This contempt of the historical and the personal is the key to Strauss' work. The church, when it continued faithful, had always looked to the Gospels as the Holy Sepulchre of its faith, and was ever ready to make a crusade against the power which would wrest it from her grasp. But, amid the conflicts occasioned by the growth of the destructive criticism, the Gospels had received at its hands a treatment no less severe than had been inflicted upon the history of the Old Testament. Many theories had already been propounded by the Rationalists in order to account for them, but there was no general harmony among these men either on this or any subject of speculation. Wetstein, Michaelis, and Eichhorn were agreed that the Gospels were more human than divine, and the fate to which all the inspired records were consigned by those critics and their sympathizers has its analogy in the treatment bestowed by vultures upon the carcass of the exhausted beast that has fallen by the wayside. But, after all, the accounts of the Evangelists had suffered less severely than any other part of the Scriptures, and the injury they had sustained was owing more to the attacks made on the historical and prophetical portions of the Old Testament than to any immediate invasion. For the Bible is a unity. If but one book be mutilated the whole organism is disturbed.

The contest having been hitherto connected with other features of revelation more than with the person of Christ, it was no part of the design of the Rationalists to submit without staking a great battle upon the incarnation of the Messiah. Let them succeed here, and they can rebuild more firmly all they have lost, but if they fail, they will only bring to a more speedy ruin an edifice already in decay. Strauss undertook the work; and having written for the learned alone, no one was more surprised than himself at the popular success of the Life of Jesus.

According to him, the explanation of the mysterious accounts of Jesus of Nazareth can be found in the theory of the myth. Strauss held that the Holy Land was full of notions concerning his speedy appearance. The people were waiting for him, and were ready to hail his incarnation with rapture. Their opinions concerning him were already formed, owing to the expectations they had inherited from their fathers. Therefore, any one who answered their views would be the Messiah. There was much in both the character and life of Christ which approached their crude notions of the promised one. For this reason their hearts went out toward him, and they called him "Jesus." The world was already prepared, and since Christ best fitted it, he was entitled to all the honor of being waited for and accepted. All the prophecies of his incarnation were purely historical events. But the Jewish mind is very visionary and prone to allegory. Consequently, when Christ appeared among the Jews, it was not difficult to trace a resemblance between him and other marked personages in history.

Thus Christ did not organize the Church as much as the church created him. He existed and lived on earth, but very different was the real Jesus from that wonderful character described in the Gospels. The veritable Messiah was born of humble parentage, was baptized by John, collected a few disciples, inveighed against the Pharisees and all others who placed themselves in antagonism to him, and finally fell a victim to the cruelty of his foes. Years passed by after his death, and the popular imagination went wild with reports and exaggerations of the once obscure Nazarene. Great as the ideas of the people were before Christ appeared, they were infinitely magnified during the lapse of the thirty years between his death and the composition of the Gospels. These narratives are consequently not a representation of history, but of morbid popular fancies. The evangelists did not intend to deceive their readers; their picturesque sketches were only designed to clothe the ideal in the garb of the real. "Be not so unkind," Strauss says in effect, "as to charge these poor uneducated men with evil purposes. They were very unsophisticated, and did not know enough to have any extended plan of trickery. They heard wonderful stories floating about, just such as one meets with in all countries after a prominent man has died; and, as they had a little capacity for using the pen, they wrote them down to the best of their ability. Their writings are curious but very defective, since the authors were too unpractised in literary work to perfect a master-piece. How little they dreamed of the reverence which future generations would pay them! Poor souls, they hardly knew what they were doing. One caught one story, and his friend another; and it is a nice bit of mosaic which we find in their school-boy productions. No wonder their defenders are unable to harmonize their accounts. Let any four men who live among a legend-loving people transcribe the traditions they hear from the lips of childhood and garrulous old age, or read in the popular romances of the day, and it will surprise no one that they do not agree. How can they tell the same things in the same way, since the sources of each are so different? Nor, with only myths for warp and woof, is it at all surprising that we have nothing more than Homeric exaggerations when the fanciful fabric is once woven."

The introduction to the Life of Jesus consists of an essay on the historical development of the mythical theory. Having stated its present shape and great value, it is then applied to the life of Christ in the body of the work. This is the climax of destructive criticism. Everything which Christ is reported by the Evangelists to have said or done shares the natural explanations of Strauss. From his very birth to his ascension, his life is no more remarkable than that of many others who have taken part in the public events of their times.

Beginning with the annunciation and birth of John the Baptist, Strauss considers the apparition to Zacharias and his consequent dumbness as actual external circumstances, susceptible of a natural interpretation. Zacharias had a waking vision or ecstasy. Such a thing is not common, but in the present instance, many circumstances combined to produce an unusual state of mind. The exciting causes were, first, the long-cherished desire to have a posterity; second, the exalted vocation of administering in the Holy Place and offering up with the incense the prayers of the people to the throne of Jehovah, which seemed to Zacharias to foretoken the acceptance of his own prayer; and third, perhaps an exhortation from his wife as he left his house, similar to that of Rachel to Jacob. Gen. xxx. 1. In this highly excited state of mind, as he prays in the dimly-lighted sanctuary, he thinks of his most ardent wish, and expecting that now or never his prayer shall be heard, he is prepared to discern a sign of its acceptance in the slightest occurrence. As the glimmer of the lamp falls upon the ascending cloud of incense, and shapes it into varying forms, the priest imagines that he perceives the figure of an angel. The apparition at first alarms him, but he soon regards it as an assurance from God that his prayer is heard. No sooner does a transient doubt cross his mind, than the sensitively pious priest looks upon himself as sinful and believes himself reproved by the angel. Now, either an apoplectic seizure actually deprives him of speech, which he receives as the just punishment of his incredulity, until the excessive joy he experiences at the circumcision of his son restores the power of utterance—so that dumbness is retained as an external, physical, though not miraculous occurrence—or the proceeding is psychologically understood; namely, that Zacharias, in accordance with a Jewish superstition, for a time denied himself the use of the offending member. Reanimated in other respects by the extraordinary event, the priest returns home to his wife, and she becomes a second Sarah.[63]

The original histories are adduced, and the parallels fully drawn between them and the gospel narratives in order to show the mythical character of the latter. The birth of John the Baptist is the mongrel product of the Old Testament stories of the birth of Isaac, of Samson, and of Samuel. Every event related by the evangelists is so strained as to make it analogous to other occurrences in Jewish history. The murder of the innocents by Herod is only a poetic plagiarism of the cruelty of Nimrod and Pharaoh; the star which guided the shepherds, a memory of the star promised in the prophecy of Balaam; Christ explaining the Bible when twelve years old, a gloss upon the precocity of Moses, Samuel, and Solomon; the increase of the loaves, a union of the manna in the wilderness and the twenty loaves with which Elisha fed the people; water changed into wine, a new version of the bitter waters made sweet; the cross, a reminder of the brazen serpent; the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, the bloody sweat and the agony on the cross, poor copies from the Lamentations of Jeremiah; and the two thieves, the nailed hands and feet, the pierced side, the thirst, and the last words of Jesus, are borrowed narratives from the sixty-ninth and twenty-second Psalms.[64]

The same mythical explanation is applied to the conception and divine character of Jesus. By entertaining such notions of him as we find in the gospels we display a superstition worthy of the dim days of pagan legendry. In the world of mythology many great men had extraordinary births, and were sons of the gods. Jesus himself spoke of his heavenly origin, and called God his Father; besides, his title as Messiah was "Son of God." From Matt. i. 22, it is further evident that the passage of Isaiah vii. 14, was referred to Jesus by the early Christian church. In conformity with this passage the belief prevailed that Jesus, as the Messiah, should be born of a virgin by means of divine agency. It was therefore taken for granted that what was to be actually did occur; and thus originated a philosophical, dogmatical myth concerning the birth of Jesus. But according to historical truth, Jesus was the offspring of an ordinary marriage, between Joseph and Mary, which maintains at once the dignity of Jesus and the respect due to his mother. The transfiguration illustrates both the natural and mythical methods of interpretation. It is a reflection of the scene which transpired on Sinai at the giving of the law. The gospel account is an Ossianic fancy. Something merely objective presented itself to the disciples, and this explains how an object was perceived by several at once. They deceived themselves, when awake, as to what they saw. That was natural, because they were all born within the same circle of ideas, were in the same frame of mind, and in the same situation. According to this opinion, the essential fact in the scene on the mountain is a secret interview which Jesus had concerted, and, with a view to which, he took with him the three most confidential of his disciples. Paulus does not venture to determine who the two men were with whom Jesus held this interview; Kuinoel conjectures that they were secret adherents of the same kind as Nicodemus; and according to Venturini, they were Essenes, secret allies of Jesus. Jesus prayed before these arrived, and the disciples, not being invited to join, slept. For the sleep noticed by Luke, though it were dreamless, is gladly retained in this interpretation, since a delusion appears more probable in the case of persons just awaking. On hearing strange voices talking with Jesus, they awake, and see him—who probably stood on a higher point of the mountain than they—enveloped in an unwonted brilliancy, caused by the reflection of the sun's rays from a sheet of snow. This light falling on Jesus is mistaken by them in the surprise of the moment for a supernatural illumination. They perceive the two men whom, for some unknown reasons, the drowsy Peter and the rest take for Moses and Elias. Their astonishment increases when they see the two strange individuals disappear in a bright morning cloud—which descends as they are in the act of departing—and hear one of them pronounce out of the cloud the words, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." Under these circumstances they unavoidably regard this as a voice from heaven.

