Chapter 6

SeeLife(Dan.), by H.C. Bering Lüsberg and A.L. Larsen (Copenhagen, 1890-1891);Letters(Dan.), ed. Carl Frederik Bricka and Julius Albert Fridericia (Copenhagen, 1878);Danmarks Riges Historie, vol. 4 (Copenhagen, 1897-1905); Robert Nisbet Bain,Scandinavia, cap. vii. (Cambridge, 1905).

(R. N. B.)

CHRISTIAN V. (1646-1699), king of Denmark and Norway, the son of Frederick III. of Denmark and Sophia Amelia ofBrunswick-Lüneburg, was born on the 15th of April 1646 at Flensberg, and ascended the throne on the 9th of February 1670. He was a weak despot with an exaggerated opinion of his dignity and his prerogatives. Almost his first act on ascending the throne was publicly to insult his consort, the amiable Charlotte Amelia of Hesse-Cassel, by introducing into court, as his officially recognized mistress, Amelia Moth, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of his former tutor, whom he made countess of Samsö. His personal courage and extreme affability made him highly popular among the lower orders, but he showed himself quite incapable of taking advantage permanently of the revival of the national energy, and the extraordinary overflow of native middle-class talent, which were the immediate consequences of the revolution of 1660. Under the guidance of his great chancellor Griffenfeldt, Denmark seemed for a brief period to have a chance of regaining her former position as a great power. But in sacrificing Griffenfeldt to the clamour of his adversaries, Christian did serious injury to the monarchy. He frittered away the resources of the kingdom in the unremunerative Swedish war of 1675-79, and did nothing for internal progress in the twenty years of peace which followed. He died in a hunting accident on the 25th of August 1699.

See Peter Edvard Holm,Danmarks indre Historie under Enevaelden(Copenhagen, 1881-1886); Adolf Ditleva Jörgensen,Peter Griffenfeldt(Copenhagen, 1893); Robert Nisbet Bain,Scandinaviacap. x., xi. (Cambridge, 1905).

CHRISTIAN VII. (1749-1808), king of Denmark and Norway, was the son of Frederick V., king of Denmark, and his first consort Louisa, daughter of George II. of Great Britain. He became king on his father’s death on the 14th of January 1766. All the earlier accounts agree that he had a winning personality and considerable talent, but he was badly educated, systematically terrorized by a brutal governor and hopelessly debauched by corrupt pages, and grew up a semi-idiot. After his marriage in 1766 with Caroline Matilda (1751-1775), daughter of Frederick, prince of Wales, he abandoned himself to the worst excesses. He ultimately sank into a condition of mental stupor, and became the obedient slave of the upstart Struensee (q.v.). After the fall of Struensee (the warrant for whose arrest he signed with indifference), for the last six-and-twenty years of his reign, he was only nominally king. He died on the 13th of March 1808. In 1772 the king’s marriage with Caroline Matilda, who had been seized and had confessed to criminal familiarity with Struensee, was dissolved, and the queen, retaining her title, passed her remaining days at Celle, where she died on the 11th of May 1775.

See E.S.F. Reverdil,Struensee et la cour de Copenhague, 1760-1772(Paris, 1858);Danmarks Riges Historie, vol. v. (Copenhagen, 1897-1905); and for Caroline Matilda, Sir F.C.L. Wraxall,Life and Times of Queen Caroline Matilda(1864), and W.H. Wilkins,A Queen of Tears(1904).

CHRISTIAN VIII. (1786-1848), king of Denmark and Norway, the eldest son of the crown prince Frederick and Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was born on the 18th of September 1786 at Christiansborg castle. He inherited the talents of his highly gifted mother, and his amiability and handsome features made him very popular in Copenhagen. His unfortunate first marriage with his cousin Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was dissolved in 1810. In May 1813 he was sent as stadtholder to Norway to promote the loyalty of the Northmen to the dynasty, which had been very rudely shaken by the disastrous results of Frederick VI.’s adhesion to the falling fortunes of Napoleon. He did all he could personally to strengthen the bonds between the Norwegians and the royal house of Denmark, and though his endeavours were opposed by the so-called Swedish party, which desired a dynastic union with Sweden, he placed himself at the head of the Norwegian party of independence, and was elected regent of Norway by an assembly of notables on the 16th of February 1814. This election was confirmed by aStorthingheld at Eidsvold on the 10th of April, and on the 17th of May Christian was elected king of Norway, despite the protests of the Swedish party. Christian next attempted to interest the great powers in his cause, but without success. On being summoned by the commissioners of the allied powers at Copenhagen to bring about a union between Norway and Sweden in accordance with the terms of the treaty of Kiel, and then return to Denmark, he replied that, as a constitutional king, he could do nothing without the consent of theStorthing, to the convocation of which a suspension of hostilities on the part of Sweden was the condition precedent. Sweden refusing Christian’s conditions, a short campaign ensued, in which Christian was easily worsted by the superior skill and forces of the Swedish crown prince (Bernadotte). The brief war was finally concluded by the convention of Moss on the 14th of August 1814 (seeNorway:History). Henceforth Christian’s suspected democratic principles made himpersona ingratissimaat all the reactionary European courts, his own court included, and he and his second wife, Caroline Amelia of Augustenburg, whom he married in 1815, lived in comparative retirement as the leaders of the literary and scientific society of Copenhagen. It was not till 1831 that old King Frederick gave him a seat in the council of state. On the 13th of December 1839 he ascended the Danish throne as Christian VIII. The Liberal party had high hopes of “the giver of constitutions,” but he disappointed his admirers by steadily rejecting every Liberal project. Administrative reform was the only reform he would promise. He died of blood-poisoning on the 20th of January 1848.

See Just Matthias Thiele,Christian den Ottende(Copenhagen, 1848); Yngvar Nielsen,Bidrag til Norges Historie(Christiania, 1882-1886).

CHRISTIAN IX. (1818-1906), king of Denmark, was a younger son of William, duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (d. 1831), a direct descendant of the Danish king Christian III. by his wife Louise, a daughter of Charles, prince of Hesse-Cassel (d. 1836), and grand-daughter of King Frederick V. Born at Gottorp on the 8th of April 1818, Christian entered the army, and alone among the members of his family served with the Danish troops in Schleswig during the insurrection of 1848; but he was a personage of little importance until about 1852, ten years after his marriage with Louise (1817-1898), daughter of William, prince of Hesse-Cassel (d. 1867), and cousin of King Frederick VII. At this time it became imperative that satisfactory provision should be made for the succession to the Danish throne. The reigning king, Frederick VII., was childless, and the representatives of the great powers met in London and settled the crown on Prince Christian and his wife (May 1852), an arrangement which became part of the law of Denmark in 1853. The “protocol king,” as Christian was sometimes called, ascended the throne on Frederick’s death in November 1863, and was at once faced by formidable difficulties. Reluctantly he assented to the policy which led to war with the combined power of Austria and Prussia, and to the separation of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg from Denmark (seeSchleswig-holstein Question). Within the narrowed limits of his kingdom Christian’s difficulties were more protracted and hardly less serious. During almost the whole of his reign the Danes were engaged in a political struggle between the “Right” and the “Left,” the party of order and the party of progress, the former being supported in general by theLandsting, and the latter by theFolketing. The king’s sympathies lay with the more conservative section of his subjects, and for many years he was successful in preventing the Radicals from coming into office. The march of events, however, was too strong for him, and in 1901 he assented in a dignified manner to the formation of a “cabinet of the Left” (seeDenmark:History). In spite of these political disturbances Christian’s popularity with his people grew steadily, and was enhanced by the patriarchal and unique position which in his later years he occupied in Europe. With his wife, often called “the aunt of all Europe,” he was related to nearly all the European sovereigns. His eldest son Frederick had married a daughter of Charles XV. of Sweden; his second son George had been king of the Hellenes since 1863; and his youngest son Waldemar (b. 1858) was married to Marie d’Orléans, daughter of Robert, duc de Chartres. Of his three daughters, Alexandra married Edward VII. of Great Britain;Dagmar (Marie), the tsar Alexander III.; and Thyra, Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland. One of his grandsons, Charles, became king of Norway as Haakon VII. in 1905, and another, Constantine, crown prince of Greece, married a sister of the German emperor William II. Christian was also the ruler of Iceland, where he was received with great enthusiasm when he visited the island in 1874. He died at Copenhagen on the 29th of January 1906, and was buried at Roskilde.

