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DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS.
COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES
AT
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL, FINSBURY,
February 22, 1874.
WITH
JA
DISCOUHSE
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY.
11, SOUTH PLACE, FINSBURY.
1874.
PRICE THREEPENCE«
�I
�I.
I CANNOT plainly see the way,
So dark the grave is; but I know
If I do truly work my day
Some good will brighten out of woe.
For the same hand that doth unbind
The winter winds, sends sweetest showers,
And the poor rustic laughs to find
His April meadows full of flowers.
I said I could not see the way,
And yet what need is there to see,
More than to do what good I may,
And trust the great strength over me ?
Why should I vainly seek to solve
Free-will, necessity, the pall ?
I feel, I know that God is love,
And knowing this I know it all.
Alice Carey.
II.
READINGS.
Whoso seeketh wisdom shall have no great travail; for he
shall find her sitting at his door. She goeth about seeking such
as are worthy of her, showeth herself favourably to them in the
highways, and meeteth them in every thought. Love is the
keeping of her laws. The multitude of the wise is the welfare
of the world.
�4
Wisdom is the worker of all things: for in her is an under
standing spirit, holy, one only, manifold, subtile, lively, clear,
undefiled, simple, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is
good, quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good ; kind to
man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing
all things; and going through all understanding, pure and most
subtle spirits. Wisdom is more moving than any motion: she
passeth through all things by reason of her pureness. For she is
the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing
from the glory of the Almighty? therefore can no defiled thing
fall into her.
For she is the brightness of the everlasting
light, the unspotted mirror of the power ©f God, and the image
of his goodness. And being but one, she can do all things;
and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all
ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God
and prophets. She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all
the order of the stars: being compared with the light, she is
found before it; for after day cometh night, but vice shall not
prevail against wisdom.
Wisdom of Solomon.
The Duke Gae asked about the altars of the gods of the land.
Tsae-Wo replied, “The Hea sovereign used the pine-tree, the
man of the Yin used the cypress, and the man of the Chow used
the chestnut,—to cause the people to be in awe.”
Confucius, hearing this, said, “ Things that are done, it is
needless to speak about; things that have had their course, it is
needless to remonstrate with; things that are past, it is needless
to blame. ”
Kee-Loo asked about serving the gods. The Master said,
“While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve the
gods ?”
�5
Kee-Loo said, “ I venture to ask about death. ”
The Master said, “While you do not comprehend life, how
can you comprehend death ?
“ If a man in the morning hear of the right way, he may in
the evening die without regret
“Yew, shall I teach you what knowledge is ? When you know
a thing, consider that you know it; and when you do not know
a thing, understand that you do not know it This is knowledge.
“ For a man to worship a deity not his own is mere flattery.
“To give one’s-self earnestly to the duties due to men, and
while respecting the gods, to respect also their distance, may be
called Wisdom.”
Confucius.
Mahomet said, Instruct in knowledge ! He who instructs,
fears God ; he who speaks of knowledge, praises the Lord; who
disputes about it, engages in holy warfare ; who seeks it, adores
the Most High; who spreads it, dispenses alms to the ignorant;
and who possesses it, attains the veneration and goodwill of all.
Knowledge enables its possessor to distinguish what is forbidden
from what is not; it lights the way to heaven; it is our friend in
the desert, our society in solitude ; our companion when far away
from our homes ; it guides us to happiness ; it sustains us in
misery ; it raises us in the estimation of friends ; it serves as an
armour against our enemies. With knowledge, the servant of
God rises to the heights of excellence. The ink of the scholar is
more sacred than the blood of the martyr. God created Reason,
and it was the most beautiful being in his creation: and God
said to it, “I have not created anything better or more perfect or
more beautiful than thou: blessings will come down on mankind
on thy account, and they will be judged according to the use they
make of thee. ”
Mohammed.
�6
If Morality is the relation of man to the idea of his kind, which
in part he endeavours to realise in himself, in part recognises
and seeks to promote in others, Religion, on the other hand, is
his relation to the idea of the universe, the ultimate source of all
life and being. So far, it may be said that Religion is above
Morality; as it springs from a still profounder source, reaches
back into a still more primitive ground.
Ever remember that thou art human, not merely a natural
production ; ever remember that all others are human also, and,
with all individual differences, the same as thou, having the same
needs and claims as thyself: this is the sum and substance of
Morality.
Ever remember that thou, and everything thou beholdest
within and around thee, all that befals thee and others, is no dis
jointed fragment, no wild chaos of atoms or casualties, but that it
all springs, according to eternal laws, from the one primal source
of all life, all reason, all good : this is the essence of Religion.
Strauss : “ The Old Faith and the New."
III.
Fall, fall ye mighty temples to the ground !
Not in your sculptured rise
Is the real exercise
Of human nature’s brightest power found.
’Tis in the lofty hope, the daily toil,
’Tis in the gifted line,
In each far thought divine
That brings down heaven to light our common soil.
�7
’Tis in the great, the lovely, and the true,
’Tis in the generous thought
Of all that man has wrought,
Of all that yet remains for man, to do.
Fall, fall, ye ancient litanies and creeds :
Not prayers or curses deep'
The power can longer keep,
That once ye held by filling human needs.
The quickening worship of our God survives
In every noble grief,
In every high belief,
In each resolve and act that light our lives.
IV.
MEDITATION.
V.
The future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow ;
We press still thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us, —Onward.
And solemn before us,
Veiled the dark Portal ;
Goal of all mortal:—
Stars silent rest o’er us,
Graves under us silent.
�While earnest thou gazest,
Comes boding of terror,
Comes phantasm and error;
Perplexes the bravest
With doubt and misgiving.
But heard are the Voices,
Heard are the Sages,
The Worlds, and the Ages :
“ Choose well; your choice is
Brief, and yet endless.
“ Here eyes do regard you
In Eternity’s stillness;
Here is all fulness,
Ye brave, to reward you.
Work, and despair not! ”
(Gckthk, ir. Carlyl.
�DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS.
Towards the close of the last century a young
German student was climbing amid the Swiss
Alps—alpenstock in hand—gazing with wonder
on glaciers, scaling the dizziest peaks. His Alpine
wanderings were preliminary to the climbing of
nobler summits, commanding vaster prospects.
For this was Friedrich Hegel, destined to create
an epoch in the history of the human mind.
Amid those barren heights and weird chasms of
Switzerland there was born in his mind a doubt
which has influenced the world. Before those wild
desolations he asked himself whether it could
be possible that this chaos of rock and glacier
had been specially created for man’s enjoyment ?
It was a problem which required for its solution
not only his own long, laborious life, but many
lives ; yet, to the philosophical statement of that
one man we owe a new order of religious thought.
If I may borrow an expression from geology, it
may be said that we are all living in the Hegelian
formation; and this whether we understand that
philosophy or not, and even if we reject its terms.
�IO
For Hegel was as a great vitalising breath wafted
from afar, beneath which, as under a tropical
glow,’ latent seeds of thought were developed to
most various results. From afar; for really
Hegel’s philosophy was an Avatar for cultivated
.Europe of the most ancient faith of our race. Its
essence is the conception of an absolute Idea
which has represented itself in Nature, in order
that by a progressive development through Nature
it may gain consciousness in man, and return as
mind to a deeper union with itself. It is really
the ancient Hindu conception of a universal soul
of Nature, a vast spiritual sea in which each
animal instinct, each human intellect, is a wave.
Or, in another similitude, every organic form,
however great or small, represents some scattered
spark of a central fire of intelligence, on the way
back to its source, bearing thither. the accumu
lated knowledge gathered on its pilgrimage
through many forms in external Nature.
Briefly, the Hegelian philosophy means a soul
in Nature corresponding to the soul of Man. Of
■ course—I have already stated it—it did not
originate with Hegel. It maybe traced from the
Vedic Hymn to the cry of Kepler, when, looking
up to the stars, he said, “ Great God, I think thy
thought aftei' thee !” But with Hegel it gained
�II
an adaptation to the thought of Europe, and
passed into the various forms of belief and feeling.
It inspired all the poetry of Wordsworth. It is
reflected in the materialism no less than in the
idealism of our age, and may be felt in the
philosophy of Huxley no less than in that of its
best exponent, Emerson.
Among the many German thinkers who sat at
the feet of Hegel there was but one who compre
hended its tremendous bearings upon the theology
of Europe ; but one through whom it was able to
grow to logical fruitage ; and that one was the
great man whose life has just closed—David
Friedrich Strauss. Strauss proved himself the
truest pupil of Hegel by throwing off the mere
form of his forerunner’s doctrine, just as that
philosopher had thrown off the formulas of his
forerunners. The literal Hegelians, of course,
regarded Strauss as a renegade ; on the surface
it would so appear: Hegel called himself a
Christian, Strauss renounced Christianity; Hegel
was designated an idealist, Strauss a materialist.
But we must not be victims of the letter. Fruit
is different from blossom ; but it is, for all that,
blossom in another form.
I need, not dwell on the outward biography of
Friedrich Strauss. The greatest men live in
�12
their intellectual works. The sixty-five years of
this man were not marked by many salient or
picturesque incidents. As a student of theology
at Tübingen, and as a professor, he travelled an
old and beaten path,—poverty, hard study, hard
work. At the age of twenty-seven he publishes
his great work, the Leben Jesu ; is driven from
his professorship ; offered another at Zurich Uni
versity, he is prevented by persecution from
holding it; and finally settles himself down to a
life of plain living and high thinking. He is
elected by his native town Ludwigsburg to the
Wurtemburg Legislature, but surprises them by
his “ conservatism,” as it was called, and answers
their dissatisfaction by resigning. He marries, and,
alas ! unhappily. Agnes Schebert was an actress,
and she was also a clever authoress; but when she
was married to Strauss there was shown to be
an incompatibility of disposition which led to a
quiet separation without recriminations on either
side. The lady once wrote a parody on the
writing of Hegel, which is amusing, but suggests
that she could hardly have been fortunately
united with a philosopher who had sat at the
feet of Hegel. She left with him a daughter and
a son, who were devoted to their father through
life, and for whom he wrote a tender and touch-
�ing account of their mother that they might think
of her with affection.
He lived a busy life, and wrote a large number
of admirable works, the absence of most of
which from English libraries is a reproach to our
literature.
His biographies are among the
most felicitous that have been written, and have
brought before Germans noble figures which are
for most English readers mere names,—Ulrich
von Hutten, the brilliant radical of the Refor
mation ; the discoverer of lost books of Livy,
Quintilian, and other classic authors ; the fellow
fugitive of Erasmus before the wrath of the
Pope ; the lonely scholar who has made classic
the islet of Lake Zurich where he died :—the
Biography of Hermann Reimarus, who one hun
dred years ago was the leading prophet of
Natural Religion : —the Life of Friedrich Daniel
*
Schubart, poet and publicist, who, beginning as
an organist in Ludwigsburg, lost his place for
writing a parody on the Litany; who in later life
was invited by the Duke of Wurtemburg to
dinner, on his arrival seized and imprisoned in
Asberg Castle for ten years, because of an epi
* His chief works are “ The Wolfenbuttel Fragments,” edited
by Lessing; “The Principles of Natural Religion,” and “The
Instincts of Animals. ”
�14
gram written by the poet,—who, for the rest, has
left songs which the Germans still love to sing.
*
The work of Strauss on Voltaire consists of a
series of lectures prepared by request of the
Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt (daughter of Queen
Victoria), who listened to them ; and the work
is written in a spirit of high admiration of the
great French heretic. If, as I doubt not, the two
biographies which he has left—“ Lessing ” and
“ Beethoven ”—are of equal value to those I have
mentioned, Strauss will have left six works at
least, apart from his contributions to theology,
of a character which must write his name very
high among the literary workers of this century.
When the life of Strauss is written, no doubt
the details of it will be found of great interest ;
but nothing relating to his private and personal
history will ever be so impressive as the unfold
ing of his intellectual and religious nature. Fully
told, even as traceable in his works, this repre
sents the pilgrimage of a Soul from the crumbling
shrines of Superstition across long deserts of
doubt, and the rugged passes of adversity, even
* The principal is one entitled “Caplied” (Cape Song), sup
posed to be sung by soldiers, sold to the Dutch, on their way to
the Cape of Good Hope. Another celebrated poem of his is,
“Die Fiirstengruft ” (The Tomb of Princes).
�to the beautiful temple of Truth, where his last
hymn of joy ended in the gentle sigh of death.
Of this, his mental biography, I can give here
but a slight outline. I have already taken up
the thread of his life at the point where he was
learning the secret of Hegel. That implied a
foreground with which many of us are familiar;
for he was born to orthodoxy, and. had to'flee
that City of Destruction. So much he had accom
plished in his youth, and was ready to set him
self to the real task of his life. The philosophy
of Hegel left room for mysticism, but none for
miracle. Paulus, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and
others, each endeavoured in their several ways tobridge over the gulf between supernaturalism
and reason ; they wanted reason, they must
have Christianity, and so held on to the miracles
without believing them miraculous. But Strauss
had already placed before his mind Truth as the
one attainable thing worthy of worship ; and he
set himself to the task of studying the life of
Christ, with all its investiture of fable, as a
historical phenomenon. The fables he knew were
not true, but he would know how they arose, and
he would know what form they would leave were
they detached from the New Testament narra
tives. In reaching his sure result he was aided
�i6
by the veracity of his mind no less than by his
learning. He had but to apply to a miracle
found in the Bible the same test which everyone
applied to a miracle when found in Livy or Ovid.
He had but to take the method which Christians
used when dealing with the wonders of Buddhism,
and apply it honestly to the marvels of
Christianity. The result was that he tracked all
the New Testament marvels back to their pagan
or Judaic origin; he found that they were the
same stories that had been told about Moses,
Elijah, David, about Isis and Osiris, Apollo, and
Bacchus. In a word he proved that they were
myths, such as in unscientific ages—when the laws
of Nature and the nature of laws were unknown—
had arisen and gathered about every teacher who
had become an object of popular reverence.
In denying the value of miracles as historical
events in the life of a particular man, Strauss
was impressed by the perception that these
myths which had come from every human race to
invest Christ represented something more im
portant than the career of any individual; they
represented humanity. They were born out of
the human heart in every part of the world, and
were types of its aspirations, hopes, and spiritual
experiences. That which could not be respected
�¡7
as history could be reverenced as a reflection of
the religious sentiment. He would place an
idea where the church set an individual.
“ Humanity,” he wrote, “ is the union of the
two natures—God become man, the infinite
manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite
spirit remembering its infinitude; it is the child
of the visible Mother and the invisible Father,
Nature and Spirit; it is the worker of miracles,
in so far as in the course of human history, the
spirit more and more completely subjugates nature,
both within and around man, until it lies before
him as the inert matter on which he exercises his
active power; it is the sinless existence, for the
course of its development is a blameless one,
pollution cleaves to the individual only, and does
not touch the race and its history. It is
Humanity that dies, rises, and ascends to heaven,
for from the negation of its phenomenal life
there ever proceeds a higher spiritual life.”
When this lofty faith in Humanity as the true
Christ, which had unconsciously symbolized itself
as the life of one man, shone out upon the mind
of Strauss, all interest in the individual Jesus
paled under it. Since his great work was pub
lished—near forty years ago—we have, by stand
ing on the shoulders of such men as he, been
�iS
able, no doubt/ to see somewhat further. The
rational study of the New Testament has disclosed
certain fragments of real history, and by piecing
these together we can shape out the figure of a
great man,—great enough to show why it was
that the human heart brought all its finest dreams
and marvels to entwine them around that single
brow. But the grand generalization of this
scientific thinker, who pierced the veil of fable
and recognised beyond it the face of humanity
transfigured with divine light, is one which can
hardly be parallelled by any utterance since the
brave words of Paul: “ We henceforth know no
one according to the flesh ; and if we have ever
known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we
no longer know him.” “ The Lord is a Spirit 1”
Having disposed of the old Christology,
Strauss proceeded to apply his method—the
method of Science—to all the theories of Nature
and of human life which were intertwined with
it What the results of his inquiries were are
summed up in his last work, “ The Old Faith
and the New.” And at the outset I must say
that the whole purport of that book has been
falsely interpreted for English readers by the
blundering exposition of it given by Mr. Glad
stone in a speech delivered in Liverpool. The
�late Prime Minister, it will be remembered, held
up Dr. Strauss before the school-children as an
awful example of what they would come to if
they once began exercising their own faculties.
He admitted his own incompetence to answer the
arguments of Strauss ; it would have been well
if he had also acknowledged his inability to trans
late his words correctly. In describing that
“Universum” wdiich Strauss had declared to be
the highest and divinest conception of human in
telligence, the Cosmos which man should adore in
place of the old deity of dogma, Mr. Gladstone
said that the author represented it—the adorable
Universe—as without reason. The word which
Strauss really uses is “ Vernunftvoll ”—full of
reason ! This inexcusable error makes all the
difference between Theism and Atheism. “ Our
highest idea,” says Strauss, “ is the law-governed
Cosmos, full of life and reason and he censures
Schopenhauer, who declares Nature to be hope
lessly evil. “We consider it,” he says, “ arrogant
and profane on the part of a single individual to
oppose himself with such audacious levity to the
Cosmos whence he springs, from which, also, he
derives that spark of reason which he misuses.
We recognise in this a repudiation of the senti
ment of dependence which we expect from every
�20
man. We demand the same piety for our Cosmos
that the devout of old demanded for his God.”
In this his last work, “ The Old Faith and the
New ”—the translation of which we owe to a
woman as we do that of his first work—Strauss
embraces with enthusiasm the theory of Evo
lution. Thereby his old Hegelian idealism is
transmuted to Darwinian Materialism. Of course,
many people fancy that Materialism is something
which is inconsistent with belief in a deity or
even in religion.
But really, with regard to
divine existence and religion there is no differ
ence between Idealism and Materialism. Strauss
justly pronounces the religious issue between the
two a quarrel about words. They both and alike
“ endeavour to derive the totality of phenomena
from a single principle—to construct the universe
and life from the same blockin this equally
opposing the Christian dualism which divides
man into body and soul, and severs God from
Nature. In their common endeavour after unity
Idealism starts from above, Materialism starts
from below ; “ the latter constructs the universe
from atoms and atomic forces, the former from
ideas and idealistic forces. But if they would
fulfil their tasks, the one must lead from its
heights down to the very lowest circles of
�21
1 Nature, and to this end place itself under the
I control of careful observation ; while the other
i must take into account the higher intellectual
I and ethical problems.” In short, all that the
j Idealist says of soul the Materialist says of
I brain; all that any worshipper can say of his
| God, Strauss says of Nature.
I What the creed of this thinker was may be
I found in this last work, wherein it is expressed with
an exaltation which becomes more impressive
f now that we know that even while he was so
! uttering his perfect faith in the fair universe, the
i terrible cancer was destroying him. These are
his words: “We perceive in Nature tremendous
I contrasts, awful struggles; but we discover that
i these do not disturb the stability and harmony
of the whole,—that they, on the contrary, pre
serve it. We further perceive a gradation, a
development of the higher from the lower, of the
refined from the coarse, of the gentle from the
rude. And in ourselves we make the experience
that we are advanced in our personal as well as
our social life ; the more we succeed in regula
ting the element of capricious change within and
around us, and in developing the higher from the
lower, the delicate from the rugged. This, when
we meet with it within the circle of human life,
�22
we call good and reasonable. What is analogous
to it in the world around us, we cannot avoid
calling so likewise. The Cosmos is simulta
neously both cause and effect, the outward and
the inward together. We stand here at the
limits of our knowledge ; we gaze into an abyss
we can fathom no' farther. But this much at
least is certain,—that the personal image which
meets our gaze there is but the reflection of the
wondering spectator himself. At any rate, that
on which we feel ourselves entirely dependent, is
by no means merely a rude power to which we
bow in mute resignation, but is at the same time
both order and law, reason and goodness, to
which we surrender ourselves in loving trust.”
In one very important matter many of the
admirers of Strauss have felt distress at his
position and influence. Politically, he has the
reputation of being a reactionist and conserva
tive. This reputation—obtained when he resigned
his seat in the legislature because of disagree
ment with his radical constituency—has been
confirmed by his treatment of political subjects
in his latest work. My own belief is that the
views of Strauss on these matters are very
seriously misunderstood by reason of the fact
that they are altogether conceived from the
�ft
o%
Hegelian standpoint. Those who study Hegeln know that his apparent conservatism was the
IE crust outside a fiery radicalism.
The political
philosophy of Hegel is contained in the followfi| ing extract from his writings :—“ Moral liberation and political freedom must advance
together. The process must demand some vast
J space of time for its full realisation; but it is the
d law of the world’s progress, and the Teutonic
9 nations are destined to carry it into effect. The
■i Reformation was an indispensable preparation
J
¡4 for this great work. The history of the world
* is a record of the endeavours made to realise the
idea of freedom and of a progress surely made,
but not without many intervals of apparent
failure and retrogression. Among all modern
failures the French revolution of the eighteenth
century is the most remarkable. It was an
! endeavour to realise a boundless external liberaj tion without the indispensable condition of moral
] freedom. Abstract notions based merely on the
understanding, and having no power to control
wills of men, assumed the functions of morality
and religion, and so led to the dissolution of
society, and to the social and political difficulties
under which we are now labouring. The proI gress of freedom can never be aided by a
�24
revolution which has not been preceded by a
religious reformation.”*
That a similar conviction was rooted in the
mind of Strauss I became aware by personal,
intercourse with him. Some years ago, as I
walked with him on the banks of the Neckar, he
declared to me that the motives he had in pub
lishing his “ Life of Christ ” were hardly less
political than religious. “ I felt oppressed,” he
said, “ at seeing nearly every nation in Europe
chained down by allied despotism of prince and
priest. I studied long the nature of this oppres
sion, and came to the conclusion that the chain
which fettered mankind was rather inward than
outward, and that without the inward thraldom
the outward would soon rust away. The inward
chain I perceived to be superstition, and the
form in which it binds the people of Europe is
Christian Supernaturalism. So long as men
accept religious control not based on reason they
will accept political control not based on reason.
