Page images
PDF
EPUB

LUTHER AND CALVIN AS HIGHER CRITICS" 165

position is discredited. If it is false in one part, it may be in others."

"What others, for instance?" asked Craig.

"The Apocalypse, certainly, for one; and plenty of others. The list of disputed parts is so long, indeed, that I haven't tried to master it. But I have gathered that of the fourteen Epistles attributed to Paul several are probably not genuine, notably the Epistle to the Hebrews. Even Luther and Calvin so held. Says Dr. Davidson:

"Luther's judgment respecting some of the New Testament books was freer than most Protestants now are disposed to approve. He thought the epistle to the Hebrews was neither Paul's nor an apostle's. The Apocalypse he considered neither apostolic nor, prophetic. . . . James's epistle he pronounced unapostolic, a right strawy epistle." In like manner he did not believe that Jude's epistle proceeded from an apostle. . . . Calvin did not think Paul to be the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, nor 2d Peter to have been written by Peter.'

66

[ocr errors]

'What heretics Luther and Calvin would be, if they were to wake from their 300 years sleep! Some German critics conclude that not more than four of the fourteen alleged Pauline Epistles are fully established; those four being Romans, Galatians, and First and Second Corinthians. The authorship of the Epistles ascribed to Peter and the other disciples is also in doubt. Indeed, from all that I can learn, about the only parts of the New Testament not in grave dispute are the four Pauline Epistles I have mentioned; and portions of even those four are probably not Paul's work. But I have not now the time or inclination to pursue the study of these matters farther; nor is it necessary that we should spend more time upon them. Doubtless many of the writings of both the Old and New Testaments are authentic and of more or less literary and historical value; but who can say which are genuine and valuable and which are spurious and worthless?

"You do not really mean to say then that to prove one part of the Scriptures false proves them false throughout?" asked Craig.

"By no means. On the contrary, much of the teaching of Jesus has perhaps come down to us, substantially though not literally; but just how much and what, who can tell? Did Jesus declare that he was the son of God? or that he was born of a virgin? or that belief in his divinity was essen

tial to escape eternal torment? Did he work miracles, or assert that he had power to do so? Or did all these tales spring up a century or two after his death, to swell the meager traditional accounts of his life and to answer the demands of a superstitious age for such attributes? Did he preach anything like the Sermon on the Mount? or teach his disciples any such formula as the Lord's Prayer? Or were these teachings, in whole or in part, of other origin? If Jesus taught the Golden Rule, did he know, and did he tell his disciples, that Confucius, Aristotle, and others had taught the same rule of action hundreds of years before?

"It is remarkable, too, that the epistles of Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna, the three great so-called 'Apostolical Fathers,' who flourished within the first century and a half after Christ, as well as other churchmen of less note in the same period, whose writings are included in the Apocrypha, do not represent Jesus as of divine or superhuman nature; and still more striking is the fact that these earliest authentic Christian writings, after the Epistles of Paul, make no mention of the doctrine of the Logos or Word made flesh, as found in the fourth Gospel. Aside from the New Testament writings, the doctrines of the miraculous conception of Jesus, his miraculous powers, and his bodily resurrection are not asserted or alluded to by the early Christian writers for nearly or quite a hundred years after his death.

[ocr errors]

"As for the Golden Rule-not to mention that the maxim was at least five or six hundred years old when Jesus was born-we are told that Peregrinus, a century and a half after Christ, taught that ‘A wise man should not be guilty of sin, although gods and men were alike ignorant of it,' but should avoid evil 'not from the fear of punishment or disgrace, but from sense of duty and love of virtue.' And in still later times Kant has repeated the injunction, Do right because it is right.

"You can judge for yourself how these later, uninspired utterances compare with the Golden Rule.

"What I meant to say was, that if any part of the Scriptures be disproved, the claim of divine inspiration for the Bible and Apostolic authorship of the four Gospels falls to the ground. That claim covers the entire Bible. If it is not true of the entire Bible, it is a false claim. And if this Gospel, or that Epistle, or one chapter after another of

JESUS, THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL

167

Gospel or Epistle can be lopped off by careful and searching criticism, it is the height of foolish presumption to go on asserting divine inspiration for whatever is left after each successive book or chapter is thrown aside."

"But where will that sort of argument lead us?" asked Craig.

"Clearly, to this conclusion: The writings of both the Old and New Testaments must be judged by the rules and standards of criticism applied to all other writings. And when once the literatures of the Jewish and Christian religions are brought upon common ground with the literatures of other religions, whatever of truth and beauty is in them will stand forth and command the belief and admiration of men, without need of the authority of divine inspiration.

