larly against that part of his book which professes to compare the different accounts of the Evangelists with one another, and out of the alleged inconsistencies and contradictions to be found in them, to construct an argument in support of his hypothesis of their mythic origin. As a work of critical science, as a general help to the thorough study of the Gospels, it is certainly one of the most useful books of the kind which we have ever seen. But it is especially valuable as presenting to us a critique on Strauss's Life of Jesus as a literary and scientific work, and thus enabling us to judge of it precisely in those respects, in which it has arrogated to itself the greatest merit. We propose, therefore, in the sequel of the present Article, to avail ourselves of some of the materials here offered for forming such a judgment, and at the same time to present, so far as it may be necessary for the accomplishment of this particular object, a brief account of the leading notions of Strauss's monstrous hypothesis.

This writer, who has attained so much distinction, was born at Ludwigsburg in Würtemberg, in 1808. He pursued his early studies chiefly at Tübingen, officiated for a short time as vicar to a country curate, and then went, in 1831, to Berlin, where he heard lectures from Schleiermacher. Hegel had died a short time before this, but had left his philosophy in the zenith of its glory, to which Strauss now attached himself, and on which, after his return to Tübingen, he lectured with great applause at the university. At the age of twenty-seven he published his Life of Jesus, and thus brought his name for the first time prominently before the public. In this work he has applied the principles of Hegelianism to the interpretation of Scripture, and claims it as his great merit that he was the first to extend the domain of this philosophy to matters of religion. As this system is variously expounded by its teachers, it is not surprising, that some of them,

Bauer is the most noted representative of this school. They find but little favor anywhere, so that even de Wette, who has a great talent for finding out the humor of the public says, in one of his last works, that his readers will not expect him to take notice of the objections of such a man as B. Bauer. Dr. Ebrard has devoted some attention, in his work, to this development, as also to the similar one of Gefrörer-hence the title, Gesammte Evangelienkritik—but has confined himself mainly to a more respectable antagonist-Strauss.

The materials here used, furnished by Ebrard, are chiefly those contained in the extract at the close of the Article. The other statements made, which are of such a nature as to seem to require documentary justification, have been derived from the sources, either named or intimated, in the progress of the discussion.

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The Gospel judged by Hegelian Principles.

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as Marheinecke, Rosenkrantz and others who claim to be its true representatives, and to maintain its consistency with revelation, should refuse to acknowledge Strauss as a disciple of this school. As an adherent now of the Hegelian philosophy, according to his exposition of it, it is impossible for him to admit the idea of Christianity as a historical religion, and he must discover consequently some mode of explaining its records, their origin and the contents of them, which is consistent with his philosophy. Here lies the nowτor weudos of his scheme. The question of the genuineness of the Gospels is prejudged before he comes to their examination. It is impossible that any amount of evidence for them should establish their truth against the a priori decisions of his philosophy. This philosophy, as expressed in a word, is undisguised pantheism. Here is the norm, to which all must be brought, the lapis Lydius which is to try everything. On this principle it becomes with Strauss a philosophical absurdity to suppose that the Gospels are genuine productions, and contain a record of actual occurrences and veritable doctrines as these terms are generally understood; for from such an admission what would follow? Aye-there would be then a personal God-he would be omnipotent and could work a miracle-the soul is immortal, and will live on in the world to come-every individual is accountable for himself, and must look to the consequences of his destiny-doctrines of course which pantheism denies, and which it must view as the brand-marks of spuriousness in any book which professes to teach them. Straussism now proposes to itself the somewhat difficult task of adhering to its philosophy and yet maintaining a show of respect for the Scriptures. It would not venture on the avowal of an open hostility to the word of God.

From this step indeed the rationalism of Germany under all the forms of its manifestation has studiously held itself back. It has

1 On the relation of Strauss to the Hegelian school of philosophy, see Hagenbach's Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, p. 304, 1840. Comp. also Pelt's Theologische Encyclopaedie, § 70. 4, b. 1843.

It is a singular phenomenon, that the deism of England, on the contrary, which is the same development under another name, has, generally speaking, discarded at the outset and avowedly, the authority of the Bible, and has built its system of religion, so far as it has had any beyond a mere negation of the idea of revelation, professedly on natural grounds. It would be interesting to inquire into the reasons of so different a proceeding. One explanation which has been assigned for it is, that the deists of England have mostly been layinen, disconnected with the church and ecclesiastical establishments, whereas those who have promoted the same movement in Germany have generally been professional theologians.

always aimed at the same object, and that has been to blot out from the Bible all evidences of a supernatural revelation, and to reduce its teachings to a level with those of nature; but it has labored to accomplish this result without acknowledging any inconsistencies between it and a certain reception of the Bible as a source of religious instruction. The methods which it has employed for this purpose have been various, and have been changed from time to time, as their insufficiency and absurdity have become apparent. The one which has been on the whole most prevalent, and which has held possession of the field longest is that of a forced interpretation. On meeting with a miracle or the appearance of a miracle in the Bible, it was explained away as a natural occurrence, either because the sacred writers themselves, it was alleged, really intended to relate it as such, and no other view is authorized by a just construction of their language, (thus in the account of the man healed at the pool of Bethesda, John never thought of relating anything more, it was said, than a case of ordinary cure by bathing), or when the desired result could not be reached in this way, because we are to consider the writers as merely stating their own impressions in regard to the matter, while it belongs to us as interpreters to distinguish between their opinion of an event and the event itself. What these arts were found inadequate to accomplish, it was left to the principle of accommodation, so called, to consummate. The Jews-so the rationalists argued-were looking merely for a temporal king in the Messiah; and Jesus, who was a good man and sincerely desired the moral reformation of his countrymen, took advantage of this idea-(most palpably false, by the way-for what more per

1 This remark forms no exception to what was said of Bauer in a preceding note. Infidelity and rationalism are not convertible terms. Every species of the latter is a species of the former, but not the reverse.

