I. Conservative force of the doctrine—

1. It protects the Idea of God in human thought, a, which Deism cannot guard : : 8. and which Pantheism destroys. Σ 2. It secures the true dignity of Man . ° II Illuminative force of the doctrine—
a. It implies Christ’s Infallibility as a Teacher . Objections from certain texts . 2 Ξ 1. St. Luke ii. 52 considered : :
2. St. Mark xiii. 32 considered A single limitation of knowledge in Christ’s Human Soul apparently indicated : admitted by great Fathers . : . does not involve Agnoetism . . .
nor Nestorianism
is consistent with the pr 5 immensity
of Christ’s human knowledge is distinct from, and does not imply fal-
libility, still less actual error Application to our Lord’s sanction of the Pentateuch . . . . . .
4τό
Analysts of the Lectures. xli PAGE 8. It explains the atoning virtue of Christ’sdeath 480 y. It explains the de tas es of the Sacraments . 487 δι It irradiates the ire of Christ’s ἘΠῚ office . : . . 109 ΠῚ. Ethical fruitfulness of the doctrine— Objection—that a Divine Christ eee no standard for our imitation 494 Answer—1. An ene eats “of Chr ist secured : a. by the reality of His Manhood 494 8. by the grace which flows from Him as God and Man : 495 2. Belief in Christ’s Godhead has propa- gated virtues, unattainable by pagan- ism and naturalism—- a. Purity . : ᾿ : . 496 8. Humility ὃ PAO y Charity . : 502 Recapitulation of the argument . : 505 Faith in a Divine Christ, the pees of ate Cine a under present dangers. : , » 506 Conclusion , : : : ‘ : . : 1 508
THE LECTURES
aay
LECTURE I.
THE QUESTION BEFORE US.
When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? And they said, Some say that Thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias ; and others, Jeremias, or one of the Prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?—St. Marv, xvi. 13.
Tuus did our Lord propose to His first followers the mo- mentous question, which for eighteen centuries has riveted the eye of thinking and adoring Christendom. The material set- ting, if we may so term it, of a great intellectual or moral event ever attracts the interest and lives in the memory of men; and the Evangelist is careful to note that the question of our Lord was asked in the neighbourhood of Cesarea Phi- lippi. Jesus Christ had reached the northernmost point of His journeyings. He was close to the upper source of the Jordan, and at the base of the majestic mountain which forms a natural barrier to the Holy Land at its northern extremity. His eye rested upon a scenery in the more immediate foreground, which from its richness and variety has been compared by travellers to the Italian Tivoli®. Yet there belonged to this spot a higher interest than any which the beauty of merely inanimate or irrational nature can furnish; it bore visible traces of the hopes, the errors, and the struggles of the human soul. Around a grotto which Greek settlers had assigned to the worship of the sylvan Pan, a Pagan settlement had gradually formed itself. Herod the Great had adorned the spot with a temple of white marble, dedicated to his patron Augustus; and more recently, the rising city, enlarged and beautified by Philip the tetrarch, had received a new name
8 Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 397. [ tect. 1] B
2 Where the question was raised,
which combined the memory of the Cesar Tiberius with that of the local potentate. It is probable that our Lord at least had the city in view, even if He did not enter it. He was standing on the geographical frontier of Judaism and Heathen- dom. Paganism was visibly before Him in each of its two ᾿ most typical forms of perpetual and world-wide degradation. It was burying its scant but not utterly lost idea of an Eternal Power and Divinity© beneath a gross materialistic nature- worship; and it was prostituting the sanctities of the human conscience to the lowest purposes of an unholy and tyrannical statecraft. And behind and around our Lord was that peculiar people, of whom, as concerning the flesh, He came Himself4, and to which His first followers belonged. Israel too was there; alone in her memory of a past history such as no other race could boast; alone in her sense of a present de- gradation, political and moral, such as no other people could feel; alone in her strong expectation of a Deliverance