the christology of the gospel
1. the gospel not a biography.
once more we fall back upon our main position. the evangelist is writing a spiritual gospel, and his whole procedure is dominated by that one fact. his object is to set forth christ as divine, not only as messiah but as son of god, as an object of faith which brings life to the believer.
it follows that all criticism which does not take account of this—and how large a part of the strictures upon the gospel does not take account of it!—is really wide of the mark. m. loisy, for instance, brings a long indictment against the gospel for not containing things that it never professed to contain. it never professed to be a complete picture of the life of the lord. it never professed to show him in a variety of human relationships. it never professed to give specimens of his ethical teaching simply as such. it did not profess to illustrate, and it does not illustrate, even the lower side of those activities that might be called specially divine, as (e. g.) the casting out of demons.
the gospel is written upon the highest plane throughout. it seeks to answer the question who it was that appeared upon earth, and suffered on 206calvary, and rose from the dead and left disciples who revered and adored him. and this evangelist takes a flight beyond his fellows inasmuch as he asks the question who christ was in his essential nature: what was the meaning—not merely the local but the cosmical meaning—of this great theophany?
it is not surprising if in the pursuit of this object the evangelist has laid himself open to the charge of being partial or onesided. those who use such terms are really, as we have seen, judging by the standard of the modern biography, which is out of place. the gospel is, admittedly and deliberately, not an attempt to set forth the whole of a life, but just a selection of scenes, a selection made with a view to a limited and sharply-defined purpose. the complaint is made that it is monotonous, and the complaint is not without reason. the monotony was involved, we might say, from the outset in the concentration of aim which the writer himself acknowledges. and in addition to this it is characteristic of the writer that his thought is of the type which revolves more than it progresses. the picture has not that lifelike effect which is given by the setting of a single figure in a variety of circumstances. the variety of circumstance was included among those bodily or external aspects (τ? σωματικ?) which the writer considered to have been sufficiently treated by his predecessors. he described for himself a narrower circle. and it was because he kept within that circle, because he goes on striking the same chord, that we receive the impression of repetition and monotony. perhaps the intensity of the 207effect makes up for its want of extension. but at any rate the evangelist was within his rights in choosing his own programme, and we must not blame him for doing what he undertook to do.
we may blame him, however, if within his self-chosen limits the picture that he has drawn for us is misleading. that is the central point which we must now go on to test. the object of the gospel would be called in modern technical language to exhibit a christology. is that christology true? does it satisfy the tests that we are able to apply to it? can we find a suitable place for it in the total conception that we form of the apostolic age? does it belong to the apostolic age at all; or must we, to understand it, come down below the time of the apostles? to answer these questions we must compare the christology of the fourth gospel with that of the other apostolic writings, and more particularly with that of the synoptic gospels, of st. paul, and of the epistle to the hebrews.
it does not take us long to see that the christology of the fourth gospel has the closest affinity with this group of epistles—we may say, with the leading epistles of st. paul and with that other interesting epistle of which we know, perhaps, or partly know, the readers but do not know the author. it is worth while to bring in this because the unmistakable quotation from it in clement of rome proves it to belong to the apostolic age.
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2. the christology of st. john compared with that of st. paul and of the epistle to the hebrews.
the meeting-point of all the authorities just mentioned—indeed we might say the focus and centre of the whole new testament—is the title ‘son of god.’ but whereas the synoptic gospels work up to this title, st. john with st. paul and the epistle to the hebrews work downwards or onwards from it. what i mean is this. the synoptic gospels show us how, through the conception of the messiah and the titles equivalent to it, by degrees a point was reached at which the faith of the disciples found its most adequate expression in the name ‘son of god.’ the culminating point is of course st. peter’s confession represented at its fullest in the form adopted by st. matthew, ‘thou art the christ, the son of the living god’ (matt. xvi. 16). in the synoptic gospels, and we may say also in the historic order of events, this confession is a climax, gradually reached; and we are allowed to see the process by which it was reached. ‘son of god’ is the highest of all the equivalents for ‘messiah.’ and in the synoptic gospels we have unrolled before us, wonderfully preserved by a remarkable and we may say truly providential accuracy of reproduction with hardly the consciousness of a guiding idea, the historic evolution, spread over the whole of the public ministry, by which at its end the little knot of disciples settled upon this term as the best and amplest expression of its belief in its master. 209we have seen that the fourth gospel is by no means wanting in traces of this evolution. but these too are traces, preserved incidentally and almost accidentally, without any deliberate purpose on the part of the author: they are the product of his historical sense, as distinct from the special object and the large idea that he had before his mind in writing his gospel. this special object and large idea presuppose the title as it were full-blown. it was not to be expected that an evangelist sitting down to write towards the end of the first century should unwind the threads of the skein which, some fifty or sixty years before, had brought his consciousness to the point where it was. to him looking back, the evolutionary process was foreshortened; and we have seen that as a consequence he allowed the language that he used about the beginning of the ministry to be somewhat more definite than on strictly historical principles it should have been. that he should do so was natural and inevitable—indeed from the point of view of the standards of his time there was no reason why he should be on his guard against such anticipations. if we distinguish between the gradual unfolding of the narrative and the total conception present to the mind of the writer throughout from the beginning, we should say that this conception assumes for christ the fullest significance of divine sonship.
