UC-NRLF B 4 sot S^7 It''.' ; 'Aj'ff:?.:;";i5 .■-,'■ .^■^X) IIUJIIJI „ II III - ' \ J'\^r .'• ' '' ' ''» LIBRARY OF THK University of California. RECEIVED BY EXCHANGE Class FOUNDED BV JOHN D. ROCKBPKLLER OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY A STUDY OF GENETIC RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PERIOD A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (department of new TESTAMENT LITERATURE AND INTERPRETATION) BY JOHN COWPER GRANBERY CHILAGU THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 1909 .>? w?iB Ube KUniversiti? of dbicaao FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY A STUDY OF GENETIC RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PERIOD A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (department of new TESTAMENT LITERATURE AND INTERPRETATION) JOHN COWPER GRANBERY n CHICAGO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 1909 Gr7 Copyright 1909 By Thb University of Chicago Published December 1909 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. To all his instructors the author makes grateful acknowledgment of indebtedness. He desires to make especial mention of the assistance of Associate Professor Clyde Weber Votaw, whose interest, encouragement, and suggestions have contributed helpfully toward this dissertation. o 944G0 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Aim, Explanakjon of Charts, and Resume. Charts — Chronological and Genetic. Selected Bibliography. I. Jewish Messianism ...... II. The Messianism of Jesus ..... III. Jewish-Christian Christology .... rv. The Pauline Christology V. Christology in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts VI. Cosmological Christology of the Epistles to the Colos SIANS AND THE EPHESIANS ..... VII. Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews VIII. Christology in First Peter and First Clement . IX. Apocalyptical Christology (the Apocalypse of John) X. Christology in the Pastoral Epistles . XL The Johannine Christology XII. The Ignatian Christology XIII. Christology in the Epistle of Barnabas and in Later Works Concluding Remarks Page 9 22 26 30 39 52 61 66 74 87 92 95 109 114 127 7J INTRODUCTION AIM, EXPLANATION OF CHARTS, AND R^SUMf This study surveys the entire period of the New Testament history and literature, ca. 28-160 a. d., and includes the other extant Christian writings of these years that lie outside of the New Testament canon. The effort is to present types of Christology within the New Testament period in such a way that they will stand out with their distinctive features and in their proper relationships, and to denote the character and sources of the conception of Christ in writings not so fully christological. It is not proposed to give an exhaustive study of the several types. Important questions are left unanswered, or the answer is only vaguely hinted at; for example, the character and extent of some of the non-Jewish influences. The study is offered as a contribution to the understanding of the Chris- tology of the period chiefly in its bold, outstanding features and more general relationships. The dates given are not to be taken rigidly; they are intended to be suggestive, and form no essential part of the charts. It is not expected that anyone will find all of the dates acceptable. In many cases the evidence barely makes possible a choice between different dates. The development of Christology does not move along strictly chronological lines, and yet it is so closely bound up with the several periods that an attempt at approxi- mate dating is unavoidable. It is to be noted also that a not unimportant factor in determining the chronology of the literature is the development of the christological thought itself. The charts cannot tell everything, and in some instances may prove actually misleading. The connecting lines in Chart II do not indicate every relationship — only the principal connections. For example, there is indirect Alexandrian influence in the Pauline Christology, but it is compre- hended only under the very general head: "Gentile Needs and Thought." Pauline influence is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse of John, but is not sufficiently direct and prominent to find place in the chart, unless the chart be made so complicated as to destroy its value. The personality of Jesus influenced in some degree all types of Christology, but it is not deemed best to draw connecting lines in every instance. The Matthaean Christology, that of Polycarp, James, etc., are given no visible connections, but this means only that they are products of 9] 9 10 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES the period, not sufficiently indebted to any special source to call for connect- ing lines. It is not intended to suggest that Gnosticism as such has made actual con- tributions in every instance where its influence is indicated by connecting lines, but that under the influence of the gnostic controversy the Christology in question took on the given form. Chart I presents substantially the outline of this study. Chart II exhibits the genetic relationships. The succeeding treatment presents the evidence. For convenience a brief resume of the results achieved is here given: In some of its leading features Christology existed in the form of Jewish messianism before Jesus came. His own ideals were nearer to Hebrew prophetism than to Jewish messianism; nevertheless he gave grounds for the application to himself of the messianic category. His purely personal, ethical, and reUgious influence is not estimated in this study, save as it bore upon the christological development. That the rich, strong, creative life proceeded from and gathered about Jesus is not denied; the age may well have owed to him first of all, its freshness and power. But where spiritual life is rich and growing, theology will be undergoing corresponding changes of form, and it is only with the christological aspects that we are here con- cerned. The fact is not overlooked that Jesus impressed men as being such a one as to require the use of various categories for the adequate evalua- tion of his person; all that is affirmed is that Jesus did not create those categories, nor explicitly teach their reference to himself, save that of mes- siahship in a modified, transformed, and spiritualized sense. Had Jewish messianism been the only determining factor we might well drop the word Christology altogether in favor of messianism. But when we come, for example, to the Johannine Christology we find little messianism. Paul was the first after Jesus, so far as we know, to experience keenly the inadequacy of the messianic concept. His contribution is discussed under the heads: the pre-existent and incarnate Lord, the crucified Redeemer, the cosmic Savior, the indwelling Christ, and the divine Son of God. An advance upon the Pauline Christology is found in the cosmological Chris- tology of Colossians and Ephesians, which was a further development of Paulinism, but made larger use of Alexandrian thought in the conflict with incipient Gnosticism. Another bold Alexandrian type was that of Hebrews, which was not so close to Paul but was directly dependent on Philo. In the Apocalypse of John, Jesus was interpreted by means of the concepts of apocalyptic, combined with the universaUsm of the post-apostolic age and a comparatively small Christian element. In First Peter and First Clement 10 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 11 we have edifying epistles containing much Christology, but not sufficient that is distinctive to warrant giving them a place beside the great types already discussed. The explicit emergence of the doctrine of Christ's saving mission to the world of the dead in First Peter is notable. The Synoptic Gospels present a double problem, but we are at this point concerned with the Christology of the authors themselves and not with their sources. Mark represents the age just succeeding Paul; lying in the background is a high Pauline Christology. Luke-Acts falls at the begin- ning of the second century and moves in the direction of the apologies of the middle of the century. Matthew is strongly christological, representing an advanced stage and moving toward CathoHcism. The Johannine Christology is a further development of Paulinism ; it is many-sided — mystical, theological, betraying sympathy with the deeper currents of the age, conserving what was most profound in Christianity and at the same time transforming it all into the ripest christological product of the period. The Ignatian Christology, called to expression by gnostic error, represents another bold, though unsystematized interpretation. A Jew could not bring himself to speak of Christ as God in the unreserved manner of this vigorous ecclesiastic. The originaUty of his thought may be dis- cerned by reading his letters beside that of his conservative contemporary Polycarp. The current Christology appears again in the Pastoral Epistles, affirmed in opposition to gnostic error. A somewhat different and more responsive type appears in Barnabas. About the middle of the second century there arose certain edifying works not strongly christological: James, Hermas, Didache, Second Clement, Jude, and Second Peter. In this period the gnostic systems were fully developed and the real controversy began. The earlier apologists also were putting forth their works. But the discussion of these subjects would take us beyond the New Testament period proper to the age of the Catholic church. It is a singular and significant fact, however, that among those counted heretics there should have been one who was at least partly gnostic, who understood, as did no contemporary of whom we know, the gospel of the Christ who brings spiritual freedom as it was preached by the apostle Paul — Marcion of Pontus. If now we ask to what extent the development of christological thought was in accord with Jesus, anything like an adequate answer would carry us beyond the task we have set ourselves. It may not be amiss, however, to note that although Paul had his gaze fixed on the exalted Lord and not on the earthly Jesus, yet in certain respects he came nearer understanding Jesus than the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem, many of whom had known 11 12 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES Jesus in the flesh. In the death of Jesus, Paul saw the principle of self- sacrifice that animated his life. Paul's universalism was a logical develop- ment of the universalism impHcit in Jesus. Paul's doctrine of the freedom of the Christian man was essentially one with the ideal of ethical and religious freedom for which Jesus lived and died. But it would be a mistake to overlook the fact that at every point the way of arriving at these principles is different. Into Paul's thought there enter the wisdom of the rabbis, the speculation of apocalyptic, and the popular thought- world of Hellenism. On the other hand, Jesus thinks and speaks in terms that are elementary and universal; his religious ideas are simple, fundamental, and mighty. Although Paul's liberation of the gospel from national barriers was in accord with the mind of Jesus, Paul did not appeal for support to Jesus' own attitude of freedom ; indeed, in his view, Jesus was bom under law and came as a minister of circumcision for the truth of God (Gal. 4:4; Rom. 15:8). The basis of Jesus' criticism of the law was purely ethical: the law substituted appearance for reaUty and did not go to the heart of things. Paul's polemic against the law was practical in motive also, but his conten- tion was for redemption in Christ. The love of neighbor was broader in the thought of Jesus than in that of his followers; for while they were not lacking in the comprehensive Christian virtue of love, they dwelt upon the love of brethren of the church. Where Paul departs most widely from the thought of Jesus is in the sphere of doctrine and not of life; he stakes everything on certain divine acts that entered into human