The Cradle of the Christ: A Study in Primitive Christianity

The resurrection of the Christ is not described as the resurrection of a body, but as the apparition of a spiritual form. It is not recognized by Mary through any external resemblance to a former self, but through a spiritual impression; it stands suddenly before her, forbids her touch, is not palpable, and as suddenly disappears; the Logos ascends "to the Father;" returns, bringing the spirit that he had promised; enters the chamber where the disciples are gathered, the door being carefully closed from fear of the Jews, enters without opening the door, is visible for an instant, and is no more seen; re-enters for the purpose of giving palpable demonstration of his reality to the doubting Thomas, who, however does not accept it, receives the skeptic's homage and again disappears.

These apparitions and occultations are frequent in the gospel, the Christ's outward form being only a façade, removable at pleasure. The numerous comings and goings, hidings, disclosures, presences, absences, are accounted for on this supposition, better than on any other. He goes up to the feast at Jerusalem, not openly, but "as it were in secret," veiled, disguised. He comes before the crowd many of whom must have been familiar with his person, but is unrecognized; he discloses himself for a moment, speaks exciting words that raise a tumult, and then, at the height of the turmoil, becomes invisible. "They sought to take him; but no man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come." On a subsequent occasion his hearers, intensely aroused by his language, took up stones to cast at him; but he "hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by." His enemies sought to take him, but "he escaped out of their hands." Having spoken, he departs, and hides himself; but again, without apparently changing his locality or absenting himself for any period, he is again heard proclaiming his mission.

There is no history in this book. The incarnate Word can have no history. His career being theological, the events in it cannot be other than spectral. He is not in the world of cause and effect. His actions are phenomenal; the passages of his life do not open into one another, do not lead anywhere; nothing follows anything else, nothing moves; there is no progress towards development. The biography is a succession of scenes, a diorama. There are no sequences or consequences. Stones are taken up, but never thrown; hands are uplifted to strike, but no blow is delivered. The movement to arrest is never carried out. The miracles are not deeds of power or mercy, they are signs, thrown out to attract popular attention, demonstrations of the divine presence; sometimes merely symbolical foreshadowings or interpretations of speculative ideas, as in the case of the turning of water into wine at the "marriage feast;" the opening of the blind man's eyes, signifying that he was come a light into the world; the resurrection of Lazarus, a scenic commentary on the text, "I am the resurrection and the life." These are pictures not performances. None of them are mentioned in the earlier traditions, for the probable reason that they never occurred, never were rumored to have occurred. They were designed by the artist of the fourth Gospel, for his private gallery of illustrations. The artist was a Greek Jew who took Hebrew ideals for his models, but he was sometimes obliged to go far to find them. The hint for the conversion of the water into wine, may have come from the legends of Israelite sojourn in Egypt, where Moses, the first deliverer, turned water into blood, the mystical synonym of wine; Elisha may have furnished a study for the elaborate picture of the blind man's cure, and Isaiah may have supplied the motive for it, in his famous prophecy that the eyes of the blind shall be opened. The studies for the grand cartoon of Lazarus were made possibly while the artist mused over the stories of Elijah raising the son of the widow, or of Elisha reviving one already dead by mere contact with his bones.

In the veins of the Logos flows no passionate blood. His language is vehement, but suggests no corresponding emotion; the words are not vascular. Certain superficial peculiarities of these discourses are noticeable at once, their length, their stateliness, their absoluteness, their loud-voiced, declamatory character, their oracular tone. But little scrutiny is required to discover that they are monotones; that their theme is always the same, namely, the claims of the Christ; that they unfold no system of moral or spiritual teaching, proceed in no rational order, arrive at no conclusions; that they contain no arguments, answer no questions, meet no inquiring states of mind; that they resemble orations more than discourses of any other kind, but are unlike orations, in having neither beginning middle nor end, in quite lacking point and application, in proceeding no whither, in simply standing still and reiterating the same sublime abstractions, without regard to logical or rhetorical proprieties.

