It would not be fair to say that the prophets, in the formation of this ideal, were influenced only by patriotism. Spiritually they were too great not to feel the need of a reconciliation between the world and its God. In the mind of the noblest of them, Israel was the servant of the Gentiles, a messenger of God bringing glad tidings of peace to men. Still, on the whole, the glory of Israel was theobject of their zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles. They dreamed of all the world coming to take the truth meekly from Israel’s hands.39Jerusalem was to be the sacred city of the earth, and Judæa, as afterwards during the Crusades, the Holy Land. The second Isaiah gives the highest expression to this dream. “Nations shall come to thy light,” Jahveh promises Jerusalem, “and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee. Thy gates also shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the riches of the nations. The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and they shall call thee the city of Jahveh, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, desolation nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.”40As spiritual guides and teachers, the Israelites thus would be the Levites of mankind, a sacred people intermediate between the world and God.41
The spiritual Messianic ideal of the second Isaiah was both nobler and more vividly conceived than that of any other of the prophets. But nearly allof them have given some expression to it. Even the fiercely national Jeremiah, who hated the Gentiles so bitterly that, though he believed them to be Jahveh’s instruments for the chastisement of Israel, he prayed that they might be punished for their assaults on the sacred city, had a vision of their coming to Jahveh.42And, indeed, there was an inevitable pressure on the prophets which forced them in this direction. In proportion as the spiritual greatness of their religion was understood by them, they were driven to adopt the spiritual Messianic ideal. The experiences of the prophetic period, besides, must have shown them how impossible it was that the small people of Israel should ever equal or surpass in material power the mighty Gentile empires which then first came in contact with them. So everything tended to make them seek the satisfaction of their patriotism in the extension of their religion.
So far as this ideal entered into it, an inversion in the relations of political and religious feeling now occurred in Judaism. Previously, as pointed out in the last chapter, Jahveh being the national god of Israel, religious feeling flowed in a patriotic channel. In the prophetic age, on the other hand, patriotic feeling began to flow in a religious channel. Jahveh before had been subordinate to Israel; then Israel became subordinate to Jahveh.It is obvious that there was nothing exceptional in this change, and that the circumstances of Jewish history amply explain its occurrence.
Here, accordingly, we have the historical explanation of the production of Christianity. From the beginning Jahvism was bound to develop into a noble monotheism. Also from the beginning it was a national religion. Being a national religion, in it patriotic was blended with religious feeling. Under these circumstances, if, after its full development, a permanent decay took hold of the state with which it was connected, it had, as an exceptionally pure religion, to become the basis of national pride, to make proselytism its end. But the history of the world during this central period of Judaism is the history of the great empires of western Asia. The small people of Israel could offer no effective resistance to their power, and so, under pressure from them, the magnificent national religion of Israel was compelled to become the expression of patriotism, and to aim at the conversion of the world. So far, then, as Christianity was a movement towards the establishment of the Jewish religion as the religion of the world—and at first it was nothing else—it was inevitable. The conditions of Israel’s history made an expansion of Judaism—or rather, an attempt to expand Judaism, its success depending on external circumstances—a necessary occurrence.
A tendency to remodel the form of Judaism was a consequence of the spiritual Messianic ideal. When struggling against rival religions, Jahvism, as we saw in the last chapter, was forced to become strongly exclusive. To keep itself pure from corruption, and also to assert its own high dignity, it had to enclose itself in a hard shell of formal observance. But when it developed into Judaism, and sought to become a world-conquering religion, this formalism was a hindrance to its purpose. The barriers that were so useful for defence interfered with offensive movements. Accordingly, the prophets who recognized the higher ideal of Judaism revolted against its formalism. Its initial rite, circumcision, was the chief mark of separation between the Jews and the mass of the Gentiles. But the whole sacrificial system was also, in its way, an expression of exclusive tendencies. Sacrificing in one manner distinguished the Jew from the Gentile, who sacrificed in another manner. Moreover, circumstances at this time were accentuating the exclusiveness of Judaism. As Israel fell more and more into the power of strangers, of course the people’s hatred of strangers grew stronger. This feeling, which, by throwing the people back on the national religion, was in one respect of service to the prophets, naturally expressed itself in Judaism by increasing its exclusiveness. So Judaism was tending to be narrowed just when the prophets wished it to be enlarged.
The prophets met this tendency with a crusade against formalism. Circumcision they declared to be only a symbol of obedience. A people “uncircumcised in heart” Jeremiah called his countrymen. They pronounced sacrifices of small importance in comparison with personal righteousness. “Wherewith shall I come before Jahveh and bow myself before the high God?” said Micah. “Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will Jahveh be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jahveh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”43Here the regular sacrifices of orthodox Jahvism are actually compared with the human sacrifices of corrupted Jahvism, and are subjected to the same condemnation. The second Isaiah even goes so far as to assert that sacrifices are offensive to Jahveh, as it is degrading him to suppose that such offerings can please him.44Of course the high development of their religion had also some effect in making the prophets adopt this principle. A system of animal sacrifices did not accord well with their noble theism. A righteous life, besides, they felt to be the best offering toGod, and they knew that formal observances distracted attention from morality. But still they assailed the formalism of Judaism mainly because it imprisoned the religion of Jahveh in nationality; they wished Judaism to be a purely spiritual religion to which all national customs would be equally foreign.
Of course they expressed their desires in their Messianic dreams. They dwell upon the glories of the spiritual religion of which Jerusalem was to be the centre, when Jahveh would speak face to face with all his people, with no barrier of priestly formalism between. From the time of the prophets, all who clung to the spiritual Messianic ideal must have shared their feelings; and when Christianity afterwards broke through the fetters of Jewish ceremonialism, its action was strictly in accordance with the principles of those who originated and continued the movement in Judaism of which it was finally the issue.
