THE REACTION PRODUCED BY STRAUSS' LIFE OF JESUS.
1835-1848.
It is related of Apelles, that, after finishing his pictures, he was in
the habit of hanging them in front of his studio and then of concealing
himself in order to hear unseen the criticisms of the passers-by. On one
occasion, when a new picture was thus exposed to public inspection, a
shoemaker stopped before it and observed that something was wrong about
a sandal. After he had gone Apelles saw the justice of the objection and
corrected the fault. The next day, when the shoemaker was passing again
and saw that much importance had been attached to his opinion, he
ventured to criticise a leg, but Apelles rushed out from behind the
curtain, and, charging him with being hypercritical, told him that for
the future he would do better to keep to his trade. The circumstance
gave rise to the Roman proverb--"Ne sutor ultra crepidam."
The day was now near at hand when the criticism of the Scriptures, as
conducted by the Rationalists, would go quite beyond the province of
their authority and the bounds of moderation. When we read the cold,
deliberate chapters of Ammon, Eichhorn, and Michaelis, we unconsciously
identify ourselves with their generation, and exclaim, "Surely there
will never be a step beyond this; the knife can have no edge for a
deeper incision." As Neander toiled in his study, digging up the buried
treasures of the past and enriching them with the John-like purity of
his own heart in order that he might faithfully interpret the divine
guidance of the church, he no doubt rejoiced in the conviction that the
Rationalists had achieved their last great success, and that the work
before him and those who believed as he did was to be henceforth more
constructive than controversial. His co-workers were few in number, but
they had pleasing indications in many quarters that their labors would
have a triumphant issue.
It was very evident that, though there was a general rejection of the
doctrine of inspiration in that elevated sense which it is the glory of
the American church to entertain, there were great numbers who had
become as captivated with Schleiermacher's word, _feeling_, as if it had
been a harp-note from heaven. The people had thought so little about
their own hearts within the last half century that they seemed to have
forgotten their stewardship of the treasure. The whole land had been
converted into a colossal thinking machine. And when the German people
were told by a stentorian voice that man is emotional as well as
intellectual they arose as from a long stupefaction. So, when
Schleiermacher died in 1834, there were many who said with unfeigned
gratitude, "He is gone, but sweet be his sleep, for he has told us that
we have heart and soul."
Three years before Schleiermacher's death the spirit of Hegel had taken
its departure. These were the two men who, though dead, were now
speaking more authoritatively to the German mind than all others.
Schleiermacher was represented by men more orthodox than himself, who
gave every assurance of leaving the world far better than they had found
it. Hegel had taught too long and thoroughly to be without influence
after his eyes had ceased to look upon his entranced auditors at Berlin.
It was not long after his death that his favorite theory of antagonisms
had a literal fulfillment in the course adopted by the adherents to his
opinions. His most ardent disciples found it difficult to tell what he
had believed definitely, so varied are the expressions of his views in
the eighteen volumes of his works. Even the same book was interpreted
differently. His _Philosophy of Religion_ was twice edited, first in a
conservative sense by Marheineke, and afterward in a revolutionary light
by Bruno Bauer.[62] Some passages in his _History of Philosophy_ were
written in defense of pantheism, while his later views have been brought
forth in proof of his opposition to that error. Thus variously
interpreted, and yet powerful in his hold upon the intellectual classes
of Germany, it was impossible for his disciples to live in harmony. The
chief points at issue were the personality of God, the immortality of
the soul, and the person of Christ. Either side might be taken and the
position defended by the master's own words. The result of this
diversity of interpretation was a schism. Hegel's school was divided,
after the model of the French Chambers, into three sections--the Right,
the Centre, the Left. The Right asserted the orthodoxy of the Hegelian
philosophy; the Centre held a position corresponding to their name; and
the Left were unmitigated Rationalists. The last group were true to the
skepticism inherited from their predecessors, and were radicals in
church and state. They rejected the personality of God, a future life,
and the credibility of the Gospel narratives.
Strauss was a Left Hegelian, and his _Life of Jesus_ became the creed of
his brethren in doubt. He was not in perfect harmony with all their
extremes, but he co-operated with them, and gave them their chief glory.
The world has seldom seen a literary venture more remarkable in contents
or in history than this meteor across the firmament of German theology.
To say that it was unexpected is but a faint expression of the universal
surprise occasioned by it. The Left Hegelians were a limited school and
the current of theological thought had been against them. Therefore,
when the _Life of Jesus_ appeared, it was a bold thrust from an arm
thought to possess but little strength. The author, David Frederic
Strauss, was a young lecturer on theology in the University of Tübingen.
He had experienced the several shades of opinion prevalent during his
student life. Beginning with the Romantic School, lingering awhile with
Schleiermacher, and finally passing through the gate Beautiful of
Hegel's system, he tarried with that master as "lord of the hill." His
stay was not brief, like that of Bunyan's pilgrim. But satisfied only by
making greater progress, the philosophy of the great thinker became his
Delectable Mountains, "beautiful with woods, vineyards, fruits of all
sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to
behold."
Strauss was but twenty-eight years old when his cold, passionless, and
pungent piece of skeptical mechanism was presented to the world. Who
would suspect that quiet young man of possessing so much power over the
minds of his countrymen? M. Quinet, speaking of a visit to him, said,
"Beneath this mask of fatalism I find in him a young man full of
candor, of sweetness and modesty; of a spirit almost mystical, and
apparently saddened by the disturbance which he had occasioned." His
book produced a universal impression in Europe. It was, to the moral
sentiment of Christendom, the earthquake shock of the nineteenth
century. Having been multiplied in cheap editions, it was read by
students in every university and gymnasium, by passengers on the Rhine
boats and in the mountain stages, and by a great number of private
families. Even school children, imitating the example of their seniors,
spent their leisure hours in its perusal. The most obscure provincial
papers contained copious extracts from it, and vied with each other in
defending or opposing its positions. Crossing the German frontier, it
was published in complete and abridged forms in all the principal
languages of Europe. Even staid Scotland, unable to escape the
contagion, issued a popular edition of the exciting work.
