THE BUDDHA OF CHRISTENDOMbySir Robert Anderson, K.C.B., L.L. D. (1841-1918) |
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THE BUDDHA OF CHRISTENDOMbySir Robert Anderson, K.C.B., L.L. D. (1841-1918) |
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CHAPTER 5(The Bible or the Church?, Chapter 4, pp. 39-55)53 The incarnation of Christ; His death as a propitiatory sacrifice for human sin; His resurrection from the dead; His ascension; His session at the right hand of God; His coming again to judgment; the sending of the Holy Spirit; regeneration and remission of sins by the sacrament of baptism; the maintenance of grace by the sacrament of the Eucharist—the efficacy of both 54 If true, they are without exception transcendent truths; it is idle therefore to appeal to human experience or human authority in their support. Scepticism is here the only rational attitude of mind. A Divine revelation alone can justify our accepting them. Have we such a revelation? And will an appeal to it convince us of their truth? To the first of these questions Christians of every name and creed will reply in perfect unison. But when we come to the second, our suspicions will be aroused, not only by the fact that some of these doctrines the Churches of the Reformation repudiate, but also by the reluctance of those who champion them to permit an unfettered appeal to the authority on which they 55 Scripture, we are told,
is "reverenced as paramount." "The Old and New Testaments are the fountain,
the Catholic Fathers the channel, through which it has flowed down to
us. The contrast, then, in point of authority is not between Holy Scripture
and the Fathers, but between the Fathers and us." They are not
"equalled, much less preferred, to Holy Scripture, but only to ourselves:
i.e., the ancient to the modern, the waters near the fountain
to the troubled estuary rolled backward and forward by the varying tide
of human opinion, and rendered brackish by the continued contact with
the bitter waters of the world."[1] This is the language of a teacher [Dr. Pusey] than whom no one has borne bolder testimony to the supreme 56
[Ed.] Edward B. Pusey, 1800-1882; Church of England theologian; professor of Hebrew, Oxford, and canon of Christ Church; leader of Oxford Movement; translated Augustine's "Confessions," influential sermons on Absolution (1846) and the Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist (1853); books on the doctrine of the Real Presence (1855 and 1857); endeavored to bring about union of English and Roman churches from 1865. That he who wrote these words should thus seek to identify the Bible with the writings of men gives proof how well he knew that, apart from the writings of men, the Bible would lend no sanction to the system with which his name is associated. Let us apply this principle in another sphere. "Nature is reverenced as paramount. But we should interpret nature by the great Masters of the past. The contrast in point of authority is not between nature and the Masters, but between the Masters and us. They are not equalled, much less preferred, to nature, but only to ourselves." If successive generations of artists had acted on this principle for centuries, modern art would 57 And yet how plausible it is! It seems the perfection of reasonableness. The simple reader might suppose that in regard to doctrine and practice the Fathers were agreed. But the Fathers differed, and the Churches with which they were severally connected differed; and their differences led to many a division, many a feud. And so Dr. Pusey goes on to warn us that no Father in particular is to be accepted as our guide, but we are to follow them only so far as their teaching was "universally received." "It is this only," he adds, "which according to Vincentius' invaluable rule, was received 'by all, in all Churches, and at all times,' which has the degree of evidence upon which we can undoubtedly pronounce that it is Apostolic." More plausible still! But, in fact, it is but dust flung into our eyes. If the "Catholic faith" is to be thus limited to doctrines universally accepted, we shall jettison at once not a few of the Pagan superstitions which are "undoubtedly pronounced to be Apostolic;" but with them will disappear also such vital truths as the 58 And who is to decide for us what is the residuum of mingled truth and error which is to serve as a creed by which we shall mould our character and shape our course in view of the solemnities of our existence? The most honoured of the Fathers were men whose minds were impregnated by the superstitions of Pagan religion, and the subtleties of Pagan philosophy: are we to assume that nineteen centuries of the Christian religion have so enfeebled or depraved the intellect of Christendom that we are less capable of understanding the Scriptures than they were? They were "near the fountain" of Christianity, forsooth; yes, but they were nearer still to the cesspool of Paganism. And inquiry will show that it is 59 The Christian turns to the Bible to hear in it the voice of his living Saviour and Master and Lord, who, by the Holy Spirit, sent down from heaven to that very end, "speaks" in and through that Word, "to the soul which closes not itself against it." But the founder of this religious system is the Buddha of Christendom, who died nineteen centuries ago, the pure waters of whose teaching are now dissipated in "the troubled estuary rolled backward and forward by the varying tide" of the opinions of the Fathers, and "rendered brackish by the continued contact with the bitter waters" of a corrupt and apostate Church. Let those who thus appeal to the Fathers hear the Fathers. No one among them is held in higher esteem than Chrysostom[Ed.] The most famous of the Greek Fathers, he has been canonised by the Roman Church; and both Greek and Roman Churches celebrate his festival. And with abundant reason. For he lived a pure and noble 60 [Ed.] John Chrysostom, c. 347-407; Archbishop of Constantinople 398-404; author of great influence; later recognized as Doctor of the Church.
