tion; and if unable to give further help himself he should have the humility and common sense to refer the inquirer to some other and more competent intellectual guide.

Let me sum up the argument as far as it has hitherto gone. Our concern has been with the problem of Authority and Freedom within the Christian community in its bearing either upon the religious education of children or upon the pastoral care of adults. I have endeavoured to suggest that the teacher, while claiming for himself neither personal infallibility nor omniscience, is nevertheless called upon to teach with the authority inherent in his function as the exponent of a definite religious tradition. It is a tradition which has been, or which should have been, verified to a certain extent in the personal life and religious experience of the teacher; a tradition which has been to a much wider extent verified in the corporate experience of the Church in whose name (if he be an accredited minister) the teacher is authorised to speak; but still a tradition which, in relation to those who for the first time are brought into contact with it, or who are under instruction, is necessarily presented, in the first instance, ab extra-that is to say, upon the authority of others. I have endeavoured to make it clear that such a method of authoritative teaching is not merely inevitable, but that it is compatible—provided only that it be accompanied by wisdom-with the fullest possible respect for individual personality and freedom. Authority is the necessary form under which any tradition,

whether of religion or of civilisation, must be mediated, in the first instance, to individuals, if it is to reach them at all.

There is, nevertheless, a sense in which Authority, as thus far understood, though initially inevitable as a method of teaching, ought continually to be labouring to render itself henceforward unnecessary. 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' 'Now we believe, not because of thy word, but because we have seen for ourselves and know.' The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews rebukes those to whom he writes for their dullness of hearing, complaining of them for needing to be taught over again the first principles of the oracles of God, when by reason of the time they ought themselves to be ready to become teachers of others.1 Is not this the ideal, that all Christians, having graduated, as it were, in the Ecclesia discens, should in due course become competent to take their place in the ranks of the Ecclesia docens, and themselves to teach with the authority born of experience and knowledge? Or is the Ecclesia docens itself also at the same time an Ecclesia discens? Is there any sense in which Christianity continues to be, even for those who are intellectually mature, a religion of Authority?

The answer to this question, I think, is in the affirmative; partly for the reason that Christianity is a positive and historical religion, and cannot be fully understood in independence of its own historical tradition; and partly for the reason that

1 Heb. v. II-12.

religion, as such, can never be fully understood. It speaks always in the language of metaphor and symbol; it apprehends truth' darkly, as in a mirror.' To rationalise religion by turning it into a philosophy is always to turn it into something other than itself; and in the process of such rationalisation there is always something lost which is of the vital breath of religion itself, namely, the realisation that omnia exeunt in mysterium, and that there is more in religion, and in the Divine Object of religious worship and adoration, than can be in any adequate sense grasped or understood by the mind.

This does not mean that Religion is related to Philosophy simply as incompletely rationalised to fully rationalised experience; it means rather that Philosophy, in the process of attempting to translate into terms fully understood the truths symbolically apprehended by Religion, drops out part of their meaning. Regarded from the point of view of essential truth, it is arguable that there is a sense in which Religion attains to a deeper, more concrete, more intimately personal apprehension of Reality than that which is attainable by Philosophy: the difference resides in the fact that, whereas Religion sees in a glass darkly, Philosophy cannot accept things unless they are clear. It is the business of Philosophy in relation to Religion, as in relation to any other activity of the spirit, neither to attack nor to defend, but to attempt always to understand it; but Philosophy cannot serve as a substitute for Religion itself. There is in all genuine religion an element of ultimate agnosticism: a God who was wholly unknown of course could not be worshipped, but

a God who was completely understood would be no longer a possible object of worship.1 This is, I think, part of the truth which underlies the striking treatise by Professor Rudolf Otto of Marburg on the religious conception of Holiness (as an attribute of Deity), a book the sub-title of which may be translated 'A study of the relation of the nonrational to the rational elements in the conception of the Divine.' 2

From all this it follows, not merely that in every theology and in every philosophy of religion there must always be an element of permanent inadequacy, and not merely that religion cannot be understood at all if it is approached in the detached spirit of a Salomon Reinach: it follows also that the intellectual interpretation and study of religion must always be controlled by the authority of religion itself. There is always the danger of theorising upon too narrow a basis of experience: and the intellectual interpretation of the theologian must be controlled by the experience of the saint. The Christian theologian whose work is to be of any value must aim at taking account, not only of the spiritual values inherent in the tradition in which he has personally been brought up, but of the spiritual significance of the whole manifestation of Christianity in history. He must reckon with the spiritual auctoritas of every one of the various forms

1 Cf. H. Rickert, System der Philosophie, i. 340: 'Ein restlos begriffenes Göttliches bliebe also . . . kein Göttliches, sondern verwandelte sich in ein Menschliches.'

2 Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen. (Breslau. 1917.)

of Christianity, and must ask, with regard to doctrines and practices, not merely what they say, or how they appear when regarded polemically, but what they mean, and what they actually represent in the religious lives of those who practise and accept them. He must continually be attempting to guard against the temptation to premature synthesis, and to overcome the narrowness of his personal experience by reference to the wider experience of others and to the witness of other forms of Christianity. Inasmuch as there is no man who can claim to have fully understood Christianity, there is a sense in which every man, whether teacher or not, must be permanently a learner. In the Christian tradition as a whole, and in the experience of ecumenical Christendom, greater treasure of spiritual riches and wisdom is contained than any given individual, or any existing denomination' of Christians, in isolation is capable of grasping. A Christian man lives unto God in the power of the Spirit on the basis of such positive convictions as he has attained, and of such spiritual practice as he has thus far found real. He does well to avoid a closed mind, and to be willing to learn still from his brethren; neither simply rejecting without qualification, as superstitious, religious doctrines which he does not personally hold, nor condemning, as devoid of spiritual value, or as positively harmful, religious practices of which he has had no personal experience.

What I have just been saying amounts to the suggestion that the Christian theologian, who aims at achieving a synthetic grasp and an intellectual