Volume 1

Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars.

Date:
1908-1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    conditions or misuse of physiological power (see Morbidness). The tendency of all these data is towards the view that sexual capacity is in general the physio- logical basis of all the higher and finer qualities of personality, both ethical and religious. This does not reduce religion to terms of physiology, or subordinate it to something more nearly primary. Rather, it reveals in the biological and physiological realm a spiritual law that tends to transfigure the whole notion of life. We must interpret the whole biological development in the light of its highest stages, and physiological functions by their place in the highest self-consciousness. The only serious objection to this view has been raised by Henry Drummond, who makes conjugal affection merely a secondary product of maternal affection (TAe Ascent of Man, London, 1894, chs. vii., ix.). However maternal affection origin- ated, it can hardly be the sole origin of the higher sentiments. In the first place, the relation be- tween a mother and a helpless infant lacks too much of mutual responsiveness or reciprocity to be the source of the humanizing of the world, to w'hich reference has been made. Again, a large mass of evidence goes to show that this humanizing process does spring directly from the relationship of sex as its ideal expression. In addition to the evidence already adduced from adolescence, it will be appropriate to add an item from the general evolution of sex. Geddes and Thomson, tracing the evolution of the reproductive process, declare that, from its beginning in simple cell - division, ‘ the primitive hunger and love become the start- ing-points of divergent lines of egoistic and altru- istic emotion and activity’ (The Evolution of Sex, London, 1890, ch. xiii.). Consequently, as Mercier says, ‘ the sexual emotion includes as an integral, fundamental, and preponderating element in its constitution, the desire for self - sacrifice ’ (Sanity and Insanity, London, 1895, p. 220). In the adolescent period this universal law of life comes to self-consciousness, rises to the ethical plane, and goes on to complete itself in the all-inclu- sive ideas, aspirations, and self-consecrations of religion. Literature.—Although from of old the bloom-time of youth has been a favourite subject of literary art, scientific analysis of adolescent phenomena goes back little more than two'de- cades. The stimulus for such analysis has come partly from pathology (see work of T. S. Clouston already cited; also his Neuroses of Development, Edinburgh, 1891, and his art. on ‘Developmental Insanities and Psychoses’ in Tuke’s Dictionary of Psychological Medicine, London, 1892; likewise chs. i.-vii. of Hall’s Adolescence), but more largely from educational needs and the general extension of psychology in physiological and biological directions. In the spheres of education and psycho- logy, the study of adolescence has been greatly stimulated by G. Stanley Hall, President of Clark University, at Worcester, Mass., U.S.A. The American Journal of Psychology and the Pedagogical Seminary, both founded by him and published at Worcester, have devoted much space to articles on adolescence, largely from Dr. Hall and his immediate pupils. These publi- cations, and others of a more popular sort, have represented and stimulated an extensive child-study movement in America. which has adolescence as one of its chief foci. ’The very lar| extremely a ent of educ Uterature of this subject is listed ai '■8 by Louis N. Wilson published a' a Bibliography of Child-Study, In 1904 appeared G. Stanley Hall’s Adolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education, in two large volumes (New York). The wide range of this work, the fulness of its materials, its abundant citations from sources, and the stimulating points of view of the author (though they often display the heat of an educational reformer), combine to make this by far the most notable product of the movement for the study of adolescence. In addition to these few very general references, consult the Bibliography appended to the articles on Growth and Morbip- KESS already referred to. GEOKGE A. COE. ADOPTIANISM. — The name Adoptianism should, strictly speaking, be confined to a heresy which arose in Spain in the 8th century. But the wide circulation of Hamack’s History of Dogma has familiarized us with the idea of tracing an Adoptianist Christology to an earlier period. We propose, therefore, to treat of Adoptianism in the broadest sense, bringing under this head all writ- ings which speak of Christ as the adopted Son of God. I. The keynote of the Christology of the 2nd cent, is struck in the opening words of the ancient homily known as 2 Clement: ‘ Brethren, we ought so to think of Jesus Christ, as of God, as of the Judge of quick and dead.’ Ignatius asserts the Divinity of the Lord no less emphatically than His true manhood; e.g. ad Eph. 18 : ‘ For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb by Mary according to a dispensation, of the seed of David but also of the Holy Ghost.’ Hamack, however, contrasts with such teaching, to which he gives the name ‘ Pneumatic Christo- logy,’ the teaching of such a writer as Hermas, whom he claims as a teacher of Adoptianist Christology. Whereas Ignatius and Clement and others carry on the tradition of a pre-existent Christ on the lines of NT writings (Ep. Hebrews, Ephesians, Johannine writings), Harnack regards Hermas as a witness to a truer doctrine. Accord- ing to the Shepherd of Hermas (see Sim. v. and ix. 1. 12), in Harnack’s words (Hist, of Dogma [Eng. tr.]i. 191 n.); with the chief Archangel—is regarded of God, who is older than creation, nay, creation. The Beds with whom that Spii irit, but inited. As He did not defile arried out the work to which the Deity had called H uore than He was - lecree, adopted ai We may agree with Lightfoot and others that Hermas sometimes confuses the Persons of the Son and of the Spirit, but this is as far as the evidence leads us. Is it surprising that an obscure shop- keeper without philosophical training should make slips in the work of analysis of Christian experi- ence, which is the great task of Christian theology ? In Sim. V. Hermas distinguishes accurately enough between the Lord of the vineyard; the Servant, under which figure Hermas speaks of the Son ; and the Son, referring to the Holy Ghost. And when he writes (vi. 5) that God sent the Holy Ghost to dwell in the flesh of Christ, he does not mean that the Holy Ghost is the power of the Godhead in Christ, but that the pre-existent Christ was ‘ a spirit being.’ Such teaching is found in Ignatius (Aristides, Apol.) and in later writers (Irenseus, adv. Hcer. v. 1, 2; Tertullian, Apol. 21, adv. Prax. 8. 26). As Dorner (Doct. of Person of Christ [Eng. tr.], I. i. 131) writes: ‘ So far is Hermas from Ebionism . . . that he rather seeks in part to retract the representation of the Son as a servant in the Similitude, and even to represent His earthly work as power and majesty; whilst what remains of His humiiiation, such as His sufferings, he treats as the work of His free love, as the means of the taking away of our sins, and as the point of pas- sage to a higher perfection.’ What Harnack reads into the Christology of Hermas is really the teaching of a much later writer, Paul of Samosata. No doubt it is true that the pre-existence of Christ was ignored or denied in some quarters. One class of Ebionites held a low conception of the Person of Christ, regarding Him as an ordinary man though superior to other men (Euseb. HE iii. 27). Some writers held that the Baptism was the beginning of His Divine Sonship. 2, This tendency to minimize the Divine glory of Clhrist reached a climax in the writings of Paul of Samosata, a rationalist Monarchian, who laid stress on the unity of God as a single Person, denying any distinction of the Wisdom or Word