Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity Part 1

Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity.

by Kirsopp Lake.

PREFACE

The following chapters are the lectures given in the spring of 1919 on the Haskell Foundation of Oberlin College. They have been somewhat expanded in the course of preparation for the press, but have not been materially changed.

At the time of the delivery of these lectures I was busy with the chapter on "Primitive Christianity" in the _Prolegomena to Acts_, and was glad of the opportunity to re-state some of the conclusions reached in that book in a less technical form and with more attention to their bearing on some of the larger questions of religion and thought, such as the Teaching of Jesus, the Hope of Immortality, and the Development of Christology. I did not hesitate to make use of one or two paragraphs from the larger book, and I think that my friend, Mr. C. G.

Montefiore, will forgive me for having borrowed two beautiful stories from his chapter in it.

I am greatly indebted to the Faculty of Oberlin {viii} College not only for the privilege of lecturing to them, but also for the hospitality extended to me during a very pleasant week and for the beginning of new and delightful friendships.

KIRSOPP LAKE.

CAMBRIDGE, Ma.s.s., _April_ 1920.

I

GALILEE

At first sight the historian of religions appears to be faced by a number of clearly distinguished ent.i.ties, to each of which he feels justified in giving the name of a separate religion; but on further consideration it becomes obvious that each one of these ent.i.ties has been in a condition of flux throughout its history. Each began as a combination or synthesis of older forms of thought with comparatively little new in its composition; each ended by disintegrating into many elements, of which the worst disappeared, while the best were taken up into new life in some new religion. The movement was more marked at some times than at others, and the differentiation of the various religions depends chiefly on the recognition of these moments of more rapid change. But the process never really stopped; from beginning to end new elements were constantly absorbed and old elements dropped.

For religion lives through the death of religions.

Nothing ill.u.s.trates this so well as the history of Christianity, for no religion is so well-known. The {2} facts are plainly visible, and would be plainly seen by all, were it not for the general tendency of ecclesiastical scholarship to consult the records of the past only to find the reflection of its own features.

The general condition of religion in the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Christian era was one of far advanced disintegration and rapid synthesis. In every district there could be found the remains of old local religions, which retained the loyalty of the conservative, but no longer aroused any vital response in the emotions of the mult.i.tudes or in the interest of the educated. At that time, and for many generations afterward, the Roman landowners, to take one example, maintained the ceremonies and customs of an agricultural animism which for their ancestors had been a living religion, but for them had become aesthetic, conventional, and superst.i.tious,--an appendage to life, not its driving force. Those who wish can read a description of it, written with a sympathy possible only for one who felt the a.n.a.logy of his own experience, in the pages of _Marius the Epicurean_, in which Walter Pater, by a wonderful _tour de force_, wove an exact and scholarly knowledge of the original doc.u.ments into such a web of artistic English that the deep learning of the book cannot be appreciated except by those who have some small share in it themselves.

Over these local religions had been thrown throughout the Empire the covering fabric of Greek mythology. It had lost much of its power; it was {3} no longer sincerely believed; it was in every respect decadent; but it still played its part in unifying, and to some extent civilising, the diverse races of the Empire. But more important than the Greek mythology was the Greek philosophy, which was indeed in many ways its antidote. If the mythology of Greece appeared to sanction an infinite number of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, her philosophers taught with equal persuasiveness that the divine reality is one, though its forms be many. A remarkable synthesis was thus gradually accomplished, though it will always be a question whether the stronger tendency was to philosophise mythology or to mythologise philosophy.

Yet another element was provided by the stream of Oriental religions which were coming into the Empire. Though these religions had all of them at one time been national, quite as much as the religion of Greece or Rome, their adherents had been detached violently by the conquering hand of Rome from adherence to ancestral shrines or to political inst.i.tutions. The Cappadocian or the Syrian, or even the Egyptian, who was travelling as a merchant or living as a slave in the western parts of the Empire, brought with him the worship of his own G.o.d; but the changed conditions of his life were reflected in his religion. As a political ent.i.ty his country had disappeared; the inst.i.tutions which were originally bound up with the name of his G.o.d had vanished, and had become an ever-fading memory. What these men without {4} countries asked for was personal salvation, and this they believed that they could find in their mysterious worship. Each of these religions was rapidly developing in the first century into a sacramental cult which offered the blessing of partial protection in this world, and of a happy immortality after death to all who accepted and were accepted by its divine lord, and took part in its sacraments or mysteries.