which to men who were ‘aliens from’ her sacred ‘commonwealth’ seemed but the most chimerical of delusions. On such a spot does Jesus Christ raise the great question which is before us in the text, and this, as we may surely believe, not without a reference to the several wants and hopes and efforts of man- kind thus visibly pictured around Him. How was the human conscience to escape from that political violence and from that degrading sensualism which had riveted the yoke of Pagan superstition? How was Israel to learn the true drift and purpose of her marvellous past? How was she to be really relieved of her burden of social and moral misery? How were her high anticipations of a brighter future to be explained and justified? And although that ‘middle wall of partition,’ which so sharply divided off her inward and outward life from that of Gentile humanity, had been built up for such high and necessary ends by her great inspired lawgiver, did not such isolation also involve manifest counterbalancing risks and loss? was it to be eternal? could it, might it be ‘broken down’? These questions could only be answered by some further Revelation, larger and clearer than that already possessed by Israel, and absolutely new to Heathendom. They demanded some nearer, fuller, more persuasive self-unveiling than any
> Dean Stanley surmises that the rock on which was placed the Temple of Augustus may possibly have determined the form of our Lord’s promise to St. Peter in St. Matt. xvi. 18. Sinai and Palestine, p. 399. © Rom, i, 20, ἃ Ibid. ix. 5. [ LECT.
Religion and Theology. 3
which the Merciful and Almighty God had as yet vouchsafed to His reasonable creatures. May not then the suggestive scenery of Cesarea Philippi have been chosen by our Lord, as well fitted to witness that solemn enquiry in the full answer to which Jew and Gentile were alike to find a rich inheritance of light, peace and freedom? Jesus ‘asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?
Let us pause to mark the significance of the fact that our Lord Himself proposes this consideration to His disciples and to His Church.
It has been often maintained of late that the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself differs from that of His Apostles and of their successors, in that He only taught religion, while they have taught dogmatic theology 5.
This statement appears to proceed upon a presumption that religion and theology can be separated, not merely in idea and for the moment, by some process of definition, but per- manently and in the world of fact. What then is religion 4 If you say that religion is essentially thought whereby man unites himself to the Eternal and Unchangeable Being’, it is at least plain that the object-matter of such a religious activity as this is exactly identical with the object-matter of theology. Nay more, it would seem to follow that a re- ligious life is simply a life of theological speculation. If you make religion to consist in ‘the knowledge of our practical duties considered as God’s commandments8, your definition irresistibly suggests God in His capacity of universal Legis- lator, and it thus carries the earnestly and honestly religious man into the heart of theology. If you protest that religion
¢ Baur more cautiously says: ‘Wenn wir mit der Lehre Jesu die Lehre des Apostels Paulus zusammenhalten, so fillt sogleich der grosse Unter- schied in die Augen, welcher hier stattfindet zwischen einer noch in der Form eines aligemeinen Princips sich aussprechenden Lehre, und einem schon zur Bestimmtheit des Dogma’s gestalteten Lehrbegriff.’ Vorlesungen ἄρον. N. T. Theologie, p. 123. But it would be difficult to shew that the ‘Universal Principle’ does not involve and embody a number of definite dogmas, Baur would not admit that St. John xiv., xv., xvi. contain words really spoken by Jesus Christ: but the Sermon on the Mount itself is sufficiently dogmatic. Cf. St. Matt. vi. 4, 6, 14, 26, 30; vii. 21, 22.
1 So Fichte, quoted by Klee, Dogmatik, c. 2. With this definition those of Schelling and Hegel substantially concur. It is unnecessary to remark that thought is only one element of true religion.
& So Kant, ibid. This definition (1) reduces religion to being merely an affair of the understanding, and (2) identifies its substance with that of morality.
