as a counterblast to the unbelieving critical work of Strauss, the Life of
Jesus which had been _revealed_ to the faith of the blessed Anna Katharina
Emmerich.(66) How thoroughly this refuted Strauss can be seen from the
fragment issued in 1834, “The Bitter Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ,”
where even the age of Jesus on the day of His death is exactly given. On
that Maundy Thursday the 13th Nisan, it was exactly thirty‐three years and
eighteen weeks less one day. The “pilgrim” Clement Brentano would
certainly have consented, had he been asked, to allow his note‐books to be
used in the sacred cause, and to have given to the world the Life of Jesus
as it was revealed to him by this visionary from the end of July 1820 day
by day for three years, instead of allowing this treasure to remain hidden
for more than twenty years longer. He himself ascribed to these visions
the most strictly historical character, and insisted on considering them
not merely as reflections on what had happened, but as the immediate
reflex of the facts themselves, so that the picture of the life of Jesus
is given in them as in a mirror. Hug, it may be mentioned, in his
lectures, called attention to the exact agreement of the topography of the
passion story in Katharina’s vision with the description of the locality
in Josephus. If he had known her complete Life of Jesus he would doubtless
have expressed his admiration for the way in which she harmonises John and
the Synoptists; and with justice, for the harmony is really ingenious and
skilfully planned.
Apart from these merits, too, this Life of Jesus, written, it should be
observed, earlier than Strauss’s, contains a wealth of interesting
information. John at first baptized at Aenon, but later was directed to
remove to Jericho. The baptisms took place in “baptismal springs.”
Peter owned three boats, of which one was fitted up especially for the use
of Jesus, and carried a complement of ten persons. Forward and aft there
were covered‐in spaces where all kinds of gear could be kept, and where
also they could wash their feet; along the sides of the boat were hung
receptacles for the fish.
When Judas Iscariot became a disciple of Jesus he was twenty‐five years
old. He had black hair and a red beard, but could not be called really
ugly. He had had a stormy past. His mother had been a dancing‐woman, and
Judas had been born out of wedlock, his father being a military tribune in
Damascus. As an infant he had been exposed, but had been saved, and later
had been taken charge of by his uncle, a tanner at Iscariot. At the time
when he joined the company of Jesus’ disciples he had squandered all his
possessions. The disciples at first liked him well enough because of his
readiness to make himself useful; he even cleaned the shoes.
The fish with the _stater_ in its mouth was so large that it made a full
meal for the whole company.
A work to which Jesus devoted special attention—though this is not
mentioned in the Gospels—was the reconciliation of unhappy married
couples. Another matter which is not mentioned in the Gospels is the
voyage of Jesus to Cyprus, upon which He entered after a farewell meal
with His disciples at the house of the Canaanitish woman. This voyage took
place during the war between Herod and Aretas while the disciples were
making their missionary journey in Palestine. As they could not give an
eyewitness report of it they were silent; nor did they make any mention of
the feast to which the Proconsul at Salamis invited the Saviour. In regard
to another journey, also, which Jesus made to the land of the wise men of
the East, the “pilgrim’s” oracle has the advantage of knowing more than
the Evangelists.
In spite of these additional traits a certain monotony is caused by the
fact that the visionary, in order to fill in the tale of days in the three
years, makes the persons known to us from the Gospel history meet with the
Saviour on several occasions previous to the meeting narrated in the
Gospels. Here the artificial character of the composition comes out too
clearly, though in general a lively imagination tends to conceal this. And
yet these naïve embellishments and inventions have something rather
attractive about them; one cannot handle the book without a certain
reverence when one thinks amid what pains these revelations were received.
If Brentano had published his notes at the time of the excitement produced
by Strauss’s Life of Jesus, the work would have had a tremendous success.
As it was, when the first two volumes appeared at the end of the ’fifties,
there were sold in one year three thousand and several hundred copies,
without reckoning the French edition which appeared contemporaneously.
