Fkoiv The likKaKv of

KckeKT L. Benson

A gift to the library of the
UCLA Center for Medieval and

Renaissance Studies
from his friends and colleagues.

ai^.

CHRISTIANITY

H ISTORY

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

SOURCES OF THE APOSTOLIC CANONS

Trasslated BY LEONARD A. WHRATLEY

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON

THE ORGANISATION OF THE EARLY CHURCH
AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE READER

By the REr. JOHN OWEN
Demy Svo, price 7s. 6d. net

the Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies, UCLA

CHRISTIANITY

HISTORY

ADOLF HARNACK

Translated, with the Author's sanction, by

THOS, BAILEY SAUNDERS

With an Introductory Note

LONDON
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK

1896

YRL

ocl i^<^ig>o^'^

CONTENTS

ixtroductory note .

Christianity and History .

I. Personality and Development
II. Personality and PRiNcirLE
III. Personality and History .

17
29
39
52

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The following essay was originally pub-
lished in the form of a lecture ; and it was
delivered to the members of that branch of
the Evangelical Union which is established
in Berlin.

The Unio7i is a remarkable feature of
the present state of religious life in modern
Germany. It ivas founded in 1887 after
the conclusion of the Kulturkampf, with the
professed object of protecting the interests
of Protestantism against the increasing
power of the Roman Cliurch. In that
respect it bears some resemblance to certain

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

associatiojis and alliances in England;
hut its scope is much wider than theirs, its
spirit is more liberal, and its w(yrh and.
influence have obtained a larger measure
of success. The Union is fortunate, pe?'-
haps, in having no call to devote attention
to ceremonial anomalies in the Churches
to which its members belong ; nor are its
energies coyisumed in discussing the relative
advantages of looking to the East or to the
North at a particidar juncture, or the
appropriate shape and colour of ecclesi-
astical vestments.

Its time and strengtli are employed on
the endeavour to preserve the CJiristian
faith, as revealed in the Gospels, 2^'^''^'^
and undeflled. TJie member's believe that
lohere the Curia has wrought its loill, it has
disseminated superstition ami exercised an

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

intolerable tyrayiny ; and although they
represent a great variety of opinion, they
are united in combating the injiuence of
Rome, ivhether in the religious or in the
political life of the Fatherland. To
suppose that most of them are fanatics —
and it is a common supposition in these
days in regard to any body of militant
Protestants — would be to do them a
grievous injustice. They rest their belief
on a calm review of the facts of history,
and their resolution is the outcome, not of
any sectarian prejudice, but of an intel-
ligent desire to promote tvhatsoever things
are ivholesome and true.

While resistance to the doctrine and the
policy of the Roman Church is the chief
business of the Union, it has other objects
ivhich it seems to pursue imth no less zeal.

lO CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

Among them is the defence of Cliristianity
111 the face of the difficulties ivhich it
has had to encounter at the hands of
philosophy and science.

Here as in Germany and elsewhere,
those ivho adopt or profess this faith are
guided by very diverse motives. There
are many ivho endeavour to shape their
lives in accordance tvith its precepts ;
there are others who embrace it out of
sheer alarm ; others, again, tvho affect
both the creed and the practice of it ; and
not afeiv^ like the magistrates in Gibbon's
ironical analysis, who regard it as useful
for political or social purposes. Finally,
there is a large number of men and women
ivho are outivardly adherents of the faith,
but treat it with indifference or contempt.

Not alone among the members of the

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

German Evangelical Union^ hut in any
large society of Christians anywhere, there
are likely to he representatives of every one
of these classes ; and the attitude of them
all is in some degree affected hy any
attach upon the Christianity ivhich they
p)rofess in common. They meet the attach
in various ways, according to the hent
of their temper, the range of their hnow-
ledge, or the conceptions which they have
formed or inherited. The Union emhraces
almost every hnown species of the Pro-
testant theory of Christianity, hetween the
extremes^, _of unlimited ^ ndul ^ence^ ^J/n^
personal J udgmen t _a/ nd th e narrowest
hihliolatryr Within its circle the most
unquestioning higot may sit down tvith a
rigorous historian or an uncompromising
critic ; and as in other controversies, the

I a CIIR/STIANITY AND If /STORY

lines of defence largely depend for their
strength ajid character npon the 2^crso7i-
aliti) of the apologist.

mien in October last the authorities of
the branch of the Union in Berlin invited
Professor Hamad' to inaugurate a course
of lectures, and that eminent scholar
chose the relation between Christianity
and history for his theme, the adherents
of every grade of opinion found themselves
in the company of a fellow-member who,
by his own special studies and achieve-
ments, had earned the title not only of an
eocact historian, but also of an acute and
far-seeing critic. As it tvas my privilege
to be on a visit to Professor HarnacJc at
the time, I had an opioortiinity of observ-
ing the p)^^ofound attention loith tvhich his
remarks were followed by a very large