more than this: we see, when we come to study the gospel in detail, that the writer not only assumes the full idea of sonship but has also dwelt upon it and thought about it and followed it out through all 210the logic of its contents. we may say that it is not only he that has done so but practically all the thinking portion of the church of his time. we may see this from the comparison of st. paul and the epistle to the hebrews, not to speak of other new testament writers. the synoptists hardly come under the head of thinkers. they are content to set down facts and impressions without analysis and without reflection. but long before st. john sat down to write, those who really were thinkers had evidently asked themselves what was the meaning and what was the origin of that title ‘son of god’ by which the church was agreed to designate its master. the more active minds had evidently pressed the inquiry far home. they did not stop short at the baptism; they did not stop short at the birth: they saw that the divine sonship of christ stretched back far beyond these recent events; they saw that it was rooted in the deepest depths of godhead. it is true both of st. paul and of the epistle to the hebrews—that is, assuming that the epistle to the colossians is st. paul’s—that they have not only the doctrine of the son but the doctrine of the logos, all but the name.
now i know that there are many who will not agree with me; i know also that the position is not easy to prove, though, as we shall see, i believe that there are a number of definite facts that at least suggest it. but for myself i suspect so strongly as to be practically sure that in these processes of thought the apostolic theologians, as we may call them, were not altogether original. 211they were not without a precursor; they did not invent their ideas for the first time. i believe that we shall most reasonably account for the whole set of phenomena if we suppose that there had been intimations, hints, anhaltspunkte, in the discourses of our lord jesus christ himself. we have as a matter of fact such hints or intimations in the fourth gospel. the evangelist may have expanded and accentuated them a little—he may have dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s—but i believe that it is reasonable to hold that they had been really there. the founding of christianity is in any case a very great phenomenon; and it seems to me simpler and easier, and in all ways more probable, to refer the features which constitute its greatness to a single source, to the one source which is really the fountain-head of all. without that one source the others would never have been what they were.
the fact that st. paul and the epistle to the hebrews had substantially arrived at a logos doctrine before any extant writing has mentioned the name, seems to throw light on the order of thought by which the fourth evangelist himself arrived at his doctrine of the logos. it is the coping-stone of the whole edifice, not the foundation-stone. it is a comprehensive synthesis which unites under one head a number of scattered ideas. from this point of view it would be more probable that the prologue to the fourth gospel was a true preface, written after the rest of the work to sum up and bind together in one mighty paragraph the ideas that are really leading ideas, though scattered 212up and down the gospel. whether it was actually written last does not matter. what i mean is that the philosophic synthesis of the events recorded in the gospel came to the evangelist last in the order of his thought; the order was, history first and then philosophic synthesis of the history. no doubt the synthesis was really complete before the apostle began to write his gospel; the writing of the prologue may or may not have followed the order of his thought. it may have been, as harnack thinks, a sort of commendatory letter sent out with the gospel; or it may be that the gospel was written out in one piece upon a plan present from the first to the writer’s mind. the order of genesis and the order of production do not always coincide; and it is really a very secondary consideration whether in any particular instance they did or not.
we do not know exactly at what stage in his career the evangelist grasped the idea of the logos. we should be inclined to think comparatively late, from the fact that it has not been allowed to intrude into the historical portion of the gospel. the various ideas which are summed up under the conception of the logos appear there independently and in other connexions. as we have just seen, in st. paul also and in the epistle to the hebrews the arch is fully formed before the key-stone is dropped into it.
