it is right to carry it to its logical conclusion, in dealing with the
184 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
4. That the Christian Church eventually. came to endorse such action, and showed its approval in certain ways.
5. That such endorsement must be regarded either as a fundamental mistake, or as a sign of growing into truth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
6. That if the second of these two alternatives be adopted, then
it is right to carry it to its logical conclusion, in dealing with the sages and prophets of all non-Christian religious movements, both past and present.
Of these six propositions the first three are mainly concerned with the use of the term Logos. Protestant scholars to a varying extent have tried to show that its use in the Fourth Gospel prologue
is to be regarded as having Jewish rather than Gentile significance.
If they have not done this, they have, like Bultmann, sought to detach the prologue from the rest of the Gospel, and to regard it as of the nature of a Gentile accretion. Bultmann even goes so far as to say that it embodies a Gnostic myth. My own contention is that
it is, on evidence, a deliberately planned introduction, composed by the writer of the succeeding chapters, and that if we approach it without prejudice, we are bound to see in it what was perhaps the
first serious attempt at relating the Christian God-story to the religious beliefs of the Gentile world.
We must begin therefore by tracing the history of the term Logos up to the time of the emergence of the Christian movement.
It is usual to start with the Ionian thinker Heraclitus of Ephesus, whose main philosophical activity is centered traditionally about 504 to 501 B.c. and probably ended by about 480 B.c. Although the number of pre-Socratic thinkers is considerable, it is certainly a matter of observation that almost all the quotations from fragments which employ the word "Logos" come from Heraclitus. It is therefore reasonable to inquire what he meant by it. Perhaps the best description would be to say that it is to him an attribute of the Absolute. Recent scholars have rendered it in English as "formula"
r "element of arrangement." All things happen in the universe kata Tov Adyov ("according to," or "in tune with," "the Logos') says Heraclitus, but he complains that most men do not realize this, but are agvvero. (uncomprehending). In a fragment quoted by
_ Hippolytus,* Heraclitus says "Listening not to me but to the Logos,
* Philosophumena Bk. IX, para. 9.
Revelation and the Divine Logos 185
it is wise to agree that all things are one." Sextus Empiricus in the second century A.D. quotes Heraclitus as saying, "although the Logos is common to all, most people live as though each has his own private and individual intelligence." In Diogenes Laertius 2 and in Clement of Alexandria * we find quotations which identify
this Logos with évcogov (the One Wise Being), the one which is wise or the embodiment of wisdom; and Clement quotes Heraclitus
as saying that this 2voodov A€yeobar otk eOérAer Kar eee Znvos dvopua
("will not and yet will be called Zeus"). It is clear from this that Heraclitus oscillates between treating the Logos as an impersonal cosmic principle or formula, and identifying it with the Supreme Being in self-expression. One can hardly "listen" (d«évev) to a principle; one can listen to an Intelligent Being. It would seem then that Heraclitus, in thinking about the constitution of the universe, arrived at a unitary conception of it not unlike that of a much later thinker, Chu Hsi, who lived in China (4.p. 1130-1200) and who reduced the universe to the principles of li and chi (chi being matter, and Ji, cosmic principle), but who regarded li as possessing certain attributes which properly belong to some degree of personality.* > Later Greek philosophical thinkers than Heraclitus of course also used this term, and they came increasingly to attribute personality to the Logos. But for the moment I would only stress that in spite of the considerable antiquity of Heraclitus, and in spite of the disappearance of the bulk of his utterances, he was clearly known to many educated persons at the beginning of the Christian era as a famous thinker, and they were able to quote from what he said. It looks as though most of his deliverances must therefore E have disappeared either through carelessness or lack of interest, or through the subsequent misguided hostility of Christians, for it is" only the fragments remaining which show how important he was. But if in the second century A.D. it was known that he had written yuwpévoy yap mévTwv Kata Tov Adyov (all things being made according
to the Logos), it does not seem unreasonable to see an echo of this in the passage of the Johannine prologue where the writer, himself speaking of the Logos says: mévra 8 airod éyévto, Kat xwpis adrod
* Bk. VII.
2 Stromateis Bk. V. Se *See my Comparative Religion (London: Penguin Books, 1941), pp. 187-88. ores
186 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
éyévero od88 %y.© It is as though a British writer of the twentieth century were to drive home some point by using a paraphrase of a quotation from Shakespeare.