Nor were the views advanced by Strauss in his _Life of Jesus_ less
extraordinary than its very flattering reception. He was diametrically
opposed to Neander in the latter's estimate of the ideal and historical.
According to Strauss the idea is the very soul of all that is valuable
in the past; and history is the gross crust which envelops it. What is
history in its early stages but so many faint legends? Happy are we if,
within them, we can discover the seed-truth. The same neglect of the
movements of history in their outward form led Strauss into still
another tendency which proved to be in direct conflict with Neander. The
latter, as we have seen, was devoted to his theory of the importance and
power of personality in history. But Strauss rejected it as of small
moment. He attached great importance to the issue involved, but
regarded the persons engaged in bringing it to pass as mere machinery.
This contempt of the historical and the personal is the key to Strauss'
work. The church, when it continued faithful, had always looked to the
Gospels as the Holy Sepulchre of its faith, and was ever ready to make a
crusade against the power which would wrest it from her grasp. But, amid
the conflicts occasioned by the growth of the destructive criticism, the
Gospels had received at its hands a treatment no less severe than had
been inflicted upon the history of the Old Testament. Many theories had
already been propounded by the Rationalists in order to account for
them, but there was no general harmony among these men either on this or
any subject of speculation. Wetstein, Michaelis, and Eichhorn were
agreed that the Gospels were more human than divine, and the fate to
which all the inspired records were consigned by those critics and their
sympathizers has its analogy in the treatment bestowed by vultures upon
the carcass of the exhausted beast that has fallen by the wayside. But,
after all, the accounts of the Evangelists had suffered less severely
than any other part of the Scriptures, and the injury they had sustained
was owing more to the attacks made on the historical and prophetical
portions of the Old Testament than to any immediate invasion. For the
Bible is a unity. If but one book be mutilated the whole organism is
disturbed.
The contest having been hitherto connected with other features of
revelation more than with the person of Christ, it was no part of the
design of the Rationalists to submit without staking a great battle upon
the incarnation of the Messiah. Let them succeed here, and they can
rebuild more firmly all they have lost, but if they fail, they will only
bring to a more speedy ruin an edifice already in decay. Strauss
undertook the work; and having written for the learned alone, no one was
more surprised than himself at the popular success of the _Life of
Jesus_.
According to him, the explanation of the mysterious accounts of Jesus of
Nazareth can be found in the theory of the myth. Strauss held that the
Holy Land was full of notions concerning his speedy appearance. The
people were waiting for him, and were ready to hail his incarnation with
rapture. Their opinions concerning him were already formed, owing to the
expectations they had inherited from their fathers. Therefore, any one
who answered their views would be the Messiah. There was much in both
the character and life of Christ which approached their crude notions of
the promised one. For this reason their hearts went out toward him, and
they called him "Jesus." The world was already prepared, and since
Christ best fitted it, he was entitled to all the honor of being waited
for and accepted. All the prophecies of his incarnation were purely
historical events. But the Jewish mind is very visionary and prone to
allegory. Consequently, when Christ appeared among the Jews, it was not
difficult to trace a resemblance between him and other marked personages
in history.
Thus Christ did not organize the Church as much as the church created
him. He existed and lived on earth, but very different was the real
Jesus from that wonderful character described in the Gospels. The
veritable Messiah was born of humble parentage, was baptized by John,
collected a few disciples, inveighed against the Pharisees and all
others who placed themselves in antagonism to him, and finally fell a
victim to the cruelty of his foes. Years passed by after his death, and
the popular imagination went wild with reports and exaggerations of the
once obscure Nazarene. Great as the ideas of the people were before
Christ appeared, they were infinitely magnified during the lapse of the
thirty years between his death and the composition of the Gospels. These
narratives are consequently not a representation of history, but of
morbid popular fancies. The evangelists did not intend to deceive their
readers; their picturesque sketches were only designed to clothe the
ideal in the garb of the real. "Be not so unkind," Strauss says in
effect, "as to charge these poor uneducated men with evil purposes. They
were very unsophisticated, and did not know enough to have any extended
plan of trickery. They heard wonderful stories floating about, just such
as one meets with in all countries after a prominent man has died; and,
as they had a little capacity for using the pen, they wrote them down to
the best of their ability. Their writings are curious but very
defective, since the authors were too unpractised in literary work to
perfect a master-piece. How little they dreamed of the reverence which
future generations would pay them! Poor souls, they hardly knew what
they were doing. One caught one story, and his friend another; and it is
a nice bit of mosaic which we find in their school-boy productions. No
wonder their defenders are unable to harmonize their accounts. Let any
four men who live among a legend-loving people transcribe the traditions
they hear from the lips of childhood and garrulous old age, or read in
the popular romances of the day, and it will surprise no one that they
do not agree. How can they tell the same things in the same way, since
the sources of each are so different? Nor, with only myths for warp and
woof, is it at all surprising that we have nothing more than Homeric
exaggerations when the fanciful fabric is once woven."
The introduction to the _Life of Jesus_ consists of an essay on the
historical development of the mythical theory. Having stated its present
shape and great value, it is then applied to the life of Christ in the
body of the work. This is the climax of destructive criticism.
Everything which Christ is reported by the Evangelists to have said or
done shares the natural explanations of Strauss. From his very birth to
his ascension, his life is no more remarkable than that of many others
who have taken part in the public events of their times.
Beginning with the annunciation and birth of John the Baptist, Strauss
considers the apparition to Zacharias and his consequent dumbness as
actual external circumstances, susceptible of a natural interpretation.