The man who gives up the whole of his moral
nature to an unquestioned authority has suffered
a paralysis of his mind, and all the changes of
*SeeGostwick and Harrison’s “Outlines of German Litera
ture,” p. 481.
�25
f® outward circumstances in the world cannot make
iiihim a free man. For this reason our European
revolutions have been, even when successful,
merely transfers from one tyranny to another.
I believed when I wrote that book that, in striking
•J at supernaturalism, I was striking at the root of
tj the whole evil tree of political and social degrada
ci tion.”
1 At another time, when speaking of Renan,
whose portrait was the most prominent in his
a study, he said : “ Renan has done for France
d what I had hoped to do for Germany. He has
vj written a book which the common people read ;
r > the influence of my ‘ Life of Christ ’ has been
21 confined to scholars more than I like, and I mean
to put it into a more popular shape. Germany
i| must be made to realise that the decay of
it Christianity means the growth of national life,
J and the progress of humanity.”
J
After this it was very plain to me what
1 Strauss’s conversatism amounted to. It means
» only that he had no faith in the abolition of an
; abuse here and there when the conditions which
i produce every abuse remain unaltered,—no faith
in sweeping away a few snow-drifts when winter
is still in the air, the whole sky charged with
snow. We may wish that he had felt more
—
�26
sympathy with some of the popular movements
around him ; but we must remember that as a
philosophical radical he regarded the ever
recurring enthusiasms of the people,—believing
that they would reach the millennium by abolish
ing capital punishment, or abolishing a throne,—
as so much waste energy. He saw hopes born in
revolutions only to perish in disaster and reac
tion. He came to rest his hope for Humanity,
which he loved, on his faith in the omnipotence of
that Truth which he sought to enthrone above it.
Such was the faith, such the work, of the great
man, to whose memory we pay this day our
heartfelt homage. In his writings- I have met
with but one allusion to himself. It is in the
last pages that he ever wrote, and is as follows :
—“ It is now close upon forty years that as a
man of letters I have laboured, that I have
fought on and on for that which appeared to me
as truth, and still more perhaps against that
1 which has appeared to me as untruth ; and in th‘e
pursuit of this object I have attained, nay, over
stepped the threshold of old age.” Then it is
that every earnest-minded man hears the whisper
' of an inner voice: “ Give an account of thy
stewardship, for thou may’st be no longer
steward.” Now, I am not conscious of having
�27
been an uujust steward. An unskilful one at
times, too probably also a negligent one, I may,
heaven knows, have been; but on the whole I
have done what the strength and impulse within
prompted me to do, and have done it without
looking to the right or the left, without seeking
the favour or shunning the displeasure of any.”
These few words represent the benediction of
Conscience upon a faithful man, felt by him as
life was ebbing away, and the dark portal grow
ing more distinct before him. His bitterest
enemy need not impugn that approving smile of
his own heart. It was all the wage of his work.
Others have toiled in full view of heavenly
reward. He laboured on with hope of no recom
pense for devotion and self-sacrifice beyond the
consciousness of having made his life an unfalter
ing testimony to truth. Even those who believe
that they see gleams of light irradiating the dark
valley may count his honour not less but more
that he gave his service uncheered by such
visions.
In Heilbronn, where he was residing, he onct
pointed out to me, near an ancient church, the
trace of the old and sacred fountain which gave
the town its name, which signifies “ healing foun
tain.” He said, with his gentle smile : “ The
�28
theory of the priests is that the fountain ceased
to flow when I came here to reside.” When I
looked up to his magnificent eyes, and the grand
dome of his forehead, I could but marvel at the
depth of that superstition which could permit this
man to live as a hermit in communities which will
one day cherish each place of his dwelling as a
shrine. Holy wells may dry up, and the churches
beside them crumble, but men will repair to the
spots where the lonely scholar sat at his task,
and tell their children—here it was that in the
wildernesses of superstition living waters broke
out, and streams in the desert.
�29
V.
Everlasting ! changing never!
Of one strength, no more, no less ;
Thine almightiness for ever,
Ever one thy holiness :
Thee eternal,
Thee all glorious we possess.
Shall things withered, fashions olden,
Keep us from life’s flowing spring ?
Waits for us the promise golden,
Waits each new diviner thing.
Onward ! onward !
Why this hopeless tarrying ?
Nearer to thee would we venture,
Of thy truth more largely take,
Upon life diviner enter,
Into day more glorious break ;
To the ages
Fair bequests and costly make.
By the old aspirants glorious ;
By each soul heroical;
By the strivers, half victorious ;
By thy Jesus and thy Paul,
Truth’s own martyrs,—
We are summoned, one and alL
By each saving word unspoken ;
By thy truth as yet half won ;
By each idol still unbroken ;
By thy will yet poorly done ;
O Almighty !
We are borne resistless on.
Adaptedfrom Gill,
�M
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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David Friedrich Strauss: commemorative services at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, February 22,1874, with a discourse by Moncure D. Conway
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 29, [1] p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Includes bibliographical references. A list of the author's works available from South Place Chapel on unnumbered back page.
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (David Friedrich Strauss: commemorative services at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, February 22,1874, with a discourse by Moncure D. Conway), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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David Friedrich Strauss
Memorial Addresses
Morris Tracts
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TRACTS FOR THE TlMES-No. 8.
STRAUSS’S LIFE OF JESUS,
EXAMINED BY
THEODORE PARKER,
MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH,
BOSTON, MASS.
PART FIRST.
The work above-named is one of profound theological significance. It marks the age
we live in, and to judge from its character and the interest it has already excited, will
make an epoch in theological affairs. It is a book whose influence, for good and for evil,
will not soon pass away. Taken by itself, it is the most remarkable work that has ap
peared in,theology for the last hundred and fifty years, or since Richard Simon published
his Critical History of the Old Testament; viewed in reference to its present effect, it
may well be compared to Tindall’s celebrated work, “ Christianity as old as the Creation,”
to which, we are told, more than six score replies have been made. We do not propose
to give any answer to the work of Mr Strauss, or to draw a line between what we consider
false, and what is true; but only to give a description and brief analysis of the work itself,
that the good and evil to be expected therefrom may be made evident. But before we
address ourselves to this work, we must say a brief word respecting the comparative
position of Germany and England in regard to Theology.
On the fourth day of July, in the year of grace one thousand seven hundred and fifty
seven, died at Halle, in Germany, Sigismund Jacob Baumgarten; a man who was deemed
a great light in his time. Some thought that Theology died with him. A few, perhaps
more than a few, at one time doubted his soundness in the faith, for he studied philosophy,
the philosophy of Wolf, and there are always men, in pulpits and parlours, who think
philosophy is curious in unnecessary matters, meddling with things that are too high for
the human arm to reach. Such was the case in Baumgarten’s time in Halle of Saxony.
Such is it now, not in Halle of Saxony, but in a great many places nearer home. But
Dr Baumgarten outlived this suspicion, we are told, and avenged himself, in the most
natural way, by visiting with thunders all such as differed from himself; a secret satisfac
tion which some young men, we are told, hope one day to enjoy. Baumgarten may be
taken, perhaps, as representing the advanced post in German theology in the middle of
the last century. A few words from one of the greatest critical scholars Europe has
produced will serve to show what that post was a hundred years ago. “ He attempted,
by means of history and philosophy, to throw light upon theological subjects ; but wholly
neglecting philology and criticism, and unacquainted with the best sources of knowledge,
he was unable to free religion from its corruptions. Everything that the church taught
passed with him for infallible truth. He did not take pains to inquire whether it agreed
with Scripture or common sense, Deyoted to the church, he assumed its doctrines, and
?
�2
fortified its traditions with the show of demonstrations, as with insurmountable walls of
defence. His scholars were no less prompt and positive in their decisions than their
master. Every dogma of their teacher was received by them as it were a mathematical
certainty, and his polemics exhibited to them the Lutheran church in exclusive posses
sion of the truth, and resigned all other sects covered with shame and contempt to their
respective errors. Everything appeared to be so clearly exhibited and proved by him, that
there seemed to be nothing left for future scholars to investigate and explain ; but only
to repeat and enforce in an intelligible manner the truths already acquired. Baumgarten,
indeed, accounted it nothing less than high treason against his discipline for his scholars
to presume to think and examine for themselves; and acknowledged him only for his
genuine disciple who left his school confident that, with the weapons of his instructor in
his hands, he could resist the whole theological world, and overcome it without a violent
struggle.” Philosophy was considered as a pest, and its precincts forbidden to all pious
souls. Ecclesiastical history was in the service of a mystical Pietism; its real province
and genuine sources were unknown. Exegetical learning was thought unnecessary, and
even a foe to genuine piety ; the chimeras of Buxtorf, half Jewish, half Christian, ruled
with despotic sway. Langen’s method of salvation was esteemed an oracle in dogmatic
theology, and pietistic and fanatical notions prevailed in morals. If a man was not satis
fied with this, or showed a desire for more fundamental theological learning, it was said,
“ He has forsaken his first love, and wants to study his Saviour out of the world.” Such
was Germany a hundred years ago. The fate of Lawrence Schmid, the “Wertheim Trans
lator” of part of the Pentateuch, is a well knowm sign of the times. A young man was
accused of Socinianism and Arianism, because he doubted the genuineness of the cele
brated passage, 1 John v. 7, now abandoned by all respectable critics; he was reckoned
unsound because he openly, or in secret, studied Richard Simon, Grotius, Leclerc, and
Wetstein.
Let us now turn to England. Before this time the Deists had opened their voice;
Hobbs, Morgan, Collins, Chubb, Tindall, Bolingbroke, had said their say. The civil wars p
of England, in the century before, had awakened the soul of the nation. Great men had
risen up, and given a progress to the Protestant Reformation, such as it found in no other
country of the world perhaps, unless it were in Transylvania and Holland. There had
been a Taylor, Cudworth, Seeker, Tillotson, Hoadly, Hare, Lardner, Foster, Whitby,
Sykes, Butler, Benson, Watts—yes, a Newton and a Locke, helping to liberalise theology.
The works of Montaigne, Malebranche, Bayle, even of Spinoza, had readers in England,
as well as opponents. The English theologians stood far in advance of the Germans,
among whom few great names were to be reckoned after the Reformation. Take the
century that ended in the year of Baumgarten’s death, and you have the period of Eng
land’s greatest glory in science, literature, and theology. The works which give charac
ter to the nation were written then. Most of the English theology, which pays for the
reading, was written before the middle of the last century; while in Germany few books
had been written on that general theme since the sixteenth century, which are now re
printed or even read. Such was England a century ago.
What have the two countries done since? Compare Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying,
the writings of Cudworth, Locke, Butler, and Tillotson, or Foster, with the writings of '
the men who occupy a similar relative position at this day—with the general tone of the
more liberal writers of England—and what is the result ? Need it be told ? Theology,
in the main body of English Theologians, has not been stationary. It has gone back.
The works of Priestley, and others like him, bear little fruit.
Now in Germany, since the death of Baumgarten, there has been a great advance.
Compare the works of Neander, Bretschneider, De Wette, and F. C. Bauer, with Baum
garten, and “the great theologians” of his time, and what a change! New land has
been won ; old errors driven away. It is not in vain that Michaelis, Semler, Eichhorn,
Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, have lived. Men study theology as the
English once studied it—as if they were in earnest. New questions are raised;.old
doubts removed; some principles are fixed; and theology studied as a science, in the light
of reason. But another has said, “ In the English theology there is somewhat dead, and
immoveable, catholic, external, mechanical; while the industrial power of.England is
active, and goes ahead with giant strides, from invention to invention ; while the com
mercial and warlike spirit of the nation goes storming forth, with manly and. almost
frantic courage, into the remotest distance, embracing the globe with its gigantic arms,
and in the midst of its material concerns pursues without wearying the interests of
science, too haughty to disturb itself about the truth of religions foreign to its concerns—
theology remains, as it were, to represent the female element in the mind of the nation,
�3
sitting at home, domestic as a snail, in the old-fashioned narrow building she has inherited
from her fathers, which has been patched up a little, here and there, as necessity com
pelled. There she sits, anxiously fearing, in her old-womanly way, lest she shall be
driven out of doors by the spirit of enlightened Europe, which sports with heathen reli
gions. In English theology a peace has been established between the understanding and
Christianity, as between two deadly foes. Theology preserves unhurt the objective con
tents of the Christian religion; but in the dull understanding, it lies like a stone in the
stomach.” But let us now turn to the work of Mr Strauss.
It is not our aim to write a polemic against the author of the “ Life of Jesus,” but to
describe his book, or “define his position,” as the politicians are wont to say. The work
in question comprises, first, an introduction, relating to the formation of the “Mythical stand
point,” from which tire Evangelical history is to be contemplated; second, the main work
itself, which is divided into three books, relating respectively to the History of the Birth
and Childhood of Jesus; bis Public Life; his Sufferings, Death, and Resurrection; third,
a conclusion of the whole book, or the doctrinal significance of the life of Jesus. The
work forms two closely printed volumes, and comprises about sixteen hundred pages,
thus making a work nearly as large as Mr Hallam’s History of Literature. It is not
properly called a Life of Jesus; but a better, a more descriptive title would be, A Funda
mental Criticism on the Four Gospels. In regard to learning, acuteness, and sagacious
conjectures, the work resembles Niebuhr’s History of Rome. Like that, it is not a his
tory, but a criticism and collection of materials, out of which a conjectural history may
be constructed. Mr Strauss, however, is not so original as Niebuhr (who yet had numerous
predecessors, though they are rarely noticed), but is much more orderly and methodical.
The general manner of treating the subject, and arranging the chapters, sections, and
parts of the argument, intimates consummate dialectical skill; while the style is clear,
the expression direct, and the author’s openness in referring to his sources of information,
and stating his conclusions in all their simplicity, is candid and exemplary.
The introduction to the work is valuable to every student of the Scriptures, who has
sufficient sagacity to discern between the true and the false ; to any other it is dangerous,
as are all strong books to weak heads, very dangerous, from its “ specious appearances.”
It is quite indispensable to a comprehension of the main work. We will give a brief
abstract of some of its most important matters. If a form of religion rest on written
documents, sooner or later there comes a difference between the old document and the
modern discoveries and culture shown in works written to explain it. So long as the
difference is not total, attempts will be made to reconcile the two. A great part of reli
gious documents relate to sacred history, to events and instances of the Deity stepping
into the circle of human affairs. Subsequently, doubts arise as to the fact, and it is said,
“the Divinity could not have done as it is alleged,” or, “the deed could not be divine.”
Then attempts are made to show either that these deeds were never done, and, therefore,
the documentary record is not entitled to historical credibility, or that they were not done
ly God, and, therefore, to explain away the real contents of the book. In each of these
cases, the critic may go fearlessly to w’ork; look facts clearly in the face; acknowledges
the statements of the old record, with the inconsistency between them and the truths of
science; or, he may go to work under constraint; may blind himself to this inconsistency,
and seek merely to unfold the original meaning of the text. This took place in Greece,
where religion did not rest on religious documents, but had yet a sort of connection with
the mythological stories of Homer and Hesiod, and with others, which circulated from
mouth to mouth. The serious philosophers soon saw that these stories could not be true.
Hence arose Plato’s quarrel with Homer; hence Anaxagoras gave an allegorical explana
tion of Homer, and the Stoics naturalised Hesiod’s Theogony, supposing it related to the
operations of nature. Others, like Evhemerus, humanised and applied these stories to men,
who by great deeds had won divine honours.
Now’ with the Hebrews, their stability, and their adherence to the supernatural stand
point, would, on the one hand, prevent such views being taken of their religious records:;
and on the other, would render this treatment the more necessary. Accordingly, after
the exile, and still more after the time of the Maccabees, the Hebrew teachers found
means to remove what was offensive ; to fill up chasms, and introduce modern ideas into
their religious books. This was first done at Alexandria. Philo—following numerous
predecessors—maintained there was a common and a deeper sense in the Scriptures, and in
some cases the literal meaning was altogether set aside; especially when it comprised
anything excessively anthropomorphitic, or unworthy of God. Thus he gave up the histo
rical character, to save the credit of the narrative, but never followed the method of
Evhemerus. The Christians applied the same treatment to the Old Testament, and
�4
Origen found a literal, moral, and mystical sense in all parts of the Scriptures, and some
times applied the saying, “ the letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive,” to the former.
Some passages, he said, had no literal sense; in others, a literal lie lay at the bottom of a
mystical truth. Many deeds, he says, are mentioned in Scripture which were never per
formed ; fiction is woven up with fact to lead us to virtue. He rejected the literal sense
of those passages which humanise the Deity. But Origen went further, and applied these
same principles to the New Testament, where he found much that was distasteful to his
philosophical palate. Here also he finds fiction mingled with fact, and compares the
Homeric stories of the Trojan war, in respect to their credibility, with the Christian nar
ratives. In both Homer and the Gospels, he would consider what portions can be be
lieved ; what considered as figurative; what rejected as incredible, and the result of
human frailty. He, therefore, does not demand a blind faith in the Gospels, but would
have all Christians understand, that good sense and diligent examination are necessary in
this study, to ascertain the meaning of a particular passage. But this heretical father
was too cautious to extend these remarks, and apply them extensively to particular pas
sages. The Scriptures fell into the hands of men who acknowledged something divine in
them; but denied that God had made therein particular manifestations of himself. This
was done by Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, who assented to much that is related of Moses
and Jesus; while they found “ lying legends” in other parts of the Bible.
Among the Greeks and Hebrews, whose religious literature was contemporary with the
growth of the nation, the prevalence of the allegorical interpretation of the sacred books
proved that the old forms of religion had died out, for the modern culture had outgrown the
faith of the fathers of the nation. But in Christianity, the allegorical explanation adopted
by Origen, and the peculiar opposition of Celsus taking place so near the birth of Chris
tianity, proved that the world had not yet properly lived in the new form of religion.
But, from the age after this time, when the rude Germanic nations—too rude to find any
difficulty in admitting the most objectionable parts of the Old and New Testament—were
conquering the Roman Empire, and becoming Christians at the same time, all proofs have
disappeared which would indicate the prevalence of a manner of interpreting the Scrip
tures that arose from a radical discrepancy between the culture of mankind and the state
ments in these records. The Reformation made the first breach upon the solid walls of ec
clesiastical faith in the letter of the Bible. This was the first sign, that in Christianity,
as formerly in Judaism and Heathenism, there was a culture sufficiently powerful to re-act
upon the prevalent form of religion.
So far as the Reformation was directed against the Romish Church, it soon accomplished
its sublime mission. But in relation to the Scriptures, it took the direction of Deism.
Toland and Bolingbroke called the Bible a collection of fabulous books. Others robbed
the Scriptural heroes of all divine light. The law of Moses was considered a superstition,
the apostles were called selfish, the character of Jesus was assailed, and his resurrection
denied by a “ moral philosopher.” Here belong Chubb, Woolston, Morgan, and the Wolfenbuttel Fragmentis. These scholars were ably opposed by a host of apologetical writers
in England and Germany, who defended the supernatural character of the Bible. But in
Germany there arose a different class of men, who designed to strip the Bible of its super
natural character and direct divinity; but to leave its human character unharmed. They
would not call the alleged miracles, miracles, nor consider them as juggling. Thus Eich
horn opposed the Deists—who ascribed bad motives to the writers of Scripture—but
denied that there was anything supernatural in the stories of the Old Testament. He
saw that he must deny this of the Bible, or admit it, likewise, of all ancient religious do
cuments; for they all claimed it. We are not to be astonished, he says, at finding mira
cles in these writings, for they were produced in the infancy of the world ; we must interpret them in the same spirit that composed them. Thus he can explain the histoiy of
Noah, Abraham, and Moses, by natural events.
.
Others treated the New Testament in the same manner. But the first Christian
-Evhemerus was Dr Paulus. He makes a distinction between the fact related and the judg
ment or opinion respecting the fact; for example, between the fact and the writers opinion
respecting its cause or purpose. The two, he supposes, are confounded in the New Testa
ment ; for its writers, like others in that age, took a supernatural view', and referred
human actions to the direct agency of God. The office of an interpreter is to separate
the fact from the opinion about the fact. Paulus, accordingly, believes the Gospels but
denies the supernatural casualty of the events related. Jesus is not the Son of God, in
the ecclesiastical sense, but a good man; he works no miracles, but does kind deeds,
sometimes by cliirurgical skill, and sometimes by good luck. Both Paulus and Eich
horn, in order to maintain the truth of the narrative, must refer it to a date as early as
�possible; thus the former admits that Moses wrote the Pentateuch on the march through
the wilderness, and the latter believes the genuineness of the Gospels. Both of these
sacrifice the literal history for the sake of the great truths contained in the ^ok.
Kant took a different position. He did not concern himself with the history, but only
with the idea the history unfolded; this idea he considered not »s theoretical and practi
cal but only the latter. He did not refer it to the divine mind, but to that of the writer,
or his interpreter. Christian writers, he says, have so long interpreted these books, that
they seem to harmonise with universal moral laws. But the Greeks and Romans did
the same, and made Polytheism only a symbol of the various attributes
‘he One God
thus giving a mystical sense to the basest actions of the gods, and the wildest dreams of
the poets. In the same way the Christian writings must be explained, so as to make
them harmonise with the universal laws of a pure moral religion. This, even if it
does violence to the text, must be preferred to the literal interpretation, which, in many
instances, would afford no support to morality, and would sometimes counteract the
moral sense. Thus he makes David’s denunciation of his foes signify the desire to over
come obstacles; but thinks it is not necessary these ideas should have been present to the
mind of the writer of the books.
Here, Mr Strauss continues, was, on the one hand, an unhistoncal, and on the other an
unphilosophical method of treating the Bible. The progressive study of mythology shed
light upon this subject. Eichhorn had made the reasonable demand, that the Bible should
be treated like other ancient books ; but Paulus, attempting to treat others as he treated
the Bible, could not naturalise the Greek legends and myths. Such scholars as Schelling
and Gabler began to find myths in the Bible, and apply to them the maxim of Heyne,
“ a mytliis omnis priscorum hominum cum historia, turn philosophia procedit.