See Barfod,Kong Kristian IX.’s Regerings-Dagbog(Copenhagen, 1876); andHans Majestet Kong Kristian IX.(Copenhagen, 1888).

CHRISTIAN, WILLIAM(1608-1663), Manx politician, a son of Ewan Christian, one of the Manx deemsters, was born on the 14th of April 1608, and was known asIlliam Dhone, or Brown William. In 1648 the lord of the Isle of Man, James Stanley, 7th earl of Derby, appointed Christian his receiver-general; and when in 1651 the earl crossed to England to fight for Charles II. he left him in command of the island militia. Derby was taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester, and his famous countess, Charlotte de la Tremouille, who was residing in Man, sought to obtain her husband’s release by negotiating with the victorious parliamentarians for the surrender of the island. At once a revolt headed by Christian broke out, partly as a consequence of this step, partly owing to the discontent caused by some agrarian arrangements recently introduced by the earl. The rebels seized many of the forts; then Christian in his turn entered into negotiations with the parliamentarians; and probably owing to his connivance the island was soon in the power of Colonel Robert Duckenfield, who had brought the parliamentary fleet to Man in October 1651. The countess of Derby was compelled to surrender her two fortresses, Castle Rushen and Peel castle, while Christian remained receiver-general, becoming governor of the island in 1656. Two years later, however, he was accused of misappropriating some money; he fled to England, and in 1660 was arrested in London. Having undergone a year’s imprisonment he returned to Man, hoping that his offence against the earl of Derby would be condoned under the Act of Indemnity of 1661; but, anxious to punish his conduct, Charles, the new earl of Derby, ordered his seizure; he refused to plead, and a packed House of Keys declared that in this case his life and property were at the mercy of the lord of the island. The deemsters then passed sentence, and in accordance therewith Christian was executed by shooting on the 2nd of January 1663. This arbitrary act angered Charles II. and his advisers; the deemsters and others were punished, and some reparation was made to Christian’s family. Christian is chiefly celebrated through the Manx balladBaase Illiam Dhone, which has been translated into English by George Borrow, and through the references to him in Sir Walter Scott’sPeveril of the Peak.

See A.W. Moore,History of the Isle of Man(1900).

CHRISTIAN OF BRUNSWICK(1590-1626), bishop of Halberstadt and a general during the earlier part of the Thirty Years’ War, a younger son of Henry Julius, duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was born at Gröningen on the 20th of September 1599. Having succeeded his father as “bishop” of Halberstadt in 1616, he obtained some experience of warfare under Maurice, prince of Orange, in the Netherlands. Raising an army he entered the service of Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, just after that prince had been driven from Bohemia; glorying in his chivalrous devotion to Frederick’s wife Elizabeth, he attacked the lands of the elector of Mainz and the bishoprics of Westphalia. After some successes he was defeated by Tilly at Höchst in June 1622; then, dismissed from Frederick’s service, he entered that of the United Provinces, losing an arm at the battle of Fleurus, a victory he did much to win. In 1623 he gathered an army and broke into lower Saxony, but was beaten by Tilly at Stadtlohn and driven back to the Netherlands. When in 1625 Christian IV., king of Denmark, entered the arena of the war, he took the field again in the Protestant interest, but after some successes he died at Wolfenbüttel on the 16th of June 1626. Christian, who loved to figure as “the friend of God, the enemy of the priests,” is sometimes called “the mad bishop,” and was a merciless, coarse, and blasphemous man.

CHRISTIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, the name assumed by a religious organization founded at Zion City near Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., in 1896, by John Alexander Dowie (q.v.). Its members added to the usual tenets of Christianity a special belief in faith-healing, and laid much stress on united consecration services and the threefold immersion of believers. To assist Dowie, assistant overseers were appointed, and the operations of the community included religious, educational and commercial departments. Small branches sprang up in other parts of the United States, Mexico, Canada, Europe and Australasia. At the end of 1901 there were nearly 12,000 baptized believers. After 1903 considerable dissension arose among Dowie’s followers: he was deposed in 1906; and after his death (1907) the city gradually became a community of normal type.

CHRISTIAN CONNECTION, a denomination of Christians in North America formed by secession, under James O’Kelly (1735-1826), of members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in North Carolina in 1793. The movement resembled those under the Campbells and Stone in Kentucky in 1801-1804, and in Lyndon, Vermont, among the Baptists in 1800. The predisposing cause in each case was the desire to be free from the “bondage of creed.” Some of O’Kelly’s followers joined the Disciples of Christ (q.v.). Their form of church government is Congregational; they take the Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice, and while adopting immersion as the proper mode of baptism, freely welcome Christians of every sect to their communion. They number about 100,000 members, mainly in the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The original seceders in Virginia and North Carolina bore for a time the name “Republican Methodists,” and then called themselves simply “Christians,” a designation which with the pronunciation “Christ-yans” is still often applied to them. Their position is curiously akin to that outlined by William Chillingworth (q.v.) in his famous workThe Religion of Protestants(1637-1638).

CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR SOCIETIES, organizations formed for the purpose of promoting spiritual life among young people. They date from 1881, in which year Dr Francis E. Clark (q.v.) formed a Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavour in his (Congregational) church at Portland, Maine, U.S.A. The idea was taken up elsewhere in America and spread to other countries, till, under the presidency of Dr Clark, a huge number of affiliated societies came into operation throughout the world. They take as their motto “For Christ and the Church,” and have done much, especially in the non-episcopal churches, to prepare young men and women for active services in the Church. The organization is international and interdenominational, a World’s Christian Endeavour Union being formed in 1895. The members do not form a separate denomination, but remain attached to their respective churches, being grouped in voluntary district federations.

