by Adolph (von)
Harnack
translated and edited by James Moffatt
Second, enlarged and revised English edition;
Theological Translation Library, volumes 19-20
Electronic edition prepared under the direction of Robert A. Kraft
by a team of students at the University of Pennsylvania, including Amna
Khawar, Francisco Lameiro, Virginia Wayland,
Moises Bassan, Harry Tolley, Chris Segal.
From the German, Die
[[in addition to the
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in electronic form, an updated version is being prepared which
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BOOK
I
INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER
1
JUDAISM:
ITS DIFFUSION AND LIMITS
To nascent
Christianity the
synagogues in the Diaspora meant more than the fontes persecutionum of
Tertullian's complaint; they also formed the most important
presupposition for
the rise and growth of Christian communities throughout the empire. The
network
of the synagogues furnished the Christian propaganda with centres and
courses
for its development, and in this way the mission of the new religion,
which was
undertaken in the name of the God of Abraham and Moses, found a sphere
already
prepared for itself.
Surveys of the
spread of
Judaism at the opening of our period have been often made, most
recently and
with especial care by Schurer (Geschichte des judischen Volkes, Bd.
III.'31 pp.
1-38; Eng. trans., II. ii. 220 f.). Here we are concerned with the
following
points:
(1) There were Jews
in most of
the Roman provinces, at any rate in all those which touched or adjoined
the
Mediterranean, to say nothing of the Black Sea; eastward also, beyond
Syria,
they were thickly massed in Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Media.\1 / [[2]]
\1 / The conversion of the
royal family of Adiabene (on the Tigris, at the frontier of the Roman
Empire
and of Parthia) to Judaism, during the reign of Claudius, is a fact of
special
moment in the history of the spread of Judaism, and Josephus gives it
due
prominence. A striking parallel, a century and a half later, is
afforded by the
conversion of the royal house of
(2) Their numbers
were
greatest in
\2/ The large number of Jews
in
\3/ For the diffusion of
Jews
in
\4/ Philo,
Legat. 33: Ἰουδαῖοι
καθ’ ἑκάστην
πόλιν
εἰσὶ
παμπληθεῖς,
Ἀσίας
τε
καὶ
Συρίας (''The Jews abound in every
city of
\5/ Cp. also the remarks of
Epiphanius (Her., Ixxx. l) upon the cult of Παντοκπάτωρ.
\6/See Monceaux, "les
colonies juives dans 1'Afrique romaine" (Res. des Eludes juives, 1902);
and Leclerq, L'Afrique chretienne (1904),
\7/To all appearances,
therefore, he knew no Jewish Christians at first hand.
\8/ Renan, Les Apostres (ch.
xvi.).
(3) The exact number
of Jews
in the Diaspora can only be calculated roughly. Our information with
regard to
figures is as follows. Speaking of the Jews in
\9/Antiq., xv. 3. i, xi. 5.
2.
According to Antiq., xii. 3. 4, Antiochus the Great deported 2000
families of
Babylonian Jews to
\10/Dio Cassius (loc. cit.).
The same author declares (Ixix. 14) that 580,000 Jews perished in
\11/ There is a discrepancy
between them. Whilst Josephus (Antiq., xviii. 3. 5) mentions only Jews,
Tacitus
{Annal., ii. 85) writes: "Actum et de sacris Aegyptiis Judaicisque
pellendis factumque patrum consultum, ut quattuor milia libertini
generis ea
superstitione infecta, quis idonea aetas, in insulam Sardinian!
veherentur,
coercendis illic latrociniis et, si ob gravitatem caeli interissent,
vile
damnum ; ceteri cederent Italia, nisi certain ante diem profanes ritus
exuissent"(" Measures were also adopted for the extermination of
Egyptian and Jewish rites, and the Senate passed a decree that four
thousand
freedmen, able-bodied, who were tainted with that superstition, should
be
deported to the island of Sardinia to put a check upon the local
brigands.
Should the climate kill them 'twould be no great loss! As for the rest,
they
were to leave
\12/ The sources here are
contradictory.
Acts (xviii. 2), Suetonius (Claud. 25), and Orosius (vii. 6. 15) -- the
last named
appealing by mistake to Josephus, who says nothing about the incident
-- all speak
of a formal (and enforced) edict of expulsion, but Dio Cassius (Ix. 6)
writes: τούς τε Ἰουδαίους
πλεονάσαντας αὖθις,
ὥστε χαλεπῶς ἂν
ἄνευ ταραχῆς ὑπὸ
τοῦ ὄχλου σφῶν
τῆς πόλεως εἰρχθῆναι,
οὐκ · ἐξήλασε
μέν, τῷ
δὲ δὴ πατρίῳ
βίῳ χρωμένους
ἐκέλευσε
μὴ
συναθροίζεσθαι ("As the Jews had once more
multiplied, so that it would have been difficult to remove them without
a
popular riot, he did not expel them, but simply prohibited any
gatherings of
those who held to their ancestral customs"). We have no business, in my
opinion, to use Dio Cassius in order to set aside two such excellent
witnesses
as Luke and Suetonius. Nor is it a satisfactory expedient to suppose,
with
Schiirer (III. p. 32 ; cp. Eng. trans., II. ii. 237), that the
government
simply intended to expel the Jews. The edict must have been actually
issued,
although it was presently replaced by a prohibition of meetings, after
the Jews
had given a guarantee of good behaviour.
A
glance at
these numerical statements shows \13/ that only two possess any
significance.
The first is Philo's, that the Egyptian Jews amounted to quite a
million.
Philo's comparatively precise mode of expression (οὐκ
ἀποδέουσι
μυριάδων
ἑκατὸν οἱ
τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν
καὶ
τὴν χώραν Ἰουδᾶιοι
κατοικοῦντες ἀπὸ
τοῦ πρὸς Λιβύην
καταβαθμοῦ μέχρι τῶν ὁρίων
Αἰθιοπίας: “The Jews resident in
Alexandria and
in the country from the descent to Libya back to the bounds of
Ethiopia, do not
fall short of a million"), taken together with the fact that registers
for
the purpose of taxation were accurately kept in Egypt, renders it
probable that
we have here to do with no fanciful number. Nor does the figure itself
appear
too high, when we consider that it includes the whole Jewish population
of
\13/ I omit a series of
figures given elsewhere by Josephus ; they are not of the slightest use.
\14/ See
\15/ Josephus, Bell., vii.
3.
3; (Τὸ Ἰουδαίων
γένος πολὺ μὲν κατὰ
πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην
παρέσπαρται
τοῖς
ἐπιχωρίοις, πλεῖστον
δὲ
τῇ
Συρίᾳ: "The
Jewish race is thickly spread over the world among its inhabitants, but
specially in
The second passage
of
importance is the statement that Tiberius deported four thousand
able-bodied
Jews to Sardinia -- Jews, be it noted, not (as Tacitus declares)
Egyptians and
Jews, for the distinct evidence of Josephus on this point is
corroborated by
that of Suetonius (see above), who, after speaking at first of Jews and
Egyptians, adds, by way of closer definition, "Judaeorum juventatem per
speciem sacramenti in provincias gravioris caeli distribuit.'" Four
thousand able-bodied men answers to a total of at least ten thousand
human
beings,\16/ and something like this represented the size of the
contemporary
Jewish community at
\16/Taking for granted, as
in
the case of any immigrant population, that the number of men is very
considerably larger than that of women, I allow 2000 boys and old men
to 4000
able-bodied men, and assume about 4000 females.
\17/ See Beloch, pp. 292 f.
His figure, 500,000, seems to me rather low.
\18/Renan (L'Antichrist, ch.
i.) is inclined to estimate the number of the Roman Jews, including
women and
children, at from twenty to thirty thousand.
\19/ The total number,
including foreigners and slaves, would amount to something between
800,000 and
900,000 (according to Beloch, 800,000 at the outside).
We can hardly
suppose that the
Jewish community at
If the Jews in
\20/ After the edict of
Pius,
which forbade in the most stringent terms the circumcision of any who
had not
been born in Judaism (cp. also the previous edict of Hadrian), regular
secessions must have either ceased altogether or occuned extremely
seldom ; cp.
Orig., c. Cels; II. xiii.
\21/ In modern
Our survey would not
be
complete if we did not glance, however briefly, at the nature of the
Jewish
propaganda in the empire,\22/ for some part, at least, of her
missionary zeal
was inherited by Christianity from Judaism. As I shall have to refer to
this
Jewish mission wherever any means employed in the Christian propaganda
are
taken over from Judaism, I shall confine myself in the meantime to some
general
observations.
\22/Compare, on this point,
Schurer's description, op, cit., III. pp. 102 f. [Eng.trans., II. ii.
126 f.].
It is surprising
that a
religion which raised so stout a wall of partition between itself and
all other
religions, and which in practice and prospects alike was bound up so
closely
with its nation, should have possessed a missionary impulse\23/of such
vigour
and attained so large a measure of success. This is not ultimately to
be
explained by any craving for power or ambition ; it is a proof \24/
that
Judaism, as a religion, was already blossoming out by some inward
transformation and becoming across between a national religion and a
world-religion (confession of faith and a church). Proudly the Jew felt
that he
had something to say and bring to the world, which concerned all men,
viz., The
one and only spiritual God, creator of heaven and earth, [[10]] with his holy moral
late. It was owing to the
consciousness of this (Rom. ii. 19 f.) that he felt missions to be a
duty. The
Jewish propaganda throughout the empire was primarily the proclamation
of the
one and only God, of his moral law, and of his judgment; to this
everything
else became secondary. The object in many cases might be pure
proselytism
(Matt. xxiii. 15), but Judaism was quite in earnest in overthrowing
dumb idols
and inducing pagans to recognize their creator and judge, for in this
the
honour of the God of Israel was concerned.
\23/The duty and the
hopefulness of missions are brought out in the earliest Jewish
Sibylline books.
Almost the whole of the literature of Alexandrian Judaism has an
apologetic
bent and the instinct of propaganda.
\24 /Cp. Bousset's Die
Religion desJudentums im neutest, Zeitalter 1903), especially the
sections on
"The Theologians, the Church and the Laity, Women, Confession (Faith
and
Dogma), the Synagogue as an
It is in this light
that one
must judge a phenomenon which is misunderstood so long as we explain it
by
means of specious analogies -- I mean, the different degrees and phases
of
proselytism. In other religions, variations of this kind usually
proceed from
an endeavour to render the moral precepts imposed by the religion
somewhat
easier for the proselyte. In Judaism this tendency never prevailed, at
least
never outright. On the contrary, the moral demand remained
unlowered. -- As the
recognition of God was considered the cardinal point, Judaism was in a
position
to depreciate the claims of the cultus and of ceremonies, and the
different
kinds of Jewish proselytism were almost entirely due to the different
degrees
in which the ceremonial precepts of the Law were observed. The fine
generosity
of such an attitude was, of course, facilitated by the fact that a man
who let
even his little finger be grasped by this religion, thereby became a
Jew.\25/
Again, strictly speaking, even a born Jew was only a proselyte so soon
as he
left the soil of Palestine, since thereby he parted with the
sacrificial
system; besides, he was unable in a foreign country to fulfil, or at
least to
fulfil satisfactorily, many other precepts of the Law.\26/For
generations there
had been a gradual neutralising of the sacrificial system proceeding
apace
within the inner life of Judaism -- even among the Pharisees; and this
coincided
with an historical situation which obliged by far the greater number of
the
adherents of the religion to live amid conditions which had made them [[11]] strangers for a long
period to the
sacrificial system. In this way they were also rendered accessible on
every
side of their spiritual nature to foreign cults and philosophies, and
thus
there originated Persian and Graeco-Jewish religious alloys, several of
whose
phenomena threatened even the monotheistic belief. The destruction of
the
temple by the Romans really destroyed nothing; it may be viewed as an
incident
organic to the history of Jewish religion. When pious people held God's
ways at
that crisis were incomprehensible, they were but deluding themselves.
\25/ If he did not, his son
did.
\26/ Circumcision, of
course,
was always a troublesome wall of partition. Born Jews, as a rule, laid
the
greatest stress upon it, while pagans submitted to the operation with
extreme
reluctance.
For a long while the
popular
opinion throughout the empire was that the Jews worshipped God without
images,
and that they had no temple. Now, although both of these "atheistic"
features might appear to the rude populace even more offensive and
despicable
than circumcision, Sabbath observance, the prohibition of swine's
flesh, etc.,
nevertheless they made a deep impression upon wide circles of educated
people.\27/ Thanks to these traits, together with its monotheism -- for
which the
age was beginning to be ripe\28/ -- Judaism seemed as if it were
elevated to the
rank of philosophy, and inasmuch as it still continued to be a
religion, it
exhibited a type of mental and spiritual life which was superior to
anything of
the kind.\29/ At bottom, there was nothing artificial in a Philo or in
a
Josephus exhibiting Judaism as the philosophic religion, for this kind
of
apologetic corresponded to the actual situation in which they found
themselves
\30/; it was as the revealed and also the philosophic [[12]] religion, equipped with
"the oldest book in the
world,"that Judaism developed her great propaganda.\31/ The account
given
by Josephus (Bell., vii. 3. 3) of the situation at Antioch, viz., that
"the Jews continued to attract a large number of the Greeks to their
services, making them in a sense part of themselves" -- this holds true
of
the Jewish mission in general.\32/ The adhesion of Greeks and Romans to
Judaism
ranged over the entire gamut of possible degrees, from the
superstitious
adoption of certain rites up to complete identification. "
God-fearing" pagans constituted the majority; proselytes (i.e., people
who
were actually Jews, obliged to keep the whole Law), there is no doubt,
were
comparatively few in number.\33/ Immersion was more indispensable than
even
circumcision as a condition of entrance.\34/
\27/ This rigid
exclusiveness
in a religion naturally repelled the majority and excited frank
resentment; it
was somewhat of a paradox, and cannot fail to have been felt as
obdurately
inhuman as well as insolent. Anti-Semitism can be plainly traced within
the
\28/ It was ripe also for
the
idea of an individual recompense in the future life, as an outcome of
the
heightened valuation of individual morality in this life, and for the
idea of a
judgment passed on the individual thereafter.
\29/ E.g., especially to the
idealistic schools of popular philosophy. Cp. Wendland, Philo und die
stoisch-kynische Diatribe (1895).
\30/ Cp. Friedlander's
Geschichte der judischen Apologetik als Vorgeschichte des
Christentzims, 1903.
On the heights of its apologetic, the Jewish religion represented
itself as the
idealist philosophy based on revelation (the sacred book),
i.e.,materially as
ideological rationalism, and formally as supra-rationalism ; it was
the"most satisfying" form of religion, retaining a vitality, a
precision, and a certainty in its conception of God such as no cognate
form of
religious philosophy could preserve, while at the same time the
overwhelming
number and the definite character of its '' prophecies " quelled every
doubt.
\31/ " As a philosophical
religion Judaism may have attracted one or two cultured individuals,
but it was
as a religious and social community with a life of its own that it won
the
masses." So Axenfeld, on p. 15 of his study (mentioned below on p. 16).
Yet even as a religious fellowship with a life of its own, Judaism made
a
philosophic impression -- and that upon the uneducated as well as upon
the
educated. I agree with Axenfeld, however, that the Jewish propaganda
owed its
success not to the literary activity of individual Hellenistic Jews,
but to the
assimilating power of the communities with their religious life, their
strict
maintenance of convictions, their recognition of their own interests
and their
satisfaction of a national pride, as evidenced in their demand for
proselytes
to glorify Jehovah.
