(2) The second conception comes rather from politics than from philosophy. It is the belief in a majority of a meeting. It is the conception that the definitions and interpretations of primary beliefs which are made by the majority of church officers assembled under certain conditions, are in all cases and so certainly true, that the duty of the individual is, not to endeavour, by whatever light of nature or whatever illumination of the Holy Spirit may be given to him, to understand them, but to acquiesce in the verdict of the majority. The theory assumes that God never speaks to men except through the voice of the majority. It is a large assumption. It is a transference to the transcendental sphere in which the highest conceptions of the Divine Nature move, of what is a convenient practical rule for conducting the business of human society: “Let the majority decide.” I do not say that it is untrue, or that it has not some arguments in its favour; but I do venture to point out that the fact of its being an assumption must at least be recognized.
(3) The third conception is, that the definitions and interpretations of primary beliefs which were made by the majority, or even by the unanimous voice of a church assembly, in a particular age, and which were both relative to the dominant mental tendencies of that age and adequately expressed them, are not only true but final. It is a conceivable view that once, and once only, did God speak to men, and that the revelation of Himself in the Gospels is a unique fact in the history of the universe. It is also a conceivable view that God is continually speaking to men, and that now, no less than in the early ages of Christianity, there is a divine Voice that whispers in men’s souls, and a divine interpretation of the meaning of the Gospel history. The difficulty is in the assumption which is sometimes made, that the interpretation of the divine Voice was developed gradually through three centuries, and that it was then suddenly arrested. The difficulty has sometimes been evaded by the further assumption that there was no development of the truth, and that the Nicene theology was part of the original revelation—a theology divinely communicated to the apostles by Jesus Christ himself. The point of most importance in the line of study which we have been following together, is the demonstration which it affords that this latter assumption is wholly untenable. We have been able to see, not only that the several elements of what is distinctive in the Nicene theology were gradually formed, but also that the whole temper and frame of mind which led to the formation of those elements were extraneous to the first form of Christianity, and were added to it by the operation of causes which can be traced. If this be so, the assumption of the finality of the Nicene theology is the hypothesis of a development which went on for three centuries, and was then suddenly and for ever arrested. Such a hypothesis, even if it be à priori conceivable, would require an overwhelming amount of positive testimony. Of such testimony there is absolutely none. But it may be that the time has come in which, instead of travelling once more along the beaten tracks of these ancient controversies as to particular speculations, we should rather consider the prior question of the place which speculation as such should occupy in the economy of religion and of the criterion by which speculations are to be judged. We have to learn also that although for the needs of this life, for the solace of its sorrow, for the development of its possibilities, we must combine into societies and frame our rules of conduct, and possibly our articles of belief, by striking an average, yet for the highest knowledge we must go alone upon the mountain-top; and that though the moral law is thundered forth so that even the deaf may hear, the deepest secrets of God’s nature and of our own are whispered still in the silence of the night to the individual soul.
It may be that too much time has been spent upon speculations about Christianity, whether true or false, and that that which is essential consists not of speculations but of facts, and not in technical accuracy on questions of metaphysics, but in the attitude of mind in which we regard them. It would be a cold world in which no sun shone until the inhabitants thereof had arrived at a true chemical analysis of sunlight. And it may be that the knowledge and thought of our time, which is drawing us away from the speculative elements in religion to that conception of it which builds it upon the character and not only upon the intellect, is drawing us thereby to that conception of it which the life of Christ was intended to set forth, and which will yet regenerate the world.
Lecture XII.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN UNION: DOCTRINE IN THE PLACE OF CONDUCT.
I spoke in the last Lecture of the gradual formation under Greek influence of a body of doctrine. I propose to speak in the present Lecture of that enormous change in the Christian communities by which an assent to that body of doctrine became the basis of union. I shall have to speak less of the direct influence of Greece than in previous Lectures: but it is necessary to show not only the separate causes and the separate effects, but also their general sum in the changed basis of Christian communion.
There is no adequate evidence that, in the first age of Christianity, association was other than voluntary. It was profoundly individual. It assumed for the first time in human history the infinite worth of the individual soul. The ground of that individual worth was a divine sonship. And the sons of God were brethren. They were drawn together by the constraining force of love. But the clustering together under that constraining force was not necessarily the formation of an association. There was not necessarily any organization.[709] The tendency to organization came partly from the tendency of the Jewish colonies in the great cities of the empire to combine, and to a far greater extent from the large tendency of the Greek and Roman world to form societies for both religious and social purposes.
But though there is no evidence that associations were in the first instance universal, there is ample evidence that, when once they began to be formed, they were formed on a basis which was less intellectual than moral and spiritual. An intellectual element existed: but it existed as an element, not by itself but as an essential ingredient in the whole spiritual life. It was not separable from the spiritual element. Of the same spiritual element, “faith” and “works” were two sides. The associations, like the primitive clusters which were not yet crystallized into associations, were held together by faith and love and hope, and fused, as it were, by a common enthusiasm. They were baptized, not only into one body, but also by one spirit, by the common belief in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, by the overpowering sense of brotherhood, by the common hope of immortality. Their individual members were the saints, that is, the holy ones. The collective unity which they formed—the Church of God—was holy. It was regarded as holy before it was regarded as catholic. The order of the attributes in the creed is historically correct—the holy Catholic Church. The pictures which remain of the earliest Christian communities show that there was a real effort to justify their name. The earliest complete picture of a Christian community is that of the “Two Ways.” There are fragments elsewhere. From the Acts of the Apostles and the canonical Epistles, and the extra-canonical writings of the sub-apostolic age, it is possible to put together a mosaic.
But in the “Two Ways” we have a primitive manual of Christian teaching, and the teaching is wholly moral. It professes to be a short exposition (διδαχὴ) of the two commandments of love to God and love to one’s neighbour. The exposition is partly a quotation from and partly an expansion of the Sermon on the Mount. “Bless those that curse you, and pray for your enemies.” “If any one give thee a blow on the one cheek, turn to him the other also.” “Give to every one that asketh thee, and ask not back.” “Thou shalt not be double-minded nor double-tongued.” “Thou shalt not be covetous nor grasping.” “Thou shalt not be angry nor envious.” “Thou shalt not be lustful nor filthy-tongued.” “But thou shalt be meek and long-suffering and quiet and guileless and considerate.”[710] The ideal was not merely moral, but it was also that of an internal morality, of a new heart, of a change of character.