Part 28

The newly-found work, like other productions of the same period, can have only a disturbing interest for the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Protestant. For, in conjunction with previous evidence, it shows that the unbroken unity of teaching is altogether a fiction; that what afterwards became heresy was, in the latter part of the second century, held in the church of the primacy itself, and by successors of St. Peter; that the clergy of Rome, so far from owning the apostolic authority of their chief, could resist him as heterodox; and that the contents of the Catholic system, far from appearing as an invariable whole from the first, were a gradual synthesis of elements flowing in from new channels of influence brought into connection with the faith; and as against the approved type of Protestant, it shows that his favorite scheme of dogma was still in a very unripe state, and that further back it had been still more so; so that if he binds himself to the earliest creed, he may probably have to accept a profession which he hardly regards as Christian at all. But from the third point of view, which assumes that development is an inherent necessity in a revelation, and may add to its truth, instead of subtracting from it, the monuments of Christian literature from the secondary period have a positive interest, free from all uneasiness and alarm. They arrest for us, in the midst, the advance of theological belief towards the form ultimately recognized in the Church, and expressed in the established creeds; they render visible the beautiful features and expanded look of the faith, when its Judaic blood had been cooled by the waters of an Hellenic baptism; and though they leave many undetermined problems as to the successive steps by which the original Hebrew type of the Gospel in Jerusalem was metamorphosed into the Nicene and hierarchical Christianity, they fix some intermediate points, and make us profoundly conscious of the greatness of the change.

The author of the "Philosophumena," for instance, would be stopped at the threshold of every sect in our own country, and excluded as heterodox. He crosses the lines of our theological definitions, and trespasses on forbidden ground, in every possible doctrinal direction. Cardinal Wiseman would have nothing to say to him; for he is insubordinate to the "Vicar of Christ," and profanely insists that a pope may be deposed by his own council of presbyters. The Bishop of Exeter would refuse him institution; for his Trinity is imperfect, and he allows no Personality to the Holy Ghost. The Archbishop of Dublin might probably think him a little hard upon Sabellius; but, if he would quietly sign the Articles, (which, however, he could by no means do,) might abstain from retaliation, and let him pass. At Manchester, Canon Stowell would keep him in hot water for his respectable opinion of human nature, and his lofty doctrine of free-will. In Edinburgh, Dr. Candlish would not listen to a man who had nothing to say of reliance on the imputed merits of Christ. The sapient board at New College, St. John's Wood, would expel him for his loose notions of Inspiration. And the Unitarians would find him too transcendental, make no common sense out of his notions of Incarnation, and recommend him to try Germany. This fact, that a bishop of the second and third centuries would be ecclesiastically not a stranger only, but an outcast among us, is most startling; and ought surely to open the eyes of modern Christians to the false and dangerous position into which their churches have been brought by narrow-heartedness and insincerity. It will not be M. Bunsen's fault if our Churchmen remain insensible to the national peril and disgrace of maintaining unreformed a system long known to have no heart of modern reality, and now seen to have as little ground of ancient authority. Again and again he raises his voice of earnest and affectionate warning. As a foreigner domesticated among us, as a scholar of wide historical view, as a philosophical statesman who, amid the diplomacy of the hour, descends to the springs of perennial life in nations, as a Christian who profoundly trusts the reality of religion, and cannot be dazzled by the pretence, he sees, with a rare clearness and breadth, both the capabilities and the dangers of our social and spiritual condition. He sees that God has given to the English people a moral massiveness and veracity of character which presents the grandest basis of noble faith; while learned selfishness and aristocratic apathy uphold in the Church creeds which only stupidity can sign without mental reservations,--a Liturgy that catches the scruple of the intellectual without touching the enthusiasm of the popular heart,--a laity without function,--a clergy without unity,--and a hierarchy without power. He sees that our insular position has imparted to us a distinctive nationality of feeling, supplying copious elements for coalescence in a common religion; while obstinate conservatism has permitted our Christianity to become our great divisive power, and to disintegrate us through and through. He respects our free institutions, which sustain the health of our political life; but beside them he finds an ecclesiastical system either imposed by a dead and inflexible necessity, or left unguided to a whimsical voluntaryism, which separates the combinations of faith from the relations of neighborhood, of municipality, of country. With noble and richly-endowed universities at the exclusive disposal of the Church, he finds the theological and philosophical sciences so shamefully