The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire Part 23

"But again of their nervousness (_psophodees_) about meats, and their superst.i.tion about the Sabbath, and the quackery (_aladoneia_) of circ.u.mcision, and the pretence (_eironeia_) of fasts and new moons--ridiculous and worthless as it all is, I do not suppose you wish me to tell you. For to accept some of the things which G.o.d has made for man's need as well created, and to reject others as useless and superfluous, is it not rebellion (_athemiston_)? To lie against G.o.d as if He forbade us to do good on the Sabbath day, is not that impiety?

To brag that the mutilation of the flesh is a proof of election--as if G.o.d specially loved them for it--ridiculous! And that they should keep a look-out on the stars and the moon and so observe months and days and distinguish the ordinances of G.o.d and the changes of the seasons, as their impulses prompt them to make some into feasts and some into times of mourning--who would count this a mark of piety towards G.o.d and not much rather of folly?

"That Christians are right to keep aloof from the general silliness and deceit of the Jews, their fussiness and quackery, I think you are well enough instructed. The mystery of their own piety towards G.o.d you must not expect to be able to learn from man."[24]

This was to deal with the distinctive usages of Judaism on general principles and from a standpoint outside it. It would doubtless be convincing enough to men who did not need to be convinced, but of little weight with those to whom the Scriptures meant everything.

Accordingly the Apologists went to the Scriptures and arrayed their evidence with spirit and system.

We may begin, as the writer to Diognetus begins, with sacrifices. Here the Apologists could appeal to the Prophets, who had spoken of sacrifice in no sparing terms. Tertullian's fifth chapter in his book _Against the Jews_ presents the evidence shortly and clearly. I will give the pa.s.sages cited in a tabular form:--

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_Malachi_ 1, 10: I will not receive sacrifice from your hands, since from the rising sun to the setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, saith the Lord Almighty, and in every place they offer pure sacrifices to my name.

_Psalm_ 96, 7: Offer to G.o.d glory and honour, offer to G.o.d the sacrifices of his name; away with victims (tollite) and enter into his court.

_Psalm_ 51, 17: A heart contrite and humbled is a sacrifice for G.o.d.

_Psalm_ 50, 14: Sacrifice to G.o.d the sacrifice of praise and render thy vows to the Most High.

_Isaiah_ 1, 11: Wherefore to me the mult.i.tude of your sacrifices? ....

Whole burnt offerings and your sacrifices and the fat of goats and the blood of bulls I will not ... Who has sought these from your hands?

Justin has other pa.s.sages as decisive. Does not G.o.d say by Amos (5, 21) "I hate, I loathe your feasts, and I will not smell [your offerings] in your a.s.semblies. When ye offer me your whole burnt offerings and your sacrifices, I will not receive them," and so forth, in a long pa.s.sage quoted at length. And again

_Jeremiah_ 7, 21-22: Gather your flesh and your sacrifices and eat, for neither concerning sacrifices nor drink offerings did I command your fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.[25]

Next as to circ.u.mcision and the Sabbath. "You need a second circ.u.mcision," says Justin, "and yet you glory in the flesh; the new law bids you keep a perpetual Sabbath, while you idle for one day and suppose you are pious in so doing; you do not understand why it was enjoined upon you. And, if you eat unleavened bread, you say you have fulfilled the will of G.o.d."[26] Even by Moses, who gave the law, G.o.d cried "You shall circ.u.mcise the hardness of your hearts and stiffen your necks no more";[27] and Jeremiah long afterwards said the same more than once.[28] On the Sabbath question, Tertullian and the others distinguished two Sabbaths, an eternal and a temporal,[29] citing:--

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_Isaiah_ 1, 14: My soul hates your sabbaths.

_Ezekiel_ 22, 8: Ye have profaned my sabbath.

The Jew is referred back to the righteous men of early days--Was Adam circ.u.mcised, or did he keep the Sabbath? or Abel, or Noah, or Enoch, or Melchizedek? Did Abraham keep the Sabbath, or any of the patriarchs down to Moses?[30] "But," rejoins the Jew, "was not Abraham circ.u.mcised? Would not the son of Moses have been strangled, had not his mother circ.u.mcised him?"[31]

[Sidenote: Old law or new covenant]

To this the Christian had several replies. Circ.u.mcision was merely given for a sign, as is shown by the fact that a woman cannot receive it, "for G.o.d has made women as well able as men to do what is just and right." There is no righteousness in being of one s.e.x rather than of the other.[32] Circ.u.mcision then was imposed upon the Jews "to mark you off from the rest of the nations and from us, that you alone might suffer what now you are suffering, and so deservedly suffering--that your lands should be desolate and your cities burnt with fire, that strangers should eat your fruits before your faces, and none of you set his foot in Jerusalem. For in nothing are you known from other men apart from the circ.u.mcision of your flesh. None of you, I suppose, will venture to say that G.o.d did not foresee what should come to pa.s.s.

