' God . . . soul . . . the only facts for me. Prove them facts? That they o'erpass my power of pro\'ing Proves them such.' (R. Browning, La Saisiaz).
Through Christ man has learned to read God and himself as being gathered under the same cate- gories, perfect and infinite in the one, derivative and fettered in the other. But that is only the intellectual aspect of what we owe Him. And, as Martensen has said {Dogmatics, p. 154), ' No intel- lectual creation can ever be perfected by dint of a mere psychological possibility ; it must first be
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PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY
fructified and awakened by a higher inspiration.' Christ has shown us the way to the consummation of our personality in the vohmtary and glad sur- render to God and in fellowship with Him through the Holy Spirit (1 Jn P), so that we learn to say —
' Our wills are ours, we know not how : Our wills are ours to make them. Thine.'
There is such an utter absence of the language of the schools in the speech of Christ, that one might be tempted to think that He made no con- tribution to the subject of personality. And it is true He was no philosopher in the accepted sense of the term. But He gave philosophy a new world to discover. He roused and satisiied ex- periences of the soul which at length called into being a new terminology. The fact that the analysis of personality first went to the depths in Paul's Epistles, argues that the first perfect ex- position of personality was in Paul's Master. For a thing must be before it is thought upon. Where even Plato and Aristotle had grojied blindly because they had no true conception of personality, Christ moved with perfect assurance. What was hidden from them, ' the wise and prudent,' was all in all to Him. It might truly be said that personality is the pivot of the gospel. ' The gospel was in the highest and most perfect sense a personal religion ' (Bousset, Jesus, p. 164). It does not niove in the regions of mere intellect or will or feeling, nor even in the field of their joint exercise. It moves throughout in the region of the man himself, in his self-consciousness and self-determination, and finds its highest expression in the Divine passion for the soul and the human hunger for God. Christ did not coin terms, and yet there is Avhat may be called with Rothe, a ' language of the Holy Ghost.' His psychological expressions do not travel beyond the accepted antitheses of soul and body, flesh and spirit, using the first to express simply the two elements in man's nature (Mt 10^^), and the second to emphasize their distinction in origin (Jn 3^) and divergence in character (Mk 14^^). Indeed, Jesus did not make use of the j^sychology available in His own day, e.g. fiaKapios ov ov Kareyvu ij xf/vxv avTov (Sir 14'-), which is a plain reference to con- science.
Although the word ' spirit' (tisS^k) is reserved in the Gospels chiefly for super- or sub-human agencies, it is also used indiffer- ently as a synonym for -^vxr, or 'soul,' to express the region of the inner life where the feelings especially have full play. In fourteen instances of such a kind, ^nu,u.a, occurs seven times (five times in reference to Jesus), and ^ux'h also seven times (in reference to Jesus only twice). (With Paul, however, these two words fall apart in psychological connotation). The favourite word of the Evangelists, and presumably of Jesus Himself, is xxpiix, which is not only the region of the feelings, but the seat of the will (6ikYiu.(x.) and of the thoughts 'ynxXoynrtAoi). In fact, throughout the Bible it means the organ of the personality (cf. Hastings' DB, art. 'Psychology'), it is, by the way, sug- gestive of the moral emphasis of Christ's teaching tliat He never uses mi/f, S/avoioi, a-vviu-i; or their correlatives. But, while Jesus employed terms simply in their pop ilar connotation, He sometimes transfused them with His own transcendental con- ceptions, and then they stand in excess of light. Thus, ' If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light' (Mt 622); 'Whosoever will save his life {-^uxr) shall lose it' (1625); 'Blessed are your eyes, for thev see '(1316); 'The things that proceed out of a man defile him' (Mk 720); ' He that believeth on me, out of his belly {xoiXla.) shall flow rivers of living water ' (Jn 7^8).
But Christ's exposition of personality was not vocal, but vital. It Avas essentially the realm in which He lived, moved, and had His being : it was tlie true life to which He invited the careworn and heavy laden, and those who were entangled in their material and worldly environment. Secure in the possession of His own personality. His self- consciousness being at one with God, His self- determination being merged in the will of God, He could affirm, ' The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me' (Jn W^)- 'I am in the Father and the Father in me' (141") ; ' I do always the things tliat please him ' (S^S). That personality
is the pivot of the gospel which Jesus lived and taught may be illustrated in detail.