61 [Ed.] 354-430; originally a Manichaean; converted to Christianity 387; Bishop of Hippo 396-430; wrote "Confessions" c. 400.
In "all things that pertain to life and godliness" the words of Holy Writ are so simple and clear that a little child can grasp their meaning. Thus the apostle could write to Timothy, "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation." But who is to interpret the Fathers for us? Rival schools of Christian thought appeal to them in support of their opposing tenets; who, then, is to arbitrate between them? And by what standard? And why should we turn from what is plain and simple 62 "Near the fountain!" These men talk as though the apostles left behind them a pure and united Church, and the Ante-Nicene Fathers had entered without a break upon the heritage. But what are the facts? "While the apostles wrote, the actual state of the visible tendencies of things showed too plainly what Church history would be." The quotation is from [Canon Bernard's] Bampton Lectures[Ed.] for 1864, one of the most valuable works in our standard theological literature; and the writer goes on to say:
[Ed.]
Biography of John
BAMPTON) In very truth those "last words" were wrung from men depressed by patent signs of general apostasy. The same apostle who had exulted in the fact that "all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus,"[6] lived to pen the sad lament, "This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia turned away from me."[7] And then, taking a still wider view of the condition of the Church, he indited the solemn forecast, "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."[8] And for more than a century before Irenaeus—the earliest of the Patristic theologians—appeared upon the scene, the leaven had been working. That heresies should be the subject of the only treatise we possess from his pen, may indicate the state into which the Church had 64 Error is a weed of rank and rapid
growth. But it was not until more than a century after Irenaeus had
gone to his rest, when the last and fiercest of the persecutions had
ended, and, with the advent of Constantine, the wolf of paganism openly
assumed the sheep's clothing of "the Christian religion," that the errors,
which were in the very warp and woof of that religion, began to ripen
and spread unchecked; and ere another century had passed, the standard
even of outward morality in the professing Church sank to the level
of that of the heathen world.[10] The Church of God is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets;" the Church of 65 Can any spiritually intelligent Christian read the Confessions without being struck by the ignorance it betokens of Christian doctrine? It reveals the experience of a great and pure and earnest soul reaching out after God in the midst of mists and darkness which the sunlight of Christianity would have dispelled. Intense reverence for God, and desire to please Him—these are manifest in it 66 Before the law of gravitation was discovered, various problems in astronomy were solved as clearly and accurately as they are today; but there was no unity in the science, and much pertaining to it was incomprehensible. And so, if Grace be unknown, various Christian doctrines may still be understood, but the central principle which binds them together is wanting, and there 67 The truth of Grace having
been lost, the doctrine of Divine wrath, eternal and inexorable, against
human sin, became overwhelming and intolerable; and the theologies of
the Fathers struggled to bridge over the chasm which separated God from
men. The Greek school, under the influence of the Neo-Platonism of which
Alexandria was the cradle and the home, leant towards the conception
of a Deity "immanent" in the world, and especially in humanity. The
incarnation, not the cross, was to them the climax of the Divine revelation
to men. But, though a climax, it was not a crisis. It was rather the
unfolding and display of the principle on which the Supreme had been
working throughout the ages. Thus it was that God restored relations
with the fallen race, alienated and lost by sin. Thus was humanity redeemed;
for the true emblem of Redemption was not the Cross of Calvary, but
the manger of Bethlehem. It was Paganism in a Christian dress.[11] 68 For in this theology Divine sovereignty became sheer favouritism; election was degraded to mean no more than immunity from wrath; and grace, instead of being, as in the New Testament, the principle of the Divine action, and the characteristic of the Divine attitude towards 69 It is not that these conflicting views were taught thus plainly by all the leaders of the rival schools of Christian thought. Far from it. But, in varying degrees, the writings of all are tainted by them. Clement of Alexandria, rival claimant with Irenaeus to the title of father of Greek theology, and Augustine of Hippo, so specially honoured by the Latin Church, are the most pronounced exponents of them. Though the fame of Clement is eclipsed by that of his brilliant disciple and successor as head of the Alexandrian catechetical 70 "The Church, to him," says the Dean [Farrar] of Canterbury, "was an external establishment, subjected to the autocracy of bishops, largely dependent on the opinion of Rome. It was a Church represented almost exclusively by a sacerdotal caste, cut off by celibacy from ordinary human interests, armed with fearful spiritual weapons, and possessing the sole right to administer a grace which came magically through none but mechanical channels. And this Church might, nay, was bound to, enforce the acceptance of its own dogmas and customs, even in 71 "The outward Church of
Augustine was Judaic, not Christian. The whole Epistle to the Hebrews
is a protest against it And all that was most deplorable in this theology
and ecclesiasticism became the most cherished heritage of the Church
of the Middle Ages in exact proportion to its narrowest ignorance, its
tyrannous ambition, its moral corruption, and its unscrupulous cruelty."[15] * * *The
preceding chapter was taken from: The Buddha of Christendom, Chapter 6 / Bible or Church?, Ch 5 |