We may now go on to see what other Greek writers of a later date than Heraclitus have said. This brings us immediately of course to Plato, whose philosophy has sometimes been described as "the old loving nurse" of Christianity. So far as I am aware there is only one place in the writings of Plato, apart from the generally agreed spurious epistles, where the Logos is referred to, and that is in the Epinomis, which, after having its authenticity questioned for a long time, now tends once again to be regarded as a genuine work of the philosopher. In this dialogue ® we find that 6 Adyos 6 rdvrwv Geioratos
(the Logos, the most divine of all beings) is described as the orderer of the visible cosmos.
The Stoics appear to have taken over from Heraclitus most of his doctrine about the Logos, and from Zeno onwards they treat the universe as ordered by a central rational principle. The Logos is the immanent reason in the world, filling it from end to end, and assuring its unity. (Even Tertullian, who is a most anti-Hellenic Christian, in one passage accepts this idea and compares the Logos to honey filling all the cells of a honeycomb.) Cicero describes it as "The eternal truth which flows from all eternity." As Le Breton puts it: [For the Stoics] the Logos infallibly moves all beings, and is not a law foreign to their being, or a restraint externally imposed upon them; it is the most intimate force of their own nature.
But the later Stoics sought to come to terms with the ancient Hellenic mythology, and in Cornutus, an African of Leptis Magna, who flourished in the reign of Nero, we find the tendency to represent the Logos as personified in a number of mythical beings, who are what would be in Indian phraseology described as its avatars. Of these the most definite is Heracles, the others being mythical figures like the Titans, Pan, Chronos, Eros, Atlas, and Agathodemon. But later on a more definite step came to be taken, when Hermes, the god of reason and language, achieved recognition as _ the personification of the Logos, and is so described by Cornutus. _ Cornutus seems to assume two Logoi, the one incarnate in Hermes as the god of speech, the other the universal Logos who is the John 1:3, "all things were made through him, and without him was not
_ anything made that was made."
* Epinomis para. 986C.
Revelation and the Divine Logos 187
Reason of the world, so that in Hermes there is a kind of kenosis of the Logos. But about the same time as Cornutus there appears an apocryphal work by an anonymous Stoic writer, who actually
conceals his identity under the name of Heraclitus, and calls his
book The Treatise on the Homeric Allegories; and for him Hermes
is the only deity who represents the Logos, and combines in him-
self the two attributes of language and reason.
Then we come to Plutarch. He, with considerable exegetical ingenuity, reads into the text of Plato references to the Logos which are perhaps not really there, and in his Treatise on Destiny declares that in the Phaedrus Plato says that destiny is the inevitable divine Logos acting through irresistible causes, and in the Timaeus that it is the law or formula (this is Heraclitean) in conformity with the nature of the universe, which regulates the sequence of all that happens.
In his de Isidi et Osiride Plutarch takes the myths of Horus and of Isis and interprets them in the following terms:
Of Isis he says: "She is the Female Principle in nature [thus like the Hindu Sakti] and is the One of numberless names, because she is converted by the Logos into, and receives, all appearances and forms."
Of Osiris he says that he is "the commion Loses of all things in Heaven and Hell."
Of Horus he says: "Horus stands for the visible world. Unlike
his parent, the Logos, he is not pure and unmixed, but bastardized by the corporeal element which is involved in it. Hermes stands for the Logos, who intervenes and declares that the visible world is truly the image of the world of ideas." = 2 This kind of allegorization runs through the whole of Plutarch, 5S and I hold no brief for it. But the point to be emphasized is that —— some sort of incarnation of the Cosmic Logos, albeit usually a mythical one,' was a familiar idea to many educated Gentiles at the time when the Johannine writings came to be composed, and that
7It was sometimes historical. Thus it is arguable that where the poet Horace treats Augustus Caesar as an incarnation of Hermes, he is being _ serious and not merely indulging in flattery. He is like the Brahman wrestlers ~ who, at King George V's durbar, composed and recited a hymn in which His Majesty was invoked as Raghubasmani, a name for an avatar or in. carnation of Vishnu. It must in fairness be admitted that both the author of the Epistle of Barnabas and also Origen employ the allegorical method in dealing with some passages of the Old Testament,
188 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
however the actual term Logos may have been misused, it represented a type of organic philosophy which the modern world cannot escape employing.
The submission is made therefore that to the Gentile world into which the Christian movement emerged, the existence and functions of the Logos were acceptable. This covers the first of my two propositions.