2 This style of exegesis reached its culminating point in Paulus's Commentary on the Gospels. One example of it will suffice;-it is from his remarks on the miracle of the fish and the stater in Matt. 17: 24-27. According to Paulus, nothing was further from the intention of the Evangelist than to relate a miracle. Peter was simply to open the mouth of the fish for the purpose of removing the hook, and then carry it to the market, where he would obtain a stater from the sale of it; cr, as an improvement upon this, in a later edition of his work, Peter was to open his own mouth on the spot (airov!) in order to cry the fish for sale, etc. It is but little more than a quarter of a century since this mode of treating the Scriptures had the sanction of the leading rationalistic critics of Germany. It is now universally discarded even by them, and is unheard of in their lecture-rooms, except as the illustration of an obsolete absurdity.

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Integrity of the Scriptures attacked.

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fect contrast can be imagined than that which exists between the Saviour as he was and professed to be, and that which the worldly Jews expected of the Messiah),-gave himself out as the Son of God, as the head of a new universal kingdom, as the Judge of the world, and so on, simply in order to procure a more ready reception of his instructions, and to accomplish with better effect the benevolent object of his mission. In this way the Bible seemed to retain in some sort its authority and truth, and yet was robbed of everything which could be construed into evidence of its divinity or of the supernatural character of the dispensations whose history it contains. But this mode of interpretation lost at length its novelty. It violated too many principles of language and common sense to maintain its ground against the stricter views of philology which had begun to prevail; and the spirit of rationalistic criticism transformed itself next from the contents of the sacred writings to the sacred writings themselves. The critics of this school became suddenly endued with a wonderful sagacity for deciding on the genuineness of ancient compositions, for distinguishing by means of certain internal indications of style, idiom and thought, together with a certain inward, undefinable sense of their own, between such parts of these compositions as were true, and such as were false; they could place their hands, with infallible certainty, upon the entire book, in the sacred volume-upon the chapter here and there, or upon the verse which was to be rejected as an interpolation and as unworthy of its reputed divine origin. Before such a process, those parts of the Bible which contained anything offensive to the rationalistic sense, which affirmed, for instance, the reality of miracles, prophetic inspiration and the like, rapidly disappeared; and yet the effort which was thus in fact overturning the foundations of Christianity and all revealed religion, claimed to be nothing more than an assertion of the rights of a just and scientific criticism. But the arbitrary nature of such judgments could not fail to be perceived. They were capable of being exposed, and were exposed; so that rationalism began again to be pressed with the difficulties of its position both as attempting to maintain a mode of attack on the Scriptures which it could not justify at the bar of science, and as seeking to conceal its design by an artifice too shallow to answer any purpose of deception. All these expedients having been exhausted, one might have supposed, that rationalism would be compelled now either to desist from the warfare, or carry it on henceforth without reserve or subterfuge, with

an open assumption of the ground which it really occupied, but which it was so unwilling to avow. To this issue it seemed for a time as if it must come; but at this juncture Strauss presents himself with his mythic scheme, and opens the way for at least one other experiment of the kind which had been so often attempted. The term myth, which has been so much used in modern criticism, is variously explained. The definition of it, which Strauss adopts as regards the Gospels, is that of a religious idea clothed in a historical form. This historical form may be, in itself considered, a pure fiction, having no foundation whatever in any actual occurrences, but arising solely from the tendency of the human mind to give to spiritual truths an outward representation, or it may be founded upon certain historical circumstances as a point of departure, which have been gradually enlarged and modified in conformity with the ideas which have sought to express themselves by means of them. The former is the idea of the myth in its purity and universality; and it is this sense of it which Weisse2 has adopted as the foundation of his attempt to get rid of the facts of the evangelical history. Strauss, on the contrary, employs it in the other sense. He admits that there was such a person as Christ-a Jewish Rabbi-(that is his language) who lived and taught in Palestine at the period which is usually assigned to him-that he collected a circle of disciples whom he impressed with so high an idea of his wisdom and goodness, that they considered him as the Messiah, and thus at length awakened in his own mind an ambition, hitherto foreign to him, of being received in that character. This is the sum of all the historical truth which he allows to be contained in the Gospels. The rest is the result of a disposition on the part of the followers of Christ, which began to manifest itself soon after his death, to glorify their deceased Master in every possible way, and especially by ascribing to him those traits of life and character which the Jews supposed from the Old Testament would be exhibited by the Messiah.

1 The term is one which plays an important part in all the more recent writers on Greek and Roman mythology. The views of the principal of themas Heyne, Voss, Buttmann, Creuzer, Hermann, Welcker-as they lie scattered through their numerous writings, are brought together and stated in a summary form by K. O. Müller; Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mytholo gie, S. 317 sq. His own theory also is developed in the above work.

2 Die Evangelische Geschichte, kritisch u. philosophisch bearbeitet von Ch. Hermann Weisse, Leipzig, 1838.-Dr. Ebrard has made the consideration of this form of the mythic system a topic of separate remark in his work, so far as its difference from that of Strauss seemed to require it.