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Essays on the supernatural origin of Christianity
Essays on the supernatural origin of Christianity Author:George Park Fisher Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ESSAY IV. BAUE ON PARTIES IN THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH AND THE CHARACTER OF THE BOOK OF ACTS.1 The great question which the Church in the apostolic age was requ... more »ired to consider and determine, was the relation of Christianity to the ritual law of the Old Testament. Was that law still binding? Or rather—for in this form, as was natural, the question first came up—was that law binding on the Gentile believers ? In short, could a man be a Christian without first becoming a Jew ? It cannot be denied that the full extent of the commotion which this question stirred up, is better understood in the light of recent discussions than was the case formerly. Discounting very much, as we shall, from the extravagant representation of the Tubingen critical school, we still feel that the sound of this great conflict reverberates through no inconsiderable portion of the New Testament Scriptures. The Epistle to the Galatians is afervid argument on this one theme. The Epistle to the Romans, though not devoted—the opinion of Baur to the contrary notwithstanding—to this distinctive subject, gives to the matter of the relation of the Jew to the Gentile, a prominent place. The two Epistles to the Corinthians bear witness to the dissension which the same question had provoked. The Epistle to the Hebrews is an argument designed to reconcile the Jewish believer to the abrogation of the old ordinances, and to keep him from lapsing, out of love to them, from the faith in Christ. The book of Acts, and most of the other monuments of the apostolic- age, contain more or less of allusion to the grand question we have described. 1 Dm Chrutenthum u. die Christliehe Kirche der drei enten Yahrhunderte, von Dr. Ferdinand Christian Banr. Tabingen, 1853. (Author's last Ed., 1860.) Die Composition u. EnUtchung der ...« less