Part 30

For these reasons we are of opinion that the question about the date and authenticity of the fourth Gospel is wholly unaffected by the newly-discovered work. On this side, no new facilities are gained for confuting the Tübingen theory. The most positive and startling fact against it is presented from another direction. We know that the system of Theodotus, which was Unitarian, was condemned by Victor in the last decade of the second century.[49] Now Victor was the very pope to the end of whose period, according to the followers of Artemon, their monarchian faith was upheld in the Roman Church, and in the time of whose successor was the first importation of the higher doctrine of the Logos. On this complaint of the Artemonites, Baur and Schwegler lay great stress; but is it not refuted by Victor's orthodox act of expelling a Unitarian? Undoubtedly it would be so, _if_ Theodotus were excommunicated precisely for his belief in the uni-personality of God. But his scheme included many articles; and we know nothing of the ground taken in the proceedings against him. There was one question, however, which, however indifferent to us, was evidently very near to the feelings of the early Church, and on which Theodotus separated himself from the prevailing conceptions of his time,--viz. At what date did the Christ, the Divine principle, become united with Jesus, the human being? "At his baptism," replied Theodotus.[50] "Before his birth," said the general voice of the Christians. We are disposed to think _this_ was the obnoxious tenet which Victor construed into heresy; and if so, the strife had no bearing upon the doctrine of the personality of the Logos, which the pope and the heretic might both have rejected. Of the Unitarianism of that time, it was no essential feature to postpone till the baptism the heavenly element in Christ. We remember no reason for supposing that the Artemonites did so, though Theodotus did; and if they knew that the objection which had been fatal to him did not apply to them, their claim of ancient and orthodox sanction for what they held in common with him was not answered by pointing to his condemnation for what was special to himself. But is there, it will be asked, any evidence that the Roman Church attached importance to this particular ingredient of the Theodotian scheme, so that their bishop might feel impelled to visit it with ecclesiastical censure? We believe there is, and _that_ too in the "Philosophumena." In the author's confession of faith occurs a passage which produces at first a strange impression upon a modern reader, and appears like a violence done to the Gospel history. It affirms that Christ _passed through every stage of human life_, that he might serve as the model to all. Nor is this idea a personal whim of the writer; but is borrowed from his master, Irenæus, who gives it in more detail, and winds it up with the assertion, that Christ _lived to be fifty years old_.[51] Irenæus thus falsifies the history to make good the moral; our presbyter, by respecting the history, apparently invalidates the moral: for it can scarcely be said of a life closed after thirty-one or thirty-two years, that it supplies a rule πασα ἡλικιη; at least it would seem more natural to apologize for its premature termination, than to lay stress on its absolute completeness. The truth is, there was a certain, obnoxious tenet behind, which these writers were anxious to contradict, and which their assertion exactly meets,--viz. the very tenet of Theodotus, that the Divine nature did not unite itself with the Saviour till his baptism. Irenæus and his pupil could not endure this limitation of what was highest in Christ to the interval between his first public preaching and his crucifixion. They thought that in this way it was reduced to a mere official investiture, not integral to his being, but externally superinduced; and that such a conception deprived it of all its moral significance. The union of the Logos with our nature was not a provision for temporary inspiration or a forensic redemption; but was intended to mould a life and shape a personal existence, according to the immaculate ideal of humanity. To accomplish this intention it was necessary that the Logos should never be absent from any part of his earthly being; but should have claimed his person from the first, and by preoccupation have neutralized the action of the natural (or psychic) element, throughout all the years of his continuance among men. The anxiety of Irenæus's school to put this interpretation on the manifestation of the Logos, their determination to distinguish it, on the one hand, from the _mediate_ communication of prophets as an _immediate_ presentation (αυτοψει φανερωθηναι), and, on the other, from the _transient_ occupancy of a ready-made man, as a _permanent_ and thorough-going incarnation (σαρκωθηναι in opposition to φαντασια or τροπη), is apparent in their whole language on this subject. In the Son, we are carried to the fresh fountain-head of every kind of perfection, and find the unspoiled ideal of heavenly and terrestrial natures. In one of the fragments of Hippolytus, published by Mai, and noticed in M. Bunsen's Appendix, this notion is conveyed by the remark, that He is first-born of God's own essence, that he may have precedence of angels; first-born of a virgin, that he may be a fresh-created Adam; first-born of death, that he might become the first fruits of our resurrection.[52] This doctrine it is, we apprehend, which amplifies itself into the Irenæan statement, that the divine and ideal function of Christ coalesced with the historical throughout, so that to infants he was a consecrating infant; to little children, a consecrating child; to youth, a consecrating model of youth; and to elders, a still consecrating rule, not only by disclosure of truth, but by exhibiting the true type of their perfection.[53] The teaching of Theodotus, that the heavenly εικων remained at a distance till the baptism, was directly contradictory of this favorite notion; and might well produce hostile excitement, and provoke condemnation, in a church where the Irenæan influence is known to have been powerful. The attitude that Victor assumed towards the Theodotians is thus perfectly compatible with Monarchian opinions, and with an attitude equally hostile, in the opposite direction, towards the advancing Trinitarian claims of a distinct personality for the Logos. Though only the one hostility is recorded of Victor, the other is ascribed, as we have seen, to his immediate successors, Zephyrinus and Callistus, who maintained that it was no other person than the Father that dwelt as the Logos in the Son. The facts taken together, and spreading as they do over the periods of three popes, afford undeniable traces of a struggle at the turn of the second century, between a prevalent but threatened Monarchianism, and a new doctrine of the Divine Personality of the Son.

