Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

Christianity in its complete Roman development is thus the coming of the supernatural into the natural. The universe falls into these orders, the second for the sake of the first, as nature is of and for God. Without him nature at its highest is like a beautiful statue, devoid of life; it is of secondary moment compared even to men, for while it passes away he continues for ever. He is dependent, therefore, not upon nature, but upon God's grace for salvation, and this comes through the Church. In the book of Revelation the New Jerusalem descending from heaven to the earth may be taken as a symbol of a continuing process: the human receives the divine, as the Virgin Mary received the Holy Spirit and brought forth Jesus, perfect man and perfect God. Thus the Church ever receives God and has a twofold nature; its sacraments through material and earthly elements impart a divine power; its teachings agree with the highest truths of philosophy and science, yet add to these the knowledge of mysteries which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive; it sanctifies human relationships, but the happiness of earth at purest and best is only a shadow of the divine bliss which belongs to the redeemed soul. Hence man should deny the world for the sake of the other world, and the title "religious" belongs distinctly to the monastic and priestly life. Theology is the queen of the sciences, and nothing should be taught in school or university which contradicts its conclusions. Moreover, nothing should be done by the state which interferes with the transcendent interest committed to the Church. Thus the Church touches and controls all realms of life, and the cycle is complete. It began as separate from the world and proscribed by it; next it adapted itself to the learning, the customs and the polity of the world. Finally it asserted its mastery and assumed sovereign power over all. The Church in its completed form was the outcome of a long development; if the seed was Jewish the environment was Gentile. Into the full tree were gathered the effects, not only of the initial energy, but of the forces of earth, air, water and sun. The Roman Church expressed the beliefs and answered the needs of the people, and this explains in part both its forms and its power, its long continuance and wide supremacy.

The Eastern Church.

The Church was never completely successful in unifying its organization. In part it shared the destiny of the Roman empire, and with it fell into two parts, East separating from West. Indeed the East never really acknowledged the Roman primacy nor shared in its development, and it still remains apart. With characteristic oriental conservatism it claims the title of "Orthodox," and retains the creed and organization of the early Church. In general its conception of the relation of the world to the super-world is identical with that of the Roman Church, though somewhat less defined, as its organization is less complete. It has remained in the second stage mentioned above; established, as in Russia, by the empire, it is dependent upon it and in alliance with it. In the Mahommedan dominions it has been recognized as a state within the state, and in these communities faith and patriotism are one.

The Reformation.

The idea of the Roman Church was imperfectly embodied at the best; the divine gift was in earthen vessels. The world was never completely cast out; indeed the Church became the scene for ambition and the home of luxury and pleasure. It was entangled also in the political strife of the feudal ages and of the beginning of modern empires. Its control of the sciences embroiled it with its own philosophers and scholars, while saints and pure-minded ecclesiastics attempted, without success, its reform from within. Finally, through Luther, the explosion came, and western Christendom broke into two parts--Catholic and Protestant.

Protestantism in its primary principle is the return to primitive Christianity. The whole development which we have traced, culminating in the ecclesiastical-doctrinal system of the Roman Church, is regarded as a corruption, since foreign and even heathen elements have been brought in, so that the religion established by Christ is obscured or lost. For Protestants the Bible only now becomes the infallible, inspired authority in faith and morals. Interpretations by the Fathers or by the councils are to be taken only as aids to its understanding. With this principle is associated a second, the liberty of the individual; he reads the sacred Scriptures and interprets them for himself without the intervention of priests or church; and he enters by faith in Christ into communion with God, so that all believers are priests. Here may be noted a fundamental difference in the psychology of religion, since in the Roman Church the chief appeal is to the emotions, while in the Reformed it is to the intelligence. Yet this appeal to the intelligence is not rationalism: the latter makes reason the supreme authority, rejecting all which does not conform to it; the Bible is treated like any other book, to be accepted or rejected in part or in whole as it agrees with our canons of logic and our general science, while religion submits to the same process as do other departments of knowledge. But in Protestantism reason and the light of nature are in themselves as impotent as in the Roman Church. The Bible interpreted by man's unaided intelligence is as valueless as other writings, but it has a sacramental value when the Holy Spirit accompanies its teaching, and the power of God uses it and makes the soul capable of holiness. In all this the supernatural is as vividly realized as in the Roman Church; it is only its mediation which is different.

Protestantism.

These principles are variously worked out in the different churches and variously expressed. In part because of historical circumstances, the divergence from the older systems is more marked in some Protestant churches than in others, yet on the whole these two principles determine cult and in part organization. As in the Roman Church cult centres in the mass, so in the Reformed Church it centres in the sermon. The Holy Spirit, the determining factor in the religious life, uses the Bible as his means, and calls the intelligence into action. The clergyman is primarily the preacher, renewed by God's power and enlightened by the Spirit, so that he speaks with divine authority. The ancient Jewish prophetic office is revived, yet with a difference: the ancient prophets acknowledged no external authority, but the Protestant preacher is strictly subordinate to the Scriptures of which he is the interpreter. Beside the sermon the sacraments are observed as established by Christ--two in number, baptism and the Lord's Supper. But these do not exert a quasi-physical or magical influence, _ex opere operato_. Unless there be faith in the recipient, an understanding of the meaning of the sacrament and an acceptance of it, it is valueless or harmful. Prayer and praise also are effective only as the congregation intelligently join in them; hence they are not to be solely by a priest nor in a strange tongue, as the clergyman is simply the leader of the devotions of the people. In large portions of the Church also opportunity for the free expression of the religious experience of the laity is found.

