, 1874- 1879, in seven editions) seeks, with the aid of an acute and
scientifically trained intellect and extensive historical learning, to overthrow the popular view of Christianity as a religion transcending the human reason and based upon supernatural institutions and miracles.
scientifically trained intellect and extensive historical learning, to overthrow the popular view of Christianity as a religion transcending the human reason and based upon supernatural institutions and miracles.
Pleiderer - Development of Theology in Germany since Kant
Indeed, the Divine wisdom is shown in the fact, that it has given a spiritual revelation, that is, a revelation concerning the truths of the soul and its relation to God, in popular and incorrect language ; for how otherwise could it have been understood by unscientific men and ages ?
The highest truths, he maintained, rest ulti mately, not upon the authority of the Bible, or of the Church, but upon the witness of the Spirit of God in the human heart,
1 He claims this sympathy also for the reason that he did not share the national prejudices of his countrymen, but, on the contrary, spoke with fitting contempt of their contempt for everything German (see his remarks on '. German Neology," in his letter of 1849, Life and Letters, p. 97 of People's
In this respect how far he stands above Maurice !
G. T. C C
and not less on account of his views as to the authority of Scripture and the dogmas of the Church. Deeply as Robertson revered the Bible as the inexhaustible spring
ed. ).
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a witness which is to be reached not by the cultivation of the understanding, but by the loving obedience of the heart.
Accordingly, in interpreting the dogmas of the Church, he never troubled himself about their intellectual husks, but only about their kernel, the religious truths and moral principles which are to be found under the various dogmatic opinions as their real meaning. He was consequently, with all his strict ness in the condemnation of what is morally wrong, extremely charitable and catholic in the views he took of dogmatic differences of opinion. There was one principle which pro bably Maurice recognised in the dim distance, but which in his case remained confused eclecticism, but Robertson's deeper and clearer mind endeavoured to work out distinctly, and applied with unerring tact in various regions of contro versy : it was the principle, that the one truth which under lies the various partial views of opposing parties, and by this very partiality and onesidedness becomes falsehood, must be brought out into clear light as the essential thing common to both parties. An acute dialectical intellect and a rare power of sympathy in entering into the thoughts and feelings of others qualified him to perform, as few men could, the work of a peacemaker amid contending religious parties. If a longer life had been granted him (he died 1853, at the age of thirty-seven), and if he had had leisure to write the theological works which he had proposed to himself (that on
Inspiration, e. g. ), what a beneficial influence he might have
exerted on the development of theological thought, both in his own country and abroad ! But as it his Sermons and Letters are a rich source of truth and light, from which no
one can draw without feeling their purifying, strengthening, and elevating power they are the monument of genuine religious genius, whom for some time to come later generations will reverently recognise prophet of the higher development of Christian thought and feeling.
