PREFATORY
Fully to understand the doctrines of our own religion or of any other religion, we ought to have a thorough knowledge of the circumstances in which it arose, and of the history of its subsequent development. This knowledge would include an understanding of the previous religious beliefs of the people among whom the religion originated, of the mental habits of those people, of their customs and laws, and of their hopes and fears. It would include an acquaintance with the doctrines believed in by the neighbouring peoples, and it more particularly would embrace and knowledge of the exact doctrines accepted by the very earliest adherents of the new religion, and of how these doctrines became altered, if they were altered, in subsequent times. In the case of Christianity and of most of the great religions of the world, the available knowledge concerning these matters is, as a matter of fact, extremely limited; but so far as it goes we should, if we aspire to understand what we profess to believe, attempt to acquire it.
Those who have never had the inclination, or who have never found the time, to examine the foundations of their beliefs are generally under the impression that they already possess a considerable amount of such knowledge. Such people, if they read the above remarks, may probably say to themselves: " We know that certain events took place at a certain time in the world's history, that those events are truthfully recorded in certain inspired books which we read, and that upon the contents of those books our present beliefs are founded." This, or something closely resembling it, is the belief of millions of adherents of different religions and of different sects. But, as their various creeds differ considerably, the beliefs of some of them must be founded upon error-error either concerning the events which they believe to have taken place, and in the books which they believe record those events, or error in the deductions made from the contents of those books.
How can we satisfy ourselves that our own beliefs are the ones which are well founded, and how can we convince others that theirs are ill founded? It is evidently useless merely to assert that our knowledge is correct, and that theirs is incorrect. We must give some good reasons to convince them that such is the case. We must call further evidence, and we must allow them to question our witnesses.
The only further evidence we can call is the evidence of contemporary or nearly contemporary historians other than the writers of the books; and the principal questions that they will ask of our former witnesses, which are the said books, are about the names of the writers, the date of the writing, and the agreement between the different books themselves.
This, then, is what we must do if we wish to satisfy ourselves as to the truth of the beliefs we hold. Even if we do not attempt to acquire all the knowledge detailed above as necessary for a complete understanding of our religion, we must at least acquire some knowledge of the authorship of the books which record the events we believe in, of the dates when those books first made their appearance, of any alterations or additions made in or to them, of the acceptance or rejection of these and of any other scriptures by the earliest adherents of our religion, and of what some other writers of repute other than these authors had to say about the events therein recorded.
Before, therefore, we start upon any examination of the events upon which the doctrines of Christianity are said to be founded, we must consider the authorship and dates of the books of the New Testament. We shall do so as briefly as the complexity and the importance of the subject permit, fully realizing that to many such an investigation makes no appeal, but also realizing that without some knowledge of the origin of the New Testament an appreciation of the true facts of Christianity is impossible. We shall have to consider various other contemporary or nearly contemporary writings which throw light upon both the publication of our present New Testament books and the doctrines held by Christians in the earliest days of which we have any record.
The earliest historical records of Christianity are supposed to have been written in the middle of the first century A.D., and were addressed to Churches composed of small groups of men meeting at each other's houses for religious purposes. Should we desire to elucidate the origin of Christianity, it is most important to discover exactly what the creed of these Christians then was.
The task is hard, since not only are the records few, but they have come down to us through the hands of many copyists, who have not hesitated to edit the manuscripts to suit the constantly varying orthodoxy of each age in which they worked.
It must be remembered that even the earliest of the manuscripts which have come down to us cannot lay claim to being the original writings, but are the result of repeated copyings. Texts which were liable-as before the invention of printing all texts were liable-to accidental corruption in the process of copying must constantly have been undergoing alteration; and additions and marginal notes made by individuals for their own use, for the edification of others, and for the elucidation of difficulties, were gradually incorporated into the text, even when deliberate falsification in the supposed interests of orthodoxy was not intended. That the latter was not infrequent is proved by many facts which will come to light as we continue our study of the books.
As we shall see later, the early Christian Fathers themselves placed but little reliance upon the genuineness and accuracy of the manuscripts in their possession; while critics of every shade of opinion are agreed that many of the early Christian documents are, or contain, the deliberate forgeries of zealous monks who saw no harm in thus attempting to strengthen the cause they had at heart.
Fortunately for historical truth, older documents have frequently come to light which enable us to detect the alterations and additions which these scribes made. Furthermore, the documents themselves often contain internal evidence-such as references to later events-of being written by men who lived much later than the reputed authors; and thus we are enabled in some measure to check their authenticity.