Much is obscure in their history, even though hypothesis be given the widest range and a friendly hearing. The central problem, which still requires much further attention than it has as yet received, is how and when these religions became mystery cults. As we know them in the Roman Empire all have the same central feature of offering personal salvation to their adherents through sacraments. But did they have this characteristic in their original homes, where they were national religions? The evidence that they did so is not convincing, and perhaps cannot be, because of the absence of literary sources. For instance, one of the best known of these religions is the cult of Isis, for the nature of which in the second and third centuries there is admirable evidence in the writings of Plutarch and Apuleius. It was then clearly a sacramental religion offering private salvation. It was also connected with a myth which was obviously a hindrance rather than a help to these educated Romans, and this myth can be traced back to the monuments of ancient {5} Egypt. Are we justified in concluding that the interpretation in ancient Egypt was the same as in imperial Rome? It may be so; but it is possible that the sacramental nature, though not the element of private salvation came in, in h.e.l.lenistic or in Imperial times, to meet the necessity of Egyptians who had lost all sense of belonging to a living nation or having a national religion, and of Greeks who with decadent enthusiasm desired imported rites. In any case, a synthesis was rapidly established between these cults and the official Graeco-Roman religion. The names of the Oriental deities were h.e.l.lenised, and the barbaric crudities of the East were removed by allegory and symbolism; the philosophers felt that the myths only needed restatement to confirm their opinions, while the priests were confident that the elements of truth in philosophy were those revealed by the language and ritual of the cults.[1]

With considerable rapidity, therefore, Greek mythology, Greek philosophy, and Oriental cults were being accommodated to one another, and brought together in a new and highly complex religious system. For political purposes the introduction into this system of the worship of the emperors, living or dead, was of great importance. It tended to unify the whole ma.s.s, and the imperial authorities adopted the {6} position, with some reservations, that, provided a man accepted the cult of Caesar and Rome, he could in addition be a member of any other religion which pleased his fancy or soothed his soul.

There was one exception to the ease with which the Oriental cults accepted the situation. Still inspired by the instinct which nine hundred years before had made their prophets fight against syncretism, the Jews resolutely refused to come to terms with heathen religions.

Some, indeed, accepted the Greek philosophy, as the writings of Philo and the Wisdom Literature show; but with the cults or with the mythology of the heathen no compromise was tolerated.

It would be interesting to know how far the imperial leaders perceived the process of synthesis, but consciously or unconsciously they helped it considerably by the policy which they adopted towards the local councils, or Synedria--Sanhedrims--as they were often called.[2] They were willing to encourage their continuance, allowing them to control all local questions of religion, and indeed all local interests generally, on condition that they made themselves also responsible for the cult of Rome and of Caesar. In this way Caesar was introduced into the local religion, and, what was much more important, the local religion was absorbed into the unified system of the Empire. The policy was almost uniformly successful: the one exception {7} was the Sanhedrim of the Jews, which obstinately refused the imperial cult and resisted Caligula's effort to introduce his statue with the same successful pertinacity as had repelled the efforts of Antiochus Epiphanes in the days of the Maccabees. The episode ended disastrously, for the spirit of nationalism and unreasoning hate to the government of Rome roused a rebellion which inevitably led to the fall of Jerusalem and the violent destruction of Jewish national life.

Henceforward the official Jewish religion remained a foreign element in the life of the western world. It could not die, for in spite of rabbinical extravagances it possessed more ethical truth than heathenism, and was more sincere in its protest against superst.i.tion.

But neither could it form a synthesis with the better elements of the Roman world; the process of accommodation to Greek philosophy was stopped for many centuries, and the Jew had neither part nor lot in the life of the empire in which necessity compelled him to live.