We have still to take glance at the course of Biblical
criticism in Great Britain, and the review may be the more
rapid as the labours in this department of theology practically commenced but a generation ago, and have hitherto produced little of independent value. The credit of having done the work of pioneer in these studies in England must be accorded to the learned classical scholar and theologian, Jowett, who
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published in 1855 his exegetical work The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (2 vols. ), in which he introduced to his countrymen the results of Baur's critical labours. His own views hold a place midway between those of Baur and the traditional ones as to the relation of Paul to the earlier Apostles : there was not complete harmony, but neither was there absolute antagonism ; the difference was not so much of a dogmatic as of a practical nature, and on the part of the Twelve was due more to want of consistency than to an tagonism of principles ; though in accord with Paul on funda mental principles, they were attracted to Jewish practices by their national sympathies and habits. Some points of Pauline theology are discussed in the appended Dissertations with characteristic acumen and without
? dogmatic prejudice (e. g. the doctrine of election). Of special value is the careful
criticism of the text, and the amended authorised
English version. The principles of interpretation which Jowett ap plied in his Epistles of Paul he has expounded in the ex
tremely interesting essay, On the Interpretation of Scripture
the Essays and Reviews, 1860), in which he demands, quite in the spirit of Arnold, that the method of the classical scholar shall be applied in Biblical exegesis, in short, that
(in
" the Bible must be interpreted like any other book," and thus the study of the Scriptures be raised to the rank of the most valuable portion of the study of history and antiquity ; the best book for the heart ought to be made the best for the in tellect, so that its moral judgment of history might seem to
and correct the aesthetic standard of the classics. " Before we can make the Old and New Testaments a real part of education, we must read them not by the help of
custom and tradition, in the spirit of apology or controversy, but in accordance with the ordinary laws of human know
ledge. "
The year 1860, in which the Essays and Reviews appeared,
may be regarded as an epoch in the history of English theology, corresponding to the year 1835 in the history of German theology. The storm which this collection of theo logical essays by various authors called up in England had great similarity with the commotion produced in Germany by
Strauss's Leben Jesu. It is quite true that the causes of the commotion in the two countries were by no means of equal
complete
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importance. For the Essays and Reviews contain nothing that had not already been thought and said from the days of Whately and Arnold by not a few writers belonging even to the Anglican Church. The first essay, by Temple, Arnold's successor at Rugby, deals with the gradual and progressive education of the world, a thought which had from the time of Lessing formed part of the ordinary consciousness of the educated world, and which is to be found indicated in the Church Fathers, and in fact in the New Testament. The second essay, by Rowland Williams, gave an account, ex pressing substantial agreement, of Bunsen's Biblical Re searches. This was one of the essays which the opponents, High-churchmen and Evangelicals combined, selected as the basis of a prosecution for heresy. The charge was laid, that the general scope, tendency, or design of the essay as a whole was to disseminate unbelief in the Divine inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture, to degrade it to the level of mere human writings, to deny prophetic predictions and miracles, or to interpret them in an unorthodox way, and to explain away articles of the creeds. The trial, which took place in the Court of Arches, before Dr. Lushington, and in which Mr. James Stephen defended the accused essayists in a masterly manner, ended in a complete triumph for Liberal theology. Mr. Stephen remarked in the course of his defence that a poor compliment would be paid to the English people if they were deemed incompetent to bring into open discussion the views of Baron Bunsen. The design of the accusation was really nothing else than to put asunder reason and faith, which
God had joined together. But the questions which learning and criticism had raised would have to be settled ; the de cisive question was whether the clergy should be allowed to co-operate freely in the settlement. The authorities might perhaps close the mouth of the clergyman, but not of the lay
man, or of literature and history. Is it allowable to make a compact between Christ and darkness ; reason and Satan ? It is of greatest moment to Christianity itself that theo logians should be free to study the Bible. The decision of the Court, which was in accordance with these principles, sanctioned the rights of free theology in the English Church.
A leading representative of this new party, which may be described as the left and progressive wing of the Broad Church, was Arthur P. Stanley, the pupil and biographer
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of Arnold. The fact that his high ecclesiastical position as Dean of Westminster did not prevent his sustaining friendly relations with Dissenters and heretics largely helped, no doubt, to modify the dogmatic exclusiveness of the Estab lished Church. His theological writings were valuable con tributions in aid of a free and unfettered study of Biblical and ecclesiastical history. Simultaneously with Jowett's com mentary on St. Paul, he published his kindred work, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (1855), which had been preceded by his Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age (1847), in which the realistic historic method of Arnold was applied to the history of the New Testament period in a way that departed far from the lines of customary dogmatic exegesis. To the same category belong his Lectures on the Jewish Church (1862), in which the history of Israel is treated in a manner midway between poetry and criticism, following very much the lines of Ewald. In an essay on the Theology of the Nineteenth Century, published in Eraser's Magazine, Feb. , 1865, Stanley characterised the method which he had followed. The theory of development, he maintains, has taken the first place in every field of religious and philosophical thought. It has had an important effect on the proper understanding of the Bible itself. The gradual growth, the imperfect forms, the varied
? of Revelation itself are now understood, and thus the greatest difficulties in the way of understanding the Bible are removed. We no longer expect to find in the Jews of the Old Testament premature Christians, or premature
astronomers or geologists. Together with this historical spirit, a characteristic of modern theology is the importance it attaches to the moral and spiritual aspect of religion. The value of internal evidence has now been recognised in theory as well as in practice, in theology as well as in philosophy, and its superiority to the proof from miracles. The spirit is placed above the letter, and practice above dogma. The first and clearest statement of this new principle is found in Arnold's Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture, the man to whose memory Stanley has dedicated such a noble monument in his biography.
