Chapter XI: Preface (10)

[Sidenote: (iii) Asceticism.]

(iii) If the lustrations of the Essenes far outstripped the enactments of the Mosaic law, so also did their asceticism. I have given reasons above for believing that this asceticism was founded on a false principle, which postulates the malignity of matter and is wholly inconsistent with the teaching of the Gospel[500]. But without pressing this point, of which no absolutely demonstrative proof can be given, it will be sufficient to call attention to the trenchant contrast in practice which Essene habits present to the life of Christ. He who ‘came eating and drinking’ and was denounced in consequence as ‘a glutton and a wine-bibber’[501], [Sidenote: Eating and drinking.]He whose first exercise of power is recorded to have been the multiplication of wine at a festive entertainment, and whose last meal was attended with the drinking of wine and the eating of flesh, could only have excited the pity, if not the indignation, of these rigid abstainers. And again, attention should be directed to another kind of abstinence, where the contrast is all the more speaking, because the matter is so trivial and the scruple so minute.

Footnote 500:

See above p. 87.

Footnote 501:

Matt. xi. 19, Luke vii. 34.

‘My head with oil thou didst not anoint (Luke vii. 46).’

‘Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head (Matt. vi. 17).’

‘And they consider oil a pollution (κηλῖδα), and though one is smeared involuntarily, he rubs his body clean (σμήχεται τὸ σῶμα, § 3).’

And yet it has been stated that ‘the Saviour of the world ... showed what is required for a holy life in the Sermon on the Mount by a description of the Essenes[502].’

Footnote 502:

Ginsburg _Essenes_ p. 14.

[Sidenote: Celibacy.]

But much stress has been laid on the celibacy of the Essenes; and our Lord’s saying in Matt. xix. 12 is quoted to establish an identity of doctrine. Yet there is nothing special in the language there used. Nor is there any close affinity between the stern invectives against marriage which Josephus and Philo attribute to the Essene, and the gentle concession ‘He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.’ The best comment on our Lord’s meaning here is the advice of St Paul[503], who was educated not in the Essene, but in the Pharisaic school. Moreover this saying must be balanced by the general tenour of the Gospel narrative. When we find Christ discussing the relations of man and wife, gracing the marriage festival by His presence, again and again employing wedding banquets and wedded life as apt symbols of the highest theological truths, without a word of disparagement or rebuke, we see plainly that we are confronted with a spirit very different from the narrow rigour of the Essenes.

Footnote 503:

1 Cor. vii. 26–31.

[Sidenote: (iv) Avoidance of the Temple sacrifices.]

(iv) But not only where the Essenes superadded to the ceremonial law, does their teaching present a direct contrast to the phenomena of the Gospel narrative. The same is true also of those points in which they fell short of the Mosaic enactments. I have already discussed at some length the Essene abstention from the temple sacrifices[504]. There can, I think, be little doubt that they objected to the slaughter of sacrificial victims altogether. But for my present purpose it matters nothing whether they avoided the temple on account of the sacrifices, or the sacrifices on account of the temple. Christ did neither. Certainly He could not have regarded the temple as unholy; for his whole time during his sojourns at Jerusalem was spent within its precincts. It was the scene of His miracles, of His ministrations, of His daily teaching[505]. And in like manner it is the common rendezvous of His disciples after Him[506]. Nor again does He evince any abhorrence of the sacrifices. On the contrary He says that the altar consecrates the gifts[507]; He charges the cleansed lepers to go and fulfil the Mosaic ordinance and offer the sacrificial offerings to the priests[508]. [Sidenote: Practice of Christ and His disciples.]And His practice also is conformable to His teaching. He comes to Jerusalem regularly to attend the great festivals, where sacrifices formed the most striking part of the ceremonial, and He himself enjoins preparation to be made for the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb. If He repeats the inspired warning of the older prophets, that mercy is better than sacrifice[509], this very qualification shows approval of the practice in itself. Nor is His silence less eloquent than His utterances or His actions. Throughout the Gospels there is not one word which can be construed as condemning the sacrificial system or as implying a desire for its cessation until everything is fulfilled.

Footnote 504:

See p. 134 sq.

Footnote 505:

Matt. xxi. 12 sq., 23 sq., xxiv. 1 sq., xxvi. 55, Mark xi. 11, 15 sq.,
27, xii. 35, xiii. 1 sq., xiv. 49, Luke ii. 46, xix. 45, xx. 1 sq.,
xxi. 37 sq., xxii. 53, John ii. 14 sq., v. 14, vii. 14, viii. 2, 20,
59, x. 23, xi. 56, xviii. 20.

Footnote 506:

Luke xxiv. 53, Acts ii. 46, iii. 1 sq., v. 20 sq., 42.

Footnote 507:

Matt. xxiii. 18 sq.: comp. v. 23, 24.

Footnote 508:

Matt. viii. 4, Mark i. 44, Luke v. 14.

Footnote 509:

Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7.

