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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
EARLY HISTORY OF
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
EARLY HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
TO THE TIME OF THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON
BY
J.'F. BETHUNE-BAKER, D.D.
LADY Margaret's pbofessor ok divinmtv amd
FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE
SECOND EDITION
u'^y'..V
\ v ^'v
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published . , . September loth iqcg Second Edition .... iqio
VIRO • I'ERREVERENDO •
lOANNI • REGINALDO • HARMER •
ADELAIDENSIVM ■ EPISCOPO •
HVIVS • INCEPTI • QVONDAM • SVASORI •
NECNON • COLLEGH • MEI • ALVMNIS • QVOS • DVM • DOCEO ■ PLVS • IPSE • DIDICI
PREFACE
In the preparation of tliis volume the writer has been guiderl by the general purpose of the Series of Theological Handbooks of which it is a part. A continuous narrative is given in the text, with as much freedom from technical treatment as the subject allows ; details and authorities are relegated to footnotes, and some special questions and difficulties are dealt with in notes appended to the several chapters.
The chief aim which has been kept in view throughout has been to offer to the student of the history of Christian Doctrine during the first four centuries of the life of the Church such information with regard to the facts and the sources as will enable him to prosecute his study for himself.
It is only a limited period with which the book deals, but a period in which the Christian theory of life — of the relations between God, the World, and Man — was worked out in its chief aspects, and all the doctrines to which the Church of Christ as a whole is pledged were framed. The ' authority ' of these doctrines is only to be understood by study of their history. Their permanent value can only be appreciated by knowledge of the circumstances in which they came to be expressed, knowledge which must certainly precede any restatement of the doctrines, such as is from time to time demanded in the interests of a growing or a wider faith.
That Christian thinkers have been guided at various times, in later ages, towards fuller apprehension of various aspects of human life, and fuller knowledge of the divine economy, must be thankfully acknowledged. But whatever reason there is to hope for further elucidation from the growth of human knowledge in general, and the translation of old doctrine;^ into the terms of the new knowledge, it seems certain that the woi-k of the great leaders of Christian thought in the interpretation of
vil
viii CHRISTIAN OOCTRINK
the Gospel dnrinj: iho earlier ages can never be stipersedcd. They were failed UiK)n, in turn, to meet and to consider in relation to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ nearly all the theories of the world and God wiiieh human speeulMlion and experience have framed in exi)lanation of the mystery of human life; and the conclusions which they reached must still be at least the stJUting-jMjint for any further advance towards niore complete solution of the prol>lem8 with which they had to deal. Chris- tians, whether conservative or prof^ressive, will find in the study of the course through which doctrines were evolved their strongest stay and safeguard.
On the one iiand, if defence of Christian doctrines l)e needed, it is found at its best in the bare history of the process by which they came into existence. On the other hand, in an age when other than the Catholic interpretations of the Gospel and of the Person of Christ are put forward and find favour in unexpected quarters, much heart-searching and laborious enquiry may be saved by the knowledge that similar or identical explanations were ottered and ably advocated centuries ago; that they were tried, not only by intellectual but also by moral tests, and that the experi- ence of life rejected them as inadequate or positively false. The semi-conscious Ebionism and the semi-conscious Docetism, for example, of much professedly Christian thought to-day may recognize itself in many an ancient ' heresy ', and reconsider its position.
The mass of materials available for the study of even the limited part of the subject of Christian Doctrine which is dealt with in this book is so great that it has been necessary to exer- cise a strict economy in references to books and writers, ancient and modern, both English and German, from which much might be learned. I have only aimed at giving guidance to young students, leaving them to turn for fuller information to the larger well-known histories of Doctrine in general and the many special studies of particular doctrines. And as the book is designed to meet the needs of English students, I have seldom cited works that are not accessible to those who read no other language than their own.
I wish that every student of Christian Doctrine could have had the pri\'ilege of hearing the short course of lectures which Professor Westcott used to give in Cambridge. For my own part, I thankfully trace back to them the first intelligible con-
PREFACE ix
ception of the subject which came before me. Some of these lectures were afterwards incorporated in the volume entitled TJie Gospel of Life. 't^
Dr. Harnack's History of Doctrines occupies a position of eminence all its own, and will remain a monument of industry and learning, and an almost inexhaustible treasury of materials. To the English translation of this great work frequent references will be found in the following pages. But the student who is not able to examine the evidence and the conclusions, and to make allowances for Dr. Harnack's peculiar point of view, will still, in my judgement, find Hagenbach's History of Doctrines his best guide to his own work on the subject, although he will need sometimes to supplement the materials which were available when Hageubach wrote.^ He will learn a great deal also from Dorner's Doctrine of tM Person of Christ, from Neander's History of Christian Dogmas and Church History, and from the works of the older English divines, such as Bull's Defence of the Nicene Creed and Pearson's Exposit/ion of the Creed. Works such as these are in no way superseded by the many excellent books and treatises of later scholars, some of which are cited hereafter in regard to particular points.^ Many of the articles in the Dictionary of Christian Biography (ed. Smith and Wace), the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (ed. Smith and Cheetham), and Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible are of great value, while for the Creeds the collection of Hahn (BiUiothek der Syml)ole und Glauhensregeln der alien Kirche) is indispensable.
To two friends, who have special knowledge of different parts of the subject, I am much indebted for help in the revision of the proof-sheets — the Eev. A. E. Burn, rector of Kynnersley, and the Eev. J. H. Srawley, of Selwyn College, the latter in particular having generously devoted much time and care to the work. Their criticisms and suggestions have led in many cases to clearer statement of a point and to the insertion of notes and additional references which will make the book, I hope, in spite
' If he reads German he will do well to tum to Loofs' Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte? (Ritschlian), Seeberg's Lehrlnich (Protestant), and Schwane's Dogmen^eschichte^ (Roman Catholic). For introduction to the chief patristic writings he may consult Bardenhewer's Patrologie, or Swete's Patristic Stttdy in the Series ' Handbooks for the Clergy '.
^ Special attention may be directed to two volumes of this series — Mr. Ottley's Doctrine of the Incarnation and Mr. Bum's Irdroduct,iora /-o the, History of the Creeds, and to Dr. Swete's The Apostles' Creed.
X CHRISTIAN nOCTRINK
of all tho iiiip«^rfrotions t.haf reninin. nior<' useful foi' its purpose than it. would othorwiso have boon.
In the oarlier part of the biH)k 1 had also the advantage (if the criticism of Dr. Robertson, tlie Editor of this Series, who, oven when the pressure of preparation for his removal from Ixjndon to Kxeter left him uo leisure, most kindly made time for the ])urp()se.
Finally, I have to thank the Syndics of tho (^ambridge Univeisity Press, and the Dean of Westminster, as Editor of the Series Tcria and Studies, for ]>ermi8sion to make use of various not<?s — and in some cases whole pages — front The Meamiiuj of Homocnu^im in the ' Covstontinupolitan ' Creed, which 1 contribiit^ed to that Series (vol. vii no. 1). T have not thought it necessary to include within inverted commas such passages as I have taken straight over, but when I have merely summarized con- clusions, for which the evidence is more fully stated there, I have appended a reference to the volume.
The book, as T have indicated, makes no claim to originality. It only aims at being a sketch of the main lines of the historical developement of doctrine down to the time of the Council of Chalcedon.^ But I am, of coui-se, conscious that even history must be written from some ' point of view ', and I have expressed, as clearly as I can, the point of view from which I have ap- proached the subject in the introduction which follows.
I believe that this point of view, from which Christian doctrines are seen as human attempts to interpret human ex- periences— the unique personality of Jesus of Nazareth supreme among those human experiences, is a more satisfying one than some standpoints from which the origin of Christian doctrines may appear to be invested with more commanding power of appeal. As such I have been accustomed to offer it to the attention of students at an age when the constraint is often felt for the first time to find some standpoint in these matters for oneself.
But any point of view — any kind of real personal conviction and appropriation — is better than none: and one which we
^ Though much independent work over old ground has been bestowed upon it, and no previous ^v^ite^ has been followed without an attempt to form an inde- jiendent judgement, yet the nature of the case precludeb real iudependence, except to some extent in treatment.
PREFACE xi
ca,nnot accept may serve to make clearer and more definite, or even to create, the point of view which is true for us. Salvo jure commimionis diversa sentire — different opinions without loss of the rights of communion — opposite points of view without disloyalty to the Catholic Greeds and the Church — these words, which embody the conception of one of the earliest and keenest of Cliristian controversialists and staunchest of Catholics,^ express a thought more widely honoured now than it was in Cyprian's day.
It is in the hope that this sketch of some parts of the early history of Christian doctrines may be useful in some such way that it is published now.
J. F. BETHUNE-BAKER.
Pbmbeoke Collkoe, Oambeidqe, \st May 1903.
^ They are the words in which Augustine (de Bajptismo 17 — Migue P.L. xliii p. 202) describes the principles of Cyprian.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
In the studies of which this book, published in 1903, was the outcome, I had set before myself an aim as purely objective as possible. I desired to ascertain, and to state as clearly as I could, what had been the actual course of the developement of Christian Doctrine so far as it was exhibited in contemporary documents as they have come down to us. I wanted to detect and to mark the stages that bridge the interval between tJie New Testament and the Council of Chalcedon, and to understand, rather than to account for and explain, what the leaders of thought in the Church actually said and meant. Only so far as was necessary for this main purpose was I concerned with the roots of any particular elements of their thought in current philosophies or popular religious speculation and worship.
It was not my purpose to vindicate the results of the wonderful process by which One who was undoubtedly a man was found by Christian experience to have the value of God ; and earlier ideas of God, His being and nature, were amended and enlarged in the light of this experience, and the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Trinity elaborated. Nor was I con- cerned to justify, or to claim finality for, the definitions of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, closely dependent as they could not fail to be on the historical knowledge and the philosophical and scientific conceptions of the time — knowledge and conceptions which I certainly cannot regard as nearer finality than are those of our own age when the latter conflict with the former.
The problem before the Christian philosopher to-day is how to appraise and retain the religious values of old beliefs of the Church which have lost their original correspondence with con- temporary knowledge and ideas. Critical study of the origins of these old beliefs, such as is absent from this book, is necessary
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xiii
before a valuation of this kind can be made. During the last twenty years much fresh knowledge has come to hand about these origins. Old documents have been studied by minds not hypnotized by orthodox presuppositions, and fresh materials have been discovered or made more generally accessible. Were I to-day attempting to write a critical history of Christian Doctrine I should have to draw on many sources of information which were not utilized by me in the years before 1903.
But owing to the restricted range of the subject dealt with in the book, I find but little that I should wish to alter if I were free to rewrite the whole. Only perhaps at three points would it be desirable to make modifications of any moment, if I kept to my original scheme.
The real evolution of the study of the subject that has taken place in recent years concerns much more the very earliest beginnings than the succeeding history, the religious thought and practice of the first century and the second, the documents of the New Testament, rather than the writings of the Fathers. The Gospels and the other books of the New Testament are no longer so isolated as they have been in the past from other religious literature of their period — neither in language nor in ideas. We are able to appreciate more justly the originality that belongs to them when we study them in relation to their real background. And when we no longer make the portentous assumption that the Gospels are a photographic representation in writing of the actual facts of our Lord's life and the very words of His teaching, the writers being miraculously preserved from any of the errors and ten- dencies which affect other historians and propagandists, we are for the first time in a position to make a critical study of the origins of the Christian Eeligion and to form a sane judgement as to the real course of events. We can discriminate sources and strata, tendencies and purposes, points of view and schools of thought. To some extent at least we can detect earlier and later versions of incidents ; we can compare different traditions and estimate their historical values. But nothing of this kind was possible for the men who framed and formulated the traditional Doctrine of the Church. Though some of them were peculiarly influenced by one or other of the many lines of interpretation and exposition which the New Testament reflects, yet for the Church it was the Bible as a whole — parts of the Old Testament
xiv CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
qnite as certainly as Uie New — to whir-li Doctrine miist confonu. The Bible \va« jicoeptcHl as it stooil, without any critical diH- criuiinatiou, us wlioliv authoritativa Accordinj^ly, for the undcrstandinj^ of the doctrinal developcmontH of the ancient (Jhuivh, we have to exclude from i>ur minds the rosnlts of modern iuvoslijifatioji into the literary connexionn and the historical value of the documents that make up our New Tcst^iment. Discussions about the true text and the true mean- ing of different passages were common enough, and if more ' heretical ' writings had been preserved we should probaldy find 1-oflected in them much more of the modern historical sense than survived in the d«)ctrinal system of the Church ; but that system was built up on the assumption that the sacred books of the Church were infallible guides to truth, and we should not be helped to understand the subject before us by any other view of them.
Apart, therefore, from details of minor importance, so far as concerns the subject of this book, it is with regard to Gnosticism, the Mystery Religions, and Nestorianism only, I think, that fresh investigations since 1903 have added materially to our knowledge, either of the background of Christian thought and institutions or of the actual facts. But even here competent judges are by no means entirely at one as to the true inter- pretation of the new facts that have come to light, and I am not clear that I could amend what I have written on the subjects with advantage to the class of students who have found the book useful.
Accordingly, in these difficult times I have not thought it necessary to make alterations in the text which would entail the cost and labour of re-setting the book as a whole. I have contented myself vdth correcting a few misprints and supplying an Appendix with references to fresh work and evidence and brief indications of the new points to which the attention of students should be directed. Some of these * additional notes ' are, in my judgement, of considerable importance.
The Council of Chalcedon was, of course, deliberately chosen as the limit of the period to be treated, The decisions arrived at then have been normative for the Church to a degree not reached by later decisions. Yet the questions at issue become far clearer in the light of the later Monophysite and Monothelite controversies, without study of which the real spirit and the
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xv
full drift of the Doctrine of the ancient Church cannot be adequately understood. As regards restatement of Doctrine, almost all that happened afterwards down to the eighteenth century may be ignored, but not the Monophysite and Monothelite controversies themselves. The best short account of these controversies known to me is given in the third volume of M. J. Tixeront's excellent Histoire des Dogmes (Paris, 1905- 1912), where also other controversies bearing on the nature of the conditions of our Lord's life on earth may be studied. These are live questions to-day.
Absurd as it is, in my judgement, to permit the doctrinal speculations of the Church of the first or of any later century to fetter and control the thought of the Church of the twentieth, I am yet convinced that study of the early period is the best preparation for that reconstruction of Christian Doctrine in relation to modern knowledge that must be effected in the near future if the Church is still to offer men a Gospel worthy to claim the allegiance of their mind, their heart, and their soul, and so to engage their whole personality and become the faith by which they walk.
J. F. B.-B.
Cambridge, I9th November 1919
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTEODUCTORY
The scope of the book — Wliat Christian Doctrines are The part played by heresies . Gradual progress and develop^ment Notes : Dogma . i
aipeais deoXoyia-
-deoKoyeiv
PAGE
(note) 2
3-5
5
6
7
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNINGS OF DOCTRINES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The New Testament gives the earliest interpretations
The doctrine of God ....
The doctrine of Man — of Sin .
The doctrine of Atonement .
The doctrine of the Church and ot the Sacraments
Baptism .
the Eucharist
9-11 11-15 16-18 19-21 22-23 23-27 27-32
CHAPTER III
THE DEYELOPEMENT OF DOCTRINE
Different theories in explanation of tlie dcvelopement of doctrine-
(1) Corruption and degeneration (the Deists) .
(2) Disciplina arcani (Trent)
(3) Developement (Newman) In what sense developement occurred Influence of Greek thought on the expref^iou of docU iiv
Note: OiKovofxia, 'Accommodation', 'Reserve'
xv'd
33 34 36 36 38 39
will
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
CHAPTER IV
TTIF ROURCKS OF DOCTRINK: ORAL TRAT)TTTON—
HOLY SCRIPTURE
l'!arlio8t idea of Christian inspiration
of tradition Inspiration of Scripture : dilfcreuL conceptions — Jewish ....
Glcntile ....
Philo .....
The Ajiostolic Fathi'is .
Muratorian Fiagnieul of the Canon
The Apologists ....
Irenaeus .....
Olomont and Origen Interpretation of Scriptui-e. The written word —
Homer .....
Philo .....
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement
Origen's theory ....
The Cappadociane — Tyconius, Augustine — The 6c Antioch ....
The place of tradition in interpretation —
Irenaeus . . . . •
Tertullian . • . •
Vincent . . . • •
hool of
l-AOH
41 42
4.3 44 44 45 45 46 47 48
49
51
52, 53
53
55
65 67 59
CHAPTER V
JEWISH ATTEMPTS AT I:NTERPRETAT10N. EBIONISM
Characteristic Jewish conceptioiiB Ebionism —
Different degrees . .
Cerinthus . •
The Clementines .
NoTK : Chilia-sm
62
63-65
65 f.
66 f. 68 fl.
CHAPTER VI
GENTILE ATTEMPTS AT INTERPRETATION. GNOSTICISM
Characteristics of Oriental religious thought
The problem of evil ......
Oriental ideas applied to the Christian revelation .
72
73-75
75
CONTENTS
XIX
The Gnostics — their aims and clafssitication of the various schools The earlier representatives of Gnostic conceptions Marciou and his followers ....
Carpocrates and his followers — The Cainites and Ophites The School of Basilides ..... The Valentinians .....
The inriuence of Gnosticiani on the developement of Christian doctrine ......
Note : Manicheism .....
PAOK
76-79 79-81 81-84 84-86 86-88 86-91
91-9a
CHAPTEE VII
THE REACTION AGAINST GNOSTICISl^L MONARCHIANISM
The ' Monarchian ' School of interpreters prompted by ' orthodox '
intention ....
Attempts at explanation which should maintain alike the oneness
of God and the divinity of Christ Two main Schools —
(a) Dynamic or Rationalistic (/>) Modalistic or ' Patripassian ' The Alogi the point of departure for both Schools
(a) The Theodotians Artemon .... Paul of Samosata
(b) Praxeas and Noetus . Sabellius and his followers .
Sympathy with Sabellianism at Rome Noi'ES : Nova ti an Hippolytiis Beryllus
Monarchian exegesis Lucian .... Paul of Samosata and o/xoovo-los
96
97
97
97
98
98
99
100-102
102-104
104-106
106
107
108
109
110
110
111
CHAPTER VIII
THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN DIONYSIUS OF ROME AND DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA
Significance of this correspondence . . . . . 113
The points at issue ....... 114-115
Diverse uses of the equivocal terms ovala and vTroa-Taais and con- fusion due to Latin rendering of ova-ia by substantia . . 116-118
XX
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
CHAPTER IX
Till'. LOGOS DOCTRINE
The Doctrine fully expressed iii uutline iu the pi'ologue to the Clospel acconling to St. John, but not fully apprerialed ; ditferent iiaj^ecte and relations of the doctrine represented by ditleri'nt early Christian writer,* — these to be rej^arded as typical and couipleuienUiry rather than bh mutually e.x- cluHive ....
The Epistles of Ignatius
dyfvrjros and dytri/r/rov The Letter to Diognetus Justin Martyr
The Human Soul in Christ. Tatian .....
TheophiluB ....
In all three the distinction recognized is cosmic rather than hypo- static ........
Athenagoras — his fuller recognition of the problem . Ireuaens — important contributions to the doctrine , riement of Alexandria ......
The Logos Doctrine superseded by the Doctrine of the Sonship
P*OH
. 119, 120
121 . (note) 122
123 . 124-126 . (note) 125
126
127
128 128, 129 129-132 133-130 136-137
CHAPTER X
TERTULLIAN'S DOCTRINE OF THE GODHEAD
Tertullian's use of terms and analogies Doctrine of the Sonehip and the Trinity The full Nicene and Chalcedonian doctrine
138
140-144
144
CHAPTER XI
ORIGEN'S DOCTRINE OF THE GODHEAD
The great importance and influence of Origen
The basis of his doctrine
The eternal generation of the Son
The Trinity ....
Apparently con trad ictorj- teaching
145
14G
147
148
148, 14y
CONTENTS
XXI
The fitness of the Incarnation
His teaching Nicene ....
NoTK : Origenistic theology and controversies
PAGE
150
151 162-154
CHAPTEK XTI
THE ARIAN C0NTR0VEK8Y
Introductory — the previous course of the doctrine and the causes
of the controversy . . . . . 155, 156
Arius and his teaching ...... 156-160
The sources of knowledge of Arian theories .... 157, 158
The developenient of the doctrine of the Person of Christ
be lure Arius ...... (note) 157
The sources of knowledge of Arian theories . (note) 157-158
Arian interpretation of Scripture ..... 161-163
Outbreak of controversy and history up to Council of Nicaea . 163, 164
The Council of Nicaea and its Creed .... 165-170
The Reaction after Nicaea — personal and doctrinal . . . 171
Attempts to supersede the Nicene Creed — Council of Antioch 3 U . 172
Its second Creed ....... 173-175
Its other Creeds . . . . . . . 175
Opposition of the West to any new Creed — Council of Sardica 343 176
Renewed attempt to seciire a non-Nicene Creed — the fiaKpotrnxos
SKdeais ........ 176
Condemnation of Photinus and tranquillization of the ' moderates ' :
subsidence of fears of Sabellianism . . . . 177
Developeraent of extreme form of Arianism after death of Constans 178
The Council of Sirmium 357 . . . . 179
Arianism in the West ..... (note) 179
The Sirmian manifesto ..... (note) 180
Protests of the ' moderates ' in the East .... 181
The * Homoean ' compromise . ..... 182-185
Gradual conversion of ' Semi-Arians ' and convergence of parties
to the Nicene definition ...... 185-187
Final victory of the Nicene interpretation at the Council of Con- stantinople ....... 187-189
The ' Constantinopolitan ' Creed .... (note) 188
Arianism outside the Empire, and the causes of the failure of Arianism ..... (note) 189
Notes : Marcellus ...... 190-192
Homoiousios and the Homoeans . . . 192-193
The meaning of Homoousios in the 'Constantino- politan' Creed . . . . . . 193
*By the WiU of the Father' . . . . 194
Movoyfvris — Unigenitus — Unicus . . . 195
XX a
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINli:
ClIAITKi: XIII
THK DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE TKINITY
The coursp tlirom^li wliich the iloi^trine wenl
Tlie Old Tfstnment and the New Teslaiiienf doctrine
The early Church .......
