The Next Step in Religion Part 4

While we are on the topic of the authenticity of the gospels, it may be worth while to discuss the other synoptics as briefly as possible. The majority of critics regard Mark as the oldest but this is mere guesswork when all is said and done. In its present form it is briefer than the others and this fact has impressed many students. Besides, it does not contain an account of the infancy of Jesus. But it, itself, is evidently a compilation of other doc.u.ments since it repeats the same event in slightly different forms. In all probability, it was written in Greek for a h.e.l.lenistic audience and emphasizes those traditions which would be the most likely to impress its readers. It is not known who wrote it or exactly when it was written.

The gospel according to Luke did not originally make any claim to have been written by Luke. Scholars are agreed from internal evidence that it could not have been written until long after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The author of Luke was acquainted with the _Antiquities_ of Josephus and this shows that he must have made his compilation and free reworking of traditions in the second century.

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If, then, our gospels were not written by eye-witnesses, and represent the beliefs and traditions of at least the next half-century after the death of Jesus, to what can we give credence? What is myth and legend and what is historic fact? Can we find a clew to guide us?

It is a canon among historical critics to regard those pa.s.sages as the oldest which conflict most with the outlook of the later centuries. We can understand why they happen to be there but there would be no good reason for their later creation and insertion. Let us try to determine whither this canon will lead us.

All scholars agree that the birth stories are a later addition. They are a product of h.e.l.lenistic beliefs, perhaps even of Hindoo influences. The Virgin-Mother myth was very common in ancient times and the whole machinery of the story was undoubtedly absorbed from tales widely current in those days. For instance, the father of Plato, the Greek philosopher, was warned in a dream by Apollo so that Plato was virgin-born. What can we think of the intellectual state of Churches which excommunicate ministers who have the decency to inform their congregation what disinterested scholars.h.i.+p has determined? So far as there is intellectual dishonesty or incompetence here, it will bring its own punishment in the att.i.tude adopted by sincere men toward the Churches. The best we can say, then, is that there is no very good reason to doubt that Jesus was the son of a carpenter, by the name of Joseph, and his wife, Mary. He was not the only child, for Mark represents his fellow townsmen as saying: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?

And are not his sisters {79} here with us?" Quite a goodly family, you see. The Ebionite Christians, who were the Christians of Palestine and probably had the safest traditions on this point, believed that Jesus "was the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation." His kinsmen were the leaders of the Christian community for several generations. But there is little use in laboring a point which is so obvious.

Of his early life we know practically nothing. He was probably not trained as a rabbi but worked at the trade of his father. We may a.s.sume that he knew how to read and write, since an opportunity to learn was usually offered in the synagogue. It is likely that his reading was largely confined to the religious literature of his people, especially the psalms and the prophets. His spirit was more in harmony with the deep ethical fervor of these champions of righteousness and lovers of justice than with the formal prescriptions of the Law. If we may judge from the general tone of the traditions, he was a close student of men and a lover of nature, a silent, reflective man who noted the events pa.s.sing around him. His youth pa.s.sed in this way without any overt step being taken; and, perhaps, without any clear message having developed in his mind. He was simply one of the dissatisfied few who are always to be found. Now and then, it may be, he spoke pa.s.sionate words against the evils that were apparent on every hand, quoted the prophets in their outbursts against similar evils and subsided into a brooding silence. There are many such in our land to-day, sincere and pa.s.sionate and kindly men who eat their heart out witnessing the course of events.

The Jews of the day cherished the idea that a {80} Messianic kingdom would be established. Jesus shared in this expectation; but it is certain that he thought of it less as a restoration of the Jewish state to power than a change in the position of the ma.s.s of the people. In other words, he infused the belief with a finer ethical meaning more in accordance with his concept of G.o.d and his sense of what was really valuable and important. There is no means of knowing his entire att.i.tude toward this popular belief in a supernatural kingdom to be established by G.o.d upon earth, but he undoubtedly retained its main outlines. He was a child of his age although a notably sincere and high-minded one.