After all, why is M. Bunsen so anxious to disprove the late appearance of the fourth Gospel? Did he value it chiefly as a biographical sketch, and depend upon it for concrete facts, a first-hand authentication of its contents would be of primary moment. But his interest in it is evidently speculative rather than historical, and centres upon its doctrinal thought, not on its narrative attestation; and especially singles out the proem as a condensed and perfect expression of Christian ontology. The book speaks to him, and finds him, out of its mystic spiritual depths; sanctifies his own philosophy; glorifies with an ideal haze the greatest reality of history; blends with melting tints the tenderness of the human, and the sublimity of the divine life; and presents the Holy Spirit as immanent in the souls of the faithful and the destinies of humanity. But its enunciation of great truths, its penetration to the still sanctuary of devout consciousness, will not cease to be facts, or become doubtful as merits, or be changed in their endearing power, by an alteration in the superscription or the date. These religious and philosophical features converse directly with Reason and Conscience, and have the same significance, whatever their critical history may be; and are not the less rich as inspirations from having passed for interpretation through more minds than one. There is neither common sense nor piety, as M. Bunsen himself, we feel certain, will allow, in the assumption that Revelation is necessarily most perfect at its source, and can only grow earthy and turbid as it flows. Were it something entirely foreign to the mind, capable of holding no thought in solution, but inevitably spoiled by every abrasion it effects of philosophy and feeling, this mechanical view would be correct. But if it be the intenser presence, the quickened perception of a Being absent from none; if it be the infinite original of which philosophy is the finite reflection; if thus it speaks, not in the unknown tongue of isolated ecstasy, but in the expressive music of our common consciousness and secret prayer;--then is it so little unnatural, so related to the constitution of our faculties, that the mind's continuous reaction on it may bring it more clearly out; and, after being detained at first amid sluggish levels and unwholesome growths which mar its divine transparency, it may percolate through finer media, drop its accidental admixtures, and take up in each stratum of thought some elements given it by native affinity, and become more purely the spring of life in its descent than in its source. If, before the fourth Gospel was written, the figure of Christ, less close to the eye, was seen more in its relations to humanity and to God; if his deep hints, working in the experience of more than one generation, had expanded their marvellous contents; if, in a prolonged contact of his religion with Hellenism, elements had disclosed themselves of irresistible sympathy, and the first sharp boundary drawn by Jewish hands had melted away; if his concrete history itself was now subordinate to its ideal interpretation;--the book will present us still with a Christianity, not impoverished, but enriched. In proportion as its thoughts speak for themselves by their depth and beauty, may all anxiety cease about their external legitimation; their credentials become eternal instead of individual; and where the Father himself thus beareth witness, Christ needeth not the testimony of man. It cannot be, therefore, any religious issue that depends on the date of this Christian record; it cannot _make_ truth, it can only awaken the mind to discern it; and whether it has this power or not, the mind can only report according to its consciousness of quickening light or stagnant darkness. The interest of this question cannot surely be more than a _critical_ interest, to one who can feel and speak in this noble strain:--