The spiritual Messianic ideal from the prophetic age necessarily formed the ideal of the best and purest Jews. In the writings of the prophets, especially in those of the second Isaiah, it remained before the people, a constant incentive to all who grasped the true principles of their pure religion. It was easily blended with the additions then beginning to be made to Judaism, the supernaturalism which rendered Judaism less cold andunattractive. But though this ideal was sure to continue as the expression of the noblest aspirations of Israel, and though endeavours were certain to be made to realize it, in its completeness it was destined to inevitable failure. So far as the prophets dreamed of Israel’s glory being found in sharing the religion of the one God with the Gentiles, they dreamed an unrealizable dream. From the time of the prophets down to the destruction of Jerusalem, the great mass of the Jews, as the years went by, hated all Gentiles with a bitterer hatred. Their religion became more confined within the limits of their nationality, and Jahveh more peculiarly the God worshipped by Jews alone. It is easy to see that Judaism as Israel’s religion could not have expanded itself, and that the national pride of Israel could not thus have been gratified. Only by leaving nationality behind, by a movement outward from Judaism of the most spiritual Jews, could the God of Israel become the God of the world.45
In this Messianic ideal the conception of the Messiah personally was vague and undefined. The second Isaiah expected that the Messiah would simply bring the captivity to a close, and that the Messianic glories would then follow spontaneously as a result of the exhibition of Jahveh’s power. This more indistinct picture of the spiritual Messiah was of great service to Christianity.
The belief in atonement by vicarious suffering mentioned in the last chapter was connected in a special manner with the spiritual Messianic ideal. All the prophets believed in atonement by suffering; they all thought that Jahveh was punishing his people for their sins, and that the punishment was the necessary antecedent to the restoration of his favour. But to those who accepted this Messianic ideal Israel’s suffering plainly seemed to be a means of realizing it. The great preacher of it, the second Isaiah, writing towards the close of the captivity, saw an obvious connection between it and the crowning misfortune of his country. Dispersed among the heathen, the worshippers of Jahveh appeared to him missionaries of the true religion, revealers to the world of its God. He believed that the restoration would be accomplished by the return of the Israelites under the guardianship of the converted Gentiles, to be their priests in the Holy Land.46But when the captivity was recognized as an instrument of Gentile conversion, it was of course regarded as a blessing to the Gentiles. Beneficial to the Gentile world, it was not the less harmful to Israel, whose nationality it almost destroyed. Thus the hurt of Israel was a blessing to the Gentiles. It would follow from this, in a mind nursed in the ideas of the Jewish sacrificial system, that the suffering of Israel wasan atonement for Gentile sins. The Gentiles clearly had sinned against God, their ignorance of him was a sin; but in revealing himself to them he was blessing them, and in blessing them he was of course forgiving their sins. But this forgiveness was shown by means of Israel’s suffering; therefore Israel’s suffering was an atonement for Gentile sins accepted by God.
We find the results of this train of reasoning clearly expressed by the second Isaiah. In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which is the great Messianic chapter of orthodox Christians, and which probably exercised an important influence over the mind of Christ, three kinds of atonement are described. Partly Israel’s sufferings are represented as an atonement offered for Israel’s own sins; partly Israel’s sins are regarded as atoned for by the undeserved suffering of the few righteous Israelites, faithful adherents of Jahveh, on whom the national misfortunes fell as well as on the rest of the people; while put more strongly, and running through the whole chapter, is the idea that Israel’s sufferings atoned for Gentile sins. The beautiful phrase at the end, “He made intercession for the transgressors,” means that Israel, though oppressed and bruised by the Gentiles, was still ready to be a mediator leading them to God. In the previous chapter the astonishment of the Gentiles at the fact that so insignificant a peoplepossessed so great a revelation, is described by the same method of personal illustration, universally adopted by the prophets.47Interpreted Messianically, in a literal sense, these passages were afterwards of importance to Christianity.
The prophetic age, as a whole, was thus essentially a period of transition. In it Judaism was established, and the movement towards Christianity begun. Throughout the whole course of Israel’s history we see a gradual development of religion, religious forces steadily tending upwards and evolving higher ideas of God. Before the time of the prophets, these forces were working out a pure and moral monotheism; during and after it, they were working out the release of this monotheism from the fetters of nationalism, and preparing a religion for the civilised world.
The circumstances which at this time were tending to make Judaism a proselytizing religion were also preparing it for success in its mission. The religion of the prophets was too pure to become popular. The absence of supernaturalism, the freedom from dogma, which made it in essence so superior to Christianity, rendered it fit only for the highest minds. Afterwards, when impressed on Israel in general, it was identified with a rigid ceremonialism. That such a religion, deriving no strength from formalism or fromnational feeling, could conquer the Gentile world, far lower than the Jewish people in religious development, was of course impossible. But just at this moment it began to receive additions from foreign sources which ultimately bridged the chasm between it and the ideas of ordinary men. The dispersion of the Jews, which completed the victory of Judaism, alloyed it with baser elements. So far as its adherents were placed in contact with idolatrous religions like the Chaldean, it was rather secured against corruption. In the Persian religion, however, which it encountered towards the close of the captivity, it found an enemy disguised as a friend. This religion, which was as anti-idolatrous as the Jewish, and which had a nominal monotheism underlying its dualism, was marked by a supernaturalism very different from the simplicity of the religion of the prophets. A large part of this supernaturalism was now transferred to Judaism. The Persian deity of evil became the Jewish Satan, with a multitude of demons under him that made man their sport and prey.48A hierarchy of angels was constructed, completely foreign to the prophetic belief in the immediate agency of God. But the most important doctrine at this time introduced into Judaism, whether from the Persian religion or not is a matter of dispute, was the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, whichsoon became the chief dogma of the Jewish creed. How far it tended to suit Judaism to Gentile requirements is shown by a curious passage of the Apocrypha, which reads like a description of the doctrine of Pagan Christianity respecting purgatory and masses for the dead.49The more philosophical Jews afterwards formed themselves into a party to resist these innovations, but the majority of the people eagerly adopted them. With the spiritual Messianic ideal they were readily connected, as they formed the popular elements needed for proselytism, and as they tended to place religion on a personal rather than on a national basis. We find them the chief strength of Christianity, which, as the successful embodiment of the outward forces of Judaism, naturally laid aside the portions of it unfavourable, and took up the portions of it favourable, to denationalisation and expansion.
Of course these corruptions of Judaism were the result of its becoming a popular religion. No longer confined to the best part of the people, it paid the penalty of diffusion. The rigid ceremonialism, which henceforth was its leading feature, was another consequence of its success. Utterly obnoxious as such ceremonialism was to the instincts of the prophets, it was still inevitable if Judaism was to be the religion of all the Jews. As Jewish political independence faded more andmore into a memory of a distant past, the people clung more tenaciously to their religion, more based their nationality upon it, and made it the object of their patriotism. This, as it continued, rendered impossible a religious union of Jew and Gentile. A religion professed by Gentiles by that fact alone would have seemed to the vast majority of Jews to be sufficiently condemned. It became steadily more apparent that, in order to convert the Gentile, Judaism had to leave the Jew.