This being discovered, the conclusion follows swiftly, that the divine Logos could not discourse otherwise. His addresses, like his deeds, are designed to be revelations of himself; expressions, not of his thoughts, but of his being, not of his character, but of his nature. They are the Word made articulate, as his wonders are the Word made mighty, as his form is the Word made visible. A human being, seeking to convince, persuade, instruct mankind, will from necessity pursue a different course from the divine Reason presenting itself to "the world." Its very audiences are impersonal, consisting not of individuals or of parties, but of abstractions labelled "Jews," who come like shadows, so depart.

So unhuman is the Christ, so entirely without near relations with mankind, that when he has left the world, a substitute may be provided for him, in the shape of the Holy Spirit, another personality proceeding from him and his Father, and appointed to complete his work; to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; to guide the disciples into all truth; to bring to their remembrance all that had been said to them; to comfort them, and abide with them for ever. The idea loses itself in vagueness at times, now being identified with the Christ, now appearing as a Spirit of Truth, now being an indwelling presence, now an effluence from the Logos. But all the while something like an individual consciousness is preserved; the spirit is as palpable as the Logos himself was. Here is already the germ of a trinity maturing within the bosom of the Hebrew monotheism. The process has been simple; the consecutive steps have been inevitable. But in the process the solid ground of Judaism has been left; the massive substance of the ancient faith has been melted into cloud.

How entirely nebulous it has become under the action of speculative mind is strikingly apparent on examination of the ethical characteristics of the fourth gospel. The concrete virtues of the ancient race, the honest human righteousness and charity have disappeared, and in their place are certain spectral "graces" which have quality of a technical, but little of a human sort. That, according to the Logos doctrine men are saved, not by natural goodness or piety but by faith in the Christ, is written all over the book. But this is not the point. It is not enough that character has no saving power, it is dispensed with; and instead of it, something is set up which possesses none of the elements of character. The compact principles of human duty which hold so large a place in the Old Testament scriptures, and are so essential in the earliest Messianic conception, are not found here, at all. The sermon on the mount is omitted. The beatitudes are unmentioned. The parables are not remembered. There is no chapter in the book that bears comparison in point of moral vigor or nobleness with the twelfth chapter of Romans, or the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians. Humanity has shrunk to the dimensions of an incipient Christendom. The men and women whom the Jesus of Matthew addresses, to whom Paul makes appeal, are men and women no more; not even Jews by race, not even a knot of radical Jews; they are "disciples," "believers," "brethren." Christians, not fellow men, are to love one another. "So shall ye be my disciples, if ye have love one for another." "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples." Of the broad human love, the recognition of brotherhood on the human ground, duty to love those who are not disciples, there is not a word. The common faith, not the common nature, is the bond. The promises in the fourteenth chapter, the warnings in the fifteenth, the counsel in the sixteenth, the consecration in the seventeenth are all for the believers, not for the doers; for the doers only so far as they are believers, and within the limits of the believing community. The tender word "love" shrinks to ecclesiastical proportions. "If a man love me he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him;" but the words are not words of exhortation to practical righteousness, they are words of admonition against unbelief. "If ye love me, keep my commandments;" but the commandments are not the wholesome enactments of the Hebrew decalogue, but a bidding to "walk by the light while ye have the light," "to do the will of Him that sent me," which is "to believe on him whom He hath sent." "He that believeth not is condemned already in his not believing in the only begotten Son of God." There is no sweeter word than "love;" there is no more comprehensive law than the law of love; but when love is changed from a virtue to a sentiment, and when the duty of practising it is limited to members of a doctrinal communion, the practical issue is more likely to be sectarian narrowness than human fellowship.