Zacharias had a waking vision or ecstasy. Such a thing is not common,
but in the present instance, many circumstances combined to produce an
unusual state of mind. The exciting causes were, _first_, the
long-cherished desire to have a posterity; _second_, the exalted
vocation of administering in the Holy Place and offering up with the
incense the prayers of the people to the throne of Jehovah, which seemed
to Zacharias to foretoken the acceptance of his own prayer; and _third_,
perhaps an exhortation from his wife as he left his house, similar to
that of Rachel to Jacob. Gen. xxx. 1. In this highly excited state of
mind, as he prays in the dimly-lighted sanctuary, he thinks of his most
ardent wish, and expecting that now or never his prayer shall be heard,
he is prepared to discern a sign of its acceptance in the slightest
occurrence. As the glimmer of the lamp falls upon the ascending cloud
of incense, and shapes it into varying forms, the priest imagines that
he perceives the figure of an angel. The apparition at first alarms him,
but he soon regards it as an assurance from God that his prayer is
heard. No sooner does a transient doubt cross his mind, than the
sensitively pious priest looks upon himself as sinful and believes
himself reproved by the angel. Now, either an apoplectic seizure
actually deprives him of speech, which he receives as the just
punishment of his incredulity, until the excessive joy he experiences at
the circumcision of his son restores the power of utterance--so that
dumbness is retained as an external, physical, though not miraculous
occurrence--or the proceeding is psychologically understood; namely,
that Zacharias, in accordance with a Jewish superstition, for a time
denied himself the use of the offending member. Reanimated in other
respects by the extraordinary event, the priest returns home to his
wife, and she becomes a second Sarah.[63]
The original histories are adduced, and the parallels fully drawn
between them and the gospel narratives in order to show the mythical
character of the latter. The birth of John the Baptist is the mongrel
product of the Old Testament stories of the birth of Isaac, of Samson,
and of Samuel. Every event related by the evangelists is so strained as
to make it analogous to other occurrences in Jewish history. The murder
of the innocents by Herod is only a poetic plagiarism of the cruelty of
Nimrod and Pharaoh; the star which guided the shepherds, a memory of the
star promised in the prophecy of Balaam; Christ explaining the Bible
when twelve years old, a gloss upon the precocity of Moses, Samuel, and
Solomon; the increase of the loaves, a union of the manna in the
wilderness and the twenty loaves with which Elisha fed the people; water
changed into wine, a new version of the bitter waters made sweet; the
cross, a reminder of the brazen serpent; the scene in the Garden of
Gethsemane, the bloody sweat and the agony on the cross, poor copies
from the Lamentations of Jeremiah; and the two thieves, the nailed hands
and feet, the pierced side, the thirst, and the last words of Jesus, are
borrowed narratives from the sixty-ninth and twenty-second Psalms.[64]
The same mythical explanation is applied to the conception and divine
character of Jesus. By entertaining such notions of him as we find in
the gospels we display a superstition worthy of the dim days of pagan
legendry. In the world of mythology many great men had extraordinary
births, and were sons of the gods. Jesus himself spoke of his heavenly
origin, and called God his Father; besides, his title as Messiah was
"Son of God." From Matt. i. 22, it is further evident that the passage
of Isaiah vii. 14, was referred to Jesus by the early Christian church.
In conformity with this passage the belief prevailed that Jesus, as the
Messiah, should be born of a virgin by means of divine agency. It was
therefore taken for granted that what was to be actually did occur; and
thus originated a philosophical, dogmatical myth concerning the birth of
Jesus. But according to historical truth, Jesus was the offspring of an
ordinary marriage, between Joseph and Mary, which maintains at once the
dignity of Jesus and the respect due to his mother. The transfiguration
illustrates both the natural and mythical methods of interpretation. It
is a reflection of the scene which transpired on Sinai at the giving of
the law. The gospel account is an Ossianic fancy. Something merely
objective presented itself to the disciples, and this explains how an
object was perceived by several at once. They deceived themselves, when
awake, as to what they saw. That was natural, because they were all born
within the same circle of ideas, were in the same frame of mind, and in
the same situation. According to this opinion, the essential fact in the
scene on the mountain is a secret interview which Jesus had concerted,
and, with a view to which, he took with him the three most confidential
of his disciples. Paulus does not venture to determine who the two men
were with whom Jesus held this interview; Kuinöl conjectures that they
were secret adherents of the same kind as Nicodemus; and according to
Venturini, they were Essenes, secret allies of Jesus. Jesus prayed
before these arrived, and the disciples, not being invited to join,
slept. For the sleep noticed by Luke, though it were dreamless, is
gladly retained in this interpretation, since a delusion appears more
probable in the case of persons just awaking. On hearing strange voices
talking with Jesus, they awake, and see him--who probably stood on a
higher point of the mountain than they--enveloped in an unwonted
brilliancy, caused by the reflection of the sun's rays from a sheet of
snow. This light falling on Jesus is mistaken by them in the surprise of
the moment for a supernatural illumination. They perceive the two men
whom, for some unknown reasons, the drowsy Peter and the rest take for
Moses and Elias. Their astonishment increases when they see the two
strange individuals disappear in a bright morning cloud--which descends
as they are in the act of departing--and hear one of them pronounce out
of the cloud the words, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased; hear ye him." Under these circumstances they unavoidably regard
this as a voice from heaven.
The resurrection of Christ is regarded by Strauss as a psychological
necessity placed upon the disciples, first to solve the contradiction
between the ultimate fate of Jesus and their earlier opinion of him, and
second to adopt into their idea of the Messiah the characteristics of
suffering and death.
