An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine Part 2

21.

The following Essay is directed towards a solution of the difficulty which has been stated,--the difficulty, as far as it exists, which lies in the way of our using in controversy the testimony of our most natural informant concerning the doctrine and wors.h.i.+p of Christianity, viz. the history of eighteen hundred years. The view on which it is written has at all times, perhaps, been implicitly adopted by theologians, and, I believe, has recently been ill.u.s.trated by several distinguished writers of the continent, such as De Maistre and Mohler: viz. that the increase and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. This may be called the _Theory of Development of Doctrine_; and, before proceeding to treat of it, one remark may be in place.

It is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account for a difficulty; but such too are the various explanations given by astronomers from Ptolemy to Newton of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and it is as unphilosophical on that account to object to the one as to object to the other. Nor is it more reasonable to express surprise, that at this time of day a theory is necessary, granting for argument's sake that the theory is novel, than to have directed a similar wonder in disparagement of the theory of gravitation, or the Plutonian theory in geology.

Doubtless, the theory of the Secret and the theory of doctrinal Developments are expedients, and so is the dictum of Vincentius; so is the art of grammar or the use of the quadrant; it is an expedient to enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious problem. For three hundred years the doc.u.ments and the facts of Christianity have been exposed to a jealous scrutiny; works have been judged spurious which once were received without a question; facts have been discarded or modified which were once first principles in argument; new facts and new principles have been brought to light; philosophical views and polemical discussions of various tendencies have been maintained with more or less success. Not only has the relative situation of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity itself is in a different,--I am obliged to say in a more hopeful position,--as regards Christianity. The facts of Revealed Religion, though in their substance unaltered, present a less compact and orderly front to the attacks of its enemies now than formerly, and allow of the introduction of new inquiries and theories concerning its sources and its rise. The state of things is not as it was, when an appeal lay to the supposed works of the Areopagite, or to the primitive Decretals, or to St.

Dionysius's answers to Paul, or to the Cna Domini of St. Cyprian.

The a.s.sailants of dogmatic truth have got the start of its adherents of whatever Creed; philosophy is completing what criticism has begun; and apprehensions are not unreasonably excited lest we should have a new world to conquer before we have weapons for the warfare. Already infidelity has its views and conjectures, on which it arranges the facts of ecclesiastical history; and it is sure to consider the absence of any antagonist theory as an evidence of the reality of its own. That the hypothesis, here to be adopted, accounts not only for the Athanasian Creed, but for the Creed of Pope Pius, is no fault of those who adopt it. No one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more. An argument is needed, unless Christianity is to abandon the province of argument; and those who find fault with the explanation here offered of its historical phenomena will find it their duty to provide one for themselves.

And as no special aim at Roman Catholic doctrine need be supposed to have given a direction to the inquiry, so neither can a reception of that doctrine be immediately based on its results. It would be the work of a life to apply the Theory of Developments so carefully to the writings of the Fathers, and to the history of controversies and councils, as thereby to vindicate the reasonableness of every decision of Rome; much less can such an undertaking be imagined by one who, in the middle of his days, is beginning life again. Thus much, however, might be gained even from an Essay like the present, an explanation of so many of the reputed corruptions, doctrinal and practical, of Rome, as might serve as a fair ground for trusting her in parallel cases where the investigation had not been pursued.

FOOTNOTES:

[9:1] Church of the Fathers [Hist. Sketches, vol. i. p. 418].

[12:1] Proph. Office [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 55, 56].

[13:1] [Ibid. p. 181.]

[13:2] [British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193. Vid. supr. vol. i. p. 130.]

[16:1] This of course has been disputed, as is the case with almost all facts which bear upon the decision of controversies. I shall not think it necessary to notice the possibility or the fact of objections on questions upon which the world may now be said to be agreed; _e. g._ the arianizing tone of Eusebius.

[16:2] s?ed?? ta?t?s? t?? ??? pe???????????? ?see?a?, t?? ?at? t? ??????? ????, ??t?? ?st??, ?sa ?e ?e?? ?se?, ? p??t?? ?????p??? t? sp??ata pa?as???. Ep. ix. 2.

[16:3] Bull, Defens. F. N. ii. 12, -- 6.

