effect ; so that if the effect, for example,
to be explained be represented numerically l)y, say, the number five, the
antecedent cause must be the numerical equivalent of five, say three and
two, four and one, two and two and one, and so on. And hence when
the Scientist is asked ' what is the Cause of this Universe which we
see lying around us To-day?' he answers unhesitatingly and almost
instinctively, the Universe of Yesterday, where the forces involved were
exactly the same in quantity as in the Universe of To-day, only in
changed form ; and if asked the Cause of that again, would again reply
the Universe of the day before, and so on. So that speaking purely
from the standpoint of Physical Science, the Cause of the Universe as
it exists at any given moment is to be found in the Universe of the
moment before, and not in something underlying it or lying behind it as
it were ; and the Universe itself, in consequence, figures itself to the
purely scientific mind as a fixed quantity of Physical Force evolving
and changing from all Time, and going on evolving and changing to all
Time. The kind of 'cause' witli which Religion deals on the other
hand is always of the nature of ic'dl, whether of gods, of God or of Devil ;
and the Cause of the Universe, in consequence, is regarded not as a
physical antecedent that precedes but as a Supernatural Will that underlies,
as it were, the whole procession of the phenomena of the Universe, alike
in Present, Past, and Future.
Now it is evident that between these entirely different kinds of cause,
viz., a physical antecedent on the one hand, and aj^ersonal ivill on the other
— both to the confusion of men expressed by the one word 'cause' —
there is and can be no community whatever either of nature or attribute
on which a reconciliation can be based ; for the reason that the former
being the passage from a physical antecedent to a physical consequent,
is a passage from matter to matter, whereas the latter being a passage
from the mental act of will to a jihysical condition, is a passage from mind
to matter — which is entirely different. Between Science and Religion
therefore, as dealing with these respective causes, it is evident that no
reconciliation is possible from the exclusive standpoint of either, and
that the reconciliation, if it is to come at all, must come from some
neutral ground, which will include both, and yet keep each apart in its
own sphere.
Now it is owing to this use of the word ' cause ' to cover two opposite
and contradictory conceptions — of antecedent and consequent on the
one hand, and of will on the other— and to the consequent failure to
separate clearly in thought the respective spheres of each, that all the
many attempts to reconcile Science and Religion, so characteristic of the
speculations of tlie present day, have alike proved futile.
Mr. Spencer, for example, believing that if Religion and Science are
ever to be reconciled, they must in some way or other be shewn to rest
ultimately on one and the same basis and not on two different bases, in
510 AITENDIX.
his endeavour to snatch a cheap and easy reconciliation where from his
Physical standpoint no such reconciliation was possible, was beguiled, as
I have elsewhere pointed out,* into making the same fixed quantity ot
Physical Force which exists in the Universe to-day, which was there
yesterday, and will be there to-morrow (and which with its equivalence ot
antecedent and consequent is the basis of Physical Science) the basis ot
Religion also. In this way by giving to that Religious Cause which lies
alike behind the phenomena of Present, Past, and Future, the character
of a Physical Force or Energy instead of that of a Will, he has mixed
and confounded those two different conceptions of 'Cause' which it was
his province as a philosopher to have kept apart; and so has in a
measure weakened his otherwise great and splendid, though one-sided
system of Philosophy. With the thorough-going Supernaturalist on the
other hand, no cause is regarded as a true cause which is not of the
nature of a personal will, good or evil; and accordingly we find him
declaring not only that the actions of men are the results of the ever-
present promptings of the Holy Spirit and of the Devil respectively,
whispering suggestions to the heart, good or evil, but that the move-
ments of INIatter whether in the mass or in the particle, whether as seen
in the attraction of the planets, or in the affinity of chemical compounds,
are under spiritual guidance and are explicable only on the supposition
of an ever-present Supernatural Will. In thus attempting to show that
the uniform antecedents and consequents of Scientific Causation are
after all only the effects or phenomena of Supernatural Wills operative
at every point, the Supernaturalist too, like Spencer, mixes and confounds
two entirely different conceptions, two entirely different mental categories,
and so helps still further to perjjlex the intellects of men.
With the above prelimiuary remarks in passing, on the relation
between Science and Religion, we may now return all the better
equipped to confront the problem before us, viz., why it was that
Platonism with its highly-evolved Philosophy of the World and of
Human Life, was driven from the field by the crude Mosaic Cosmogony
and the simple unsophisticated scheme of Christianity ?
To begin with one may remark in passing, that Plato, although
evidently priding himself on his knowledge of all the Physical Science
of his time, and although in his scheme of the Universe, as unfolded in
the Timaeus, exhibiting a subtlety and originality, a power of purely
physical combination as remarkable in its way as that of Herbert
Spencer, did not owe his greatness as a philosopher to any mere
knowledge of Physical Science as such, or to any deductions founded
on that knowledge, but rather, like Bacon and Shakespeare, to that
wide-eyed comprehension and capaciousness of understanding which
enabled him to map out as on a globe all the belts and kingdoms of the
human spirit as they are seen reflected in the great world of Nature and
of Human Life, and to give to each of them its true and natural relation
and subordination. His genius in a word lies in his knowledge of mental
» •' Civilization aud Progress," pages 65-67.
APPENDIX. 511
things, rather than of physical. He may be said indeed to have set up
once for all a framework or skeleton figure of the human spirit, so
articulated and proportioned, so just and true, that to this hour he has
left the Physical Scientists and Metaphysicians little else to do than to
fill up more accurately, with the increase of scientific knowledge, the
great framework of categories which he has erected for them. For the
World to-day is still made up as it was in the time of Plato of the
Good, or the Soul of the Just, the Beautiful, and the True ; of Ideas,
or the inner essences, the inner natures of every order and genus
and species of existence ; of Xumber, or the ideal Time-figures which
are the essences of every kind of figure or extension; and of the
d-TTdpov or principle of restlessness and change which gives visible
actuality and flesh and blood relations to these forms, but by which
at the same time tlieir pure ideal quality is in every individual instance
more or less marred and defaced, more or less deflected from the
true line of beauty. So truly indeed are all things compounded of
these categories of Plato, that we may confidently ask what in fact has
Religion been doing since his time, but trying to disinter and uncover
the Spirit of God or the Good from the obscurations and obstructions of
sense, from the clouds of illusion by which His pure nature is obscured?
And Avhat has Philosophy been doing, but trying to separate the inner
natures of things, or Ideas, from the outward bodily forms in which they
are imprisoned ? What Science and JNIathematics, but trying to unfold
the eternal laws and relations of these forms ? AVhat Art, but trying to
catch the ideal eternal patterns of these same ever-shifting, ever-changing,
and ephemeral existences? And we may further ask, who of the
moderns up to the time of Goethe, with the exception perhaps of Bacon
and Shakespeare, has added anything to these great and eternal categories
of the mind ? Who has seen like Plato that this complex unity known
as the himian mind is built up of a hierarchy or series of turrets as it
■were, rising one above another on whichever side of the mind you choose
to look ; whether on the side of the feelings, where on a basis of pure
selfishness you have erected at the first stage a kind of half-and-half
morality of custom, respectability, and good habit, and on this again a
still higher stage of the love of the Right for its own sake ; or on the
side of Sentiment, where on a basis of pure sensual beauty you have
erected at the first stage an aesthetic dilettantism, a conventional
decorum and standard of taste, and on this again a still higher stage of
the love of the Beautiful for itself alone ; or again on the side of the
intelligence, where on a basis of pure vulgar use, as in the growing of
corn, the working of iron and wood, you have erected on the first stage
the common-sense maxims of business and prudence which deal with
these things, on this again a higher stage where the laws of Science, —
of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and the like — are seen playing
through them, and on this again the pure eternal laws of the Good
itself — of morality, of justice, of compensation, — of which all that have
gone before are but the subordinate ministers, teachers, or interpreters;
512 APPENDIX,
SO that each end is only a means to a higher end; each grade of feeling
but a stepping stone to lead us to a higher kind of feeling. The
beautiful body, for example, exists to lead us to the beautiful soul, the
beautiful soul to the beauty of the pure Ideas that animate it and give it
all it lias of charm, and the beauty of Ideas to the fountain-head of all
beauty, viz., the Good Itself. The common uses of things, again, exist to
lead us to the maxims of prudence, common sense, and worldly wisdom
which their handling involves, and these again to lead us to the abstract
and eternal laws and principles of things which lie behind them all. The
common forms of action, viz., of what is good for ourselves alone,
exist as stepping-stones to actions that are courteous and do not offend
our fellows, these again to the love of our neighbours as ourselves, and
this again to the eternal fount of Love.
