modern biology finds two aspects of nature, the material and the mental. Psychology deals with the mental phenomena as phenomena in nature. Not only our sensations, associations, reasonings, and conscious reactions, but also our feelings, our impulses, and the whole stream of subconscious life behave according to laws, the laws of mental nature. The religious phenomena are, therefore, from this point of view, phenomena in nature. The psychologist is not concerned with their transcendental aspects, but compares the religious emotion with other types of emotions, the religious sentiment with other sentiments, the religious self with other selves, as phenomena in nature. This method leads to the discovery of continuity of function. We describe the religious impulse; trace its development through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adult life, and senile decline; we observe the evolutions and involutions which it goes through. There is an unbroken chain of religious evolutionary events from the cradle to the grave. We recognize in manhood the things that were present in the child, because we can trace the stages of its growth. Things which have under the old view seemed to us unholy, become holy when we discover their mission in life. There is danger, as LeConte says, that when we discover all about how the machinery works, we shall ascribe its origin and maintenance to ourselves. There is danger that when I say that the sweetest communion with God is play, some will say, with an air of finality, "That is what I suspected."

The working-man is probably looking for a change in the course of events, if my argument about play has impressed him. But there is still some work. In distinguishing between work and play, we must not be misled by terms. Much that goes by the name of work is done in all fortunate occupations in the play attitude; and, on the other hand, much that goes by the name of play is downright hard work. Many games, sports, and so-called amusements and diversions are not play at all. Witness many of the social "duties" which are done in painful compliance with duty. The greater part of life is neither play nor work pure and simple, but a blending of the two. What we have said should, therefore, be taken with reference to the play attitude or play impulse whether it occurs in the performance of a duty, the pursuit of an ideal, or

the pursuit of immediate pleasure. In many situations, such as in our happy and contented work, play merely gives a sort of color and vim to the occupation. Religious manifestations are always complex. Much of religion is done through awful necessity with groans and tears as preparatory to the higher type of selfexpression. Much of religion is downright work, but the goal of our best efforts is to make religion the expression of the freed self, just as the goal of the beneficent employer should be to make his work cheerful and natural.

Again I may be charged with an impulsive and infantile type of religion. To this I reply that as life develops, that is, becomes more intellectualized, spiritualized, and refined in its sentiments, the play attitude runs into the more serious types of self-expression such as quiet worship, contemplation, teaching, ministration, etc., which are the equivalent, in the developed soul, of games in the undeveloped. The attitude is the same; the same purpose is served; the same instincts operate; there is simply an adaptation of the self-expression to the stage of development.

At first impression, the point of view which I have presented seems to lower the dignity of religion, to commit us to a questionable sanction of morality, and to imply despair about the possibility of knowledge; but such fears are ill-founded. If the rôle of play in religion is carefully worked out, it reveals one of the elements in religion in most vital terms, namely, natural selfdevelopment; it leads to a serene appreciation of the spiritual self; it lays a cornerstone in the foundation of our religious pedagogy; it helps to put a true value upon our symbols of knowledge; .it throws some light upon the nature of the faith that is within us; it reveals in religion those moving impulses and distinguishing attitudes which characterize art for arts' sake and zeal for research and science.

THE GREEK ELEMENT IN THE EPISTLE

TO THE HEBREWS

GEORGE HOLLEY GILBERT, PH.D., D.D.
Northampton, Mass.

The Epistle to the Hebrews, the stateliest piece of composition in the New Testament, may be compared to a temple whose structure is Greek and whose atmosphere is Christian. One who passes immediately from a careful perusal of the first three gospels to a perusal of Hebrews has at first a feeling as though he had entered a new and strange world of thought. The fatherhood of God which glorifies the words and works of the Master as the sun glorifies an earthly landscape recedes here into the remote background. The Old Testament is given a prominence which quite overshadows the teaching of Jesus, and that too in regard to Jesus himself. The heavens are opened, and we catch a glimpse of the true sanctuary, of which that of Moses was only a shadow, and we see there in the heavenly world the climax of Christ's redeeming activity, which the gospels put on the earth.

When we analyze the difference of conception that marks off the Epistle to the Hebrews from the teaching of Jesus we soon find that its characteristic features are strongly tinged with Greek thought. No other New Testament writing, unless it be the Gospel of John, reveals a Greek influence at once so deep and so pervasive, and no other New Testament writing whatever shows such a blending of Greek thought with the old Hebrew ritual.