[17:1] "The authors who make the generation temporary, and speak not expressly of any other, are these following: Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and Hippolytus."--_Waterland_, vol. i.

part 2, p. 104.

[17:2] "Levia sunt," says Maran in his defence, "quae in Sanctissimam Trinitatem hic liber peccare dicitur, paulo graviora quae in mysterium Incarnationis."--_Div. Jes. Christ._ p. 527. Shortly after, p. 530, "In tertia oratione nonnulla legimus Incarnationem Domini spectantia, quae subabsurde dicta fateor, nego impie cogitata."

[17:3] Bishop Bull, who is tender towards him, allows, "Ut quod res est dicam, c.u.m Valentinianis hic et reliquo gnosticorum grege aliquatenus locutus est Tertullia.n.u.s; in re ipsa tamen c.u.m Catholicis omnin sensit."--_Defens. F. N._ iii. 10, -- 15.

[18:1] Adv. Praxeam.

[18:2] Defens. F. N. iv. 3, -- 1.

[18:3] Basil, ed. Ben. vol. 3, p. xcvi.

[19:1] Ante-nicene Test, to the Trinity, p. 69.

[20:1] "Quia et Pater Deus est, et judex Deus est, non tamen ideo Pater et judex semper, quia Deus semper. Nam nec Pater potuit esse ante Filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus, c.u.m et delictum et Filius non fuit, quod judicem, et qui Patrem Dominum faceret."--_Contr.

Herm._ 3.

[20:2] Vid. infra, towards the end of the Essay, ch. x., where more will be said on the pa.s.sage.

[22:1] Of Justification, 26.

[22:2] Works, vol. ix. p. 396.

[22:3] "Quamvis igitur quam maxime fallantur Pelagiani, quum a.s.serant, peccatum originale ex Augustini profluxisse ingenio, antiquam vero ecclesiam illud plane nescivisse; diffiteri tamen nemo potest, apud Graecos patres imprimis inveniri loca, quae Pelagianismo favere videntur.

Hinc et C. Jansenius, 'Graeci,' inquit, 'nisi caute legantur et intelligantur, praebere possunt occasionem errori Pelagiano;' et D.

Petavius dicit, 'Graeci originalis fere criminis raram, nec disertam, mentionem scriptis suis attigerunt.'"--_Walch_, _Miscell. Sacr._ p. 607.

[22:4] Horn, Comment. de Pecc. Orig. 1801, p. 98.

[23:1] Haer. iv. 18, -- 5.

[24:1] Justin Martyr, ch. 4.

[24:2] Clem. Alex. ch. 11.

[25:1] Works, vol. vii. p. 118-120.

[25:2] Ibid. p. 121.

[25:3] Ibid. p. 127.

[25:4] [Dr. Pusey's University Sermon of 1843.]

[26:1] Numer. Hom. xvi. 9.

[26:2] Interp. Com. in Matt. 85.

[29:1] [_Vid._ Apolog., p. 198, and Difficulties of Angl. vol. i. xii.

7.]

CHAPTER I.

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS.

SECTION I.

ON THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS.

It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in pa.s.sing judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, cla.s.sify: and we view all our knowledge in the a.s.sociations with which these processes have invested it.

Of the judgments thus made, which become aspects in our minds of the things which meet us, some are mere opinions which come and go, or which remain with us only till an accident displaces them, whatever be the influence which they exercise meanwhile. Others are firmly fixed in our minds, with or without good reason, and have a hold upon us, whether they relate to matters of fact, or to principles of conduct, or are views of life and the world, or are prejudices, imaginations, or convictions. Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is thus variously viewed, not only by various minds, but by the same. They sometimes lie in such near relation, that each implies the others; some are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common origin: some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one or other, falsely a.s.sociated in our minds with their object, and in any case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things.

Thus Judaism is an idea which once was objective, and Gnosticism is an idea which was never so. Both of them have various aspects: those of Judaism were such as monotheism, a certain ethical discipline, a ministration of divine vengeance, a preparation for Christianity: those of the Gnostic idea are such as the doctrine of two principles, that of emanation, the intrinsic malignity of matter, the inculpability of sensual indulgence, or the guilt of every pleasure of sense, of which last two one or other must be in the Gnostic a false aspect and subjective only.