A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels

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A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels
ed. by James Hastings

The Princeton Theological Review 6:655-662. [1908]
Of Dr. Hastings’ large encyclopedic program, embracing no less than four voluminous dictionaries,
this is the second work to reach publication, the Dictionary of the Bible having preceded it, and the
Dictionary of Religion and Ethics and the smaller Bible Dictionary (in one volume) still being in
course of preparation. The present work professes to be something different from an enlargement
of that portion of the Bible Dictionary which relates to Christ and the Gospels. Instead of being
occupied mainly with things biographical, historical, geographical or antiquarian, it seeks to meet
“the need of the preacher, to whom Christ is everything” . The preface states that “it seeks to cover all
that relates to Christ throughout the Bible and in the life, and literature of the world” , and promises
“articles on the Patristic estimate of Jesus, the Medieval estimate, the Reformation and Modern
estimates” ; further, “articles on Christ in the Jewish writings and in the Muslim literature” , and goes
on to say that “every aspect of modern life, in so far as it touches or is touched by Christ, is described
under its proper title” . We are told that, to suit the practical, homiletical purpose of the Dictionary,
the writers of the articles have been carefully chosen from among those scholars who are, or have
been, themselves preachers. In regard to the other half of the title, the Gospels, the scope of the work
is not limited to what these writings tell about themselves; the extra-biblical testimony to their origin
and their history is likewise dealt with, as articles like those on Aristion, Ebionism, Papias and others
indicate. It is obvious that, unless the whole history of Gospel-criticism were included, a line had
to he drawn somewhere. But the same necessity of limitation existed in regard to the Christological
part. Satisfactorily to exhibit the significance of Christ as a factor in history would overtax the
powers of the most encyclopedic mind. Even the editorial mapping out of a scheme for attempting
this would appear a Herculean task, at least to the theologian who conceives of Christ in accordance
with Col. 1:15-20. The question may be raised whether the thing can be properly done at all under
the alphabetical plan, and whether some systematic treatment under broad religious and theological
headings by a limited number of writers would not be preferable. In point of fact, the editor resorts
to such a method in the Appendix, where a series of articles on “Christ in the Early Church” , “Christ
in the Middle Ages” , “Christ in the Reformation Theology” , “Christ in Modern Thought” , “Christ
in Jewish Literature” , “Christ in Mohammedan Literature” , and (strange to say) on “Paul” is added.
The juxtaposition of Christ and the Gospels in the title would seem to indicate that the Dictionary
means to deal chiefly with the Gospel-Christ or the so-called historical Christ as in some sense
distinguishable from the Christ of the Old Testament, the Apostolic Christ, the Christ of the
Creeds, the Christ of Theology. But, while this to some extent is kept in view, more space being
devoted to it than to anything else, it is by no means rigidly adhered to as a matter of principle. We
learn something about Christ in all these other aspects, only not enough to satisfy us or to give us
a proper sense of proportion. Nor is the manner in which the Christ of the Gospels is presented
here purely objectively determined by the view-points which the Gospels themselves furnish, but to
no small degree by the subjective appreciation and preference of the present age for certain sides
and elements in the character of Christ. What we get is not always the historical, but sometimes the
modern, Christ. Perhaps the homiletical purpose of the Dictionary made it difficult to avoid this.
Still, we cannot help feeling that, like all theology, so a theological dictionary should set before itself
as its ideal not so much the voicing, but rather the correction and perfecting, of the spirit of the times.
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There is not a little within the covers of these two volumes that savors less of the dictionary than of
the contemporary pulpit. We find a sermon where we might expect an exposition, and sometimes
the sermon, as modern sermons are apt to do, one-sidedly exploits, if it does not outright distort,
the biblical facts for its own specific purpose. This free play of subjectivity on the part of the several
writers has also accentuated a feature that can never be entirely eliminated where many minds work
together, viz., the cropping out of divergence of opinion on important subjects. Denio, who puts
the sufferings of Christ and their necessity on a line with the sufferings of all God’s servants in the
establishment of the Kingdom of God (II, 268), is contradicted by Denney, who characterizes such
a view as “less than the whole truth” (II, 398). Such differences even appear where the same topic is
treated from two points of view by two writers in succession, as, e.g., the Lord’s Supper by Falconer
(sacrament = mere symbol) and Darwell Stone (“the consecrated elements are the spiritual body and
blood of the risen and ascended Christ” ). But, even where the contradiction is not so conspicuous
by reason of proximity, it is none the less real in many cases where certain articles in their advocacy
of liberalizing theological positions run contrary to the traditional faith of the Church as reflected,
we are glad to say, in the majority of contributions. It seems to us, the editorial supervision might
to advantage have been exercised somewhat more strictly. Also, apart from conflicting views, the
cross-references might have been profitably multiplied. E.g., under the article Holy Spirit, where the
phrase “Spirit of glory and of God” (1 Pet. 4:14) is commented upon, a cross-reference to the article
“Shekinah” , whose author proposes to understand Glory as a proper name of Christ, ought not to
be wanting.