whatever we may think about this, there is a close parallelism between the whole theology, including the christology, of st. paul and st. john. both start from the thought of an incarnation (john i. 14; rom. viii. 3; gal. iv. 4; phil. ii. 7, 8; col. i. 15; and with the latter 213part of the same verse, cp. col. i. 19; ii. 9). in both st. john and st. paul the union of the son with the father is not only moral but a union of essential nature (cp. john i. 1, 2, 14; x. 30, 38; xiv. 10, 11, 20; xvii. 21, 23 with 2 cor. v. 19; col. i. 13, 15, 19; ii. 9). between the son and the father there is the bond of mutual love, of a love supreme and unique (that is the real meaning of μονογεν?? in john i. 14, 18; cp. xvii. 23, 24, 26 and rom. viii. 3, 32; eph. i. 6; col. i. 13). as a consequence of this relation between the son and the father, which has its roots in the eternal past (john i. 1, 2; xvii. 5, 24), there was also complete union of will in the work of the son upon earth (john v. 30; vi. 38; xiv. 31; xvii. 16: cp. phil. ii. 8; heb. v. 7, 8). thus the acts of the son are really the acts of the father, the natural expression of that perfect intimacy in which they stand to each other (v. 19, 20; viii. 29; x. 25, 37, 38). the reciprocity between them is absolute, it is seen in the perfection of their mutual knowledge (vii. 29; viii. 19; x. 15; xvii. 25); so that the teaching of the son is really the teaching of the father (vii. 16; viii. 26, 28, 38; xii. 49, 50; xiv. 10, 24; xv. 15). what the son is, the father also is. hence the life and character and words of the son, taken as a whole, constitute a revelation of the father such as had never been given before (vi. 46; xiv. 7-10: cp. i. 14, 18)[64].
thus we are brought to another central idea of the fourth gospel, the function of the son as revealing 214the father. for this, again, we have a parallel in an impassioned passage of st. paul:
‘the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of christ, who is the image of god, should not dawn upon them. for we preach not ourselves, but christ jesus as lord, and ourselves as your servants for jesus’ sake. seeing it is god, that said, light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of jesus christ’ (2 cor. iv. 4-6).
it may be true that this idea, though central with st. john, is subordinate with st. paul; but it is distinctly recognized—just as, conversely, the doctrine of the atonement, though clearly implied, is less prominent with st. john than with st. paul.
the close resemblance between the teaching of st. john and st. paul does not end with the exposition of the character and mission of the incarnate son; it is exhibited no less in what is said about the holy spirit. the teaching of the fourth gospel on the subject of the spirit repeats in a remarkable way certain leading features in its teaching about the son. the father is in the son (as we have seen), and the son is one with the father; and yet the son is distinct (in the language of later theology, a distinct person) from the father; and in like manner the paraclete is ‘another’ than the son (xiv. 16), and is sent by the son (xv. 26; xvi. 7); and yet in the coming of the spirit the son himself returns to his people (xiv. 18; cf. iii. 28).
here again the parallel is quite remarkable between 215st. paul and st. john. if we take a passage like rom. viii. 9-11 we see that, in this same connexion of the work of the indwelling spirit among the faithful, he is described at one moment as the spirit of god, at another as the spirit of christ, and almost in the same breath we have the phrase, ‘if christ is in you’ as an equivalent for ‘if the spirit of christ is in you.’ the latter phrase is fuller and more exact, but with st. paul, as well as with st. john, it is christ himself who comes to his own in his spirit.
no writer that i know has worked out the whole of this relation with more philosophical and theological fulness and accuracy than dr. moberly in his atonement and personality. and i am tempted to quote one short passage of his (where i should like to quote many), because it seems to me to sum up in few words the fundamental teaching of st. paul and st. john.
‘christ in you, or the spirit of christ in you; these are not different realities; but the one is the method of the other. it is in the person of christ that the eternal god is revealed in manhood to man. it is in the person of his spirit that the incarnate christ is personally present within the spirit of each several man. the holy ghost is mainly revealed to us as the spirit of the incarnate[65].’
it is to the language of st. paul and st. john that we go for proof that the holy spirit is a person; but it is also from their language that we learn how intimately he is associated with the other divine persons.
we are led up to what is in later theological language 216called the doctrine of the holy trinity. it is well known that some of the most important data for this doctrine are derived from the fourth gospel, especially from the last discourse. and whatever is found in st. john may be paralleled in substance from st. paul.