Or again, who of the Moderns has seen that each of this hierarchy of
means requires an intellectual organ for its apprehension ; that the
Senses, for example, exist only to give us knowledge of the gross and
tangible qualities of things, and there stop ; that Mathematics and
Physical Science in general exist to give us the laws and principles of
all things having figure, extension, and body, and there their function
ends ; and that the Reason or inner intuition exists to give us the soul,
essence, or inner nature of these forms, and to lead us along their ascend-
ing chain up to the Good itself? Who, I ask, of the Moderns, with the
exceptions I have mentioned, has given us these insights? None; not
Descartes, not Locke, not Hume, not Kant, not Hegel, not Schopenhauer,
not Herbert Spencer ; none but the Poetic Tliinkers — Bacon, Shakespeare,
Goethe, Emerson, and Carlyle.
But highly evolved and intellectual as is this World-scheme of Plato,
and distinguished as it everywhere is by the greatest penetration and
genius, it is nevertheless founded on a basis of Physical Science of the
most primitive and rudimentary character. Mathematics and Mechanics
were practically the only Sciences known in his time ; almost the entire
body of the laws of Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, lying
still undiscovered in the distant future. The consequence was that as a
philosopher anxious to give a rational interpretation of the World, and
one free from the superstitions of the prevailing religions, Plato was
reduced in his interpretation of tilings to the most primitive form of
mechanical relation, mere mechanical mixtures in short, which like that
of wine and water have no other relation but that of simple juxtaposition.
But as the gods or devils with which Religion explains the phenomena of
the World, being in their nature Wills, will not admit of even the simplest
mechanical mixture, their only possible relation being that of command
and obedience, of self-assertion on the one hand and self-renunciation or
self-effacement on the other ; Plato was obliged to strip off from these
Supernatural Powers all that was personal and concrete, in order that
they might the better combine to form the World ; much in the same
way as to get quinine to unite with morphia, for example, you have first
to extract the quinine from the crude bark, and the morphia from the
APPENDIX. 513
poppies. Accordingly taking such deities as the Jehovah of the Jews,
and the higher gods of his own country, he strips them of ail that is
personal and concrete — their bodily forms, their appetites, passions, and
all the other appurtenances of a personal Will — and presents us ^vith
their pure essence or abstraction unmixed with baser matter, in the
Spirit of God, or the Good, as he calls it — the essence of the Beauti-
ful, the Just, and the True. In the same way, taking the Devil and
the other evil deities of the different nations, he strips them not only
of their bodily forms, the hoofs, horns and tail, of the popular imagin-
ation, but of every definite form of evil disposition ; of envy, of jealousy,
of revenge, and the like ; and presents us with their pure essence in the
o'Treipof that spirit of vague and unregulated desire, of lawless restless-
ness and change, which is the fountain of all evil. So too he takes
individual beautiful things whether animals or men, and stripping them of
all that is personal or particular, of all that is fleeting and transitory, he
presents us in Number with their pure bodily types, and in his System of
Ideas with their pure inner essences or natures, free from the imperfections
that cling to them owing to the admixture in their composition of the
aTrapov or principle of change and decay. In this way he gets the four
elements out of which as we have seen, he compounds the Universe, viz.,
the Good or Spirit of God, Ideas or the soul of created intelligences,
Number or the pure types of all that has bodily form and extension, and
the r'-mipov or Spirit of evil and change. And although these will really
no more mix and combine scientifically than the gods and devils of which
they are the essences and abstractions, still men conceived them as able
to do so, much in the same way as they saw the spirit of wine or the spirit
of salt unite with water, and the like. And now we are coming in sight
of the reason why Christianity superseded Platonism in spite of the
intellectual superiority of the latter in subtlety and analysis. For just
as no mere catalogue of the organs of the body can give us any insight into
the changes which will take place in that body, unless the laws and
principles by which these organs act and react on one another are
known — so no mere catalogue of the elements of which the Universe or
any creature in it is compounded, however true the analysis may be, can
give us any insight into the changes that take place in that Universe or
that creature, unless the laws and relations which connect the elements
of which it is composed, are known. But as Plato only mixes his
elements mechanically and flings them together, as it were, and has
nowhere attempted to connect them by any laws of relationship ; has
nowhere given us any law of connexion between his Ideas and Number,
or between Number and the direipof or general principle of change ; and
as it is only the changes occurring in the Universe or in any object in it,
and not the mere composition of the Universe or its creatures for which
men demand a cause, — the cause of the hurricane or storm, and not the
composition of air or water ; the cause of the volcano, and not the
composition of fire ; the cause of disease, and not a catalogue of the
organs of the body ; the cause of the act of murder or revenge, of the
K K
514 APrEXDix.
jealousy or the falling in love, and not the composition or catalogue of
the faculties of the human mind — from all this it is evident that
Platonism, which with all its appearance of scientific analysis supplied
no answer to any of these things, had in consequence no advantage even
scientifically over Christianity. And at what a sacrifice was all this
subtlety and analysis, all this appearance of scientific procedure, procured !
For in order to get his original elements to come together and form by
their admixture the Universe as we know it, Plato was obliged, as we
have seen, to strip from the gods and devils who figured so largely in the
prevailing religions, all that gave them weight or value in the minds of
men, viz., their personal Wills. And as the Will is not only, as we have
seen, as legitimate a kind of ' cause ' as the uniform antecedents and
consequents of Science, but is in strict reality the only kind of cause of
which we have any personal experience ; — the uniform antecedents and
consequents of Science being only an answer to the question of
liow or in what order things happen, not why they happen ; — it is
evident that Platonism by stripping the gods and devils of the
prevailing religions, of all personality and will, and reducing them to
such mere abstractions as the Spirit of God, or the Good, the
Spirit of intelligence or Ideas, the Spirit of change or the aTropov, and
the like — abstractions which can neither satisfy the Religious conception
of cause, as will, nor the Scientific one of pure uniformity of antecedent
and consequent, but are rather a hybrid and impotent mixture of
the two — it is evident that Platonism lost in this way more than all
it seemed to have gained by its purely rationalistic procedure ; and
so went down before the new idea of Christianity, which furnished
men with a scheme of the Universe founded on the belief in Wilk
as causes, and one which in the absence of scientific knowledge
was complete and harmonious at every point. How subtly, indeed,
Christianity manipulates its system of Supernatural Wills, and with
what singleness and purity of aim it everywhere keeps them in the
ascendant, alike in its scheme of the Universe, and in the Fall, the
Redemption, and Salvation of Man, will be seen at a glance if we
for a moment run over its main features. At every point and link
you will observe, a Will is the active and efficient cause, whether it
be a Supernatural Will as imposing, or a Human Will as accepting
the necessary conditions. The Universe, for example, and all that it
contains, including Man himself, is made out of Nothing or what comes
from Nothing, by the fiat or will of God ; the will of the Devil,
again, acquiesced in by man, is the cause of the Fall of Man ; and
it is through God's will in Christ, that man's Redemption is accomplished.
What God's will is, again, man knows from Revelation; and it is by
his accepting this will, and turning by his own free will from the service
of the Devil to the service of God, that his salvation is secured. In
all this, one sees how complete and harmonious is Christianity as a
scheme of the World and of Human Life, linked and jointed as it
is at every point and turn by religious causes — by wills, and by
AiTENDIX. 515
-wills aloue. Compared with it, and with the wide scope it affords for the
play and satisfaction of every side and aspect of tlie human spirit —
for love, for prayer, for rest, for trust, for solace — how poor must
Platonism have seemed, with all its subtlety and penetration, its poetic
insight and genius, not only to the uncultivated, but to the cultured also.