The resurrection of Christ is regarded by Strauss as a psychological necessity placed upon the disciples, first to solve the contradiction between the ultimate fate of Jesus and their earlier opinion of him, and second to adopt into their idea of the Messiah the characteristics of suffering and death.

"When once the idea of a resurrection of Jesus had been formed in this manner," says Strauss, "the great event could not have been allowed to happen so simply, but must be surrounded and embellished with all the pomp which the Jewish imagination furnished. The chief ornaments which stood at command for this purpose were angels; hence these must open the grave of Jesus; must, after he had come forth from it, keep watch in the empty place, and deliver to the women,—who, because without doubt women had the first visions, must be the first to go to the grave,—the tidings of what had happened. As it was Galilee where Jesus subsequently appeared to them, the journey of the disciples thither, which was nothing else than their return home, somewhat hastened by fear, was derived from the direction of an angel; nay, Jesus himself must already before his death, and as Matthew too zealously adds, once more after the resurrection also, have enjoined this journey on the disciples. But the farther these narratives were propagated by tradition, the more must the difference between the locality of the resurrection itself and that of the appearance of the risen one be allowed to fall out of sight as inconvenient; and since the locality of the death was not transferable, the appearances were gradually placed in the same locality as the resurrection,—in Jerusalem, which, as the more brilliant theatre and the seat of the first Christian church, was especially appropriate for them."[65]

The ascension is claimed as a myth founded upon the Old Testament precedents of the translation of Enoch and the ascension of Elijah, and the pagan apotheosis of Hercules and Romulus.

The last part of Strauss' work is a dissertation on the dogmatic import of the life of Jesus. Here this merciless critic tries to prove that, though the belief of the church concerning Christ be thus uprooted by the theory of myths, nothing truly valuable is destroyed. He declares it his purpose "to re-establish dogmatically that which has been destroyed critically." He holds that all his criticism is purely independent of Christian faith; for, "The supernatural birth of Christ, his miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain eternal truths, whatever doubts may be cast on their reality as historical facts." Thus, reliance is placed upon a difference between the import of criticism and christian faith—which subterfuge proved a broken reed when the masses read this mythical interpretation of the life of the Founder of Christianity. In vain did Strauss say, in the preface to his work, that it was not designed for the laity, and that if they read it, it must be at their own hazard. It was published—and therefore the public had a right to demand an examination. Let him who writes an evil thought never be deceived by the opinion that only those will read it who cannot be injured by it. "What is writ, is writ;" and then it is too late to wish it "worthier."

But the most remarkable feature of the work of Strauss yet remains to be traced. It was a compilation, and nothing more. Having ransacked every skeptical writer on the gospel history, he published their views at length in his Life of Jesus. He did not make many quotations. But the references at the foot of almost every page declare plainly enough the pains he took to put in force the incantation he had pronounced to all skeptical sprites,

"Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray, Mingle, mingle, mingle; ye that mingle may."

No Rationalist escaped his notice. The English Naturalists reappeared with all their original pretensions. Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Lessing, Kant, De Maistre, and all the representatives of skeptical thought communed in friendly society, regardless alike of disparity in particular opinions and of difference in the time when they flourished. On this very account M. Quinet infers the great popularity of the enterprise. Because it was a grouping of all heterodox doctrines of the person of Christ, the adherents of Rationalism saw whither their principles were leading them, and their opponents learned more of the desperate character of their foe than they had ever acquired from all other sources. It was a crystallization of the imputations and insults cast upon the gospels for more than seventy-five years. Then, for the first time, did the votaries of error, mass themselves. It was then, too, that the evangelical school were first able to count the number of their opponents.

The scene before the publication of the Life of Jesus was quite different from the one presented subsequently. Formerly the Rationalists said what they chose about Christ, and they suffered little from their rashness. But immediately after Strauss had issued his book, the attention of the church was profoundly attracted toward the consideration of the themes therein treated. The church seemed to say, "Strange, that I have given so little attention to this great pillar of Christian faith; now I see what reward I am receiving for my neglect. The like shall never happen again. No, I will not only quench this firebrand, but I will hurl back upon my enemies enough destructive missiles to reduce them to a disorganized band of homeless fugitives." This resolution was not the work of idle excitement, and soon to be forgotten. The replies to the Life of Jesus constitute a theological literature. They were very numerous, and written from as many points of view as there had been theological schools since the dawn of the Reformation. The first rejoinder came from the most distinguished theologian of Wuertemberg, Steudel of Tuebingen. He was superintendent of the very school where Strauss was tutor, and his work was written but a few weeks after the issue of the first volume of the Life of Jesus. It discussed the question whether Christ's life rested on a historical or mythical basis. The conclusion was an uncompromising decision in favor of the former view. Steudel represented the old Lutheran orthodoxy.

We now meet with the name of Hengstenberg, whom Providence designed to be an instrument of much good to the theology of the present day. He proved himself an unflinching hero when he dealt his first blows from his professor's chair in Berlin. His utterances soon acquired great importance wherever the current controversies attracted attention. He was the leader of the young orthodox school, and in his newly-founded Evangelical Church Gazette, he pictured his times in the language of desolation. His words were worthy of the dark days of Jeremiah. Adopting the exclamation of that prophet, he cried aloud, "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Theologians, philosophers, and tradesmen seemed to him to be overwhelmed in skepticism. But he had a lion's heart, and fought steadily for the growth of the pure faith of the olden time. Nor has he grown tired of the warfare. He appears to have been born upon the battle-field, within sound of drum and cannon. He is as much the warrior to-day as when he entered the lists against Strauss nearly thirty years ago. His opinion of his great antagonist may be summed up in his own language. He says of him that, "He has the heart of a leviathan, which is as hard as a stone and as firm as the nether millstone; he assails the Lord's Anointed with composure and cold-bloodedness; and not a tear of pity flows from his eyes."

Harless and Hoffman followed in spirited criticisms on the Life of Jesus. Tholuck next appeared upon the arena in his Credibility of the Gospel History. This production was somewhat declamatory in style, but that was no barrier to its utility. It attacked Strauss in the weakest spot, namely, in his deductions against the authenticity and apostolic origin of the gospels. Tholuck defines a miracle to be an event which appears contrary to the course of nature, and has a religious origin and aim. He allows that inspiration is not total but partial, and that it is but fair to concede to his opponent the presence of Scriptural defects, such as mistakes of memory, and errors in historical, chronological, and astronomical details. We must be content to know and feel that, in the Bible, we find a basis of inspiration which is none the less substantial though surrounded by intruding weeds, or fragments of stone and mortar. But Tholuck's work is not a fair specimen of his writings. Besides its literary defects, the author concedes much more to the Rationalists here than he is accustomed to do in his many superior publications.

Again we meet with the revered name of Neander. His Life of Christ appeared in 1837. He published it not only as a reply to Strauss, but as an independent treatise upon the person of the Messiah. He announced himself as the mediator between those bitter partisans who, on the one side, would grant no rights to reason, and on the other, would leave no space for the exercise of feeling and faith. His work stands in the same relation to criticism which Schleiermacher's Discourses occupies to dogmas, and as the latter appears sometimes to lean toward Rationalism, so do we find in the former traces of concession to the destructive method of criticism. Neander's work, despite everything which he grants to his enemies, was the transition-agent toward a purer comprehension of the life of Christ. While we lament that he interprets the early life of Christ as a fragment derived from an evangelical tradition; that he believes the influence of demons in the gospel period susceptible of a psychological explanation, that the miraculous feeding of the five thousand is but the multiplication and potentialization of substances already at hand, that the feeding of the four thousand is a mistaken account of the former, and that the changing of the water into wine at Cana of Galilee was nothing more than an increase of power in the water, as we find sometimes in mineral fluids,—granting these and all the other interpretations which Neander makes on the score of nature or myths, we must attach an importance to his Life of Christ second only to his History of the Christian Church. One closes the reading of his account of the Messiah with a profound impression that the author had a true conception of the divinity and authority of the Founder of Christianity. We cannot doubt his sympathy with those words of Pascal which he quoted frequently with exquisite pleasure: "En Jesus Christ toutes les contradictions sont accordees."