CHRISTIANIA(officiallyKristiania), the capital of Norway, forming a separate county (amt), and the seat of a bishopric (stift). Pop. (1901) 229,101. It lies on the south-eastern coast, at the head of Christiania Fjord, about 80 m. from the open waters of the Skagerrack, is 59° 54′ N. (about the latitude of the southern extremity of the Shetland Islands) and 10° 45′ E., mainly on the west bank of the small Aker river. The situation is very beautiful, pine-wooded hills rising sharply behind the city, while several islands stud the fjord. The town is mainly modern, having increased rapidly in and since the second half of the 19th century, when brick and stone largely superseded wood as the building material. It is the seat of government, of the supreme courts, of the parliament (Storthing), and of a university. The harbour is of two parts, the Björvik, where the larger steamers lie, and the Pipervik, west of this. On the promontory intervening between these two inlets stands the old fortress of Akershus, occupied as an arsenal and prison, and having a pleasant promenade upon its ramparts. Until 1719 it was a royal palace. At the head of the Björvik the principal railway station (Hovedbanegaard) stands in the Jernbanetorv (railway square), and north-west from this runs the principal street, Karl-Johans-gade. In this street, passing the Vor Frelsers Kirke (Church of our Saviour), the Storthings-Bygning(parliament-house, 1866) is seen, facing a handsome square planted with trees. Beyond this is the National theatre (1899), with colossal statues of the dramatists Ibsen and Björnsen. It faces the Fridericiana University, housed in three buildings dating from 1853, but founded by Frederick VI. of Denmark in 1811, embracing the five faculties of theology, law, medicine, history and philology, mathematics and natural sciences. The equipment of the university is very complete: it has attached to it a large and valuable library, natural history, ethnological and numismatic collections, with one of Scandinavian antiquities; also botanical gardens and an observatory. The Karl-Johans-gade gives upon the beautiful Slotspark, a wooded elevation crowned with the royal palace (slot), a plain building completed in 1848. North of the university is the museum of art, containing a noteworthy collection of sculpture and paintings of ancient and modern foreign masters, and of native works. The historical museum adjoining this contains northern antiquities, including two viking’s ships, excavated, in 1867 and 1880 respectively, from the burial-places of the viking chiefs who owned and, according to custom, were buried in them. Another noteworthy collection is that of industrial art. The Bank of Norway, the exchange, and the courts of law lie between the harbours. Other institutions are the Freemasons’ Lodge, housed in one of the handsomest buildings in the city (1844), a conservatory of music, naval, military and art schools, Athenaeum, and the great Dampkjökken or kitchen (1858), where dinners are provided for the poor.

The suburbs of Christiania are attractive and rapidly growing. On the east side of the river Aker is that of Oslo, with the existing episcopal palace, and an old bishop’s palace, in which James VI. of Scotland (I. of England) was betrothed to Princess Anne of Denmark (1589). In the environs of the city are the royal pleasure castle of Oscarshal (1847-1852), on the peninsula Bygdö (Ladugaard) to the west of the city, and the Norwegian national museum (1881), containing industrial and domestic exhibits from the various provinces. Close at hand is an interesting collection of old Norwegian buildings, brought here from all parts, and re-erected, including an example of the timber church of the 12th century (Stavekirke). A collection of ancient agricultural implements is also shown. On Hovedö (Head Island) in the fjord, immediately opposite to the Akershus, are the ruins of a Cistercian monastery, founded in 1147 by monks from Kirkstead in Lincolnshire, England, and burnt down in 1532. There are sanatoria and inns among the surrounding hills, on which beautiful gardens are laid out, such as Hans Haugen, Frognersaeter, Holmenkollen, where the famousski(snow-shoe) races are held in February, and Voksenkollen. Electric tramways connect the city and suburbs, and local steamers run from the Pipervik to the neighbouring islands and fjord-side towns and villages.

Christiania has two railway stations, the Hovedbanegaard by the Björvik, and the Vestbanegaard by the Pipervik. From the first trains run south to Fredrikshald and Gothenburg, east to Charlottenberg and Stockholm, north to Hamar and Trondhjem, and Otta in Gudbrandsdal, and to Gjövik and the Valdres district. From the west station start the lines to Drammen, Laurvik, Skien and Kongsberg (for the Telemark district). The eastward extension of the railway between Bergen and Vossevangen, undertaken in 1896, had as its ultimate object the connexion of Christiania and Bergen by rail. With these extensive land communications Christiania is at once the principal emporium of southern Norway, and a favourite centre of the extensive tourist traffic. Regular passenger steamers serve the port from Hull, Newcastle, Grangemouth and London, from Trondhjem, Bergen and the Norwegian coast towns, from Hamburg, Amsterdam, Antwerp, &c. Except for two large shipbuilding yards, one with a floating dock, the other with a dry dock, most of the manufactories are concentrated in the suburb of Sagene, on the north side of the city, deriving their motive power from the numerous falls of the river Aker. They embrace factories for cotton and woollen spinning and weaving, paper, flour, soap and oil, bricks and tiles, matches, nails (especially horse-shoe nails), margarine, foundries and engineering shops, wood-pulp, tobacco, matches, linen, glass, sail-cloth, hardware, gunpowder, chemicals, with sawmills, breweries and distilleries. There is also a busy trade in the preparation of granite paving-stones, and in the storing and packing of ice. Imports greatly exceed exports, the annual values being about 7½ and 1½ millions sterling respectively. The former consist principally of grain and flour, cottons and woollens, coffee, iron (raw and manufactured), coal, bacon and salt meat, oils, sugar, machinery, flax, jute and hemp, paper-hangings, paints, colours, &c., wines and spirits, raw tobacco, copper, zinc, lead and tin, silk, molasses and other commodities. The principal exports are wood-pulp, timber, nails, paper, butter and margarine, matches, condensed milk, fish, leather and hides, ice, sealskins, &c. Of the imports, Great Britain supplies the greater part of the cotton and woollen yarn, the machinery (including ships), and the raw metals; the United States about one-half of the oils and fats, and a large proportion of the food-stuffs, and skins, feathers, &c. Of the exports, almost the whole of the timber goes to Great Britain, together with the larger portion of the paper and food-stuffs (butter, &c.). The harbour is ice-bound for three or four months in the winter, when ships lie at Dröbak, lower down the fjord; but ice-breakers are also used. Early in 1899 the municipality voted £47,000 for the construction of a pier, a harbour for fishing-boats, protected by a mole, and a quay, 345 ft. long, on the shore underneath the Akershus. These works signalized a great scheme of improvement, involving a general rearrangement of the entire harbour.

The present suburb of Oslo represents the original city, which was founded on this site under that name (or Opslo) by Harald Sigurdsson in 1048. By the close of the 14th century it was established as the chief city of Norway. Trade was long dominated by the powerful Hanseatic League, at least until the beginning of the 16th century. The town, built mainly of wood, was no less subject to fires than all Norwegian towns have always been, and after one of these King Christian IV. refounded the capital on the new site it now occupies, and gave his name to it in 1624. By the close of the century it was fortified, but this did not prevent Charles XII. from gaining possession of it in 1716.

See L. Daae,Det gamle Christiania, 1624-1824(Christiania, 1890); Y. Nielsen,Christiania und Umgegend(Christiania, 1894); G. Amnéus,La Ville de Christiania ... Résumé historique, &c.(Christiania, 1900).

CHRISTIANITY, the religion which accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, embracing all who profess and call themselves Christians, the term derived from his formal title (χριστός,i.e.the anointed). Within this broad characterization are found many varieties of cult, organization and creed (seeChurch History). Christianity is classed by the students of the science of religion as a universal religion; it proclaims itself as intended for all men without distinction of race or caste, and as in possession of absolute truth. In fact, Christianity has been widely accepted by varied races in very different stages of culture, and it has maintained itself through a long succession of centuries in lands where the transformations in political structure, the revolutions in social conditions, and the changes in science and philosophy, have been numerous and extreme.