The emphasis upon the believer and his freedom from all external authority do not result in a thoroughgoing individualism. Luther clearly held to the unity of all Christians, and Protestants are agreed in this. For them, as for the Roman Church, there is a belief in a catholic or all-embracing Church, but the unity is not that of an organization; Christians are one through an indwelling spirit; they hold the same faith, undergo the same experience and follow the same purpose. This inner life constitutes the oneness of believers and forms the true Church which is invisible. It expresses itself in outward forms, yet there are not two Churches visible and invisible, but only one. The spiritual experience of the individual utters itself in words, and desires association with others who know the same grace. There is formed a body of teaching in which all agree, and an organization in which the common experience finds expression and aid. While then membership in this organization is not primary, it assumes a higher and even a vital importance, since a true experience recognizes the common faith and the common fellowship. Were it to refuse assent to these, doubt would be thrown upon its own trustworthiness.

Historically these principles were only in part embodied, for the Reformation was involved in political strife. The Reformers turned to the government for aid and protection, and throughout Europe turmoil and war ensued. In consequence, in the Protestant nations the state assumed the ultimate authority over the Church. Moreover, in the early days of the Reformation the Catholic Church charged it with a lawless individualism, a charge which was seemingly made good by an extreme divergence in theological opinion and by riots in various parts of the Protestant world. The age was indeed one of ferment, so that the foundations of society and of religion seemed threatened. The Reformers turned to the state for protection against the Roman Church, and ultimately as a refuge from anarchy, and they also returned to the theology of the Fathers as their safeguard against heresy. Instead of the simplicity of Luther's earlier writings, a dogmatic theology was formed, and a Protestant ecclesiasticism established, indistinguishable from the Roman Church in principle. The main difference was in the attitude to the Roman allegiance and to the sacramentarian system. There was thus by no means a complete return to the Bible as the sole authority, but the Bible was taken as interpreted by the earlier creeds and as worked into a doctrinal system by the scholastic philosophy. Thus Protestantism also came to identify theology with the whole range of human knowledge, and in its official forms it was as hostile to the progress of science as was the Roman Church itself.

Many Protestants rebelled against this radical departure from the principles of the Reformation and of Biblical Christianity. To them it seemed the substitution of the authority of the Church for the authority of a living experience and of intellectual adherence to theological propositions for faith. The freedom of the individual was denied when the state enforced religious conformity. Thus a struggle within Protestantism arose, with persecutions of Protestants by Protestants. Moreover, many failed to find the expression of their faith in the official creed or in the established organization, and Protestantism divided into many sects and denominations, founded upon special types of religious experience or upon particular points in doctrine or in cult. Thus Protestantism presents a wide diversity in comparison with the regularity of the Roman Church. This we should expect indeed from its insistence upon individual freedom; yet, notwithstanding certain notable exceptions, amid the diversity there is a substantial unity, a unity which in our day finds expression in common organizations for great practical ends, for example in the "Bible Societies," "Tract Societies," the "Young Men's Christian Associations," "Societies of Christian Endeavour," &c., which disregard denominational lines.

Christianity and the modern world.

The coming of the northern peoples into the Roman world profoundly modified Christianity. It shared indeed in the dreariness and corruption of the times commonly called the "dark ages," but when at last a productive period began the Church was the first to profit by it. Since all educated men were priests, it assimilated the new learning--the revived Aristotelianism--and continued its control of the universities. In the 13th century it was supreme, and Christianity was identified with world systems of knowledge and politics. Both were deemed alike divine in origin, and to question their validity was an offence against God. Christianity thus had passed through three stages in politics as in science. At first it was persecuted by the state, then established by it, and finally dominated over it; so its teaching was at first alien to philosophy and despised by it, next was accepted by it and given form and rights through it, and finally became queen of the sciences as theology and ruled over the whole world of human knowledge. But the triumph by its completeness ensured new conflicts; from the disorder of the middle ages arose states which ultimately asserted complete autonomy, and in like fashion new intellectual powers came forth which ultimately established the independence of the sciences.

In the broadest sense the underlying principle of the struggle is the reassertion of interest in the world. It is no longer merely the scene for the drama of the soul and God, nor is man independent of it, but man and nature constitute an organism, humanity being a part of the vaster whole. Man's place is not even central, as he appears a temporary inhabitant of a minor planet in one of the lesser stellar systems. Every science is involved, and theology has come into conflict with metaphysics, logic, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, biology, history and even economics and medicine. From the modern point of view this is unavoidable and even desirable, since "theology" here represents the science of the 13th century. As in the political world the states gained first the undisputed control of matters secular, rejecting even the proffered counsel of the Church, and then proceeded to establish their sovereignty over the Church itself, so was it in the empire of the mind. The rights gained for independent research were extended over the realm of religion also; the two indeed cannot remain separate, and man must subordinate knowledge to the authority of religion--or make science supreme, submitting religion to its scrutiny and judging it like other phenomena. Under this investigation Christianity does not appear altogether exceptional. Its early logic, ontology and cosmology, with many of its distinctive doctrines, are shown to be the natural offspring of the races and ages which gave them birth. Put into their historical environment they are freed from adverse criticism, and indeed valued as steps in the intellectual development of man's mind. Advanced seriously, however, as truths to-day, they are put aside as anachronisms not worthy of dispute. The Bible is studied like other works, its origins discovered and its place in comparative religion assigned. It does not appear as altogether unique, but it is put among the other sacred books. For the great religions of the world show similar cycles of development, similar appropriations of prevalent science and philosophy, similar conservative insistence upon ancient truth, and similar claims to an exclusive authority.

