With this transition the theories concerning Christ are removed from Jewish and Old Testament soil, and also that of religion (in the strict sense of the word), and transplanted to the Greek one. Even in his pre-existent state Christ is an independent power existing side by side with God. The pre-existence does not refer to his whole appearance, but only to a part of his essence; it does not primarily serve to glorify the wisdom and power of the God who guides history, but only glorifies Christ, and thereby threatens the monarchy of God.[453] The appearance of Christ is now an "assumption of flesh", and immediately the intricate questions about the connection of the heavenly and spiritual being with the flesh simultaneously arise and are at first settled by the theories of a naive docetism. But the flesh, that is the human nature created by God, appears depreciated, because it was reckoned as something unsuitable for Christ, and foreign to him as a spiritual being. Thus the Christian religion was mixed up with the refined asceticism of a perishing civilization, and a foreign substructure given to its system of morality, so earnest in its simplicity.[454] But the most questionable result was the following. Since the predicate "Logos", which at first, and for a long time, coincided with the idea of the reason ruling in the cosmos, was considered as the highest that could be given to Christ, the holy and divine element, namely, the power of a new life, a power to be viewed and laid hold of in Christ, was transformed into a cosmic force and thereby secularised.
In the present work I have endeavoured to explain fully how the doctrine of the Church developed from these premises into the doctrine of the Trinity and of the two natures. I have also shewn that the imperfect beginnings of Church doctrine, especially as they appear in the Logos theory derived from cosmology, were subjected to wholesome corrections—by the Monarchians, by Athanasius, and by the influence of biblical passages which pointed in another direction. Finally, the Logos doctrine received a form in which the idea was deprived of nearly all cosmical content. Nor could the Hellenic contrast of "spirit" and "flesh" become completely developed in Christianity, because the belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ, and in the admission of the flesh into heaven, opposed to the principle of dualism a barrier which Paul as yet neither knew nor felt to be necessary. The conviction as to the resurrection of the flesh proved the hard rock which shattered the energetic attempts to give a completely Hellenic complexion to the Christian religion.
The history of the development of the ideas of pre-existence is at the same time the criticism of them, so that we need not have recourse to our present theory of knowledge which no longer allows such speculations. The problem of determining the significance of Christ through a speculation concerning his natures, and of associating with these the concrete features of the historical Christ, was originated by Hellenism. But even the New Testament writers, who appear in this respect to be influenced in some way by Hellenism, did not really speculate concerning the different natures, but, taking Christ's spiritual nature for granted, determined his religious significance by his moral qualities—Paul by the moral act of humiliation and obedience unto death, John by the complete dependence of Christ upon God and hence also by his obedience, as well as the unity of the love of Father and Son. There is only one idea of pre-existence which no empiric contemplation of history and no reason can uproot. This is identical with the most ancient idea found in the Old Testament, as well as that prevalent among the early Christians, and consists in the religious thought that God the Lord directs history. In its application to Jesus Christ, it is contained in the words we read in 1 Pet. I. 20: προεγνωσμενος μεν προ καταβολης κοσμου, φανερωθεις δε δι' 'υμας τους δι' αυτου πιστους εις θεον τον εγειραντα αυτον εκ νεκρων και δοξαν αυτωι δοντα, 'ωστε την πιστιν 'υμων και ελπιδα ειναι εις θεον.