It follows that the Christians therefore must have had some awareness of the existence of such beliefs and doctrines. This immediately raises the question as to what use was made of the Logos concept by Jewish theologians. It has been usual to say that it was Philo of Alexandria who employed this conception in his interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. No doubt Philo's voluminous commentaries upon the LXX are the ones which are best known to Christians. But it is an error to suppose that Philo was the only Jew to write in this way. There were, beyond doubt, earlier commentators upon the LXX whose works no longer exist, although Philo refers to them; and one of these, Ezekiel the Tragic, in the second century B.c., said that it was the Logos who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Origen quotes Celsus as saying that the Jews (plural) believed in a divine Logos, and he does not question the statement.
But of course it is Philo who is best known in this connection. For Philo himself the Logos, like Hermes, is the Messenger of God Most High. He appears to Hagar in exile, to Jacob on leaving Laban,
and to the Israelites on their journey, conducting them through the
desert. He is the Rock; a most tremendous assertion when we consider the use of the term to describe Yahweh, both in the Scriptures and liturgy of the Jews. He is the divine Name and the divine Dwelling Place, and there is one pregnant sentence in the commentary on the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, where it is affirmed that the Logos appears and speaks. "But," says Philo, "where God speaks, He acts." There is no interval between His
Word and His Action. His Word is His Action (6 Adyos, épyov Fv avrotv). Moses, Abraham, and Melchizedek are all symbols of the Logos. In fact, just as Plutarch and Cornutus find the Logos in all sorts of episodes where supernatural or heroic beings have con-
tact with mankind, so does Philo; only, since he is a monotheist, his _____ Logos is always the manifestation of Yahweh. In his exegesis of _ Numbers 20:7 Philo makes "the king's highway" the equivalent
Revelation and the Divine Logos 189
of the Logos of God who is the Way of God. We are at once reminded of John 14:6.
Philo's Logos is eternal, is an essential part of Absolute Deity, and yet is subordinate to the latter, just as the Christ of the Fourth Gospel is represented as saying "My Father is greater than I."
Philo's Logos is the Water of Life, and the Bread from Heaven. He is the Shepherd who leads His flock. He is sinless. He is called
variously zapdxAntos, dpxtepévs, eixdv Ge03, avOpamas Oe0d, mpeaBevtns, and zpwrdyoves.* All but one of these epithets are applied to Jesus
in the New Testament.
The relation of the foregoing evidence to the phenomenon of the Fourth Gospel needs but little emphasis. This is my third proposi-
tion. It must be clear that the object of its compiler, whatever pfimitive traditions, oral or otherwise, he may have used, was to communicate knowledge of the historical Jesus of Nazareth to the Hellenistic Gentile world. It is possible that he was looking in two directions, and hoped that he would also convince Hellenistic Jewish readers, if they were of the same school of thought as Seek and others like him, but the fact that he so consistently refers
o "the Jews" in the third person instead of addressing them in the cae person suggests that the people he wishes to reach are mostly Greek-speaking Gentiles. That in this he was a pioneer seems supported by the apparent slowness with which (as Dr. C. K. Barrett has observed) the Fourth Gospel was accepted by the early Church.
However it did in the end accept it, and by a.p. 180 Irenaeus can write that there are four and only four canonical Gospels, of which "John's" is one.
The Christian Church came to present the prologue of this Gospel as the main liturgical Scripture-reading for Christmas Day, the
Zee feast of the birth of the historical Jesus; and later to prescribe it as the "last Gospel" to be read by every priest before leaving the altar at the conclusion of mass. The main point of the Cana story
(in chapter 2) which is so often missed, is that whatever happened at the wedding feast, the intelligent reader is expected to infer that Jesus was "greater than any mythical Dionysus": since Dionysus was alleged to turn water into wine in some of his temples, ears on certain of his festivals. At this point I would draw attention to
the link between John 1:4 and John 12:35, which seems clearly —
*Encourager or Comforter, High Priest, Image of God, Man of God, = Elder, and First-Born.
190 : CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
to show that they are the work of the same author, since three words in both are used in the same Se as, oxotia, and xaradapBaved ("'light," "darkness," "overtake" "overcome''). The next step after the composition of the Fourth Gospel seems
to have been taken by Justin Martyr (d. A.D. 156) as is well recog-
nized. Whether he knew the Fourth Gospel as we have it, can, I
suppose, never be fully established, and it is possible that he could have worked on independent lines. Who the "ancient man" was who led him to Christ must forever remain uncertain. But one thing we know: Justin's cultural background was that of Greek philosophy, and like the writer of the Johannine prologue he accepts the Logos as "the light that enlightens every man." The famous passages in his Apologies in which he draws inferences from this are well known, though for the sake of completeness they shall be quoted here: "We have shown that Christ is the Logos of whom the whole human race are partakers; and those who lived xara Adyov [in harmony with or in obedience to the Logos] are Christians even though associated atheists." Justin lists among those who lived xata Aoyov Heraclitus, Socrates, and Plato, and implies that he can think of many others. If pressed to give more names, he would
doubtless have added to the list Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Zeno, Chrysippus, Cleanthes, and perhaps Epictetus, Seneca, Cicero, | Cornutus, and Plutarch.
