The Agony of the Church | Page 6

Him, they were reconciled.
He was the Holy Wisdom, in which everyone could find a mansion for
himself, every disciple, every nation, every form of worship,
everything--but the unclean spirit.

THE INCLUSIVE WISDOM IN THE CHURCH'S ORGANISATION
Let us look now to the Christian Church in the early time of her
formation.
Jesus Christ gave the largest possible scheme on which to work and the
largest foundation to build upon. There is no other name in history
upon which more has been constructed than upon His name. The
primitive Church realised it from the beginning, and declared it. She
was inclusive from the first, inclusive in her teaching and worship.
(a) Inclusive in Teaching.--Christ was put in the centre of the world's
history. He represented what was the best and highest in Eastern and
Western thought. The dream of Messias was the best and highest in the

Jewish conception. Well, Jesus was the Messias.
The expectation of a second Adam, the redeemer of the first, sinful
Adam, was common among the peoples in Palestine and Mesopotamia.
Well, Jesus was the second Adam, the expected Redeemer, God's
Messenger.
Egypt had an intuition into the mystery of the Divinity as a Trinity.
However rough may have been that idea, the Trinity being thought of
as a human family of Father, Mother, and Son, still it existed very
vividly in Egypt. And the people expected the coming of God's only
Son, the third person of their Trinity, not an imaginary being like Horus,
but the real son of Osiris in flesh and blood who would bring happiness
to men. Well, Jesus of Nazareth was this Son of God, and He as Christ
was the eternal sharer of the Divine Trinity.
India was the cradle of the teaching of the Incarnation. The supreme
God, Brahma, had already been incarnated in many persons since the
dawn of history. But the highest incarnation of Him was still to come.
Well, Jesus Christ was this highest incarnation of Brahma in human
shape.
The cultivated polytheists did not like the idea of a monotonous
theology of one solitary God. They liked rather a divine company upon
Olympus. Well, Christianity with its Trinity-teaching presented to them
a limited polytheism. God was not physically one, as in Judaism, nor
many, as in Hellenism. He was a Trinitarian Plurality in Unity. He was
not a grim hermit, but He had the riches of an eternal life.
The intellectual Greeks and Hellenists climbed to the idea of one God
and of Logos, the Mediator between God and the world, through whom
God created whatever He created, and who may be incarnated for the
salvation of the fallen, suffering creation. Well, Jesus Christ could
include in His person this wonderful doctrine of Neoplatonism.
The mountainous Asia under Caucasus and Ararat, plunged into the
mystery of Mithras, which was born out of the Zoroastrian dualistic
religion of light and darkness, of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Well now,

Christ, the friend of humanity, revealed Himself as the God of light
struggling against Satan, the enemy of humanity.
Rome, politically ruling the world, was longing for a sacred King, for a
Prince of Peace, who should come from the East and bring to the
people some higher and truer happiness than that deceiving chimera of
political bigness. Well, Christ should be this universal, sacred King,
this Prince of Peace, and Messenger of a durable happiness. It is not
true that Christ had His prophets among the people of Israel only. His
prophets existed in every race and every religion and philosophy of old.
That is the reason why the whole world could claim Christ, and how He
can be preached to everybody and accepted by everybody. Behold, He
was at home everywhere!
(b) Inclusive in Worship.--Inclusive in doctrine, the primitive Church
was wisely inclusive in worship too. It would be nonsense to speak of
Christian worship as of something quite new and surprising. There was
very little new and very little surprising in it indeed; almost nothing.
The first Church met for prayer in the Jewish temple. Wherever the
apostles came to preach the new Gospel they went to the old places of
prayer, to the temples of Jehovah. Their Christian spirit did not revolt
against the old forms of worship. Later on the naked Christian spirit
needed to be clothed, and it was clothed. But when Israel looked to
Christian worship they recognised much--forms, signs, vestments and
administration--to be like their own. And not only Israel, but even
Egypt, India, Babylon and Persia, Greece and Rome, yea, the Pagans of
North and South. If Nature could speak, it could say how much it lent
of its own to Christian worship.
A student of ancient history one day asked me: "How can I recognise
the Christian religion as