The full doctrine expressed by Tertullian . . . .
Origen's exposition of the doctrine — the first eystematic attempt at a scientific expression of it in view of difhcultie-s suggested Teaching in the Church just before the outbreak of Arianism —
Gregory Thauniaturgus .....
Dionysius of Alexandria .....
Ensebius of Caesarea .....
The Arian theories — not emphasized and for a time ignored
The teaching that was given in the Church in the middle of t'h
fourth century shewn by Cyril of Jerusalem's lecture.'* Need for authoritative guidance as to the doctrine . The teaching of Athanasius (the Letters to Sarapwa) and of Hilary (the de Trinitate)
The new theories of Macedonius ....
The doctrine declared at Alexandria in 362 and at subsequent
s>Tiods in the East and in the West The Epiphanian Creed .....
The procession of the Spirit — relation to Father and Son
Basil's treatise on the Holy Spirit
(iregory of Nyssa, ' that there are not three Glods '
The prevailing uncertainty reflected in the sermons of Gregory of
Naziauzus .... The Council of Constantinople
Augustine's statement of the doctrine
The ir(pi)(i>pricns
Niceta on the doctrine of the Spirit Notes : Substantia ....
Persona ....
Oixria and vTrocrravis
PAeR
197
198, 11)9
199
200
201 -204
204 205 205
206
206-209 209
209-212 212
212
213,214
214-217
(note) 215
217-219 220-222
222-224 224
225-231 (note) 226 (note) 231 231-233 233-235 235-238
CONTENTS
xxm
CHAPTERS XIY-XVI— THE CHRTSTOLOaiCAL CON-
TEOVERSIES OF THE FOUETH A^D FIFTH CENTUEIES
CHAPTEE XIV APOLLINAEIANISxM
PAGE
The results of previous developement of doctrine . , . 239, 240
The points of departure of Apollinarius and his theories . . 240-243
Objections to them and his defence .... 243-246
The union of the two natures not satisfactorily expressed . . 246, 247
Notes : The Human Soul in Christ .... 247-249
The Human Will in Christ .... 249-250
How can Chiist be ' complete man ' and ' without
sin'?. . . . . . . 250-252
The Athanasian Creed .... 252-254
CHAPTEE XV
NESTOEIANISM
The theological schools of Alexandria and Antioch ,
The teaching of Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia
The outbreak of the controversy — Nestorius at Constantinople The title deoronos .....
Cyril of Alexandria — denunciation of the Nestorian teaching Cyril's Anathemas and the answers of Nestorius Their signiticance and the reception given to them Cyril's dogmatic letter .....
Earlier teaching in the Church on the subject (Tertullian, Origen. Athanasius) ......
The Council of Ephesus and the victory of Cyril
The terms of agreement between Cyril and the Antiochenerf -the Union Creed ......
Dissatisfaction on both sides with the definitions — Cyril's defence of them ......
The strength and the weakness of Nestorianism
Suppression of Nestorianism within the Empire
NoTKS : deo(l)opos oivdpamos ....
The Nestorian (East-Syrian) Church .
255 256-260
260 261, 262
262 263-266
267 267-269
269, 270
270, 271
272
273-274
274-275 276
276-279 279
XXIV
CHRISTIAN DOCTRlNli
CHAPTER XVI
EUTYCHIANISM
The teaching of Etitychefl — his condemnation ,
Appeal to the West and counter-attack on Klavian . The Council <>f Kphefius .....
Victory of the Eutychians through the Emperor's support
Death of Theodosius — A new Council summoned The Council of Chalcedon and its Definition of the Faith .
The letter of Leo to Flavian .... The lattr hisU)ry of Eutychiauisni — the Monophysites
NoiKti : The communicatio idiomatum .
Christ's human nature impersonal
Tlie Kiuaxrit .....
2R1 -28-J
282-283
283
284
284, 285
285-287
288-292
292
293
294
294-300
CHAPTER XVII
THE DOCTRINE OF MAN— SIN AND GRACE— PELAGIANISM
Introductory : the difficulties of the doctrine not faced in the earliest times .......
Different theories aa to the origin of the Soul . Different conceptions of the Fall and its effects The teaching of Augustine ......
Contrast between him and Pelagius . . . .
BUs doctrine of humau nature, sin, grace
,, „ freedom of will .....
Novel teaching on other points — predeaLinalion, reprobation . The opposition of Pelagius ......
His antecedents and the chief principles which controlled his thought and teaching ......
The Pelagian controversy — Coelestius . . . .
The first stage at Carthage — condemnation of Coelestius
The second stage in Palestine : attack on Pelagius by Jerome
and Orosius — acquittal by the Palestinian bishops . The third stage — appeal to Rome : condemnation of Pelagius and Coelestius by Innocent, followed by their acquittal by Zosimus .......
The fourth stage — condemnation of all Pelagian theses by the
Council of Carthage in 418, followed by imperial edicts
against the Pelagians, and their final condemnation at Rome
Tiie ultimate issue of the controversy . . . .
Julian of Eclanum ......
301
302-305
305-307
308-312
308
309
310
.311-312
312-313
313-316 316 316
317
318
319-320
320
(note) 320
CONTENTS
XXV
PAOK
Attempts to mediate between the two extremes of Pelagianism and
Augustinianism— Senii-Pelagianism .... ,321
John Cassian — his teaching ..... .321 -.32.3
Faustus of Lerinum and Rhegium .... 323-324
The later history of the doctrine ..... 324-326
CHAPTER XVIII
THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT
Diffei'ent points of viev/, but no definite theory, in early times
The Apostolic Fathers (Clement, E-pistle of Barnabas^ Hernias,
Ignatius) Justin Martyr The Writer to Diognetus Tertullian Irenaeus — doctrine of the Incarnation and theory of Satan's
dominion Origen — Ransom to the Devil .
Other aspects of the Atonement Gregory of Nyssa Rufinus .... Gregory of Nazianzus Athanasius Augustine Summary of the teaching of the period
Notes : ' Heretical ' conceptions of the Atonement
The Doctrine of Merit (Tertullian and Cyprian)
327-328
328-330
330-332
332
333
333-337 337 338-340 340-342 342 343-345 345-340 349-35] .351-352 352-353 353-355
CHAPTER XIX
THE CHURCH
General conceptions (no thought-out doctrine till Cyprian) A new spiritual society and organization One, holy, catholic, apostolic : — these ' notes ' implied from the Ignatius ....
'Catholic' . Irenaeus — the Church as teacher Tertullian's conception .
The commission to Peter Clement and Origen Cyprian's conception The Episcopate Cyril of Jerusalem Augustine Notes : The Penitential System
The Bishops as the centre of unity
first
356 357 357 . 357-359 . (note) 358 . 359-360 . 360-362 . (note) 362 . .362-363 . 363-366 . (note) 364 . 366-368 . 368-372 . 372-373 . 373-375
XXVI
CHRISTIAN DOCTKlNi:
CHMTEK XX
THl-: SACRAMENTS— lUPTTRM
Opiipral concoption of a sucrament — the use uf Lho term
Early anueptions of Iwptism : tlit* names for it, the form, what
efl'ected — New Tei^tAment and Liter J u.otin Martyr on baptism Tertullian ....
The idea of the water Cyprian ....
Cyril of .)eru.«alem (the rites ami their significance) Aml'ro'te on baptism (his peculiar conceptions) K0TK8-; Martyrdom as baptism Heretical baptism Baptism by laymen The Unction and Confiriuatiuu
it
rAdR a7(V-377
378-3R0 380-381
381 (note) 381
382 383-384 384-385
38fi 386-388 388-390 39f>-392
CHAPTER XXI THE SACRAMENTS— THE EUCHARIST
[NoTF. — The different theories which have been held in later times, namely, Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, the 'eacra^ mentarian ' theory, the ' receptionist ' theory, the Anglican
statement of the real presence.] .... 393-396
The Eucharist at first connected with the Agape . . . 397 Early conceptions of the eflfect of consecration — the Didache,
the Christians of Bithynia, Ignatius, Justin . . , 397-399
Irenaeus ........ 399-402
The conception of the elements as symbols (only a distinction
in thought) ....... 402-403
The conception of the Eucharist as a sacrifice — Clement,
Ignatius, Justin, Cyprian ..... 404-406
Clement of Alexandria (the Agape) and Origen . . 406-409
Cyril of Jerusalem ...... 409-411
Eusebius and Athanasius ..... (note) 409
Gregory of Nyssa (marked developement of conceptions) . 411-415
Chrysostom ....... 415-416
Ambrose and Augustine ..... 416-418
Notes : Infant Communion . . . . . 418
Death-bed Communion .... 419
Daily celebration of the Eucharist . . . 419
Reservation of the Sacrament . . . 420-422
Oblations for the dead .... 422-424
The Ancient Mysteries .... 424
The Eucharist the extension of the Incarnation (Hilary) 425
The Eucharistic doctrine in early Liturgies . . 426
AppE>rDix ........ 429
Index ........ 445
EARLY HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
CHAPTER I
Introductory
Christian Doctrines and Theology — Heresies
The scope of this book is not the presentation of a system of dogmatic theology, but only a sketch of the history of Christian doctrine during the first four hundred years of its course. We have not to attempt to gain a general view of Christian truth so far as it has been realized at present in the Christian society, but only to trace through some of its early stages the gradual developement of doctrine.
Christianity — the student of Christian doctrine needs always to remember — is not a system, but a life ; and Christian doctrine is the interpretation of a life. Jesus taught few, if any, doc- trines : his mission was not to propound a system of metaphysics or of ethics. If the question be put, What is the Christian revelation ? the answer comes at once. The Christian revelation is Christ himself. And Christian doctrine is an attempt to describe the person and hfe of Jesus, in relation to Man and the World and God : an attempt to interpret that person and life and make it intelligible to the heart and mind of men. Or, from a slightly different point of view, it may be said that Christian doctrines are an attempt to express in words of formal statement the nature of God and Man and the World, and the relations between them, as revealed in the person and life of Jesus.
The history of Christian doctrine must therefore shew the
2 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
manner in which those statoments were drawn up, the circum- stances whicli called them forth : how the meaning of the earthly life and experiences of Jesus was more and more fully disclosed to the consciousness of the Church in virtue of her own enlarged experionco.
The history of Christian doctrine is not concerned with the evidences of Christianity, internal or external ; nor with the proof or the defence of the ' doctrines ' thus formulated. That is the province of Apologetics. Nor does it deal with religious controversy, or Polemics, except so far as such controversy has actually contrihuted to the developement of doctrine and the elucidation of dilliculties. Thus, while we have to follow up the history of many heresies, we have to do this only in so far as they constitute one of the most impressive instances of the great law of ' Progress through Conflict ' which is written over tlie history of human life : — the law that the ultimate attainment of the many is rendered possible only by the failure of the few, that final success is conditioned by previous defeat.^
The supreme end to which Christian theology is directed is
the full intellectual expression of the truth which was manifested
to men, once for all, in the person and life of Jesus; and the
history of Christian doctrine is the record of the steps which
^ In this way 'heresies' have rendered no small service to theological science. The defence of the doctrines impugned and the di.scussion of the points at issue led to a deeper and clearer view of the subject. Subtle objections when carefully wei<;hed, and half-truths when exposed, became the occasion of more accurate statements. " A clear, coherent, and fundamental presentation is one of the strongest arguments. Power of statement is power of argument. It precludes misrepresenta- tion ; it corrects mis-statements " (Shedd). It is true the early Christian ' orthodox ' writers seldom regard the influence of 'heretics' as anything but pernicious {e.g. Eusebius reflects the popular opinion that all heretics were agents of the devil, and applies to them such epithets as these — grievous wolves, a pe.stilent and scabby disease, incurable and dangerous poison, more abominable than all shame, double-mouthed and two-headed serpents. See II. E. 11; ii 1, 13; iii 26-29; iv 7, 29, 30 ; v 13, 14, 16-20). Yet some of the greatest of the Fathers were able to recognize this aspect of the matter. See Origen H<ym,. ix in Num.: " Nam si doctrina eccle.siastica simplex esset et nullis intrinsecus haereticoram dogmatum assertionibus cingeretur, non poterat tam clara et tam examinata videri fides nostra. Sed idcirco doctrinam catholicam contradicentium obsidet oppug- natio. ut fides nostra non otio torpescat, sed exercitiis elimetur." And similarly (as Cyprian de unit, eccles. 10, before him), Augustine Confess, vii 19 (2.5), could write : " Truly the refutation of heretirs brings into clearer relief the meaning of thy Church and the teaching of sound doctrine. For there needs must be heresies, in order that those who are approved may be made manifest among the weak," (Cf, Aug. de Civ. Dei xviii 51.)
INTRODUCTORY 3
were taken in order to reach the end in view — the record of the partial and progressive approximation to that end.^ For several centuries men were but ' feeling after ' satisfactory expressions of this truth. To many of them St Paul's words to the Athenians on the Areopagus still applied.^ Even those who accepted Jesus and the Christian revelation with enthusiasm were still groping in the dark to find a systematic expression of the faith that filled their hearts. They experienced the difficulty of putting into words their feelings about the Good-News. Language was inadequate to pourtray the God and the Saviour whom they had found. Not even the great interpreters of the first generation were enabled to transmit to future ages the full significance of the life which they had witnessed. And as soon as ever men went beyoud the simple phrases of the apostolic writers and, instead of merely repeating by rote the scriptural words and terms, tried to express in their own language the great facts of their faith, they naturally often used terms which were inadequate — which, if not positively misleading, erred by omission and defect. Such expressions, when the consequences flowing from them were more clearly seen, and when they were proved by experience to be inconsistent with some of the funda- mental truths of Christianity, a later age regarded only as * archaisms ', if it was clear that those who used them intended no opposition to the teaching of the Church.^ Often, it is evident, men were led into * heresy ' by the attempt to combine with the new religion ideas derived from other systems of thought. From all quarters converts pressed into the Church, bringing with them a different view of life, a different way of looking at such questions ; and they did not easily make the new point of view their own. They embraced Christianity at one point
^ Professor Westcott used to define Christian doctrine as ' a partial and progi'es- sive approximation to the full intellectual expression of the truth manifested to men once for all in the Incarnation '. Cf. Gospel of Life.
2 Acts 17^.
^ Thus Augustine c?e PraedesHnatione c. 14, says : " What is the good of scrutin- izing the works of men who before the rise of that heresy had no need to busy them- selves with this question, which is so hard to solve. Beyond doubt tliey would have done so, if they had been obliged to give an answer on the subject." So against the Pelagians he vindicates Cyprian, Ambrose, and Rufinus. Cf de dono Perseveranliat'. c. 20, and the two volumes of liis own Retractations. In like manner Athanasius defended Dionysius of Alexandria against the Arians (see infra), and Pelagius ii {Ep. 5. 921) declared "Holy Church weigheth the hearts of her faithful ones with kindliness rather than their words with rigour ".
4 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
or another, not at all points ; and they tried to bring the expression of Christian doctrine into harmony with pre- conceived ideas. And not unfre'iuently it would seem that C'hristian thinkers und teacliers, conscious of tlio force of objections from outside, or impressed by the conviction that beliefs which were widely current must contain some element of truth, were induced to go half-way to meet the views of those they wished to win. In the main, however, it would apjiear that ' heresies ' arose from the wish to understand. The endowments of man include a mind and a reasoning faculty, and doctrine which is offered to him as an interpretation of the whole of his being — the whole of his life — he must needs try to grasp with the whole of his nature. He must try to make it his own and express it in his own words, or else it cannot be real to him, it cannot be living. In this process he is certain to make mis- tiikes. And the remarkable fact about the history of Christian theology is that in almost every case the expression of Christian doctrine was drawn out — was indeed forced upon the Church as a whole — by the mistakes of early theologians. By their mistakes the general feeling of the faithful — the great common sense of the Catholic Church — was aroused, and set to work to find some phrase which would exclude the error and save the members of the Church in future from falling into a like mistake. So it was that the earliest creeds were of the scantiest dimen- sions, and slowly grew to their present form, step by step, in the process of excluding — on the part of the Church as a whole — the erroneous interpretations of individual members of the Church. Such individuals had drawii their inferences too hastily : fuller knowledge, longer deliberation, and consideration of all the consequences which would flow from their conclusions shewed them to be misleading, inadequate to account for all the facts. Those who persisted in the partial explanation, the in- complete and therefore misleading theory, after it had been shewn to be inadequate, the Church called heretics, factious subverters of truth. Clearly they could not be allowed to proclaim a mutilated gospel under the shelter of the Catholic Church. As members of that Church they had initiated dis- cussion and stimulated interest, without which progress in know- ledge, the developement of doctrine — the nearer approximation to a full interpretation — would have been impossible. But when they seized on a few facts as though they were all the
INTRODUCTORY 6
facts, and from these few framed theories to explain and interpret all ; when they put forward a meagre and immature conception as a full-grown representation of the Christian idea of life, — then the accredited teachers of Christianity were bound to protest against the one-sided partial developement, and to meet it by expansions of the creed which should exclude the error, and to frame formal statements of the mind of the Church to serve as guides to future generations — landmarks to prevent their straying from the line of ascertained truth. So creeds grew, and heresies were banished from the Church.
DOGMA
The word properly means that which has seemed good, been agreed or decided upon : so an opinion, and particularly, as having been determined by authority, a decree or an edict, or a precept. In this sense it is used by Plato, and Demosthenes, and in the Septuagint ; and in the New Testament of (1) a particular edict of the emperor (Luke 2^) ; (2) the body of such edicts (Acts 17'^); (3) the ordinances of the Mosaic law (Eph. 2^^, Col. 2^*) ; (4) the decisions of the apostles and elders at the 'Council' at Jerusalem (Acts 16*, cf. IS'^*^), which dealt particularly with ritual questions. It is nowhere in the New Testament used of the contents or ' doctrines ' of Christianity. The Stoics, how- ever, employed the word to express the theoretical ' principles ' of their philosophy (e.g. Marc. Aurel. Medit. 2. 3, Tavrd a-oi dpKetVo), ael 86y/j.aTa lo-Tw), and it bears a similar sense in the first Christian writers who used it: Ignatius ad Mar/n. 13, 'the dogmata of the Lord and the Apostles' (here perhaps 'rules of life'); the Didache 11. 3 (a similar sense), and Barnabas Ep. 1. 6, 9. 7, 10. 1, 9 ; and more precisely in the Greek Apologists, to whom Christianity was a philosophy of life, who apply the word to the doctrines in which that philosophy was formu- lated. And though much later Basil de Spiritu Sancto 27 seems to contrast ^oyfiara, as rites and ceremonies with mystic meaning derived from tradition, with K-qpvyjjLara, as the contents of the Gospel teaching and Scripture ; yet generally the term in the plural denoted the whole substance of Christian doctrine (see e.g. Cyril of Jerusalem Cat. iv 2, where So'y/xa as relating to faith is contrasted with Trpo^is, which has to do with moral action : " The way of godliness is composed of these two things, pious doctrines and good actions," — the former being the source of the latter ; and Socrates Hist, ii 44, where Soy/Aa is similarly set in antithesis to rf rjOiKrj BiSaaKakia). Hence the general significance — a doctrine whicli in the eyes of the Church is essential in the true inter- pretation of the Christian faith, and therefore one the acceptance of
6 CHRISTIAN DUCTRINK
which may be requireil of nil Christians {i.e. not merely a subjective opinion or conception of » particular theologian). It is not the interpre- tation of any individual, or of any particular community, that can be trusted. Just as the oecumenicity of a council liopends upon iU^ acknow- ledgement by the Church as a whole, and a council at which the whole Church was not represented might attain the honour of oecumenicity by 8ub8e(iuent recognition and acceptance {cij. the Council of Constan- tinople of 381); 6o no 'dogma' (though individuals may contribute to it« expression) is authoritative till it has passed the test of the general feeling of the Church na a whole, the ' communis sensus fidelium', and by that been accepted.
Arpttrts— HER?:SY
Aipco-t?, the verbal nonn from aipcVj, atpficr^ai, is commonly used both in the active sense of 'rapture' and in the middle sense of 'choice'. It is tlie middle sense only with which we are concerned, and especially the limited sense of ' choice of an opinion '. Hence it is used of those who have chosen a particular opinion of their own, and follow it/ — a 'school of thought', a party, the followers of a particular teacher or principle.