3. comparison with the synoptic gospels.
now i am not going to maintain that, if one of us had been an eye-witness of the life of christ, the profound teaching of which i have just given an outline would have seemed to him to bear the same kind of proportion to the sum total of his teaching that it bears in the fourth gospel. by the essential conditions of the case it could not be so. it is this particular kind of teaching which the evangelist specially wishes to enforce; and, in order to enforce it, he has singled out for his narrative just those scenes in which it came up—those and, broadly speaking, no others.
we have seen that in regard to this teaching there is a very large amount of coincidence between st. paul and st. john. we shall have presently to consider what is the nature and ground of this coincidence, how it arose and what relation it implies between the two apostles. but before going on to this, we must first ask ourselves how far it can be verified by comparison with the synoptic gospels. it is right to look for such verification, however much we may be convinced that these gospels are an extremely partial and fragmentary representation of all that christ said and did. even a modern biography, 217contemplated perhaps during the life-time of its subject, and actually begun soon after his death, will only contain a tithe (if he is a really great man) of his more significant acts and sayings. but those who attempted to write what we wrongly call lives of christ did not, as it would seem, for the most part even begin to do so or make preparations for beginning for some thirty years after the crucifixion, when the company of the apostles and intimate disciples was already dispersed, or at least in no near contact with the writers[66]. we have only to ask ourselves what we should expect in such circumstances. and i think we should find that our expectations were fully borne out if we were to compare together the contents of the oldest documents, those of the logia with the mark-gospel, and those of the special source or sources of st. luke with both. the amount and value of the gleanings which each attempt left for those who came after tells its own story.
but if we do not expect that the synoptic gospels would be in the least degree exhaustive in the materials they have preserved for us from the life of christ, we might be sure that their defects would be greatest in regard to the class of teaching with which we are at present concerned. it is teaching of a kind that might perhaps haunt the minds of a few gifted 218and far-sighted individuals, but would certainly fall through the meshes of the mind of the average man. it was this very fact, as we have seen, which prompted the fourth evangelist to write his gospel. the externals of the lord’s life he recognized as having been adequately told; but it was just the profoundest teaching and some of the most significant acts that had escaped telling, and that he himself desired to rescue from oblivion.
we must therefore be content if we can verify a few particulars. we must not from the outset expect to be able to do more. and we must be still more content if these particulars show by their character that they are fragments from a much larger wreckage, that they are what we might call chance survivals of what had once existed on a much larger scale.
we concluded our sketch of the christology of the fourth gospel by speaking of the data which it contained for the doctrine of the trinity. these however are only data. it is perhaps a little surprising that the only approach to a formulation of the doctrine of the trinity occurs not in st. john but at the end of the gospel of st. matthew (xxviii. 19). i am of course well aware that this part of the first gospel is vigorously questioned by the critics. i am prepared to believe myself that the passage is a late incorporation in the gospel; and antecedently i should not say that we had strong guarantees for its literal accuracy. but then—this is an old story, so far as i am concerned, and i must apologize for introducing it, but i cannot leave the point unnoticed—how are 219we to explain that other remarkable verse that occurs at the end of the second epistle to the corinthians (2 cor. xiii. 14)? this familiar three-fold benediction must have had antecedents; it must, i should say, have had a long train of antecedents. the most adequate explanation of it seems to me to be that the train of antecedents started from something corresponding, something said at some time or other, in the teaching of our lord[67]. i fully believe that the hints and intimations of a trinity that we find scattered about the new testament have their origin ultimately in the teaching of christ. apart from this, how could the conception have been reached at so early a date? for 2 corinthians must in any case fall between 53-57 a.d.[68]
let us work our way backwards through another of the hints. we have seen that the coming of the paraclete is described in the fourth gospel as a return of christ to his own. are there any 220parallels for this in the synoptic gospels? not exactly, because the two things are not brought into combination. but we have on the one hand distinct predictions of the activity of the holy spirit after the departure of christ. for instance:
‘when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak.... for it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your father that speaketh in you’ (matt. x. 19, 20).
and in st. luke’s version of the promise as to answers to prayer, the holy spirit is spoken of as imparted to the believer:
‘if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give the holy spirit to them that ask him?’ (luke xi. 13).