Throughout all this period the expectation of the Messiah’s coming remained the sole consolation of the Jewish people. The expectation entered into every part of their action.50All Jews believed that, to obtain the Messiah, they needed to be reconciled to God, that their sins kept alive his anger, and delayed the sending of the deliverer. Many an obscure preacher probably cried in their ears, “Repent, repent, that the kingdom of heaven may come,” before John the Baptist, by synchronizing with Christ, gained a prophetic celebrity. Indeed, we may be sure that during this long time of calamity many attempts were made to realize the Messianic ideals, that many who claimed to be the Messiah appeared among the Jews, and earned oblivion by their failure. When the empire of Rome began to overshadow them with its massive and enduring power, sounlike that of their previous masters, a conviction spread through the Jews that the last days were at hand.51The expectation of the Messiah grew stronger, and the passionate longing of the people tended more and more to secure, as far as was possible, its own gratification. Into an age of dreams and hopes, which seethed with restlessness and discontent, Christ was born.
Itis hardly necessary to say that simply from the statements of the gospels we cannot construct an historical life of Christ. Strauss and Baur have finally determined the question of their historical value. In the first three, it is true, after making allowance for the vast growth of legend overspreading them, useful materials can still be found; but even these can be depended on only so far as probability is distinctly in their favour. The last is simply a philosophical romance, with the theology of the second century as its basis. We see the figure of Christ through a mist of legend, and its real outlines are hopelessly lost. Characters like the hero of M. Renan’s historical novel are merely the projections of imagination, coloured undisguisedly by the medium through which they are viewed. Only by study of the religion he founded can trustworthy knowledge of Christ be obtained.
But in this way, as far as general results are concerned, we can arrive at almost certain knowledge. We can be sure, for instance, that the exceptional goodness of Christ was no figment of the gospels. The new morality which Christianity introduced into the world of practice, the morality which makes inward purity a test of virtue rather than outward actions, must have been derived from him. Its origin must have been in personal influence, and Christ’s alone could have permanently stamped it on Christianity. And this, of course, renders it likely that sayings of striking moral beauty attributed to him in the gospels, such as “Love your enemies,” “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” and the perfect one not in the gospels, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” were in substance actually uttered by him, for they are in harmony with the character of exceptional goodness which he must have possessed. So far, at least, we can have a sure knowledge of Christ which entitles him to our willing reverence.
Not only is it necessary to distrust the positive evidence of the gospels, but even negatively their evidence cannot wholly be allowed. They may suppress what is true as well as assert what is false. For instance, they represent Christ as obtaining great success immediately after his entrance on his ministry. Now nothing could bemore unlikely than this. He could not have been accepted as the Messiah by even a small number of disciples without a long probation previously, a period of struggle and unsuccess. In the gospels themselves the explanation of this omission is suggested, when Christ is said to have been thirty years old at the time he began to preach. At about this age, after a youth of conflict and uncertainty, he probably was first recognized as the Messiah. But naturally those who knew him only as the Messiah could not dream of a period when none regarded him as such. Hence the account in the gospels, the years of development and failure having passed out of remembrance.
The true historical evidence on which to found a life of Christ consists of the statements of the synoptical gospels, tested and interpreted by probability. It is obvious that in this way only knowledge of the broadest and most general nature can be obtained. If special circumstances of Christ’s life, as reported in the gospels, are accepted according as they appear to be probable, the result naturally varies with the character of the student. In these cases probability, in the scientific sense, does not exist. And thus far the greater part of the statements of the gospels are properly outside the region of historical investigation. Some are so distinctly improbable that we can pronounce them inaccurate; some are so distinctly probable thatwe can pronounce them accurate; but the vast majority of them, the test of probability being absent, cannot be pronounced either accurate or inaccurate; we simply cannot tell.
In endeavouring to determine the nature of the personal character and religious ideas of Christ, it is on this general kind of probability that I chiefly rely, appealing to the gospels to corroborate it more than to it to corroborate the gospels. Such probability in certain cases is the surest kind of historical evidence, and may safely be depended on, even in the absence of written confirmation.
That Christ stood exceptionally high in moral development, was exceptionally good, can be declared, as we have seen, with practical certainty. The evidence of the gospels and the evidence of probability are here in thorough harmony, and the fact has never been disputed. The evidence of the gospels and the evidence of probability equally agree in declaring that Christ was not exempt from the theological illusions of his age, but their declaration is called in question by some. As this point is of vital importance to our subject, we must now carefully consider it.
Mr. Matthew Arnold has given the clearest expression to the belief that the religion of Christ was wholly undogmatic in character. The dogmatic assertions attributed to Christ in the gospels, were, according to him, used only in a mystical sensewhich the grosser-minded disciples misunderstood. When Christ, for instance, spoke of his resurrection, he meant that his moral system would triumph after his death; but his disciples understood his words in a personal sense. Christ, Mr. Arnold says, spoke “over the heads of his followers,” and, in consequence, they failed to understand him, and ascribed their own ideas to him. The evidence on which Mr. Arnold founds his theory is extremely slight; in fact, he practically rests it on the few stories in the gospels where Christ uses figurative language, which his disciples misunderstand, as in the case of his injunctions respecting the “leaven of the Pharisees.” Now figurative language of this sort is quite distinct from the mystical language Mr. Arnold attributes to him, Hebrew literature being full of the former and absolutely empty of the latter, and the only resemblance between them is that they can both be misunderstood. Mr. Arnold, indeed, by an elaborate criticism of the last gospel, makes it to support his theory, its mysticism readily allowing this to be done; but the fourth gospel has no historical value. The real basis of the theory is the reverence which all men feel for Christ, which renders it difficult for them to believe that he held opinions differing from their own, and which also disposes them to imagine that a vast distinction separated him from those whom he addressed.
The strongest argument in favour of the theory is drawn from the unquestionable fact of the greatness of Christ. His moral superiority cannot be disputed, and the success of his system shows that he must have possessed unique personal power. But does his moral superiority, or his possession of wonderful personal power, really prove that he was free from theological illusion? It is obvious to every one that the most exalted goodness may be united with the most implicit belief in the dogmas of supernatural religion. It is nearly as obvious that extreme fascination of character, far from indicating that one who possesses it is superior to ordinary illusions, is a clear presumption that he is peculiarly under their control. The popular power which Christ must have exercised is strong evidence that he shared the popular beliefs. The essence of popularity is sympathy; the popular man must be in sympathy with the people he meets, and must be ruled by the same ideas, whether they happen to be right or wrong. Christ’s popularity, his influence over his simple Jewish followers, is a fair proof that he was subject to their religious illusions, that no difference of deep insight separated him from them. People always are irritated by hearing what they do not understand. Had Christ been in the habit of speaking over the heads of his disciples, not many would have remained with him; he mightthus have acquired a reputation as a philosopher, but he certainly would not have founded a Church.
