did not at first[72] think it
necessary to "confer with flesh and blood"--to collect evidence about
our Lord's ministry, His death and resurrection; he had "seen" and
felt Him, and that was enough. "It was the good pleasure of God to
reveal His Son in me,[73]" he says simply, using the favourite
mystical phraseology. The study of "evidences," in the usual sense of
the term in apologetics, he rejects with distrust and contempt.[74]
External revelation cannot make a man religious. It can put nothing
new into him. If there is nothing answering to it in his mind, it will
profit him nothing. Nor can philosophy make a man religious. "Man's
wisdom," "the wisdom of the world," is of no avail to find spiritual
truth. "God chose the foolish things of the world, to put to shame
them that are wise." "The word of the Cross is, to them that are
perishing, foolishness." By this language he, of course, does not mean
that Christianity is irrational, and therefore to be believed on
authority. That would be to lay its foundation upon external
evidences, and nothing could be further from the whole bent of his
teaching. What he does mean, and say very clearly, is that the carnal
mind is disqualified from understanding Divine truths; "it cannot know
them, because they are spiritually discerned." He who has not raised
himself above "the world," that is, the interests and ideals of human
society as it organises itself apart from God, and above "the flesh,"
that is, the things which seem desirable to the "average sensual man,"
does not possess in himself that element which can be assimilated by
Divine grace. The "mystery" of the wisdom of God is necessarily hidden
from him. St. Paul uses the word "mystery" in very much the same sense
which St. Chrysostom[75] gives to it in the following careful
definition: "A mystery is that which is everywhere proclaimed, but
which is not understood by those who have not right judgment. It is
revealed, not by cleverness, but by the Holy Ghost, as we are able to
receive it. And so we may call a mystery a secret ([Greek:
aporreton]), for even to the faithful it is not committed in all its
fulness and clearness." In St. Paul the word is nearly always found in
connexion with words denoting revelation or publication[76]. The
preacher of the Gospel is a hierophant, but the Christian mysteries
are freely communicated to all who can receive them. For many ages
these truths were "hid in God,[77]" but now all men may be