And it is all deserved; for you slew the Righteous one and his prophets before him; and now you reject and dishonour--so far as you can--those who set their hopes on him and on the Almighty G.o.d, maker of all things, who sent him; and in your synagogues you curse those who believe on Christ."[33] The Sabbath was given to remind the Jews of G.o.d; and restrictions were laid on certain foods because of the Jewish proclivity to forsake the knowledge of G.o.d.[34] In general, all these commands were called for by the sins of Israel,[35] they were signs of judgment.

On the other hand the so-called Barnabas maintains that the Jews never had understood their law at all. Fasts, feasts {181} and sacrifices were prescribed, not literally, but in a spiritual sense which the Jews had missed. The taboos on meats were not prohibitions of the flesh of weasels, hares and hyaenas and so forth, but were allegoric warnings against fleshly l.u.s.ts, to which ancient zoologists and modern Arabs have supposed these animals to be p.r.o.ne.[36] Circ.u.mcision was meant, as the prophets showed, to be that of the heart; evil daemons had misled the Jews into practising it upon the flesh.[37] The whole Jewish dispensation was a riddle, and of no value, unless it is understood as signifying Christianity.

This line of attack was open to the criticism that it robbed the religious history of Israel of all value whatever, and the stronger Apologists do not take it. They will allow the Jews to have been so far right in observing their law, but they insist that it had a higher sense also, which had been overlooked except by the great prophets.

The law was a series of types and shadows, precious till the substance came, which the shadows foretold. That they were mere shadows is shown by the fact that Enoch walked with G.o.d and Abraham was the friend of G.o.d. For this could not have been, if the Jewish contention were true that without Sabbath and circ.u.mcision man cannot please G.o.d.

Otherwise, either the G.o.d of Enoch was not the G.o.d of Moses--which was absurd; or else G.o.d had changed his mind as to right and wrong--which was equally absurd.[38] No, the legislation of Moses was for a people and for a time; it was not for mankind and eternity. It was a prophecy of a new legislator, who should repeal the carnal code and enact one that should be spiritual, final and eternal.[39] Here, following the writer to the Hebrews, the Apologists quote a great pa.s.sage of Jeremiah, with the advantage (not always possible) of using it in the true sense in which it was written. "Behold! the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not that which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an {182} husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be their G.o.d and they shall be my people."[40]

With the law, the privilege of Israel pa.s.ses away and the day of the Gentiles comes. It was foretold that Israel would not accept Christ--"their ears they have closed";[41] "they have not known nor understood";[42] "who is blind but my servants?"[43] "all these words shall be unto you as words of a book that is sealed."[44] "By Isaiah the prophet, G.o.d, knowing beforehand what you would do, cursed you thus";[45] and Justin cites Isaiah 3, 9-15, and 5, 18-25. Leah is the type of the synagogue and of the Jewish people and Rachel of "our church"; the eyes of Leah were weak, and so are the eyes of your soul--very weak.[46] No less was it prophesied that the Gentiles should believe on Christ--"in thee shall all tribes of the earth be blest"; "Behold! I have manifested him as a witness to the nations, a prince and a ruler to the races. Races which knew thee not shall call upon thee and peoples who were ignorant of thee shall take refuge with thee."[47]

"By David He said 'A people I knew not has served me, and hearkened to me with the hearing of the ear.' Let us, the Gentiles gathered together, glorify G.o.d," says Justin, "because he has visited us ... for he is well pleased with the Gentiles, and receives our sacrifices with more pleasure than yours. What have I to do with circ.u.mcision, who have the testimony of G.o.d? What need of that baptism to me, baptized with the holy spirit? These things, I think, will persuade even the slow of understanding. For these are not arguments devised by me, nor tricked out by human skill,--nay! this was the theme of David's lyre, this the glad news Isaiah brought, that Zechariah proclaimed and Moses wrote. Do you recognize them, Trypho? They are in your books--no! not yours, but ours--for we believe them--and you, when you {183} read, do not understand the mind that is in them."[48] And with that Justin pa.s.ses on to discuss whether Jesus is the Messiah. Such a pa.s.sage raises the question as to how far he is reporting an actual conversation. In his 80th chapter he says to Trypho that he will make a book (_syntaxis_) of their conversation--of the whole of it--to the best of his ability, faithfully recording all that he concedes to Trypho. Probably he takes Plato's liberty to develop what was said--unless indeed the dialogue is from beginning to end merely a literary form imposed upon a thesis. In that case, it must be owned that Justin manages to give a considerable suggestion of life to Trypho's words.

