how far the anti‐rationalistic reaction had carried professedly scientific
theology in the direction of supernaturalism. Some significant symptoms
had begun to show themselves even in Hase and Schleiermacher of a tendency
towards the overcoming of rationalism by a kind of intellectual gymnastic
which ran some risk of falling into insincerity. The essential character
of this new kind of historical theology first came to light when Strauss
put it to the question, and forced it to substitute a plain yes or no for
the ambiguous phrases with which this school had only too quickly
accustomed itself to evade the difficulties of the problem of miracle. The
mottoes with which this new school of theology adorned the works which it
sent forth against the untimely troubler of their peace manifest its
complete perplexity, and display the coquettish resignation with which the
sacred learning of the time essayed to cover its nakedness, after it had
succumbed to the temptation of the serpent insincerity. Adolf Harless of
Erlangen chose the melancholy saying of Pascal: “Tout tourne bien pour les
élus, jusqu’aux obscurités de l’écriture, car ils les honorent à cause des
clartés divines qu’ils y voient; et tout tourne en mal aux reprouvés,
jusqu’aux clartés, car ils les blasphèment à cause des obscurités qu’ils
n’entendent pas.”(45)
Herr Wilhelm Hoffmann,(46) deacon at Winnenden, selected Bacon’s aphorism:
“Animus ad amplitudinem mysteriorum pro modulo suo dilatetur, non mysteria
ad angustias animi constringantur.” (Let the mind, so far as possible, be
expanded to the greatness of the mysteries, not the mysteries contracted
to the compass of the mind.)
Professor Ernst Osiander,(47) of the seminary at Maulbronn, appeals to
Cicero: “O magna vis veritatis, quae contra hominum ingenia, calliditatem,
sollertiam facillime se per ipsam defendit.” (O mighty power of truth,
which against all the ingenious devices, the craft and subtlety, of men,
easily defends itself by its own strength!)
Franz Baader, of Munich,(48) ornaments his work with the reflection: “Il
faut que les hommes soient bien loin de toi, ô Vérité! puisque tu supporte
(_sic!_) leur ignorance, leurs erreurs, et leurs crimes.” (Men must indeed
be far from thee, O Truth, since thou art able to bear with their
ignorance, their errors, and their crimes!)
Tholuck(49) girds himself with the Catholic maxim of Vincent of Lerins:
“Teneamus quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est.” (Let us
hold that which has been believed always, everywhere, by all.)
The fear of Strauss had, indeed, a tendency to inspire Protestant
theologians with catholicising ideas. One of the most competent reviewers
of his book, Dr. Ullmann in the _Studien und Kritiken_, had expressed the
wish that it had been written in Latin to prevent its doing harm among the
people.(50) An anonymous dialogue of the period shows us the schoolmaster
coming in distress to the clergyman. He has allowed himself to be
persuaded into reading the book by his acquaintance the Major, and he is
now anxious to get rid of the doubts which it has aroused in him. When his
cure has been safely accomplished, the reverend gentleman dismisses him
with the following exhortation: “Now I hope that after the experience
which you have had you will for the future refrain from reading books of
this kind, which are not written for you, and of which there is no
necessity for you to take any notice; and for the refutation of which,
should that be needful, you have no equipment. You may be quite sure that
anything useful or profitable for you which such books may contain will
reach you in due course through the proper channel and in the right way,
and, that being so, you are under no necessity to jeopardise any part of
your peace of mind.”
Tholuck’s work professedly aims only at presenting a “historical argument
for the credibility of the miracle stories of the Gospels.” “Even if we
admit,” he says in one place, “the scientific position that no act can
have proceeded from Christ which transcends the laws of nature, there is
still room for the mediating view of Christ’s miracle‐working activity.
This leads us to think of mysterious powers of nature as operating in the
history of Christ—powers such as we have some partial knowledge of, as,
for example, those magnetic powers which have survived down to our own
time, like ghosts lingering on after the coming of day.” From the
standpoint of this spurious rationalism he proceeds to take Strauss to
task for rejecting the miracles. “Had this latest critic been able to
approach the Gospel miracles without prejudice, in the Spirit of
Augustine’s declaration, ‘dandum est deo, eum aliquid facere posse quod
nos investigare non possumus,’ he would certainly—since he is a man who in
addition to the acumen of the scholar possesses sound common sense—have
come to a different conclusion in regard to these difficulties. As it is,
however, he has approached the Gospels with the conviction that miracles
are impossible; and on that assumption, it was certain before the argument
began that the Evangelists were either deceivers or deceived.”