In the end, however, all the efforts of the mediating theology, of
rationalism and supernaturalism, could do nothing to shake Strauss’s
conclusion that it was all over with supernaturalism as a factor to be
reckoned with in the historical study of the Life of Jesus, and that
scientific theology, instead of turning back from rationalism to
supernaturalism, must move straight onward between the two and seek out a
new path for itself. The Hegelian method had proved itself to be the logic
of reality. With Strauss begins the period of the non‐miraculous view of
the Life of Jesus; all other views exhausted themselves in the struggle
against him, and subsequently abandoned position after position without
waiting to be attacked. The separation which Hengstenberg had hailed with
such rejoicing was really accomplished; but in the form that
supernaturalism practically separated itself from the serious study of
history. It is not possible to date the stages of this process. After the
first outburst of excitement everything seems to go on as quietly as
before; the only difference is that the question of miracle constantly
falls more and more into the background. In the modern period of the study
of the Life of Jesus, which begins about the middle of the ’sixties, it
has lost all importance.
That does not mean that the problem of miracle is solved. From the
historical point of view it is really impossible to solve it, since we are
not able to reconstruct the process by which a series of miracle stories
arose, or a series of historical occurrences were transformed into miracle
stories, and these narratives must simply be left with a question mark
standing against them. What has been gained is only that the exclusion of
miracle from our view of history has been universally recognised as a
principle of criticism, so that miracle no longer concerns the historian
either positively or negatively. Scientific theologians of the present day
who desire to show their “sensibility,” ask no more than that two or three
little miracles may be left to them—in the stories of the childhood,
perhaps, or in the narratives of the resurrection. And these miracles are,
moreover, so far scientific that they have at least no relation to those
in the text, but are merely spiritless, miserable little toy‐dogs of
criticism, flea‐bitten by rationalism, too insignificant to do historical
science any harm, especially as their owners honestly pay the tax upon
them by the way in which they speak, write, and are silent about Strauss.
But even that is better than the delusive fashion in which some writers of
the present day succeed in discussing the narratives of the resurrection
“as pure historians” without betraying by a single word whether they
themselves believe it to be possible or not. But the reason modern
theology can allow itself these liberties is that the foundation laid by
Strauss is unshakable.
Compared with the problem of miracle, the question regarding the mythical
explanation of the history takes a very subordinate place in the
controversy. Few understood what Strauss’s real meaning was; the general
impression was that he entirely dissolved the life of Jesus into myth.
There appeared, indeed, three satires ridiculing his method. One showed
how, for the historical science of the future, the life of Luther would
also become a mere myth,(67) the second treated the life of Napoleon in
the same way;(68) in the third, Strauss himself becomes a myth.(69)
M. Eugène Mussard, “candidat au saint ministère,” made it his business to
set at rest the minds of the premier faculty at Geneva by his thesis, _Du
système mythique appliqué à l’histoire de la vie de Jésus_, 1838, which
bears the ingenious motto οὐ σεσοφισμένοις μύθοις (not ... in cunningly
devised myths, 2 Peter i. 16). He certainly did not exaggerate the
difficulties of his task, but complacently followed up an “Exposition of
the Mythical Theory,” with a “Refutation of the Mythical Theory as applied
to the Life of Jesus.”
The only writer who really faced the problem in the form in which it had
been raised by Strauss was Wilke in his work “Tradition and Myth.”(70) He
recognises that Strauss had given an exceedingly valuable impulse towards
the overcoming of rationalism and supernaturalism and to the rejection of
the abortive mediating theology. “A keener criticism will only establish
the truth of the Gospel, putting what is tenable on a firmer basis,
sifting out what is untenable, and showing up in all its nakedness the
counterfeit theology of the new evangelicalism with its utter lack of
understanding and sincerity.” Again, “the approval which Strauss has met
with, and the excitement which he has aroused, sufficiently show what an
advantage rationalistic speculation possesses over the theological second‐
childishness of the new evangelicals.” The time has come for a rational
mysticism, which shall preserve undiminished the honesty of the old
rationalism, making no concessions to supernaturalism, but, on the other
hand, overcoming the “truculent rationalism of the Kantian criticism” by
means of a religious conception in which there is more warmth and more
pious feeling.