In this usage the word is originally colourless and neutral, implying neither that the opinion chosen is true nor that it is false.
So it is used in the New Testament of the ' schools ' of the Sadducees (Acts 5^^) and Pharisees (Acts 15*), and of the Christians — 'the a'pco-is of the Nazaraeans ' (Acts 245- ^*). It is true that in all these cases the word is used by those who are unfavourably disposed to the schools of thought which are referred to ; but disparagement is not definitely associated with it. And Constantine uses it of the doctrine of the Catholic Church (?; aipeai^ rj KaBoXiKrj — Euseb. X 5. 21), just as TertuUian frequently uses * secta '.
But though the Christian Society as a whole may be in this way designated a ai/jccris, inside the Society there is no room for aipctreis. There must not be ' parties ' within the Church. It is Christ himself who is divided into parts, if there are (1 Cor. \^^). And so, as applied to diversities of opinion among Christians themselves, the word assumes a new colour (1 Cor. 11^®), and is joined to terms of such evil significance as epiddai ' factions ' and Sixoa-racriai ' divisions ' (Gal. 5^).
The transition from the earlier to the later meaning of the word is well seen in the use of the adjective in Tit. 3^°, where St Paul bids Titus have nothing to do with a man who is atpcrtKos if he is unaflfected by repeated admonition. This is clearly the 'opinionated' man, who obstinately holds by his own individual choice of opinion (' obstinate ', * factious '). So the man who in matters of doctrine forms his own opinion, and, though it is opposed to the communis
INTRODUCTORY 7
sensus fideliuin, •will not abandon it when his error is pointed out, is a ' lieretic '.
To the question What is the cause of heresies? different answers were given. The cause was not God, and not the Scriptures. " Do not tell me the Scripture is the cause." It is not the Scripture that is the cause, but the foolish ignorance of men {i.e. of those who interpret amiss what has been well and rightly said) — so Chrysostom declares {Horn. 128 p. 829). The cause is rather to be sought in (1) the Devil — so 1 Tim. 4^ was understood and Matt. 13-^ : Eusebius reflects this common opinion; (2) the careless reading of Holy Scripture — "It is from this source that countless evils have sprung up — from ignorance of the Scriptures : from this source the murrain of heresies has grown " (Chrys. Proef. Ep. ad Rom.) ; and (3) contentiousness, the spirit of pride and arrogance.
As to the nature of their influence and the reason why God permits their existence, see supra p. 2 note 1. On the latter point appeal was made to St Paul's words 1 Cor. 11^^, "for there miist be 'heresies' among you, in order that those that are approved may become manifest among you." Heresies serve as a touchstone of truth ; they test and try the genuineness of men's faith. So Chrysostom {Horn. 46 p. 867) says they make the truth shine out more clearly. " The same thing is seen in the case of the prophets. False prophets arose, and by com- i parison with them the true prophets shone out the more. So too disease makes health plain, and darkness light, and tempest calm." And again [Horn. 54 p. 363) he says : " It is one thing to take your stand on the true faith, when no one tries to trip you up and deceive you : it is another thing to remain unshaken when thousands of waves are breaking against you."
©eoXoyt'a — ^eoXoyeiv
Four stages in the history of these words may be detected.
(1) They were originally used of the old Greek poets who told their tales of the gods, and gave their explanations of life and the universe in the form of such myths. Such are the 'theogonies' of Hesiod and Orpheus, and the ' cosmogonies ' of Empedocles. These men were the ^€oA.oyoi of what is called the prescientific age. It was in the actions of the gods — their loves and their hates — that they found the answer to the riddles of existence. So later writers (as Plutarch, Suetonius, and Philo) use the expression to. OeoXoyovfjieva in the sense of ' inquiries into the divine nature ' or ' discussions about the gods '.
(2) Still later the words are used to express the attribution of divine origin or causation to persons or things, which are thus regarded as divine or at least are referred to divine causea. So in the sense * ascribe
8 CHRISTIAN DOCTRIN?-:
(livinity to ', ' nRmt* ns fJod ', ' i-all Goil ', ' asfiert the divinity of ', the verb 6^€o,\oy<ri' is \Ksi>d by Justin Dial. r)l) (in i-onjunction willi KvpioXoydv), by the writer of the Little Ijibyrintli (^coXoy^aai toi' •)(pi.(rr6v, ovk ovra Otoy—' call Christ Goti, tliough ho is not (iod '— Eusebius H.K v 28), and by later writers of all the Persons of the Trinity and in other connexions.'
(3) The verb is fonnd in a more pencral sense 'make religious investigations' in -histin Dial. 113; while in Athenagoras y.^'r/. 10, 20, 32 the noun expresses the doetrine of God and of all beings to whom the predicate ' deity ' belongs. (Cf. also the Latin ' theologia ' — Ter- tullinn ad Nat. ii 2.)
(4) Aristotle describes dfokoyia as >; irpoiT-q (fnkoaotfiia, atid to the Stoics the word was equivalent to ' philosopliy ' — a system of philo- sophical principles or truths. For Hellenic Christians at least tlio tran- sition from this usage to the sense familiar now was easy. Theology is the study or science that deals with God, the philosophy of life that finds in God the explanation of the existence of man and the world, and endeavours to work out theoretically this principle in all its relations ; while Christian theology in a specific sense starts from the oxiatence of Jesus, and from him and his experiences, his person, his life, his teach ing, frames its theories of the Godhead, of man, and of the worki. (See note on the words, Harnack Dogniengeschichte Eng, tr. vol. ii p. 202, Sophocles Lexicon, and Suicer Thesaurut.)
' In relation to the Son, in particular, 6eo\oyia is used of all that relates to the divine and eternal nature and being of Christ, as contrasted with oUovo/iLa, which has reference especially to the Incarnation and its consequences (so Liglitfoot notes Apost. Fathers ii ii p. 75). But this is only a particular usage of the term in a restricted sense.
CHAPTER II
The Chief Docteines in the New Testament Writers
The Beginnings of Doctrines in the New Testament
Christian theology (using the word in the widest sense) is, as we have seen, the attempt to explain the mystery of the existence of the world and of man by the actual existence of Jesus. It is in him, in his experiences — in what he was, what he felt, what he thought, what he did — that Christian theology finds the solution of the problem. In the true interpretation of him and of his experiences we have, accordingly, the true interpre- tation of human life as a whole. In tracing the history of Christian doctrines, we have therefore to begin with the earliest attempts at such interpfetation. These, at least the earliest which are accessible to us at all, are undoubtedly to be found in the collection of writings which form the New Testament. We are not here concerned with apologetic argument or history of the canon, with questions of exact date of writing or of reception of particular books. We are only concerned with the fact that, be the interpretation true or untrue, apostolic or sub-apostolic, or later still, the interpretations of the person of Jesus which are contained in these books are the earliest which are extant. In different books he is regarded from different points of view : even the writers who purpose to give a simple record of the facts of his life and teaching approach their task with different conceptions of its nature ; in their selection of facts — the special prominence they give to some — they are unconsciously essaying the work of interpretation as well as that of mere narration. " The historian cannot but interpret the facts which he records." The student of the history of Christian doctrines is content that they should be accepted as interpreters : to shew that they are also trustworthy historians is no part of his business. From the pages of the New Testa- ment tliere is to be drawn, beyond all question, the record of
10 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
the actual experiences of the Cliristians nearest to the time of JesuB of whom we have any record at all. Their record of their own experiences, and their interiiretations of them and of him who was the source of all, are the starting-point from which the developenient of Christian doctrines proct'iMld. In this sense the authors of the Goapels and Epistles are the first writers on Christian theology.^ No less certainly than later writers, if less professedly and with more security against error, they tried to convey to others the impression which Jesus, himself or through his earliest followers, had made upon them. In him they saw not only the medium of a revelation, but the revelation itself. What had before been doubtful about the pur- pose of the world and of human life — its origin and its destiny — all became clear and certain as they studied him, and from the observations which they could make of him, and of his relations to his environment, framed their inductions. Not only from his words, but from his acts and his whole life and conduct, they framed a new conception of God, a new conception of His relations to mankind, a new conception of the true relations of one man to another. They could measure the gulf that separates man as he is from man as he is meant to be, and they learnt how he might yet attain to the destiny which he had forfeited. Under the impulse of these conceptions — this revelation — the authors of the Gospels compiled their narratives, and the writers of the other books of the New Testament dealt with the matters which came in their way. Their method is not systematic :
' If it were necessary for our present purpose to attempt to discriminate nicely between the various ideas expressed in different writings of the New Testament, we mifjht begin with the earliest and work from them to the later — on the chance of finding important developements. "We might thus begin with the earlier epistles of St Paul, and shew what conceptions of the Godhead and of tlic person and work of Christ underlie, and are presupposed by, the teaching which he gives and the allusions which imply so full a background of belief on the part of those to whom he writes. And then we might go on to compare with these earliest conceptions what we could discover in the writings of later date that seemed different or of later developemeut. But this would be an elaborate task in itself, and without in any way doubting that further reflection and enlarged experience led to correspond- ing exfiansion and fulness and elucidation of the conceptions of the early teachers of the Gospel, it seems clear that some of the books of the New Testament which are later in time of composition (as we have them now) contain the exjiression of the earliest conceptions ; and therefore, for the purpose before us, we need not try to discriminate as to time and origin between the various points of view whicn the various writings of the New Testament reveal. We need only note the variety, and observe that the conceptions are complementary one to another.
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRJTERS 11
it is in the one case narrative, and in the other occasional. But in no case are we left in doubt as to the interpretations which they had formed and accepted. It is, for example, absurd to suppose that the doctrine of the Person of Jesus which they held did not correspond to the teaching which they record that he gave of his own relation to God. And when an Apostle claims to have received his mission directly from Jesus himself, and not from men or through any human agency, it is obvious that he regards liim as the source of divine authority. The writers of the New Testament have not formulated their interpretations in systematic or logical form perhaps ; but they have framed them nevertheless, and the history of Christian doctrines must begin by an account of the doctrines expressed or implied in the earliest writings of Christians that are extant, and then proceed to trace through later times variations or developements from the interpretations which were then accepted as true.
The existence of God and of the world and of man is — needless to say — assumed throughout ; and it is certain that the doctrine of creation by God (through whatever means) was accepted by all the writers before us, inherited as it would be from the Scriptures of the Jews. Of other doctrines all were not certainly held by all the writers, and in the short statement of them which can rightly have a place here it will only be necessary to indicate the main points. We shall take in order God (the Trinity), Man, the relations between God and Man (Atonement), the means by which the true relations are to be maintained (the Church, the Sacraments).
The doctrines are, as has been said, expressed in incidental or in narrative form, and so it is from incidental allusions and from the general tenour of the narrative that we infer them. They grow up before the reader.
Tlie Doctrine of God in the New Testament
The doctrine of God, for example, is nowhere explicitly stated. It is easy, however, to see that there are three main conceptions which were before the writers of the New Testament. The three descriptions of God as Father, as Spirit, and as Love, express together a complete and comprehensive doctrine of the Godhead ; and though the three descriptions are specially
12 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
chariicteristic of different writers or groups of writings, respect- ively, yet it is easy to see that the tliought of God as Spirit and as Love is present und natural to the minds of the writers who use more readily the description of him as P'ather, which indeed is the title regularly employed by all the writers of the New Testament.' It is the conception of God as Father that is most original. Not that the conception was entirely new
The doctrine of God which is to be found in the pages of the New Testament has doubtless for its background the Jewish monotheistic belief, but the belief in the form in which it presented itself to the psalmists and the prophets rather than to the scribes and rabbis. To the latter the ancient faith of their fathers in one God, tenaciously maintained against the many gods of the nations round about them, had come to convey the idea of an abstract Unit far removed from all contact with the men and the world He had created, self-centred and self- absorbed, the object of a distant reverence and awe. The former, on the contrary, were above all else dominated by the sense of intimate personal relation ))etween themselves and God ; and it is this conviction — the certainty that such a close com- munion and fellowship exists — that the followers of Jesus discerned in him and learnt from his experience. But in his experience and in his teaching the conviction assumed a form so different from that in which the prophets realized it, that his conception of God seems to stand alone. Others had realized Grod as P'ather of the universe (the Creator and Sustainer of the physical world and of animate things), aud by earlier teachers of the Jews He had been described as — in a moral aud spiritual sense — Father of Israel and Tsraelites,^ but their sense of ' fatherhood ' had been limited and obscured by other con- ceptions.^ In the experience aud teaching of Jesus this one conception of God as Father controlled and determined every- thing. It is first of all a conviction personal and peculiar to
^ The Tvriter to the Hebrews is perhaps an exception, but see Heb. 1-- * 12".
- See the references given by Dr. Sanday, Art. * God 'in Hastings' D.B. vol. ii p. 208 {e.g. Deut. l^^ 8' .32«, Ps. lOS^^, Jei-. Z^-^^, Isa. 63'« ei**) ; and for the whole subject see, besides that ai-ticle, G. F. Schmid Biblical Theology of the New Testament.
^ In particular the image according to which Israel is depicted as Jehovah's bride, faithless to her marriage covenant, is incompatible with the thought expressed by the Fatherhood of God. One broad difference cannot be missed. In the one image the main thought is the jealous desire of God to receive man's undividfd devotion, in the other it is His rea<Jine3S to bestow His infinite love on man.
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 13
himself, — ' My Father ', he claimed Him.^ But he also spoke of Him to his disciples as ' your Father ', '^ and so the intimacy of relationship which they saw he realized they came to look upon as possible too for them, — and not only for them — the first disciples of Jesus — but also for all mankind. Tlie Fatherhood of God extended to the good and the evil alike, the just and the unjust ; and to all animate things— even the fowls of the air. God was Father in the highest and fullest sense of the word. So the earliest followers of Jesus understood his teaching and explained his life. That they also thought of God as essentially spiritual will not be disputed. The idea of God as ' Spirit ' is in one sense co-ordinate with the idea of Him as ' Father ', though definite expression is scarcely given to the idea f -^pt in the writings of St John.^ This special description or cc eption brings into prominence certain characteristics which must not be passed over. The absolute elevation of God above the world and men is expressed when He is designated Spirit, just as the most intimate communion between men's life and His is expressed when He is styled their Father. As Spirit He is omnipresent, all pervading, eternal, and raised above all limitations.^ He is the source of all life, so that apart from Him and knowledge of Him there can be no true life."^
When to the descriptions of God as Father and as Spirit St John adds the description that is — in words — all his own, and declares that the very essence of the being of God is Love ; * when he thus sums up in a single word the revelation of the teaching and life of Jesus, he certainly makes a contribution to
1 E.g. both as to natural and as to spiritual life, Matt. 11^7 6^- »• 8, John 2^^ 5". Cf. St Paul's frequent use of the phrase 'the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ', e.g. Col. 13, Eph. 13, 2 Cor. 1^ ll^i, Rom. Vo^ ; cf. 1 Pet. 1*,— though he commonly writes ' God the Father ', or ' our Father '.
2 Matt. 68- 15 1020, Lute %^\ Cf. ' Our Father', Matt. S^ ; 'My Father and your Father ', John 20". The common addition of the designation ' heavenly ', or ' that is in heaven ', serves to mark the spiritual and transcendent character of the relation.
' E.g. John 4^^. He alone has preserved the definite utterance of Jesus, 'God is Spirit ', as he alone proclaims that * God is Love '.
* E.g. Matt. 6<-8. ^^, John 421. » John 521- 26 ; cf. 51^ 17*.
* 1 John 4*. Though a triune personality in the Godhead is implied if God is essentially Love (cf. Augustine de Trinitate vi and viii), it does not appear that St John's statement was charged with this meaning to himself. It seems rather, from the context, to be used to express the spiritual and moral relation in which God stands to man (cf. John 3'*), and not to be intended to have explicit reference to the distinctions within the Godhead.
14 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Christian doctrine wliicli is of the higlicst value. It iw not too much to say that in the sontence ' God is Love ' wo have an interpretation of the Gospel which covers all the relations between God and man. And yet it is only the essential eharacter of all true fatherhood that the words express St John is only explainiu}.,' by auotlicr term the moaning of Father, whatever fresh light he may throw upon the title by his explanation.
And all the other descriptions of God which are to be found in the New Testament add nothing to these three main thoughts ; indeed, they only draw out in more detail the significance of the relationship expressed by the one word Father.^
But much more is implied as to the Godhead by St John's account of the sayings of Jesus in which he declared his own one-ness with the Father ^ — teaching which obviously lies at the back of the thought of St Paul ^ and of the writer to the Hebrews.* And more again is seen in the references to the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, in the Gospel according to St John,^ and to the Holy Spirit in the other books of the New Testament.* The Son and the Holy Spirit alike have divine functions to perform, and are in closest union with the Father. There are distinctions within the Godhead, but the distinctions are such as are compatible with unity of being. There is Father, there is Son, and there is Holy Spirit. Each is conceived as having a distinct existence and a distinct activity in a sphere of his own : but the being of each is divine, and there is only one Di\ine Being. Thus to say that the Godhead is one in essence, but contains within itself tliree relations, three modes of exist-
^ As, for example, when God is described as holy and righteous, or as merciful and gracious ; as judging justly, or as patient and long-suffering. In all aspects God is absolutely good, the standard and type of moral perfection, and His love is always actively working (Matt. 19'^ Luke 1S'», Mark b*^ 7", John 3'").
2 See John !'« W'^K Of. John 10»« IZ^ U»- 20 15=» le^^, 1 John l^-^, Matt. 11".
' Cf. 2 Cor. 4*, Col. 1'^ Phil. 2» (Christ the 'image' of God, and existent 'in the form ' of God).
* Heb. 1* (the Son the ' effulgence of the glory ' and the ' exact impress of the very being' of God). John l^"*, Phil. 2«-'', Col. li''-'», and Heb. l^"* siiould he care- fully compared together.
» John 14i«-28 152« 16^-".
* The baptismal commission, Matt. 28'*, which co-ordinates the Three would be the simplest and most decisive evidence, but if it be disallowed there remains in the New Testament ample evidenff to the same effect (see the Pauline equivalent 2 Cor. 13'*, Rom. 8"^, 1 Cor. 12", Ei)h. 4«').
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 15
ence, is always at the same time actively existent in three distinct spheres of energy : this is only to say what is clearly implied in the language of the Gospels and Epistles, though the conception is not expressed in set terms, but is embodied in the record of actual experience. As from Jesus himself his dis- ciples derived, in the first place, their consciousness of God as Father, so from him they first learnt of God as Holy Spirit; but their realization of what was at first perhaps accepted on the evidence of his experience only, was soon quickened by experiences of their own which seemed to be obvious mani- festations of the working of God as Holy Spirit.^
The doctrine of a triune God — Father, Son, and Spirit — is required and implied by the whole account of the revelation and the process of redemption ; but the pages of the New Testament do not shew anything like an attempt to enter into detailed explanations of the inner being of God in the threefold relation.
It is to this fact that we must look for the explanation of the subsequent course of Christian thought, and the puzzling emergence of theories that seem to be so utterly at variance with the natural interpretation of the apostolic writings that we find it difficult to understand how they could ever have claimed the authority of Scripture. There are at least three points which must be noted. First, the New Testament leaves a clear impression of three agents, but the unity and equality of the three remains obscure and veiled. Secondly, the doctrine of the Incarnation is plainly asserted, but the exact relation and connexion between the human and the divine is not defined ; there is no attempt to indicate how the pre-existing Christ is one with the man Jesus — how he is at the same time Son of God as before, and yet Son of Man too as he was not before; and how as Son of Man he can still continue to be equal with the Father. Thirdly, that the Spirit is divine is assumed, but that he is pre-existent and personal is an inference that might not seem to be inevitable. And so it was with these points that subsequent controversy dealt, — controversy that resulted in re- solving ambiguities, and led to the clearer and fuller expression of the Christian conception of God.
^ Such experiences are represented as beginning on the day of Pentecost, and as continuing all through the history recorded in the Acts of the Apostles ; and they are also implied, if not actually expressed, in most of the Epistles.
16 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Tlie Doctrim of Man in the New Testament
Tu like manner, witli regard to the conception which the writers of the New TestJinioiit, the first Christian theologians, had formed of man and his place in the universe, we find no full and systematic expression, hut only a numhor of isolated — and for the most jtart incidental — indicjitions of a doctrine.
The teaching of the Old Testament must he assumed as the background and as the starting-point, so far at least as regards, on the one side, the dignity of man — as made in the image of God * and destined to attain to the likeness of God ; and, on the other side, his failure to fulfil his destiny, and his need of super- natural aid to effect his redemption.
At the outset it is clear that the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God in itself declares the dignity of human nature. Man is by his constitution the child of God, capable of intimate union and personal fellowship with God. It ia on this relationship that the chief appeals of Jesus are based : it is to make men conscious of their position that most of his teaching was directed. It is to make them realize the sense of privilege, which it allows, that was the chief object of his life. It is because of this kin- ship that men are bidden to be perfect, even as their Father which is in heaven is perfect.^ For this reason they are to look to heaven rather than to earth afe the treasury of all that they value most.^ Man is so constituted that he is capable of knowing the divine will and of desiring to fulfil it ; * he has a faculty by virtue of which spiritual insight is possible,^ — he can not only receive intimations of the truth, but also examine and test what he receives and form right judgements in regard to it,^ Such, it is clear, is the sense in which the writers of the Gospels understood the teaching of Jesus, and the same theory of the high capacities of human nature is presupposed and implied by the general tenour of the teaching of St Paul.