\32/ The keenness of Jewish
propaganda throughout the empire during the first century -- "the age
in
which the Christian preaching began its course is the age in which the
Jewish
propaganda reached the acme of its efforts " -- is also clear from the
introduction of the Jewish week and Sabbath throughout the empire; cp.
Schiirer, "Die siebentagige Woche im Gebrauch der christlichen Kirche
der
ersten Jahrhunderte " {Zeits. f. die neut. Wiss., 1905, 40 f.). Many
pagans celebrated the Sabbath, just as Jews today observe Sunday.
\33 /See Eus., H. E., i. 7,
for the extent to which proselytes became fused among those who were
Jews by
birth.
\34/It must not be forgotten
that even in the Diaspora there was exclusiveness and ' fanaticism. The
first
persecution of Christians was set afoot by synagogues of the Diaspora
in
While all this was
of the
utmost importance for the Christian mission which came afterwards, at
least
equal moment attaches to one vital omission in the Jewish missionary
preaching:
viz., that no Gentile, in the first generation at least, could become a
[[13]] real son of
Abraham. His rank before God
remained inferior. Thus it also remained very doubtful how far any
proselyte -- to
say nothing of the " God-fearing " -- had a share in the glorious
promises of the future. The religion which repairs this omission will
drive
Judaism from the field.\35/ When it proclaims this message in its
fulness, that
the last will be first, that freedom from the Law is the normal and
higher
life, and that the observance of the Law, even at its best, is a thing
to be
tolerated and no more, it will win thousands where the previous
missionary
preaching won but hundreds.\36/ Yet the propaganda of Judaism did not
succeed
simply by its high inward worth; the profession of Judaism also
conferred great
social and political advantages upon its adherents. Compare Schurer''s
sketch
(pp. cit., III' pp. 56-90;
\35/ I know of no reliable
inquiries into the decline and fall of Jewish missions in the empire
after the
second destruction of the temple. It seems to me unquestionable that
Judaism
henceforth slackened her tie with Hellenism, in order to drop it
altogether as
time went on, and that the literature of Hellenistic Judaism suddenly
became
very slender, destined ere long to disappear entirely. But whether we
are to
see in all this merely the inner stiffening of Judaism, or other causes
to boot
(e.g., the growing rivalry of Christianity), is a question which I do
not
venture to decide. On the repudiation of Hellenism by Palestinian
Judaism even
prior to the first destruction of the temple, see below (p. 16).
\36/ A notable parallel from
history to the preaching of Paul in its relation to Jewish preaching,
is to be
found in Luther's declaration, that the truly perfect man was not a
monk, but a
Christian living in his daily calling. Luther also explained that the
last
(those engaged in daily business) were the first. -- The above sketch
has been
contradicted by Friedlander (in Dr. Bloch's Oesterr. Wochenschrift,
Zentralorgan f. d. ys. Interessen des Judentums, 1902, Nos. 49 f.), who
asserts
that proselytes ranked entirely the same as full-blooded Jews. But
Friedlander
himself confines this liberal attitude towards proselytes to the
Judaism of the
Greek Diaspora ; he refers it to the influence of Hellenism, and
supports it
simply by Philo (and John the Baptist). Note also that Philo usually
holds
Jewish pride of birth to be vain, if a man is wicked ; in that case, a
Jew is
far inferior to a man of pagan birth. With this limitation of
Friedlander's, no
objection can be taken to the thesis in question. I myself go still
further ;
for there is no doubt that even before the rise of Christianity the
Jews of the
Diaspora allegorised the ceremonial Law, and that this paved the way
for the
Gentile church's freedom from the Law. Only, the question is (i.)
whether the
strict Judaism of Palestine, in its obscure origins, was really
affected by
these softening tendencies, (ii.) whether it did not exercise an
increasingly
strong influence upon Judaism even in the Diaspora, and (iii.) whether
the
Judaism of the Diaspora actually renounced all the privileges of its
birth. On
the two latter points, I should answer in the negative (even with
regard to
Philo); on the first, however, my reply would be in the affirmative.
\37/' The Jewish communities
in the Diaspora also formed small states inside the state or city; one
has only
to recollect the civil jurisdiction which they exercised, even to the
extent of
criminal procedure. As late as the third century we possess, with
reference to
Palestine, Origen's account (Ep. ad Afric., xiv.) of the power of the
Ethnarch
(or patriarch), which was so great "that he differed in no whit from
royalty"; "legal proceedings also took place privately as enjoined by
the Law, and several people were condemned to death, not in open court
and yet
with the cognizance of the authorities." Similar occurrences would take
place in the Diaspora. The age of Hadrian and Pius did bring about a
terrible
retrograde movement; but afterwards, part of the lost ground was again
recovered.
\38/ Proofs of this are not
forthcoming,
however, in any number.
\39/ Owing to their
religious
and national characteristics, as well as to the fact that they enjoyed
legal
recognition throughout the empire, the Jews stood out conspicuously
from
amongst all the other nations included in the Roman state. This comes
out most
forcibly in the fact that they were even entitled "The Second race."
We shall afterwards show that Christians were called the Third race,
since Jews
already ranked thus as the Second.
One thing further.
All
religions which made their way into the empire along the channels of
intercourse and trade were primarily religions of the city, and
remained such
for a considerable period. It cannot be said that Judaism in the
Diaspora was
entirely a city-religion; indeed the reverse holds true of one or two
large
provinces. Yet in the main it continued to be a city-religion, and we
hear
little about Jews who were settled on the land.
So long as the
temple stood,
and contributions were paid in to it, this formed a link between the
Jews of
the Diaspora and [[15]]
Palestine.\40/
Afterwards, a rabbinical board took the place of the priestly college
at
\40/ Messengers and letters
also passed, which kept the tie between
\41/ On the patriarch, see
Schiirer, III.(3), pp. 77 f. [
To the Jewish
mission which
preceded it, the Christian mission was indebted, in the first place,
for a
field tilled all over the empire; in the second place, for religious
communities already formed everywhere in the towns; thirdly, for what
Axenfeld
calls " the help of materials'" furnished by the preliminary
knowledge of the Old Testament, in addition to catechetical and
liturgical
materials which could be employed without much alteration; fourthly,
for the
habit of regular worship and a control of private life ; fifthly, for
an
impressive apologetic on behalf of monotheism, historical teleology,
and
ethics; and finally, for the feeling that self-diffusion was a duty.
The amount
of this debt is so large, that one might venture to claim the Christian
mission
as a continuation of the Jewish propaganda. " Judaism,'' said Renan,
" was robbed of its due reward by a generation of fanatics, and it was
prevented from gathering in the harvest which it had prepared.'"
The extent to which
Judaism
was prepared for the gospel may also be judged by means of the
syncretism into
which it had developed. The development was along no mere side-issues.
The
transformation of a national into a universal religion may take place
in two
ways: either by the national religion being reduced to great central
principles, or by its assimilation of a wealth of new elements from
other
religions. Both processes developed simultaneously in Judaism.\42/ But
the
former is the [[16]]
more important of the
two, as a preparation for Christianity. This is to be deduced
especially from
that great scene preserved for us by Mark xii. 28-34 -- in its
simplicity of
spirit, the greatest memorial we possess of the history of religion at
the
epoch of its vital change.\43/ " A scribe asked Jesus, What is the
first
of all the commandments ? Jesus replied, The first is: Hear, O Israel,
the Lord
our God is one God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart,
and all thy soul, and all thy mind, and all thy strength. The second is
: Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no commandment greater
than
these. And the scribe said to him. True, O teacher; thou hast rightly
said that
he is one, and that beside him there is none else, and that to love him
with
all the heart, and all the understanding and all the strength, and to
love
one's neighbour as oneself, is far above all holocausts and sacrifices.
And
when Jesus saw that he answered intelligently, he said: "Thou art not
far
from the
\42/ For
"syncretism," see especially the last chapter in Bousset's volume
(pp. 448-493). Syncretism melted each of the older elements within the
religion
of Judaism, and introduced a wealth of entirely new elements. But
nothing
decomposed the claim that Judaism was the true religion, or the
conviction that
in " Moses " all truth lay.
\43/ The nearest approach to
it is to be found in the missionary speech put into Paul's mouth on the
hill of
Mars.
With regard to the
attitude of
Palestinian Judaism towards the mission-idea (i.e., universalism and
the duty
of systematic propaganda), the state of matters during the age of
Christ and
the apostles is such as to permit pleadings upon both sides of the
question.\44/ Previous to that age, there had been two periods which
were
essentially opposite in tendency. The older, resting upon the second
Isaiah,
gave vivid expression, even within
\44/ Cp. Bertholet, Die
Stellung der Israel Uen und Judea sit den Fremden (1890); Schlirer,
III.(3),
pp. 125 f.); Bousset, op. cit., 82 f.; Axenfeld, "Die judische
Propaganda
als Vorlauferin der urchristlichen Mission," in the Missionswiss.
Studien
(Festschrift fiir Warneck), 1904, pp. l-80
\45/ Axenfeld remarks very
truly (pp. 8 f.) that "the history of the Jewish propaganda is to be
explained by the constant strain between the demand that the heathen
should be
included and the dread which this excited. The Judaism which felt the
impulse
of propaganda resembled an invading host, whose offensive movements are
continually being hampered by considerations arising from the need of
keeping
in close touch with their basis of operations." But it seems to me an
artificial and theological reflection, when the same scholar lays
supreme
weight on the fact that the Jewish propaganda had no "consciousness of
a
vocation," and that, in contrast to the Christian mission, it simply
proclaimed its God zealously from the consciousness of an innate
religious
preeminence, devoid of humility and obedience. I have tried in vain to
find an
atom of truth in this thesis, with its resultant defence of the
historicity of
Matthew xxviii. 19. It is of course admitted on all hands that
Christian
missionary zeal was bound subsequently to be intensified by the belief
that
Jesus had directly enjoined it.
CHAPTER
2
THE
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF THE WORLD-WIDE EXPANSION
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
It is only in a
series of
headings, as it were, that I would summarize the external conditions
which
either made it possible for Christianity to spread rapidly and widely
during
the imperial age, or actually promoted its advance. One of the most
important
has been mentioned in the previous chapter, viz., the spread of
Judaism, which
anticipated and prepared the way for that of Christianity. Besides
this, the
following considerations\1/ are especially to be noted : --
\1/ The number of works at
our
disposal for such a survey is legion. One of the most recent is
Gruppe's Kulturgeschichte
der romischen Kaiserzeit (2 vols., 1903, 1904).
(1) The Hellenizing
of
the East and (in part also) of the West, which had gone on steadily
since
Alexander the Great: or, the comparative unity of language and ideas
which this Hellenizing had produced. Not until the close of the second
century
CE does this Hellenizing process appear to have exhausted itself,\2/ [[20]] while in the fourth
century, when the seat of
empire was shifted to the East, the movement acquired a still further
impetus
in several important directions. As Christianity allied itself very
quickly
though incompletely to the speech and spirit of Hellenism, it was in a
position
to avail itself of a great deal in the success of the latter. In return
it
furthered the advance of Hellenism and put a check to its retreat.
\2/ I know no investigations
as to the precise period when the advance of Hellenism, more
particularly of
the Greek language, subsided and ceased at
(2) The
world-empire of
\3/ After Melito, Origen (c.
Celsum 2.30) correctly estimated the significance of this for the
Christian
propaganda. "In the days of Jesus, righteousness arose and fulness of
peace; it began with his birth. God prepared the nations for his
teaching, by
causing the Roman emperor to rule over all the world; there was no
longer to be
a plurality of kingdoms, else would the nations have been strangers to
one
another, and so the apostles would have found it harder to carry out
the task
laid on them by Jesus, when he said, 'Go and teach all nations.' It is
well
known that the birth of Jesus took place in the reign of Augustus, who
fused
and federated the numerous peoples upon earth into a single empire. A
plurality
of kingdoms would have been an obstacle to the spread of the doctrine
of Jesus
throughout all the world, not merely for the reasons already mentioned,
but
also because the nations would in that event have been obliged to go to
war in
defence of their native lands. .... How, then, could this doctrine of
peace,
which does not even permit vengeance upon an enemy, have prevailed
throughout
the world, had not the circumstances of the world passed everywhere
into a
milder phase at the advent of Jesus?"
(3) The exceptional
facilities,
growth, and security of international traffic:\4/ the admirable
roads;
the blending of different nationalities;\5/ the interchange of wares
and of
ideas; the [[21]]
personal intercourse ; the
ubiquitous merchant and soldier -- one may add, the ubiquitous
professor, who
was to be encountered from
\4/ Cp. Stephan in Raumer's Histor,
Taschenbuch (1868), pp. 1f., and Zahn's Weltverkehr und Kirche
wahrend der
drei ersten Jahrhunderte (1877). That one Phrygian merchant voyaged to
\5/ It is surprising to
notice
this blending of nationalities, whenever any inscription bears a
considerable
number of names (soldiers, pages, martyrs, etc.), and at the same time
mentions
their origin.
(4) The practical
and
theoretical conviction of the essential unity of mankind, and
of human
rights and duties, which was produced, or at any rate intensfied, by
the fact
of the "orbis Romanus" [Roman world] on the one side and the
development of philosophy upon the other, and confirmed by the truly
enlightened system of Roman jurisprudence, particularly between Nerva
and
Alexander Severus. On all essential questions the church had no reason
to
oppose, but rather to assent to, Roman law, that grandest and most
durable
product of the empire.\6/
\6/ At this point (in order
to
illustrate these four paragraphs) Renan's well-known summary may be
cited {Les
Apotres, ch. xvi.): " The unity of the empire was the essential
presupposition of any comprehensive proselytizing movement which should
transcend the limits of nationality. In the fourth century the empire
realised
this: it became Christian; it perceived that Christianity was the
religion
which it had matured involuntarily; it recognized in Christianity the
religion
whose limits were the same as its own, the religion which was
identified with
itself and capable of infusing new life into its being. The church, for
her
part, became thoroughly Roman, and to this day has remained a survival
of the
old
(5) The
decomposition of
ancient society into a democracy: the gradual equalizing of the
"cives
Romani" [Roman citizens] and the provincials, of the Greeks and the
barbarians; the comparative equalizing of classes in society; the
elevation of
the slave-class -- in short, a soil prepared for the growth of new
formations
by the decomposition of the old.
(6) The religious
policy of
(7) The
existence of
associations, as well as of municipal and provincial
organizations.
In several respects the former had prepared the soil for the reception
of
Christianity, whilst in some cases they probably served as a shelter
for it.
The latter actually suggested the most important forms of organization
in the
church, and thus saved her the onerous task of first devising such
forms and
then requiring to commend them.
(8) The
irruption of the
Syrian and Persian religions into the empire, dating especially
from the
reign of Antoninus Pius. These had certain traits in common with
Christianity,
and although the spread of the church was at first handicapped by them,
any
such loss was amply made up for by the new religious cravings which
they
stirred within the minds of men -- cravings which could not finally be
satisfied apart from Christianity.
(9) The decline
of the
exact sciences, a phenomenon due to the democratic tendency of
society and
the simultaneous popularizing of knowledge, as well as to other unknown
causes:
also the rising vogue of a mystical philosophy of religion with a
craving
for some form of revelation and a thirst for miracle.