INTR OD UC TOR Y NOTE 13

audience^ and of comparing or contrasting
the reception tvhich an address of this
nature, delivered hy a speaker of the like
distinction, would have met tvith at home.
It must he confessed that in this country,
even outside the ranks of those ivho call
themselves orthodox, the German historian,
or the German critic, is sometimes re-
garded as a kmd of literary Gorgon,
who, if he fixes his gaze ujyon the field
of theological inquiry, drives all the
religion out of it and turns it to stone.
The orthodox can hardly he brought to
admit that, although he may have given
long and serious attention to the problems
involved in that study, he may yet he quite
a 7'espectahle person, and as devout a
Christian as any of themselves. It oc-
curred to me that I miglit he of some

U CU/^IS'JIANITV AND HISTORY

service in heJjmig to dispel this curious
delusion, and at the same time assist in
spreading a view of the relation between
Cliristianity and history, as it was con-
ceived by one of the most competent judges
in Europe, if I translated this lecture,
ivhich tvas of a character to claim the
interest of all thoughtful i^ersons every-
where.

Its _ object is to show in what s_mse_
religion, and more especia ll y the Ch ristian
religion, can be said to be dependent upon
h istorical facts : how far it is established,
i f certain alleged events are proved to
have actually happened : how far it is
overthrown, if they are found to be the
product of myth or incredible legend.
Among those who profess themselves ad-
herents of this religion, and also among

INTRO D UCrOR Y NOTE 15

those who do not or cannot accept it,
there is a growing tendency to assume that
the result of historical criticism is to
shake its foundation; and this belief
while it fills some persons ivith satisfaction
and others with dismay, leads a still
larger number to seek support for their
faith in a refusal to listen to any argu-
ment at all.

But the belief that the Christian religion
has been undermined by historical criticism
is largely due to ignorance, or at least to
a radical diversity of opinio7i, in regard
to the nature of its foundation. There
is a great difference, as Lessing argued,
between the Christian religion and CJirist's
religion ; between the structure of dogma
erected by Greek philosophy on a Jewish
soil, and the faith held by Christ himself, — j

I6 CIJJiJSJ/AN/I y A,VI) HISTORY

the simjyle faith which every man can hold
in commo)t with him. Whatever maj/ be
obsmrc or (/oubtful in the narrative of the
(rospels, the nature cf Christ's faith ami
the purijort of his teaching arc clear and
".nmistakable ; and, i)i the main, they can
be separated from alien accretions of later
fjrowth. It is Christ's own faith, r<itJier
than a series of subtle and complicated
dogmas, which shoidd form the foundation
and the substance of the religion that is
called by his name. This, I take it, is
the rieir of Christianity that is adopted
in the following pages.

THOS. BAILEY SAUNDKHS.

Februanj 18U6.

CHRISTIANITY

H ISTORY

The name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth

. . . neither is there salvation in any

other: for there is no other name under

heaven given among men, whereby we may

he saved.

Such is the creed of the Christian Church.

With this creed she began ; in the faith of

it her martyrs have died ; and to-day, as

eighteen hundred years ago, it is from this

creed that she derives her strength. The

whole substance and meaning of religion, —

life in God, the forgiveness of sins, consola-
2

l8 CIIRISTIANirV AND HISTORY

tion in suffering, — she couples with Christ's
person ; and in so doing slie associates
everything tliat gives life its meaning
and its permanence, nay the Eternal itself,
with an liistorical fact ; maintaining the
indissoluble unity of both.

But is such a connexion defensible? Will
it bear intelligent examination ? When all
history seems to be a ceaseless process of
growth and decay, is it possible to pick out
a single phenomenon and saddle it with the
whole weight of eternity ? especially when
it is a phenomenon of the past.

If Christ's person were still among us, the
matter would perhaps be different. But
although we are separated from it by many
centuries and an intricate and confusing-
tradition, we are told, nevertheless, that we
must cliniz to it as thouGfh it were endowed

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY 19

with an eternal presence, and acknowledge
it as the rock of our life. Is that possible ?
Is it right ? This is a question which has
occupied thoughtful Christians in all ages,
and it involves the most serious inquiry
into the essential nature and the just claims
of Christianity ; in a word, into the relation
between Christianity and history. All that
I can attempt in tliese brief pages is to
indicate the nature of the question, and
to offer some considerations by which its
meaning and importance may be estimated.
I may begin by mentioning the encourag-
ing fact that the great assault made by the
eighteenth century on the connexion be-
tween religion and history has been
repelled. This assault found its pregnant
expression in the principle laid down by
Lessing : Historical truth, tvhich is acci-

ao CHKJST/ANITY .LVD HISTORY

dental in its character, can never become
the proof of the truths <>/ J^casvu. irJiicJi
are iiecessart/.