How disappointing, with all its pretence of scientific rigour, must
have been its inability to explain not only the ordinary physical,
chemical, and biological changes of Nature, but those more awe-
inspiring phenomena which most impress the imaginations of men —
comets, earthquakes, eclipses, volcanoes, thunderbolts, plagues, famines,
and storms, as well as such diseases as madness, convulsions, and
the like — all of which Christianity disposed of with the greatest ease, and
in an unscientific age in the most natural way, by referring them to
the agency of the Devil, or the anger of the offended Deity. How poor,
again, must Platonism have seemed when, instead of a God and Devil
actively present at every point in man's life — and as the sufficient
explanation to him in his ignorance of brain function of every
good or evil thought and desire that entered his mind — he was
left to such sublimated essences as Ideas, Number, and the
o.TTapov, essences which though explaining the composition of things in
general with marvellous penetration and truth, could not and did not
profess to explain the chain/cs occurring in either these things or in the
passions and affections of the mind, which to the majority of men are
alone of interest. How little had Platonism to offer in comparison to a
religion which not only explained all this, but which, founded on an
authoritative Revelation, accounted — in its 'Fall of ^lan ' — for all the war
and strife of Nature, all the sin and misery of human life ; as well as
taught men what they were to believe as to what was true and what was
false, what was right and what was wrong, what they were to do and
what avoid ; no longer leaving them as did Platonism to grope about by
tlie light of their mere natural faculties, unable in the then state of
Science to understand any but the most simple and ordinary phenomena
of Nature. How little in fine was Platonism to be preferred to a
Religion in which Salvation was to be attained by a simple right-about-
face of the will from the service of the Devil to the service of God,
instead of by wading through an abstruse system of Philosophy from
whose abstractions all that could engage the imagination and heart liad
been sedulously purged away ; and for the realization of whose dream of
getting salvation by climbing up the chain of Ideas to the Good, not the
brief term of a single mortal life but whole ages and milleniums were
required. And thus it was that while Christianity, which would as little
have dreamt of analyzing or decomposing the world and the mind into their
elements before proceeding to deal with them, as it would of grinding
bricks into dust before beginning to build Avith them, was nevertheless
by making wills the active factors in its scheme of the '\^'orld and of
man's Salvation and Redemption, enabled to give completeness, harmony,
iind satisfaction to every part of man's nature, his intellect, his heart,
516 APPENDIX.
his passion, his imagination ; Platonism, on the contrary, although split-
ting up the World and the jNIiud into their coniponeut parts with great
subtlety and insight, yet by failing to reunite these parts into a whole again
(either in the case of the mind by the unifying bond of will, or in the
case of both Nature and Mind by showing the laws of relationship that
connected together the elements of which they were composed) produced
indeed a magnificent monument for the delectation of the pure abstract
intelligence, but cold and lifeless ; and dealing as it did with neither
Eeligious Causes, or Wills, on the one hand, nor yet with Scientific
Causes, or Laws of Nature, on the other, was unable to satisfy fully either
the intellect, the imagination, or the heart. It is true, indeed, tliat Plato
with his usual penetration saw the necessity of having something of the
nature of a will as the Final Cause of aU things, and accordingly in his
scheme of the World he makes the Good, or Creator as He calls Him, the
active agent in bringing the other elements together to form the
Universe ; but as this Good or Spirit of God is wanting in all the flesh
and blood reality of the gods of the time, it could not, like them, take
hold of the hearts or imaginations of men, but partook of the spectral
character of Plato's other essences : remaining to the last what indeed it
always had been, merely the highest link in his chain or system of Ideas.
But before closing this appendix it may be as well perhaps to extract
from the foregoing survey the philosophical lessons it has to teach
us, and to endeavour to bring into clear prominence those fallacies
against which all must guard who in this new time would solve the
Problem of the World.
It is necessary then at the outset to remember that there are and
always have been at least iouv distinct types and orders of Thinkers
in the world, aU of whom with equal good faith believe themselves able
by their own method to solve for us the Problem of the World. There
are first the pure Religious Thinkers, men like St. Paul and the early
Christian Theologians, Avho, as we have seen, take their stand on the
Will as their great organizing basis, and who see, in consequence, in the
Problem of the World only the action and interaction, the harmony
or discord of Personal Wills — of God, the Devil, and of Man
respectively. There are secondly the purely Scientific Thinkers, men
like Democritus and Epicurus in ancient, and Herbert Spencer in modern
times, who take their stand on physical antecedents and consequents —
the latter, indeed, seeing in the Universe and in human life only the
ever-changing phenomena of a fixed quantity of Physical Force moving
along the lines of least resistance, a force ever varying in its form, but in
its quantity ever remaining the same. Then, again, there are the pure
Metaphysicians who have their consummation in Hegel, for example,
who, taking his stand on what he calls the facts of ' self-consciousness,'
and squeezing and compressing all the infinite diversity of thought and
sentiment, of poetry, imagination, and feeling, up into this one point,
sees in the Problem of the World only a question of how, under
this narrow peaked hat, as it were, of Self-consciousness, the stupendous
ArPENDIX. 517
antagonism of ^lind and flatter, of the Soul and the World, of the
Material and the Spiritual, may be made to lie down in peace and
harmony. Now these three types of Thinkers are in essential nature
antagonistic to each other, and, as we may see any day, would, if
they could, each push the others from their stools ; and as each of
them gives echo to some necessary intuition of the mind, responds
to some overpowering demand of our nature or to some necessjiry work
of analysis to be done, it is evident that no scheme of the World
can ever pretend to anything like harmony and completeness until it has
given to each of them their due relation and subordination. And
this introduces us to the fourth and last class, viz., the Poetic Thinkers,
the philosophers of the philosophers as we may call them, men like
Bacon, Shakespeare, (ioethe, Emerson, and Carlyle, who, taking their
stand on the full-orbed unity and completeness of the mind as an
oi-fjanic ichole, will neither permit its infinite richness and complexity to
be represented by a mere crude unity of Will without any attempt
at analysis, as with the Religious Thinkers ; nor its vitality to be
choked by a mere husk of physical antecedent and consequent without
an informing Soul, as with the purely Scientific Thinkers ; nor yet again
its infinite range of categories to be screwed and squeezed up into
a mere formal and barren ' Unity of Self-consciousness,' as with the
pure Metaphysicians; but who, while analyzing the mind like Plato
into all its constituent elements and on all its sides (and not merely
on its formal intellectual side as with the Metaphysicians) and
tracing the laws that connect each part with every other, still cannot
rest until they find some connecting bond other than the crude unity of
the Will, which will reunite all these parts into a living whole. In
my next volume I propose to give the reader a glimpse of the World
as seen through the spectacles of these Poetic Thinkers, and also as
seen through the spectacles of the pure ^Metaphysicians, and shall then
endeavour to draw out in detail such lessons as they have to teach
us. In the meantime, however, I must confine myself to the more
immediate task before us, viz., of gathering up the lessons to be learned
from this long study of Plato and Christianity ; and which it is
necessary we should ever have present to our minds and carry along with
us as we proceed.
The first point we may mention thou is that as there are two distinct
kinds of ' cause' equally authoritative in their own separate spheres, but
mutually antagonistic and exclusive in the same sphere of thought, viz.,
the '^Vills' with which Religion deals, and the Physical ' antecedents and
consequents ' with which Science deals, no Scheme of the World which
may arise in the future can pretend to completeness, unless it makes
provision somewhere for both. Not that it is necessary that these causes
should always hold the same relative place in the scheme. In the early
days of Christianity, for example, nearly all the phenomena of the world
and of human life were believed to hang on the nod of Supernatural
Wills, of God or the Devil. In the i)resent day, on the contrary, these
518 API'ENDIX.
phenomena are known to be explicable by the natural operation of
physical causes. There is no more reason, therefore, for our still con-
tinuing to look for their causes in the region of wills, than for our still
looking for tails in men because our ancestors once needed them to hang
from the trees with ! And just as any Religion which would seek to
ignore or deny the palpable influence of physical causes in the production
of events, and to explain them by the interposition of Supernatural Wills,
must become more and more discredited ; so no System of Philosophy
however convincingly it may have unified all the phenomena of Nature
and Life according to the physical laws of Rlatter, Motion, and Force,,
can hope for permanence unless it rests these again on something which
must be conceived of as of the nature of an informing and Superintending
Will (rather than a mere Force as with Spencer), however impossible it
may be to represent to ourselves this Will in terms of thought. To
believe otherwise were to imagine that by a mere juggle of words yoa
could convince men of the identity of two things which the universal
intuitions of men (our last criterion of truth) have for ever kept apart.
The second j)hilosophical lesson which we may draw from our survey
of Platonism and Christianity is perhaps of equal importance. We
saw that Christianity without troubling itself to analyze the mind
into its elements or faculties, took its stand boldly on the simple act
of will, which may in a way be said to represent their united activity,
being as it is the visible outcome of their inner working ; much in
the same way as the movement of a locomotive is the result of the hidden
w^orking of its valves and wheels, or the honey of the unseen activity
of the bees. And we saw further that even this simple, crude, and
unsophisticated mode of giving unity and vitality to the mind by asking
only what is its will, was sufficient to drive from the field a philosophy
like riatonism, which, in spite of its great breadtli and subtlety of
analysis, failed to give to the parts which it had so carefully sorted'
out that last touch necessary to restore them to unity and life.
From all which we may infer that no Scheme of the World which does-
not deal with the mind of man as a full-orbed unity, however
scientifically it may have analyzed it and reduced it to its constituent
elements, can yield any substantial materials with which to build.
As well attempt to build a house with the dust into which you have
reduced your bricks, or to give the characteristic signs of life to any
arrangement of the parts into which the body has been dissected.
It is this breaking up of organized wholes into their constituent parts and
seeking to build with these parts without reuniting them into a vital
unity, that is the unpardonable sin of speculation ; and this
has been carried to its extreme length perhaps by the pure Meta-
physicians who fill up the interval between Plato and Herbert Spencer.