With this interest is involved an attitude of mind toward the supernatural. As already pointed out, nature and super-nature were taken as physically and spatially distinct. The latter could descend upon the former and be imparted to it, neither subject to nature nor intelligible by reason. In science the process has been reversed; nature ascends, so to speak, into the region of the supernatural and subdues it to itself; the marvellous or miraculous is brought under the domain of natural law, the canons of physics extend over metaphysics, and religion takes its place as one element in the natural relationship of man to his environment. Hence the new world-view threatens the foundations of the ecclesiastical edifice. This revolution in the world-view is no longer the possession of philosophers and scholars, but the multitude accepts it in part. Education in general has rendered many familiar with the teachings of science, and, moreover, its practical benefits have given authority to its maxims and theories. The world's problem is not only therefore acute, but the demand for its solution is wider than ever before.

The attitude of the Roman Church.

The Roman Catholic Church uncompromisingly reasserts its ancient propositions, political and theological. The cause is lost indeed in the political realm, where the Church is obliged to submit, but it protests and does not waive or modify its claims (see the Syllabus of 1864, paragraphs 19 ff., 27, 54 and 55). In the Greek and Protestant churches this situation cannot arise, as they make no claims to governmental sovereignty. In the intellectual domain the situation is more complex. Again the Roman Church unhesitatingly reaffirms the ancient principles in their extreme form (Syllabus, paragraphs 8-9-13; Decrees of the Vatican Council, chapter 4, note especially canon 4-2). The works of St Thomas Aquinas are recommended as the standard authority in theology (Encyc. of Leo XIII., _Aeterni Patris_, Aug. 4, 1879). In details also the conclusions of modern science are rejected, as for example the origin of man from lower species, and, in a different sphere, the conclusions of experts as to the origins of the Bible. Faith is defined as "assent upon authority," and the authority is the Church, which maintains its right to supremacy over the whole domain of science and philosophy.

The Greek and Protestant Churches.

The Greek Church remains untouched by the modern spirit, and the Protestant Churches also are bound officially to the scholastic philosophy of the 17th century; their confessions of faith still assert the formation of the world in six days, and require assent to propositions which can be true only if the old cosmology be correct. Officially then the Church identifies Christianity with the position outlined above, and hostile critics agree to this identification, rejecting the faith in the name of philosophic and scientific truth.

Compromises.

On the other hand there are not wanting individuals and even large bodies of Christians who are intent upon a reinterpretation. Even in the official circles of the Church, not excepting the Roman Church, there are many scholars who find no difficulty in remaining Christian while accepting the modern scientific view of the world. This is possible to some because the situation in its sharp antithesis is not present to their minds: by making certain compromises on the one side and on the other, and by framing private interpretations of important dogmas, they can retain their faith in both and yet preserve their mental integrity. A large literature is produced, reconciling science and theology by softening and compromising and adapting; a procedure in accordance with general historical development, for men do not love sharp antagonisms, nor are they prepared to carry principles to their logical conclusions. By a fortunate power of mind they are able to believe as truths mutually inconsistent propositions.

Thus the crisis is in fact not so acute as it might seem. No great institution lives or dies by logic. Christianity rests on great religious needs which it meets and gratifies, so that its life (like all other lives) is in unrationalized emotions. Reason seeks ever to rationalize these, an attempt which seems to destroy yet really fulfils. As thus the restless reason tests the emotions of the soul, criticizes the traditions to which they cling, rejects the ancient dogmas in which they have been defined, the Church slowly participates in the process: silently this position and that are forsaken, legends and beliefs once of prime importance are forgotten, or when forced into controversy many ways are found by which the old and the new are reconciled: the sharpness of distinctions can be rubbed off, expressions may be softened, definitions can be modified and half-way resting-places afforded, until the momentous transition has been made and the continuity of tradition is maintained. Finally, as the last step, even the official documents may be revised. Such a process in Christianity is everywhere in evidence, for even the Roman Church admits the modern astronomy. So too it accepts the changes in the world of politics with qualified approval. In the Syllabus of 1864 the separation of state and church was anathematized, yet in 1906 this separation in the United States was held up as an example to be followed by the French government. In the Protestant Churches the process is precisely similar. No great church has yet modified its articles of religion so as to admit, for example, that the Garden of Eden was not a definite place where Eve was tempted, yet the doctrine is contradicted with approval by individuals, and the results of modern science are accepted and taught without rebuke. In all this the Church shows its essential oneness with other organizations of society, the government, the family, which are at once deeply rooted in the past, and yet subject to the influences of the present. For Christianity is by no means wholly intellectual, nor chiefly so. It would be fully as true to facts to describe this religion as a vast scheme for the amelioration of the condition of humanity. In education, in care for the sick, the poor, the outcast, it has retained the spirit of its Lord. Though it has at times denied this spirit, been guilty of crimes, persecutions, wars and greed--still the Church has never quite forgotten him who went about doing good, nor freed itself from the contagion of his example. No age has been so responsive to the needs of man as our own; whatever doubts men have as to the doctrines or the cults there is an agreement wider than in the past in the good works whose inspiration is a divine love.

Theories of development.