[Sidenote: (v) Denial of the resurrection of the body.]

(v) This last contrast refers to the ceremonial law. But not wide is the divergence on an important point of doctrine. The resurrection of the body is a fundamental article in the belief of the early disciples. This was distinctly denied by the Essenes[510]. However gross and sensuous may have been the conceptions of the Pharisees on this point, still they so far agreed with the teaching of Christianity, as against the Essenes, in that the risen man could not, as they held, be pure soul or spirit, but must necessarily be body and soul conjoint.

Footnote 510:

See above p. 88.

[Sidenote: Some supposed coincidences considered.]

Thus at whatever point we test the teaching and practice of our Lord by the characteristic tenets of Essenism, the theory of affinity fails. There are indeed several coincidences on which much stress has been laid, but they cannot be placed in the category of distinctive features. They are either exemplifications of a higher morality, which may indeed have been honourably illustrated in the Essenes, but is in no sense confined to them, being the natural outgrowth of the moral sense of mankind whenever circumstances are favourable. Or they are more special, but still independent developments, which owe their similarity to the same influences of climate and soil, though they do not spring from the same root. To this latter class belong such manifestations as are due to the social conditions of the age or nation, whether they result from sympathy with, or from repulsion to, those conditions.

[Sidenote: Simplicity and brotherly love.]

Thus, for instance, much stress has been laid on the aversion to war and warlike pursuits, on the simplicity of living, and on the feeling of brotherhood which distinguished Christians and Essenes alike. But what is gained by all this? It is quite plain that Christ would have approved whatever was pure and lovely in the morality of the Essenes, just as He approved whatever was true in the doctrine of the Pharisees, if any occasion had presented itself when His approval was called for. But it is the merest assumption to postulate direct obligation on such grounds. It is said however, that the moral resemblances are more particular than this. [Sidenote: Prohibition of oaths.]There is for instance Christ’s precept ‘Swear not at all ... but let your communication be Yea, yea, Nay, nay.’ Have we not here, it is urged, the very counterpart to the Essene prohibition of oaths[511]? Yet it would surely be quite as reasonable to say that both alike enforce that simplicity and truthfulness in conversation which is its own credential and does not require the support of adjuration, both having the same reason for laying stress on this duty, because the leaders of religious opinion made artificial distinctions between oath and oath, as regards their binding force, and thus sapped the foundations of public and private honesty[512]. And indeed this avoidance of oaths is anything but a special badge of the Essenes. It was inculcated by Pythagoreans, by Stoics, by philosophers and moralists of all schools[513]. When Josephus and Philo called the attention of Greeks and Romans to this feature in the Essenes, they were simply asking them to admire in these practical philosophers among the ‘barbarians’ the realisation of an ideal which their own great men had laid down. Even within the circles of Pharisaism language is occasionally heard, which meets the Essene principle half-way[514].

Footnote 511:

Jos. _B.J._ ii. 8. 6 πᾶν τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ἰσχυρότερον ὅρκου· τὸ δὲ
ὀμνύειν αὐτοῖς περιΐσταται, χεῖρόν τι τῆς ἐπιορκίας ὑπολαμβάνοντες·
ἤδη γὰρ κατεγνῶσθαί φασι τὸν ἀπιστούμενον δίχα θεοῦ, Philo _Omn. prob.
lib._ 12 (II. p. 458) τοῦ φιλοθέου δείγματα παρέχονται μυρία ... τὸ
ἀνώμοτον κ.τ.λ. Accordingly Josephus relates (_Ant._ xv. 10. 4) that
Herod the Great excused the Essenes from taking the oath of allegiance
to him. Yet they were not altogether true to their principles; for
Josephus says (_B.J._ ii. 8. 7), that on initiation into the sect the
members were bound by fearful oaths (ὅρκους φρικώδεις) to fulfil
certain conditions; and he twice again in the same passage mentions
oaths (ὀμνύουσι, τοιούτοις ὅρκοις) in this connexion.

Footnote 512:

On the distinctions which the Jewish doctors made between the validity
of different kinds of oaths, see the passages quoted in Lightfoot and
Schöttgen on Matt. v. 33 sq. The Talmudical tract _Shebhuoth_ tells
its own tale, and is the best comment on the precepts in the Sermon on
the Mount.

Footnote 513:

See e.g. the passages in Wetstein on Matt. v. 37.

Footnote 514:

_Baba Metsia_ 49 _a_. See also Lightfoot on Matt. v. 34.

[Sidenote: Community of goods.]

And again; attention has been called to the community of goods in the infant Church of Christ, as though this were a legacy of Essenism. But here too the reasonable explanation is, that we have an independent attempt to realise the idea of brotherhood—an attempt which naturally suggested itself without any direct imitation, but which was soon abandoned under the pressure of circumstances. Indeed the communism of the Christians was from the first wholly unlike the communism of the Essenes. The surrender of property with the Christians was not a necessary condition of entrance into an order; it was a purely voluntary act, which might be withheld without foregoing the privileges of the brotherhood[515]. And the common life too was obviously different in kind, at once more free and more sociable, unfettered by rigid ordinances, respecting individual liberty, and altogether unlike a monastic rule.