That the problems of Biblical criticism can no longer be suppressed, that they are as it were in the air of our time, so that theology could not escape them, even if it took the wings
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of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea, was strikingly shown at the beginning of the sixties by the re markable case of Bishop Colenso. He had gone as Bishop to Natal with the orthodox belief in the inspiration of the
Bible, with the object of converting the Zulus, and returned home as a critic to call in question the integrity and historical character of the Books of Moses. In the course of his in struction of the heathen, their doubts led him to make a more careful examination of the Biblical text, and in the process it grew arithmetically certain to the keen and mathematical intellect of the Bishop, that it was impossible to maintain the correctness of the Mosaic records. The historical inquiries thus started led him step by step to further results; he per ceived the composite character of the Pentateuch as consist ing of component parts of various ages and sources (the Elohistic and Jahvistic sections), he perceived the gradual
growth of the Levitical Law, of which some portions origin ated before Deuteronomy, that before the time of Jere miah, other portions not until after Ezra, being inserted into the earlier portions of the Pentateuch. In a word, Colenso arrived, by his originally quite independent path of inquiry, at results which are in substantial agreement with the views of the Biblical science of our day. But the Bishops of the Anglican Church, instead of calmly examining the honest studies of their brother, felt called upon to break a lance for Moses and the infallibility of the letter of the Bible, and demanded the deprivation of the Bishop of Natal. Once more the Secular Court, the Queen's Privy Council, was wiser than the Churchmen, and pronounced the Bishop the legitimate occupant of his see (1865).
Amongst the opponents of Colenso was to be found not only Maurice, who had himself suffered as a persecuted heretic, but even Matthew Arnold, who substitutes the moral order of the world for the God of the Bible, and with this object in view takes great liberties in the interpretation of the Bible. In an essay in Macmillari Magazine (Jan. and Feb. ,
1863), he demanded that the Biblical historian should show great consideration for the edification of his readers. In order not to do violence to their devout feelings, and not to endanger the interest of the practical religious life, he ought, Arnold thinks, to attenuate the difficulties which might be stumbling- block to faith in the Bible, to go out of the way of what
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doubtful, such as the miraculous stories, by using nice gener alities, a method of which Stanley had given a perfect model in his Jewish Church. Without doubt Matthew Arnold ex pressed the views of the great majority of Englishmen on this matter, and perhaps the views of the men of his age. It may also be granted that there are practical interests at the bottom of such advice which have some justification. On the other hand, it ought to be perceived, as Matthew Arnold seems to have subsequently perceived, that the claims of the purely scientific spirit to present the simple historical truth are equally well founded, and that both those practical religious, and these absolute scientific interests will be better promoted
by the separation of the two kinds of Biblical interpretation -- the practical and the learned, -- than by a confused amalga mation of both. These hybrid forms, with their indefinite- ness, half-truths and compromises, have little value in the pro motion of an exact knowledge of the historical facts ; the only use they serve is to check, in a time of transition, such as ours is, the too rapid advance of some and to prepare others gradually to receive what is new ; in that way facilitating and securing an orderly and steady development of general opinion, and avoiding sudden leaps and catastrophes of a
? kind. This is without doubt the duty which the modified orthodoxy of the English Broad Church party has to perform at present, and perhaps for some time to come. The acknowledgment of the legitimacy of this purpose, and respect for those men who endeavour to realise quite consistent with decided assertion of the rights of strictly scientific historical research in theology, uncontrolled by any secondary considerations whatsoever. The representatives of this purely scientific research are, however, so much in the minority, not only in Great Britain, but everywhere, that there no reason to fear lest the development of the general religious consciousness should go on at too rapid rate.
