MARTINEAU'S " SEAT OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION."*
THE appearance of a third edition of Dr. Martineau's Seat of Authority in Religion affords us an opportunity to return to it for the purpose of examining the author's views of the New Testament Scriptures, to which allusion was made in a former article (Spectator, April 19th, 1890). The new preface, which is • The Seat of Authority in Religion. By James Martineau, LL.D., D.D., D.C.L. Third edition, revised. London : Longmans, Green, and Co. 1891,
pleasantly flavoured with an old-world courteous dignity, con- tains a reply to some criticisms of the previous editions ; certain, critics are set right who understood the author to say that, until a few years ago, he was ignorant of New Testament criticism,, and only made a study of it in order to write the present volume.. They are informed that its critical portion represents studies,. seldom intermitted, for more than sixty years, of the Scriptures% themselves, and the cognate literature of the early Church.. The correction will be readily accepted, and should not have been required. The work exhibits a familiarity with New- Testament criticism assuredly not gained in the two years. within which his critics confined the author's studies. Dr.. Martineau's comparative failure as a Biblical critic is not. owing to want of learning, but to the overmastering presence. of imperious prepossessions. The same religious ardour which made orthodox critics contend unreasonably for every jot ancl tittle of the New Testament, renders Dr. Martineau un-. reasonably eager to destroy its authority. Persuaded that la large portion of it is derogatory to Christ and injurious to rational religion, he strives on every occasion to widen the distance between our Lord and the writers of the New Testa- ment. His ardour forms a curious contrast to the cool in- difference of Continental critics of his school, who write of the New Testament as if it were the remains of a dead or alien. Faith. One has to go back to Schleiermacher to find a critic at once so devout and so destructive. Dr. Martineau, we need. not say, is never consciously unfair. He often seems to make a.. visibly conscious effort to preserve the judicial frame of mind, as, for example, in the generous concession that it is unreasonable to demand direct and rigorous proof for the authorship of the books of the New Testament. This demand, he points out,. would make it impossible ever to trace any of the books on, our shelves to-day, to the hand of a specified man in ancient. Athens or Rome or Jerusalem. " If a book," he writes, " is mentioned and cited as his, while the author still lives to own, or to disclaim it ; if its influence is visible in the immediately succeeding literature, like that of Lucretius, or Catalina, or Virgil, though without notice of his name ; if from his own, time onwards, it passes for his without question in the presence- of a critical age,—we accept the confidence of others as a- ground for our own. The presumption is in favour of a book. being in its authorship what it professes to be." Conserva-. tive critics do not ask for ampler concessions, although, they may justly demur to their limited application in the present case ; for only six of the New Testament books,. Epistles of St. Paul, benefit by the acknowledged pre-. sumption in favour of their traditional authorship. The remaining constituents of the New Testament are pronounced,. to be practically anonymous, in spite of their traditional titles. The rejection by the critical school of Epistles so well authenticated as Ephesians and the First Epistle of St. Peter,. seems to be mainly due to a fixed idea, derived originally from, orthodox criticism and adopted by Baur, that changes of thought and style are unknown in Apostolic literature. Modern experience gives no countenance to this idea, for it is the exception and not the rule, if a religions teacher, after a lapse. of thirty years, stands exactly where he did. The Galilean. Apostle, it is urged, cannot have been the author of First Peter. because the Epistle is written in correct Greek, and contains Pauline doctrine. But it is only reasonable to suppose that Peter acquired an adequate knowledge of the Greek language. in a long lifetime, during which he was engaged in teaching and writing largely in that language. As to his Paulinism, even if we confine ourselves to what we learn from the Epistle to the Galatians, the probabilities strongly point to the con- elusion that Peter would ultimately yield to the wider ideas of Paul, with the victory of which the progress of the Church, was bound up.