Nevertheless in the end the inevitable synthesis between Judaism and Greek thought was accomplished, though the official world was unable to bring it about. The small and at first despised sect of Christians was driven out of the Synagogue and forced into contact with the heathen world, at first probably against its will. There is nothing to show that Christians originally desired to break away from Judaism or to approach the Greeks; yet they did both. When their fellow-countrymen refused to {8} hear they turned to the Gentiles, and there ensued rapidly the abandonment of Jewish practice and the a.s.similation of Greek and Graeco-Oriental thought.

From that time on the history of Christianity might be written as a series of syntheses with the thought and practice of the Roman world, beginning with the circ.u.mference and moving to the centre. The first element which was absorbed was the least Roman, the Graeco-Oriental cults. Christianity had been originally the worship of G.o.d, as he was understood by the Jews, combined with the belief that Jesus was he whom G.o.d had appointed, or would appoint, as his representative at the day of judgement. To this were now joined the longings for private salvation of the less fortunate cla.s.ses in the Roman Empire, and their belief that this salvation could come from sacraments inst.i.tuted by a Lord who was either divine by nature or had attained apotheosis. It thus became, partly indeed, the recognition of the Jewish G.o.d as supreme, but chiefly the recognition of Jesus as the divine Lord who had inst.i.tuted saving mysteries for those who accepted him.

Christianity became the Jewish contribution to the Oriental cults, offering, as the Synagogue never did, private salvation by supernatural means to all who were willing to accept it.

Such Christianity became, and such in some districts, notably in Rome, it remained for one or two generations. But in Ephesus and possibly elsewhere a further synthesis was accomplished. {9} This sacramentalised Christianity began to come to terms with Greek philosophy, as the other mystery religions tried to do. It asked what was the philosophic explanation of its Lord, and it hit on the device of identifying him with the Logos--a phrase common to several types of philosophy though used in quite different meanings.

The development of this second synthesis was comparatively slow.

Probably some of the systems which are loosely described as gnostic were unsuccessful attempts at its accomplishment; but in the end the Alexandrian theologians Clement and Origen followed the lead given them by the Fourth Gospel and some of the apologists to the triumphant construction of a system which really reconciled in part and seemed to reconcile entirely the Christian cult and the later Platonic metaphysics.

Although the general fabric of the Christian philosophy which was thus built up was in the main Platonic, not a little was borrowed also from the system of the Stoics, especially on the border ground between metaphysics and ethics. This paved the way for a further synthesis, accomplished more easily, more thoroughly, and with less perceptible controversy than had attended either of the others. Probably the culmination of this conquest of the Christian Church by the ethics of the Stoa was reached by Ambrose, who gave to the Christian world Cicero's popularisation of Panaetius and Posidonius in a series of sermons which extracted the {10} ethics of Rome from the scriptures of the Christians. The ethics of the Stoics were almost wholly adopted by the leaders of Christian thought, especially in the West, and the teaching of Jesus as represented in the Gospels was interpreted in the interests of this achievement, which, like the other syntheses, was largely effective in proportion as it was unconscious.

Probably it was the early stages of this movement which had rendered possible the acceptance by one another of Christianity and the Empire.

Certainly there is still much need of study, even if it produce only the statement of problems, as to the changed character of Christianity between the time of Tertullian and Eusebius.

The next few centuries, so far as they were not occupied in struggling against the eclipse of civilisation which began in the fifth century, were occupied in working out the implications of these syntheses. The results were codified in Catholic theology and in the civil and canon law of the early Middle Ages. But one more step remained; after nearly a thousand years Aristotle was rediscovered, and the final achievement of Christian theology was the synthesis effected by St. Thomas Aquinas between the Christian theology and the philosophy of Aristotle.

It is a great record of great achievement, for no one who studies the history of religions with any degree of sympathetic insight can doubt but that each synthesis was a real step in progress towards that unification of aspiration with knowledge which {11} it is the task of theologians to bring about, and to express as clearly as they may.