1)... | B2
4 Religion and Theology.
has nothing to do with intellectual skill in projecting defini- tions, and that it is at bottom a feeling of tranquil dependence upon some higher Power, you cannot altogether set aside the capital question which arises as to the nature of that Power upon which religion thus depends. Even if you should contend that feeling is the essential element in religion, still you cannot seriously maintain that the reality of that to which such feeling relates is altogether a matter of indifference, For the adequate satisfaction of this religious feeling lies not in itself but in its object; and therefore it is impossible to represent religion as indifferent to the absolute truth of that object, and in a purely esthetical spirit, concerned only with the beauty of the idea before it, even in a case where the reflective understanding may have condemned that idea as logically false. Religion, to support itself, must rest consciously on its object: the intellectual apprehension of that object as true is an integral element of religion. In other words, religion is practically inseparable from theology. The religious Ma- hommedan sees in Allah a being to whose absolute decrees he must implicitly resign himself; a theological dogma then is the basis of the specific Mahommedan form of religion. A child reads in the Sermon on the Mount that our Heavenly Father takes care of the sparrows, and of the lilies of the fieldJ, and the child prays to Him accordingly. The truth upon which the child rests is the dogma of the Divine Providence, which encourages trust, and warrants prayer, and lies at the root of the child’s religion. In short, religion cannot exist without some view of its object, namely, God; but no sooner do you introduce any intellectual aspect whatever of God, nay, the bare idea that such a Being exists, than you have before you not merely a religion, but at least, in some sense, a theology ,
h ¢ Abhingigkeitsgefiihl.’ Schleiermacher’s account of religion has been widely adopted in our own day and country. But (1) it ignores the active side of true religion, (2) it loses sight of man’s freedom no less than of God’s, and (3) it may imply nothing better than a passive submission to the laws of the Universe, without any belief whatever as to their Author.
i Dorner gives an account of this extreme theory as maintained by De Wette in his Religion und Theologie, 1815. De Wette appears to have followed out some hints of Herder’s, while applying Jacobi’s doctrine of feeling, as ‘the immediate perception of the Divine,’ and the substitute for the practical reason, to theology. Cf. Dorner, Person Christi, Zw. Th. Ρ. 996, 5464. icy: ; J St. Matt. vi. 25-30. .
Religion includes in its complete idea the knowledge and the worship of God. (8. Aug. de Util. Cred. ο. 12. n. 27.) Cicero gives a ees LECT,
Place of Christ in Fis own doctrine. 5
Had our Lord revealed no one truth except the Parental character of God, while at the same time He insisted upon a certain morality and posture of the soul as proper to man’s reception of this revelation, He would have been the Author of a theology as well as of a religion. In point of fact, besides teaching various truths concerning God, which were unknown before, or at most only guessed at, He did that which in a merely human teacher of high purpose would have been morally intolerable. He drew the eyes of men towards Himself. He claimed to be something more than the Founder of a new religious spirit, or than the authoritative promulgator of a higher truth than men had yet known. He taught true religion indeed as no man had yet taught it, but He bent the religious spirit which He had summoned into life to do homage to Himself, as being its lawful and adequate Object. He taught the highest theology, but He also placed Himself at the very centre of His doctrine, and He announced Himself as sharing the very throne of that God Whom He so clearly unveiled. If He was the organ and author of a new and final revelation, He also claimed to be the very substance and material of His own message ; His most startling revelation was Himself.
These are statements which will be justified, it is hoped, hereafter!; and, if some later portions of our subject are for a moment anticipated, it is only that we may note the true and extreme significance of our Lord’s question in the text. But let us also ask ourselves what would be the duty of a merely human teacher of the highest moral aim, entrusted with a great spiritual mission and lesson for the benefit of mankind? The example of St. John Baptist is an answer to this enquiry. Such a teacher would represent himself asa mere ‘voice’ crying aloud in the moral wilderness around him, and anxious, beyond aught else, to shroud his own insignificant person beneath the majesty of his message. Not to do this would be to proclaim his own moral degradation; it would be a public confession that he
sense which Pagan Rome attached to the word: ‘Qui omnia que ad cultum deorum pertinerent, diligenter retractarent et tanquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi, ex relegendo.’? (De Nat. Deorum, ii. 28.) Lactantius gives the Christian form of the idea, whatever may be thought of his etymology: ‘Vinculo pietatis obstricti Deo, et religati sumus, unde ipsa religio nomen accepit.’ (Inst. Div. iv. 24.) Religion is the bond between God and man’s whole nature: in God the heart finds its happiness, the reason its rule of truth, the will its freedom, 1 See Lecture IV.