history but tran- scended it — acts which secure for men salvation: the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. Although Paul spoke of the obedience and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, he had in mind the exempUfication of these virtues on the part of the Son of God who came down from heaven to save men, rather than their exemplification in Jesus as he walked among men. Yet the latter was not absent, and had not Jesus, in Paul's view, lived that kind of a fife, the ascription to him of that character in the larger con- ception would have been an impossibility. Wrede (Paulus, S. 88-97; Eng. trans., pp. 155-69) protests vigor- ously against the statement that Paul understood Jesus, and minimizes almost to the extent of elimination all dependence of Paul on Jesus. Closely as they are related, we must in this connection distinguish between life and dogma, and our study is of dogma. Had Wrede confined to the sphere of doctrine his contention as to Paul's independence, his position would have had more to commend it. 12 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT OHRISTOLOGY 13 CHARTS — CHRONOLOGICAL AND GENETIC CHART I Chronological Exhibit of Types of Christology within the New Testament Period A.D. 30- 40 40- SO 50- 60 60- 70 70- 80 80- 90 90-100 120-130 130-140 140-150 150-160 Hebrew Prophetism Jewish Messianism The Messianism of Jesus Jewish-Christian Christology Pauline Christology (Sources of Synoptic Gospels) Mark CosMOLOGiCAL Christology (Col. and Eph.) Christology of Hebrews I Peter I Clement Apocalyptical Christology (The Apocalypse of John) Luke-Acts Matthaean Christology Pastoral Epistles Johannine Christology Ignatian Christology Polycarp Apocalypse of Peter Gospel of Peter Barnabas (Marcion) Jude James Hennas Gnostics Didache Apologists II Clement II Peter 13 14 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES CHART II Showing Genetic Relationships within the Christology of the New Testament Period JJIebrew Prophgtism Babylonian-Persia Religion 30 40 SO 60 70 80 90 Gentile ThS Messianism and Personality of Jesus ^Needs and 130 140 >So t6o Apocalyptical Christology of Apoc. of John II Pefer IcNATL\N Christology. Gospel o* Peter James Hermas Didache II Clement Marcion Apologists 14 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT OHBISTOLOGY 15 CD H w > w Q < W Pi H Pi a w u w pq H < U I— I O o o :?; o Pi K u H w XI c i s Tiberius, 14-37 Caiaphas High Priest 18-36 Pontius Pilate Procurator 26- Death of Jesus ca. 30 Conversion of Paul ca. 30-32 Caius Caesar (Caligula) 37-41 1 M Appointment of Felix ca. 50, 51. 52 Nero 54-68 Recall of Felix 55-56? 57- 59? Festus Procurator 55-56 ? 57- 59? Burning of Rome and perse- cution by Nero 64 Jewish War 66-73 Galba, Otho, Vitellius 68-69 Vespasian 69-79 "(5 ■3 1—, "o It ^2 OH Mark ca. 70 Hebrews 70-96 Barnabas 70-131 1 (2 NO "3 a Mark? I Peter, Barnabas, Heb. 75- 100 a K On 00" -a h 1— 1 1— 1 i I Cor. (Gal. ?), II Cor. 53 (52) Rom. 53, 54 (52, 53) Col., Philemon, Eph. (wenn er echt ist), Phil. 57-59 (56-58) Genuine portions of the Pas- toral Epistles 59-64 Mark (probably) 65-70 Gospel according to the He- brews 65 (7o)-ioo Matthew (excepting some later additions) 70-75 Luke-Acts ca. ^?>-g^, Q ■< d 'I- d to d NO 00 i 15 16 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES OC „ r oK f> 5 c ^h I in H W > w Q < H < Pi W h fa o w PQ < < u I— I o o hJ o o K u i2 i U 00 "^ o c o 0-5 o ^ I ^ o i: s X lu S l-H < H-, O cij -^ =" ^"^ ^P^ ^c ::^ E ^ rj H- > ov^ ^^1^ ^ p -^ ^ -2 . d « rt y PL ~ en o- ,«; ^-o 3^° 5- jif^p; 60 "O I -r HH O H >>-Q HH M ^ '%^ c .« 1 -J3 ^^ t; t? g o< tn ,^ Ir^ (U .22 .2 C I oi P-.5 -g S u ■" O tS P-, 16 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 17 O M " 1 PQ c '-' a C ot T3 O "^ 00 fO M ■*-' c/3 ro a >>"C M t/i d-ci 1 o K "^ rt 2 ••a E o c c CJ M I-" ■1-'
  • U in H iz; o w > "a o o o 00 a M 01 lo P W 1 M T i :^ J^ c lO fO 10 < ni s in 1— 1 "Sh a Ph Ph 1— 1 <: ^ <5 CM T 10 *H >-■ a a to 1— 1 (N VJ i*-. H H-1 " nj o S" f^ " S ^ w pq :3 H 3 „ < 03 o «*H 73 CLi i> h -a s c"o Ph 1-4 S &-^ (— 1 o ^ HI 6 ^ t: u 10 >^ vA o O [O 6 H t« H ^^ M 6 -^ IT) O . " 2 " H D -— - 3 -j-l 1-1 -a o c "^ ci "^Cb o o Pi u a TO M -^ U fc-i ^ '^ a In "S a "0 ij ^ - ^^ cj '-' O p^ « M uT '^ «::-.l^s tn H O c oj ,!!. " '~' cd aj ? ^ofcsg vO tH < i i i i i M ro ■=f LO M H M H H 17 18 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES Hamack's chronology of the ApostoHc Age given in the first column does not represent the judgment of the majority of scholars. The crucial point is the date of the accession of Festus as procurator of Judea to succeed Felix, the removal of Paul the prisoner from Caesarea to Rome having fol- lowed shortly after the arrival of Festus (Acts 25:1, 6, 13, 23; 27:1). The question is as to whether Josephus, Tacitus, or Eusebius is to be followed. The dates for the recall of Felix and the accession of Festus gathered from the works of these historians are as follows: Josephus — 57-61, probably 60. Tacitus — 55 Eusebius — 55-56, according to Jerome's version of Eusebius' Chronicle; 54, according to the Armenian version of Eusebius' Chronicle. (See Votaw, "Recent Discussion of the Chronology of the Apostolic Age," Biblical World (1898), Vol. XI, pp. 11 2-19, 177-87-) The more common dates for the Pauline letters, after Josephus, are about as follows: I Thess 52 Rom 58 II Thess 53 Phile., Col, and Eph 62 Gal 54 Phil 63 I and II Cor 57 Pastoral Epistles 65-67 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Introduction Siegfried, Carl. Philo von Alexandria. 1875. Drummond, James. Philo-Judaeus, or the Jewish- Alexandrian Philosophy in Its Development and Completion. 1888. LiGHTFOOT, J. B. The Apostolic Fathers. Part I, 1890; Part II, 1885. Charles, R. H. The Book of Enoch. 1893. The Assumption of Moses. 1897. The Book oj Jubilees. 1902. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. 1908. Harnack, Adolf. Die Chronologic der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius. 1897. Sprilche und Reden Jesu. 1907. Eng. trans.. The Sayings oj Jesus. 1908. Die Apostelgeschichte. 1908. Eng. trans., The Acts of the Apostles. 1909. McGiFFERT, Arthur C. A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age. 1897. KRtJGER, GusTAV. Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur. Zweite Auflage. 1898. Eng. trans., History of Early Christian Literature. 1897. Hastings, J.\mes. Dictionary of the Bible. 1898-1904. Kautzsch, E. Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments'. 1898-99. Cheyne and Black. Encyclopedia Biblica. 1899-1903. 18 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 19 Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn. Patrum Apostolicorum Opera. 1900. MoFFATT, James. The Historical New Testament. 1901. Singer, Is.adore. Jewish Encyclopedia. 190 1. Weizsacker, Carl. Das apostolische Zeitalter der christlichen Kirche. Dritte Auflage. 1901. Eng. trans., The Apostolic Age 0} the Christian Church. 1894-95. Burton, E. D. Principles of Literary Criticism and the Synoptic Problem. 1904. Wernle, Paul. Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu. 1904. Eng. trans., The Sources of Our Knowledge of Jesus. 1907. Knopf, Rudolf. Das nachapostolische Zeitalter: Geschichte der christlichen Gemeinden vom Beginn der Flavierdynastie bis zum Ende Hadrians. 1905. SoDEN, Hermann von. Urchristliche Litteratur geschichte. 1905. Eng. trans., The History of Early Christian Literature: The Writings of the New Testament. 1906. Wellhausen, J. Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien. 1905. BuRKiTT, Francis C. The Gospel History and Its Transmission. 1906. Holtzmann, OsKAR. NeutestamentHche Zeitgeschichte. Zweite Auflage. 1906. JtJLiCHER, Adolf. Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Fiinfte und sechste, neu bearbeitete Auflage. 1906. Eng. trans., Introduction to the New Testa- ment. 1904. Schmiedel, Paul W. Das vierte Evangelium gegeniiber den drei ersten. 1906. Evangelium, Briefe und Offenbarung des Johannes. 1906. Eng. trans, of both in one vol.. The Johannine Writings. 1908. Allen, Willoughby C. Commentary on St. Matthew (International Critical Commentary). 1907. ScHtJRER, Emil. Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi. Dritte und vierte Auflage. 1901, 1907. Eng. trans., A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ. 189 1. GooDSPEED, E. J. The Epistle to the Hebrews {Bible for Home and School). 1908. Weiss, Johannes (editor). Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments. Zweite Auflage. 1908. Theology Spitta, Friedrich. Christi Predigt an die Geister. 1890. Harnack, Adolf. Dogmengeschichie. Dritte Auflage. 1894. Eng. trans.. History of Dogma. 1894. Das Wesen des Christentums. 1901. Eng. trans.. What is Christianity? 1901. Holtzmann, Heinrich J. Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie. 1897. Das messianische Bewusstsein Jesu. 1907. Hort, F. J. A. The First Epistle of St. Peter: 1:1—2:17. The Greek Text with Introductorj' Lecture, Commentary, and Additional Notes. 1898. Cone, O. Paul: the Man, the Missionary, and the Teacher. 1898. Stevens, George B. The Theology of the New Testament. 1899. 19 20 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES Clemen, Carl. Niedergefahren zu den Tolen. 1900. Die Entwicklung der christlichen Religion innerhalb des Neuen Testaments. 1908. Religionge- schichtliche Erkldrung des Neuen Testaments. 1909. MoNNiER, Jean. La premihe epitre de I'apdtre Pierre. 1900. HoLTZMANN, OsKAR. Leben Jesu. 1901. Eng. trans., Life 0} Jesus. 1904. Pfleiderer, Otto. Das Urchristentum: seine Sckriften und Lehren in geschicht- licJiem Zusammenhang. Zweite Auflage. 1902. Eng. trans, of Band I, Primitive Christianity, two vols. 1906, 1909. Neumann, Arno. Jesus, wer er geschichtlich war. 1904. Eng. trans., Jesus. 1906. R£ville, Albert. Histoire du dogme de la divinite de Jesus-Christ. 3""* ed. 1904. Eng. trans.. History of the Dogma of the Deity of Jesus Christ. 1905. Weinel, H. Paulus: der Mensch und sein Werk. 1904. Eng. trans., St. Paul, the Man and His Work. 1906. Wernle, Paul. Die Anfdnge unserer Religion. Zweite Auflage. 1904. Eng. trans.. The Beginnings of Christianity. 1903. Bailey, John W. Does Hellenism Contribute Constituent Elements to Paul's Christ ology ? 1 905 . Gressmann, Hugo. Der Ursprung der israelitisch-jiidischen Eschatologie. 1905. Mathews, Shailer. The Messianic Hope in the New Testament. 1905. Pfleiderer, Otto. The Early Christian Conception of Christ: Its Significance and Value in the History of Religion. 1905. Porter, Frank C. The Messages of the Apocalyptical Writers. 1905. BoussET, Wilhelm. Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter. Zweite Auflage. 1906. Jesus. 1906. Eng. trans., Jesus. 1906. Schweitzer, Albert. Von Reimarus zu Wrede: eine Geschichte der Lehen- Jesu-Forschung. 1906. Scott, Ernest F. The Fourth Gospel; Its Purpose and Theology. 1906. The Apologetic of the New Testament. 1907. Sand AY, William. The Life of Christ in Recent Research. 1907. Wrede, William. Paulus. Zweite Auflage. 1907. Eng. trans., Paul. 1907. Causse, a. Devolution de I'espSrance messianique dans le christianisme primitif. 1908. Denney, James. Jesus and the Gospel. 1909. Sharman, Henry B. The Teaching of Jesus about the Future, according to the Synoptic Gospels. 1909. Weiss, Johannes. Christus: die Anfdnge des Dogmas. 