3. THE RELATION OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI. ENCE TO GREEK FORMS OF THOUGHT.—The after- relations of Christian faith to Greek forms of thought have been made a subject of close and pro- longed investigation by the modern school of historical criticism of which Harnack is the great representative, and of which Hatch and McGiffert are leading English examples. The work of this school is of priceless value in respect of its pure historical research. But in so far as it is dom- inated by certain presuppositions, and is deter- mined by a certain preconceived idea, it seems to the present writer to be mistaken in its results. That dogma is ‘in its conception and develop- ment a product of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel’ (Harnack) may in a sense be ad- mitted. At the same time, care must be taken
PHILOSOPHY
PHILOSOPHY 853
in the application of such a principle to do justice to the original content of the gospel with which later reflections had to deal. In the hands of certain members of the school it may be doubted whether this is secured. In the Hibbert Lecture of the late Dr. Hatch, the problem, as conceived by these writers, is expressed with a clearness which leaves nothing to be desired, viz. ‘Why an ethical sermon stood in the forefront of the teaching of Jesus, and a metaphysical creed in the forefront of the Christianity of the 4th cent. ?’ The conclusion to which the brilliant ability and ripe scholarship of the author are devoted is, that this change, being ‘coincident with the trans- ference of Christianity from a Semitic to a Greek soil,’ is ‘the result of Greek influence.’ In plain words, primitive Christianity was simple ethical teaching regarding God and duty, undisturbed by intellectual problems, and absolutely free from speoulntive elements. Theology, as embodied in
e great creeds, is a superstructure of mischievous motaphyric reared by the fruitless subtlety of the Greek intellect, which must be swept away before
enuine Christianity can be rev uty and power.
Obviously, then, the question is as to the nature of primitive Christianity. Is it true that it was ethical merely? Is it true that its essence is summed up in the Sermon on the Mount? Is it permissible to lay aside every element in the NT that is not rigidly and exclusively ‘ethical’? Is it fair to state the problem as being the transition from the Sermon on the Mount to the Nicene Creed? If the problem be auisleading, the con- clusions cannot fail to be erroneous. In order to reduce the problem to the simplicity and narrow- ness of the above statement, the following positions must be maintained. (1) Jesus Christ cannot have been more than a unique religious personality, with deep and true moral instincts, and a high degree of spiritual-mindedness. He cannot have made Himself the centre of His message. His declara- tions regarding His second coming must have been an afterthought, due to the discovery on His part that His mission was to end in His being rejected and put to death. Here we have to ask: (a) Is this a fair account of the Jesus of the Gospels? Can the personality of Christ as presented in those narratives be reduced to the outlines of such a sketch? Take the picture of Jesus drawn by the historical school ad place it beside that given in the Gospels, and say if they are duplicates. If that of the historical school be correct, then that of the Gospels is not merely incorrect in certain features, but is a sheer monstrosity, which invali- dates the whole Gospel narrative, and makes it valueless for purposes of sober history. (6) Is it fair to ignore the self-consciousness of Jesus as gathered into His most pregnant sayings? On what principles of historic research is it permissible to discount the self-assertion of Jesus? Has the Self of Jesus not such a place even in that very Sermon on the Mount as to give an entirely different view of the sermon itself, and an entirely different reading of the problem ‘ from the Sermon on the Mount to the Nicene Creed’? (2) The religion of the polite disciples must have been simply Jewish Unitarianism and Jewish Legalism, modified in some of their elements by the teach- ing of Jesus regarding God and duty. Here again the question is as to matter of fact. Is this the whole truth ΡΤ the first generation of Christians? Is this account a fair interpreta- tion of the narrative in the Acts? Can the life and work of the early Church, its worship, its preaching, its missionary impulse, its labours and martyrdoms, be made intelligible on such a sup- position? In particular, is it fair to discount the
ed in pristine
place which the Risen Christ had in the faith of the early Church? Why was He worshipped, proved to, trusted, served, and that long before
ellenic influence had touched the Church’s creed 1 Give due weight to the self-consciousness of Jesus, estimate aright the place of the Risen Christ in the life of the early Christians ; and the positions of Hatch and McGiffert must be profoundly modi- fied. (3) The conceptions of Christ to be found in the NT writings must be due to peculiarities in the intellectual history of their authors, and cannot express anything in the general belief of Christians. On the face of it, such a proposition is utterly im-