THE WITNESS OF THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES
There yet remains a certain amount of corroborative evidence for the conclusions which we have reached, Catholic borne by a series of letters which have Epistles been preserved to us, purporting to be Corroborative compositions of primitive followers of our Lord. We use the term “purporting” not because we have any doubt that they are all that they profess to be, but because their descriptions of themselves have not been accepted as valid in ail critical circles, and because we do not consider it necessary to pause to vindicate their authenticity here. If their testimony were substantially different from that of the more extended documents which we have already passed in review, it might be required of us to validate their claim to give testimony to the primitive conception of Christ, before admitting their witness. As, however, they yield only corroborative testimony, we may be content to present it for what it seems to each individual to be worth. In any event it helps to make clear to us the absolute harmony of early Christianity taken in a wide sense in its lofty conception of its Lord’s person, and thus adds weight to what we have learned, from the more important documents, of the conception current in the first age. And just in proportion as we recognize these letters, too, as a legacy of the first age, reflecting the belief of the first generation of
Christians, their corroborative evidence will become more and more significant to us. If, as In our own judgment they ought to be, they are accepted at their face value, their testimony becomes of primary Importance, and would suffice of Itself to assure us of the attitude of mind our Lord’s followers cherished towards Him from the beginning. We shall present their testimony then frankly from this our own point of view, without stopping to argue our right to do so. It will thus at least be made apparent that the whole body of writings gathered Into what we call the New Testament unite In commending to us one lofty view of Christ’s person. For In all these letters, too, as In those which have already claimed our attention, Jesus appears fundamentally as the divine object of the reverential service of Christians.
Among these letters a special Interest attaches to the Epistles of James and Jude, because of their au-
James’ and thorship by kinsmen of our Lord accord-
ChrStology flesh, who moreover did not
High believe In Him during His earthly man- ' Ifestatlon (Jno 7^): to which Is added in the case of the Epistle of James, Its exceedingly early date (a. d. 45)> — ^ antecedent to that of any other of the canonical books. Not only does not the simple ‘ Jesus ’ occur In either of these Epistles or even the simple ‘ Christ,’ but our Lord Is uniformly spoken of by designations expressive of marked reverence. Both writers ^describe themselves simply as “ servants ” — that Is, ><“ bond-servants,” “ slaves,”^ — James “ of God and of
1 We must not press, however, the ignoble connotations of “ slaves ” to our modern minds: entire subjection is all that is imputed. Cf. Mayor on Jude i.
the Lord Jesus Christ” (i^), and Jude with striking directness simply “of Jesus Christ” (i). The acknowledgment of Jesus as their ‘ Lord ’ Implied In this self-designation Is emphasized In both Epistles by the constant employment of this title In speaking of Jesus.
James speaks of our Lord by name only twice, and on both occasions he gives Him the full title of reverence: ‘the (or our) Lord Jesus Christ’ (i^ 2^) — coupling Him In the one case on equal terms with God, and In the other adding further epithets of divine dignity. Elsewhere he speaks of Him simply as ‘ the Lord’ (^'^*8 [141,15^2 contexts which greatly enhance the significance of the term. The pregnant use of ‘ the Name,’ absolutely, which we found current among the early Christians as reported In the Acts, recurs here; and James advises In the case of sick people that they be prayed over, while they are anointed with oil “In the Name” (5^^). The “Name” Intended Is clearly that of Jesus, which is thus In Christian usage substituted for that of Jehovah. A unique epithet, equally Implying the deity of the Lord, Is applied to Him in the exhortation, “ My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the ‘the^GloV’ Glory, with respect of persons” (2^).