Footnote 515:

514: Acts v. 4.

Not less irrelevant is the stress, which has been laid on another point of supposed coincidence in the social doctrines of the two communities. [Sidenote: Prohibition of slavery.]The prohibition of slavery was indeed a highly honourable feature in the Essene order[516], but it affords no indication of a direct connexion with Christianity. It is true that this social institution of antiquity was not less antagonistic to the spirit of the Gospel, than it was abhorrent to the feelings of the Essene; and ultimately the influence of Christianity has triumphed over it. But the immediate treatment of the question was altogether different in the two cases. The Essene brothers proscribed slavery wholly; they produced no appreciable results by the proscription. The Christian Apostles, without attempting an immediate and violent revolution in society, proclaimed the great principle that all men are equal in Christ, and left it to work. It did work, like leaven, silently but surely, till the whole lump was leavened. In the matter of slavery the resemblance to the Stoic is much closer than to the Essene[517]. The Stoic however began and ended in barren declamation, and no practical fruits were reaped from his doctrine.

Footnote 516:

Philo _Omn. prob. lib._ § 12 (II. p. 458) δοῦλός τε παρ’ αὐτοῖς οἰδὲ
εἶς ἐστιν ἀλλ’ ἐλεύθεροι πάντες κ.τ.λ., _Fragm._ II. p. 632 οὐκ
ἀνδράποδον, Jos. _Ant._ xviii. I. 5 οὔτε δούλων ἐπιτηδεύουσι κτῆσιν.

Footnote 517:

See for instance the passages from Seneca quoted in _Philippians_ p.
305.

[Sidenote: Respect paid to poverty.]

Moreover prominence has been given to the fact, that riches are decried, and a preference is given to the poor, in the teaching of our Lord and His Apostles. Here again, it is urged, we have a distinctly Essene feature. We need not stop to enquire with what limitations this prerogative of poverty, which appears in the Gospels, must be interpreted; but, quite independently of this question, we may fairly decline to lay any stress on such a coincidence, where all other indications of a direct connexion have failed. The Essenes, pursuing a simple and ascetic life, made it their chief aim to reduce their material wants as far as possible, and in doing so they necessarily exalted poverty. Ascetic philosophers in Greece and Rome had done the same. Christianity was entrusted with the mission of proclaiming the equal rights of all men before God, of setting a truer standard of human worth than the outward conventions of the world, of protesting against the tyranny of the strong and the luxury of the rich, of redressing social inequalities, if not always by a present compensation, at least by a future hope. The needy and oppressed were the special charge of its preachers. It was the characteristic feature of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven,’ as described by the prophet whose words gave the keynote to the Messianic hopes of the nation, that the glad-tidings should be preached to the poor[518]. The exaltation of poverty therefore was an absolute condition of the Gospel.

Footnote 518:

Is. lxi. I. εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς, quoted in Luke iv. 18. There are
references to this particular part of the prophecy again in Matt. xi.
5, Luke vii. 22, and probably also in the beatitude μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί
κ.τ.λ., Matt. v. 3, Luke vi. 20.

[Sidenote: The preaching of the Kingdom wrongly ascribed to the
Essenes.]

The mention of the kingdom of heaven leads to the last point on which it will be necessary to touch before leaving this subject. ‘The whole ascetic life of the Essenes,’ it has been said, ‘aimed only at furthering the _Kingdom of Heaven_ and the _Coming Age_.’ Thus John the Baptist was the proper representative of this sect. ‘From the Essenes went forth the first call that the Messiah must shortly appear, _The kingdom of heaven is at_ _hand_’[519]. ‘The announcement of the kingdom of heaven unquestionably went forth from the Essenes’[520]. For this confident assertion there is absolutely no foundation in fact; and, as a conjectural hypothesis, the assumption is highly improbable.

Footnote 519:

Grätz _Gesch._ III. p. 219.

Footnote 520:

_ib._ p. 470.

[Sidenote: The Essenes not prophets, but fortune-tellers.]