This rational mysticism makes it a reproach against the “mythical
idealism” of Strauss that in it philosophy does violence to history, and
the historic Christ only retains His significance as a mere ideal. A new
examination of the sources is necessary to decide upon the extent of the
mythical element.
The Gospel of Matthew cannot, Wilke agrees, have been the work of an
eyewitness. “The principal argument against its authenticity is the
absence of the characteristic marks of an eyewitness, which must
necessarily have been present in a gospel actually composed by a disciple
of the Lord, and which are not present here. The narrative is lacking in
precision, fragmentary and legendary, tradition everywhere manifest in its
very form.” There are discrepancies in the legends of the first and second
chapters, as well as elsewhere, _e.g._ the stories of the baptism, the
temptation, and the transfiguration. In other cases, where there is a
basis of historic fact, there is an admixture of legendary material, as in
the narratives of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In the Gospel of Mark, Wilke recognises the pictorial vividness of many of
the descriptions, and conjectures that in some way or other it goes back
to the Petrine tradition. The author of the Fourth Gospel is not an
eyewitness; the κατά (according to) only indicates the origin of the
tradition; the author received it, either directly or indirectly, from the
Apostle, but he gave to it the gnosticising dialectical form of the
Alexandrian theology.
As against the _Diegesentheorie_(71) Wilke defends the independence and
originality of the individual Gospels. “No one of the Evangelists knew the
writing of any of the others, each produced an independent work drawn from
a separate source.”
In the remarks on points of detail in this work of Wilke’s there is
evidence of a remarkable grasp of the critical data; we already get a hint
of the “mathematician” of the Synoptic problem, who, two years later, was
to work out convincingly the literary argument for the priority of Mark.
But the historian is quite subordinated to the literary critic, and, when
all is said, Wilke takes up no clearly defined position in regard to
Strauss’s main problem, as is evident from his seeking to retain, on more
or less plausible grounds, a whole series of miracles, among them the
miracle of Cana and the resurrection.
For most thinkers of that period, however, the question “myth or history”
yielded in interest to the philosophical question of the relation of the
historical Jesus to the ideal Christ. That was the second problem raised
by Strauss. Some thought to refute him by showing that his exposition of
the relation of the Jesus of history to the ideal Christ was not justified
even from the point of view of the Hegelian philosophy, arguing that the
edifice which he had raised was not in harmony with the ground‐plan of the
Hegelian speculative system. He therefore felt it necessary, in his reply
to the review in the _Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik_, to expound
“the general relationship of the Hegelian philosophy to theological
criticism,”(72) and to express in more precise form the thoughts upon
speculative and historical Christology which he had suggested at the close
of the second volume of his “Life of Jesus.”
He admits that Hegel’s philosophy is ambiguous in this matter, since it is
not clear “whether the evangelical fact as such, not indeed in its
isolation, but together with the whole series of manifestations of the
idea (of God‐manhood) in the history of the world, is the truth; or
whether the embodiment of the idea in that single fact is only a formula
of which consciousness makes use in forming its concept.” The Hegelian
“right,” he says, represented by Marheineke and Göschel, emphasises the
positive side of the master’s religious philosophy, implying that in Jesus
the idea of God‐manhood was perfectly fulfilled and in a certain sense
intelligibly realised. “If these men,” Strauss explains, “appeal to Hegel
and declare that he would not have recognised my book as an expression of
his meaning, they say nothing which is not in accordance with my own
convictions. Hegel was personally no friend to historical criticism. It
annoyed him, as it annoyed Goethe, to see the historic figures of
antiquity, on which their thoughts were accustomed lovingly to dwell,
assailed by critical doubts. Even if it was in some cases wreaths of mist
which they took for pinnacles of rock, they did not want to have this
forced upon their attention, nor to be disturbed in the illusion from
which they were conscious of receiving an elevating influence.”