‘ The Glory ’ seems to stand here In apposition to the name, “ our Lord Jesus Christ,” further
2 Sven Herner, op. cit, thinks that ‘ Lord ’ is used of Jesus only at Mayor on thinks it probable that it is used of Jesus also at
^, 15. Herner remarks (p. 42): “The Epistle of James knows the expression ‘The Lord Jesus Christ’ (i^ 2^) and, therefore, uses xupto<^ of Christ. Since this is the case, we do not venture definitely to deny that Christ is meant in the expression ‘ the coming of the Lord ’
defining Him in His majesty.* There is here something more than merely the association of our Lord with glory, as when we are told that He had glory with God before the world was (Jno 17^), and after His humiliation on earth (though even on earth He manifested His glory to seeing eyes, Jno 2^^ 17^“) entered again into His glory (Lk 24“®, Jno 17“^, i Tim 3^^ Heb 2^ cf. Mt 19^* 2 5*^ [Mk 10*'^]), and is to come again in this glory (Mt 16^^ 24*" 25*^ Mk 8** I3"^ Lk 9^" 2i^\ Titus 2^*, I P 4^*). We come nearer to what is implied when we read of Jesus being ‘ the Lord of Glory’ (i Cor 2^), that is He to whom glory belongs as His characterizing quality; or when He is described to us as “the effulgence of the glory of God” (Heb I*). The thought of the writer seems to be fixed on those Old Testament passages in which Jehovah is described as the “ Glory”: e. g., “ For I, saith Jehovah, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and I will be the Glory in the midst of her” (Zech 2^). In the Lord Jesus Christ, James sees the fulfillment of these promises: He is Jehovah come to be with His people; and, as He has tabernacled among them, they have seen His glory. He is, in a word, the Glory of God, the Shekinah: God manifest to men. It is thus that James thought and spoke of his own brother who died a violent and shameful death while still in His first youth! Surely there is a phenomenon here which may well waken inquiry.
The attitude of Jude is precisely the same. He does
although Peter’s remark on the advent of the day of God (2 P 3^2) makes such an ascription unlikely, and it is to be noted that in the preceding and following verses xupto? is used of God.”
indeed speak of Christ in the address of his Epistle by the simpler formal title of ‘ Jesus ‘the Despot’ Christ,’ but in accordance with his description of himself at that point as the “ slave ” of this ‘ Jesus Christ,’ he tends to multiply reverential titles in speaking of Him elsewhere. To Him our Lord is always ‘ our Lord Jesus Christ ’ (17, 21), ‘Jesus Christ our Lord’ (25), ‘our only Master {deaTTozyj^) and Lord, Jesus Christ’ (4) — a phrase, this last one, so strong that many commentators balk at it and wish to render it ‘ the only Master, viz., God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.’^ But we cannot feel surprised that one who pointedly calls himself in the first verse of his Epistle “ slave ” of Jesus Christ, s^should apply the correlative of that term, “ Despotic Master and Lord ” to Jesus Christ, three verses later. No doubt “ no Jew could use ” such a phrase “ without thinking of the one Master in heaven ” but that is only evidence that this Jew thought of Jesus who was his ‘ Lord’ and whose “ slave ” he recognized himself \ as being, as, in this eminent sense, his “ Master in heaven” (cf. 2 P 2^). Obviously it is the testimony of these two Epistles that Jesus was conceived by His first disciples as their divine Lord and Master.
The designations of our Lord in i Peter are notably simple, but none the less significant. Peter’s favorite designation for Him (as it is Paul’s) of simple ‘ Christ,’ used, ordinarily at least, as a proper name, though of
See on the passage, Bigg and Mayor in loc.
® The phrase is Mayor’s {in loc.): who notes also the use of the word de(T7:6(7uvot by Julius Africanus (Eus. H. E., i. 7) to denote the kinsfolk of Jesus, and justly remarks that this implies a current earlier emolovment of SEfTTrornc of our Lord.
course not without Its appellative significance still clinging to It and In one or two Instances becoming the simple ‘ Christ ’ Peter uses by predilection the simplest of the solemn compound names, ‘ Jesus Christ ’
sets this designation In Its place in the trine formula of Father, Spirit and Jesus Christ, with the effect of suggesting the Threefold Name, that Is to say, with underlying Implication of the Trinity.® Similarly in where “ the Spirit of Christ,” that Is, most naturally, the Spirit which proceeds from and represents Christ, is spoken of as having resided In the ancient prophets, the preexistence of Christ Is assumed."^ Besides these proper names, Peter speaks of our Lord by the designation ‘ Lord ’ 3^^ cf. 2“^ and Bigg in loc. and p.