About 28 A. D. John appeared and preached in the wilderness. Jesus went to hear him because of the natural interest he aroused. It is quite probable that he was baptized by John. We do not know whether he a.s.sociated himself with John or not. At any rate John's message crystallized his own ideas and he felt called upon to continue his mission. He did not proclaim himself as the Messiah but simply preached that the kingdom of G.o.d was at hand and that men were to prepare for it. This preparation was of an ethical sort and largely ascetic in character.

Palestine was in a ferment at this time and his appearance and preaching aroused great interest. Like all prophets he was called upon to heal the sick and, accepting the customary views of sickness, he proceeded to exorcise the evil spirits which possessed those who were brought to him. I do not see how he could have escaped this task.

What part accident played in giving him confidence cannot be known, but it was probably large. There is no reason to doubt that there is a ground of fact for these stories of healing, although {81} they have been grossly exaggerated by later tradition when he was viewed as divine. We must always remember how late and biased our sources are.

As time went on, he gained more confidence in himself. Since he was human, he could not help being moved by the confidence of the people.

He felt that reforms should be made; everywhere was poverty and sickness and unhappiness. Could the thought help coming to him that perhaps he was the one to inaugurate the kingdom? The idea kept coming back, forced upon him by his own reflection and by the questions and a.s.sumptions of his disciples. It may be that he never made up his mind but was forced by the course of events to go to Jerusalem where his career ended all too soon. Mankind will never know the details of his inner life; his doubts, hopes, decisions, indecisions are hidden from us in an obscurity that will never be completely lifted.

His preaching became more revolutionary. More and more he set himself in opposition to the mechanical observance of the law and the fanatical wors.h.i.+p of forms and days. The opposition of the conservative members of priesthood increased in bitterness. Soon it was war to the knife between this new prophet, with his disregard for the law, and its chosen representatives. Thus Jesus had drifted into a position which he had probably not antic.i.p.ated when he set out on his ministry. But this is always the way. Mohammed began as a reformer, and the antagonism of the keepers of Caaba led to his aggressive campaign; Luther and Huss and Wycliffe changed their att.i.tude and their ideas at various moments in their career. No man's life is the working out of a fixed and ready-made plan. At any rate, he determined to go to Jerusalem--in all {82} likelihood, as Pfleiderer suggests, in order to win a victory over the hierarchy and to realize the prophetic ideal in the center of the religious life of the Jewish nation. The people received him enthusiastically but his opponents were too strong and clever for him. He feared only secret a.s.sa.s.sination while they induced the Roman power to intervene.

The story draws to a close. In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus felt the possibility of a tragic end to his hopes of an early coming of the Kingdom. The real situation s.h.i.+nes clear through all the legend which a later age has woven around it. When he saw himself surrounded by a mult.i.tude of armed men, he knew that resistance was vain. He was delivered into the hands of his enemies. Through all the humiliation and pain of those days, he seems to have hoped that his G.o.d would rescue him. It was only on the cross that he finally gave up hope.

The heavens were dumb as they always have been and always will be.

The body of Jesus was probably thrown into the common pit reserved for malefactors, as Abbe Loisy suggests, while the story of the burial by Joseph of Arimathea grew up to save him from the terrible dishonor of such a last resting-place. The rest of the traditional narrative is unquestionably mythical. Paul speaks of him as buried and evidently thinks of the risen Jesus as an incorruptible or spiritual man. Paul did not believe in a bodily resurrection. The visions which led to a belief in the resurrection of Jesus were ecstatic in character. We must remember that the ancients were far less critical than we are in regard to dreams and illusions and did not consider a return to life in some shadowy form as very unusual. I have not the {83} slightest difficulty in my own mind in accounting for the belief in the resurrection of Jesus in an entirely natural way. Once this belief arose and became important as a part of a new religion, the rise of legendary details was simply inevitable.

The position I have taken is relatively conservative. Many scholars have even become skeptical whether such a person as Jesus ever lived.