"No divine authority is given to any set of men to make truth for mankind. The supreme judge is the Spirit in the Church, that is to say, in the universal body of men professing Christ. The universal conscience is God's highest interpreter. If Christ speaks truth, his words must speak to the human reason and conscience, whenever and wherever they are preached: let them, therefore, be preached. If the Gospels contained inspired wisdom, they must themselves inspire with heavenly thoughts the conscientious inquirer and the serious thinker: let them, therefore, freely be made the object of inquiry and of thought. Scripture, to be believed true with full conviction, must be at one with reason: let it, therefore, be treated rationally. By taking this course, we shall not lose strength; but we shall gain a strength which no church ever had. There is strength in Christian discipline, if freely accepted by those who are to submit to it; there is strength in spiritual authority, if freely acknowledged by those who care for Christ; there is strength unto death in the enthusiasm of an unenlightened people, if sincere, and connected with lofty moral ideas. But there is no strength to be compared with that of a faith which identifies moral and intellectual conviction with religious belief, with that of an authority instituted by such a faith, and of a Christian life based upon it, and striving to Christianize this world of ours, for which Christianity was proclaimed. Let those who are sincere, but timid, look into their conscience, and ask themselves whether their timidity proceeds from faith, or whether it does not rather betray a want of faith. Europe is in a critical state, politically, ecclesiastically, socially. Where is the power able to reclaim a world, which, if it be faithless, is become so under untenable and ineffective ordinances,--which, if it is in a state of confusion, has become confused by those who have spiritually guided it? Armies may subdue liberty; but armies cannot conquer ideas: much less can Jesuits and Jesuitical principles restore religion, or superstition revive faith. I deny the prevalence of a destructive and irreligious spirit in the hearts of the immense majority of the people. I believe that the world wants, not less, but more religion. But however this be, I am firmly convinced that God governs the world, and that he governs it by the eternal ideas of truth and justice engraved on our conscience and reason; and I am sure that nations, who have conquered, or are conquering, civil liberty for themselves, will sooner or later as certainly demand liberty of religious thought, and that those whose fathers have victoriously acquired religious liberty will not fail to demand civil and political liberty also. With these ideas, and with the present irresistible power of communicating ideas, what can save us except religion, and therefore Christianity? But then it must be a Christianity based upon that which is eternally God's own, and is as indestructible and as invincible as he is himself: it must be based upon Reason and Conscience, I mean reason spontaneously embracing the faith in Christ, and Christian faith feeling itself at one with reason and with the history of the world. Civilized Europe, as it is at present, will fall; or it will be pacified by this liberty, this reason, this faith. To prove that the cause of Protestantism in the nineteenth century is identical with the cause of Christianity, it is only necessary to attend to this fact; that they both must sink and fall, until they stand upon their indestructible ground, which, in my inmost conviction, is the real, genuine, original ground upon which Christ placed it. Let us, then, give up all notions of finding any other basis, all attempts to prop up faith by effete forms and outward things: let us cease to combat reason, whenever it contradicts conventional forms and formularies. We must take the ground pointed out by the Gospel, as well as by the history of Christianity. We may then hope to realize what Christ died for, to see the Church fulfil the high destinies of Christianity, and God's will manifested by Christ to mankind, so as to make the kingdoms of this earth the kingdoms of the Most High."--p. 172.

