What is Christianity ?
IF the earnestness and sincerity of an author and his courtesy towards those with whom he disagrees could stand surety for the value of his work, Erasmian would have little ground for anxiety. Nor can there be any question of his religious zeal. He is greatly concerned about the signs of religious unrest and indiffererKe which he discerns ; this he attributes largely to the association of Christian religion, which he finds in " the spirit and purpose of Jesus " and in the response thereto by the " Imitation of Jesus," " the thing of moment for mankind," with beliefs and doctrines which modern research and scholarship have made insecure. But the question that the book raises throughout is whether the zeal is according to knowledge. There are considerable grounds for not answering this affirmatively.
The impression which Erasmian conveys, not quite always, but preponderatingly, is that his mind is made up adversely to the historic Christian tradition; and in the development of what is less of an impartial survey than of an argument on the negative side he lays himself open to serious criticism. He seems to me much too ready to take Loisy and Guignebert as representatives of the best scholarship and to give insufficient attention to those who from the time of Lightfoot and Westcott have maintained the tradition enshrined in the creeds. He does not ignore them entirely; he has criticisms of Gore and of Dr. Vincent Taylor in the section on the Virgin-Birth. But of such modern scholars, not to mention older names, as Hoskyns. Dodd, and Rawlinson, we bear nothing at all ; yet no student of the Gospels and of Christian origins who ignores their work is competent to' expound the substances of primitive Christianity or to apprehend the relation which James Denney expressed in his notable book, Jesus and the Gospel: Christianity justified in the mind of Christ. Then, Erasmian is far from reliable at various important points. Thus, an inexpert reader would be likely to assume from the open- ing pages on. " The Story of the Gospels " that the true text of the Gospels is constantly very uncertain owing to all kinds of primitive variations and corrections. But in the vast majority of cases there is no reasonable doubt as to what the evangelists wrote. In the chapter on " The Making of the Creeds " Erasmian introduces a section on eucharistic doctrine and origins. It is astonishing to find him suggesting that the verses 23-25 in I Cor. XI, which contain St. Paul's account of the origin of the Eucharist, were not the work of the Apostle but a later interpolations.. The cause of this conjecture lies partly in a misunderstanding of St. Paul's -words.
" I have received of the Lord," which Erasmian interprets of direct communication, whereas all that the Greek implies is that the account which St. Paul gives has Christ as its sponsor. In the section on the Resurrection he refers to the worst explanation of the post-crucifixion appearances ever given, and writes, " again one is almost tempted to ask is it conceivable," that Christ did not die on the cross. What is, I would claim, quite inconceivable is that primitive Christianity took its rise from the appearance to the apostles of a " broken and dying " man.
Erasmian speaks of the " un-natural superstructure " built upon the teaching of Jesus. But the superstructure " was, primarily, the result of what the first believers held to be true of the Person of Jesus. And to the building up of Christian theology, both in manner and in outcome, the word " un-natural " does no sort of justice. Of course, if the Biblical presentation of God and of His revelation to men is an untrue picture Christian theology ought to disappear; but Erasmian's attitude is one in which the major issue is never properly faced, except in so far as it is already settled by his not well-balanced treatment of the Gospels and the Creeds.
Finally, while Erasmian quite fairly appeals to the Report of the Commission on Doctrine, where its findings harmonise with his general point of view, he has no right to refer to it as " the latest authoritative utterance of the English Church." It is nothing of the sort. It is a report made by a number of selected persons to the Archbishops. Neither the bench of Bishops nor the Convoca- tions have given it their approval. It has, in fact, never been formally discussed. It remains to be seen whether anything will be done about it after the war. As a member of the Commission I know very well that our report was not an "authoritative utterance
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