For Plato, as we may remember, really did include every side and aspect
of the mind in his comprehensive analysis, pointing out that the
gradation of sense, understanding, and reason, in the intellectual domain
was paralleled by an analagous gradation on the side of Morality, and
ALTENDIX. 511)
again on the side of Beauty. So that although he did not construct
his system of Philosopliy on a consideration of the mind as a full
and round organic unity, he did what indeed was perhaps the next
best thing to do ; he reared it on the triple pillars of intellect,
{esthetic sentiment, and morality. But the pure Metaphysicians, witli
the exception of one or two who only prove the rale, did not
even include these different sides of the mind in their analysis, but
restricted themselves entirely to analyzing the faculty of Knowledge
and the categories of the Logical Understanding. Instead, therefore,
of resting on a three-legged stool, as it were, like Plato, and so
having at least a secure seat, they tried to stand on a single leg
only, and that the wrong one, viz., the Logical Understanding! For
it must never be forgotten that without those categories of quah'ti/,
which can be got only from the different grades of feelinr/ — as, for
example, the difference between lust and love, fear and reverence,
self-indulgence and self-renunciation — ^you could not get any intellectual
scale at all; some things indeed might be more differentiated than
others, but could not be higher or nobler: the senses would be as
authoritative as the understanding, and the understanding as the higher
intuitions of the mind. And hence we may predict that not only
pure Metaphysics, which has practically already run its course, but
that Scientific Materialism also which will permit of no other instrument
of investigation but the Senses and the Understanding is hopelessly
doomed to decay.
To sum up then; — K Platonism in its broad insight into the "World
was superior to the schemes of the pure Metaphysicians, inasmuch as it
rested on a broader basis and a wider range of mental categories, on three
legs, in short, instead of one ; and if it again was superseded by Chris-
tianity, because Christianity rested on the full-orbed unity of the mind
itself as represented by the AVill, instead of on this triple Platonic
division of it ; it is evident that any Scheme of the World which in the
future may be destined to supersede Christianity, must while analyzing
the mind into its elements on each and every side, and showing the re-
lations of each part to every other and to the whole, at the same time
reunite those parts (before it begins to build with them) into a living
unity ; not the mere crude exfcnxil unity of the will as in Christianity,
but a principle of inner unity which shall bind them into one complete
and living whole.
INDEX.
Adrishta or Necessity
Ahriman ...
Amos
Anaxagoras, philosophy of
,, advance on Empedocles ...
,, Plato, bono wed from him
Anaximander, philosophy of
Anaximenes, philosophy of
Angels, belief in
, , Seven Angels of Zechari .h ...
,, Satan
,, Jesus higher than they
Antiochus Epiphanes
,, encouraged by Menelaus ...
,, persecutes Jews
Apocalypses on Kingdom of God
,, Their construction and suppression
,, on Roman Empire
Apocry^iha, narratives of
,, put down by Canon
Apologists, object of ...
,, what they tried to prove to tlie Aiitoniues
„ their proof
„ on Christ
,, why they failed
Appolinaris of Laodicea, heresy of
Aquiba Rabbi
Arianism, heresy of
,, its root
,, various forms
..IKi.
PAGE
95
206
234
41-43
41-42
49, 51
34
34
205
206
206
;i-3G2
210
225
226
293
:is8
409
387
401
413
415
.S-419
418
420
445
246
445
445
410-447
522
INDEX.
Arianism, supported by John and others
,, Early Fathers on
,, its logical consistency
,, must be refuted
Arhats
Athanasius, his refutation of Arius
,, explains Scripture ...
,, on Trinity
Aristotle on Plato
,, he supplies Motion ...
,, his philosophy
,, difficulties of interpretation ...
,, his Fonn and Matter ...
,, his Actual and Potential
,, his four kinds of Causes
,, compared with Plato ...
,, resemblance to Modern Evolution superficial
,, his First Cause
Atoms in Vaiseshika
,, Mind Atoms
Buddha on destroying them ...
Augustine St., sums up advantages of Christianity ...
his conversion
PAGE
447-149
449-451
... 451
... 452
... 113
452-453
... 454
... 454
... 55
55-57, 367
...55-63
... 57
...57-59
... 6a
... 61
...61-63
... 63
... 83
... 95
96, 107
... 109
73-74, 77
281-282
B
Baptism, Tertullian on
,, efficacy of
Bishops, rise of
,, tendency to supremacy of Roman ...
,, Divine inspiration of ...
,, become Priesthood
Brahma in Vedauta
Buckle and Comte
Buddha, to reach supreme blis:
,, his asceticisms
,, imder Bo-tree
,, he denies Soul...
accounts for World and human mind
,, to get rid of selfishness
,, his noble eight-fold path
„ his monks
,, to discipline lower nature
,, Soul as motive power of ' desire ' ...
,, on blissful existence in this life
Buddhism compared with Hindooisni and Christianity
,, its morality
If-
... 440
... 403
... 404
... 432
... 441
... 90
... 10
... 104
... 104
... 105
■ K.fi. 113-114
... 107
104, 109
... 110
... Ill
111-112
... 112
113-114
115-119
115, 192
INDEX. 523
c
PAGE
Canon, Old Testament, prophets and psalmist admitted into ... 210
,, effects 212. 216, 217
,, historical books added ... ... ... ... ... ... 216
Canon, Xew Testament, principles of selection ... ... ... 390
,, Why Synoptics chosen ... 391
„ Acts 392
„ Paul 393, 394
,, Marcion checkmated ... ... ... ... ... ... 396
„ Timothy and Titus 398
,, Peter, James, and John admitted, 'Gospel of Hebrews'
excluded 308-399
„ Revelations ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 400
„ effect of Canon on the Church ... 400-401
,, confusion before ... ... ... ... ... ... 421
„ at Alexandria ... ... ... ... 434
,, overtakes Neo-Platonism ... ... ... 434
Carlyle a poetic thinker... ... ... ... ... ... ... 124
,, on belief... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 195
Causes, three kinds of 19, 20-22. 195-196. 369
,, nature of scientific ... ... ... ... ... ... 20
,, metaphysical and scientific compared ... ... ...20, 21
,, in Ancient and INlodern times ... ...20-21
,, Specimen of metaphysical ...
,, water and air as philosophic ...
,, Aristotle's four kinds...
,, Intelligence as First Cause ...
,, Bona Jide and sh^m ...
Christ and Monotheism
,, his teaching of morality
,, his personality preserved throughout
,, the Logos
., human and divine ... ... ... 427
,, co-equality
,, co-eternity
Christians, why they wei'c persecuted
,, suspected by Roman Emjure
,, an unlicensed confraternity
,, their mysteries
,, worship of Emperor impossible ...
Christianity accounts for sense of sin
,, its Soul, i^arent and child
,, training of priest ..
,, why it aided progress
„ its resemblance to IJuddhism ...
,, a religion of the Spirit
> • •
22
> . .
34
... 61
... 83
143. 144
• *.
175, 326
• • •
258-259
• • a
361
• ■ •
... 450
432, 439,
455, 456
445,
451, 453
445, 450
405.
407. 409
409-410
... 410
... 411
... 412
77
153, 157
... 157
...
263, 271
...
... 263
25b
-259. 270
524: INDEX.
PAGE
Chiistianity, cliaugos needed to make it universal 321, 324-325, 382, 393
,, belief natural in its early days 330-331,332
,, how resist change and Time 339, 356, 383
,, its moral eifects ... ... ... ... ... 418-419
,, Stoicism and ... ... ... ... ... 418-419
,, its triumph ... ... ... ... ... 47C-477
Church, errors of Early 265-270
,, its fixed doctrines 265
,, effects of its Mosaic cosmogony ... ... ... 2G5-267
,, Supernatural authority given to casual replies of disciples 2G7-2G8
,, effects on Slavery, etc. 209
,, non-interference with Str.tc... ... ... ... ... 209
,, it assumes ' authority ' 271
,, its Councils ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 271
,, its political and social relat i)U3 ... ... ... ... 398
,, why formation of Canon left its evolution undisturbed ... 402
,, effects of ' verbal inspiration ' ... ... ... ... 403
,, evolution of Chm-ch organization ... ... ... ... 403
,, it starts to convert Pagan AV'orld ... ... ... ... 413
Civilization, difference of method in determining laws of, in
general, and of single factor... ... ... ... 1-2
,, what it consists in ... ... ... ... ... 11
,, compared to cross-fertiHzation by bees ... ... 14
,, effects on it of Hindooism, Buddhism, and
Christianity 117-119
,, dii"ect and indirect method ... ... ... 251, 257
'Civilization and Progress', its general scope as differing from this
work ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1
,, why it gets three distinct kinds of causes 29
Corate, his ' law of the three stages' ... ... ... ... ... 9
,, compared with Buckle ... ... ... ... ... 10
,, his religion of Humanity ... ... ... ... ... 194
Council of Chalcedon, its declaration of Christ's divinity 456
Councils settle Trinity ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 457
Cynics, the ... ... ... ... ... ... 98
Cyrus ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 237,238
Cyprian on baptism ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 440
,, on meritorious works ... ... ... ... ... ... 441
,, on bishops ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 441
,, on Lord's Supper 442
D
Daniel, Book of 227-228
,, on resurrection of body 228-229
„ on the Angel Michael 228,240
Democritus, philosophy of ... ... ... ... ... ... 47
a
INDEX. 525
PAGE
Devachan, what Mahatmas see in ... ... ... 128
Dialectics, method of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 45
,, Plato's use of it ... ... ... ... ... ... 71
Docetists idea of Jesus ... ... 375
„ swept away by John ol)7
E
Ebionites, their theory of Jesus 375,380
,, various forms ... ... ... ... ... ... 380
,, brushed aside by John ... 381
Ebionitism, end of , 337
Ecclesiastes, pessimism of ... ... ... ... ... 223-224
Eleatics, philosophy of ... ... 37, 51
Emanation, principle of, as Cause ... ... ... ... .68-72
Emerson a poetic Thinker ... ... ... ... ... ... 124
Empedocles, philosophy of 38-40, 51
,, on Soul 38
Epicurean System 469
" Esoteric Buddhism," its apparent harmony 121
,, ghosts crowding astral plane ... 127
Ethical Systems 98
Eutyches, heresy of 456
Evil, origin of, in Neo-Platonism 390
,, in Gnosticism ... 371
Evolution, law of, too wide ... ... ... ... ... ... 11
,, as explained by Planetary Chain 137-139,145
„ of Satan 206-207
' Evolving centres' in religion ... ... ... ... ... ... 190
Euclid and the Megaric School ... ... ... ... ... 46
iiiZrdi ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... io4
F
Form, Pythagoras' philosophy of Number and 86
,, Aristotle's use of it and Number 57-59
G
Gnosticism 364
,, its connexion with Plato ... ... ... 365
„ its principle of generation 369
,, why it crept into Church ... ... ... ... ... 369
„ contrasted with Neo-Platonism 370
„ Valentinus' theory of origin of world 372
„ the Demiurge 372, 374
526
INDEX.