Bauer
ventured to write a Hebrew mythology of the Old and New Testament. . A myth was
defined to be a narration, proceeding from an age when there was no written authentic
history, but when facts were related and preserved by oral tradition. It is a myth, it it
contains an account of things—related in an historical way—which absolutely could not be
the objects of experience, such as events that took place in the supersensual world, or
which could not relatively be objects of experience, such, for example, as from the
nature of the case no man could witness. Or, finally, it is a myth, if the narrative is
elaborated into the wonderful, and is related in symbolic language.
Now, the naturalistic method of interpreting the Bible could only be resorted to on the
supposition of its historical accuracy, and that it was written contemporary with ‘i‘ie
events it relates. Accordingly, men who denied this carried out the mythical theory.
The Pentateuch, says Vater, can be understood only on the supposition it was not written
by eye-witnesses. De Wette declared still more strongly against the naturalistic, and m
favour of the mythical hypothesis. To test the credibility of an account, he says, we
must examine the writer’s tendency. He may write history, and yet have a poetic ten
dency, and such is the case with the writers of the Old Testament. Fact and fiction are
blended together therein, and we cannot separate them, because we have no criterion, or
touchstone, by which to examine them. The only source of our knowledge of events is
the narrative relating the historical facts. We cannot go beyond this. In regard to the
Old Testament, we must admit or reject these narratives; in the latter case, we relinquish
all claim to any knowledge of the affairs related, for we have no other evidence respecting
them. We have no right to impose a natural explanation on what is related as a miracle.
It is entirely arbitrary to say thejfczc/ is genuine history, and the drapery alone is poetical;
for example, we have no right to say, Abraham thought he would make a covenant with
God, and that this fact lies at the bottom of the poetic narrative. Nor do we know what
Abraham thought. If we follow the narrative, we must take the fact as it is ; if we reject
it, we have no knowledge of the fact itself. It is not reasonable that Abraham should
have such thoughts of his descendants possessing Palestine centuries afterwards, but quite
natural that they should write this poetic fiction to glorify their ancestor..
Thus the naturalistic explanation destroys itself, and the mythical takes its place. Even
Eichhorn confessed the former could not be applied to the New lestament; and. Gabler,
long ago, maintained that there are in the New Testament not only erroneous judgments
upon facts, which an eye-witness might make, but also false facts and improbable results
mentioned, which an eye-witness could not relate, but which were gradually formed by
tradition, and are, therefore, to be considered myths. The circumstance of writings and
books being well known at the time of Christ does not preclude the mythical view ; for
the facts must have been preserved orally long before they were written down. Besides,
says Bauer, we have not in the New Testament a whole series of myths, but only single
mythical stories. Anecdotes are told of a great naan, which assume a more extraordinary
�6
character the farther they spread. In a miracle-loving age, the obscure youth of Jesus
would, after his name became illustrious, be embellished with miraculous stories of celes
tial beings visiting his parents, predicting his birth and character. Where the records or
authentic tradition failed, men gave loose to fancy, to historical conjectures and reason
ings in the style of the Jewish Christians, and thus created the philosophic myths of
primitive Christian history. But men did not set down with fancy aforethought, saying,
“Go to, now, let us make myths;” but they were gradually formed; a little was added
here, and a little there. They would relate chiefly to the obscurest part of Christ’s his
tory. In obedience to this principle, Eichhorn, seeing that only a slender thread of
apostolical tradition runs through the three first Gospels, rejects several stories from the
life of Jesus, which offended his critical taste; for example, the Gospel of the Infancy, the
temptation, some of his miracles, the resurrection of the saints at his death.
Now, Mr Strauss objects to his predecessors, that, for the most part, their idea of a myth
is not just and definite; for in the case of a historical myth they permit the interpreter
to separate a natural, historical fact from the miraculous embellishments, which they
refer to tradition; not, as the naturalist had done, to the original author. Thus the natu
ralist and the supernaturalist could admit historical but not philosophical myths, for
then the entire historical basis seemed to fall away. Again, these views were not applied
extensively—as far as they would go. Eichhorn admitted there was a myth on the
threshold of the Old Testament. When the mythical hypothesis reached the New
Testament, it was not permitted to go beyond the very entrance. It was admitted there
could be no certain accounts of the early life of Jesus, and, therefore, that many false
stories, suited to the taste of the times and the oracles of the Old Testament, have taken
the place which there was no history to fill. But this does notin the slightest degree impair
the credibility of the subsequent narrative. The Evangelists give an account of the last
three years of his life ; and here they were eye-witnesses, or took the word of eye-wit
nesses. Then objections were brought against the end of the history, and the Ascension
was considered spurious or mythical. Thus critical doubts began to nibble at both ends
of the narrative, while the middle remained untouched ; or, as some one has said,
“ Theologians entered the domain of evangelical history through the gorgeous portals of
the myth, and passed out at a similar gate; but in all that lay between these limits,
they were content to take the crooked and toilsome paths of naturalistic explanation.”
•Mr Strauss next inquires, whether it is possible there should be myths in the New Tes
tament? and, judging from outward arguments, he thinks it possible. Most Christians, he
says, believe that is false which the heathen relate of their gods, and the Mahometans of
their prophet, while the Scriptures relate only what is true respecting the acts of God,
Christ, and the holy men. But this is a prejudice founded on the assumption that Christiany differs from heathen religions in the fact that it alone is an historical, while they
are mythical religions. But this is the result of a partial and confined view ; for each of
the other religions brings this charge against its rivals; and all derive their own origin
from the direct agency of God. It is supposed that the Gospels were written by eye
witnesses, who were not deceived themselves, and were not deceivers, and, therefore, no room
is left for the formation or insertion of myths. But it is only a prejudice that the Gospels
were written by eye-witnesses. The names of Matthew and John, for example, prefixed
to these writings prove nothing; for the Pentateuch bears the name of Moses, though it
must have been written long after him; some of the Psalms bear the name of David
though they were written during the exile, and the book of Daniel ascribes itself to that
prophet, though it was not written before the times of Antiochus Epiphanes. He finds
little reason for believing the genuineness or the authenticity of the Gospels. Indeed he
regards them all as spurious productions of well-meaning men, who collected the traditions
that were current in the part of the world where they respectively lived. This is the
weakest part of his book, important as the question is; yet weak as it is, his chief argu
ment rests upon it. The proofs of the spuriousness of these books are quite too feeble
and uncertain for his purpose, and accordingly we are pleased to see, from the preface
and many passages of the third edition, that his doubts upon the genuineness of John’s
Gospel have become doubtful, even to himself, after a farther study of it, with the aid of
the recent works of Neander and De Wette.
Again, judging from the character of the books themselves, myths, according to Strauss,
might be expected in the New Testament. It is sometimes said, the mythical stories of
the Bible differ from the Greek myths, in their superior moral character; but the alleged
■immorality of the Greek myths arises from mistaking their sense; and some of the myths
in the Old Testament are immoral; and if they could be formed, much easier could
moral myths be made and accepted. It is sometimes said, in opposition to the mythical
�hypothesis, that all these stories in the Bible appear natural, if you admit the direct
agency of God. But the same remark applies equally to the Greek and Indian myths.
Still farther, it is said, the heathen myths represent God as a changing being, and thus
contain the natural history of God, and the birth, infancy, youth, and manhood of Apollo
or Jupiter, for example; while those of the Bible represent Jehovah as eternally the
same. But Jesus, the Son of God, the Divine Logos incarnated, is the subject of history.
Others say, there can be no myths, because the time of Jesus was an historical and not a
mythical age; but all parts of the world were not filled with the historical spirit, and
fictions might easily grow up among the people, who had no design to deceive, and thus
myths be formed. This is the more probable, for in ancient times, among the Hebrews,
and in particular in the religious circles of that people, history and fiction, like poetry
and prose, were never carefully separated, and the most respectable writers, among the
Jews and early Christians, wrote works, and ascribed them to distinguished men of an
earlier
His definition and criteria of a myth are as follows:—A myth has two sides; first, it
is not a history; and second, it is a fiction, which has been produced by the state of mind
of a certain community.
I. It is not an historical statement: (1) if it contradict the well-known laws of casualty
(and here belong the direct actions and supernatural appearances of God and the angels,
miracles, prophecies, and voices from Heaven, violations of the order of succession, and
well-known psychological laws); and (2) when the writers or witnesses contradict each
other, in respect to time (for example, of the purification of the temple), place (the
residence of Joseph and Mary), number (the Gadarenes and angels at the grave), or in
respect to names and other circumstances.
II. A narrative is shown to be legendary or fictitious: (1) if it is poetical in form, and
the discourses of the characters are longer and more inspired than we need expect (for ex
ample, the discourses of Jesus); and (2) if the substance of the narrative agrees remarkably
with the preconceived opinions of the community where it originated, it is .more or less
probable the narrative grew out of the opinion. He adds several qualifications and mo
difications of these tests.
Having thus drawn lines of circumvallation and contravallation about the Gospels, Mr
Strauss thus opens the attack upon the outworks: The narrative in Luke relating to John
the Baptist, he says, is not authentic; it is not probable the angelic state is constituted
as it is here supposed. This idea was borrowed by the later Jews from the Zend religion;
and the name of the angel Gabriel, and his office to stand before God, are Babylonian.
The angel’s discourse and conduct are objectionable; he commands that the child shall
be trained up as a Nazarite, and smites Zacharias with dumbness, which is not consistent
with “ theocratic decorum.” Admitting the existence of angels, they could not reveal
themselves to men, since they belong to different spheres. The naturalists and super
naturalists fail to render this story credible, and we are, therefore, forced to doubt its
literal accuracy. Some writers suppose there are historical facts at the bottom of this
tale; for example, the sterility of Elizabeth, the sudden dumbness of Zacharias, and his
subsequent restoration. But there is no better reason for admitting these facts than for
admitting the whole story. It must be regarded as a myth, and is evidently wrought
out in imitation of others in the Old Testament. It resembles the story of Sarah, in the
age of the parties; Elizabeth is a daughter of Aaron, whose wife bore this same name.
The appearance of the angel, who fortels the birth of John, his character and destiny, is
evidently an imitation of the prophecy respecting Samson, and there is a very strong
resemblance between the language of Luke in this part of the story and that of the Septuagint in the account of Samson’s birth. The conclusion of the story (Luke i. 80)
resembles the end of the story of Ishmael (Gen. xxi. 20). The name of John (God’s gift)
which was not a family name, renders the narrative still more suspicious. Thus the
whole is a myth. We think Mr Strauss, for the sake of consistency, ought to deny that
John the Baptist was an historical person, and doubtless he would have done so, were it
not for an unfortunate passage in Josephus, which mentions that prophet. A rigorous
application of his tests would deprive John of historical existence. But Josephus saves
him.
He next examines the genealogies of Jesus.
Matthew enumerates three series, each of fourteen generations, or forty-two persons in
the whole, between Abraham and Jesus, and gives the names of the individuals; but the
number actually given does not agree with his enumeration, and no hypothesis relieves
us of the difficulty. If we compare this list with the Old Testament, it is still more
objectionable, for it omits several well-known names, and contains some mistakes. Luke’s
�genealogy differs still more widely from the Old Testament; from Nathan, the Son of
David, downward, he mentions only two persons who occur in the Old Testament, namely,
Salathiel and Zorobabel, and even here it contradicts the narratives in 1 Chronicles iii.
17, 19, 20. If we compare these two genealogies together, there is a striking difference
between them. Luke reckons forty-one generations from David to Joseph, the father of
Jesus, where Matthew makes but twenty-six, and with the two exceptions above mentioned,
the names are all different in the two narrations. According to Luke, the father of Joseph
is Heli, a descendant of Nathan, son of David; according to Matthew, Joseph’s father is
Jacob, a descendant of Solomon. Various attempts have been made to reconcile these
conflicting genealogies, but they all rest on arbitrary suppositions. It is sometimes said
one contains the genealogy of Joseph, the other of Mary • but this also is an arbitrary
supposition, at variance with the text, and is not supported by any passage in the Bible..
We must, then, conclude these genealogies are arbitrary compositions, which do not
prove the Davidie descent of Jesus, who was called son of David, because he was consi
dered as the Messiah. It is easily conceivable that a Galilean, whose descent was un
known, after he had acquired the title of Messiah, should be represented by tradition as a
son of David. On the strength of these traditions genealogies were composed, which, for
want of authentic documents, were as various and conflicting as these two of Luke and
Matthew.
He then treats of the miraculous birth of Jesus.
Here he makes use of two apocryphal Gospels, quoted by several of the early fathers.
He shows the striking difference between the accounts of Matthew and Luke, concerning
the birth of Jesus. But since the same view has been taken amongst us by Mr Norton,
and this remarkable discrepancy has been pointed out by him in a work well known and
justly valued, it is unnecessary to enter farther into the subject. Mr Norton reject’s
Matthew’s account as spurious and unauthentic; while Mr Strauss, with more perfect
logical consistency, rejects likewise Luke’s narrative, on the ground that Gabriel talks
like a Jew ; that the supernatural birth is impossible; that if a human birth implies the
sinfulness of the child, then a celestial mother is needed also, that the child may be free
from sin. Again, there are exegetical difficulties, for Mark and John omit this part of
the history, and the latter had the best possible means of information, and it is always
supposed in the New Testament that Jesus was Joseph’s son. Beside, if Jesus were the
son of God, how could he be the son of David, and why are the two genealogies given to
prove that descent, one of which is confessed, on all hands, to be the genealogy of Joseph,
who by the supernatural hypothesis was nowise related to Jesus ? In this case the gene
alogies would prove nothing. It is not possible they proceeded from the same hand as
the story of the supernatural birth, and Mr Strauss conjectures they are the work of the
Ebionites, who denied that article of faith. The attempts of the rationalists and the super
naturalists are alike insufficient, he thinks, to explain away the difficulties of this narra
tive ; but if we regard it as a myth, the difficulty vanishes, and its origin is easily explained.
The story itself, in Matthew, refers to Isaiah (vii. 14), and that prophecy seems to have
been the groundwork of this myth. In the old world, it was erroneously supposed, or
pretended, that great men were the descendants of the gods; for example, Hercules, the
Dioscuri, Romulus, Pythagoras, and Plato, of whose remarkable birth Jerome speaks. This
myth, therefore, grew naturally out of the common Jewish notions at the time, and was
at last written down.
He next examines the account of the census, and the early life of Jesus.
Luke informs us that Augustus Caesar issued a decree “ that all the world should be
taxed, or numbered ; but no other writer mentions a general census in the time of Augus
tus, though a census was made in some provinces. If we limit the term “ all the world ”
to Judea, still it is improbable such a census was made at that time, for the Romans did
not make a census of conquered countries until they were reduced to the form of a pro
vince, and Judea did not become a Roman province until after the disgrace and banishment
of Arclielaus, which event took place after he had reigned ten years as an allied sovereign.
Luke says this census was made when Quirinus was governor of Syria. Now it was not
Quirinus, but Sentius Saturninus, and after him, Quint. Varus, who were proconsuls of Syria
in the latter years of Herod I., and it was some years after his death that Quirinus became
proconsul of Syria, and actually made a census, as Josephus relates. Luke also refers to this
latter census (Acts v. 37), and speaks of Judas the Galilean, who rebelled on this occasion, as
Josephus informs us. Now it cannot be true, that Jesus was born at so late a period .as
the time of this census, under Quirinus, for—not to mention the chronological difficulties
this hypothesis would create in the latter years of Jesus—this census could not have
extended to Galilee, the residence of Joseph and Mary, for that state was governed by
�9
Herod Antipas, in the capacity of Allied Prince, and accordingly was not a province;
therefore Joseph would not be summoned to Judea when the census of that province was
taken. Still further, it is not probable the Bomans would assemble the citizens
to°ether by families in the birth-place of the founder of the family,> enrol them.
*One evangelist makes Joseph live at Bethlehem, the other at Nazareth. Now the
design of the author, in placing the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, is obvious. He wished
the prophecy in Micah (v. 2,) to be fulfilled in Jesus, for the Jews applied it to the
Messiah. The author, setting out from the opinion that Joseph and Mary, dwelt at
Nazareth, sought for some natural errand to bring them to Bethlehem. He found a suit
able occasion in the well-known census ot Quirinus: but not understanding accurately
the circumstances of the time and place, he has brought hopeless confusion into the nar
rative, if it is taken for genuine history. We have, therefore, no reason, concludes Mr
Strauss, for believing Jesus was born at Bethlehem, for the story is a myth.
Other circumstances in this narrative present difficulties. What purpose, asks Mr
Strauss, is served by the angels, who appear at the birth of Jesus? It could not be to
publish the fact; nor to reward the believing shepherds, who, like Simeon, were waiting
for the consolation; nor yet to glorify the unconscious infant. They seem sent to the
shepherds, because they were supposed to be more simple and religious than the. artificial
Pharisees. Similar objections may be made to the story of the magi, who, it is pre
supposed, knew beforehand, as astrologers, that a king of the Jews was to be.born. A
miraculous star guides them ; but a star does not change its position relatively to earthly
places, and a meteor does not appear so long as this guide seems to have done. The con
duct of Herod is not consistent with his shrewdness, for he sends no officer with the magi
to seize the new-born Messiah. The story of the massacre of the innocents at Bethlehem
is not mentioned by any ancient author, except Macrobius, a writer of the fourth cen
tury, and he confounds it with Herod’s murder of his son Antipater. The Rabbins, who
never spare this tyrant, do not mention it. True, it was but a drop in Herod’s sea of
guilt, but it is so peculiarly horrible and revolting, that they would not pass over it.
In this short passage there are four miraculous dreams and a miraculous star, not to men
tion the misinterpretation of the Old Testament. (Matt. ii. 23.)
But the whole story is mythical, and is derived from ideas and opinions commonly held
at the time. The ancients believed a heavenly body sometimes appeared on great occa
sions ; for example, a comet, at the birth of Mithridates, and at the death of Julius Caesar.
The Rabbins assert, a star appeared at the birth of Abraham. It was their opinion that
a star would appear in the east, and remain visible for a long time, at the period of the
Messiah’s birth. Balaam also had predicted that a star should come out of Jacob. In
ancient times, it was supposed stars guided men; for example, JEneas, Thrasybulus, and
Timoleon : and the Jews fancied that a star conducted Abraham to Mount Moriah. Isaiah
had foretold, that in the days of the Messiah men should come from distant lands to
worship, bringing gold and incense. Again, many great characters of antiquity had
escaped from imminent peril—for example, Cyrus, Romulus, Augustus, and Moses—in
early life. Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, had saved their lives at a later age, by flight.
AU these ideas and reminiscences, therefore, appear in the two narratives, which are dif
ferent variations of the same theme, though they.have no direct influence, one upon the other.
Matthew passes in silence over the entire period, from the return from Egypt to the
baptism of Jesus, and Luke mentions but a single circumstance of his early life, namely,
his conversation, when twelve years old, with the doctors. But this event cannot be
historical; for it is not probable he would, at that age, be admitted to a seat in the council
of the Rabbis. His reply to his parents would not have been misunderstood, if the pre
vious events had taken place as they are related. The whole story, Mr Strauss contends,
is a myth, conceived to suit the opinion, that great men are remarkable in their child
hood. Thus, in the Old Testament, Samuel is consecrated in his childhood; the later
traditions, which Philo and Josephus follow, ascribe wonderful things to Moses at an
early age, though the Bible knows nothing of them. Tradition says, that Samuel pro
phesied from his twelfth year, and that Solomon and Daniel uttered wise oracles at the
same age; 1 Kings, iii. 23, seq.; Susannah, vs. 45, seq.
The next chapter treats of the public ministry of Jesus. We pass over the chronological
difficulties relating to the ministry of John the Baptist, which have been carefully collected
by Mr Strauss, and come to his connection with Jesus. The baptism of John seems
based chiefly on some figurative expressions of the Old Testament, according to which
God would wash away the sins of his unregenerate people, before the Messiah came.
These passages could easily be combined so as to make it appear that baptism, as the
symbol of repentance, must precede the Messiah’s coming.
�10
Luke informs us that John was a kinsman of Jesus, and that their respective mothers
were acquainted with the sublime destiny of their children, even before the latter were
born. Matthew knows nothing of this, but ascribes to John, at the baptism of Jesus,
expressions which imply a previous acquaintance with him; for otherwise he would not
refuse to baptize Jesus, on the ground of his own unworthiness to baptize a being so far
above him. These two Gospels, then, agree in presupposing the acquaintance of John
and Jesus. But the fourth Gospel makes John distinctly deny the fact (i. 31—33.) The
appearance of the sign first assures him of the appearance of Jesus.
All the Gospels agree that John calls himself a forerunner of the Messiah, and that he
was convinced Jesus was that Messiah. But Matthew and Luke relate, that after his
imprisonment John sent two of his disciples to James, to ascertain the fact. Now if he
was convinced by the sign at the baptism, he ought still more to have been convinced by
the miracles of Jesus, that he was the Messiah. He could not have sent his disciples to
Jesus, in order to strengthen tAew- faith, for he did not know Jesus would work wonders
in their presence, nor would he compromise his own assertion, that Jesus was the Messiah;
and yet if he himself believed it, he would not urge his superior to declare himself imme
diately, but would leave him to decide for himself.