Yet the intellectual crisis cannot be ignored in the interest of the practical life. Men must rationalize the universe. On the one hand there are churchmen who attempt to repeat the historical process which has naturalized the Church in alien soils by appropriating the forces of the new environment, and who hold that the entire process is inspired and guided by the spirit of God. Hence Christianity is the absolute religion, because it does not preclude development but necessitates it, so that the Christianity that is to come shall not only retain all that is important in the Christianity of the past and present but shall assimilate new truth. On the other hand some seek the essential Christianity in a life beneath and separable from the historic forms. In part under the influence of the Hegelian philosophy, and in part because of the prevalent evolutionary scientific world-view, God is represented under the form of pure thought, and the world process as the unfolding of himself. Such truth can be apprehended by the multitude only in symbols which guide the will through the imagination, and through historic facts which are embodiment of ideas. The Trinity is the essential Christian doctrine, the historic facts of the Christian religion being the embodiment of religious ideas. The chief critical difficulty felt by this school is in identifying any concrete historic fact with the unchanging idea, that is, in making Jesus of Nazareth the incarnation of God. God is reinterpreted, and in place of an extra-mundane creator is an omnipresent life and power. The Christian attainment is nothing else than the thorough intellectual grasp of the absolute idea and the identification of our essential selves with God. With a less thorough-going intellectualism other scholars reinterpret Christianity in terms of current scientific phraseology. Christianity is dependent upon the understanding of the universe; hence it is the duty of believers to put it into the new setting, so that it adopts and adapts astronomy, geology, biology and psychology. With this accomplished, Christianity will resume its ancient place. Consciously and of purpose the attempt is made to do once more what has been done repeatedly before, to restate Christianity in the terms of current science.

From all these efforts to reconstruct systematic theology with its appropriations of philosophy and science, groups of Christians turn to the inner life and seek in its realities to find the confirmation of their faith. They also claim oneness with a long line of Christians, for in every age there have been men who have ignored the dogma and the ritual of the Church, and in contemplation and retirement have sought to know God immediately in their own experience. To them at best theology with its cosmology and its logic is only a shadow of shadows, for God reveals himself to the pure in heart, and it matters not what science may say of the material and fleeting world. This spirit manifests itself in wide circles in our day. The Gordian knot is cut, for philosophy and religion no longer touch each other but abide in separate realms.

In quite a different way a still more influential school seeks essential Christianity in the sphere of the ethical life. It also would disentangle religion from cosmology and formal philosophy. It studies the historic development of the Church, noting how element after element has been introduced into the simplicity of the gospel, and from all these it would turn back to the Bible itself. In a thorough-going fashion it would accomplish what Luther and the Reformation attempted. It regards even the earliest creeds as only more or less satisfactory attempts to translate the Christian facts into the current language of the heathen world. But the process does not stop with this rejection of the ancient and the scholastic theology. It recognizes the scientific results attained in the study of the Bible itself, and therefore it does not seek the entire Bible as its rule of truth. To it Jesus Christ, and he alone, is supreme, but this supremacy does not carry with it infallibility in the realm of cosmology or of history. In these too Jesus participated in the views of his own time; even his teaching of God and of the future life is not lacking in Jewish elements, yet none the less he is the essential element in Christianity, and to his life-purpose must all that claims to be Christianity be brought to be judged. To this school Christianity is the culmination of the ethical monotheism of the Old Testament, which finds its highest ideal in self-sacrificing love. Jesus Christ is the complete embodiment of this ideal, in life and in death. This ideal he sets before men under the traditional forms of the kingdom of God as the object to be attained, a kingdom which takes upon itself the forms of the family, and realizes itself in a new relationship of universal brotherhood. Such a religion appeals for its self-verification not to its agreement with cosmological conceptions, either ancient or modern, or with theories of philosophy, however true these may be, but to the moral sense of man. On the one hand, in its ethical development, it is nothing less than the outworking of that principle of Jesus Christ which led him not only to self-sacrificing labour but to the death upon the cross. On the other hand, it finds its religious solution in the trust in a power not ourselves which makes for the same righteousness which was incarnate in Jesus Christ.

Thus Christianity, as religion, is on the one hand the adoration of God, that is, of the highest and noblest, and this highest and noblest as conceived not under forms of power or knowledge but in the form of ethical self-devotion as embodied in Jesus Christ, and on the other hand it meets the requirements of all religion in its dependence, not indeed upon some absolute idea or omnipotent power, but in the belief that that which appeals to the soul as worthy of supreme worship is also that in which the soul may trust, and which shall deliver it from sin and fear and death. Such a conception of Christianity can recognize many embodiments in ritual, organization and dogma, but its test in all ages and in all lands is conformity to the purpose of the life of Christ. The Lord's Prayer in its oldest and simplest form is the expression of its faith, and Christ's separation of mankind on the right hand and on the left in accordance with their service or refusal of service to their fellow-men is its own judgment of the right of any age or church to the name Christian. This school also represents historic Christianity, and maintains the continuity of its life through all the ages past with Christ himself. But this continuity is not then in theological systems or creeds, nor in sacraments and cult, nor in organization, but in the noble company of all who have lived in simple trust in God and love to humanity. It is this true Church of the spirit and purpose of Jesus which has been the supreme force for the uplifting of humanity.

Christianity has passed through too many changes, and it has found too many interpretations possible, to fear the time to come. Thoroughgoing reconstruction in every item of theology and in every detail of polity there may be, yet shall the Christian life go on--the life which finds its deepest utterance in the words of Christ, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbour as thyself"; the life which expresses its profoundest faith in the words Christ taught it to pray, "Our Father"; the life which finds its highest rule of conduct in the words of its first and greatest interpreter, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus our Lord."

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Detailed bibliographies accompany the separate articles
on subjects connected with the Christian religion and Church. In the
following list a selection is given of books on the wider and general
subject:--

_Extent and Growth._--D. Dorchester, _The Problem of Religious
Progress_ (revised ed., 1894); S. Gulick, _The Growth of the Kingdom
of God_ (1895); James S. Dennis, _Christian Missions and Social
Progress_ (1906).