Gnosticism, redemption
,, positions of ignorant and cultured
,, extruded from Church
,, on Jesus
,, on Salvation
,. no harmony...
,, ]\Iarcion
,, esoteric tradition ...
God, conception of, dependence of moral code on
,, Pharisees conception of
,, rj esus ... •>■ ... ... ...
,, gap filled between Jewish and Christian
,, God of Love and existence of Evil
Gods, no reciprocal relation with multiplicity of
,, of Rome ...
,, new gods for new functions
,, return of ...
Goethe a poetic Thinker...
Good, the, Plato's principle of...
Greece, power of father in Greece and Rome
,, high morality of
Gregory of Xazianzen
PAGE
372, 375
372
373, 376
375-377
375, 378
876
O / /
390
193-195, 274-276
275
290
209-210
298
160
■iU8, 461-462
408-409
476
124
50
156
461-463
H
Ilarnack on pre-existence ... 357
Hartmann, von, and Hegel ... ... 29
Heaven of various Seers ... ... ... ... ... ... 128
Hebrews, Epistle to 333
„ on faith 334
its compromise ... 334-336
on Jesus 335
„ blends JcAvish and Pauline elements 337
Hegel, his law too big ... ... ... ... ... ... ... g
and Spencer ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 27
his law unsuitable to get goal 27,28
his law will not explain the three kinds of cause 28
on will ... 90
his standpoint ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 30
his law useless to explain evolution of Greek Philosophy ... 30
Heraclitus, Philosophy of 38
Heresies, various... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 380
History as proof 2
,, in determining laws of civilization in general 1,2
Holy Ghost, Tertullian on 430
,, Sabellius on ... 445
Human ]Mind as an organic unity, standpoint of interxDretation ... 29-30
INDEX.
527
lamblichus and Porpliyry
Ideal, Supernatural, and material and Social conditions
,, delay in its evolution with Jews
,, it corresponds to natural
,, ideal of future depends on social conditions ...
Ideas, Plato's ...
Ignatius on Jesus
Individualism in Hindooism
,, in Buddhism and in Christianity
Intelligence as supreme principle
as v^ause ... .*. .<■ ... ...
it
it
ii
>»
arranging Intelligence as cause
creative
Aristotle's Supreme Intelligence
regarded as material
,, not an attribute of Supreme Soul in Vedanta
Irenjeus, on Jesus
,, scheme of
„ how he avoids here.~y
a Platonist
Isaiah
his ' Servant of God '
PAGE.
475-476
190-191
219-220
233, 244
238-241
50, 51
360
116
117
5, 83, 84
40
41-43
43-45
60-61
86
93
424-426
424-426, 428
427
429
234
238, 295, 299
Jacobi
James, St.
,, his Epistle
, , his attitude to the Law
Jehovah, highest point Jewish conception of could reach...
,, his relation to his people
his rewards and punishments ... 198-199,
his evolution with prophets
likeness to God of Jesus
how Babylonian Kxile affected conception of
Jews after Exile on ...
,, Projihetic and priestly conception...
,, his aloofness ...
,, irom nalioual to indt'cidual (iod ... 108,216
„ as Elohim
,, as Demiurge ...
Jesus, spirit of, and of Church
,, his morality ... ... ... ... ... 258-
,, his morality ideal
,, his law of liberty
>>
>>
»>
it
• •• »7*7
... 261
331-332
... 335
177, 207
... 198
216
-217, 221
... 199
... 200
201-202
... 203
... 204
2U4-205
-217
, 221-222
... 224
372, 374
... 258
259,
292, 293
,
260, 261
260
-261, 336
528
INDEX.
Jesus, on individual salvation ...
• ••
PAGK
262, 268
,, frees morality from Religion
...
264
,, his communism ...
268
„ ' Back to Jesus '
• > •
273
,, his conception of God ...
• ..
270, 290, 826, 349
,, differs from Prophets
• . •
276, 278
„ on Mosaic Law ...
• ••
:^79, 295
„ his baptism
• • •
281
,, feels he is Messiah
• ■ •
-•• ••• ••• ... ZoZ
„ temptation
...
282-284
„ on Old Testament Scriptures
286-287,295
„ on his own Messiahship...
• . .
289
,, his morality and John Baptist's
• •• ••• ... ••• ZijZ
,, to be delivered to Gentiles
. . >
••• •.. *•• •■• JLrdO
,, mission to Gentiles
. . •
296
, forsees his death
...
296, 305
, carries out prophetic predictions
296, 307
„ changes of mood...
301, 304-306
,, journey to Jerusalem ...
301-302
„ his perplexity
302, 303, 304
„ tells parable of nobleman
303
,, adopts Zechariah's prophecy
303, 305-307
,, in Gethsemane ...
306
,, his death ...
307
,, Hebrews on
336
,, Synoptics on
336, 354
,, evolution from Man to God
353-354
,, according to Peter
354-355
„ his pre-existence
357-359
„ John on ...
360
,, he is above angels
362-363
„ Marcion on
378
,, in Clementine Homilies . . .
... ... ... ... 380
„ Paul, John and Apologists on
... ... ••• ••• 4.50
Jews chosen to introduce a new relij
»'iou
... ... •*. ... JlD^
,, compared to selection for breeding
162, 168
„ necessary experiences
163
,, wanderings in wilderness
164
„ embrace strange gods
164-165
„ 'high places '
164, 167, 169
,, their Priests and Prophets
166-167
,, Sense of Sin
... 16C, 169, 173-174, 346
,, attempt to predict experiences
167-168
„ 'Ten tribes'
168
,, Hezekiah"s reforms
170
,, Manasseh ...
170
,, finding Deuteronomy
171
INDEX. 529
PAGE.
