(i.) Such speculations formulated and inserted in the Creed, formally as interpretations: belief changed, but not Its basis primarily moral and spiritual: Holiness its charac- Causes for this, primary and collateral (1) Importance given to Baptism realistically conceived: its relation to the ministrant (2) Intercommunion: the necessary test at first moral ... 340, 341 PAGE This elevation of doctrine due to causes internal to the Christian of Samosata: its results ... Lines of reaction against this transformation: ... 345-347 The Greek spirit still lives in Christian Churches: the vital question is its relation to Christianity LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY. It is impossible for any one, whether he be a student of history or no, to fail to notice a difference of both form and content between the Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene Creed. The Sermon on the Mount is the promulgation of a new law of conduct; it assumes beliefs rather than formulates them; the theological conceptions which underlie it belong to the ethical rather than the speculative side of theology; metaphysics are wholly absent. The Nicene Creed is a statement partly of historical facts and partly of dogmatic inferences; the metaphysical terms which it contains would probably have been unintelligible to the first disciples; ethics have no place in it. The one belongs to a world of Syrian peasants, the other to a world of Greek philosophers. The contrast is patent. If any one thinks that it is sufficiently explained by saying that the one is a sermon and the other a creed, it must be pointed out in reply that the question why an ethical sermon stood in the forefront of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and a metaphysical creed in the forefront of the Christianity of the fourth century, is a problem which claims investigation. It claims investigation, but it has not yet been inves B tigated. There have been inquiries, which in some cases have arrived at positive results, as to the causes of particular changes or developments in Christianity-the development, for example, of the doctrine of the Trinity, or of the theory of a Catholic Church. But the main question to which I invite your attention is antecedent to all such inquiries. It asks, not how did the Christian societies come to believe one proposition rather than another, but how did they come to the frame of mind. which attached importance to either the one or the other, and made the assent to the one rather than the other a condition of membership. In investigating this problem, the first point that is obvious to an inquirer is, that the change in the centre of gravity from conduct to belief is coincident with the transference of Christianity from a Semitic to a Greek soil. The presumption is that it was the result of Greek influence. It will appear from the Lectures which follow that this presumption is true. Their general subject is, consequently, The Influence of Greece upon Christianity. The difficulty, the interest, and the importance of the subject make it incumbent upon us to approach it with caution. It is necessary to bear many points in mind as we enter upon it; and I will begin by asking your attention to two considerations, which, being true of all analogous phenomena of religious development and change, may be presumed to be true of the particular phenomena before us. 1. The first is, that the religion of a given race at a given time is relative to the whole mental attitude of X |