[Sidenote: Jesus the Messiah]

But, even if the law be temporary, and the Sabbath spiritual, if Israel is to be rejected and the Gentiles chosen, we are still far from being a.s.sured on the warrant of the Old Testament that Jesus is the Messiah, who shall accomplish this great change. Why he rather than any of the "ten thousand others" who might much more plausibly be called the Messiah?[49]

To prove the Messiahship of Jesus, a great system of Old Testament citations was developed, the origins of which are lost to us. Paul certainly applied Scripture to Jesus in a free way of his own, though he is not more fanciful in quotation than his contemporaries. But he never sought to base the Christian faith on a scheme of texts.

Lactantius, writing about 300 A.D., implies that Jesus is the author of the system. "He abode forty days with them and interpreted the Scriptures, which up to that time had been obscure and involved."[50]

Something of the kind is suggested by Luke (24, 27). But it is obvious that the whole method is quite alien to the mind and style of Jesus, in spite of quotations in the vein of the apologists which the evangelists here and there have attributed to him.

We may discover two great canons in the operations of the Apologists.

In the first place, they seek to show that all things prophesied of the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth; and, secondly, that everything which befel Jesus was prophesied of the Messiah. These canons need only to be stated to show the sheer impossibility of the enterprise to {184} anyone who attaches meaning to words. But in the early centuries of our era there was little disposition with Jew or Greek to do this where those books were concerned, whose age and beauty gave them a peculiar hold upon the mind. In each case the preconception had grown up, as about the myths of Isis, for example, that such books were in some way sacred and inspired. The theory gave men an external authority, but it presented some difficulties; for, both in Homer and in _Genesis_ as in the Egyptian myths, there were stories repugnant to every idea of the divine nature which a philosophic mind could entertain. They were explained away by the allegoric method. Plutarch shows how the grossest features of the Isis legend have subtle and spiritual meanings and were never meant to be taken literally--that the myths are _logoi_ in fact; and Philo vindicates the Old Testament in the same way.[51] The whole procedure was haphazard and unscientific; it closely resembled the principles used by Artemidorus for the interpretation of dreams--a painful a.n.a.logy. But, in the absence of any kind of historic sense, it was perhaps the only way in which the continuity of religious thought could then be maintained. It is not surprising in view of the prevalence of allegory that the Christians used it--they could hardly do anything else. Thus with the fatal aid of allegory, the double thesis of the Apologists became easier and easier to maintain.

The most accessible ill.u.s.tration of this line of apology is to be found in the second chapter of _Matthew_. We may set out in parallel columns the events in the life of Jesus and the prophecies which they fulfil.

(a) The Virgin-Birth. _Isaiah_ 7, 14: Behold a virgin shall conceive.

(b) Bethlehem. _Micah_ 5,2: And thou, Bethlehem, etc.

(c) The Flight into Egypt. _Hosea_ 11, 1: Out of Egypt have I called my son.

(d) The Murder of the children. _Jerem._ 31, 15: Rachel weeping.

(e) Nazareth. _Judges_ 13, 5: A Nazarene.

{185} It is hardly unfair to say that the man who cited these pa.s.sages in these connexions had no idea whatever of their original meaning, even where he quotes them correctly.

Here is a fuller scheme taken from the _Apology_ which Justin addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. (The numbers on the left refer to the chapter in the first _Apology_.)

32. Jesus Christ foretold by _Gen._ 49, 10 f: (the blessing Judah). of Moses.

_Numbers_ 24, 17: There shall dawn a star, etc.

Jesus Christ foretold by _Isaiah_ 11, i: the rod of Jesse, Isaiah. etc.

33. Jesus Christ to be born _Is._ 7, 14: (the sign to of a virgin. Ahaz).

34. Jesus Christ to be born at _Micah_ 5, 2: Thou, Bethlehem, Bethlehem. etc.

35. The triumphal entry into _Zech._ 9, 9: Thy king cometh Jerusalem. riding on an a.s.s, etc.

The Crucifixion: the Cross. _Is._ 9,6: The government upon his shoulders.

_Is._ 65, 2: I have stretched out my hands, etc.

The Crucifixion: the _Is._ 58, 2: They ask me for mockery. judgment, etc.

The Crucifixion: the nails _Psalm_ 22, 16, 18: They and the casting of lots. pierced my feet and my hands; they cast lots upon my raiment.