FOREWORD TO PART IV

In this part of our study we seek to learn how the religion of the Bible escaped the limits of Israel and spread abroad in the world. Without minimizing the great work of Jesus and Paul, we try to show that the interpretation of Christianity, as well as that of Judaism, should reckon with the external, social order. It has been claimed that the New Testament stands for a purely personal evolution; and that Christianity was a movement outside the existing state-religion. There is a sense in which this is true; but the same truth applies to Judaism and the Old Testament. For at the time the great prophets did their work, they too, like Jesus and the early Christians, were antagonistic to the "established" religion; and the prophetic point of view did not become "official" for several hundred years. The New Testament religion passed through the same phases. The mere fact that a religious movement in antiquity is not at once articulated with state machinery is no proof that such a movement has no sociological meaning.

A word of caution may be well here. Our emphasis upon sociological and economic facts does not mean that we find in these facts a complete philosophy, or explanation, of history. Sociological investigation, like other kinds of scientific research, deals with a series of "unknown quantities." The chemist, for instance, gives us working-formulas for chemical reactions between the "elements" of matter; but the elements themselves remain a mystery. And even though chemistry has the character of a scientific discipline, it does not reveal what an "element" is. In the same way, sociology looks upon persons as elements in the social process. But while personality comes within the terms of social evolution, sociology does not

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undertake to solve the mystery of personality any more than chemistry undertakes to solve the mystery of matter. Sociology, in other words, deals with a complex mass of unknown quantities. The application of the foregoing remarks to the previous chapters, and to those that follow, is evident. In studying the spread of Bible religion, we claim only that the work of Jesus lends itself to interpretation "within the terms of the social process,' even though the personality of Jesus remains a mystery. The religion of the Bible, in its outstanding idea of the Redeeming God, supplies the foundation on which Christian history has been transacted. Sociology aims not to solve the problem of Jesus, but merely to assist in the statement of the problem.

CHAPTER XXV

THE WORK OF JESUS

The religion of the Bible at length took a new form.-Christianity arose within the Jewish church in a way similar to that in which Methodism arose within the Church of England. Jesus was an adherent of the old faith; and the first Christians were viewed, by themselves and by others, merely as a party within the fold of Judaism. The confession attributed to Paul, in the Book of Acts, indicates the standpoint of the disciples of Jesus: "After the Way which they call 'a sect,' so serve I the God of our fathers, believing all things which are according to the Law, and which are written in the Prophets" (Acts 24:14). The Christians at first could only testify that they had a "Way." This Way had been taught by Jesus; and he was himself the personal symbol of the Way. Christianity, being a new phase of the fundamental religion of the Bible, addressed itself primarily to the feelings; and the Christians were slow in perceiving its logic. The term "Christianity" does not occur in the Bible. The name "Christian" is found in the New Testament only three times (Acts 11:26; 26:28; I Pet. 4:16). This name was coined apparently by enemies of the movement. Christianity carries with it a part of the sense of Jewish messianism, together with a new meaning.

Christianity is continuous, but not identical, with Judaism.— In approaching Christianity and the New Testament from the sociological point of view, we are confronted at the start by the fact of continuity. The entire Bible is embraced within the scope of a single process of evolution. Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism. The New Testament is bound up with the Bible of the Hebrews, logically as well as physically. The Christian church is the child of the Old Testament

church. The Christian saint finds his prototype in the Israelite in whom there is no guile. In brief, Christianity is a development within the terms of the religion of Israel. To claim anything less than this would be to cut the ground from under the feet of Christianity. The fact of continuity has always been recognized by the common sense of the great leaders of the church, as well as by the instinct of the rank and file; although from the very first, some persons have supposed that the Christians were setters-forth of strange gods. Judaism and Christianity alike worship the Redeeming God of the Bible; yet they contemplate the redemption of the world from different points of view. The difference between them turns around the work of Jesus; and although the contrast is very small in theory, its practical effects are of large importance.

The religion of the Old Testament has a tendency to take the character of an abstract idea.-A Christian writer once told the Hebrews that the character of God was expressed by the Hebrew prophets in "divers portions and in divers manners" (Heb. 1:1). The prophets evolved a long series of thoughts which at length flowed together into the conception of the Redeeming God. This agrees with our study of the development of Bible religion. The God-idea which breaks forth on us from the Old Testament as a whole is the product of a long evolution. Different parts of the finished conception were supplied by different prophets and schools of thought. The Jew-the post-exilic Hebrew-inherited a "philosophy," even though his conceptions were not evolved in the same way that Greek or German philosophy develops. The Greek philosopher went through a process of abstract thinking. The Hebrew lived through a process of concrete experience. The methods in the two cases were different; but the final results are in the same category. Both Jew and Greek evolved philosophy, but by different routes.