THE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST BY DOM ANSCAR VONIER, OSB
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
CHRIST AND THE SCIENCE OF COMPARATIVE RELIGION
CHRIST’S Personality is all-important in the religion of Christ. Who is He? And What is He? are vital questions for Christianity. A religion outside the circle of that wonderful personality may be a most respectable system of morals and even of doctrines, but it is not Christianity. It would always be Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. This English proverb is so telling that there is no profanity in using it in conjunction with the great drama of Christianity.
Christian religion can never be put on a par with other religious systems, simply because it is not a system but a Person. It cannot come under the scope of the science called Comparative Religion because its central facts those facts that constitute its differentiation from the other religions of the world are the manifestation of a divine genius of infinite originality. Comparative religion is a branch of human learning I revere deeply. I cannot conceive anything that could become more fascinating for the mind than to find out the parentage and relationship of the religious thoughts of mankind to their hundredth remove. But when all has been said, and everything has been compared, the fact remains that there is only one such being as Christ known to the religious world. Or more exactly, the Christ-idea/ such as it is found in the Gospels, in Christian theology and Christian conscience, is so deeply original that it defies all comparison. I say Christ-idea instead of Christ in order to remain within the scope of science. Science, being concerned with experiment and observation, can observe the Christ-idea in the world, as it is not a thing hidden under a bushel ; it is seen everywhere in the world of to-day ; it is the easiest of all tasks to find out from history what it was in the past.
Nothing could show more clearly this deep originality of the Christ-idea and its unique position in the world of religion than the great religious strifes within the Christian pale itself that filled, and are still filling, the world with their shrill echoes. Is it at all a thinkable situation that Mohammedans, for instance, should quarrel amongst themselves as to whether there were one or two persons in their prophet, or whether the divine person in him had absorbed the human person ; whether there was a human will besides a divine will in him ; whether there was the transubstantiation of bread into his body, etc. ? . . . Yet Christians have taken, and are taking, sides in those very matters with a passion that comes from strong feeling on those subjects. Our very dissensions, therefore, make it evident that the Christ-idea has no parallel or term of comparison anywhere in the religions of the world.
The science of war, on land and on sea, is a definite science. Books are written on it, and mastered by young officers. But a Napoleon and a Nelson are not merely instances of a complete mastering of the science of war, they are war geniuses who make epochs, who make the very science of war to be different from what it was before them. Such personalities cannot come properly within the definitions of any war system. So Christ cannot be classed by the science of Comparative Religion because He is what He is in the religious world through His Personality. And as His Personality has such characteristics as cannot be found elsewhere, from the very nature of the subject, Christ is beyond all religious classification. Originality and classification exclude each other. Now, is there anything more deeply original than the Christ-idea ? No doubt there is much in the practical Christian religion that resembles the tenets and practices of other religious forms. There is in mankind a vast store of religiousness, which is part of human nature itself, or it may be derived from more simple and more universal forms of piety such as there were in some remote and primitive state of human society. Then there is the natural expression of religious fear and awe, which is very analogous to the dread exhibited by the higher animals for their master. There are again certain subtle laws of the human spirit in its higher operations, which laws will act almost similarly, whether the ascetic be a Buddhist or a Christian monk. Thus, for instance, the effort of thought will make use of the same external means, whether the spiritual man be in Tibet or in Spain, But such things are merely the basic elements of all asceticism. They are the things that may be classified by the student and compared amongst themselves and pigeon-holed. Being found everywhere, they lack originality. But the moment Christ comes on the scene, there is evidently something quite new happening in the religious world.
If I may once more press into service my comparison of the war genius, the great soldier called Alexander or Napoleon fights with the old arms, with the time-honoured means of men, and horses, and weapons. Yet no man ever conquered as swiftly as Alexander, or struck as decisively as Napoleon. There is the old story of that martinet of an Austrian officer who maintained that Bonaparte was sure to be defeated because he did not follow the rules of war, such as the officer had learnt them in the military schools.
Christ wins the spiritual battle by making use of the old, well-worn spiritual weapons ; but there never was a victory like His victory, because it consists in this, that He should draw all things unto Himself. He establishes His Personality, and His success is complete then only, when men have begun to understand who He is and what He is. I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given me out of the world : Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them ; and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things which Thou hast given Me are from Thee : because the words which Thou gavest me I have given to them ; and they have received them, and have known in very deed that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. (St. John xvii. 6, 7, 8. )
Spirituality is indeed indispensable to Christian sanctity ; but the essence of Christian sanctity is a personal relation with Christ’s Personality. Spirituality is a common possession of all mankind ; it is mankind at its best, and therefore it is a necessary outfit for Christ’s elect. At the same time there is a vast amount of genuine spirituality outside the Christian circle. I might say that even with the Christian soul its spirituality may be at times greater than its essential Christian sanctity, as there is no practical or theoretical contradiction in the supposition that the effort after spiritual life, even with good men, may be many times greater than their efforts at entering into personal relation with Christ’s Personality. I might say even that they are spiritual men rather than definitely Christian men, if we take the word Christian to stand as it ought to stand for what is characteristically Christ’s work. The practical realisation of the Christ- concept in the work of sanctity admits of infinite gradation even where there is Faith, and Hope, and Charity.
The Christian world is most prosperous, then, when it possesses its Christ most fully.
The principle of Christ’s Personality once grasped changes one s spiritual life and lifts it up to a plane of wonderful supernaturalness, Spirituality itself may still be considered to be a common element. Life in Christ is the glorious secret of the new dispensation.