Jews Josiah's refoniis 172-173
,, carried to Babylon ... 173
,, effect of captivity ..174,201-202
,, return to Jerusuleni 174-202
advances in conception of God ... ... 170-177
,, Monotheism ... ••• ••• ••• 170-177
,, Priesthood 178
,, Priests at Jerusalem 179-180
,, Priestly Code 180,186
,, what Prophets meant by ' loving mercy ' ... 181,182-184
,, Ceremonialism 181, 182, 185, 186, 187, 208, 275
,, no laws against slavery in Pentateuch 184
,, honour of Jehovah 185,187
borrowed from Persian and Babylonian religions ... 205,206
\\ Satan 206
,, re-wards and punishments 208
their God and Christians 200-210,219-220
Agencies which helped to api^roximate Jewish to Christian God 210
,, Long Peace 210
,, centralization of worship 211,217
,, Synagogue 211-212
Prophets and Psalms added to Canon 212-213,217
'' Oral Law 214-215
,, Sopherim 215
,, no immortality 221-222
„ hcllenized 224-225,329
,, persecutions ... ... ... ... ... 227
,, Resurrection 227-228
,, on Jesus as Messiah of ?ifl/((»i ... ... ... ... 328-329
,, individuals converted ... ... ... ... ... 329-330
,, on pre-existence ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 357
,, they are protected ... ... ... ... ... ... 407
,, why not persecuted by Roman Empire ... 411
J ol), problem of ... ... ... 223
John the Baptist and Essenes ... ... ... ... ... 279-280
,, his preaching and Jesus'... ... ... ... ... ... 280
,, his conception of God ... ... ... ... ... ... 281
,, on Messiah 282
,, he questions Jesus ... ... 285
,, on morality ... ... ... 292
John, St., what helped 261
,, on Gnosticism ... ... ... ... ... ... 379
,, on Logos ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 394
,, included in Canon ... ... ... ... ... ... 396
,, on heresies ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 397
,, on the God-man ... ... ... ... ... ... 397
Justin and Paul 422
LL
530 INDEX.
K
PAGE,
Kanada the Atom Eater 95
Karma, Buddha's doctrine of 108,13;]
,, ceases to be produced ... 113
,, no practical efficacy ... ... ... ... ... ... 133
Kingdom of God, what Jesus meant by ... 290,311
,, its effect on rise of Christianity ... ... 256-257
,, on morality ... 250,261,264,292,293
,, communistic ... ... ... ... ... 268
,, already here 291
,, Apocalyptic writer on .. ... ... ... 293
,, promised in life -time ... ... ... ... 303
„ varying texts 302,303
,, what was meant ? 309
, ,, earthly or heavenly V 310-312
,, Proofs it was to be earthly ... ... 31-4-315
„ in Matthew 312
,, Paul on 313
„ in Revelations ... ... ... 315
,, reasons for heavenly ... ... ... ... 315
,, an inner condition of heart 316-317, 318, 319, 320
,, compared to Salvation Army ... ... ... 317
,, conditions of entrance ... ... ... ... 318
„ it was fuiit re... ... ... ... ... ... 319
Kuenen quoted... 152
Laws, when, of Nature unknown 254
„ ior individualu Aud men in the ma.<^s ... ... ... 322-323
Logos, the emanation of the Good ... ... ... ... ...70,72
„ St. John on 73,450
,, of Neo-Platonism 75,76
,, Jesus the ... 360
,, Apologi-sts on ... 416-417
„ Stoics on 416
,, early Fathers on 450
,, Alexandrian Fathers on 451
Lord's Supper 441-442
M
Maccabeus, Judas 227
, descent of 230
Mahatmas, paper harmonies of... ... ... 121,131,134
„ irrefutable by Science or Religion 122
INDEX. 531
Maliatmas, tlicir method 12o-125*
,, omniscience... 126,141
„ heaven of ... 128
„ omnipotence 129-130
., their cosmogony ... ... ... ... ... ... 131
,, pseudo causes ' ... ... ... ... ... l-i;j-144
Maicion, system of ... ... ... ... 377
„ expelled 378,396
,, his Canon ... 388
„ he follows Paul 377,395
„ on Messiah ... ... ... 395
,, on Old Testament ... ... ... ... 395
„ checkmated ,396
., swept away by John ... ... 397
IMartineau Ur.. quoted ... ... 448
Matter as First Cause ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 47
., theories of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 48
, , it shows no tendency ... ... ... ... ... ... 139
Messiah, Jewish 233-234,827
„ 'Servant of God' 238
,, the idea di.sappears ... ... ... ... ... ... 238
,, Eliasint'-ad 238-239
,, apocryphal and apocalyptic ... ... 239-241
Judicial 241-290
,, revival of prophetic ... ... ... 241-243
,, highest evolution of ... ... ... 244
,, ideal of. varies ... ... ... ... 245
,, Gentiles admission into Kingdom of ... ... ... 245
,, Rabbis and Jesus' conception of ... ... ...245-246,283
,, the lowly 283,295,299
,, of a God of Love 285-286
,, Heahng 287
,, Reasons for Jesus' belief in himself as 288-299
,, Messiah as God 297
,, crucified ... ... ... 298
,, proof to disciples of Jesus as 298-299
,, Jesus' conception of himself as, incommunicable... 298-299
„ Jesus recognized as 300
disl)elief in a sufferiiiL;- ... ... oUO-302
Messianic Kingdom, evolution of 289
Mimansa system ... ... ... 98
Miracles mainstay of Church 299
Monarchians ... ... 403
Montaigne quoted ... ... ... 191
Montanists and Fourth Gospel 402
Moral Code, as evolving centre ... ... ... ... ... 192
,, ,, as index of civilization ... 192
532 INDEX.
Moral Code of Exodus and Deuteronomy
,, ,, as e«c? or aim
Morality advance in, by Jews
,, depends on conception of God
, , Jewish Monotheism and
,, ceremonial
,, its connection with Religion in Ancient 'limes
,, ditticulty of advance
,, of INIiddle Ages and of Roman World
,, high standard in Greece and Rome explained
,, Mysteries on ...
,, Early Fathers on ...
Mystery Cults, origin of
,, attraction of
,, compared with Christianity ...
\ ,, effects on morality
N
PAGE
... 201
... 256
175,193
185, 291
... 202
... 208
252-255
25.3, 264
323-324
460-461
... 467
... 468
... 465
... 466
... 467
467-468
Neo-Platonism, its theory of emanation
70-71
,, on Soul
72, 471
,, method of reaching the Supreme Unity .
72
,, differs from Plato
71
„ compared with Christianity
...72,73
„ its Trinity pictured as triangle
72
„ why it passed into Christianity
. 75-76, 369
„ Origen on
... 434
,, main contentious
... 450
Neo-Platonists, Alexandrian
... 435
,, degenerate
... 474
Nestorian heresy ...
... 455
Newman, Cardinal, Illative Sense of
... 124
„ on ' Authority '
... 271
„ quoted
... 454
Nirvana, meaning of
113-114
Noetus, heresy of
... 444
Number, Plato's principle of
...50,51
Nyaya philosophy
... 98
G
Old Testament, unj^ortance to Jews of ... ... ... ... 286
,, to Church 384
,, decline of its relative importance ... ... ... 401
Origen's divergence 434
,, Keyto 434
,, parallel with Neo-Platonism 436-438
,, his division of labour of Trinity 437
INDEX. 533
PAGE.
Origen on redemption ... ... ... ... ... 4oH
on Church GoveriuuoLt ... ... ... ... ... 439
Ormiud 2U5-206
Pagan "World, a.scensiou of Jcsus no fffici on ... 327
,, how convert it ? ... .. :>S7-o'.iS
, , why its ' faith ' supernatural ? . . . ... ... ... 339
Paganism, to predict its evolution ... ... ... ... ... 7
,, its soul, master aud slave ... ... ... ... 1.53-157
,, its gods ... ... ... ... . . ... 154-155
,, they did not fill Universe ... ... ... 154
,, their attitude to men ... ... ... ... ... 155
,, relation of man to man in ... ... ... ... ... 156
,, its priests ... ... ... ... ... . . ... 157
,, moral gulf between it and Christianity ... ...158, 322-323
,, God's relation to men in ... ... ... 160
,, transition to Christianity ... ... ... ... 160,162
,, high moral code impossibk' ill ... ... ... 193,325
,, its morality compared to that of British India ... ... 324
Parmenides, philosojihy of ... ... ... ... ... ... 37
Patangali, Yogi system of ... ... ... ... ... ... 99
Patriotism in Greece and Rome ... ... 461-463
Paul's use of 'Fallot Man' 267
,, on Slavery, etc 269-270
,, he adapts Christianity to World 269
,, on Mosaic Law 278,335,342
,, his watchword ' faith ' 831.342
,, his scheme of .salvation ... ... ... ... ... 341,349
,, difference of writer of Hebrews and ... ... 343,347-348
,, on Sin ... 343-344
,, his own conversion ... ... ... ... ... 344-345
,, on Archetypal Man ... ... ... ... ... 345-348
,, on God 348
,, his teaching and Jesus' .. . ... ... ... ... 344.349
,, reasons for his belief ... ... ... ... ... ... 350
,, on Pagan World ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 351
,, esteem for his Epi.stles ... ... ... ... ... ... 385
,, on Jesus ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 394
,, his scheme added to John 94,423,424-426
Paul of Samosata on Christ ... ... ... ... ... ... 446
Pentateuch, code of ... ... 184
,, its composition ... ... ... ... ... 213-214
,, its compilers ... ... ... ... ... ... 215
,, its subject 216
534 INDEX.
T1 . 1 . PAGE.
Peter, keys given to 310,314
,, bis Epistle 382
,, on sacrifices ... ... ... ... ... 335
Pharisees 186
Philo inaugurates Neo-Platonism 70,450
Philosophies Pteligious 472
Philosophy, reasons why its course can be predicted 4-6, 25,
32-33, 89
,, game never twice alike ... .. 4
,, categories of metai3hysical ... 22-23
;,,, its 'Essences' cannot j)ass into each other ... ... ...22-23
,, must fall into religion 24,25,32,39,74
„ figured as a boat 26,30,41,43,48,72
,, its goalin Ancient and ^Modern times ... ... ... ... 27
,, material principle as standpoint 33
,, of Plato 51
,, evolution of Greek 66-68
,, its need of dynamical theory 67-(58
,, men cannot rely on it 74,159,415
,, it cannot go from Intelligence to unintelligent Soul 84
., importance of philosoi^hy 469
Planetary Chain, as cause of spread of Tlieosophy 131
principles of 131,132,136
its paper harmonios . . 132,142-143
,, doubts it professes to solve as against Science and
lleligion 134, 135, 136, 142
its globes 137
its evolution by 'life-impulses' 137-139,145-146
contrasted with 'natural selection' 138
it throws out Science 140-141
Our Earth in 140
Laws of Nature and 141
its immortality 142
,, its 'causes' 143-146
,, how to construct it 144-146
,, no relations in 144,146,147
Plato, Supreme Intelligence of 46
,, what he borrowed 48-53,366
,, his four principles 49-51,66
,, no dynamic 52,367
,, on reaching Supreme Unity ... ... ... ... ...71-72
Plotinus ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 70
,, ecstasy of 471
,, his theory 475
Polytheism, tolerance of 406,408
,, counteracted in Greece and Rome 461
Polytheistic Empires 406
INDEX. 535
Pope, authority of ... ... ...