109) and In doing so applies an Old Testament text to Him in which ‘ Lord ’ stands for ‘ Jehovah,’ and
yond all reasonable question set forth the operation of the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son^^ respectively. Here, therefore, as in several Epistles of Paul (i Cor 12^-^, 2 Cor 131% Eph 44-6), there is an implicit reference to the Threefold Name. In no passage is there any indication that the writer was independently working out a doctrinal scheme; a recognized belief or idea seems to be everywhere presupposed. How such an idea could arise in the mind of St. Paul or any other Apostle without sanction from a word of the Lord it is difficult to imagine: and this consideration is a sufficient answer to the doubts which have, by no means unnaturally, been raised whether Mt 2%^^ may not have been added or recast in a later generation. St. Peter, like St. Paul, associates with the subject of each clause, if one may so speak, a distinctive function as towards mankind: on their relations to the Divine Unity he is silent.”
Cf. Bigg in loc. (p. 108), The ^ords rb h avroT<s TTvedfxa Xpiazou must be accepted quite frankly. Christ was in the prophets, and from Him came their inspiration.”
thus assimilates Him to the divine Being. By a combination of this great title and the solemn Messianic name of ‘ Jesus Christ/ he calls Jesus ‘ our Lord Jesus Christ’ (i^)/ and it is noticeable that it is by this significant title that he designates Jesus when he is speaking of God as not only His Father but His God — having reference doubtless to “ the days of His flesh” (Heb 5^), that is to say, to His humiliation.^ No other titles are applied to our Lord in this Epistle, except that in 2“^ He is spoken of as ‘ the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls,’ and at 5^’^ as ‘ Chiei, Shepherd,’ modes_of description in which the soteriological rather than the ontological element is prominent.
In comparison with i Peter, 2 Peter makes use of more elaborate designations in speaking of Christ. 2 Peter and simple ‘ Jesus ’ not the Deity occur in this Epistle, but not even the of Our Lord simple ‘ Christ ’: and the less complex compound ‘ Jesus Christ ’ occurs in its simplicity only once — in the formality of the address. The simple ‘ Lord,’ on the other hand, seems to be used of Christ in a few cases (38-9,10,15^^10 ^ number of more or
Bigg on 39: “The Lord is certainly Christ”; on 31^: “‘Our Lord ’ must undoubtedly signify Christ, to whom alone the doxology in verse 18 is addressed.” Less decidedly, Sven Herner, op. cit., pp. 44, 45:
“ 2 Peter has some passages about which, in our opinion, no clear decision can be come to. According to 3^ seq. scornful mockers shall come and say, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’ It is almost the universal judgment that the reference here is to the coming of Christ. Against the scorn of the mockers the Apostle suggests that a day with our Lord is as a thousand years (v. 8), and therefore there can be no talk of slackness. The Lord is not slack with His promise, but is longsuffering to us-ward and not willing that any should perish (v. 9).