Beginning in Asia, Christianity extended itself rapidly throughout the Roman empire and beyond its borders among the barbarians. When the Empire in the 4th century adopted it, its cult, organization and teaching were carried throughout the western world. The influences and motives and processes which led to the result were many and varied, but ultimately in one way or another it became the religion of Europe and of the nations founded by the European races beyond the seas and in the northern part of Asia called Siberia. Beyond these bounds it has not greatly prospered. The explanation of the apparent bounding of Christianity by Europe and its offspring is not, however, to be found in any psychological peculiarity separating the European races from those of other continents, nor in any special characteristic of Christianity which fits it for European soil. For not only were its founder and his disciples Asiatics, and the original authoritative writings Semitic, but Asiatic tribes and nations coming into Europe have been readily converted.Missions in Asia too have achieved sufficient success to prove that there exists no inherent obstacle either in the gospel or in the Asiatic mind. Moreover, Christianity was once represented in Asia by a powerful organization extending throughout Persia and central Asia into India (seePersia).Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to Africa also, and Christianity still survives in both continents in the Coptic, Abyssinian and Armenian Churches. The explanation is rather to be sought in the political condition of the early centuries of the Christian era, especially in the rise of Mahommedanism. This may be regarded indeed as a form of Christianity, for it is not more foreign perhaps to the prevailing type than are some sects which claim the name. It exerted a strong influence upon Europe, but its followers have been peculiarly unsusceptible to missionary labours, and even in Europe have retained the faith of the Prophet. In the limitations of the Roman empire and in the separation of East and West consequent upon its decline, Christianity, as a dominant religion, was confined for a thousand years to Europe, and even portions of this continent for centuries were in the hands of its great foe. The East appeared as the Mahommedan dominions, and beyond these the continents of Asia and Africa were so dimly discerned that little reciprocal influence was felt. Thus the development of the two great civilized portions of the race in Europe and Asia followed independent lines in religion as in all else; and Africa, excepting its northern border, was left untouched by the progress of enlightenment.

Not only is Christianity thus the religion of a wide variety of races but across the divisions there cut other lines. In its organization Christianity exists in three great divisions, Roman, Greek and Protestant, and in various ancient sects in the Orient. The Roman Catholic and Greek divisions of the Christian Church are homogeneous in organization, but in Protestantism certain denominations are national, established by differing governments, and others are independent of governmental aid, making a large number of differing denominations. Some of these divisions are mutually antagonistic, denying to each other the name of Christian and even the hope of salvation.

According to a second classification, Christianity may be placed among the “individual” religions, since it traces its origin, like Islam and Buddhism, to an individual as its founder. This beginning is not in the dimness of antiquity nor in a multitude of customs, beliefs, traditions, rites and personalities, as is the case with the so-called “natural” religions. It is not implied that in the formation of the “natural” religions individuals were not of great importance, nor, on the other hand, that in individual religions the founder formed his faith independently of the community of which he was a part; but only that as undoubted historic facts certain religions, in tracing their lines to individuals, thereby acquired a distinctive character, and retain the impress of their founder. Such religions begin as a reform or a protest or revolt. They proclaim either a new revelation, or the return to an ancient truth which has been forgotten or distorted. They demand repentance and change of heart,i.e.the renouncing of the ordinary faith of the community and the acceptance of a new gospel. Thus demanding an act of will on the part of individuals, they are classed once more as “ethical” religions. To be sure, the new is built upon the old—in part unconsciously—and the rejection of the faith of the past, however violent, is never thoroughgoing. In consequence the old affects the new in various ways. Thus in Buddhism the presuppositions which Buddha uncritically took over work out their logical results in the Mahāyāna, so that great sects calling themselves “Buddhist” affirm what the Master denied and deny what he taught. Christianity takes Judaism (seeHebrew Religion) for granted—rejects it in part as a merely preparatory stage, in part reinterprets it, and does not submit what it accepts to rigorous scrutiny. As a result the Old Testament (seeBible) remains not only as the larger part of the Christian canon, but, sometimes, in some churches, as obscuring its distinctive truth. Moreover, in the transference of Christianity from the Jewish to the Greek-Roman world again various elements were taken into it. More properly perhaps we might consider the Greek and Roman civilization as the permanent element—so that the relationship to it was not different from the relationship to Judaism—in part it was denied, in part it was of purpose accepted, in still larger part unconsciously the Greek-Roman converts took over with them the presuppositions of their older world view—and thus formed the moulds into which the Christian truth was run. Here again, in some instances the pre-Christian elements so asserted themselves as to obscure the new and distinctive teaching.

Christianity, regarded objectively as one of the great religions of the world, owes its rise to Jesus of Nazareth, in ancient Galilee. (SeeJesus Christ.) By reverent disciples his ancestry was traced to the royal family of David,Relation with Judaism.and his birth is ascribed by the church to the miraculous act of God. His life was spent, until the beginning of his public ministry, in humble circumstances as the son of a carpenter and his wife, Joseph and Mary. Of Joseph we hear nothing after the boyhood of Jesus, who followed the same trade, supporting himself and perhaps his mother and younger brothers and sisters. Of this period we have only a few fragmentary anecdotes and a stray reference or two. At thirty years of age he appeared in public, and after a short period (we cannot determine how long, but possibly eighteen months) he was crucified, upon the accusation of his countrymen, by the Roman authorities. He was without technical education, but he had been carefully trained in the sacred books, as was usual with his people. Belonging neither to the aristocracy nor to the learned class, he was one of the common people yet separate from them—a separation not of race or caste or education, but of unique personality.

His career is understood only in the light of his relations to Judaism (seeHebrew Religion). This faith, in a peculiarly vivid fashion, illustrates the growth and development of religion, for its great teachers in the highest degree possessed what the Germans call God-consciousness. The Hebrew national literature centres in the thought of God. It is Yahweh who is all and in all, the father, the leader, the hope, the hero of his people. No other national literature is so continuously and so highly religious. Another factor gives it still greater interest for the student of religion,—in it the progress of religious thought can be traced, and the varying elements of the religious life seen in harmony and in conflict.

In the early period the Hebrew religion was of the ordinary Semitic type. In its ancient stories were remnants of primitive religion, of tabu, of anthropomorphic gods, of native forms of worship, of magic and divination, of local and tribal cults. Out of these developed, by the labours of the prophets, a religion of high spirituality and exalted ethical ideals. According to it God demands not ritual nor sacrifice nor offerings. He does not delight in prayers and praise, but he demands truth in the soul and bids man to walk humbly and deal righteously and mercifully with his brother (Micah vi. 6-8; Isa. i. 2-20). He requires kindness, forgiveness and loving sacrifice from all to all (Isa. lviii. 3-12). This conception of God revealed itself as so essential to the prophets that their intense national feeling was modified. God would not deliver Israel because it was his people, descended from Abraham, his chosen, but he would punish it even more severely than the other nations because it denied him by its sins (Amos iii. 1-2). Yet Israel would not be destroyed, for a spiritual remnant, loving and obeying God, would be saved and purified (Ezek. xxxvi.-xxxvii.). Thus Israel survived its misfortunes. When the national independence was destroyed, the prophetic teaching held the people together in the hope of a re-establishment of the Kingdom when all nations should be subject to it and blessed in its everlasting reign of righteousness and peace (Isa. xlix., lx.).

Some of the prophets associated the restoration of the Kingdom with the coming of the Messiah, the anointed one, who should re-establish the line of David (Isa. ix. 6 f., xi. 1 f.; Micah v. 2; Ezek. xxxiv. 23, xxxvii. 24; Zech. ix. 9; Ps. ii. 72). Others said nothing of such a one, but seemed to expect the regeneration of Israel through the labours, sufferings and triumphs ofthe righteous remnant (Isa. liii., Ezek. xxxvi.-xxxvii.). By the strong emphasis upon righteousness, the tribal Lord of Israel was revealed as the universal God, of one relationship to all men. This monotheism was not primarily cosmological nor metaphysical, but ethical. The Jews showed little capacity for abstract reasoning and never pursued their inquiries to the discovery of ultimate principles. Thus they did not develop a systematic cosmology, nor formulate a system of metaphysics. Their religion was pre-eminently “theocratic”; God was thought of as King, enthroned in heaven and supreme. In the beginning as a tribal deity his powers were limited and he was involved in the fortunes of his people. But as the conception of Yahweh was deepened and broadened, and, especially after the development of ethical monotheism, not only was he believed to possess power sufficient to ensure the triumph of his chosen people, but to be the creator and ruler of all things in heaven and on earth, the God whom all peoples should worship and obey.