With Keim and others, Dr. Martineau sets aside the tradi- tion of the residence of the Apostle John in Ephesus, deriving. it from a mistaken identification of the Apostle with an, Ephesian Presbyter of the same name. The question hardly affects his argument, for if the Fourth Gospel belongs to the. fifth decade of the second century, it cannot be the work of either John, for both were disciples of Christ. The evidence,. however, for a disciple-relationship between Papias and the Presbyter, is considerably overstated. Papias nowhere says that he was a disciple of the Presbyter ; according to the more. natural explanation of his words, he denies it by implication. Eusebius, who was anxious to dissociate Papias from the apostle, alleges that he was a disciple of the Presbyter, but Eusebins admits that it is a conjecture of his own. Papias," he writes, " asserts that he heard in person Aristion and the Presbyter John. At least, he mentions them frequently by 'name." The haze of mystery which surrounds the origin of the Fourth Gospel cannot perhaps be completely dispelled. Difficulties will probably always remain, although some of those are exaggerated. The author's distant and hostile references to the Jews are regarded as proofs that he was no Jew, and -therefore not the Apostle. They may be readily explained, 'however, by the circumstance that he was living among Gentiles, and had for long been alienated from the Synagogue. 'The advocates of the older theory can plead, in extenuation of its difficulties, that the Gospel belongs to the most obscure period of ecclesiastical history. But if the Fourth Gospel belongs to the middle of the second century, we should be in a better position to explain its character, for we know a good deal of the second century. The author of the Fourth Gospel, according to this theory, was a contemporary of Justin -Martyr (whose disciple, Tatian, however, had certainly re- -ceived it from him as the Gospel of John, since he embodied -that Gospel in his Diatessaron, as all the best scholars now admit), and of Basileides, Valentinus, and Marcion. Writing during the height of the Gnostic controversy, he must have been a Gnostic or an opponent of Gnosticism, for neutrality was then impossible. It requires, however, a great amount of " make- believe" to find Gnosticism or Anti-Gnosticism in the Fourth Gospel. Harnack, who of all living scholars has the most profound knowledge of the second century, although no believer in the Johannine tradition, is evidently deterred from 'placing the author of the Fourth Gospel among the Gnostics by his strong historic feeling. His Hellenism, he admits, is hut a superficial accident. " The references to Philo and 'Hellenism do not suffice to explain even the external part of the problem. Greek theologoumena are not the active elements in the Johannine theology. The Logos of the Fourth Gospel has little in common with the Philonic Logos save the -name; its mention in the introduction is a riddle, not the 'solution of one. Out of the old faith of Prophets and Psalmists, -the Apostolic testimony regarding Jesus created a new faith in the mind of a man who lived among the Greeks with the -disciples of Jesus. The author was undoubtedly a Jew, not- -withstanding his strong anti-Judaic feeling." If this is the last word of modern criticism—and it has no more authoritative representative than Dr. Harnack—the acknowledged pre- sumption in favour of the tradition may surely be left undisturbed.
Dr. Martineau's treatment of the First Epistle of John is an 'example of the extreme subjectivity of his criticism, and of the rigour of his demand for perfect uniformity in writings of 'the same author. The Epistle, he contends, cannot have been -written by the author of the Gospel, because, among other and not more weighty reasons, the term " Paraclete" is used of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel; in the Epistle, of Christ. This -variation of phrase is an argument not for but against the theory of Baur, that the Epistle was the work of an imitator 'who wished to pass for the author of the Fourth Gospel _And it gives but little support to Dr. Martineau's view, that it was written by a spiritual kinsman of the author of the Gospel; for it is doubtful if there is any real difference in usage. In the Gospel, the Holy Spirit is called " another Paraclete," clearly indicating that Jesus was likewise the _Paraclete.