These statements have never been stigmatized as heretical, nor were they ever condemned by the undivided Church. It is only certain Protestant writers of the twentieth century who have called them in question. Moreover Justin, who sealed his discipleship with martyrdom, though never formally canonized, was venerated from
_ the time of his death, and thus his canonization has always been
_ accepted without question by subsequent generations. __ Coming thus to my propositions four and five, we are faced with
_ the dilemma: Either this treatment by the Johannine writer and
_ Justin was part of a great mistake, which perhaps began with the _ acceptance of the Fourth Gospel as canonical, or it was part of that growing into truth which the Johannine Christ is eepiaaes
One Promising to his disciples.®
*It is not without significance that for the Gentile Christians in Rome at
_ an early date the Fourth Gospel seems to have been their favorite. Apart
om the visit of the Magi (with its obvious implications) most of the paintes in the early catacombs come from the Johannine narrative,
Revelation and the Divine Logos 191
If we accept it as being the latter, then we are entitled to follow Justin's statements to their logical conclusion. This is my sixth
and final proposition.
It is now well known that, not only in Hellas, but in many Asian countries, prophets and sages have arisen, both in the axial age and
since, who, as Justin would have said, have endeavored steadfastly throughout their lives to live xara Adyov.1°
We can point to Zarathustra in Iran, in India to upanishadic teachers such as Yajnavalkya and Naciketas, as well as to the Buddha himself, to Nagarjuna, Sankara, and Ramanuja, to Bhakti
saints such as Chaitanya and Tukaram, to mystics like Kabir, to Bodhidharma (if he is historical), to Chinese sages such as Kung Fu-tze, Mo Ti and Chuang-tzu, to Japanese sages like Nichiren and Shinran, to Mohammed in his earlier phase, to al-Ghazzali and to some of the great Sufis, and among famous Jews to Maimonides and the BEShT (the initiator of Hasidic Judaism), and even to that stern denouncer of religion and yet the apostle of the Dialectic Process, the self-styled atheist Karl Marx himself, so like an Amos redivivus.
Such an extrapolation of Justin's thesis is rejected by Karl Barth, - Hendrik Kraemer, and all who stand on their side. But it would not have seemed improper to St. Thomas Aquinas, who wrote "if one explicitly believes in Providence, one must logically be held to believe in Christ, who is the supreme example of Providence," nor does it seem inconsistent with the teaching of the accredited modern Roman Catholic Theologian Pére Jean Daniélou. Bishop Westcott in The Gospel of Life seems in effect to accept it. So do the writers in the Anglican nineteenth-century symposium Lux Mundi. So does William Temple, both in his Gifford Lectures, and in his commentary on the Fourth Gospel; so also does the great Swedish Lutheran archbishop and theologian, Nathan Sdderblom of Uppsala.
Africa has so far not had time to produce any great philosophical thinkers; but no one who reads the account of African ideas of _ deity collected from many sources and expounded by Dr. E. W. —
% It is possible to see in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus (a.p. 218-_ 235) some rather clumsy attempts at developing the Logos-doctrine so as to include Asians. He is probably deriving some of his information from Megasthenes' Indica, and twice in Chapter 21 associates the Brabiaans with the Logos. :
192 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
Smith can doubt that in African minds the divine Logos has long been at work, and that the Christian doctrine of God appears congruous to Africans when they are confronted with it.
Nevertheless, when all is said and done, there seems always to be a gap between the sages and Jesus, which is not merely, as NeoProtestantism seems to claim, a gap between transempirical naturalism and Biblical realism. We see the recognition operating in the
first part of the anonymous second-century epistle Ad Diognetum, where the writer makes it clear that there is a distinction between the work of the Logos in Creation, and His work through Jesus in redemption. Something like the recognition of this seems to occur in Plutarch, who after all was not an explicit Christian. Plutarch, although he knows very well that, for his Stoic colleagues, the Logos is the one and only principle of being, governing, and directing the whole creaturely cosmos, differs from them in also recognizing (because he is too much of a realist not to do so), that nature, left to itself, is evil. Its own individualist tendencies, working on their own, only result in bringing disorder into the world. It is the supreme law of the Logos which can restore order and harmony, and make the individual members of the cosmos serve a higher end. The Christians would agree so far with Plutarch, but would add that this supreme law is not force, but Love. As the writer of the Ad Diognetum puts it Bia od rpdceote 74 Ges (force is not present in the mind of God).