In considering this question, we must keep the facts of experience steadily before us. All who have ever been widely loved and greatly popular among average men have had characters remarkable for moral beauty, and have also been peculiarly steeped in religious illusions. St. Francis of Assisi and St. Teresa resembled Christ in spiritual goodness and in the power of fascinating others, and they held the crudest religious ideas of their times. In our own days, men who are justly called heroes, men like Stonewall Jackson and General Gordon, who win the love and reverence of all who come near them, are sure to believe in the most absurd dogmas. Stonewall Jackson feared that he would lose a battle if he fought it with powder obtained by labouring on Sunday, and General Gordon believed an island in the Pacific to be the private residence of the devil. Christ’s fascination of character is additional evidence of his supreme goodness, but it is far from proving that he rose above the religious ideas of the crowd.
The reverence we feel for Christ need not in the least be impaired by recognizing that he was subject to the illusions of dogmatic religion. Of his moral superiority we have certain evidence; and this, and not wisdom, is the true object of reverence. Had he been profoundly wise, seeingwith perfect clearness through the deluding phantasms of life, he could not have been so good. To be supremely good, to rise far above the standard of negative morality, and to be inspired by a passionate devotion to others which leaves no room for a thought of self, is not compatible with the colder temperament which examines the foundations of belief. Wise men may die for a just cause, but they are never willing martyrs; they lack not merely the fanaticism, but the power of forming the exaggerated estimate of the value of the sacrifice, which martyrdom requires. But we never hesitate in choosing between calm wisdom and pure enthusiasm as objects of our praise. And in the same way, Christ’s belief in much that we think unfounded should be no hindrance to our reverent admiration of him; we ought rather to recognize that it is the inevitable accompaniment of such greatness as his. Only a noble fanaticism, which leaves no guard against error, could have inspired his life and secured his success.
We may conclude, then, that Christ accepted the common religious ideas of his time, that he believed in the personal God to whom the prophets addressed their prayers and complaints, and in the resurrection of the dead. And now, after this unavoidable digression, we will take up our subject at the point where we left it at the close of the last chapter. In referring to the gospels, I shallalways mean the synoptical exclusively, the last being put aside as hopelessly unhistorical.
At the time of Christ’s birth the expectation of the Messiah was rooted more strongly than ever in the minds of the Jewish people. Nothing but the Messiah seemed able to save them from the final loss of the remains of their national independence at the hands of the irresistible power of Rome. For in Rome they saw, not a mere conqueror exacting tribute from subject peoples, but an empire that steadily absorbed into its own vast mass all the nationalities of the civilized world. To the Jews, who valued their nationality above all things, this fact must have appeared a ground for absolute despair. The lower orders might be roused to attempts at passionate resistance, but the higher classes must have seen the hopelessness of a struggle against the Roman power, and must have been impelled to gloomier forebodings by the fear that at any moment the end might be precipitated by the unreasoning fanaticism of their ignorant countrymen.52The religion of the Jews, as Professor Kuenen has pointed out,53tended to encourage these feelings. Pride in their religion stimulated their patriotism, and made it harder for them to submit to the conditions of Roman rule. Thus the circumstances of the time would heightenthe ordinary Messianic hopes, and make the people look more for the national saviour. The general unrest, too, would deepen the sense of sin. Wandering preachers of the class of John the Baptist, denouncing the sins of the people, and asserting that their wickedness was bringing on them the threatened calamity, and calling for repentance, in order that the Messiah might be sent to deliver them, such a time would be sure to produce.
In the midst of these Messianic expectations Christ grew up. The agitation and unrest of the period must have powerfully stimulated a nature so impressible in its spiritual beauty. Exceptionally good men are always keenly responsive to the religious influences around them, so Christ must have passed his youth in a world of Messianic dreams. The sacred literature of his race was familiar to every Jew; and the spiritual predictions of the prophets, the vision of an Israel reconciled to God, must early have enthralled his fancy. National fanaticism could not have found a place in his character. In both Messianic ideals, as we saw in the last chapter, the distinction between Jew and Gentile was made to contribute either to the spiritual or to the material glory of Israel. For the glory of Israel Christ could not have cared; putting aside national distinctions, he must have lived only for the welfare of man and for the glory of God.
From the beginning, his Messianic desires must have been for the reconciliation of God and man by the conquest of human sinfulness. As he watched the ceremonialism which was then the most distinctive feature of the Jewish religion, he must have echoed the burning words in which the prophets proclaimed righteousness to be alone acceptable to God, and must have denounced all forms that tended to obscure this truth. His sympathy would be sure to be with those whom the Pharisaic rigidity of that ceremonialism shut out and degraded by exclusion, “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The “inwardness” of Christ, the stress he laid on the purity of the heart, in the first instance was probably the result of a reaction against the formalism of his age, with its minutely defined outward morality of law. To restore primitive truths, and to make goodness the essence of religion, must have always been his aim.
Judging simply from probability, we should say that there were likely to be three clearly marked periods in the life of Christ. In early manhood his longing for the Messianic times would naturally express itself in the same form in which the longing of so many of his countrymen was expressed—in the call to repentance. The wickedness of the people being regarded as the cause of God’s anger, the best way to remove his anger and, consequently, to obtain the Messiah, was to turnthe people from their sins, Christ’s own personal hatred of sin also, of course, urging him in this direction. Thus at first probably he was simply a preacher like John the Baptist, not claiming to be the Messiah, but a forerunner of the Messiah, exhorting the people to repent, and promising them that the Messiah would come as soon as they had reconciled themselves to God. Gradually, while engaged in this work, as he reached maturity and his powers grew to their full development, and as with them came the consciousness of his own greatness, the conviction would force itself on him that he was himself the promised Messiah, to be revealed as such by succeeding in his labour, by converting the people and banishing sin from Israel. This second period would grow naturally out of the first. Compared with the other preachers of repentance, he must have seemed able to obtain success; his preaching, of course, would be far more effective than theirs. Such being the case, hope—and natures like his are always intensely hopeful—would lead him to imagine himself completely successful, to believe that at his call all Jews would turn with pure hearts to God. This result would be sufficient glory for the Messiah; in the dreams of the prophets it had been the chief feature of the Messianic times. During this period he would be uniformly gentle, without bitterness against any class, would speak of coming “to call not therighteous, but sinners to repentance.” Then as slowly but surely it became evident that his task was impossible, that the Jews in general cared nothing for his teaching and despised his pretensions, he would enter on a third period, with the end not far off, in which, still firmly holding himself to be the Messiah, he would appear as the leader of a new departure like Moses, and, applying to himself the spiritual ideal of the second Isaiah, would open his system to the Gentiles, the obstinate and unrepentant Jews being left to perish in their sins. During this period he would become a bitter assailant of those who refused to accept him; he would denounce the scribes and Pharisees, and, like the prophets, foretell destruction for Jerusalem, and thus finally gain for himself the death of the cross.
