DNIYERSALISM.— Three different, though con- nected, problems are raised by this word : (1) The universality of Christianity as a gospel for all races (as against the early Ebionism (wh. see) which confined Christianity to the circumcised) ; (2) the universal purpose of Christ's death — for ' all men '
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UNIVERSALISM
UmVERSALISM
(as against the Augustinian and Calvinistic doctrine of Christ's death on behalf of those elected out of the mass of sinful mankind) ; (3) the ultimate salvation of all souls (as against the eternal sutt'er- ing of the wicked ; or, their destruction ; or perhaps as against uncertainty — subjective uncertainty, due to our ignorance, or objective uncertainty, due to the indefiniteness of the sentence of the Great Day ; see below). — A study of Christ and the Gospels is very specially concerned with the first problem.
1. Universality of Christian ity.^I. There are two ways in which religions qualify as ' uni- versal.' They may reveal the missionary impulse (Zoroastrianism ? see Jackson, Zoroaster the Prophet of Ancient Iran, 1899, p. 92 ; Modern Hinduism, sucking up hill-tribes into its fellowship ?). Or in addition they may simplify very greatly — in con- trast with the legal or national character of de- veloped systems of religion in the ancient world.
Buddhism went furthest in the way of simplifying. From the first, apparently, a prosel.yte might have the benefits of Buddhism without renouncing the practices of his former faith ; and at this hour many of the population of China are said to practise concurrently the three religions — Confucianism, Tao- ism, Buddhism. Muhammadanism is missionary and is simple, but it institutes a new legalism in the strictest sense. Pre- Christian Judaism, in its proselytizing, revealed the missionary impulse ; but simplification of ritual — a simplified creed was hardly needed — could not be granted, unless to the ir£lSiu.ivoi (' devout persons ') ; and their position was theoretically very insecure.
2. The Apostolic Church had the missionary impulse, bat practised the OT law as inherited custom ; was it also sacred duty ? The question threatened to rend the new fellowship. Should the mis.sionary impulse be given free scope ? And should life be simplified — in the first instance, for those of (jlentile birth — by abrogation of OT law ? Or should the missionary impulse be slowly throttled by Jewish laws and customs? Both parties were pushed back, and led to define their principles more sharply. The Judaizers claim that the Law is necessary to salvation (Ac 15'), or a,t least to full salvation (Gal 3^). St. Paul justifies his atti- tude of antagonism by declaring that the Gentile Christian, who accepts circumcision and the Law, renounces Christ (Gal 5^'^). On both sides, law is treated, not as customary, but as religious in value — • good religion to the Judaizers, bad re- ligion to St. Paul (though in mere custom he him- self ' became a Jew to win Jews,' 1 Co 9^°). In tlie end the various sections of Christian Jews all died out, or merged themselves in the rival camps — the Synagogue and the Catholic Church. It may seem as if universalism failed. Christianity has been known to history as a Gentile and non-Jewisli institution — a strange state of matters, were we not blinded by familiarity. And in other ways, too, success has been very partial. No religion, not even the Christian, has ever attained the destiny of universal sway to which all the higher prophetic religions aspire. Yet Christianity per- sists in claiming that it is truly universal. It excludes none. The Jewish people excludes itself. (Individual Jews, of course, are entangled in hered- itary custom, and can break away only by self-will or moral heroism).
3. The simplifying of religion, which was carried through in controversy by St. Paul, begins uncon- troversially in the teaching of Jesus. He brings the Law to a principle (Mt 7'-) or to a pair of prin- ciples, drawn from different parts of the OT (Dt 6^, Lv 19''*), and recognized by the Master as con- nected by an inward likeness (Mt 223''-^o ||). All these principles, of course, are moral and indifferent to ceremonial. So, too, the religious life is brought to a single principle by the name which Jesus steadily uses for God. If God is our Father, re- ligion is sonship. This is a simplifying of the highest order — a simplifying which is also a deepen-
ing, an ennobling, a perfecting of the religious life. Thus Christ's teaching is universalist at the core. If religion consists in the belief of God's Fatl^erhood and in love to man, there is no reason why a Jew should be preferred to a Gentile. Nor do corollaries from these principles fail to appear in the teaching of Christ. He rejects, as lacking Divine authority, that tradition (15*"^ ||) by means of which the Phari- sees, morally the most earnest among the Jews, safeguarded the OT law and applied it to new details, at the cost of making it ever more and more a burden. He hints repeatedly that cere- monies, even those taught by the OT, are of inferior moment in comparison with moral duty (9-'^- " 12'', cf. IV^ 22-1 1|)_ He speaks of sin and pardon (Mt 9«||, Lk 7^^), and of His own approaching death (Mt 20^''i|, 26^^11), in words which send us back to the predic- tion of a ' new covenant ' ( Jer 3pi). And thus He connects the new body of principles contained in His teaching with His own Person and destiny.