But the prophetic teaching was obscured in part by the nationalism of the prophets themselves, who exalted Israel as at once God’s instrument and the peculiar object of his love; and in part by the triumph of a legal-ritualistic sacrificial system. In the downfall of Jerusalem, the experiences of the exile in Babylon, and the return to Judaea, the nation was transformed into a church. Apart from the brief Maccabaean period, the intense patriotism of the people centred in the ecclesiastical organization. As a result, cult and organization and code hardened, forming a shell which proved strong enough to resist all disintegrating tendencies. Inevitably the freedom, spirituality and universality of the prophetic teaching were obscured. In the 1st centuryA.D.the national and priestly elements controlled; doubtless many individuals still were faithful to the purer prophetic message, though also zealous for the system of ritual and sacrifice, but for the ruling majority ritualistic service was the chief thing, justice, purity and mercy being subordinate. Hence in their view all who did not participate in the national worship and conform to the national usages were outcasts. The triumph of Israel was to be accomplished by the miraculous power of a Messiah who should descend out of heaven. His coming was delayed, in part by the opposition of demons, in part by the failure of the people to obey the law. This law embraced both moral and ceremonial elements derived from varied sources, but in the apprehension of the people it was all alike regarded as of divine origin. It was to be obeyed without question and without inquiry as to its meaning, because established by God. It was contained in the Sacred Scriptures (seeBible:Old Testament), which had been revealed by God supernaturally, and its meaning was set forth by schools of learned men whose interpretations were authoritative. The conception of salvation was mingled with ideas derived from the East during and after the period of captivity. The priesthood held still the ancient ideas. Salvation was for the nation, and the individual was not necessarily participant in it. Life after death was disbelieved or held as the existence of shades. There could be no resurrection of the body and no immortality (in the Greek sense). With these beliefs were associated a certain worldliness and want of fervour. The more actively and aggressively religious party, on the other hand, adopted the belief in the resurrection of the body, and in the individual’s participation in the Messiah’s kingdom; all the pious would have their share in it, while the wicked would be outcast. But these doctrines were variously conceived. By some the Messianic kingdom was thought of as permanent, by others as intermediary, the external kingdom being transcendent. So too some thought of a literal resurrection of the body of flesh and blood, while others thought that it would be transformed. The rudiments of some of these ideas can be found in the prophets, but their development took place after the exile, and indeed for the most part after the conclusion of the writings accounted canonical. Thus too the belief in a kingdom of demons held a large place in the mind of the people, though the references to such evil beings are almost absent from the sacred writings of the Old Testament. Again it is to the East that we must look for the origin of these ideas.

Jesus completed the prophetic teachings. He employed the old phraseology and imagery, but he was conscious that he used them in a new sense, and that he preached a new gospel of great joy. Jesus was not a historian, a critic or aThe teaching of Jesus.theologian. He used the words of common men in the sense in which common men understood them. He did not employ the Old Testament as now reconstructed by scholarship or judged by criticism, but in its simple and obvious and traditional sense. And his background is the intellectual and religious thinking of his time. The ideas of demons and of the future, of the Bible and many other traditional conceptions, are taken over without criticism. So the idea of God which he sets forth is not that of a theologian or a metaphysician, but that of the unlearned man which even the child could understand. Yet though thus speaking in untechnical language, he revolutionized his terms and filled them with new meaning. His emphasis is his own, and the traditional material affords merely the setting for his thought. He was not concerned with speculative questions about God, nor with abstract theories of his relationship to the soul and to the world. God’s continual presence, his fatherly love, his transcendent righteousness, his mercy, his goodness, were the facts of immediate experience. Not in proofs by formal logic but in the reality of consciousness was the certainty of God. Thus religion was freed from all particular and national elements in the simplest way. For Jesus did not denounce these elements, nor argue against them, nor did he seek converts outside of Israel, but he set forth communion with God as the most certain fact of man’s experience and as simple reality made it accessible to every one. Thus his teaching contains the note of universality—not in terms and proclamations but as plain matter of fact. His way for others to this reality is likewise plain and level to the comprehension of the unlearned and of children.

For him repentance is put first, for how vastly changed is the conception of the religious life! The intricacies of ritual and theology are ignored, and ancient laws which contradict the fundamental beliefs are unhesitatingly abrogated or denied. He seizes upon the most spiritual passages of the prophets, and revives and deepens them. He sums up his teaching in supreme love to God and a love for fellow-man like that we hold for ourselves (Mark xii. 29-31). This supreme love to God is a complete oneness with him in will, a will which is expressed in service to our fellow-men in the simplest and most natural relationship (Luke x. 25-37). Thus religion is ethical through and through, as God’s inner nature, expressed in forgiveness, mercy, righteousness and truth, is not something transcendental, but belongs to the realm of daily life. We become children of God and he our Father in virtue of a moral likeness (Matt. v. 43-48), while of any metaphysical, or (so to speak) physical relationship to God Jesus says nothing. With this clearly understood, man is to live in implicit trust in the divine love, power, knowledge and forgiveness. Hence he attains salvation, being delivered from sin and fear and death, for the divine attributes are not ontological entities to be discussed and defined in the schools, but they are realities, entering into the practical daily life. Indeed they are to be repeated in us also, so that we are to forgive our brethren as we ask to be forgiven (Matt. vi. 12; Luke xi. 4).

As religion thus becomes thoroughly ethical, so is the notion of the Messianic kingdom transformed. Its essential characteristic is the doing of the Father’s will on earth as in heaven. Jesus uses parable after parable to establish its meaning. It is a seed cast into the ground which grows and prospers (Matt. xiii. 31-32). It is a seed sown in good ground and bringing forth fruit, or in bad ground and fruitless (Luke viii. 5-8; Mark iv. 1-32). It is a pearl of great price for which a man should sell all that he possesses (Matt. xiii. 44-46). It is not come “with observation,” so that men shall say “lo here and lo there” (Luke xvii. 20-21). It is not of this world, and does not possess the characteristics or the glory of the kingdom of the earth (Luke xxii. 24-26; Mark x. 13-16). It is already present among men (Luke xvii. 21). Together with these statements in our sources are still mingled fragments of the more ordinary cataclysmic, apocalyptic conceptions, which in spite of muchingenious exegesis, cannot be brought into harmony with Christ’s predominant teaching, but remain as foreign elements in the words of the Master, possibly brought back through his disciples, or, more probably, used by Jesus uncritically—a part of the current religious imagery in which he shared.

It is often declared that in these teachings there is nothing new, and indeed analogies can be found for many sayings; yet nowhere else do we gain so strong an impression of originality. The net result is not only new but revolutionary;His originality.so was it understood by the Pharisees. They and Jesus spoke indeed the same words and appealed to the same authorities, but they rightly saw in him a revolutionist who threatened the existence of their most cherished hopes. The Messianic kingdom which they sought was opposed point by point to the kingdom of which he spoke, and their God and his Father—though called by the same sacred name—were different. Hence almost from the beginning of his public ministry they constantly opposed him, the conflict deepening into complete antagonism.

