account for the steady persistence of this belief, and the fundamental change it produced in the apostles. These objections would appear to be weighty ones if we were inclined to doubt the authenticity of Jesus' predictions of His speedy return. To-day, however, we are forced to recognize that these predictions, some of which already appeared in the Logia, are at least partially authentic. Therefore the apostles, after the first moment of bewilderment occasioned by the death of Jesus, must have remembered that He had announced His glorious return from heaven, and for that reason a belief in the resurrection of Jesus forced itself upon them, independently both of the visions and of the empty tomb, which was so long considered the indispensable starting-point of such a belief. It was during the intense excitement produced by the death of Jesus that the visions of Him would be most likely to occur. And since this sufficed to awaken in the apostles an unwavering faith in the resurrection of their Master, their later conduct is readily explained. Apostolic history proves that the very core and centre of all the fervour of activity with which the early Christians were endowed, their unflinching courage and their spirit of sacrifice, was the ardent expectation of the speedy return of the Christ. This expectation dominated all their thought and coloured their whole life. Paul, who had not even known Jesus, and had no other ground for his faith than his vision of the risen Lord, affords over

Matt. xxiii, 39; xxiv, 27, 37-41, 43–51; Luke xii, 39-40, 4246; xiii, 35; xvii, 24, 26–30. Cf. Holtzmann, Theologie, i, p. 383 et seq., 392 et seq.

Hausrath, op. cit., ii, pp. 274-80; Hase, p. 595 et seq.; Weiszäcker, Das apostolische Zeitalter, 3rd ed., pp. 14-15 (translation published by Williams & Norgate).

whelming proof of the extraordinary effect that such a phenomenon may cause in a human being. But in addition to the visions, the early disciples could base their faith upon the wonderful life of their Master, which they had been able to contemplate for a fairly long period.

one.

We see then that it is quite wrong to bring forward the objection to this theory of visions that at that rate both the Christian faith and the foundation of the Church which was its outcome, rest upon a mere illusion. Such an objection can only obtain where the conception of this theory is a false or superficial As an actual fact, the visions did not produce the faith of the apostles, but were produced by it. The apostolic faith definitely rests upon the profound impression made by Jesus upon His disciples during His lifetime; this it was which led to the conviction that He was the Messiah. Their conviction had the same foundation as Jesus' own personal faith. The Master believed in His Messiahship because of the supernatural gifts with which God had endowed Him. What Jesus really was in life, then, engendered His own faith and that of His disciples, and also aroused the certain belief in His resurrection and His parousia, which are indissolubly connected. The fundamental basis of the Christian faith, therefore, is the historic personality of Jesus. And for that reason we must attach supreme importance to this, considered by itself, to the religious and moral grandeur it makes manifest. The Messiahship, the resurrection, the parousia and all the Christological claims founded upon these are but historic forms, features which are borrowed, to express this grandeur and its surpassing worth.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSIONS

1. THE SUPERlative Value of Jesus' Gospel. In this book, as in his other works upon Biblical subjects, the author's method has been mainly that of a historian who desires to bear witness to the truth and combat error, for he has always been governed by the conviction that truth alone can save the world, and not error, however seductive the latter may appear. On the other hand, he has never lost sight of the fact that in religious matters faith plays an essential part, and even forms the basis and foundation of all sound and vital religion. The pages that follow, therefore, will be chiefly devoted to this supremely weighty question.

The Biblical criticism of our day makes prominent the fact that traditional views concerning the authority of the Bible, based upon the acceptance of the literal inspiration of the Scriptures, will in future no longer be tenable. Among others, A. Sabatier has clearly demonstrated this, and shewn that in this respect Jesus' teaching is no exception.1 The exposition we have already given bears out this conclusion.

Sabatier, Les religions d'autorité et la religion de l'Esprit, Book II.

Moreover, the history of religions, which has been studiously prosecuted from the middle of the last century, throws new light upon the matter. It teaches us that the great nations of the ancient and classical East, above all the Egyptians and Babylonians, whose civilization extends to remote ages, one after another exercised a powerful sway over the whole of Eastern Asia, even long before the existence of the Hebrew people. That nation accordingly was very strongly affected by extraneous influences, from the moral and religious point of view, and to these were added later the Persian and Greek trends, so that the religion of the Bible, instead of being the unadulterated product of a special Divine revelation, is strongly syncretic. This can even be seen, too, in doctrines of supreme importance, like Christology.'

What becomes, then, of the doctrine of revelation through the Scriptures? It becomes a part of the universal revelation shared by all truly devout souls. Such a proposition, difficult to establish in former times, when the historical horizon of the civilized world was extremely limited, can now be more successfully broached, on account of the great progress made in the general history of religions. In order that this simple chapter of conclusions shall not carry us too far afield in this respect, however, we must confine ourselves to two specially characteristic subjects, and we will begin with the Taoism of Laotze, brought within the reach of the general public by Grill's book, Loatzes Buch vom höchsten Wesen und vom höchsten Gut. We reproduce here some of his introductory remarks with respect to this Chinese collection of tenets.

Piepenbring, Christologie

That Laotze was a historical personage has sometimes been doubted, but he actually did exist. He was born in 604 B.C. Of his childhood we know nothing positive, but in his riper years he was employed at the Imperial Court of China and carried out the duties of historiographer or custodian of archives. It is related that in his old age, pierced to the heart by the unhappy situation of his ill-governed country, he resigned his post and withdrew to the eastern boundaries of the empire, where he disappeared after having, at the instance of the governor of that region, committed to writing his Tao-te-King, an exposition of his views, and a very abstruse piece of work.

This treatise is not an undivided whole; it is, rather, a collection of maxims, ideas and reflections from the ancient Taoist school of thought. Certain modern critics say that it contains nothing else, but that is an exaggeration. From one end of it to the other, there are too many absolutely original and personal views for us to account for such a state of things without seeing behind the work a striking individuality, and this, moreover, accords with Chinese tradition, which is probably well-grounded. Grill rightly says that if we desire to comprehend all that this problem contains, we shall find that Pascal's Pensées affords a good example of the way in which Laotze's thoughts must have been committed to writing first of all. If the sage's disciples afterwards completed and published these in their own fashion, the form of the book can be clearly accounted for.

Let us note, too, the following points. The eightyone chapters of the treatise, usually very brief ones, are mainly concerned with the basic principle of the