"When once the idea of a resurrection of Jesus had been formed in this
manner," says Strauss, "the great event could not have been allowed to
happen so simply, but must be surrounded and embellished with all the
pomp which the Jewish imagination furnished. The chief ornaments which
stood at command for this purpose were angels; hence these must open the
grave of Jesus; must, after he had come forth from it, keep watch in the
empty place, and deliver to the women,--who, because without doubt women
had the first visions, must be the first to go to the grave,--the
tidings of what had happened. As it was Galilee where Jesus subsequently
appeared to them, the journey of the disciples thither, which was
nothing else than their return home, somewhat hastened by fear, was
derived from the direction of an angel; nay, Jesus himself must already
before his death, and as Matthew too zealously adds, once more after the
resurrection also, have enjoined this journey on the disciples. But the
farther these narratives were propagated by tradition, the more must the
difference between the locality of the resurrection itself and that of
the appearance of the risen one be allowed to fall out of sight as
inconvenient; and since the locality of the death was not transferable,
the appearances were gradually placed in the same locality as the
resurrection,--in Jerusalem, which, as the more brilliant theatre and
the seat of the first Christian church, was especially appropriate for
them."[65]
The ascension is claimed as a myth founded upon the Old Testament
precedents of the translation of Enoch and the ascension of Elijah, and
the pagan apotheosis of Hercules and Romulus.
The last part of Strauss' work is a dissertation on the dogmatic import
of the life of Jesus. Here this merciless critic tries to prove that,
though the belief of the church concerning Christ be thus uprooted by
the theory of myths, nothing truly valuable is destroyed. He declares it
his purpose "to re-establish dogmatically that which has been destroyed
critically." He holds that all his criticism is purely independent of
Christian faith; for, "The supernatural birth of Christ, his miracles,
his resurrection and ascension, remain eternal truths, whatever doubts
may be cast on their reality as historical facts." Thus, reliance is
placed upon a difference between the import of criticism and christian
faith--which subterfuge proved a broken reed when the masses read this
mythical interpretation of the life of the Founder of Christianity. In
vain did Strauss say, in the preface to his work, that it was not
designed for the laity, and that if they read it, it must be at their
own hazard. It was published--and therefore the public had a right to
demand an examination. Let him who writes an evil thought never be
deceived by the opinion that only those will read it who cannot be
injured by it. "What is writ, is writ;" and then it is too late to wish
it "worthier."
But the most remarkable feature of the work of Strauss yet remains to be
traced. It was a compilation, and nothing more. Having ransacked every
skeptical writer on the gospel history, he published their views at
length in his _Life of Jesus_. He did not make many quotations. But the
references at the foot of almost every page declare plainly enough the
pains he took to put in force the incantation he had pronounced to all
skeptical sprites,
"Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle; ye that mingle may."
No Rationalist escaped his notice. The English Naturalists reappeared
with all their original pretensions. Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Lessing,
Kant, De Maistre, and all the representatives of skeptical thought
communed in friendly society, regardless alike of disparity in
particular opinions and of difference in the time when they flourished.
On this very account M. Quinet infers the great popularity of the
enterprise. Because it was a grouping of all heterodox doctrines of the
person of Christ, the adherents of Rationalism saw whither their
principles were leading them, and their opponents learned more of the
desperate character of their foe than they had ever acquired from all
other sources. It was a crystallization of the imputations and insults
cast upon the gospels for more than seventy-five years. Then, for the
first time, did the votaries of error, mass themselves. It was then,
too, that the evangelical school were first able to count the number of
their opponents.
The scene before the publication of the _Life of Jesus_ was quite
different from the one presented subsequently. Formerly the Rationalists
said what they chose about Christ, and they suffered little from their
rashness. But immediately after Strauss had issued his book, the
attention of the church was profoundly attracted toward the
consideration of the themes therein treated. The church seemed to say,
"Strange, that I have given so little attention to this great pillar of
Christian faith; now I see what reward I am receiving for my neglect.
The like shall never happen again. No, I will not only quench this
firebrand, but I will hurl back upon my enemies enough destructive
missiles to reduce them to a disorganized band of homeless fugitives."
This resolution was not the work of idle excitement, and soon to be
forgotten. The replies to the _Life of Jesus_ constitute a theological
literature. They were very numerous, and written from as many points of
view as there had been theological schools since the dawn of the
Reformation. The first rejoinder came from the most distinguished
theologian of Würtemberg, Steudel of Tübingen. He was superintendent of
the very school where Strauss was tutor, and his work was written but a
few weeks after the issue of the first volume of the _Life of Jesus_. It
discussed the question whether Christ's life rested on a historical or
mythical basis. The conclusion was an uncompromising decision in favor
of the former view. Steudel represented the old Lutheran orthodoxy.
We now meet with the name of Hengstenberg, whom Providence designed to
be an instrument of much good to the theology of the present day. He
proved himself an unflinching hero when he dealt his first blows from
his professor's chair in Berlin. His utterances soon acquired great
importance wherever the current controversies attracted attention. He
was the leader of the young orthodox school, and in his newly-founded
_Evangelical Church Gazette_, he pictured his times in the language of
desolation. His words were worthy of the dark days of Jeremiah.
Adopting the exclamation of that prophet, he cried aloud, "Oh that my
head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep
day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Theologians,
philosophers, and tradesmen seemed to him to be overwhelmed in
skepticism. But he had a lion's heart, and fought steadily for the
growth of the pure faith of the olden time. Nor has he grown tired of
the warfare. He appears to have been born upon the battle-field, within
sound of drum and cannon. He is as much the warrior to-day as when he
entered the lists against Strauss nearly thirty years ago. His opinion
of his great antagonist may be summed up in his own language. He says of
him that, "He has the heart of a leviathan, which is as hard as a stone
and as firm as the nether millstone; he assails the Lord's Anointed with
composure and cold-bloodedness; and not a tear of pity flows from his
eyes."