1909. In so large a field an exhaustive bibliography would be impracticable and would probably not be especially useful; hence only a selection of the more important books is given. Other good books that have made no special contribution to this study are omitted. Periodical literature is not given in the list, but articles are referred to in the proper places. Mention should be made of some of the books that have been of greatest 20 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT OHRISTOLOGY 21 service. Both for introduction and for theology McGiflFert's admirable Apostolic Age has been extensively used. Stevens' Theology of the New Testament is the best that has yet appeared in English, and the following treatment is largely indebted to it. Pfleiderer's Urchristentum is a work of remarkable insight on the theological side, and has been found especially useful in the patristic field. Unfortunately it is at present but half acces- sible to those who read only English. Wemle's Beginnings of Christianity is vigorous and stimulating. Christus, by Johannes Weiss, is brief but valuable. E. F. Scott's Fourth Gospel and Apologetic of the New Testa- ment are masterly, and have been used to great advantage. Hamack's Chronologie is a monumental work and an indispensable storehouse of information. Lightfoot has been of service on the Apostolic Fathers. However, even in the case of books that have been found most helpful, many of their conclusions are rejected in the following pages. 21 I. JEWISH MESSIANISM Were the subject of our study the personality of Jesus, we should begin with Israelitish prophetism instead of Jewish messianism, for Jesus felt himself akin to the old prophets, and his prophetic vocation and conscious- ness precede and determine his relation to current messianism. But the beginnings of the christological world-drama which has played a large part in the world's reUgious life for more than eighteen hundred years are to be found rather in the new world of apocalyjDtic Judaism which succeeded the age of the great Hebrew prophets. Early in Israel's history, when the people thought of their God as "a man of war" (Exod. 15:2) whose interests were one with his people's, and who fought their battles with them (Num. 10:35), the popular hope was directed toward the day of Yahweh, when God himself would come and destroy the enemies of Israel and estabhsh his people in peace and pros- perity. The prophets of the eighth and succeeding centuries used and transformed the popular eschatology in the direction of higher, more ethical conceptions of God. For them Yahweh was no longer a god among other gods, and his interests were not bound up with Israel and its fate. They too looked for a day of Yahweh which would inaugurate a new epoch and mean for the enemies of Yahweh vengeance, for all the wicked punishment, for Israel sifting, and for the righteous deliverance; and this crisis would come through God's initiative. The glorious reigns of David and Solomon left a profound impression on the popular mind, and the nation hoped for a restoration of the Davidic glory. The hope at first had reference not to an individual Messiah but to theocratic kings of the house of David, and the promise of a king of his house forever meant a continuation of the Davidic dynasty. But the thought passed to that of a personal Messiah, another warrior-king, endowed by God with special gifts and powers. This popular, political conception persisted far into the Christian era. It was a powerful factor in the revolts against Rome. The tumults of the years 44-66 A. D. bear witness to the feverish state of the public mind. We meet with the idea again and again in the gospels. Any poUtical revolutionist possessing qualities of leadership might be enthusiastically received as the Messiah. Up to the time of the Bar-Cochba rising men looked for the coming of an earthly Messiah. But in contact with foreign Ufe there grew up among the Jewish people a developed belief in an organized kingdom of demon-powers on the one 22] 22 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 23 hand, and of angels and heavenly armies on the other, and the result was that the messianic hope became transcendental in character. In much of the Jewish post-exilic literature elements of the messianic hope appear only here and there, but with the Maccabean uprising the hope revived, and from that time became part of Jewish patriotism, bursting forth passionately in the Psakns of the Pharisees and finding more transcendental expression in other apocalyptic Hterature. In the first great apocalypse, the Book of Daniel (167-165 B. c), it is God himself who is to overthrow Antiochus and right the wrongs of his people. But there appears also the figure of an angel, one like a man, in the famous passage: "I saw in the night-visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a Son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the 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" (7:13, 14). In the 17th Psalm of the Pharisees the Messiah is most strikingly portrayed. He is Israel's king, the son of David, who will break in pieces them that rule unjustly, purge Jerusalem from them that trample her down, thrust out the sinners from the inheritance and utterly destroy their proud spirit; but he shall also gather together a holy people whom he shall lead in righteousness, and suffer no iniquity to lodge in their midst, for he shall take knowledge of them, that they be all the sons of their God. He is a righteous king and taught of God. He shall not put his trust in horse and rider and bow, for his hope is in God. He himself also is pure from sin, so that he may rule a mighty people. He leans upon God, and God shall cause him to be mighty through the spirit of holiness. The psakns in the first and second chapters of Luke breathe the same spirit; there is the same union of political elements with the ethical and religious elements in the national hope. Advanced apocalyptic presents a more transcendental Messiah. In the Book of Enoch the figure of Dan. 7:13, probably symbolic, is trans- formed into a half-divine companion of God and angels, who was created before heaven and earth and will sit on God's throne in the coming age to judge men and angels. A chief mission of the Messiah in the Psalms of the Pharisees, 64-40 B. c, was to make the Jewish people pure and right- eous, but in Enoch the Messiah comes to make righteous Israel triumphant.' According to Charles {The Book of Enoch, p. 41), "the influence of Enoch I Cf . Porter, The Messages of the A pocalyptical Writers, p. 3 29. 23 24 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES on the New Testament has been greater than that of all the other apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books taken together." In Enoch 90:37, 38, written according to Charles in the period 166- i6i B. c, from the same general standpoint as Daniel, the Messiah is grotesquely symbolized as a white bull with large horns, and the people who make petition to him are beasts and birds, afterward transformed into white oxen. This Messiah is born after the kingdom has been established by God, and he becomes head of the messianic community. The passage appears to have exercised no influence upon the New Testament. But not so the Messiah of the SimiUtudes (Enoch, chaps. 37-70). Charles gives the date 94-79 b. c. or 70-64 b. c. Porter places the passage in the latter part of the reign of Herod the Great. In this section the Messiah occupies the central place. The kings of the earth and the strong who possess the earth will be afflicted and fall, "for they have denied the Lord of spirits and his Anointed" (48:8-10). At the final judgment the Righteous One shall appear before the eyes of the elect righteous (38: i, 2). In 53:6 he is called "the Righteous and Elect One," and in many other passages "the Elect One." But most characteristic is the title "Son of man," found here as a definite title for the first time in Jewish literature. The oppression of the kings and mighty ones will not long continue, for the Head of Days will suddenly appear, and with him another being whose countenance has the appearance of a man and whose face is full of gracious- ness, like one of the holy angels — the Son of man. He has righteousness in an extraordinary degree, will grind to powder the teeth of the sinners and put down kings from their thrones because they do not extol and praise him (46:1-5). In him dwells the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of him who gives knowledge (49:3). He rules over all (62:6). He is the revealer of all things (46:3). "And from henceforth there vrill be nothing that is corruptible ; for the Son of man has appeared and sits on the throne of his glory, and all evil will pass away before his face and depart; but the word of the Son of man will be strong before the Lord of Spirits" (69:29). Men and angels will be judged before him, and the word of his mouth will slay all the sinners (62:2). "He will be a staff to the righteous on which they will support themselves and not fall, and he will be the light of the gentiles and the hope of those who are troubled of heart" (48:4). He is to be their companion forever (62:14). His pre-existence is plainly taught : " For this reason has he been chosen and hidden before him before the creation of the world and for evermore. And the wisdom of the Lord of Spirits has revealed him to the holy and righteous, for he preserveth the lot of the righteous, because they have hated and despised this world of 24 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 25 unrighteousness, and have hated all its works and ways in the name of the Lord of Spirits: for they are saved in his name and he is the avenger of their life" (48:6, 7). In the Jewish Sibylline Oracles, an Alexandrian production the oldest portion of which was written ca. 140 b. c, the messianic element is strong: God will send a king to bring peace upon the earth by destroying God's enemies and fulfilling the promises to his children; then will be established a universal kingdom with Jerusalem as its theocratic center. In the description of the approach of the kingdom of God in the Assumption of Moses, of about the beginning of the Christian era, there is no mention of the messianic king, and again he does not appear in the joyous days to come after Israel's repentance in the Book of Jubilees. In his description of the messianic age Philo appears to include the messianic king (De Praemiis et Poenis 16). The Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra witness to the per- sistence of the hope after the destruction of the holy city and temple. In the Apocalypse of Ezra, written 90-100 A. D., the Messiah introduces and rules over the millennial earthly kingdom, but God himself will be the final judge (chap. 7). The Messiah is pre-existent — "kept unto the end" (12:32), "kept a great season" (13:26). The dominant note of the reUgious life of Judaism in the period we have been studying was the conviction that God had given his people a law, and the one work of the pious Jew was the observance of that law. But the rewards of such observance were in the future, and the hope of a better future was ever the faith-element in the rehgious consciousness of Israel. This hope assumed different forms. Alongside of belief in an earthly, Davidic Messiah there entered the idea of a heavenly world-ruler and representative of God, who sits on the throne of glory and holds judg- ment over sinners. In general it may be said that the Messiah was earthly and the Son of man heavenly. The Son of man might be called the Messiah, but he could not be the Son of David; that is to say, a descendant of David would hardly be described as an angelic being. For the Son of man was superhuman, and as everything valuable was supposed to have previously existed in heaven, he was a pre-existent being (Enoch 46:1-3; 48:3, 6; 49:2-4; 62:7). There was therefore nothing fixed in the conception of the Messiah. The significant fact is that before Jesus came the materials for a Christology were already present in the messianic hopes and con- ceptions of his countrymen, and when he gained world-significance and the Jewish concepts proved inadequate to express what men experienced in him, new materials were at hand in the gentile world; hence the rapid development of a rich Christology. 