less sonorous combinations of it occur: ‘Jesus our Lord’ (i“), ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’ ‘the
Lord and Saviour’ (3^), ‘ our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ 2“® 3^^), with the last of which may be connected the great phrase ‘ our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ’ (i^). Two things that are notable in this list of designations are the repeated use of ‘ Saviour ’ of our Lord, and the clear note of deity which is struck in their ascriptions. ‘ Saviour ’ itself Is a divine appellation transferred to Christ to whom It is applied fifteen times out of the twenty-three In which it occurs in the New Testament. In 2 Peter
The day of the Lord, however, will come as a thief (v. lo). In verse 15 the course of thought in verse 9 is repeated, and the reader is exhorted to account the long-suffering of the Lord salvation. This interpretation has in its favor that the expression ‘our Lord’ (v. 15) can be referred to Christ. Apart from Rev 4I1 (2 Tim i^) it is the constant rule in the N. T. and in thisTpistle (12,8.11,14,16 320 3I8) that the pronoun ijfimv is adjoined to xupco? only when xupw? refers to Christ; and already on this ground xopio<$ in v. 15 can scarcely designate God. The declaration in v. 8 that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, causes no great difficulty, since it is no unwonted occurrence in the N. T. that a statement made of Lord Jehovah is referred to Lord Christ, wholly apart from the circumstance that the statement in question is scarcely an Old Test, citation. On the other hand, our explanation is rendered uncertain by the expression in v. 12, ‘the coming of the day of God.’ Since v. 12 speaks of ‘the day of God,’ ‘ the day of the Lord ’ is commonly explained in connection with it; and as ultimate result there emerges that nothing assured can be attained concerning the meaning of 38,9,10,15^”
Cf. Isaiah 43^1, “ I, even I, am the Lord and beside me there is no Saviour”; Is 43^, “The Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour,” cf. 45i5’2i 4926 60^6 63®, Jer 14®, “O thou hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble; Hos 13^, “Beside me there is no Saviour” (cf. i Sam 10^9 14®®, 2 Sam 22®, Ps 7^® 17'^ io62^). But cf. Is 19®® where the Lord promises to send “a Saviour and a mighty one”: and such passages as Judges 3®*^^, where the Saviour sent is a man raised up by God for the purpose (cf. Judges 6®®, 2 Kings 13®, Neh 9®). The O. T. term for Saviour is the Hiphal participle of viz.,)i^\0 it occurs five times, always of Christ, and never alone, but always coupled under a single article with another designation, and so forming a solemn formula. In this respect the two phrases, ‘ our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ 2-*^ 3^®) and ‘our God and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (i^) are perfectly similar and must stand or fall together. Not only, however, is the deity of our Lord openly asserted in the direct naming of Him here ‘ our God and Saviour.’^^ It is almost equally clearly asserted in the parallel phrase, ‘ our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ And it is implied in the conjunction of ‘ God ’ and ‘ Jesus our Lord ’ in as coobjects of saving knowledge (cf. 2“^ 3^^), and in the ascription to ‘ our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ of an eternal Kingdom Besides these designations, our Lord is called by Peter, as.by Jude (4), our ‘ Master ’ (dsaTrori^^) with the same high implications (2^) and the declaration of God the Father at the transfiguration that He is ‘ God’s ^n,’ ‘ God’s Beloved,’ is cited (i^^) with profound and reverential satisfaction.^^
Perhaps nothing is more notable in the designations of our Lord in these Epistles — James, Jude, i Peter, John’s Epistles ^ Peter, — than the dropping out of and ‘the sight of the title ‘Son of God.’ Only
Son of God.’ ij^ single passage in 2 Peter in which
That the passage is to be taken so is convincingly argued by Spitta, von Soden, and especially Bigg. Cf. Lightfoot on i Clem 2, where some of the patristic parallels are noted.
1^ Spitta, von Soden, etc. (cf. Wetstein) take the ^e(T7ror7^9 here of God the Father; Mayor hesitates. But cf. above on Jude 4.