Special interest attaches to these conflicts of opinion where they touch the fundamentals of faith, such
issues as supernaturalism, inspiration, the authority of Christ, the vicariousness of the atonement,
the monergism of divine grace. As to supernaturalism it is gratifying to note that the bulk of the
articles reflect an unqualified acceptance of the church’s historic position on this question, and is in
so far faithful to the spirit of the Gospels themselves. Still, statements of a different complexion are
not entirely absent. The article on Miracles, under the head of modern conceptions of the order of
nature, tells us that-
“The ancient antagonism between the natural and the supernatural has broken down, and the
two spheres are seen to be one, regarded from opposite poles. Grave objections lie against the term
-supernatural,’ which is entirely unscriptural, and many modern thinkers prefer the term -spiritual’
to express the animating and sustaining power which pervades all things.”
To the same effect we read in the article on Revelation that the manifestation of the Eternal in the
world
“may be either ordinary or extraordinary by which it is not intended to suggest any distinction
between what is natural and what is supernatural. That distinction may not be tenable, for we do not
know all the possibilities of nature, and so do not know what may be above it” .
In fact, the trend of this whole article is to explain revelation, while upholding its necessity and
reality, in terms of immanence.
More frequent are statements implying skepticism with regard to the strict historicity of the biblical
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records in general and of the Gospels in particular. The Gospel according to Matthew fares worst in
this respect. Its reliability as a historic witness to the sayings of Jesus is called in question on account of
its principle of selection and artificial grouping, resulting in overemphasis of statement. The Jewish-
Christians stood too near the life of Christ to form any adequate conception of the true meaning
of His person and work. They labored under a mistake as to His teaching on the permanence of
the law. This Gospel also distorts Jesus’ eschatological teaching by selecting and producing sayings
which emphasize the nearness of the parousia. It makes out that the preaching to the Gentiles is but
“for a testimony” , and ranks the Gentile converts as proselytes merely in the Jewish church. They
were to be made “disciples” in the specific sense; the wedding-garment of the parable is the Jewish
righteousness. (Article on Matthew’s Gospel.) In another article we learn, to the discredit of the same
Evangelist, that he gives a fantastic and allegorical interpretation of the sign of Jonah and that Chap.
23:2 shows traces of influence of later ideas, in that it represents Jesus as countenancing obedience
to the legal teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees (article Old Testament). Over against this must be
placed the ample recognition and able defense which the historicity of the Gospel-narrative, at least
that of the Synoptics, receives in by far the greater number of articles which have occasion to touch
on this question. This is the case even where the stress of recent criticism might have tempted to a
less certain note, e.g., in connection with the gospel of the nativity in Matthew and Luke. The virgin-
birth is admirably treated by Box in the article bearing that title. The only exception here that has
come under our notice concerns the narrative of the visit of the magi, the positive evidence for the
truth of which, we are told, is slender, so that we must content ourselves with the concession that
there may possibly be a substratum of historical fact. (Article Magi.)
In a dictionary especially adapted for preachers “to whom Christ is everything” it might fairly be
expected that the authority of Christ as a teacher would he recognized as absolute without reserve in
any respect. To our regret, we have not found this to be so. While respected by the majority of the
writers, in some instances it is called in question, restricted, or even denied. So conservative a man
as Denney excludes from its field of application all science, on the ground that science constitutes a
sphere in which there can be no authority, only facts. This seems a specious solution of an old and
vexed problem. In the article on Plan we learn that our Lord made no definite provision for the
establishment of an outward church, and its worldwide extension. He delivered His message to His
own people and formed no clear design of a work that should embrace all people. This is in direct
contradiction to the view so ably unfolded in the article on Foresight. Denney, in his articles on
Authority of Christ and Preaching Christ, reveals a quite perceptible shrinking from the acceptance
at its face-value of our Lord’s eschatological teaching. In the latter of these articles he says:
“Account has been taken in art. -Authority of Christ’ of any considerations which go to qualify the
certainty with which we ascribe to Jesus Himself the eschatological conception of the consummation
of God’s kingdom; but if we do connect it with Him, and regard it as part of what is meant when
He represents Himself as the Christ, clearly history requires us to recognize the inadequacy of that
conception to be the vehicle of the truth. . . . We may say that the spectacular representations of
the judgment are a form which we may recognize to have only a relative value, while yet we do not
dispute in the least the absolute truth that the standard of reality and of worth in the spiritual world
is Jesus.”