25 II. THE MESSIANISM OF JESUS In the present state of gospel-criticism it is not possible to set forth with precision the attitude of Jesus toward the current messianism. We have ample means of judging what impression he made upon others, but before we can arrive with historical assurance at Jesus' own thought, the documentary sources of the Synoptic Gospels and the mutual relationships of these sources must be more conclusively determined and evaluated. It now appears that there are more than two relatively independent and quite different sources. One of them, which is essentially our Gospel of Mark, is probably not without Pauline influence, and is in general so largely a developed expression of the faith of primitive Christians as to demand critical treatment; it has also been influenced textually by Matthew and Luke. It is interpretation as well as narrative, opening with the words, possibly a title: "Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." In its present form it was written after 70 A. D. The remaining material common to Matthew and Luke, consisting mainly of discourses and sayings of Jesus, has been generally referred to a single, homogeneous source, and this error has to some extent \itiated a vast amount of other- wise valuable criticism. The sayings and discourses of Jesus that find their way into Matthew and Luke were probably gathered into groups in Aramaic in Palestine before the destruction of Jerusalem. Intended for the Christian community, they are not directly affected by apologetic interests. The impression made by the Gospel of Mark, critically considered, is that during the first part of his ministry, although possessed of an intimate knowledge of God and conscious of being intrusted with a great mission and endowed with divine power, Jesus did not lay claim to messiahship; at Caesarea Philippi he accepted the confession of his disciples to his messiahship, and from that time he called himself the Son of man and proclaimed the parousia. In the discourse-sources messiahship is assumed throughout; it comes to more definite expression in the Temptation and in Matt. 11 : 25-27 (Luke 10:21, 22), and in connection with the announce- ment of the parousia toward the close he puts forth the claim that he will come as king and judge. In many instances in these discourses and sayings the personality of Jesus stands out prominently. It is clear, accordingly, that our sources bear emphatic witness to messiahship as an element in the self-consciousness of Jesus, but it is equally evident that they 26] 26 Of OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHEISTOLOGY 27 tend to throw into the forefront of his message the ethical and religious element, and remove to the background of his thought or eUminate alto- gether much of the eschatological coloring of the gospels as they now stand. Certainly the eschatological terminology and views of the age appear in these sources, and it is not always easy to determine to what extent Jesus shared in such conceptions, but the emphasis upon his prophetic vocation is unmistakable. It would appear, then, that in the mind of Jesus his prophetic character was of primary significance. From the time of the Baptism he was con- scious of a special mission; he had seen a vision of God, the heavenly Father, and his whole nature, emotional, reflective, and volitional, was powerfully stirred. His conception of his special mission is best expressed in the text at Nazareth (Luke 4:18, 19). He believed himself to be a teacher, a reformer, a prophet — and more than a prophet, the final mes- senger of God to men. Under these circumstances it was inevitable that he face the question of messiahship. It was in the air. With a mission distinct from that of the Baptist, a full knowledge of the Father, a work for the kingdom not only preparatory, but actually initiating the new age, he could not but accept the thought of messiahship. The incident at Caesarea Philippi, the reply to the question of the Baptist, the entry into Jerusalem, the confession at the trial, and above all the unanimous con- viction of the disciples, it would seem, immediately after the resurrection, leave little room for doubt that Jesus believed that he was the Messiah. The prophetic consciousness related to what he was, the messianic to what he was to become, if indeed such a distinction is permissible. It is clear, however, that he advanced the claim with great reserve. Neither the popular terrestrial and political nor the literary supra-mundane conceptions of the Messiah fitted in exactly with his inner convictions. The political role he rejected outright. The eschatological he appears to have accepted in part. Unless it be involved in the thought of messiahship and in the use of the title Son of man, there is no trace of any consciousness of pre-existence. If in his last hours, when his work was cut short by the forces of opposition to God's kingdom, he spoke of returning in glory, as seems to have been the case, it was a messianic expression of his faith that God's cause must finally triuitiph and his own work receive vindication. With this interpretation of his messianic consciousness his use of titles is in general agreement. Titles suggesting the political aspect of messianism, such as "Son of David," made no appeal to him, and if he did not in every instance positively reject them, it was only because such rejection would have been interpreted as a rejection of messiahship. "Son of God" as a title 27 28 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES would seem not to have been used by him as a self-designation, yet as much is involved in the recurring expressions "the Son" and "the Father;" his sonship was personal, moral, and religious, and in the accounts as they stand there is the implication of something more. His most frequent self-designation seems to have been "Son of man." He is never represented as having been so addressed by others. Both the Old Testament con- ception of man's frailty and lowly estate and the influential passage in Daniel (7:13, 14) may have been factors leading to the choice of the title. That he was influenced strongly by the high apocalyptic use in the Book of Enoch is not clear, though it is certain that his followers came to attach that meaning to the term in application to Jesus, with all that it involved. Jesus appears to have used the title mostly toward the close of his career, suggesting that then his consciousness assumed more strongly the messianic form. It came to mean for him that the messianic glory was to be obtained by renunciation, suffering, and death. It is not assumed that the above sketch even remotely does justice to the subject, but the problem is too intricate to justify at this point a satis- factory exhibit of the processes by which the conclusions have been reached, or final judgment has been withheld, as the case may be. The gospels will again come before us for consideration in this discussion. Certain results of criticism may be confidently set forth and the direction in which they point indicated. The recognition of Matthew and Luke as composite works, one of whose sources is the Gospel of Mark, enables us to discover many heightened christological features of Matthew and Luke, and throws us back upon the simpler presentations of Mark and the other sources. Yet here too we must bear in mind that the writers of these sources were not especially interested in historical sequence and connec- tion, but were concerned to awaken and foster faith in Jesus as the Christ and to secure obedience to him as Lord. The eschatological discourses of Mark, chap. 13, Matt., chap. 24, and Luke, chap. 21, seem to have taken their present form not earlier than 70 a. d., and there is much else in the discourse-material that bears marks of later origin. For example, one passage in which the speaker is the Wisdom of God appears to be a prophetic fragment from some Wisdom-writing of about 70 a. d. (Luke 11:49-51; Matt. 23:34, 35). There is specific mention of the murder of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom Josephus mentions as having been slain in the temple in 68 a. d. Certain passages bear indications of origin within the Jewish-Christian community. Side by side with passages of great spiritual freedom there are in Matthew expressions of narrowness and circumscribed sympathy that sound strange in the mouth of Jesus — 28 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 29 a high valuation of the law, an express limitation of his mission to the Jews, a command to obey the Jewish leaders (Matt. 5:18, 19; 10:5, 6; 23:3). The emphasis especially in Matthew on eschatology — on Jesus as the coming king and judge and the Twelve as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel in the regeneration — is, as we shall see when we treat of that topic, so in line with the messianism of Jewish Christianity that we hesitate to carry it all back to Jesus himself. Justice must be done to the unique reUgious genius and moral power of Jesus, of which there can be no reason- able doubt. Constant factors in all estimates of his thought and person should be the effects of his coming and the influence he exerted. But when criticism has eliminated much that is fantastic and traceable to other sources than his own thought, it yet leaves in his consciousness a mysterious element that may properly be called messianic: there are mighty stirrings and strivings in his soul, there is a spirit of exaltation and expectancy, there is the conviction of a unique vocation as God's last messenger to men. It is not enough to say that the title Messiah was imposed upon him by historical conditions and was something altogether external to him; it answered, to be sure inadequately, to something in his own consciousness. In the impressive language of H. J. Holtzmann,' as his forerunner John was a prophet and more than a prophet, so he was the Messiah and more than a Messiah. There were other features in the overmastering personality of Jesus that influenced christological doctrine in the course of its development, but an adequate presentation of these would involve us in an extended historical study and estimate of Jesus for which there is here no place. Suffice it to recall his consciousness of filial relationship to God which lies at the root of his messianic consciousness and behind all his activity, the universalism at the heart of his message and work, his extraordinary dignity and authority lifting him above past and contemporary religious authorities, and the ideal of life he held up and enjoined with all of its social impUca- tions, and the abiding spiritual impression of his personal character. I Das messianische Bewusstsein Jesu, S. 100. 29 III. JEWISH-CHRISTIAN CHRISTOLOGY The sources for our study of Jewish-Christian Christology are the genuine epistles of Paul, the early chapters of Acts, and the Synoptic Gospels, all of which must be used with critical caution. We possess no literature that is directly the product of the faith of the earliest Christians. The former habit of so employing the First Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of James and of handling the first chapters of Acts uncritically is not justified, as will appear when we come to consider these works. A good starting-point is the passage in which Paul sets forth explicitly the contents of the tradition which he received: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I myself had received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Afterwards he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now but some have gone to their rest. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all, as to one born at a wrong time, he appeared to me also" (I Cor. 15:3-8). We here note several elements of Jewish-Christian Christology. I. Jesus is the Christ. This Paul assumes. To be sure Paul uses the word "Christ" in this instance without the article as a proper name, for when the Hebrew rT'lIJ^J, "Anointed," was translated into Greek, Xptfrrd?, the original Hebrew idea of the Messiah meant little to gentile Christians and xp''0"''os became a proper name. In some instances it is not clear in which sense it is used. But its significance for Jewish- Christian Christology is that the earliest interpretation of the person and work of Jesus was through messiahship. Indeed the first impression that Jesus made was that of a prophet; he was the prophet like Moses promised in Deut. 18:18, 19: "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." This passage is quoted in Acts 3:22, 23. But there was for them one higher category than that of prophet; Jesus was the Messiah. We have seen that the question of Jesus' own thought on this subject is beset with difficulties, but the readiness with which his disciples accepted and pro- 30] 30 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 31 claimed his messiahship renders it almost inconceivable that he gave them no grounds for so doing. These men had known Jesus in the flesh, had eaten and drank with him, and now they revered him as Messiah and Lord and thought of him as the coming Judge. When Jesus was thought of in the messianic framework, his speedy return from heaven to complete his messianic work took the place of the first manifestation of the Messiah in Jewish eschatology. In the appear- ance of Jesus upon earth the new era had already dawned, but his work had been cut short and he would soon appear on the clouds of heaven for the destruction of Satan, the god of this world, and of the kingdom of darkness, and for the deliverance of his people. Paul received from the primitive tradition — "by the word of the Lord" — how those that are alive, that are left unto the coming (-Trapova-iav) of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep, etc. (I Thess. 4:i5ff.). Under the inspiration of early Christian prophetism pictures of the future were painted like those of Paul (such as in I Cor. 15:55 ff.), of the Apocalypse of John, and of the Synoptic Gospels. At the common meal in which the fellow- ship of the brethren came to expression the thoughts of all were centered upon the Savior and especially upon his glorious return. 2. Christ died for men's sins. The representation in Acts is that in the primitive Christian community the acceptance of Jesus as the Christ brought with it the forgiveness of sins, but in the passage before us a further step is taken when connection is made between Christ's death and men's release from sin. Paul's language at this point is not to be taken as in itself conclusive, but there is every probability that very early the disciples were not content with the assurance that the death of Jesus had been foretold in the Scriptures, but that being familiar vidth the conception of atonement by the shedding of blood, they regarded his death in the aspect of a sacrifice offered to God. In IV Mace. 6:27-29 the idea appears that the martyrdom of the righteous has atoning merit. 3. Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day and appeared to his disciples on the six occasions mentioned. The first recorded appearance was to Peter, of which we seem to have a hint in our earliest gospel (Mark 16:7). The last appearance was to Paul himself, and is not referred to by him as being in a different class from the others. Something of the character of this appearance to Paul may be inferred from his references elsewhere to the revelation of Christ that was made to him. In I Cor. 9:1 he exclaims: "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" In Gal. 1:15, 16 he says: God "saw fit .... to reveal his Son in me." We have an indirect reference in II Cor. 4:6: "God .... 31 32 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES shone in upon our hearts, to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Christ." Elsewhere he speaks of "visions and revelations of the Lord" (oTrrao-ias koI airoKakvij/eL^ Kvptov) subsequently received (II Cor. 12:1). The view of Pfleiderer that Paul did not in his own mind connect these appearances vdth the body of Jesus that was laid in the grave seems highly improbable.' Note the words: "He was raised on the third day." For Paul these appearances were special and unique. What we may infer from the references of Paul, both as to the nature of the appearance to him and consequently as to the nature of the appearances to others that preceded his, is another question. With this testimony from our primary source there is no room for reasonable doubt as to the reality of these appearances, both those to individuals and those to groups. Our other sources — the gospels and Acts — are in agreement with Paul that through some such experiences the disciples became convinced that Jesus had risen, and that the primitive Christian community came into being in consequence of that faith. W'e recall from the gospels that in that world and age men could see in such a one as Jesus, John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets actually reappearing on earth (Mark 6:14-16; 8:28). In Matt. 27:52, 53 it is reported that at the death of Jesus "the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised, and coming forth out of the tombs after his resurrection they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many." The personality of Jesus made an impression on the hearts and lives of his disciples that was ineffaceable. He bound them to him by a love so strong that even his death could not separate him from them. Their faith took the historically conditioned form that was natural to it. Our sources then give, as the ground for the change from the gloom and despair of the crucifixion to the joy and confidence that soon succeeded, the appearances of the risen Lord, although the exact content of the resur- rection-faith is not as clearly set forth as the fact itself. The preparation for these experiences consisted in the general wo rid -view and the impres- sions of the personal hfe of Jesus. For Paul the resurrection meant that Jesus had conquered death and opened the gates of life, and he gave to it also a mystical significance (I Cor., chap. 15; Rom., chap. 6). But for the first community the resurrection of Jesus meant the vindication of his messiahship (Mark 12:10, 11 ; Acts 3:15) and a means toward his heavenly exaltation. The elevation of man to the sphere of the gods was a thought not strange to circles even outside of Judaism. To specify I Das Urchristentum, I, S. 5 {Primitive Christianity, I, p. 7). 32 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 33 only Hebrew instances, there were Enoch (Sir. 44:16; 49:14), Moses (Assumption of Moses), and Elijah (II Kings 2:11). The significance of the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus in the interpretation of his person may be gathered from the following passages: Jesus said to the disciples on the way to Emmaus: "What things?" And they said to him: "The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet (dvrjp Trpo<}irJTrj<;) mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. We hoped however that it was he who was about to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:19-21). "This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Being exalted therefore at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you see and hear. For David ascended not into the heavens, but he says himself: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand. Till I lay thine enemies under thy feet. So let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:32-36). "You know of the matter that came through all Judea .... Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him .... whom they slew .... him God raised up on the third day and gave him to be made manifest This is he who is ordained (wptcr/Ae'vos) by God, judge of living and dead" (Acts 10:37-42). "And we bring you good tidings of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this to our children by raising up Jesus, as also it is written in the second psalm: Thou art my Son; to-day have I begotten thee" (Acts 13:32, 33). To these passages must be added two from Paul, in one of which he says that Jesus was constituted {bpia-Oivro^) Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4), and the second is in the great christological passage, most of which is characteristically Pauline: "Wherefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name" — the name of Lord (Phil. 2:9-11; Kupios, for TWTT in the Septuagint; see Isa. 42:8; 45:23). Now these passages clearly point toward an original Adoptionist Christology: Jesus became the Son of God and Messiah by a divine act 33 34 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES of adoption connected with the resurrection from the dead and the exaltation to heaven at God's right hand. The use of the second psalm is instructive. From ancient times in the Orient kings were regarded gods or of diAine origin. Amid the plottings of the rulers of the earth against Yahweh and against his Anointed, God gives assurance to the king on the day of his accession to the throne that he will give nations for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. When the passage is quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews the thought of the writer can hardly be that the divine sonship of Jesus began at some particular time (Heb. 1:5), but the earlier view was that the divine sonship of Jesus was not by nature and from eternity, but that he was raised to it by an act of God. In the gospel-tradition there was the story how God had already chosen him as his Son at the Baptism and by the descent of the Spirit consecrated him the Messiah and endowed him with messianic power, and still later the divine act was pushed back to his birth. In the Lukan account of the Baptism, Codex D, the very words of Ps. 2:7 occur (Luke 3:22). Old Testament analogies are the anointings of Saul and of Da\dd by Samuel (I Sam. 10:1; 16:13), in each instance a period elapsing before accession to the throne, as in the case of Jesus. It is evident that the hope of establishing an earthly Davidic kingdom was still in some sense aUve in Jewish-Christian circles. The Palestinian hymns of the first chapters of Luke breathe the same spirit. The genealogies of Matthew and Luke, giving the list of ancestors of Jesus in direct line from David to Joseph, were intended to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. Paul knows the tradition — "bom of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3). In discussing with the scribes Jesus seems to have tried to show that the Messiah need not necessarily be a descendant of Da\'id, though this is certainly not the thought of the evangelist who reports the incident (Mark 12:35). But this Adoptionist Christology does not represent the whole thought of the Jewish-Christian community regarding Jesus. Paul makes use of the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ as though it were already famiUar. It was easily taken over from messianism. We have seen how in the Simili- tudes of Enoch (37-70) the Son of man is described as hidden with God before the world was and manifested as judge of men and angels. The idea was that precious persons and things were of heavenly origin, and everything of real value that appeared on earth had its existence in heaven (Exod. 25:9, 40; 26:30; 27:8; Nimi. 8:4; Ps. 139:15, 16; Gal. 4: 26; Heb. 12:22; Apoc. 21:2). On the other hand, the Greek conception of pre-existence was based on the contrast between spirit and matter and 34 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 35 pre-temporal existence was deemed a certainty only in the case of higher and purer spirits. It cannot be said that the notion of a pre-existent Messiah was widespread in Judaism or that it played a large part. Cer- tainly the thought of the first disciples was quite different from Paul's, for the Jewish conception of the Messiah's appearance on earth was neither that of an incarnation nor of a humiliation. But undoubtedly in identify- ing Jesus with the Son of man of Jewish apocalyptic the first disciples were bordering closely upon the idea that he was not merely a man who had been exalted to heavenly glory, but was originally a heavenly being who had come down to earth. 