As fortune-tellers or soothsayers, the Essenes might be called prophets; but as preachers of righteousness, as heralds of the kingdom, they had no claim to the title. Throughout the notices in Josephus and Philo we cannot trace the faintest indication of Messianic hopes. Nor indeed was their position at all likely to foster such hopes[521]. The Messianic idea was built on a belief in the resurrection of the body. The Essenes entirely denied this doctrine. The Messianic idea was intimately bound up with the national hopes and sufferings, with the national life, of the Jews. The Essenes had no interest in the Jewish polity; they separated themselves almost entirely from public affairs. [Sidenote: They had no vivid Messianic expectations.]The deliverance of the individual is the shipwreck of the whole, it has been well said, was the plain watchword of Essenism[522]. How entirely the conception of a Messiah might be obliterated, where Judaism was regarded only from the side of a mystic philosophy, we see from the case of Philo. Throughout the works of this voluminous writer only one or two faint and doubtful allusions to a personal Messiah are found[523]. The philosophical tenets of the Essenes no doubt differed widely from those of Philo; but in the substitution of the individual and contemplative aspect of religion for the national and practical they were united; and the effect in obscuring the Messianic idea would be the same. When therefore it is said that the prominence given to the proclamation of the Messiah’s kingdom is a main link which connects Essenism and Christianity, we may dismiss the statement as a mere hypothesis, unsupported by evidence and improbable in itself.

Footnote 521:

Lipsius Schenkel’s _Bibel-Lexikon_ s.v. Essäer p. 190, Keim _Jesus von
Nazara_ I. p. 305. Both these writers express themselves very
decidedly against the view maintained by Grätz. ‘The Essene art of
soothsaying,’ writes Lipsius, ‘has absolutely nothing to do with the
Messianic prophecy. ‘Of all this,’ says Keim,‘there is no trace.’

Footnote 522:

Keim _l.c._

Footnote 523:

How little can be made out of Philo’s Messianic utterances by one who
is anxious to make the most possible out of them, may be seen from
Gfrörer’s treatment of the subject, Philo I. p. 486 sq. The treatises
which bear on this topic are the _de Præmiis et Pœnis_ (I. p. 408,
ed. Mangey) and the _de Execrationibus_ (I. p. 429). They deserve to
be read, if only for the negative results which they yield.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

III.
CHARACTER AND CONTENTS OF THE EPISTLE.

[Sidenote: The understanding of the heresy necessary.]

Without the preceding investigation the teaching of this epistle would be very imperfectly understood; for its direction was necessarily determined by the occasion which gave rise to it. Only when we have once grasped the nature of the doctrine which St Paul is combating, do we perceive that every sentence is instinct with life and meaning.

[Sidenote: The errors though twofold sprang from one root.]

We have seen that the error of the heretical teachers was twofold. They had a false conception in theology, and they had a false basis of morals. It has been pointed out also, that these two were closely connected together, and had their root in the same fundamental error, the idea of matter as the abode of evil and thus antagonistic to God.

[Sidenote: So the answer to both is in the same truth.]

As the two elements of the heretical doctrine were derived from the same source, so the reply to both was sought by the Apostle in the same idea, the conception of the Person of Christ as the one absolute mediator between God and man, the true and only reconciler of heaven and earth.

But though they are thus ultimately connected, yet it will be necessary for the fuller understanding of St Paul’s position to take them apart, and to consider first the theological and then the ethical teaching of the epistle.

[Sidenote: 1. The _theological_ teaching of the heretics.]

1. This Colossian heresy was no coarse and vulgar development of falsehood. It soared far above the Pharisaic Judaism which St Paul refutes in the Epistle to the Galatians. The questions in which it was interested lie at the very root of our religious consciousness. [Sidenote: Its lofty motive,]The impulse was given to its speculations by an overwhelming sense of the unapproachable majesty of God, by an instinctive recognition of the chasm which separates God from man, from the world, from matter. Its energy was sustained by the intense yearning after some mediation which might bridge over this chasm, might establish inter-communion between the finite and the Infinite. Up to this point it was deeply religious in the best sense of the term.

[Sidenote: but complete failure.]

The answer which it gave to these questions we have already seen. In two respects this answer failed signally. On the one hand it was drawn from the atmosphere of mystical speculation. It had no foundation in history, and made no appeal to experience. On the other hand, notwithstanding its complexity, it was unsatisfactory in its results; for in this plurality of mediators none was competent to meet the requirements of the case. God here and man there—no angel or spirit, whether one or more, being neither God nor man, could truly reconcile the two. Thus as regards credentials it was without a guarantee; while as regards efficiency it was wholly inadequate.

[Sidenote: The Apostle’s answer is in the Person of Christ.]

The Apostle pointed out to the Colossians a more excellent way. It was the one purpose of Christianity to satisfy those very yearnings which were working in their hearts, to solve that very problem which had exercised their minds. In Christ they would find the answer which they sought. His life—His cross and resurrection—was the guarantee; [Sidenote: The mediator in the world and in the Church.]His Person—the Word Incarnate—was the solution. He alone filled up, He alone could fill up, the void which lay between God and man, could span the gulf which separated the Creator and creation. This solution offered by the Gospel is as simple as it is adequate. To their cosmical speculations, and to their religious yearnings alike, Jesus Christ is the true answer. In the World, as in the Church, He is the one only mediator, the one only reconciler. This two-fold idea runs like a double thread through the fabric of the Apostle’s teaching in those passages of the epistle where he is describing the Person of Christ.

It will be convenient for the better understanding of St Paul’s teaching to consider these two aspects of Christ’s mediation apart—its function in the natural and in the spiritual order respectively.