1]
6 The ‘Son of Man,
could only regard a great spiritual work for others as furnishing an opportunity for adding to his own social capital, or to his official reputation. When then Jesus Christ so urgently draws the attention of men to His Personal Self, He places us in a dilemma. We must either say that He was unworthy of His own words in the Sermon on the Mount™, or we must confess that He has some right, and is under the pressure of some necessity, to do that which would be morally insupportable in a merely human teacher. Now if this right and necessity exist, it follows that when our Lord bids us to consider His Personal rank in the hierarchy of beings, He challenges an answer. Remark moreover that in the popular sense of the term the answer is not less a theological answer if it be that of the Ebionitic heresy than if it be the language of the Nicene Creed. The Christology of the Church is in reality an integral part of its theology; and Jesus Christ raises the central question of Christian theology when He asks, ‘Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?’
‘It may be urged that our Lord is inviting attention, not to His essential Personality, but to His assumed office as the Jewish Messiah; that He is, in fact, asking for a confession of His Messiahship.
Now observe the exact form of our Lord’s question, as given in St. Matthew’s Gospel; which, as Olshausen has remarked, is manifestly here the leading narrative: ‘Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?’ This question involves an assertion, namely, that the Speaker is the Son of Man. What did He mean by that designation? It is important to remember that with two exceptions® the title is only applied to our Lord in the New Testament by His own lips. It was His self-chosen Name: why did He choose it ?
First, then, it was in itself, to Jewish ears, a clear assertion of Messiahship. In the vision of Daniel ‘One like unto the Son of Man° had come with the clouds of heaven, .... and there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom.’ This kingdom succeeded in the prophet’s vision to four inhuman kingdoms, correspondent to the four typical beasts; it was the kingdom of a prince, human indeed, and yet from heaven. In consequence
™ Observe the principle involved in St. Matt. vi. 1-8.
= Acts vii. 56; Rev. i. 13, xiv. 14.
° wor WI—ds vids ἀνθρώπου, LXX. Dan. vii. 13, sqq. Cf. Ezek. i. 26, and J. B. Carpzovii, Diss. de Filio Hominis ad Dan. vii., in Thesaurus Theologico-Philologicus, p. 887, sqq.
[ LEcT.
The ‘ Son of Man.’ 7
of this prophecy, the ‘Son of Man’ became a popular and official title of the Messiah. In the Book of Enoch, which is assigned with the highest probability by recent criticism to the second century before our eraP, this and kindred titles are continually applied to Messiah. Our Lord in His prophecy over Jerusalem predicted that at the last day ‘they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory 4.’ And when standing at the tribunal of Caiaphas He thus ad- dressed His judges: ‘I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven'’ In these passages there is absolutely no room for doubting either His distinct reference to the vision in Daniel, or the claim which the title Son of Man was intended to assert. As habitually used by our Lord, it was a constant setting forth of His Messianic dignity, in the face of the people of Israel 8,
Why indeed He chose this one, out of the many titles of Messiah, is a further question, a brief consideration of which lies in the track of the subject before us.
It would not appear to be sufficient to reply that the title Son of Man is the most unpresuming, the least glorious of the titles of Messiah, and was adopted by our Lord as such. For if such a title claimed, as it did claim, Messiahship, the precise etymological force of the word could not neutralize its current and recognised value in the estimation of the Jewish people. The claim thus advanced was independent of any analysis of the exact sense of the title which asserted it. The title derived its popular force from the office with which it was associated. To adopt the title, however humble might be its strict and intrinsic meaning, was to claim the great office to which in the minds of men it was indissolubly attached.
P Cf. Dillmann, Das Buch Enoch, 1853, p. 157. Dillmann places the