But this gap of course is not entirely due to evil, but to finitude. As Westcott pointed out, and as Evelyn Underhill in a later essay
also emphasized, there is in many an individual sage or prophet an emphasis upon one aspect of divine Truth, whereas in the full Catholic Christian faith (which is perhaps rightly regarded as not yet complete) the supremacy of Jesus is linked with a recognition of all the many other aspects or facets of the one divine Truth. Bishop Westcott saw in Hindu philosophical theology a valuable stress upon the divine Immanence, while others have seen in Mohammed an equally valuable emphasis upon the divine Majesty and Transcendence. Yet both are exaggerations, and have need of Christian doctrine to bring Immanence and Transcendence into a balanced tension.
The foregoing considerations may serve to explain the undoubted fact that the teachings of some of the non-Christian sages seems to
_ be actually at variance with the Christian proclamation.
Revelation and the Divine Logos 193
It is not impossible that we shall find less disagreement when we come better to understand one another's use of terms. But it is only fair to suppose that some distortion or brokenness may occur
in places, as the result of the human element, with its imperfection,
finitude, and rebelliousness. There is certainly a good deal of
philosophy which is not obedient to the Universal Logos, and
which may therefore also contradict the Concrete Logos.
One of the very best points I think made by Tillich is that the divine Logos in this respect judges not only the disobedience of human wisdom, but also the disobedience within the Christian movement itself. Not even all Christians live xara Adyov, to use the words of Justin Martyr in a different context. Hence the Logos concrete in Jesus gives to the Church a constant possibility of selfcriticism, self-reformation, and self-renewal. This may well include the acquisition of a greater use of the relatedness which exists in all sincere religious activities, so that Christians may become more courageous in recognizing truth in other religions outside Christianity, and baptizing it into the service of the One Eternal Father of mankind. There is a very real sense in which the words of Justin are true and inspired: "Whatever men have uttered aright belongs
to us Christians, for we worship and love, next to God Almighty, the Logos which is from the Unbegotten and Ineffable God." Certain questions have recently been put to me which seem fair ones, and which at this point I ought to try to answer.
Question 1. By what criterion do you judge whether any nonChristian sage or prophet is living xaré Adyov (according to, or in tune with, the Logos)?
Answer. I judge by the same criterion as the first Christians. What led them to formulate their doctrine was on the one hand _ the unique and overwhelming personality of the historical Jesus, and on the other hand the spectacle of good and earnest teachers who were not Christians. The idea of the Cosmic Logos, who acted in creation and then supremely once and for all in redemption, helped them to bring the two sides together. But they would not have thought of bringing them together if it had not been for the — appearance in the world of the historical Jesus. Although the Johannine author seems to start from the Universal Logos and proceed toward Jesus, he would not have done so if he had not first known and remembered Jesus. It is only because of such — knowledge and remembrance that he undertakes the statement ofa ee
194 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
case which leads from the general to the particular. This does not involve him in the adoption of what may be called a "neo-Hindu" position. Like all other Christians he believes that what has cap- . tured him is in the end bound to incorporate and supersede all other forms of religious belief and practice. He never expects them to survive in a state of merely peaceful coexistence. However gradual the process, it is not destined to be one of mere syncretism, but of displacement, accompanied, no doubt, by a measure of reconception, but of displacement in the end. The standard is largely one of sincerity, and provides for the recognition of the partial adherence to a life lived xara Adyov.
To take one extreme case (perhaps the most extreme possible), that of Karl Marx. In his burning indignation against the exploitation of man by man, he is surely in line with the great Hebrew prophets whose work Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfill. In
his tenderness for children (it is said he could never resist a child in
distress) he comes very close to our Lord. But in his bitter hatred of opponents (perhaps due to his frequent affliction with carbuncles!), and in his rejection of the God of the Lord's Prayer, he
falls short. The least in the kingdom of heaven—in the divine realm where Agape prevails—is greater than he.
Question 2. What do you do when you encounter a sage or prophet, e.g., Sankara in one of his aspects, in whose system there seems no place for the concept of the Logos?
