DR. HATCH ON GREEK IDEAS AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.*

THESE Hibbert Lectures are a natural corollary to Dr. Hatch's Bampton Lectures. In the latter we have an elaborate attempt to prove that the Christian ministry is

not a divine institution, but a human organisation copied from the associations for industrial and benevolent purposes.

whichwere prevalent in the Roman Empire in the beginning of the Christian era. It is surprising that a man of Dr. Hatch's learning and ability and evident honesty could have persuaded himself that so simple a solution of a great controversy, if founded on fact, should have escaped the observation of all his- torical students down to his own time. The Ignatian Epistles, the genuineness of which has been demonstrated by the late Bishop of Durham, are alone sufficient to destroy the foundation of Dr. Hatch's Bampton Lectures. In the Hibbert Lectures he undertakes to show "that the change in the centre of gravity from conduct to belief is coincident with the trans- ference of Christianity from a Semitic to a Greek soil. The presumption is that it was the result of Greek influence. It will appear from the Lectures which follow that this pre..

sumption is true. Their general subject is consequently, The Influence of Greece upon Christianity,"—in other words,

"How the Church passed from the Sermon on the Mount to, the Nicene Creed,"—a change which Dr. Hatch deplores. This thesis is worked out by the author in twelve lectures, which are very pleasant reading, but which have really very little

bearing on the argument. In the second lecture we have an interesting account of Greek education,—its method, subjects, and teachers. The third lecture gives an account of Greek and Christian exegesis, with the view of showing how Christian exegesis grew out of the Greek method of interpreting the classics,—Homer in particular. The fourth lecture deals with Greek and Christian rhetoric. In the hands of the Sophists, rhetoric became a lucrative trade ; the philosopher became a professional hireling. Dr. Hatch argues that a similar change took place in the Christian Church. In the dawn of Christianity the "prophet" was not primarily or chiefly a foreteller of future events ; his special function was that of a.

preacher, "but a spontaneous preacher. He preached because he could not help it, because there was a divine breath breathing within him which must needs find an utterance.

It is in this sense that the prophets of the early Churches were preachers. They were not church officers appointed to discharge certain functions. They were the possessors of a.

charisma, a divine gift which was not official but personal." "In the second century this original spontaneity of utterance

died almost away. It may almost be said to have died a violent death. The dominant parties in the Church set their faces against it. The Montanists, as they are called, who tried to fan the lingering sparks of it into a flame, are ranked among heretics. And Tertullian is not even now admitted into the calendar of the Saints because he believed the Mon- tanists to be in the right." The author thinks this result inevitable :—

" The growth of a confederation of Christian communities • The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church. The Hibbert Lectures, 1888. By Edwin Hatch, D.D. Edited by A. M. Fairbairn, D.D., Principal of Mansfield 0oUege, Oxford, London: Williams and Norgate. 1890.

necessitated the definition of a basis of confederation. Such a definition, and the further necessity of guarding it, were incon- sistent with that free utterance of the spirit which had existed before the confederation began. Prophesying died when the Catholic Church began."

In short, as rhetoric killed philosophy, so hierarchical Christianity killed prophesying.

This is a fair specimen of Dr. Hatch's method of reasoning. He forces into the service of his argument facts and incidents which have really nothing to do with it, and he assigns to non-Christian influences doctrines which are imbedded in the New Testament. The Montanists were "formally con- demned," and "are ranked among heretics," not because they

'4 prophesied," but because they prophesied falsely, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Dr. Hatch does not say in so many words that the formation of the Catholic Church was a misfortune, but he implies it. "The hope of Christianity," he says," is that the class which was artificially created "—that is, the Christian ministry—" may ultimately disappear ; and that the sophistical element in Christian

preaching will melt, as a transient mist before the preaching of the prophets of the ages to come, who, like the prophets of the ages that are long gone by, will speak only as the Spirit gives them utterance.'" His ideal of Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount,—an elevated morality without creed or official organisation of any kind; with nothing, in fact, to propagate or guard Christian morality but the spontaneous utterances of unofficial preachers. This is simply Quakerism.

It is unnecessary, nor is there space, to follow Dr. Hatch through the rest of his lectures. They are all interesting, for Dr. Hatch was a learned man, and his style is attractive.