The fourth Gospel contains the most definite expressions respecting the Messiahship of
Jesus, and puts them in John’s mouth. But did the Baptist consider him an expiatory
sufferer? Did he ascribe to him an antemundane, celestial existence, as the Evangelist
has done? We find no proofs of it, except in this fourth Gospel. Now it is not probable
the Baptist had this conception of the office and nature of Jesus; nor is it probable that
he made the reply to his disciples which this Evangelist ascribes to him (iii. 27—36,)
where he confesses that he (John) is From beneath, but Jesus, From above, the one sent
by God, the son of God, speaking God’s words, and born of God. He must increase, and
I decrease. It is probable that the Evangelist put these words into John’s mouth, but
not that the Baptist ever uttered them; for if he had so deep an insight into the nature
of the kingdom of God, and the character and office of the Messiah, and believed Jesus to
be that Messiah, the latter would never have said that men so rude in their conceptions^
as the humblest of his disciples, were superior to John the Baptist; for Peter, the very
greatest of these disciples, never attained the lofty conception that Jesus was the son of
God, the “ Lamb, who taketh away the sin of the world.” Besides, the character of John
renders it incredible he would place himself at the feet of Jesus, the very opposite of him
self in all respects. This man of the desert, rough and austere, could not become a
pattern of the profoundest Christian resignation. A man on a humbler stand-point (like
that of John) cannot comprehend the man on a superior stand-point (like that of Jesus).
If this, which is related of John, were true, “ It would be the only instance on record of
a man belonging to the history of the whole world, voluntarily, and in such good humour,
giving up the reins of the affairs lie had so long directed, to a man who succeeded him,
only to cast him into the shade, and render his mission unnecessary.” The fourth Gospel,
then, would make the Baptist unlike the Baptist of the Synoptics and Josephus. The
statement in John i. 29—35, is derived in part from fancy, and partly from an embellish
ment of the narrative in the Synoptics.
.
.
Now the origin of the narratives relating to the Baptist, Mr Strauss contends, is very
easily explained. Paul related the historical fact, that John spoke in the name of one to
come, and added, Jesus was that one. Afterwards, men spoke as if John had a personal
acquaintance with Jesus. This view, though not supported by facts, pleased the early
Christians, who were glad to have the Baptist’s authority on their side. But there seems
no reason for believing there ever was such a recognition of Jesus on the part of John ;
nor is it probable that, while in prison on the charge of sedition (as Josephus says), he
would be permitted to hold free intercourse with his disciples. The. historical facts are,
perhaps, the following ; Jesus was baptized by John; perhaps continued for some time
one of his followers; was entrusted by John with the idea of the approaching Messiah.
After John was cast into prison, he continued to preach the doctrines of his master in a
modified form, and afterwards, when he rose far above John, never ceased, to feel and
express a deep reverence for him. Now we can trace the gradual formation of these
stories. John spoke indefinitely of the coming Messiah; tradition added, that he pro
claimed Jesus as that Messiah. It was thought the rumour of the works of Jesus might
have led him to this conclusion, and, therefore, Matthew’s story of the mission of two
disciples from the prison was formed. But since Jesus had been a disciple of John, it was
necessary the relation should be changed, and this purpose is served by Luke s stories of
events before his birth, which prove Jesus is the superior. But these accounts were not
sufficiently definite, and, therefore, the fourth Gospel leaves no doubt in John s mind that
�Jesus was the Messiah, but makes him give the strongest assurance of this, the first time
he sees him, and ascribes to him the most distinct expressions touching his eternal nature,
divinity, and character, as a suffering and atoning Messiah. Now the accounts of John’s
imprisonment and execution are easily reconciled with one another, and with Josephus ;
and hence we see that his life, as pourtrayed in the Gospels, is surrounded by mythical
shadows only on the side turned towards Jesus, while on the other the historical features
are clearly seen.
The miraculous events at the baptism of Jesus, Mr Strauss maintains, also present diffi
culties. The Synoptics mention both the dove and the voice; the fourth Gospel says
nothing of the voice, and does not say—though, perhaps, it implies —that the spirit
descended on him at the baptism. The lost gospels of Justin and the Ebionites connected
with this a celestial light, or fire burning in the Jordan. According to the fourth Gospel,
John was the only witness of the spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove; but Luke
would make it appear there were many spectators. Taking all the accounts, there must
have been some objective phenomena visible and audible. But here the cultivated man
finds difficulties and objections. Must the heavens open for the divine spirit to pass
through ? Is it consistent with just notions of the infinite spirit, to suppose it must
move like a finite being from place to place, and can incorporate itself in the form of a
dove ? Does God speak with a human voice ? The various theories, naturalistic and
supernaturalistic, fail of removing these difficulties. It cannot have been an aggregation
of natural events, nor a subjective vision of John, Jesus, or the multitude.
In some of the old gospels now lost, the words, “ Thou art my beloved son,” &c., were fol
lowed by these, “ This day have I begotten thee.” Clement of Alexandria and Augustine
seem to have found them in their copies, and some manuscripts of Luke still contain the
words. These words (from Psalm ii. 7) were supposed by Jewish and Christian inter
preters to relate to the Messiah, in their original application. Now to make them more
effective, and their application to Jesus as the Messiah the more certain, this, story
naturally grgw up, that a celestial voice applied them to Jesus. It was perfectly in the
spirit of Judaism, and primitive Christianity, to believe such voices were addressed to
men. Some of the Rabbis, it is said, received them not rarely. Still farther, Joel and
Isaiah had predicted the outpouring of the divine spirit in the days of the Messiah, This
spirit he also was to receive. If Jesus were the Messiah, he must receive this spirit; and
the occasion of his baptism afforded a very favourable opportunity. But how should it be
known that it came upon him ? It must descend in a visible form. The dove is a sacred
bird in Syria, and, perhaps, in Judea. The Jews supposed the spirit of God “ moved on
the face of the deep ” in this form. The dove, therefore, was a proper symbol and
representative of the divine spirit. These features were all successively united in a
mythus, which gradually grew up. There is, then, no reason for doubting that Jesus was
baptized by John; but the other circumstances are mythical, and have been added at a
later date. Here Mr Strauss is false to his principles, and separates the fact from the
drapery which surrounds the fact.
But the whole story of the descent of the spirit on Jesus, continues the author, seems
at variance with the previous account of his conception by that spirit. If the divine
spirit was the proper parent of Jesus, why should that spirit descend and abide upon him ?
It could not thereby produce a more intimate union between them. We must suppose
this story originated in a community which did not believe the supernatural conception
of Jesus ; and in fact we find that Christians, who did not admit the supernatural con
ception, believed the divine spirit was first imparted to Jesus at his baptism, and the
Orthodox fathers persecuted the old Ebionites for nothing more rigorously than for main
taining that the holy spirit, or the celestial spirit, first united himself with the man Jesus
at his baptism. According to Justin, it was the Jewish notion, that a higher power
would be first imparted to the Messiah, when he was anointed by Elias. This seems to
have been the primitive belief; but afterwards, when reverence for Jesus rose higher, a
myth grew up to prove that his Messiahship, and divine son-ship, did not commence with
his baptism, but with his conception; and then the words, “ This day have I begotten thee”
were left out, because they could not be reconciled with the Orthodox view.
The story of the Temptation also, Mr Strauss contends, has its difficulties. John does
not mention it, but makes Jesus appear in Galilee three days after his baptism, while the
Synoptics say he went immediately after this event into the wilderness, and fasted forty
days. The Synoptics also differ slightly among themselves. There are other difficulties.
Why did the Divine Spirit subject Jesus to this temptation by a visible Satan ? Not to
ascertain what manner of spirit he was of; nor to try him, for his subsequent trials were
sufficient. Again, a man could not abstain from food for forty days. Therefore some say,
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this is only a round number, and the fasting was not total abstinence from food ; but this
theory does not agree with the text. Still further, wherein consists the utility of this
fast ? But the personal devil is the chief stone of stumbling. His visible appearance has
its difficulties. How could the devil hope to seduce Jesus, knowing his superior nature?
and if ignorant of this, he would not have taken the pains to appear visibly before him.
The second temptation could offer no attraction to Jesus, and therefore is not consistent
with the alleged character of the devil. How could he transfer Jesus from place to place?
Their appearance on the pinnacle of the temple would create a sensation. Where is the
mountain whence he could show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world ? To say the world
is Palestine, with its four provinces, is no less absurd than to maintain with Fritzche,
that the devil showed Christ all the countries on the map of the world. Attempts have
been made to explain this story as an account of what passed in the mind of Jesus, either
in an ecstatic vision, occasioned directly by God, or the devil, or by his own natural
thoughts, arising in a dreamy state, when he spontaneously transformed the thoughts
into persons speaking and acting. But why should the Deity, or how could the devil
effect this ? To suppose it was the result of his own natural thoughts, implies that Jewish
notions of the Messiah had a strong influence on him even after his baptism. The merely
natural view is absurd. Some call it a parable, designed to show that no miracle is to be
wrought for the man’s self; hope of extraordinary divine aid should not lead to rash
undertakings; and an alliance with the wicked must never be made even to obtain
the greatest good. But if this is so, why does it not wear the form of a parable? It is
easy to explain it as a myth. The Messiah was regarded as the concentration of all that
is good ; and the devil, of all evil. He opposes Jesus, but can at farthest only produce
momentary bad thoughts, not bad resolutions. Many passages in Jewish writings indi
cate a common belief, that the Messiah would be tempted by the devil, as they say
Abraham had been before. If Jesus was the Messiah he must encounter this temptation,
which, like that of Hercules, was very suitably placed just at his entrance upon active
life. The scene of the temptation is well chosen, for the wilderness was not only the
dwelling-place of Azazel (Levit. xvi. 9, 10), Asmodeus (Tobit, viii. 3), and the expelled
demons; but it was the place where the whole nation, the collective son of God, was tempted
forty years; and there is a strong analogy between their temptations and that of Jesus.
The story was gradually formed out of these Jewish notions, without the slightest inten
tion to deceive.
There is a striking discrepancy, Mr Strauss affirms, between the Synoptics and John in
respect to many parts of Christ’s ministry. The former represent him to have spent the
greater part of his life in Galilee; while the latter places him in Jerusalem and Judea.
From them we should suppose he spent all his life in Galilee and the Peraea, before his
last visit to Jerusalem, while John relates four previous journeys to that place, and a
visit to Bethany. If John is in the right, the Synoptics were ignorant of an essential
part of Christ’s ministry; but if the latter are in the right, then he has invented a great
part of the history, or at least transferred it to a wrong place.
We pass over the chronological and many other difficulties. The Synoptics and John
disagree in respect to the assumption of the office and title of the Messiah. According to
John, Jesus confessed early that he was the Messiah, and the disciples remained faithful
to the conviction, that he spoke the truth (i. 42, 46, 50), To follow the Synoptics, he
did not take this title until a late period of his life; he supposes a special revelation had
annnounced the fact to Peter (Matthew xvi. 17), and charges the apostle to tell no man of
it. Two views may be taken of the case. Jesus was a follower of John the Baptist, and
after his teacher was cast into prison he preached repentance, and the approach of the
Messiah, and concluded that he was himself that Messiah. This view would account for
the fact, that he was disturbed when called by this name, and therefore forbid his dis
ciples to speak of him in that relation. But since these prohibitions are doubtful, and if
real, they may be accounted for, without supposing Jesus was not thoroughly convinced
of bis Messiahship, for it cannot be supposed that he, who made such a revolution in the
world as no other man has ever done, ever faltered in the midst of his course, in his con
viction that he was the Messiah. Since, then, he must have had a clear consciousness of
his calling, we conclude that he was convinced of his Messiahship, from the time of his
first appearance in that relation, but was somewhat reserved in expressions of this con
viction, because he preferred his disciples should gradually learn the truth from the silent
testimony of his life and works.
The Synoptics, says Mr Strauss, never speak of the pre-existence of Jesus, while John
often mentions it. Now, the pre-existence of the Messiah was an article of faith with the
Jews, soon after Christ, and it is probable they believed it before his time. But it must
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remain doubtful whether Jesus entertained this idea, or whether John has ascribed it to
him without any authority.
Mr Strauss considers the story of the woman of Samaria an unhistorical myth. . The
whole scene has a legendary and poetic colouring. The position at the well is the “idyllic
locality of the old Hebrew stories.” The scene is the same as in the stories of Eliezer,
Jacob, and Moses, all of whom meet women at a well. In this case, the woman, weak
and good-humoured, who had had five husbands, but then had none, is a symbol of the
Samaritan people, who had forsaken Jehovah, &c., &c. This.story, then, is only a poetic
account of the ministry of Jesus among the Samaritans, which itself is not a matter of
history, but is only “ a legendary prelude of the extension of Christianity” among that
people after Christ’s death.
But we must press on with more rapid wheels. The calling of the apostles presents
numerous difficulties, for there are great discrepancies between the accounts of John and
the Synoptics. It is not probable Jesus understood the character of men at first glance
of their persons (John i. 46, seq., though the Jews expected the Messiah, odorando judicare,
as Schottgen has it); nor is it probable the disciples would immediately forsake all and
follow him. These stories are mythical, and evident imitations of the legendary history
of Elijah and his followers. As Elisha left his oxen and ran after Elijah (1 Kings xix.
19, seq.), so the disciples presently left their nets and followed Jesus. Elisha received
permission to go and take leave of his parents, but now the call of the Messiah is so
urgent, that he rejects a young man who made the same request (Luke ix. 60, seq.), and
will not suffer a convert even to go and bury his father. The historical fact may be, that
some of his disciples were fishermen, but they must have come gradually into their con
nection with Jesus.
John does not mention that the twelve disciples were sent on a mission ; and the
Synoptics relate nothing of their baptizing converts during their teacher’s life. It is pro
bable Jesus had a body of twelve disciples; but Luke’s statement, that he had also a
larger circle of seventy disciples, is not confirmed by any other evangelist, by the book of
Acts, nor by any Epistle. It is evidently formed in imitation of the story of seventy
elders in the Pentateuch. The accounts of Peter’s fishing expeditions, and Christ’s mira
culous draught of fishes, like that of Pythagoras, are self-contradictory, and all mythical.
There is a great difference between Christ’s discourses in John, and the Synoptics ; they
have but few expressions in common; even their internal character is entirely different.
.The latter differ among themselves in this respect: Matthew gives large masses of dis
course, Luke short discourses on different occasions, and Mark offers but a meagre report
of his sayings. Matthew’s report of the sermon on the mount differs very widely from
that of Luke ; many of the expressions in Matthew’s report are obviously misplaced ; for
example, Jesus could not, at the commencement of his ministry, have declared that he
came to fulfil the law and the prophets, for he had not declared himself the Messiah, of
whom alone this was expected. By comparing all the accounts together, we see, says
Mr Strauss, that “ the granulary discourses of Jesus have not been dissolved and lost in
the stream of oral tradition, but they have, not rarely, been loosened from their natural
connection, washed away from their original position, and like bowlders rolled to places
where they do not properly belong. By this comparison, we find that Matthew has not
always restored the fragments to their original connection; but yet, like a skilful col
lector, for the most part, has made an intelligible arrangement, joining like with like ;
while in the other two Gospels, some small pieces are suffered to lie, where chance has
thrown them, in the chasms between large masses of discourse, and Luke has sometimes
given himself the pains to arrange them artificially, but has not been able to restore the
natural connection.”—Vol. I. p. 63.
We pass over the alleged instructions of the twelve, and the parables, where the only
difficulty lies in the discrepancy of the several narratives. Mr Strauss thinks the contro
versial discourses of Jesus are genuine, because they correspond so closely to the spirit
and tone of rabbinical explanations of Scripture at that time. The discourses which John
ascribes to Jesus present greater difficulties. Let us take the conversation with Nico
demus. He is not mentioned by the other evangelists. It is difficult to believe that, if
John’s account is true, so distinguished a follower of Jesus as Nicodemus would be omitted
by Matthew, an immediate disciple of Christ,—to follow the tradition. Still more difficult
• is it to believe he would be forgotten by the oral tradition, which was the source of the
Synoptical Gospels, which remember Joseph of Arimathea, and the two pious Marys.
This difficulty is so great, that we are tempted to ask if it is not more natural that John
has followed a traditional legend, and that there never was such a man as Nicodemus ?
The Synoptics relate that the mysteries of the Messiah were understood by babes and
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sucklings, but were concealed from the wise and prudent. They mention Joseph of
Arimathea as the only disciple from “ the better sort” of people. John says the Pharisees
attempted to “put Jesus down,” by saying, none of the rulers or Pharisees, but only the
ignorant and infamous populace, believed on him. Celsus subsequently made this objection,
which was, no doubt, often brought in the early times of Christianity. So long as only
the poor and unlearned embraced this religion, they comforted themselves by Christ’s
blessings pronounced upon the poor and simple; but when men of “ character and
standing” became Christians, they wished to find others of their own class among the
direct disciples of Jesus. Not finding any such, they could say, “they were his secret
followers, who came to him by night, for fear of the Jews ” (John xiii. 42, seq.; xix.
39). Joseph of Arimathea was one of this class ; but more than one such was needed.
Therefore this story was formed to remove the difficulty. The Greek name of Nicodemus
clearly indicates his connection with “higher classes ” of society in Judea. He is men
tioned only in John’s Gospel, because this is the most modern, and was composed in a
community where the above objection was most keenly felt.
But this is only a conjecture ; and even if it is well-grounded, it should excite no pre
judice against the conversation itself. This may, in all its essential features, be a genuine
discourse Jesus held with one of the common people. It is incredible that a Jewish
teacher should not have understood the new birth: but it was for the interest of the story
to show how far Jesus rose above other Jewish teachers. They were but fools compared
to the Great Teacher. Nicodemus applies to earthly things what Jesus asserts of hea
venly things. It is not probable that Jesus really spoke in the manner John relates, for
this manner differs from that of the Synoptics. There he dwells on particular points,
“ with genuine pedagogical assiduity,” until he has completely explained them, and then
passes on, step by step, to other instructions, as a true teacher must do. But in the
fourth Gospel, he speaks in a desultory and exaggerated manner, which can be explained
only by supposing it was the narrator’s design to set the teacher’s wisdom and the pupil’s
ignorance in the most striking contrast.
John makes Jesus speak very differently from the Synoptics; for example, in Matthew,
Jesus defends his violation of the Sabbath by three practical arguments, the example of
David eating the holy bread, of the priests sacrificing on the Sabbath, and of a man saving
the life of a beast on that day. But in John he uses the metaphysical argument, drawn
from the uninterrupted activity of God : “My Bather worketh hitherto.” Besides, there
is the closest analogy between the language of Jesus in the fourth Gospel and that of
John’s first Epistle, and those passages of the Gospel in which either this Evangelist
himself, or John the Baptist, speaks; and since this language differs from that of the
other Gospels, we must conclude the words belong to John, and not to Jesus. Perhaps
he invents suitable occasions (as Plato has done), and writes down his own reflections in
the form of his master’s discourses. His frequent repetition of the same thought, or form
of expression, is quite striking. We must conclude that this Evangelist treated the
authentic tradition in the freest manner, and in the tone and spirit of the Alexandrians,
or Hellenists.
We pass over a long statement of discrepancies between the several Gospels, and other
matters, of greater or lesser importance, which Mr Strauss has treated with his usual free
dom, learning, and dialectical clearness of vision. His explanation of the several stories
of the sinful women, who anointed the feet of Jesus, is quite ingenious, to say nothing
more. He supposes that they all grew out of one simple story. “ We have, then, a group
of five histories, the centre of which is the narrative of a woman anointing Jesus (Matt,
xxvi. 6, seq.; Mark xiv. 3, seq.); John’s account of a sinful woman (viii. 1, seq.), and
Luke’s of Mary and Martha (x. 38, seq.), occupy the extreme right and left; while Luke’s
picture of his anointing by a sinful woman (vii. 36, seq.), and John’s by Mary (xii. 1,
seq.), complete the piece. All may be but different delineations of the same event.”
We come next to the miracles of Jesus. Miracles of various kinds were commonly
expected of the Messiah, who was to surpass all the former prophets and deliverers. Now
Moses had furnished food and water in a miraculous manner ; Elisha had opened the blind
eyes, healed the sick, and raised the dead. The prophets had predicted nearly the same
things in general, and some of them in special, of the Messiah (Isaiah, xxxv. 5; xlii. 7),
and according to the Gospels Jesus did more than realise these expectations. The fact,
that men demanded “a sign” from him proves nothing against his miracles, for these
demands seem to have been made after a display of miraculous power. He censures the
love of miracles ; but this does not prove he would never perform one on a suitable occa
sion. But when he says no sign shall be given unto that generation, &c., Mr Strauss
concludes he refuses to perform any miracles whatever before any of his contemporaries. This
�15
statement is quite inconsistent with the miraculous narratives in the Gospels, but it agrees
perfectly well with the preaching and letters of the Apostles ; for there (excepting a
general statement in Acts ii. 22, and x. 38), the miracles are passed over in silence, and
all rests on his resurrection; and this would not be so unexpected, nor would it make an
epoch in the world, if Jesus had previously raised more than one from the dead, and
wrought miracles of all sorts. Here, then, the question is, whether we are to explain
away the Gospel accounts of miracles, for the sake of the above refusal of Jesus to per
form them ; or doubt the genuineness and authenticity of this refusal; or in consideration
of that refusal, and the silence of the apostolical writings, to mistrust the numerous.mira
cles of the Gospels. The author devotes above two hundred and fifty pages to miracles
in general and particular. We shall only notice some of his most striking remarks.
It was a common opinion of the Jews, that certain diseases were caused by demons; Jesus
himself seems to have shared this opinion. The belief, of course, is not well founded. Some of
the accounts in which Jesus is said to expel these demons are self-contradictory; for example,
it cannot be true that there were two Gadarene madmen, so fierce as they are represented,
who yet lived together. They would destroy one another. Mark and Luke, with greater
probability, mention but one demoniac in this place. These several accounts, which con
flict with one another, present numerous difficulties. The demoniac knows Jesus is the
Messiah; in Matthew, he calls out, “ Hast thou come to torment, me ?” &c.; in Luke, he
falls down and worships Jesus, and in Mark, he knows him at a distance, runs to him, and
does homage. Here is a regular climax in the Christian tradition. But the greatest diffi
culty consists in the demon entering the swine; for as Olshausen has said, the Gadarene
swine in the New Testament, like Balaam’s ass in the Old, are a stone of stumbling and
a rock of offence. If we trust the account, the demon, at his own request, was transferred
from the body of the man to the swine, and possessed the latter as he had done the former.
