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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. e. "way," is still the Arabic term for a
    sect, and the Rabbinic term for legal requirement is _halacha_, i.
    e. "walk."

Paul's conversion to the new faith--or at least his persistent
satisfaction in it--will be inexplicable unless we appreciate the logic
of his recognition in it of an inherent opposition to the growing
demands of legalism. Jesus had, in truth, led a revolt against mere
book-religion. His chief opponents were the scribes, the devotees and
exponents of a sacred scripture, the Law. "Law" and "Prophets," the one
prescribing the conditions of the expected transcendental Kingdom, the
other illustrating their application and guaranteeing their promise,
constituted the canon of the synagogue. Judaism had become a religion of
written authority. Jesus set over against this a direct relation to the
living Father in heaven, ever presently revealed to the filial spirit.
The Sermon on the Mount makes the doing of this Father's will something
quite other than servitude to written precepts interpreted by official
authority and imposed under penalty. It is to be self-discipline in the
Father's spirit of disinterested goodness, as revealed in everyday
experience.

Even the reward of this self-discipline, the Kingdom, Jesus did not
conceive quite as the scribes. To them obedience in this world procured
a "share in the world to come." To Him the reward was more a matter of
being than of getting. The Kingdom was an heir-apparency; and,
therefore, present as well as future. It was "within" and "among" men as
well as before them. They should seek to "be sons and daughters of the
Highest," taking for granted that all other good things would be
"added." So Jesus made religion live again. It became spiritual, inward,
personal, actual.

After John the Baptist's ministry to what we should call the
'unchurched' masses, Jesus took up their cause. He became the "friend"
and champion of the "little ones," the "publicans and sinners," the
mixed 'people of the land' in populous, half-heathen, Galilee. The
burdens imposed by the scribes in the name of 'Scripture' were accepted
with alacrity by the typical Pharisee unaffected by Pauline misgivings
of'moral inability.' To "fulfil all righteousness" was to the Pharisee
untainted by Hellenism a pride and delight. To the "lost sheep of
Israel" whom Jesus addressed, remote from temple and synagogue, this
"righteousness" had proved (equally as to Paul, though on very different
grounds) "a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear."
Jesus "had compassion on the multitude." To them he "spoke with
authority"; and yet "not as the scribes" but as "a prophet." When
challenged by the scribes for his authority he referred to "the baptism
of John,"