AN ESSAY IN THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY BY CHARLES A. H. TUTHILL LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1888 ( The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved. )...

If we compare Christianity with the other dogmatic religions of the world, we are at once struck by a feature peculiar to it, namely, the complexity of its doctrinal system. A glance at the Athanasian Creed is sufficient to show that this peculiarity results from the existence of fundamental inconsistencies in the dogmas of Christianity. Such inconsistencies are not found in other religions, whether, like Mohammedanism, they have at once sprung into full maturity at the time of their creation, o

At the time of the birth of Christianity, only in one portion of the Roman world could a new and pure religion have arisen. The fusion of the empire had, by destroying their national basis, fatally weakened the Pagan religions; so far as real feeling was concerned, they had passed into the hands of the ignorant classes exclusively, and had lost the vitality in which alone the higher religious forces can germinate. Philosophies, resting on a common basis of contempt of the popular polytheism, wer

By the time of the prophets Jahvism had grown into Judaism. Their religion, with the examination of which we shall be mainly occupied in this chapter, in all cases was a pure monotheism; they worshipped Jahveh as God, sole maker and ruler of heaven and earth. It was Judaism, too, in the sense that it was universally recognized as the national religion. That Jahveh was properly the god of Israel was now admitted by all. And this the prophets unhesitatingly assumed. They did not regard themselves

It is hardly necessary to say that simply from the statements of the gospels we cannot construct an historical life of Christ. Strauss and Baur have finally determined the question of their historical value. In the first three, it is true, after making allowance for the vast growth of legend overspreading them, useful materials can still be found; but even these can be depended on only so far as probability is distinctly in their favour. The last is simply a philosophical romance, with the theol

So far in the course of our inquiry we have traced the development of Christian doctrine simply through the religious ideas of the Jewish people. But from this point we shall have to consider the relations of opposite tendencies, the collision between Judaism and Paganism in Christianity to which I have referred in the Introduction. And in dealing with this subject, it is a fair canon of historical criticism to say that so far as any dogma is distinctly Jewish, its origin should be assigned to t

While the movement within Judaism with which hitherto we have been mainly occupied was tending to create out of it a world-religion, outside of it circumstances were preparing to make this tendency succeed. The later additions to Judaism, the supernatural system of dogma which formed the basis of Christianity, were, as I have already said, favourable to its expansion by reason of their harmony with Pagan ideas. About the time at which they entered strongly into Judaism, began a steady break-up o

From the time of the completion of the doctrine of the Incarnation, Christianity steadily advanced towards Paganism. Gradually all the characteristics of polytheism crept into the Church. Idolatry, embodied specially in an important doctrine to be mentioned presently, was embodied generally in the worship of images. The great principle of local government in religion which distinguished Pagan polytheism became Christian by the worship of saints. This was soon the chief feature of ordinary Christ

In the course of our inquiry, one fact has been made strikingly manifest, namely, the persistence of religious ideas. We found that Christianity at its beginning was only the result of a tendency long latent in Judaism, that its doctrines were wholly Jewish while its adherents were chiefly Jews, and that afterwards, when Pagans in large numbers entered the Church, they carried with them and made Christian the principles of their Pagan religions. Similarly we saw that no new religion was created