It is scarcely sufficiently recognized that the NT doctrine of the Church is a philosophy of the .Social Organism which embraces all essential human activities (Eph 4''- '"). Our difficulty in apprehending it lies mainly in this, that the Apostles, seeing the temporal in the light of eternity, are constantly confusing the boundary lines wliich separate the actual from the ideal, the process from the consummation.
Literature. — Lightfoot on Colossians ; Pressens6, Heresv and ChrMian Doctrine ; Xeander, Church Uislory ; Hippo'lytus, Philosophoumena ; see also Hastings' DB, art. ' Pleronia,' with Literature there quoted. A. MiLLER.
FULNESS OF THE TIME {TbT\ripu,ixaTouxpi»ov). — An expression used by St. Paul (Gal 4'') to mark the opportuneness of the coming of Christ into the world, and the ripeness of the age for the great religious revolution He was to effect. It empha- sizes the unique significance of the period as the culmination of a long course of events, by which the way had been providentially prepared for Christ's appearance, and His introduction of a purer type of religion. The evidences of such a providential preparation are indeed remarkable. Along diflferent lines of historical development a situation had been created at the very centre of the world's life, that was singularly favourable to the planting and spread of a loftier faith. The main factors usug,lly recognized as contributing to this result were : (1) the peculiar condition which the Jewish people had readied ; (2) the dissemina- tiun f,f th.M Jropk lan-iiajv., fiiUmv. .lud r,,i,iuH.rcial
( riiiMih-^-t rliciii.T,.,! ilisriplii,,. |,a,| |ix,.,| in the Jewish mill. I 111,- lii'liuf in one true and perfectly riglilrniis (;,,.!, and subsequently to the return from I lie IXilr I here had been no relapse into idolatry. l.atliTly, indeed, tlinm-li the influence of the .seniles and Phan^r,-, h ,!|,,,, and formality had crept in, and tin < i ; i lou of religion had been carried far ; y n i i iis^s of society
there was a wistful strauiin- mi. r imier purity and 11 more living fellowsliip with Gud ; and in spite of the soulless bondage of ceremonial observances, there was an amount of deep and reverent piety that kept the nation's heart .sounder than might appear on the surface. At all events, nowhere else in the world did there exist so vivid a concep- tion of the Divine holiness or so high a recognized standard of morality : iuiwIhto olsn, therefore,
,N i
hope, which, kept alive by the pressure of repeated misfortunes, had, under the tightening grip of lloman domination, sprung up with passionate intensity. The political situation was galling, and the Jewish people, pining to be free from the foreign yoke, consoled themselves with the thouglit of a glorious future. It was a time of high-strung unrest and expectancy ; yet although the prospect of political emancipation was to a large extent entertained, there were multitudes of earnest souls
yearninj
for
higher form of deliverance, thi
n of a reign of righteousness and peace, in the benefits (if which not Israel only, but the whole
( 111! -hie rale-line, again, the influence of Jewish reli;jhius ideas had been widely e.xtended by means of the Dispersion. Conscious of being raised above the manifold forms of heathen superstition around them, the colonies of Jews settled in the trading cities of foreign lands felt themselves impelled to aspire after a certain elevation of life ; while the loftier moral teaching they maintained in their synagogues attracted considerable numbers of pro- selytes from paganism. Thus the conception of the Divine unity and righteousness was being spread over a large section of the heathen world. So far, therefore, botli at home and abroad the Jewish people had fulfilled their mission in the moral and religious preparation of the world for the entrance of Christianity.
2. Tlie dissemination of tlie Greek language, culture, and commercicd activity. — Ever since the conquests of Alexander the GreaA, the Greek tongue had attained supremacy among the civilized nations, and had become the current medium for the exchange of thought. Even the OT had to be rendered into Greek, in the translation known as the Septuagint. Moreover, Greek learning, litera- ture, and speculation exercised a pervasive influ- ence far and near. A significant indication of this is to be found in the rise among the Jews of the Dispersion of a school of thinkers who had im- bibed the Greek culture, and who, quickened by the intellectual alertness of the Greek mind, were drawn to take part in the literary productivity of the age. The aim of this Grjeco-Jewish school was to make the purer religious faith and know- lodge of Israel accessible to the world. With its chief seat at Alexandria, its leading representa- tives, such as Aristobulus and Philo, endeavoured to show that the Mosaic law, correctly understood, contained all that the best Greek philosophers had taught. Thus was brought about a mutual action and reaction of Jewish and Greek ideas, and a soil was beinjT made ready for a more elevated spiritual teaching, based on the unity of the God- head and the eternal obligation of righteousness.
At the same time the commercial enterpri.se of the Greeks was rapidly overcoming national exclusiveness, and producing a freer intercourse between men of ditterent races. They were the cosmopolitans of the period — inquisitive, open- minded, eager to enter into all vivid interests ; and in the great trading cities in Asia Minor and along the Mediterranean shore they fostered the spirit of toleration and helped to .secure full scope for the advocacy of all forms of belief.