Part 27 (1/2)
[Footnote 11: Matt xviii 17, and following; John xx 23]
Moreover, there is no trace, in the teaching of Jesus, of an applied htly defined Once only, respecting e, he spoke decidedly, and forbade divorce[1]
Neither was there any theology or creed There were indefinite views respecting the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,[2] from which, afterward, were drawn the Trinity and the Incarnation, but they were then only in a state of indeternized the Holy Spirit, a sort of divine hypostasis, sometimes identified with Wisdom or the Word[3] Jesus insisted upon this point,[4] and announced to his disciples a baptism by fire and by the spirit,[5] as much preferable to that of John, a baptism which they believed they had received, after the death of Jesus, in the forues of fire[6] The Holy Spirit thus sent by the Father was to teach them all truth, and testify to that which Jesus hinate this Spirit, Jesus made use of the word _Peraklit_, which the Syro-Chaldaic had borrowed from the Greek ([Greek: parakletos]), and which appears to have had in hisof ”advocate,”[8] ”counsellor,”[9]
and sometimes that of ”interpreter of celestial truths,” and of ”teacher charged to reveal to arded himself as a _Peraklit_ to his disciples,[11] and the Spirit which was to come after his death would only take his place
This was an application of the process which the Jewish and Christian theologies would follow during centuries, and which was to produce a whole series of divine assessors, the _Metathronos_, the _Synadelphe_ or _Sandalphon_, and all the personifications of the Cabbala But in Judaism, these creations were to remain free and individual speculations, whilst in Christianity, co with the fourth century, they were to form the very essence of orthodoxy and of the universal doctrine
[Footnote 1: Matt xix 3, and following]
[Footnote 2: Matt xxviii 19 Comp Matt iii 16, 17; John xv 26]
[Footnote 3: _Sap_ i 7, vii 7, ix 17, xii 1; _Eccles_ i 9, xv
5, xxiv 27; xxxix 8; _Judith_ xvi 17]
[Footnote 4: Matt x 20; Luke xii 12, xxiv 49; John xiv 26, xv
26]
[Footnote 5: Matt iii 11; Mark i 8; Luke iii 16; John i 26, iii
5; _Acts_ i 5, 8, x 47]
[Footnote 6: _Acts_ ii 1-4, xi 15, xix 6 Cf John vii 39]
[Footnote 7: John xv 26, xvi 13]
[Footnote 8: To _Peraklit_ was opposed _Katigor_, ([Greek: kategoros]), the ”accuser”]
[Footnote 9: John xiv 16; 1st Epistle of John ii 1]
[Footnote 10: John xiv 26, xv 26, xvi 7, and following Comp
Philo, _De Mundi opificio_, -- 6]
[Footnote 11: John xiv 16 Comp the epistle before cited, _lc_]
It is unnecessary to reht of Jesus was the idea of a religious book, containing a code and articles of faith
Not only did he not write, but it was contrary to the spirit of the infant sect to produce sacred books They believed thereat final catastrophe The Messiah came to put the seal upon the Law and the Prophets, not to proate new Scriptures With the exception of the Apocalypse, which was in one sense the only revealed book of the infant Christianity, all the other writings of the apostolic age orks evoked by existing circumatic whole The Gospels had at first an entirely personal character, and much less authority than tradition[1]
[Footnote 1: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist Eccl_, iii 39]
Had the sect, however, no sacran of union? It had one which all tradition ascribes to Jesus One of the favorite ideas of the master was that he was the new bread, bread very superior to erularly concrete forue of Capernaum, he took a decided step, which cost him several of his disciples ”Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread froiveth you the true bread from heaven”[1] And he added, ”I aer, and he that believeth on”The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we kno is it then that he saith, I ca with still more force, said, ”I am that bread of life; your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that abread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is ive for the life of the world”[3] The offence was now at its height: ”How can thisstill further, said: ”Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed He that eateth my flesh and drinkethFather has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever” Several of his disciples were offended at such obstinacy in paradox, and ceased to follow him Jesus did not retract; he only added: ”It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” The twelve reave to Cephas, in particular, an opportunity of showing his absolute devotion, and of proclai God”
[Footnote 1: John vi 32, and following]
[Footnote 2: We find an analogous for, in John iv 10, and following]
[Footnote 3: A11 these discourses bear too strongly the iarded as exact The anecdote related in chapter vi of the fourth Gospel cannot, however, be entirely stripped of historical reality]