Harless and Hoffman followed in spirited criticisms on the _Life of
Jesus_. Tholuck next appeared upon the arena in his _Credibility of the
Gospel History_. This production was somewhat declamatory in style, but
that was no barrier to its utility. It attacked Strauss in the weakest
spot, namely, in his deductions against the authenticity and apostolic
origin of the gospels. Tholuck defines a miracle to be an event which
appears contrary to the course of nature, and has a religious origin and
aim. He allows that inspiration is not total but partial, and that it is
but fair to concede to his opponent the presence of Scriptural defects,
such as mistakes of memory, and errors in historical, chronological, and
astronomical details. We must be content to know and feel that, in the
Bible, we find a basis of inspiration which is none the less
substantial though surrounded by intruding weeds, or fragments of stone
and mortar. But Tholuck's work is not a fair specimen of his writings.
Besides its literary defects, the author concedes much more to the
Rationalists here than he is accustomed to do in his many superior
publications.
Again we meet with the revered name of Neander. His _Life of Christ_
appeared in 1837. He published it not only as a reply to Strauss, but as
an independent treatise upon the person of the Messiah. He announced
himself as the mediator between those bitter partisans who, on the one
side, would grant no rights to reason, and on the other, would leave no
space for the exercise of feeling and faith. His work stands in the same
relation to criticism which Schleiermacher's _Discourses_ occupies to
dogmas, and as the latter appears sometimes to lean toward Rationalism,
so do we find in the former traces of concession to the destructive
method of criticism. Neander's work, despite everything which he grants
to his enemies, was the transition-agent toward a purer comprehension of
the life of Christ. While we lament that he interprets the early life of
Christ as a fragment derived from an evangelical tradition; that he
believes the influence of demons in the gospel period susceptible of a
psychological explanation, that the miraculous feeding of the five
thousand is but the multiplication and potentialization of substances
already at hand, that the feeding of the four thousand is a mistaken
account of the former, and that the changing of the water into wine at
Cana of Galilee was nothing more than an increase of power in the water,
as we find sometimes in mineral fluids,--granting these and all the
other interpretations which Neander makes on the score of nature or
myths, we must attach an importance to his _Life of Christ_ second only
to his _History of the Christian Church_. One closes the reading of his
account of the Messiah with a profound impression that the author had a
true conception of the divinity and authority of the Founder of
Christianity. We cannot doubt his sympathy with those words of Pascal
which he quoted frequently with exquisite pleasure: "En Jesus Christ
toutes les contradictions sont accordées."
Ullmann, in his treatise _Historical or Mythical_, will not accept the
alternative that the life of Christ is all mythical or all historical.
He enumerates the philosophical myth, the historical myth, mythical
history, and history with traditional parts. It is to the last of these
that he assigns the gospel history. He propounds the dilemma, whether
the church has conceived a poetical Christ, or whether Christ is the
real founder of the church? He accepts the latter, and invokes all
history in proof of his argument. Weisse, in his _Gospel History treated
Philosophically and Critically_, dwells upon the relative claims of the
four gospels. At least one of the gospels is original and the authority
for the rest. This is Mark's; and it is not mythical, but historical and
worthy of credence. Matthew is a compilation of a later day; and Luke
and John are of still less importance. But the miracles related by Mark
are purely natural events. Christ's miraculous cures were owing to his
physical powers. His body was a strong electric battery, which, in his
later life, lost its power of healing. Else he would have saved himself
from death. His early life is unadulterated allegory.
But there were numerous writers against Strauss, among whom may be
mentioned Schweizer, Wilke, Schaller, and Dorner. Dorner's _History of
the Person of Christ_, 1839, was an attempt to show the totality of
Christ as a universal character. The human conception of species is of a
world of fragments, but in Christ we find them completely united. All
single, individual prototypes coalesced in him. He is the
World-Personality. Bruno Bauer wrote his _Criticism of the Synoptical
Gospels_ in reply to Strauss, though a few years afterward he changed
his ground entirely. His position in this work was as mediator between
reason and revelation. He brought into the conflict concerning Strauss'
_Life of Jesus_ an element of heated argument, and egotism, which
ripened into his subsequent antagonism to the supernatural school. His
entrance upon this field of strife may be comprehended by Schwartz's
comparison of him with Carlstadt and Thomas Munzer, who had lived in the
exciting period of the Reformation.
An enumeration of the titles of the works which appeared at frequent
intervals during the ten years succeeding the issue of Strauss' _Life of
Jesus_, indicates that toward the close of this period the controversy
was directed more to the particular gospels than to the life of Christ
as a unit. The many theories advanced exceeded all the ordinary
illustrations of literary fecundity and extravagance in the department
of theology. There was no theologian of note who did not take part in
the contest. Pastors of obscure provincial churches, who did not venture
upon a complete life of the Messiah, felt themselves competent either to
originate a new view of one or more of the gospels, or to elaborate a
borrowed one. The excitement was intense. There was no evidence of
system in the rapid movement. But now that the battle is over we read
the philosophy of the whole conflict. Strauss, without any intention on
his part, had shown the church of the present century, its weakness in
failing to comprehend the importance of the evangelical history. The
numerous replies indicated a hopeful attention to the neglected
compendium of divine truth. The friends who rushed to his aid declared
by their impetuosity that their cause would have been better served had
Strauss never penned a word about Christ. They saw their stronghold in
ruins, and looked with tearful eyes upon the future of their creed. The
language which Strauss had applied to his excited opponents upon the
appearance of his work became severely appropriate to his own adherents,
after that production had been faithfully answered. "Their alarm," said
he, "was like the screaming of frightened women on seeing one of their
cooking utensils fall upon the floor." Granting the appositeness of the
illustration, we must add that the alarm mentioned by the critic was of
brief duration; while that of the Rationalists and their adherents is
like the long-standing despair of a circle of chemists, whose laboratory
has been entered through a door left open by themselves, their carefully
prepared combinations destroyed, and all their retorts and crucibles
shattered into irreparable fragments.