4. The Old Testament scriptures were used as foreshadowing both the death and the resurrection of Christ. Doubtless the passages appealed to as foretelling his suffering and death were those telhng of the suffering Servant of Yahweh (Isa., chaps. 52, 53; cf. Acts 8:30 ff.). The stumbling- block of his death could be removed, if, in addition to his resurrection and exaltation, proof were adduced that the sufferings and death of Christ were in accord with the Old Testament vocation of the Messiah and founded in the counsel of God. The passage used as foretelling his resurrection may very well have been Ps. 16:10, as found in Peter's sermon, Acts 2 : 27, and also in the mouth of Paul at Antioch of Pisidia, Acts 13 : 35. Other passages that may have been used in this connection are Ps. 86:13 and Hos. 6:2. But not only were the death and resurrection found in the Old Testa- ment but almost everything else in the evangelic tradition." Of course it worked the other way also: what was in the Old Testament must have been in the life of Jesus. Accordingly it is to be expected that some material which found its way into the gospels had its beginnings in primitive Christianity. We close this section with some reflections on the significance of Jewish- Christian Christology. We have seen that in Judaism along with devotion to their divinely given law there was the faith-element of the messianic hope. Among the early Christians the latter element eclipsed the former. In Paul's account of the controversy about the law recorded in the second chapter of Galatians he takes it as common ground that all who believed on Christ Jesus did so in order that they might be justified by faith in Christ, but it had never occurred to his Jewish-Christian opponents that faith in Christ entirely set aside the Jewish law and abolished legalism. To their minds this would make Christ a minister of sin. To them it I For instance, the parousia was seen in Zech. 12:10: "They shall look unto me whom they have pierced," quoted in Apoc. 1:7. 35 36 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES was not a question of faith in Jesus or observance of the law. Their hope was really not in the law but in the Lord at his coming. Faith in Jesus and hope of the kingdom were working a change of attitude. The story of Stephen in Acts points toward a larger freedom and a deeper insight into the implications of the gospel on the part especially of converts among the Hellenists. The thinking and preaching of the first disciples were not primarily concerned with the gospel of the fatherliness of God, prominent in the teaching of Jesus. Theirs was another problem. They must prove to their countrymen that Jesus was the Messiah, and would shortly return to establish the kingdom. His crucifixion was the obstacle in the way, but that was foreshadowed by Scripture and its force destroyed by the resurrec- tion. For them Jesus was the Servant of God, a man approved of God, constituted the Christ, raised from the tomb, exalted in the heavens, to come again to complete the messianic work. The miracle of the resur- rection and his exaltation cast a halo about his earthly life, removing him from men and investing his person with mystery. Looking toward the future they made him the center of their eschatology, the chief part of which they drew from Jewish apocalyptic. They were attempting to express what they had experienced in Jesus, and their expression was more prophetic and practical than doctrinal. Their own state was one of ecstasy and exaltation, one of their charismata from the heavenly world being "speaking with tongues," described by Paul in I Cor., chap. 14; and they beheld Jesus as their risen and exalted Lord. We often meet with the statement that in this period the Christians were nothing more than a Jewish sect,^ and that their Christology was nothing more than the framework of Jewish messianism with the name of Jesus written in it. Thus Wernle concludes: "The Jewish faith swallowed up the Christian, and in reality it was the Jews who came forth the conquerors from these disputes."^ Of course it is true that the Christian movement was within Judaism; that as Jesus never intended to found a "church," that is, an institution, so the early Jerusalem disciples remained members of the Jewish church, and to them the idea of two churches was an impos- sible one. Their aim was to convince other Jews that Jesus was their Messiah. In this sense the Christian community formed a Jevdsh sect, but it was something more. Although Jesus had in his own thought 1 For example, Clemen, Die Entwicklung der christlichen Religion inner halb des Nenen Testaments, S. 74. 2 Die Anfange unserer Religion, erste Auflage, S. 85 {The Beginnings of Christianity, I, p. 141). 36 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 37 transformed, purified, spiritualized, and enriched the term Messiah in its application to himself, yet his disciples did not in this respect altogether understand him, and after his death the older elements were retained in the term. Nevertheless there was much involved in thinking of Jesus in the messianic framework. The resurrection of the Messiah was not an element in Jewish messianism because he was not expected to die.' Another new element was the redemptive significance of his death. The second coming simply corresponded to the messianic first coming. So far all seems formal. But related to it all there was a rich religious experience that was new and creative. There was something tangible and concrete about a Christ who had actually lived among men, who had been raised from the dead, had been seen in his glorified state, and to whom (or through whom) one could pray, as did Stephen, according to the testimony of Acts, in the words: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7 : 59). Through the presence and power of the Spirit that Jesus sent down from heaven there was an enthusiastic hfe, a joyousness, an assurance of acquittal at the coming judgment, a faith-principle, that current, somber, depressing Judaism conspicuously lacked. The noblest and truest expression of their new experience of Jesus the Christ was to be seen in their preparation for the kingdom, the new order about to be estabUshed at the Lord's return. This preparation consisted of repentance and righteousness, but essentially it was a social phenomenon, a real brotherhood. The poor were relieved by means of a common fund. The Lord's Supper — "the breaking of bread," Acts 2:42, 46 — was a fellowship-meal. Through this practical Christian brotherhood Jesus, the helper of the helpless, the friend of sinners, the refuge of the heavy-laden, came to his own, and thereby Christianity conquered the world. 2 Beneath the thought-forms of the primitive church which have been occupying our attention there Hes the gospel, and in the experience of these first disciples was manifested the practical Christian Ufe. Moreover we must not forget that the primitive Christian community possessed the priceless tradition of Jesus' own imperishable words and deeds. Narrowness and legalism were far from being hopeless for those who possessed a measure of his spirit and the memory of his words and conduct. Indeed, it is by no means incredible that one of the number, Stephen, should have come near to grasping the very heart -principle of 1 Yet see Apoc. of Ezra 7 : 29. 2 See Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, I, S. 22, 23 {Primitive Christianity, I, P- 32). 37 38 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES the gospel, Christian freedom; and, because he proclaimed it, to have brought martyrdom upon himself and persecution upon the other disciples. Had primitive Christianity been nothing more than a sect of Judaism, Paul the Pharisee would not have been found so zealously persecuting it, nor would he have been powerfully converted to a religion that was essentially the same as that which he held. 38 IV. PAULINE CHRISTOLOGY The letters upon which this treatment is based are Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, Romans, First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. Others are reserved for later consideration.' In these letters there is found no development in his conception of Christ of which it is necessary to take account. The first of the letters to be written, whether First Thessalonians or Galatians, was written not far from a score of years after his conversion, and all of them fall within a period of twelve years. He was at the time a mature man, aged somewhere between forty-five and sixty-five. Varying circumstances elicited differing forms of expres- sion, but for him there was one original gospel. Four factors in the formation of his Christology may be mentioned, but not always distinguished: pre-Pauline Christian thought, Jewish thought, gentile thought, and his own creative personality. No more original and influential thinker has appeared in the history of the Christian church.^ Yet his primary purpose was not to give Christianity doctrinal expression, but to preach Christ; he was first a missionary, and secondly a theologian. His epistles were called forth by the exigencies of his mis- sionary work and adapted to the needs of the churches. Vital as was his conception of the person of Christ in his apprehension of Christianity, his Christology was with a view to Soteriology, and must be studied from that point of view. But he has a Christology that is original and thought out, because he was powerfully intellectual; he felt the true theologian's necessity for harmonizing convictions growing out of his religious experience with the rest of his thought which he held in common with the age. To this fundamental need of his nature is added the fact of his rabbinical training. Though he was more than a rabbinic dialectician, still it is essential to 1 It is now generally recognized among scholars that the Pastoral Epistles are in their present form not from the hand of Paul. Second Thessalonians and Ephesians are regarded as doubtful, especially the latter. The tendency at present is to defend the Pauline authorship of Colossians. Most scholars do not take seriously the conten- tion of a few critics that all the Pauline letters belong to a later time. 2 The fact is that Paul comes near being the only perfectly clear figure among the Christians of the first century. Both the immediate disciples of Jesus and the Christians of the age succeeding Paul are more or less shadowy. We have seen how difficult of historical access is Jesus himself, though on account of his dominating personality and universalism Jesus does stand out before us as not even Paul does. The point is that for Paul we possess direct sources. See Wrede, Paulus, S. i, 2 (Eng. trans., pp. xi, xii). 39] 39 40 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES remember that his education was Jewish; he knew the Hebrew scriptures, though he generally quotes from the Septuagint; he was trained in Jewish theology and rabbinical methods of interpretation. So while in the Jewish- Christian church certain conclusions about Jesus had been reached through reflection and in recommending him to the Jews, chiefly in connection with his messiahship and its corollaries, yet no such man as Paul had arisen who felt the necessity upon him of thinking things through theologically and who had the ability to do so. A third factor in the situation ought, however, not to be underestimated: he was a Hellenist as well as a Pharisee. His knowledge of the Greek language and Greek Bible is in itself a matter of great importance. His native city of Tarsus was a university city and a seat of Stoicism. Under these circumstances a universal horizon and a broad and human interest were almost inevitable for such a man as Paul. This side of his nature was brought out when he became not only a Jew to the Jews but a Greek to the Greeks and took up his work among gentiles. He had not only to discuss daily in synagogue and market-place ^vith Jews (Acts 17:17), but also to take account of Paganism and adapt his message to the heathen. Philosophic Hellenism had its conviction of the supremacy of the spirit, its desire for freedom from the sensuous, its ideals of exaltation above the world and of communion with the divine life, its belief in immortality; and while Paul did not as a scholar know Greek philosophy, yet to the Greek world he did successfully minister. It was Paul's repeated and earnest contention that he derived his gospel from no human source, but from the revelation of God's Son in him; from God and Christ he received his apostleship and authority to preach, and the very content of his preaching as well (Gal. 1:1, 11, 12; 2:8; I Cor. 1:1, 17; II Cor. 10:8; 13:10; Rom. 1:1). Not seldom the Lord is referred to as his authority in certain specific matters (I Cor. 7:10, 12, 25; 9:14; 11:23; I Thess. 