Then the possessed animals rushed into the sea and were drowned. Here the conduct of
the demon is inexplicable; he entreated not to be cast out into the deep, but casts him
self into it. The character of Jesus is impaired by this story; for he must have known
the result of suffering the demons to enter this large herd of two thousand swine, and the
consequent loss their owners would sustain. He, therefore, is thus made “ accessory before
the fact,” and the naturalistic and supernaturalistic theories can give no satisfactory explana
tion of the difficulties. But considered as a mythical story, which grew naturally out of
the common opinions of the people, it is easily explained. It was commonly supposed
that demons must possess some body, and that they preferred impure places; therefore
the unclean bodies of the swine were the most suitable recipients of the demons, when
driven from the man. Josephus mentions a conjuror, who, to convince spectators that
he really expelled demons, ordered them to overturn a vessel of water, set near the pos
sessed man, as they came out of him, which they did to the satisfaction of all present.
Jesus meant to give a similar proof, and to render the proof doubly strong, the test is not
an inanimate body, placed near at hand, but a whole herd of swine, “ a. good way off,”
which the demons force to rush upon certain destruction, contrary to the instinct of self
preservation natural to all animals. This, then, was a proof of the expulsion of the
demons, and of their perfect subjection to Jesus. Besides, to magnify the powers of
Christ, he must not only cure simple, but difficult eases. Accordingly, that is represented
as a desperate case; the man was fierce and malignant; he dwelt naked in the tombs, and
broke asunder all chains that could be forced upon him ; and not only this, but he was
possessed by a whole legion of devils, thus presenting a case of the greatest possible diffi
culty. Matthew gives us the most simple form of the legend, thus constructed; Luke
renders it more artificial; and Mark adds still farther embellishments to it.
John mentions nothing concerning the demoniacs or their cure. Yet he must have shared
the common Jewish notions on this point, and especially if they were the views of J esus. It
cannot be said, he omitted these cases, which form a great part of Christ’s miracles in the
Synoptics, because it was unnecessary to repeat what they had recorded, for he more than
once allows himself such repetitions; nor can it be true, that he accommodated himself to
the delicate ears of his Greek converts, to whom demoniacal possessions would be offen
sive. It seems, therefore, that the fourth Gospel was written not by John, but by some
one who drew from the Christian tradition as received by the more refined Hellenists.
Another case of expelling a demon is evidently an imitation and improvement of a
similar case in the Old Testament. The disciples had failed in their attempt; but Jesus
cures him at a word. So Elisha restores a dead child after Gehazi, his servant, had tried
in vain (2 Kings, iv. 29, seq.). Moses and Elisha had cured the leprosy; the Messiah
must do the same. He also must literally fulfil figurative predictions of the prophets,
and give sight to the blind; John enlarges upon the statements of the Synoptics, and
�16
makes him cure a man born blind. They relate that he cured paralytics, and increased
bread, and restored a dead person; but John enlarges these wonders, and, according to
him, Jesus cures a man who had been diseased for thirty-eight years, changes water into wine,
and recals to life a man four days after his death, when the body was on the verge of dissolution.
Mr Strauss supposes the accounts of Jesus involuntarily curing such as touched him,—
as it were by a species of magnetic influence,—and even persons at a distance, whom he
had never seen, are mythical stories, which have grown out of the popular reverence for
Jesus. He places them on a level with similar stories in the Acts, of miraculous cures
wrought by Peter’s shadow, and Paul’s handkerchiefs andaprons (Acts v. 15 ; xix. 11, 12).
“It is not difficult to see what causes have produced this branch of the Gospel legends of
miracles, in distinction from the others. The weak faith of the people, unable to grasp
the divine spirit with the thoughts, strives to bring it down more and more to the level of
materal existence. Therefore, according to the later opinion, the reliques and bones of a
saint must work miracles after his death; Christ’s body must be actually present in the
transubstantiated bread and wine; and for the same reason, according to the earlier opinion,
the sanatory power of the New Testament-men adhered to their bodies, and even their
garments. The less men understand and adhere to the words of Jesus, the more anxious
will they be to seize upon his mantle; and the farther one is removed from sharing Paul’s
unconfined spiritual power, the more confidently will he carry home Paul’s gift of healing
in his pocket-handkerchief.”
Mr Strauss examines the several accounts where Jesus is said to raise the dead, and
finds a climax in the three instances mentioned: first, he restores a girl, on the bed where
she had died ; next, a young man in his cofin, before burial; and finally, Lazarus, who had
been dead four days, and was in the tomb. He enumerates all the difficulties that beset a
literal or mystical, natural or supernatural, interpretation of the passages, and concludes
that all the stories grew out of popular notions of the Messiah, or are copied from the
similar stories of Elisha’s wonderful works (1 Kings xvii. 7 ; 2 Kings iv. 18), or from the
predictions of the prophets.
He collects and dwells upon the difficulties of the alleged transfiguration of Jesus.
What was the use of this scene? Not to glorify Jesus, for his physical glorification is
unnecessary and childish. Why or how could Moses and Elijah appear to him, and for
what purposes ? Not to inform Jesus of his death—he had himself fortold it; not to
strengthen him for future troubles, for it did not effect this object—and we not know that
he needed aid at that time; not to confirm his disciples, for only three were present, and
they were asleep, and were not permitted to relate the events until after the resurrection.
Does God speak in an audible voice, and quote from the Old Testament ? The theories
of interpreters of the various schools are in part absurd, and all inadequate to remove the
difficulties. But the whole story has growm out of the Messianic expectations of the Jews,
and an imitation of scenes in the Old Testament. The Jews expected the Messiah would
appear with a face far more resplendent than that of Moses—“ a mere manhis splendour
would extend “ from one hinge of the world to the other,” was the poetic expression.
Moses had been glorified on a mountain; God had appeared to him in a cloud. The same
scene is repeated, and Jesus is glorified on a mountain, in presence of the two re
presentatives of the Jewish system, who were expected to appear. Moses and Elijah, the
founders of the theocratical law, and of theocratical prophecy, appear as the supporters
of the Messiah, who fulfils the law and the prophets, and completes the kingdom of God.
God appears in the clouds ; and acknowledges him as his son, by a quotation from the
Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets. (Ps. ii. 7; Isa. xlii. 1; and Deut. xviii. 15).
PART SECOND WILL BE PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER.
John Robertson, 21 Maxwell Street, Glasgow.
�
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Strauss's Life of Jesus, examined by Theodore Parker
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Place of publication: [Glasgow]
Collation: 16 p. ; 20 cm.
Series title: Tracts for the times
Series number: No. 8
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Date of publication from KVK (OCLC WorldCat).
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Jesus Christ
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David Friedrich Strauss
Jesus Christ
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STRAUSS’S NEW WORK ON THE LIFE OF JESUS.
Das Leben Jesu, fur das deutsche Volk bearbeitet. (The
Life of Jesus, adapted to the German People.) von
David Friedrich Strauss. Leipzig : F. A. Brockhaus.
1864.
Nearly thirty years have now elapsed since a “ Life of
Jesus” by David Frederic Strauss made its first appearance.
We were at that time in Germany, and remember well the
startling effect that it produced. There were not indeed
wanting men who at once perceived, that the views which
it set forth with such uncompromising fearlessness, were a
natural consequence of principles of criticism which had
been for a long time partially and perhaps unsuspectingly
applied. But even those who were familiar with such prin
ciples and ’freely recognized them in relation to insulated
points of the gospel history, had never fully realized to
themselves the results with which they were pregnant, and
were filled with a sort of terror when they saw all their
possible applications gathered to a focus and urged home
with remorseless consequentiality to their legitimate issue.
Of replies to this alarming book there was no lack; but
none of them, not even that of Neander, were felt to have
effectually repelled the serious blow which it aimed at the
old traditional trust in the strictly historical character of the
evangelical narratives. Every ensuing contribution to the
. criticism of the New Testament which bore on it the stamp
of solid learning and thorough honesty, though it might
approach the subject from another point of view, moved in
the same direction, and tended rather to confirm than to
weaken the scepticism raised by Strauss. This was espe
cially true of the Tubingen school of theology. The imme
diate effect' was a general unsettling of opinion and a
pervading sense of uneasiness. It was impossible for things
to remain as they were. The old rationalism, which, assu
ming the impossibility of miracle, had attempted to unite
with this negative theory a literal acceptance of the facts
recorded in the Gospels, had exhausted'its resources, and
was shewn by the unanswerable logic of Strauss to be more
untenable and absurd than the simple, childlike faith which
it had undertaken to replace. Only one of two courses now
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remained: either to fall hack into broad, self-consistent
orthodoxy, which took things as they were written with
unquestioning credulity; or else to go boldly forward in the
path opened by Strauss and Baur, and develop the results
which they had established, with courageous honesty into
all their consequences. A perfect trust in truth and fearless
ness of the world, such as few men possess, was indispensable
to the adoption of the latter alternative. It was a trial of
the spirits, and not many were equal to it.
From the storm of reproach and execration which assailed
him on all sides, Strauss took shelter in studious privacy ;
and for many years, finding little encouragement to the
prosecution of theological research, busied himself with pur
suits of another though still kindred character, which bore
valuable fruit in his biographies of Ulrich von Hutten and
Reimarus. Meantime the world moved on, however theolo
gians might wish to be stationary. The events of 1848 and
1849 had powerfully roused the popular mind of Germany;
and the outbreak of the almost contemporary movements
of the German Catholics on one hand, and of the Protestant
Friends of Light on the other, shewed what a craving there
was in all quarters for release from ecclesiastical bondage
and freer religious development. Strauss from his retreat
marked these ominous phenomena with thoughtful and not
irreverent eye. Cautious and temperate in his political
views, he felt with growing conviction, what he has so
strongly expressed in the preface to his present work—that
the country of the Reformation can only become politically
free, to the extent that it has wrought out for itself a
spiritual, religious and moral freedom.
*
He discerned the
risk to which many minds were exposed from their inability
to draw a clear line of separation between the permanent
and the perishable in Christianity—of renouncing the spi
ritual substance with the historical form—or at least of
oscillating continually between a wild unbelief and a spas
modic piety.-f- The result was a firm persuasion that it
was a duty to come to the relief of this morbid condition of
the popular mind. He had convinced himself that, owing
* “Wir Deutsche konnen politisch nur in dem Masse frei werden, als wir
uns geistig, religios und sittlich frei gemacht haben.”—Vorrede, xx.
+ Ibid, xviii.
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to the wide diffusion of education, the people of Germany
were prepared for the profitable entertainment of many
questions, which might have been justly thought to be
prematurely agitated a quarter of a century before. He had
gained the experience, which has been constantly that of
other teachers of religion,—that on spiritual topics where
the premisses lie within every human consciousness, there
is often a readier perception of deep, fundamental truth in
simple and earnest men of the lowest class, than is to be
found among their superiors in social position, whose minds
are clouded by conventional prejudices, and not seldom dark
ened by the interposition of an useless mass of artificial
book-learning between their inner vision and the eternal
realities of the universe. In this purpose of bringing his
views before the general public, he was encouraged by the
warm sympathy of his brother, who, though himself a manu
facturer, took a strong and intelligent interest in the theolo
gical controversies of the time, and was regarded by Strauss
as no unfitting type of the middle-class intellect of Germany,
fully competent to decide on the main points at issue be
tween the conservative and the progressive schools. Before
the publication of the present work, Renan's Vie de Jesus
appeared in France. The reception it met with furnished
additional proof, that the time had come when the ancient
limits of learned insulation might be broken through, and
an appeal be safely made to the popular mind and heart.
Beyond this general appeal from the verdict of a craft to
the judgment of the world, the works of Renan and Strauss
have little in common.
*
Strauss’s first-work was intended immediately for theolo
gians. Some wished at the time that, like Bretschneider’s
Probabilia, it had veiled its heresies in Latin. From the
task that it proposed to itself, it was essentially analytic
and destructive, and it seemed to leave behind it a very
negative result. It took the whole mass of gospel narra
tives as it found them, and subjecting them to the severest
* In one point they touchingly agree—in the dedications prefixed to each ;
one to the memory of a beloved sister, the other to that of a brother. In both
we painfully miss the distinct recognition of a hope, which to us seems the only
availing consolation in such cases. Yet both are affectionate in tone, and, we
do not doubt, are genuine utterances of the heart—each strongly marked by
the idiosyncrasy of character and race—that of Strauss, grave and earnest; that
of Renan, airy and sentimental.
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critical test, it affirmed that it had succeeded in dissolving
much that had been received as history, into legend and
even into myth, of which the source could often be traced,
and of which the aim was obvious. Like the lines of ap
proach drawn round a beleaguered city, the hostile move
ment was from the circumference towards the centre—
constantly advancing further and further, and breaking
down one defence after another, till at last it seemed doubt
ful whether the inmost citadel itself would not be. stormed
and reduced to a ruin. There was something almost ap
palling in the imperturbable coolness and apparent reck
lessness of consequences with which Strauss pursued his
work. But it was a work which had to be done. It was
desirable to test the utmost force of criticism on the histo
rical frame-work of Christianity. Dissent as we may from
the author’s conclusion, and even in cases where he leaves
no way to any definite conclusion at all, it is impossible
not to admire, in many sections of the book, the remarkable
acuteness and skill with which a number of widely dis
persed and scarcely appreciable, indications are combined to
throw light on the possible origin of a particular narrative.
Though the general theory of Strauss, in the unqualified
largeness of its earliest enunciation, must doubtless undergo
important limitations, yet his first work will ever retain a
high value, as opening the source from which many ele
ments have been supplied to the present texture of the
gospel history, and furnishing the student with a model of
thorough critical investigation.
His new work has been written with quite another view. It
is in no sense a revised edition of the first. If the object of
the former was to decompose a multifarious whole into its
constituent parts, the main design of the present volume is to
reconstruct, by gathering up the residuary facts into a solid
nucleus, and then attempting to explain how a mythic atmo
sphere has formed around it. It reverses the order of the
foregoing process. It advances from the centre towards the
circumference, making good its ground as it proceeds—striv
ing to convey as distinct an impression of the origin and
founder of Christianity as facts now ascertainable permit,
and maintaining with calm earnestness throughout, that no
results of historical criticism can affect the certainty of those
eternal truths, or impair the influence of that beautiful life,
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5
which make the gospel what it is—a possession for ever to
mankind. This is evidently the aim of the hook. No
candid reader can dispute it. There are occasions on which
we think he has overstrained his theory. We cannot accept
all his assumptions without material qualification; and his
own premisses appear to us to yield more positive and con
solatory conclusions than he has himself drawn from them.
But the volume before us, with all its deficiencies, is the
clear expression of an honest, an earnest, and, we will add,
a noble mind—a mind which has sought truth for its own
sake, though on some vital points we feel strongly that it
has missed it, and which has at least proved its own since
rity by cheerfully paying the penalty which truth’s loyal
service too constantly incurs. Strauss, in his preface, does
not conceal his anxiety that his two works, as having dif
ferent objects, should be kept perfectly distinct; and he
has even left directions in his will, that in case a new edi
tion of his former work should be called for, it should be
faithfully reprinted, without any reference to the present
volume, from the first edition, with only a few corrections
from the fourth.
*
The limits to which we are restricted, will prevent us
from giving more than a summary outline of the plan and
contents of this learned and suggestive work. After a rapid
survey of successive attempts to write a “ Life of Jesus”—
beginning with Hess near a century ago, and terminating
with Renan and Keimf—Strauss proceeds to determine the
criteria of authenticity, and to inquire how far they are
satisfied by any extant testimony to the Gospels. He de
cides, that in their present form they furnish no evidence
at first hand. They are the embodiment of a cumulative
tradition, carrying down with it some written memorials of
particular discourses and transactions from a very early
date. He shews how credulous and uncritical were the
earliest witnesses to the books that form our actual canon
* Vorrede, xiii.
+ Die Meftschliche Entwickelung Jesu Christi (The Human Development of
Jesus Christ), a very interesting inaugural address on accepting the chair of
Theology at .Zurich, December 17, 1860 ; much commended by Strauss, and
furnishing, in the warm devotional sentiment with which it envelopes the
person of Christ, a not unwelcome relief from the somewhat chilling influence
of his own more negative views.
•
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—Irenaeus and Tertullian, and even the more learned and
philosophical Origen and Eusebius. Fidelity to simple fact,
even after the desire to harmonize the four evangelists had
awakened something like a critical spirit, was constantly
overpowered in their minds by dogmatic or practical consi
derations—by the wish to extract a moral or establish a con
clusion. This was the spirit of their age.' They were conscious
of no wrong in yielding to it. The examination of Papias’s
account of the origin of Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels,
proves that the works referred to by him could not have been
identical with those which we now possess under the same
names. Indeed, the preposition rara—according to—hardly
allows direct authorship. In like manner the indication in
Luke’s preface of many contemporary records of Christ’s
ministry, and the evident desire which both the Gospel and
the Acts betray, of reconciling the opposite tendencies of
the Jewish and the Pauline schools, presuppose a later
period for the composition of both those books than is re
concilable with their having proceeded in their present form
from a companion of the apostle Paul. Contrary to the
opinion which he once held, Strauss has yielded to the
arguments of Baur, and is now convinced that the apostle
John cannot have been the author of the fourth GospeL
He ascribes the tenacity with which Schleiermacher and
some other eminent men have clung to the opposite view,
rather to sentiment than to critical proof, and thinks it had
its source in strong reaction against the old rationalism
■which was supposed to find its chief support in the Synop
tical Gospels. Only in the Epistles of Paul, and in the
Apocalypse which he regards as the work of the apostle
John, does Strauss recognize any works of direct apostolic
origin in our present canon. Having upset the earlier dates
which the old apologists had attempted to fix, he does not
pretend to find any more definite lower down. We gather
from the general tenor of his criticism, that he supposes our
four Gospels to have assumed their present form some time
in the earlier part of the second century. With the notions
now prevalent in the Christian world, this may appear dis
tressingly vague. But can those who complain, satisfacto
rily establish anything more certain? We want evidence,
not declamation. When we consider how these narratives
have been composed, of what materials they consist, through
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7
what changes of form they have passed, how gradually they
have in all probability been accumulated, and how little
anything like formal publication, in our sense of the word,
can be predicated of them, till their authoritative recogni
tion by the Catholic Church towards the close of the second
century—it is obvious that the assignment of a precise date
to the authorship of any one of them, is altogether out of
the question. By taking this broad though vague ground,
from which there is as yet no final verdict of criticism to
warn him off, Strauss gains time and space for that free
development of tradition and its consequences, in which he
finds a natural solution of many perplexing enigmas in the
gospel history. Possibly he may carry his theory too far
in this direction, as he certainly on some points overstrains
its application ; but he is at least more self-consistent than
Ewald, who agreeing to the full with Strauss in an absolute
renunciation of the miraculous, cuts off by his limitation of
the date of the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, all
possibility of accounting without violence for its introduction
into the narrative of the New Testament
*
Notwithstand
ing this free treatment of the written documents of Chris
tianity, Strauss distinctly admits that a full and living
stream of tradition poured itself into them, which bore along
with it the new spirit of Christ,—vivid impressions of the
most salient features of his personality, and authentic records
of his most remarkable words and acts—and with such a
penetrating and diffusive power, wherever it spread, that it
“ created a soul,” to use a fine expression of Milton’s, “ under
the ribs of death,” and deposited far and wide over the ex
hausted soil of heathenism the elements of a higher faith
and a nobler life. We have often thought we could trace
a wonderful providence in the apparently defective medium
through which Christ has been revealed to us;—not set
* Most unnecessarily, on more occasions than one, Strauss seems to us to
have explained away a very probable fact into the exposition of a mere idea.
Can anything be more fanciful than his interpretation of Luke’s statement, that
Jesus, in consequence of the unbelief of his own kindred, transferred his resi
dence from Nazareth to Capernaum, where he met with a more cordial reception
—as a symbolical announcement of the rejection of Christianity by the Jews,,
and its acceptance by the heathen ? (p. 121). There is to us also something
equally unreal in his comparison of the Sermon on the Mount with the Sinaitic
legislation (p. 124), though this may have been suggested to him by his strong
persuasion that, according to the Messianic conceptions of that age, the Christ
was to be a second Moses.
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forth in clear and definite outline, with every feature exactly
delineated, and every light and shade filled up—a present
ment which would have exhausted by at once satisfying
the imagination,—but disclosed to us in transient glimpses
of ineffable sweetness and surpassing majesty, which require
the co-operation of our own highest thought to interpret
and complete them, and make the Christ in whom is our
deepest trust, the creation in part of God’s own spirit within
us. What Christ planted in the world, was not a dogma
nor a form, but a living word, which had its root in his own
life, and carried with it his own spirit. It propagated itself
under God’s blessing, but through human agencies, over all
the earth, imbibing a flavour from the various soils which
nourished it, and taking a new colour from changing skies.
We mark its earliest growth in the Galilean records of
Matthew. We observe how its vital juices sprout into lux
uriant tendrils and put forth leaves and blossoms in Paul
and Luke.. We see it bending with purple clusters in
John. There is a sense in which the fourth Gospel, while
deeply tinged with the ideas of the time, may still be said
to present us with the most genuine expression of the spirit
of Christ, because it exhibits the highest point of organic
development within the New Testament; though it may
not have been written by the apostle whose name it bears,
and though many of its contents may not correspond to
historical fact.