We cannot be certain but it seems more plausible to give a relative credence to the older strands of tradition in the New Testament. That such an ethical reformer lived who believed in the coming of the Messianic kingdom, that he was embroiled with the priestly cla.s.s and was done to death by them with the aid of the Roman governor who feared a seditious outbreak, that his disciples after his death came to believe in his resurrection and his coming Messiahs.h.i.+p upon earth, all this appears to me more than probable. Human life is a fertile field for tragedy. The more we rid the narratives of their fairy-story accompaniments and see Jesus, not as a G.o.d who foreknows his human life and plays it out gravely as an actor who knows his role, but as a human being hurried to issues he had not at first dreamed of, the more his career becomes comprehensible. Its pathos is increased by this truer perspective, while the moral grandeur of his life gains by the human atmosphere which descends upon it. He lived his life sincerely as other men have done and did not dream of the use history would make of his name.

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CHAPTER VII

THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY

Christianity did not arise in the form we a.s.sociate with it. The followers of Jesus, after they had become convinced that their crucified leader had arisen from the dead and had become a spiritual agent, grouped themselves together in Jerusalem and formed a religious congregation whose distinguis.h.i.+ng tenet was a belief in the near approach of the earthly kingdom of G.o.d, whose ruler would be Jesus. In his powerful name, the members of the congregation could perform miracles of healing where the faith was sufficient. This form of Christianity did not differ very widely from Judaism in anything but this belief in Jesus as the expected Messiah. It is obvious that this difference has no essential meaning to us to-day who know the origin and import of the Messianic hope of the Jews. Let us be frank with ourselves and clear our minds of these dreams of the past. These early Christians deceived themselves; their hopes were not fulfilled; the earthly kingdom of G.o.d did not come. Jesus was not the Messiah for the simple reason that there is no such person. He was not the Messiah any more than Mohammed Ahmed was the Mahdi--and for the very same reason.

Mahdis and Messiahs and Buddhas are creations of religious and race imagination just as King Lear is the product of the poetic imagination of William Shakespeare. The {85} educated man of the present must cla.s.sify these figures as tremendous fictions whose power is waning.

When he faces them squarely and asks himself what significance they have for his life, his answer must be, "Only historical and artistic."

We may say, then, that Christianity in its first form has been outgrown.

But the Messianic form of Christianity gave it a vividness and concrete impressiveness that made it a force among the men of that age. Jesus was the heavenly Messiah who would return in power and rule according to righteousness. With him was bound up the hope of immortality and in his hand was dominion over the evils which beset one's path. A great world-event was impending; at any moment the last trumpet might sound and the dead and the living be delivered to judgment. Moreover, Jesus as the Christ and Lord was even now at work among men, his Spirit was active to guide and encourage those who had faith in him. In the congregation at Jerusalem, this belief in Jesus as the Messiah was closely a.s.sociated with the past history of the race and did not involve a break with the Law. The Old Testament was searched to find prophecies which would throw light upon this apparently new departure and soon pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage was found which would easily lend itself to the desired interpretation. Under the guidance of these pa.s.sages and of the new outlook, the life of the prophet of Nazareth was re-molded until it lost the greater part of its more human features.

Such an important amendment of the Jewish religion could not keep itself hidden. The Jews of the dispersion, broadened by their contact with the political, {86} philosophical and religious movements of the Roman empire, yet cheris.h.i.+ng a sincere faith in the traditions of their fathers, heard of the new sect which had arisen in Palestine. Their interest was aroused. Sometimes they felt sympathetic, sometimes they were antagonistic. Slowly at first and then more rapidly through the work of Paul, they came in more direct contact with this new movement.

By this time, it had already become h.e.l.lenistic in its spirit and att.i.tude. Around the nucleus of the life of Jesus and his resurrection, the seething, myriad-shaped ideas of the age attached themselves. The Palestinian congregation was left behind in its peaceful conservatism while the movement which it had inaugurated grew by leaps and bounds and swept outward into the tossing ocean of faiths and philosophies which extended from India to Gaul. To suppose that it could remain unchanged in such fellows.h.i.+p is to undervalue the a.s.similative tendencies in the social mind. The Greeks and Romans and Egyptians and Syrians could not think as Jews. They inevitably interpreted it in terms of their own ideas and problems in order to comprehend it.