Here Jesus the judge becomes Jesus the standard, although in the Gospel-teaching the two are never
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identified. The same point of view emerges a little later in the statement:
“It may be possible to strip from the gospel of St. Peter without detriment to its essence some of that
vesture of eschatological Messianism which it necessarily wore at the time.”
Farthest in this direction, although it only carries to a logical conclusion the views already stated,
goes the article on Accommodation, which represents our Lord as necessarily thinking and teaching
in the forms of thought and belief of His time, not, however, in the sense of conscious adjustment,
but in harmony with the kenosis-hypothesis. Here the inference, whether the church ought not
perhaps to practice a conscious accommodation in teaching, is seriously considered.
Coming to the doctrinal positions represented in the Dictionary, we find an even greater degree of
divergence. The anti-dogmatic and anti-metaphysical spirit with which Ritschlianism has inoculated
the present-day theological mind is in evidence here and there. We read much of the “impression”
made by Christ (e.g., I, 470). The most outspoken Ritschlianism is found in the article “Back to
Christ” , which contains a formal indictment of the metaphysical Christology and soteriology of the
early creeds. To be sure, the author of this article ostensibly simply relates after an objective fashion
what the Ritschlian movement stands for, but he does it with such evident sympathy and with such
entire abstinence from criticism, that one can scarcely help putting him down as an advocate rather
than a disinterested historian. For, while Ritschlianism is not criticized with so much as a word, the
Christocentric theology of Fairbairn is charged with half-heartedness because it continues to place
the essence of the character of Christ in the miraculous elements of the Gospel-narrative, such as
“His moral perfection and consciousness of sinlessness, His assertion of a unique knowledge of
God and of a sonship different in kind from that possible to His disciples, His assertion of His
Messiahship and preexistence, His demand for absolute devotion to His Person, His claim to a
superhuman authority in forgiving sins and in dealing with Old Testament institutions and laws, His
claim to be the Savior of the world, the arbiter of human destiny, the final judge. Similarly, His outer
life receives its character from the virgin-birth, the miracles (interpreted in the strict sense), and,
above all, from the bodily resurrection.” Fairbairn is criticized because the historical Christ is to him
“the transcendent and miraculous Christ, the Christ who was conscious of superhuman dignity and
who was declared by the resurrection from the dead to be the Son of God with power. And not only
this, the Ritschlian assertion is here repeated that in the synoptical version of Jesus’ gospel-preaching
there is no place for Jesus Himself as an object of religious faith. The Christ to whom we are called
back is the Christ teaching the forgiveness of sins without the need of propitiation. Unfortunately,
there is no assurance given that, having once retraced our steps to this “historical Jesus” , we shall
be permitted to rest there permanently. The summons “Back to Christ” is only preparatory to the
further demand: Back from the peripheral to the central Christ, for we are told by this same writer
that “we must distinguish between central and peripheral elements, and between the enduring spirit
and the passing form of manifestation. We cannot, for example, revive the primitive expectation
of the world’s speedy end or the ideas about angels, Satan, unclean spirits as the agents in disease,
which Jesus shared with His contemporaries. The gospel must be translated into the language of
today, and its spirit applied to the relations of our modern life” (I, 165).
The two doctrines which constitute the heart of evangelical religion, that of the atonement and of
justification by faith, come in for their share of criticism. The first volume, it is true, contains a good
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article on Atonement from the pen of Principal Simpson. But whatever good it might accomplish is
largely undone by the two articles on Sacrifice and Vicarious Sacrifice in Vol. II. In that on Sacrifice
Matt. 20:28, the well-known ransom-passage is interpreted as follows:
“The idea clearly is that men are enslaved and that Christ gives His life to set them free; but the
question still remains as to the nature of the bondage. -From death, from the guilt of sin and its
punishment’, says the odd theology, or, as it is sometimes expressed, -from the wrath of God’. But
there is not a single word upon the lips of Christ to justify this interpretation, and, as we shall see
later, wherever in the N.T. the death of Christ is called a deliverance or a ransom, it is always a being
purchased for God, a being delivered from the bondage of sin to serve God that is thought of.”
As if being purchased for the service of God excluded a being purchased from the curse of God, and
as if not the latter, rather than bondage of sin, instituted for Paul the terminus a quo in the movement
of redemption. A little later we read:
“To imagine that Christ in those words represents the Father as requiring a ransom at His hands
before He can forgive mankind is to render His revelation of the Heavenly Father wholly inconsistent,
is to give the lie to all His earlier words regarding the mercy and compassion of God. The parable of
the Prodigal Son in the light of this later presentation becomes an impossibility.” . . . “Christ called
His blood about to be shed the blood of the new covenant in the sense that His death of course
would inspire His followers with new life, would be to them in the first place a means of breaking
the power of sin in their lives.”