“The Johannean Gospel,” writes Strauss (p. 143), “with its
image of Christ, attracts more sympathy from the present gene
ration than the Synoptical with theirs. These, written out from
the quiet heart of undoubting faith in the primitive society (for,
in their conception of the person and being of Christ, there is
comparatively little difference between the liberal Judaism of the
first, and the tempered Paulinism of the third Gospel), found a
natural response in the equally sure and quiet trust of the cen
turies of faith. The former, with its restless striving to recon
cile a, new idea with the existing tradition—to represent as an
objective faith, what it grasped subjectively as certain truth—
must be better suited to the temper of a time, whose faith is no
longer a tranquil possession, but an incessant struggle, and that
would fain believe more than it yet properly can. In reference
to the impression which this side of its influence makes on our
present Christianity, we might call the Gospel of John, the
romantic Gospel, though in itself, it is anything but a romantic
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9
*
production. The unrest, the intense sensitiveness, which in the
believer of to-day result from his effort, amid the new views
which irresistibly force themselves on him, still to keep firm hold
of his ancient faith—proceeded, on the contrary, in the evangel
ist, from his endeavouring to raise the old tradition to the height
of his new ideas, and mould it into accordance with them; but
the restlessness and the effort, the flickering before the eye, the
wavering in the outline of the image so produced, is on both
sides the very same ; and hence it is precisely towards this Gospel
that the modern Christian feels himself especially drawn. The
Johannean Christ, who in his self-delineations continually, as it
were, overdoes himself, is the counterpart of the modern believer,
who to be a believer must be ever in like manner overdoing him
self. The Johannean miracles, which are resolved into spiritual
signs, and yet at the same time exhibit the extreme form of out
ward miracle, which are reported and attested in every way, and
yet are not to be regarded as the true ground of faith—are mira
cles and yet no miracles ; people ought to believe them, and yet
believe without them : just as this half-hearted age seeks to do,
which wears itself out in contradictions, and is too worn and
spiritless to attain to clear insight and decisive speech in reli
gious things.”
There is much truth' in these words, but not the whole
truth. They do not do full justice to the very case which
they so forcibly put. No doubt we have in the fourth Gospel
a vivid expression of the endeavour to reconcile the simple,
popular trusts which are transmitted to us in the three
first, with a philosophic conception of God’s relation to the
universe which at that time pervaded with its subtle influ
ence the whole upper region of thought throughout the
Greco-Roman world. But it was not all unrest; it was not
interminable struggle. In those wonderful chapters, from
the 13th to the 17th, which are the highest utterance of
the Johannean Gospel, the problem has its solution. In
love and trust, in oneness of affection and endeavour with
the omnipresent God, in self-surrender to the Parent Mind
through the heart’s deep sympathy with the holiest human
manifestation of filial obedience—the troubled spirit finds
at last the rest and peace for which it has yearned. And so
it will be in the final issue of this agitated and questioning
* The allusion is to the distinction between the classical and the romantic
schools, familiar to all who are acquainted with the history of German litera
ture in the early part of the present century.
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age of ours. When the battle between science and faith,
between historical traditions and the religion of the in Tier
consciousness, has been fought out, and their mutual rela
tionship has been adjusted ; the spirit of Christ will survive
these controversies of the intellect, and disengaged at length
from artificial obstructions and gratuitous difficulties, will
descend with all its power into the human soul, and fill it
with a profounder faith and a holier love.
*
The somewhat tentative character of Strauss’s first book
and its large application of the mythic principle, that on
the image of Christ, as presented to us in the Gospels, some
of the most striking features had been impressed by the
Messianic assumptions of the primitive Church,—left on the
reader’s mind a painful doubt whether the author recognized
any historical Christ at all, and whether what we had been
accustomed to accept as such, was not to a large extent a
product of the imaginative enthusiasm of the first believers ;
or, to put it in the briefest form, whether, instead of Christ’s
having created the Church, the Church had not rather created
Christ. The supposition, conceived in this broad, unquali
fied way, is so preposterous that it furnished those who
were eager to find in the work not what it might contain
of truth, but where it could be most effectively assailed, a
ready and obvious point of attack. It is only justice to
Strauss to say, that his mature thoughts embodied in the
present volume, afford no ground for imputing to him so
wild an extravagance. He affirms most distinctly not only
the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, but the won
derful effect of his personality in introducing the greatest
spiritual revolution in the history of the human race. What
he contends for is simply this : that the image of that per
sonality has not been conveyed to us through perfectly
transparent media ; and that though the features are suffi
ciently distinct to enable us to verify the individual, they
have been blended in their transmission with the deep sub
jective influence of the recording mind. Before we condemn
this view, we must first shew that with a thoroughly honest
criticism we are able to escape it. That Jesus was born
* How searching are these words of the great Augustine! “Vae animae
audaci, quae speravit si a te recessisset, se aliquid melius habituram. Versa et
reversa in tergum et in latera et in ventrem, et dura sunt omnia. Tu Solus
requies.”—Confess. Lib. vi. c. 16.
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and bred of humble parentage in Nazareth of Galilee ; that
he was a hearer of John, and received baptism at his hands ;
that he commenced the career of an independent religious
reformer in Galilee, sharing in the general Messianic ex
pectations of his time ; that he penetrated to the spiritual
substance of the law, and believed that in the coming age
its outward form would be abolished for ever; that he
attached followers to himself from his own rank in life,
and preached to multitudes repentance and faith, awaken
ing into consciousness the higher life that was slumbering
in them ; that he waged an unsparing war with the formal
ism and hypocrisy of the professed guides and instructors
of the people, and gave his interest and sympathy in pre
ference to publicans and sinners; that the essence of his
teachings is condensed in the Sermon on the Mount, in
innumerable parables, and in occasional words that escaped
from the fulness of his inmost spiritual being in varied inter
course with the world,—all summed up in the two great com
mandments of love to God and love to man, of which his
whole life was a living impersonation ; that, though he
foresaw the fate which awaited him from direct encounter
with an irritated and malignant priesthood at Jerusalem,
this did not deter him from resolutely pursuing his pro
phetic career till its close ; that, betrayed by one of his own
followers, he fell into the hands of his enemies, and was
executed ignominiously by the Boman authorities on the
cross ; that notwithstanding the dismay and the dispersion
which this event immediately produced among his disciples,
they nevertheless after a season recovered their confidence
and hope, and firmly believed in his resurrection from the
dead and his continued presence and visitation from the
heavenly world;—these are facts which Strauss clearly
recognizes as the historic frame-work of the evangelical
narrative, and as the basis of his further speculations re
specting their accompaniments. He thinks that in conse
quence of being so far above the ideas of his age and coun
try, Jesus has been often misunderstood by those who heard
him ; and that we are therefore justified in interpreting the
general tenor of his instructions by the highest and most
spiritual utterances recorded of him ; that, for instance, we
have probably a truer reflection of his spirit in some of the
parables peculiar to the Pauline Gospel of Luke than in
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others which occur in Matthew’s, and hear evident marks
of the Judaic narrowness of its original materials. He
believes that we can trace a spiritual growth in the mind
of Jesus, and that the consciousness of his Messianic mission did not take possession of him all at once,—that it first
becomes distinctly conspicuous about the time of the trans
figuration. Having once acquired the conviction that he
had been chosen by God to fulfil the Messianic work, it
was only a natural consequence that Jesus should apply to
himself, and expect to find realized in himself as God’s
instrument for a great purpose, the several predicates that
were attached by universal belief to his office. In this part
of his life, however, it is especially difficult to disentangle
what he may actually have said about himself, from the
stronger and ampler language respecting the Messiah then
current among the Jews, which later faith assumed that he
must have used, and therefore unhesitatingly applied to him.
Enough—he was profoundly sincere in his conviction, cou
rageous and ready for self-sacrifice in carrying it out; and
if the admission implies that there was a certain tinge of
enthusiasm in his character, he possessed this quality in
common with some of the purest and noblest spirits that
have adorned the human race; nor is it in any wise incom
patible with a providential vocation and a divine life. Such
we gather to be Strauss’s impression of the historical Jesus.
But in this history there are two elements—one which we
have just described, probable in itself and consistent with
the known laws of matter and mind ; another, intermingled
with it, which transcends those laws and stands out as an
exceptional case in the history of the world. Strauss’s
theory of the universe (of which we shall have to say a
word or two by and by) precludes him from admitting the
possibility under any imaginable circumstances of such
occurrences as would constitute the latter element. The
problem, therefore, which he has to solve, is to account for
the copious infusion of this element into every part of a
history which contains so much of the highest truth and
has left so profound an impression on the subsequent course
of human affairs. His explanation is the following: that
assuming the traditional facts of Christ’s actual life as their
basis, it was the object, first of the preachers of the gospel,
and afterwards of those who reduced our earliest records t(
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13
writing, to establish on that basis a conclusive argument
that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or expected Messiah,
the Son of David, the second Moses, the Son of God; and
that the working of this strong purpose, blended with intense
conviction, on the traditional materials subjected to it in a
mental atmosphere already deeply charged with foregone
conclusions, evolved more and more, as the actual facts re
ceded into further distance, the mythical halo which has
invested the whole narrative with a supernatural character.
If Jesus were the Messiah, then all the passages of the Old
Testament which had a Messianic import, and all the ex
pectations to which the current interpretations of them had
given rise, must have had their fulfilment in his person
and his life; and this assumption, ever present to the mind
of the evangelists, moulded unconsciously the loose and
fluctuating mass of oral tradition into the form in which
we now possess it, and mingled with it elements that had
their source in the fervid faith of the believing mind. This
is what has been called the mythic theory of Strauss. The
old rationalistic school, including Eichhorn and Paulus and
not wholly excluding Schleiermacher himself, disbelieved
equally with Strauss the possibility of the strictly miracu
lous ; but they attempted by various expedients to explain
it away from a narrative which they accepted in the main
as historical. Strauss saw the futility of this method, and
the violence which it did to the plainest rules of exegesis;
but he attained the same object of accounting for the intro
duction of the miraculous, by carrying down the Gospels
to a later date, and ascribing it to the imperceptible growth
of tradition.
It becomes necessary here, for the sake of the English
reader, to define a little more exactly the idea conveyed by
the word myth, when used in this sense. Heyne was one
of the first who shewed that the myth was a necessary form
of thought in the earlier stages of human development.
While language is yet imperfectly furnished with abstract
terms, and the imaginative are ascendant over the reasoning
faculties, ideas struggling for utterance clothe themselves
in an objective shape and find expression in narrative and
personification. Heyne made a distinction between conscious
and unconscious fiction; and regarded the latter alone as
properly a myth. In this sense a myth has been called the
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spontaneous expression in a historical form of the indwelling
idea of a community. Since Heyne’s time the subject has
been more scientifically developed by George in his essay
on “ Myth and Legend.”* In legend, according to him, there
is always at bottom some fact, however much it may have
been subsequently overgrown by the wild offshoots of the
imagination. A myth, on the contrary, fills up with its own
creations from the first—imagining what must have been—
the absolute vacancy of the past. But in the proper myth,
as in the proper legend, according to this interpretation of
them, whatever fiction they may involve is unconscious, is
unintentional. With the progress of the intellect, however,
and a clearer perception of the distinction between a fact
and an idea, this primeval unconsciousness becomes no
longer possible. Fiction is still practised, but it now justi
fies itself by its intention, that of ineulcating a moral or
enforcing a truth. The literary conscience of antiquity was
much laxer in this respect than our own. The line between
fiction and history was far less distinctly recognized. If a
good end could be served, no hesitation was felt in assum
ing a false name to recommend a work, and in arbitrarily
combining and interpolating the actual facts of history to 1
bring out more effectually the impression intended to be
produced. The centuries preceding and following the birth
of Christ, abounded in works of this description. It was
almost a characteristic of the age. The late F. C. Baur was
the first theologian of standing and authority who ventured
boldly to assert the occurrence of this practice within the
limits of the New Testament, as an element towards the
solution of the complicated question of the relative credi
bility of the evangelists. It was with him an unavoidable
consequence of the conclusions at which he had arrived
respecting the origin and composition of the fourth Gospel.
Indeed his clear and forcible reasonings reduce us to this
dilemma ; we must either admit the authenticity and trust
worthiness of John, in which case the Synoptics fall at once
in value, as shewn to be constantly in error; or else, assum
ing the three first Gospels to exhibit the primitive Pales* Mythus und Saga: Ver such einer wissenschaftlichen Entwickelung dieser
Begriffe und ihrer Verhaltnisses zurn christlichen Glauben. Berlin, 1837..
Legend is an inadequate, and in reference to its etymology, an inaccurate ren
dering of Saga, for which there is no exact equivalent in English.
�Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
15
tinian tradition and John to have used their materials, we
must allow that he has handled them, in many instances
at least, with a freedom that deprives them of all proper
historical character. No third course seems possible. Strauss
has embraced apparently in their whole extent the views of
Baur on this subject. He describes the Johannean Gospel
as another Apocalypse, projecting its images not, like that
of the apostle whose name it has assumed, on the thunder
clouds of the future, but on the quiet wall of the past
(p. 156). He has been compelled, too, under the same in
fluence, to use the word myth in a much wider sense than
that to which it had been restricted by Heyne and George,
including conscious as well as unconscious fiction. In its
application to the evangelical narratives, he considers the
only distinction of importance to lie between the historical
and the ideal, from whatever source the latter may proceed.
“In this new form of the Life of Jesus, I have,” he says,
“ chiefly in pursuance of the indications of Baur, allowed more
scope than formerly to the supposition of conscious and inten
tional fiction; but I have not on that account thought it neces
sary to employ another term. Rather in reply to the question,
whether even the conscious fictions of an individual can properly
be called myths, I must, even after all that has been written on
the subject, still say : by all means, so far as they have found
credence, and passed into the tradition of a people or a religious
party; for this is at the same time a proof that they were fash
ioned by their author not simply at the instance of his particular
fancy, but in harmony with the consciousness of numbers. Every
unhistorical narrative, however it may have arisen, in which a
religious community finds an essential portion of the holy foun
dation on which it rests, inasmuch as it is an absolute expression
of the feelings and conceptions which constitute it what it is, is
a myth ; and if Greek mythology is concerned in separating from
this wider definition of myth, a narrower one which excludes
the idea of conscious fiction, critical, on the other hand, as
contrasted with orthodox theology, has an interest in embracing
under the general conception of myth, all those evangelical nar
ratives to which it assigns a purely ideal significance.”—P. 159.
The mythic principle so understood Strauss applies to
the explanation of the second of the two elements which
we have described as entering into the composition of the
Gospels. The earliest, evangelists preached and wrote to
shew that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ; and the course
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of their argument, with the kind of proofs on which they
chiefly insisted to sustain it, was powerfully influenced by
the conception through which they habitually realized to
themselves the Messianic character and office—whether as
the Son of David, the Son of God or the Incarnate Word.
The devout Jew of that age firmly believed that the Messi
anic era was at hand. His exalted faith threw its own
glowing imagery on the sacred pages of the law and the
prophets; so that wherever he opened them, whether he
lighted on history or poetry or precept, the mystic interpre
tation in which he had been trained, enabled him to discern
some foreshadowing of him that was to come. The Chris
tian had convinced himself that he was already come in
Jesus ; and consequently all those passages of the ancient
Scripture, in which "he had been accustomed to find the
clearest indications of the future deliverer of Israel and
mankind, he assumed without doubting, as God was true,
must have their fulfilment in his person and life. What
men are persuaded they must see, we know as a rule that
they will see, even when present appearances are against
them; but when this enthusiastic conviction operates not
on contemporary facts, but on a continually receding tradi
tion, it inevitably overpowers the objective by the subjec
tive, and envelopes the history of the past in a hazy atmo
sphere of imaginative feeling. Without adopting Strauss’s
theory in all its details, and strongly questioning some of
his assumptions, truth nevertheless compels us to admit,
that of many statements in the Gospels, after thoroughly
analyzing and comparing them, the origin and character are
best explained on the supposition that this mythic principle
was largely concerned in producing them.
This side of the history of Jesus, Strauss has brought out
in a series of mythic groups, in each of which he endeavours
to discover the formative idea which gave birth to it; in
other words, what Messianic assumption has invested the
simple historical nucleus with a character of its own. In
the first of these mythic groups relating to the birth of
Jesus and the communication of his supernatural powers,
three views are clearly traceable which must have origi
nated in different conceptions, and are incapable of perfect
reconcilement with each other, though they are blended to
some extent in our existing Gospels. We have first the
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17
account of the. descent of the Spirit at his baptism, which
is probably the oldest view ; then two narratives, in Mat
thew and in Luke, of his conception by a virgin under
divine influence, which are inconsistent with each other;
and lastly, the doctrine of the word made flesh in John,
who omits the genealogies, and has no allusion to Christ’s
having come into the world in any other than the ordinary
way. His birth at Bethlehem, with the miraculous accom
paniments of the star and the heavenly host, and the adora
tion of the magi and the shepherds,—the murderous jealousy
of Herod, the flight into Egypt, and the presentation in the
Temple,—incidents which it is utterly impossible to weave
together into a self-consistent narrative, and which, strange
and startling as they were, do not appear to have exercised
the slightest effect on thirty ensuing years of tranquil ob
scurity,—we can hardly doubt were assumed to have
occurred, because certain passages referring to the Messi
anic advent in the Old Testament were believed to require
them, and because they were such as antiquity, Jewish and
heathen, constantly associated with the entrance of great
men into the world. Strauss has instituted a parallelism
between the life of Moses and that of Jesus which is to us
novel, and which we think he has somewhat overstrained.
Both, however, were deliverers; both effected the emanci
pation of their people through sore trials and temptations ;
and both, according to the popular belief, ran a risk of
perishing in infancy. This last incident often occurs in
the legendary memorials of the heroes of the world. It is
told of Augustus by his freedman Julius Marathus, in the
broad daylight of Roman civilization, and in an age contem
porary with Christ.
*
The relations of Jesus with the Bap* Suetonius, Octavianus c. 94. It had been announced a few months before
the birth of Augustus, that a citizen of Velitraa (to which his family belonged)
should become the ruler of the world ; whereupon the Senate being alarmed,
issued a decree that no child bom in that year should be reared. We had
marked this passage some time ago as forming a parallel to the story of the
murder of the innocents, and noticed, what Strauss has omitted to mention—
that the language used is identical with that in which Suetonius in another
part of his book, and Tacitus in his History, describe the Messianic expecta
tion of the Jews. The following is the prophecy about Augustus: “ Velitris,
antiquitus tactfl, de coelo parte muri, responsum est, ejus oppidi civern quundoque rerum potiturum.'’ Of the Jewish belief Suetonius thus writes : “Esse
in fatis, ut eo tempore, Judced profecti rerum potirentur” (Vespas. c. 4); and
Tacitus in the very same words: “Profectique Judaa rerum potirentur”
(Hist. v. 13).
B
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tist and with his earliest followers have probably, according
to Strauss, been tinged in the later conceptions of them
with something of a mythic hue. The acknowledgment of
his superiority by the former, could not have been so clear
and decided from the first as is represented ; otherwise the
disciples of the Baptist would not have continued to form
a separate sect, nor would Christ’s own ministry have first
taken independent ground when the Baptist had been
silenced by being cast into prison. With regard to his dis
ciples, Christ is described as summoning them at once, and
the call (to give a greater air of authority to his words) as
having been immediately obeyed. In both cases, probably,
the effect was gradual. The result only is given. What
had preceded it is passed over. The development of these
two relationships—the first with his forerunner, the second
with his followers—forms the subject of two separate mythic
groups in this part of Strauss’s exposition of the life of
Jesus. Less difficulty will generally be felt in accepting
the accounts of the temptation and the transfiguration as
mythical; for few thoughtful theologians of any school can
now for a long time past have seriously treated them as
historical. A conflict with the Evil One is the fundamental
idea pervading the whole ministry of Christ; and a sym
bolical representation of it would form a natural introduc
tion to the history of his public life. So, again, Moses and
Elias had prepared the way for the gospel; and besides the
current belief that the old prophets would reappear in the
days of the Messiah, it was a fitting consecration of the last
and most trying period of his ministry, when death was
awaiting him and all worldly hopes were about to be extin
guished in the blood of the cross, that his great predecessors
should be seen to be associated with him in glory, and that
the voice from heaven should once more be heard pronounc
ing him the Beloved Son. In these transactions we have
two other mythic groups. It is unnecessary to go through
the entire series. We would simply remark, that in those
passages of the life of Jesus which record the exertion of
miraculous power, the theory of the author assumes its
strongest expression and most uncompromising application.
Strauss’s philosophical system precludes his recognizing
the strictly miraculous in any sense. Its utter impossibility
is an assumption which he carries with him ab initio to the
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19
criticism of the evangelical narrative; and it is an assump
tion so deeply rooted in his first principles of belief, that no
accumulation of outward testimony could overcome it, any
more than it could make him accept a logical contradiction.
His theory, therefore, leaves him no alternative but to eli
minate the miraculous from the history as something neces
sarily untrue. He starts from this premiss; and all his
reasonings are in harmony with it. His book is self-con
sistent throughout. With him the phenomenal universe is
an ultimate fact, carrying its cause and principle within
itself. There is nothing, and we can know nothing, beyond
it. He would not, of course, deny that there may hereafter
be an evolution of new and unexpected results from laws
and agencies already in operation; but those laws and
agencies, once clearly ascertained, themselves furnish, in his
view, the limit to any further development of phenomena
that can be conceived. Any power not already contained
in the phenomenal, that could control its course and infuse
a new element of life into the growth of the universe, he
would disown as a gratuitous assumption. His belief, if
we understand him correctly, is limited to the phenomenal
alone, and does not extend to any power extraneous and
antecedent to the phenomenal.
Every theory of the universe must start from some
assumption : the question is, whether the assumption which
admits or that which excludes benevolent intelligence and
righteous will as the root and sustaining principle of the
universe, is most in accordance with the only analogies that
can guide us in a matter so entirely beyond our experience,
and best satisfies the instinctive belief, the spontaneous trust,
the devout yearning which, if the voice of our collective
humanity be not the utterance of a falsehood, must indicate
some corresponding object in reality. It is not our intention
to argue this question with Strauss. It is one too vast and
deep to be discussed within the limits of the present paper,
and belongs in fact rather to philosophy than to theology.