We have already considered the interpretation which Paul gave to Christianity. It was, as we saw, dominated by the apocalyptic notion of a heavenly, or spiritual, man while it gave ample recognition to the desire for salvation from sin and partic.i.p.ation in the divine life.

Thus Christianity was brought into touch with the mystery-cults and responded to the yearning for some guarantee of immortality so wide-spread at this time. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal {87} bodies through his Spirit which dwelleth in you." We should compare this pa.s.sage from Romans with the corresponding discussion in Corinthians (1, 15), "And if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, our faith also is vain." The message which he brought to the h.e.l.lenistic world was in its essentials a definite one. Jesus, a man who recently lived in Palestine and did wonders, was raised by G.o.d and has become a heavenly man, the guarantee of immortality to those who have faith in him. The last trumpet of the day of judgment will sound and the dead will be raised with spiritual or incorruptible bodies, and those who are still alive will be changed and given these spiritual bodies since flesh and blood cannot enter the coming kingdom of G.o.d. This message is the natural interpretation of Christianity by a learned h.e.l.lenistic Jew.

But this was merely the beginning of the evolution of Christianity.

The next phase involves its interpretation by the Gnostic movement.

Let us see first what this Gnostic movement was before we try to determine its direct and indirect influence upon Christianity.

So far as can be made out, Gnosticism was a religious philosophy which grew up in the eastern part of the Roman empire. Toward the making of this theosophy went many strands of refined mythology coming from India, Persia, Alexandria and Palestine. It was an esoteric doctrine representing that free mingling of traditions from all sources so characteristic of the age. Those traditions were worked up by reflection into a fairly systematic outlook upon the world, entirely continuous with mythology yet far more highly developed. Gnosticism cannot be called a philosophy in the technical sense of that term since its constructions did not {88} have a critical foundation. So far as it used Greek philosophy, it drew from the more pictorial myths of Plato and the conception of subordinate powers or demons advanced by stoicism. Its interest was not, however, philosophical but rather theosophical in character. The relation of the individual soul to the world-powers and the way in which a future state of happiness could be reached occupied its attention in the first instance; and the theology which it developed represented the stage-setting for this personal drama. I do not think it is saying too much when I state that there is nothing in Gnosticism which modern science and philosophy can recognize as having a valid foundation. We can understand why it developed, just as we can understand why mythology arose, but it was a mistaken movement because it followed the old mythological path of explanation.

If the direction taken by reflection is wrong, the most strenuous endeavors cannot lead to truth.

Gnosticism possessed certain tenets which were very wide-spread in ancient civilization. The flesh was looked upon as a thing of evil which corrupted the soul. The physical world was in fact given over to the powers of darkness while the spiritual world was ruled by the G.o.d of light and purity. This dualism with its accompanying asceticism is to be found in the Persian religion, in India, in later Jewish thought, in the Orphic cults of Greece and even in Plato. It entered into Christianity as naturally as science does into our outlook to-day. All through the early years of the Christian era, and during the Middle Ages, this contrast existed and controlled ethics. All of which goes to show that Christianity was not the creation of a single man but the flowering out of religious mythology.

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According to the teaching of Gnosticism, the soul was in danger of destruction or of dire calamities unless it possessed the proper preparation for its journey after death. The best means of safety was the partic.i.p.ation in the life of some savior-G.o.d who had vanquished the powers of darkness and evil. It is evident that the world-setting of Gnosticism was not far different from that of Christianity. They were products of the same age, outgrowths of a similar soil. The advantage which Christianity had was its connection with a n.o.ble personality and the ethical background which this gave it. Gnosticism was oriental far more than it was Greek. Had it been connected with the ethical teaching of the cla.s.sic Greek tradition, had a myth of the resurrection of some n.o.ble teacher like Plato arisen to control the phantasy of the oriental mind, the result would not have been far different from Christianity.

It was only natural that Gnosticism with its belief in a savior-G.o.d should feel itself drawn to Christianity with its similar teaching.