If we look through the epistle into the mind of its author to ascertain the starting-point or living center of his views on their Greek side, we are led to his thought of Christ. It was at this point not only that his readers were in danger of falling away from the living God and of surrendering their "confession," that is, their Christian faith, but at this point also that his own deepest personal interest centered. The Greek element in his thought of Christ is the dominant element in all the Greek thought of the epistle. With this element, therefore, it is necessary that our study should begin.

Of the earthly life of Jesus this writing, though it deals with Jesus more or less in each of its thirteen chapters, says little. It makes a passing reference to the fact that the Christian "salvation" was spoken at the first through him (2:3), but never makes a specific reference to the content of his teaching nor alludes to his works of mercy and power. In respect to character it is said that Jesus was "holy" and "guileless" (7:26), but his unselfish love is nowhere mentioned, that is, in the allusions to his earthly life. With the exception of these two passages all the score and more of references to Christ's life on earth touch only its suffering, most of them that last supreme hour of suffering on the cross. His temptation is mentioned, but that was part of his suffering (2:18; 4:15).

Of special interest in view of the author's lofty claims for Christ is the stress which he lays on his human weakness. Thus, with Gethsemane in mind, he says that Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to deliver him from death, a statement which goes beyond the gospel narrative in its suggestion of infirmity (5:7). Altogether peculiar to this letter is the thought that the sufferings of Jesus were a means of his perfecting (2:10; 5:9). This somewhat startling declaration is rendered still more startling by the words that Christ learned obedience (5:8), i.e., the perfecting that was achieved through bitter suffering was a perfecting of his own spirit in relation to the will of God and not simply a discipline fitting him to be the leader of other sons of God (5:10).

Such is the background of the life of Jesus against which the epistle sets the glorious picture of the great High Priest. In the creation of this picture Greek thought blends with Jewish, and furnishes the more conspicuous element. Both elements appear in the opening sentence, and each has there about the relative emphasis which is given it elsewhere.

First is the Jewish designation, that one through whom God has spoken at the end of the ages is his "Son" (1:2), and the writer appeals to the Old Testament in support of his use of this title (1:5). This designation is followed by a wealth of interpretative statements such as has not a parallel in the New Testament. First, this Son was appointed "heir of all things," i.e., the possession of the universe with all its riches was to fall to him. From the goal of history the writer

turns back, in the following clause, to its beginning, and asserts that through him whom he has called "Son" God made the ages or the worlds (1:2). Later in the chapter he appears to define this agency of the Son in the creation as the veritable production of the universe, for he applies to him the lofty words which the psalmist addressed to Jehovah,

Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of thy hands (1:10).

He does not regard the Son as the creator in the ultimate sense, that is God (1:2); but God accomplished it, not by his own personal word, as the author of Genesis supposed and as the Old Testament everywhere conceived of the matter, but he accomplished it indirectly through his Son. This thought is shared by Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel.

The writer continues his description of the Son in three clauses, two of which at least concern an eternal relationship. The Son is the refulgence of God's glory, the very image of his substance, and he upholds all things by his powerful word (1:3). Such is the opening affirmation regarding that being through whom God has spoken at the end of the ages. The details of it are not formally repeated elsewhere in the letter, but its glory gives color to a word here and there (1:6, 9), and its thought helps to explain various passages (e.g., 2:9; 7:26; 13:8).

Whence came these exalted claims? Not from the Old Testament anticipations of the Messiah, for these never transcend the limits of a righteous King or a suffering servant who is filled with the Spirit of Jehovah; nor from the Synoptic Gospels, for Jesus said nothing of a relation which he sustained to the universe or the divine nature. It is now widely recognized that this conception of Christ is essentially Greek. To understand it we must go back to Philo and from Philo to the Greek philosophers. What they said of the Logos furnished the writer of Hebrews the materials which, under the influence of the historical Christ, he wrought into his conception. Let us consider its details briefly. The idea that God made the ages or worlds through the Son we find in Philo, who says that the cosmos has God as its cause and the Logos as the instrument through whom it was prepared. The Son's heirship to all things follows from this close relation to creation.

1 Cherubim 35.