Ullmann, in his treatise Historical or Mythical, will not accept the alternative that the life of Christ is all mythical or all historical. He enumerates the philosophical myth, the historical myth, mythical history, and history with traditional parts. It is to the last of these that he assigns the gospel history. He propounds the dilemma, whether the church has conceived a poetical Christ, or whether Christ is the real founder of the church? He accepts the latter, and invokes all history in proof of his argument. Weisse, in his Gospel History treated Philosophically and Critically, dwells upon the relative claims of the four gospels. At least one of the gospels is original and the authority for the rest. This is Mark's; and it is not mythical, but historical and worthy of credence. Matthew is a compilation of a later day; and Luke and John are of still less importance. But the miracles related by Mark are purely natural events. Christ's miraculous cures were owing to his physical powers. His body was a strong electric battery, which, in his later life, lost its power of healing. Else he would have saved himself from death. His early life is unadulterated allegory.

But there were numerous writers against Strauss, among whom may be mentioned Schweizer, Wilke, Schaller, and Dorner. Dorner's History of the Person of Christ, 1839, was an attempt to show the totality of Christ as a universal character. The human conception of species is of a world of fragments, but in Christ we find them completely united. All single, individual prototypes coalesced in him. He is the World-Personality. Bruno Bauer wrote his Criticism of the Synoptical Gospels in reply to Strauss, though a few years afterward he changed his ground entirely. His position in this work was as mediator between reason and revelation. He brought into the conflict concerning Strauss' Life of Jesus an element of heated argument, and egotism, which ripened into his subsequent antagonism to the supernatural school. His entrance upon this field of strife may be comprehended by Schwartz's comparison of him with Carlstadt and Thomas Munzer, who had lived in the exciting period of the Reformation.

An enumeration of the titles of the works which appeared at frequent intervals during the ten years succeeding the issue of Strauss' Life of Jesus, indicates that toward the close of this period the controversy was directed more to the particular gospels than to the life of Christ as a unit. The many theories advanced exceeded all the ordinary illustrations of literary fecundity and extravagance in the department of theology. There was no theologian of note who did not take part in the contest. Pastors of obscure provincial churches, who did not venture upon a complete life of the Messiah, felt themselves competent either to originate a new view of one or more of the gospels, or to elaborate a borrowed one. The excitement was intense. There was no evidence of system in the rapid movement. But now that the battle is over we read the philosophy of the whole conflict. Strauss, without any intention on his part, had shown the church of the present century, its weakness in failing to comprehend the importance of the evangelical history. The numerous replies indicated a hopeful attention to the neglected compendium of divine truth. The friends who rushed to his aid declared by their impetuosity that their cause would have been better served had Strauss never penned a word about Christ. They saw their stronghold in ruins, and looked with tearful eyes upon the future of their creed. The language which Strauss had applied to his excited opponents upon the appearance of his work became severely appropriate to his own adherents, after that production had been faithfully answered. "Their alarm," said he, "was like the screaming of frightened women on seeing one of their cooking utensils fall upon the floor." Granting the appositeness of the illustration, we must add that the alarm mentioned by the critic was of brief duration; while that of the Rationalists and their adherents is like the long-standing despair of a circle of chemists, whose laboratory has been entered through a door left open by themselves, their carefully prepared combinations destroyed, and all their retorts and crucibles shattered into irreparable fragments.

After a long absence of twenty-nine years, Strauss has again appeared as the biographer of Christ. In his former work he wrote for the theological public, but we are now assured that he had ever kept in mind a purpose to do for the masses what he had achieved for critical minds. The last fruit of his pen is his Life of Jesus Popularly Treated, which, following close upon the issue of M. Renan's work, appeared in 1864, in the form of a large octavo volume of more than six hundred pages.

Strauss was induced to make his second work more popular than the first, because of the gross injustice which the clergy had meted out to him in consequence of his former labors to establish the historical position of Christ. The "guild" of professional theologians are interested, he avers, in maintaining their own cause; of course, they would not loose their hold very willingly. The only italicized sentence in his preface is a thrust against this class, whom time has in nowise led him to esteem: "He who wants to clear the parsons out of the church must first clear miracles out of religion." The spirit of the introduction, in which the German writer is always expected to announce his opinions and give the historical reasons therefor, is not materially different from the lengthy one in his Life of Jesus. It is divided into three parts. The first contains the important attempts which have been made to write the life of Jesus and represent it in its true light. They have all been failures. Hess, Herder, Paulus, Schleiermacher, Hase, Neander, Ebrard, Weisse, Ewald, Keim, and Renan must be content to lie in oblivion. Renan has done very well for a Frenchman; and as a work for France his book has some merit. The second treats of the gospels as sources of the life of Jesus. These accounts, not being authentic, are not of sufficient weight to be relied on. The third part contains certain explanations necessary to a proper appreciation of the remaining portion of the work. The following language indicates the author's unchanged opinion on the mythical character of Christ: "We now know for a certainty at least, what Jesus was not and what he did not do, namely, nothing superhuman, nothing supernatural; it will, therefore, now be the more possible for us to so far trace out the suggestions of the Gospels touching the human and natural in him as shall enable us to give at least some outline of what he was and what he wanted to do."

The body of the book is substantially an attempt to show that Christ, as represented by the Evangelists, is a mythical personage. Such a man lived; but his life is not remarkable; it is not what they described it; and not very different from the common life of ordinary men. We have first, an historical outline of the life of Jesus. Here Strauss makes himself, and not the Gospel narrators, the biographer of Christ. Secondly, we are furnished with the mythical history of Jesus in its origin and growth. The people were expecting some remarkable character, and they seized upon the first one who best answered their notions. John is as bad as his compeers. He is utterly untrustworthy. The only work of the New Testament from an immediate disciple is the Apocalypse of John. But this, too, is wholly unhistorical. Adopting the opinion of the radical Rationalists, Strauss holds that miracles are impossible, and that if God were to operate against natural laws he would be operating against himself. As a specimen of the method of criticism adopted to divest Christ's career of everything miraculous, we may instance Strauss' disposition of the resurrection of Christ. He confesses that if he cannot show that this is mythological, his whole work has been written in vain. Christ did really die, but his resurrection was a vision. His disciples were excited, and believed they saw their Master reappear. But it was a great mistake on their part. It was only an hallucination. Paul had his visions; so did Peter and John; and so did Mary Magdalene, who was subject to nervous disorders.[66]

The second life of Jesus has met with a cold reception. The "People of the Reformation," to whom it was flatteringly addressed, prefer a more substantial theology. The tide has turned since 1835, and no man feels the power of the new current more keenly than David Frederic Strauss.

The Rationalists, who gained nothing in the controversy concerning the first Life of Jesus by the tutor of Tuebingen, were unfortunate in their organized, systematic, and well-sustained effort to regain lost ground. We have reference to the labors of the Tuebingen school. Ferdinand Christian Baur was its founder. His works are numerous, and may be divided into two classes: doctrinal and critical. But there is consistency in all,—and, varied as his subjects of investigation are, they centre in a common focus. Baur sought the solution of the agitated question in the apostolic history rather than in the life of Christ. The Christianity about which so much discussion is elicited, is, according to him, not a perfect and divine production, but only a vital force in process of development. This is the principle which underlies the multifarious theories of the Tuebingen school. In order to have a place where to stand and eliminate the theory, the epistles of Paul are chosen. But these are not all authentic. Hence a selection must be made, and, of course, only those must be chosen which are in harmony with the supposition that Christianity is but a dormant germ. Consequently, the Epistles to the Galatians, the Romans, and the Corinthians are favorites. They are made to dispel the darkness, and settle the question.

In them Paul exposes the fact that there were two parties in the early church, the Pauline and the Petrine. They struggled for supremacy, and the conflict was a long one. Peter was a thorough Jew,—and his side predominated even after the death of the principal combatants. Judaism was the cradle of Christianity; and the latter was only an earnest, restless, and reformatory branch of the former. But it was not an offshoot as yet, for Christianity was essentially Jewish all through its first historic period. The canonical writings of the New Testament, which constitute the chief literature of the first two centuries, are the literary monument of Christianity while it was yet undeveloped, and undetached from Judaism. These writings are the mediating theology of those distant days. The Petrine party was very strong, until the middle of the second century, when it was obliged to yield to, or rather harmonize with, the Pauline.

Many causes contributed to bring the two factions together. There was an absence of growth quite incompatible with their respective strength. Alone, they were almost unable to brave the storm of persecution. Finally, for the sake of security and propagation, they laid down their weapons, and united under one banner. From this union came the subsequent growth of Christianity. The canonical works so much revered by the church had been written in the interest of one or the other of the parties. Since the enmity has been destroyed, their literary productions must be considered in the light of history. The church is, therefore, much mistaken in attaching importance to the Scriptures, for they were written for a time-serving end, and are quite unworthy of the worth which we attach to them.