At the same time the free play of this spiritual element in man is hindered by the faculties which bind him to earth — the elements represented by ' the flesh ' ; and the contrast between
' The phrase clearly refers to mental and moral faculties, such as the intellect, the will, the affections.
=> Matt. 5*8. s Matt. 6^9 ^.
* E.g. John 5". •' E.g. Matt. &^- ^, Luke ll**"^.
« E.(f. Matt. Ill* l?.il Mark 4»*, Luke 125«-", John 7=".
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 17
them and the higher constituent is strongly expressed — ' the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak '} And so at the same time there is declared the corruption of human nature in its present state, so that sin is a habitual presence in man, from which he can escape only by the aid of a power wliich is not his own, even though that power must work by arousing and quickening forces which are already latent in him.
As to the nature of sin the pages of the New Testament reflect the teaching of the Old. The account of the Fall of Adam shews the essence of sin to be the wilful departure on the part of man from the course of developeraent for which he was designed (the order determined by God, and therefore the order natural to him) ; and the assertion of his will against the will of God. The result of sin is thus a disordered world — a race of men not fulfilling the law of their nature and alienated from God, who is the source and the sustainer of their life. Exactly these conceptions are embodied in the treatment of the matter which is recorded, on the part of Jesus and the earliest Christian teachers, in the New Testament itself. The commonest words for sin denote definitely the missing of a mark or the breach of a law, the failure to attain an end in view or the neglect of principle.^ And the other words which are used imply the same point of view : sin is a ' trespass ' or ' transgression ', that is, a departure from the right path which man is meant to tread ; or it is ' debt ', in the sense that there was an obligation laid upon man, a responsibility to live in a particular way, which he has not fulfilled and observed.^ This manner of describing sin shews that it is by no means thought of as an act, or a series of acts, of wrong-doing. It is rather a state or condition, a particular way of living, which is described as sickness,^ or even, by contrast ^yith true life, as death. Those who are living under such conditions are ' dead '. ^ Of this state the opposite is life, or life eternal — a particular way of living now, characteristic of
1 Matt. 2e*\ cf. John 3« : "That which is begotten of the flesh is flesh, and that which is begotten of the Spirit is spirit." Similarly ' flesh and blood ' together Matt. 16". ('Flesh' is the name by which mankind was commonly expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures, with particular reference to its weaker and move 'material' constituents.)
^ The words afiapTia. and di'o.ut'a — the essence of sin (a/xapTla) being declared by St John to be lawlessness or the absence of law {duouia) 1 John 3'.
^ The words TrapciTrrw/xa, TrapdjSaaty, 6<p£i\ir]/xa.
* E.g. Matt. 9i% 8 E.g. John o^^-^-l
2
IS c:ilRISTIAN DOCTRINK
wliicJi in knowlcilL,'*! of CIchI and Kive of the biothrcn.' li. is to give this knowledge and to unickcMi this love that is declared to l»e the Rpeiial object of the life and death of Jesun.- The condition of sin is one of e^tranp'inent from God and selfish disrcijard of what is dno to others. It is a state which merits and involves punishnient, and yet at the same time is its own punishment.-'
ft
' John 17* ««• " 3« 5« and r,^. = John 10'» 13»» 15", 1 John i"
' Tho contoiitidn uf !<in ovidcssed in St Paul's ([listlcs, though not essentially fiiHeront from tlio eouci-ptions which arc relh-ctod in other writings of the New Tc.st*iucnt, is characteristic enough to call for special notice.
It was the common K'lief of tin- Jews at tlic time that tlie pt^rsoual tiansgiession of Adam wa.>* the urigin of .sin, and further thatdcatli i-anie into the world »h the l>enalty for sin.
St Paul assumes this helief. Tlio keynote to his moaning in the chief passage in which he discusses the matter (Rom. .'">'■-■-') is .struck iu the words 'tlirough the. one man's disobedience the many were made .sinners' (ver. 19). Sui, then, entered the world liy Adam's trcsp.i.ss, and death -which is the penalty of sin —followed. And, furthermore, death became universal, because all men sinned. 'Eif>' (^ Trdvrev </^i.apTov can only mean 'because all sinned': but the question remains whether by *bcse wonls St Paul means to assert the personal individual sin of evciy one since Adam, or whether he means that, in some sense, when Adam .sinned, the whole race then and there became guilty of sin. It is also a question which of the two concep- tions was familiar to .Jewish (Rabbinic) thought. (See Sanday and Headlam on the passage, and the di.scu.ssion by G. B. Stevens The Pauli->ie Theology p. 127 U'. See also H. St J. Thackeray The RehUion of St Paul to CoiUcmporanj Jewish Thought ch. ii *Sin and Adam', and further ' Pelagianisni ' ivfra p. 309.) To determine the question we must look beyond the mere words to the argument of the context. Two things are clear — (1) the universality of sin is empha.sized, and its connexion with Adam's sin ; (2) the redemption fiom sin actually accomplished through the one man, Jesus Christ, is treated as parallel to the result? of the sin of the one man, Adam.
In both cases alike there is implied an organic unity between the representative and the race (whether of all men, in the one case, or of those who are ' in Christ ', in the other ca.se). Cf. 2 Cor. 5'^ "one died for all, therefore all died " {i.e. to sin, an ethical death to be followed by an ethical rising-again to life). The unity which exists between Chri.st (the head of the spiritual humanit}^) and Christians is parallel to that which exists between Adam (the liead of the natural humanity) and all mankind. (Cf. 1 Cor. 15-- "as in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive".) But in regard to Adam, at all events, St Paul does not attempt to dctine the way in which the connexion comes about. On this question tbe phrabo Ulieda. riKva 0wr« 6fr/f)s, Eph. 2^ must be considered. The doctrine of original or birth-sin has been found in it. But the context must determine the meaning, and three facts must be noted — (1) the order of the words shews that there is no stress on 4>vcii ; (2) the expression ' children of wrath ' is ])arallel to such Old Testament expressions as '-sons of death' and means 'worthy of God's reprobation' ; (3) the reference is to individual pei-sonal sins actually committed ; (4) .so far as there is any emphasis on ^iVet the intention is to mark the contrast between the natural powers of man, left to himself, and the power of the grace of God in efTeotiug salvation. Sec the emphatic reiteration of x<ii/5'7"' in the verses following. In this
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 19
The restoration of the true relations between God and man, from which will follow the establishment of the true relations between man and man, is thus the purpose which Christ was understood to have declared to be his purpose and his followers believed he had achieved.
The Doctrine of Atonement in the New Testament
Of the nature of the atonement which he effected there is no formal theory in the New Testament. It is certain that St John, at all events, understood his Master to have constantly taught that the knowledge of God and, with the knowledge of (rod, the increased knowledge of man's own position, was to play a large part in the work. And this mental and moral illumiua- tion was effected by the whole life and teaching of Jesus, while by his death in all its circumstances the true meaning of his life was brought to the consciousness of his disciples. So that the conception of redemption through knowledge can certainly claim to be among the earliest conceptions. At the same time, that the redemption was wrought in some special sense by this death of Christ — that the death in itself was one of the instru- ments by which the whole work of Christ became effective — is clearly implied by all the allusions to it.^ But the
passage too, therefore, it is the actual prevalence of sin in the world, as a fact of general experience, that is in the Apostle's mind, rather than any theory as to the propagation of sin or a tendency to sin. Cf. Gal. 2', where the Gentiles are regarded as sinners <f>v<T€i, i.e. belonging to the class of sinners — see Sanday and Headlam on Rom. 519.
Furthermore, it is clear that St Paul speaks of the <rdpf, in antithesis to the Wivfia, as the seat and sphere of manifestation of this sin. He uses the expression in different senses: (1) literal or physical, of the body actually subjugated and ruled by sin, conceived as the sphere in which, or the medium through which, sin actually works ; (2) ethical, of the element in man which is, in practical expeiience, opposed to the spiritual ; (3) symbolic, of uuregeucrate human nature. The three senses tend to pass over into one another, and the first and second, and the second ami third, respectively, cannot always be exactly distinguished.
But when he describes the sins of ' the flesh ' he includes many forms of sin which have their origin in the mind or the will — see e.g. Gal. S'^^-; and the antithesis between the 'spirit' and the 'flesh' is not presented in the manner of Greek or Oriental dualism. (On Rom. V'"^, see Sanday and Headlam.)
^ On the meaning of the ' blood ' of Christ, see particularly Wcstcott Epistles of St John, where it is shewn that the ' blood ' always includes the thought of the life, preserved and active beyond death, though at the same time it is only through the death that the blood can be made available. On the New Testament doctrine of the atonement in general, see Oxenham Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement p. 108 flF. ; and R. "W. Dale The Atonement, witli the notes in the Appendix.
20 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
writers of the Now Testament are content to treat the result as a fact and to emphasize some of its conBequences. Tliey do not attempt to explain the manner in wiiich tiie result was obtained.
The work of the atonement is described under various images and metaphors, which may perhaps be grouped in four classes.
First, there is the idea of ' reconciliation ' (KaTaXXay}')), ex- pressed in some of the parables, as when the prodigal son is reconciled to his father, and in passages in which those who were once enemies and aliens are said to be reconciled to God by the death of His Son, and to have won ' peace ' and union with God, or ' life ' in union with Him, as the result.^
Under another image sin is regarded as personified : man is held in bondage to sin, and has to be purchased or bought with a price out of the .slavery in which he is held ; so a ' ransom ' has to be paid for hira.^
Again, corresponding to the notion of sin as a debt, there is
' The words KaraWayri, KaraWdcrfftiv in this sense are peculiarly Pauline (Rom. 510. 11 1115^ 2 Cor. 5»8- »9- ="), and airoKaTa\\d(r<T€i.u (Epli. 2'«, Col. l^*- ^'), and it must be observed that the conception is of the world and man being reconciled to God (not God to man), just as it is alwa^'s man who is represented as hostile to God and alienated from Him. The change of feeling has to take place on the side of man. The obstacle to union which must be removed is of his making. (But sec Sanday and Headlam on Rom. .0".) For the result as peace, see John 14^', Rom. 5', Eph. 2''- '", Col. 3'^; as union with God or life in Christ, see esp. St John, e.g. John 3'5- le 20»', 1 John 5"- '2; cf. Col. 3»-*, 2 Tim. 1', Rom. 5'», Heb. lO^".
- The chief words used to express this conception are dyopa^u,! Cor. 6^ 7^, Gal. 4^ ; e^ayopdi'ij}, Gal. 3^^ ; \vTp6u, XOrpwan, diroXuTpwais, Tit. 2", 1 Pet. 1'*, Eph. 1", Col. 1'*, Rom. Z-\ Heb. G^--'^ and Xvrpov, dvriXvrpov, Matt. 20^11 Mark 10^, 1 Tim. 2®. It is only in connexion with this metaphor that Christ is said to have acted 'instead of us (dcW), and even here the phrase in 1 Tim. 2* is dvTiXvTpov i'lrip i]/iu>u. He paid a ransom 'instead of or ' in exchange for ' us. In all other cases his death or sufferings are described as for our sakes or on our behalf {{/irip rifjiwv), and more simjily still as 'concerning' us, or 'in the matter of sin or our sins (""cpi rtfii^v or vipl d/xaprias, irtpl d/naprtaJf rjfj.wv). That is to say, it is the idea of representation rather than of substitution that is expressed. The conception is clearly stated in the words, ' if one died on behalf of all, then all died' (2 Cor. 5^) ; that is, in Christ the representative of the race all die, and because they have died in him, all are made alive in him (cf. such ])assages as Rom. 6^""). And, again, it must be observe'! that it is not said to whom the ransom is paid. It is indeed only when wTiat is simply a metaphor is pressed as though it were a formal definition that the question could well arise. One thing, however, in this rcsi)ect, is clearly implied — the person thus ransomed and freed from bondage belongs hence- forward to his redeemer : it is only in him, by union with him, that he gets his freedom. See e.g. Rom. 6'*-7*.
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN Ni:\V TESTAMENT WRITERS 21
the metaphor of ' satisfaction ' ; as though a creditor was satis- fied by the payment of the debt, or the debt was remitted. This is the thought when death is styled the wages of sin, when men are declared to be debtors to keep the law ; when Christ is de- scribed as being made sin for us and bearing our sins on the tree, and when reference is made to the perfect ' obedifnoe ' of his life.^ Yet again there is the conception, derived from tlie ceremonial system of the old dispensation, of the life and death of Christ, pure and free from blemish, as a sacrifice and ex- piation which cleanses from sin, as ceremonial impurities were removed by the olT'erings of animals of old. And so ' propitiation ' is made.2
A complete theory of the atonement must, it is clear, take account of all these aspects of the work of Christ to which the various writers of the New Testament give expression. But it is not probable that all of them were present to the minds of each of the writers ; rather, it is probable that each approached the matter from a different point of view, and that none of them would have wished the account which he gives — the metaphors which he uses — to have been regarded as exclusive of the other accounts and metaphors which others adopted.
The Christian theologians of later times in like manner put forward now one and now another aspect of the mystery, only erring when they wished to represent some one particular aspect as a sufficient interpretation in itself, or when, going behind the earlier writers, they tried to define too closely what had been left uncertain. But the Church as a whole has never been com- mitted to any theory of the atonement. The belief that the atonement has been effected, and the right relations between man and God restored and made possible for all men, in and through Christ, has been enough.
1 Rom. 6^\ Gal. 5» 3'«, 2 Cor. 5^\ 1 Pet. 2^-*, Phil. 28, Heb. 5^ lO" ; A^etru, 'remission' of sins, Matt. 26^, Luke 24^'', Acts 2^^ et saepe, Eph. 1^ Col. 1^^ cf. Heb. 9".
-This conception is expressed especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews and by St .Tohn. See Heb. 2''' 9^9-^ IQio- '- •*• =«, and 1 John 1^ 2- 4'"; but cf. also Rom. o^, Eph. 5". Here too it must be noticed that the idea of propitiating God (as one who is angry with a personal feeling against the oflender) is foreign to the New Testament. Propitiation takes place in the matter of sin and of the sinner, altering the character of that which occasions alienation from God. See Westcott Ujiistles of St John, note on IXia-Ketrdai, l\a<x/J,6s, IKaarripioi/. p. 85. But see also Sanday and Headlam, I.e. supra.
22 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Tlu Diytriru of thf. Church and of the. Saf.ramcnta in the
Nnn Tfdament
As to I lie means I)y whioli these true rclutiunH iire to bo realized ami m.iiutiiined by individuals thruugliout their lile on earth, the teaching of Jesus and the practice of tlie first Christians, as recorded in the New Testament, is clear, though not detailed.
Meniborship of the society which gathered round him in his lifetime upon earth was the first step to union with him. ' He that is not with rae is against me.' ^ All who were sincere in their acceptance of him and their faith in him must ' follow ' him,''^ and tlicreby shew themselves his disciples. The realization of the ' kingdom ' was to be eltected through the society which he founded.-* And after his death, at any rate, admission to the society was to be by baptism, baptism into himself ; and the life of the society was to be sustained, and its sense of union with him kept fresh, by the spiritual food which the sacrament of his body and blood supplied. The Church is thus primarily the company or brotherhood of all who accepted Jesus as their Master and Lord, and shared a common life and rites of worship, recog-
' Matt. 12**, Luke 11^. The saying may have been intended only to give emphatic expression to the truth that in the contest between Christ and Satan no one can be uentral. The side of Clirist must be resolute])' taken. But the inter- pretation which was aiijiarcntly put upon the saying by those who recorded it, and by the Church from the tirut, was probably true for those days at all events. There might be here and there a secret adherent ; but, in the main, disciplnship of Christ .and membership of the society were bound to go together, though there might be some interval of time between the inward conviction and the outward act. This interpretation is not excluded by the other saying : ' He that is not against us (you), is for us (you) ' (Mark 9'", Luke 9^), though that saying was elicited by an act which was based on the principle that one who did not join the society could not be really a follower of Jesus. The chief jjurpose of this .raying is to teach the apostles the lesson of toleration. One who was ready in those early days to publicly invoke the name of Jesus was not far from the kingdom and should not be discouraged. The half disciple might be won to full memliership of the societ)'. At least he should not be disowned.
- Note the frequency of this expression in the Gospels.
^ The society was at first a society within the Jewish nation. On the process by which it outgrew its original limits, so far as it can be traced in the New Testament, see Hort The Christian Ec-ffsia. The kingdom was in one sense established whnn the first disciples ' left all and followed him ' ; but they had to be trained lor their work of sj^reading the kingdom (see Latham PoMm- Pastorum), audit would not be realized till all nations of the world were made disciples (ef. the parables, Matt. 1381.32.33^ M)d the commission, Matt. 28i»). That the Church and the kingdom of God are not convertible terms in the teaching of Jesus is certain. See further .\. Robertson Renvum Dei p. 61 ff.
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 2r>,
nizing their common responsibility and obligations; and tliis company or brotherhood was one and the name society or Church although existing in separate local organizations. Therr is no trace in the New Testament of any idea on the part of the first Christians that it was possible to be a member of the Church without being a member of one of these visible local societies, or to receive in any other way whatever benefits membership of the Church bestowed.^
This new society was to inherit the promises and succeed to all the privileges which liad been granted to the special people of God — the Church is the ' Israel of God '. The natural descendants of Isaac, the ' Israel after the flesh ', having proved for the most part unworthy of the destiny assigned to them, their privileges do not pass to the faithful remnant only, but room is found for all who by their spiritual character are rightly to be regarded as the true children of promise. These are all grafted in to the ancient stock, and take the place of the branches which are pruned away.'-
From another point of view the whole of this new Church is the body of Christ, he himself heing its head, the centre of union of all the different members, which have their different functions to fulfil, the source of the life which animates each separate part and stimulates its growth and progress, the guiding and controlling force to which the whole body is subject.-^ From this point of view, what Christ, while he was on earth, did through his human body, that he continues to do through the Church, which since his Ascension represents him in the world. It is his visible body : from hira it draws its hfe and strength, and through it he acts.
And, in particular, he acts through the two great rites which he appointed — baptism and ' the breaking of the bread '. Neither of these rites has any meaning apart from membership of the Church. Except by baptism no one could enter the Christian society ; ^ that no one could remain a member of it without par-
' If the idea finds any justification in such sayings of our Lord as ' He that is not against us is for us ' (Luke 9*^, of. Maik 9''*') ; ' Other sheep I have which are not of this fold' (John 10^^), at all events there is no e%nde.nce that they were so under- stood by his early followers.
- See Rorn. 9«, 1 Cor. 10>8, Gal. G'*, Rom. \V^--\ So 1 Pet. 2»- 1". The titles of honour used of the people of God are applied to Christians.
3 Eph. 4"-i6 5i«-32 (Col. l'»- -* 2'") ; cf 1 Cnr. 12'2-«
* Acts 2", 1 Cor. 1213 ^is
24 CIIRISTFAN DOCTRINE
tokiiip in the one bread which was the oulwnrd mark of tinion and fellowship ' sooniH ccrtain.-
Baptisni is thu.s juimarily the rite by which admission to the Church, and to all the spiritual privileges which mcmbcrHhip of the Church confers, is obtained. It is administered once for all.^ It must be preceded by repentance of sins,* and it eflects at once union with Christ — membership of his body and participation in his death and burial and resurrection.^ It is thus the entrance into a new life, and so is styled a new birth, or a birth from above — that is, a spiritual birth or ' regeneration '. * As such it involves the washing away or remission of sins which had stained the former life,'' — a real purification, by which the obstacle to man's true relationship to God is removed and he occu})ies actually the position of souship which had always been ideally his.^
In the New Testament itself forgiveness of sins is always
* 1 Cor. 10". It is because it is one bread of which all partake that the many are one body.
» Acts 2*-- •»«, 1 Cor. 10i«- 2» ll"-«
* It is clear from all that is said in the New Testament, and from the very nature of the rite as it is there represented, that repetition could never have been thought of in those days. It is perhaps to baptism that the strong assertion in Heb. 6''''^ of the inipossiliility of 'renewing again unto repentance those that have been once enlightened ' refers.
* Acts 2^ S^. = Gal. 3'^ ; cf. 1 Cor. 122^, Rom. 6="- *. « John 33- =, Tit. 3' ; cf. 1 Pet. 1^ 3"-'.
' 1 Cor. 6", Acts 2216, jjeb. lO^^. So of the whole Church, Eph. 5^- ^.