Jesus was regarded by the Christian gnostics as divine, as an eternal being who had manifested himself historically in fulfillment of his function of mediator. The Christian congregations were thus forced to take another step in the deification of Jesus. For Paul, he was still a man, the second or spiritual Adam who began a new dispensation. For the earlier Christians, he was the G.o.d-selected Messiah. He now became a G.o.d who was also the son of G.o.d. The evolution was inevitable in the intellectual environment of the time. But the Christian congregations, as represented by their clearest thinkers, wished to avoid gnostic extremes and to keep near the historical basis and the ethical monotheism of the best Hebrew {90} tradition. Jesus was G.o.d, but he was also man. In this way, arose the doctrine of the incarnation.

Instead of being a monument of mystical insight as theologians tell us, it was the consequence of a problem forced upon the Church. In other words, the doctrine of the Trinity is the attempt to combine gnostic polytheism and monotheism. The only way three can be made one is by a mystery, so a mystery it became. It is a bit of verbal gymnastic or a formal solution of an impossible problem which the pressure of events had forced upon the Church.

Christianity was now on the high-road to a theology. To enter the h.e.l.lenistic world and not be forced to develop a theology was simply impossible. The first fruit of this entrance into the intellectual world of the time was the Fourth Gospel or the so-called Gospel according to John. Scholars have begun to interpret this gospel as an attempt to combine the older Christian tradition with the theological speculations of the age. The beginning of the gospel strikes a new note which separates it immediately from the synoptics. "In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word was with G.o.d and the Word was G.o.d." What is this Word or Logos with which the historical Jesus was identified? For Philo, the Alexandrian Jew who played such an important part in the theological speculation of the time, the Logos was a second G.o.d, the reflection of his glory, the only begotten Son, the actual creator of the world, his active agent at work in events.

It is not going too far to a.s.sert that, without the speculations of Philo, the Fourth Gospel could not have been written. And yet Philo was merely developing and applying to the Old Testament the writings of the stoic philosophy and the {91} teaching of Plato. Does it not follow that, in the Fourth Gospel, we have the more theosophic portions of ancient philosophy attached externally to the life of the Prophet of Nazareth? Under such conditions of origin, how can we begin to separate reason and revelation? Gnosticism, stoicism, platonism, the Old Testament, the stories of the life of Jesus, the broadening of Christianity, all went together to make possible the mystic theology of this gospel.

But the more Jesus was transformed into a G.o.d, the more he lost his human characteristics. The figure of Jesus becomes elusive and shadowy; he lives among men but is not of them. To make G.o.d a man or man a second G.o.d was an impossible task. When all is said, the Fourth Gospel performs this task about as well as it could be done, yet Jesus is no longer a Galilean peasant but a mystic being who speaks in riddles.

This vital interplay of Christianity and h.e.l.lenistic thought led to the pa.s.sing away of the older Messianic idea with its distinct limitations.

A n.o.ble monotheism was the result, while the concrete, human element which the historical origins of Christianity had contributed to it prevented this monotheism from losing sight of human problems. The value of Christianity lies in its ethics but it is doubtful whether the ethics could have become effective unless it had been carried by the more chaotic beliefs which we usually call religious. There can be little doubt that some religious system would have conquered the Roman empire; the educational level was too low to enable the better type of philosophy to dominate the life of the ma.s.s of the people. Magic and other-worldism were rampant because the social and political organization was unsatisfactory and mental discipline {92} was not wide-spread. In brief, the world was still at the mythological level and was not yet prepared for a higher plane. _This being so, the success of Christianity was the best thing which could have happened_.

Later phases of the evolution of Christianity force us to qualify this position that its success was the best thing which could have happened.

In order to escape the dangers which free theosophizing brought, the leaders of the Christian congregations felt the need of a firmer organization. The result was the gradual concentration of moral and doctrinal authority in the hands of bishops. The early Church had been democratic in polity but the times were not ripe for such democracy and slowly elders were chosen to be leaders. These elders were shepherds or bishops, that is, spiritual overseers. Soon they claimed and were granted life-tenure and greater authority. Every a.n.a.logy from the Old Testament and from the larger political organization of the time worked in their favor. This a.s.sumption of authority on the part of the bishops is well represented by the letter of warning sent out by Bishop Ignatius of Antioch. "Obey the Bishop as Jesus Christ the Father, and the Presbyters as the Apostles, but honor the Deacons as the law of the Lord.... Whoever honors the Bishop is honored of G.o.d; whoever does aught behind the Bishop's back, serves the devil." The natural result of this changed organization was the doctrine of Apostolic succession.