A numerous circle of disciples clustered around Baur, and they enjoyed his leadership until his recent death. But the writings of both the master and his school were answered by the best theologians of Germany. Some of the greenest laurels worn by Thiersch, Dorner, Lechler, Lange, Schaff, Bleek, Hase, and Bunsen, were won in the contest with the Tuebingen school; and their united labors constitute a compendium of arguments which will not cease for centuries to be of inestimable value in the controversies of the church concerning Christ and the divine origin of Christianity.

The labors of the Tuebingen school and of Strauss are two parts of the same effort to destroy the divine basis of Christian faith. We do not impugn the private opinions of the contestants, but we must judge them by their fruits. They wrote and taught against those departments of truth which it is necessary to preserve intact if we would have Christianity continue a vital power of the soul and an aggressive principle in the world. Objections will still be urged against the Gospel history, but it will still be blessed by the ceaseless oversight and unfailing ministrations of the Holy Spirit. Supposing the evangelical accounts to be purely human, we have even then the highest embodiment of truth in the history of man. Herder says, "Have the fishermen of Galilee founded such a history? Then blessed be their memory that they have founded it!" With the conviction that the writers of the Scriptures throughout were inspired men, and spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, we have a power demanded alike by the cravings of the soul and the aspirations of the intellect. Blessed with this sentiment, the individual and the church are thoroughly furnished unto every good work.

From Germany we turn to France. The latter country has been the traditional purveyor of revolutionary material for the rest of the Continent. No great popular movement west of the Rhine has been without its influence upon the eastern side. The July Revolution of 1830, which effected the overthrow of the Restoration represented by Charles X., set the German masses in commotion. They were henceforth restless, and ready, whenever occasion offered, to overturn the government and establish a national constitutional basis. The Rationalists were insurrectionary, and, the more rapid their decline in all religious sentiment the more decided was their opposition to constituted authorities. Strauss' Life of Jesus, great in its influence upon theology, was equally powerful over the political mind. Every new publication which befriended infidelity was not without its support of faction and discontent.

In connection with the revolutionary tendency, Rationalism assumed also a more pantheistic, and subsequently a more atheistic form. The second important work of Strauss, his System of Doctrine, was even more adapted than his first to sap the foundations of faith and social security. It was the embodiment of all the worst features of the Hegelian philosophy. It was frank and bold in all its statements. No man could mistake a single utterance. In it doctrines are traced to their genetic development, and held to be the luxuriant growth of the seeds of error. The truths of Christianity are surrounded by a halo to which it is no more entitled than the sagas of the Northmen. The old dogma was born of prejudice and error, hence the modern conception of it is sheer illusion. Faith and science are irreconcilable foes, for faith is the perversion, and science the development of human nature. Believing and knowing, religion and philosophy, are born antagonists, and man can make no rapid progress if he grovel in the errors of faith. The personality of God is not that of the individual but of the universal. The pantheism of Spinoza is the best solution of God's existence; "for," says Strauss, "God is not the personal, but the infinite personifying of himself."

The oracular responses of Feuerbach[67] were a step beyond even this skeptical usurpation. Religion is man's conduct to himself. Man, from time immemorial, has been buried in self-love, and become so far carried away by it that his religion is now one monstrous hallucination. Religion springs not from his intellect but from his imagination. He wishes to get to heaven; he desires to be comfortable; therefore he believes. He will put himself to no little trouble to propitiate the favor of one whom he considers divine. Here is the mystery of all sacrifices. They are offered by all people from the mere inner force of abject egotism. God has no absolute existence whatever. Christianity needs to be attacked historically. Its chief elements are Judaism and paganism. That it is a collection of absurdities, corruptions, and prejudices, can be perceived on its very face. But still man needs religion, though he can only gain it either by rejecting Christianity altogether or purifying it from its thick envelope of dross.

The Halle Year-Books, published 1838-'42, were the principal organ of the new atheistic doctrines. They commenced with the laudation of Strauss, then passed over into the service of Feuerbach, and finally served the cause of Bruno Baur and his fanatical adherents. They were under the chief editorship of Ruge; and, being popular and youthful in style, they wielded an unbounded influence on the dissatisfied and skeptical classes. They broke through all the restraints of religion, and propagated the wildest perversions of Hegel's opinions. Though short-lived, they gained an authority not often enjoyed by a periodical. They were factious in the extreme, and became one of the principal agents in effecting the Revolution of 1848. They breathed mildew on everything stable in government and sacred in religion. But, Samson-like, they fell amid the ruin which they inflicted upon others.

Quite a new form of Rationalism was then presented in the popular conventions of the Protestant Friends. These individuals held that by a return to the spirit of the Reformation, Germany would be endowed with a new and living energy. But it must not be the Reformation as the church would have us understand it. It must be an impulse and spirit, not an outward attachment to form and compulsory authority. They were popularly called Friends of Light, and embraced all the schools of Rationalists throughout the land. Their convocation was the parliament of German infidelity. Professing adherence to some of the doctrines of Christianity, they so glossed them that even the atheist could be a member without violating his principles.

Their founder was Pastor Uhlich, who, in company with sixteen friends, held the first meeting at Gnadau, in July, 1841. The second convention met at Halle, and was numerously attended by clergymen, professors, and laymen of every class of society. The session at Koethen, in 1844, was a great popular assembly. It was addressed by Pastor Wislicenus, of Halle, whose lecture was subsequently issued as a reply to his antagonists, under the title of Whether Scriptures or Spirit? Not the letter, but the spirit, is the ground of true religion. The spirit permeates humanity, and hence there is no occasion for the observance of the law. The spirit comes with its own law; it is a law in itself. The Evangelical church stands safe only when resting upon freedom. The glory of the church is the absolute freedom of its members. The Scriptures are very good in their way. They are a witness of the faith of the first times, but were never intended for these cultivated days. The church is freed from the exterior law and elevated to the inner law of freedom.

Guericke, the church historian, called attention to Wislicenus in the Evangelical Church Gazette. Great surprise was manifested at once, and the sober mind of the nation became aroused to a sense of the danger now threatening the foundations of faith. In a short time the Saxon decree was issued against all assemblies which called in question the Augsburg Confession. The following month, August, 1845, the Prussian cabinet-order appeared, prohibiting all convocations of the Friends of Light. Protests appeared against Wislicenus and his followers, which were followed by counter-protests signed indiscriminately by all classes.

Another popular development of Rationalism occurred in Koenigsberg, in 1845. Pastor Rupp attacked the Athanasian symbol in his own pulpit, whereupon he was ejected by the consistory. He collected an independent congregation; and thus arose those Free Congregations, which contributed equally to the Rationalistic and revolutionary movements. Appearing in other parts of Germany, they became a formidable opponent of the church. While they held that the Scriptures were their rule of faith in the unity of God, they threw off their authority and that of all symbols. They adopted baptism and the Lord's Supper, and professed allegiance to the civil power. But their influence was against the government, and their two sacraments were odious corruptions. Their form of baptism is enough to determine their religious sentiment: "I baptize thee after the manner of the old apostolic baptism, that Jesus is the Christ; I anoint thy head with water as a sign that thy soul remains pure, pure as the water that runs down the mountain side; and as the water rises to heaven and then returns to the earth, so may you be continually mindful of your heavenly home." Their convocations were finally restricted by the civil authority. The supreme church council issued an excommunicatory order against them; the police broke up their meetings; and forty of the Free Congregations were closed in Prussia alone.

The leaders of the Revolution of 1848 were the organizers of these popular independent movements. When the people had gained the upper hand of their rulers, their very first action was to select the destroyers of their faith as their political champions and representatives. It was, therefore, a great triumph for those fanatical humanists to find themselves seated in the national parliaments of Frankfort and Berlin, and, wherever the revolution extended, to be the leaders of the excited masses.

What could be expected from a revolution conducted by such men as Wislicenus, Blum, Uhlich, Baltzer, Carl Schwartz and their adherents? It was a total failure. And when the restoration was completed in 1849, the reaction against Rationalism became so decided that the leaders had reason to tremble for their lives. The people were profoundly disgusted with a skepticism which could produce no better fruits than this one had matured. The indignation was even more intense than that toward French infidelity during the supremacy of Napoleon over the German States. In the latter case the people were disgusted with the efforts of foreign skepticism, but in the former, they saw and felt the sore evils of domestic Rationalism. Religious error had led them from peace and quiet into a dream-land. When the waking moment came, and the deception became apparent, the surprise at the delusion was overwhelming.