As the speculation rises the spectral character of the morality becomes more startling. The so-called epistles of John carry the Logos idea considerably further than the gospel does. The mission of the Logos is more sharply discriminated. He is described as a sin offering. "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." "He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin." The word "manifested" is the key to the doctrine. "The Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil." It is the same conception as in the gospel; the Prince of Light confronting the Prince of Darkness, shaming him and attracting away his subjects. The anti-Christ now comes into view; the sin unto death is named; the second advent is announced, though not according to the millennial anticipations of a former day. "He that denieth that Jesus is the Christ is a liar." "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." "Every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." Belief or unbelief in the incarnation of the Logos is made the test of one's spiritual relationship, marking him as a candidate for eternal felicity in the realm of the blessed, or as a victim of endless misery in the realm of Satan. Thus the very heart of natural goodness is eaten out. Of virtue there remains small trace. A great deal of very strong language is used about sin, but sins are not particularized. Sin, as an abstraction, a principle, a power, a force, a deep seated taint in the nature, ineradicable except by the infusion of a new spirit of life, is represented as the dreadful thing; and Love, another abstraction, is raised to honor as a spiritual grace, equally unconnected with the human will. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is Love." The words have a deep and tender sound. But the consideration that "the beloved" are those only who confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, that all others are the reverse of "beloved," causes that neither the depth nor the sweetness remains. The love does not mean compassion, or pity, or good-will, or helpfulness; it has no reference to the poor, the needy, the sick, sorrowful, wicked; it has no downward look, is destitute of humility, is as far as can well be from the love described by Paul in his perfect lyric. It is, we may say, the opposite of that, being a quality that distinguishes the elect from the non-elect, and makes their special election the more sure.

The literary character of the fourth gospel must be remarked on as a peculiar indication of the mental exhaustion that accompanies the last stages of an intellectual movement. The literature of the century preceding Jesus fairly throbs with personal vitality. It is scarcely more than an expression of individual energies. The earliest writings of the New Testament, the genuine letters of Paul, are animated in every line by his own vehement personality; the speculative portions of them stir the blood, so real are the issues presented, so vital are the interests at stake. Shapeless, and sometimes incoherent, the thoughts tumble out of the writer's overcharged heart. The Christ is an ideal personage, but his mission is tremendously real; we are moved by a battle cry as the apostle's ideas burst upon us.

The literature of the succeeding period, though more elaborate and self-conscious, bearing traces of reflection, and even artifice in composition, is yet warm with the presence of a real purpose. But the fourth gospel is a purely literary work; a composition, the production of an artist in language. Its author, perhaps because he was simply an artist in language, is unknown. Trace of an historical Jesus in it there is none. No breath from the world of living men blows through it; no stir of social existence, no movement of human affairs ruffles its calm surface. The people are not real people, the issues are not real issues, the conflict is not a real conflict. We have a book, not a gospel.

The writer formally announces the subject of his spiritual drama, and then proceeds to develop it, according to approved rules of literary art. First comes the prologue, setting forth in a few sententious passages the cardinal idea of the piece. This occupies eighteen verses of the first chapter, and is followed by the introduction of John the Baptist and his testimony. This occupies eighteen verses more. The manifestation of the Logos to the first company of disciples is described with due circumstance in the remainder of the chapter. The symbolical opening of the public ministry, at Cana, the first open "manifestation of the glory" in the miracle of turning water into wine, by which is signified the calling to substitute a spiritual for a natural order, occupies the first ten verses of the second chapter. Then the ministry of revelation begins, with signs and demonstrations. The city of Jerusalem is chosen as the scene of it; and the scene never changes for longer than a moment, and then it changes without historical, or biographical motive. The cleansing of the temple is placed at the beginning, with undisguised purpose to announce his claim, and the dialectical contest is opened. Nicodemus, "a ruler of the Jews," seeks a nocturnal interview, betrays the ignorance of the kingdom which characterizes all save the regenerate, even the wisest, and gives occasion to the Christ to declare the intrinsic superiority of the Son of God, and the conditions of salvation through him; Nicodemus furnishing the starting point for a lofty declamation which soars beyond him into the region of transcendental ideas. The Baptist, instead of doubting, as in Matthew, and sending an embassy to the Christ to ascertain the reasons of his not disclosing himself, is himself questioned by skeptical disciples, and re-assures them by words that are an echo of the Christ's own.