The principle may, indeed, be right ;
everything depends upon the way in which
it is construed. But in the way in which
it was understood by Lessing's own genera-
tion, intiuenced as that generation was by
Rousseau, it is wrong. The whole of the
superficial philosophy of the eighteenth
century is at the bottom of it. According
to that philosophy, everything that has
happened in the way of history is of trivial
moment ; it is an accident ; nay, it even
cramps and embarrasses the mind ; and
there is no salvation anywhere but in the
two forces which that generation described
as Nature and Reason. They were regarded
as forces that were invariable and constituted

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

once for all ; and no true blessing was to be
obtained outside of them. It was believed
that every man from the creation down-
wards possessed in his reason a fixed
capital, which was capable of supplying
him with everything that might be needful
for a virtuous and happy life. It was
believed, further, that man was fitted into
the framework of nature, and was in har-
mony with it ; and that he had only to
unfold his powers in accordance with
nature, in order to become a glorious
specimen of his kind.

In this view of the world, history was no
longer a necessity ; for a man could receive
absolutely nothing from it which he did not
already possess. To the consistent adherents
of this view, its logical outcome was that
history seemed a strange and wrong-headed

2Z CHRISTIAN/TY AND HISTORY

venture; and the eiy was all iV>r renouncing
its tyranny, and for returning to the free-
dom of nature. It is true tliat Lessinir
liimself made great efforts to do justice to
history; l)ut his efforts were uncertain, and
they were but little understood. His
generation had no concern for anything
but the trutlis of reason, alleged to be
eternal, and the " natural religion " which
it had rediscovered ; and in possession of
these blessings, it looked down on " the
accidents of history" with contempt, and cut
the bond between them and religion. All
historical religions, so the eighteenth cen-
tury taught, are at the best only the one
true, natural reli<?ion in disofuise, — the
religion wdiich always was and always will
be, — and this religion has no other content
but Reason, fixed and unalterable. By the

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

side of it, even Christianity and its founder
can make no special or particular claim ;
for everything that is particular is acci-
dental, superfluous, and intellectually mis-
chievous.

Now to-day this view of the world is
not, it is true, extinct ; but it has been
refuted. In no respect has the spirit of
the nineteenth century so strongly opposed
the spirit of the eighteenth, as in this.

It is a change which we owe to Herder
and the leaders of the romantic movement ;
we owe it to Hegel and his great scholar
Eanke ; we owe it, not least of all, to the
powerful reaction of the Christian faith.
The illusion of a ready-made reason, exist-
ing from the beginning, has been dispelled ;
the idol of a "divine nature" has been
unmasked ; the vast problem involved in

24 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

the facile notion of a ''natural religion"
has been revealed. In the place of shallow
talk about divine nature and profane liis-
tory, about the "eternal truths of reason"
and casual records, we have arrived at
the knowledge of history; of the history
from which we have received what we
possess, and to which we owe what we
are. In this process two conceptions,
above all, came to the front with increas-
ing clearness : development and person-
ality. They involve an opposition ; but
it is an opposition which determines the
work of the historian in dealing with his
facts.

When the meaning of history came to
be accurately understood, religion was
restored to its place ; for religion is no
ready-made structure, but a growth ; and

CHRISTIANITY AND HIST OR V 25

it is a growth that falls within the
history of humanity. Its developments
are no mere outward semblance : they are
a reality. Its prophets and founders have
been prophets and founders indeed ; for
they have raised humanity to a higher
level. Reverence for the spirit that pre-
vails in history, and gratitude to all those
from whom we have received any benefit, —
and without it we should have been the
poorer in our inner and outer life, — must,
therefore, govern our views of that science.
Here we have a critical spirit very dif-
ferent from that which pervaded the so-
called age of illumination. The assault
which the eighteenth century directed
against the connexion between history and
religion has, in fact, been a failure. But
other assaults have been taking shape in

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

our own time. There is a whole array of
them.

The first proposition that iiieets us is
this : It is just because the Christian re-
ligion is a part of history, and consequently
of that development of which all history

consists, that it is no more than a link
I
I in that development ; and therefore its

founder cannot be allowed any peculiar or

unique position.

AVe succeed, let us say, in defeating this

attack. A fresh opponent then starts up

with the objection that even though the

founder of the Christian religion may have

been an incomparable man, he lived many

centuries ago; and it is therefore impossible

to go to him with our troubles and sorrows,

and to lay hold of him as the rock of our

life : it is not the person whidi we have

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY 27

any longer to consider, but the doctrine^
the jprinciple.

If, in the end, this opponent be also routed,
there is still one more. We are told that
we may s^Deak of Jesus Christ as we will,
and he may have been all that we say,
but that we cannot be certain of it ; for
where our idea of him has not been
destroyed by historical criticism, it has been
rendered doubtful ; and, even though it were
more trustworthy than it is, still the facts
of history can never be known with a cer-
tainty that would entitle us to make them
the foundation of our religious Ijelief,

These are the three barriers that have
been opposed to the creed of the Church
on the score of history ; and it is on these
three questions that the whole of the con-
troversy turns. Every form of doubt,

a8 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

whether secret or open, deals in the main
with these questions ; and in some shape
or other they are doubts which have been
entertained and pondered by us all.

PERSONALITY AND DEVELOPMENT

Now, as regards the first assault : it is the
most comprehensive, but also the weakest,
of the three.