Many centuries have pa.s.sed since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas; and the element of tragedy in the study of the history of religions for the Christian theologian is that he is forced to admit that never again has there been a time when the unification of aspiration and knowledge has been so completely realised by organised Christianity. It was not long after this time that epoch-making changes were made, first in the domain of astronomy and afterwards in other sciences. They have revolutionised human knowledge. Nor have human aspirations stayed where they were. The ideal of justice which men see to-day is different and a.s.suredly better than that of a thousand years ago. It extends beyond the sphere of the law-courts to every branch of human life. But the doctrines of the Church remain formulated according to the knowledge and aspirations of the past. The divergence between knowledge and theological statement has become more and more obvious every year. There has been no synthetic progress in theology since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas,[3] for it is impossible for the student of history to feel that the Reformation can be regarded as a synthesis.

Indeed it seems ominously like the first step in that disintegration which has always been {12} the last stage in the story of each religion. It is absolutely certain that the world will once again some day achieve what it has often had and often lost--the closer approximation of knowledge and aspiration--so that its religious system may satisfy the soul of the saint without disgusting the intellect of the scholar. What is uncertain is whether this achievement will be made by any form of organised Christianity or is reserved for some movement which cannot at present be recognised.[4]

To trace the whole of these syntheses would be a reasonable programme for many volumes. These lectures are limited to the discussion of the evolution of the first and the beginning of the second--that is to say, the change of Christianity from a Jewish sect to a sacramental cult and the beginning of the movement which introduced Greek metaphysics into its theology.

At the beginning of the first century the control of the Jewish nation was in the hands partly of Rome, partly of the high-priests and their families. The latter, as was natural, held in the main a conservative att.i.tude towards the laws and customs of their people. They were rich men--some of them probably could appreciate the culture if not the thought of Rome--and the cla.s.s in modern Europe which most closely {13} resembles them is that of the aristocratic Turks of Constantinople--orthodox but not enthusiastic adherents of the religion of their fathers. They doubtless regarded themselves as the leaders of the people: it was with them, naturally enough, that the Roman world had to deal, and the price of their failure to keep the peace between the populace and Rome was their political extinction and their personal ruin. The populace demanded that the leaders should secure national independence; Rome required that they should induce the people to cease from asking it. The task was an impossible one, but history does not accept impossibility as an excuse for failure.

Closely connected with them were the Herods, who at intervals a.s.sumed a more or less dominating influence in Jewish affairs. At the time of Christ one of the family was ruling over Galilee, and another was destined in a short time to inherit not only this dominion but also that of Judaea. But though for political purposes the Herods were capable of playing Jewish cards, they had become completely absorbed into the cosmopolitan society of the Empire. They were as little typical of anything really Jewish as an educated Indian prince frequenting London society is typical of Hinduism.

Ultimately more important than the high-priests or the Herods were two other cla.s.ses which were destined respectively to ruin their nation and to save their church. The one was the party of the patriots, the other the Scribes and Pharisees.

{14}

After the death of Herod the Great the Romans made a census of his country, and a certain Judas of Galilee endeavoured to raise an active rebellion. The influence of the ruling cla.s.ses in Jerusalem suppressed this movement for the time, but it remained, as Josephus[5] terms it, the fourth philosophy, or sect, among the Jews, maintaining that no pious Jew could recognise any ruler except G.o.d, and steadily insisting that active resistance to the power of Rome was justifiable and even necessary. The sect apparently remained anonymous until about A.D. 66, when one branch of those who accepted its tenets took to themselves the name of Zealots and were largely instrumental in bringing about those final disturbances which led to the fall of Jerusalem. We know very little of this party except from Josephus, and the reasons for which his book was written did not encourage him to give unnecessary information, but, judging by results, the fourth philosophy must have been in the first half of the first century a steadily growing menace to all organised government, willing to destroy but unable to build, concealing under the name of patriotism that pathological excitement which is the delirium of diseased nations.

It is possible, but not certain, that these Jews were influenced by and possibly helped to produce some parts of that curious literature known as Apocalypses,[6] {15} which seems in the main to have been intended to comfort the discouraged and to inspire them with enthusiasm by giving them the a.s.surance that a better time was at hand.