We notice it here only to mark with distinctness the point
where our own views diverge widely from those of the
author, which, though not essential to his historical criticism,
nevertheless underlie it throughout, and give to his conclu
sions the cold and negative character that need not of
necessity belong to them. The religious philosophy implied
B 2
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in this book, which, we again say, should be considered
something apart from its historical criticism, seems to us
essentially pantheistic, and at war with the deepest heart of
the religion of whose history it is the exposition. Take away
the belief in a Living God who can be approached in prayer
and has communion through his omnipresent Spirit with the
human soul; take away the sense of our personal relation to
a Personal God—the child’s sense of kindred with an Ever
lasting Father, which gives the hope of an undying life in
Him ; take away the trust, that the love and the worth and
the beauty which shew themselves in things perishing and
phenomenal, are an influx from an exhaustless Source which
is at once within and beyond them; and what remains that
deserves the name of religion—to carry home the words of
Jesus to the inmost recesses of the heart, or to explain the
power and sanctity of his own life? We feel, therefore, a
much stronger objection to the philosophic theory which pre
vents our author’s admission of the miraculous—that is, of
the intrusion of any power from without into the phenomenal
—than to the historical criticism which shews that in any
particular case the report of the miracle has probably had a
mythic origin. We will even add, that were criticism to suc
ceed in demonstrating that not one miracle recorded in the
New Testament was historically true, with a better religious
philosophy put under that criticism and tempering its re
sults, our faith would receive no shock, and our trust in the
great truths of Christianity would be as strong as ever.
The difficulty that we experience in wholly giving up the
miraculous, is not a religious, but a critical one. Not a few
of the miracles of the New Testament, it is true, may, we
think, not unreasonably be considered as the product of
tradition, interpreting literally the poetic imagery of Isaiah,
*
and assuming that the wonderful works of Elijah and Elisha
must have been repeated by Messiah himself. But allow
ing the utmost for this source of the miraculous, there still
remains so large an amount of extraordinary curative influ
ence, .explicable by no laws at present accessible to us,
interwrought with the inmost substance of the history of
Jesus, that if we attempt to separate it, the very texture of
* “ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall
be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the
dumb sing.” (Isaiah xxxv. 5, 6.)
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the narrative is destroyed; and if we suppose it altogether
the creation of a pious fancy, so sharp a blow would be
inflicted on the credibility of even the great fundamental
outlines of the history, that we could hardly tell whether
we were dealing with any reality at all. Our faith in
Christ’s word and work does not depend, we are free to
confess, on any alleged miraculous attestation in their favour,
but on our inward experience of their truth and power ; we
should believe in them just as firmly, if it could be proved
that not a single miracle had ever been wrought: but we
wish to save the character of the narrative through which
they are conveyed to us ; and taking our stand on the ear
liest and most authentic Palestinian traditions, which have
probably been preserved to us in Matthew, and partly, per
haps, in Mark,—we have never yet met with any critical
process which could entirely extrude what has at least the
semblance of miracle, and leave eveji the ground-work of a
credible history behind. What the consistent anti-supernaturalist has to shew is this—how he can divest the
person of Jesus of all miraculous influence attaching to it,
and yet leave as large a residuum of positive history as
Strauss himself accepts as the basis of his theory. John the
Baptist was in the first instance as much the object of Mes
sianic expectation as Jesus, and for some time their two
ministries appear to have occupied independent spheres;
yet no traditions of supernatural power have gathered round
the person of the former. We find it difficult, therefore, to
believe that gifts of some extraordinary kind, displayed
chiefly in curative effects, and involving al.^o deep spiri
tual insight, were not possessed by Jesus—a result of the
peculiar organization with which he was originally endowed;
and that these formed, as it were, the punctum saliens of
primitive fact out of which the whole mass of mythic and
legendary amplification naturally grew, as they may at first
have been the providential means of exciting and securing
the attention of some whom more spiritual influences would
not so readily have reached. Obscurity is cast over this sub
ject by the vague meaning attached to the word miraculous.
Scarcely two persons use it in the same sense. No one of
any philosophical culture, whatever his religious theory,
ever supposes God to act without law. Law springs out of
the very nature of mind. The more perfect mind is, the more
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surely it is obedient to law, as the condition of harmonious
and self-consistent action,—involving in its effects all the
difference between a kosmos and a chaos. But it does not,
therefore, follow that the deepest laws of the infinite working
can be seized by a finite intelligence, or are even contained
as yet within the limits of the phenomenal. The idea of
progress and development which the past history of our
planet irresistibly forces on us, implies the continual acces
sion of something new, which, as it transcends the actual,
the actual is not of itself competent to originate. Out of
the vast, unexplored possibilities of the spiritual, which
enfold and pervade and underlie the phenomenal, influences
at times may, and (if the world is to advance) must issue,
which contradict the results of experience, and limit the
universality of laws which a premature generalization had
accepted as final. It is this occasional intrusion of the spi
ritual into the phenomenal, which we suppose people mean
in general to express when they speak of the miraculous.
No doubt the disposition to believe in such intrusion (which
is in itself significant, as forming a part of the natural faith
of the human soul) has led constantly to its gratuitous sup
position, and, in ages when there was no science, assumed
its presence in cases which further inquiry shewed were
resolvable into laws uniformly in operation around us. The
number of such cases, it must be confessed, has been regu
larly on the decrease with the progress of science. Never
theless, after every deduction on this account, phenomena
are still on record, supported by unexceptionable testimony
(testimony, the rejection of which would subvert the foun
dations of all history), and inexplicable by any laws which
science can define, for the solution of which we must go to
something beyond the phenomenal as yet known to us.
Every one at all acquainted with the history of religion, or,
if the reader so pleases, of superstition (for the two histories
are closely interwoven with each other), is well aware how
constantly every fresh outbreak of the religious life, espe
cially after a long suppression in formality and indifference,
has been accompanied by some mysterious and unaccount
able phenomena. Our own generation has witnessed them.
The miracles ascribed to St. Bernard are reported on more
direct testimony than can be alleged for those of the Gos
pels. All such cases we would have subjected to the seve-
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23
rest scrutiny, and left to rest each on its appropriate evidence,
apart from any theory. They will probably be found to
contain a large mixture of delusion and self-deception with
some unaccountable reality at bottom—linking our human
nature, here and there, amid the tangled web of the actual,
with dim, mysterious agencies which are slumbering as yet
in the bosom of the Infinite, and of which only at the rarest
intervals we catch a passing glimpse. This is a subject on
which no man will venture to dogmatize. It is the truest
philosophy to hold the mind in candid and reverent sus
pense. The extreme devotion of the present age to the
physical sciences confines its interest and belief to the
ascertainable and phenomenal, and indisposes it to any
recognition of the vaguer realities of the spiritual. We only
desire to enter our protest against the narrow and one-sided
philosophy which would shut up all possibility within the
limits of law reducible to scientific formulas, and exclude
the great Parent Mind from all direct action on the condi
tion of his human family.
*
The logical rigour with which Strauss carries out the
consequences of his system, and his determination to ex
plain every word and every act which appear to him not
to come within the range of the strictly historical, in ac
cordance with its pervading principle, have blinded him
in some cases to the moral beauty and significance of the
narrative, and the deep spiritual intuitions which, amidst
errors of scriptural interpretation, have filled Christ’s words
with enduring light. His theory binds his faculties as with
a spell, and keeps him intent on exploring the dim traces
of rabbinical refinement and mysticism, when with a mind
* There is a superficial philosophy cun-ent in some quarters, that will probably
treat with derision the conceded possibilities of the foregoing paragraph ; that
accepts without difficulty, by the aid of certain traditional formulas, all the
miracles of the Old and New Testament, as exceptional cases (peculiar and
limited to them) in the order of the world, and yet scouts as weak and irrational
credulity every attempt to reduce such cases to deeper but constant laws, and
bring them into harmony with the facts of universal history. To the consider
ation of such persons, who, to be consistent, should believe more or believe less,
we commend the following wise and seasonable words, ascribed (we have reason
to know, on the best authority) to one of the first mathematicians of the age :
“What I reprobate is, not the wariness which widens and lengthens inquiry,
but the assumption which prevents or narrows it; the imposture theory, which
frequently infers imposture from the assumed impossibility of the phenomena
asserted, and then alleges imposture against the examination of the evidence.”
Preface to a book entitled, “ From Matter to Spirit,” p. xxix.
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more open and erect he could not have failed to bring more
prominently into view that remarkable feature of the gos
pel history—the sympathy, if we may so express it, of its
miraculous elements with the moral life of Christ himself,
glowing with the same warm hues of human tenderness
and love, breathing the same deep tone of devout trust and
aspiration, as if the common and the miraculous of the re
cord grew out of the same spiritual root. This may be no
sufficient proof of the strictly historical character of these
narratives, but it attests at least the intensity of the im
pression under which they were conceived, and shews how
the spirit of Christ had entered into and moulded anew
the minds that consorted with him, and handed down the
living tradition of his personal presence which has taken
shape and consistency in our present Gospels. The pre
dominance of this moral and religious element is the great
distinction of the canonical from the apocryphal Gospels,
and a proof of the fine spiritual tact of the primitive Church
which so clearly separated them.
We shall notice only two instances of what appears to
us a certain logical narrowness in Strauss. In commenting
on the beautiful words about the resurrection, Matt. xxii.
51, 52; Mark xii. 26, 27; and Luke xx. 37, 38 (pp. 259, 260),
he sees no force, as De Wette does, and as we do, in the
inference drawn by Christ from the pregnant expression,
“the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” clenched by
the sublime universalism peculiar to Luke—iravrse yap avrw
Z&<nv—“ for all live unto him.” We may admit that the exe
gesis adopted by Christ in this passage was a rabbinical one,
and that the words taken by themselves furnish no direct
proof of the doctrine associated with them. But Strauss
himself discerns an evidence of Christ’s greatness in the new
spirit with which he read the old scripture, shewing him
to be a prophet, though no interpreter; and it is surprising
to us that one who can see and acknowledge all this, should
not also feel the depth and force of the spiritual intuition
which perceived at once there could be no death for the
soul in God, and, truer than the ancient words in which it
*
found utterance, was the revelation of an eternal reality to
the world. - The other passage is the story of the raising of
Lazarus. We are constrained by internal and external evi
dence to believe with Strauss that this narrative cannot be
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25
historical We cannot else understand how an event of
such importance, affecting the most intimate friends of
Jesus, could have been so entirely passed over without the
remotest allusion by the Synoptical Gospels. We think
there is great force in Strauss’s reasons for regarding it as
an embodiment in this concrete form of the doctrine, that
the Word is in himself, h avaoraaic, koI f) fah—“the resur
rection and the life.” But in his rigid development of this
idea, and in his anxiety to shew how it has influenced
every part of the narrative, he loses all sense of that ex
quisite tenderness and pathos which would seem to have
so entirely possessed the mind of the evangelist, that in
the glow of composition he forgets the divinity of his sub
ject, and is completely carried away by his human sympa
thies, and in individual expressions falls into dissonance
with his general theme. Strauss, like some other critics,
more logical than his author, is driven to harsh interpre
tations to bring him into harmony with himself. The be
trayal of deep emotion at the grave, conveyed by the words,
ive[ipip.T]ffaTo, trapafcv, f.p.[3pipLpEV0Q (John xi. 34, 38), he un
derstands of the indignation of Jesus at the insensibility of
the bystanders to the greatness and power of the present
Logos. The whole context, however, shews that the writer
meant something very different, and permitting his human
traditions of Christ to overpower for the moment the hypo
thesis of his divinity, has described with uncommon beauty
the struggle in the mind of Jesus with the strength of his na
tural affections. That this is the true rendering of the pas
sage is evident from the subjoined rip Trvsvpan and er lavra,
which qualify the original force of the verb Ipflpipaopat, and
from the single word ISaKpvaEv which furnishes a key to
the whole.
As John has added some things not contained in the
Synoptics, so he has strangely omitted others which are
pre-eminently characteristic of them. There is no curative
effect more constantly recorded in the three first Gospels
than the expulsion of evil spirits, while no instance of it
occurs in the fourth. Strauss’s explanation of this pecu
liarity is at least plausible and entitled to consideration.
Reported cases of this kind were common in that age all
over the world. Josephus and the sophists make frequent
mention of them. And something analogous is said to be
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met with to this day in the East. Strauss thinks that the
great moral power of Jesus, and the reverence which his
presence inspired, might exercise a healing influence on 1
persons liable to the affections that were popularly ascribed
to demoniacal possession. This was in perfect harmony
with the popular persuasion respecting him. We know
there were then regular exorcists by profession both among
the Jews and the heathens. But this class of persons had
already fallen into disrepute at the commencement of the
second century; and Strauss finds an indication of the later
origin of John’s Gospel in the exclusion from its pages of
all cures of this kind, which it would have been no longer
regarded as consistent with the dignity of the incarnate
Word to ascribe to him.
After the foregoing exposition of his theory, it is hardly
necessary to add that Strauss does not believe in the histo
rical fact of the resurrection of the body on the third day,
nor, we fear we must add, in individual immortality. Indi
viduals, like all other phenomena, according to his view of
things, are transient and perishable. Only the primal idea
which evolves and develops itself in and through them, is
eternal. He exposes with great acuteness the complexities
and inconsistencies of the several evangelical narratives, and
shews that they exhibit traces of two perfectly distinct tra
ditions of the appearances of the risen Jesus—one dreamy
and phantom-like, the other, and probably the later, hard
ened into the distincter outlines of corporeal manifestation.
He thinks that the apostles and their associates fled on the
event of the crucifixion into Galilee ; and that hence arose
the tradition that Christ first manifested himself to them
amid the scenes of his early ministry, in fulfilment of his
promise to meet them there. It took more time, in his
opinion, than is allowed by our present Gospels, for the full
growth of the conviction that he had risen from the dead,
had appeared to his first disciples, and was still spiritually
present with his church. The minuter specifications of time
and place and particular appearance—three, eight and forty
days, the Galilean mountain, the walk to Emmaus, the
closed chamber at Jerusalem, the shore of the Sea of Tibe
rias—he considers to be altogether the product of a later
tradition. All idea of resuscitation after an apparent death,
which was a favourite resource of the old rationalists, and
�Strauss’s New Work on the Life of Jesus.
27
which appears from his posthumous papers to have been
entertained by Schleiermacher himself, is rejected by Strauss
unconditionally, as inconsistent with the best attested facts
of the case. What became of the mortal remains of Jesus
there are no means, he thinks, of our ever knowing. The
belief in the resurrection of Christ he regards with Ewald
as a result of the intense hopes and longings of the disciples,
tradition magnifying dim and uncertain rumours, and the
words of Messianic promise working with a foregone con
clusion on fervid and enthusiastic minds. But this expla
nation does not appear to us, any more than that of Ewald,
sufficient to explain the extraordinary fact in the origin of
the new religion which five words of Tacitus have impressed
in indelible characters on the page of universal history—
repressaque in prcesens—rursus erumpebat. What was the
cause of that wonderful change in the mind of Paul which
made the spiritual world a reality to him ? His own words
imply (1 Cor. xv. 5—8) that the same appearances which
convinced him that Jesus was risen from the dead, had con
vinced others before him. And what was the effect of that
conviction ? It transformed their whole mind and life. The
disciples before and the disciples after the death of Jesus
(an event which might have been expected wholly to crush
the nascent faith, and in the first instance seemed actually
to do so) were completely different men; before, doubting,
timid and carnal; after, bold, confident and spiritual. Nor
was the effect limited to them. Through them, a new light
entered the world, a new hope brightened the horizon of
our planet. Immortality, which had been the floating dream
of a speculative^ few, became the steadfast trust of multi
tudes. The earliest literature and art of the Christians,
their simple hymns and the rude frescoes which adorned
their tombs, touchingly shew how the future beyond the
grave, to which friends and kindred had already passed,
was to them a nearer and more vivid reality than the
troubled and persecuted present in which they lived on
earth. And this has been the animating principle of Chris
tianity throughout its subsequent diffusion over the earth,
marking a new era in the spiritual development of our race,—•
the assurance of a wider and more glorious future for the
immortal soul. The origin of this new conviction we can
trace back to a definite period in past history associated
�28
Strauss’s JVew Work on the Life of Jesus.
with the traditions of Christ. And can we account for it
without the supposition of some fresh infusion from the
spiritual into the phenomenal ? Can that which renovated
the world have grown out of the world? Could death
develop life ? We may never be able to give an objective
precision to our conception of the cause. It is involved in
deepest mystery. But we think Baur was nearer to the
truth than either Ewald or Strauss with all their elaborate
explanations, when of the impression—which transformed
the mind of Paul and of all who with him were engaged in
evangelizing the world,—which linked invisible by a living
bond with visible things, and constituted the firm, immove
able basis of the whole superstructure of the future church
—he declared, as the result of a long life of profound and
fearless inquiry, he did not believe that we should ever by
any psychological analysis be able to give a satisfactory
account. And the deep conviction produced in our mind
by the contemplation of these historical phenomena is this—
that as in relation to the present world the welcome recep
tion of Christ’s spirit and the experience of its happy effects
are an evidence of the eternal truth which flowed in it,—so,
by whatever means it may have been first infused into the
tide of human thought, the firm hold which the doctrine of
immortality has had on the mind of civilized men ever
since the days of the apostles, the response that it has met
with, the uneffaceable mark which it has left on literature,
philosophy and art, and the way in which it has contributed
to harmonize and round, off into a consistent whole, our
conceptions of God and providence and human life,—are
proof conclusive that a doctrine which possesses such en
during vitality and draws its nourishment from the deepest
sources of humanity, can be no other than the voice of God,
and must have its certain counterpart in some invisible
reality.
One satisfaction at least we can derive from this work of
Strauss. It shews us the utmost that we have to fear from
hostile criticism. We now know the worst. Never were the
earliest records of our faith subjected to a more rigorous and
searching scrutiny. Never were the possible elements of
truth and falsehood sifted with a more suspicious and un
sparing hand. The author has done his work with a cold
blooded courage and determination. No lingering affectior
�Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
29
has blinded the clearness of his intellectual vision. No pre
judice of the heart has hindered him from seeing the bare,
simple fact involved in any dubious narrative. And now—
bating his religious philosophy, which is something quite
extraneous to his historical criticism—what, after all, is the
result ? What great principle of conduct, what consolatory
trust of humanity, is weakened—that would have stood on
a firmer basis and been surrounded with clearer evidence,
had we still continued to take the whole mass of the gospel
history as historical truth, and had no one ever thought of
separating myth and fact? We have still authentic indica
tion of the earliest workings of the greatest moral revolution
that has taken place in the world; and we have glimpses,
so original that they must be true, of the wonderful perso
nality which introduced it, and the more stimulating, the
more spiritually creative, for the very reason that they are
glimpses. We can still trace the first swelling and shooting
forth of the prolific seed which has impregnated the world
with a new life. We feel to this day that we are possessors
of the same deep consciousness and the same aspiring trust
which originated those great changes, and unites us with
them in one unbroken continuity of spiritual life. Now, as
then, it is through the heart and conscience of believing
man that God speaks to our world. As we trace back the
great stream of human thought through the ages to its
source, we observe how it is enriched at a particular point
by a sudden accession of moral and spiritual strength ; and
that alone would prove the intervention of some great in
spiring mind, were the result of modern criticism on ancient
books more destructive than it really is—and would still
have proved it, had those books never existed at all, or been
entirely swept away in the persecution of Diocletian. We
are thankful indeed for their preservation as they are ; but
their chief value to us is the witness which they bear to
the regenerating influence of a spirit which could only
have issued from some great and holy mind, and through
that mind from God himself. Dor the grandest of human
trusts is the presence of a Living God in history, suggesting
the highest thoughts and noblest impulses that animate it,
and guiding them to distant issues, which the very souls
through which they worked, did not anticipate and could
not conceive.
%
�30
Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
We have remarked in an earlier part of this paper, that
Strauss does not do justice to the resources of his own theory.
It is more conservative than he allows it to be. His philo
sophy has marred the applications of his criticism. He
remarks (p. 624), with a cold desolateness of tone which
sometimes chills the reader in his pages, that the dispersion
of the mythic from a narrative does not restore the historical;
and that we know less of the actual Jesus of Nazareth than
of any great man of antiquity—less, for example, than we
know of Socrates. Even if we confine ourselves to the intel
lectual and objective life, which is all that the criticism of
Strauss here contemplates, this statement is certainly over
done. It is not more difficult to trace the characteristic fea
tures of the man Jesus through the different media by which
it is transmitted to us in the three first Gospels and the
fourth, than it is to form an idea of the peculiar idiosyncrasy
of Socrates from the widely different representations of Xeno
phon and Plato. But if we descend into the deeper life of
the soul, into the region of affection and sympathy, where
the truest evidence of personality is to be found,—then we
say the advantage is altogether on the side of Christ, and
we have proofs of love and reverence and the transforming
influence of a great and genial soul in the diversified con
ceptions of the apostolic tradition, such as the records of
the Socratic school are unable to supply. Even the mythic
may here be said to cumulate the evidence; for it could
only spring from a depth of impression and an intensity of
feeling, going down to the very sources of the moral life,
which the cold admiration of Athenian intellect was impo
tent to produce.
Strauss remarks, that only one side of our humanity is
fully exemplified in the person of Christ—that which con
nects us with God and the religious life; while the indus
trial, the political, the scientific and the artistic elements,
which are so indispensable to the progress of our race, are all
wanting. This is true, no doubt; but he should have added,
that the spiritual element which is so perfectly revealed in
Christ, is essential to the growth of all the rest, and in every
human being of every class and in every age is the source
of inward peace and the principle of a real sanctification of
the life. When, the soul is once placed, as it is by the
spirit of Christ, in a right relation towards God, the great
�Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
31
conversion of humanity is effected; it is put in the path of
Bhealthful self-development; and the qualities which may
yet be needed to complete the full proportions of our nature,
may be left to arrange themselves organically around this
central germ, through the free working of our collective
faculties guided by the results of experience. In a fine
passage (p. 625), which we have not left ourselves space to
quote, Strauss does ample justice to Christianity, and places
Jesus in the first rank of those who have contributed to
develop the ideal of humanity.