The doctrinal form of Rationalism had been arrested by Schleiermacher and his noble band of followers. Its exegetical prestige had been destroyed by the replies to the Life of Jesus. And, as if to make its defeat as humiliating as possible, the last blow was self-inflicted. It was the Revolution of 1848, and its consequent failure, which annihilated the political strength of German Rationalism. There is a God in history. And though one generation may fail to perceive the brightness of his presence, the following one may be favored with the vision. No skeptic should forget that the real philosophy of history is the march of Providence through the ages. But the infidel is the worst reader of history. The light shines, but he turns away from it. Or, as Coleridge expresses it:

"The owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscure wings across the noon, Drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close; And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, 'Where is it?'"

There is a deep principle underlying not only the miscarriage of the Revolution of 1848, but of all the popular movements toward independence which occur at a time when the people are involved in religious doubt. It is the spiritual status of a nation which commonly determines its love of law and order. A population adhering to an evangelical interpretation of the Scriptures can be forced to revolution only by evil and ambitious leaders, or by persistent oppression on the part of their rulers. The tardy movement of the American Colonies toward their revolt against the British Government betrayed a great unwillingness to inaugurate the struggle. At the beginning, the conflict was not designed to be a revolution but only a judicious expedient for the improvement of the colonial laws.[68] Wise rulers, governing for the best interests of their country, have generally found that the most discontented of their subjects are the most skeptical. Infidelity and error have systematically arrayed themselves against civil authority. This infidelity does not always assume the same type; for, while in Germany it was a general disbelief in the authenticity of the Scriptures, in France it was the rejection of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul. Even Robespierre testified before the French National Convention of 1794, that "the idea of a supreme Being and of the immortality of the soul, was a continual call to justice, and that no nation could succeed without the recognition of these truths." A revolution in Christendom, which has its basis in the skeptical nature of man, or in an anti-scriptural idea, may succeed for a while, but it must eventually fail; because, like a vessel without compass, chart, or star, it lacks the cardinal elements and safeguards of progress and security.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Appleton's New Am. Cyclopaedia; Art. Hegel.

[63] Life of Jesus. Ch. I. American Edition.

[64] Cf. Revue des Deux Mondes. Vol. 16.

[65] Life of Jesus, 852-3.

[66] New York Independent and New York Christian Advocate and Journal—1864.

[67] In Wesen des Christenthums, Leipsic, 1841.

[68] The hesitation to become independent was very decided, even as late as July, 1775.—Bancroft, History of the United States. Vol. 8: pp. 55-6.



CHAPTER XII.

THE EVANGELICAL SCHOOL. ITS OPINIONS AND PRESENT PROSPECTS.

There is a group of theologians who deserve to stand side by side with the immediate opponents of Strauss and his disciples. We mean the Mediation or Evangelical School. They represent the advance of German theology from Rationalism to positive orthodoxy. Beginning with able and irrefutable arguments for the Evangelists, they have extended their discussions to other important branches of Scriptural defence. As a consequence, they have built up a valuable apologetic literature which will occupy a prominent place in the theology of the church.

But, in order to portray the character of the Evangelical School, we shall need to dwell upon certain members in particular.[69]

Not least in honor and achievement is the late Karl Ullmann. He contributed to the Studien und Kritiken, a quarterly established by himself and Umbreit, an article on the sinlessness of Christ, which he subsequently elaborated into a volume. One of the most original of his productions is his Essence of Christianity, which placed "him in the centre of the Mediation theology." He holds with Schleiermacher, that Christianity is not as much doctrine as vitality, and that it possesses the creative and organizing power of religion. Christianity is both divine and human; divine in its origin and essence, but human in its development and fulfillment. Without the person of Christ to stand in the very focus of Christianity, the latter becomes void and no more than any moral religion. We can have no proper conception of Christianity apart from its founder, for its whole essence exists in him. Christianity is Christ developing himself in humanity. Christ is God-man in so far as he represents in his own person the perfect unity and interpenetration of the human and divine. Christianity is that religion which neither deifies nor destroys nature. Without considering it essential to prove the facts of Christ's life, Ullmann showed that Christ, in the divine character which we attach to him, was necessary to Christianity just as the pillars are to the superincumbent edifice. The effect of this argument was most salutary, for it was so well timed that it could not be otherwise. There were two things to be established concerning Christ. One was the verity of the Gospel accounts of him; the other was Christ as a necessity for man's faith, the world's progress, and human salvation. The former having been treated by other hands, Ullmann undertook the latter and triumphed. He is one of the most pleasing of the German theologians. Partaking of the warm southern temperament—for he was a Bavarian by birth—he wrote in that easy, natural, and earnest style which renders him a popular writer not only in his own language but when translated into foreign tongues.

We find in Dorner one of the most acute speculative theologians produced by the later Protestant church. His style is as complex as Ullmann's is simple. It is amusing that, in one place, he even enters into a justification of his technical and abstruse writing. Applying himself to dogmatic investigations, the fruit of his labor is his Doctrine of the Person of Christ. Christianity was the world's great want, and all the religions of the natural man could not supply its place. But Christianity is vague unless the question be settled concerning the person of Christ. Here is the battle-ground where Christianity and reason must meet and decide the great issue. Hence Dorner passes by the personal ministry and history of Christ on earth and attempts the proper mode of construing his person. The Person of Christ is, in the trials and triumphs of individuals and the church, the central point of the Christian religion. He is the perfect Lawgiver, and also the Judge of the world. He controls the universe. Here he communicates the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Ghost, and in heaven, eternal felicity. The happiness of heaven is formed by perfect fellowship with his person. He has left his followers only in appearance, for, wherever two or three are assembled in his name, there he is in the midst of them. He is with his own always, even to the end of the world. To know Christ in his nearness belongs to the Christian worship; and this institution is appointed for the church as the highest means for the enjoyment of his nearness.[70]

According to Dorner, heathendom longed for the apotheosis of human nature. Judaism sought the fulfillment of the revelation not completed by the law, and strained after the love of God as the consummation of the holy law. All these wants are met in Christ. He is the innermost revelation of the mystery, and the fullest condescension of God. For God has in Christ become man. Here is the point of unity between God and the world. But Christ did not appear in order to be the Son of God, as if this were the ultimate end; but the ultimate end was the glorifying of man, and therewith of God, in and through him. He is officially God's son.[71]

Was Christ possessed of sinless perfection? In both a physical and ethical point of view he was not absolutely complete from the first. He learned obedience. He grew in favor, not only with men but with God. Growth points backward to previous deficiency, or, what is the same thing, forward to the absolute goal which the reality approaches only by degrees. But deficiency in entire perfection is not sinfulness, for then all real humanity and sinfulness would be identical. Christ's temptations are explainable on this wise: he had a real moral task, not only external to himself, but in himself, which could not be solved at the beginning if he was to be like us. There was no disorder in him, but there were disorder and sin without him, which occasioned him the contests, temptations, and sufferings that filled his official life. These later conflicts were only assigned him because he remained the pure One, and had become morally harmonious in the midst of moral anarchy. But they were still inward and personal struggles; for he was to introduce the power of his harmony and of his sufferings, in order to overcome the disharmony in the world. He, the righteous one, must, by suffering, take upon himself disorder and disharmony, must live through it and taste it, in order to establish a power which is not only harmonious in itself, but so potent in harmony as to take the disharmony into itself, master it, and transform it into harmony. Christ was perfect man in growth and progress, in his temptations and conflicts, but without any historical trace of a flaw or blemish in his life. He was in all points made like us, without being necessitated to become like us as sinners. For, sin is the negation of the truly human. He laid claim to no exceptional law for himself as a privileged individual, but subjected himself to the universal human moral law. With this he was satisfied, and he fulfilled it in its purity, depth, and completeness. He knew nothing of a super-moral religious genius, and would have nothing to do with it. His religion is moral; his morality, religion.[72]

The name with which we are most familiar is the devout and laborious Tholuck. He generally takes higher ground than many of the Mediation-theologians. But he is sometimes at variance with evangelical sentiment. Inspiration, according to him, is not real and total, but only partial, and is to be determined in reference to the truths necessary to salvation. While there are many mistakes of memory, false citations, errors in historical, chronological, geographical, and astronomical detail, these need not depreciate our general estimate of inspiration. The Scriptures have a kernel and a shell. Upon the former there is the positive and direct impress of the Holy Spirit; but upon the latter it is indirect and relative.

In merely stating Tholuck's definitions, however, we do not measure out justice to him. He must not be tested by any special department of labor, but by the spirit and totality of his service. In this light he is a remarkable personage, and his work is entitled to our highest eulogium. With him, Christ is not merely a person to be apprehended by the mind, but a Saviour to be received into the heart and henceforth to be a living power of the soul. He must be accepted by Christian faith, and the heart must undergo the transforming power of his Spirit. Without this preparation, all progress in science is but the worship of nature, and man, at the close of life, looks back upon a path of error and forth into a world of darkness.

