The Jesus of History | Page 3

is the same.

To the modern student of man and his history the old easy way of
excluding religion as an absurdity, the light prediction of its speedy, or
at least its eventual, disappearance from the field of human life, and
other dogmatisms of the like kind, are almost unintelligible. We realize
that religion in some form is a natural working of the human spirit, and,
whatever place we give to religion in the conduct of our own lives, as
students of history we reckon with the religious instinct as a factor of
the highest import, and we give to religious systems and
organizations--above all, to religious teachers and leaders--a more
sympathetic and a profounder study. Carlyle's lecture on Muhammad,
in his course on "Heroes and Hero Worship," may be taken as a
landmark for English people in this new treatment history.
The Christian Church, whether we like it or not, has been a force of
unparalleled power in human affairs; and prophecies that it will no
longer be so, and allegations that by now it has ceased to be so, are not
much made by cautious thinkers. There is evidence that the influence of
the Christian Church, so far from ebbing, is rising--evidence more
obvious when we reflect that the influence of such a movement is not
to be quickly guessed from the number of its actual adherents. A
century and a quarter of Christian missions in India have resulted in so
many converts--a million and a quarter is no slight outcome; but that is
a small part of the story. All over India the old religious systems are
being subjected to a new study by their own adherents; their weak
points are being felt; there are reform movements, new apologetics,
compromises, defences--all sorts of indications of ferment and
transition. There can be little question that while many things go to the
making of an age, the prime impulse to all this intellectual, religious,
and moral upheaval was the faith of Christian missionaries that Jesus
Christ would bring about what we actually see. They believed--and
they were laughed at for their belief--that Jesus Christ was still a real
power, permanent and destined to hold a larger place in the affairs of
men; and we see that they were right. Jesus remains the very heart and
soul of the Christian movement, still controlling men, still capturing
men--against their wills very often--changing men's lives and using
them for ends they never dreamed of. So much is plain to the candid
observer, whatever the explanation.

We find further, another fact of even more significance to the historian
who will treat human experience with seriousness and sympathy. The
cynical view that delusion and error in a real world have peculiar power
in human affairs, may be dismissed; no serious student of history could
hold it.
For those who believe, as we all do at heart, that the world is rational,
that real effects follow real causes, and conversely that behind great
movements lie great forces, the fact must weigh enormously that
wherever the Christian Church, or a section of it, or a single Christian,
has put upon Jesus Christ a higher emphasis--above all where
everything has been centred in Jesus Christ--there has been an increase
of power for Church, or community, or man. Where new value has
been found in Jesus Christ, the Church has risen in power, in energy, in
appeal, in victory.
Paul of Tarsus progressively found more in Christ, expected more of
him, trusted him more; and his faith was justified. If Paul was wrong,
how did he capture the Christian Church for his ideas? If he was wrong,
how is it that when Luther caught his meaning, re-interpreted him and
laid the same emphasis on Jesus Christ with his "Nos nihil sumus,
Christus solus est omnia"[2], once more the hearts of men were won by
the higher doctrine of Christ's person and power, and a new era
followed the new emphasis? How is it that, when John Wesley made
the same discovery, and once more staked all on faith in Christ, again
the Church felt the pulse of new life?
On the other hand, where through a nebulous philosophy men have
minimized Jesus, or where, through some weakness of the human mind,
they have sought the aid of others and relegated Jesus Christ to a more
distant, even if a higher, sphere--where, in short, Christ is not the living
centre of everything, the value of the Church has declined, its life has
waned. That, to my own mind, is the most striking and outstanding fact
in history. There must be a real explanation of a thing so signal in a
rational universe.
The explanation in most human affairs comes after the recognition of
the fact. There our great fact stands of