neglected, that Christian faith notoriously does not hold its intellectual ground, and in its retreat does nothing to reach a firmer position; but only protests its resolution to stand still, and raise a din against the critic or metaphysic host that drives it back. Is there no one in this great and honest country that has trust enough in God and truth, foresight enough of ruin from falsehood and pretence, to lay the first hand to the work of renovation? Is statesmanship so infected with negligent contempt of mankind, that no high-minded politician can be found to care for the highest discipline of the people, and reorganize the institutions in which their conscience, their reason, their upward aspirations, should find life? Has the Church no prophet with faith enough to fling aside creed and college, and fire within him to burn away mediæval pedantries, and demand an altar of veracity, that may bring us together for common work and "common prayer"? Or is it to be left to the _strong men_, exulting in their strength, and storming with the furor of honest discontent, to settle these matters with the sledge-hammer of their indignation? Miserable hypocrisy! to open the lips and lift the eyes to heaven, while beckoning with the finger of apathy to these pioneers of Necessity! Would that some might be found to lay to heart our author's warning and counsel in the following sentences:--

"While we exclude all suggestions of despair, as being equally unworthy of a man and of a Christian, we establish two safe principles. The first is, that, in all congregational and ecclesiastical institutions, Christian freedom, within limits conformable to Scripture, constitutes the first requisite for a vital restoration. The second fundamental principle is, that every Church must hold fast what she already possesses, in so far as it presents itself to her consciousness as true and efficacious. In virtue of the first condition, she will combine Reason and Scripture in due proportions; by virtue of the second, she will distinguish between Spirit and Letter, between Idea and Form. No external clerical forms and mediæval reflexes of bygone social and intellectual conditions can save us, nor can sectarian schisms and isolation from national life. Neither can learned speculations, and still less the incomparably more arrogant dreams of the unlearned. Scientific consciousness must dive into real life, and refresh itself in the feelings of the people, and that no one will be able to do without having made himself thoroughly conversant with the sufferings and the sorrows of the lowest classes of society. For out of the feeling of these sufferings and sorrows, as being to a great degree the most extensive and most deep-seated product of evil,--that is, of selfishness,--arose, eighteen hundred years ago, the divine birth of Christianity. The new birth, however, requires new pangs of labor, and not only on the part of individuals, but of the whole nation, in so far as she bears within her the germs of future life, and possesses the strength to bring forth. Every nation must set about the work herself, not, indeed, as her own especial exclusive concern, but as the interest of all mankind. Every people has the vocation to coin for itself the divine form of Humanity, in the Church as well as in the State; its life depends on this being done, not its reputation merely; it is the condition of existence, not merely of prosperity.

"Is it not time, in truth, to withdraw the veil from our misery? to point to the clouds which rise from all quarters, to the noxious vapors which have already well-nigh suffocated us? to tear off the mask from hypocrisy, and destroy that sham which is undermining all real ground beneath our feet? to point out the dangers which surround, nay, threaten already to engulf us? Is the state of things satisfactory in a Christian sense, where so much that is unchristian predominates, and where Christianity has scarcely begun here and there to penetrate the surface of the common life? Shall we be satisfied with the increased outward respect paid to Christianity and the Church? Shall we take it as a sign of renewed life, that the names of God and Christ have become the fashion, and are used as a party badge? Can a society be said to be in a healthy condition, in which material and selfish interests in individuals, as well as in the masses, gain every day more and more the upper hand? in which so many thinking and educated men are attached to Christianity only by outward forms, maintained either by despotic power, or by a not less despotic, half-superstitious, half-hypocritical custom? when so many churches are empty, and satisfy but few, or display more and more outward ceremonials and vicarious rites? when a godless schism has sprung up between spirit and form, or has even been preached up as a means of rescue? when gross ignorance or confused knowledge, cold indifference or the fanaticism of superstition, prevails as to the understanding of Holy Scripture, as to the history, nay, the fundamental ideas of Christianity? when force invokes religion in order to command, and demagogues appeal to the religious element in order to destroy? when, after all their severe chastisements and bloody lessons, most statesmen base their wisdom only on the contempt of mankind? and when the prophets of the people preach a liberty, the basis of which is selfishness, the object libertinism, and the wages are vice? And this in an age the events of which show more and more fatal symptoms, and in which a cry of ardent longing pervades the people, re-echoed by a thousand voices!"--III. XV.