Of course no evidence for the first of these three periods can be derived from the gospels. For reasons already mentioned, when Christ was once recognized as the Messiah all the previous part of his life must have passed into oblivion. But in the gospels the second and third periods are clearly indicated; in fact, by referring to them we explain most of the contradictions in the sayings ascribed to Christ. As probability and tradition are so strongly in favour of them, we may assume the existence of at least these periods to be proved.
The greater part of Christ’s active life probablybelonged to the second period. Declaring that the kingdom of heaven had come, and exhorting to righteousness as the condition of sharing in its blessedness, he wandered through the country districts of Galilee and Judæa. To the country he would naturally keep, as there, where the people were less fiercely national and fanatical, his purer conception of the Messiah would more readily find acceptance. In the towns, and especially in Jerusalem, only the national type of Messiah would be recognized; and so the gospels are probably correct in stating that he came first to Jerusalem in the closing days of his life. The term “Son of man,” which in the gospels is his favourite name for himself, was, it is likely, the Messianic title he claimed, as it marks the recognition of humanity alone by the minister of God. “Son of David” was the accepted title of the national Messiah, and though his followers, we may be sure, often applied it to him, he would rather shrink from it himself. He must have gained many adherents during this period; in the unrest of the age men would easily yield to the fascination of his character, its gentleness and hopefulness being still unspoiled by failure.
As he extended the area of his labours and began to come in contact with the people of the towns, he would find himself in face of serious opposition. Here he would meet, not simple rustics who cared little about ritual and politics,but legalists and nationalists prompt to condemn him as irreligious and unpatriotic. The credulity of his country disciples would be challenged and his Messianic claims subjected to a hostile scrutiny. The tendency to dwell on the supernatural inseparable from such a character as his would be in sharp contrast to the spirit of worldliness he would encounter. Some Sadducees even would be likely to confront him, requiring proof of the postulates of his teaching, and infecting others with their scepticism.
Then would begin a time of struggle and irritation. All who looked for the national Messiah would be enemies of Christ. They would be eager upholders of the formal and exclusive elements of Judaism, and his disregard of these would excite their bitter opposition. If he neglected traditional ceremonies or associated with the outcasts of formalism, he would be denounced as a breaker of the law, and the friend of publicans and sinners. Gradually this opposition would produce its effect. As the minor customs of the law were more and more put before him as matters of sole importance, he would be forced into hostility against them; as the outcries of the legalists grew stronger, the whole system of legalism would become more discredited with him. But, above all, he would lose his expectation of converting Israel. When he realized by experience the strength of the obstaclesto his ideal, he would be compelled to reconsider his whole position as Messiah.
The effect of this would be to drive him strongly towards supernaturalism. From the beginning he must have been disposed to put aside the ordinary conditions of life. The exaggerated and unworkable morality of the gospels is probably an accurate representation of his teaching. With his attention fixed on the spiritual glories of the Messianic age, the worldly arrangements around him must have seemed too transient to be worthy of attention. This feature of his character would now enable him to meet the difficulty of his position. He would turn from earth to heaven. Believing in the resurrection of the dead, he would use it to justify his claim to be the Messiah. Rejected by the greater part of his countrymen, no demonstration of his power on earth could be pointed to, but he still could proclaim for himself the future glory of a second coming in the clouds of heaven.
Opposition, of course, would only strengthen his belief in himself. But this belief required that he should realize the glorious ideal of the prophets. If he could not realize it during his earthly life, he would have to realize it after his death. The prophecy in the book of Daniel of one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, and having everlasting dominion over all the world,54wouldnow appear to him to be a manifest reference to himself. Connecting it with the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, the chapter easily admitting of an erroneous interpretation in a personal sense, he would readily form a new conception of his mission. The failure to convert Israel would seem part of his true glory as the suffering Messiah. Despised and rejected of men, he would only be like all God’s envoys to the Jews; his rejection would fill up the measure of Israel’s guilt; and after it the wicked would finally be swept away, and he himself, as Messiah, proved by his constancy under persecution and suffering, would judge those who had rejected him, and establish his everlasting kingdom.55
The necessity of his own martyrdom would soon become part of his belief. In the state in which Judæa was then, the forces tending in this direction were sufficiently obvious. Only an increase of the opposition he had already encountered, such as would be produced by his coming into collision with the fanatical orthodoxy of Jerusalem, was needed to secure his death as a criminal. There must have been many reasons to make him welcome a speedy death. M. Renan is probably right in conjecturing that Christ began to lose ground during the later days of his life, the irritability produced by constant controversy weakeningthe personal charm of his character. Death would seem the only remedy for this. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which Mr. Arnold supposes to have been always present to Christ’s mind as the embodiment of his Messianic ideal, is likely to have been thus before him in this closing period. There death is represented as crowning the afflictions of the righteous servant of Jahveh, and a glorious triumph is promised as its result. Christ would of course apply the passage to himself, and would look forward to his death as the condition necessarily preceding his Messianic glory. Personal shrinking from pain would count for nothing with him. If he believed himself to be the divinely appointed Messiah, the central figure of all the world’s history, he could not have had one feeling that was not subservient to his mission.