Footnote 452:[ (return) ]
These hints will have shewn that Paul's theory occupies a middle position between the Jewish and Greek ideas of pre-existence. In the canon, however, we have another group of writings which likewise gives evidence of a middle position with regard to the matter, I mean the Johannine writings. If we only possessed the prologue to the Gospel of John with its "εν αρχη ην 'ο λογος," the "παντα δι' αυτου εγενετο" and the "'ο λογος σαρξ εγενετο" we could indeed point to nothing but Hellenic ideas. But the Gospel itself, as is well known, contains very much that must have astonished a Greek, and is opposed to the philosophical idea of the Logos. This occurs even in the thought, "'ο λογος σαρξ εγενετο," which in itself is foreign to the Logos conception. Just fancy a proposition like the one in VI. 44, ουδεις δυναται ελθειν προς με, εαν μη 'ο πατηρ 'ο πεμψας με ελκυση αυτον, or in V. 17. 21, engrafted on Philo's system, and consider the revolution it would have caused there. No doubt the prologue to some extent contains the themes set forth in the presentation that follows, but they are worded in such a way that one cannot help thinking the author wished to prepare Greek readers for the paradox he had to communicate to them, by adapting his prologue to their mode of thought. Under the altered conditions of thought which now prevail, the prologue appears to us the mysterious part, and the narrative that follows seems the portion that is relatively more intelligible. But to the original readers, if they were educated Greeks, the prologue must have been the part most easily understood. As nowadays a section on the nature of the Christian religion is usually prefixed to a treatise on dogmatics, in order to prepare and introduce the reader, so also the Johannine prologue seems to be intended as an introduction of this kind. It brings in conceptions which were familiar to the Greeks, in fact it enters into these more deeply than is justified by the presentation which follows; for the notion of the incarnate Logos is by no means the dominant one here. Though faint echoes of this idea may possibly be met with here and there in the Gospel—I confess I do not notice them—the predominating thought is essentially the conception of Christ as the Son of God, who obediently executes what the Father has shewn and appointed him. The works which he does are allotted to him, and he performs them in the strength of the Father. The whole of Christ's farewell discourses and the intercessory prayer evince no Hellenic influence and no cosmological speculation whatever, but shew the inner life of a man who knows himself to be one with God to a greater extent than any before him, and who feels the leading of men to God to be the task he had received and accomplished. In this consciousness he speaks of the glory he had with the Father before the world was (XVII. 4 f.; εγω σε εδοξασα επι της γης, το εργον τελειωσας 'ο δεδωκας μοι 'ινα ποιησω; και νυν δοξασον με συ, πατερ, παρα σεαυτω τη δοξη 'η ειχον προ του τον κοσμον ειναι, παρα σοι). With this we must compare verses like III. 13: ουδεις αναβεβηκεν εις τον ουρανον ει μη 'ο εκ του ουρανου καταβας, 'ο 'υιος του ανθρωπου, and III. 31: 'ο ανωθεν ερχομενος επανω παντων εστιν. 'ο ων εκ της γης εκ της γης εστιν και εκ της γης λαλει 'ο εκ του ουρανου ερχομενος επανω παντων εστιν (see also I. 30: VI. 33, 38, 41 f. 50 f. 58, 62: VIII. 14, 58; XVII. 24). But though the pre-existence is strongly expressed in these passages, a separation of πνευμα (λογος) and σαρξ in Christ is nowhere assumed in the Gospel except in the prologue. It is always Christ's whole personality to which every sublime attribute is ascribed. The same one who "can do nothing of himself", is also the one who was once glorious and will yet be glorified. This idea, however, can still be referred to the προεγνοσμενος προ καταβολης κοσμον, although it gives a peculiar δοξα with God to him who was foreknown of God, and the oldest conception is yet to be traced in many expressions, as, for example, I. 31: καγω ουκ ηδειν αυτον, αλλ' 'ινα φανερωθη τω Ισραηλ δια τουτο ηλθον, V. 19: ου δυναται 'ο υιος ποιειν αφ' εαυτου ουδεν αν μη τι βλεπη τον πατερα ποιουνται, V. 36: VIII. 38: 'α εγω 'εωρακα παρα τω πατρι λαλω, VIII. 40: την αληθειαν 'υμιν λελαληκα 'ην ηκουσα παρα του θεου, XII. 49: XV. 15: παντα 'α ηξουσα παρα του πατρος μου εγνωρισα 'υμιν.
Footnote 453:[ (return) ]
This is indeed counterbalanced in the fourth Gospel by the thought of the complete community of love between the Father and the Son, and the pre-existence and descent of the latter here also tend to the glory of God. In the sentence "God so loved the world" etc., that which Paul describes in Phil. II. becomes at the same time an act of God, in fact the act of God. The sentence "God is love" sums up again all individual speculations, and raises them into a new and most exalted sphere.
Footnote 454:[ (return) ]
If it had been possible for speculation to maintain the level of the Fourth Gospel, nothing of that would have happened; but where were there theologians capable of this?
APPENDIX II.
Liturgy and the Origin of Dogma.
The reader has perhaps wondered why I have made so little reference to Liturgy in my description of the origin of dogma. For according to the most modern ideas about the history of religion and the origin of theology, the development of both may be traced in the ritual. Without any desire to criticise these notions, I think I am justified in asserting that this is another instance of the exceptional nature of Christianity. For a considerable period it possessed no ritual at all, and the process of development in this direction had been going on, or been completed, a long time before ritual came to furnish material for dogmatic discussion.