"BELIEF IN CHRIST."
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I do not think your reviewer is fair to Dr. Gore. He says: "If the belief in question is an essential part of Chris- tianity, it is unthinkable that it should not have been taught, plainly and unmistakably, by Christ." What use would there have been in teaching unless there were scholars capable of receiving and transmitting the truths taught ? And where could such scholars have been found during the period of Christ's earthly life ? Again, when your reviewer affirms that "the differences" between the Christologies of St. Paul, St. John and the Synoptics are "radical," he has surely been betrayed into an overstatement.
It has often struck me as a remarkable coincidence, unless we ascribe it, as I think we should, to Divine Providence, that the work of compiling a Doctrinal Summary for the Teaching Church (to borrow your reviewer's phrase) should have been practically completed while Christians still com- posed a single visible society. It is not very easy for a Christian to imagine the whole Church, in spite of the human infirmities which clung to it then as they cling to it now, being allowed to go astray when trying to instruct its members how to speak of the nature of Christ and of His relation to the Father. The question had arisen and it was the duty of the Church to attempt an answer. Are we to suppose that the Christian Church, then one and undivided, was left without guidance at that time ? And is it a coincidence merely that at that supremely critical moment, when the problems before the Church strained to the utmost both human intellect and human language, the Greek mind and the Greek tongue were available for the task ?—I am, Sir, &c., C. Poxrrrz SANDERSON, 8 Clarence Parade, Southsea. Hon. CJ.
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