Neander, in his Life of Jesus,(51) handles the question with more delicacy
of touch, rather in the style of Schleiermacher. “Christ’s miracles,” he
explains, “are to be understood as an influencing of nature, human or
material.” He does not, however, give so much prominence as Schleiermacher
had done to the difficulty involved in the supposition of an influence
exercised upon material nature. He repeats Schleiermacher’s assertions,
but without the imposing dialectic which in Schleiermacher’s hands almost
commands assent. In regard to the miracle at Cana he remarks: “We cannot
indeed form any clear conception of an effect brought about by the
introduction of a higher creative principle into the natural order, since
we have no experience on which to base such a conception, but we are by no
means compelled to take this extreme view as to what happened; we may
quite well suppose that Christ by an immediate influence upon the water
communicated to it a higher potency which enabled it to produce the
effects of strong wine.” In the case of all the miracles he makes a point
of seeking not only the explanation, but the higher symbolical
significance. The miracle of the fig‐tree—which is _sui generis_—has only
this symbolical significance, seeing that it is not beneficent and
creative but destructive. “It can only be thought of as a vivid
illustration of a prediction of the Divine judgment, after the manner of
the symbolic actions of the Old Testament prophets.”
With reference to the ascension and the resurrection he writes: “Even
though we can form no clear idea of the exact way in which the exaltation
of Christ from the earth took place—and indeed there is much that is
obscure in regard to the earthly life of Christ after His
resurrection—yet, in its place in the organic unity of the Christian
faith, it is as certain as the resurrection, which apart from it cannot be
recognised in its true significance.”
That extract is typical of Neander’s Life of Jesus, which in its time was
hailed as a great achievement, calculated to provide a learned refutation
of Strauss’s criticism, and of which a seventh edition appeared as late as
1872. The real piety of heart with which it is imbued cannot conceal the
fact that it is a patchwork of unsatisfactory compromises. It is the child
of despair, and has perplexity for godfather. One cannot read it without
pain.
Neander, however, may fairly claim to be judged, not by this work, but by
his personal attitude in the Strauss controversy. And here he appears as a
magnanimous and dignified representative of theological science.
Immediately after the appearance of Strauss’s book, which, it was at once
seen, would cause much offence, the Prussian Government asked Neander to
report upon it, with a view to prohibiting the circulation, should there
appear to be grounds for doing so. He presented his report on the 15th of
November 1835, and, an inaccurate account of it having appeared in the
_Allgemeine Zeitung_, subsequently published it.(52) In it he censures the
work as being written from a too purely rationalistic point of view, but
strongly urges the Government not to suppress it by an edict. He describes
it as “a book which, it must be admitted, constitutes a danger to the
sacred interests of the Church, but which follows the method of
endeavouring to produce a reasoned conviction by means of argument. Hence
any other method of dealing with it than by meeting argument with argument
will appear in the unfavourable light of an arbitrary interference with
the freedom of science.”
In holding that scientific theology will be able by its own strength to
overthrow whatever in Strauss’s Life of Jesus deserves to be overthrown,
Neander is at one with the anonymous writer of “Aphorisms in Defence of
Dr. Strauss and his Work,”(53) who consoles himself with Goethe’s saying—
Das Tüchtige, auch wenn es falsch ist,
Wirkt Tag für Tag, von Haus zu Haus;
Das Tüchtige, wenn’s wahrhaftig ist,
Wirkt über alle Zeiten hinaus.(54)
(Strive hard, and though your aim be wrong,
Your work shall live its little day;
Strive hard, and for the truth be strong,
Your work shall live and grow for aye.)
“Dr. Strauss,” says this anonymous writer, “does not represent the
author’s views, and he on his part cannot undertake to defend Dr.
Strauss’s conclusions. But it is clear to him that Dr. Strauss’s work
considered as a scientific production is more scientific than the works
opposed to it from the side of religion are religious. Otherwise why are
they so passionate, so apprehensive, so unjust?”
This confidence in pure critical science was not shared by Herr Privat‐
Docent Daniel Schenkel of Basle, afterwards Professor at Heidelberg. In a
dreary work dedicated to his Göttingen teacher Lücke, on “Historical
Science and the Church,”(55) he looks for future salvation towards that
middle region where faith and science interpenetrate, and hails the new
supernaturalism which approximates to a scientific treatment of these
subjects “as a hopeful phenomenon.” He rejoices in the violent opposition
at Zurich which led to the cancelling of Strauss’s appointment, regarding
it as likely to exercise an elevating influence. A similarly lofty
position is taken up by the anonymous author of “Dr. Strauss and the
Zurich Church,”(56) to which De Wette contributed a preface. Though
professing great esteem for Strauss, and admitting that from the purely
historical point of view he is in the right, the author feels bound to
congratulate the Zurichers on having refused to admit him to the office of
teacher.