15 Cf. the statement of the christology of the Epistle by Bigg, p. 235.
the testimony of the Father in the transfiguration scene Is appealed to, is the term ‘ Son ’ applied to Jesus at all. The case is very different in the Johannine Epistles. Of them the application to Jesus of the title ‘ Son of God,’ in one form or another, is preeminently characteristic.^® He is called. Indeed, simply ‘ Jesus ’ (i Jno 2^“ 4^ 4^^ 5^), and ‘Christ’ without adjunct (i Jno [2“^ 2 Jno 9); and also ‘Jesus Christ’
(i Jno 4^ [4^^] 5®, 2 Jno 7); and even ‘Jesus Christ the Righteous’ (i Jno 2^) and He is described in the great phrases ‘Word of Life’ (i Jno i^), ‘Advocate with the Father’ (2^), ‘ Saviour of the World’ (4^^). But the favorite designations applied to Him In these Epistles emphasize His divine Sonship. The most common formula employed Is the simple ‘ Son * standing In correlation with God or the Father ( i Jno 4'®’'' ^9,10,11,12^ 2 Jno 9); but the full form ‘ Son of God ’ occurs also with some frequency ( I Jno 3® 4^® ^5,12,13,20^ quite a variety of ex-
16 Cf. Westcott, Epistles of St. John, p. 131; “The title ‘the Son’ in various forms is eminently characteristic of the first and second Epistles, in which it occurs 24 (or 25) times (22 or 234-2), which is more times than in all the Epistles of St. Paul.”
In these two passages ‘ the Christ ’ is an appellative.
16 The designation ‘ Lord ’ does not occur in these Epistles. Cf.
Westcott, Epistles of St. John, p. 131: “It is remarkable that the title ‘Lord’ (xbpio<;) is not found in the Epistles (not 2 Jno 3). It occurs in the narrative of the Gospel, and is frequent in the Apocalypse. It occurs also in all the other Epistles of the N. T. except that to Titus. The absence of the title may perhaps be explained by the general view of the relation of Christ to the believer which is given in the Epistles. The central thought is that of fellowship.”
5-®), ‘Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father’ (2 Jno 3). By means of this constant designation of Jesus as ‘ the Son of God,’ John keeps before his readers His divine dignity. He is not of the world, but has come Into the world (5“®) upon a mission, to destroy all that is evil (5®) and to save the world (i'^ 5^), where- unto He was sent (4®’^^’^^), that all might have life In Him (55,12,15^. QqJ given unto us eternal life and this life Is In ‘ the Son,’ so that He who hath ‘ the Son ’ hath the life. So closely Is He associated with God the Father (i^ 3^^) that to deny Him is to deny the Father (2^^) and to confess Him is to confess the Father (2“^ 4^^) and to abide In Him Is to abide In the Father (2“^ cf. i^). Obviously to John the ‘Son of God’ Is Himself God; and what is thus Implied In the current use of this title Is openly declared at the close of the Epistle, where of ‘ the Son of God, Jesus Christ ’ It Is solemnly affirmed, “ This is the True God and Eternal Life” (5“^).
In this remarkable concluding paragraph the Apostle Is encouraging his readers In view of the sin which Is In the world and which they feel to be ‘True^God* working in themselves. “We know,” says he, “ that every one who has been begotten of God ” — that Is to say, every truly Christian man, who has been born of the Spirit — “ sinneth not ”: not because he has of himself power to preserve himself pure, but because “ He that was begotten of God ” — that Is to say, God’s own Son, Jesus Christ — “ keepeth him and the evil one toucheth him not.” This is but the Johannine way of saying what Peter says In his way when he assures his readers that Christians “ are guarded by the power of God through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (i P i^). But John proceeds with his encouraging message. “We know,” he adds, “ that we are of God and the whole world lieth in the evil one. And we know that the Son of God Is come and hath given us an understanding, that we know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, In His Son Jesus Christ.” God is He that Is true; and what Is said Is that If we are In His Son Jesus Christ, we are In God. Why? Because Jesus Christ Himself, being His Son, Is Himself just this God that Is true; and therefore It is just this that the Apostle adds: “This Is,” he says with the emphatic demonstrative,— this is the True God and Life Eternal” (5^^). The upshot of the whole matter, then. Is that those who are In Jesus Christ need have no fear in the midst of the temptations of earth: for to be In Jesus Christ Is to be In the only real God, since Jesus Himself Is this ‘ Real God,’ and as such ‘ Eternal Life.’