The interview with the woman of Samaria is introduced for the purpose of extracting another confession of the Christ's supremacy from a different order of mind. Nicodemus represented Judaism in its pride of authority and learning. The woman of Samaria represents the ignorant, superstitious, yet stubborn idolatry reckoned by the Jews as no better than heathenism; her "five husbands" are the five sects into which Judaism was divided. She too is pictured to us as sitting by a well and drawing water. The conversation begins with the Christ's declaration of his power to create perennial springs of water in the heart, and leads immediately up to the great disclosure of himself. Superstition, like superciliousness, listens and is persuaded. The mention of Galilee is necessary to account for the episode in Samaria, but nothing occurs there. The next scene is laid again in Jerusalem. The water of Bethesda is brought into competition with the quickening spirit of the Christ; the cure of the sick man introduces a mystical discourse on the spiritual sufficiency of the Son of God.

Another scene is presented, and once more in Jerusalem. Another series of tableaux is arranged. This time the Christ is pictured as breaking bread and walking on water, whence occasion is taken to descant on the bread of life. For the purpose of making a fresh appearance in Jerusalem, and presenting his claim under a new aspect, Galilee is called into requisition again, but as usual, the drama is enacted in Jerusalem, which is the centre of the opposition. This time, the Christ, having declined to go up in his own character to meet his critics, goes up in disguise, incognito, and amazes the congregated multitude by his superb assumptions of authority, and his overwhelming denunciations of all who do not receive him; denunciations so uncompromising, that dissensions are created. "Some would have taken him, but none laid hands on him." As always, the demonstration results in bringing out his friends and enemies, in showing who were and who were not his own, which is the aim and end of every manifestation. The Logos presents himself, makes his statement, asserts his prerogative, offers the alternative of spiritual life or death, and retires, leaving the result to the spiritual laws.

The story of the woman taken in adultery which immediately follows this passage, probably made no part of the original gospel, as it appears out of all connection. It is pronounced by some of the best critics to be ungenuine. The obvious improbability of its incidents, the locality of it, – the Mount of Olives, – the Christ's mysterious proceeding of writing on the ground, and his unaccountable verdict, deprive the tale of all but literary interest. It is interesting in a literary point of view, or would be if it were set in literary relations; for it illustrates the Christ's supremacy, his supernatural power of rebuke and insight, his authority to grant absolution on purely theological grounds. The doctrine that none but the guiltless are entitled to pronounce sentence on guilt would put an end to censorship of every kind, but is quite in accordance with the ethical tone of the book. The author however, turns the incident to no account, but proceeds with new scenes in his speculative drama. "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life;" the Christ enters once more into the old debate, once more the claim is challenged, once more the angry discussion flows on, becoming, at this juncture more violent than ever; terrible denunciations leap from the divine lips; the adversaries are called a devil's brood, liars, murderers at heart. At the close of the final outburst, the unseen hands raise the visionary stones, but "Jesus hid himself, went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by."

The speech however is continued; the main doctrine of it, namely that the Christ is the Light of the World, being illustrated by the miracle of giving sight to a man "blind from his birth," – the story being told at great length and with exceedingly minute detail, so as to cover every point of circumstance. This seems to be a critical moment in the development of the idea. The vehemence subsides for a time, and the light of the world shines gently as a shepherd's lantern showing wandering sheep the way to the true fold. But the softest word stirs up anger; the "Jews" take up stones, not to throw them, but to exhibit temper, and the act closes tranquilly like those that preceded it.

The resurrection of Lazarus prepares the way for the closing scenes. That such a story, so artificially constructed, so evidently introduced for effect, told by one writer and not as much as alluded to by the others, told with so much circumstance and with so little regard for biographical probability, told for a dogmatical purpose, and fitted into the narrative at the precise juncture where a turning point was wanted, should be accepted as history by any unfettered mind; that a critic like Renan, professing a profound reverence for the character of Jesus, should have admitted it as in some sense true, and should have been driven in explanation of it to a theory utterly fatal to the moral character of the "colossal" man he celebrates, thus sacrificing the moral greatness of Jesus to a perverse sense of historical truth, proves the obstinacy of traditional prejudice. The narrative is too evidently a literary device, one would think, to deceive anybody of awakened discernment. Its manifest artifice is such that it alone would be enough to cast suspicion on all the miraculous narrations of the book.