4:15). Yet we have it on his own statement that his gospel was substantially that of the Jerusalem Christians (Gal. 2:6-9). -^^ ^^s^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ Palestinian Christians were at one, even in regard to salvation by faith, at least nominally so (Gal. 2:15, 16). The trouble came when he emphasized salvation by grace in opposition to Jewish particularism and acted upon his principles in the evangelization of the gentiles. More than once Paul acknowledges his dependence upon the primitive Christian tradition (e. g., I Cor. 11 :23; 15:3). He acquired knowledge of the historical character and teaching of Jesus both before and after his conversion. For instance, his recognition of the law of love as the regulative principle of the Christian life undoubtedly had its source 40 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 41 in the character and teaching of Jesus hiinself. But much more than that: his acquaintance with the earthly life and teaching of Jesus was more extensive than some scholars have supposed, impressed as they are with the fact that Paul dwells upon the glorified Redeemer and says compara- tively little about the earthly experiences of Jesus. What Paul knew about Jesus was just what other Christians in general knew, for all alike were insti-ucted in the evangelic tradition, not to dwell upon what ever remains the greatest source of knowledge — the life, the conduct, of those animated by his spirit. Paul found a Christian community at Damascus (Gal. 1:17; 11 Cor. II :32, 33). On his visit of a fortnight to Jerusalem he had the opportunity of interviev^ng Peter, who had been with Jesus, and others whose knowledge was personal (Gal. 1:18, 19). His association with Barnabas (Gal. 2:1, 9; Acts 11:25) and with the churches of Syria and CiUcia, in fact his whole contact with Christian communities which he himself did not found, could have no other result than to acquaint him vdth the common church tradition about Jesus. It also formed in all probability a part of his own preaching, a primary duty being the instruction of his own converts on the subject. A curious confirmation of this is found in Aramaic words which he transliterated and taught to his gentile readers and which have found their way into the epistles (ay8/3a, Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15; /^.apava^a, I Cor. 16:22).^ It is impossible here to give a full and adequate presentation of the Pauline Christology; all that is attempted is an indication of what is distinctive in his thought about Christ. His contribution to Christology may be exhibited under five heads, to which is added a paragraph on eschatology: the pre-existent and incarnate Lord, the crucified Redeemer, the cosmic Savior, the indweUing Christ, the divine Son of God, the coming Lord. In the treatment of future topics we shall have occasion often to recur to the teaching of Paul. I. There is good reason to believe that when the Jewish-Christian community applied to Jesus the category of messiahship, in spite of his own cautious use of the term as applied to himself, they felt that all that the Jews expected of the Messiah must be true of him. Now in Jewish thought the Messiah was waiting in the heavens for the time of his mani- festation, when he would come in pomp and power for the overthrow of his enemies and the salvation of God's people. Irv this view much of the messianic work was deferred in thought to a second coming; the pre- existence was taken for granted. But whether this pre-existence was to ' See Case, "Paul's Historical Relation to the First Disciples," American Journal of Theology, 1907, p. 269. 41 42 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES their thought ideal, existing in the mind of God, or, as is more likely, per- sonal, the Jewish Christians probably made no such ethical use of it as Paul. He speaks of the pre-existence of Christ as familiar to his readers and undisputed. The Man from heaven of apocalyptic speculation, who had existed from all time with God, out of love for man left his high estate, came from heavenly glory to earth, to participate in the lowly fortunes of men for their redemption. Originally of a different nature from us, he became like us and took our nature; was born of a woman, became a real but sinless man, died on the cross, and was buried. His nature was thus judged not from his appearance in the flesh, but from his heavenly origin. The resurrection proved him to be the Son of God. He returned to glory and will come again to complete his messianic work in the consummation of the age. Paul could have found examples of Christ's love and self- sacrifice in the life of Jesus; indeed, he did center his thought upon the supreme example of his death. But he was dominated by the Jewish speculative idea, and viewed the nature and the work of Jesus from the point of view of the heavenly Christ. However, Wernle's way of putting it does not help us to understand Paul; he says: "Doubtless this whole point of view is a myth from beginning to end, and cannot be termed any- thing else;" it is the "story of a God who had descended from heaven." ' It was rather the transformation of a current Jewish speculation into an ethical and spiritual doctrine, resulting from the impression Jesus had made upon Paul; the end was practical: it means the divine love manifesting itself in the incarnation, an example of service, sacrifice, humility, obedience — more than that, a God who redeems us, enters our hfe, and secures our renewal, personal communion, and sonship (II Cor. 8:9; Phil. 2:5-11). But what was Paul's conception of the human nature of Jesus ? Between the two periods of the Son of God's existence in heaven there comes that of the incarnate life, the himailiation. His becoming poor (II Cor. 8:9) is sometimes taken to refer to a state of earthly poverty, and there may indeed be a secondary reminiscence of the fact that Jesus was lowly, but the primary thought is that he abandoned the riches of heaven for a human life. Paul's language implies that the manhood of Jesus Christ was assumed and formal. We are even reminded of the docetic teachers of a later period, but the reality of the humanity of Christ is essential to the thought of Paul; that is to say, he was born into the world in a human way, possessed a body of flesh, and was subject to death. To what extent did he also possess human thought, feeling, and will ? Paul does not say ' Die Anfdnge unserer Religion, erste Auflage, S. 154 {Beginnings of Chris- tianity, I, p. 251). 42 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 43 that the Son of God became man, but that "he emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, coming in Hkeness (ev o/xotw/iart) of men, and being found in fashion (crx^/Aarc) as a man he humbled himself" (Phil. 2:7), and that God sent his own son ev 6/u,ota)/xaTt crapKos d/naprtas (Rom. 8:3)-' 2. We have seen that according to his own testimony Paul received in the primitive tradition the fact that Christ died for the sins of believers (I Cor. 15:3). The contradiction between the ignominious death and the messianic vocation was felt by him as keenly as by the Jewish-Christian community {to o-KavSaXov tov a-ravpov, Gal. 5:11; I Cor. 1:23). He grappled with the problem seriously and boldly, and permanently influenced the thinking of the church. He developed, explained, and enriched the primitive connection in thought between the death of Christ and his saving work. His new spiritual life would not seem to have needed help from thought of the death of Christ, for its strength was drawn from communion with the risen Lord; yet the death had to be explained. Somehow it must be a fact of supreme significance, and so Paul came to regard it as the culmination and crowning glory of Christ's saving work. From his point of view there was no special help to be gained from dweUing upon the historical situation; he makes but one reference to it (I Thess. 2:15). It must be looked at from above, and in the Ught of his own vision-experi- ence of the risen and glorified Christ. Jesus was a curse (Karapa), but it was virkp yffjiiliv (Gal. 3:13). Though holy, he was made sin on our behalf (II Cor. 5:21, viv\p rnxdv apapTtav eTToirjaev) . The cross becomes the symbol of the divine condescension, in which Paul glories (Gal. 6:14). It is a sacrifice God himself has furnished, which men have only to accept; he was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; it is an expression and assurance of his love (Rom. 5:8; 8:32). But how was a sacrifice necessary ? There is an aspect of the divine character expressed by the words opy?/ and StKatoo-wT^. God disapproves sin, and the death of Christ is an IvSci^ts t^s 8iKaioavvr)<; airov (Rom. 3 : 25). So Paul uses a rich variety of expressions: those implying substitu- tion (xnrip or Trepl iifiwv, or Twv afuipTLWv r/fiCyv, not however avTi vfxwv)^ redemption (aTroAvrpwo-is), reconciliation (KaraXAayi;), propitiation (iXao-TT^ptov, Rom. 3:25), the language of sacrifice (blood), Christ as our passover who has been sacrificed (I Cor. 5:7).' In one instance, the notable passage in Rom. 3:21-26, Paul undertakes to explain why it was 1 " Die Menschheit ist ihm also eigentlich etwas Fremdes, ein Bettlergewand, das der himmlische Konigssohn fiir eine Weile iiberwirft, um es wieder abzustreifen." — Wrede, Paulus, S. 55 (Eng. trans., p. 90). 43 44 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES necessary that Christ should die, the reason being that God had in his forbearance formeriy passed over sins, with the result of creating the suspicion that he was indifferent to them; but to erect this into Paul's theory of the atonement is to give it undue weight and to ignore the obvious meaning of his language elsewhere. In Paul's thought there was not merely a substitution of methods, but a transfer of penalty, a transaction (if the meaning of the word is not pushed too far), an expiation, a propitiation. That his way of looking at it is not acceptable to some modern men does not argue invaUdity in his reasoning for him. For he had been trained in Jewish law. Deissmann thinks that the forensic terms he uses could have been heard daily in the police-courts of Greek cities, but the decisive factor with Paul at this point was probably his Jewish theology. He was not a slave to it; he has given us abundant evidence that when he chose, he could use vital analogies. Certainly the religio-ethical element is present, and indeed dominant, in his thought. It is a mistake, however, to deny and explain away the other. 3. The original Christology and controversy centered in the messiah- ship of Jesus, but more was involved in the affirmation of such messiah- ship than was at first reaUzed. It was Paul's great office to discern that the gospel of Jesus is different from the religion of law and to lay bare the radical opposition between Judaism, the reUgion of law, and Christianity, the religion of spirit, grace, faith, and ethical freedom. For him, there- fore, the maintenance of the messianic claim for Jesus meant the exposition and defense of a new morality and a new attitude toward life. The Jewish teachers themselves discerned in the person and message of Jesus the antithesis of that for which they stood, but Jewish opposition to the Jewish-Christian church was principally not from the side of the Pharisaic party, but from the priestly, Sadducean custodians of law and order (Acts 4:1). Paul's penetration into the heart of the gospel was deeper and his horizon broader; so it devolved upon him to bring into the light of day the universalism implicit in Christianity from the beginning. For him Jesus was not only a Jewish Messiah, but much more a world-Redeemer. Paul eliminated what was merely Jewish and national, and drew to the person of Jesus the larger and universal aspirations of men.