Jesus; appealed to the moral sense of Mankind; applied the doctrines of Christianity to life as well as they could, and with much zeal, and some superstition and many mistakes, developed the practical side of Christianity much more than its theoretical side.
But even in the Apostles, Christianity had lost somewhat of its simplicity, much of the practical character which marks the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. The doctrine of Paul was far removed from the doctrine of Jesus. It was not plain Religion and Morality coming from the absolute source, and proceeding by the absolute method to the absolute end. It is taught on the “authority of Christ.” The Jews must believe he was the Messiah of the prophets. “Salvation” is connected with a belief in his person. “Neither is there salvation by any other,” says the author who takes the name of Peter; the fourth Gospel makes Jesus declare “No man cometh unto the Father but by me,” “all that ever came before me are thieves and robbers.” The Jewish doctrine of “Redemption” and reconciliation by sacrifice appears more or less in the genuine works of the Apostles, and very clearly in the Epistle to the Hebrews. We may explain some of the obnoxious passages as “figures of speech,” referring to the “Christ born in us;” but a fair interpretation leaves it pretty certain the writers added somewhat to the simpler form of Jesus, though they might not share the gross doctrines since often taught in their name. Christ is in some measure a mythological being even with Paul,—he was with the Jews in the desert, and assisted at the creation. The Jesus of history fades out and the Christ of fiction takes his place. The Pharisaic doctrine of the resurrection of the body appears undeniably; a local heaven and a day of judgment, in which Jesus is to appear in person and judge the world, are very clearly taught. The fourth Gospel speaks of Jesus as he never speaks of himself; the Platonic doctrine of the Logos appears therein. We may separate the apostolic doctrine into three classes, the Judaizing, the Alexandrine, and the Pauline, each differing more or less essentially from the simple mode of Religion of the Synoptics.[1] Already with the
- ↑ The Epistle to the Hebrews and the earlier Apocryphal Gospels and Epistles are valuable monuments of the opinions of the Christians at the time they
