STUDY TOPICS 1. Turn back to Chapters XI and XIV and describe the state of the church in Palestine when last we considered it. Was it at peace, or suffering persecution? See Acts 9:31; 12: 1-3, 24. 2. What was the chief difference between orthodox Jews and Christians in Palestine in the first century? Remember that both orthodox (Pharisaic) Jews and Christian Jews looked for the coming of the Messiah. 3. What religious and economic conditions are reflected in the Epistle of James? Read the epistle and note its main teachings, briefly summarizing them in your notebook. 4. The following passages have been taken to indicate a Palestinian (or at least Jewish Christian) origin for the Gospel of Matthew: 1: 1; 5: 17-20; 8: 10-12; 13: 37-43, 52; 16: 11, 17-19; 19: 28; 28: 15. See if you can explain their significance in this sense. 5. What was the meaning of the Christian "oracle" re- 6. What was the attitude of later orthodox Judaism to 8. Is the "social teaching" of Saint James (and other CHAPTER XXVI THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT THE early Christians had no New Testament, such as we have to-day; at least, they had none until it began to be gathered together toward the middle of the second century. Instead, they had the Old Testament, which was the Bible of Judaism. All Christians, Jewish and Gentile, used this Bible. The Jewish Christians in Palestine read it either in the original Hebrew (though this was now a purely "literary" and not a spoken language) or in the common dialect known as Aramaic, into which the Lessons were sometimes translated in the synagogue by an interpreter, called the methurgeman. Christians outside Palestine in the Greek-speaking Mediterranean world, whether Jewish or Gentile by birth, read it in the Greek version known as the Septuagint. This translation was used in the services of both the Jewish synagogue and the Christian ecclesia. It is an interesting translation, in many parts quite literal, in others freely paraphrased, and yet preserving a dignified style and a religious tone quite suited to the translation of sacred writings. The influence of this translation is to be seen in many later writers, and even in the New Testament. For example, Saint Luke proves upon almost every page of his Gospel and the book of Acts his years of familiarity with the Septuagint. THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS Quite naturally, the earliest Christian writings, which form the bulk of our New Testament, were written from time to time as need and occasion arose. The writers did not set out to provide a Christian Bible, or to supplement the Bible they already possessed. The production of the New Testament was thus unconscious, though it was surely a process guided by the Holy Spirit and took place in the providence of God. Christianity among the lowly.-There are several reasons to explain why the early Christians did not write a complete record of the spread of their faith, or even a full and detailed account of the earthly life of their Lord. One of these is the fact that, as Saint Paul said-in words we need to recall again and again-"Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble" were called (1 Corinthians 1:26). The great majority were poor and ignorant. As Jesus foresaw, the truths of the gospel were "hid from the wise and understanding, and revealed unto babes" (Matthew 11:25). Our religion first spread, both in Palestine and in the world outside, among peasants and fishermen, workingmen and artisans, the poor and uneducated of the ancient world. The picture of "Christ Among the Lowly" is most true in its symbolism. For it was they only, for the most part, who welcomed the message of deliverance and the promise of the kingdom to come; the "wise and understanding" were too well satisfied with the world as it was, with themselves its leaders and guides. As in Galilee "the common people heard him gladly," so in the whole Græco-Roman world, "the lowly" responded to Christ's teaching and the teaching concerning him which was spread abroad through the work of the early missionaries and apostles. Of course there were exceptions; Paul himself, and Mark and Luke and Apollos, and others besides, were learned men; and it was not long before there were Christian believers within the very "household of Cæsar"-close, that is, to "the noble." But the great majority of Christ's first followers were not men and women who would either produce or preserve detailed records of the rise of their religion. The very language of the New Testament indicates its lowly origin. Its Greek is not the Greek of historians and philosophers, but of the common people, the koinê, or "common" Greek of the masses. And most of the early Christians were so poor that it is not until the fourth century that their sacred books were copied upon permanent material (vellum), instead of the fragile papyrus commonly used; our oldest manuscripts of the New Testament belong to the century of Constantine and the church's triumph. A Book of Martyrs.-Another reason for the scanty remains of early Christianity is the persecutions. Such records as survived were saved from the fires and destructions of those recurrent outbursts of bigotry and fanaticism. When Christianity came to be persecuted as a proscribed and outlawed religion, then every sacred writing or article of church furniture or ornament or picture used in its worship was also proscribed, in the effort to destroy the new faith root and branch. But even earlier still its effects are to be seen: not only the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, with their records and echoes of opposition, and the Apocalypse of John, called forth in successive parts or "editions" by the persecutions under Nero and Domitian; not only the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the other New-Testament Epistles, with their reflections upon "the fiery trial" or their anticipations of trial about to come, but even the Gospels bear those marks. They were written in days when to be a Christian was to invite insolence and oppression, and they were written for those who had to count the full cost of discipleship. Many of the sayings of our Lord, therefore, and the incidents of his life, were selected and written down in the Gospels because they referred to the persecution of his followers after his death. Such sayings as those about "forsaking father and mother," "putting the hand to the plow" and not looking back, being "cast out of the synagogues," "turning the other cheek" to one's smiters, the man building a tower, "confessing Christ before men"-these and many other words of Jesus were burned into the memories of the Christians and were written down in the Gospels because they assured the disciples that their Master had foreseen all that they were to endure, had foreseen what lay beyond the transient "sufferings of this present time," and had himself suffered with and for them to bring in that glorious kingdom of his Father which was promised "to him that endureth to the end." The whole New Testament is thus in a sense a "Book of Martyrs"-at least it was a martyrs' book. It is all that survived the terrible persecutions of the early days. The coming kingdom.-There is a third reason, and one which shows itself in almost every part of the New Testament, to explain why so few detailed records have come down from the first century. The early Christians expected the speedy coming, or Parousia, of the Lord from heaven. Jesus was soon to return as Messiah and Judge, hold the Last Judgment, and pass sentence on all mankind, raise his martyred followers from their graves, and set up the kingdom of God. Persons who expected Jesus to do this at once, who thought each morning as they arose that this day might be the last of "the present evil age" and to-morrow see the dawn of the endless Reign of Christ—such persons did not sit down and write annals of their own times or chronicles of the recent |