Answer. This seems a formidable question, since what drew Justin toward Heraclitus and Plato in the first instance was that they appeared actually to use the same language about God as some learned Hellenistic Jews and Christians. But if we look more closely we shall see that what Justin really commends is not that they taught a Logos doctrine, but that they lived cari Adyoy (in itself, as we have seen, a Heraclitean phrase), i.e., that they strove after the discovery of the truth, believing that the universe was not in essence
___ chaotic, but was only truly interpreted as the embodiment of a _ Single supreme formula, moral and spiritual as well as physical. Now this is what almost all philosophers have striven after and be-
____ lieved, and in so far as they do so, whether they accept Christ or 'not, they are certainly living cari Adyov.12
__* Discussing this point with a Hindu professor who I think knows more
_ about Sankara than any other living scholar and who is intimately acquainted with all his writings, I was interested to find that he felt that Sankara, in
Revelation and the Divine Logos 195
It may be said that in this essay the actual idea of revelation (which occurs in its title), seems to get left out. The omission is only apparent. With the late Professor Gwatkin I would assert that
all knowledge is in some sense revelation. The urge to know is implanted in us by the self-expression of the Living God which we have
called here the divine Logos. Therefore the process of the acquisi-
tion of true knowledge about anything in the cosmos is rightly de-
scribed as "God causing Himself to be understood"; and in the
words of the Fourth Gospel, Life eternal [which can begin here and
now] is getting-to-know the only True God, and His unique self-
expression for this planet in the historical Jesus. But the contention
of the Christian is that in Jesus it was not a case of God gradually
causing Himself to be understood, but of a discontinuous action in
history; not of general but of special revelation. Jesus himself wrote
no book. He spoke much, it is true. But it was his life which pre-
eminently proclaimed the nature of God, and it is through that life,
extended in the lives of his followers (many of whom are either
illiterate or inarticulate) that God is supremely known in His highest
attribute of Holy Love.
This brings one finally to Question 3. You say that the historical incarnation of the Logos spoken of in the Johannine prologue is superior to the mythical and fictional incarnations of Hermes, Rama, Krishna, or Pan. Why should this be so? If an idea is edifying, why need it be fact rather than fiction? Cannot God if He chooses reveal Himself by inspiring someone to tell a story which, even if not historical, symbolizes truth? (This was really a most important question, partly because it is one that is frequently asked in India.)
Answer. Let us consider first, not Jesus of Nazareth, but some © of the sages who are alleged to have lived xara Adyor. It obviously makes some difference whether these sages really lived, or not. It would be possible to make up any number of beautiful tales in which the hero lived xara Adyov, but that would not prove that he _ 2 existed, or even that anyone resembling him had so lived. It would
only prove that the author or authors of the tales admired such Are character. There is some doubt as to whether Lao-tzu ever lived,
one aspect of his thought, would have had no difficulty about accepting the idea of the Cosmic Logos; and he added that even in philosophical Buddhism — there was a recognition of the Prajnaparamita, which was remarkably like —
the Stoic Logos.
196 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
but there can be no doubt that the Tao té Ching represents doctrine which was certainly propagated by an early group of Taoists. There is also some doubt as to whether Bodhidharma, the reputed apostle of Zen Buddhism, ever lived. The Japanese Bodhisattva, Amitabha, is a purely mythical character; even if his successor Hozo be faintly historical, nothing is really known about him.
With regard to Rama and Krishna. In the original Ramayana
of Valmiki (some centuries B.c.), Rama is merely a hero-king. There is not the slightest sign that he is thought of as a divine
avatar. It is only centuries later (ca., A.D. 1530) that Tulsi Das invests him with supernatural attributes as the avatar of Vishnu; whereas from the very first there was a gospel about Jesus as well as
a gospel by Jesus.
The story and sentiments of the Gita are extremely beautiful, but it is imaginative fiction. A teacher called Vasudeva, of whom nothing is known but his name, has become identified with Krishna, the god of a pastoral people, who somewhat resembles Pan or Dionysus; and the Gita discourses are put into his mouth. Moreover even the God of the Gita ends by being seen in a vision as the Destroyer. He too is only the personification of tropical nature, and is not the God of the Lord's Prayer. The influence of Rama and Vasudeva—Krishna upon the lives of Indian people is both profound and pathetic, and I should myself not feel disinclined to see the Logos at work in both.