As soon as this conception of his Messiahship was developed in his thoughts, he would at once adopt in its fulness the spiritual Messianic ideal. Rejected by the vast majority of the Jews—rejected, moreover, because he was not the national Messiah, he would be irresistibly impelled to proclaim himself the spiritual Messiah, in whose eyes no distinctions of race separated men from God. Failing with the Jews, there was the more need that he should turn to the Gentiles; defeated by Jewish nationalism, Jewish nationalism must have become hateful to him. He would look now forthe establishment of a spiritual Israel, formed of all mankind reconciled to God and delivered from sin. From this time, though he probably did not preach to them himself, he must have included the Gentiles in his system.56
He would, of course, impress this new ideal on his disciples as strongly as he could. It was now necessary that his system should be preached by them after his death, so that when he came again in the clouds of heaven he might find faithful adherents to share in the glories of his reign. He would strive to prepare his disciples for his death, to prevent them from being disheartened by it, and in doing so he would promise them his return in power. Thus he would himself originate the dogma of his second advent, which was the main support of the early Christian Church. It would not be very difficult to induce his disciples to accept the doctrine. They believed in the resurrection of the dead, and he would merely have to fix in their minds a conviction that his resurrection would be immediate; that he, as Messiah, would rise at once to heaven after his death, thence to return with unlimited powers to punish and reward. To get the first part of the doctrine into their heads may not have been easy; they would not readily understand that their lord was to die still publicly unrecognized, with no proclamation of his greatness; but once they did understand this, his promised return in glory would seem best to explain it, and would suit it to their ambitious dreams. Probably they never fully understood this portion of his teaching until after his death, when, of course, there would be every inducement to accept it.
It is unnecessary to state how strongly the evidence of the gospels supports this conclusion. Again and again in them Christ appears preparing his disciples for his death, and promising his return afterwards in heavenly glory. But the evidence of probability would be sufficient to establish it. It solves the great problem in the history of Christianity; it explains the passage of Christianity through the perilous period immediately after its founder’s death.
Being thus forced to justify himself by appealing to the supernatural elements of Judaism, supernatural conditions would necessarily assume more importance in his eyes. The post-prophetic additions to Judaism mentioned in the last chapter had by this time developed a complete system of salvation and damnation. Heaven and hell were now fully established in the creed of the Jew, heaven being appointed for himself and hell for the Gentile. Christ would naturally accentuate this part of his religion, and adopt the same spirit of exclusiveness. Heaven would be for those whoaccepted, hell for those who rejected the Messiah. Probably he now began to lay special stress on the salvation of the soul in his preaching. And thus we can understand how Christianity came to possess in a heightened form the more Pagan features of Judaism.
The same circumstances which were leading Christ to exaggerate the portions of Judaism most favourable to general proselytism, would also cause him to lay aside the portions of Judaism most unfavourable to it. His opposition to the legal and ceremonial elements of Judaism would now be greatly increased. His worst enemies, of course, were those who attached most importance to these, and in their attacks on him formalism must have supplied them with their most effective weapons. This would lead him in time to reject formalism completely. In doing so, he was, as we saw in the last chapter, strictly fulfilling the spiritual Messianic ideal. To what extent he made the renunciation of the law an actual part of his system we cannot tell, but we may be sure it was to a larger extent than his disciples were ready to accept. The forms of Judaism, at least, could not have been regarded by him as necessary elements of his religion. He was forced to make his system a movement out of orthodox Judaism, and he could not have cared to encumber his new religion with the worn-out forms of the old.
The account in the gospels of the closing incidents of Christ’s life is probably in the main strictly correct. Sooner or later he was sure to go to Jerusalem. The need to justify his system by preaching it in the capital, and the wish to found it securely by his death under persecution, would alike impel him in this direction. And he would naturally choose one of the great feasts as the occasion for his visit to the city. Though the forms of Judaism had now probably ceased to be an essential portion of his religion, there is no reason to suppose that he personally objected to observing the more important of them. Coming to Jerusalem to keep the passover, he would find it crowded with strangers; practically the whole Jewish world would be concentrated there; and thus he would obtain the widest possible publicity, both for his preaching and his martyrdom. That the latter would necessarily follow the former he must have clearly seen. In the capital of Judaism, at a time when a great religious festival excited the fanaticism of the people to the highest pitch, to preach a religion that involved the overthrow of legalism and the equality of Jew and Gentile in the sight of God, and to do this while claiming to fulfil the popular expectations, obviously meant a speedy extinction. So we may conclude that Christ came to Jerusalem at the time of the passover, probably accompanied by many of his country adherentswho were also going to the feast, and that there by his preaching he provoked against himself the fanaticism of the priests and the populace, and was put to death as an offender against the law. Among the incidents related as occurring now, is one that established a great dogma.
In the description which the gospels give of the institution of the Lord’s supper, we have statements which are corroborated by an important external authority. The first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians is unquestionably genuine, and accordingly it ranks as one of the earliest documents of the New Testament. In it Christ, on the occasion of his passover feast in Jerusalem, is said to have broken bread and distributed it among his disciples, and to have poured out wine and given it to them, asserting that the bread was his body and the wine his blood, and ordering them to continue the practice as a memorial of him. Taking this passage in conjunction with the corresponding passages of the gospels, we have in all four statements so much distinctly expressed; while equally in all four it is either expressed or clearly implied that this distribution of his body and blood meant that his body was broken and his blood shed for the remission of sins; the only variation in the passages being the omission by the first two gospels of the injunction to repeat the ceremony. Putting this point aside for the moment, we havein the rest of the description an account in which the three gospels agree, and in which they are corroborated by a trustworthy external authority. Unless probability is decidedly against it, this concurrence of evidence is sufficient to establish its truth.57
The account, however, has probability distinctly in its favour. If Christ was alive on the day of the passover—and there is every reason to suppose that the gospels are correct when they assert that he was—he would naturally keep the passover supper with his disciples, as otherwise his presence in Jerusalem would be inexplicable. But keeping the passover, with the expectation of his immediate death vividly before him, the celebration must have seemed to him to possess a strange significance. He believed that the first passover feast had been celebrated in the time of Moses, that the blood of the victim sprinkled on their doorways had preserved the Israelites from harm on the eve of their departure from Egypt, and that this had been the earliest rite of the Jewish law. Now he, of course, must have regarded his system, which was to be fully established by his death, as the fulfilment of Judaism. The ceremonies of Judaism, of which the passover, as first, was chief, belonged only to the old unfulfilled religion, and not to themature Judaism founded by him. So this passover he was keeping would seem to him, not merely a commemoration of the first, but, in a proper sense, actually the last ceremony of the Jewish ritual. And as it was the last rite of the old, so it was the first of the new Judaism. His disciples now, like the early Israelites, were leaving old ways and beginning a new life as wanderers on strange paths. As the first ceremony of Judaism had sanctified its commencement, so this first ceremony of Christianity might well appear to him to sanctify its commencement, and to mark the transition from the old religion to the new.