the gift of the holy spirit in connexion with prayer is one of the topics in the last discourse as recorded by st. john. on the other hand there are in the synoptics remarkable allusions to the continued presence of christ with his people. such is that which follows immediately upon the verse about baptism in the threefold name: ‘lo, i am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ and in matt. xviii. 20, ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am i in the midst of them[69].’ wendt connects this last passage with the instances in which acts done in the name of christ and for the benefit of his followers are spoken of as though they were done to him. for instance, ‘whosoever shall receive one 221of such little children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever receiveth me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me’ (mark ix. 37; cf. luke x. 16; matt. xxv. 40). wendt goes on to dilute the meaning of these allusions. he would make them mean no more than that such actions have the same value and the same reward as though they were done to christ. but the ascending series is against this: ‘whosoever receiveth me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.’
and once again we have to ask, what is the origin of all those passages in the epistles, where st. paul speaks of the solidarity between christ and the whole body of the faithful, so that in that extraordinary phrase the sufferings of his apostle actually fill up or supplement the sufferings of christ (?νταναπληρ? τ? ?στερ?ματα τ?ν θλ?ψεων το? χριστο?, col. i. 24)?
the existence of such passages suggests the probability—and indeed more than probability—that there were others like them, but more directly didactic and expository, which have not been preserved. the fourth gospel contains some specimens of this teaching; but that gospel and the synoptics together rather give specimens of a class of teaching than make any approach to an exhaustive record of all that our lord must have said on these topics.
we have seen that the synoptic gospels distinctly represent our lord as the jewish messiah. they represent him as filled from the first with the consciousness of a mission that is beyond that of the ordinary teacher or prophet. he taught as one having 222authority, and not as the scribes. the demoniacs recognized in him a presence before which they were awed and calmed. he took upon himself to forgive sins, with the assurance that those whom he forgave god also would forgive. he called himself, in one very ancient form of narrative, ‘lord of the sabbath.’ he did not hesitate to review the whole course of previous revelation, and to propound in his own name a new law superseding the old. he evidently regarded his work on earth as possessing an extraordinary value. he was himself a greater than solomon, a greater than jonah; and, what is perhaps more remarkable, he seems to regard his own claim as exceeding that of the whole body of the poor (‘ye have the poor always with you ... but me ye have not always’). as his teaching went on, he began to speak as though his relation to the human race was not confined to his life among them, but as though it would be continued and renewed on a vast scale after his death; he would come again in the character of judge, and he would divide mankind according to the service which (in a large sense) they had rendered, or not rendered, to him.
these are a number of particulars which helped to bring out what there was extraordinary in his mission. by what formula was it to be described and covered? it was described under the jewish name ‘messiah,’ with its various equivalents. among those equivalents, that which the apostolic generation deemed most adequate was ‘the son of god.’ one of the synoptic gospels says expressly that he applied this title to 223himself (matt. xxvii. 43), and it is quite possible that he did so, but critical grounds prevent us from laying stress upon the phrase. on two great occasions (the baptism and transfiguration) the title is given to him by a voice from heaven. but only in a single passage (matt. xi. 27; luke x. 22) is there anything like an exposition of what is contained in the title. the mutual relation of the father and the son is expressed as a perfect insight on the part of each, not only into the mind, but into the whole being and character of the other.
different critics have dealt with this saying in different ways. harnack, in his famous lectures, gave it the prominence that it deserves, but at the same time reduced its meaning, in accordance with his generally reduced conception of christianity. his exegesis tended to limit the peculiar knowledge of the son to his special apprehension of the truth of divine fatherhood. m. loisy demurs to this. he says:
‘there is clearly involved a transcendental relation, which throws into relief the high dignity of the christ, and not a psychological reality, of which one cannot see the possibility in respect to god. the terms father and son are not here purely religious, but they have already become metaphysical; theological and dogmatic speculation has been able to take hold of them without greatly modifying their sense. there is only one father and only one son, constituted, in a manner, by the knowledge that they have of one another, absolute entities the relations of which are almost absolute[70].’
perhaps this is a little exaggerated in the opposite 224direction to harnack. still i believe it to be in the main right. the mutual knowledge of the father and the son rests upon their essential community of nature. but, having recognized this, m. loisy goes on, with what i cannot but think singular levity, to cast doubt upon the passage. he regards the whole context in st. matthew as a sort of psalm based upon the last chapter (li) of ecclesiasticus; and he ascribes it not to our lord, but to the tradition of the early church.