- But from the very first the essential point about Jesus of Nazareth is his contemporary historicity. He managed to replace all other cult personalities by being real instead of mythical. Even in the Fourth Gospel He is made to describe himself as "a man that hath told you the truth." His crucifixion when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea is completely attested; and whatever may have been and are the exact nature of the post-Resurrection appearances, the evidence is clear enough that they have taken place, and still take place, and that the fact of the Resurrection effected a reversal of the events of Calvary.
Thus the career of Jesus as the Logos Incarnate is not a record of what people would like to have happened, but of what actually did happen. It is not an edifying fiction, but a supreme event in the life of the Eternal Deity, and an event in the spatiotemporal order by which something decisive for the human race was achieved: _and therefore it counts in a way which it never could have counted
Om re 5 Rei,
' \®
. rk) « : Ae Pee. ? .
Revelation and the Divine Logos 197
if it were dissolved into a corn myth, as Sir James Frazer and Mr. J. M. Robertson tried to dissolve it. The stark fact of the Gospels shows that the myths of dying gods are only woe of the hunger of mankind for a redeemer. The assertion, 6 Adyos odpé éyévero (the Word became flesh) is the answer to human cravings.
I would wish to add that my emphasis upon Philo and other Jewish commentators and upon their Gentile predecessors and contemporaries does not mean that I am trying to pull to pieces the Gospel portrait of Jesus and to show how it was constructed as a
sort of composite portrait, a synthetic attempt at creating a wor-
shipful divine-human figure out of the desires, legends, and wishful
thinking of the various races of mankind. My contention would be
that the synthesis was there first, and that its nature was recognized
afterwards. It is not because somebody wrote a book called Poi-
mandres, or because Philo described the Logos as a Shepherd, or
even because of the existence of the 23rd Psalm or of Ezekiel
34 that Jesus is represented in John 10 as saying "I am the good
shepherd." On the contrary it was because his friends remembered
that Jesus had said that, and because throughout his earthly
ministry he behaved as a Good Pastor and commissioned Peter to
feed his flock, that the link between Jesus and other representations
of the divine Character came to be recognized.
In conclusion, one may be expected to say something about what one would wish the Asian convert to Christianity to do with regard to his sages. If the Logos doctrine be accepted, is there any precedent for his using these sages to give a kind of background to his theology?
Obviously there is. In the past history of the Christian Church one has not only the use made by the Alexandrian Fathers of their classical inheritance, but the use made by the medieval schoolmen — and especially by Aquinas of the works of Aristotle. Further we have the phenomenon in England of the Christian Platonists of the seventeenth century, who were certainly Christians, and indulged . in no foolish syncretism, but equally clearly paid respect to whatever value they found in the writings of Plato. And again there is a good evidence that the late Stoic treatise known as the Hortensius :
of Cicero was read and valued by medieval Christians, although it ae
is now known to us only in fragmentary quotations, while much
earlier a great deal of Stoicism was absorbed into Christianity by such Latin teachers as Ambrose. I have therefore urged Bee ae
198 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
that it might not be impossible for there to be Christian Buddhists, Christian Moslems, Christian Vedantists, and Christian Confucians
or Taoists, in the same sense that in the past there have been Christian Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics.
In this way the way the names of the great sages might be preserved and revered, yet without the essence of Christian doctrine being contaminated. One would not expect the Asian sages to be quoted where they were not in support of the Christian faith, or
fell obviously below the level of it; but it would surely be foolish not to use (for example) the witness of such a document as the Svetasvatara Upanishad in the matter of theism, or the witness of
an inspired teacher like Shinran to the doctrine of sola fide, even though trust in the merits of Amida is in itself only trust in a myth. The witness of a Koranic Sufi to the utter devotion of the human soul to the glory of God may be one-sided in its omission of the idea of any duty to one's neighbor, but it is a faithful witness of its
kind, and is balanced, even in Islam, by the so-called "shepherd principle," which is clearly derived from Christianity. Similarly one _ would not endorse Plato's acceptance of the institution of slavery,
or Epictetus's view of extramarital sex relations. Justin himself does not say: "Whatever men have said belongs to us Christians,"
but: "Whatever men have uttered aright, etc."