After a long absence of twenty-nine years, Strauss has again appeared as
the biographer of Christ. In his former work he wrote for the
theological public, but we are now assured that he had ever kept in mind
a purpose to do for the masses what he had achieved for critical minds.
The last fruit of his pen is his _Life of Jesus Popularly Treated_,
which, following close upon the issue of M. Renan's work, appeared in
1864, in the form of a large octavo volume of more than six hundred
pages.
Strauss was induced to make his second work more popular than the
first, because of the gross injustice which the clergy had meted out to
him in consequence of his former labors to establish the historical
position of Christ. The "guild" of professional theologians are
interested, he avers, in maintaining their own cause; of course, they
would not loose their hold very willingly. The only italicized sentence
in his preface is a thrust against this class, whom time has in nowise
led him to esteem: "_He who wants to clear the parsons out of the church
must first clear miracles out of religion._" The spirit of the
introduction, in which the German writer is always expected to announce
his opinions and give the historical reasons therefor, is not materially
different from the lengthy one in his _Life of Jesus_. It is divided
into three parts. The _first_ contains the important attempts which have
been made to write the life of Jesus and represent it in its true light.
They have all been failures. Hess, Herder, Paulus, Schleiermacher, Hase,
Neander, Ebrard, Weisse, Ewald, Keim, and Renan must be content to lie
in oblivion. Renan has done very well for a Frenchman; and as a work for
France his book has some merit. The _second_ treats of the gospels as
sources of the life of Jesus. These accounts, not being authentic, are
not of sufficient weight to be relied on. The _third_ part contains
certain explanations necessary to a proper appreciation of the remaining
portion of the work. The following language indicates the author's
unchanged opinion on the mythical character of Christ: "We now know for
a certainty at least, what Jesus was _not_ and what he did _not_ do,
namely, nothing superhuman, nothing supernatural; it will, therefore,
now be the more possible for us to so far trace out the suggestions of
the Gospels touching the human and natural in him as shall enable us to
give at least some outline of what he was and what he wanted to do."
The body of the book is substantially an attempt to show that Christ, as
represented by the Evangelists, is a mythical personage. Such a man
lived; but his life is not remarkable; it is not what they described it;
and not very different from the common life of ordinary men. We have
_first_, an historical outline of the life of Jesus. Here Strauss makes
himself, and not the Gospel narrators, the biographer of Christ.
_Secondly_, we are furnished with the mythical history of Jesus in its
origin and growth. The people were expecting some remarkable character,
and they seized upon the first one who best answered their notions. John
is as bad as his compeers. He is utterly untrustworthy. The only work of
the New Testament from an immediate disciple is the Apocalypse of John.
But this, too, is wholly unhistorical. Adopting the opinion of the
radical Rationalists, Strauss holds that miracles are impossible, and
that if God were to operate against natural laws he would be operating
against himself. As a specimen of the method of criticism adopted to
divest Christ's career of everything miraculous, we may instance
Strauss' disposition of the resurrection of Christ. He confesses that if
he cannot show that this is mythological, his whole work has been
written in vain. Christ did really die, but his resurrection was a
vision. His disciples were excited, and believed they saw their Master
reappear. But it was a great mistake on their part. It was only an
hallucination. Paul had his visions; so did Peter and John; and so did
Mary Magdalene, who was subject to nervous disorders.[66]
The second life of Jesus has met with a cold reception. The "People of
the Reformation," to whom it was flatteringly addressed, prefer a more
substantial theology. The tide has turned since 1835, and no man feels
the power of the new current more keenly than David Frederic Strauss.
The Rationalists, who gained nothing in the controversy concerning the
first _Life of Jesus_ by the tutor of Tübingen, were unfortunate in
their organized, systematic, and well-sustained effort to regain lost
ground. We have reference to the labors of the Tübingen school.
Ferdinand Christian Baur was its founder. His works are numerous, and
may be divided into two classes: _doctrinal_ and _critical_. But there
is consistency in all,--and, varied as his subjects of investigation
are, they centre in a common focus. Baur sought the solution of the
agitated question in the apostolic history rather than in the life of
Christ. The Christianity about which so much discussion is elicited, is,
according to him, not a perfect and divine production, but only a vital
force in process of development. This is the principle which underlies
the multifarious theories of the Tübingen school. In order to have a
place where to stand and eliminate the theory, the epistles of Paul are
chosen. But these are not all authentic. Hence a selection must be made,
and, of course, only those must be chosen which are in harmony with the
supposition that Christianity is but a dormant germ. Consequently, the
Epistles to the Galatians, the Romans, and the Corinthians are
favorites. They are made to dispel the darkness, and settle the
question.
In them Paul exposes the fact that there were two parties in the early
church, the Pauline and the Petrine. They struggled for supremacy, and
the conflict was a long one. Peter was a thorough Jew,--and his side
predominated even after the death of the principal combatants. Judaism
was the cradle of Christianity; and the latter was only an earnest,
restless, and reformatory branch of the former. But it was not an
offshoot as yet, for Christianity was essentially Jewish all through its
first historic period. The canonical writings of the New Testament,
which constitute the chief literature of the first two centuries, are
the literary monument of Christianity while it was yet undeveloped, and
undetached from Judaism. These writings are the _mediating theology_ of
those distant days. The Petrine party was very strong, until the middle
of the second century, when it was obliged to yield to, or rather
harmonize with, the Pauline.
Many causes contributed to bring the two factions together. There was an
absence of growth quite incompatible with their respective strength.
Alone, they were almost unable to brave the storm of persecution.
Finally, for the sake of security and propagation, they laid down their
weapons, and united under one banner. From this union came the
subsequent growth of Christianity. The canonical works so much revered
by the church had been written in the interest of one or the other of
the parties. Since the enmity has been destroyed, their literary
productions must be considered in the light of history. The church is,
therefore, much mistaken in attaching importance to the Scriptures, for
they were written for a time-serving end, and are quite unworthy of the
worth which we attach to them.
