Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/801

 CHRISTIANITY

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CHRISTIANITY

the marriage-tic. He brought into prominence the immortality, and hence the transcendent importance, of the human soul (Matt., xvi, 20), as against the hiii \ of the Sadducees and the worldliness of the Jews in general. In all those points He fulfilled the I, aw by showing its real and full significance.

il.i But He did not stop here. Taking the great central precept of the Old Dispensation — the love of God — He pointed out all its implications and made cleat that tlir doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, so imperfectly grasped under the law of fear, was the immediate source of the doctrine of the brotherhood of men, which the Jews had never realized at all. He never tired of dwelling on the loving kindness and the tender providence of His Father, and He insisted equally on the duty of loving all men, summing up the whole of His ethical teaching in the observance of the law of love (Matt., v, 4:1; xxii, 40). This universal charity He designed to be the mark of His true fol- lowers (John, xiii, 35), and in it, therefore, we must see the genuine Christian spirit, so distinct from every- thing that had hitherto been seen on earth that the precept which inspired it He called "new" (John, xiii. 34). Christ's clear and definite teaching, more- over, about the life to come, the final judgment re- sulting in an eternity of happiness or misery, the strict responsibility which attaches to the smallest human actions, is in gnat contrast to the current Jewish eschatology. By substituting eternal sanc- tions for earthly rewards and punishments, He raised and ennobled the motives for the practice of virtue, and sot before human ambition an object wholly worthy of the adopted sons of God, the extension of their Father's Kingdom in their own souls and in the souls of others.

(c) Among the doctrines added by Christ to the Jewish faith, the chief, of course, are those concerning Himself, including the central dogma of the whole Christian system, tin- Incarnation of God the Son. In regard to Himself. Christ made two claims, though not with equal insistence. He asserted that He was the Mossias of the .lows, the expected of the nations, Whose mission it was to undo the effects of the fall and to reconcile man with God; and He claimed to be Himself God. equal to. and one with, the Father. In support of this double claim. He pointed to the fulfil- ment of the prophecies, and \\r worked many mira- cles. His claim to be the Messias was not admitted by the leaders .if His nation; had it been admitted, He would doubtless have manifested His Divinity more clearly. Most modern rationalists (Harnack, \\ ellhausen. arid others) acknowledge that Christ from tin beginning of His preaching knew Himself as the Messias, and accepted the various titles which _• in the Scripture to that personage — Son of David. Soti of Man (Dan., vii. Hi), the Christ (see John, xiv. 24; Matt., xvi. 16; Mark, xiv, 61, 62). In one passage — and a very significant one — He applies the name to Himself — •• But this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John, xvii, 3).

In regard to His Divinity, His claim is clear, but not emphasized. We cannot say that the title "Son of God", which is repeatedly given to Him in the Gospels (John, i, 34; Matt., wvii. 40; Mark, iii, 12; and which He is described as taking to Himself I Mat*., wvii. 43; John. \. 36 necessarily of itself connotes a Divine personality; and in the mouths of several of the speakers, e. g. in the excla- mation of Nathaniel, "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God", it presumably door, not. But in the contes- ts aft., xvi, 16) the circumstances point to moi amplification of the Mes-

sianic title. Hat title was at that time in habitual

use in regard to JeSUS, and there would have been nothing significant in Peter's expression and in Christ's glad I it. 'f it had not gone fur-

ther than the common belief. Christ hailed St. Peter's confession as a special revelation, not as a mere deduction from external facts. When we com- pare this with that other declaration narrated in t he same Gospel (Matt.. xvvi. 62-66), where, in answer to the high-priest's adjuration. "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God", Jesus replied, "Thou hast said it" (i. e., "I am"; see Mark, xiv, 62), we cannot reason- ably doubt that Christ claimed to be Divine. The Jews so understood this and put Him to death as a blasphemer.

Another prominent feature in the theology of Christ was His doctrine about the Paraclete. When, in St. John's Gospel (xiv, 16, 17), He says: "And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever, the spirit of truth", it is impossible to believe that what ]\r prom- ises is a mere abstraction, not a person like Himself. In verse 26, the personality is still more marked: "And the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father shall send in my name, He will teach you all things". (Cf. xv, 26, "But when the Paraclete shall come whom I shall send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father" etc.) It may be that the full meaning of those words was not real- ized till the Spirit did actually come; moreover, the revelation was made, of course, only to His immediate followers; still, no unbiased mind can deny that Christ here speaks of a personal influence as a dis- tinct Divine entity; a distinction and a Divinity which is further implied in the baptismal formula He afterwards instituted (Matt., xxviii, 19).

Christ took up the burden of the preaching of His precursor and proclaimed the advent of the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, a conception already familiar in the 01dTestament[Ps. cxliv(A.V.,cxlv),ll- 13], but furnished with a wider and more varied con- tent in the words of Christ. It may be taken to moan, according to the context, the Messianic Kingdom in its true spiritual sense, i. e. the Church of God which Christ came to found, wherein to store up and perpet- uate the benefits of the Incarnation (cf. the parables of the wheat and the tares, the drag-net, and the wed- ding feast), or the reign of God in the heart that sub- mits to His sovereignty (Luke, xvii. 21 ), or the abode of the blessed (Matt., v, 20 etc.). It was the main topic of His preaching, which was occupied in show- ing what dispositions of mind and heart and will, were necessary for entrance into "the Kingdom", what, in other words, was the Christian ideal. Re- garded as the Church, Uf preached the Kingdom to the multitude in parables only, reserving fuller ex- planations to private intercourse with His Apostles (Acts, i, 3).

The last great dogma which we learn from the life, preaching, and death of Christ is the doctrine of Re- demption. "For the Son of Man also came not to bo ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a redemption for many" (Mark, x. 45). The sacri- ficial character of His death is clearly stated at the Last Supper: "This is my blood of the new testa- ment, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins" (Matt., xxvi, 28). And He ordained the per- petuation of that Sacrifice by His Disciples in the words: "Do this in commemoration of me" (Luke, xxii. 10). Christ, knowing the counsels of His Father, deliberately sot Himself to realize in His own person the portrait of the suffering servant of Jahveli, so vividly painted by Isaias (ch liii a Mi- ias Who should triumph through death and defeat This was a strange revelation to Israel and the world. What wonder t hat so novel an idea, could not enter the Apos- tles' minds till it had actually been realized and fur- ther explained by the Divine Victim Himself (Luke, xxiv, 27, 45). Thus, first of all in iction Christ preached the great doctrine of the Atonement, and,