The marvel is that a man so well-read and so honest, with the Bible and the records of Christianity before him, should really believe that the Christianity of the New Testament and of the first century had neither an official ministry nor a body of theological belief, and that a ministerial hierarchy and a settled creed were unnecessary and mischievous innovations. rn his view, the dogmas of the creed of Christendom are not revealed verities. "They are simply personal

convictions." "The belief that metaphysical theology is more than this, is the chief bequest of Greece to religious thought, and it has been a damnosa hereditas. It has given to later Christianity that part of it which is doomed to perish, and which yet, while it lives, holds the key of the prison-house of many souls." "There is no more reason to believe that God has revealed metaphysics than that he has revealed chemistry." "The original contention, still preserved

in Tertullian, that every man should worship God according to his own conviction, that one man's religion neither harms nor helps another man, was exchanged for the contention that the officers of Christian communities were the guardians of the faith."

Now, if anything is beyond dispute in the teaching of our Lord and his Apostles, it is that the Church is not a voluntary aggregation of individuals with no other bond of union than common loyalty to the morality of the Sermon on the Mount, but, on the contrary, a divine institution, an organised associa- tion of believers in a common creed, a common worship, a common system of ordinances. It is accordingly described as a " body " and a "kingdom," terms which imply an organism or polity. And this polity has a regular ministry, "stewards of the mysteries of God," of each of whom it could be said, "No man taketh this office unto himself," but must be regularly ordained to it. In case of controversy, says our Lord, "tell it unto the Church," clearly implying a consti- tuted tribunal to which appeal might be made. And St. Paul threatens to cast offenders out of the Church. All this is absolutely inconsistent with the idea of Christianity which Dr. Hatch propounds. According to him, "the contention that the officers of Christian communities were the guardians of the faith," was a corruption of primitive Christianity.

Why, what Dr. Hatch considers a corruption is the very teaching of St. Paul. He bids Timothy "hold fast the form

,[i.e., outline or summary] of sound words which thou haat

heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. The good deposit which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." And he calla the Church "the pillar and ground of the truth."

As we understand Dr. Hatch, the evil "influence of Greek ideas and usages upon the Christian Church" culminated in the Nicene Creed. We must therefore infer that be would

have allowed Arius to propagate his heresy, and would not have minded if that heresy had finally prevailed, as at one time it seemed likely to do. Now let us see what that means. In the Arian theology, God is conceived in his absolute transcendence, an Epicurean Deity at an infinite distance from the world and humanity, abiding for ever in solitary grandeur beyond the possibility of communion with any creature. This is diametrically opposed to the Christian, and even to the Jewish idea of God. It is the Mahommedan idea,—omnipotent force and nothing else. To exist in relationship is the essential idea of the God of Christianity. But this is not all. In order to create the world, the Arian God called into existence a highly endowed supernatural being of a different essence from his own, who nevertheless was a sharer of the divine attributes, and might therefore be called God, and receive worship due to God. The Christ of Arius was there- fore neither God nor man nor angel. He was, however, a creature, for Arius declared that "there was a time when he was not." Instead of bridging over the gulf that separates man from God, the Arian Incarnation thus makes the gulf for ever impassable. In fact, the theology of Arius is a retro- gression even on that of Mahommed, for the Mahommedan Deity at least creates the world directly; but according to Arius, the world was created by a supernatural, yet created, Demiurgos. This is, in reality, a return to polytheism and its corrupting idolatries; and the Church met the danger by declaring that the Son is "of the same substance with the Father," "begotten, not created," and therefore eternally co- existent with the Father. The organic relationship between the Creator and the creature, of which the Incarnation was the nexus, was thus vindicated against the insidious attempt of Arius to destroy it. It is singular that a professed and really sincere believer in Christianity should have devoted his talents to the support of a thesis which strikes at the very life of Christianity. We suppose the explanation is, that Dr. Hatch, with all his ability and learning, was singularly lacking in the logical faculty, and in capacity for metaphysical speculation. The dream of an enduring Christianity without theology and without any visible organisation could not have occurred to any man possessed of a logical and philosophic mind.