Jesus has already been termed unique, one of the common people yet separated from them, and this description applies to the breadth, depth and reality of his sympathy. In the meagre records of his life there is evidence that he deemed no form of suffering humanity foreign to himself. This was not a mere sentiment, nor was his sympathy superficial, for it constituted the essential characteristic of his personality—“He went about doing good.” In him the will of the Father for the redemption of the race was incarnate. This led him into the society of those outcasts who were condemned and rejected by the respectable and righteous classes. In contemptuous condemnation he was called the friend of the outcasts (Matt. xi. 19; Mark ii. 16-17), and on his part he proclaimed that these sinners would enter into the Kingdom of Heaven before the self-righteous saints (Matt. xxi. 31). Even the most repulsive forms of disease and sin drew from him only loving aid, while he recognized in all other men who laboured for the welfare of their fellows the most intimate relationship to himself. These constituted his family, and these were they whom his Father will bless.

Jesus recognized his unique position; he could not be ignorant of his powers. Even the prophets had spoken in the name of God; they accepted neither book nor priesthood as authoritative, but uttered their truth as they were inspired to speak, and commanded men to listen and obey. As in Jesus the whole prophetic line culminates, so does its consciousness. Reverent toward the Holy Scriptures, he spoke not as their expositor but with a divine power which invests his words with immediate and full authority. The prophets use the formula, “Thus saith the Lord,” but he goes beyond them and speaks in his own name, “Amen, I say unto you.” He knew himself as greater than the prophets, indeed as him of whom the prophets spoke—the Messiah. Only through this self-consciousness can we explain his mission and the career of his disciples. The prophets up to John foretold the coming of the kingdom (Matt. xi. 11-13; Luke xvi. 16), but Jesus opened its doors and made possible entrance into it. Where he is there it is, and hence those who follow him are God’s children, and those who refuse his message are left outside in darkness. He is to sit as enthroned, judge and king, and by him is men’s future to be determined (Matt. xxv. 31 f.; Mark xiii. 26). Indeed it was his presence more than his teaching which created his church. Great as were his words, greater was his personality. His disciples misunderstood what he said, but they trusted and followed him. By him they felt themselves freed from sin and fear—and under the influence of a divine power.

Though his claims to authoritative pre-eminence thus took him out of the class of prophets and put him even above Elijah and Moses (Mark ix. 2-7; Luke vii. 28; Luke x. 23-24), and though naturally this self-assertion seemedHis Messianic claims.blasphemous to those who did not accept him, yet as he had transformed the traditional notion of the kingdom, so did he the current thought of the Messiah. The pre-eminence was not to be of rank and glory but of service and self-sacrifice. In his kingdom there can be no strife for precedence, since its King comes not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life in the service of others (Mark ix. 33 f., x. 42-45). The formal acknowledgment of the Messiah’s worth and position matters little, for to call him Lord does not ensure entrance into his kingdom (Matt. vii. 21-23). It is those who fail to recognize the spirit of sympathy and self-sacrificing service as divine and blaspheme redeeming love, who are in danger of eternal sin (Mark iii. 28-29). All who do the will of the Father,i.e.who serve their fellows, are the brethren of Christ, even though they do not call him Lord (Mark iii. 31-35; Matt. vii. 21): and those are blessed who minister to the needy even though ignorant of any relation to himself (Matt. xxv. 37-40). Finally, membership in his own selected company, or a place in the chosen people, is not of prime importance (Mark ix. 38-40; Luke xiii. 24-30).

Jesus also refuses to conform to the current ideas as to the establishment of the kingdom. He wrought miracles, it is true, because of his divine sympathy and compassion, but he refused to show miraculous signs as a proof of his Messianic character (Mark viii. 12). The tradition of the people implied a sudden appearance of the Messiah, but Jesus made no claims to a supernatural origin and was content to be known as the son of Joseph and Mary (Mark vi. 3-4). His kingdom is not to be set up by wonders and miraculous powers, nor is it to be established by force (Matt. xxvi. 52). Such means would contradict its fundamental character, for as the kingdom of loving service it can be established only by loving service. And as God is love, he can be revealed not by prodigies of power but only by a love which is faithful unto death.

Even the disciples of Jesus could not grasp the simplicity and profundity of his message; still less could his opponents. When the crisis came, he alone remained unshaken in his faith. He was accused of blasphemy to the ecclesiastical authorities and of insurrection to the civil rulers. He was condemned and crucified. His followers were scattered every man to his own place as sheep without a shepherd. Of his work nothing remained, not a written word, nor more than the rudiments of an organization. The decisive event, which turned defeat into victory and re-established courage and faith, was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and his reappearance to his disciples. Our sources will not permit the precise determination of the order or the nature of these appearances, but in any case from them arose the faith which was the basis of the Christian Church and the starting-point of its theology.

The death of Jesus as a criminal, and his resurrection, profoundly aroused the belief and hopes of the little group of Jews who were his followers. His person and mission assumed the first place in their affections and their thinking. He had been to them a prophet, mighty in word and deed, but he now becomes to them the Messiah, Christ. It is not his word but his person which assumes first place, and faith is acceptance of him—crucified and risen—as Messiah. Hence his followers early acquire the name Christians from the Greek form of the word. With this emphasis upon the Messiah the Jewish element would seem to be predominant, but as a matter of fact it was not so. The earlier group of disciples, it is true, did not appreciate the universality of the teaching of Jesus, and they continued zealous for the older forms, but St Paul through his prophetic consciousness grasped the fundamental fact and became Jesus’ true interpreter. As a result Christianity was rejected by the Jews and became the conquering religion of the Roman empire. In this it underwent another modification of far-reaching consequence.

In our earliest sources—the epistles of St Paul—Christ is the pre-existent man from heaven, who had there existed in the form of God, and had come to earth by a voluntary act of self-humiliation. He is before and above all things.Christianity and Greek thought.By him all things exist. In the Johannine writings he is the Son of God—the Logos who in the beginning was with God—of whom are all things—who lightens every man—and who was incarnate in Jesus. Here the cosmological element isagain made prominent though not yet supreme, and the metaphysical problems are so close at hand that their discussion is imperative. Even in Paul the term Messiah thus had lost its definite meaning and became almost a proper name. Among the Greek Christians this process was complete. Jesus is the “Son of God”; and the great problem of theology becomes explicit. Religion is in our emotions of reverence and dependence, and theology is the intellectual attempt to describe the object of worship. Doubtless the two do not exactly coincide, not only because accuracy is difficult or even impossible, but also because elements are admitted into the definition of God which are derived from various sources quite distinct from the religious experience. Like all concepts the meaning of religious terms is changed with a changing experience and a changing world-view. Transplanted into the Greek world-view, inevitably the Christian teaching was modified—indeed transformed. Questions which had never been asked came into the foreground, and the Jewish presuppositions tended to disappear. Especially were the Messianic hopes forgotten or transferred to a transcendent sphere beyond death. When the empire became Christian in the 4th century, the notion of a kingdom of Christ on earth to be introduced by a great struggle all but disappeared, remaining only as the faith of obscure groups. Immortality—the philosophical conception—took the place of the resurrection of the body. Nevertheless the latter continues because of its presence in the primary sources, but it is no longer a determining factor, since its presupposition—the Messianic kingdom on earth—has been obscured. As thus the background is changed from Jewish to Greek, so are the fundamental religious conceptions.

The Semitic peoples were essentially theocratic in their religion; they used the forms of the sensuous imagination in setting forth the realities of the unseen world. They were not given to metaphysical speculation, nor long insistent in their inquiries as to the meaning and origin of things. With the Greeks it was far otherwise. For them ideas and not images set forth fundamental reality, and their restless intellectual activity would be content with nothing else than the ultimate truth. Their speculation as to the nature of God had led them gradually to separate him by an infinite distance from all creation, and to feel keenly the opposition of the finite and the infinite, the perfect and the imperfect, the eternal and the temporal. To them, therefore, Christianity presented itself not primarily as the religion of a redemption through the indwelling power of a risen saviour, as with Paul, nor even as the solution of the problem how the sins of men could be forgiven, but as the reconciliation of the antinomy of the intellect, indicated above. The incarnation became the great truth: God is no longer separated by a measureless distance from the human race, but by his entering into humanity he redeems it and makes possible its ultimate unity with himself. Such lines of thought provoke discussion as to the relationship of Jesus to God the Father, and, at a later period, of the nature of the Holy Spirit who enters into and transforms believers.