The pure rationalists found it much more difficult than did the mediating
theologians, whether of the older or younger school, to adjust their
attitude to the new solution of the miracle question. Strauss himself had
made it difficult for them by remorselessly exposing the absurd and
ridiculous aspects of their method, and by refusing to recognise them as
allies in the battle for truth, as they really were. Paulus would have
been justified in bearing him a grudge. But the inner greatness of that
man of hard exterior comes out in the fact that he put his personal
feelings in the background, and when Strauss became the central figure in
the battle for the purity and freedom of historical science he ignored his
attacks on rationalism and came to his defence. In a very remarkable
letter to the Free Canton of Zurich, on “Freedom in Theological Teaching
and in the Choice of Teachers for Colleges,”(57) he urges the council and
the people to appoint Strauss because of the principle at stake, and in
order to avoid giving any encouragement to the retrograde movement in
historical science. It is as though he felt that the end of rationalism
had come, but that, in the person of the enemy who had defeated it, the
pure love of truth, which was the only thing that really mattered, would
triumph over all the forces of reaction.
It would not, however, be true to say that Strauss had beaten rationalism
from the field. In Ammon’s famous Life of Jesus,(58) in which the author
takes up a very respectful attitude towards Strauss, there is a vigorous
survival of a peculiar kind of rationalism inspired by Kant. For Ammon, a
miraculous event can only exist when its natural causes have been
discovered. “The sacred history is subject to the same laws as all other
narratives of antiquity.” Lücke, in dealing with the raising of Lazarus,
had thrown out the question whether Biblical miracles could be thought of
historically at all, and in so doing supposed that he was putting their
absolute character on a firmer basis. “We,” says Ammon, “give the opposite
answer from that which is expected; only historically conceivable miracles
can be admitted.” He cannot away with the constant confusion of faith and
knowledge found in so many writers “who swim in an ocean of ideas in which
the real and the illusory are as inseparable as salt and sea‐water in the
actual ocean.” In every natural process, he explains, we have to suppose,
according to Kant, an interpenetration of natural and supernatural. For
that very reason the purely supernatural does not exist for our
experience. “It is no doubt certain,” so he lays it down on the lines of
Kant’s _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_, “that every act of causation which
goes forth from God must be immediate, universal, and eternal, because it
is thought as an effect of His will, which is exalted above space and time
and interpenetrates both of them, but without abolishing them, leaving
them undisturbed in their continuity and succession. For us men,
therefore, all action of God is mediate, because we are completely
surrounded by time and space, as the fish is by the sea or the bird by the
air, and apart from these relations we should be incapable of
apperception, and therefore of any real experience. As free beings we can,
indeed, think of miracle as immediately Divine, but we cannot perceive it
as such, because that would be impossible without seeing God, which for
wise reasons is forbidden to us.” “In accordance with these principles, we
shall hold it to be our duty in what follows to call attention to the
natural side even of the miracles of Jesus, since apart from this no fact
can become an object of belief.”
It is only in this intelligible sense that the cures of Jesus are to be
thought of as “miracles.” The magnetic force, with which the mediating
theology makes play, is to be rejected. “The cure of psychical diseases by
the power of the word and of faith is the only kind of cure in which the
student of natural science can find any basis for a conjecture regarding
the way in which the cures of Jesus were effected.”
In the case of the other miracles Ammon assumes a kind of Occasionalism,
in the sense that it may have pleased the Divine Providence “to fulfil in
fact the confidently spoken promises of Jesus, and in that way to confirm
His personal authority, which was necessary to the establishment of His
doctrine of the Divine salvation.”
In most cases, however, he is content to repeat the rationalistic
explanation, and portrays a Jesus who makes use of medicines, allows the
demoniac himself to rush upon the herd of swine, helps a leper, whom he
sees to be suffering only from one of the milder forms of the disease, to
secure the public recognition of his being legally clean, and who exerts
himself to prevent by word and act the premature burial of persons in a
state of trance. The story of the feeding of the multitude is based on
some occasion when there was “a bountiful display of hospitality, a
generous sharing of provisions, inspired by Jesus’ prayer of thanksgiving
and the example which He set when the disciples were inclined selfishly to
hold back their own supply.” The story of the miracle at Cana rests on a
mere misunderstanding, those who report it not having known that the wine
which Jesus caused to be secretly brought forth was the wedding‐gift which
he was presenting in the name of the family. As a disciple of Kant,
however, Ammon feels obliged to refute the imputation that Jesus could
have done anything to promote excess, and calculates that the present of
wine which Jesus had intended to give the bridal pair may be estimated as
equivalent to not more than eighteen bottles.(59) He explains the walking
on the sea by claiming for Jesus an acquaintance with “the art of treading
water.”
Only in regard to the explanation of the resurrection does Ammon break
away from rationalism. He decides that the reality of the death of Jesus
is historically proved. But he does not venture to suppose a real
reawakening to life, and remains at the standpoint of Herder.