,, its denial
Power Unknown, its detinite aim
,, its nu'thod compared to fertilization by bees
,, is moral
,, its instruments unconscious
,, its two opposite methods ...
,, its ends
,, its use of Christianity
Prakriti or material side of things
Priestly Code included in Law...
,, Deuteronomic and
Proclus, theory of ...
Proof from prophecy of Messiah
,, its importance to Christianity...
,, Paul on ...
,, its value lowmx'fl...
Prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah
„ Amos and llosea
,, Isaiah and Ilezekiah ...
,, and priests
,, predictions of Amos and Isaiah
,, Zechariah and Micah
,, Zephaniah
,, Deutero-Isaiah
„ Amos' doctrine
,, llaggai and Malachi . . . ... ... ... ...
,, Pre-exilian and Exilian
Psychic and Spiritual powers in a jHa/m«Z world
,, shew an aim
,, to shew meaning of World !'?>[
,, as Causes
Puru.sha or Supreme Soul
Pythagoras, philosophy of
,, Plato borrowed from
R
Re-incamatiou and Intelligence 80-87,97
,, desire to escape it ... 103
„ Buddha on 108
Religion and Philosophy ... ... ... 0,7 100
,, aim of Hindoo ... 103
Religion and Philosophy, to predict evolution of 152
Religions compared 115-116
„ main elements of 190. 203-29-1
Renan quoted 388
PAGE
• • •
271
272
-273
13,
249
14
256
...
14
•
250
2.51,
256
256
262
...94,95
■ . .
180
203
. . ■
476
• .*
328
384, 396
385-386
...
401
...
169
1G9
,235
• ..
170
• . •
204
234
,236
235
236
236
237
237
238
277
136
139
). 140
141
142
94, 95
,100
35
t * .
50
536 INDEX.
PAGE.
Resurrection, Jewish doctrine of 227
bodily 228-229
Sadduceesand 229-230
., Prophets on ... ... ... ... ... 236-237
,, becomes general... ... ... ... ... ... 242
,, exceptions to ... ... ... ... ... ... 245
of Jesus 297,307,327
S
Sabeliiau heresy
444-445
„ its varieties
... 444
,, prepares ' equality ' for Irenaeus
... 44.^
Sakti, the goddess
100
Salvation, Scheme of, constructed
423
„ importance of safeguarding
381,390,432
„ Alexandrian Fathers on
435
Sankhya system
93
Satan
206-207
Schopenhauer and Hegel
29
Science, in absence of ... ..i
...4,100-101, 117-118
„ in Christianity ...
118
,, Laws of Nature in Stoicism and in ...
118
,, physical, gives no hint of aim ...
139
Scientific Spirit, effect of ...
257
Scribes and Pharisees
186,241
„ who they were
218
„ their work
213
„ they rise into authority
241
Second Coming, hojies of
400
,, it dies out
489
Seneca quoted
323
,, his theory
427
Shepherd of Hermas on Jesus ...
355, .359
Sinnett, Mr., on Esoteric Buddhism
120,127
Siva
100
Skandas, Buddha's
112
Socrates, philosophy of
48
., and Anaxagoras
43-14
„ his advance from Arranging to Creative
Intelligence ...44-45
,. approaches religious shore ...
45-46
,, dialectics of
45-45
„ Plato and
50
,, on conduct
98
Sopherim, the Jewish
215
Sophists, the
98
Soul to interpret a religion must know its
7
INDKX.
Oo7
Soul, Iiitelligcjice contra.^tofl with
,, in Tlieosophy
,, as supreme principle
.. in Hindoo and AVcstern concept
,, to unite ludividu.il ami I'liivius
,, in Yedaiita ...
,, its veils
,, in Sankliya ...
,, in Yaisc'sliika
Spencer, Ilerlu'rt, his ofreat princi[ilc
his law too wide
the point he stops
, . his law and Greek
Stoics, j)hilosophy of
they confound categories
cannot reach Christianity
their First Cause
,, apohigists on
Stoicism, Philosophy its basis ...
,, for nolile minds
,, its ' Soul'
Strauss follows Hegel ...
Supernaturalism in this liistoi y
Swodenborg's heaven
ion
■d
at
philosophy
PAGJ':.
...s2,S(i
... Hi
...S4-S9
... 86
... 88
... 89
...'.)0-92
... 94
...'.iG-97
f)
11
... 12
... 30
... 65
...G.i-67
i:.s-ir)9
... S3
... 414
... 469
... 470
-! 70-471
9
...14-15
... 128
T
Ti'Vtulh'an on visions
,, on Old Testament
) >
Irenreus and ...
his watchword
,, his realism ...
„ on the ' Word '
,, on Montanns
,, on God's Justice
,, takes a new step
Thales, hypothesis of ...
,, his philosophy ...
Theosophy compared to marsupials
its attractions
throws out Physical Science as method
,, explains phenomena
on civilization
Trinity and Kmanation ...
,, Xco-Platonic ...
,, Gnostic ...
,, framed in Xeo-Platonie mnnld
430
• • •
282
430
>8-429
.430
> > •
429
», 433.
436
• > •
430
• ■ •
431
■ • .
433
• *.
433
• ■ •
26
33
S4. S.-,
123
l:ll
-133
11(1
-141
> < .
111
■ • •
147
...
71
72-74
. 436
371
•149
451
.M M
r>:)s
)M)i:x.
Uiiniiishads
IJ
PAr.K.
..s'.)-;)o
V
Vaisosliika system
\';ik'utiiius, system of
Veda as God
A'cil.iiita system ...
,, veils of Soul in
on Xntnre
Yisliim
A'isioiL tlie. ctrccts of
A'ital }iriiiciple in Greek and II
,, as First Cause
,, to anticipate evoliitinn of
,, conijinred willi ]iitellinen<
iidoo t
lOUyllt.
W
..95-97
... 371
99
89
9l)-92
92
^sl. ;;,s.",
5
3G
...;lG-;;7
111. x-J
'W'ellliausen
"V\'illiams, Sir INIonier. quoted •■.
AViils as causes
,, lieli^ions constructed on them ..
,, from essences to ...
,, C'liristianity construefed (in lliem
tlieiv liarnionv
21G
:)!)
19, 23, 20, 195, 190
24, 373
... 74, 309, 43r)
373-374
370
Xenophanos. Ins First Cause
X
37
Yo^'a pliilosopliy ...
Zeclmriali, jNTessiah of
Zeno, pliilosopliy of
Zoroaster, religion of
z
98, 99
, 283
37-38
, 200
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INDEX
Pag£■
Abbott (Evelyn)
3.19
(J. H.M.I
3
(T. K.) - -
■4.15
(E. A.) - -
15
Acland (A. H. D.) -
3
Acton (Eliza) -
29
Adeane (J. H.)-
8
Adelborg(0.) -
26
^schylus
19
Ainger (A. C.) -
!2
Albemarle (Earl of) -
II
Allen (Grant) -
25
Allgood (G.) -
3
Angwin (M. C.)
29
Anstey (F.)
21
Aristophanes -
I 'J
Aristotle -
14
.Vrnold (Sir Edwin) -
9, 20
(Dr. T.) -
3
Ashbourne (Lord) -
3
Ashby (H.)
29
Ashley (W.J.) -
3. 17
Avebury (Lord)
18
Ayre (Rev. J.) -
25
Bacon - - 7,
M- 15
Bagehot (W.) 7, 17,
27. 31
Bagwell (K.) -
3
Bailev (H. C.l -
21
Baillie (A. F.) -
3
Bain (.Alexander)
15
Baker (J. H.) -
31
(Sir S. W.)
9
Balfour (A. ].)
11,18
(Lady Betty) -
6
Ball (John)
9
Banks (M. M.) -
21
OF AUTHORS AND
Page
Baring-Gould (Rev.
