The question now arises, whether the normative period of the religion ends with tlie death of Christ.
May it be said that when His 1
fe is over, the work I'inplctp. Ili> words IM, ,,r.,,,„un,l,.d-it
jeen spoken, His ri-lii^mn remains that His follow. /i^ olny Hi- tiarhin"? This position has often been taken, and is usually adopted by those who reject the supernatural element in Christianity. Lessing is the father of those who in modern times think it desirable to return from ' the Christian religion ' to 'the religion of Jesus.' Harnack on the whole favours this view, as when he urges that ' the Gospel, as Jesus proclaimed it, has to do with the Father only, and not with the Son'; or again, that it is ' tlie Fatherhood of God applied to the whole of life— an inner union with God's will and God's kingdom, and a joyous certainty of the possession of eternal blessings and protection from evil.' But he else- where rightly admits that ' a complete answer to the question, What is Christianity ? is impossible so long as we are restricted to Jesus Christ's teach- ing alone.' The more powerful a personality is, ' the less can the sum -total of what he is be known only by what he himself says and does' ; we must therefore include in our estimate the effects pro- duced in his followers and the views taken by men of his work. See art. BACK to Chrlst.
Further, if the miracles of Christ, and especially tlie great miracle of His Resurrection, be accepted, the wliole point of view is changed. The disciples, during the short period of His ministry, were slow and dull scliolars ; only after the outpouring of the .Spirit were they aVile to understand who their Master was and what He had done. Hence the Church with a true instinct included the Acts and the Epistles in the Canon, as well as the Gospels, and to the whole of these documents we must turn if we would understand what ' Christianity ' meant to the Apostles and the first generation or two of those who followed Christ. Without entering into controversy such as would arise over exact defini- tions, we may say broadly tliat Christ became in thought, as He had always been in practice, the centre of His own religion. It circled round the Person, not so much of the Father as of the Son, yet the Son as revealing the Father. Personal relation to Christ continued to be— what it had been in the days of His Hesh, but more consciously and completely — the all-important feature in the new religion. Significance attached not so much to what Christ said— though the authority of His words was supreme and absolute— as to what He was and what He did. His death and resurrection were seen to possess a special significance for the religious life of the individual and the community, and thus fiom the time of St. Paul and the Apostles onwards, but not till then, the Christian religion was fairly complete in its outline and ready for promulgation in the world.
But it is clear that the real significance of some features in the new religion could be brought out only in the course of history. The first great crisis wliich tested the infant Church arose over the question whetlier Christianity was to be a reformed and spiritualized Judaism or a universal religion, for the wliole world and for all time. The con- troversy recorded in Ac 15, aspects of which emerge so frequently in St. Paul's letters, was fundamental and vital ; the very existence of Christianity was at stake. It was chiefly to tlie Apostle Paul that the Chureli owed licr hardly won freedom from the bonds (.f .le«isli .■eiemonial law and the national and ielii;iinis limitai ion- i. leu tilled with it. Henceforward in rini-i h.i-. t,, lie neither Jew nor Greek, barbaiiaii, S.ylliiaii, lieiid nor free, but He Himself was all and in all.
Tlie next two changes are not so clearly defin- able, though they are liardlj' less important and far-reaching. They were never brought to a
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definite issue before a council or assembly, ami they do not come within the limits of the NT period. None the less they were fundamental in their character. They concern respectively creed and practice, doctrine and organization. In the first flush of enthusiasm which belongs to tlie earliest stage of a religious movement, the emo- tional— which fneans very largely the motive or dynamical— element is both pure and powerful. Belief, worship, spontaneous fulfilment of a higli ethical standard, religious assurance and confident triumph over the world— all seem to flow forth easily and naturally from the fresh springs of a new life. But, as man is now constituted, this happy condition cannot last very Ion". A stage succeeds in whieli the white-hot metal cools and must take hard and definite shape. Faitli passes into a formulated creed, the spirit of free, spon- taneous worship shrinks within the limits of reverently ordered forms, the general sense of brotherhood narrows down into the ordered rela- tionships of a constituted society, charismatic gifts are exchanged for the privileges whicli belong to certain defined ranks and orders of clerpy ; and, when the whole process is over, whilst the religion may remain the same in appearance, and to a great extent in character, it is nevertheless seriously changed. In Christianity such processes of development were proceeding, gradually but on the whole rapidly, during the latter half of the 2nd and the opening of the Srd century. By the middle of the 3rd century the transmutation was well-nigh complete.