_Prophets of Israel._--Rudolf Smend, _Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen
Religionsgeschichte_ (2nd ed., 1899); A.B. Davidson, _Old Testament
Prophecy_ (1903); Karl Budde, _Religion of Israel to the Exile_
(1899); W. Robertson Smith, _The Prophets of Israel and their Place in
History_ (1899); A.F. Kirkpatrick, _Doctrine of the Prophets_ (3rd
ed., 1901); Beruk Duhm, _Die Theologie der Propheten_ (1875).

_Judaism._--Emil Schürer, _History of the Jewish People in the Time of
Jesus Christ_ (Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1890); C.G. Montefiore,
_Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the
Religion of the Ancient Hebrews_ (2nd ed., 1893); W. Bousset, _Die
Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter_ (2nd ed.,
1906).

_The Life and Teaching of Jesus._--Hans Heinrich Wendt, _The Teaching
of Jesus_ (1892), 2 vols.; Oskar Holtzmann, _The Life of Jesus_ (Eng.
trans., 1904); Paul Wernle, _Beginnings of Christianity_, 2 vols.
(1903-1904); T. Crawford Burkitt, _The Gospel History and its
Transmission_ (1906).

_The Beginnings of Christianity._--Ernst von Dobschütz, _Christian
Life in the Primitive Church_ (Eng. trans., 1904); A.C. McGiffert,
_The Apostolic Age_ (1900); Carl Weizsäcker, _The Apostolic Age_ (Eng.
trans., 1897); Otto Pfleiderer, _Das Urchristentum_ (1902).

_The Expansion of Christianity._--Edwin Hatch, "The Influence of Greek
Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church," the _Hibbert Lectures,
1888_ (1890); Adolf Harnack, _The Expansion of Christianity in the
First Three Centuries_ (Eng. trans., 1904); Sir W.M. Ramsay, _The
Church in the Roman Empire_ (1893).

_The History of Church and of Dogma._--Adolf Harnack, _History of
Dogma_ (Eng. trans., 1895); Reinhold Seeberg, _Lehrbuch der
Dogmengeschichte_ (1895, 2 vols.); Philip Schaff, _The Creeds of
Christendom_ (3 vols., 1881, 3rd ed.).

_The Roman Church._--Joseph Wilhelm and Thomas B. Scannell, _Manual of
Catholic Theology_ (1906); J.A. Moehler, _Symbolism_ (trans. 1844);
Thomas Aquinas, _The Summa_ (Eng. trans., 1907); William Ward, _The
Ideal of a Christian Church_ (1844).

_The Greek Church._--"The Creeds of the Greek and Russian Churches,"
in Schaff, _Creeds_, vol. ii. pp. 275-542; and J. Michalcesu, _Die
Bekenntnisse und die wichtigsten Glaubenszeugnisse der
griechisch-orientalischen Kirche_ (Leipzig, 1904).

_Protestantism._--John Calvin, _Institutio Religionis Christianae_,
(1536; Eng. trans., 1816); Charles Hodge, _Systematic Theology_ (3
vols., 1872); Ernst Troeltsch, _Die Absolutheit des Christentums und
die Religionsgeschichte_ (1902); _First Principles of the Reformation,
or the Ninety-five Theses and the Three Primary Works_, trans. by
Henry Wace and C.A. Buchheinz (1883).

_Christianity in the Modern World._--Andrew D. White, _Conflict of
Science with Theology_ (2 vols., 1896); D.F. Strauss, _Der alte und
der neue Glaube_ (1872; Eng. trans., 1873); A.J. Balfour, _The
Foundations of Belief_ (1897); J. Ward, _Naturalism and Agnosticism_
(1899).

_Modern Adaptations of Christianity._--William Adams Brown, _Christian
Theology in Outline_ (1906); Augustus Sabatier, _Religions of
Authority and the Religion of the Spirit_ (1904); J.A. Zahm,
_Evolution and Dogma_ (1896); John Henry Newman, _An Essay on the
Development of Christian Doctrine_ (1845); Edward Caird, _The
Evolution of Religion_ (1893); Otto Pfleiderer, _Philosophy of
Religion_ (Eng. trans., 1888, especially volumes 3 and 4); Newman
Smyth, _Old Faiths in New Lights_ (1879), _Through Science to Faith_
(1902); Henry Drummond, _The Ascent of Man_ (1894); William Ralph
Inge, _Christian Mysticism_ (Bampton Lectures, 1894); Wilhelm
Herrmann, _The Communion of the Christian with God_ (1895); George
William Knox, _Direct and Fundamental Proofs of the Christian
Religion_ (1903); Albrecht Ritschl, _Die christliche Lehre von der
Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung_ (1900).

_Modern Definitions of Christianity._--Alfred Loisy, _The Gospel and
the Church_ (1904); Adolf Harnack, _What is Christianity?_ (1901);
William Adams Brown, _The Essence of Christianity_ (1902); Ernest
Troeltsch, _Das Wesen des Christentums_; J. Kaftan, _Das Wesen der
christlichen Religion_ (2nd ed., 1888); J. Caird, _The Fundamental
Ideas of Christianity_ (1899). (G. W. KN.)