"Tholuck has this characteristic," says one of his countrymen, "he cannot be classified; he belongs to no particular theological direction, because he belongs to all." This estimate is strictly true. He has gained his greenest laurels in exegesis; and his commentaries on Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, Gospel of John, and Epistles to the Romans and Hebrews, have already taken their places in the theological libraries of English and American divines. But he has asked himself the question, "What can I do to lessen the hold which Rationalism has upon my country?" And he has given the answer by his life-career. All his productions centre in that thought, and it is not the least of his service that he has written sketches of the old Reformation theologians, as an incentive to the restoration of their spirit. It is not easy to estimate the benefit which his Sin and Redemption has conferred upon the young men of Germany. The Baron von Kottwitz is the real personage represented by the patriarch. Let us hear this venerable saint as he stands upon the border of the grave and anticipates a bright future for his loved church and country. His words are the key to Tholuck's life, and reveal the bright hope which burned within him ever since the day when he was welcomed to Halle by the hisses and threats of the Rationalists.

The aged man says: "The greater the crisis the more needful is it to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the simplicity of the dove. I therefore address you as such an one who, perhaps, will soon be engaged at the university as one of the instruments employed by God in that important period. The work of God's spirit is greater than either you or the majority can estimate. A great resurrection morning has dawned. Hundreds of youths on all sides have been awakened by the Spirit of God. Everywhere true believers are coming into closer union. Science herself is becoming again the handmaid and friend of the Crucified. Civil governments, also, though in part still hostile to this great moral revolution from a dread of its producing political commotions, are many of them favorable; and where they are not, the conflicting energy of the light is so much the stronger. Many enlightened preachers already proclaim the gospel in its power; many who are still in obscurity will come forward. I see the dawn; the day itself I shall behold not here, but from a higher place. You will live to witness it below. Despise not the words of a gray-headed old man, who would give you, with true affection, a few hints relative to this great day.

"The more divine a power is, the more to be deprecated is its perversion. When those last times are spoken of in Scripture, in which the gospel shall be spread over the whole world, it is declared that the truth will not only have to contend with the proportionably more violent counterworking of the enemy, but also with a great measure of delusion and error within the kingdom of light. Such is the course of things that every truth has its shadow; and the greatest truth is attended by the greatest shadow. Above all things take care that the tempter do not introduce his craft into the congregation of the faithful. There will be those for whom the simple gospel will not suffice. When a man has experienced the forgiveness of his sins, and has for a little while enjoyed the happiness of that mercy, it not unfrequently appears to his evil and inconstant heart too humiliating a condition to be constantly receiving grace for grace. There is no other radical cure for a proud, self-willed heart than every day and every hour to repeat that act by which we first came to Christ. Pray that you may have more of that childlike spirit which regards the grace of your Lord as a perennial fountain of life. Especially avoid the error of those who seek life for the sake of light, who would make religion a mere stepping-stone to intellectual superiority. Such persons will never attain to a vital apprehension of divine things; for our God is a jealous God, and will be loved by us for his own sake. The intellectual power, the mental enlargement arising from converse with the great objects of faith is always to be regarded as a secondary and supplementary benefit to that which it is the immediate object of the gospel to bestow. Despise not human greatness or talent or ability of any kind, but beware lest you overvalue it. I see a time coming—indeed it is already at hand—in which gifted men will lift up their voices for the truth; but woe to the times in which admiration and applause of the speaker shall be substituted for laying to heart the truth which he delivers! Perhaps in the next generation there will be no one in some parts of Germany who will not wish to be called a Christian. Learn to distinguish the spirits. The sum of my exhortations is humility and love!"

The most poetical and not the least penetrating of the evangelical school is Lange, once a farmer, but now a laborious professor at Bonn. How deeply he has imbibed the spirit of the Scriptures may be seen in the Bible Work, which Dr. Schaff is now editing for the use of the American public. Religion, according to Lange, is subjectively a life-emotion of the human nature, and objectively a revelation of God. In the former case it may be termed natural, in the latter, revealed. The world is not a mere world, but a self-revelation of God in its fullest import. Creation is not simply creation, but a divine testimony. Nature is not nature alone, but a seed of life proceeding from the spirit and returning to the spirit. The proof of the true human conception of God, as well as of man, is their harmonious union in the conception of the God-man. This is the centre of all doctrine. The world is a progressive succession, developing the divine germ. History unites itself to revelation as a second creation, elevating man to continuous growth. God's providential changes unite with the active faith of man, and they do not constitute an isolated act of God, but a great historical combination of revelations. They rise gradually and find their completion in the God-man.

Miracles are the penetration of the absolute or new human-divine life principle into the sphere of the old natural human life. The revelation of the divine-human in Christ is the absolute miracle which manifests itself in a succession of single miracles. A miracle is supernatural and contrary to nature only in reference to the old life, and, in its highest meaning, is in conformity to a higher law. Therefore, miracles are the natural law of all natural laws taken together. Inspiration is in consonance with miracle; and there is a dissimilarity of inspiration observable in the Scriptures. The Old and New Testaments are very different, so also are the canonical and hagiographical writings. The word of God is contained in the Scriptures, and is there brought into living unity and operation with the mind of man. This union does not exclude human imperfections. But such imperfections are of a superficial character, and in no wise affect the kernel and religious centre of the Bible.[73]

The two most prominent divines in the department of dogmatical theology are Nitzsch and Twesten. The latter was Schleiermacher's successor at Berlin. Bright hopes were placed on him, but he has been a tardy author, and does not possess the brilliant gifts of his great prototype. Yet he is a clear and profound thinker, and, with a few points of exception, thoroughly evangelical. He is an ardent admirer of the old Lutheran theology, and, like his predecessor, places religion in feeling and dependence instead of in knowledge.

Nitzsch is also a disciple of Schleiermacher, and his doctrinal system bears distinct traces of the master's instructions. But it is a bold work, and has inflicted great mischief upon the doctrinal claims of the later Rationalists, who betook themselves to theory after their exegesis and history had failed them. The scope of his system is broad and clear. He commences by assigning Christian doctrine its proper place in theological study, a definition of the general idea of Christianity, a statement of the laws by which a knowledge of Christianity is acquired, and a history of the Christian system and its exhibition in the purest form. The three parts constituting the substance of Nitzsch's opinions, are The Good, the Bad, and Salvation. Christianity is a determinate mode of man's life, and is so determined by conscious dependence on God, but in no wise by knowledge, conception, action, or the will. Religion does not arise from experience and sensation, but from an original self-consciousness. There is an intimate connection between doctrine and practice, truth and holiness. Redemption is not merely a restoration, nor a mere perfected creation, but one through the other. It is related to an original good, apart from which the bad itself would have no place, opportunity for existence, or continuance; since redemption is so closely connected with evil. Moreover, the good—in which evil has found opportunities for manifestation—cannot be the same which caused redemption. Hence, we safely presume the existence of an eternal God. This being is the foundation of Christian faith and life. A belief in the Redeemer cannot be separated from that in the Creator. But it is through a knowledge of the Redeemer that the Creator, with all his work, first becomes known in his perfect goodness and truth. The doctrine of salvation is more closely related to the degenerated condition of the world than to the original good, or to the right conduct of the creature towards God. Evil became possible with the creation of personality, though without being necessary. But it has become so very real that the heavenly Adam must needs come into the world to destroy the works of the devil,—which are sin and death,—and to renew the communion of the creation with the Creator. The effectuating cause of man's permitting himself to be seduced into sin, was not any fixed purpose or predestination of God, but man's perfect moral freedom. He chose the evil, and hence he inherits sin with all its dire results. Since then, sin has become a bias and righteousness requires an effort for its performance. But man is accessible to divine legislation by being the subject of fear, shame, and punishment. The church is an abiding testimony and a continued means for the redemptive ministry of Christ. It is the congregation of the sanctified.[74]

From these two useful professors in Berlin we pass southward to Heidelberg, and delay a moment with the celebrated Rothe. In his work on the Primitive Church he endeavors to explain the philosophy of the whole ecclesiastical system. He views the elements of the church in solution, and thence tries to deduce general principles. He advances the view, with Coleridge and Arnold, that the church will not be complete until absorbed in the state. Its present separate condition is provisional, and can only last during the time that Christianity is being developed. This period may be of long duration, but the development of our race is ever progressing. The church must exist on its own basis during the interval. Human deeds of righteousness tend toward the perfection of the church. Then will religion permeate the world. Yet it will not exist as something separate, but all-penetrative. It will not be absolutely divine, but superlatively human. Thus will the dualism of the human and divine, the religious and the moral, be destroyed. When the day of ecclesiastical perfection—which is really civil perfection—arrives, the state will perform the functions of the church. It will exercise church discipline for the purpose of religious and moral training. The divergence between religious and worldly science will be abrogated, and there will be no longer any conflict between the worship of God and nature. It is plain that these views are based upon those of Hegel, who said of the state, that "it is the totality of moral purposes."[75]