"From that day forth the Jews took counsel together to put him to death." The crisis has come, and events hasten on towards the catastrophe, which, as has been said, was no catastrophe, but a consummation. Mary, instead of sitting at his feet as a disciple, anoints them with spikenard and wipes them with the hair of her head; the holy woman performing the act elsewhere ascribed to a sinner, the act itself being a ceremony of consecration, instead of a mark of penitence. The triumphal entry into Jerusalem, elsewhere described as the Messiah's own project, is converted into a spontaneous demonstration in his honor, rendered by "much people," who had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. "Certain Greeks" present themselves and ask an introduction, as to a royal personage. They are the first fruits of the Gentile world; their coming is welcomed as a sign of final victory. "The hour is come," says Jesus, on receiving them, "that the Son of Man should be glorified." The heavens echo his exclamation; an audible voice, interpreted as the voice of an angel, pronouncing the glorification certain and eternal. The Son of God adds his own interpretation, confirming that of his friends; prophesies the speedy judgment of the world and his own elevation to glory by means of the cross, makes his last statement, and the dialectical war is at an end.

The rest of the life is given to the disciples. The last supper, its agony and distress of mind omitted, is an occasion for impressing on "his own" the lesson of mutual love. The departure of Judas on his errand is the signal for a burst of rapture. Words of consolation, mingled with promises of the "Spirit of Truth," "The Comforter," words of blessing too follow, intended to beget in his friends the feeling that, though absent, he will still be present with them. They are bidden to remember him as the source of their life; are admonished to keep unbroken the spiritual bond that unites them to him in vital sympathy; are assured that the mission he came to earth to discharge will be fulfilled by the Holy Ghost; and finally are solemnly consecrated by priestly supplication as the rescued children of God.

The story of the arrest is told in a strain equally suited to the idea on which the book is constructed. In full consciousness of his position, Jesus steps forth out of the shadow of mystery to meet Judas and his troop, who have come, expecting to find him in his garden retreat. The soldiers, over-awed by the apparition, start backward and fall to the ground, prostrate before the Son of God. The trial goes on before Annas and Caiaphas, priests, and Pilate, Roman viceroy. The powers of Church and State pronounce on him; before the powers of Church and State he announces himself and makes his royal claim. In the presence of the High Priest, who is scarcely more than a name in this proceeding, introduced in order that Judaism might have one more opportunity of rejecting the majesty of heaven, Jesus suffers an indignity at the hands of one of the prelate's officers; but Pilate, the pagan, shudders before the awful personage who tells him that he could have no power at all except it were given him from above; that he was but a tool of providence. The guilt of the execution is thus transferred from his shoulders to destiny; for the Jews, no less than the governor, are fated. The hour of glorification has come, and the Son of Man moves with stately step towards his ascension.

The process of withdrawal from the visible sphere has already been described. It is not effected at once. As a lantern in the hand of one walking in a wood flashes out and again hides itself, becoming dimmer and dimmer until finally it quite disappears, so the Son of God is many times visible and invisible before he vanishes altogether from sight. No bodily ascension is necessary to bear away one whose coming and going are not conditioned by space or time. His form has always been a translucent veil, which could at pleasure be removed. His mission ended, there is no more occasion for his self-revelation, and he is unseen. The unreality of a representation like this must be too apparent to be argued.

From this exposition it appears that the New Testament literature is, in some sort, to the end, a continuation of the literature of the Old Testament. As the earliest phase of Christianity was Judaism, with a belief in the Messiah's advent superadded, so the first literature of Christianity is the literature of Judaism, written on the supposition that the Christ has come. Judaism is Christianity still expectant of a Christ to come, or, as with the radical Jews, unexpectant of a personal Messiah; Christianity is Judaism with the expectation fulfilled. The Judaic element was not limited to the little knot of Jerusalemites who hung about the holy city and waited there for the Christ's coming; it was conspicuous in the system of Paul, and so far from being absent from the later form, known by the name of John, determines the cardinal idea of that, and shapes its bent. Whatever additions are made, grow out of this cardinal idea, as branches from its stem. The strict monotheism of the Hebrew faith is sacrificed to the Messianic conception. The Christ in time becomes a twin Deity, a Holy Ghost being required to fill up the gulf between godhead and humanity.