CHRISTIANSAND (KRISTIANSAND), a fortified seaport of Norway, the chief town of a diocese (_stift_), on a fjord of the Skagerrack, 175 m. S.W. of Christiania by sea. Pop. (1900) 14,701. It stands on a square peninsula flanked by the western and eastern harbours and by the Otter river. The situation, with its wooded hills and neighbouring islands, is no less beautiful than that of other south-coast towns, but the substitution of brick for wood as building material after a fire in 1892 made against the picturesqueness of the town. There is a fine cathedral, rebuilt in Gothic style after a fire in 1880. Christiansand is an important fishing centre (salmon, mackerel, lobsters), and sawmills, wood-pulp factories, shipbuilding yards and mechanical workshops are the principal industrial works. The port is the largest on the south coast, and all the coast steamers, and those serving Christiania from London, Hull, Grangemouth, Hamburg, &c., touch here. The Saetersdal railway follows that valley north to Byglandsfiord (48 m.), whence a good road continues to Viken i Valle at the head of the valley. Flekkerö, a neighbouring island, is a favourite pleasure resort. The town was founded in 1641 by Christian IV., after whom it was named.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, a system of theosophic and therapeutic doctrine, which was originated in America about 1866 by Mrs Mary Baker Glover Eddy, and has in recent years obtained a number of adherents both in the United States and in European countries. Mrs. Eddy (1821-1910; _née_ Baker) was born near Concord, New Hampshire; in 1843 she married Colonel G.W. Glover (d. 1844), in 1853 she married Daniel Patterson (divorced 1873), and in 1877 Dr Asa Gilbert Eddy (d. 1883). About the year 1867 she came forward as a healer by mind-cure. She based her teaching on the Bible, and on the principles that man's essential nature is spiritual, and that, the Spirit of God being Love and Good, moral and physical evil are contrary to that Spirit, and represent an absence of the True Spirit which was in Jesus Christ. There is but one Mind, one God, one Christ, and nothing real but Mind. Matter and sickness are subjective states of error, delusions which can be dispelled by the mental process of a true knowledge of God and Christ, or Christian science. Ordinary _medical_ science--using drugs, &c.--is therefore irrelevant; spiritual treatment is the only cure of what is really mental error. Jesus himself healed by those means, which were therefore natural and not miraculous, and promised that those who believed should do curative works like his. In 1876 a Christian Scientist Association was organized. Mrs Eddy had published in the preceding year a book entitled _Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures_, which has gone through countless editions and is the gospel of Christian Science. In 1879 she became the pastor of a "Church of Christ, Scientist," in Boston, and also founded there the "Massachusetts Metaphysical College" (1881; closed 1889) for the furtherance of her tenets. The first denominational chapel outside Boston was built at Oconto, Wisconsin, in 1886; and in 1894 (enlarged and reconstructed in 1906) a great memorial church was erected in Boston. Mrs Eddy's publications also include _Retrospection and Introspection_ (1891), _Unity of Good and Unreality of Evil_ (1887), _Rudimental Divine Science_ (1891), _Christian Healing_ (1886), &c. The progress of the cult of Christian Science has been remarkable, and by the beginning of the 20th century many hundreds of Christian Science churches had been established; and the new religion found many adherents also in England. A purely local and congregational form of government was adopted, but Christian Scientists naturally looked to the mother church in Boston, with Mrs Eddy as its guiding influence, as their centre. A monthly magazine, _The Christian Science Journal_ (founded in 1883), and the weekly _Christian Science Sentinel_ are published officially in Boston.

The profession of the paid Christian Science "healer" has been very prominent in recent years both in America and in England; and very remarkable successes have been claimed for the treatment. In some serious cases of death after illness, where a coroner's inquest has shown that the only medical attendance was that of a Christian Science "healer," the question of criminal responsibility has been prominently canvassed; but an indictment in England against a healer for manslaughter in 1906 resulted in an acquittal. The theosophic and the medical aspects of Christian Science may perhaps be distinguished; the latter at all events is open to grave abuse. But the modern reaction in medical practice against drugs, and the increased study of the subject of "suggestion," have done much to encourage a belief in faith-healing and in "psychotherapy" generally. In 1908, indeed, a separate movement (Emmanuel), inspired by the success of Christian Science, and also emanating from America, was started within the Anglican Communion, its object being to bring prayer to work on the curing of disease; and this movement obtained the approval of many leaders of the church in England.

An "authorized" _Life_ of Mrs Eddy, by Sibyl Wilbur (1908), deals with
the subject acceptably to her disciples. "Georgine Milmine's" _Life of
M.B.G. Eddy, and History of Christian Science_ (1909), though not so
acceptable, is a judicious critical account. A detailed indictment
against the whole system, by a competent English doctor (Stephen
Paget), will be found in _The Faith and Works of Christian Science_
(1909).

CHRISTIANSUND (KRISTIANSUND), a seaport on the west coast of Norway, in Romsdal _amt_ (county), 259 m. N.E. by N. of Bergen, in the latitude of the Faeroe Islands. Pop. (1901) 11,982. It is built on four small islands, by which its harbour is enclosed. The chief exports are wood, cod, herrings and fish products, and butter to Great Britain. The town is served by the principal steamers between the south Norwegian ports, Hull, Hamburg, &c, and Trondhjem, and it is the chief port of the district of Nordmöre. Local steamers serve the neighbouring fjords, including the Sundalsfjord, from which at Sundalsören a driving road past the fine Dovrefjeld connects with the Gudbrandsdal route. Till 1742, when it received town privileges from Christian VI., Christiansund was called Lille-Fosen.

CHRISTIE, RICHARD COPLEY (1830-1901), English scholar and bibliophile, was born on the 22nd of July 1830 at Lenton in Nottinghamshire, the son of a millowner. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1857, and in 1872 became chancellor of the diocese of Manchester. This he resigned in 1893. He held numerous appointments, notably the professorships of history (from 1854 to 1856) and of political economy (from 1855 to 1866) at Owens College, Manchester. He always took an active interest in this college, of which he was one of the governors; in 1893 he gave the Christie library building designed by Alfred Waterhouse, and in 1897 he devoted £50,000 of the funds at his disposal as a trustee of Sir Joseph Whitworth's estate for the building of Whitworth Hall, which completed the front quadrangle of the college. He was an enthusiastic book collector, and bequeathed to Owens College his library of about 75,000 volumes, rich in a very complete set of the books printed by Dolet, a wonderful series of Aldines, and of volumes printed by Sebastian Gryphius. His _Étienne Dolet, the Martyr of the Renaissance_ (1880), is the most exhaustive work on the subject. He died at Ribsden on the 9th of January 1901.

