The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-17

us to select only one for comment That one
is perhaps the most important of ALL namely,
the question as to how far Jesus anticipated
the views of Paul in admitting Gentiles to
share in the privileges of the Messianic king
dom. Our author argues, with much force,
that the designs of Jesus were entirely con-
fined to the Jewish people, and that it was
Paul who first, by admitting Gentiles to the
Christian fold without requiring them to live
like Jews, gave to Christianity the character
of universal religion. Our author reminds
us that the third gospel is not to be depended
upon in determining thispoint, since it mani
festly puts Pauline sentiments into the mouth
of Jesus, and in particular attributes to Jesus
an acquaintance with heretical Samaria which
the first gospel disclaims. He argues that the
apostles were in every respect Jews, save in
the belief that Jesus was the Messiah and he
pertinently asks, if James, who was the bro
ther of Jesus, and Peter and John. who were
his nearest friends, unanimously opposed
Paul and stigmatized him as a liar and
hereto, is it at all likely that Jesus had ever
distinctly sanctioned such views as Paul
maintained
In the course of many years reflection
upon this point, we have several times been
inclined to accept the narrow Interpretation
OF Jesus teaching here indicated; yet, on the
whole, we do not believe it can ever be con-
clusively established. In the first place, il
must be remembered that if the third gospel
throws a Pauline coloring over the events
which it describes, the first gospel also shows
decidedly anti-Pauline bias and the one
party was as likely as the other to attribute
its own views to Jesus himself. One striking
instance of this tendency has been pointed
out by Strauss, who has shown that the
verses Matthew V, 1920, are an interpola-
ton. The person who teaches men to break
the commandments is undoubtedly Paul,
and in order to furnish text against
Pauls followers, the ''Nicolaitans" Jesus
is made to declare that he came not
to destroy one title of the law, but
to fulfil the whole in every particular. Such
an utterance is in manifest contradiction to
the spirit of Jesus; teaching, as shown in the
very same chapter, and throughout great
part of the same gospel. He who taught in
his own name and not as the scribes, who
proclaimed himself Lord over the Sabbath,
and who manifested from first to last more
than Essenlan contempt for rites and cere-
monies, did not come to fulfil the law of
Mosaism, but to supersede it. Nor can any
interest adverse to this conclusion be drawn
from the injunction to the disciples Matt. K
5-O, not to preach to Gentiles and Samari-
tans, but only t'to the lost sheep
of the house of Israeli" for this
remark is placed before the beginning
assigned for the restriction is merely that the
disciples will not have time even to preach to
all the Jews before the coming of the
Messiah, whose approach Jesus was an
nouncing. Matt x, 23.)
These examples show that we must use
caution in weighing the testimony even of
the first Gospel, and must not too hastily cite
1t as proof that Jesus supposed his mission
TO be restricted to the Jews. When we come
to consider what happened few years after
the death of Jesus, we shall be still less ready
to insist upon the view defended by our
anonymous author. Paul, according to his
own confession, prosecuted the Christians
unto death. Now what, in the theories or in
the practice of the Jewish disciples of Christ
could have moved Paul to such fanatic beha-
vior? Certainly not their spiritual interpre-
tation of Mosaism, for Paul himself belonged
to the liberal school of Gamaliel, to the
views of which the teachings and practices of
Peter, James, and John might easily be ac-
eommodated. Probably not their belief in
Jesus as the Messiah, for at the riot in
which Stephen was murdered and all the
Hellenist disciples driven from Jerusalem, the
Jewish disciples were allowed to remain in
the city unmolested. (See Acts viii, l, 14.)
This marked difference of treatment indi-
Gates that Paul regarded Stephen and his
friends as decidedly more heretical and OBJ
noxious than Peter, James, and John, whom.
indeed, Paul's own master, Gamaliel, had re-
Gently (Acts V, 34) defended before the coun-
Gil. And this inference is fully confirmed by
the account of Stephens death, where his
murderers charge him with maintaining that
Jesus had founded new religion, which was
destined entirely to supersede and replace
judaism. (Acts vi, IA. The Petrine disci-
pies never held this view of the mission of
jesus and to this difference it is undoubtedly
owing that Paul and his companions forbore
to disturb them. 1t would thus appear that
even previous to Paul's conversion, within
i've or six years after the death of Jesus,
there was prominent party among
the disciples which held that the new
religion was not modification but an
abrogation of Judaism; and their name,
''Hellenists, sufficiently shows either that
there were Gentiles among them or that they
held fellowship with Gentiles. 1t was this
which aroused Paul to persecution, and upon
his sudden conversion it was with these Hell
lenistic doctrines that he fraternized, taking
little heed of the Petrine disciples Galatians
i, 15), who were hardly more than a Jewish
sect. Now the existence of these Hellenists
at Jerusalem so soon after the death of Jesus
is clear proof that he had never distinctly and
irrevocably pronounced against the admission
of Gentiles to the Messianic kingdom, and
makes it very probable that the downfall of
Mosaism as a result of his preaching was by
no means unpremeditated, while, on the
other hand, the obstinacy of the Petrine party
in adhering to Jewish customs shows equally
that Jesus could not have unequivocally
committed himself in favor of new
Gospel for the Gentiles. Probably Jesus
was seldom brought into direct contact with
others than Jews, so that the questions con-
cerning the admission of GENTLE converts did
not come up during his lifetime and thus the