At the heart of this earliest and swiftly lost Christianity was a sublime effort to humanize God.
[1] Since this work was sent to the press the world has been enriched by Dr. McGiffert’s “History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age.” He pronounces the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews “without doubt the finest and most cultured literary genius of the primitive church,” but believes the Epistle to be somewhat later than those of Paul. He thinks its detailed description of proceedings in the temple might have been written after its destruction, as Clement’s account was, and remarks that the writer always calls it the “tabernacle.” This peculiarity I attribute to the emphasis in the “Wisdom of Solomon” on the temple being “a resemblance of the holy tabernacle which thou hast prepared from the beginning” (ix. 8). It seems unlikely that the Epistle could have said “the priests go in continually” etc., had the temple not existed. Dr. McGiffert finds in some expressions indications that there were Gentiles among those to whom the Epistle was addressed, but even admitting this it is natural to suppose that there must have been some fellowship of this kind among educated people before Paul’s propaganda. The passages referred to by Dr. McGiffert, if they imply what he supposes, render it all the more improbable that if Paul and his mission to the Gentiles preceded this Epistle, there should be no allusion to them in it.
[2] Thus spake Angra Mainyu, the guileful, the evil-doer, the deadly, “Fiend rush down upon him, destroy the holy Zoroaster!” The fiend came rushing; along, the demon Bûiti, the unseen death, the hell-born. Zoroaster chanted loudly the Ahuna-Vairya: “The will of the Lord is the law of holiness; the riches of Vohu-manô (heavenly wisdom) shall be given to him who works in this world for God (Mazda), and wields according to the all-knowing (Ahura) the power he gave him to relieve the poor. Profess (O Fiend) the law of God!” The fiend dismayed rushed away, and said to Angra Mainyu “O baneful Angra Mainyu, I see no way to kill him, so great is the glory of the holy Zoroaster.” Zoroaster saw all this from within his soul: “The evil-doing devils and demons take counsel together for my death.” Up started Zoroaster, forward went Zoroaster, unshaken by the evil spirit. “O evil-doer, Angra Mainyu. I will smite the creation of the Evil One (Daeva) till the fiend-smiter Saoshyant (Saviour) come up to life out of the lake Kasava, from the region of the dawn.”—Vendîdâd, Farg. xix, 1–5. (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. iv. pp. 204–6.)
The Ahuna-Vairya, recited by Zoroaster, was the prayer by which Ormazd in his first conflict with Ahreinan drove him back to hell.
[3] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. xxiii. p. 59.
[4] It is even doubtful whether they were not ordered to offer burnt offerings to Job as a deity.
[5] It is, I think, an indication of the nearness of the “Gospel according to the Hebrews” to the Apostolic Age that a sort of caveat is there recorded against the possible implication that the baptism of Jesus was for remission of sins. “He said to them, Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him?” The whole passage is quoted on a farther page, but it may be stated here that the descending dove certifies the sinlessness of Jesus before his baptism. The Synoptics introduce the dove after the baptism. The significance of the scene was thus lost.