A very different type of Jew was represented by the Scribes and Pharisees. They believed implicitly that the law of Moses and the tradition of the elders had a divine sanction, and that to live in accordance with it, not to take part in political intrigue, was the way of Life. Their main object was to interpret the Law in such a way as to make it possible to follow, and to extend its explanation so as to cover every possible problem in practical life. They were opposed to Jesus during his life, and afterwards bitterly opposed to his followers. It is therefore natural that there is in the Christian Scriptures a large amount of polemic against the Pharisees,[7] and there would be probably more against the Christians in the rabbinical writings had it not been for the activities of the mediaeval censors, so that statements in the Talmud which originally referred to the Christians are concealed (sometimes obviously but in other cases probably successfully) by being referred to the Sadducees or other extinct parties of Jews for whose reputation neither Synagogue nor Church cared.

{16}

Owing to the fact that generations of Christians have seen the early history of the Scribes and Pharisees almost wholly through gla.s.ses coloured by early controversy, it is hard to be fair to the Pharisees.

Taken at their best they probably represent the highest form of a religion based on codified ethics which the world has ever seen. They did not feel that the Law was external, for it represented the will of the Father, which could not be alien to that of his children if they understood it aright. The "word" was not in heaven or across the sea, but very nigh unto them, in their mouth and in their heart that they might do it. That is to say, the Law was not something imposed entirely from without by a wholly external authority, but was rather the very perfect expression of what man would of himself choose to do if he had perfect knowledge. Thus the best of the Pharisees no doubt felt that obedience to the Law and to tradition was a labour of love, and the story which is told of the death of Akiba may be regarded as typical of the best both of his predecessors and successors. He was being put to death by torture when the hour came that every pious Jew repeats the Shema, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart and with all thy soul." He recited as far as "with all thy heart," and then stopped and smiled. "How," said one of the bystanders, "can you smile when you are dying in agony?" "Every day," he replied, "have I repeated these words, and I could say without hesitation that I loved the Lord with all my heart, but to {17} say that I loved him with all my soul, that is to say, with all my life, was hard, for how can a man say what he has done with his life before the day of his death? But now that the day of my death has come and the hour for repeating the Shema has returned, and I have loved the Lord my G.o.d with all my heart and with all my life, why should I not smile?"[8]

It is not surprising that it was the school of these men who saved the Jewish Church from extinction when the nation was destroyed; neither is it surprising, though it is sad, that there was deep hatred between them and the Christians; for in religion, as in other things, a really lively hatred requires some degree of relationship.

It was into this world of Jewish thought and practice that Jesus came preaching in Galilee. The content of his preaching is given by Mark as "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Therefore the two questions of primary importance are the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of G.o.d, and of repentance.

The phrase "the Kingdom of Heaven" is common in the later Jewish literature and familiar in Christian ears. But it is not actually found before the Christian era, though similar expressions were customary, and the concept which it covers is often met with in the {18} Old Testament. It means primarily the sovereignty of G.o.d in the world, not a kingdom in the local sense, or even in the sense of an organisation. Though in the Old Testament G.o.d is frequently referred to as a king whose rule is universal even now, the dominion of a king is not complete or perfect unless he be recognised by his subjects, and the dominion of G.o.d is not yet thus recognised or submitted to throughout the world. The Jewish view seems to have been that men had fallen away from the rule of G.o.d in the days before Abraham, and that when Abraham recognised the Lord as his G.o.d, then for him--but not for others--the sovereignty of G.o.d was complete. Similarly, when Israel recognised the Lord as their G.o.d there was a nation which accepted the sovereignty of G.o.d. The time would come when all the world would make this same recognition, but the day was not yet present, and there was more than one opinion as to the probable course of events which would lead up to it.

In general the Jews believed that the universal recognition of the sovereignty of G.o.d would bring about, or would at least be coincident with, the coming of the Golden Age, so frequently spoken of by the prophets, and described with imaginative profusion in the apocalyptic writings. But it is by no means always clear whether the Golden Age was the condition or the result of the coming of the Kingdom. Would the heathen, who knew not G.o.d, be converted or be exterminated? It is not surprising if there was a {19} tendency to confuse the recognition of the sovereignty of G.o.d with the phenomena attending it, and to speak of the Kingdom of G.o.d when the conditions of its attainment were really meant.