* Tliis is implied in the phrases, ' torn anew or from above ', ' begotten of God ', 1 John 3» ; ' chiMren of God ', 1 John 3^ ; ' sons of God ', Rom. 8", Gal. 3"-«- ^. The term viodfffia, ' adoption as sons ', is used (Rom. 8""'*- ^, Gal. 4*) in specially close con- nexion with the action of the Spirit (more closely defined as 'the Spirit of God', or ' the Spirit of His Son '). So Tit. 3', ' the laver of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit '. Whether the gift of the Holy Spirit was believed to be conveyed by baptism, or rather by the laying-on of hands as a subsequent rite, is not certain. The words of St Peter (Acts 2^) appear to imply that the gift was a result of baptism. The narrative in Acts 8'*"" clearly records two distinct rites, separated by some interval of time, — the first, of baptism, unaccompanied by the gift of the Holy Spirit ; the second, of ' laying-on of hands ', which conferred the gift : the first performed by Philip, the second by the Apostles. From the narrative in Acts 19'-' a similar distinction is to be inferred, though the questions in verses 2 and 3 point to the closest connexion in time between the two rites. Cf. also 1 Cor. 12^*. (See further A. J. Mason The Eelatior, of Confirmation to Baptism, and note on ' Confirmation ' infra p. 390.) The gift of the Holy Spirit, though actually conferred by a subse- quent symbolic rite, was naturally to be expected as an immediate sequence to the washing away of sins which the baptism proper effected. Similarly, the writer to the Hebrews includes among the elementary fundamental truths familiar to all Chris- tians 'the doctrine of baptisms and of laying-on of hands', at once distinguishing and yet most closely connecting the two parts of one and the same rite (Hel). 6-).
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 25
regarded as the accompaniment or result of baptism. It was to obtain remission of sins that Peter on the day of Pentecost bade the multitude be baptized ^ every one of them (Acts 2^^- ^) ; and * Be baptized and wash away thy sins, calUng upon the name of the Lord ', was the counsel Ananias gave to Saul of Tarsus (Acts 22^^). St Paul's own references in his Epistles to the effects of baptism shew the same conception {e.g. 1 Cor. 6^^ and Eph. 5^^- -*')/ and the allusion in the first Epistle of St Peter to its ' saving ' power is equally strong (1 Pet. 3^^).
The fullest doctrine of baptism to be found in the writings of the apostles is given by St Paul (Eoni. 6^"^^). It is above all else union with Christ that baptism effects — in that union all else is included. Baptism into Christ Jesus is baptism into his death, and that involves real union with him. The believer in a true sense shares in the crucifixion and literally dies to sin, and in virtue of this true union he is buried with him and necessarily shares also in the resurrection — the new life to God. It is through baptism, which he also elsewhere (Tit. 3^) directly calls ' the bath of regeneration ', that he reaches these results : and
^ It is 'in the name of Jesus Christ ' that they are bidden to be baptized in this — the first recorded — instance of Christian baptism, and all later instances of ba}»tisnis in the New Testament are described as in or into the single name of Jesus (or Jesus Christ, or Christ) ; see Acts 8i« 19^ lO*^, Gal. S^^, Rom. 6^ It is possible that the baptism was actually so effected, — in which case its validity (from the later stand- point when baptism was required to be into the names of the Trinity) could be entirely defended on the ground that baptism into one of the 'persons' is baptism into the Trinity (cf. the doctrine of circumincessio). But in view of the Trinitarian formula given in Matt. 28^'' (which it is difficult to believe represents merely a later traditional expansion of the words which were uttered by Christ) it is possible that the actual formula used in the baptism did recite the three names, and that the writer is not professing to give the formula but rather to shew that the persons in question were received into the society which recognized Jesus as Saviour and Lord and made allegiance to him the law of its life. The former view had the support of Ambrose, and the practice was justified by him as above {de Spir. Sand, i 4), and probably by Cyprian in like manner {Ep. 73. 17, tliough he is cited for the latter view). See Lightfoot on 1 Cor. 1'^, and Plummer, Art. 'Baptism' Hastings' D.B.
* There is, however, no trace of any idea that baptized Christians could be preserved from future lapses without effort. Though St John could declare — from the ideal standpoint — that any one who was truly bom again was, as such, unable to sin (1 John 3^) ; though in aim and intention sin was impossible for any one who was 'in Christ' : yet the constant moral and spiritual exhortations whicli the Apostles pressed upon the Churches, and such a confession as St Paul's, "the good which I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practise" (Rom. 7"), serve to shew tliat the Apostles did not consider that the hope ol forgiveness was exhausted in baptism (cf. Jas. 5'*).
2C CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
there is' no kind of unreality about them — rleath, burial, resur- rection are all intonsely roiii and ]tractical. " Ah niiiuy of you OS wore baptized into Christ did ])ub on (Jhrist " (Oal. o'-"- '^), and are become ' members of Christ ' (1 Cor. 8").
The main points in this eonception of St Paul were seized upon and utilized by subsequent writers on baptism, and became the text on which fiermons to catechumens were preached.' But it was still forgiveness of sins that was commonly regarded a.s the chief ^ift in bapti.sm.
St Paul's conception of baptism was probably as original as any other part of his teaching; he applies to baptism his domi- nant thought of being ' in Christ ', a ' new creature' in Christ: but from a slightly different point of view it is the same con- ception which St John expounds in his account of the conversa- tion of Jesus with Nicodemus, the main principle of which was also seized and expressed by St Peter.
" Except a man be born from above (anew), he cannot see the kingdom of God. . . . Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is Hcsh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. ]\Iarvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born from aljove." ^ Here St John reports his Master as explain- ing the birth from above to be a birth of water and the Spirit, and it is clear that he understood it to mean a real change of inward being or life. ' Becoming a child of God ' and being ' begotten of God ' are other expressions which St John frequently uses of the same experience.*
It is a new relation to God into which the baptized person enters. Becoming one with Christ, he also becomes in his measure a son of God : one of those to whom he gave " the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name : which were born, not of blood, nor of the wQl of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ".*
So too St Peter speaks of God as begetting us again (re- generating us),^ and of Christians as ' begotten again (regenerated), not from corruptible seed, Ijut from incorruptible ',^ and seems to
^ See e.g. Cyril of Jenisalem Cat. xx 4-7. Cyril particularly insists on the truth of each aspect of the rite, she^ving how much more is iuvolved in it than mere forgiveness of sins.
2 John 3«-. ' E.g. 1 .John 3' 5= 3». * John V'- '".
» 1 Pet. 1'. ' 1 Pet. 1-^.
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 27
have St Paul's teaching to the Komaus in mind when he brings baptism and its effects into immediate connexion with the death of Christ in the flesh and the new life in the spirit.'
Seen then from slightly different points of view, but all consistent with each other, baptism is regarded by the writers of the New Testament as the manner of entrance into the Church, and so into the kingdom of God ; or as conferring a new spiritual life and a closer relationship to God, as of a child to a father ; or as efl'eeting once for all union with Christ and all that such union has to give.
In like manner, as baptism, administered once for all, admits to union with Christ, and thus to membership of the Church, which is the body of Christ, so the Eucharist maintains the union of the members with Christ and with one another. Union with Christ necessarily involves the union with one another in him of all who are united with him, and it is as ensuring union with Christ that the Eucharist is treated in the only passages in the New Testament in which anything like a doctrine of the Eucharist is expressed.
In the first of these, the earliest in time of composition, St Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and trying to lay down principles by which to determine the difficult position of their relation to pagan clubs and social customs connected (directly or indirectly) with the recognition of the pagan gods {8aifj.6via, deities or demons). The reference to the Lord's Supper is introduced incidentally to illustrate the question under dis- cussion. It is intended to point, by contrast, the real nature and effect of participation in a ritual meal of which the pagan god is the religious centre. It is impossible, the writer argues, to separate the meal from the god. Christians know quite well, he assumes, the significance of the Christian meal. What is true of it and its effect is true mutatis mutandis of the pagan meal.^
^ IPet. 3i8ff-.
^ It is clear that the Christian rite— assumed to be understood in this way — is the starting-point of St Paul's argument. But he might equally well, if his argument had so required, have reasoned from the pagan rite to the Christian ; for recent studies have proved that the fundamental idea of sacrifice was that of communion between the god and his worshippers through the medium of the victim wliich was slain. Through participation in the flesli and blood of the victim a real union was effected between them, and so the divine life was communioated to the worshipper who offered the .sacrifice. See especially Robertson Smith Religion of th'. Semites, and Art. ' Sacrifioc ' in Encycl. Brit.
28 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
In this connexion, accordint!:ly, he describeR the nature of the Christian rite * to which, in lecording its inHlituliiui, he gives the name ' tlie Lord's Su)t])er'.- lie insistH that, in it tJiere is ellected fellowship with the blood of Christ and with the body of Christ.^ It is one bread which is broken, and therefore all who partake of it are one body. And so, in lik(^ manner, to eat of the things sacrificed to demons, to drink tlieir cup and to partake of their ttible, is to become fellows (to enter into fellowshi])) with them. Such fellowship at one and the same time with demons and with the Lord is impo.ssible. The two things are incom- jxitible — union with demons and union with the Ix)rd. This then is the main thoutrht : the Lord's Supper means and ell'ects the union with the Lord of those who partake in it. And it is in this sense that St Paul must be supposed to have under- stood the phrases used immediately afterwards in regard to the institution * — ' This is my body which is (given) for your sakes *, and ' This cup is the new covenant in my blood '. To eat of the bread and to drink the cup is to be incorporated with Christ. But though the act is thus so intimate and individual, it is also at the same time general and social. There is involved in it a binding together of the brotherhood of Christians one with another. In virtue of their sharing together in the one bread they are themselves one body. " Because it is one bread, we, who are many, are one body." ^
Another aspect of the rite as it presented itself to St Paul ^
» 1 Cor. 10i« ff. "ICor. ll«>ff
' "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not fellowshiji with the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not fellowship with the body of Christ '! Because it is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor. lO^*-").
M Cor. 11^3 «.
" 1 Cor. 10'". This conception, which understands by the body not only Christ himself (and so a personal union with him), but also the society of Christians (and so membership of the Church), is easily detected in later times. Cf. Didache ix 4, Bp. Sarapion's Prayer-Book, p. 62, S.P.C.K. rd. ; Cyprian A>. 73. 13; Aug. Tract, in Joann. xxv 13 — in all of which passages the unity of the Church with its many members is associated with the idea of the loaf formed out of the many scattered grains of wheat collected into one.
• This conception of the Eucharist as a perpetual memorial, expressly ordained by Christ himself as a rite to be observed by his followers till his coming again, is only found in St Paul and, as an early addition to the original account of the institution (possibly made by the author himself in a second edition of his work), in the Gospel of St Luke. It is not necessary here to attempt to determine whether this conception was introduced by St Paul. We need only note that it certainly was St Paul's conception : that he claims for it ths express authority of Christ's own
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 29
is shewn by tlie words, " Do this as a memorial of me ", and " As ofcen as ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye proclaim the death of the Lord ". It had not only union with Christ as its effect, but also the perpetuation of the memory of his death according to his own command. It was to be a memorial of him and of all that his death signified — the broken body and the shed blood ; and it was to continue till his coming again. Such a commemoration was in its very nature also an act of thanksgiving, and thanksgiving was always an essential part of the rite.^ And if this memorial was to be observed with fitting dignity and solemnity, there was needed due preparation on the part of those who made the commemoration. They must be morally and spiritually worthy. So in this -respect a subjective element in the rite must be observed.^
From yet another pouit of view, the incidental reference to the Manna and the Water from the Eock as spiritual food and spiritual drink (the Rock being interpreted as Christ),^ shew that St Paul also thought of the bread and the wine (the body and the blood) as the means by which the spiritual life of those who partook of them was nourished and sustained.
It is this latter thought that is dominant in the only other passage in the New Testament which treats at any length of the doctrine of the Eucharist — St John's account of the discourse of Christ on the Bread of Life.* The doctrine is worked out step by step. The Lord is represented as beginning with the reproof of the people for the worldly expectations which the feeding of the five thousand had aroused in them, and then (as saying after saying causes deeper dissatisfaction and bewilderment in the
^\ ords delivered to liim ; and tliat there is no trace of any opposition to the jji-actice as indicated by St Paul's instructions to the Corinthian Christians, but on the con- trary that all the evidence supports the assertion that Christ himself ordained the observance and that the idea of commemoration was present from the first. On the other hand, there is no evidence till later times that the words els rrjv i/xTju avafx.vyi<nv were understood to mean a Hctcrifidal memorial {e.g. Eusebius Demonstr. I. 13 seems to conceive it so).
^ All the accounts of the institution give prominence to this aspect, and the early prevalence of the word (^ ei'xaptcTi'a) as the name for the whole sei-vice shews how it was regarded.
= Cf. ICor. iP'ff. 8 1 Cor. 10'-".
* John 6^**^. Whatever opinion be lield as to the time when the rite was instituted, and as to the freedom which the author of this Gospol jiormittpd hiiuself in interpret- ing the teaching which he apparently professes simply to record, it cannot well be doubted that when he wrote this account he had the Lord's Supper in mind, and that it expresses his doctrine about it.
:iO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
minds of some) y;iviiiL,' stronger and strongor expression to the doctrine, till nuiny of his disciples wore even driven away by the hardness of the saying.
First of all tiiere is only the contrast between the ordinary broad, their daily food, and the food whicli he, the Son of man, will give. The earthly food has no permanence, it perishes ; the other is constant and continuous, and reaches on into life eternal.
Then, in reply to the demand for faith in him, they ask for a sign, and hint that greater things than he has done were done for their fathers of old : he has only given them ordinary bread, but Moses gave manna, — bread from heaven. He declares that it was not Closes who gave the bread from heaven, but that his Father gives the real bread from heaven, and that he himself is the bread of God (or the bread of life) which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, — hunger and thirst are done away with for ever for all who come to him and believe on him.
' I am the bread which came down from heaven ' — this the Jews find hard to understand, and against their murmuring the doctrine proceeds a step further in expression. The bread of life gives life eternal. Those that ate of the manna died in the desert all the same, but he that eateth of the living bread which came down from heaven shall not die but shall live for ever. And the bread which shall be given is the Aesh of the speaker.
' How can he give us his flesh to eat ? ' The objection which is urged leads on to much more emphatic assertions. Not only does he who eats this bread have life eternal, but it is the only way by which true life at all can be obtained. And now the reporter records the words which shew beyond all question that he has the Eucharist in mind. The Christian must both eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ (' Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in your- selves '), — that is the only food (the only eating and drinking) on which reliance can be placed. It is the only sustenance provided.
And then the discourse carries the doctrine a stage further on, and as it were explains the inmost significance of the rite. It establishes union between the Christian and Christ. By its means the Christian becomes one with Christ and Christ one
CHIEF DOCTRINES IN NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS 31
with him ; and because of this union he will receive life just as (Jhrist himself has life because of his union with the Father. It is Christ himself who is eaten, so he himself is received, and with him the life which is his.^
The comments which follow serve to complete the doctrine by precluding any material interpretation of the realistic lan- guage in which it is expressed. It is a real eating and drinking of the body and the blood of Christ, and a real union with him, and a real life that is obtained. But it is all spiritual. " The Spirit is that which maketh alive (or giveth life), the flesh doth not profit aught." ^
The conception of the Eucharist as a sacrifice is not pro- minent in these early accounts, but the sacrificial aspect of the rite is sufficiently suggested. As the death of Christ was a sacrifice, to ' proclaim the death of the Lord ' is to proclaim the sacrifice, or, in other words, to acknowledge it before men and to plead it before God. It was ' on behalf of ' others that the body was given to be broken and the blood was poured out, and through the use of these words the Eucharist is unmistakeably
' " He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in uie and lin Mm. Even as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so he thai ■ atcih me shall himself too live because of me." It is not easy to determine -what is the exact significance of the phrase 'the flesh and blood', but it seems that the manhood of Christ must be meant. The words 'eat the flesh of Christ' must mean something more than have faith in him. "This spiritual eating, this feeding upon Christ, is the be^t result of faith, the highest energy of faith, but it is not faith itself. To eat is to take that into ourselves which we can assimilate as the support of life. The phrase ' to eat the flesh of Christ ' expresses therefore, as perhaps no other language could express, the gi-eat truth that Christians are made partakers of the human nature of their Lord, which is united in one person to the divine nature ; that he imparts to us now, and that we can receive into our man- hood, something of his manhood, which may be the seed, so to speak, of the glorified bodies in which we shall hereafter behold him. Faith, if I may so express it, in its more general sense, leaves us outside Christ trusting in him ; but the crowning act of faith incorporates us in Christ." Westcott Revelation of the Father p. 40. Cf. Gore The Body of CJirist p. 24: "He plainly means them to under- stand that, in some sense, his manhood is to be imparted to those who believe in Tlim, and fed upon as a principle of new and eternal life. There is to be an 'influence' in the original sense of the word — an inflowing of his manhood into ours." And he goes on to note that "it is only because of the vital unity in which the manhood stands with the divine nature that it can be 'spirit' and 'life'. It is the humanity of nothing less than the divine person which is to be, in some sense, communicated to us ".
^ On the patristic interpretation of this saying (sometimes as explaining, some- times as explaining away, the previous discourse), see Gore Dissertations p. 303 ff.
32 CIIKISTI.W DOCIRINK
the memorial of a siicrifice.* It is, however, only in tlie Epistle to the Hebrews that this conception is clearly implied, the Kiicrament on earth being the analogue of the perpetual inter- cession offered by the High Priest on high.
The later statements of the doctrine during the four follow- ing centuries are for the most part, as will l)e seen, merely amplifications and restatements of the various aspects to which expression is given in the New Testament itself.
' Besides the four accounts of the iustitution, cf. Heb. 13'". Tli c woifls roOro roithf naturally would have the meaning ' i»eiforni this attiou ', though the Bacri- ficial significance of iroitiv may possibly have been intended (viz. ' ojfer this '). But in any case, as is shewn above, the action to be jierformed is a commemoration of a sacrifice, [iroiuv is certainly used frequently in the LXX as the translation of asah in a sacrificial sense, but the meaning is determined by the context, and there is no certain instance of this use in the New Testament. Justin {Dial, r. Tnjph. 41, 70) is ajipjirciitly the only early Christian writer who recognizes this meaning iu connexiou with the iustitution of the £ucharit>t.J
CHAPTER III
Developement of Doctrine
We have had occasion to speak of the growth or developement of doctrine. Exception is sometimes taken to the phrase, and the changes which have taken place have often been regarded as in need of justification. It is felt that a divine revelation must have been complete and have contained all doctrines that were true and necessary; yet it is undeniable that changes of momentous importance in the expression of their faith have been made by Christians and the Clmrch, How are the differences between the earlier and the later * doctrines ' to be explained ?
To this question various answers have been given. Some have been unable to see in the later developements anything but what was bad — corruption of primitive truth and degeneration from a purer type. The simplicity of scriptural teaching has lieeu, it is argued, from the apostolic age onwards, ever more and more contaminated. Men were not content with the divine revelation and sought to improve upon it by all kinds of human additions and superstitions. Above all, the Church and the priests, the guardians of the revelation, perverted it in every way they could to serve their own selfish interests, and so was built up the great system of ecclesiastical doctrines and ordinances under which the simplicity and purity of apostolic Christianity was altogether obscured and lost. Such a view as this was held and urged by the English Deists of the eighteenth century, when the wave of rationalism first began to sweep over the liberated thought of England. It is the dominant idea of a large part of Matthew Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation, and still inspires some of the less-educated attacks upon the Church. But for the present purpose this notion of universal apostasy may be dismissed.^
* It must, however, be said that it is practically the same pessimistic estimate of the course of the history of doctrine that underlies Harnack's great work on the subject. At all events, during the period with which we have to deal he does not
1 3S
84 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
More consiiloration inuHt be given to another explanation which was accepted at the Council of Trent, and is therefore still the authoritative answer to the question given by the Church of Rome. It affirms that there are two sources of divine know- ledge: one, Holy Scripture; and the other, traditions handed down from tlie Aiwstles, to whom they liad been dictated, as it wore, orally by Clnist or by tlie Holy Spirit, and preserved in the Catholic Church by unbroken succession since. According to this theory, the later doctrines were later only in the sense that they were published later than the others, having been secretly taught and handed down from the first in the inner circle of bishops, and made known to the Church at large when the need for further teaching arose. This is the theory of ' Secret Tradition ' or disciplina arcani, — the latter term being one of post-Reformation controversy, which was applied to designate .several modes of procedure in teaching the Christian faith. Between these modes we must discriminate, if we are to decide whether we have or have not in this practice the source of the developement of doctrine. In the first place it is obvious that some reserve would be practised by teachers in dealing with those who were young in the faith or in years. For babes there is milk ; solid food is for adults.^ ' Spiritual ' hearers and ' carnal ' hearers need different teaching.^ Wisdom can only be spoken among the full-grown.^ Knowledge must always be imparted by degrees, and methods must be adapted to the capacity of pupils. This is a simple educational expedient which was of
recognize (unless perhaps in the case of St Paul) any progressive developement of Christian truth, but rather a progressive veiling and corruption of the original Gospel through the spreading of Greek and other pagan influences in the Church. The disease, which he styles 'acute Hellenization ' or 'secularizing' of the faith, wrought (he considers) deadly mischief, and obscured or even destroyed the original character and contents of early Christianity. It cannot, however, be claimed that any clear statement of the real constituents of this pure and uncorrupted early Christianity is given in the History of Dodrijie, and till they are certainly deter- mined wnthout question we are left with no criterion by which to distinguish the later changes and accretions from the original teaching. This being so, we may adopt the words of a distinguished critic, who wrote that "where a definite con- ception, based on history, of the nature of Christianity is so wholly wanting, the question as to whether individual phenomena are truly Christian or a degeneration, corruption, and secularization of true Chrisrianity, can only be answered according to personal taste" (Otto Pfleiderer Developcmcjit of Theology p. 299). Such a view remains subjective and defies scientific treatment. (We can now, however, refer to What is Christianity ?)