All these outward
conditions
(of which the two latter might have been previously included among the
inward)
brought about a great revolution in the whole of human existence under
the
empire, a revolution which must have been highly conducive to the
spread of the
Christian religion. The narrow world had become a wide world; the rent
world
had become a unity; the barbarian world had become Greek and Roman: one
empire,
one universal language, one civilization, a common development towards
monotheism, and a common yearning for saviors! \7/
\7/ As Uhlhorn remarks very
truly {Die christliche Liebesthatigkeit in der alten Kirche,
1882, p.
37; Eng. trans. pp. 40-42): "From the time of the emperors onwards a
new
influence made itself felt, and unless we notice this influence, we
cannot
understand the first centuries of the early Christian church, we cannot
understand its rapid extension and its relatively rapid triumph. ....
Had the
stream of new life issuing from Christ encountered ancient life when
the latter
was still unbroken, it would have recoiled impotent from the shock. But
ancient
life had by this time begun to break up; its solid foundations had
begun to
weaken; and, besides, the Christian stream fell in with a previous and
cognate
[[23]] current of Jewish
opinion. In the
CHAPTER
3
THE
INTERNAL CONDITIONS DETERMINING THE WORLD-WIDE
EXPANSION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION -- RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM
In subsequent sections of this book we shall notice a series of the
more
important inner conditions which determined the universal spread of the
Christian religion. It was by preaching to the poor, the burdened, and
the
outcast, by the preaching and practice of love, that Christianity
turned the
stony, sterile world into a fruitful field for the church. Where no
other
religion could sow and reap, this religion was enabled to scatter its
seed and
to secure a harvest.
The condition,
however, which
determined more than anything else the propaganda of the religion, lay
in the
general religious situation during the imperial age. It is impossible
to
attempt here to depict that situation, and unluckily we cannot refer to
any
standard work which does justice to such a colossal undertaking,
despite the
admirable studies and sketches (such as those of Tzschirner,
Friedlander,
Boissier, Reville, and Wissowa)\1/ which we possess. This being so, we
must
content ourselves with throwing out a few hints along two main lines.
\1/ Add the sketch of the
history of Greek religion by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Jahrb. des Freien
deutschen Hochstifts, 1904).
(1) In spite of the
inner
evolution of polytheism towards monotheism, the relations between
Christianity
and paganism simply meant the opposition of monotheism and polytheism
-- of
polytheism, too, in the first instance, as political religion (the
imperial
cultus). Here Christianity and paganism were absolutely opposed. The
former
burned what the latter adored, and the latter burned Christians as
guilty of
high treason. [[25]]
Christian apologists
and martyrs were perfectly right in often ignoring every other topic
when they
opened their lips, and in reducing everything to this simple
alternative.
Judaism shared with
Christianity this attitude towards polytheism. But then, Judaism was a
national
religion; hence its monotheism was widely tolerated simply because it
was
largely unintelligible. Furthermore, it usually evaded any conflict
with the
State authorities, and it did not make martyrdom obligatory. That a man
had to
become a Jew in order to be a monotheist, was utterly absurd: it
degraded the
creator of heaven and earth to the level of a national god. Besides, if
he was
a national god, he was not the only one. No doubt, up and down the
empire there
were whispers about the atheism of the Jews, thanks to their lack of
images;
but the charge was never levelled in real earnest -- or rather, opinion
was in
such a state of oscillation that the usual political result obtained: in dubio pro reo.
It was otherwise
with
Christianity. Here the polytheists could have no hesitation: deprived
of any
basis in a nation or a State, destitute alike of images and temples,
Christianity was simple atheism. The contrast between polytheism and
monotheism
was in this field clear and keen. From the second century onwards, the
conflict
between these two forms of religion was waged by Christianity and not
by
Judaism. The former was aggressive, while as a rule the latter had
really
ceased to fight at all -- it devoted itself to capturing proselytes.
From the very outset
it was no
hopeless struggle. When Christianity came upon the scene, the
polytheism of the
State religion was not yet eradicated, indeed, nor was it eradicated
for some
time to come; \2/ but there were ample forces at hand which were
already
compassing its ruin. It had survived the critical epoch during which
the
republic had changed into a dual control and a monarchy; but as for the
fresh
swarm of religions which were invading and displacing it, polytheism
could no
more exorcise them with the magic wand of the imperial cultus than it
could
dissolve them under the rays of a protean cultus of the sun, which
sought to
bring everything [[26]]
within its sweep.
Nevertheless polytheism would still have been destined to a long
career, had it
not been attacked secretly or openly by the forces of general
knowledge,
philosophy, and ethics; had it not also been saddled with arrears of
mythology
which excited ridicule and resentment. Statesmen, poets, and
philosophers might
disregard all this, since each of these groups devised some method of
preserving their continuity with the past. But once the common people
realized
it, or were made to realize it, the conclusion they drew in such cases
was
ruthless. The onset against deities feathered and scaly, deities
adulterous and
infested with vice, and on the other hand against idols of wood and
stone,
formed the most impressive and effective factor in Christian preaching
for wide
circles, circles which in all ranks of society down to the lowest
classes
(where indeed they were most numerous) had, owing to experience and
circumstances, reached a point at which the burning denunciations of
the
abomination of idolatry could not fail to arrest them and bring them
over to
monotheism. The very position of polytheism as the State religion was
in favour
of the Christian propaganda. Religion faced religion; but whilst the
one was
new and living, the other was old -- that is, with the exception of the
imperial cultus, in which once more it gathered up its forces. No one
could
tell exactly what had come over it. Was it merely equivalent to what
was lawful
in politics? Or did it represent the vast, complicated mass of
religiones
licitae throughout the empire? Who could say?
\2/ Successful attempts to
revive it were not awanting; see under (2) in this section.
(2) This, however,
is to touch
on merely one side of the matter. The religious situation in the
imperial age,
with the tendencies it cherished and the formations it produced -- all
this was
complicated in the extreme. Weighty as were the simple antitheses of
"monotheism versus polytheism" and "strict morality versus
laxity and vice,” these cannot be taken as a complete summary of the
whole
position. The posture of affairs throughout the empire is no more
adequately
described by the term " polytheism'' than is Christianity, as it was
then
preached, by the bare term " monotheism." It was not a case of vice
and virtue simply facing one another. Here, in fact, we must enter into
some
detail and definition. [[27]]
Anyone who considers
that the
domination of the inner life over external empiricism and politics is
an
illusion and perversion, must date the disintegration of the ancient
world from
Socrates and Plato. Here the two tempers stand apart! On
the other hand, anyone who regards this
domination as the supreme advance of man, is not obliged to accompany
its
development down as far as Neo-Platonism. 'He will not, indeed, be
unaware
that, even to the last, in the time of Augustine, genuine advances were
made
along this line, but he will allow that they were gained at great
expense --
too great expense. This erroneous development began when introspection
commenced to despise and neglect its correlative in natural science,
and to woo
mysticism, theurgy, astrology, or magic. For more than a century
previous to
the Christian era, this had been going on. At the threshold of the
transition
stands Posidonius, like a second Janus. Looking in one direction, he
favours a
rational idealism; but, in another, he combines this with irrational
and mystic
elements. The sad thing is that these elements had to be devised and
employed
in order to express new emotional values which his rational idealism
could not
manage to guarantee, because it lay spellbound and impotent in
intellectualism. Language itself declined to fix the value of anything
which
was not intellectual by nature. Hence the 'Υπερνοητόν’ emerged, a conception
which continued
to attract and appropriate what ever was mythical and preposterous,
allowing it
to pass in unchallenged. Myth now ceased to be a mere symbol. It became
the
organic means of expression for those higher needs of sentiment and
religion
whose real nature was a closed book to thinkers of the day. On this
line of
development, Posidonius was followed by Philo.
The inevitable
result of all
this was a relapse to lower levels; but it was a relapse which, as
usual, bore
all the signs of an innovation. The signs pointed to life, but the
innovation
was ominous. For, while the older mythology had been either naive or
political,
dwelling in the world of ceremony, the new mythology became a
confession: it
was philosophical, or pseudo-philosophical, and to this it owed its
sway over
the mind, beguiling the human spirit until it gradually succeeded in [[28]] destroying the sense of
reality and in
crippling the proper functions of all the senses within man. His eyes
grew dim,
his ears could hear no longer. At the same time, these untoward effects
were
accompanied by a revival and resuscitation of the religious feeling --
as a
result of the philosophical development. This took place about the
close of the
first century. Ere long it permeated all classes in society, and it
appears to
have increased with every decade subsequently to the middle of the
second
century. This came out in two ways, on the principle of that dual
development
in which a religious upheaval always manifests itself. The first was a
series
of not unsuccessful attempts to revivify and inculcate the old
religions, by
carefully observing traditional customs, and by restoring the sites of
the
oracles and the places of worship. Such attempts, however, were partly
superficial and artificial. They offered no strong or clear expression
for the
new religious cravings of the age. And Christianity held entirely aloof
from
all this restoration of religion. They came into contact merely to
collide --
this pair of alien magnitudes; neither understood the other, and each
was
driven to compass the extermination of its rival (see above).
The second way in
which the
resuscitation of religion came about, however, was far more potent.
Ever since
Alexander the Great and his successors, ever since Augustus in a later
age, the
nations upon whose development the advance of humanity depended had
been living
under new auspices. The great revolution in the external conditions of
their
existence has been already emphasized; but corresponding to this, and
partly in
consequence of it, a revolution took place in the inner world of
religion,
which was due in some degree to the blending of religions, but
preeminently to
the progress of culture and to man's experience inward and outward. No
period
can be specified at which this blending process commenced among the
nations
lying between Egypt and the Euphrates, the Tigris, or Persia;\3/ for,
so far as
we are in a position to trace back their history, their religions were,
like
themselves, exposed to constant [[29]]
interchange, whilst their religious theories were a matter of give and
take.
But now the Greek world fell to be added, with all the store of
knowledge and
ideas which it had gained by dint of ardent, willing toil, a world
lying open
to any contribution from the East, and in its turn subjecting every
element of
Eastern origin to the test of its own lore and speculation.
\3/ It is still a moot point
of controversy whether
The results already
produced
by the interchange of Oriental religions, including that of Israel,
were
technically termed, a century ago, " the Oriental philosophy of
religion," a term which denoted the broad complex of ritual and theory
connected with the respective cults, their religious ideas, and also
scientific
speculations such as those of astronomy or of any other branch of
knowledge
which was elevated into the province of religion. All this was as
indefinite as
the title which was meant to comprehend it, nor even at present have we
made
any great progress in this field of research.\4/ Still, we have a more
definite
grasp of the complex itself; and -- although it seems paradoxical to
say so --
this is a result which we owe chiefly to Christian gnosticism. Nowhere
else are
these vague and various conceptions worked out for us so clearly and
coherently.
\4/ The origin of the
separate
elements, in particular, is frequently obscure -- whether Indian,
Persian,
Babylonian, Egyptian, Asiatic, etc.
In what follows I
shall
attempt to bring out the salient features of this "Orientalism."
Naturally it was no rigid entity. At every facet it presented elements
and
ideas of the most varied hue. The general characteristic was this that
people
still retained or renewed their belief in sections of the traditional
mythology
presented in realistic form. To these they did attach ideas. It is not
possible, as a rule, to ascertain in every case at what point and to
what
extent such ideas overflowed and overpowered the realistic element in
any given
symbol -- a fact which makes our knowledge of " Orientalism " look
extremely defective ; for what is the use of fixing down a piece of
mythology
to some definite period and circle, if we cannot be sure of its exact
value ?
Was it held literally? Was it transformed into an idea? Was it taken
metaphorically? Was it the creed of unenlightened piety? Was it merely
ornamental? And what [[30]]
was its meaning?
Theological or cosmological? Ethical or historical? Did it embody some
event in
the remote past, or something still in existence, or something only to
be
realized in the future? Or did these various meanings and values flow
in and
out of one another? And was the myth in question felt to be some
sacred,
undefined magnitude, something that could unite with every conceivable
coefficient, serving as the starting point for any interpretation
whatsoever
that one chose to put before the world ? This last question is to be
answered,
I think, in the affirmative, nor must we forget that in one and the
same circle
the most diverse coefficients were simultaneously attached to any piece
of
mythology.
Further, we must not
lose
sight of the varied origin of the myths. The earliest spring from the
primitive
view of nature, in which the clouds were in conflict with the light and
the
night devoured the sun, whilst thunderstorms were the most awful
revelation of
the deity. Or they arose from the dream-world of the soul, from that
separation
of soul and body suggested by the dream, and from the cult of the human
soul.
The next stratum may have arisen out of ancient historical
reminiscences, fantastically
exaggerated and elevated into something supernatural. Then came the
precipitate
of primitive attempts at " science" which had gone no further, viz.,
observations of heaven and earth, leading to the knowledge of certain
regular
sequences, which were bound up with religious conceptions. All this the
soul of
man informed with life, endowing it with the powers of human
consciousness. It
was upon this stratum that the great Oriental religions rose, as we
know them
in history, with their special mythologies and ritual theories. Then
came
another stratum, namely, religion in its abstract development and
alliance with
a robust philosophic culture. One half of it was apologetic, and the
other
critical. Yet even there myths still took shape. Finally, the last
stratum was
laid down, viz., the glaciation of ancient imaginative fancies and
religions
produced by a new conception of the universe, which the circumstances
and
experience of mankind had set in motion. Under the pressure of this,
all
existing materials were fused together, elements that lay far apart
were
solidified into a unity, and all previous constructions [[31]] were shattered, while
the surface of the
movement was covered by broken fragments thrown out in a broad moraine,
in
which the debris of all earlier strata were to be found. This is the
meaning of
"syncretism". Viewed from a distance, it looks like a unity, though
the unity seems heterogeneous. The forces which have shaped it do not
meet the
eye. What one really sees is the ancient element in its composition ;
the new
lies buried under all that catches the eye upon the surface.
This new element
consisted in
the political and social experience, and in speculations of the inner
life. It
would appear that even before the period of its contact with the Greek
spirit,
"Orientalism" had reached this stage; but one of the most unfortunate
gaps in our knowledge of the history of religion is our inability to
determine
to what extent "Orientalism " had developed on its own lines,
independent
of this Greek spirit. We must be content to ascertain what actually
took place,
viz., the rise of new ideas and emotions which meet us on the soil of
Hellenism
-- that Hellenism which, with its philosophy of a matured Platonism and
its
development of the ancient mysteries, coalesced with Orientalism.\5/
These new
features\6/ are somewhat as follows: --
\5/ The convergence of these
lines of development in the various nations of antiquity during the age
of
Hellenism is among the best established facts of history. Contemporary
ideas of
a cognate or similar nature were not simply the result of mutual
interaction,
but also of an independent development along parallel lines. This makes
it
difficult, and indeed impossible in many cases, to decide on which
branch any
given growth sprang up. The similarity of the development on parallel
lines
embraced not only the ideas, but frequently their very method of
expression and
the form under which they were conceived. The bounds of human fancy in
this
province are narrower than is commonly supposed.
\6/Cp. further the essay of
Loofs on "The Crisis of Christianity in the Second Century"
{Deutschevang, Blatter, 1904, Heft 7), which depicts the problem
occasioned by
the meeting of Christianity and syncretism. Also, the penetrating
remarks of
WernIe in his Anfangen unserer Religion (2nd ed., 1904 ;
(1) There is the
sharp
division between the soul (or spirit) and the body
: the more
or less exclusive importance attached to the spirit, and the notion
that the
spirit comes from some other, upper world and is either possessed or
capable of
life eternal: also the individualism involved in all this.
(2) There is the
sharp
division between God and the world, with [[32]]
the subversion of the naive idea that they formed a homogeneous unity.