It is perfectly true that the strength of
our modern conception of history lies in
the effort which we everywhere make to
trace the developme7it of things, and to
show how one thing has grown out of
another. That this is the true task of
the historian is a proposition which can
no longer be disputed. There can be no
manner of doubt that it is only by this

JO CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

inelluxl tliat a true uiuli'r.staiidiiiu" of
history can be attained ; and even those
who condemn tlie modern science of history
cannot escape the influence of its method.
They do the same work as is done by
those whom tliey condemn, but they fail
to do it so well ; nay, they do it badly
and imperfectly.

However, a man must be infatuated to
maintain that, jjccause all history is a^
history of development, it can an d jnust_
1je_described as a process of _mater ial or
mechanical change. Up till now the
attempts that have been, and are still
being, made in this direction carry their
own refutation witli them. At the very
most, it is only in the sphere of political
economy that we can trace a certain
stringent order of phenomena, where the

PERSONALITY AND DE VEL OPMENT 3 1

struggle for material existence is supreme ;
but even there this stringent order is
always being disturbed by elements of a
non - material character, which exert a
powerful influence.

In the history of intellectual and moral
ideas, the rough-and-ready way of explain-
ing cause by environment alone breaks
down altogether. I admit that even here
much may be accounted for in this way,
much more than earlier generations sus-
pected : the necessity that drives and
compels has often been the mother of
progress ; and even to-day we can see
causes at work, and watch the process of
growth. But w ithout the strength and
the deed of an individual, of a 'personality,
nothing ^eat, jio thing Jhat_will bring us
farth er on our way^cun be accomplished.

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

Whence comes the strength of the strong,
and the deed of the doer ? Whence conies
it that the knowledge that might advance
us, the thought tliat might save us, is
transmitted from one generation to another
as barren and worthless and dead as a
stone, until some one seizes it and strikes
it into fire ? Whence comes that higher
order of marriage, where a thought so
unites with a soul that each is merged in
the other, and belongs to the other, and
masters the will ? Whence comes the
courage that conquers the resistance of a
dull and unfeeling world % Whence comes
the living power that begets a living con-
viction ?

It is a very limited psychology which
fails to see that these are the real levers
of history. All that its adherents ask is

PERSONALITY AND DEVELOPMENT 33

whether the man has said anything new ;
and if so, whether it cannot be deduced
from something that went before ; and
they profess themselves content if they
ascertain that it was only " relatively "
new, and that nothing very wonderful has
happened after all. No ! not only in the
beginning was the Word, the AVord that
was at once Deed and Life ; but the living,
resolute, indomitable Word, namely, the
'person^ has always been a power in history,
along with and above the power of circum-
stance. Here, too, it is true, there are
intervening links and developments. No
torch lights itself; one prophet rouses
another ; but this mysterious development
we can never fathom — we can only feel it.

What is true of history in general, and
of all tlie lines on which intellectual and

34 CHKIST/A.VITV AND I/ISTOKY

spiritual life is enacted, is true in the
highest sense of religion, which is the
profoundest subject of which history treats.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God. Never have tlie
two great central elements of all life and
action been more clearly and simply ex-
pressed ; and our historians still have a
lesson to learn from these words, if they
are not to lose their v.-ay.

Of religion it is true that it, too, has
been developed, and that it is in a state
of constant development. From its history
it may be shown that it has had to
yield to the stress of trouble and danger :
the trouble that teaches men to pray, the
danger that deadens them and makes them
grasp at a straw. But the sa me history

PERSONALITY AND DE VELOPMENT 35

tells us also, tliat no aspiration _and no
progress have ever existed without tJie
miraculous exertion of aii^ individual will,
of a "person. It_was not what t he person
said that was new and strange, — he came
when the time was fulfilled and spoke
what the time required, — but how he said
it ; how it became in him the strength
and power of a new life ; how he trans-
mitted it to his disciples. That was his
secret, and that was what was new in
him. Mankind looks up with reverence
to all the great minds that have been
given to it, — the thinkers, the artists, the
heroes, — but it is only the prophets and
the founders of religion that it worships ;
for it feels that here a power has been at
work which frees it from the world, and
lifts it above the things of every day.

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

But if wc thus put all prophets and
founders of religion into one class, it may
be said that wc, in our turn, are doing
away with the significance of the founder
of the Christian religion. That is certainly
not the case ; for there is no concrete or
specific conception embracing the differ-
ences to be found among those whom we
rightly call prophets and founders of re-
ligion. Every one of them is a power for
himself, and must be judged by himself.
There have been founders of religion both
sacred and profane ; there have been sub-
lime prophets and strange prophets. An
inexhaustible wealth of gift and power
has been difi'used among them ; but the
measure of it, their bearing, the goal of
their efi'orts, every circumstance of their
lives, differs with each of them. If this

PERSONALITY AND DEVELOPMENT 37

difference were disregarded, nothing would
be clear . It^would be a piece of pre-
sumptuous folly to attempt to lay do wn,
at the outse t^ the me asure of the Spirit —
tha t is, of the Spirit of God — which has
borne swa y in these individual s.