But though prepared to admit that he had added to the edifice of Hegel’s
religious philosophy an annexe of historical criticism, of which the
master would hardly have approved, Strauss is convinced that he is the
only logical representative of Hegel’s essential view. “The question which
can be decided from the standpoint of the philosophy of religion is not
whether what is narrated in the Gospels actually happened or not, but
whether in view of the truth of certain conceptions it must necessarily
have happened. And in regard to this, what I assert is that from the
general system of the Hegelian philosophy it by no means necessarily
follows that such an event must have happened, but that from the
standpoint of the system the truth of that history from which actually the
conception arose is reduced to a matter of indifference; it may have
happened, but it may just as well not have happened, and the task of
deciding on this point may be calmly handed over to historical criticism.”
Strauss reminds us that, even according to Hegel, the belief in Jesus as
God‐made‐man is not immediately given with His appearing in the world of
sense, but only arose after His death and the removal of His sensible
presence. The master himself had acknowledged the existence of mythical
elements in the Life of Jesus; in regard to miracle he had expressed the
opinion that the true miracle was “Spirit.” The conception of the
resurrection and ascension as outward facts of sense was not recognised by
him as true.
Hegel’s authority may, no doubt, fairly be appealed to by those who
believe, not only in an incarnation of God in a general sense, “but also
that this manifestation of God in flesh has taken place in this man
(Jesus) at this definite time and place.”... “In making the assertion,”
concludes Strauss, “that the truth of the Gospel narrative cannot be
proved, whether in whole or in part, from philosophical considerations,
but that the task of inquiring into its truth must be left to historical
criticism, I should like to associate myself with the ‘left wing’ of the
Hegelian school, were it not that the Hegelians prefer to exclude me
altogether from their borders, and to throw me into the arms of other
systems of thought—only, it must be admitted, to have me tossed back to
them like a ball.”
In regard to the third problem which Strauss had offered for discussion,
the relation of the Synoptists to John, there was practically no response.
The only one of his critics who understood what was at stake was
Hengstenberg. He alone perceived the significance of the fact that
critical theology, having admitted mythical elements first in the Old
Testament, and then in the beginning and end of the Gospel history, and
having, in consequence of the latter admission, felt obliged to give up
the first three Gospels, retaining only the fourth, was now being besieged
by Strauss in its last stronghold. “They withdrew,” says the _Evangelische
Kirchenzeitung_, “into the Gospel of John as into a fortress, and boasted
that they were safe there, though they could not suppress a secret
consciousness that they only held it at the enemy’s pleasure; now the
enemy has appeared before it; he is using the same weapons with which he
was formerly victorious; the Gospel of John is in as desperate case as
formerly the Synoptists. The time has come to make a bold resolve, a
decisive choice; either they must give up everything, or else they must
successively re‐occupy the more advanced positions which at an earlier
date they had successively abandoned.” It would be impossible to give a
more accurate picture of the desperate position into which Hase and
Schleiermacher had brought the mediating theology by their ingenious
expedient of giving up the Synoptics in favour of the Gospel of John.
Before any danger threatened, they had abandoned the outworks and
withdrawn into the citadel, oblivious of the fact that they thereby
exposed themselves to the danger of having their own guns turned upon them
from the positions they had abandoned, and being obliged to surrender
without striking a blow the position of which they had boasted as
impregnable. It is impossible to emphasise strongly enough the fact that
it was not Strauss, but Hase and Schleiermacher, who had brought the
mediating theology into this hopeless position, in which the fall of the
Fourth Gospel carried with it the surrender of the historical tradition as
a whole.
But there is no position so desperate that theology cannot find a way out
of it. The mediating theologians simply ignored the problem which Strauss
had raised. As they had been accustomed to do before, so they continued to
do after, taking the Gospel of John as the authentic framework, and
fitting into it the sections of the Synoptic narrative wherever place
could best be found for them. The difference between the Johannine and
Synoptic representations of Jesus’ method of teaching, says Neander, is
only apparently irreconcilable, and he calls out in support of this
assertion all the reserves of old worn‐out expedients and artifices, among
others the argument that the Pauline Christology is only explicable as a
combination of the Synoptic and Johannine views. Other writers who belong
to the same apologetic school, such as Tholuck, Ebrard,(73) Wieseler,(74)
Lange,(75) and Ewald,(76) maintain the same point of view, only that their
defence is usually much less skilful.