(3) In consequence
of these
distinctions we have the sublimation of the Godhead, "via
negationis et eminentiae." The Godhead now becomes for the first time
incomprehensible and indescribable; yet it is also great and good.
Furthermore,
it is the basis of all things; but the ultimate basis, which is simply
posited
yet cannot be actually grasped.
(4) As a further
result of
these distinctions and of the exclusive importance attached to the
spirit, we
have the depreciation of the world, the contention that it were
better
never to have existed, that it was the result of a blunder, and that it
was a
prison or at best a penitentiary for the spirit.
(5) There is the
conviction
that the connection with the flesh (" that soiled robe ") depreciated and stained the spirit; in
fact, that the latter would inevitably be ruined unless the connection
were
broken or its influence counteracted.
(6) There is the
yearning
for redemption, as a redemption from the world, the flesh,
mortality, and
death.
(7) There is the
conviction
that all redemption is redemption to life eternal, and that it is
dependent on knowledge
and expiation: that only the soul that knows (knows itself, the
Godhead,
and the nature and value of being) and is pure (i.e., purged from sin)
can be
saved.
(8) There is the
certainty
that the redemption of the soul as a return to God is effected through
a series
of stages, just as the soul once upon a time departed from God by stages,
till it ended in the present vale of tears. All instruction upon
redemption is
therefore instruction upon " the return and road'" to God. The
consummation of redemption is simply a graduated ascent.
(9) There is the
belief
(naturally a wavering belief) that the anticipated redemption or
redeemer
was already present, needing only to be sought out: present, that
is,
either in some ancient creed which simply required to be placed in a
proper
light, or in one of the mysteries which had only to be made more
generally
accessible, or in some personality whose power and commands had to be
followed,
or even in the spirit, if only it would turn inward on itself. [[33]]
(10) There is the
conviction
that whilst knowledge is indispensable to all the media of
redemption,
it cannot be adequate; on the contrary, they must ultimately
furnish and
transmit an actual power divine. It is the " initiation" (the
mystery or sacrament) which is combined with the impartation of
knowledge, by
which alone the spirit is subdued, by which it is actually redeemed and
delivered from the bondage of mortality and sin by means of mystic
rapture.
(11) There is the
prevalent,
indeed the fundamental opinion that knowledge of the universe,
religion, and
the strict management of the individual's conduct, must form a
compact unity;
they must constitute an independent unity, which has nothing whatever
to do
with the State, society, the family, or one's daily calling, and must
therefore
maintain an attitude of negation (i.e. in the sense of asceticism)
towards all these spheres.
The soul, God,
knowledge,
expiation, asceticism, redemption, eternal life, with individualism
and with humanity
substituted for nationality -- these were the sublime thoughts which
were
living and operative, partly as the precipitate of deep inward and
outward
movements, partly as the outcome of great souls and their toil, partly
as one
result of the sublimation of all cults which took place during the
imperial
age. Wherever vital religion existed, it was in this circle of thought
and
experience that it drew breath. The actual number of those who lived
within the
circle is a matter of no moment. " All men have not faith." And the
history of religion, so far as it is really a history of vital
religion, runs
always in a very narrow groove.
The remarkable thing
is the
number of different guises in which such thoughts were circulating.
Like all
religious accounts of the universe which aim at reconciling monistic
and
dualistic theories, they required a large apparatus for their intrinsic
needs;
but the tendency was to elaborate this still further, partly in order
to
provide accommodation for whatever might be time-honoured or of any
service,
partly because isolated details had an appearance of weakness which
made people
hope to achieve their end by dint of accumulation. Owing to the
heterogeneous
character of their apparatus, these syncretistic [[34]]
formations seem often to be totally incongruous. But this is a
superficial
estimate. A glance at their motives and aims reveals the presence of a
unity,
and indeed of simplicity, which is truly remarkable. The final motives,
in
fact, are simple and powerful, inasmuch as they have sprung from simple
but
powerful experiences of the inner life, and it was due to them that the
development of religion advanced, so far as any such advance took place
apart
from Christianity.
Christianity had to
settle
with this "syncretism'" or final form of Hellenism. But we can see at
once how inadequate it would be to describe the contrast between
Christianity
and" paganism" simply as the contrast between monotheism and
polytheism. No doubt, any form of syncretism was perfectly capable of
blending
with polytheism; the one even demanded and could not but intensify the
other.
To explain the origin of the world and also to describe the soul's "
return,"
the " apparatus " of the system required aeons, intermediate beings,
semi-gods, and deliverers; the highest deity was not the highest or
most
perfect, if it stood by itself. Yet all this way of thinking was
monotheistic
at bottom; it elevated the highest God to the position of primal God,
high
above all gods, linking the soul to this primal God and to him alone
(not to
any subordinate deities).\7/ Polytheism was relegated to a lower level
[[35]] from the
supremacy which once it had enjoyed.
Further, as soon as Christianity itself began to be reflective, it took
an
interest in this " syncretism,'" borrowing ideas from it, and using
them, in fact, to promote its own development. Christianity was not
originally
syncretistic itself, for Jesus Christ did not belong to this circle of
ideas,
and it was his disciples who were responsible for the primitive shaping
of
Christianity. But whenever Christianity came to formulate ideas of God,
Jesus,
sin, redemption, and life, it drew upon the materials acquired in the
general
process of religious evolution, availing itself of all the forms which
these
had taken.
\7/ The difference between
the
Christian God and the God of syncretistic Hellenism is put by the pagan
(Porphyry) in Macarius Magnes, iv. 20, with admirable lucidity : τὸ μέντοι περὶ πῆς μοναρχίας τοῦ μόνου θεοῦ καὶ τῆς πολυαρχίας τῶν σεβομένων θεῶν διαρρήδην ζητήσωμεν, ὧν οὐκ οἶδας οὐδὲ τῆς μοναρχίας τὸν λόγον ἀφηγήσασθαι.
Μονάρχης γάρ ἐστὶν οὐχ ὁ μόνος ὤν ἀλλ’ ὁ μόνος ἄρχων · ἄρχει δ’ ὁμοφύλων δηλαδὴ καὶ ὁμοίων, οἷον Ἁδριανὸς ὁ βασιλεὺς μονάρχης γέγονεν, οὐχ ὅτι μόνς ἦν οὐδ’ ὅτι βοῶν καὶ προβάτων ἦρχεν, ὧν ἄρχουσι ποιμένες ἢ βουκόλοι, ἀλλ’ ὅτι ἀνθρώπων ἐβασίλευσε τῶν ὁμογενῶν τὴν αὐτὴν φύοιν ἐχόντων · ὡσαύτως θεὸς οὐκ ἂν μονάρχης κυρίως ὲκλήθη, εἰ μὴ θεῶν ἦρχε.
τοῦτο γὰρ ἔπρεπε τῷ θείῳ μεγέθει καὶ τῷ οὐρανίῳ καὶ πολλῷ ἀξιώματι (" Let us, however, proceed
to
inquire explicitly about the monarchy of the one God alone and the
joint-rule
of those deities who are worshipped, but of whom, as of divine
monarchy, you
cannot give any account. A monarch is not one who is alone but one who
rules
alone, ruling subjects of kindred nature like himself -- such as the
emperor
Hadrian, for example, who was a monarch not because he stood alone or
because
he ruled sheep and cattle, which are commanded by shepherds and
herdsmen, hut
because he was king over human beings whose nature was like his own.
Even so,
it would not have been accurate to term God a monarch, if he did not
rule over
gods. For such a position befitted the dignity of God and the high
honour of
heaven "). Here the contrast between the Christian and the Greek
monarchianism is clearly denned. Only, it should be added that many
philosophic
Christians (even in the second century) did not share this severely
monotheistic idea of God; in fact, as early as the first century we
come across
modifications of it. Tertullian (in adv. Prax, iii.), even in
recapitulating
the view of God which passed for orthodox at that period, comes
dangerously
near to Porphyry in the remark : "Nullam dico dominationem ita unius
esse,
ita singularem, ita monarchiam, ut non etiam per alias proxima's
personas
administretur, quas ipsa prospexerit officiates sibi" ("No dominion,
I hold, belongs to any one person in such a way, or is in such a sense
singular, or in such a sense a monarchy, as not also to be administered
through
other persons who are closely related to it, and with whom it has
provided
itself as its officials "). The
Christian preaching
thus found
itself confronted with the old polytheism at its height in the imperial
cultus,
and with this syncretism which represented the final stage of
Hellenism. These
constituted the inner conditions under which the young religion carried
on its
mission. From its opposition to polytheism it drew that power of
antithesis and
exclusiveness which is a force at once needed and intensified by any
independent religion. In syncretism, again, i.e., in all that as a rule
deserved the title of " religion " in contemporary life, it possessed
unconsciously a secret ally. All it had to do with syncretism was to
cleanse
and simplify -- and complicate -- it.
CHAPTER
4
JESUS
CHRIST AND THE UNIVERSAL
It is impossible to
answer the
question of Jesus' relation to the universal mission, without a
critical study
of the evangelic records. The gospels were written in an age when the
mission
was already in full swing, and they consequently refer it to direct
injunction
of Jesus. But they enable us, for all that, to recognise the actual
state of matters.
Jesus addressed his
gospel --
his message of God's imminent kingdom and of judgment, of God's
fatherly
providence, of repentance, holiness, and love -- to his
fellow-countrymen. He
preached only to Jews. Not a syllable shows that he detached this
message from
its national soil, or set aside the traditional religion as of no
value. Upon
the contrary, his preaching could be taken as the most powerful
corroboration
of that religion. He did not attach himself to any of the numerous
"liberal" or syncretistic Jewish conventicles or schools. He did not
accept their ideas. Rather he took his stand upon the soil of Jewish
rights,
i.e., of the piety maintained by Pharisaism. But he showed that while
the
Pharisees preserved what was good in religion, they were perverting it
none the
less, and that the perversion amounted to the most heinous of sins.
Jesus waged
war against the selfish, self-righteous temper in which many of the
Pharisees
fulfilled and practised their piety -- a temper, at bottom, both
loveless and godless.
This protest already involved a break with the national religion, for
the
Pharisaic position passed for that of the nation; indeed, it
represented the
national religion. But Jesus went further. He traversed the claim that
the
descendants of Abraham, in virtue of their descent, [[37]]
were sure of salvation, and based the idea of divine sonship
exclusively upon
repentance, humility, faith, and love. In so doing, he disentangled
religion
from its national setting. Men, not Jews, were to be its adherents.
Then, as it
became plainer than ever that the Jewish people as a whole, and through
their
representatives, were spurning his message, he announced with
increasing
emphasis that a judgment was coming upon "the children of the
kingdom" and prophesied, as his forerunner had done already, that the
table of his Father would not lack for guests, but that a crowd would
pour in,
morning, noon, and night, from the highways and the hedges. Finally, he
predicted the rejection of the nation and the overthrow of the temple,
but
these were not to involve the downfall of his work; on the contrary, he
saw in
them, as in his own passion, the condition of his work's completion.
Such is the
"universalism" of the preaching of Jesus. No other kind of
universalism can be proved for him, and consequently he cannot have
given any
command upon the mission to the wide world. The gospels contain such a
command,
but it is easy to show that it is neither genuine nor a part of the
primitive
tradition. It would introduce an entirely strange feature into the
preaching of
Jesus, and at the same time render many of his genuine sayings
unintelligible
or empty. One might even argue that the universal mission was an
inevitable
issue of the religion and spirit of Jesus, and that its origin, not
'only apart
from any direct word of Jesus, but in verbal contradiction to several
of his
sayings, is really a stronger testimony to the method, the strength,
and the
spirit of his preaching than if it were the outcome of a deliberate
command. By
the fruit we know the tree; but we must not look for the fruit in the
root.
With regard to the way in which he worked and gathered disciples, the
distinctiveness of his person and his preaching comes out very clearly.
He
sought to found no sector school. He laid down no rules for outward
adhesion to
himself. His aim was to bring men to God and to prepare them for God's
kingdom.
He chose disciples, indeed, giving them special instruction and a share
in his
work; but even here there were no regulations. There were an inner
circle of
three, [[38]] an outer
circle of twelve, and
beyond that a few dozen men and women who accompanied him. In addition
to that,
he had intimate friends who remained in their homes and at their work.
Wherever
he went, he wakened or found children of God throughout the country. No
rule or
regulation bound them together. They simply sought and shared the
supreme boon
which came home to each and all, viz., the kingdom of their Father and
of the
individual soul. In the practice of this kind of mission Jesus has had
but one
follower, and he did not arise till a thousand years afterwards. He was
St
Francis of
If we leave out of
account the
words put by our first evangelist into the lips of the risen Jesus
(Matt.
xxviii. 19 f.), with the similar expressions which occur in the
unauthentic
appendix to the second gospel (Mark xvi. 15, 20), and if we further set
aside
the story of the wise men from the East, as well as one or two Old
Testament
quotations which our first evangelist has woven into his tale (cp.
Matt. iv. 13
f., xii. 18), we must admit that Mark and Matthew have almost
consistently
withstood the temptation to introduce the Gentile mission into the
words and
deeds of Jesus. Jesus called sinners to himself, ate with
tax-gatherers, attacked
the Pharisees and their legal observance, made everything turn upon
mercy and
justice, and predicted the downfall of the temple -- such is the
universalism
of Mark and Matthew. The very choice and commission of the twelve is
described
without any mention of a mission to the world (Mark iii. 13 f., vi. 7
f., and
Matt. x. 1 f.). In fact, Matthew expressly limits their mission to
\1/ This verse precludes the
hypothesis that the speech of Jesus referred merely to a provisional
mission.
If the saying is genuine, the Gentile mission cannot have lain within
the
horizon of Jesus. -- There is no need to take the ἡγεμόνες and βασιλεῖς of Matt. x. 18, Mark xiii. 9
as pagans, and Matthew's
addition (omitted by Mark) of καὶ
τοῖς ἔθνεσιν to the words εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς can hardly be understood
except as a
supplement in the sense of xxviii. 19 f. Though Mark (vi. 7 f. ; cp.
Luke ix. I
f.) omits the limitation of the mission to
\2/ According to Matthew
(xv.
24), Jesus distinctly says, " I was sent only to the lost sheep of the
house of
In Mark this section
on the
Syro-Phoenician woman is the only passage where the missionary efforts
of Jesus
appear positively restricted to the Jewish people in
Only twice does Mark
make
Jesus allude to the gospel being preached in future throughout the
world: in
the eschatological address (xiii. 10, " The gospel must first be
preached
to all the nations," i.e., before the end arrives), and in the story of
the anointing at Bethany (xiv. 9), where we read: " Wherever this
gospel
shall be preached throughout the whole world, what this woman hath done
shall
be also told, in memory of her." The former passage puts into the life
of
Jesus an historical theologoumenon, which is hardly original. The
latter
excites strong suspicion, not with regard to what precedes it, but in
connection with the saying of Jesus in verses 8-9. It is a hysteron
proteron,
and moreover the solemn assurance is striking. Some obscure controversy
must
underlie the words -- a controversy which turned upon the preceding
scene not
only when it happened, but at a still later date. Was it ever suspected
? \4/
[[40]]
\3/ Here we may also include
the saying; " Pray that your flight occur not on the Sabbath " (Matt.
xxiv. 20). Note further that the parable of the two sons (Malt. xxi. 28
f.)
does not refer to Jews and Gentiles. The labourers in the vineyard
(Matt. xx. I
f.) are not to be taken as Gentiles -- not, at any rate, as the
evangelist
tells the story. Nor are Gentiles to be thought of even in xxii. 9.