The ethical system of Rothe is one of the most original and profound pieces of devout and reverent speculation in the entire range of theological literature. It has been termed "a work of art as well as of science; and the several stones of the ethical system are reared up here into a magnificent gothic cathedral by the skill of a master architect." It is based on the unity and identity of religion and morality. Here, as in the theory of the relations of church and state, the Hegelian philosophy is very perceptible. God's love is manifested in creation, and there existed the necessity of his creative activity in order to communicate himself to others. Hence, God's love is not a mere attribute, but one of the necessary conditions of his being. Creation is a necessary act of God. God is as truly creator as he is benevolent. There is, therefore, a correlation of God and the world. There is no God without also the world. God's creative activity is still continued by his providential movements, and these are the steps of man's development. Man's complete character is in some measure dependent on his discipline, and sin is the necessary ordeal or process through which he must pass in order to arrive at the highest development.[76]

Rothe has very recently published a volume of his essays, entitled A Contribution to Dogmatic Theology. It is occupied mostly with the consideration of the Scriptures. The author thus states his opinion: "The matters I handle in this volume inevitably place me in a most unfavorable position. The question is one in which I find myself in direct conflict with both the leading parties in the theology of the present day. My mode of regarding Holy Scripture runs directly counter to modern orthodoxy. My supernaturalism and firm belief in revelation are no less opposed to theological liberalism. This very antagonism encourages me to hope that I may be found to have spoken a word in season. On the one hand, it is my belief that the consciousness of the age will never thoroughly reaessimilate Christianity till it can take courage to believe again in miracle and supernatural influence. I am no less firmly convinced, on the other hand, that miracle and supernatural influence will never find their way into the conscious belief of Christians in the form in which church-theology has allowed those ideas to be inoculated into it. That which is passed can never be recalled to life after history has once buried it. But there are not a few persons who long for the reconciliation of the old and the new. These are the persons to whom I would gladly be useful according to my small measure."[77]

Rothe regards the supernatural interference of the Deity in the stream of human history as a part of that history. It is not enough that the divine interposition has incorporated itself with the traditions of the race; it must be fixed in a written narrative. Not only must there be a book or writing, but that book must be of a historical character. As the revelation did not consist in doctrines, so the doctrine we require is not a creed or compend of doctrines. Besides vouching the facts, the doctrines must represent them in a vivid manner; that is, the writing must be such as can stand for long posterior generations in the place of the original revelation, and place us in the immediate personal experience of revelation. It is part of the extraordinary operation of the Deity to provide such a writing. The document itself, as well as the facts it relates, are supernaturally produced. What the divine influences in the world are to its moral and human laws, the record of those influences is to ordinary narrative. The Bible is therefore what the old Protestant theology styled it, "The Word of God": but in a very different sense. It was meant by that phrase that the books, as we have them, were dictated by God in such a way that the sacred penmen contributed nothing but the letter-marks upon the paper. The dogma of inspiration current in the sixteenth century is not accepted. The inspiration which Rothe attributes to the Bible is the same by which he explains that peculiar impression received by the pious soul from its study of the book. It is the constant experience of the evangelical Christian, that, in his Bible, he possesses a direct means of grace. Scripture is to him an active medium of the saving work of God in his soul, and supernatural forces move within it. The Bible stands alone in all literature as this incarnation of a fresh, full, life-giving religious spirit. But the peculiar influence which it exercises upon minds indicates not merely a divine element in its pages, but a whole, complex, and sound human spirit side by side with that divine element; the two not crossing or interfering with each other, but forming together a unity of living truth. The books of the Bible must be regarded as the general product of the minds of their human authors. These authors have had their moments of inspiration, to which they owe much of the religious experience they have embalmed in their writings. But inspiration was not the normal condition of their minds, nor were their books written during the moments of such inspiration. Again, not every part of the Bible is an equally full and intense expression of this spiritual mind of the writer. We must assume degrees of inspiration according with the nature of the contents, and with their nearer or remoter bearing on the proper matter of the prophetical utterances.[78]

Passing over the names of Julius Mueller, Ebrard, Haevernick, Hundeshagen, Umbreit, Gieseler, Olshausen, Hagenbach, and Jacobi, we pause at Schenkel and Hengstenberg.

Schenkel has been, until lately, a recognized evangelical theologian. The author of the Essence of Protestantism, he took his stand as an able defender of orthodoxy; and there was every reason to hope that he would be one of the chief agents in the final overthrow of Rationalism. As a proof of the high estimate placed upon his opinions, when the Baden government and church consistory were calling their strongest orthodox theologians into the various posts of prominence, after the Revolution of 1848, Schenkel was declared counselor, and director of the theological seminary of Heidelberg. From that time almost to the present his evangelical sentiments had not been questioned. But, when his Picture of the Character of Jesus appeared, the surprise was great throughout Germany. It seemed incredible that he could write a work in such direct antagonism to all his previous views. People were unwilling to censure it at first; the Rationalists rejoicing at the great accession, and the orthodox retaining too much respect for the author's past services to bestow harsh criticism upon him. But a book of importance need not wait long in Germany upon the publisher's shelf before it is weighed and assigned its proper position in literature. In due time the critics came forward, sifted its contents, and decided it to be skeptical. The theological periodicals abounded in lengthy reviews of it. Schenkel seemed as much astounded as any one else at the public judgment. He answered the charges against his orthodoxy by stoutly denying that he had turned Rationalist. He held that his critics were so obtuse that they could not understand him; and that if he were accused of heterodoxy it was their blunder and not his guilt. But it is needless to say that Schenkel makes a poor case for himself. His book stands against him. The miracles of Christ receive his severe comment. They are, in his opinion, the dark shade which has been cast upon the bright splendor of the public activity of Jesus. It was a matter of course that the idea of a life like that of the Redeemer should, soon after his death, be veiled by a multitude of tales. His disciples endeavored to represent his internal wonderful power of personal glory and greatness by the external miraculous occurrences which they ascribed to him. Their deeply excited imagination magnified the great hero whom they had loved and admired. Their enthusiastic religious fancy did him homage by ascribing to him the performance of miracles. The gift of working miracles was merely the endowment of nature. For Jesus was favored with the highest ability and rarest moral power, by which he worked beneficially upon sufferers and took them by surprise. Schenkel further rejects and denies the faith in Christ's personal and bodily resurrection from the dead, and his continuation of life in the glory of the Father. But he holds that Christ lives in his community, in which are his home and temple. The living Christ is the spirit of his community.

After the position of Schenkel's work had been fairly decided, numerous remonstrances appeared against it from the orthodox theologians. One hundred and eighteen clergymen sent in a formal protest to the consistory for his removal from his important office as director of the seminary. But the ecclesiastical council decided in favor of his continuance in discharge of his functions. They extenuated themselves by saying that the free examination of the Scriptures is the privilege of Protestant Christians. The Rationalists claim the result as one of the most signal of their recent victories.

Hengstenberg, the strongest and most heroic of the later opponents of Rationalism, commenced very early in life as both author and professor. It is now more than thirty years since he was elected professor of Old Testament exegesis at Berlin. He was chosen to that important position with a view to counteract the prevailing Rationalism, and, if possible, to raise up a new school of earnest evangelical men. He has not been without success. Having never swerved from his first avowed position, his antipathy to all kinds of skepticism is so sincere and active that he combats it without any regard to moderation or consequences.

Of all the members of the Evangelical school he takes the highest rank as controversialist, and defender of the Old Testament. He saw that it was the Old Testament which the Rationalists had assailed most vigorously, and that unless they were met upon their own ground they would claim the mastery of the field. Hence, he made the Pentateuch, Daniel, and the second part of the prophecy of Isaiah the theme of his defence[79]—for it was these that the Rationalists had long claimed as their collateral evidence. At that very time there was almost no orthodox theologian in Germany who had confidence enough to contend for them. But the greatest apologetic achievement of Hengstenberg was his christological work.[80] Here he develops his theory that the Messianic prophecies extend through the entire Old Testament; that they can be traced in Genesis; that they increase in clearness as the scriptural history advances; that they become perfectly lucid in the later prophets; and that they are finally fulfilled in the Messiah himself.

But it was not by theological lectures or books that Hengstenberg achieved his greatest triumphs over Rationalism and Pantheism. Clearly perceiving the power of the periodical press, he commenced the publication of the Evangelical Church Gazette, which by its fearless spirit and marked talent, soon became the chief theological journal of Germany. Its aim was not only to overthrow skepticism but everything which ministered to its support. Its contributors have been among the leading men of the country, among whom we find such names as Otto von Gerlach, Professors Leo and Huber, and Doctors Goeschel, Vilmar, Stahl, Tholuck and Lange. The Gazette has changed its tone according to the new demands of the times, but it has never abated its deadly antagonism to Rationalism. It has betrayed an increasing High Church tendency, especially since 1840. The editor, true to his earnest nature, believed that no moderate and conciliatory spirit was capable of successfully resisting the great enemies of the church. The relief which he relied upon was in fighting them with the heroic ardor of a crusader. Hence he claimed that an elevation of ecclesiastical power was necessary to meet the demand; and therefore he stands to-day as the High Church champion of Protestant Germany. For this course he has received quite as many maledictions as have been visited upon Pusey of England, but he is one of those men who care as little for the curses of foes as for the adulations of friends.