CHRISTINA (1626-1689), queen of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus and Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, was born at Stockholm on the 8th of December 1626. Her father died when she was only six years old. She was educated, principally, by the learned Johannes Matthiae, in as masculine a way as possible, while the great Oxenstjerna himself instructed her in politics. Christina assumed the sceptre in her eighteenth year (Dec. 8, 1644). From the moment when she took her seat at the head of the council board she impressed her veteran counsellors with the conviction of her superior genius. Axel Oxenstjerna himself said of her, when she was only fifteen: "Her majesty is not like women-folk, but is stout-hearted and of a good understanding, so that, if she be not corrupted, we have good hopes of her." Unfortunately her brilliant and commanding qualities were vitiated by an inordinate pride and egoism, which exhibited themselves in an utter contempt for public opinion, and a prodigality utterly regardless of the necessities of the state. She seemed to consider Swedish affairs as far too petty to occupy her full attention; while her unworthy treatment of the great chancellor was mainly due to her jealousy of his extraordinary reputation and to the uneasy conviction that, so long as he was alive, his influence must at least be equal to her own. Recognizing that he would be indispensable so long as the Thirty Years' War lasted, she used every effort to bring it to an end; and her impulsive interference seriously hampered the diplomacy of the chancellor, and materially reduced the ultimate gains of Sweden. The general peace congress was not opened till April 1645. The Swedish plenipotentiaries were Johan Oxenstjerna, the chancellor's son, and Adler Salvius. From the first the relations between them were strained. Young Oxenstjerna, haughty and violent, claimed, by right of birth and rank, to be _caput legationis_. The chancellor, at home, took his son's part, while Salvius was warmly supported by Christina, who privately assured him of her exclusive favour and encouraged him to hold his own. So acute did the quarrel become that there was a violent scene in full senate between the queen and the chancellor; and she urged Salvius to accelerate the negotiations, against the better judgment of the chancellor, who hoped to get more by holding out longer.

The longer Christina ruled, the more anxious for the future fate of her empire grew the men who had helped to build it up. Yet she gave fresh privileges to the towns; she encouraged trade and manufactures, especially the mining industries of the Dales; in 1649 she issued the first school ordinance for the whole kingdom; she encouraged foreign scholars to settle in Sweden; and native science and literature, under her liberal encouragement, flourished as they had never flourished before. In one respect, too, she showed herself wiser than her wisest counsellors. The senate and the estates, naturally anxious about the succession to the throne, had repeatedly urged her majesty to marry, and had indicated her cousin, Charles Gustavus, as her most befitting consort. Wearied of their importunities, yet revolting at the idea of submission to any member of the opposite sex, Christina settled the difficulty by appointing Charles her successor, and at the _Riksdag_ of 1650 the Swedish crown was declared hereditary in Charles and his heirs male. In the summer of 1651 Christina was, with difficulty, persuaded to reconsider her resolution to abdicate, but three years later the nation had become convinced that her abdication was highly desirable, and the solemn act took place on the 6th of July 1654 at the castle of Upsala, in the presence of the estates and the great dignitaries of the realm. Many were the causes which predisposed her to what was, after all, anything but an act of self-renunciation. First of all she could not fail to remark the increasing discontent with her arbitrary and wasteful ways. Within ten years she had created 17 counts, 46 barons and 428 lesser nobles; and, to provide these new peers with adequate appanages, she had sold or mortgaged crown property representing an annual income of 1,200,000 rix-dollars. Signs are also not wanting that Christina was growing weary of the cares of government; while the importunity of the senate and _Riksdag_ on the question of her marriage was a constant source of irritation. In retirement she could devote herself wholly to art and science, and the opportunity of astonishing the world by the unique spectacle of a great queen, in the prime of life, voluntarily resigning her crown, strongly appealed to her vivid imagination. Anyhow, it is certain that, towards the end of her reign, she behaved as if she were determined to do everything in her power to make herself as little missed as possible. From 1651 there was a notable change in her behaviour. She cast away every regard for the feelings and prejudices of her people. She ostentatiously exhibited her contempt for the Protestant religion. Her foreign policy was flighty to the verge of foolishness. She contemplated an alliance with Spain, a state quite outside the orbit of Sweden's influence, the firstfruits of which were to have been an invasion of Portugal. She utterly neglected affairs in order to plunge into a whirl of dissipation with her foreign favourites. The situation became impossible, and it was with an intense feeling of relief that the Swedes saw her depart, in masculine attire, under the name of Count Dohna. At Innsbruck she openly joined the Catholic Church, and was rechristened Alexandra. In 1656, and again in 1657, she visited France, on the second occasion ordering the assassination of her major-domo Monaldischi, a crime still unexplained. Twice she returned to Sweden (1660 and 1667) in the vain hope of recovering the succession, finally settling in Rome, where she died on the 19th of April 1689, poor, neglected and forgotten.

See Francis William Bain, _Queen Christina of Sweden_ (London, 1890);
Robert Nisbet Bain, _Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905); _Christina de
Suède et le Cardinal Azzolino_ (Paris, 1899); Claretta Gaudenzio, _La
Regina Christina de Suezia in Italia_ (Turin, 1892); Hans Emil Friis,
_Dronning Christina_ (Copenhagen, 1896); C.N.D. Bildt, _Christina de
Suède et le conclave de Clement X_ (Paris, 1906); _Drottning Kristinas
sista dagar_ (Stockholm, 1897); and J.A. Taylor, _Christina of Sweden_
(1909). (R. N. B.)