And further, to extrapolate the Logos doctrine of the Greek Fathers is to include not only pre-Christian sages, but wise and _ earnest men in every century who have lived and taught in isolation
_ from or in ignorance of the true teaching of the Christian move-
'The Interpenetration of Christianity
and the Non-Christian Religions
BY L. HAROLD DE WOLF
The Actual Interpenetration =
I. In the First Century a
Considering the manner in which the Christian faith was originated, we should expect to find much of Christian doctrine, ritual, ethical teaching, and mood to have been contributed by Judaism. It is sometimes forgotten by Christian people that Jesus not only was born and circumcised a Jew, but was a habitual attendant at services of the synagogue 1 and worked almost exclusively—though the excephons are extremely significant—within the Jewish com- — munity." s Apparently all of the twelve apostles were Jews and St. Paul called himself "ta Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee." * The Church was founded in Jerusalem and there wasa 7 live question until the first council there whether anyone not a J eS ; could be a Christian. After that issue had been resolved it was still _ the almost invariable custom of St. Paul to begin his work in every _ city at the local synagogue. It would, indeed, be surprising if the
*Lk. 4:16. Cf. Mt. 10:6.
* Pink 3255
200 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
Christian movement did not show from the beginning much evidence of Jewish influence within its own life.
To say that there is much of such evidence is a gross understatement. Within the brief compass of the Gospels alone there are literally hundreds of explicit or implied references to the Old Testament, including many quotations. Many such references are used as citations of authority. The sermons in the Book of Acts and the apostolic exhortations in the Epistles indicate that apostolic faith in Jesus was habitually represented as grounded in the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Pentateuch. Everywhere in the New Testament it is taken for granted that the God made known in Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
New Testament faith understands man to have been created in the image of God and to have fallen into sin so that the divine likeness has been corrupted. This doctrine of man is given on the authority of the Old Testament. So also is Jesus' teaching in support of the Pharisees' belief in the resurrection of the dead.*
Christian ethics was, from the beginning, a modified version of Hebrew ethics. Christians, like the Jews before them, understand the norms of human righteousness as grounded in the doctrine of God's own righteousness and of His law. When Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment he replies by quoting from the Shema, then adds a second commandment quoted from Leviticus. To be sure, he gives to the "neighbor" such a universal meaning as to transcend the national particularism of Leviticus, concerning both the neighbor to whom love is due and even more the person who is obliged to love.* Moreover, divine grace and forgiving love, which are prominent but secondary in the Old Testament, become central in New Testament ethics. The stress on purity of inner motive also characterizes the New Testament teaching to the point of repudiating various specific requirements of Hebrew law. Yet all these changes are in accord with some trends of teaching in the later Prophets and, together with the regrounding of ethics in the person of Jesus, constitute the fulfillment, not the abolition, of "the law and the prophets." " Even when Paul is glorying in Christian freedom from the old bondage of the law, he reaffirms the moral require-
*Mk. 12:18-27.
® Mt. 22:36-39; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18. ®Lk. 10:29-37. ™Mt. 5:17.
Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions 201
ments of the spiritual life in terms clearly drawn from Hebrew teaching * and exhorts Christian believers to that brotherly love by which they "fulfill the law of Christ." ®
Most Christian scholars would grant that their faith was a fulfillment rather than a radical displacement of Judaism. But what of other religions? Did any others contribute to the New Testament faith?
The relations of pre-Christian and first-century Judaism to nonBiblical religions are still much under investigation. However, few Old Testament scholars would defend the doctrine that no other religions contributed to the religion of the ancient Hebrews. Some aspects of Old Testament doctrine and practice are clearly characteristic of much primitive religion in widely distributed areas. Among such aspects are the close association between the forbidden or taboo and the sacred, the identification of strange and especially of terrifying natural phenomena with deity, and the offering of sacrifices on specially consecrated altars. The Hebrews well recognized such common elements. Not only were these elements a frequent source of temptation to leave Yahweh and worship other gods, but they serve also to provide the common frame of reference for appeals to worship Yahweh instead of other gods—as when Elijah and the priests of Baal call upon their respective deities to burn their offerings on Mount Carmel.' Often it is taken for granted that as Israel worships Yahweh, other peoples worship their own gods.1!
More specifically, various scholars believe that they can find evidences in the ancient Old Testament religion of contributions from the Egyptians, Midianites, Canaanites, and Babylonians. In A order to affirm the unrivaled originality of Israel's tradition, it is not necessary to deny such contributions. 4 It must be apparent to anyone whose mind is fice to judge by the evidence that the Christian teachings in the New Testament include contributions from other religions in addition to the influences coming through and from Judaism. When it is considered that the New Testament books were written in Greek, in a period — when there was much blending of Hellenic and Jewish thought, it
*Gal. 5:13-25. °Gal. 5:2. 1 Kings 17:21-39. ™ See especially Mic. 4:5.