Note 413 — Chapter VI

Footnote 413:

(return)

What is called the ever-increasing legal feature of Gentile Christianity and the Catholic Church is conditioned by its origin, in so far as its theory is rooted in that of Judaism spiritualised and influenced by Hellenism. As the Pauline conception of the law never took effect and a criticism of the Old Testament religion which is just law neither understood nor ventured upon in the larger Christendom—the forms were not criticised, but the contents spiritualised—so the theory that Christianity is promise and spiritual law is to be regarded as the primitive one. Between the spiritual law and the national law there stand indeed ceremonial laws, which, without being spiritually interpreted, could yet be freed from the national application. It cannot be denied that the Gentile Christian communities and the incipient Catholic Church were very careful and reserved in their adoption of such laws from the Old Testament, and that the later Church no longer observed this caution. But still it is only a question of degree for there are many examples of that adoption in the earliest period of Christendom. The latter had no cause for hurry in utilizing the Old Testament so long as there was no external or internal policy or so long as it was still in embryo. The decisive factor lies here again in enthusiasm and not in changing theories. The basis for these was supplied from the beginning. But a community of individuals under spiritual excitement builds on this foundation something different from an association which wishes to organise and assert itself as such on earth. (The history of Sunday is specially instructive here, see Zahn, Gesch. des Sonntags, 1878, as well as the history of the discipline of fasting, see Linsenmayr, Entwickelung der Kirchl Fastendisciplin, 1877, and Die Abgabe des Zehnten. In general, Cf. Ritschl Entstehung der Altkath Kirche 2 edit. pp. 312 ff., 331 ff., 1 Cor. IX. 9, may be noted).