The hackneyed and, among reputable exegetes, thoroughly discredited arguments are here pressed
into service again, such as that the Pauline formula is not “Christ reconciled God” , but “God
reconciled us in Christ” , and that therefore the obstacle must have been in man, not in God, or
that ilaskesqai is not used by Scripture in the pagan sense of “appeasing God” , but has sin for its
object, whence the unwarranted inference is straightway drawn, that therefore the whole transaction
must lie in the subjective sphere. The article on “Mediator” , although on the whole more rotund,
does not entirely steer clear of this same fault of subjectivizing the atonement when it states: “Christ
is our propitiation, because He gives us inwardly that power, that communication of his own life,
which cleanses us from sin.” Translated into the language of justification, the principle embodied in
such statements amounts to the downright denial of the common Protestant position, of which the
article on Righteousness furnishes a sad illustration. A more absolute travesty of the Pauline doctrine
can scarcely be conceived than finds expression in these words: “The salvation of his life had come
to him in the conviction that God takes the will for the deed, and that, in union with the risen
Christ, the human will is kept constantly true.” But the climax of this sort of exegetical perverseness
is reached in the article on Vicarious Sacrifice, the whole of which is nothing else but a deliberate
attack on the substitutionary, penal interpretation of the atonement, and a special plea for putting
the moral-influence theory in its place.
Where even common evangelicalism is not safe, it is not to be wondered at that specific Calvinism
fares badly. In fact, it is scarcely deemed worthy of attack; the writers largely ignore it. And yet even
a critic as Johannes Weiss has assured us that there is a predestinarian element in the Synoptical
Gospels. Under the head of Necessity it is first conceded that the advocates of theological determinism
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as taught by Calvin “can appeal plausibly to a considerable number of N. T. passages” . Next it is
observed that these passages of deterministic tendency are balanced by others of opposite import.
Then the following statement is offered by way of synthesis: “Since some reject God’s benevolent
purposes and refuse to be saved, it follows that the human will is free, and that the apparently
deterministic passages of Scripture must be so interpreted as to leave room for human freedom.
We are led, therefore, to some such view as this, that only the main events of human history are
absolutely determined beforehand. The persons by whom and the times when the Divine purposes
are to be realized are not predetermined absolutely, but only conditionally.” According to the writer
on Universalism, the Calvinistic limitation of the intent of salvation “is little heard of now in Great
Britain, except among some of the Evangelicals in the Church of England and some of the Baptists.
The controversy has gone to sleep, or judgment in the cause goes by default” . It is entirely in accord
with this that no attempt is made to show the Calvinistic position exegetically untenable. We can
only be thankful that the author of this article, notwithstanding a strong leaning in that direction,
does not go the full length of advocating Universalism in the sense of universal ultimate salvation,
but candidly confesses that there is “no ground for challenging the old doctrine on exegetical lines” .
The article on “Elect, Election” well-nigh entirely ignores the sovereign character of the divine
choice, and that on the following basis: “By and in the incarnation the human race and the separate
individuals of the race have received those capacities and endowments which fit them for their work
and for their divinely appointed destiny” .
The bibliographies appended to the several articles are, on the whole, discriminating, reasonably
full and correct. Still, here and there important references have been omitted. As such we notice the
following: art. Messiah, Wrede’s Messiasgeheimnis; art. Missions, Harnack’s Mission and Expansion
of Christianity; art. Name, Heitmller’s Im Namen; art. Propitiation, Deissmann’s various
contributions on ilasthrion; art. Sabbath, Zahn’s essay on the subject in his Skizzen, etc.
A serious error occurs in the article Resurrection, II, 508, where a sentence from Wellhausen’s
commentary on Matthew is translated so as to make him say something quite different from the
original. The statement accurately rendered should read: “It is assumed (viz., by the Evangelist)
that with the resurrection the body of Jesus also had vanished from the grave, and it is regarded as
impossible (viz., by the Evangelist) that this could be accounted for on natural grounds.” Instead
of this the translation reads: “It is admitted that with the resurrection the body of Jesus also had
vanished from the grave, and it will be impossible to account for this on natural grounds.”
In conclusion, we remark that, with few exceptions, the contributors to the Dictionary are British
and American. Of continental scholars there occur in the first volume the names of Gautier, Nestle
and Johannes Weiss only, in the second volume, besides the last mentioned, that of Kattenbusch.
The proof-reading of the work has been unusually good. In our extensive reading of the volumes, we
have hardly discovered half a dozen typographical errors.

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