Few scholars will now dispute the position that the Synoptic Gospels did not assume their present form until the second -century. The memory of the acts and words of Christ were at first preserved by oral tradition, which was by degrees super- seded by written narratives, and these form the basis of our present Gospels. Dr. Martineau maintains that during this period of growth the tradition was transformed into highly ..imaginative narrations, in which but fragments of the genuine history remain. Not only are all the miracles subsequent .additions, but the central idea of the history—the Messiahship of Jesus—is an afterthought of the Disciples, Jesus himself having made no such cla-ms. This. violent sundering of the link which unites our L ,rd with Jewish faith and hope, and with the old world, is represented as a special gain to modern religion, which is in danger of being strangled by the effete Messianic religion. Dr. Martineau does not conceal how
reat is the change which he proposes ; and, as his manner is, he pays an eloquent tribute to the vanishing form of religion, which seems to him exhausted as regards the modern world:—
" The identification of Jesus with the Messianic figure is the first act of Christian mythology, withdrawing man from his own religion to a religion about him. What has been its effect ? I do not deny that it may have been the needful vehicle for carry- ing into the mind and heart of the early converts influences too spiritual to live at first without it. Nor do I forget that it has saved the Hebrew Scriptures for religious use in the Christian Church, instead of leaving them no home but the Jewish syna- gogue. But the moment the conception is seen to be false and unreal, this secondary plea disappears, and the whole system of images and terms that hang around the primary fiction, and have no life besides, require revision. It does not escape me how wide is the sweep of this rule, and how the very scenery of the traditional drama of faith, the pictures with which Art and Poetry have rendered the invisible world beautiful and terrible, nay, much of the symbolism consecrated by the hymns and prayers of centuries, must shrivel at its touch, roll up, and pass away ; only, however, to leave us alone with God in a universe imperishable. If its magic should dissolve the theatre in which we sit, and the stage lights go out, we should but find ourselves beneath the stars."
Dr. Martineau does not abandon Christianity for Natural Religion, as these words might lead one to suppose. Like
Leasing, he finds in the human Christ a permanent revelation of the true attitude of man to his Maker and to his fellows.
His picture of Christ derived from those remnants of the Gospels which he still accepts, is brimful of insight, and radiant with beauty and vital sympathy. Sometimes, as in his account of the origin of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, he shows a want of historic feeling; and at times, the rigour with which he guards the simple humanity of Christ gives a
shock to Christian sentiment, as when he excludes the invita- tion to the heavy-laden from his Canon by asking the ques- tion,—" What meek and lowly soul was ever known to set itself forth as such, and commend its own humility as the
model for others ?" The marvel is, however, not that he sometimes wounds Christian sentiment, but that a writer in such imperfect sympathy with the Christian faith as a whole, can speak with such inspiring fervour of the attenuated frag- ments which he continues to accept. We cannot here examine the elaborate criticisms of the Gospel history. They would require a volume, not an article ; their highly subjective character may, however, be gathered from one of the Canons : —" Acts and words ascribed to Jesus which are out of character with his spirit, but congruous with that of the narrators, must be ascribed to inaccurate tradition."
With two concluding remarks, we part with this strong, sincere, but in many parts painful book. If Dr. Mar- tineau's view of the Scriptures is correct, they cannot be recommended for ordinary use ; for although the trained critic may pick his way through them unharmed, plain folk would infallibly imbibe ideas of a Messiah and an Age of Miracles. Christian Churches cannot long survive the loss of their Scriptures. Dr. Martineau complains that the Churches con- secrate and diffuse under the name of Christianity, a theory of the world's economy made up of illusions from obsolete stages of civilisation ; he calls upon them to make up their
long arrear of debt to the intelligence of mankind. But if his views become those of the public, the Churches are likely to hear a more drastic summons. Non lied ease vos. The State and the School will suffice in the future. The Churches will have no legitimate place in the modern world, having lost the sources of their ancient power to comfort and to restrain. They will best consult the dignity which belongs to a great past by disappearing as swiftly as possible, not by striving to prolong a galvanised existence, like the Paganism of Julian.
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