Our principal sources of information about primitive Christianity are the writings of, or attributed to, St. Paul; the writings of the Fathers of the Church; and the contemporary Gnostic literature.
Long before any Gospels had been published, and therefore before any writings purporting to give the biography of Jesus were known, most of the Epistles which are included in our New Testament were current in the Christian Churches; not, perhaps, in the exact form in which they have now come down to us, but approximately in that form.
The earliest description of Christianity in our Bible is to be found in the Epistles, and not in the Gospels, although the latter are placed first in the New Testament. That most of these Epistles-in fact, all those which are the genuine work of Paul-were written long before the Gospels were written is admitted by commentators of every shade of orthodoxy. It is, therefore, with the Epistles that we must begin our study of Christian origins.
It is, perhaps naturally, with the Gospels that the religious education of most, or all, Christians begins, and consequently the ideas which are generally formed about the origin and early progress of Christianity are necessarily erroneous If we wish to discover how the Christian doctrines were first unfolded to most of the earliest Christians, we must realize that these were acquainted with the Christianity of the Epistles, and had never heard the Gospel story as it appears in our Canonical Gospels.
To the Epistles, therefore, we will now turn our attention; but before doing so it may be useful to point out and few of the methods by which the approximate date of the writing of an ancient book may be determined; otherwise to the uninitiated the attribution of dates may appear entirely arbitrary.
These methods may roughly be divided into two classes-the examination of the external evidence and the examination of the internal evidence. The former is the evidence, as to a book, obtained from references to it in other books, or from traces of its influence upon other authors. The latter is the evidence, as to a book, obtained from passages in its own text-e.g., from references to events whose dates are known.
It will be noticed that the latest date at which a book can have been written is prior to the first external evidence regarding it, and that the earliest date at which a book can have been written is subsequent to any events to which it may refer. For example, if any book were referred to by Clement of Rome, that book must have been written before 95 A.D., when Clement of Rome died; and if that same book referred to the siege of Jerusalem, it must have been written after 70 A.D., when Jerusalem was captured. The book in such a case must have been written between 70 and 95. Care, however, has to be taken to ensure that we are not mistaken as to external evidence An apparent reference to-even an apparent quotation from-a book may really be connected with some unknown work whence the author of the book under consideration obtained some of his facts And we also, for much the same reason, have to be careful in drawing conclusions from internal evidence, as an apparent reference to a certain event may, unless it is quite clear, really refer to some similar but different event.
There are, of course, many other indications to be found from an examination of internal evidence. The vocabulary, the phraseology, and even the grammar used in a book, unfold their tale to a scholar familiar with the literature of the day; and at times the approximate date is betrayed by references to a highly developed ecclesiastical organization such as did not exist until long after the traditional date of the supposed author's death.
Innumerable points of this kind and of other kinds have been debated for many years by those competent to judge such ancient literature, and a very large measure of agreement has been arrived at upon certain questions of authorship and date. For those who are not qualified, or have not the inclination, to examine the arguments at length, there are now several primers in which the results and a few of the principal arguments can be found. Two of the most suitable for beginners are " The Bible and Criticism," by W. H. Bennett, D.D., and Walter F. Adeney, D.D. (The People's Books), and " The Making of the New Testament," by Benjamin W. Bacon, D.D. (Home University Library). The orthodox doctors of divinity who are the authors of these two little books naturally take a more conservative point of view than the more "advanced" school of critics; but they frankly acknowledge the force and the value of the arguments by which the old traditional views have been assailed:-
The findings of the Higher Criticism are startling to those who hear them for the first time, however carefully and impartially they may be stated. These findings have been familiar to scholars for more than half a century; but, in spite of the growth of education, probably a majority are still allowed to grow up under the impression that the traditional views of the Old Testament are the only possible views, the only views consistent with loyalty to Christianity; and that these views are only challenged by the enemies of the faith.......
It would often help the student of the Bible if he would consider that, though these changes seem to him a sudden overwhelming revolution, because they burst upon him all at once, yet in reality they have accumulated gradually; they are the result of a long process; they are due to the patient and devout study of generations of Christian scholars, and have long proved themselves helpful and inspiring to multitudes of Christian ministers and other devout believers.
To question the authorship of these New Testament books is not to attack them as an enemy, but to seek for the truth about them as a friend. The real enemy of religion is he who is indifferent as to whether the Scriptures are true or untrue; it is not he who troubles to inquire and to question.
We must now turn to the books themselves, and see what light they throw upon the beliefs held by the most primitive Christians.
Next: CHAPTER II THE EPISTLES