There have been other theological journals which have contributed greatly to the spread of vital Christianity in Germany.[81] They do not possess, on the one hand, the popular character of many of our religious papers, nor, on the other, do they deal so much in abstruse theological questions as to preclude them from large circles of readers. They possess popular adaptation without yielding to the demand for light religious reading. Many of their contributions having been written by far-sighted laymen, they have gained access to minds usually occupied in the absorbing interests of commercial and political life. The whole Protestant church owes a debt of profound gratitude to the men who commenced these enterprises and have zealously sustained them through the social changes which have convulsed Germany.

But in our estimate of renewed religious life we must not overlook the improved condition of the instruction now imparted in the gymnasia and universities.[82] Besides the names we have already mentioned there are professors and instructors of all grades who have drunk deeply of the spirit of the Gospel, and, having been taught and encouraged by such men as Hengstenberg and Tholuck, are now strengthening themselves for future victory. Young men have passed through their student life in Halle, Heidelberg, and Berlin, and are now scattered throughout the land, sowing the seeds of truth, and urging the people to espouse the good cause. Others are preparing to take their places when these are no more. The spirit of theological instruction has undergone such a thorough transformation that the old Rationalism which had so long prevailed is now taught by only a few gray-haired veterans, who, many years ago, listened to the lectures of Wegscheider and Gesenius. They are now bringing their days to a close in the midst of a narrow circle of auditors who hear from curiosity or indolence, and never expect to use their information to any future advantage. Devotional services are becoming more common among the students. The Scriptures are studied with a feeling of devout reverence, and are no longer subjected to that profane ridicule which has given an unenviable fame to many of the Rationalists.

Much of this improved evangelical spirit observable in the students of all the Protestant Universities,—for even Tuebingen has been obliged to yield,—is due to the kindly intercourse between the professors and the students. In no country is education so much a matter of friendship as in Germany. The professors cultivate social and even intimate relations with the undergraduates, nor do they consider it beneath their dignity to invite them frequently to their homes, draw out their minds by discussing some important point, loan them books or periodicals, suggest subjects for essays or books, employ their service as amanuenses, and recommend them in due time for proper vacancies. Who would suspect that half-bent, sallow little man, wrapped up in his blue coat, and walking briskly a mile or two from Halle through the wintry storm, of being the patient and devout Tholuck? But he is not alone. Beside him is a youthful stripling who opens his heart to the professor, catches every word of response as if it were a priceless diamond, and treasures each utterance for future use. To-morrow, the same kindly teacher will be attended by one or two other young men, whom he is desirous to encourage, direct, and instruct.

Such intimacy does not lead to any disrespect toward the professors, but rather increases the reverence for their age and talents. The hours of profitable communion naturally become a fund of pleasant memories to the student in his subsequent life. Knowledge thus imparted is deeper-rooted than that conveyed in the lecture-room, and hence, in the literary and theological history of Protestant Germany, we find many illustrations of the consistent and steady prosecution, by a disciple, of a tendency or system which the master commenced but died too soon to finish. One of the prime agents in the rise of Pietism was Spener's child-like intimacy with young men. They imbibed his spirit and knowledge, and the fire burned after his departure.

As to the future, there is no room for discouragement. The leaven of faith has been penetrating the entire mass of German theology, and the prospect is to-day brighter than ever before. The bold and continued defense of Christianity, in all its vital relations, has accomplished great good during the entire interval between Schleiermacher's period of activity and the present time. The recuperation of German Protestantism from the polar frigidity of skepticism to the faith and spirit of the Gospel, is one of the most beautiful and forcible of all the illustrations of the indestructible and regenerating power of Christianity. The instruction imparted in the high-schools has long since lost its Rationalistic puerilities. The candidates for the pastoral office are not asked such questions as were propounded to their fathers and predecessors. Church history, written in clear and natural style, is no longer a collection of pointless anecdotes. Exegesis has ceased to be a word-play, and the companion of classical annotations. The sermons of the present ministry partake of Reinhard's earnestness and faith. Gallicisms and technical terminology are no longer proclaimed to the peasants, while the artisan is no more entertained with grandiloquent descriptions of the last night of Socrates, or with Ciceronian laudations of the Schoolmen.[83] The popular attendance at the public services is greatly on the increase, and the congregations are expressing in no doubtful terms their desire for the restoration of the thrilling evangelical hymns of other days.[84]

The masses, having tasted the word of God in its simplicity, will not be satisfied without deep draughts for many future years. The Protestant Church will yet be "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." Then will Germany be what she was in the heroic age of the Reformation,—the instructor of the ignorant, the friend of the helpless, the dread of Romanism, and the mother of giants. The evil days are nearly numbered. "Good Friday is the precursor of a joyous Easter Morning."

FOOTNOTES:

[69] For accounts of the later theologians of Germany, consult Schaff, Germany: Its Universities, Theology and Religion. Phila., 1857. Also, Schwarz, Geschichte der Neuesten Theologie, Leipzig, Dritte Ausgabe, 1864.

[70] Doctrine of Person of Christ (Clark's Foreign Theological Library, VI-VIII).

[71] Doctrine of Person of Christ, Vol. I, pp 80-81.

[72] American Presb. and Theolog. Review, January, 1863.

[73] Dogmatik, 1849.

[74] System of Christian Doctrine. Translated by Montgomery and Hennen. Clark's Library, Edinburgh, 1849.

[75] Die Anfaenge der Christlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung, 1837.

[76] Ethik—1845-1848.

[77] Ethik, Preface, p. 6.

[78] Westminster Review, July, 1863.

[79] Beitraege zur Einleitung in das alte Testamente. Drei Baende, 1831-39.

[80] Christologie. Drei Baende, 1829-35.

[81] Besides the Evangelical Church Gazette, semi-weekly, by Hengstenberg, established 1827, are the Studien und Kritiken, by Ullmann and Umbreit, 1828; the Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer christliche Wissenschaft, &c., by Neander, Nitzsch, and Mueller, 1850; and the Jahrbuecher fuer Deutsche Theologie, by Liebner, Dorner, and others, 1856.

[82] An invaluable account of the common and higher Schools of Germany is furnished in Horace Mann's Seventh Annual Report, published in the Common School Journal of Boston, under the title of Education in Europe, 1844.

[83] Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte d. 18 und 19 Jahrhunderts, Vol. II., pp. 384-388.

[84] An instance of the new tendency is seen in the recent action of the Heilbronn Clergy, supported by the Stuttgart Consistory. For account of which, see Christian Work, Sept. 1863.



CHAPTER XIII.

PRACTICAL MOVEMENTS INDICATING NEW LIFE.

Jean Paul has wittily said of the providential distribution of the earth that the land was assigned to the French, the sea to the English, and the air to the Germans. Popular opinion is not much at variance with this sentiment as far as the last proprietorship is concerned. But Germany has been practical withal. Shade of Jean Paul! What if thy countrymen do live in the air; they have not therefore flown so far away from the gross nether earth as to lose sight of its misery, nor become deaf to its wail of sorrow.

German Protestantism has given birth to some of the greatest charities of the present age, whether we take into the account the number of the beneficiaries or the faith and self-sacrifice of the founders and their successors. Even during the period of religious indifference there were here and there celebrated institutions designed for the amelioration of the suffering classes. They contended against great opposition, but like a few stars amid surrounding clouds, their light appeared to all the greater advantage. Modern philanthropy has received a great impulse by the labors of Howard and Wilberforce. But the charitable institutions we speak of were in progress east of the Rhine years before the former commenced "his voyage of discovery, his circumnavigation of charity, to collate distresses, to gauge wretchedness, to take dimensions of human misery;" or before the latter could write in 1807, after so many labors for the extinction of the Slave Trade, "Oh what thanks do I owe to the Giver of all good for bringing me in his gracious providence to this great cause, which at length, after almost nineteen years, labor, is successful."

Philanthropy stands in intimate relations to revived christian faith. Sometimes it is its forerunner, at others its co-operator, and always its follower. Whenever a land is morally prostrate and helpless, the ministry skeptical or indifferent, and the sects arrayed against each other, if humane efforts can be discovered, there is hope of better times. Love of the body of man is the unfailing Baptist-herald announcing the speedy care of his soul. The only indications of evangelical faith in Germany at the closing period of the eighteenth century were the quiet labors of such devoted friends of humanity as Oberlin, Hamann, Lavater, and Claudius. And philanthropy assumed a more stalwart form in the same ratio as religion gained strength over the popular mind.