But it is only of One that we know that
he united the deepest humility and a purity
of will with the claim that he was more
than all the prophets who were before him :
the Son of God. Of him alone we know
that those who ate and drank with him,
glorified him not only as their Teacher,
Prophet, and King, but also as the Prince
of Life, as the Eedeemer and Judge of the
world, as the living power of their exist-
ence — it is not I that live, hut Christ in
me; — and that presently a band of the
Jew and Gentile, the wise and the foolish,

38 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

acknowledged that they had received, from
the abundance of this one man, grace for
grace. This fact, which lies open tothc
li^ht of day, is unic|iic in history; and it
requires that^e actual personality^ behind
it should be honoured as unique.

PERSONALITY AND PRINCIPLE

This disposes of the first objection : that
no special or unique position can be
attributed to the person of Jesus Christ,
because of the presumption that all history
takes the form of development.

But now we have to deal with a serious
onslaught. Even though the founder of
the Christian religion may have been an
incomparable man, he lived, we are told,
many centuries ago ; and therefore it is
impossible to take him up into our religious
life, and adopt him as its foundation : it

40 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

is no longer the person that we have to
consider, but the doctrine, or, as it is
sometimes called, the principle. Nay, the
objection is still more severely stated thus :
Religion is wholly a matter of relation to
God — God and the soul, the soul and God ; —
everything that intrudes upon this mutual
relation destroys its exclusive character,
and checks its fervour and its freedom.

I might try to meet this attack by re-
ferring to the ecclesiastical doctrine of
redemption and reconciliation through
Jesus Christ ; but I am afraid that if I
did so I should hardly make myself clear ;
for in the form in which the Church has
stated that doctrine, it belongs to the
things which in these days are least under-
stood, and therefore most open to doubt.
Such is the fact ; how far it is warranted

PERSONALITY AND PRINCIPLE 41

is a matter of opinion. I shall therefore
attempt to proceed by a different path.

Well then ! it is quite true : religion is
a relation of the soul to God, and nothing
more. That a man should find God and
possess Him as his God, — should live in the
fear of Him, trust Him, and lead a holy
and blessed life in the strength of this
feeling, — that is the substance and the aim
of religion. We can carry our conception
of religion no further, nor can we allow-
any alien element to subsist alongside of
it. Let us order our ways and commit our
troubles to the love and care of Him who
rules —

" Befiehl Du Deine Wege und was Dein Herze krilnkt,
Der allertreusten Pflege dess, der den Himmel lenkt." '

^ Paul Gerhardt, the well-known German hymn-writer
of the seventeenth century.— Tr.

42 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

The stronger and pui\'r uiir feeling of
devotion, the more surely is it compre-
hended in this utterance. It is a truth
whicli has l)een attested by Christ's dis-
ciples in all ages ; it was attested by Christ
liimself in teaching us the Lord's Prayer ;
and therefore we cannot condemn the theo-
logians who tell us that it is the sum
and substance of religion.

But wliat holds good of all moral ideas,f
holds good in the highest sense of religion
it is one thing to be sensible of their'
truth, it is another to be possessed of their
power. We may recognise and acknow-
ledge the claims of the Christian religion,
and the peace and beauty of the religious
life, and yet be quite incapable of raising
ourselves to its level. It may hover before
our eyes and shine with the radiance

PERSONALITY AND PRINCIPLE 43

of a star ; and yet not burn like a fire ini
our hearts. We may have the keenest)
sense of the bonds that we would escape^
and yet be totally unable to set ourselves 1
free. Not only may we be so — we are so. \
There is no one who has had this feeling, /
or who has it again and again, and is
delivered from it, but knows that he has
been delivered because God has spoken to
him. The man w ho^f ails to hear the voice
qIL God for himself is without religion.
Speak, Lord, for Tliy servant lieareth, is
the only form in which a religious life is
possible.

As the conduct of human life is mani-
fold and various, so, too, is the voice of
God. But we know that there are few
among us who hear and understand the
voice of God, in the secret sphere of their

44 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

inner personiil life, without human help and
intervention. The truth i^ rather, that

one Christian educates another ; heart

ki ndles heart ; gnd the strength to w ill
what we approve com es from the mysteri-
ous Power by wh idi— one-^fe awakens
another. At_ the end of the series of
messengers and _agents_of_God ^stands_Jesus
Christy They p oint back to him, ^ nd^
is from him that has sprung the r iver of
life which they bear in themselves as their
o\yn. Vario us^ indeed is t he measure of
their c onscious relation to him — who could
deny it ! — but they all li ve on him and
through him.

Her e we have ^ fact wj iich gives an in-
comparable significance to this personality ,
as a force still working in history^ But
the objection with which we have to deal

PERSONALITY AND PRINCIPLE 45

is not yet exhausted. Jesus Christ, it is
said, remains, after all, a power of the
past ; although it is a power which con-
tinues in effect. But when the Christian
faith sends us back to him, that is not
the view which it takes. We must en-
deavour to get a closer grasp of what this
faith means, in order to understand how
far its view is right, supposing that the
faith is right at all.

