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The Fourth Gospel, Ephesus and Alexandria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

H. C. Snape
Affiliation:
Whalley Vicarage, Blackburn, England

Extract

Professor Goguel in his ‘La Naissance du Christianisme’ and Professor Brandon in his ‘The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church’ have both put forward new hypotheses, which, if accepted, ask for a new orientation on many of the still unsolved questions of Christian origins. Professor Goguel maintains that the direct evidence in our possession for the history of Christian origins is the residue of a process of selection and interpretation of fact performed by early Catholicism in accordance with its own opinions and beliefs as to its origin. Hence, he claims, the most valuable evidence is to be found in what conflicts with its presuppositions. Early Catholicism presumed that it was the product of an original and ideal unity. But it could not be denied, although Acts tries to gloss over the fact, that Paul and the mother church had been divided. Goguel finds evidence that they were so divided that the Christians in Jerusalem tried to suppress Paul and his teaching and at the outset appeared to succeed. The Jerusalem community, he claims, considered Jesus to have become Messiah after his death when God exalted him to the position; their faith lacked all pneumatism; their emphasis was on Jesus as teacher. They regarded themselves as continuing to be members of the Jewish church and salvation as a Jewish prerogative provided those who had consented to Jesus' death repented of their sin.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1954

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References

1 It is interesting to note that in place of the words κῆνσον καίσαρι δȏυναι Mark XII, 13–17; the fragment has βασιλυειν [ἀπο]δοῦναι τὰ ἀνήκοντα τῆ ἀρΧῆ. The former is a transliteration of the Latin censum Caesari while the latter is a verbal quotation of Maccabees from the Septuagint, I Maccabees X,20.