1 Heb. 512-14. 2 1 Cor, 31, j Cor. 2«.
DEVELOPEMENT OF DOCTRINE 35
course always employed by Christian teachers. The deeper truths were not explained at first ; catechumens were not taught the actual words of the Creed till baptism, and were not allowed to be present at the celebration of the Eucharist. The spiritual interpretation of the highest rites was not laid bare to them.^ And the reticence observed toward catechumens was of course extended to all unbelievers. That which is holy must not be cast to dogs ; pearls must not be thrown before swine. The mysteries of the faith must not be proclaimed indiscriminately or all at once to the uninitiated. Christian teachers had ever before them the parabolic method of their Lord, Eather than risk occasion of profanity by admitting catechumens or unbelievers to knowledge for which they were not prepared, they would incur the suspicion which was certain to fall upon a secret society with secret religious rites. But such a disciplina arcani as this could not be a source of fresh doctrines, even if it could be traced back to apostolic times. It was always a temporary educational device, not employed in relation to the initiated, the ' faithful ' themselves, and always designed to lead up to fuller knowledge — to a plain statement of the whole truth as soon as the convert had reached the right stage. Of any reserve or oeconomy of the truth among Christians, one with another, there is no trace : still less is any distinction between the bishops and others in such respects to be found.^ The nearest approach to anything of the kind which we have is to be seen in the higher ' knowledge ' to which some early Christian philosophers laid claim. It was said that Jesus had made distinctions, and had not revealed to the many the things which he knew were only adapted to the capacity of the few, who alone were able to receive them and be conformed to them. The mysteries (ra airop'prjra) of the faith could not be committed to writing, but must be orally preserved. So Clement of Alexandria " believed that Christ on his resurrection had handed down the ' knowledge ' to James the Just, and John
'The earliest reference to such reticence is perhaps Tertiillian's "omnibus mysteriis silentii fides adhibetur" {Apol. 7) ; and his complaint tliat heretics threw open everything at once {dc Praescr. 41). With regard to the secrecy of the Ci'eed, see Cyprian Testim. iii 50, Sozomen H.E. i 20, Augustine Servi. 212.
- See Additional Note oiKovoixla. infra p. 39.
^ See the passage from the Hypotyposeis bk, vii (not extant) (juoted in Eusebius Ecd. Hist, ii 1. Cf. Strom, i 1, yi 1 ad fin. ; cf. Slruni. v 10 ad fin. on Rom. 152s. 2e. a. and 1 Cor. 26- '^ ; and i 12 on Matt. 7«, 1 Cor. 2".
;^6 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
ami Peter, and they to the other apostles, and they iu turn to the Seventy. Of that sacred stream of secret unwritten know- ledge or wisdom he had been permitted to drink. But this ' knowledge ' of Clement was clearly not a distinct inner system of doctrine dilTering in contents from that which wus taught to the many; it was rather a different mode of apprehending the same truths — from a more intellectual and spiritual standpoint — an esoteric theology concerned with a mystic exposition, a philo- sophiwil view of the popular faith.^ There is no reason to suppose that it was more than a local growth at Alexandria, the home of the philosophy of religion, or that it was the source of later developements of doctrine,
A third explanation removes the chief difficulty in the way of the apologist, by recognizing the progressive character of revela- tion. The theory of developement which Cardinal Newman worked out is not concerned to claim finality for the doctrines of the apostolic age. In effect it asserts that under the con- tinuous control of a divine power, acting through a super- natural organization — the Church, the Bishops, the Pope, there has been a perpetual revelation of new doctrines,^ Under divine guidance the Church was enabled to reject false theories and ex- planations (heresy), and to evolve and confirm as established truth all the fresh teaching which the fresh needs of the ages required.
By this explanation those to whom the theory of perpetual revelations of new doctrines seems to accord but ill with the facts of the case, may be helped to a more satisfactory answer to the question. It is not new doctrines to which Christians are bidden to look forward, but new and growing apprehension of doctrine : not new revelations, but new power to understand the revelation once and finally made. The revelation is Christ himself : we approximate more nearly to full understanding of him, and to the expression of that fuller understanding. Such expression must vary, must be relative to the age, to the general state of knowledge of the time, to individual circumstances and needs. It is impossible to " believe what others believed under different circumstances by simply taking their words ; if we are to hold their faith, we must interpret it in our own language ",^
' See Strom, vi 15,
^ See the essay on the Developement of Christian DodriTU, 1845, Of., however, C. Gore Bampton Lectures p. 253.
* "Westcott CoTiiemp. Review July 1868.
DEVELOPEMENT OF DOCTRINE 37
It is quite possible for the same theological language to be at one time accepted and at another rejected by the Church, according to the sense in which it is umlorstood. The develope- ment of doctrines, the restatement of doctrine, thus understood, is only an inevitable result of the progress of knowledge, of spiritual and moral experience. It might well be deemed a necessary indication of a healthy faith, adapting itself to the needs of each new age, so that if such a symptom were absent we might suspect disease, stagnation, and decay. If Christian doctrines are, as is maintained, formulated statements designed to describe the Person and Work of Christ in relation to God and Man and the World, they are interpretations of great facts of life. Nothing can alter those facts. It is only the mode in which they are expressed that varies. " It can never be said that the interpretation of the Gospel is final. For while it is absolute in its essence, so that nothing can be added to the revelation which it includes, it is relative so far as the human apprehension of it at any time is concerned. The facts are unchangeable, but the interpretation of the facts is progres- sive. . . . There cannot be . . . any new revelation. All that we can need or know lies in the Incarnation. But the meaning of that revelation which has been made once for all can itself be revealed with greater completeness." ^ Certainly the student of the history of Christian doctrines cannot discourage the attempt to re-state the facts in the light of a larger accumu- lation of experience of their workings. It is to such attempts that he owes the rich body of doctrine which is the Christian's heritage, and he at least will remember the condemnation passed on the Pharisees who resisted all reform or developement of the routine of faith and practice into which they had sunk. Their fathers had stoned the prophets — the men who dared to give new interpretations and to point to new developements ; but what was then original and new had in a later age become con- ventional and old, and the same hatred and distrust of a new developement, which prompted their fathers to kill the innovators, led their children to laud them and to build their sepulchres.^
As a matter of fact, we can see that such developements have been due to many external causes, varying circumstances
^ Westcott Gospel of Life preface p. xiiii. The reveltitiou is in this eenisi continuous, present, and progressive. ^ dee Ecce Homo oh, m'.
38 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
and conditiona of porsonal \\fv DilVment nationalities, owiiip to their ditVci-ont antecedents, approliend very dilVerently. The con- ception that 08 Christ came to save all men through liiniself, 80 ho passed t!irt)ugh all tlie Htuges of huuiau gro\\th, sancti- fying each in turn, was familiar in early days,^ and doctrine must correspond to the intellectual and moral and Bpiritual growth of man. To the expresflion of doctrine every race in turn makes its characteristic contribution, nut to the contents of the Revelation but to the interpretation and expression of its significance. The influence of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman modes of thought and of expression is obvious during tlie early centuries with which we are concerned. It is indeed so obvious, for example, that it was from Greek thought that the Church borrowed much of the terminology in which in the fourth century she expressed her Creed, that some have been led to imagine she borrowed from Greek philosophy too the substance of her teaching. In disregard of the highly metapliysical teaching of St John and St Paul, and of the mystical concep- tions underlying the records of the sayings of Christ himself, it is argued that the Sermon on the Mount is the sum and substance of genuine Christianity; that Christianity began as a moral and spiritual ' way of life ' with the promulgation of a new law of conduct ; and that it was simply under Hellenic influences, and by incorporating the terms and ideas of late Hellenic philosophy, that it developed its theology. An ethical sermon stands in the forefront of the teaching of Jesus Christ : a metaphysical creed in the forefront of the Christianity of the fourth century.2 What has been said already of doctrines and their developement — of the finality of the revelation in Christ and of the gra^lual process by which expression is found for the true interpretation of it — recognizes the element of truth con- tained in these over-statements.^ They seem to involve a con-
^ Irenaeus ii 33. 2 {ed. H<arvey vol. i p. 330).
''See Hatch Hibhert Lectures, and Gore Sampton Lectures iv. Cf. also Lighttoof Epistle to the Colossians p. 125.
^ It lias been truly said that with the Incarnation of the Redeemer and tho introduction of Christianity into the world the materials ot the history of doctrines are already fully given in germ. The object of all further doctrinal statements and definitions is, from the positive point of view, to unfold this germ : irom the negative, to guard it against all foreign additions and influences. This twofold object mast be kept In view. The spirit of Christianity had to woik through the forms which it found, attaching itself to what was already in exi-'^tence and appropriating prevalent modes of expre.sfiion. ChrLst did not come to destroy but
DEVELOPEMENT OF DOCTRINE 39
fuBion between conduct and the principles on which it is based ; between the practical endeavour to realise in feeling and in act that harmony between ourselves, creation, and God, which is the end in view of all religion, and the intellectual endeavour to explain and interpret human life so as to frame a system of knowledge. It is with the early attempts to frame this system of knowledge that the student of Christian doctrines has to deal. They all rested primarily on the interpretations which were given by the first generation of Christians of the life and teaching and work of Christ.
'o
oiKovo)Mta- RESERVE
Such an ' economy ' or ' accommodation ' of the truth as is described above is evidently legitimate and educationally necessary.^ "We must note, however, that among some leaders of Christian thought, through attempts at rationalising Christianity to meet the pagan philosophers and at allegorising interpretations of difficulties, the principle was some- times extended in more questionable ways. In controversy with opponents the truth might be stated in terms as acceptable as possible to them It would always be right to point out as fully as possible how much of the truth was already implied, if not expressed, in th. faith and religious opinions which were being combated It would be right to shew that the new trath included all that was true in the old, and to state it as much as possible in the familiar phraseology : such argumenta ad hominem might be the truest and surest ways of en- hghtening an opponent. But phrases of some of the Alexandrian Fathers are cited which sound like undue extensions of such fair 'economy'. Clement declared {Strom, vii 9) that the true Gnostic 'bears on his tongue whatever he bas in his mind', but only *to those who are Avorthy to hear ', and adds that ' he both thinks and speaks the truth, unless at any time medicinally, as a physician dealing with those that are ill, for the safety of the sick he will lie or tell an untruth as the Sophists say ' (outtotc if/evStTai kolv ij/evSo-; Aey??). And Origen is quoted by Jerome (adv. Rufin. Apol. i 18 ; Migne I .L xxiii p. 412) as enjoining on any one who is forced by circumstances to lie the need
to fulfil. All are God's revelations — iroXvfiipui kuI iroKvTpbwuz God spoke of old. The Son in •whom He spoke to ns in these latter days He made heir of all the partial and manifold revelations. The student of Christian doctrines has to study the process by which the inheritance was slowly assumed, and -he riches of the Gentil&s claimed for his service.
' See Newman Arians i 3, and \as Apologia. See also his essay on Developement of Christian Doctrijie.
40 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
of CAre t^ olwprvo the rules of the art, and only ubo tho lio as a conJiment and medicine. To no one else can it be permitted So hia pnpil, Gregory of Neo-Caosarea, used lungungt about the Trinity con- fessedly erroneoua,* and was defended by Basil {Ep. 210. 5; Migne P.O. xxxii p. 776) on the ground lliat ho waa not speaking ^oy^oTiKw? but (iy(i)i'«rri>cojs (controver.sially), that is, not teaching dot;trine but ar>,Miing with an unbeliever; so that he was riglit to concede some things to the feelings of his opponent in order to win him over to the most important points.- And Jerome himself claimed to write in this manner yi'/iruoriKuis, and cited in support of the practice numbers of Greek and Latin Christian writers before him, and even the high authority of St Paul himself {Ej>. 48. 13 ; Migne P.L. xxii p. 502). So Gregory of Nazianzus, in defence and in praise of Basil (see Kp. 58 ; cf. Orat. 43), insisted that true teaching wisdom required that the doctrine of the Spirit should be brought forward cautiously and gradu- ally, and that he should not be described as God except in the presence of those who were well disposed to the doctrine. (See further Harnack DG. Eng. tr. vol. iv p. 116.)
Such expressions as these might easily lead to a perversion of the true psedagogic reticence. Yet language is, in any case, so inadequate to express the deepest thought and feeling on such questions, that it may well seem that if the true idea is secured it matters little in what precise language it is clothed. It is impossible to be certain that a particular term will convey the same idea to different people. The thing that matters is the idea. You want to convey your idea to your opponent — you may have to express it in his language. The limit would seem to be set only when feeling the ideas to be different you so express them as to make them seem the same. When reserve, economy, accommodation, gets beyond that limit, then and not till then does it become dangerous and dishonest. (See D.C.A. Art. "Disciplina Arcani".)
* When he said Father and Son were two iinvolq., but one biroar&aei (but really inr6ffTcurii was then equivalent to ovffLa).
2 Cf. also Basil cU Spir. Sando 66 on the value of the secret unwritten tradition. See Swete Docirine of the Holy Spirit p. 64, and C. F. H. Johnstone The Book of St Basil on the Holy Spirit. On Reserve as taught by the later casuists see Sca^ani Theolog. Mor. ii 23, Pascal Letters, and Jeremy Taylor Dudor Dubit. iii 2 (Jackson ' Basil' N. and P.-N. FatUrs vol. vii).
CHAPTER TV
The Sources of Doctrine: Oral Tradition — Holy
Scripture
The original source of all Christian doctrines is Christ himself, in his hnman life on earth. The interpretations of him which were given by the apostles and earliest disciples are the earliest Christian doctrines. They were conscious that they had this work of interpretation of Christ to the world committed to them, and they believed they might look for the help of the Spirit which he had promised to send — the Spirit of truth — to guide them to the fulness of the truth.^ Under his guiding inspiration many things would grow clear as the human power of apprehension expanded, as their experience was enlarged: when their capacity grew greater they would understand the things of which their Master had told them he had many to say to them, but they could not bear them yet.^ For this function of witnesses and spokesmen — true ' prophets ' — of Christ they would be more and more fitted by a living inspiration coming from him — a spiritual illumination and elevation which would intensify their natural powers and quicken their innate latent capacity into life and activity. Such was the earliest idea of Christian inspiration. It shewed itself in the earliest apostolic teaching, the oral record of which became at once the ' tradition ' to which appeal was made. To this tradition, which naturally dealt both with doctrine and with practice, St Paul referred his converts in one of his earliest and in one of his latest Epistles. ' Hold fast the traditions which ye were taught ' ^ he bids the Thessalonians, ' the tradition which ye received from us';* and again he urges Timothy to guard the deposit com- mitted to him.^
By degrees this oral tradition was supplemented by the
> John W- ". ' John 16'«. » 2 Thess. 2i».
* 2 Thess. 3«. • 1 Tim. 6'^.
41
42 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINK
written tradition, so that alnvidy in liiK exhortation to the Thcsaalonians 8t Paul was able to i)lace aide by side on a level the traditions which thoy had hwird from him, whether by word or by letter, his teaching when with them and what he had written since. But between the two tradilinus there was no sense of discord, and we shall search in vain for any suggestion that one possesses a gi'eater measure of inspiration than the other.^ The one and only source of the teaching was Christ ; from him the stream flows, Scripture and 'tradition' are blended in one great luminous river of truth, and do not separate into divergent streams till later times. Tliey were at first two forms of the same thing. Both together constitute the Tradition, the Canon or Rule of Faith.^
But that which is written has a permanent character which oral tradition lacks. It is less capable of correction if error or misunderstanding creep in. And as more and more of the would-be interpreters wrote their comments and expansions, and Christian literature of very various merit grew, and it became important to exclude erroneous interpretations, a distinction was made between the writings of apostles and those of a later age. By the ' sensus fidelium ' — by the general feeling of believers rather than by any definite act— a selection was gradually formed. In this process some have recognized a definite act of Inspiration, the ' inspiration of Selection '.^ The selection, representative of so many types of interpretation, thus slowly completed, was sanctioned by Councils, and the ' Canon ' of Scripture (the ' Canon ' in a new sense) was formed. And so in this way Holy Scripture came to be ' stereotyped ' as a source of doctrine, and regarded as distinct from the interpreta- tions of the Church of post-apostolic times, whether contained in oral or in written tradition, which henceforth constitute a .separate source of doctrine. So " the testimonies of primitive and apostolic Christianity in collected form serve as an authori- tative standard and present a barrier against the introduction of
' It might perhaps be inferred that in early times the oral tradition was regarded as more tnistworthy than the written account. Cf. the Preface to the Gospel according to St Luke, and the Introduction to the work of Papias quoted by Eusebius H.E. iii 39. Cyprian apparently styles Scripture divinae traditicmis caput et origo (Ep. 74. 10), appealing to it as the ultimate criterion, but tliis conception is unusual.
- The same terms KaviLv, regula («r. fidei), irap6.bo(ns, traditio, are applied to both, ' See Liddon's Sermon before the University of Oxford with this title.
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 4o
ill that was either of a heterogeneous cature or of more recent date which was trying to press into the Church " (Hagenbach).
It is no part of our work to study the process by which inspired Scriptures became an inspired book, invested with all the authority conceded to the Jewish collection, our Old Testa- ment, which had been at first pre-eminently the Bible of the Christians. But in order to understand the growth of doctrine we must trace a little in detail the manner in which the early teachers of the Church viewed the authority of the Scriptures, their conception of Inspiration, their method of Exegesis, the place assigned to Tradition therein.
iTispiration of Scripture
Of Inspiration a formal definition was never framed. We can only point to personal conceptions and individual points of view, conditioned by various influences and differences of country and education as well as of temperament. Two broad lines of influence may be distinguished, Jewish and Gentile.
On the one hand there was the Jewish view of the verbal inspiration of their sacred writings, formed and fostered in connexion with the work of the scribes on the Law. After the Eeturn from the Exile and the establishment of Judaism on a new basis, the religious interest of the nation was enlisted in the work of microscopic investigation of the letter of the Law. The leaders of Judaism desired to regulate every detail of the life of the nation. Immense reverence for the Law stimulated the aim of securing its sanction on the minutest points and working them out to their utmost consequences. And so arose the system of exposition of the Law to make it apply to the purpose in view, till every letter contained a lesson. And side by side with this view of the written revelation, by a process the reverse of that which took place in regard to the Christian revelation, there grew up the idea of the inspiration of the oral tradition as well. The network of scribe-law — the traditions of the scribes — entirely oral — was regarded as of equal authority wth the written law. There even arose the notion of a disciplina arcani going back to the time of Moses, who it was said had handed down a mass of oral traditions, which were thus referred to divine authority.
On the other hand was the Ethnic idea of divination (^77 navriKr]),
44 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
according to which the medium of the diviue revelation, who was naually a woman, hoaime the mechanical mouthpiece of the God, losing her own consciousness, so that she gave vent in agitated tiance to the words she was inspired to utter.^ Inspiration is thus an ec^tntic condition, during which the natural powers of the individual who is inspired are suspended : it is ' an absolute possession which for the time holds the individuality of the prophetess entirely in abeyance'. A typical instance of this kind of inspiration is described in the lines of Virgil ^ —
Struggling in vain, impatient of her load, And lab'ring underneath the pond'rous God, The more she strove to shake him from her breast, With more and far sujjerior force he pres.'^Vl ; Commands his entrance, and, without control, Usurps her organs, and inspires her soul.
If in later times under Platonic or Neo-Platonic influence a less external conception grew up, it probably did not establish itself or spread beyond the circle of philosophic thought.
The conception of Inspiration which was held by Christians was doubtless in some cases influenced by these Greek and Eoman ideas, but it was probably in the main an inheritance from Judaism. This is a natural inference from the fact tliat the Jewish Scriptures were the first Christian Bible, and that the idea of verbal inspiration was at first associated much more definitely with them, and only indirectly and by transference with the selected Christian literature. The early Christian idea was, as we have seen, rather of inspired men than of an inspired book ; though the transition is an easy one, as the writings of inspired men would naturally also be inspired. When we come to definite statements on the subject we find now the one and now the other influence strongest.
In Philo^ we might expect to find a transitional theory of inspiration, but he seems to combine the Jewish and the Ethnic views in their extremer forms. He applies the Ethnic conception of divination to the Hebrew prophets, and repeats with em- bellishments the fable of the miraculous translation of the Hebrew Scriptures by the Seventy. Even the grammatical errors of the Septuagint he regarded as inspired and rich in
' See F. W. H. Myers "Greek Oracles" in Essays— Classical.
' Aen. vi 77-80— Dryden.
* See William Lee Itispiration of Holy Scripture, Appendix F.
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 45
capacity for allegorical interpretation — a view of literal inspira- tion with which can be compared only the assertion by the Council of Trent of the sanctity and canonicity of the books of the Old Testament and the New Testament and the Apocryphal writings, ' entire with all their parts as they are accustomed to be read in the Cathohc Church and in the old Latin Vulgate edition '. Philo's conceptions are shewn with equal clearness in his system of interpretation, examples of which will be cited in their place.