But for the fury of the discord that arose and deepened between the Jews who accepted the Christ and the Jews who preferred still to wait for him, the later, as well as the earlier form of Christianity, might possibly have been merged in Judaism. The believers in the Messianic advent were radical to the point of fanaticism. They were the restless advocates of change, agitators, revolutionists. Their passionate zeal could not brook indifference or coolness. Nothing short of a fervid allegiance satisfied them. The recusants had to bear hard names, as the gospels attest. The ill-fortune of the Messiah, the bitter opposition he encountered, his untimely death, were charged upon the faithlessness of the nation who would not confess him. These, and not the Roman Government that actually put him to death, were held answerable for his crucifixion; thus a discord was planted, which all the generations of Christendom have failed to eradicate. There has, from that time to this, been implacable hatred between Christian and Jew.

The separation, which might have been healed or obliterated, had this been the sole cause of it, was widened by the subsequent breach between the christians themselves, which drew attention off from the previous issue. The position taken by Paul, that the mission of the Christ was extended to the Gentiles and comprehended them on precisely the same conditions with the Jews, was exceedingly disagreeable and even shocking to the conservatives, who held that the Christ was sent to Israel only, and especially to that portion of Israel that clung tenaciously to the traditions of the law. The necessary criticism of the Law which Paul's position required, the apparent disrespect shown to Moses and the prophets, the disregard of the ancestral claim set up by the "children of Abraham," the substitution of an interior principle – faith – which any heathen might adopt, for the old fashioned legal requirements to which none but orthodox Jews could conform, was hardly less than blasphemous in their regard; and a feud was begun, which in violence and rancor, excelled the quarrel between the orthodox christians and the Jews. The traces of this controversy, plainly marked in the writings of Paul, are visible on the literature of his own and of the succeeding period, and disappear only in the events of greater significance incident to the fall of Jerusalem, the complete dispersion of the Jews, and the blending of parties in the Western Empire. Ferdinand Christian Baur may have pushed too far in some directions, his theory that the entire gospel literature of the New Testament was determined as to its form by the exigencies of this controversy, the canonical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the "Acts of the Apostles" all being written in the interest of reconciliation; but his fundamental position, as in the case of Strauss, has never been carried, or even shaken, by assault. The extreme points in controversy are fixed with a good deal of certainty. Paul's own statement in the second chapter of Galatians is fairly explicable only on the supposition of a violent collision, the nature of which is there defined, the bearings of which are indicated in that and in other undoubted writings of the apostle. Many passages therein are unintelligible on any other hypothesis. The Apocalypse and the Epistle of James, as clearly set forth the opposite view, in language and implication of the strongest kind, and in a spirit of decided antagonism. The "Acts of the Apostles" is, as elsewhere hinted, prepared with a view of making it appear that no controversy existed; that Peter carried the gospel to the Gentiles, and that Paul insisted on the validity of circumcision, the mark of initiation into the Jewish church. The narrative is so forced, the incidents so artificial, the aim so evident, the limitation of view so marked, that the book betrays its own character. To admit the genuineness of the "Acts" is to throw into confusion the little history that we certainly know, and to unfix the continuity of events. How far the three first gospels correspond in purpose with the "Acts," is a nice question, which need not be answered here, which may be left unanswered without detriment to the soundness of the general theory. Whether or no the controversy was of such absorbing moment, whether or no it lasted as long as Baur believes, or exerted as wide an influence on literature, its effect in drawing the thoughts away from the earlier dispute between the Messianic and the anti-Messianic Jews, and in detaching the christians from their original associations is unimpaired. From the breaking out of that dispute, which occurred within fifteen or twenty years of the crucifixion, at the latest, Christianity followed its own law of development.