\4/ I leave out of account
the
section on the wicked husbandmen, as it says nothing about the Gentile
mission
either in Mark's version (xii. I f.), or in Matthew's (xxi. 33 f.). The
words
of Matt. xxi. 43 ("God's kingdom shall be given to a nation bringing
forth
the fruits thereof") do not refer to the Gentiles; it is the
"nation" as opposed to the official Israel, Mark on purpose speaks
merely of "others," to whom the vineyard is to be given. "On
purpose," I say, for we may see from this very allegory, which can
hardly
have been spoken by Jesus himself (see Julicher's Gleicknissreden ii.
pp. 405
f., though I would not commit myself on the point), how determined Mark
was to
keep the Gentile mission apart from the gospel, and how consistently
Matthew
retains the setting of the latter within the Jewish nation. The parable
invited
the evangelists to represent Jesus making some allusion to the Gentile
mission,
but both of them resisted the invitation (see further, Luke xx. 9 f.).
Wellhausen (on Matt. xxi. 43) also observes: "By the phrase "another
nation' we may understand that Jewish, not simply Gentile, Christians
were so
meant; for ἔθνος
is characterised ethically, not nationally."
These two sayings
are also
given in Matthew \5/ (xxiv. 14, xxvi. 13), who preserves a further
saying which
has the Gentile world in view, yet whose prophetic manner arouses no
suspicion
of its authenticity. In viii. 11 we read: "I tell you, many shall come
from east and west, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in
the
kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out." Why
should not Jesus have said this? Even among the words of John the
Baptist (iii.
9) do we not read: "Think not to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as
our
father; for I tell you, God is able to raise up children for Abraham
out of
these stones " ?
\5/ We may disregard
the
sayings in v. 13-14 ("Ye are the salt of the earth," "Ye are the
light of the world"), as well as the fact that in Mark alone (xi. 17) πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (a citation from Isa. lvi.
7) is added
to the words: "My house shall be a house of prayer." The addition
"emphasizes not the universality of the house of prayer, but simply the
idea of the house of prayer " (Wellhausen).
We conclude, then,
that both
evangelists refrain from inserting any allusion to the Gentile mission
into the
framework of the public preaching of Jesus, apart from the
eschatological
address and the somewhat venturesome expression which occurs in the
story of
the anointing at
All this throws into
more
brilliant relief than ever the words of the risen Jesus in Matt.
xxviii. 19 f.
Matthew must have been fully conscious of the disparity between these
words and
the earlier words of Jesus; nay, more, he must have deliberately chosen
to give
expression to that disparity.\6/ At the time when [[41]]
our gospels were written, a Lord and Saviour who had confined his
preaching to
the Jewish people without even issuing a single command to prosecute
the
universal mission, was an utter impossibility. If no such command had
been issued
before his death, it must have been imparted by him as the glorified
One.
\6/ Unless xxviii. 19 f. is
a
later addition to the gospel. It is impossible to be certain on this
point.
There is a certain subtlety, of which one would fain believe the
evangelist was
incapable, in keeping his Gentile Christian readers, as it were, upon
the rack
with sayings which confined the gospel to
The conclusion,
therefore,
must be that Jesus never issued such a command at all, but that this
version of
his life was due to the historical developments of a later age, the
words being
appropriately put into the mouth of the risen Lord. Paul, too, knew
nothing of
such a general command.\7/
\7/ It is impossible and
quite
useless to argue with those who see nothing but an inadmissible bias in
the
refusal to accept traditions about Jesus eating and drinking and
instructing
his disciples after death.
Luke's standpoint,
as a
reporter of the words of Jesus, does not differ from that of the two
previous
evangelists, a fact which is perhaps most significant of all. He has
delicately
coloured the introductory history with universalism, \8/ while at the
close,
like Matthew, he makes the risen Jesus issue the command to preach the
gospel
to all nations. \9/ But in his treatment of the intervening material he
follows
Mark; that is, he preserves no sayings which expressly confine the
activity of
Jesus to the Jewish nation, \10/ but, on the other hand, he gives
neither word
nor incident which describes that activity as universal, \11/ [[42]] and at no point does he
deliberately correct
the existing tradition.\12/
\8/ Cp. i. 32 ("Son of
the Highest"), ii. 10, 11 ("joy to all people,"
"Saviour"), ii. 14 ("gloria in excelsis"), ii. 32 ("a
light to lighten the Gentiles "), and also (iii. 23 f.) the genealogy
of
Jesus traced back to Adam.
\9/ xxiv. 47, also Acts i. 8
:
"Ye shall be my witnesses both in
\10/ An indirect allusion to
the limitation of his mission might be found in xxii. 30 =Matt. xix. 28
(cp. p.
41), but this meaning need not be read into it.
\11/ All sorts of
unconvincing
attempts have been made to drag this in; e.g., at Peter's take of fish
(v. I
f.), at the Samaritan stories (x. 33 f., xvii. 16), and at the parable
of the
prodigal son (xv, II f. ; cp. Julicher's Gleichn., ii. pp. 333 f,).
Even the
stories of the despatch of the apostles (vi. 13 f.) and the remarkable
commission of the seventy (x. I f.) do not by any means represent the
Gentile
mission. It is by a harmless hysteron
proteron that the twelve are now and then described by Luke as "the
apostles." The programme of the speech at
\12/ The story of the
Syro-Phosnician woman, which stands between the two stories of
miraculous
feeding in Mark and Matthew, was probably quite unknown to Luke. Its
omission
was not deliberate. If he knew it, his omission would have to be
regarded as a
conscious correction of the earlier tradition.
In this connection
the fourth
gospel need not be considered at all. After the Gentile mission, which
had been
undertaken with such ample results during the first two Christian
generations,
the fourth gospel expands the horizon of Christ's preaching and even of
John
the Baptist's ; corresponding to this, it makes the Jews a reprobate
people
from the very outset, despite the historical remark in iv. 22. Even
setting
aside the prologue, we at once come upon (i. 29) the words put into the
mouth
of the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." And, as a whole, the
gospel is saturated with statements of a directly universalistic
character.
Jesus is the Saviour of the world,
and God so loved the world that he
sent him. We may add passages like those upon the "other sheep" and
the one flock (x. l6). But the most significant thing of all is that
this
gospel makes Greeks ask after Jesus (xii. 20 f), the latter furnishing
a formal
explanation of the reasons why he could not satisfy the Greeks as yet.
He must
first of all die. It is as the exalted One that he will first succeed
in
drawing all men to himself. We can
feel here the pressure of a serious problem.
It would be
misleading to
introduce here any sketch of the preaching of Jesus, or even of its
essential
principles,\13/ for it never became the missionary preaching of the
later
period even to the Jews. It was the basis of that preaching, for the
gospels
were written down in order to serve as a means of evangelization; but
the
mission preaching was occupied with the messiahship of Jesus, his
speedy
return, and his establishment of God's kingdom (if Jews were to be
met), or
with the unity of God, creation, the Son of God, and judgment (if
Gentiles were
to be reached). Alongside of this the words of Jesus of course
exercised a
silent and effective mission of their own, whilst the historical
picture
furnished by the gospels, [[43]]
together
with faith in the exalted Christ, exerted a powerful influence over
catechumens
and believers.
\13/ Cp. my lectures on What
is Christianity?
Rightly and wisely,
people no
longer noticed the local and temporal traits either in this historical
sketch
or in these sayings. They found there a vital love of God and men,
which may be
described as implicit universalism; a discounting of everything
external
(position, personality, sex, outward worship, etc.), which made
irresistibly
for inwardness of character; and a protest against the entire doctrines
of
"the ancients," which gradually rendered antiquity valueless. \14/
One of the greatest revolutions in the history of religion was
initiated in
this way -- initiated and effected, moreover, without any revolution!
All that
Jesus Christ promulgated was the overthrow of the temple, and the
judgment
impending upon the nation and its leaders. He shattered Judaism, and
brought
out the kernel of the religion of
\14/ On "The Attitude of
Jesus towards the Old Testament," see the conclusive tractate by E.
Klostermann (1904) under this title. No one who grasps this attitude
upon the
part of Jesus will make unhistorical assertions upon the
"world-mission."
CHAPTER
5
THE
TRANSITION FROM THE JEWISH TO THE GENTILE
"CHRISTI mors potentior erat quam vita.'" The death of Christ was
more effective than his life; it failed to shatter faith in him as one
sent by
God, and hence the conviction of his resurrection arose. He was still
the
Messiah, his disciples held -- for there was no alternative now between
this
and the rejection of his claims. As Messiah, he could not be held of
death. He
must be alive; he must soon return in glory. The disciples became
chosen
members of his kingdom, witnesses and apostles. They testified not only
to his
preaching and his death, but to his resurrection, for they had seen him
and
received his spirit. They became new men. A current of divine life
seized them,
and a new fire was burning in their hearts. Fear, doubt, cowardice --
all this
was swept away. The duty and the right of preaching this Jesus of
Nazareth as
the Christ pressed upon them with irresistible power. How could they
keep
silence when they knew that the new age of the world was come, and that
God had
already begun the redemption of his people? An old tradition (Acts
i.-ii.)
relates that the preaching of the disciples began in
\2/ This early account (in
the
preaching of Peter, cited by Clem., Strom., vi. 5. 43) is of course
untrustworthy ; it pretends to know a word spoken by the Lord to his
disciples,
which ran thus: "After twelve years, go out into the world, lest any
should
say, we have not heard" (μετὰ
ιβ’ ἔτη ἐξέλθετε εἰς τὸν κόσμον, μή τις εἴπῃ · οὐκ
ἠκούσαμεν). But
although the basis of the statement is
apologetic and untrue, it may be right about the twelve years, for in
the Acta
Petri cum Simone, 5, and in Apollonius (in Eus., H.E., v. 18. 14), the
word
(here also a word of the Lord) runs that the apostles were to remain
for twelve
years at Jerusalem, without any mention of the exodus εἰς τὸν κόσμον. Here, too, the "word of
the
Lord" lacks all support, but surely the fact of the disciples remaining
for twelve years in Jerusalem can hardly have been invented. Twelve (or
eleven)
years after the resurrection is a period which is also fixed by other
sources
(see von Dobschutz in Texte u. Unters.,
XI. i. p. 53 f.); indeed it underlies the later calculation of the year
when
Peter died (30+12+25=67 A.D).The statement of the pseudo-Clementine
Recognitions (i.43, ix.29), that the apostles remained seven years in
Jerusalem, stands by itself.
\3/ Acts assumes that during
the opening years the apostles superintended the church in
The
gospel was
at first preached to the Jews exclusively. The
\4/ The parallel mission of
Simon Magus in
\5/ Cp. Joël's
Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte
(Part II., 1883). The course of events in the Palestinian mission may
be made
out from Matt. x. 17 f. : παραδώσουσιν ὑμᾶς
εἰς συνέδρια
καὶ
ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς
αὐτῶν
μαστιγώσουσιν ὑμᾶς
. . . . παραδώσει
δὲ
ἀδελφδς
ἀδελφδν
εἰς
θάνατον
καὶ
πατὴρ
τέκνον
καὶ
ἐπαναστήσονται
τέκνα
ἐπὶ
γονεῖς
καὶ θανατώσουσιν
αὐτούς . . . . ὅταν
δὲ διώκωσιν
ὑμᾶς
ἐν
τῇ
πόλει
ταύτῃ, φεύγετε
εἰς
τὴν
ἑτέραν.
\6/ Hegesippus (in Eus.,
H.E.,
ii. 22) relates this of James. No doubt his account is far from lucid,
but the
repute of James among the Jews may be safely inferred from it.
\7/ Cp. Acts
xxi. 20, where the Christians of Jerusalem address Paul thus: θεωρεῖς,
ἀδελφέ,
πόσαι μυριάδες εἰσὶν
ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις
τῶν
πεπιστευκότων, καὶ
πάντες ζηλωταὶ τοῦ νόμου ὑπάρχουσιν. This
passage at once elucidates and confirms
the main point of Hegesippus' account of James. From one very ancient
tradition
(in a prologue to Mark's gospel, c, 200 A.D.), that when Mark became a
Christian he cut off his thumbs in order to escape serving as a priest,
we may
infer that many a Christian Jew of the priestly class in Jerusalem
still
continued to discharge priestly functions in those primitive days.
\8/ As Weizsacker justly
remarks (Apost. Zeitalter (2), p. 38 ;
\9/ Cp. what
is said of Gamaliel, Acts v. 34 f. For the lower classes, see John vii.
48, 49:
μή τις ἐκ τῶν
ἀρχόντων ἐπίστευσεν
εἰς αὐτὸν
ἤ
ἐκ τῶν
Φαρισαίων; ἀλλὰ
ὁ ὄχλος οὗτος
ὁ μὴ γινώσκων τὸν
νόμον ἐπάρατοί εἰσιν. Yet Acts (vi, 7) brings out
the fact
that priests (a great crowd of them—πολὺς ὄχλος—it is alleged), no less
than Pharisees (xv. 5), also
joined the movement.
But
no sooner
did the Gentile mission, with its lack of restrictions (from the Jewish
point
of view) or laxity of restrictions, become an open fact, than this
period of
toleration, or of spasmodic and not very violent reactions on the part
of
Judaism, had to cease. Severe reprisals followed. Yet the Gentile
mission at
first drove a wedge into the little company of Christians themselves;
it
prompted those who disapproved of it to retire closer to their
non-Christian
brethren. The apostle Paul had to complain of and to contend with a
double
opposition. He was persecuted by Jewish Christians who were zealous for
the
law, no less than by the Jews (so 1 Thess. ii. 15 f., ἐκδιώξάντες
ἡμᾶς . . . . κωλύοντες
ἡμᾶς τοῖς
ἔθνεσιν λαλῆσαι,
ἵνα σωθῶσιν) ; the latter had really
nothing
whatever to do with the Gentile mission, but evidently they did not by
any
means look on with folded arms.
It is not quite
clear how the
Gentile mission arose. Certainly Paul was not the first missionary to
the Gentiles.\10/
But a priori considerations and the details of the evidence alike may
justify
us in concluding that while the transition to the Gentile mission was
gradual,
it was carried out with irresistible energy. Here, too, the whole
ground had
been prepared already, by the inner condition of Judaism, i.e., by the
process
of decomposition within Judaism which made for universalism, as well as
by the
graduated system of the proselytes. To this we have already alluded in
the
first chapter. [[49]]
\10/ Paul never claims in
his
letters to have been absolutely the pioneer of the Gentile mission. Had
it been
so, he certainly would not have failed to mention it. Gal. i. 16 merely
says
that the apostle understood already that his conversion meant a
commission to
the Gentiles; it does not say that this commission was something
entirely new.
Nor need it be concluded that Paul started on this Gentile mission
immediately;
the object of the revelation of God's Son (Ἱνα εὐαγγελίζωμαι αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν) may have been only
disclosed to him
by degrees. All we are to understand is that after his conversion he
needed no
further conflict of the inner man in order to undertake the Gentile
mission.
Nevertheless, it is certain that Paul remains the
Gentile missionary. It was he who really established the duty
and the right of Gentile missions ; it was he who raised the movement
out of
its tentative beginnings into a mission that embraced all the world.
According to Acts
vi. 7
f.,\11/ the primitive Christian community n
\11/ To the author of Acts,
the transition from the Jewish to the Gentile mission, with the
consequent
rejection of Judaism, was a fact of the utmost importance; indeed one
may say
that he made the description of this transition the main object of his
book.