We have given our readers no conception of the variety and richness of M. Bunsen's work; having scarcely passed beyond the limits of the first volume. It was impossible to pass by, without examination, the recovered monument of early Christianity, whence his materials and suggestions are primarily drawn; and it is equally impossible to pass beyond it, without entering on a field too wide to be surveyed. We can only record that, in the remaining volumes, which are, in fact, a series of separate productions, the early doctrine of the Eucharist is investigated, and the progress of its corruptions strikingly traced; the primitive system of ecclesiastical rules or canons, and the "Church-and-House Book," or manual of instruction and piety in use among the ante-Nicene Christians, are carefully and laboriously restored; and genuine Liturgies of the first centuries are reproduced. In this arduous work of recovery, there is necessarily much need of critical tact, not to say much room for critical conjecture. But the one our author exercises with great felicity; and the other he takes all possible pains to reduce to its lowest amount by careful comparison of Syrian, Coptic, and Abyssinian texts. The general result is a truly interesting set of sketches for a picture of the early Church; which rises before us with no priestly pretensions, no scholastic creeds, no bibliolatry, dry and dead; but certainly with an aspect of genuine piety and affection, and with an air of mild authority over the whole of life, which are the more winning from the frightful corruption and dissolving civilization of the Old World around. That our author should be fascinated with the image he has re-created, and long to see it brought to life, in place of that body of death on which we hang the pomps and titles of our nominal Christianity, is not astonishing. But a greater change is needed--though a far less will be denied--than a return to the type of faith and worship in the second century. To destroy the fatal chasm between profession and conviction, and bring men to live fresh out of a real reverence instead of against a pretended or a fancied one, a greater latitude and flexibility must be given to the forms of spiritual culture than was needed in the ancient world. The unity of system which was once possible is unseasonable amid our growing varieties of condition and culture; and the methods which were natural among a people closely thrown together and constructing their life around the Church as a centre, would be highly artificial in a state of society in which the family is the real unit, and the congregation a precarious aggregate, of existence. Nothing, however, can be finer or more generous than the spirit of our author's suggestions of reform; and we earnestly thank him for a profusion of pregnant thoughts and faithful warnings, the application of one half of which would change the fate of our churches,--the destiny of our nation,--the courses of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] τοις μεν ευ πραξασι δικαιως την αιδιου απολαυσιν παρασχοντος, ταις δε των φαυλων ερασταις την αιωνιον κολασιν απονει μαντος. Και τουτοις μεν το πυρ ασβεστον διαμενει και ατελευτετον, σκωλεξ δε τις εμπυρος, μη τελευτων, μηδε σωμα διαφθειρων, απαυστω δε οδυνη εκ σωματος εκβρασσων παραμενει. Τουτους ουχ υπνος αναπαυσει, ου νυξ παρηγορησει, ου θανατος της κολασεως απολυσει, ου παρακλησις συγγενων μεσιτευσαντων ονησει. S. Hippol. adv. Græcos. Fabricii Hipp. Op. p. 222.

[27] Euseb. H. E., VI. 20.

[28] Attributed to him by Neander, Kirch. Geschichte, I. iii. 1150; and Schwegler, Montanismus, p. 224.

[29] Storr places him at their head, Zweck der Evang. Geschichte, p. 63; and Eichhorn associates him with them, Einleitung in das N. T., II. 414.

[30] See the notice of the Nestorian Ebed Jesu, in Asseman's Bibl. Orient. III. i. ap. Gieseler, k. 9, § 63.

[31] On their relation, and the doctrine connected with their names, see Baur's "Christl. Gnosis," p. 310.

[32] Phot. Biblioth., cod. 48. ὡς και αυτος (i. e. Γαιος) εν τω τελει του λαβυρινθου διεμαρτυρατο, ἑαυτου ειναι τον περι της του παντος ουσιας λογον.

[33] Theologische Jahrbücher, 12er Band, I. 1853, p. 154.

[34] Hæret. Fab. II. c. 5. Κατα της τουτων ὁ σμικρος συνεγραφη λαβυρινθος, ὁν τινες Ωριγενους ὑπολαμβανουσι ποιημα · αλλ ὁ χαρακτηρ ελεγχει τους λεγοντας.