[Sidenote: (i) In the _Universe_.]

(i) The heresy of the Colossian teachers took its rise, as we saw, in their cosmical speculations. It was therefore natural that the Apostle in replying should lay stress on the function of the Word in the creation and government of the world. This is the aspect of His work most prominent in the first of the two distinctly Christological passages. The Apostle there predicates of the Word, not only prior, but absolute existence. All things were created through Him, are sustained in Him, are tending towards Him. Thus He is the beginning, middle, and end, of creation. This He is, because He is the very _image_ of the Invisible God, because in Him dwells the _plenitude_ of Deity.

[Sidenote: Importance of this aspect of the Person of Christ,]

This creative and administrative work of Christ the Word in the natural order of things is always emphasized in the writings of the Apostles, when they touch upon the doctrine of His Person. It stands in the forefront of the prologue to St John’s Gospel: it is hardly less prominent in the opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews. His mediatorial function in the Church is represented as flowing from His mediatorial function in the world. With ourselves this idea has retired very much into the background. Though in the creed common to all the Churches we profess our belief in Him, as the Being ‘through whom all things were created,’ yet in reality this confession seems to exercise very little influence on our thoughts. And the loss is serious. How much our theological conceptions suffer in breadth and fulness by the neglect, a moment’s reflexion will show. How much more hearty would be the sympathy of theologians with the revelations of science and the developments of history, if they habitually connected them with the operation of the same Divine Word who is the centre of all their religious aspirations, it is needless to say. Through the recognition of this idea with all the consequences which flow from it, as a living influence, more than in any other way, may we hope to strike the chords of that ‘vaster music,’ which results only from the harmony of knowledge and faith, of reverence and research.

[Sidenote: notwithstanding difficulties yet unsolved.]

It will be said indeed, that this conception leaves untouched the philosophical difficulties which beset the subject; that creation still remains as much a mystery as before. This may be allowed. But is there any reason to think that with our present limited capacities the veil which shrouds it ever will be or can be removed? The metaphysical speculations of twenty-five centuries have done nothing to raise it. The physical investigations of our own age from their very nature can do nothing; for, busied with the evolution of phenomena, they lie wholly outside this question, and do not even touch the fringe of the difficulty. But meanwhile revelation has interposed and thrown out the idea, which, if it leaves many questions unsolved, gives a breadth and unity to our conceptions, at once satisfying our religious needs and linking our scientific instincts with our theological beliefs.

[Sidenote: (ii) In the _Church_.]

(ii) But, if Christ’s mediatorial office in the physical creation was the starting point of the Apostle’s teaching, His mediatorial office in the spiritual creation is its principal theme. The cosmogonies of the false teachers were framed not so much in the interests of philosophy as in the interests of religion; and the Apostle replies to them in the same spirit and with the same motive. If the function of Christ is unique in the Universe, so is it also in the Church. [Sidenote: Its absolute character.]He is the sole and absolute link between God and humanity. Nothing short of His personality would suffice as a medium of reconciliation between the two. Nothing short of His life and work in the flesh, as consummated in His passion, would serve as an assurance of God’s love and pardon. His cross is the atonement of mankind with God. He is the Head with whom all the living members of the body are in direct and immediate communication, who suggests their manifold activities to each, who directs their several functions in subordination to the healthy working of the whole, from whom they individually receive their inspiration and their strength.

[Sidenote: Hence angelic mediations are fundamentally wrong.]

And being all this He cannot consent to share His prerogative with others. He absorbs in Himself the whole function of mediation. Through Him alone, without any interposing link of communication, the human soul has access to the Father. Here was the true answer to those deep yearnings after spiritual communion with God, which sought, and could not find, satisfaction in the manifold and fantastic creations of a dreamy mysticism. The worship of angels might have the semblance of humility; but it was in fact a contemptuous defiance of the fundamental idea of the Gospel, a flat denial of the absolute character of Christ’s Person and office. It was a severance of the proper connexion with the Head, an amputation of the disordered limb, which was thus disjoined from the source of life and left to perish for want of spiritual nourishment.

[Sidenote: Christ’s mediation in the Church justified by His mediation
in the World.]

The language of the New Testament writers is beset with difficulties, so long as we conceive of our Lord only in connexion with the Gospel revelation: but, when with the Apostles we realise in Him the same Divine Lord who is and ever has been the light of the whole world, who before Christianity wrought first in mankind at large through the avenues of the conscience, and afterwards more particularly in the Jews through a special though still imperfect revelation, then all these difficulties fall away. Then we understand the significance, and we recognise the truth, of such passages as these: ‘No man cometh unto the Father, but by me’: ‘There is no salvation in any other’; ‘He that disbelieveth the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him[524].’ The exclusive claims advanced in Christ’s name have their full and perfect justification in the doctrine of the Eternal Word.