This is proved by the framework of the first fifteen chapters, and by
the
conclusion of the work in xxviii. 23-28 (verses 30-31 being a
postscript).
After quoting from Isa. vi. 9, 10 -- a prophecy which cancels Judaism,
and
which the author sees to be now fulfilled -- he proceeds to make Paul
address
the Jews as follows : γνωστὸν
οὖν ἔστω ὑμῖν ὅτι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ἀπεστάλη τοῦτο τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ · αὐτοὶ
καὶ ἀκούσονται.
This is to affirm, as explicitly as possible, that the gospel
has been
given, not to Jews, but to the nations at large. The above account of
the work
of the Gentile mission rests upon Acts, in so far as I consider its
statements
trustworthy. The author was a Paulinist, but he found much simpler
grounds for
Christian universalism than did Paul; or rather, he needed no grounds
for it at
all -- the gospel being in itself universal -- although he does not
ignore the
fact that at the outset it was preached to none but Jews, and that the
Gentile
mission was long in developing. The internal divisions of Christianity,
moreover, are scarcely noticed.
\12/ Acts vi. 5 (Νικόλαον προσήλυτον) shows that there were also
Christians
in
\13/ See Weizsacker, Apost. Zeitalter (2), pp. 51 f. ;
\14/ Particularly when it
had
been profaned over and over again by a secularized priesthood.
\15/ At this point it may be
also recalled that Jesus himself foretold the overthrow of the temple.
With
Weizsacker (op. cit., p.
53; Eng. Trans., i. 65) I consider that saying of our Lord is genuine.
It
became the starting-point of an inner development in his disciples
which
finally led up to the Gentile mission. Cp. Wellhausen's commentary on
the
synoptic gospels for a discussion of the saying's significance.
When Stephen was
stoned, he
died, like Huss, for a cause whose issues he probably did not foresee.
It is
not surprising that he was stoned, for orthodox Judaism could least
afford to
tolerate this kind of believer in Jesus. His adherents were also [[51]] persecuted -- the grave
peril of the little
company of Christians being thus revealed in a flash. All except the
apostles
(Acts viii. 1) had to leave
\16/ This seems to me an
extremely important fact, which at the same time corroborates the
historical
accuracy of Acts at this point. Evidently the Christians at this period
were
persecuted with certain exceptions ; none were disturbed whose devotion
to the
temple and the law was unimpeachable, and these still included Peter
and the
rest of the apostles. Acts makes it perfectly plain that it was only at
a
later, though not much later, period that Peter took his first step
outside
strict Judaism. Weizsacker's reading of the incident is different (op.
cit.,
pp. 60 f. ; Eng. trans., i. 75). He holds that the first step was taken
at this
period ; but otherwise he is right in saying that "it is obvious that
nothing was so likely to create and strengthen this conviction (viz.,
that the
future, the salvation to be obtained in the kingdom itself, could no
longer
rest upon the obligations of the law) as Pharisaic attacks prompted by
the view
that faith in Jesus and his kingdom was prejudicial to the inviolable
duration
of the law, and to belief in its power of securing salvation. The
persecution,
therefore, liberated the Christian faith ; it was the means by which it
came to
know itself. And in this sense it was not without its fruits in the
primitive
church."
Still, a single case
is not
decisive, and even the second case of this kind, that of Peter
baptizing the
"God-fearing" (φοβούμενος)
Cornelius at
\17/ At least the importance
did not lie in the direction in which the author of Acts looked to find
it.
Still, the case was one of great moment in this sense, that it forced
Peter to
side at last with that theory and practice which had hitherto (see the
note
above) been followed by none save the friends of Stephen (excluding the
primitive apostles). The conversion of the Caesarean officer led Peter,
and
with Peter a section of the church at
The next step, a
much more decisive
one, was taken at
\18/ No names are
given in
the second passage, but afterwards (xiii. l) Barnabas the Cypriote,
Simeon
\19/ So Acts x. 20, reading Ἕλληνες, not Ἑλληνίσται. It
is not surprising that the Gentile
Christian mission began in Antioch. It was only in the international,
levelling
society of a great city that such a movement could originate, or rather
propagate itself, so far as it was not hampered by any new restriction
in the
sphere of principle. Most probably those early missionaries were nut so
hampered. It is very remarkable that there is no word of any opposition
between
Jewish and Gentile Christians at
\20/ All allusions to
The converted Greeks
in
Antioch, Syria, arid Cilicia (to which , Barnabas and Paul presently
extended
their mission), during this initial period were by no means drawn
wholly from
those who had been "God-fearing'' (φοβούμενοι) already, although this may
have been
the origin of a large number. \21/ At any rate a church was founded at
\21/ Cp. Havet, Le
christianisme, vol. iv. p. 102 : "Je ne
\22/ Details on the name of
"Christian" in Book III. The theological vocabulary of Gentile
Christianity, so far as it needed one, must also have arisen in
The Gentile
Christian churches
of
\23/ Cp. the narrative of
Acts
xi. 29 f., xii. 25, regarding a collection which the recently founded
church at
\24/ With regard to the
sacrificial system, the right of abandoning the literal meaning had
been
clearly made out, as that system had already become antiquated and
depreciated
in the eyes of large sections of people. The rest of the law followed
as a
matter of course.
\25/ The post-apostolic
literature shows with particular clearness that this was the popular
view taken
by the Gentile Christians ; so that it must have maintained its vogue,
despite
the wide and powerful divergences of Paul's own teaching.
The apostle Paul,
however,
could not settle his position towards the law with such simplicity. For
him no
part of the law had been depreciated in value by any noiseless,
disintegrating
influence of time or circumstances; on the contrary, the law remained
valid and
operative in all its provisions. It could not be abrogated save by him
who had
ordained it -- i.e., by God himself. Nor could even God abolish it save
by
affirming at the same time its rights -- i.e., he must abolish it just
by
providing for its fulfilment. And this was what actually took place. By
the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's Son, upon the cross, the
law was
at once fulfilled and abolished. Whether all this reflection and
speculation
was secondary and [[55]]
derivative
(resulting from the possession of the Spirit and the new life which the
apostle
felt within himself), or primary (resulting from the assurance that his
sins
were forgiven), or whether these two sources coalesced, is a question
which
need not occupy us here. The point is, that Paul was convinced that the
death
and resurrection of Christ had inaugurated the new age. "The future is
already present, the Spirit reigns.'" Hereby he firmly and
unhesitatingly
recognized the gospel to be the new level of religion, just as he also
felt
himself to be a new creature. The new religious level was the level of
the
Spirit and regeneration, of grace and faith, of peace and liberty;
below and
behind it lay everything old, including all the earlier revelations of
God,
since these were religions pertaining to the state of sin. This it was
which
enabled Paul, Jew and Pharisee as he was, to venture upon the great
conception
with which he laid the basis of any sound philosophy of religion and of
the
whole science of comparative religion, viz., the collocation of the
"natural"' knowledge of God possessed by man (i.e., all that had
developed in man under the sway of conscience) with the law of the
chosen
people (Rom. 1 f.). Both, Paul held, were revelations of God, though in
different ways and of different values; both represented what had been
hitherto
the supreme possession of mankind. Yet both had proved inadequate; they
had
aggravated sin, and had ended in death.
Now a new religion
was in
force. This meant that the Gentile mission was not a possibility but a
duty,
whilst freedom from the law was not a concession but the distinctive
and
blissful form which the gospel assumed for men. Its essence consisted
in the
fact that it was not law in any sense of the term, but grace and a free
gift.
The Christian who had been born a Jew might have himself circumcised
and keep
the law -- which would imply that he considered the Jewish nation had
still
some valid part to play \26/ in the world-wide plan of God. But even
so, there
was nothing in the law to secure the bliss [[56]]
of the Jewish Christian; and as for the Gentile Christian, he was not
allowed
either to practice circumcision or to keep the law. In his case, such
conduct
would have meant that Christ had died in vain.
\26/ However, as Christians
of
Jewish birth had, in Paul's view, to live and eat side by side with
Gentile
Christians, the observance of the law was broken down at one very vital
point.
It was only Paul's belief in the nearness of the advent that may have
prevented
him from reflecting further on this problem.
Thus it was that
Paul preached
the crucified Christ to the Gentiles, and not only established the
principle of
the Gentile mission, but made it a reality. The work of his
predecessors, when
measured by his convictions, was loose and questionable; it seemed to
reach the
same end as he did, but it was not entirely just to the law or to the
gospel.
Paul wrecked the religion of
Historically, Paul
the
Pharisee dethroned the people and the [[57]]
religion of
\27/ Little wonder that Jews
of a later day declared he was a pagan in disguise: cp. Epiph. Haer.,
xxx. 16: καὶ τοῦ Παύλου
κατηγοροῦντες
οὐκ αἰσχύνονται ἐπιπλάστοις
τισὶ τῆς τῶν
ψευδαποστόλων αὐτῶν
κακουργίας
καὶ
πλάνης
λόγοις
πεποιημένοις. Ταρσέα
μὲν
αὐτόν, ὡς
αὐτὸς
ὁμολογεῖ
καὶ
οὐκ
ἀρνεῖται, λέγοντες
ἐξ
Ἑλλήνων
δὲ
αὐτὸν
ὐποτίθενται,
λαβόντες
τὴν
προφάσιν
ἐκ
τοῦ
τόπου
διὰ
τὸ
φιλάληθες
ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ
ῥηθὲν, ὅτι, Ταρσεύς
εἰμι, οὐκ
ἀσήμου
πόλεως
πολίτης. εἶτα
φάσκουσιν
αὐτὸν
εἶναι
Ἕλληνα
καὶ
Ἑλληνίδος
μητρὸς
καὶ
Ἕλληνος
πατρὸς
παῖδα, ἀναβεβηκέναι
δὲ
εἰς
Ἱεροσόλυμα
καὶ
χρόνον
ἐκεῖ
μεμενηκέναι
ἐπιτεθυμηκέναι
δὲ
θυγατέρα
τοῦ
ἱερέως
πρὸς
γάμον
ἀγαγέσθαι
καὶ
τούτου
ἕνεκα
προσήλυτον
γενέσθαι
καὶ
περιτμηθῆναι,
εἶτα
μὴ
λαβόντα
τὴν
κόρην
ὠργίσθαι
καὶ
κατὰ
περιτομῆς
γεγραφέναι
καὶ
κατὰ
σαββάτου
καὶ
νομοθεσίας. (" Nor are they ashamed to
accuse
Paul with false charges concocted by the villainy and fraud of these
false
apostles. While a native of Tarsus (as he himself frankly admits) they
avow
that he was born of Greek parentage, taking as their pretext for this
assertion
the passage in which Paul's love of truth leads him to declare, ' I am
of
Tarsus, a citizen of no mean city.' Whereupon they allege that he was
the son
of a Greek father and a Greek mother; that he went up to Jerusalem,
where he
resided for some time; that he resolved to marry the daughter of the
high
priest, and consequently became a proselyte and got circumcised ; and
that on
failing to win the girl, he vented his anger in writing against
circumcision
and the sabbath and the Mosaic legislation ").
\28/ No one has stated the
issues of this transplanting more sublimely than Luke in his narrative
of the
birth of Jesus (Luke ii.), especially in the words which he puts into
the mouth
of the angel and the angels.
\29/Cp. the speeches of
Jesus
when he sent out the disciples on their missions, and also the great
eschatological discourse in the synoptic gospels.
\30/ Justin
(Dial, xvii. ; cp. cviii., cxvii.), after making out that the Jews were
responsible for the calumnies against the Christians, observes that the
Jewish
authorities in Jerusalem despatched ἄνδρας ἐκλεκτοὺς
ἀπὸ Ἰερουσαλὴμ
εἰς πᾶσαν
τὴν
γῆν, λέγοντας
αἵρεσιν
ἄθεον
Χριστιανῶν
πεφηνέναι, καταλέγοντας
ταῦτα, ἅπερ
καθ’
ἡμῶν
οἱ
ἀγνοοῦντες
ἡμᾶς
πάντες
λέγουσιν, ὥστε
οὐ
μόνον
ἑαντοῖς
ἀδικίας
αἴτιοι
ὑπάρχετε, ἀλλὰ
καὶ
τοῖς
ἄλλοις
ἅπασιν
ἁπλῶς
ἀνθρώποις ("Chosen men from Jerusalem
into
every land, declaring that a. godless sect of Christians had appeared,
and
uttering everything that those who are ignorant of us say unanimously
against
us. So that you are the cause not only of your own unrighteousness, but
also of
that of all other men"). Cp. cxvii. : τοῦ
υἱοῦ
τοῦ θεοῦ ὄνομα
βεβηλωθῆναι κατὰ πᾶσαν
τὴν γῆν καὶ βλασφημεῖσθαι
οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς
τοῦ λαοῦ ὑμῶν
καὶ
διδάσκαλοι εἰργάσαντο ("The name of the Son of
God have
the chief priests of your nation and your teachers caused to be
profaned
throughout all the earth and to be blasphemed"). Also cviii. : ἄνδρας
χειροντονήσαντες
ἐκλεκτοὺς
εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν
οἰκουμένην ἐπέμψατε,
κηρύσσοντας ὅτι
ἅιρεσις τις ἄθεος
καὶ ἄνομος ἐγήγερται
ἀπὸ Ἰησοῦ
τινος
Γαλιλαίου
πλάνου, ὃν
σταυρωσάντων
ἡμῶν
οἱ
μαθηταὶ
αὐτοῦ
ἀπὸ
τοῦ
μνήματος
νυκτός . . . . πλανῶσι
τοὺς
ἀνθρώπους
λέγοντες
ἐγηγέρθαι
αὐτὸν
ἐκ
νεκρῶν
καὶ
εἰς
οὐρανὸν
ἀνεληλυθέναι, κατειπόντες
δεδιδαχέναι
καὶ
ταῦτα
ἅπερ
κατὰ
τῶν
ὁμολογούντων
Χριστὸν
καὶ
διδάσκαλον
καὶ
υἱὸν
θεοῦ
εἶναι
παντὶ
γένει
ἀνθρώπων
ἄθεα
καὶ
ἄνομα
καὶ
ἀνόσια
λέγετε
("You
have
sent chosen and appointed men into all the world to proclaim that ' a
godless
and lawless sect has arisen from a certain Jesus, a Galilean impostor,
whom we
crucified ; his disciples, however, stole him by night from the tomb
.... and
now deceive people by asserting that he rose from the dead and ascended
into
heaven.' You accuse him of having taught the godless, lawless, and
unholy
doctrines which you bring forward against those who acknowledge him to
be
Christ, a teacher from God, and the Son of God"). For the cursing of
Christians in the synagogues, cp. Dial. xvi. (also the words οὐκ ἐξουσίας ἔχετε αὐτόχειρες γενέσθαι ἡμῶν διὰ τοὺς νῦν ἐπικρατοῦντας, ὁσάκις δὲ ἂν ἐδύνητε, καὶ τοῦτο ἐπαάξατε= “You have no power of
yourselves to
lay hands on us, thanks to your overlords [i.e., the Romans], but you
have done
so whenever you could"), xlvii., xciii., xcv.-xcvi., cviii., cxvii.,
cxxxvii., where Juslin declares that the rulers of the synagogue
arranged for
the cursing of Christians μετὰ
τὴν προσευχὴν (after prayers) during the
course of
public worship (the pagan proselytes of Judaism being even more hostile
to
Christians than the Jews themselves, cxxii.); Jerome on Isa. lii. 2;
Epiph.,
Har., xxix. 9; Apol.,
\31/ In this connection one
must also note the Christian use of ἔθνη ("gentes," "Gentiles"). In
the Old
Testament the ἔθνη
are opposed to the people of
But the Jewish
Christians also
entered the arena. They issued from
\32/ We may conjecture that
originally there were also Jewish Christian communities in the Diaspora
(not
simply a Jewish Christian set inside Gentile Christian communities),
and that
they were not confined even to the provinces bordering on Palestine.