^ Jesus » Paul retained belief in the special role reserved for Israel (Rom. 11:25-32), but in the church at large this remnant of Jewish nationalism could not long exist along- side of the Pauline universal conception of Christ's work. The increasing enmity of the Jews against Christians, the diminishing influence of Jewish Christianity, and the destruction of the temple and holy city and of the Jewish people as a nation, contributed toward ehminating the hope for Israel Kara (rdpKa. The Old Testament promises were then taken to refer to the new nation. The admission of the law for JevAish 44 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 45 Christ, the Son of God, died for all men, and his death was a cosmic fact, holding the center of the worid's history. Through him are all things, and his relation to mankind is original and organic (I Cor. 8:6). The heavenly, second Man may have been Paul's equivalent for the Son of man of Daniel and the first Christian community, but his cosmic concep- tion gave to Jesus a significance like that of Adam, the father of the race; as the second Adam, the head and founder of a new humanity, he recovers what Adam lost, and in him a new human epoch takes its rise (I Cor., chap. 15; Rom., chap. 5). As Adam started the race wrong and down- ward, so Christ comes and makes a complete break in history, sets up a new human line, and starts the race anew. He is 6 lo-;(aTos 'ASayu,, 6 Sewepos av^poJTTOS ii ovpavov.^ 4. A point at which Paul departed fundamentally in his Christology from his predecessors and contemporaries and where he is independent, individual, and original, is in his conception of the indwelling Christ. What manner of life Jesus lived on earth Paul learned from others and he acknowledged his indebtedness to the primitive tradition; but the heart of his Christology was built on the basis of his inner experience, on the risen Christ who had appeared to him, whom he knew directly and not by hearsay. Paul did not distinguish sharply in his experience between the influence of Christ and that of the Spirit (I Cor. 15:45; II Cor. 3:17). In the Jewish-Christian community the Spirit was the source of ecstasy and special endowments; Paul transferred the Spirit's activity to the entire ethical and religious life of the believer, in union with God and in fellow- Christians was but a temporary expedient; Jewish Christianity and universal Christian- ity could not long exist side by side. Paul's doctrine that the law was divine in origin and holy, but abrogated and not binding upon gentile Christians, was quite difficult, till the allegorical interpretation made possible a "spiritual" understanding of the ceremonial ordinances. On the national side the extreme is reached in the Fourth Gospel, which mentions the Jews in terms of the divine rejection, though their pre-Christian status was one of privilege (1:47; 4:22). On the anti-ceremo- nial side the extreme among orthodox churchmen was reached in Barnabas, who rejected the cultus and legal ordinances of the Old Testament as a diabolical misrepresentation, claiming the Old Testament exclusively for Christianity. It was a short step to Gnosticism, which regarded Judaism and the Old Testament as the work of the devil and the Demiurge. See Harnack, Apostclgeschichte, S. 9, 211-17 {Ads of the Apostles, pp. xxv, 281 ff.). I In the second century Christians spoke of themselves as a separate race. Aris- tides says that there are four races of men in this world: barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians; and that the barbarians reckon their head from Kronos, the Greeks from Zeus, the Jews from Abraham, and the Christians from Jesus Christ. — Apology, 2. 45 46 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES ship with Christ. In his own experience the presence of the Spirit was that of Christ, and meant life, freedom, sonship, as well as certain specific gifts of the Spirit (I Cor. 12:4-11). The pre-Pauline thought about Jesus was of an external character: Jesus was in heaven, exalted at the right hand of God, and he sent down his Spirit upon men. Paul needed no such mediation; Jesus himself was a life-giving Spirit, and he saved a man by taking up his abode within him (Gal. 1:16; 2:20; 3:27; 4:6, 19; Rom. 8:10). Under the control of the Spirit of Christ he was freed from bondage to the flesh; he died with Christ to the flesh and rose with him to the new Hfe of the Spirit, and the experience of others is described in the same terms as his own (Gal. 2:20; II Cor. 4:10; Rom., chap. 6; 7:4; 8:10; Phil. 3:10). The union between the believer and the risen Christ was certainly one of disposition, mind, heart, will, character, but it was more; it was an organic union, corresponding to the physical relation between men and Adam (I Cor. 15:47-49). In the case of the natural man and Adam the basis of the union was the a-dpi; in the case of the spiritual man and Christ the basis was the Trvevfxa (I Cor. 6:17). In becoming united to Christ a man becomes a partaker with him of the divine nature or irvcvfjM. His personality being in harmony with the Spirit, he is a spiritual man (Gal. 4:6; 5:16,17; I Cor. 2:12; 6:11; 12:13; H Cor. 1:22; 5:16,17). He is master of the lower nature (Gal. 5 : 16-18, 24; I Cor. 6:15, 16; Rom. 8:4, 5, 12-15). He is a free man (Gal. 2:19; 3:24-27; 5:13, 18; Rom. 6:14; 7:6; 10:4). Yet the life is a fulfilling of that inner, spiritual law which represents the divine character and will (Gal. 5:14; Rom. 7:14; 8:4; 13:8-10). But while the flesh remains there must still be a struggle, and a man may lose his hold on Christ. Final salvation means release from the flesh and resurrection in a new, spiritual body, suited to the heavenly life (I Cor. 15:54-57; Rom. 6:8-10, 23; 8:23; 13:11). This organic relationship is not only with the individual, but is also with the body of believers, the brotherhood (iKKXrjcrLa) ; the church is the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:12, 27). The communion is realized in the Supper (I Cor. 10:16, 17; 11:23, 29). Paul knew what according to the evangelic tradition Jesus said about his death being for the benefit of his followers, and his identification of the bread and wine with his body and blood. How further he came to his profound conceptions of oneness and fellowship with the glorified Christ and participation in the life of God through him is not easy to determine. His thinking was akin to the longings of fine religious spirits among the Greeks. Justin, writing just beyond the middle of the second Christian century, says that to look upon 46 OUTLINE OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY 47 God is the end of Plato's philosophy (Karoif/eadai tov deov — tovto yap TcAos T^s nXaTwvos i\oaocf>ias. — Dialogue with TrypJto, 2:6). 5. Titles of Jesus which Paul look over from the Jewish-Christian community assumed for him new meaning. There was in general a broadening and a heightening. Even during his earthly life Jesus was called "Lord," the Semitic term, "17J, preserved by Paul, being applicable to God to indicate rulership and to men deemed worthy of special honor, such as the king. After the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus the term in its application to Jesus was proportionately elevated. The early Pales- tinian disciples who spoke Aramaic called Jesus "our Lord" ("pTJ) — a form preserved not only by Paul (I Cor. 16:22), but also in the Didache (10 : 6). When Christian missionaries came to transfer Hebrew and Aramaic terms to Greek, Kvptos had to do service for mn"' and "'Dli^, as in the Sep- tuagint, and for "i7J. So a common expression with Paul, based on the Ara- maic, is 6 Kvptos YifiSiv. There was a tendency to reserve Kvptos for Jesus and use 0eds of God. The address of prayer to Jesus and the apphcation to him of Old Testament passages that originally referred to God indicated that in their thought God and Jesus occupied similar positions in relation to men. But the Jewish Christians were strictly monotheists, and did not go to the length of caUing Jesus God. Their heaven-exalted saints and heroes like Enoch and Moses and Elijah were not thought divine, and even the Messiah was but a heavenly being chosen and sent by God. As in modern Greek, Kvpte was but a poUte form of address, used in speaking to others as well as to God or Jesus. But for Jevrish Christianity Kupios was employed to express the heavenly, spiritual authority of Jesus the Christ over the community.^ Now Paul was a Jew, and therefore a monotheist ; and although among the heathen there were gods many and lords many, for him as for Mohammed there was no God but one — the Father, of whom are all things (I Cor. 8:4-6).^ But there was also one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him, and as we shall see, the recognition of this mediatorship for Paul's thought carried the movement well on the way toward the high Christology sub- sequently reached. Now no such monotheism prevailed in the gentile world. No insuper- able diflaculty was experienced in ascribing deity to Jesus. Their heroes were called gods, and the emperor was worshiped ; surely Jesus was deserv- " See Case, "Kvpios as a Title for Christ," Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. XXVI, 1907. » J. Weiss {Christus, S. 29) thinks that in the much-discussed passage, Rom. 9:5, Christ is called God, but that the text is corrupt. 47 48 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES ing of no less an honor. It is reported that at Lystra when Paul healed a lame man, the crowd cried out: "The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men;" and they called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, and the priest of Zeus brought bulls and garlands and desired to sacrifice with the crowd (Acts 14:8-13). Again, on the island of Melita, when Paul unharmed shook a snake from his arm into the fire, the friendly barbarians said he was a god (Acts 28:1-6). To this gentile public Christianity had to be presented, and the problems were vastly different from those of the Jewish apologetic. Jesus must be set forth not as the Jews' Messiah, but as the divine Savior, the world's Redeemer from sin. Savior, the Latin form, is the gentile equivalent for Messiah; for the Jews themselves were after salvation, and their hopes went out after a coming Deliverer. Accordingly by Paul and after his time Jesus is interpreted as a world- character; as in the gospels, where he appears as a miracle-worker, a demon-conqueror, Lord over nature, one who commissions for world- evangehsm. The title "Son of God" conveyed a different meaning to the Greek mind from the impression conveyed to the Semitic mind. The older Hebrew conception was mostly an ethical one; God's son was his chosen, his beloved. The gentile took the title literally. He did not distinguish between a heavenly being who was not God and God himself, and Ignatius did not hesitate to call Jesus God. Paul stopped short of this, but went so far as not only to accommodate himself to gentile needs, but in his o^vn thinking to fall into their modes of thought. The Son of God was by nature son; he had been with God from eternity, existing in the di\dne form and being equal with God. As has been already emphasized, to Paul's thought the Son stands in a relation of subordination to and depend- ence on God (I Cor. 3:23; 15:24-28; Phil. 2:9-11). In one passage Paul says that Jesus was appointed (or constituted, 6pLcr9evTo