MODERNISM AND TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



85 



presentation of the Gospel was the original one, how comes it, 

 we may well ask, that it was left to German critics and their 

 followers in this country to discover it in the present century ? 

 Traditional Christianity has held the field since the early 

 centuries of our era, and the lines of its evolution can be 

 traced to the present day. The Modernist concept of the 

 Gospel is, as Modernists admit, a quite new departure, and in 

 no sense the product of organic continuity from the beginning 

 of our era. 



The attempt of the Modernists to reconstruct the foundations 

 of the Faith and to build a new religion upon them, is, indeed, 

 in direct conflict with the principle of evolution which, as all 

 naturalists agree, conditions all progress. Dr. H. Bradley (Ethical 

 Studies, p. 173) shows how this principle works, and, inciden- 

 tally, one may gather how inconsistent with its operations is 

 the Modernist effort to substitute for traditional Christianity 

 an entirely new concept of the Gospel. 



Evolution,' ' Development,' ' Progress,' all imply," he says, 

 "something identical throughout, a subject of the evolution, 

 which is one and the same. If what is there at the beginning 

 is not there at the end, and the same as what was there at the 

 beginning, then evolution is a word with no meaning. Some- 

 thing must evolve itself, and that something, which is the 

 end, must also be the beginning. It must be what moves 

 itself to the end, and must be the end which is the ' because ' of 

 the motion. Evolution must evolve itself to itself, progress 



xiv, 10 ; i Cor. xv ; n Cor. v, 10 ; Phil, i, 14 ; ii, 10 ; I Thess. iv, 16 to 

 end ; v, 12 ; n Thess. ii, 1-15 ; n Tim. iv, 8 ; Titus ii, 13 : Heb. ix, 27 ; 

 ii Pet. iii, 3-18 ; Jude 14, 15 ; Apoc. i, 7 ; iii, 3 ; xvi, 15 ; xx, 15 to end. 



The value of the pre-Christian Apocalyptic literature on the eschato- 

 logical question, in the eyes of Jewish writers such as Jost, Graetz, etc., is 

 regarded as nil. The stream of Jewish tradition since the time of Christ 

 offers similar evidence, as does post-Christian Jewish literature, which is 

 purely legalistic. 



Canon Charles, however, is of opinion that it helped much in the 

 transition from Judaism to Christianity. He is also of the opinion that 

 " the expectation of the nearness of the end formed a real factor in Jesus' 

 view of the future," but he is cautious, in discussing the other side of the 

 question, to add, " There are, on the other hand, many passages which 

 just as clearly present us with a different aspect of the future." He shows 

 his attitude towards the Weiss theory by dismissing with little ceremony 

 the latter's contention (in support of his eschatological theory) that there 

 is no conflict between Mark xiii, 32 and xiii, 30. 



A reaction against the Weiss-Schweitzer-view is already at work, and 

 the hasty patrons of it in this country must feel more and more that they 

 have damaged, by supporting it, their reputations as unbiassed critics. 