The Christian faith is not, as is so
often maintained, a gentle exaltation of
our earthly life, or a comfort and relief in
its troubles and trials. No ! it is decision
for God and ao^a j^st the world. It is an ^ -^ . '^ ^
eternal life that is involved : the recog- ^ ^y*-^^
nition that in and above Nature and her
changes there is a realm of sanctity and
love, a city not built witli hands, whose

46 CHRISTIAN/TV AND HISTORY

citizens we arc to be ; and with this
messajre there conies to us the demand
that wc shouhl cleanse our hearts and deny
ourselves.

"We are here confronted with an alter-
native which determines our inner life.
It is, indeed, a contest ; but is victory-
possible ? is there then, in truth, a higher
Reality, compared with which the world is
as nothing ? or do our feelings and pre-
sentiments delude us ? May it not be that
we are altogether confined within the
sphere of mechanical nature, the sphere
of our earthly existence, and that we are
wao;inof a miserable war with our own
shadows, with phantoms and sj)ectres ?
That is the question of questions, the
doubt of doubts.

Well ! as long as the Christian faith has

PERSONALITY AND PRINCIPLE 47

existed, these doubts and questions liave
been resolved by looking to Jesus Christ :
resolved, not in the form of philosophical
demonstration, but by looking with a con-
fident trust to the image of his life.
When God and everything that is sacred
threatens to disappear in darkness, or our
doom is pronounced ; when the mighty
forces of inexorable nature seem to over-
whelm us, and the bounds of good and
evil to dissolve ; when, weak and weary,
we despair of finding God at all in this
dismal world — it is then that the personality
of Christ may save us. Here we have a
life that was lived wholly in the fear of
God — resolute, unselfish, pure ; here there
glows and flashes a grandeur, a love, which
draws us to itself Although it was all a
continual struggle with the world ; though

4S CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

bit by bit one earthly possession after
another fell away, and at last the life
itself came to an ignominious end ; yct_np
soul can avoid t he thought tha t whoso dies
thus, dies well_: he dies not, but lives.
For it was in this life and death that there
first dawned upon mankind the assurance
of an eternal life, and a divine love which
overcomes all evil, nay, sin itself : and in
the presence of a glory which is beyond
the reach of death, we have come to per-
ceive the vanity of the world and of all
earthly possessions.

Eighteen hundred years separate us from
this history ; but if we seriously ask our-
selves w^hat it is that has given us the
courage to believe that in the history of
the world God prevails, not only by moral
and intellectual forces, but by His presence

PERSONALITY AND PRINCIPLE 49

ill the midst of it ; if we ask what it is
that leads us to believe in an eternal life —
our answer is, that we make bold to believe
it in reliance upon Christ. Jesus lives, and
with him I live also. He is the firstborn
among many brothers ; he is our surety for
the reality of a future world.

So it is, then, that God speaks to us
through him. It was testified of Christ
that he was the Way, the Truth, and the
Life ; as such he is still revealed to our
inmost feeling, and therein consists his
presence to us. As surely as everything
depends on the soul finding God and be-
coming one with Him, so surely is he the
true Saviour, Guide, and Lord who leads
the soul to God. When the Christian
Church proclaims of him that he lives,

it is a truth which is still attested to-day ;
4

so CUh'/sr/AN/TV AND I/ISTOKY

and the Church is also right in reminding
us of Ills sull'crinijs and his dcatli. But
\vc will not speak of these things now ; nor
will wc speak of them at all after the fashion
in which they are so often treated. That
the sufferings of the just form the saving
point in history, is a truth which we feel
in the measure in which our senses are
alive to the gravity of the moral issue, and
open to the influence of personal sacrifice, i
But " we draw a veil over the sufferings of
Christ, for the very reason that we hold
them in such re verence. In our jud g-
ment it is ^n ujQ warran table an d audacious
th ing to treat these deep mysteries, in
which the divine depths of suffering lie
hidden, as an object of barter — to keep an
account in them, or t o toy _ and trifle with
them ; nor to rest until the most worthy

PERSONALITY AND PRINCIPLE 51

Qf_a ll actions is made to look common
and insipid." ^

We ought not to forget that faith in
Christ is never more than a mere cry of
Lord, Lord, if it does not pass into the
strength of allegiance in the good cause.
Not those did he himself call his brothers
and his sisters, who desired to see him,
or to raise aloft his name in the world ;
but those who do the will of his Father
in heaven. It is by this utterance that
we have always to judge the Christian's
faith.

1 Goethe.— Tr.

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY

That in spite of the eighteen hundred years
which separate us from him, Jesus Christ
can have, nay has, a ph^ce in the religious
life of the Christian ; that his personality,
and not his doctrine alone, is still to-day
set for the rising again of many — I have
tried to show. But a third and final attack
confronts us. You may, we are told, talk
of Jesus Christ as you will, and he may
have been all that you say, but you cannot
be certain of it ; for where our idea of
him has not been destroyed by historical

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY 53

criticism, it lias been rendered doubtful ;
and even though it were more trustworthy
than it is, still the facts of history can
never be known with a certainty that
would entitle us to make them the founda-
tion of our religious belief.

This objection is the most serious of the
three ; and if it were in all respects justi-
fiable, it would go ill with us.