Footnote 524:

Joh. xiv. 6, Acts iv. 12, Joh. iii. 36.

[Sidenote: Relation of the doctrine of the Word]

The old dispensation is primarily the revelation of the absolute sovereignty of God. It vindicates this truth against two opposing forms of error, which in their extreme types are represented by Pantheism and Manicheism respectively. [Sidenote: to the monotheism of the Old Testament.]The Pantheist identifies God with the world: the Manichee attributes to the world an absolute existence, independent of God. With the Pantheist sin ceases to have any existence: for it is only one form of God’s working. With the Manichee sin is inherent in matter, which is antagonistic to God. The teaching of the Old Testament, of which the key-note is struck in the opening chapters of Genesis, is a refutation of both these errors. God is distinct from the world, and He is the Creator of the world. Evil is not inherent in God, but neither is it inherent in the material world. Sin is the disobedience of intelligent beings whom He has created, and whom He has endowed with a free-will, which they can use or misuse.

[Sidenote: The New Testament is complementary to the Old.]

The revelation of the New Testament is the proper complement to the revelation of the Old. It holds this position in two main respects. If the Old Testament sets forth the absolute unity of God—His distinctness from and sovereignty over His creatures—the New Testament points out how He holds communion with the world and with humanity, how man becomes one with Him. And again, if the Old Testament shows the true character of sin, the New Testament teaches the appointed means of redemption. On the one hand the monotheism of the Old Testament is supplemented by the theanthropism[525] of the New. Thus the _theology_ of revelation is completed. On the other hand, the hamartiology of the Old Testament has its counterpart in the soteriology of the New. Thus the _economy_ of revelation is perfected.

Footnote 525:

I am indebted for the term _theanthropism_, as describing the
substance of the new dispensation, to an article by Prof. Westcott in
the _Contemporary Review_ IV. p. 417 (December, 1867); but it has been
used independently, though in very rare instances, by other writers.
The value of terms such as I have employed here in fixing ideas is
enhanced by their strangeness, and will excuse any appearance of
affectation.

In applying the terms _theanthropism_ and _soteriology_ to the New
Testament, as distinguished from the Old, it is not meant to suggest
that the ideas involved in them were wholly wanting in the Old, but
only to indicate that the conceptions, which were inchoate and
tentative and subsidiary in the one, attain the most prominent
position and are distinctly realised in the other.

[Sidenote: 2. The _ethical_ error of the heretics.]

2. When we turn from the theology of these Colossian heretics to their ethical teaching, we find it characterised by the same earnestness. Of them it might indeed be said that they did ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness.’ [Sidenote: Their practical earnestness,]Escape from impurity, immunity from evil, was a passion with them. But it was no less true that notwithstanding all their sincerity they ‘went astray in the wilderness’; ‘hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.’ By their fatal transference of the abode of sin from the human heart within to the material world without, they had incapacitated themselves from finding the true antidote. [Sidenote: but fundamental misconception and consequent failure.] Where they placed the evil, there they necessarily sought the remedy. Hence they attempted to fence themselves about, and to purify their lives by a code of rigorous prohibitions. Their energy was expended on battling with the physical conditions of human life. Their whole mind was absorbed in the struggle with imaginary forms of evil. Necessarily their character was moulded by the thoughts which habitually engaged them. Where the ‘elements of the world,’ the ‘things which perish in the using[526],’ engrossed all their attention, it could not fail but that they should be dragged down from the serene heights of the spiritual life into the cloudy atmosphere which shrouds this lower earth.

Footnote 526:

ii. 20, 22.

[Sidenote: St Paul substitutes a principle for ordinances.]

St Paul sets himself to combat this false tendency. For negative prohibitions he substitutes a positive principle; for special enactments, a comprehensive motive. He tells them that all their scrupulous restrictions are vain, because they fail to touch the springs of action. If they would overcome the evil, they must strike at the root of the evil. Their point of view must be entirely changed. They must transfer themselves into a wholly new sphere of energy. This transference is nothing less than a migration from earth to heaven—from the region of the external and transitory to the region of the spiritual and eternal[527]. For a code of rules they must substitute a principle of life, which is one in its essence but infinite in its application, which will meet every emergency, will control every action, will resist every form of evil.

Footnote 527:

iii. 1 sq.

[Sidenote: This principle is the heavenly life in Christ.]

This principle they have in Christ. With Him they have died to the world; with Him they have risen to God. Christ, the revelation of God’s holiness, of God’s righteousness, of God’s love, is light, is life, is heaven. With Him they have been translated into a higher sphere, have been brought face to face with the Eternal Presence. Let them only realise this translation. It involves new insight, new motives, new energies. They will no more waste themselves upon vexatious special restrictions: for they will be furnished with a higher inspiration which will cover all the minute details of action. They will not exhaust their energies in crushing this or that rising desire but they will kill the whole body[528] of their earthly passions through the strong arm of this personal communion with God in Christ.

