CHAPTER IX

THE SPIRITUAL GOSPEL AND EPISTLES

Asia, as we have come to know it through a succession of writings dating from Colossians-Ephesians (_c._ 62) down to Papias (145), had come to be the chief scene of mutual reaction between 'apostolic' and Pauline Christianity at the close of the first century. Here at Ephesus had been the great headquarters of Paul's missionary activity. Here he had reasoned daily in the school of one Tyrannus, a philosopher, and had found "many adversaries." Here he had encountered the "strolling Jews, exorcists," and had secured the destruction of an immense mass of books of magic. Here, according to Acts, he predicted the inroads of heresy after his "departure," and here the succeeding literature abundantly witnesses the fulfilment of the prediction. Ephesians and Colossians begin the series, the Pastoral Epistles (_c._ 90) continue it. Then follow the 'letters to the churches' of Revelation (95) and the Ignatian Epistles (110-117), not to mention those whose origin is uncertain, such as Jude and 2nd Peter.

The Pastorals already make it apparent that even the Pauline churches are not exempt from the inevitable tendency of the age to fall back upon authority. The very sublimity of Paul's consciousness of apostolic inspiration made it the harder for the next generation to assert any for itself. Moreover heresy was growing apace. If even the outward pressure of persecution tended to drive the churches together in brotherly sympathy, still more indispensable would appear the need of traditional standards to maintain the "type of sound doctrine," "the faith once for all delivered to the saints." Without such it would be impossible to check the individualism of errorists who took Paul's sense of personal inspiration and mystical insight as their model, _without_ Paul's sobriety of critical control under the standard of "the law of Christ." It is no surprise, then, to find even at the headquarters of Paulinism early in the second century a sweeping tendency to react toward the 'apostolic' standards. In particular, as Gnostic exaggeration of the Pauline mysticism led continually further toward disregard of the dictates of common morality, and a wider divergence from the Jewish conceptions of the world to come, it was natural that men like Polycarp and Papias should turn to the Matthæan and Petrine tradition of the Lord's oracles, and to the Johannine 'prophecies' regarding the resurrection and judgment.

Had nothing intervened between Gnostics and reactionaries the most vital elements of Paul's gospel might well have disappeared, even at this great headquarters of Paulinism. The Doketists, with their exaggerated Hellenistic mysticism, were certainly not the true successors of Paul. They showed an almost contemptuous disregard for the historic Jesus, a one-sided aim at personal redemption, by mystic union of the individual soul with the Christ-spirit, to the disregard of "the law of Christ," even in some cases of common morality. Paul was characterized by a splendid loyalty to personal purity, to the social ideal of the Kingdom, and to the unity of the brotherhood in the spirit of reciprocal service. On the other hand men like the author of the Pastoral Epistles, Ignatius and Polycarp, with their almost panic-stricken resort to the authority of the past, were not perpetuating the true spirit of the great Apostle. Their reliance was on ecclesiastical discipline, concrete and massive miracle in the story of Jesus, particularly on the point of the bodily--or, as they would have said, the "fleshly"--resurrection. Their conception of his recorded "words," made of them a fixed, superhuman standard and rule, a "new law." Teachers of this type, much as they desired and believed themselves to be perpetuating the "sacred deposit" of Paul, were in reality conserving its form and missing its spirit. Such men would gladly "turn to the tradition handed down," of the Matthæan Sayings, and the Petrine Story. But in the former they would not find reflections of the sense of Son ship. They would find only a supplementary Law, a new and higher set of rules. In the story they would not discover the Pauline view of the pre-existent divine Wisdom tabernacling in man, producing a second Adam, as elder brother of a new race, the children and heirs of God. They would take the mysticism of Paul and bring it down to the level of the man in the street. Jesus would be to them either a completely superhuman man, approximating the heathen demi-god, a divinity incognito; or else a man so endowed with "the whole fountain of the Spirit" as to exercise perpetually and uninterruptedly all its miraculous functions. The story of the cross would be hidden behind the prodigies.

Least of all could the importation of apocalyptic prophecy do justice to the Pauline doctrine of the 'last things.' True, Paul is himself a 'prophet,' thoroughly imbued with the fantastic Palestinian doctrines. He, too, believes in a world-conflict, a triumph of the Messiah over antichrist. More particularly in one of his very earliest epistles (2nd Thessalonians) we get a glimpse into these Jewish peculiarities. But these are always counterbalanced in Paul by a wider and soberer view, which tends more and more to get the upper hand. His doctrine of spiritual union with Christ, present apprehension of "the life that is hid with Christ in God," a doctrine of Greek rather than Hebrew parentage, prevails over the imagery of Jewish apocalypse. In the later epistles he expects rather to "depart and be with Christ" than to be "caught up into the air" with those that are alive and remain at the 'Coming.' So even if Paul did have occasion again and again to defend his Jewish resurrection-doctrine against the Greek disposition to refine it away into a mere doctrine of immortality, his remedy is not a mere falling back into the crudities of Jewish millenarianism. Least of all could he have sympathized with the nationalistic, and even vindictive spirit of Rev. iv.-xxi., with its great battle of Jerusalem helped by Messiah and the angels, against Rome helped by Satan and the Beast. Paul's doctrine of the resurrection of the "body" by "clothing" of the spirit with a "tabernacle" derived "from heaven," his hope of a messianic Kingdom which is the triumph of humanity under a "second Adam," has its apocalyptic traits. It is a victory over demonic enemies, "spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places"; but it has the reserve of an educated Pharisee against the cruder forms of Jewish prophecy. It shows the mind of the cosmopolitan Roman citizen and philosophic thinker, not merely that of the Jewish Zealot.

How salutary if Paul himself could have lived to control the divergent elements among his churches, to check the subjective individualism of the Gnostics on the one hand, and the reactionary tendencies of the orthodox on the other. His parting words to his beloved Philippians are sadly appreciative of how needful it was for their sake that he should "abide in the flesh" (Phil. i. 24). Yet there was one thing still more expedient--that he should abide with them in the spirit. And that is just what we find evidenced in the great 'spiritual' Gospel and its accompanying Epistles from Ephesus.

Debate still rages over a mere name, attached by tradition to these writings that themselves bear no name. The titles prefixed by early transcribers attribute them to "John." But they are never employed before 175-180 in a way to even remotely suggest that they were then regarded as written by John, or even as apostolic in any sense. And when we trace the tradition back to its earliest form, in the Epilogue attached to the Gospel (John xxi.) it seems to be no more than a dubious attempt to identify that mysterious figure, the "disciple whom Jesus loved." If, however, we postpone this question raised by the Epilogue, the writings can at least be assigned to a definite locality (Ephesus) and a fairly definite date (_c._ 105-110), with the general consent both of ancient tradition and of modern criticism. This is for us the important thing, since it enables us to understand their purpose and bearing; whereas even those who contend that they were written by the Apostle John can make little use of the alleged fact. For (1) the little that is known of John from other sources is completely opposed to the characteristics of these writings. They are characterized by a broad universalism, and reproduce the mysticism of Paul. To attribute them to the Pillar of Gal. ii. 9, or the Galilean fisherman of Mark i. 19 and