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 THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED 15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2 First Impression ... September 1912 All

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 H

The consolidated 'catholic' church of the third century might seem, so far as its doctrine of Scripture was concerned, to have retraced its steps to a standpoint corresponding completely to that of the synagogue. Only, the paradox still held that the very writings canonized were those supremely adapted to evoke a spirit of resistance to the despotism of either priest or scribe. The Protestant Reformation was a revolt against the former, and it is noticeable how large a part was played by the New

Most vital of all passages for historical appreciation of the great period of Paul's missionary activity and its literature is the retrospect over his career as apostle to the Gentiles and defender of a gospel "without the yoke of the Law" in Gal. i.-ii. Especially must the contrast be observed between this and the very different account in Acts ix.-xvi. Galatians aims to counteract the encroachments of certain Judaizing interlopers upon Paul's field, and seems to have been written from Corinth,

The second period of Paul's literary career begins after an interval of several years. This interval is covered indeed, so far as the great events of the Apostle's personal story are concerned, by the last nine chapters of Acts, but exceedingly obscure as respects the fortunes of his mission-field and the occasion for the group of Epistles which come to us after its close. It is barely possible that a fragment or two from the so-called Pastoral Epistles (1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, Titus), which s

We cannot wonder that an epoch of the church's history which followed upon the martyrdom in rapid succession of all its remaining great leaders, should at first be poor in literary products. James the Lord's brother was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem in the year 61-2. His namesake, brother of John, had been beheaded early in 44 by Herod Agrippa I. Among the "others" who, as Josephus informs us, perished along with James in 61, we may, perhaps, reckon John, who stands beside him in Paul's

As we have seen in our study of the later literature addressed to, or emanating from, the Pauline mission-field, the church teacher and ecclesiastic who there took up the pen after the death of Paul had scarcely any alternative but to follow the literary model of the great founder of Gentile Christianity. Inevitably the typical literary product of this region became the apostolic letter, framed on the model of Paul's, borrowing his phraseology and ideas, when not actually embodying fragments fro

Of the extent to which the early church could do without narrative of Jesus' earthly ministry we have extraordinary evidences in the literature of Pauline Christianity on the one side and of Jewish Christianity on the other. For Paul himself, as we know, the real story of Jesus was a transcendental drama of the Incarnation, Redemption, and Exaltation. It is probable that when at last "three years" after his conversion he went up to Jerusalem "to get acquainted with Peter," the story he was inter

In Paul's enumeration of the "gifts" by which the Spirit qualifies various classes of men to build in various ways upon the structure of the church, the class of "prophets" takes the place next after that of "apostles," a rank even superior (as more manifestly 'spiritual') to that of "pastors and teachers." The Book of Acts shows us as its most conspicuous centre of "prophecy" the house of Philip the Evangelist at Cæsarea. This man had four unmarried daughters who prophesied, and in his house Pa

Asia, as we have come to know it through a succession of writings dating from Colossians-Ephesians ( c. 62) down to Papias (145), had come to be the chief scene of mutual reaction between 'apostolic' and Pauline Christianity at the close of the first century. Here at Ephesus had been the great headquarters of Paul's missionary activity. Here he had reasoned daily in the school of one Tyrannus, a philosopher, and had found "many adversaries." Here he had encountered the "strolling Jews, exorcists

Few of the great writings cherished and transmitted by the early church have escaped the natural tendency to attachments at beginning and end. In the later period such attachments took the form of prefixed argumenta , i. e. prefatory descriptions of author and contents, and affixed subscriptions , devoted to a similar purpose. These, like the titles, were clearly distinguished from the text itself, and in modern editions are usually not printed, though examples of 'subscriptions' may be seen in

1. General Introductions to N.T. Literature. Moffatt, Jas. "Internat. Theol. Library" Series. Scribner's, 1911. Standard, comprehensive, progressive. Best compendium of the subject in English. A book for experts. 671 pp., 8vo. Jülicher, A. Engl. transl, by D. A. Ward, from 4th German ed. London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1903. The most serviceable of modern German Introductions, based on the standard work of the "liberal" school, by H. J. Holtzmann. 650 pp., large 8vo. Zahn, Theo. Engl. transl