But in
By adopting an
intercourse
with Gentile Christians, this Jewish Christianity did away with itself,
and in
the second period of his labours Peter ceased to be a "Jewish
Christian." \33/. [[62]]
He became a
Greek. Still, two Jewish Christian parties continued to exist. One of
these
held by the agreement of the apostolic council; it gave the Gentile
Christians
its blessing, but held aloof from them in actual life. The other
persisted in
fighting the
\33/ Cp. Pseudo-Clem., Hom,
XI. xvi.: ἔὰν
ὁ ἀλλόφυλος τὸν νόμος πράξῃ, Ἰουδαῖός ἐστιν, μὴ πράξας δὲ Ἰουδαῖος Ἕλλην ("If one of other nation
observe
the law, he is a Jew ; the Jew who does not observe it is a Greek").
His
labours in the mission-field must have brought him to tlie side of Paul
(cp.
Clem. Rom., v.), else his repute in the Gentile Christian church would
be
inexplicable; but we have no detailed information on this point.
Incidentally
we hear of him being at
\34/ Individual efforts of
propaganda
were not, however, awanting. Such include the origins of the
pseudo-Clementine
literature, Symmachus and his literary efforts towards the close of the
second
century, and also that Elkesaite Alcibiades of Apamea in
\35/ The turn of affairs is
seen in Justin's Dial, xlvii. Gentile
Christians for a long while ceased to lay down any fresh conditions,
but they
deliberated whether they could recognize Jewish Christians as Christian
brethren, and if so, to what extent. They acted in this matter with
considerable rigour.
Before long the
relations of
Jewish Christians to their kinsmen the Jews also took a turn for the
worse --
that is, so far as actual relations existed between them at all. It was
the
destruction of
\36/ We do not know when
Jewish Christians broke off, or were forced to break off, from all
connection with
the synagogues ; we can only conjecture that if such connections lasted
till
about 70 A.D., they ceased then.
\37/
Epiphanius (xxix. 9): οὐ μόνον οἱ
τῶν Ἰουδαίων παῖδες
πρὸς τούτους
κέκτηνται μῖσος, ἀλλὰ
ἀνιστάμενοι
ἕωθεν
καὶ μέσης ἡμέρας καὶ
περὶ τὴν ἑσπέραν,
τρίς τῆς
ἡμέρας, ὅτε εὐχὰς
ἐπιτελοῦσιν ἐν
ταῖς αὐτὼν
συναγωγαῖς
ἐπαρῶνται αὐτοῖς
καὶ ἀναθεματίζουσι
φάσκοντες
ὅτι · Ἐπικαταράσαι
ὁ θεὸς τοὺς
Ναζωραίους. καὶ
γὰρ
τούτοις
περισσότερον
ἐνέχουσι, διὰ
τὸ
ἀπὸ
Ἰουδαίων
αὐτοὺς
ὄντας
Ἰησοῦν
κηρύσσειν
εἶναι
Χριστόν,
ὅπερ
ἐστὶν
ἐναντίον
πρὸς
τοὺς
ἔτι
Ἰουδαίους
τοὺς
Χριστὸν
μὴ
δεξαμένους
("Not
merely are they visited with
hatred at the hands of Jewish children, but rising at dawn, at noon,
and
eventide, when they perform their orisons in their synagogues, the Jews
curse
them and anathematize them, crying ' God curse the Nazarenes !' For,
indeed,
they are assailed all the more bitterly because, being themselves of
Jewish
origin, they proclaim Jesus to be the Messiah -- in opposition to the
other
Jews who reject Christ").
\38/ Epiphanius (loc. cit.)
says of them : Ἰουδαῖοι
μᾶλλον
καὶ
οὐδὲν
ἕτερον
· πάνυ
δὲ
οὗτοι
ἐχθροὶ
τοῖς
Ἰουδαίοις
ὑπάρχουσιν (" They are Jews more than
anything else, and yet they are detested by the Jews").
There is hardly any
fact which
deserves to be turned over and thought over so much as this, that the
religion
of Jesus has never been able to root itself in Jewish or even Semitic
soil
\39/. Certainly there must have been, and certainly there must be
still, some
clement in this religion which is allied to the greater freedom of the
Greek
spirit. In one sense Christianity has really remained Greek down to the
present
day. The forms it acquired on Greek soil have been modified, but they
have
never been laid aside within the church at large, not even within
Protestantism
itself. And what an ordeal this religion under-went in the tender days
of its
childhood! "Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred unto a
land
that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation." Islam
rose
in
\39/ The Syrians are a
certain
exception to this rule ; yet how markedly was the Syrian church
Grecized, even
although it retained its native language !
\40/ The gospel allied
itself,
in a specially intimate way, to Hellenism, but not exclusively, during
the
period of which we are speaking; on the contrary, the greatest stress
was laid
still, as by Paul of old, upon the fact that all
peoples were called, and the gospel accepted by members of all
nations. Certainly the Greeks ranked
as primi inter pares, and the esteem
in which they were held was bound to increase just as tradition came to
be
emphasized, since it was neither possible nor permissible as yet to
trace back
the latter to the Jews (from the middle of the sec6nd century onwards,
the
appeal of tradition to the church of Jerusalem was not to a Jewish, but
to a
Greek church). In this sense, even the Latins felt themselves secondary
as
compared with the Greeks, but it was not long before the Roman church
understood how to make up for this disadvantage. In the Easter
controversy,
about the year 190 A.D., certain rivalries between the Greeks and
Latins
emerged for the first time ; but such differences were provincial, not
national, for the Roman church at that period was still predominantly
Greek.
Paul
is only
responsible in part for the sharp anti-Judaism [[65]]
which developed within the very earliest phases of Gentile
Christianity. Though
he held that the day of the Jews (πᾶσιν
ἀνθρώποις ἐναντίων, 1 Thess. ii. 15) was past
and gone,
yet he neither could nor would believe in a final repudiation of God's
people;
on that point his last word is said in Rom. xi. 25, 29: -- οὐ
θελω ὑμᾶς
ἀγνοεῖν τὸ
μυστήριον τοῦτο, ὅτι πώρωσις
ἀπὸ
μέρους τῷ Ἰσραὴλ
γέγονεν ἄχρις οὗ τὸ
πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν
εἰσέλθῃ, καὶ
οὕτως πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ
σωθήσεται . . ἀμεταμέλητα
γὰρ
τὰ χαρίσματα
καὶ
ἡ κλῆσις τοῦ
θεοῦ.
In this sense Paul remained a Jewish Christian to the end. The duality
of
mankind (Jews and “nations”) remained, in a way, intact, despite the
one
But this standpoint
remained a
Pauline idiosyncrasy. When people had recourse, as the large majority
of Christians
had, simply to the allegorical method in order to emancipate themselves
from
the letter, and even from the contents, of Old Testament religion, the
Pauline
view had no attraction for them ; in fact it was quite inadmissible,
since the
legitimacy of the allegorical conception, and inferentially the
legitimacy of
the Gentile church in general, was called in question, if the Pauline
view held
good at any single point. \41/ If the people of Israel retained a
single
privilege, if a single special promise still had any meaning
whatsoever, if
even one letter had still to remain in force -- how could the whole of
the Old
Testament be spiritualized ? How could it all be transferred to another
people?
The result of this mental attitude was the conviction that the Jewish [[66]] people was now rejected:
it was Ishmael, not
Isaac; Esau, not Jacob. Yet even this verdict did not go far enough. If
the
spiritual meaning of the Old Testament is the correct one, and the
literal
false, then (it was argued) the former was
correct from the very first, since what was false yesterday cannot
be true
today. Now the Jewish people from the first persisted in adhering to
the
literal interpretation, practicing circumcision, offering bloody
sacrifices,
and observing the regulations concerning food; consequently they were
always in
error, an error which shows that they
never were the chosen people. The chosen people throughout was the
Christian people, which always existed in a sort of latent condition
(the
younger brother being really the elder), though it only came to light
at first
with Christ. From the outset the Jewish people had lost the promise;
indeed it
was a question whether it had ever been meant for them at all. In any case the literal interpretation of
God's revealed will proved that the people had been forsaken by God and
had
fallen under the sway of the devil. As this was quite clear, the final
step had
now to be taken, the final sentence had now to be pronounced: the Old Testament, from cover to cover, has
nothing whatever to do with the Jews. Illegally and insolently the
Jews had
seized upon it; they had confiscated it, and tried to claim it as their
own
property. They had falsified it by their expositions and even by
corrections
and omissions. Every Christian must therefore deny them the possession
of the
Old Testament. It would be a sin for Christians to say, " This book
belongs to us and to the Jews.'1'' No; the
book belonged from the outset, as it belongs now and evermore, to none
but
Christians, \42/ whilst Jews are the worst, the most godless and
God-forsaken, of all nations upon earth, \43/ the devil's own people,
Satan's
synagogue, [[67]] a
fellowship of
hypocrites.\44/ They are stamped by their crucifixion of the Lord.\45/
God has
now brought them to an open ruin, before the eyes of all the world;
their
temple is burnt, their city destroyed, their commonwealth shattered,
their
people scattered -- never again is Jerusalem to be frequented. \46/ It
may be
questioned, therefore, whether God still desires this people to be
converted at
all, and whether he who essays to win a single Jew is not thereby
interfering
unlawfully with his punishment. But the fact is, this people will not
move; so
that by their obstinacy and hostility to Christ, they relieve
Christians from having
to answer such a question.
\41/ As the post-apostolic
literature shows, there were wide circles in which Paul's doctrine of
the law
and the old covenant was never understood, and consequently was never
accepted.
\42/ It was an inconvenient
fact that the book had not been taken from the Jews, who still kept and
used
it; but pseudo-Justin (Cohort, xiii.)
gets over this by explaining that the Jews' retention of the Old
Testament was
providential. They preserved the Old Testament, so that it might afford
a
refutation of the pagan opponents who objected to Christianity on
account of
its forgeries {i.e., the prophecies). In his Dialogue, Justin, however,
charges
the Jews with falsifying the Old Testament in an anti-Christian sense.
His
proofs are quite flimsy.
\43/ Justin, for example,
looks on the Jews not more but less favourably than on the heathen (cp.
Apol.,
\44/ Cp. Rev. ii. 9, iii. 9,
Did. viii., and the treatment of the Jews in the Fourth Gospel and the
Gospel
of Peter. Barnabas (ix. 4) declares that a wicked angel had seduced
them from
the very first. In 2 Clem. ii. 3, the Jews are called οἱ δοκοῦντες ἔχειν θεόν (" they that seem to have
God"); similarly in the Preaching of Peter (Clem., Strom., vi. 5.
41): ἐκεῖνοι μόνοι οἰόμενοι τὸν θεὸν γιγνώσκειν οὐκ ἐπίστανυαι ("They suppose they alone
know God, but they do not
understand him").
\45/ Pilate was more and
more
exonerated.
\46/ Cp. Tertull, Apol. xxi. : dispersi, palabundi et soli
et caeli sui extorres vagantur per orbem sine homine, sine deo rege,
quibus nee
advenarum iure terram patriam saltim vestigio salutare conceditur
("Scattered, wanderers, exiles from their own land and clime, they roam
through the world without a human or a divine king, without so much as
a
stranger's right to set foot even in their native land ").
This was the
attitude
consistently adopted by the Gentile church towards Judaism. Their
instinct of
self-preservation and their method of justifying their own
appropriation of the
Old Testament, chimed in with the ancient antipathy felt by the Greeks
and
Romans to the Jews. Still, \47/ it was not everyone who ventured to
draw the
final conclusions of the epistle of Barnabas (iv. 6. f., xiv. 1 f.).
Most
people admitted vaguely that in earlier days a special relation existed
between
God and his people, though at the same time all the Old Testament
promises were
referred even by them to Christian people. While Barnabas held the
literal
observance of the law to prove a seduction of the devil to which the
Jewish
people had succumbed, \48/ [[68]]
the
majority regarded circumcision as a sign appointed by God; \49/ they
recognized
that the literal observance of the law was designed and enjoined by God
for the
time being, although they held that no righteousness ever emanated from
it.
Still even they held that the spiritual sense was the one true meaning,
which
by a fault of their own the Jews had misunderstood ; they considered
that the
burden of the ceremonial law was an educational necessity, to meet the
stubbornness and idolatrous tendencies of the nation (being, in fact, a
safeguard of monotheism) ; and, finally, they interpreted the sign of
circumcision in such a way that it appeared no longer as a favour, but
rather
as a mark of the judgment to be executed on Israel. \50/
\47/ For what follows see my
Lehrbuch der Dogniengeschiclite,
\48/ Cp. Barn. ix. f. The
attitude of Barnabas to the Old Testament is radically misunderstood if
one
imagines that his expositions in vi.-x. can be passed over as the
result of
oddity and caprice, or set aside as destitute of any moment or method.
Not a
sentence in this section lacks method, and consequently there is no
caprice at
all. The strictly spiritual conception of God in Barnabas, and the
conviction
that all (Jewish) ceremonies are of the devil, made his expositions of
Scripture a matter of course ; so far from being mere ingenious fancies
to this
author's mind, they were essential to him, unless the Old Testament was
to be
utterly abandoned. For example, the whole authority of the Old
Testament would
have collapsed for Barnabas, unless he had succeeded in finding some
fresh
interpretation of the statement that Abraham circumcised his servants.
This he
manages to do by combining it with another passage from Genesis ; he
then
discovers in the narrative, not circumcision at all, but a prophecy of
the
crucified Christ (ix.).
\49/ Barn. ix. 6: ἀλλ’ ἐρεῖς· καὶ
μὴν περιτέτμηται ὁ λαὸς εἰς σφραγῖδα ("But thou wilt say, this
people
hath been certainly circumcised for a seal"). This remark is put into
the
mouth of an ordinary Gentile Christian ; the author himself does not
agree with
it.
\50/ Cp. Justin's Dial. xvi., xviii., xx., xxx., xl.-xlvi.
He lays down these three findings side by side: (l) that the ceremonial
laws
were an educational measure on the part of God to counteract the
stubbornness
of the people, who were prone to apostatize; (2) that, as in the case
of
circumcision, they were meant to differentiate the people in view of
the future
judgment which was to be executed according to divine appointment; and
(3)
finally, that the Jewish worship enacted by the ceremonial law
exhibited the peculiar
depravity and iniquity of the people. Justin, however, viewed the
decalogue as
the natural law of reason, and therefore as definitely distinct from
the
ceremonial law.