this is far from being a favourable specimen of biblical criticism. we have only to set the two passages side by side to estimate its value. it is possible enough that there are reminiscences not only of this, but of other passages of ecclesiasticus and of other books in the mind of speaker or writer[71]. we might conceive of a defining phrase here or there being due to the evangelist and suggested by such reminiscences. or we might conceive of christ himself going back in thought (as well he might) to the invitation of personified wisdom. there would be nothing strange in either supposition. the new testament everywhere takes up the threads of the old, and is not confined to the jewish canon. but in any case the materials thus supplied are entirely recast; and the whole passage (‘come unto me,’ &c.) bears the inimitable stamp of one figure, and only one[72].
225the truth is that in the synoptic gospels, as well as in the fourth, there is really a mysterious background, though we see less of the attempt to pierce it. these simple-looking sayings are not so simple as they seem. to take, for instance, one upon which we have touched, ‘he that receiveth you, receiveth me, and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.’ the words are almost childlike in their simplicity, and yet they lead up to the highest heights, and down to the deepest depths. no doubt we may rationalize it all away, if we please. we may shut out the mystery from our minds. but we shall not keep it out for long.
just when we are safest, there’s a sunset-touch,
a fancy from a flower-bell, some one’s death,
a chorus-ending from euripides—
and that’s enough for fifty hopes and fears
as old and new at once as nature’s self,
to rap and knock and enter in our soul.
there is a movement perhaps on a large scale, like the bentham period in england in the first half of the nineteenth century, or the sceptical and deistical period a hundred years earlier, and it seems as though everything were to be made clear and intelligible, and the conscience and soul of men were not to be troubled by phantoms any more. and then there come ‘lake 226poets,’ or an ‘oxford movement,’ and the other world, the old world, all comes back again; and the forces that try to restrain it are snapped like samson’s withes.
the reason appears to be that these very clear outlines are always obtained by omissions or suppressions that are artificial, and do not do justice to the wonderful richness and subtlety either of the human mind or of the powers that work upon it.
4. interpretation of these relations between the synoptic gospels, st. paul and st. john: alternative constructions.
these comparisons that we have just been instituting between the synoptic gospels, st. paul, and st. john raise a very large question, a question involving nothing less than our whole construction of the history of the apostolic age.
it is becoming more and more the custom with the left wing of critical writers to make the most fundamental part of christianity, the pivot teaching of the new testament, an invention of st. paul’s. st. john is only the chief of his disciples. according to these writers primitive christianity, the genuine christianity, loses itself in the sands, or is represented, let us say, deducting the stress on the mosaic law, by the sect of the ebionites. it is st. paul who strikes out the new road; and the writer whom we call st. john follows him in it. the attempt of this later writer to supply a historical basis for paulinism, holds good only 227in appearance. the teaching which it puts into the mouth of jesus is in no sense an antecedent of the teaching of st. paul, but a product of it.
here, for instance, is a trenchant statement of the position.
‘the fourth gospel derived this importance, lasting long beyond the time of his birth, from its having bridged over the chasm between jesus and st. paul, and from its having carried the pauline gospel back into the life and teaching of jesus. it is only through this gospel that paulinism attains to absolute dominion in the theology of the church.... jesus christ, the son of god, the redeemer of the world, is for john as well as paul the core and centre of christianity. and, moreover, john’s christology is pauline in all its important features—the son of god who was with god in heaven, and was sent by god upon earth, the mediator of creation, the god of revelation of the old testament, the son of man from heaven, as paul, too, called him. and the chief object of his coming into the world is the atonement by means of his death.... the whole of the johannine theology is a natural development from the pauline. it is paulinism modified to meet the needs of the sub-apostolic age. two important consequences follow from this. there is no johannine theology by the side of and independent of the pauline. luther already felt this clearly, and he understood something of the matter. john and paul are not two theological factors, but one. were we to accept that st. john formed his conception of christianity either originally or directly from jesus’ teaching, we should have to refuse st. paul all originality, for we should leave him scarcely a single independent thought. but it is st. paul that is original; st. john is not. in st. paul’s letters we look, as through a window, into the factory where these great thoughts flash forth and are 228developed; in st. john we see the beginning of their transformation and decay.’ wernle, beginnings of christianity, ii. pp. 262, 264, 274 f. (e. t.).
