The Silesian Horseherd. Questions of the Hour. Friedrich Max Müller
This obscurity in the conception of Jesus as Logos by the Christian church is the reason why Celsus does not regard Joseph as the natural father of Jesus, but Panthera. Origen, of course, denounces this very indignantly; and the legend is nothing more than one of the many calumnies, which are nearly always to be traced among the opponents of a new religion and its founders. For the true nature and the divine birth of Christ, as Origen himself seems to feel, such a story would naturally have no significance whatever. It remains true, however, that no writer of authority of the second and third centuries has clearly explained in what sense the Christian church conceived Jesus as the Logos.
Three conceptions are possible. The first appears to have been that of the Fourth Gospel, that the Logos, in all its fulness, as the Son, who in the beginning was with God and was God, by whom all things were made, became flesh in Jesus, and that this Jesus gave to those who believed in him as Logos the power themselves to become sons of God, born like him not of blood nor of the will of flesh, but of God. This may also explain why the legendary details of the birth of Christ are never mentioned in the Fourth Gospel. But however clear the view of the evangelist is, it nevertheless remains obscure how he conceived the process of this incarnation of an eternal being, transcending time and space and comprehending the whole world, which lived among them, which, as is said in the Epistle of John, was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we have beheld and our hands handled, the Word of life,33 etc. If we think ourselves for a moment into this view, into the unity of the Divine that lives and moves in the Father, in the Logos, and in all souls that have recognised the Logos, we shall comprehend the meaning of the statement, that whoever believes in Jesus is born of God, that whoever has the Son, has the life. To have the truth, to have eternal life, to have the Son, to have the Father, all this then signifies one and the same thing for the evangelist, and for the greatest among the ante-Nicene fathers.
But second, the conception that the Logos was born in Jesus might simply signify the same as Philo means, when he speaks of the Logos in Abraham and in the prophets. This would be intelligible from Philo's point of view in relation to Abraham, but clearly does not go far enough to explain the deification of Christ as we find it in all the Evangelists.
There remains possible therefore only a third conception. Philo knows very well that God has an infinite number of powers or ideas, all of which might be called Logoi, and together constitute the Logos. If now, among these Logoi, that of humanity were conceived as highest, and Jesus were regarded as the incarnate Logos, as the expressed and perfectly realised idea of man, all would be intelligible. Jesus would then be the ideal man, the one among mortals who had fully realised the idea of man as it existed in God, who on the one side was the son of God, on the other side the son of man, the brother of all men, if they would only acknowledge Christ as the Son of God, and emulate His example. This would be a correct and to us a perfectly intelligible and acceptable conception. But many as are the difficulties which this would remove, the objection remains that we can produce no historical proof of such a conception of Jesus as Logos of humanity. We are too poor in historical monuments of the first three Christian centuries to be able to speak with assurance of the inner processes of thought of even the most prominent personalities of that time. In everything, even in relation to many of the leading questions of the Christian religion, we are obliged to rely on combination and construction. Not only in the Evangelists, but in many of the church fathers, feeling overcomes reason, and their expressions admit but too often of the most varied interpretations, as the later history of the church has only too clearly proved. Nevertheless we must endeavour to enter not only into their emotions, but also into their thoughts, and not believe that they used words without thoughts. I do not say that this is impossible. Unthinkable as it is, that words arise and exist without ideas, yet we know only too well that words become mere words, that they grow pale and die, and that they may finally become vox et prœterea nihil. It is, however, the duty of the historian and especially of the philologist to call back to life such words as have given up the ghost. May what I have here written about the meaning of the Logos fulfil this aim, and at the same time make it clear that my desire for the discovery of the original text of the Sermo Verus was not an idle one. I have since learned that the same wish was expressed at an earlier date by no less a person than Barthold Niebuhr.
Chapter II.
The Pferdebürla (Horseherd)
A contributor to a periodical, which, like the Deutsche Rundschau, has a world-wide circulation, receives many letters from every corner of the earth. Many of them are nothing more than the twitter of birds in the trees; he listens and goes his way. Others contain now and then something of use, for which he is thankful, usually of course in silence, for a day and night together contain only twenty-four hours, and but little time remains for correspondence. It is interesting to note how radically one is often misunderstood. While one person anonymously accuses the writer of free thinking and heresy, another, and he generally gives his name, complains of his orthodox narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, and blindness, which for the most part are attributed to poor Oxford, which, in foreign countries at least, still has the reputation of high church orthodoxy.
Yet, in spite of all this, such letters are useful, for they give us a knowledge of the public which we desire to influence, but which for the most part goes its own way, as it may find most convenient. Often such opinions come to us from the highest circles, at times also from the lowest, and it is difficult to tell which of the two are the more instructive. The problems of humanity in all their simplicity are after all the same for us all, only they are viewed from different standpoints, and are treated with scientific or practical design. Members of the same profession readily understand each other; they employ their own technical language; but the unprofessional person often goes straighter to the heart of a question, and refuses to be satisfied with authorities or traditional formulas. These gentlemen it is often difficult to silence. We can easily contend with combatants who wield their weapons according to the rules laid down by the schools; we know what to expect, and how to parry a quart or a tierce. But an opponent who strikes regardless of all rule is often hard to manage, and we get a scar where it is least expected or deserved. In this wise I was served by an unknown opponent, who wrote to me from a place in the neighbourhood of Pittsburgh, not far from Ohio. He had read in his country solitude my article on Celsus in the Deutsche Rundschau. I know nothing of him, except what he himself writes, but the man interested me. After all, he says in his rude way very much the same things as others veil in learned phrases, and his doubts and difficulties are manifestly products of his heart as well as of his brain. The problems of humanity have troubled him with genuine pain, and after honestly thinking them out as well as he knew how, his convictions stand firm as a rock, and all who disagree with him seem to him not only fools, but unfortunately hypocrites as well. It is the misfortune of these lonely thinkers that they cannot comprehend how any one can hold opinions differing from their own without being dishonest. They cannot doubt that they have been honest toward themselves, and as a consequence they cannot conceive how others, who are of a different mind, can be equally honest, and have come by their convictions by a straightforward path. Often it has been very difficult for them to break with their old faith, cherished from childhood, and they can only look upon it as cowardice and weakness if others, as they think, have not made or wished to make this sacrifice. But we shall let the horseherd who emigrated to America speak for himself.
I here print his letter exactly as I received it, without any alterations.34 To me it seems that the man speaks not only for himself, but for many who think as he does, but who have not the ability nor the opportunity to express themselves clearly. I resolved, accordingly, to reply to him, and once begun, my pen ran on, and my letter unexpectedly covered more ground than I had intended. Whether he received the letter or not, I do not know; at least it must have been delivered to his address, for it was not returned to me. As I have not, however, heard from him again since February, and as he speaks in his letter of chest catarrh, which he hopes will in no long time bring him to a joyful end, I must wait no longer for an answer, and publish the correspondence in the hope that there are other “Pferdebürle” in the world to whom it may be of value.
Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S., February 26, 1896.
Dear Colleague
λόγος τῆς ζοῆς.
The original was, however, in German.