\50/ This is the prevailing
view
of all the sub-apostolic writers. Christians are the true
Such an injustice as
that done
by the Gentile church to Judaism is almost unprecedented in the annals
of
history. The Gentile church stripped it of everything; she took away
its sacred
book; herself but a transformation of Judaism, she cut off all
connection with
the parent religion. The daughter first robbed her mother, and then
repudiated
her! But, one may ask, is this view really correct? Undoubtedly it is,
to some
extent, and it is perhaps impossible to force anyone to give it up. But
viewed
from a higher standpoint, the facts acquire a different complexion. By
their
rejection of Jesus, the Jewish people disowned their calling and dealt
the
death-blow to their own existence; their place was taken by Christians
as the
new People, who appropriated the whole tradition of Judaism, giving [[70]] a fresh interpretation
to any unserviceable
materials in it, or else allowing them to drop. As a matter of fact,
the
settlement was not even sudden or unexpected; what was unexpected was
simply
the particular form which the settlement assumed. All that Gentile
Christianity
did was to complete a process which had in fact commenced long ago
within
Judaism itself, viz., the process by which the Jewish religion was
being
inwardly emancipated and transformed into a religion for the world.
About 140 A.D. the
transition
of Christianity to the "Gentiles," with its emancipation from
Judaism, was complete.\52/ It was only learned opponents among the
Greeks and
the Jews themselves, who still reminded Christians that, strictly
speaking,
they mast be Jews. After the fall of
\52/ Forty years later
Irenaeus was therefore in a position to treat the Old Testament and its
real
religion with much greater freedom, for by that time Christians had
almost
ceased to feel that their possession of the Old Testament was seriously
disturbed by Judaism. Thus Irenaeus was able even to repeat the
admission that
the literal observance of the Old Testament in earlier days was right
and holy.
The Fathers of the ancient Catholic church, who followed him, went
still
further: on one side they approximated again to Paulinism; but at the
same
time, on every possible point, they moved still further away from the
apostle
than the earlier generations had done, since they understood his
anti-legalism
even less, and had also to defend the Old Testament against the
gnostics. Their
candid recognition of a literal sense in the Old Testament was due to
the
secure consciousness of their own position over against Judaism, but it
was the
result even more of their growing passion for the laws and institutions
of the
Old Testament cultus.
\53/ Attempts of the Jews to
seduce Christians into apostasy are mentioned in literature, but not
very often
; cp. Serapion's account quoted by Eusebius (H.E. vi. 12), and Acta
Pionii
(xiii., with a Jewish criticism of Christ as a suicide and a sorcerer).
\54/ The half-finished,
hybrid
products of Jewish propaganda throughout the empire were transmuted
into
independent and attractive forms of religion, far surpassing the
synagogues. It
was only natural that the former had at once to enter into the keenest
conflict
with the latter.
One thing, however,
remained
an enigma. Why had Jesus appeared among the Jews, instead of among the
"nations"? \55/ [[71]]
This was a
vexing problem. The Fourth Gospel (see above, p. 42), it is important
to
observe, describes certain Greeks as longing to see Jesus (xii. 20 f.),
and the
words put into the mouth of Jesus on that occasion \56/ are intended to
explain
why the Saviour did not undertake the Gentile mission. The same
evangelist
makes Jesus say with the utmost explicitness (x. 16), "And other sheep
I
have which are not of this fold ; them also I must bring, and they
shall hear
my voice." He himself is to bring them. The mission which his disciples
carry out, is thus his mission; it is just as if he drew them himself.
\57/
Indeed his own power is still to work in them, as he is to send them
the Holy
Spirit to lead them into all the truth, communicating to them a wisdom
which
had hitherto lain unrevealed.
\55/ That Jesus himself
converted many people ἐν
τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ is asserted only by a
comparatively
late and unauthentic remark in Josephus.
\56/'' The hour has come for
the Son of man to be glorified. Verily, verily, I say to you, unless
the grain
of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it abides by itself alone; but
if it
die it bears much fruit. .... A voice then came from heaven, 'I have
glorified,
and I will glorify it again.'.... Jesus said, 'This voice has come, not
for my
sake but for yours; now is the judgment of this world, now shall the
prince of
this world be cast out. Yet when Ι am lifted
tip from the earth, I will
draw all men to myself,'
"
\57/
Naturally, there was not entire and universal satisfaction with this
explanation. Even legend did not venture in those early days to change
the
locale of Jesus to the midst of paganism, but already Magi from the
East were
made to come to the child Jesus and worship him, after a star had
announced his
birth to all the world (Matt. ii.); angels at the birth of Jesus
announced
tidings of great joy to "all peoples" (Luke ii.); and when that star
appeared, says Ignatius (ad Eph.,
xix.), its appearance certified that '' All sorcery was dissolved and
every
wicked spell vanished, ignorance was overthrown and the old kingdom was
destroyed, when God appeared in human guise unto newness of eternal
life. Then
that which had been prepared within God's counsels began to take
effect. Thence
were all things perturbed, because the abolition of death was being
undertaken”
(ἐλύετο πᾶσα μαγεία,
καὶ
πᾶς
δεσμὸς
ἠφανίζετο
κακίας,
ἄγνοια
καθῃρεῖτο, παλαιὰ
βασιλεία
διεφθείρετο, θεοῦ
ἀνθρωπίνως
φανερουμένου
εἰς
καινότητα
ἀϊδίου
ζωῆς
· ἀρχὴν
δὲ
ἐλάμβανεν
τὸ
παρὰ
θεῷ
ἀπηρτισμένον. ἔνθεν
τὰ
πάντα
συνεκινεῖτο
διὰ
τὸ
μελετᾶσθαι
θανάτου
κατάλυσιν). The
Christians of Edessa were still more venturesome. They declared in the
third
century that Jesus had corresponded with their king Abgar, and cured
him.
Eusebius (H.E., i. ad fin.) thought this tale of great importance ; it
seemed
to him a sort of substitute for any direct work of Jesus among pagans.
One consequence of
this
attitude of mind was that the twelve were regarded as a sort of
personal
multiplication of Christ himself, while the Kerugma (or outline and
essence of
Christian preaching) came to include the dispatch of the twelve into
all the
world -- i.e., to include the Gentile mission as a command of [[72]] Jesus himself. Compare
the Apology of Aristides (ii.); Just., Apol.,
\58/ Harvey
II. p. 494 : οὗτος [ὁ
χριστὸς] ἐν τῇ
καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς,
ἐν χώματι
κρυβεὶς
καὶ τριημέρῳ μέγιστον
δένδρον
γεννηθεὶς,
ἐξέτεινε
τοὺς
ἑαυτοῦ
κλάδους
εἰς
τὰ
πέρατα
τῆς
γῆς.
ἐκ
τούτου
προκύψαντες
οἱ
ιβ’ ἀπόστολοι,
κλάδοι
ὡραῖοι, καὶ
εὐθαλεῖς
γενηθέντες
σκέπη
ἐγγενήθησαν
τοῖς
ἔθνεσιν,
ὡς
πετεινοῖς
οὐρανοῦ, ὑφ’ ὧν
κλάδων
σκεπασθέντες
οἱ
πάντες, ὡς
ὄρνεα
ὑπὸ
καλιὰν
συνελθόντα
μετέλαβον
τῆς
ἐξ
αὐτῶν
προερχομένης
ἐδωδίμου
καὶ
ἐπουρανίον
τροφῆς=“Within the heart of the
earth, hidden in the tomb, he
became in three days the greatest of all trees [Iren. Had previously
compared
Christ to the seed of corn in Luke xiii. 19], and stretched out his
branches to
the ends of the earth. His outstretched branches, waxing ripe and
fresh, even
the twelve apostles, became a shelter for the birds of heaven, even for
the
nations. By these branches all were shadowed, like birds gathered in a
nest,
and partook of the food and heavenly nourishment which came forth from
them."
\59/ This idea suggests one
of
the motives which prompted people to devise tales of apostolic missions.
CHAPTER
6
RESULTS
OF THE
1. BEFORE his last journey to Jerusalem Paul wrote from Corinth to Rome
(Rom.
xv. 19 f.): "From Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyricum, I have
fully preached the gospel of Christ; yea, making it my aim so to preach
the
gospel not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon
another
man's foundation. Wherefore also I was hindered these many times from
coming to
you; but now, having no more any place in these regions, and having
these many
years a longing to come unto you, I will come whenever I go to Spain.
For I
hope to see you on my journey and to be brought on my way thitherward
by you,
if first in some measure I shall have been satisfied with your company."
The preaching of the
gospel
within the Greek world is now complete (for this is what the words "
even
unto Illyria " imply); the Latin world now begins.\1/ Paul thus
identifies
his own missionary preaching along a narrow line from Jerusalem to
Illyria with
the preaching of the gospel to the entire Eastern hemisphere -- a
conception which
is only intelligible upon the supposition that the certainty of the
world's
near end made no other kind of mission possible than one which thus
hastily
covered the world's area. The fundamental idea is that the gospel has
to be
preached everywhere during the short remaining space of [[74]] the present world-age,
\2/ while at the same
time this is only feasible by means of mission-tours across the world.
The fire
it is assumed, will spread right and left spontaneously from the line
of
flame.\3/
\1/Egypt could not be passed
over, for the Greek world without
\2/ The idea recurs in the
gospels (Mark xiii. 10). Was Paul the first to conceive it and to give
it
currency?
\3/ Cp. I Thess. i. 8 ;
This idea, that the
world must
be traversed, was apparently conceived by the apostle on his so-called
"
second'" missionary tour. \4/ Naturally he viewed it as a divine
injunction, for it is in this sense that we must interpret the
difficult
passage in Acts xvi. 6-8. If Paul had undertaken this second tour with
the aim
of reaching the Hellenistic districts on the coast of Asia Minor, and
if he had
become conscious in the course of his work that he was also called to
be an
apostle to the Greeks, then on the western border of Phrygia this
consciousness
passed into the sense of a still higher duty. He is not merely the
apostle of
the barbarians (Syrians, Cilicians, Lycaonians), not merely the apostle
even of
barbarians and Greeks, but the apostle of the world. He is commissioned
to bear
the gospel right to the western limits of the Roman empire; that is, he
must
fill up the gaps left by the missionaries in their efforts to cover the
whole
ground. Hence he turns aside on the frontier of
\4/ Not earlier. The whole
of
the so-called " first" mission-tour is inexplicable if Paul already
had this idea in his mind. Wendt is quite right in saying (on Acts
xiii. 13)
that Paul at this period was merely conscious of being an apostle to
the
barbarians; not to the Greeks. Otherwise, the choice of a mission-field
in S.W.
Asia Minor is unintelligible.
Paul, however, had
not
abandoned his scheme for covering the world with the gospel. The
realization of
it was only deferred in the sense in which the return of Christ was
deferred.
Probably he would have remained still longer at Ephesus (in the
neighborhood of
which, as well as throughout the district, new [[76]]
churches had sprung up) and come into closer touch with Hellenism, had
he not
been disturbed by news from Corinth and finally driven out of the city
by a
small riot.
Paul's labours made
When he left
Nor did God need him
now in
Did he manage this ?
Not in
the first instance, at any rate. He had again to return to the far
East, and
the gloomy forebodings with which he travelled to
When he was beheaded
in the
summer of 64 A.D., he had fully discharged his obligations to the
peoples of
the world. He was the apostle κατ’
ἐξοχήν -- par
excellence. To barbarians, Greeks, and Latins he had brought
the gospel. But his greatness does not lie in the mere fact that he
penetrated
as a missionary to
Of the four centres
of
Christianity during the first century -- Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus,
and
Rome -- one alone was the work of Paul, and even Ephesus did not remain
as loyal
to its founder as might have been expected. As the "father'" of his
churches he fell into the background everywhere; in fact he was
displaced, and
displaced by the development of mediocrity, of that "natural" piety
which gets on quite well by itself. Neither his strength nor his
weakness was
transmitted to his churches. In this sense Paul remained an isolated
personality, but he always was the teacher of Christendom, and this he
became
more than ever as the years went by.
2. His legacy, apart
from his
epistles, was his churches. He designated them indeed as his
"epistles." Neither his vocation (as a restless, pioneering
missionary), nor his temperament, nor his religious genius (as an
ecstatic
enthusiast and a somewhat exclusive [[78]]
theologian) seemed to fit him for the work of organization ;
nevertheless he
knew better than anyone else how to found and build up churches (cp.
Weinel, Paulus als kirchlicher Organisator,
1899). Recognizing the supreme fruits of the Spirit in faith, love,
hope, and
all the allied virtues, bringing the outbursts of enthusiasm into the
service
of edification, subordinating the individual to the larger organism,
claiming
the natural conditions of social life, for all their defects and
worldliness,
as divine arrangements, he overcame the dangers of fanaticism and
created
churches which could live in the world without being of the world. But
organization never became for Paul an end in itself or a means to
worldly
aggrandizement. Such was by no means his intention. "The aims of his
ecclesiastical
labours were unity in brotherly love and the reign of God in the heart
of man,
not the rule of savants or priests over the laity." In his theology and
in
his controversy with the Judaists he seems often to be like an
inquisitor or a
fanatical scribe, and he has been accused of inoculating the church
with the
virus of theological narrowness and heresy-mongering. But in reality
the only
confession he recognised, besides that of the living God, was the
confession of
" Christ the Lord," and towards the close of his life he testified
that he would tolerate any doctrine which occupied that ground. The
spirit of
Christ, liberty, love -- to these supreme levels, in spite of his
temperament and
education, he won his own way, and it was on these high levels that he
sought
to place his churches.
3. There was a great
disparity
between him and his coadjutors. Among the more independent, Barnabas,
Silas
(Silvanus), Prisca and
Among the
missionaries whom
Paul himself secured or trained, Timothy occupies the foremost place.
We learn
a good deal about him, and his personality was so important even to the
author
of Acts that his origin and selection for this office are described
(xvi. 1).
Still, we cannot form any clear idea of this, the most loyal of Paul's
younger
coadjutors, probably because he leant so heavily on the apostle. After
Paul's
death at
4. The first epistle
of Peter
is a very dubious piece of evidence for the idea that Peter, either
with or
after Paul, took part in the mission to Asia Minor; but there is no
doubt that
some prominent Palestinian Christians came to Asia and Phrygia, perhaps
after
the destruction of Jerusalem, and that they displayed remarkable
activity in
the district. At their head was a man who came to
\5/ The same fate apparently
overtook him which he had prepared for Paul. Of course we are all in a
mist
here, but the entire silence of the seven letters in the Apocalypse
with regard
to Paul is a problem which is not to be waved aside as insignificant.
Even the
same silence in the gospel of John, where so many other indications of
recent
history are to be heard, is extremely surprising. Those who wanted to
refer the
mission of the Paraclete to Paul (Origen mentions them ; cp. addenda)
were
certainly wrong, but they were right in looking out for some allusion
to Paul
in the gospel, and they could not find any other.
\6/ This title suggests, but
does not prove, that he was a personal disciple of Jesus, since it
occurs not
in
\7/ The most likely
conjecture
is that the beloved disciple was the son of Zebedee. Everything follows
naturally from this view. The Presbyter need not have gained his
special
relationship to John in
Apart from this John
we can
name the evangelist Philip and his four prophetic daughters, Aristion
the
disciple of the Lord, and probably the apostle Andrew as among those
who came
to
\8/ We may
refer here to Ignat., ad Ephes., xi.:
ἵνα ἐνὶ
κλήρῳ Ἐφεσίων εὑρεθῶ
τῶν Χριστιανῶν,
οἳ
καὶ
τοῖς
ἀποστόλοις
πάντοτε
συνῄνεσαν (v. l., συνῆσαν) ἐν
δυνάμει
Ἰησοῦ
Χριστοῦ ("That
I may be found in the company of those Ephesian Christians who moreover
were
ever of one mind with the apostles in the power of Jesus Christ"). The
reading συνῄνεσαν does not
necessarily prove the personal residence of the apostle in
At the close of the
first
century
//end of bk1//