But where was the victim of this Christian passover? The Jewish passover was essentially a sacrifice, and the idea of vicarious atonement was clearly stamped on it. The Jews believed that, when the first-born sons of the Egyptians had been destroyed, the first-born sons of their ancestors had escaped, through the sprinkling on their doorways of the blood of afirst-bornlamb or kid of their flocks.58Sacrificial substitution is unmistakable here. Now, as mentioned above, Christ at this time had probably taken as his ideal the suffering Messiah thought to be referred to in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. There the supposed Messiah is spoken of as becoming “an offering for sin,” and as bearing “the sin of many.”59To Christ’s mind,we must remember, the idea of atonement for sin by sacrifice was thoroughly familiar, rooted as it was in the Jewish law. If, then, he believed that for him as Messiah a death at the hands of others was ordained, he would at this moment naturally see in his death an atonement offered for sin. Though he must have regarded the sacrificial system of the law as only decreed for a time, he would still feel that underlying it there was a divine principle. Recognizing this principle, with the passage of Isaiah pressing on him a sense of a connection between it and his death, he would be sure to find in himself the victim of the Christian passover.
The idea that his death was an atonement for sin may have occurred to him before. But whether it did or not, it must have been fully developed in his mind by the circumstances under which he kept this passover. It fitted like a key into the peculiarities of his religion. As already explained, his object as Messiah was to found a system which should secure the happiness of those who accepted him; on his second coming, they were to enjoy the felicity of the Messianic period on earth, as well as the everlasting joys of heaven. If they were to enjoy felicity, to escape punishment, through his death, which necessarily preceded his second coming, how readily would that death appear to him, as a Jew, an atoning sacrifice fortheir sins! Just as the lamb of the passover had borne, as a substitute for the Israelites, the penalty that had fallen on the Egyptians, so he, as their substitute, would bear for his followers the penalty that would fall on the rest of the world, the time at which his death was to take place heightening the parallel and making it seem to be providentially designed.
As the victim of the passover, part of it having been used sacrificially as an expiation, had then been eaten as food by those whom its sacrifice was meant to benefit, so here Christ would wish his body thus to be partaken of sacramentally after it became an atonement for sin. Sacrifice is usually followed by sacrament; the victim, being accepted by the deity, becomes divine, and those who partake of it are purified by receiving divine elements into their natures. The sacramental side of the passover sacrifice was particularly marked. To complete the parallel, Christ, as the new passover victim, needed to make his body a sacrament. But in his case such a sacrament had necessarily to precede, and not to follow the sacrificial death. It could only be symbolical. He had, as the parables of the gospels show, a natural tendency to use symbolism to express his thoughts. Symbolically, the sacrament, to prevent coarse misconception, would best be celebrated by himself. And so at this passover supper, after thevictim appointed by the law had been partaken of, Christ probably distributed bread and wine as his body and blood, the symbolical sacrament of his approaching sacrificial death, the new passover feast of the new Christian Church. And as the first passover feast had been commemorated in Judaism, so he probably commanded his disciples to commemorate this second one, which fulfilled and abrogated the first, even as his system fulfilled and abrogated the system to which the first belonged, making it thus the only rite of Christianity, which should symbolise in purity the coarse sacrificial ritual of Judaism.
Though, of course, there is no certainty in this conclusion, probability is so much in its favour that we may assume it to be proved. The positive evidence alone is sufficient to establish the fact, and still stronger is the evidence for it arising from its being an indispensable link in a great chain of development.
And so we may conclude that the first distinctive dogma of Christianity was actually originated by Christ himself. The Church started with belief in the Atonement, in the sacrificial death of Christ, the “Lamb of God,” for the sins of men. The further explanation of this doctrine belongs to our next chapter.
Sofar in the course of our inquiry we have traced the development of Christian doctrine simply through the religious ideas of the Jewish people. But from this point we shall have to consider the relations of opposite tendencies, the collision between Judaism and Paganism in Christianity to which I have referred in the Introduction. And in dealing with this subject, it is a fair canon of historical criticism to say that so far as any dogma is distinctly Jewish, its origin should be assigned to the earliest period of the Christian Church, and so far as any dogma is distinctly Pagan, its origin should be assigned to a later period, after the conversion of the Gentiles had begun. The justice of this canon is evident when we remember that Christianity at the time of Christ’s death had none but Jewish adherents, and that thenceforth it grew to be more and more accepted by Pagans, until at last its ranks were filled with Pagans alone. TheAtonement is the chief Jewish dogma, and the Incarnation the chief Pagan dogma of Christianity, and they obviously conform to the requirements of the canon. For the present we shall be occupied with the doctrines of Christianity which are mainly Jewish in form.
Though the Christian Church started with belief in the Atonement, the dogma at the beginning could not have been fully grasped and understood. For a time it was probably only latent in the doctrines of the Church. His disciples were not likely at once to recognize the significance of what Christ did at the passover supper; up to the last they could hardly have been prepared for his death. But even with a blind obedience they would naturally obey their lord’s commands. As they commemorated the Christian passover and repeated its forms, the meaning of it would gradually dawn on their minds. This repetition must have been from the first the centre of the early Church, a distinctive ceremony which brought the Christians together and marked them off from the Jews around them. While thus incessantly repeating the form of sacramental communion with the body of Christ, sooner or later they would be sure to recognize what this sacramental communion implied, the sacrificial character of his death. Then the latent dogma of the Atonement would be fully understood. As Jews, they would readily accept it;indeed, it would be to them an explanation of their strange position as disciples of a crucified Messiah.
As soon as the first Christians recognized that Christ’s death had been an atonement offered for their sins, a feeling of lightness and joy must have arisen in their hearts. Circumstances like those in which they were placed always tend to develop strongly a sense of sinfulness and of alienation from God. But here appeared a means of reconciliation to God and of escape from the burden of sin. And, accordingly, it is likely that now their missionary activity began. The dogma supplied them with a vindication of their lord’s greatness. Jesus, as the Messiah, had borne the sins of men, and had become the representative of men with God. The Jews, who had so unjustly slain him, were in special need of divine forgiveness; and we may be sure that the watchwords of the preaching of the early Christians, when they preached only to Jews, were “Jesus and the remission of sins.”