Greek philosophy in the second centuryA.D.had sunk for the most part into scepticism and impotence; its original impulse had been lost, and no new intellectual power took its place; only in Alexandria was there a genuine effortmadeto solve the fundamental problems of God and the world. Plato had made God accessible to the highest knowledge as the transcendent idea, remote from the world. For Aristotle, too, God in his essence is far above the world and at most its first mover. The stoics, on the other hand, taught his immanence, while the eclectics sought truth by the mingling of the two ideas. They accomplished their purpose in various ways, by distinguishing between God and his power—or by the notion of a hierarchy of super-sensible beings, or in a doctrine which taught that the operations of nature are the movement of pure spirit; or by the use of the “Word” of “Wisdom,” half personified as intermediate between God and the world. While these monotheistic, pantheistic doctrines were taught in the schools, the people were left to a debased polytheism and to new superstitions imported from the Orient; the philosophers themselves were by no means unaffected by the popular beliefs. Mingled with all these were the ancient legends of gods and heroes, accepted as inspired scripture by the people, and by philosophers in part explained away by an allegorical exegesis and in part felt increasingly as a burden to the intelligence. In this period of degeneracy there were none the less an awakening to religious needs and a profound longing for a new revelation of truth, which should satisfy at once the intellect and the religious emotions.

Christianity came as supplying a new power; it freed philosophy from scepticism by giving a definite object to its efforts and a renewed confidence in its mission. Monotheism henceforth was to be the belief not of philosophers only but even of the ignorant, and in Jesus Christ the union of the divine and the human was effected. The Old Testament, allegorically explained, became the substitute for the outgrown mythology; intellectual activity revived; the new facts gained predominant influence in philosophy, and in turn were shaped according to its canons. In theology the fundamental problems of ontological philosophy were faced; the relationship of unity to multiplicity, of noumenon to phenomena, of God to man. The new element is the historical Jesus, at once the representative of humanity and of God. As in philosophy, so now in theology, the easiest solution of the problem was the denial of one of its factors: and successively these efforts were made, until a solution was found in the doctrine of the Trinity, which satisfied both terms of the equation and became the fundamental creed of the church. Its moulds of thought are those of Greek philosophy, and into these were run the Jewish teachings. We have thus a peculiar combination—the religious doctrines of the Bible, as culminating in the person of Jesus, run through the forms of an alien philosophy.

The Jewish sources furnished the terms Father, Messiah, Son and Spirit. Jesus seldom employed the last term and St Paul’s use of it is not altogether clear. Already in Jewish literature it had been all but personified (cf.The doctrine of the Trinity.the Wisdom of Solomon). Thus the material is Jewish, though already modified doubtless by Greek influence. But the problem is Greek. It is not primarily ethical nor even religious, but it is metaphysical. What is the ontological relationship between these three factors? The answer is given in the Nicene formula, which is characteristically Greek. By it we perceive how God, the infinite, the absolute, the eternal, is yet not separated from the finite, the temporal, the relative, but, through the incarnation, enters into humanity. We further see how this entering into humanity is not an isolated act but continues in all the children of God by the indwelling spirit. Thus, according to the canons of the ancient philosophy, justice is done to all the factors of our problem—God remains as Father, the infinitely remote and absolute source of all; as Son, the Word who is revealed to man and incarnate in him; as Spirit, who dwells even in our own souls and by his substance unites us to God.

While thus the Greek philosophy furnished the dialectic and the mould for the characteristic Christian teaching, the doctrine of the Trinity preserved religious values. By Jesus the disciples had been led to God, and he was the central fact of faith. After the resurrection he was the object of praise, and soon prayers were offered in his name and to him. Already to the apostle Paul he dominates the world and is above all created things, visible and invisible, so that he has the religious value of God. It is not God as abstract, infinite and eternal, as the far-away creator of the universe, or even as the ruler of the world, which Paul worships, but it is God revealed in Jesus Christ, the Father of Jesus Christ, the grace and mercy in Jesus Christ which deliver from evil. Metaphysics and speculative theories were valueless for Paul; he was conscious of a mighty power transforming his own life and filling him with joy, and that this power was identical with Jesus of Nazareth he knew. In all this Paul is the representative of that which is highest and best in early Christianity. Speculation and hyperspiritualization were ever tending to obscure this fundamental religious fact: in the interest of a higher doctrine of God his true presence in Jesus was denied, and by exaggeration of Paul’s doctrine of “Christ in us” the significance of the historic Jesus was given up. The Johannine writings,which presupposed the Pauline movement, are a protest against the hyperspiritualizing tendency. They insist that the Son of God has been incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, and that our hands have handled and our eyes have seen the word of life. This same purpose, namely, to hold fast to the historic Jesus, triumphed in the doctrine of the Trinity; Jesus was not to be resolved into an aeon or into some mysterioustertium quid, neither God nor man, but to be recognized as very God who redeemed the soul. Through him men were to understand the Father and to understand themselves as God’s children. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity satisfied at once the philosophic intelligence of scholars and the religious needs of Christians. Only thus can its adoption and ultimate acceptance be explained. Its doctrinal form is the philosophic statement of beliefs held by the common people, who had little interest in theology, but whose faith centred in Jesus. It marks the naturalization of Christianity in the Greek world for the common people who believed in Christ, and for the philosophers who justified the faith to reason.

The historic and religious values of the doctrine of the Trinity may be illustrated by way of contrast. The Mahāyāna systems are the union of Buddha’s teaching with the forms of the Brahman philosophy. The historic Buddha—the man Gautama—is taught as only one of a limitless series of incarnations or (better) appearances. For his life on earth with his material body was only an appearance, a seeming, a phenomenon, and simultaneously with its activities the true Buddha existed unmoved and eternal. Thus the way was opened for other apparitional Buddhas, and different sects take different ones as the objects of faith and worship. Moreover, our true nature is also Buddha. The conscious life of all men is apparitional and illusive. Salvation is the comprehension of this fact, and in the apprehension of our essential oneness with the absolute. Hence the way of salvation is by knowledge. In the Mahāyāna gnosticism was triumphant, and the historic values of Gautama’s teaching and personality are lost. The Mahãyãna illustrates in part what would have followed the triumph of gnosticism in Christianity, for not only would the historic value of the life and teaching of Jesus have been lost, but with it the significance of humanity.

It is apparent that such a doctrine as the Trinity is itself susceptible of many explanations, and minds differently constituted lay emphasis upon its different elements. Especially is this true as its Greek terminology was translated into Latin, and from Latin came into modern languages—the original meaning being obscured or disguised, and the original issues forgotten. For some the first thought of God, the infinite and ultimate reality lying beyond and behind all phenomena, predominates. With these the historic manifestation of Jesus becomes only a guide to lead us to that immediate apprehension of God which is the end of theology, and to that immediate union with God which is the end of religion. Such an end is accomplished either by means of pure thought or by a oneness of pure feeling, giving as results the theological or philosophical construction of the concept God, or a mystical ecstasy which is itself at once immediate, inexplicable and indescribable. On the other hand, minds of a different and more concrete character so emphasize the distinctions God, Son and Holy Spirit, that a tritheistic construction appears—three individuals in the one Godhead: these individuals appearing, as for example in the Father and the Son, even in opposition to each other. In general we may say then that the Trinity takes on four differing aspects in the Christian church: in its more common and easily apprehended form as three Gods, in its ecclesiastical form as a mystery which is above reason to be accepted by faith, in its philosophic form as the highest reason which solves the ultimate problems of the universe, and finally, as a mode by which the spirit through an emotional content enters into communion with God himself.