Sorry, however, as we should be to see our Roman presbyter disconsolately wandering from fold to fold in modern England, and dismissed as a black sheep from all, we should not like to find him metamorphosed into chief shepherd either, and invested with the guidance of our ecclesiastical affairs. Though he is above imitating the feeble railing of Irenæus at the heresies, he deals with them in the true clerical style; often missing their real meaning, he does not spare them his bad word; and fancies he has killed them before he has even caught them. He has an evident relish also for a tale of scandal, as a make-weight against a theological opponent. In the "Little Labyrinth," he had told us a story about a Unitarian minister, who, for accepting his schismatical office, had been horsewhipped by angels all night; so that he crawled in the morning to the metropolitan, and gave in his penitential recantation. And now, in the larger work, the author flies at higher game, and makes out that Pope Callistus was an incorrigible scamp; originally a slave in the household of a wealthy Christian master, Carpophorus, whose confidence he abused in every possible way. First, having been intrusted with the management of a bank in the _Piscina publica_, he swindled and ruined the depositors, and decamped, with the intention of sailing from Portus, but was found on board ship; and, though he jumped into the sea to avoid capture, was picked up, and condemned by his master to the hand-mill. Next, being allowed to go out, on the plea of collecting some debts which would enable him to pay a dividend to the depositors, he created a riot in a Jews' synagogue, and, being brought before the prefect, was sentenced to be flogged and transported to Sardinia. Thence he escaped by passing himself off among a number of Christians, released from their exile through the influence of the Emperor's concubine, Marcia, and on the recommendation of Victor, the Pope. As he was not included in the list of pardons, he no sooner made his appearance in Rome than his master sent him off to live on a monthly allowance at Antium. On the death of Carpophorus, he seems to have attained his freedom by bequest; and his fertility of resource having made him useful to the new Pope Zephyrinus, he acquired influence enough to succeed him in the Primacy. We must confess that the evident _gusto_ with which our presbyter tells this scandal, the _animus_ with which he accuses Zephyrinus also of stupidity and venality, and the predominance in his narrative of theological antipathy over moral disgust, leave a painful impression on the reader respecting the spirit then at work in the Apostolic See. And though his scheme of belief, especially in relation to the person of Christ, was more rational than the definitions of more modern creeds, yet we fear that he would be not less nice about its shape, and intolerant of those who move about in freer folds of thought, than a divine of the Canterbury cloisters or the Edinburgh platform. His quarrel with the two popes whom he abuses shows pretty clearly the stage of development which the Christian theology had then reached. On this matter we must say a few words.

Whatever may have been the precise order of combination which brought the Hebrew and Hellenic ideas of God into union, there can be no doubt about the two _termini_ of the process. It started from the monarchical conception of Jehovah, as a Unity without plurality; and it issued in the Athanasian Trinity, with its three hypostases in one essence. Of these, the Father expressed the Absolute existence, the Son the Objective manifestation, the Holy Spirit the Subjective revelation of God. In the presbyter's creed, the third term was not yet incorporated, but still floated freely, diffused and impersonal. Leaving this out of view, we may observe, in the remaining part of the doctrine, two principal difficulties to be surmounted, arising from the double medium of divine objective manifestation,--Nature, always proceeding,--and Christ, historically transient. The first problem is, How to pass at all out of the Infinite existence into Finite phenomena, and conceive the relation between the Father and the Son; the second, How to pass from Eternal manifestation through all phenomena into temporary appearance in an Individual, so as to conceive the relation between the Son and the Galilean Christ. Thus, excluding all reference to the Holy Spirit, there were, in fact, _four_ objects of thought, whose relations to one another were to be adjusted; viz. the Father, the Son evolving all things, the Christ or divine individualization in the Gospel, and Jesus of Nazareth, the human being with whose life this individualization concurred. Among all these there were, so to speak, two clearly distinct Wills to dispose of; that of the man Jesus at the lowest extremity, and that of the Supreme God, which the Jew, at least, would fix at the upper. These two Wills act, in the whole development of doctrine on this subject, as the secret centres of Personality; and the remaining elements obtain or miss a hypostatic character according as they are drawn