In another summary, it may be said that the Christian ethic revolves between two poles which are discovered in the light of Christ's teaching, the inwardness of religion, and its practical nature. The first had been neglected by the Jew and the second by the Greek. And one-sidedness is still only too possible, when, for instance, in tlie name of Christianity the ascetic visionary holds to the first alone, or the social revolutionary to the second. But all ethical deductions can and must be rectified by reference to the work and word of Christ, who started from inward character and aimed at social regeneration.
And in a hnal analysis of what Christ has dis- tinctively done for character, it may be said that (a) He treated the personality as a whole. All ethical systems are based on one or other element of our threefold nature. The pivot of the good life was, according to Socrates, knowledge ; according to Epicurus, feeling ; according to Zeno, the will. Christ gave a due and natural place to each of these ; for character with Him was not a system, as it was with Greek, Jew, or Roman, or as it is with Confucian or Mohammedan, but a growth from within, deeper even than our own nature, rooted in the ever-living grace of God. [h) He treated it as free. This also is crucial to Christian character, aiid depends on the truth that the ulti- mate fact of life is not Fate, but a God of grace, a Father. Jesus looked for repentance as the first consequence of His good tidings (Mk 1'=). What- ever a man's past had been, lie could be released and renewed, if out of the darkness and bondage ■ he put forth the hand of faith. And so in the last resort life is self-determined. These two essential truths for the making of character, viz. the in- tegrity and the freedom of personality, have been recognized and realized in the light of the four
great truths enumerated above. Thus Christ has enlarged the resources and opportunity of person- ality, and enabled it to be victorious over its material and moral environment.
Harper, The Christian Vi&iv of 3u7Han
Life ; Church, Viseipline of Christian Character ; Knight, The Christian Ethic \ Martengen, Christian Ethics ; Garvie, The Christian Personality ; Kilpatriok, Christian Character and Christian Conduct, etc.; Herrmann, Protestant Ethics; Sei- ions by Butler, Newman, Martineau, Paget, Maclaren, Inge,
tc. A. NoKMAN Rowland.
CHARACTER OF CHRIST.-
Introduction : (ir) Aim. (6) Sources : (1) their trustworthiness ; (2) their sufficiency, (c) Theological value of a etudj of the character of Christ. i. Formative influences— 1. Parentage.
3. Education.
4. The years of silence.
ii. Tlie Vocation of Christ, the determining principle of His character —
1. His Designation of His vocation.
2. His Dedication to His vocation.
3. His Confirmation in His vocation, ill. Characteristics of Christ —
1. Spiritual-mindedness : (1) His kr
teaching ; (3) effect of His presenct-.
2. Love to God : (1) obedience, (2) trust.
3. Love to men. iv. Social relations, and virtues manifested therein—
vledgc; (2) His
self -communications t Him. 3. Mankind: (1) lowliness: (2) consideri compassion ; (4) forbearance and forgivi Virtues of His voca
1. Faithfulness.
2. Courage.
3. Patience.
4. Calmness. B. Self-sacriflce.
olute goodness. 2. His ainlessness : (1) testimony of those who knew Him. ; (2) His own self-knowledge and self-witness. Literature.
Introduction.— {a) The aim of this article is to make a purely ethical study of the character of Christ. In such a study there must be no dogmatic presuppositions regarding the constitution of His jierson, whether favourable or hostile to the state- ments of Nicene orthodoxy. There must be no abstract separation of His humanity from His Divinity, and no attempt to relegate certain acts or pliases to one side and others to the other side. We must proceed in the case of Jesus Christ as we do in that of the great men who have forced succeeding ages to the task of understanding them, tliough it may well be that in the end we shall be constrained to set Him, with reasoned conviction, in a class apart, high above the greatest of men.
(6) The sources for such a study are, of course, the four Gospels. It is obviously impossible to appeal to the Epistles, save for any reminiscences they may contain of the historic Christ. Their conceptions of the ri.ien Christ cannot come here into view. In thus restricting ourselves to the earthly life of Christ, we are not excluding any view which faith might take of His present exist- ence. If Christ be alive now, He must be the same, morally, as He was when on earth. There is no other Christ than the Christ of the Gospels.
As soon as we turn to the Gospels, we are met by various critical problems. The solution of these mnst be sought in the various works which are devoted to their discussion. For the study in which we are to be engaged two positions are essential, which may be stated here as assumptions, though they are in reality conclusions of the study itself. (1) The first is the trustworthiness of the Gospels as portraitures of Christ. Grant the
282 CHARACTER OF CHRIST
CHARACTER OF CHRIST
ordinary critical results, that the Gospels were written late in the 1st cent., that contemporary ideas and experiences have influenced their authors or editors, that in some cases the Evangelists have misunderstood or misreported their Master ; yet the fact remains, that tlie character of Christ, as presented in these documents, was not, and could not have been, an invention or a fiction, a product of progressive meditation, or a creation of enthu- siastic feeling. Do j nstice to the portrait of Christ, let its harmony and its uniqueness, its profound naturalness and its transcendent loveliness, make their due impression, and the conclusion presses, that the Christ of the Gospels is not a construc- tion but a memory, an actual Figure, once beheld by eyes of flesh, and now discerned through a medium upon which contemporary influences have had no distorting eft'ect, and which, accordingly, permits Him to be known as He was.