To some Christians the doctrine of the Trinity appeared inconsistent with the unity of God which is emphasized in the Scriptures. They therefore denied it, and accepted Jesus Christ, not as incarnate God, but as God’s highest creature by whom all else was created, or as the perfect man who taught the true doctrine of God. The first view in the early Church long contended with the orthodox doctrine, but finally disappeared, and the second doctrine in the modern Church was set forth as easily intelligible, but has remained only as the faith of sects relatively small in number.

Allied with the doctrine of God which seeks the solution of the ultimate problem of all philosophy, the doctrine of salvation has taken the most prominent place in the Christian faith: so prominent, indeed, that to a large portion of believersThe doctrine of the cross.it has been the supreme doctrine, and the doctrine of the deity of Jesus has been valued only because of its necessity on the effect of the atonement. Jesus alone of the great founders of religion suffered an early and violent death, even the death of a criminal. It became therefore the immediate task of his followers to explain this fact. This explanation was the more urgent because under the influence of Jewish monotheism the rule of God was accepted as an undoubted presupposition, so that the death of Jesus must be in accordance with his will. The early Church naturally used the terms and phrases of the prophets. He died the death of a criminal, not for his sins, but for ours. Isaiah liii. was suggested at once and became the central explanation: Christ is the suffering servant who is numbered with the transgressors and who bears the sins of many.

Jesus faced this problem perhaps before the opening of his ministry, certainly from his break with the ecclesiastical authorities. As his violent death drew near, his words indicated how he preserved his deep faith unshaken while yet recognizing the seeming failure of his mission. He devotes himself more exclusively to the little body of his faithful friends and commits his mission to them. As his work is sealed by his death his body is broken and his blood is shed for them. Through this is to come the victory which is denied to his life, as the seed cast into the ground and dead brings forth fruit. Our hints are few of Jesus’ teaching, but this much, at least, we cannot doubt unless we suppose that death took him unawares, or that his explanation of the impending fact took on some un-Jewish form; and further, that the earliest tradition misrepresents him. But these hypotheses do not commend themselves, and we accept the tradition that Jesus taught that his death was an atonement for others.

Beyond this the gospel does not go. Why vicarious suffering is needed, or why the God who is the loving Father does not simply forgive, as in the parable of the prodigal son, is not asked. For after all it is not theory which is central, but the fact of the death, and the reason assigned is simply “for others.”

In St Paul we find the beginnings of explanation, indeed of two explanations, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews the whole sacrificial system is found to culminate in Christ, of whom all priests and sacrifices are symbols, so that they are abolished with the coming of the great reality.

In the Greek world further questions are raised and the thought of the death as a ransom is prominent. To whom was the ransom paid? For a thousand years the answer was “to the devil.” He had gained control of man by man’s sin, and Christ set man free. God then, who is love, delivers us from evil through Christ, who pays the penalty of our transgression to the enemy of God and man. There were other theories also, indeed the germs of all later theories existed even in the second century, but this one prevailed. The heretic Marcion taught a variant, namely, the existence of two Gods, one of the Old Testament of law, the other of the New Testament of grace. Christ, unjustly condemned by the God of law, is given as reparation for all men who put their trust in him. From Anselm’s time (12th centuryA.D.) this theory of Marcion’s is held as orthodox in substance but is made monotheistic in form. St Anselm denied that any penalty was due to the devil, and in terms of feudal honour restated the problem. The conflict here is in God himself, so to speak, between his immutable righteousness and his limitless grace. In the sacrifice of Jesus these are reconciled. This doctrine of St Anselm’s attaches itself readily to texts of St Paul, for his teachings contain undeniably the vicarious propitiatory element.

These theories have to do with the being to whom the ransom is paid or the sacrifice offered. Another group of theories dealswith the effect of the death of Christ upon the sinner. One of these is the so-called governmental theory, wherein the death of Christ is set forth as for the sake of good government, so that the forgiveness of sins shall not be thought a sign of laxity. Again, by other theologians the death of Jesus is extolled because of the moral influence it exerts, since Christ’s devotion unto death incites a like devotion in us.

Excepting in relatively narrow circles these theories have been seriously studied only by professed theologians. That Christ died for us, and that we are saved by him, is indeed the living truth of the Church in all ages, and a false impression of the fact is given by dwelling upon theories as if they were central. At best they bear only the relationship of philosophy to life.

Another explanation, or (better) system of beliefs, has been far more influential in the Church. Belief in mysterious powers attached to food, feasts, ceremonial rites and sacred things is all but universal. Primitive man seldom connects sacrifice with notions of propitiation, indeed only in highly ethicized religions is the consciousness of sin or of guilt pre-eminent. Sacrifice was believed to exert an influence on the deity which is quasi-physical, and in sacrificial feasts God and worshipper are in mysterious union. Sometimes, indeed, such contact with deity is thought to be dangerous, and the rites indicate avoidance (tabu), and sometimes it is thought desirable.

So universal are such ideas that the problem in particular religions is not their origin but their form. In the Old Testament repeatedly they are found in conflict with the prophetic ideals. Sometimes the prophets denounce them, sometimes ignore them, sometimes attempt to reform and control them. Jesus ignores them, his emphasis being so strong upon the ethical and spiritual that the rest is passed by. In the early Church, still Jewish, the belief was in the coming of a mysterious power from God which produced ecstasy and worked wonders. St Paul also believes in this, but insists that it is subordinate to the peaceable fruits of righteousness. With the naturalization of the Church in the Gentile world ethical ideas became less prominent, and the sacramental system prevailed. By baptism and the Lord’s Supper grace is given (ex opere operato), so that man is renewed and made capable of salvation. Already in the 2nd century baptism was described as a bath in which the health of the soul is restored, and the Lord’s Supper as the potion of immortality. Similar notions present in the ethnic faiths take the Christian facts into their service, the belief of the multitude without essential change remaining vague and undefined. While the theologians discussed doctrine the people longed for mystery, as it satisfied their religious natures. By sacraments they felt themselves brought into the presence of God, and to sacraments they looked for aid. Many sacraments were adopted by portions of the Church, until at last the sacred number seven was agreed upon.

As the way of salvation was modified, so too was the idea of salvation: the dream of a Messianic kingdom on earth, with its corollary the resurrection of the physical body, faded away, especially after the Roman empire adoptedThe concepts of salvation.Christianity; It was no longer the Jewish nation against the heathen empire, for the Jewish nation had ceased to be, and the empire and the Church were one. Salvation henceforth is not the descent of the New Jerusalem out of heaven, but the ascent of the saints to heaven; for the individual it is not the resurrection of the body but the immortality of the soul. So Jesus is no longer Christ or Messiah, but the Son of God. These terms again are variously interpreted: heaven is still thought of by many under the imagery of the book of Revelation, and by others it is conceived as a mystical union of the soul with God through the intelligence or of feelings. Yet the older conceptions still continue, Christianity not becoming purely and simply Greek. Again and again individuals and groups turn back to the Semitic cycle of hopes and ideas, while the reconciliation of the two systems, Jewish and Graeco-Roman, becomes the task of exegetes and theologians.

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