Here, then, are two new descriptive epithets applied to Jesus, as the ‘ Son of God.’ He is ‘ Eternal Life,’ — which recalls the figurative designation of Him as ‘the Life’ In the Gospel of John (14^ cf.
I Jno cf. I Jno 2^). And He is ‘the True,’ ‘the Real, God,’ the God who corresponds In every respect to the Idea of God, who Is what God ought to be and Is. There Is “ only one true God,” John quotes his Master as declaring (Jno 17^), to know whom is eternal life: and now he tells us that Jesus Christ, because the ‘ Son ’ of this only true God, Is Himself this ‘ True God ’ and this ‘ Eternal Llfe.’^® He then who
For the exposition of this passage see especially Weiss (Meyer, 1900), pp. 160, i6i. But on the clause, “He that is begotten of God,” see Westcott, p. 185, column 1.
IS in Him is in ‘ the True God ’ and has ‘ the Eternal Life, — ‘ the Eternal Life ’ that was in the Father and has been manifested in His ‘ Son Jesus Christ,’ and is now declared by the Apostle in order that his readers, too, may enter into that fellowship which he was himself enjoying “with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (i^). The Epistles of John, also, thus culminate not only in calling Christ ‘ God,’ but in so calling Him ‘ God ’ as to throw out into emphasis that He is all that God is. James calls Him ‘ the Glory ’: Peter ‘ the great God ’: Paul ‘ God over all ’: John ‘ t^ Real God.’^® It was because he so conceived Jesus as God’s unique Son (i Jno 4®) that John is able to speak of the fo-rgiveness of sins “ through His Name” (i Jno 2^“), and of faith “in His Name” securing eternal life (5^^, cf. 3^^), and even (3 Jno 7) of the whole Christian course turning on loyalty to ‘ the Name,’ — that is, obviously, Jesus’ Name, — without further definition. Clearly, to him, ‘ the Name of Jesus ’ was the Name that is above every name.^^
Even a rapid glance like this over the designations applied to Christ in the Epistles written by Christ’s How Our Lord’s companions will suffice to
Companions show that the estimate put upon His Thought of Him personality by Paul has nothing in it peculiar to that writer. There may meet us, as we pass from Epistle to Epistle, varying methods of giving expression to the faith common to all: but it is common to all to look upon Jesus Christ as a divine
20 Dr. Westcott in an additional note on i Jno 322^ p. 129 seq., gives a careful study of the names of our Lord in i John. Cf. also p. 189 seq., where he discusses the term ‘ the Christ.’
person. So far as appears it did not occur to anyone in the primitive Christian community to put a lower estimate upon His personality than that; and writer vies with writer only in his attempts to give his faith in his divine Redeemer clear and emphatic expression. If there was a more primitive conception than this of Jesus’ dignity it had died away and left no trace behind it before the Christian community found a voice for itself. Whether that can be conceived to have happened in the course of the few years which intervened between the public career and death of Jesus and the rise of a Christian literature, — say, in James, — or, say, in Paul, — or, say,- in the evangelic documents,— each one must judge for himself. But in seeking to form an opinion on this matter, it should be borne in mind that there intervened only a very brief, period indeed between the death of Christ and the beginnings of Christian literature: that much of this literature credibly represents itself as the product of actual companions of our Lord: and that it was all written in the presence of su*ch companions, reflecli their opinions, and was published under their eye.JXhat absolutely no trace of a lower view of the person of Christ is discernible in any portion of this literature seems in these circumstances not only a valid suggestion but a convincing proof that no such lower view had been prevalent in the Christian community: that, in a word, the followers of Jesus must be supposed to have been heartily convinced of His deity from the very beginning.