Ence to greek forms of thought

The after- relations of Christian faith to Greek forms of thought have been made a subject of close and pro- longed investigation by the modern school of historical criticism of which Harnack is the great representative, and of which Hatch and McGiffert are leading English examples. The work of this school is of priceless value in respect of its pure historical research.

But in so far as it is dom- inated by certain presuppositions, and is deter- mined by a certain preconceived idea, it seems to the present writer to be mistaken in its results. That dogma is ‘in its conception and develop- ment a product of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel’ (Harnack) may in a sense be ad- mitted.

At the same time, care must be taken PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHY 853 in the application of such a principle to do justice to the original content of the gospel with which later reflections had to deal. In the hands of certain members of the school it may be doubted whether this is secured. In the Hibbert Lecture of the late Dr. Hatch, the problem, as conceived by these writers, is expressed with a clearness which leaves nothing to be desired, viz.

‘Why an ethical sermon stood in the forefront of the teaching of Jesus, and a metaphysical creed in the forefront of the Christianity of the 4th cent. ’ The conclusion to which the brilliant ability and ripe scholarship of the author are devoted is, that this change, being ‘coincident with the trans- ference of Christianity from a Semitic to a Greek soil,’ is ‘the result of Greek influence.

’ In plain words, primitive Christianity was simple ethical teaching regarding God and duty, undisturbed by intellectual problems, and absolutely free from speoulntive elements. Theology, as embodied in e great creeds, is a superstructure of mischievous motaphyric reared by the fruitless subtlety of the Greek intellect, which must be swept away before enuine Christianity can be rev uty and power. Obviously, then, the question is as to the nature of primitive Christianity.

Is it true that it was ethical merely? Is it true that its essence is summed up in the Sermon on the Mount? Is it permissible to lay aside every element in the NT that is not rigidly and exclusively ‘ethical’? Is it fair to state the problem as being the transition from the Sermon on the Mount to the Nicene Creed? If the problem be auisleading, the con- clusions cannot fail to be erroneous.

In order to reduce the problem to the simplicity and narrow- ness of the above statement, the following positions must be maintained. (1) Jesus Christ cannot have been more than a unique religious personality, with deep and true moral instincts, and a high degree of spiritual-mindedness. He cannot have made Himself the centre of His message.

His declara- tions regarding His second coming must have been an afterthought, due to the discovery on His part that His mission was to end in His being rejected and put to death. Here we have to ask: (a) Is this a fair account of the Jesus of the Gospels? Can the personality of Christ as presented in those narratives be reduced to the outlines of such a sketch? Take the picture of Jesus drawn by the historical school ad place it beside that given in the Gospels, and say if they are duplicates.

If that of the historical school be correct, then that of the Gospels is not merely incorrect in certain features, but is a sheer monstrosity, which invali- dates the whole Gospel narrative, and makes it valueless for purposes of sober history. (6) Is it fair to ignore the self-consciousness of Jesus as gathered into His most pregnant sayings? On what principles of historic research is it permissible to discount the self-assertion of Jesus?

Has the Self of Jesus not such a place even in that very Sermon on the Mount as to give an entirely different view of the sermon itself, and an entirely different reading of the problem ‘ from the Sermon on the Mount to the Nicene Creed’? (2) The religion of the polite disciples must have been simply Jewish Unitarianism and Jewish Legalism, modified in some of their elements by the teach- ing of Jesus regarding God and duty. Here again the question is as to matter of fact.

Is this the whole truth ΡΤ the first generation of Christians? Is this account a fair interpreta- tion of the narrative in the Acts? Can the life and work of the early Church, its worship, its preaching, its missionary impulse, its labours and martyrdoms, be made intelligible on such a sup- position? In particular, is it fair to discount the ed in pristine place which the Risen Christ had in the faith of the early Church?

Why was He worshipped, proved to, trusted, served, and that long before ellenic influence had touched the Church’s creed 1 Give due weight to the self-consciousness of Jesus, estimate aright the place of the Risen Christ in the life of the early Christians ; and the positions of Hatch and McGiffert must be profoundly modi- fied.

(3) The conceptions of Christ to be found in the NT writings must be due to peculiarities in the intellectual history of their authors, and cannot express anything in the general belief of Christians. On the face of it, such a proposition is utterly im- robable. The NT writings are chiefly letters etween correspondents. Whatever may have been the intellectual idiosyncrasies of the writers, it is inconceivable that they do not express a consciousness common to writers and recipients.

Indeed, this is expressly claimed by the writers, and Paul insists that his teaching is simply the faith of Christian people as such. The existence of a Pauline or Johannine Christianity which was not that of the Church at large, and, in particular, was not the Christianity of Christ, is an unproved hypothesis, not warranted by the known facts of the NT period, and not required for their inter- pretation.

If, then, the NT as a whole is substantially correct, both in its narratives of events and in its interpretation of them, the problem for the his- torian is not ‘from the Sermon on the Mount to the Nicene Creed,’ but ‘from the NT as a whole to the Nicene Creed.’ The question at issue is, ‘Is there anything in the Nicene Creed which, in respect of the truth sought to be expressed, is not already in the New Testament?

’ Go back now to the moral and intellectual situa- tion of the age in which Christianity appeared. Greek philosophy has led men to a fundamental dualism, and has uttered the demand of the human spirit for union with God. Neoplatonism, the last espairing effort of Greek thought, fails to meet the demand. Christianity enters the Hellenic world with the proclamation of that for which Hellenic thought had sought in vain, union with God.

‘This, accomplished in Christ, is its message to the Hellenic world, and to the heart of man as such. A mere amended Judaism would have had no point of contact with the Greek mind, or with the spirit of man anywhere. The personal Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, is the centre of the primitive gospel. Conceive now Christianity entering the Hellenic world ; it will bear a twofold relation to Hellenic culture and to Greek forms of thought. (a) It will be influenced by them.

It is implicitly the solution of the problem of Greek philosophy. It will thus naturally use the terminology of Greek philosophy, and i the formule of unsuccessful thought with the meanings of a divine revelation. (ὁ) It will stiffly refuse to be coerced by them. The Christian idea of union with God, viz. recon- ciliation through a Person, utterly transcended Greek thought.

Again and again, in the centuries receding Nicia, the attempt was made to reduce Shristianity to a phase of Greek Philosophy. Sabellianism on the one hand, Arianism on the other, were more logically consistent as specula- tive systems than the fulness of the gospel. Yet Christianity declined to surrender its independ- ence.

In the end the Christian experience was gathered into the Nicene Creed, which, in effect, is this: Christianity, stating, in terms borrowed from Greek Philosophy, that which is too great for any system of philosophy, a truth distinctive, unique, a revelation, not a discovery. Lirerature.—On the nature and function of Philosophy, E Caird, Essays, 2 vols. 1892. On the relation between Philo 854 PHINEES sophy and Religion, E. Oaird, Evolution of Religion, 2 vols. 1808. and discussions in T.

Η, Green’s Collected ‘orks (1888), vol. iii. On the development of Greek Philosophy, the Histories of Philosophy by Schwegler (1847, Eng. tr. 1867), Zeller (1883, Eng. tr. 1836), See (7th ed. 1883-56, Eng. tr. from 4th ed. 1872-74), Windelband (Geach. der alten Philosophie, 1888, Eng. tr. 1900: Geach. der ῬΑ. 1892). On Neoplatonism and its rela- tion to Christianity, Harnack, ¢ jeschichte, 1886-90 (Eng. tr. 1894-09).

On the relation of Christianity to Greek Philosophy, Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1888. T. B. KILPATRICK.