To the Apostolic Fathers the Scriptures are the books of the Old Testament, though if there is a reference to a written Gospel it is introduced by the same formula as is used in the other citations. Barnabas makes explicit allusions to the (Hfferent parts of the Old Testament (* the Lord saith in the Prophet ' or ' in the Law '), but it is clear that the whole collection is looked upon as one divinely inspired utterance — the voice of the Lord or of the Holy Spirit. There is of course no sign of a New Testament of definite books and of equal author- ity with the Old ; but the Apostolic Fathers do separate the writings of Apostles from their own and disclaim apostolic authority.^ Thus Clement, in writing to the Corinthians,- appeals to ' the Epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle ' to them as authority alike for him and for them. It was 'in the Spirit ' that he had charged them against the sin of making parties, and Clement refers to his warnings as commanding the same attention which they would obviously give to the writings of the older ' ministers of the grace of God'.
A passage in the Muratorian Fragment throws light on the current conceptions of the authority of the written Gospels about the middle of the second century. " Though various principal ideas {jprinciina) are taught in the different books of the Gospels, it makes no difference to the faith of believers, since in all of them all things are declared by one principal {or sovereign) Spirit {uno ac princiixdi spiritu) concerning the Nativity, the Passion, the Eesurrection, the manner of life (con- versatione) [of our Lord] with his disciples, and his double Advent, first in lowliness and humiliation which has taken place, and afterwards in glory and royal power which is to come."
^ Cf. Westcott The. Bible in the Church, p. 86. (The citations are all anonymous. Clement has ' it is wTitten ', ' the Scripture saith ', ' the Holy Spirit saith ' ; Ignatius, ' it is written ' ; Polycarp, no formula. )
■ Cf. §§ 47, 8.
46 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
About the same time iiiul later on wc have some indications of the pre\'ailing view of inspiration in the writings of the Apologists and Irenfteus.
To Justin, for example, Scripture is the word of God, given by (tOD throuj^lj the Word, or tliiough tlie Spirit. It is the Spirit of God who is the author of thu whole of the Old Testament — the single author of one great drama with its many Jictors. The prophets were indeed inspired, but the words which they utter are not their own. We must not suppose, he says, " that the language proceeds from the men who are inspired, but from the Divine Word which moves them "} It is to prophecy, to Scripture, that he makes his appeal : on the fulfilment of prophecy he relies for proof of the truth of the claims of Christ.
In Athenagoras — Athenian philosopher though he was, and perhaps connected with the school of Alexandria — we find a description of the process of inspiration derived from purely pagan sources. The Spirit uses men as its instruments, playing upon them as a flute-player blows a flute. They are entranced and their natural powers suspended, and they simply utter under the influence of the Divine Spirit that which is wrcjught in them.2
Theophilus, however, recognizes much more fully the quality of the human instrument. The inspired writers were not mere mechanical organs, but men who were fitted for their work by personal and moral excellence, and on account of their fitness were deemed worthy to be made the vehicles of the revelation of God and to receive the wisdom which comes from Him.*
Tertullian too lays stress on the character of the medium chosen. " From the very beginning God sent forth into the world men who by their justice and innocence were worthy to know God and to make Him known — filled full of the Divine Spirit to enable them to proclaim that there is one only God ..." and so gave us a written testament that we might more fully know His will.* In the Scriptures we have the very 'letters' and 'words' of God. So much so indeed that, under the influence of Montanism, he argued that nothing could be safely permitted for whicli such a letter or word of God could not be cited in
> ^4pol. i 36 (cf. 33, and ii 10;. * Legatio 9.
3 Ad Autol. ii 9 (cf. Euseb. Hi^t. Eccl. iv 20). < Apol. 18.
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 47
evidence. The prmciple that nothing is required for nalvation which cannot be proved by Scripture ^ was not enough for him : rather, Scripture denies that which it does not give instances of, and prohibits that which it does not expressly permit.^
To the Montanists the annihilation of all human elements was of the first importance. Prophecy must be ecstatic. Un- consciousness on tlie part of the person through whom the Spirit spoke was of the essence of Inspiration.
Irenaeus leaves us in no doubt about his view. The inspiration of the writers of the New Testament is plenary, and apparently regarded as different in degree from that of the prop! < ■• of old, whose writings — though inspired — were full of riddles and ambiguities to men before the coming of Christ : the accom- plishment had to take place before their prophecies became intelligible. Those who live in the latter days are more happily placed. " To us . . . [the apostles] by the will of God have handed down in the Scriptures the Gospel, to be the foundation and pillar of our faith. . . . For after our Lord rose again from the dead the Holy Spirit came down upon them, and they were invested with power from on high and fully equipped concerning all things, and had perfect capacity for knowledge " ^ . . . and so they were exempt from all falsehood (or mistake) — the inspiration saving them from blunders — even from the use of words that might mislead ; as when the Holy Spirit, foreseeing the corruptions of heretics, says by Matthew, ' the generation of Christ ' (using the title that marked the divinity), whereas Matthew might have written ' the generation of Jesus ' (using only the human name).^ But this inspiration is not of such a character as to destroy the natural qualities of its recipients : each preserves his own individuality intact.
To the end of the second century or to the beginning of the third probably belongs the anonymous ' Exhortation to the Greeks ', which used to be attributed to Justin.^ It contains the following significant description of the manner in which inspiration worked. " Not naturally nor by human thought
^ Cf. Article vi. - De Afonog. 4 ; dc Cor. 2.
^ See adv. Ilaerescs iii 1 and 5 — Harvey vol. ii pp. 2, 18.
■• Ibid, iii 17— Harvey ii p. 83.
' Eusebi'.is Hist. EccL iv 18 mentions two writings of Justin to the Greeks, but neither the extant Oratio ad GenlUes nor the CohoricUio which contains the above l)assage is believed to be the work of Justin.
48 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
can men get to know such great and divine things, but by the gift which came down from above at that time (sc. under the Jewish dispensation) upon the holy men, who liad no need of skill or art of words, nor of any debating and contentious speech. They only needed to present themselves in purity to the influence of the divine Spirit, so that the divine power by itself coming down from heaven, acting on those just men, as the bow acts on an instrument — be it harp or lyre, might reveal to us the knowledge of divine and heavenly things. So it was that, as if with one mouth and tongue, they taught us in due gradation and concord one with another — and that too thouj'li they imparted their divine teaching to us in different places and at ditterent times — concerning God and the creation of the world and the formation of man and the immortality of the human soul and the judgement which is to be after this life." Hero it appears that moral fitness only is recognized as a necessary qualification for the medium of the revelation, and there is again the metaphor which seems to indicate a merely mechanical mode of inspiration. But the metaphor should not be strained, and the efifect of the peculiar structure of the instrument in determining its tone must be taken into account.
Of the Alexandrines, whose special glory it was, in an age of wild anti-Christian speculation on the one side and fanatical literalism on the other, to lead men to the scholarly study of the Scriptures, Clement has little of special interest on the manner in which the inspii'ation worked. Eecognizing as he did the action of God in the moral teacliing of Greeks and barbarians, who had in philosophy a covenant of their own, he believed that the God of the Christians was also the giver of Greek philosophy to the Greeks, and that He raised up prophets among them no less than among the people of Israel. But it was by the chosen teachers of His peculiar people that He led men to the Messiah ; the Word by the Holy Spirit reducing man, body and soul, to harmony, so as to use him — an instru- ment of many tones — to express God's melody.^
It is from Origen first that we get an express rejection of
^ "But he that is of David and was before him, the Word of God, despising lyre and harp — mere lifeless instruments — took this cobmic order — yes, and the micro- cosm man, his body and soul, and attuned it to the Holy Spirit [or by the Holy Spirit), and so through this instrument of many notes he sings to God." Protrept ch. i — Migne P.O. viii p. 60.
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 49
pagan conceptions in this respect. He assumes the doctrine of Inspiration to be acknowledged — it was the same Spirit who worked all along in the prophets of all ages : but it was to enlighten and strengthen them that His influence went — not to cloud or confuse their natural powers like the Pythian deity. By the contact of the Holy Spirit with their souls the divine messengers became clearer in vision and brighter in intuition both in mind and in soul. The preface to the Gospel of St Luke is cited as shewing that this was so : what others attempted they — the inspired writers — moved by the Holy Spirit actually wrote. And St Paul's own words in his Epistles shew that he was conscious of speaking sometimes in his own person and sometimes with divine authority. None of the objections commonly alleged against the Scriptures in any way invalidated their claim to be received as containing a true revelation of God. What seemed to be unworthy of God, or beneath His dignity, should be understood as an accommodation to the intelligence of men, and things which we could not yet explain we should know hereafter.^
The method of interpretation adopted by Origen shews and illustrates his general conceptions. This method was partly his own, but largely an inheritance which he could not escape.
The Interpretation of Scriiiture
The ideas of inspiration, as applied to writings, and of exegesis, were formed, it has been said,^ while the mystery of writing was still fresh. A kind of glamour hung over the written words. They were invested with an importance and impressiveness which did not attach to any spoken words, giving them an existence of their own. Their precise relation to the person who first uttered them and their literal meaning at the time of their utterance tended to be overlooked or obscured. Especially in regard to the writings of Homer is this process seen. Eeverence for antiquity and belief in inspiration combined to lift him above the common limitations of time and place and circumstances. His verses were regarded as having a universal validity : they were the Bible of the Greek races, the
' See de Primlp. bk. iv. Cf. Greg. Nyss. dr conim. Not. p. 181 (M?gne P.G. xW). ^ Hatch Hibbert Lectures, 18S8, from which (p. 50 IT.) the following paragraphs are taken.
nO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINK
woK'Ad of an undying wiailom. So when the uneonsciouH imitation of hrroic ideals paasod into conscious philosophy of life, it was neceesttry that such philoBophy should ho nhown to he con- sonant with the old ideals and current standards. And when ' education ' began it was inevitable that the ancient poets shoidd be the basis of education. So the professors of educa- tion, the ])hilosoi»hers and 'sophists', were obliged to base their teaching on Homer, to preach their own sermons from his texts, and to draw their own meanings from them ; so that ho became a sujiport to them instead of being a rival. " In the childhood of the world, men, like children, had to be taught by tales"— and Homer wjis regarded as telling tales with a moral purpose. The developing forms of ethics, physics, metajihysicR, all accord- ingly appeal to Homer ; all claim to be the deductions from his writings ; and as the essential interval between them, between the new and the old conceptions, grew wider, the reconciliation was found in the exegetical method by which a meaning was detected beneath the surface of a record or representation of actions. In this way a narrative of actions, no less than the actions themselves, might be symbolical and contain a hidden meaning ; and thus the break with current reverence for the old authority and belief in its validity would be avoided.
It is not true that this method was never challenged ; but it had a very strong hold on the Greek mind. It underlay the whole theology of the Stoical schools ; it was largely current among the scholars and critics of the early empire ; and it sur- vived as a literary habit long after its original purpose had failed.
The same difficulty wliich had been felt on a large scale in the Greek world was equally felt by Jews who had become students of Greek philosophy in regard to their own sacred books. By adopting the method which was practised in the case of the Homeric writings, they could reconcile their philosophy tf> their religion and be in a [)Ositiou to give an account of their faith to the educated Greeks among whom they dwelt. Of this mode of interpretation far the most considerable monument is to be found in the works of Philo, which are based throughout on the supposition of a hidden meaning in the sacred scriptures, metaphysical and spiritual. They are always patient of sym- bolical interpretation. Iilvery passage has a double sense, the literal and the deeper. In every narrative there is a moral.
As an instance of this method may be cited Philo's treatment
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 51
of the narrative of Jacob's dream — " He took the stones of that place and put them under his head ", from which he extracts the moral, and also support for his own peculiar philosophical ideas. " The words ", he says,^ " are wonderful, not only because of their allegorical and physical meaning, but also because of their literal teaching of trouble and endurance. The writer does not think that a student of virtue should have a delicate and luxurious life, imitating those who are called fortunate . . . men, who after spending their days in doing injuries to others return to their homes and upset them (I mean not the houses they live in, but the body which is the home of the soul) by immoderate eating and drinking, and at night lie down in soft and costly beds. Such men are not disciples of the sacred Word. Its disciples are real men, lovers of temperance and sobriety and modesty, who make self-restraint and contentment and endurance the corner-stones, as it were, of their lives : who rise supeiior to money and pleasure and fame ; who are ready for the sake of acquiring virtue to endure hunger and thirst, heat and cold ; whose costly couch is a soft turf, whose bedding is grass and leaves, whose pillow is a heap of stones or a hillock rising a little above the ground. Of such men Jacob is an example : he put a stone for his pillow ... he is the archetype of a soul that disciplines itself, who is at war with every kind of effeminacy. . . . But the passage has a further meaning, which is conveyed in symbol. You must know that the divine place and the holy ground is full of incorporeal Intelligences, who are immortal souls. It is one of these that Jacob takes and puts close to his mind, which is, as it were, the head of the combined person, body and soul. He does so under the pretext of going to sleep, l^ut in reality to find repose in the Intelligence which he has chosen, and to place all the burden of his life upon it."
So when Christians came to the interpretation of their Scrip- tures, under this sense of their inspiration (whether articulated clearly or not), they had a twofold aim before them. Filled, on the one hand, with the conviction of the wealth of knowledge stored in them, they were bound, for practical as well as for speculative purposes, to explore as fully as possible the depths behind the obvious surface-meaning ; and, on the other hand, they were Ijound to explain away all that, when taken in its literal sense, was offensive to human reason or seemed unworthy of the Deity.
^ Pliilo de Somniis i 20 ou Gen. 28"— Hatch I.e.
52 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Modem conceptions of aireful scholmly inteii»n!tation und of the need of investigation into the exact sense of words, in connexion with the circumstances in which they were first used, were in those days unknown. Thi' insjiired Scriptures were separated by a wide choani from all other books and writings — the heavenly from the earthly : and so the superfifial nieaninLj was the furthest from the real lueaning. To the uninitiated Scripture was as a hierofTJyph which needed a key that few possessed to decipher its enigmas. S^> from the first the method of typical and allegorical interpretation was practised. It was the way which some at least of the writers of the New Testament adopted in dealing with the Old, and understood that Christ himself had sanctioned.^ And the author of the Epistle to Barnabas ^ carried on the same method in an elaborate application to Christ and to men of the imagery of the Day of xA-tonement.
It was never supposed that writings, because inspired, must be easily understood by every one ; but it was not till the time of Origen that a definite theory was framed which excludes from consideration the obvious literal sense of many passages.
Irenaeus was content to believe that there was nothing in Scripture which did not serve some purpose of instruction and yet to acquiesce in failure to explain all passages. There is nothing undesigned, nothing whigh does not carry with it some suggestion or some proof. But we are unable to understand all mysteries ; and " we need not wonder that this is our experience in spiritual and heavenly matters and things which have to be revealed to us, when many of the things which lie at our feet . . . and are handled by our bands . . . elude our knowledge, and even those we have to resign to God ".^ And he cannot see why it should be felt as a difficulty that when the Scriptures in their entirety are spiritual some of the questions dealt with in them we are able by the grace of God to solve, but others have to be referred to God Himself : and so it is always God who is teaching and man who is learning all through from God.* The typical and allegorical method he condemns as used by the Gnostics, but he does not shrink from adopting it at times himself.^
1 E.g. as to Elias— Matt. 17"", Mark 9" * ; cf. JEpistle to the Hebrews all through ; .and St Paul, e.g. Gal. 422*
- Ep. Bam. 17. ' Adv. Haer. ii 41 — Harvey vol. 1 p. 350.
* Ibid. p. 351. See further, Harnack DG. Eng. tr. vol. ii p. 251.
'' The allegorical method was universally accepted, and it was only the extravagant employment of it by the Gnostics in support of their wildest conceptions to which
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 53
III this he is at oue with most of the early Fathers, of whom it has beeu said that since they knew nothing, thought of nothing, felt nothing but Christ, it is not surprising that they met him everywhere. Their Igreat object was to shew the connexion between the Old and New Covenants — that the New was the spiritual fulfilment of the Old.
So Tertullian ^ could say that the form of prophetical utter- ance was " not always and not in all things " allegorical and figurative, and he refused to admit limitations of time in things connected with the revelation of God.^ And Clement of Alex- andria found rich meaning in the candlestick with its seven lights.'
It is in Clement that wa first find' a definite theory of a threefold sense of Scripture.* " The Saviour taught the Apostles", he says, " first of all in typical and mystic fashion, and then by parable and enigma, and thirdly when they were alone with him clearly without disguise ", — the concealment which he practised leading men on to further enquiries.
Origen further developed this theory.^ According to his teaching the Holy Scriptures are the only source from which knowledge of the truth can be obtained, and they convey a three- fold sense which corresponds to the tripartite division of man into body, soul, and spirit. First, there is the grammatical or historical meaning, which corresponds to the body and may be called the bodily sense. And, secondly, there is the moral or anagogical meaning, which corresponds to the soul and may be called the psychic sense. And, thirdly, there is the mystical or allegorical meaning, which corresponds to the spirit and may be called the spiritual sense. " The individual ought ", he writes,^ " to pourtray the ideas of Holy Scripture in a threefold manner
exception could be taken. Far-fetched as the interpretations of some of the Fathers seem to a modern scholar, they were sane and commonplace in comparison with the meanings which Gnostic ingenuity discovered in plain and simple passages of Scripture.
' De Hesurredione Carnis 20 ad fin.
^ Cf. 'Non hahet tempus Aeternitas' adv. Marc, iii 5, i 8.
» Clem. Al. Slrom. v 6.
* Strom, i 28 q.v. and fragment 66. "The sense of the law is to be taken in three ways — either as exhibiting a symbol or laying down a precept for light conduct, or as uttering a prophecy." Here is the triple sense of Scripture — mystic, moral, pro- phetic Cf. Slrom. vi 15.
' See esp. de Princip. iv §§ 1-27, esp. § 11.
« De Princip. iv § 11, Tr. A.-N.C. Library.
54 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
uiKta hia soul : in order thai the simple man may bo edified by tho ' tk«h ', as it were, of tho 8cri])tiiro, for so we name the obviouK .souse ; while he who has ascended a eertain way [may bo edified] by the ' soul ', as it were. The perfect man, a^aiu, and he who resembles those spoken of by the apostle, when he says 'We speak wisdom among tliem (bat are perfect . . .' [may receive editityitiou] from the spiritual law, which has a shadow of good things to come. For as man consists of body, soul, and spirit, ao in the same way does Scripture, which has been airanged to be given by God for the salvation of men." This method of interpretation, Origen points out, is recognized in Holy Scripture — Cin'ist distinguished between the first and second in the Sermon on the Mount and (»n other occasions ; and theallcgoricnl and mystical senses were utilized in the arguments of the Epistles to the Galatians and to the Hebrews.^ The literal sense, how- ever, was not always possible.- Instances of things which have uo religious bearing (such as genealogies), or are repulsive to morality, or unworthy of God, or opposed to the law of nature or of reason, must ])e spiritualized by allegorical interpretation. They do not instruct us if taken literally, and are designed to call men to the spiritual explanation. So with regard to contra- dictions in the narratives of the evangelists,^ he argues that the truth does not consist in the ' bodily characters ' (the literal sense). His treatment of such cases goes far to justify the description of his method as ' biblical alchemy '. It is applied by him to the New Testament as well as to the Old. The Tempta- tion, for example, is not regarded as simple history, and precepts such as Take no purse * and Turn the other cheek ^ are not to have their literal sense attributed to them. So too in respect of the miracles, he finds their most precious significance in the allegory which they include. He lays great stress on the need of study, which such a method obviously demands, and of attention and puiity and reverence.^
1 Origen cites Gal. 4««, 1 Cor. lO*"", Heb. 48- ».
2 Ibid. § 12 ; cf. Hovi. ii in Gen. 6. » Cf. Horn, x in Job.
* Luke 10«. 6 Matt. 5^, and so 1 Cor. 7'".
® Cf. Athana.sius de TncamafAone Vcrhi, a/l fin. "For the investigation and tnie knowledge of the Scriptures there is need of a good life and a pure soul and Christian virtue. . . . He who wishes to understand the mind of the divines miist previously wash and cleanse his soul by his life. . , ."
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 55
The samo method of extgcsLs was followed, to a large extent at all •nents, by the later Easterji Fathers, especially hy the Cappadociuns. See e.g. Gregory of Nyssa de comm. Not. p. 181 Migne, Or. Cat. 32, in (Jant. Cant. p. 756 Migne, c. Eimom. vii p. 744 Migne.
After Origen the first attempt at a formal statement of the principles uf interpretation that calls for notice was that of Tyconiiis, an African Donatist {c. 370-420). He drew up seven rules of interpretation which •A-ugustine a little later discussed and, with some reservations, recom- mended as useful though incomplete. (See the edition of F. C. Eurkitt Texts and Studies vol. iii no. 1, and Augustine de Doct. Christ, iii chs. xxx-xxxvii. On Augustine as Interpreter, see W. Cunningham Hvhean Lertm-es — ' St Austin ' .) Methods very diflierent from Origen's were followed by the chief leaders of the school of Antioch, but they were not systematized as his were. (See e.g. Theodore of Mopsuestia ed. Swete Introd. and Chrysostom — W. K. W. Stephens, p. 421 and ff.) In the West also, on the whole, a more literal and meagre method of interpretation prevailed, at least until the time of Ambrose, who brought back under the influence of the writings of Origen and Basil a richer and more varied treatment of the Scriptures.
