Page:Jesus and the Gospel.djvu/32

12 is no Christianity known to the New Testament except that in which He has a place all His own, a place of absolute significance, to which there is no analogy elsewhere. We do not raise here the question whether this is right or wrong, whether it agrees or does not agree with the mind or intention of Christ Himself — this is reserved for subsequent treatment: all we are at present concerned with is the fact. It is not assumed, but it will appear as the unquestionable result of the detailed examination, that Christianity never existed in the world as a religion in which men shared the faith of Jesus, but was from the very beginning, and amid all undeniable diversities, a religion in which Jesus was the object of faith. To all believers Jesus belonged to the divine as truly as to the human sphere. In the practical sense of believing in Him they all confessed His Godhead. This is the fact which we now proceed to prove and illustrate.

Our investigation of the evidence naturally begins with the accounts of the primitive Christian preaching in Acts. Fortunately for our purpose we have no critical questions to encounter here. Even those who hold with Renan that the early pages of Acts are the most unhistorical in the New Testament make an exception in favour of the passages with which we are concerned. 'Almost the only element,' says Schmiedel 'that is historically important (in the early chapters of Acts) is the Christology of the speeches of Peter. This, however, is important in the highest degree. ... It is hardly possible