But the way in which, in spite of the deeper view of the conception of
miracle which he owes to Kant, he constantly falls back upon the most
pedestrian naturalistic explanations, and his failure to rid himself of
the prejudice that an actual, even if not a miraculous fact must underlie
all the recorded miracles, is in itself sufficient to prove that we have
here to do with a mere revival of rationalism: that is, with an untenable
theory which Strauss’s refutation of Paulus had already relegated to the
past.
It was an easier task for pure supernaturalism than for pure rationalism
to come to terms with Strauss. For the former Strauss was only the enemy
of the mediating theology—there was nothing to fear from him and much to
gain. Accordingly Hengstenberg’s _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_ hailed
Strauss’s book as “one of the most gratifying phenomena in the domain of
recent theological literature,” and praises the author for having carried
out with logical consistency the application of the mythical theory which
had formerly been restricted to the Old Testament and certain parts only
of the Gospel tradition. “All that Strauss has done is to bring the spirit
of the age to a clear consciousness of itself and of the necessary
consequences which flow from its essential character. He has taught it how
to get rid of foreign elements which were still present in it, and which
marked an imperfect stage of its development.”
He has been the most influential factor in the necessary process of
separation. There is no one with whom Hengstenberg feels himself more in
agreement than with the Tübingen scholar. Had he not shown with the
greatest precision how the results of the Hegelian philosophy, one may
say, of philosophy in general, reacted upon Christian faith? “The relation
of speculation to faith has now come clearly to light.”
“Two nations,” writes Hengstenberg in 1836, “are struggling in the womb of
our time, and two only. They will be ever more definitely opposed to one
another. Unbelief will more and more cast off the elements of faith to
which it still clings, and faith will cast off its elements of unbelief.
That will be an inestimable advantage. Had the Time‐spirit continued to
make concessions, concessions would constantly have been made to it in
return.” Therefore the man who “calmly and deliberately laid hands upon
the Lord’s anointed, undeterred by the vision of the millions who have
bowed the knee, and still bow the knee, before His appearing,” has in his
own way done a service.
Strauss on his part escaped with relief from the musty atmosphere of the
study—beloved by theology in carpet‐slippers—to the bracing air of
Hengstenberg’s _Kirchenzeitung_. In his “Replies” he devotes to it some
fifty‐four pages. “I must admit,” he says, “that it is a satisfaction to
me to have to do with the _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_. In dealing with
it one knows where one is and what one has to expect. If Herr Hengstenberg
condemns, he knows why he condemns, and even one against whom he launches
his anathema must admit that the attitude becomes him. Any one who, like
the editor of the _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_, has taken upon him the
yoke of confessional doctrine with all its implications, has paid a price
which entitles him to the privilege of condemning those who differ from
his opinions.”(60)
Hengstenberg’s only complaint against Strauss is that he does not go far
enough. He would have liked to force upon him the rôle of the Wolfenbüttel
Fragmentist, and considers that if Strauss did not, like the latter, go so
far as to suppose the apostles guilty of deliberate deceit, that is not so
much from any regard for the historical kernel of Christianity as in order
to mask his attack.
Even in Catholic theology Strauss’s work caused a great sensation.
Catholic theology in general did not at that time take up an attitude of
absolute isolation from Protestant scholarship; it had adopted from the
latter numerous rationalistic ideas, and had been especially influenced by
Schleiermacher. Thus, Catholic scholars were almost prepared to regard
Strauss as a common enemy, against whom it was possible to make common
cause with Protestants. In 1837 Joseph Mack, one of the Professors of the
Catholic faculty at Tübingen, published his “Report on Herr Dr. Strauss’s
Historical Study of the Life of Jesus.”(61) In 1839 appeared “Dr.
Strauss’s Life of Jesus, considered from the Catholic point of view,”(62)
by Dr. Maurus Hagel, Professor of Theology at the Lyceum at Dillingen; in
1840 that lover of hypotheses and doughty fighter, Johann Leonhard
Hug,(63) presented his report upon the work.(64)
Even French Catholicism gave some attention to Strauss’s work. This marks
an epoch—the introduction of the knowledge of German critical theology
into the intellectual world of the Latin nations. In the _Revue des deux
mondes_ for December 1838, Edgar Quinet gave a clear and accurate account
of the influence of the Hegelian philosophy upon the religious ideas of
cultured Germany.(65) In an eloquent peroration he lays bare the danger
which was menacing the Church from the nation of Strauss and Hegel. His
countrymen need not think that it could be charmed away by some ingenious
formula; a mighty effort of the Catholic spirit was necessary, if it was
to be successfully opposed. “A new barbarian invasion was rolling up
against sacred Rome. The barbarians were streaming from every quarter of
the horizon, bringing their strange gods with them and preparing to
beleaguer the holy city. As, of yore, Leo went forth to meet Attila, so
now let the Papacy put on its purple and come forth, while yet there is
time, to wave back with an authoritative gesture the devastating hordes
into that moral wilderness which is their native home.”