" Where our idea of him has not been
destroyed by historical criticism, it has been
rendered doubtful." At the first blush it
looks as if this were indeed the case. I pass
over such results of criticism as flourish to-
day, and to-morrow are cast into the oven ;
I speak only of those which are brought
before us again and again with increasing
force. If we direct our attention first of all
to the external historical facts, we find that

54 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

the tradition as to the incidents attending
the birth and the early life of Jesus Christ
has been shattered ; and so too has been the
credibility of many of the stories which were
told of him. We find, too, that criticism
cannot lay the ancient doubts raised by
the reports of what took place on the first
Easter morning. As regards the picture of
his life, as regards his discourses and the
doctrine he taught, the historical way of
looking at them seems to transform them
altogether.

The man who reads h is Bible in a homely
way is wont t o treat all the characteristic
features which he encounters in that book
as^ above and beyond time. He sees and
feels such things only as he takes to form
the true kernel of the narrative : things
which concern himself] and it was by

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY 55

these that the Christian doctrine was
formerly established by the Church. But
the historical way of looking at them may
not, and will not, overlook the concrete
features in and by which the life and the
doctrine were actually fashioned in theii'
day. It seeks for points of connexion with
the Old Testament and its developments,
with the religious life of the Synagogue,
with contemporary hopes for the future,
with the whole intellectual and spiritual
condition of the world of Greece and Rome ;
and it finds that the evidence of such con-
nexion is unmistakable. The consequence
is, that the sayings and discourses of the
Lord, and the image of his life itself, not
only take their colour — and it is a very
definite colour — from the history of the
time, but they are also seen to possess

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

certain definite limitations. They belong
to their time and tlieir environment; and
they could not exist in any other. But
they lose no particle of their power and
validity, unless it can be shown that the
main lineaments of the personality^f Christ,
and the sense and true point of his sayings,
have been altered. I cannot discover that
historical criticism has effected any such
change.

The same is true of the testimony which
he gave of himself. I admit that if his-
torical research had proved that lie was an
apocalyptic enthusiast or a visionary, whose
image and utterances were advanced to the
level of pure aim and lofty thought only
by the refining influence of later times, it
would be another matter. But who has
proved that, and who could prove it ? For

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY 57

bes ides the four written Gospels we possess
a fifth, u nwritten ; and in many respects
its voice is clearer and more effective than
those of the other four — Ijnean the united
testim ony of the first Christian community.
It enables us to gather what was the pre-
vailing impression made by this personality,
and in what sense his disciples understood
his words and the testimony which he
gave of himself It is true that his
clothes — the outward form of his doctrine
— were part of the heritage ; but the great
and simple truths which he came to preach,
the personal sacrifice which he made, and
his victory in death, were what formed the
new life of his community ; and when the
apostle Paul with divine power described
this life as a life in the Spirit,^ and again

^ Rom. viii.

CHRISTIANITY AND HISTOR V

as a life in love,^ he was only giving back
the light which liad dawned upon liim in
and through Jesus Christ his Lord. This
is a simple matter of fact, which no his;
torical criticism can in any way alter. All
that it can do is to place it in a clearer
light, and so increase our reverence for
the divinity which was revealed in radiance
in a S on of Abraham, amid the wreck and
refuse o f a narrow world. Let the plain
Bible-reader continue to read his Gospels
as he has hitherto read them ; for in the
end the critic cannot read them otherwise.
What the one regards as their true gist and
meaning, the other must acknowledge to
be such.

But the facts, the facts ! I do n ot know
how there can be a greater fact than the.

^ 1 Cor, xiii.

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY 59

one which I have jus t__b£en describing.
By the side of it, what can any historical
detail signify ?

We are told, however, that an historical
detail has a very obvious significance ;
that it is only the external fact, nay, the
miraculous fact, which can afford us the
final and only certainty that there exists
a reality corresponding to our belief; that
the objects of our belief are not mere
phantoms of thought, but that God Him-
self governs the course of history, and is
leading it to its goal.

I am well aware of the gravity of this
assertion, and I am far from disputing
the right of everyone to make it if he
chooses. If God would but rend the
heavens and come down, that we might
behold Him ! — it is a cry that is often

6o CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

beard. But I know, too, that it is not
born out of tbe deptb and strengtb of
tbe fciitb wbicb tbe apostle Paul describes,
and that it readily falls under the utter-
ance of the Lord : Except ye see signs
and wonders, ye will not believe. Great
is the power of external authority in
matters of religion ; great is the power
of signs and wonders ; but only where
their substance lies can faith and devotion
find their ultimate assurance. Their sub-
stance is God the Lord ; it is reliance on
Jesus Christ, whose word and spirit are
even to-day a witness to the heart of the
power of God.

Woe to us if it were otherwise ; if our
feith^ rested jon__a number of _detailSj_to
be demonstrated and establ ished by the
hist orian . It would be mere sophistry

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY 6i

for any historian to claim that he had
achieved such a task ; for it is assuredly
true that no detail of the past can attain
such a degree of evidential certainty that
it could form the foundation for bricks
and mortar, let alone a whole eternity.
Testimonies, documents, assertions — when
all is said, to what do they amount ?

