HKB
[Footnote 11: Matt. xviii. 17, and following; John xx. 23.]
Moreover, there is no trace, in the teaching of Jesus, of an applied morality or of a canonical law, ever so slightly defined. Once only, respecting marriage, he spoke decidedly, and forbade divorce.[1] Neither was there any theology or creed. There were indefinite views respecting the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,[2] from which, afterward, were drawn the Trinity and the Incarnation, but they were then only in a state of indeterminate imagery. The later books of the Jewish canon recognized the Holy Spirit, a sort of divine hypostasis, sometimes identified with Wisdom or the Word.[3] Jesus insisted upon this point,[4] and announced to his disciples a baptism by fire and by the spirit,[5] as much preferable to that of John, a baptism which they believed they had received, after the death of Jesus, in the form of a great wind and tongues of fire.[6] The Holy Spirit thus sent by the Father was to teach them all truth, and testify to that which Jesus himself had promulgated.[7] In order to designate this Spirit, Jesus made use of the word Peraklit, which the Syro-Chaldaic had borrowed from the Greek ([Greek: parakletos]), and which appears to have had in his mind the meaning of "advocate,"[8] "counsellor,"[9] and sometimes that of "interpreter of celestial truths," and of "teacher charged to reveal to men the hitherto hidden mysteries."[10] He regarded himself as a Peraklit to his disciples,[11] and the Spirit which was to come after his death would only take his place. This was an application of the process which the Jewish and Christian theologies would follow during centuries, and which was to produce a whole series of divine assessors, the Metathronos, the Synadelphe or Sandalphon, and all the personifications of the Cabbala. But in Judaism, these creations were to remain free and individual speculations, whilst in Christianity, commencing with the fourth century, they were to form the very essence of orthodoxy and of the universal doctrine.
[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 3, and following.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xxviii. 19. Comp. Matt. iii. 16, 17; John xv. 26.]
[Footnote 3: Sap. i. 7, vii. 7, ix. 17, xii. 1; Eccles. i. 9, xv. 5, xxiv. 27; xxxix. 8; Judith xvi. 17.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. x. 20; Luke xii. 12, xxiv. 49; John xiv. 26, xv. 26.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; John i. 26, iii. 5; Acts i. 5, 8, x. 47.]
[Footnote 6: Acts ii. 1-4, xi. 15, xix. 6. Cf. John vii. 39.]
[Footnote 7: John xv. 26, xvi. 13.]
[Footnote 8: To Peraklit was opposed Katigor, ([Greek: kategoros]), the "accuser."]
[Footnote 9: John xiv. 16; 1st Epistle of John ii. 1.]
[Footnote 10: John xiv. 26, xv. 26, xvi. 7, and following. Comp. Philo, De Mundi opificio, Sec. 6.]
[Footnote 11: John xiv. 16. Comp. the epistle before cited, l.c.]
It is unnecessary to remark how remote from the thought of Jesus was the idea of a religious book, containing a code and articles of faith. Not only did he not write, but it was contrary to the spirit of the infant sect to produce sacred books. They believed themselves on the eve of the great final catastrophe. The Messiah came to put the seal upon the Law and the Prophets, not to promulgate new Scriptures. With the exception of the Apocalypse, which was in one sense the only revealed book of the infant Christianity, all the other writings of the apostolic age were works evoked by existing circumstances, making no pretensions to furnish a completely dogmatic whole. The Gospels had at first an entirely personal character, and much less authority than tradition.[1]
[Footnote 1: Papias, in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii. 39.]