CHRISTINA [MARIA CHRISTINA HENRIETTA DÉSIRÉE FÉLICITÉ RÉNIÈRE], for some years queen-regent of Spain (1858- ), widow of Alphonso XII. and mother of Alphonso XIII., was born at Gross Seelowitz, in Austria, on the 21st of July 1858, being the daughter of the archduke Charles Ferdinand and the archduchess Elizabeth of Austria. She was brought up by her mother as a rigid Catholic, and great care was taken with her education. At eighteen she was appointed by the emperor Francis Joseph, abbess of the House of Noble Ladies of Saint Theresa in Prague, where she made herself very popular and distinguished herself by her intellectual parts. It is said that at the court of Vienna the archduchess saw the young prince Alphonso of Spain when he was only a pretender in exile, before the restoration of the Bourbons. A few years later, when Alphonso XII. had lost his first wife and cousin, Queen Mercedes, daughter of the duc de Montpensier, his ministers, especially Señor Canovas, urged him to marry again. He told them that if he did so it would only be with the young Austrian archduchess Maria Christina. After some negotiations between the two courts and governments it was agreed that the archduchess Elizabeth and her daughter should meet Alphonso XII. at Arcachon, in the south of France, where a few days' personal acquaintance was sufficient to make both come to a decision. The duke of Bailen went officially to Vienna to get the emperor of Austria's authorization, and on the 14th of November 1879, in the throne-room of the Imperial palace, the archduchess solemnly abdicated all her rights of succession in Austria, in accordance with the law obliging all princesses of the imperial house to do so when they wed a foreign prince. On the 17th of November the archduchess and her mother, with a numerous suite, started for Spain, arriving at the royal castle of El Pardo, near Madrid, on the 24th of November. The wedding took place in the Atocha cathedral, on the 29th of November, in great state, and was followed by splendid festivities. Queen Christina bore her husband two daughters before he died in 1885--Dona Mercedes, born on the 11th of September 1880, and Dona Maria Theresa, born on the 12th of November 1882. During her husband's lifetime the young queen kept studiously apart from politics, so much so that her inexperience caused much anxiety in November 1885, when she was called upon to take the arduous duties of regent. During the long minority of the posthumous son of Alphonso XII., afterwards King Alphonso XIII., the Austrian queen-regent acted in a way that obliged even the adversaries of the throne and the dynasty to respect the mother and the woman. The people of Spain, and the ever-restless civil and military politicians, found that the gloved hand of their constitutional ruler was that of a strong-minded and tenacious regent, who often asserted herself in a way that surprised them much, but always, somehow, enforced obedience and respect. More could not be expected by a foreign ruler from a nation little prone to waste attachment or demonstrative loyalty upon anybody not Castilian born and bred.

CHRISTISON, SIR ROBERT, Bart. (1797-1882), Scottish toxicologist and physician, was born in Edinburgh on the 18th of July 1797. After graduating at the university of that city in 1819, he spent a short time in London, studying under John Abernethy and Sir William Lawrence, and in Paris, where he learnt analytical chemistry from P.J. Robiquet and toxicology from M.J.B. Orfila. In 1822 he returned to Edinburgh as professor of medical jurisprudence, and set to work to organize the study of his subject on a sound basis. On poisons in particular he speedily became a high authority; his well-known treatise on them was published in 1829, and in the course of his inquiries he did not hesitate to try such daring experiments on himself as taking large doses of Calabar bean. His attainments in medical jurisprudence and toxicology procured him the appointment, in 1829, of medical officer to the crown in Scotland, and from that time till 1866 he was called as a witness in many celebrated criminal cases. In 1832 he gave up the chair of medical jurisprudence and accepted that of medicine and therapeutics, which he held till 1877; at the same time he became professor of clinical medicine, and continued in that capacity till 1855. His fame as a toxicologist and medical jurist, together with his work on the pathology of the kidneys and on fevers, secured him a large private practice, and he succeeded to a fair share of the honours that commonly attend the successful physician, being appointed physician to Queen Victoria in 1848 and receiving a baronetcy in 1871. Among the books which he published were a treatise on _Granular Degeneration of the Kidneys_ (1839), and a _Commentary on the Pharmacopoeias of Great Britain_ (1842). Sir Robert Christison, who retained remarkable physical vigour and activity down to extreme old age, died at Edinburgh on the 23rd of January 1882.

See the _Life_ by his sons (1885-1886).

CHRISTMAS (i.e. the Mass of Christ), in the Christian Church, the festival of the nativity of Jesus Christ. The history of this feast coheres so closely with that of Epiphany (q.v.), that what follows must be read in connexion with the article under that heading.

The earliest body of gospel tradition, represented by Mark no less than by the primitive non-Marcan document embodied in the first and third gospels, begins, not with the birth and childhood of Jesus, but with his baptism; and this order of accretion of gospel matter is faithfully reflected in the time order of the invention of feasts. The great church adopted Christmas much later than Epiphany; and before the 5th century there was no general consensus of opinion as to when it should come in the calendar, whether on the 6th of January, or the 25th of March, or the 25th of December.

The earliest identification of the 25th of December with the birthday of Christ is in a passage, otherwise unknown and probably spurious, of Theophilus of Antioch (A.D. 171-183), preserved in Latin by the Magdeburg centuriators (i. 3, 118), to the effect that the Gauls contended that as they celebrated the birth of the Lord on the 25th of December, whatever day of the week it might be, so they ought to celebrate the Pascha on the 25th of March when the resurrection befell.