There is, I admit, a difference between
fact and fact. The actual external details
are always a matter of controversy ; and
in this sense Lessing was perfectly right
when he warned us against coupling-
matters of the highest moment with
" accidental traths of history," and hang-
ing the whole weight of eternity on a
spider's thread. But the spiritua l purport
of a whol e life, of a p ersonality, is als o an
historical fact : it_has its reality in the

62 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

cftcct which it produces : and it is here

that we find thiL iiiik_that_Jbinds us to
Jesus Christy It is a feeling which is
one with devotion itself; and this is
what the same Lessing meant when he
spoke the word of deliverance: "Evenf
though we may be unable to remove all
the objections that may be made against
the Bible, nevertheless, in the heart of all
Christians who have attained to an inner
sense of its essential truths, Religion
remains steadfast and intact."

But are w^e to say that such external
details as have been handed down are of */
no significance whatever ? Who would
be so shortsighted, or so frivolous, as to
maintain such a proposition? Because
we cannot build upon them, they are far
from having no significance. First of

PERSONALITY AND HISTOR Y (^i

all, we have to examine whether they are
not actually true after all. Much that
was formerly rejected has been re-estab-
lished on a close investigation, and in the
light of comprehensive experience. Who
in these days, for example, could make
such short work of the miraculous cures
in the Gospels as was the custom of
1 scholars formerly?

Then, too, it may be said of all that is
told of Jesus Christ, that it is written as
a lesson for us. That is a consideration
which in our controversies is often unduly
overlooked ; but it is in keeping with the
objects of the oldest writers, and the
practice of the oldest teachers. In matters
of religious tradition it is the peculiarity
of much that passes for historical, that
the spiritual meaning to be found in it

64 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTOR V

is its most important feature. Where
somcthincj is maintained as an liistorical
fact, it is more often tlian not a defence
of the article of faith bound up with it.
It is through the formuLT, Conceived of
the Holy Ghost, that the dogma of the
Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ is pro-
claimed ; in and with the message of the
Ascension we are taught that he lives
and rules with the Father.

This leads us to another aspect of ^ic
rclio;ious signi ficance of exte rnal details.
which is closely related to that which I
have been mentioning. They have been
to faith what the prop is to the vine, or a
sheltering screen to the tender plant. They
have given it support and guidance, or
they have protected its growth from the
influence of wind and weather ; and the

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY 65

service which tliey have rendered in the

past, they still render to-day to many.

The dilKculty is that one man's fiiith

requires a strong stake to prop it, or

some kind of protective shelter ; Avhilst

p,n^her finds the prop break in his hands ,

and hi s faith bloom only in the f ree light

of the sun.

Finally, much in the New Testament

that is recorded as history, much that

aftects us most deeply, is not only told

us as a lesson, but, in the form in which

it is given, it possesses a deep symbolical

significance. 1 know none of the leading

events of the narrative of which that

cannot be said. The same spirit which

unveiled to our eyes the power and the

glory of a divine life, so far as mankind

is able to grasp it, has also veiled the
5

06 CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

trutli for US with n delicate web of ingeni-
ous legeud, a poetry that moves the heart,
and has thus brought it home in picture
and parable.

That the stories which are told of Christ
possess this manifold significance, will be
obvious to everyone who considers the
history of Christianity with an open mind
and a humble heart. It is an interpret-
ation of the facts which is not without its
dangers ; for on the one hand it may
readily lead a man to foist his own mind
upon history, to confuse the plant with
the prop, and so to conjure up grave
difficulties ; and on the other, it may
deaden the force of historical facts as
real facts, and the personality of Christ
as a real personality. However, the
difficulties which have arisen here are

PERSONALITY AND HISTORY 67

not of our making, and we cannot
resolve them in any arbitrary fashion of
our own. Rather let us trust to that
divine guidance which knows what is
good for us ; let _ us proclaim truly , and
with a pure mind, the knowledg^e which
we have received ; and then let us
endeayour_to understan d the profound
sayingj^_that natural strength _and ^ the^
c rutch that supports _it come from jthe
same source— ^m/fe und Kruchen kom-
men aus einer Hand}

It may, perhaps, have been expected
that I should speak of other matters : of
the changes which Christianity has ex-
perienced in the course of its history, or of
the blessings which it has spread abroad
in the world. But a knowledge of the

1 Goethe.— Tr.

6S CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY

fuiRlaiiKiilal (|Uc'slioii. ii;iniel\', liuw iar
religion ami history arc connected, and
Iiow they arc united in the evangelical
faith, is more important than anything
else. This evangelical faith need fear no
test that can be applied to it. It can
bear a strict and methodical scrutiny of
the facts which form its historical found-
ation ; nay, for its own sake it must demand
such a scrutiny ; for while it has no (-on-
cern with Pilate's speculative question —
what is truth ? — yet the knowledge of the
truth is assifjned as its mission, and there,
too, its promise will be fulfilled.

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