or not into coalescence with the one or the other. The volitional point of the Divine Agency being once determined, it may be regarded as enclosed between the _Thought_, or intellectual essence out of which it comes, and the _Execution_ by which it is realized; or it may be left undistinguished from these, and may be made to coincide with either. According to these variable conditions arise the several modes of doctrine in reference to the Divine element in God's Objective manifestation. The differences, for instance, between our presbyter's doctrine and Origen's, will be found to depend on the different points which they seize as the seat of divine volition, and the germ of their logical development. Our author, exemplifying the Hebrew tendency, seeks his initiative up at the fountain-head, and puts himself back before the first act of creation; he starts from the One God, with whom nothing was co-present, and fixes in Him the seat of the primeval Will. There, however, it would remain, a mere potentiality, did not the Eternal Mind, by reflection in itself, pass into self-consciousness, and give objectivity to its own thought. This primary expression of his essence, in which it enters into relation, but relation only to itself, is the _Logos_, or _Son_ of God, the agent in the production of all things. The potentiality is thus reserved to the Father; the effectuation is given to the Son; who, coming in at a point lower down than the seat of Will, and simply bridging over the interval that leads to accomplishment, is felt without the essential condition of a numerically distinct subsistence; and has either the instrumental and subordinate personality of a dependent being, or is imperfectly hypostatized.[41] In this impersonal character does the Logos manifest the Divine thought in the visible universe; in the minds of godly men, which are the source of law; in the glance of prophets, which catches and interprets the divine significance of all times; and first assumes a full personality in the Incarnation. Having left the primary Will behind in the Father's essence, the Logos remains but an inchoate hypostasis, till alighting, in the human nature, on another centre of volition. As if our author were half conscious, in reaching this point, of relief from an antecedent uneasiness, he now holds fast to the personality which has been realized, represents it as not dissolved by the death on the cross, but taken up into heaven, and abiding for ever. It is, in this view, the two extreme terms that supply the hypostatizing power; of the others, the Logos has no personality but by looking back to the Father; nor the Christ, but by going forward to the Son of Mary. This shows the yet powerful influence of the Judaic Monarchianism, and the embarrassment of a mind, setting out from that type of faith, to provide any plurality within the essence of God. Origen, on the other hand, yielded to the Hellenic feeling, and, instead of going back to any absolute commencement, looked for his Divine centre and starting-point further down; and took thence whatever upward glance was needful to complete his view. As the Greek reverence was not touched but by the Divine embodied in concrete life and form, so the Alexandrine catechist instinctively fixed upon the SON, the objective Thought of God, proceeding, not once upon a time or ever _first_, but _eternally_, from Him, as the initiative position for his doctrine. Here was placed the clearest and intensest focus of Will; and only in this ever-evolving efficient were the full conditions of personality realized. The Father was conceived more pantheistically, as the universal νους, the intellectual background, whence issued the acting nature of the Son. In meditating on them in their conjunction, Origen would think of the relation between _thought_ and _volition_; our author, of that between _volition_ and _execution_. Both doctrines show the imperfect fusion of Hebrew and Hellenic elements, and illustrate the characteristic effect of an excessive proportion of each. Where the Hebrew element prevails, the personality of the Son is endangered; where the Hellenic, the personality of the Father. Even our presbyter's doctrine of the Son, however, gave too strong an impersonation to Him for the party in Rome who sided with Zephyrinus and Callistus. These popes accused him, it seems, of being a _Ditheist_; and themselves maintained that the terms Father and Son denoted only different sides and relations of one and the same Being,--nay, not only of the same Being, but of the same προσωπον; and that the spirit that dwelt in Christ was the Father, of whom all things are full. For this opinion the two popes are angrily dealt with by our author, and charged with being half Sabellian, half humanitarian. His rancor justifies the suspicion, that, though he represents the party which triumphed at Rome, his opponents had been numerous and powerful, as, indeed, their election to the primacy would of itself show, and that even his own imperfect dogma was superinduced, not without a protracted struggle, upon an earlier faith yet remote from the Nicene standard.