With this doctrine went another, the belief in the Apostolic Origin of the articles of faith. The flexible growth of Christianity was at an end. There arose a series of dogmas enunciated by Councils of bishops and these were forced upon Christianity as authoritative. Free enquiry and {93} speculation was at an end. A religion with a creed had appeared, a thing unknown before in the history of ancient thought.

When Protestantism arose, it made a half-hearted appeal to the spirit of free inquiry. Protestantism was, however, a complex movement with decided limitations in the motives at work and the knowledge on which to build. The old church organization, molded on the lines of the Roman empire, was discarded and the function of the priesthood was changed, but the intellectual att.i.tude and the creed upheld remained practically the same. Some of the more radical branches of the movement like the baptists of Northern Italy were suppressed too soon to allow their influence to be felt. On the whole, Protestantism was hampered by the New Testament canon which it inherited from the later stages of the evolution of Christianity. It seldom went seriously back of the stage at which Jesus was deified. Its reforms were social and political rather than theological. The tendency was to establish the bible as ultimate authority without investigation as to its origin.

The consequence of this establishment of the bible as the final court of appeal was decidedly harmful since it set reason and experience over against a supposed revelation. So far as Protestantism itself was concerned, it did not have in it, as a consequence of this bibliolatry, the intellectual vitality necessary to a true evolution. Had it not been for the larger social, scientific and philosophical developments which sprang up at the same time and founded themselves on reason and experience, the protestant revolt would have ended in a blind alley.

There is every reason to believe, however, that it helped to break the tyranny of the theological {94} view of the world and to free the human spirit for new endeavors. Protestantism, just because it was a revolt, could not attain sufficient unity and power to stamp out intellectual freedom. The modern world was too complex to be dominated by religion.

But we have already indicated the conditions which gave rise to the higher criticism whose results we have been summarizing.

We must frankly ask ourselves what features of historical Christianity are congruent with our modern life. The h.e.l.lenistic world to which dogma and ritual are mainly due is a thing of the past, existent for no one but the scholar. Ours is a new world with new ideas, new problems and new possibilities. Does the recognition of historical continuity preclude the acknowledgment of very radical changes?

I am certain that the deification of Jesus will be given up step by step. He was not born miraculously, nor was he preexistent as the Word or Logos. These terms do not fit into an outlook dominated by science.

To call him the Son of G.o.d in an exclusive sense is not warranted by the facts, nor has it any clear meaning for the present age. To the old Greek, Egyptian, and Roman, the idea was familiar; many of the patrician families traced their descent to Apollo or Jupiter. But such a literal interpretation of the phrase has no sanction for us, and any other than a literal meaning is essentially meaningless. Jesus was a n.o.ble and tender-hearted man with the beliefs of his age. To speak of him as ideally perfect and sinless is absurd just because these terms are absolutes where relatives alone have meaning. Like most theological terms they cut themselves loose {95} from their necessary setting, which, in this case, is human nature and society.

When the necessary critical work has been done, what is left of the stately theology reared by Church Fathers, councils and scholastics?

Apparently only a mellowed religion with a universalistic outlook and a strong ethical trend. This mellowness and this universalism were not qualities present in perfection from the start, although we cannot say that Christianity was antagonistic to them. Mellowness takes time. I cannot but feel that men like St. Francis, Pascal, Bossuet, Fenelon, Melancthon, Wesley, on the ecclesiastical side, and men like Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Fichte, Darwin, and Mazzini, on the laic side, have contributed to this mellowness. From this point of view, we can best describe modern Christianity as an evolution of Hebrew ethical monotheism along tenderer and more human lines under the stimulus of many very n.o.ble personalities.