Though the commemoration of the passover supper was probably the means of impressing the doctrine of the Atonement on the minds of the early Christians, there is no reason to suppose that at first they attached to it an actual sacramental value. They would naturally repeat the forms of the sacramental feast they were commemorating without considering the repetition also to be sacramental. But before long, as we know from St.Paul’s words,60the repetition did become sacramental itself. The Christians then believed that the elements of Christ’s body were present in the bread and wine of their Lord’s Supper. At first this presence may have been regarded as symbolical only. It is obvious, however, that the delicate symbolism habitual in Christ’s language was sure in this instance sooner or later to be misunderstood by the grosser minds of his followers. The passage of St. Paul just referred to shows that he believed the flesh and blood of Christ to be actually present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist—that is, present in them by an act of faith, not changed into them by a formula of consecration. When the common feast of the early Christians had thus become a sacramental commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ’s death, their conception of that sacrifice must have been strengthened and made definite. And with this clearer conception of Christ as the victim that atoned for the sins of man, whose body was spiritually present in the food they ate at their sacred supper, would come a greatly enhanced reverence for him. He would seem to them more than human; his Messiahship would gather round it all the highest attributes ever dreamed of in the Messianic ideals of their race. Their full missionary energy would then be displayed. Probably the recovery of the Churchfrom the paralysis that must have fallen on it after Christ’s death began with the recognition of the doctrine of the Atonement, and was finally completed when the Eucharist became a sacrament, a solemn and mysterious ceremony, the central expression of Christian belief.
The preaching of Christianity must have been far easier after its founder’s death. Reverence for Christ could rise to greater heights. Supernatural powers could be attributed to him without any fear of too dangerous a challenge. And, besides, the preachers could disperse themselves. So long as Christ lived he alone could properly preach his system, for all Christians would gather closely round him as their living head. But now every body of Christians was equally near him, no matter where they might be, and had the assurance of his spiritual presence in the elements of the Eucharist. Henceforth the mission of the Church was proselytism; growth became its evidence of life.
That proselytism began immediately after Christ’s death is, of course, very unlikely. The Church probably took some years to recover from the shock of its loss. During this period it could barely have managed to survive as a small body containing the most faithful of those who had followed Christ. Among these picked disciples the development of latent doctrine went on, until the primary principles of Christianity were established on a sure basis. Then, proselytism beginning, every member of the original body probably became more or less a missionary. As a select few they were the preachers and authorities of early Christianity. The commands of Christ, as well as the nature of their religion, impelled them to preach with vigour. At first they would naturally address themselves to Jews alone. With the Jews of Palestine they were not likely to make much way. But when they extended their activity to the synagogues in foreign countries they would be more successful. Here, as the fanaticism of race was less, the spiritual ideal of Christianity would have fewer obstacles to overcome. Still in all their dealings with Jews they probably met with little success. To the Jews Christ crucified was indeed a stumbling-block which even the promise of his second advent could not remove. But as soon as the preachers of Christianity touched the Gentiles, they must have reaped an abundant harvest. Such was the disorganization of religion at this time in the Roman world that, notwithstanding the harsh exclusiveness of Judaism, Gentiles in large numbers were becoming proselytes to it. Under these circumstances Christianity, which had dropped all the harsh features of Judaism, and had added to the remainder much that was in harmony with Gentile ideas, must have easily made converts among them. Though probably very soon themajority of Christians were Gentiles, all the heads of the Church still were Jews, and its principles remained wholly Jewish. This period of Jewish Christianity may fairly be said to have lasted in full vigour until the death of St. Paul.
For more than the second half of this time the missionary activity of the Church centred in St. Paul. After Christ himself, no man influenced the circumstances and doctrines of Christianity more than he. The stress laid upon faith as a means of salvation in early Christianity was largely the result of his personal character. A renegade from the most rigid legalism of Judaism, he naturally, as a Christian, passed to the other extreme, and exalted faith above the righteousness of works. The same recoil from Judaism made him the apostle of the Gentiles. But though St. Paul was as little Jewish as an unhellenised Jew could be, and strained the doctrines of Christianity greatly in the direction of Gentile ideas, his religion was still essentially Jewish. In his epistles—putting aside his references to the resurrection of the dead, made because he was writing to Gentiles who were not familiar with the doctrine—as well as in the other books of the New Testament that belong to this period, we find stress laid chiefly on two dogmas, the Atonement and the second advent.61These two dogmas were closely connected, and were the strength of the early Church.
The doctrine of the Atonement was that Christ had died for the sins of the world. “God was in Christ,” says St. Paul, “reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”62The term “world,” as used in this and kindred passages, can only be understood by keeping the doctrine of the second advent steadily in view. All the glories predicted by the prophets for the Messianic times were transferred in the expectation of the early Christians to the period of the second coming of Christ. They believed that when their lord returned there would be literally “new heavens and a new earth.”63This new world, then to be established in fulness, they held to have been actually founded by the death of Christ, which had rendered it possible by relieving man from the burden of sin. But in their case only had sin been thus put away, and accordingly they were the foundation of the world reconciled to God, which after the second coming of Christ would remain alone, the old world of sin and alienation from God which still survived beside the new being then finally destroyed. Christ had left them to preach the gospel, that is, to snatch souls from the perishing to the permanent world. The latter seemed to them the real world, and the other,which existed for a time beside it, only a vanishing shadow. For this real and permanent world, then represented by the Church, they believed Christ to have died. The more hopeful Christians might expect that the two worlds would yet become identical, through the conversion of all men before the second advent. Then Christ would come, not in wrath, but simply in love; not to punish, but simply to reward. This, however, could only have been a rare belief. In general the expectation of the Church was that Christ would come speedily, and sweep away all men outside it, and leave it alone on an earth renewed and glorified. Faith in him was the pass that procured admission to the felicities of his Messianic reign; to those outside Christianity his coming could only bring confusion and ruin.64
This new world, the creation of which was begun by Christ’s death, and was to be completed by his second coming, the early Christians regarded as a kingdom of light girdled on every side by the old world or kingdom of darkness. It was their mission, they held, to extend its frontiers, and continuously to encroach on the region given over to night. Every inch of ground they gained they believed to be saved from an imminent destruction. For the fervour of proselytism which possessed them rested on the dogma of the second advent. To itthey looked forward as a blessing to themselves and a terror to the rest of mankind.65All men outside the Church seemed to be walking on the brink of a precipice, over which they were shortly to be hurled. Naturally to save as many as possible of these from a danger so immediate and so vividly conceived was to most Christians the chief object of life. Some of the sterner of them, as we know from the book of Revelation, which was written at the close of this period, expected with gladness the coming of Christ to take vengeance on his enemies. But the harsh and exclusive spirit of that characteristically Jewish work could not have been general; and we may be sure that the Christians, as a whole, felt only pity when they thought of the impending destruction of the proud non-Christian world.