Footnote 528:

ii. 11 ἐν τῇ ἀπεκδύσει τοῦ σώματος τῆς σαρκός, iii. 5 νεκρώσατε οὖν τὰ
μέλη with ver. 8 νυνὶ δὲ ἀπόθεσθε καὶ ὑμεῖς τὰ πάντα, and ver. 9
ἀπεκδυσάμενοι τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον. See the notes on the several
passages.

[Sidenote: St Paul’s doctrine of faith and works considered in the light
of this principle.]

When we once grasp this idea, which lies at the root of St Paul’s ethical teaching, the moral difficulty which is supposed to attach to his doctrine of faith and works has vanished. It is simply an impossibility that faith should exist without works. Though in form he states his doctrine as a relation of contrast between the two, in substance it resolves itself into a question of precedence. Faith and works are related as principle and practice. Faith—the repose in the unseen, the recognition of eternal principles of truth and right, the sense of personal obligations to an Eternal Being who vindicates these principles—must come first. Faith is not an intellectual assent, nor a sympathetic sentiment merely. It is the absolute surrender of self to the will of a Being who has a right to command this surrender. It is this which places men in personal relation to God, which (in St Paul’s language) justifies them before God. For it touches the springs of their actions; it fastens not on this or that detail of conduct, but extends throughout the whole sphere of moral activity; and thus it determines their character as responsible beings in the sight of God.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Christology of this epistle]

From the above account it will have appeared that the distinctive feature of this epistle is its Christology. The doctrine of the Person of Christ is here stated with greater precision and fulness than in any other of St Paul’s epistles. It is therefore pertinent to ask (even though the answer must necessarily be brief) what relation this statement bears to certain other enunciations of the same doctrine; [Sidenote: considered in relation to]to those for instance which occur elsewhere in St Paul’s own letters, to those which are found in other Apostolic writings, and to those which appear in the fathers of the succeeding generations.

[Sidenote: 1. The Christology of St Paul’s earlier epistles]

1. The Christology of the Colossian Epistle is in no way different from that of the Apostle’s earlier letters. It may indeed be called a development of his former teaching, but only as exhibiting the doctrine in fresh relations, as drawing new deductions from it, as defining what had hitherto been left undefined, not as superadding any foreign element to it. The doctrine is practically involved in the opening and closing words of his earliest extant epistle: ‘The Church which is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’; ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you[529].’ The main conception of the Person of Christ, as enforced in the Colossian Epistle, alone justifies and explains this language, which otherwise would be emptied of all significance. And again; it had been enunciated by the Apostle explicitly, though briefly, in the earliest directly doctrinal passage which bears on the subject; ‘One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through Him[530].’ [Sidenote: the same in substance but]The absolute universal mediation of the Son is declared as unreservedly in this passage from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, as in any later statement of the Apostle: and, [Sidenote: less fully developed]if all the doctrinal and practical inferences which it implicitly involves were not directly emphasized at this early date, it was because the circumstances did not yet require explicitness on these points. New forms of error bring into prominence new aspects of the truth. The heresies of Laodicea and Colossæ have been invaluable to the later Church in this respect. The Apostle himself, it is not too much to say, realised with ever increasing force the manifoldness, the adaptability, the completeness of the Christian idea, notwithstanding its simplicity, as he opposed it to each successive development of error. The Person of Christ proved the complete answer to false speculations at Colossæ, as it had been found the sovereign antidote to false practices at Corinth. All these unforeseen harmonies must have appeared to him, as they will appear to us, fresh evidences of its truth.

Footnote 529:

1 Thess. i. 1, v. 28.

Footnote 530:

1 Cor. viii. 6 δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς δι’ αὐτοῦ. The expression δι’
οὗ implies the conception of the Logos, even where the term itself is
not used. See the dissertation on the doctrine of the Logos in the
Apostolic writers.

[Sidenote: 2. The Christology of other Apostolic writings.]

[Sidenote: Their fundamental identity.]

2. And when we turn from St Paul to the other Apostolic writings which dwell on the Person of Christ from a doctrinal point of view, we find them enunciating it in language which implies the same fundamental conception, though they may not always present it in exactly the same aspect. More especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews first, and in the Gospel of St John afterwards, the form of expression is identical with the statement of St Paul. In both these writings the universe is said to have been created or to exist _by_ or _through_ Him. This is the crucial expression, which involves in itself all the higher conceptions of the Person of Christ[531]. The Epistle to the Hebrews seems to have been written by a disciple of St Paul immediately after the Apostle’s death, and therefore within some five or six years from the date which has been assigned to the Colossian letter. The Gospel of St John, if the traditional report may be accepted, dates about a quarter of a century later; but it is linked with our epistle by the fact that the readers for whom it was primarily intended belonged to the neighbouring districts of Proconsular Asia. Thus it illustrates, and is illustrated by, the teaching of St Paul in this letter. More especially by the emphatic use of the term _Logos_, which St Paul for some reason has suppressed, it supplies the centre round which the ideas gather, and thus gives unity and directness to the conception.