nothing could be clearer. and by reason of his clearness and boldness of statement wernle is an excellent representative of the whole school; for what he asserts in set terms is really presupposed by a number of other writers who do not assert it. it remains for us to ask, is this construction of the early history of christianity tenable?
two preliminary remarks.
before i attempt to answer this question, there are two remarks that i should like to make upon it.
i. we observe here, as in so many other cases, that the theory reflects, not so much the essential disposition and proportions of the facts as the state of the extant evidence. hardly anything has come down to us from the early years, at least for the first three decades, of the mother church; and from that which has come down to us, the earlier chapters of the acts and the epistle of st. james, criticism would make considerable deductions. i think that these deductions are greater than ought to be made, but their existence cannot be ignored. what we know of the mother church has to be pieced together by inference and constructive imagination. on the other hand for st. paul we have in any case an impressive body of certainly genuine epistles. it is natural enough that the mind should be dominated by these, and that the assumption should be made—for it is pure assumption—that 229the leading ideas of these epistles are an original creation.
ii. but there is nothing really in the epistles themselves to bear out this assumption. st. paul does not write as though he were a wholesale innovator. he does not write as though he were founding a new religion. on the contrary, he lays great stress in a familiar passage (1 cor. iii. 11) on the fact that the foundation is already laid. in another place (1 cor. xv. 11) he speaks as though it made no difference whether he were the preacher or others, the belief of christians was the same. st. paul has indeed his special views and his special controversies, but they do not affect the main point. he assumes that this is common to all christians.
this brings me to some of the points on which we have to test the theory, as it is stated by wernle.
5. objections to the critical theory.
let us think for a moment what the theory involves. it involves that the pauline gospel not only conquered the west, but that it came flooding back in a great reflux-wave all over the east. the east, on this theory, has no power of resistance; it surrenders at discretion. how does this accord with the evidence?
i. in order that there should be this conquest and annexation of the whole church by the pauline gospel it is implied, and it is of the essence of the theory to imply, that there was a broad and well-marked difference between this pauline gospel and 230the general belief of the church, more particularly of the mother church. but st. paul himself expressly disclaims any such difference; he was anxious that there should not be any, and he took steps to guard against the possibility that serious divergence might have come between them unawares. he tells us that he compared notes with the leading apostles at jerusalem, to make sure that he and they were preaching substantially the same thing: ‘i laid before them the gospel which i preach among the gentiles, but privately before them who were of repute, lest by any means i should be running, or had run in vain’ (gal. ii. 2). and again, at the end of the conferences, he tells us how james and peter and john gave to him and barnabas the right hands of fellowship, as a pledge of their substantial agreement (ibid. ver. 9).
it is true that there were points of discussion, which in other sections of the church amounted to controversy, between st. paul and the judaean christians. but the epistle to the galatians allows us to see the full extent of these debatable matters; and, by defining them, it also defines the extent of the common ground of agreement. what we should call the doctrine of the person of christ certainly comes under the latter head, and not under the former. the mother church was not ebionite, or st. paul would have been in still sharper antagonism to it than he was.
ii. it was this substantial agreement between st. paul and the leading apostles that saved the church from a formidable rupture. such glimpses as we have of the judaean churches do not at all give us the 231impression that they would have submitted meekly to pauline dictation. no doubt there was a considerable prejudice against st. paul personally; but it was a prejudice that turned upon other things altogether than his teaching about christ. we have in acts xxi. 20-5 a graphic description, which is also full of verisimilitude, of the kind of ways in which st. paul came into collision with the jewish christians; but his teaching about christ was not one of them.
iii. we have seen that the confession that jesus is the christ, the son of god, was common ground for all christians. it was on this ground that st. paul and the judaean churches felt themselves one. they also felt themselves one in what we ought not to call the doctrine of the trinity, but in those root-facts out of which the doctrine of the trinity afterwards came to be formulated. there was doubtless still room for variety of speculation. there was room for different interpretation of current terms and current beliefs. the doctrine of the church had as yet a certain fluidity. st. paul might take one line, and cephas another, and apollos a third. and yet christ was not divided. there was a consciousness of union underlying these differences. there was a sense, that could not as yet be put adequately into words, of certain great facts, of certain fundamental beliefs, by virtue of which the church was one.
iv. it is out of this common ground, and not out of the special features of the pauline theology, that the teaching of the fourth gospel really sprang. true, there are resemblances and affinities between 232details in the theologies of the evangelist and the apostle. but it does not follow that these were borrowed by the one from the other[73]. if they had been, we may be sure that there would have been clearer evidence of the fact. somewhere in the group of johannean writings there would have been a side-glance at st. paul that we should have understood. as it is, the two great apostolic cycles stand majestically apart. there may be a connexion between them, but it is a connexion in the main underground. there is no direct affiliation, but the parentage of both lies behind. many a seed sprouted in the early years of the pentecostal church: but it was not this apostle or that who made them grow; the seeds were sown before pentecost, and they had their watering and their growth and their increase from the same hand.
it is true that we cannot give chapter and verse for all this. the books from which chapter and verse might have been taken were never written. even in our own much-lettered age, how many a pregnant thought is there that is not caught and fixed in writing! and what sort of record should we have of the thought, say, of america or england for some fifteen years, if the chronicle of it were compressed into a single document of the length of the first twelve chapters of the acts?
the best record of the thoughts that grew and fructified in those momentous early years is to be 233found not in the acts but in the gospels; and the fact that it is to be sought there shows whence the impulse really came. it may seem a truism to maintain that jesus christ was the real founder of christianity, and that he founded it by what he was, and not by what men imagined him to be. of course to many christians it will seem a truism to say this; the simple christian never thought otherwise; but there are christians who are not simple, and who may be encouraged to search with a closer scrutiny to see if the old account of the origin of christianity is not the best, indeed the only account possible. the new testament is scattered with hints, which are not more than hints, arrow-heads as it were pointing back to christ. these are a profitable subject of study—none more profitable. if we pay attention to these hints, and if we look for the roots of st. paul’s teaching, i do not think we shall say that christianity—the christianity of nineteen centuries—was his invention, and that st. john did but follow in his train.
6. larger objections.
the kind of study that i have just been recommending is strictly critical; but the theory of which i have been speaking carries us out beyond the narrower ground of criticism into the wider field of history and teleology. i may just for a moment in conclusion touch on this. it may supply us with a warning that there is at least a strong presumption that the theory which fathers the teaching of st. john 234upon that of st. paul, and st. paul’s teaching upon itself, with no higher sanction behind, cannot well be true. such a theory would mean that quite a half, and the most important half, of the fundamental theses of historical christianity, were a mere human invention which those who have had the wit to discover them to be a human invention may go on to treat as nothing better,—to bestow on them perhaps a certain amount of praise in relation to their time, but to regard them as something that the world has outgrown. this is a view that in the present day, avowedly or unavowedly, is very largely taken. on this view there is a real nucleus of truth in biblical christianity, but that nucleus in the light of modern science is seen to be very small indeed; all the rest is surplusage. the misfortune for the theory is that it is not only on the nucleus of truth, but very largely upon the surplusage, that nineteen centuries of christians have lived.
now i am quite prepared to believe that most great truths that do not come under the head of mathematics or physical science have had a certain amount of surplusage attached to them; there has been husk and kernel, flower and sheath. i quite believe that men do
‘rise on stepping-stones
of their dead selves to higher things.’
but i cannot help thinking that, on the theory of wernle and his friends, the surplusage is too great, the dead self too large. the course of history, as this theory would describe it, seems to me contrary 235to the analogy of what we otherwise know of the dealings of god with man. if we look, for instance, at the old testament, we see a gradual preparation for the coming of christ, a gradual elevation and expansion of religious ideas, on the whole a nearer approximation to truth. all of us, critics and non-critics, would give substantially the same account of this; we should all of us at least see in it progress. but when we come to christianity, wernle and his friends see in it a far larger proportion of what is not progress but depravation and corruption, not the gradual expansion and purification of true ideas, but the wider dissemination of ideas that are false. there are nearly fourteen centuries of the dissemination of these false ideas; then comes a sudden spasmodic effort of partial relief; and at last, in the latter half of the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries, there is some sort of approach to a rediscovery of truth. it seems to me difficult to describe this view of history as anything else than a systematic impeachment of divine providence.
i do not wish to press the point. as i have said, we have left behind the region of criticism, and entered upon another that is not only very wide but that some of you may think rather outside my subject. the christian, it seems to me, ought to have a comprehensive view of the purpose of god in history; he ought to be able to adjust this to his fundamental beliefs. and i would only ask you to consider how far this can be done on the theory i have been discussing.