A numerous circle of disciples clustered around Baur, and they enjoyed
his leadership until his recent death. But the writings of both the
master and his school were answered by the best theologians of Germany.
Some of the greenest laurels worn by Thiersch, Dorner, Lechler, Lange,
Schaff, Bleek, Hase, and Bunsen, were won in the contest with the
Tübingen school; and their united labors constitute a compendium of
arguments which will not cease for centuries to be of inestimable value
in the controversies of the church concerning Christ and the divine
origin of Christianity.
The labors of the Tübingen school and of Strauss are two parts of the
same effort to destroy the divine basis of Christian faith. We do not
impugn the private opinions of the contestants, but we must judge them
by their fruits. They wrote and taught against those departments of
truth which it is necessary to preserve intact if we would have
Christianity continue a vital power of the soul and an aggressive
principle in the world. Objections will still be urged against the
Gospel history, but it will still be blessed by the ceaseless oversight
and unfailing ministrations of the Holy Spirit. Supposing the
evangelical accounts to be purely human, we have even then the highest
embodiment of truth in the history of man. Herder says, "Have the
fishermen of Galilee founded such a history? Then blessed be their
memory that they have founded it!" With the conviction that the writers
of the Scriptures throughout were inspired men, and spake as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit, we have a power demanded alike by the cravings
of the soul and the aspirations of the intellect. Blessed with this
sentiment, the individual and the church are thoroughly furnished unto
every good work.
From Germany we turn to France. The latter country has been the
traditional purveyor of revolutionary material for the rest of the
Continent. No great popular movement west of the Rhine has been without
its influence upon the eastern side. The July Revolution of 1830, which
effected the overthrow of the Restoration represented by Charles X.,
set the German masses in commotion. They were henceforth restless, and
ready, whenever occasion offered, to overturn the government and
establish a national constitutional basis. The Rationalists were
insurrectionary, and, the more rapid their decline in all religious
sentiment the more decided was their opposition to constituted
authorities. Strauss' _Life of Jesus_, great in its influence upon
theology, was equally powerful over the political mind. Every new
publication which befriended infidelity was not without its support of
faction and discontent.
In connection with the revolutionary tendency, Rationalism assumed also
a more pantheistic, and subsequently a more atheistic form. The second
important work of Strauss, his _System of Doctrine_, was even more
adapted than his first to sap the foundations of faith and social
security. It was the embodiment of all the worst features of the
Hegelian philosophy. It was frank and bold in all its statements. No man
could mistake a single utterance. In it doctrines are traced to their
genetic development, and held to be the luxuriant growth of the seeds of
error. The truths of Christianity are surrounded by a halo to which it
is no more entitled than the sagas of the Northmen. The old dogma was
born of prejudice and error, hence the modern conception of it is sheer
illusion. Faith and science are irreconcilable foes, for faith is the
perversion, and science the development of human nature. Believing and
knowing, religion and philosophy, are born antagonists, and man can make
no rapid progress if he grovel in the errors of faith. The personality
of God is not that of the individual but of the universal. The pantheism
of Spinoza is the best solution of God's existence; "for," says
Strauss, "God is not the personal, but the infinite personifying of
himself."
The oracular responses of Feuerbach[67] were a step beyond even this
skeptical usurpation. Religion is man's conduct to himself. Man, from
time immemorial, has been buried in self-love, and become so far carried
away by it that his religion is now one monstrous hallucination.
Religion springs not from his intellect but from his imagination. He
wishes to get to heaven; he desires to be comfortable; therefore he
believes. He will put himself to no little trouble to propitiate the
favor of one whom he considers divine. Here is the mystery of all
sacrifices. They are offered by all people from the mere inner force of
abject egotism. God has no absolute existence whatever. Christianity
needs to be attacked historically. Its chief elements are Judaism and
paganism. That it is a collection of absurdities, corruptions, and
prejudices, can be perceived on its very face. But still man needs
religion, though he can only gain it either by rejecting Christianity
altogether or purifying it from its thick envelope of dross.
The _Halle Year-Books_, published 1838-'42, were the principal organ of
the new atheistic doctrines. They commenced with the laudation of
Strauss, then passed over into the service of Feuerbach, and finally
served the cause of Bruno Baur and his fanatical adherents. They were
under the chief editorship of Ruge; and, being popular and youthful in
style, they wielded an unbounded influence on the dissatisfied and
skeptical classes. They broke through all the restraints of religion,
and propagated the wildest perversions of Hegel's opinions. Though
short-lived, they gained an authority not often enjoyed by a periodical.
They were factious in the extreme, and became one of the principal
agents in effecting the Revolution of 1848. They breathed mildew on
everything stable in government and sacred in religion. But,
Samson-like, they fell amid the ruin which they inflicted upon others.
Quite a new form of Rationalism was then presented in the popular
conventions of the Protestant Friends. These individuals held that by a
return to the spirit of the Reformation, Germany would be endowed with a
new and living energy. But it must not be the Reformation as the church
would have us understand it. It must be an impulse and spirit, not an
outward attachment to form and compulsory authority. They were popularly
called Friends of Light, and embraced all the schools of Rationalists
throughout the land. Their convocation was the parliament of German
infidelity. Professing adherence to some of the doctrines of
Christianity, they so glossed them that even the atheist could be a
member without violating his principles.
Their founder was Pastor Uhlich, who, in company with sixteen friends,
held the first meeting at Gnadau, in July, 1841. The second convention
met at Halle, and was numerously attended by clergymen, professors, and
laymen of every class of society. The session at Köthen, in 1844, was a
great popular assembly. It was addressed by Pastor Wislicenus, of Halle,
whose lecture was subsequently issued as a reply to his antagonists,
under the title of _Whether Scriptures or Spirit?_ Not the letter, but
the spirit, is the ground of true religion. The spirit permeates
humanity, and hence there is no occasion for the observance of the law.