The only writer who really in some measure enters into the difficulties is
Ammon. He, indeed, is fully conscious of the difference, and thinks we
cannot rest content with merely recognising it, but must find a solution,
even if rather a forced one, “by subordinating the indefinite
chronological data of the Synoptists, of whom, after all, only one was, or
could have been, an eyewitness, to the ordered narrative of John.” The
fourth Evangelist makes so brief a reference to the Galilaean period
because it was in accordance with his plan to give more prominence to the
discourses of Jesus in the Temple and His dialogues with the Scribes as
compared to the parables and teaching given to the people. The cleansing
of the Temple falls at the outset of Jesus’ ministry; Jesus begins His
Messianic work in Jerusalem by this action of making an end of the
unseemly chaffering in the court of the Temple. The question regarding the
relative authenticity of the reports is decisively settled by a comparison
of the two accounts of the triumphal entry, because there it is quite
evident that “Matthew, the chief authority among the Synoptists, adapts
his narrative to his special Jewish‐Messianic standpoint.” According to
Ammon’s rationalistic view, the work of Jesus consisted precisely in the
transformation of this Jewish‐Messianic idea into the conception of a
“Saviour of the world.” In this lies the explanation of the fate of Jesus:
“The mass of the Jewish people were not prepared to receive a Christ so
spiritual as Jesus was, since they were not ripe for so lofty a view of
religion.”
Ammon here turns his Kantian philosophy to account. It serves especially
to explain to him the consciousness of pre‐existence avowed by the Jesus
of the Johannine narrative as something purely human. We, too, he
explains, can “after the spirit” claim an ideal existence prior to the
spatial creation without indulging any delusion, and without, on the other
hand, thinking of a real existence. In this way Jesus is for Himself a
Biblical idea, with which He has become identified. “The purer and deeper
a man’s self‐consciousness is, the keener may his consciousness of God
become, until time disappears for him, and his partaking in the Divine
nature fills his whole soul.”
But Ammon’s support of the authenticity of John’s Gospel is, even from a
purely literary point of view, not so unreserved as in the case of the
other opponents of Strauss. In the background stands the hypothesis that
our Gospel is only a working‐over of the authentic John, a suggestion in
regard to which Ammon can claim priority, since he had made it as early as
1811,(77) nine years before the appearance of Bretschneider’s
_Probabilia_. Were it not for the ingenuous fashion in which he works the
Synoptic material into the Johannine plan, we might class him with
Alexander Schweizer and Weisse, who in a similar way seek to meet the
objections of Strauss by an elaborate theory of editing.(78)
The first stage of the discussion regarding the relation of John to the
Synoptists passed without result. The mediating theology continued to hold
its positions undisturbed—and, strangest of all, Strauss himself was eager
for a suspension of hostilities.
It is as though history took the trouble to countersign the genuineness of
the great critical discoveries by letting the discoverers themselves
attempt to cancel them. As Kant disfigures his critical idealism by making
inconsistent additions in order to refute a reviewer who had put him in
the same category with Berkeley, so Strauss inserts additions and
retractations in the third edition of his Life of Jesus in deference to
the uncritical works of Tholuck and Neander! Wilke, the only one of his
critics from whom he might have learned something, he ignores. “From the
lofty vantage ground of Tholuck’s many‐sided knowledge I have sometimes,
in spite of a slight tendency to vertigo, gained a juster point of view
from which to look at one matter or another,” is the avowal which he makes
in the preface to this ill‐starred edition.
It would, indeed, have done no harm if he had confined himself to stating
more exactly here and there the extent of the mythical element, had
increased the number of possible cures, had inclined a little less to the
negative side in examining the claims of reported facts to rank as
historical, and had been a little more circumspect in pointing out the
factors which produced the myths; the serious thing was that he now began
to hesitate in his denial of the historical character of the Fourth
Gospel—the very foundation of his critical view.
A renewed study of it, aided by De Wette’s commentary and Neander’s Life
of Jesus, had made him “doubtful about his doubts regarding the
genuineness and credibility of this Gospel.” “Not that I am convinced of
its genuineness,” he admits, “but I am no longer convinced that it is not
genuine.”