[35] He also describes its exact relation to the other, when he calls it a _special_ work (ι δ ι ω ς) in comparison with "The Labyrinth" as a general one: συνταξαι δε και ἑτερον λογον ιδιως κατα της Αρτεμωνος αιρεσεως. Cod. 48.

[36] Ibid. ὡσπερ και τον Λαβυρινθον τινες επεγραψαν Ωριγενους.

[37] Biblioth. cod. 48; Lardner's "Credibility," Part II. ch. xxxii.; Bunsen's Hippolytus, I. p. 150.

[38] Euseb. H. E., III. 28. αλλα και Κηρινθος, ὁ δι αποκαλυψεων ὡς ὑπο αποστολου μεγαλου γεγραμμενων τερατολογιας ημιν ὡς δι αγγελων αυτω δεδειγμενας ψευδομενος επεισαγει, λεγων, μετα την αναστασιν επιγειον ειναι το βασιλειον του Χριστου, και παλιν επιθυμιαις και ἡδοναις εν Ἱερουσαλημ την σαρκα πολιτευομενην δουλευειν. και εχθρος ὑπαρχων ταις γραφαις του θεου αριθμον χιλιονταετιας εν γαμω ἑορτης θελων πλαναν λεγει γινεσθαι. The passage, preserving its obscurities, seems to run thus: "Cerinthus too, through the medium of revelations written as if by a great Apostle, has palmed off upon us marvellous accounts, pretending to have been shown him by angels; to the effect that, after the resurrection, the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one, and that the flesh will again be at the head of affairs, and serve in Jerusalem the lusts and pleasures of sense. And with wilful misguidance he says, setting himself in opposition to the Scriptures of God, that a period of a thousand years will be spent in nuptial festivities." On this much-controverted passage, Lardner (Cred., P. II. ch. xxxii.) suspends his judgment, rather inclining to doubt whether our Apocalypse is referred to; Hug (Einl. § 176), Paulus (Hist. Cerinth., P. I. § 30), with Twells and Hartwig (whose criticisms we have not seen), deny that the Apocalypse is meant; while Eichhorn (Einl. in das N. T., VI. v. § 194. 2), De Wette (Lehrbuch der Einl. in d. N. T., § 192 a), Lücke (Commentar üb. d. Schriften des Ev. Johannes, Offenb. § 33), and Schwegler (Das nachapost. Zeitalter, 2er B. p. 218), take the other side. It must be confessed also, that, till the rise of the present discussion about the "Philosophoumena," Baur agreed with these last writers. (See his Christl. Lehre v. d. Dreieinigkeit, 1er B. p. 283.) He now urges, however, that, in a case already so doubtful, the discovery of a lost book, which we have good reason to ascribe to Caius, necessarily brings in new evidence, and may turn the scale between two balanced interpretations. (Theol. Jahrb., p. 157.)

[39] Baur explains the slight treatment of the Montanist heresy in the "Philosophumena" by the intention which Caius already had of writing a special book against them: and contends that this intention is announced expressly in the words (p. 276), περι τουτων αυθις λεπτομερεστερον εκθησομαι · πολλοις γαρ αφορμη κακων γεγενηται ἡ τουτων αιρεσις. These words, however, do not refer, as the connection evidently shows, to the Montanists generally; but only to a certain class of them who fell in with the patripassian doctrine of Noctus. The Noctian scheme Caius was going to discuss further on in this very book: and it is evidently to this later chapter, not to any separate work against Montanism, that he alludes.

[40] The word is perhaps not allowable in speaking of the earliest time (the reign of Alexander Severus) assignable for the erection of separate buildings appropriate to Christian worship.

[41] To Hippolytus and the writers of his period, Dorner ascribes the latter, preponderantly over the former, side of this alternative; while Hänell charges their view with Sabellianism. See Dorner's "Entwickelungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi," I. p. 611, _seq._

[42] "Tert. adv. Prax.," c. 3.

[43] Euseb. H. E., V. 28.

[44] See Adolph Schliemann's "Clementinen, nebst den verwandten Schriften und der Ebionitismus," Cap. III. ii. §§ 8, 9.