The Place of Tradition in the Interpretation of Scripture
As long as such methods were accepted it is obvious that a gi'eat variety of interpretations was possible, and that Scripture by itself could hardly be considered a sufficient guide. It could be claimed by both sides on most questions. Hence in con- troversy, and particularly in controversy with the Gnostics, there originated the definite assertion that it can only be correctly understood in close connexion with the tradition of the Church. Such a claim was quite accordant with the primitive conception of tradition, not as an independent source of doctrine but as essentially hermeneutic, forming with the written words one river of knowledge.
Of the nature of this tradition somewhat different views were held, according as the security for its truth was found rather in the living personal voice of individuals (the continuous historical episcopate), passing on to one another from the earliest days the word of knowledge, or in the unbroken continuity of teaching which external descent of place guaranteed (the rule of faith). The latter offered, obviously, the easier test, and the highest importance was attached to it.
Irenaeus is the first to argue out the matter. He puts the
56 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINIi
question — SuppoBing, as inip;ht. have happened, that we ha<i no Scriptures, to what should wo have to make our appeal ? " Should we not have to go hack to the most aiieient Churches, in which the Apostles lived, and take from them . . . what is fixed and ascertained ? What else could we do ? If the Apostles themselves luui not left us writings, should we not be obliged to depend on the teacliing of the tradition which they bequeathed to those to whose care they left tlie Churches ? " ^ We must go hack to the most ancient Churches — it is here, in the consent of Churches, that Irenaeus sees tlie guarantee of truth. - He takes for granted that the Apostles are the ultimate authority, and when the question of the meaning of the Christian revelation is disputed it is to them that all men would agree to make appeal. To the Apostles themselves, in person, appeal is no longer possible ; but their representatives and successors are still to be found in every Church. The bishops, or the presbyters (for Irenaeus uses either word for the heads or governing bodies of Churches), were appointed at first and taught by them ; and they in turn, generation by generation, in unbroken succession, have handed on to their successors the same tradition. Irenaeus seems to have in mind the possibility that in a particular case there might be some flaw in this traditional teaching — so he appeals to the general consensus of many such Churches. That in which you find the Churches of apostolic foundation agreeing, scattered as they are over many regions of the world — that, at all events, you may be sure is part of the genuine apostolic tradition. As an instance he points to the one Church in the West which was supposed to be able to claim apostolic foundation — the Church of Eome. The prestige which attached to it, from its central position in the world's metropolis, made it the most convenient and conspicuous test.^ Christians from all lands were continually coming and going, and therefore any departure from the tradition would be most easily detected. The Church of Eome was, in this way, always before the eyes of the world and under the judgement of other Churches, so that no innovation
1 Iren. adv. Haer. iii 4. 1 — Harvey vol. ii pp. 15, 16. It will be noted that though priority is claimed for the tradition, yet it is appealed to not as an independent source of doctrine but as a means of determining the true sense of the Scriptures.
- Such no doubt is the meaning of the phrase 'propter potentiorem principali- tatem' — 'on account of its more influential pre-eminence', i.e. its prominence and influence {ibul. iii 3. 1 — Harvey vol. ii pp. 8, 9). See also the note on ' principali-s ecclesia' in Abp. Benson's Cyprian, p. 537.
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 57
there had any chance of escaping notice and criticism. The tradition preserved at Korae might therefore be regarded as having the tacit sanction of all the other Churches, and by reference to it any one in doubt might easily convince himself of the oneness of the apostolic tradition of the whole Church. And so he could say that " the tradition of the Apostles, made manifest as it is through all the world, can be recognized in every Church by all who wish to know the truth " ; ^ and to the pretended secret doctrine of heretics he opposes the public preaching of the faith of the apostolic Churches ; against the mutability and end- less varieties of their explanations he sets the unity of the teaching of the Church ; against their novelty, her antiquity ; against their countless subdivisions into schools and parties, the uniformity and universality of her traditional witness.^ It is this which he regards as the chief instrument in the conversion of the nations, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit in their hearts.
A similar estimate of the authority of ecclesiastical tradition in the interpretation of Scripture was maintained by Tertullian, though he gives it different characteristic expression. In dealing with heretics he conceives them as arraigned before a tribvmal as defendants in a suit which the Church as plaintiff brings against them. He does not take their many false interpretations one by one and proceed to prove them wrong, though he was ready to do this vigorously on occasion ; but he exercises the right, allowed by Eoman law to plaintiffs in an action, to limit the enquiry to a single point ; and the point he chooses is the legitimacy of the heretics' appeal to Holy Scripture. He aims, that is, at shewing cause why the interpretations of any one outside the Church should be dismissed without examination, apart from any consideration of their intrinsic merit. If he establishes this point the heretics are at once ruled out of court, as having no locus standi; while, if he fails, it is still open to him, according to the principles of Eoman law, to take fresh action on all the other points excluded from the suit. He insists,^ accordingly, on this limitation of the question, and asks,
^ Iren. adv. Haer. iii 3. 1.
' See further Lipsius, Art. "Irenaeua" in D.C.B.
' De Fraescnptione Eaerelicorum — ' ' Concerning the Limitation of the Suit again st the Heretics", esp. §§ 15, 19, ed. T. H. Bindley, who rejects the common expla- nation of praescriptio as meaning the 'preliminary plea' or objection lodged a«^ the commencement of a suit, which — if maintained— dispensed with the need of
58 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINK
" Whose are the. ScripUires { liy whom and through whoso means and when and to whom was the dii^cijilinc, (the touching or system) handed down wliieh makes men Christians ? Wher- ever yon tind the true Christian diKcijjline and faitli, there will be the trnth of tht* Christian Scriptures and expositione and all traditions." It is the Church which is the keeper and guardian of all these possessions, and therefore it is the Church and the Church only whicli can determine the truth. Heretics have no right to use Scripture in argument against the ortliodox, who alone are able to decide what is its meaning.
Clement of Alexandria goes so far as to say that he who .spurns the ecclesiastical tradition ceases to be a man of Cod.^
And Origen, for all his elaborate system of interpretation, declares, in the Prologue to the work in which it is expressed, the nece.ssity of holding fast to the ecclesiastical preaching which has been handed down by the Apostles in orderly suc- cession from one to another, and has continued in the Churches light down to the present time. " That alone ought to be believed to be truth which differs in no respect from the ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition."^
It is still the consent of Churches that is the test of truth. Athanasius seems to be the first to quote the ' Fathers ' as witnesses to the faith ,3 but more particularly as guaranteeing its antiquity than as being themselves invested with personal authority as interpreters. So Cyril of Jerusalem, who strongly asserts the importance of Scripture, recognizes the authority of the Church at its back. It is from the Church that the cate- chumen must learn what are the books to which he must go.* And Augustine was only expressing the common sentiment when he declared that he would not believe the Gospel if it were not for the authority of the Catholic Church.^
entering into any discussion of the merits of a case. FraescHptio technically meant a clause prefixed to the intejiiio of d, formula for the purpose of limiting the scope of an enquiry (excluding points which would otherwise have been left open for discus- sion before the judex), and at the time when TertuUian wrote it was used only of the plaintiff. ' Demurrer' is thus technically WTong, and somewhat misleading as a title of the treatise.
' Strom, vii 16. ^ Dc Princip. Proem 1.
' See his letter on the Dated Creed in Socrates H. E. ii 37, and the Ep. Eneycl. 1.
* Cat. iv 33.
' 'Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae e<;clesiae commoveret auctoritas' (c. Ep. Munich. 6).
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 59
The most elaborate, as the most famous, statement of the case for tradition was not drawn up till towards the middle of the fifth century, when Vincent of T.erinnm was roused by the apparent novelty of Augustine's doctrines of Grace and Pre- destination to expound the principles by which the Faith of the Church might be determined.^ The two foundations which he lays down are still the divine law (or Holy Scripture) and the tradition of the Catholic Church. The first is sufficient by itself, if it could be rightly understood, but it cannot be under- stood xvithout the guidance of the tradition, which shews what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod cd) omnibus — this is the great principle on which Vincent takes his stand. But he recognizes that it is not always easy of appHcation, and he has to support it by the testimony of majorities either of the Church as a whole or of teachers as against minorities, antiquity as against novelty, general Councils as against individual or local errors. If part of the Chui"ch separates itself from the common body, it is the larger society that must be followed ; if a false doctrine arises and threatens the Church, the best test is antiquity, which can no longer be misled ; if in antiquity itself particular teachers or localities have erred, the decision of a general Council is decisive, if a general Council has pronounced upon the matter ; if not, the Christian must examine and compare the writings of the recog- nized teachers, and hold fast by what all alike in one and the same sense have clearly, frequently, and consistently upheld. All innovations are really wickedness and mental aberration : in them ignorance puts on the cloak of knowledge, weak-mindedness of ' educidation ', darkness of light. Pure knowledge is given only in the universal, ancient, imanimous tradition. It is antiquity that is the really decisive criterion of truth.
Assertions such as these might seem to be prohibitive of any kind of growth or progress in Eeligion ; but Vincent was much
^ Adversus jyro/anas omnium novitatcs haereticorum Commointoriv,m, ■\vritten about 434, attention having been aroused in the West to the question of tradition by the Donatist and Pelagian controversies. Vincent seems to have adopted some of Augustine's rules, though be would use them against him. He was a meniber of th' famous monastery on the island near Cannes, now known as L'ile Saiut Honorat, from Honoratus the founder. A good analysis of the Common itoriwm will be found in Harnack DG. ii », pp. 106-108 (Eng. tr. vol. iii pp. 230-232) ; handy editions in vol. ix of Hurtcr's F!. Pairtutn Opuscula Selecia, and in the Sammluny Quellenschriften ed. Kriiger.
60 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
too scholarly and soimil a thinker to coiuuiil In'nipolf to such a negation. When the argument brings him to the question, ' Ih there in the Church of Christ a progress in Keligion ? * he answers, Yes ; there has been great progress. And he shews by the images of the increase of a child and of a plant the nature of the progress. It is an organic growth, which consists in deepening rather than in change. No innovation comes in, for a single innovation would destroy all. Religion is strength- ened with years and widened with time, and built up more elegantly with age ; but all remains fundamentally the same. What the Church has always had in view has been the explanation and strengthening of doctrine already believed : greater plainness, more exact precision of statement, finer dis- crimination of sense. Aroused by the novelties of heretics, she has, by decrees of Councils, confirmed for posterity the tradition received from her ancestors ; for the sake of enlightenment and better understanding she has embraced in a few letters a mass of things, and by a new term sealed the sense of the faith which was not new.
Yet in spite of this higli estimate of the value of tradition, Vincent is obliged in some cases to fall back upon Scripture. Heresies which are already widely extended and deep-rooted cannot, he sees, be disproved by the appeal to the unanimity of teachers : so many of them could be cited in support of erroneous views. Old heresies, never quite destroyed, had had opportunity in the long course of time to steal away the truth, and their adherents to falsify the writings of the Fathers. In such cases we must depend on the authority of Scripture only.
It is hardly true to say that this admission involves the bankruptcy of tradition.^ It may rather be taken as shewing the fair balance of the author's mind. He does not profess to give an easy road to truth. He lays down criteria, almost all of which demand for their use no little research and patience. He believes that the great majority of teachers have rightly inter- preted the Christian revelation from the first, but where their consensus is not obvioiis he would decide the ambiguity by appeal to the Book which embodies the traditional interpretation of the earliest ages. He is really, in this, referring back to the standard tradition. And there never was in those days a time when the leaders of Christian opinion were not prepared to
^ As Harnack I.e.
THE SOURCES OF DOCTRINE 61
make a similar reference of disputed questions to that court, and to check by the authority of Holy Scripture too great freedom in reading into Christianity ideas that were foreign to its spirit. So staunch a champion of tradition as Cyprian could say that " custom without truth is the antiquity of error "/ and that " we ought not to allow custom to determine, but reason to prevail " ; ^ even as Tertullian had insisted " Our Lord Christ called himself the truth, not the custom. . . . You may be sure that whatever savours not of truth is heresy, even though it be ancient custom ".^
Such then were the principles which prevailed during the period with which we are concerned, in which the Creeds were framed and most of the great doctrines formulated. By such principles the partial and misleading explanations and theories were tested and banished from the Church as heresies, and the fuller and more adequate interpretations were worked out. It is the course of this progress that we have to trace.
It was, as we have seen, from Gentile quarters that the chief stimulus to the actual formulation of doctrines came, and it is with attempts at interpretation which spring from Gentile conceptions that we shall be most concerned. But first of all must be noted certain peculiar readings of the revelation in Christ, and of the relations in which the Gospel stands to the revelation given in Judaism, which are characteristic of Jewish rather than of Gentile thought.
1 Ep. 74 § 9. 3 Ep. 71 § 3. » Tert. de Virg. Vel. § 1.
CHAPTER V Jewish Attempts at Interprktation — EmoNisM
Characteristic Jewish Conreptiona
Rooted in Jewish tbouc^ht were two ideas, from the obvious signiticjxuce of which the dominant conceptions of the Christian revelation seemed to be drifting further and further. Charac- teristic of Judaism were its strong monotheism and its belief in the eternal validity of the Mosaic Law. There was one God and only one, a God of righteousness, far removed from the world ; and the ' divhiity ' of Christ seemed to be ;t kind of idolatry, and to have more in common with the polytheistic notions of the heathen than with the truth revealed of old to the Israelites. And again, the Law was given by God : it was a divine revelation ; and therefore it must have the characteristics of tlie divine, and be eternal, unchanging, and final. And therefore the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, if from God, was a mission to purify and revive the old revelation, and the Gospel does not supersede but only elucidates the Law.
For views such as these it is clear some support could be found in primitive Christian teaching before the full force of the revelation in Christ was widely felt. In the teaching of Christ himself, as recorded in the Gospels, there is no antagonism to the Law: the traditions of men which were a pernicious gi'owth round it are brushed aside, but the Law is treated with reverence and its teaching developed rather than superseded. Disregard of the Law by Christians of Jewish birth, at any rate, might seem to lack all primitive authority ; and we need not wonder if such Christians lagged behind the progress to a purely spiritual interpretation of the Jewish ordinances, which was so largely stimulated by the constantly increasing preponderance of Gentile over Jewish influence in the Church.^ And the fear lest the
^ It is clear from the Epistle of Clement that by the end of the first century all traced of the controversy between Pauline and Judaistic Christianity had vanished at Rome and at Corinth.
JEWISH ATTEMPTS AT INTERPRETATION 63
doctrine of the divinity of Christ might endanger the truth that God is one was, as a matter of fact, amply justified by the difficulty that was experienced in finding any satisfactory expres- sion to account for all the facts.
Ebionism.
These two ideas were the source of what are called the Judaizing heresies,^ the representatives of which are known as Ebionites.^ We have no record of their origin as a distinct and separate body.^ It is as schools of thought within the Church that Justin, our earliest informant, seems to regard them.* He speaks of some Christians who still keep the Law, and maintain that it is necessary to salvation, and would enforce it on all members of the Church, and of others who only observe the ordinances of the Law themselves without desiring to impose them upon all. With the former he does not agree, and he thinks they ought to be excluded from Christian communion ; with the latter he has no quarrel, they are still brothers, though some Christians refused communion to them.^ He also speaks of some who regard Jesus as Christ, the Messiah, yet pronounce him a man born of men, but he does not shew whether these were identical with the intolerant observers of the Law or not. The one distinction which is clear is based on the attitude to the Law, milder or stricter.^
' ' Judaizing ' may not be the most accurate desiguation for what perhaps is only in origin an archaic foi-m of interpretation, hut relatively to the Catholic interpreta- tion of the Person and Gospel of Christ it expresses the facts sufficiently exactly.
^ Heb. Ebionim, "poor men" : i.e. men who taught a beggarly doctrine. Cf. the bad sense at first attaching to the name ' Christiani ', ' Messiah-men ' ; and cf. Origin dc Princi'p. iv 1. 22 : 'E/3tw»'atoi, ttjs tttwx^s oiavola^ iiruii'vfxoL' 'E/3t'wv yap 6 tttcoxos Trap' "Eppaioii ovofid'^erai.
' Dr. Hort supposed the}' might have come into existence through the scattering of the old Jerusalem Church by Hadrian's edict. Some, like Hegesippus, who main- tained the tradition of St James, when once detached from the Holy City would in a generation or two become merged in the greater Church without. Others would be driven into antagonism to the Gentile Church of Asia and become .ludaistic in principle as well as in practice, being isolated and therefore less receptive of the influence of other Churches. (It should be noted that such Judaistic Christians are heard of only in the neighbourhood of Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor.)
* Justin Dial. c. Tryph. 47 and 18. — See Hort JudaiMic Christitmiltj p. 196, on whose discussion the following statement of the facts is based.
* See Hort — the two lines, developement and supersession of the Law, in tlie teaching of Christ himself {ibid. ' Christ and the Law ', Leel. ii).
* Before the time of Justin, Ignatius had had to denounce some Judaizing Chris-
0)4 CHRISTIAN UOCTRINE
On their teaching as to the person of Christ more stress is hiid hy IroujKMiH,' who is the iirst to name them I'^bioniieaiis, and describes them as holding a view like that of Cerinthus and Carpocrates, referring no doubt to denial of the divinity rather than to any ' Gnostic ' conceptions. All such are condemned by him Jis heretics.
Origen- distinguishes two classes, and .says that both rejected St Paul's Epistles (no doubt because of their views as to the Law).
And Eueebius'* after him, more precisely, makes the diflerenco to consist in higher and lower conceptions of the person of Christ, both classes insisting on the observance of the Law. One class held a natural birth and the superior virtue of a plain and ordinary man as a sufficient explanation : the others accepted the super- natural birth, but denied his pre-existence as the Word and Wisdom of God (did not, that is, accept the eternal Sonsliip and the doctrine of the Logos) ; they rejected the Pauline writings and used only the Gospel according to the Hebrews, while they still observed the Sabbath and other Jewish customs, but also the Lord's Day in memory of the Resurrection.
Later still Epiphanius * could assign different names to the two schools, regarding them as separate sects — Nazaraeans and Ebionaeans. But Epiphanius probably erred in this precision. There seems to be no evidence that there were two distinct com- munities with different designations. It is probable that ' Nazar- aeans ' was the title used by the Jewish Christians of Syria as a description of themselves in the fourth century and before,^ while ' Ebionaeans ', an equally genuine popular term,^ had become the traditional name in ecclesiastical literature.
That these schools of thought died hard is shewn by the judgement passed on them by Jerome,'^ who prefaces his reference by the words " What am I to say of the Ebionites who pretend to be Christians ? ", and then goes on to speak of some who in his own times were spread over the East, commonly known as
tians who were lagging behind the revelation of Christ, refusing credence to anything which could not be proved from the Old Testament and anxious still to maintain the old associations intact. See Philad. viii ; Magn. viii-xi, and infra Gnosticism p. 80 note 2.
' Iren. adv. Haer. i 22— Harvey vol, i p. 212, and iv 52. 1, v 1. 3— Harvey vol. ii pp. 259, 316.
' Contra Cels. v 61, 65. * Euseb. Hist. Ecd. iii 27.
♦Epiph. adv. Haer. xxix and xxx. ' Cf. Acts 24^.
«Cf. Matt. 5'. 7^"^. 112 §13.
JEWISH ATTEMPTS AT INTERPRETATION 65
Nazaraeans, who believed in Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and say that he suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, ' in whom ', he says, ' we also believe ' ; but yet, he avers, they only pretend to be Christians, and while they want to be at one and the same time both Jews and Christians, they succeed in being neither Jews nor Christians.
These words of Jerome plainly shew that the belief in the eternal validity of the Law and in the need for observance of its ordinances survived as anachronisms in some circles, claiming the name of Christian, in which the ' orthodox ' explanation of the nature and person of Christ was accepted.
Ce7"mthus and his School
Of all the Ebionites one individual only is known to fame, Cerinthus — and he had almost as much in common with th(i ' Gnostics ' as with them. Eeally he stands with his followers as a separate school, distinct from both. The most trustworthy evidence as to the time at which he lived is furnished by the tale ^ of his meeting with St John in one of the public baths at Ephesus, when St John espying him rushed out, saying he was afraid the walls of the bath might fall and crush them, since Cerinthus the enemy of truth was there.
The province of Asia was probably the scene of his activity, though Hippolytus, witliout mentioning Asia, says he was trained in Egyptian lore. In his teaching, side by side with the ' Judaizing ' elements, such as have been noticed (Jesus, the Son of Mary and Joseph, born as other men ; circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath obligatory ; rejection of the writings of St Paul, the Acts, and all the Gospels, except the Gospel of St Matthew in Hebrew, or more probably the ' Gospel according to the Hebrews '), there stand quite different and fresh ideas, which are akin to the conceptions of the ' Gnostics '. These have to do with