S.)- - - 18,27,31
Barnett (S. A. and
H.) - - - 17
Baynes (T. S.) - - 31
Beaconsfield (Earl of) 21
Beaufort (Duke of) - 11,12
Becker (W. A.) - (9
Beesly (A. H.) - - 8
Bell (Mrs. Hugh) - 20
Bent (J. Theodore) - 9
Besant (Sir Walter)- 3
Bickerdyke (J.) - 12, 13
Bird (G.) - - - 20
Blackburne ll. H.) - 13
Bland (Mrs. Hubert) 21
Blount (Sir E.) - 7
Boase(Rev. C. W.)- 5
; Boedder (Rev. B.) - 16
Bowen (W. E.) - 7
Brassey (Lady) - 10
(Lord) - - 12
Brav (C.) - - - 15
Bright (Rev. J. F.) - 3
Broadfoot (Major W.) 11
Brown (.A. !•".) - - 26
(J. Moravj - 12
Bruce (R. L) " - - 3
Bryced.)- - - 11
Buck (H. A.) - - 12
Buckland (las.) - 26
Buckle (H.'T.)- - 3
Bull (T.) - - - 29
Burke (U. R.) - - 3
Burns (C. L ) - 30
Burrows (Montagu) 5
Butler (E. A ) - • 24
Cameron of Lochiel 13
CampbelURev. Lewis) 18,19
Camperdown (Ear! of) 8
Cawthoine(Geo.Jas.) 13
Chcsney (Sir G.) - 3
Childe-Pemberton(W.S.) 8
Cholraondeley-Pennell
(H.) - - - II
Christie (R. C.) - 31
ChurchilKW. Spencer) 3,21
Cicero
19
Clarke (Rev. R. F.) -
16
Climenson (E. J.) -
9
Clodd (Edward) - 18
.2S
Clutterbuck(W. J.)-
10
Co;enso(R. J.)
30
Conington (John) -
!9
Conway (Sir W. M )
II
Convbeare(Rev.W.J.)
& Howson (Dean)
27
Coolidge (W. A. B.)
9
Corbin (M.) -
26
Corbett (Julian S.) -
3.4
Coutts(W.) -
■9
Coventry (A.) -
12
Cox (Hardirg)
11
Crake (Rev. A. D.) -
26
Crawford (J. H.) -
21
(R.) - - -
10
Creed (S.)
21
Creiehton (Bishop) -4.
5, a
Crozier(J. B.) - - f
. ""i
Cjstance (Col. H.) -
13
Cutts (Rev. E. L.) -
5
Page
5
8
19
II
29
4
16, 17
4
31
21
32
21
5
12
21
21
Dabney tj.
Dale (T. F.
P.I
EDITORS.
Page
Dallinger (F. W.)
Dauglish (M. G.)
Davidson (W. L.) 15, 17, 18
Davies (J. F.) -
Dent (C. T.)
De Salis (Mrs.)
De Tocqueville (A.) -
Devas (C. S.)
Dickinson (G. L.)
(W. H.) -
Dougall (L.)
Dowden (E.)
Dovle (.\. Conan) -
DuBois (W. E. B.)-
Dufferin (Marquis of)
Dunbar (Mary F.) -
Dyson (E.)
Ebrington (Viscount) 13
Ellis ((.H.) - - 13
(R. L.) - - 14
Erasmus - - - 8, 31
Evans (Sir John) - 31
Falkiner (C. L.) - 4
Farrar (Dean) - -17,21
Fitzgibban (M.) - 4
Fitzmaurice (Lord E.) 4
Folkard (H. C.) - 13
Ford (H.) - - - 13
(W.J.) - - 13
Fountain (P.) - - 10
Fowler (Edith H.) - 22
I Francis (Francis) - 13
, Francis (M. E.) - 22
Freeman (Edward A.) 5
Fremantle (T. F.) - 13
Fresnfield(D. W.) - 11
20
12
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND KU IT ORS— continued.
Frost (G.)- - - 31
Froude (James A.) 4,8,10,22
Fuller (F. W.) - - 4
Furneaux (W.) - 24
Gardiner (Samuel R.) 4
Gathorne-Hardy (Hon.
A. E.) - - 13
Geikie (Rev. Cunning-
ham) - - - 31
Gibbons (J. S.) - 13
Gibson (C. H.)- - 14
Gleig (Rev. G. R.) - 9
Goethe - - - 20
Going (C. B.) - - 26
Gore-Booth (Sir H. W.) 12
Graham (A.) - - 4
(P. A.) - - 13
(G. F.) - - 17
Granby (Marquess of) 13
Grant (Sir A.) - - 14
Graves (R. P.) - - 8
Green (T. Hill) - 15
Greene (E. B.)- - 5
Greville (C. C. F.) - 4
Grose (T. H.) - - 15
Gross (C.) - - 4. 5
Grove (F. C.) - - n
(Lady) - - 10
(Mrs. Lilly) - 11
■Gurdon (Lady Camilla) 22
Gurnhill (J.) - - 15
Gwilt (J.) - - - 25
Haggard (H. Rider) 10,22,31
Hake (O.) - - - 12
Halliwell-Phillipps(J.) 9
Hamilton (Col. H.B.) 5
Hamlin (A. D. F.) - 30
Harding (S. B.) - 5
Harmsworth (A. C.) 12
Harte (Bret) - - 22
Harting(J.E.)- - 13
Hartwig (G.) - - 25
Hassall (A.) - - 7
Haweis (H. R.) - 8, 30
Head (Mrs.) - - 30
Heath (D. D.) - - 14
Heathcote (J. M.) - 12
(C. G.) - - 12
(N.) - - - 10
Helmholtz (Hermann
von) - - - 25
Henderson (Lieut-
Col. G. F. R.) - 8
Henry (W.) - - 12
Henty (G. A.) - - 26
Herbert (Col. Kenney) 13
Herod (Richard S.) - 13
Hiley (R. W.) - - 8
Hill (Mabel) - - 5
Hillier (G. Lacy) - 11
Hime (H. W. L.) - ig
Hodgson (Shadworth)i5, 31
Hoenig (F.) - - 31
Hogan (J. F.) - - 8
Holmes (R. R.) - 9
Holroyd (M. J.) - 8
Homer - - - 19
Hope (Anthony) - 22
Horace - - - 19
Houston (D. F.) - 5
Hovifard (Lady Mabel) 22
Howitt (W.) - - 10
Hudson (W. H.) - 25
Huish (M. B.) - - 30
Hullah (I.) ■ - 30
Hume (David) - - 15
(M. A. S.) - 3
Hunt (Rev. W.) - 5
Hunter (Sir W.) - 5
Hutchinson (Horace G.)
II, 13. 31
Ingelow (Jean) - 20
Ingram (T. D.) - 5
Jackson (A. W.) - 9
James (W.) - - 15
Jameson (Mrs. Anna) 30
Jefferies (Richard) - 31
Jekyll (Gertrude) - 31
Jerome (Jerome K.) - 22
Page
Johnson (J. & J. H.) 31
Jones (H. Bence) - 25
Joyce (P. W.) - 5, 22, 31
Justinian - - - 15
Kant (I.) - - - 15
Kaye(Sir J. W.) - 5
Keller (A. G.) - - 19
Kelly (E.)- - - 15
Kent (C. B. R.) - 5
Kerr (Rev. J.) - - 12
Killick (Rev. A. H.) - 15
Kingsley (Rose G.) - 30
Kitchin (Dr. G. W.) 5
Knight (E. F.) - - 10, 12
Kostlin (J.) - - 8
Kristeller (P.) - - 30
Ladd (G. T.) - - 15
Lang (Andrew) 5, 11, 12, 14,
18, 20, 22, 23, 26, 32
Lapsley (G. T.)
Lascelles (Hon. G
Laurie (S. S.) -
Lawley (Hon. F.) -
Lawrence (F. W.) -
Lear (H. L. Sidney) -
Lecky (W. E. H.) 5,
Lees (J. A.)
Leighton (J. A.)
Leslie (T. £. Cliffe) -
Lieven (Princess)
Lillie(A.)-
Lindley(J.)
Loch (C. S.) -
Locock (C. D.)
Lodge (H. C.) -
Loftie (Rev. W. J.) -
Longman (C. J.)
Page
Murray (Hilda) - 26
Myers (F. W. H.) - 32
Nansen (F.)
Nash (V.) -
Nesbit (E.)
Nettleship (R. L.) -
Newman (Cardinal) ■
II,
(F. W
(G. H.) - -II,
(Mrs. C.J.)
Lowell (A. L.) -
Lubbock (Sir John) -
Lucan - - -
Lutoslawski (W.)
Lyall (Edna)
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Macaulay (Lord) 6, 8, 2C
5
13
5
12
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16, 20
10
16
17
8
14
25
31
14
5
5
II, 13
14
II, 13
30
5
18
19
16
23
6
10
II
12
20
- 9.
Macdonald (Dr. G.)
Macfarren (Sir G. A.)
Mackail (J. W.)
Mackenzie (C. G.
Mackinnon (J.)
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Malleson(Col.G.B.)
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9, 16, 17, 18, 23
May (Sir T. Erskine)
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23
19
32
32
17
. 14
10
25
9
n
10
7
7
31
, 12
12
i6
7
24
24
16
17
6
9
26
16
7
19
9
7
6
17
6, 7, 8
7
24
32
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19
32
27
30
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21
7
24
9
2G
7.9
9
II
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32
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