Footnote 531:

Joh. i. 3 πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο κ.τ.λ., Heb. i. 2 δι’ οὗ καὶ
ἐποίησεν τοὺς αἰῶνας.

[Sidenote: Firmness of the apostolic idea.]

In the Christology of these Apostolic writings there is a firmness and precision which leaves no doubt about the main conception present to the mind of the writers. The idea of Christ as an intermediate being, neither God nor man, is absolutely and expressly excluded. On the one hand His humanity is distinctly emphasized. On the other He is represented as existing from eternity, as the perfect manifestation of the Father, as the absolute mediator in the creation and government of the world.

[Sidenote: 3. The Christology of the succeeding ages.]

3. But, when we turn from these Apostolic statements to the writings of succeeding generations, we are struck with the contrast[532]. A vagueness, a flaccidity, of conception betrays itself in their language.

Footnote 532:

The remarks on the theology of the Apostolic Fathers, as compared with
the Apostles, in Dorner’s _Lehre von der Person Christi_ I. p. 130 sq.
seem to me perfectly just and highly significant. See also de
Pressensé _Trois Premiers Siècles_ II. p. 406 sq. on the unsystematic
spirit of the Apostolic Fathers.

[Sidenote: Its looseness of conception.]

In the Apostolic Fathers and in the earlier Apologists we find indeed for the most part a _practical_ appreciation of the Person of Christ, which leaves nothing to be desired; but as soon as they venture upon any directly dogmatic statement, we miss at once the firmness of grasp and clearness of conception which mark the writings of the Apostles. If they desire to emphasize the majesty of His Person, they not unfrequently fall into language which savours of patripassianism[533]. If on the other hand they wish to present Him in His mediatorial capacity, they use words which seem to imply some divine being, who is God and yet not quite God, neither Creator nor creature[534].

Footnote 533:

See for instance the passages quoted in the note on Clem. Rom. 2 τὰ
παθήματα αὐτοῦ.

Footnote 534:

The unguarded language of Justin for instance illustrates the
statement in the text. On the one hand Petavius, _Theol. Dogm._ de
Trin. ii. 3. 2, distinctly accuses him of Arianism: on the other Bull,
_Def. Fid. Nic._ ii. 4. 1 sq., indignantly repudiates the charge and
claims him as strictly orthodox. Petavius indeed approaches the
subject from the point of view of later Western theology and, unable
to appreciate Justin’s doctrine of the Logos, does less than justice
to this father; but nevertheless Justin’s language is occasionally
such as no Athanasian could have used. The treatment of this father by
Dorner (_Lehre_ I. p. 414 sq.) is just and avoids both extremes.

[Sidenote: The Apostolic idea applied in later ages.]

The Church needed a long education, before she was fitted to be the expositor of the true Apostolic doctrine. A conflict of more than two centuries with Gnostics, Ebionites, Sabellians, Arians, supplied the necessary discipline. The true successors of the Apostles in this respect are not the fathers of the second century, but the fathers of the third and fourth centuries. In the expositors of the Nicene age we find indeed technical terms and systematic definitions, which we do not find in the Apostles themselves; but, unless I have wholly misconceived the nature of the heretical teaching at Colossæ and the purport of St Paul’s reply, the main idea of Christ’s Person, with which he here confronts this Gnostic Judaism, is essentially the same as that which the fathers of these later centuries opposed to the Sabellianism and the Arianism of their own age. If I mistake not, the more distinctly we realise the nature of the heresy, the more evident will it become that any conception short of the perfect deity and perfect humanity of Christ would not have furnished a satisfactory answer; and this is the reason why I have dwelt at such length on the character of the Colossian false teaching, and why I venture to call especial attention to this part of my subject.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Style of this epistle.]

Of the style of the letter to the Colossians I shall have occasion to speak hereafter, when I come to discuss its genuineness. It is sufficient to say here, that while the hand of St Paul is unmistakable throughout this epistle, we miss the flow and the versatility of the Apostle’s earlier letters.

[Sidenote: Its ruggedness and compression,]

A comparison with the Epistles to the Corinthians and to the Philippians will show the difference. It is distinguished from them by a certain ruggedness of expression, a ‘want of finish’ often bordering on obscurity. What account should be given of this characteristic, it is impossible to say. The divergence of style is not greater than will appear in the letters of any active-minded man, written at different times and under different circumstances. The epistles which I have selected for contrast suggest that the absence of all personal connexion with the Colossian Church will partially, if not wholly, explain the diminished fluency of this letter. [Sidenote: but essential vigour.]At the same time no epistle of St Paul is more vigorous in conception or more instinct with meaning. It is the very compression of the thoughts which creates the difficulty. If there is a want of fluency, there is no want of force. Feebleness is the last charge which can be brought against this epistle.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Analysis.]

The following is an analysis of the epistle: