[98] The order in which the Author studies the books of the New Testament is on the whole right, as appears to us, though in details we differ much from him. To us, as to him, the New Testament begins from Paul and ends with John; but we place First Peter later, and Hebrews with Ephesians decidedly earlier than he does. His action in taking away Ephesians from Paul causes a loss; but this, though a serious, yet is not a fatal loss: because Paul still remains to us, the one man in the New Testament whom Dr. Moffatt allows us to keep. All the other great personalities, as he says himself, disappear, because their presentation to us in the documents is unhistorical and unreal, a figment of the "growing consciousness of the Church". The misplacement of Hebrews after [99] First Peter seems to cause almost a more serious loss than the taking away of Ephesians, because it distorts the perspective of a period. Still, so far as order goes, the main lines of study which the Author follows are profitable: and no man can as yet prove his own opinion about chronology and order in the New Testament to the satisfaction of other scholars.

It is only when we approach the unifying principle which runs through the whole series of books that I have to part company absolutely from Dr. Moffatt. Each of us recognizes the existence of such a unity; but the principle seems to me to lie in the progress towards more perfect recognition by the young and growing Church of the real nature and character and mission of Jesus, whereas to Dr. Moffatt it lies in the imposing on a real and very simple Jesus of an unreal and unhistorical nature and character and acts and words, and, above all, miracles.

There we are at the real crux of the whole matter. Often the disciples, as is several times said in the Gospels, did not at the time recognize the real meaning of Jesus's words. Later, as [100] they looked back over the past, they were aware of their own blindness. The progress lay in their own minds. To Dr. Moffatt this implies that they put into their memory of Jesus's words something that was not originally there, something that came from their "growing conscious-ness". To me it implies that the disciples were growing in power of thought and in width or depth of mind, so that they were able to understand sayings which had previously been far too great for their simple nature to comprehend. The meaning, and the vast sweep of thought, and the wide outlook over the world, and the penetrating insight into the nature of man and his relation to God and to the world, were in the words from the beginning.

Take any of the great sayings of Jesus from almost any page of the Gospels. How perfect they are, how complete in their comprehension of man and of God. There is nothing more left to say; all that remains to do is to understand the deep wisdom of those matchless and final statements: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's " -- " The [101] Son of Man is lord also of the Sabbath " -- and so on. Yet they are so simple in expression that one is easily led to overlook their greatness. They overturn and renovate the whole view-point of His contemporaries. They take side with none of the parties or schools. They remake the world. They put an end to the old. They begin the new. From them history and thought take a fresh start. They are the supreme concentration of wisdom expressed in words which a, child can understand in part, but of which human thought can never exhaust and fully comprehend the scope. 1

FOOTNOTES:

1 I may venture to refer to a paragraph in an essay on "The Charm of Paul" in my "Pauline and Other Studies,' p.31 f., where something like this is said; but what I then said has grown more definite through conversation with others, and especially with Principal Iverach.