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  THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT


  THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE

  Editors of THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE

  Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., F.B.A.
  Prof. Gilbert Murray, Litt.D., LL.D., F.B.A.
  Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., LL.D.


  _For list of volumes in the Library see end of book._

  THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

  _By_ BENJAMIN W. BACON D.D.

  PROFESSOR OF NEW CRITICISM AND EXEGESIS IN YALE UNIVERSITY

  [Illustration]

  THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED 15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2

_First Impression September 1912 - All Rights Reserved_

MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN




CONTENTS


  PART I

  CANONIZATION AND CRITICISM

   CHAP.                                                       PAGE

      I INSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION                              7

     II THE REACTION TO CRITICISM                                33


    PART II

    THE LITERATURE OF THE APOSTLE

    III PAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE   56

     IV PAUL AS PRISONER AND CHURCH FATHER                       83

      V PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES                               104


    PART III

    THE LITERATURE OF CATECHIST AND PROPHET

     VI THE MATTHAEAN TRADITION OF THE PRECEPTS OF JESUS         128

    VII THE PETRINE TRADITION. EVANGELIC STORY                  154

   VIII THE JOHANNINE TRADITION. PROPHECY                       185


   PART IV

   THE LITERATURE OF THE THEOLOGIAN

     IX THE SPIRITUAL GOSPEL AND EPISTLES                       206

      X EPILOGUES AND CONCLUSIONS                               233

        BIBLIOGRAPHY                                            251

        INDEX                                                   255




THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

PART I


CANONIZATION AND CRITICISM

CHAPTER I

INSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION


The New Testament presents the paradox of a literature born of protest
against the tyranny of a canon, yet ultimately canonized itself through
an increasing demand for external authority. This paradox is full of
significance. We must examine it more closely.

The work of Jesus was a consistent effort to set religion free from the
deadening system of the scribes. He was conscious of a direct, divine
authority. The broken lights of former inspiration are lost in the full
dawn of God's presence to His soul.

So with Paul. The key to Paul's thought is his revolt against legalism.
It had been part of his servitude to persecute the sect which claimed to
know another Way besides the "way"[1] of the scribes. These Christians
signalized their faith by the rite of baptism, and gloried in the sense
of endowment with "the Spirit." Saul was profoundly conscious of the
yoke; only he had not drammed that his own deliverance could come from
such a quarter. But contact with victims of the type of Stephen, men
"filled with the Spirit," conscious of the very "power from God" for
lack of which his soul was fainting, could not but have some effect. It
came suddenly, overwhelmingly. The real issue, as Saul saw it, both
before and after his conversion, was Law _versus_ Grace. In seeking
"justification" by favour of Jesus these Christians were opening a new
and living way to acceptance with God. Traitorous and apostate as the
attempt must seem while the way of the Law still gave promise of
success, to souls sinking like Saul's deeper and deeper into the
despairing consciousness of "the weakness of the flesh" forgiveness in
the name of Jesus might prove to be light and life from God. The
despised sect of'sinners' whom he had been persecuting expressed the
essence of their faith in the doctrine that the gift of the Spirit of
Jesus had made them sons and heirs of God. If the converted Paul in turn
is uplifted--"energized," as he terms it--even beyond his
fellow-Christians, by the sense of present inspiration, it is no more
than we should expect.

    Footnote 1: _Tarik_, i