We cannot close this volume, strongly as on some points
we have expressed our dissent, and notwithstanding our pain
ful sense of the serious deficiencies of its religious philosophy,
without a strong feeling of respect for the author, not only
for his learning and ability, which none will dispute, but
also for his courage and truthfulness, his moral earnestness,
and his general candour towards those who are opposed to
him. With all its faults and extravagances, for no theory
finds its true limits all at once, his book will leave its per
manent mark on the theology of the future. It has fixed
one or two points in advance, from which it will henceforth
be impossible to go back. What we have most to complain
of is a certain one-sidedness, which the author no doubt
identifies with completeness and consequentiality. On all
points he makes it too much an absolute question of Yes
or No. He therefore shews on all occasions far more tole
ration for the old thorough-going orthodox than for those
who, cautiously feeling their way towards a wider truth,
stop short of the sweeping results at which he has himself
arrived. Our own modification of his theory would doubt
less bring us under the censure which he pronounces on all
who seek their rest in a juste milieu. We can only say we
have striven to imitate him, where he is most worthy of
imitation—in his love of truth—by giving utterance simply
and without reserve to the conviction that has been produced
in us by the perusal of his book, and by some previous
years of thought and study on the same subject. For the
rest, we regard with no slight suspicion all violent disruption
from the faith and hope which have guided and consoled
the best and wisest of our race through long thousands of
years; and we have yet to learn that truth must always
be sought in one of two contradictory extremes.
��
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Strauss's new work on the life of Jesus
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Taylor, John James
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 31 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: A review in English by John James Taylor of David Friedrich Strauss's work 'Das Leben Jesu, fur das deutsche Volk bearbeitet; Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1864. Inscription in ink on front page: With the respect of J.J.T. Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from Theological Review 1:335-365, July 1864. Author not named in the review. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Title of the book translated: 'The Life of Jesus, adapted to the German People'.
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Jesus Christ
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Conway Tracts
David Friedrich Strauss
Jesus Christ-Historicity
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469cbf1b90e1a0365f37dbdaead2cea4
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Text
THE “EDINBURGH REVIEW
AND DR. STRAUSS.
BY
G. WHEELWRIGHT.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1873.
Price Threepence,
��THE “EDINBURGH REVIEW” AND
DR.
STRAUSS.
EAR SIR,—I want to call your attention to an
article in the last Edinburgh upon Dr. Strauss’
Confession of Faith, for it seems to me to have
a special importance at the present moment, when
there is so much of uncertainty and insecurity in
Church matters.
D
“It is not that the thing is rich or rare,
The only wonder is how it got there.”
It purports to he a critique upon “The Old Faith
and the New,” and were this all, I should have had
little to say about it. A scrimmage between the
Edinburgh and the great Arch-Heretic would not be
very edifying; though in truth the writer goes into it
with a will and something more. Never, I should
think, has the Doctor been so savagely pommelled.
His critic gives him no rest. It recalls the Flaming
Tinman in L’avengro,—“ he knocked him down, and he
knocked him up again, he knocked him into the hedge,
and he knocked him out of it ”—words however break
no bones, and doubtless the Professor will live to
make sport some other day.
The most noteworthy part of the article lies near
the end of it, where the question occurs, “ Why is
apostacy from Christianity being so lightly treated in
our day 1 ” Has any new weapon qf assault been ex
cogitated—any weak place in the Christian armour
discovered ? To this the Reviewer confidently
�4
The “ Edinburgh Review ”
answers, none. We are as we ever were—heart-whole
as a biscuit—sound to the very core—the universal
reign of law, and the unhistorical nature of the Gospels
notwithstanding. The true answer to the former is
to remember that ££ stability of purpose is a standing
characteristic of the highest minds/’ and that miracle
is nothing else than the ££ outcrop of some previously
unknown law,’ while the untenableness of the second
is shewn in ££ the general reception of the Gospels in
the early part of the second centuryj thus allowing
no time for fictitious accounts of our Lord’s life and
death to gain currency or circulation.”
These two questions then being settled to his entire
satisfaction, the writer proceeds to enquire “ what,
under present circumstances, is the duty of men of
sense and of a true loyalty to Christ and His religion.”
Imprimis, ££to remember that the future unity and
efficiency of the Church entirely depend on the exer
cise of such prudence and charity among Christians as
shall combine together the various elements that create
a true Catholicity,” which nobody can deny—££ and
then in the next place, it appears to him that
there are three points to which the attention of all
students, and especially of the clergy, ought at the
present time to be carefully directed.”
These three points are—well, what do you guess ?
I defy any man in his sober senses (without the aid
of some special Theological intuition or faculty) to
read me my riddle. The first, then, is to get rid in
toto and at once of that troublesome book, yclept the
Old Testament, to shelve it now and for ever. “ Why
should Christian churchmen think it necessary to
burden their cause, and to hamper every movement
of their strategy, by undertaking the perfectly gratuit
ous task of making Gentile Christianity responsible
for the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures ?
We are not Jews/’ (certainly not, if you count noses.)
“ and there is no reason in the world why we should
�and Dr. Strauss.
5
be weighted with this burden of understanding and
defending, at all risks, the Jewish Scriptures. It is
a burden that was never laid upon us either by Christ,
or by His Apostles. Our German race, in particular,
as a matter of simple fact, was not trained by them.
They were not our ‘ schoolmasters to lead us to Christ.’
We affirm, what appears to us to be a simple historical
fact, viz. : that the Jewish Scriptures do not belong
to us, and that we are in no way responsible for them.
It was not by the Old Testament that the Gentile
nations were trained; it was not by the Mosaic law
that our heathen forefathers were prepared for the
reception of Christ. It was by quite another agency.
It was by that magnificent Book of God, in which we
have read ever since, and are reading to this day, the
ever-opening revelations of His wisdom and His
power. It is the realm of Nature, which is our own
proper inheritance. It is physical science which has
hitherto led us—why should it not lead us still?—
through Nature up to Nature’s God. We earnestly
trust, therefore, that the mistake of burdening our
Christian cause with needless anxieties and absolutely
unprofitable controversies, relating to the Old Testa
ment Scriptures, may gradually be made to cease;
and that the clergy will read to us their invaluable
lections from the Old Testament, at no very distant
day, without either calling upon us, or troubling them
selves, to solve the innumerable problems which they
raise. Why should we go out of our way to deprive
ourselves of that precious ‘ liberty,’ from the law and
from the Old Testament—‘ wherewith Christ has made
us free.’ ”
Now what does all this mean? Suppose this notice
able advice had been given by yourself or by
any of your compeers, what would or rather what
would not have been said of it ? Doubtless, the ship
of the Church is labouring heavily in the very trough
of the sea, well-nigh water-logged, and the Edinburgh
�6
The “ Edinburgh Review ”
Plimsoll steps forward and tells us that she is top
hampered, deck-loaded to a dangerous degree. Over
board, then, with all that lumber, and she will float
like a duck once more, or, in plain words, when a
person comes troubling you with questions as to
Mosaic cosmogony, universal deluge, Pentateuchal
Theories, sun stationary, sun retrograde, food pur
veying ravens, and the like legendary matters, as the
Reviewer styles it, bid him begone and take his
queries and his crude impertinencies to those whom
they concern—Moses ben Toledoth, or the first Old Clo’
he may come across—to them belong these ancient
oracles “ which are the religious lesson books of a
different race from our own, and the sole remaining
relics of a national literature with whose very
language our own has hardly anything whatever in
common.” Verily, if this be not a hoisting of the
engineer with his own petard, may I die a Dean 1
Por of all the words of ill savour in the nostrils of
the u unco-gude,” that of Legend stands pre-eminent.
How often has it been cast in the teeth of free
thinkers that they are an infidel and impious genera
tion, turning the word of God into myths and fables,
and yet here you have a champion of the Paith
quietly shelving the Old Book for the legendary
matter contained in it, its unprofitable controversies,
its insoluble problems, whereas Jesus enforced these
very legends, these idle tales, when he quoted Lot’s
wife, Moses at the Bush, the cities of the Plain,
Elias’ first coming, Jonah and the Ninevites, &c.
“ But John P. Robinson, he
Says they didn’t know everything down in Judee.”
Startling as this is, point the second takes us a step
further. “ Is it right,” he asks, “ is it truthful, is it
any longer possible—in the face of all that is now known
upon like subjects—to pretend that legendary matter
has not intruded itself into the New Testament, as
well as into the Old? It is now universally granted
�and Dr. Strauss.
7
by all competent critics, that the three synoptical
Gospels are simply written notes of the oral teaching
of the apostolic age. Now, even in what may be called
‘ regular histories ’ a certain play of the imagination is
unavoidable. Indeed, without it any history would
sink at once to the level of a chronicle or an almanac.
But in an oral history, used during many years for pur
poses of religious emotion and edification, some slight
admixture of this plastic and poetic element appears
to be absolutely inevitable.” And more to the like
effect.
We are now brought to the third and last point.
Hitherto, it must be granted, the writer has been frank
and free beyond his kind. Seldom is orthodoxy so can
did and outspoken. He takes up his parable, and
what do we find written therein, ‘ Legend here, legend
there, legend everywhere.’ What more can he say ?
What more is wanted ? But is not this the voice of
Jacob ? the very words of that old rogue Free Thought.
‘ Fas est et ab hoste doceri ’ quoth the Beviewer. And
now one would think there was nothing to be done
but to shake hands all round, cry we are all miserable
sinners, forget and forgive, and live in unity to our
lives’ end. “ Patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards,
and I will shew you the veriest hanky-panky trick that
ever was played upon board.” So far the writer is clear
and unmistakeable, it is the speech of Free Thought from
orthodox lips ; but now a change comes over the
spirit of his dream, he begins to chide his rash out
spoken ways. May he not be going too far ? is there
no terra firma, nothing for the feet to rest upon ? is all
mist and haze? does the heavy cloud of doubt and uncer
tainty hang over all alike? is all tainted with suspicion’s
cruel breath ? nothing stable and secure ? there must,
there shall be,—and once more he takes up his parable,
but in how different a strain. “ The last point which
appears to us to be of incalculable importance for all
students of theology to bear in mind at the present
�8
The il Edinburgh Review”
day, is this: The absolute necessity of candidly
accepting as • fact ’ whatever can honestly he shewn to
be such. One feels at a loss to understand, e.g., how
any men, calling themselves votaries of science, can
pretend to set aside, with a contemptuous smile,
‘ facts ’ of such singular interest, and reposing on such
an extraordinary accumulation of evidence, as those on
which Christianity is built. (Legend, you see, has quite
dropt out of sight.) They may not hitherto have been
quite rightly explained, they may not yet have been
wholly divested of their graceful drapery of fancy,
they may not be, so to say, extra-natural, though they
may be super-natural events, transcending, that is, the
ordinary and accustomed routine of nature.” Then he
girds at the men of science for their mistakes, rash
assumptions and inability to see an inch beyond their
nose, and finally settles down upon the Resurrection of
Christ from the dead, as a plain historical fact, in these
words “the historical proof that accumulates around
that one point is so overwhelmingly conclusive, that
no honest and really scientific mind, we are bold to say,
can escape the conviction that it really happened: If
unbelievers would condescend to explain to us (1),
How St. Paul’s four great Epistles and the Apocalypse
(which they all acknowledge to be genuine) can, under
any other hypothesis, have come to be written ; (2),
How the terrified and scattered apostles, can, on any
other rational supposition, have suddenly recovered
their courage and their hopes; and (3), how, if the
basis and key-stone of her whole teaching be a gross
imposture or delusion, the Christian church can conceiv
ably have grasped, with such a wonderful and perma
nent force, the reins which govern the human will, and
have kept for centuries in the highway of progress the
otherwise wild and wasteful powers of the human
intelligence; then, and not till then, will we consent to
abandon the keep and citadel of the Christian Faith.”
Is there not a proverb warning against putting all
�and Dr. Strauss.
9
our eggs into one basket? Can the writer be serious in his
assertion that St. Paul’s four great Epistles, the revi
val of the disciples’ hope and the churches’ grasp upon
the reins that govern the human will, have their basis
in nothing but the ‘ fact ’ of Christ’s Resurrection.
Would not a belief in it have done just as well 1
Specially so, when this belief was always accompanied
in the minds of the apostles by another—to them equally
certain, equally incontrovertible—viz., the speedy
return-coming of Christ; yet where is the latter now ?
I grant fully that these two beliefs formed the wou ffrw,
from which Christianity moved the world ; and like
wise that without a future, “human life itself with all its
hopes and aspirations would be an imposture.” I fail
however to see the logic of the following sentence, “ If
the possibility of our Lord’s resurrection be once fairly
conceded, as it must be conceded by those who admit
the immortality of the soul, then the cause of Christi
anity is as good as won.” But I have no wish to hargufy, specially with so smart a writer as this Reviewer.
One word before I quit this part of the subject. The
next time he plays Jack on both sides, and holds a brief
for both plaintiff and defendant alike, let him drop
his mask and appear before the world in propria persona.
We shall then know how to class him. If his heart
is in his cause, he will never shrink from putting his
name thereto, whether that be well known or not at all.
And now, how seems it to you, the appearance of this
article in the pages of the “ Edinburgh 1” To me it is
as if the “ Quarterly ” took to patronizing John Bright,
and the “Record” to fraternizing with Messrs Holyoake
and Bradlaugh. What does it mean ? for me judice it is
the work of no prentice hand ; the pen that trans
cribed it has done yeoman’s service ere now. I am
hugely mistaken if there were not great thoughts of
heart in Paternoster Row before that article was de
cided upon. Is it a feather thrown up to shew which
way the wind is blowing ? Surely there must be more
�IO
The “Edinburgh Review ”
behind. The Edinburgh is not celebrated for its
Coups de Theatre, its surprises a la Napoleon III. It
seldom travels far out of its accustomed groove. In
the whole course of its long career, I doubt if any
other article can be mentioned, so isolated, so clearly
beside its wonted walk and conversation as this ; for
it is nothing less than a wilful, deliberate attack upon
what the Religious world in England holds most dear,
its beloved Bibliolatry, its worship of the letter in
every jot and tittle. It is the red rag flaunted in the
bull’s face—enough to make Dean Alford, that most
cautious of commentators, move uneasily in his
grave. To call a spade, a spade—to tell Truth and
shame the devil ; these are new maxims in theo
logical warfare, and mark the altered spirit of the times.
What then can have provoked this startling escapade ?
It is not so much the weight of the blow that stuns
one, as its coming from so unexpected a quarter, from
a hand whilom so friendly. Et tu, Brute / no envious
Casca made this rent or vented the bitter taunt that
the Church’s title-deeds are a mass of idle tales, the
time-honoured writings she so venerates not worth
defending, a burden not a support. Legend, in short.
111 thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word ”—the outside world has long made up its mind upon the
matter; but what can have wrung it from that stubborn
breast, or so pricked the heart of dull unbending ortho
doxy that it should now come and chant its Palinodia in
the ears of all, unasked, uncalled for 1 what has rent
the veil from eyes that have long blinked in the blaze
of a light that men were everywhere welcoming and
rejoicing in ? Can they ever close again ? Will it
meet with its usual self-satisfied sneer the Truth when
it appears not in the writings of the Tubingen school
or of English Free thought, but in the respectable
pages of the Old Blue and Buff ? Shades of Sydney
Smith, Jeffrey and Horner ! that the nursling of
Whiggism should so belie its ancient fame, as to turn
�and Dr. Strauss.
11
traitor, and hang out the white flag, ere three
quarters of a century have passed over its honoured
head ?
“ Point de boucles, Monsieur, tout est perdu ! ” the
Edinburgh dallying with rationalism is no less ominous.
1 To your tents, 0 Israel ’—for war is at hand. The
Reviewer quotes Bunsen’s well known words, that a
religious war is impending, and may soon he upon us,
and yet the Church heeds not the tramp of mustering
hosts, ‘ nor the low wail that bodes the coming storm.’
As proud as in the days of Laud, she will not yield an
inch or make the slightest change demanded of her.
“ 1 sit a queen,” she saith,“ and shall see no sorrow.”
Surely this is to mistake porcine obstinacy for manly
firmness, to shut the eyes and say, I see naught.
What is asked of her ? What the demand made each
year in tones louder and more menacing than the last ?
What, but that she should adapt her tone and her
teaching to the altered state of the times in which she
finds herself, that she should descend from the pinnacle
on which her pride has placed her, lay aside her mys
terious pretensions, her mumming tones, her priestly
gabardine and mock sanctimoniousness, and preach to
her fellow men in words that should reach their hearts,
and raise them from the littleness, the carking cares
and concerns of this world to some thought of the
eternal and the invisible, that spirit-land which all
dream of and yearn after, fascinating even to those
grimy myriads who six days out of seven moil and toil
in the dust and mire of earth and its sadly stern
belongings. To do this rightly she must free herself
from the swaddling clothes of a dead past, which serve
but to impede her utterance and check the full use of
her powers—that act of a false and impossible uni
formity—those Thirty-nine articles, the spawn of an
unhappy compromise, which narrow living minds
within the soul-enslaving fetters of a bygone gener
ation, cruel as the Tyrrhenian tyrant ‘ contemptor
�I2
The “Edinburgh Review”
Divflm Mezentius. Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora
vivis.’ These are our festering sores, this the heavy
load that is hearing down and fast sinking the Church
in the yawning depth that threatens shortly to engulph
her. Do this and she would find recruits among the
most highly educated the most deeply thinking minds
of the rising generation and of others yet to come.
To neglect this, is to spurn an opportunity that may
never occur again. It may be that the Sibyl is offering
the book for the last time. If she still set her face
against reform and refuse to strip herself of the garb
and surroundings of a past age, there are rude hands
ready to do it for her.
What a future—what a glorious vocation is in store
for the Church, if only she could see it—nothing less
than to lead the van in that fierce strife which is draw
ing each day nearer and nearer—not the petty war of
rival sects, of this and that doxy, but between the
unchristian, worldly spirit which is gradually leaven
ing men’s minds, finding its expression in those
sad, scornful words: “ Let us eat and drink, for to
morrow we die; ” and the wisdom that is from above,
which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be
entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partial
ity, without hypocrisy. This is the tribulation that
awaits the Future—the fire that shall try every man’s
work what it is— as yet it slumbers, gathering force—
it is but in its cradle, as it were. Would that some
infant Hercules was there to strangle it. Increased
prosperity, the wealth that each year is pouring into
our laps, the upward movement of the lower strata
upon which the State reposes, the general spread of
education and intelligence, the crude speculations of
men who have only just begun to use their reasoning
powers, and forbear not to criticise all things in heaven
and earth in the most approved fashion of modern
Positivism—“ fools that rush in where angels fear to
tread.” All mark the advent of that materialism which
�and Dr. Strauss.
J3
is now informing and moulding society, that love of
the carnal and earthy, that care only for what can be
realized and appreciated by the bodily senses, the loath
some disrespect for everything that brings not money
in its train, the mammon-worship and glorification of
success, no matter how obtained, the impatience of all
but worldly gains and gratifications, the contempt for
the meek and poor in heart who shrink from trumpet
ing their own wares, and putting a false value upon
their works. “These be thy gods, 0 Israel?” the idols
of the hearth in many a fair English household. “As
in the sweetest bud the eating canker dwells,” so lurks
this danger in the jewelled cup of our greatness ; the
more to be dreaded that it does not openly renounce
its allegiance to God, whom it professes to know, while
in works it denies Him, being abominable, disobedient,
to every good work reprobate.
I ask the judgment of any sober man if herein I
exaggerate, or aught set down in malice. The hand
goes slowly round the dial, pointing ever to the same
old figures —the spirit of selfish pride and superstition,
that has overturned nation after nation, that never
slumbers or sleeps, never lets its victim go when
once encircled in its folds. Was it ever so deeply
engrained in our hearts as now ? and who should be
the first to oppose the fiend, to throw themselves into
the struggle with all utter self-negation and forgetful
ness—but those who owe all they most prize to Jesus
of Hazara, whose commission they execute, in whose
ranks they fight ? These are the very men who are
squabbling about days, and observances, and vestments,
and the like, who would, if they could, stifle the very
breath of Free Thought, and throw us back into the
mediaeval past of superstition and subservience to the
power of Sir Priest who rules over men’s hearts, only
to fill them with the twin demons of bigotry and
spiritual pride. “ It is a sight to make angels weep,”
�14
The “Edinburgh Review.”
but it is the old tale, the Jews tearing and rending each
other, and Rome thundering at the gates.
May a wiser heart be ours ; the church of God in
this land might become a power for good such as the
world never yet saw; embracing in a loving fold the
hearts of thousands and tens of thousands who now
never worship at all; yet turn a wistful look to the
churches of their ancestors, and their green hillocky
graves. Years of mutual neglect and coldness have
ripened into distrust and dislike.
“ They stand apart, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs that have been rent asunder,
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor rain, nor thunder
Can ever do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.”
She might be the spiritual friend and comforter of a
race which has never been surpassed for solidity and
thoughtfulness, for mental and bodily energy in all their
forms—that still loves and worships God, still respects
religion, still asks for guidance and support. But
when it finds its natural leaders vain and busied about
things that it looks upon as trifles or something
worse, when it sees them turning a deaf ear to
warning or remonstrance, blind to the light that shines
all around them, fiercely opposed to truths which others
have long recognised, caring only for that which lies
within their own magic circle, distrustful of every
thing in the shape of change or progress, can it be
wondered at that men are turning to other leaders;
that, sick of the strife of tongues, and the weary jargon
of ecclesiastical disputes, they are ready to cry a
plague upon both your houses—to follow any Jeroboam
who shall set up his calves at Dan and Bethel, and
spurn the altar at Jerusalem ?—Yours truly,
G. WHEELWRIGHT.
Thomas Scott, Esq.
10«/t Dec. 1873.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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The "Edinburgh Review" and Dr. Strauss
Creator
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Wheelwright, G.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A letter concerning an article by G.H. Curteis in the Edinburgh Review 138 (October 1873) p. 536-539 commenting on "Der alte und der neue Glaube" by David F. Strauss. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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1873
Identifier
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CT118
Subject
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Christianity
Free thought
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The "Edinburgh Review" and Dr. Strauss</span><span>), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Christianity-Controversial Literature
Conway Tracts
David Friedrich Strauss
Edinburgh Review
Free Thought