"I want to emphasize once more the overwhelming importance of this question of the authorship and date of the fourth Gospel. What we especially care for is not the doctrinal Epistles of Paul or Peter or any other Apostle. We want the facts, not giving in those Epistles, about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Now, if the four Gospels, or any of them, be proved unreliable, the credibility of the whole is shattered; and where then shall we go for such an account? We are left without trustworthy material of any kind in any quarter to compile even the most meager account of what Jesus said and did."

And so we can't be sure that any such man ever lived?" said Craig, inquiringly.

"I did not say that," replied Granger. "That a man Jesus lived about the time the Christian accounts place him, appears to be fairly well established; though just when he was born, and why and when and how he met his death, cannot with certainty be told. His character is so shrouded in myth and superstituous tradition that it appears to be impossible that we should ever know much about it. Jesus the ideal, the embodiment of the hopes, the aspirations, the sufferings of humanity, we know: Jesus the actual, we know not. have been a powerful teacher of religion and morals, and a man of singular goodness and purity of life-which is quite different from saying that he was absolutely sinless. In the absence of proof to the contrary, it is to be presumed that he shared, more or less fully, the general belief of the

He may

Jewish people in the Jewish religion. It may be that he also came to believe that he had a divine mission, divine powers, or even a divine nature; in which case he was merely self-deceived, as numberless other religious enthusiasts have been. Yet, with all his want of 'human learning' and his other limitations, he may have been a great man; if not absolutely great, yet relatively great. And probably this is about all that, now or hereafter, can be said with certainty about him."

CHAPTER 25

ORIGEN, THE FOUNDER OF THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

66

"AMONG the first things of interest and apparent importance that I found when I began to read in connection with Dr. Harlow's lectures," said Granger, when he and Craig had settled down on the next Sunday to resume their talk about the creeds, was a statement in the article on 'Origen,' in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The writer of that article is Dr. Adolf Harnack, Professor of Church History in the University of Berlin, who I suppose easily ranks as the ablest and most prominent living theologian of the German Protestant church. Now hear what Dr. Harnack has to say of Origen:

“Of all the theologians of the ancient church, with the possible exception of Augustine, Origen is the most distinguished and the most influential. He is the father of the church's science; he is the founder of a theology which was brought to perfection in the fourth and fifth centuries, and which still retained the stamp of his genius when in the sixth century it disowned its author. It was Origen who created the dogmatic of the church and laid the foundations of the scientific criticism of the Old and New Testaments. He could not have been what he was unless two generations before him had labored at the problem of finding an intellectual expression and a philosophic basis for Christianity. . . . But their attempts, in comparison with his, are like a schoolboy's essays beside the finished work of a master. By proclaiming the reconciliation of science with the Christian faith, of the highest culture with the Gospel, Origen did more than any other man to win the Old World to the Christian religion. . Orthodox theology has never, in any of the confessions, ventured beyond the circle which the mind of Origen first measured out. It has suspected and amended its author, it has expunged his

THE RANGE OF INQUIRY OUTLINED

169

heresies; but whether it has put anything better or more tenable in their place may be gravely questioned.'

"Then turning to the article in the Britannica on Augustine, written by the eminent Scotch divine, the Very Rev. John Tulloch, D.D., LL.D., principal of St. Mary's College (theological), St. Andrews, Scotland, I found this:

"The theological position and influence of Augustine may be said to be unrivaled. No single name has ever exercised such power over the Christian church, and no one mind ever made such an impression upon Christian thought.'

"Here were a couple of clews worth following. If Origen, who was born about the year 185 and died about 254, was the founder of the Christian theology, and if Augustine, born in 354 and died in 430, left the deepest impression on the church and on Christian thought, I might hope to get a fair view of the origin and character of the fundamental Christian doctrines by confining my reading chiefly to the period from about the year 200 to about 450. And so, after some reading on the branch of the subject which we discussed last Sunday night, I turned to Origen and Augustine.

"Very soon I saw that, besides these two men, a most important thing to be studied was the records of the numerous 'councils' or assemblies of bishops that were held in various cities, Carthage, Alexandria, Constantinople, Nice (in Asia Minor), Antioch, Ephesus, Rome, and elsewhere, to settle disputed points of faith, stamp out heresy, and adopt rules for the government of the churches. These records would show whose opinions prevailed, and why, and how. Moreover, I found that among these assemblies there were four great 'ecumenical,' or general, councils, held equally in authority in both the Eastern (Greek) and the Western (Roman Catholic) churches, and that all four were held during the period I had already decided was most deserving of study: The councils of Nice in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon in 451 By giving special attention to these four councils and perhaps a glance at a few of the others, I might hope to get a pretty correct idea not merely of the dogmas adopted but of the drift and spirit of the Christian church in the period when its system of doctrine took definite and, substantially, final shape.

"I am not going to tire and confuse you with an attempt

« PreviousContinue »