The spirit comes with its own law; it is a law in itself. The
Evangelical church stands safe only when resting upon freedom. The
glory of the church is the absolute freedom of its members. The
Scriptures are very good in their way. They are a witness of the faith
of the first times, but were never intended for these cultivated days.
The church is freed from the exterior law and elevated to the inner law
of freedom.
Guericke, the church historian, called attention to Wislicenus in the
_Evangelical Church Gazette_. Great surprise was manifested at once, and
the sober mind of the nation became aroused to a sense of the danger now
threatening the foundations of faith. In a short time the Saxon decree
was issued against all assemblies which called in question the Augsburg
Confession. The following month, August, 1845, the Prussian
cabinet-order appeared, prohibiting all convocations of the Friends of
Light. Protests appeared against Wislicenus and his followers, which
were followed by counter-protests signed indiscriminately by all
classes.
Another popular development of Rationalism occurred in Königsberg, in
1845. Pastor Rupp attacked the Athanasian symbol in his own pulpit,
whereupon he was ejected by the consistory. He collected an independent
congregation; and thus arose those Free Congregations, which contributed
equally to the Rationalistic and revolutionary movements. Appearing in
other parts of Germany, they became a formidable opponent of the church.
While they held that the Scriptures were their rule of faith in the
unity of God, they threw off their authority and that of all symbols.
They adopted baptism and the Lord's Supper, and professed allegiance to
the civil power. But their influence was against the government, and
their two sacraments were odious corruptions. Their form of baptism is
enough to determine their religious sentiment: "I baptize thee after
the manner of the old apostolic baptism, that Jesus is the Christ; I
anoint thy head with water as a sign that thy soul remains pure, pure as
the water that runs down the mountain side; and as the water rises to
heaven and then returns to the earth, so may you be continually mindful
of your heavenly home." Their convocations were finally restricted by
the civil authority. The supreme church council issued an
excommunicatory order against them; the police broke up their meetings;
and forty of the Free Congregations were closed in Prussia alone.
The leaders of the Revolution of 1848 were the organizers of these
popular independent movements. When the people had gained the upper hand
of their rulers, their very first action was to select the destroyers of
their faith as their political champions and representatives. It was,
therefore, a great triumph for those fanatical humanists to find
themselves seated in the national parliaments of Frankfort and Berlin,
and, wherever the revolution extended, to be the leaders of the excited
masses.
What could be expected from a revolution conducted by such men as
Wislicenus, Blum, Uhlich, Baltzer, Carl Schwartz and their adherents? It
was a total failure. And when the restoration was completed in 1849, the
reaction against Rationalism became so decided that the leaders had
reason to tremble for their lives. The people were profoundly disgusted
with a skepticism which could produce no better fruits than this one had
matured. The indignation was even more intense than that toward French
infidelity during the supremacy of Napoleon over the German States. In
the latter case the people were disgusted with the efforts of foreign
skepticism, but in the former, they saw and felt the sore evils of
domestic Rationalism. Religious error had led them from peace and quiet
into a dream-land. When the waking moment came, and the deception became
apparent, the surprise at the delusion was overwhelming.
The doctrinal form of Rationalism had been arrested by Schleiermacher
and his noble band of followers. Its exegetical prestige had been
destroyed by the replies to the _Life of Jesus_. And, as if to make its
defeat as humiliating as possible, the last blow was self-inflicted. It
was the Revolution of 1848, and its consequent failure, which
annihilated the political strength of German Rationalism. There is a God
in history. And though one generation may fail to perceive the
brightness of his presence, the following one may be favored with the
vision. No skeptic should forget that the real philosophy of history is
the march of Providence through the ages. But the infidel is the worst
reader of history. The light shines, but he turns away from it. Or, as
Coleridge expresses it:
"The owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscure wings across the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close;
And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,
Cries out, 'Where is it?'"
There is a deep principle underlying not only the miscarriage of the
Revolution of 1848, but of all the popular movements toward independence
which occur at a time when the people are involved in religious doubt.
It is the spiritual status of a nation which commonly determines its
love of law and order. A population adhering to an evangelical
interpretation of the Scriptures can be forced to revolution only by
evil and ambitious leaders, or by persistent oppression on the part of
their rulers. The tardy movement of the American Colonies toward their
revolt against the British Government betrayed a great unwillingness to
inaugurate the struggle. At the beginning, the conflict was not designed
to be a revolution but only a judicious expedient for the improvement of
the colonial laws.[68] Wise rulers, governing for the best interests of
their country, have generally found that the most discontented of their
subjects are the most skeptical. Infidelity and error have
systematically arrayed themselves against civil authority. This
infidelity does not always assume the same type; for, while in Germany
it was a general disbelief in the authenticity of the Scriptures, in
France it was the rejection of the existence of God and of the
immortality of the soul. Even Robespierre testified before the French
National Convention of 1794, that "the idea of a supreme Being and of
the immortality of the soul, was a continual call to justice, and that
no nation could succeed without the recognition of these truths." A
revolution in Christendom, which has its basis in the skeptical nature
of man, or in an anti-scriptural idea, may succeed for a while, but it
must eventually fail; because, like a vessel without compass, chart, or
star, it lacks the cardinal elements and safeguards of progress and
security.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] Appleton's _New Am. Cyclopædia; Art. Hegel_.
[63] _Life of Jesus._ Ch. I. American Edition.
[64] Cf. _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Vol. 16.
[65] _Life of Jesus_, 852-3.
[66] _New York Independent_ and _New York Christian Advocate and
Journal_--1864.
[67] In _Wesen des Christenthums_, Leipsic, 1841.
[68] The hesitation to become independent was very decided, even as late
as July, 1775.--Bancroft, _History of the United States_. Vol. 8: pp.
55-6.