Whilst the Colenso controversy was still engaging public attention England, R. W. Mackay, (who had previously by his Progress oftlu Intellect, as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and he Romans (1850), -- learned work, but burdened with too great weight of material -- made himself known as a free inquirer in the department of religion) published the very instructive book, The Tubingen School and its Antecedents (1863). An introductory review of the
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relation of religion to theology, of the origin and development of dogma, of the influence of modern philosophy on the doctrine of the belief in miracles and inspiration, and of the
of Biblical criticism from the Socinians to Strauss, is followed by an excellent account of the critical labours of F. C. Baur and his disciples, of their method and its new
results, the author professing himself an adherent of the school. In an appendix polemical notes against the opponents of the criticism of Baur, amongst others Ewald, Ritschl, and Lechler, which show accurate knowledge, are added. To this book the merit is to be ascribed of having promoted
an acquaintance with the stricter form of German criticism in wider circles in England. Nor are there wanting signs of the ferment produced by this criticism. Oxford itself could not escape its influence, where T. H. Green introduced, together with German speculative philosophy, the critical results of the Tubingen school to his circle of friends.
A pendant to the various Lives of Jesus which appeared on the Continent during the sixth decade originated in Cambridge, Ecce Homo : A Survey of the Life and Work ofJesus Christ (1866). This anonymous book (said to be by Professor Seeley, the author of Natural Religion), pro
duced a deep impression, and greatly promoted the cause of more unfettered religious thought in Great Britain, although, or perhaps because, it was not directly critical, but, upon the basis of the narratives of the four Gospels, drew a picture of the moral personality of Jesus with great delicacy of feeling and a profound perception of his peculiar greatness and originality. The nature of Christian morality, as distinguished from Jewish and Heathen legality or philosophy, is derived from the character of Jesus and the personal impression he made upon his disciples. therefore, the personality of Jesus as delineated Seeley produces to some extent rather the impression of an artificial composition than that of real historical truth, this the unavoidable consequence of the author's neglect of any critical examination of the sources the personal claims of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics' discourses of the Messianic Judge being ascribed to Jesus himself straightway. By this means the portrait of the man, which really the object aimed at, ac quires an unintelligible, problematic aspect. Still, Ecce Homo
takes a foremost place amongst the books of this class.
history
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At this point the learned work of the late Dr. Edershe1m, Tlie Life and Times ofJesus the Messiah (2 vols. , 1883), may V
be mentioned. It is a harmonistic combination of the nar
ratives of the Gospels, with a decided apologetic purpose, and without any concession to the most important objections of historical criticism. But the scientific value of the book consists in its rich collection of materials as to the condition of Jewish life and beliefs at the time of Jesus. It meets thereby a real and urgent want of Biblical research in our day. For it is very true, as the author observes in his preface, that a light is cast by these contemporary circum stances and analogies upon many parts of the gospel history itself, by which our knowledge of the origin of our religion under the forms of Judaism, and yet in opposition to its spirit, is essentially furthered. It is probable that strictly critical
research may make often another use than the author himself would wish of the learned materials which his book supplies ; where he finds confirmation of the historical character of a narrative in the New Testament, or of a discourse in the Fourth Gospel, others may discern rather the source of the literary origin of the narrative or the discourse in question. But in any case, the good service the author has rendered should be thankfully acknowledged ; by laborious studies, pursued through many years, in out-of-the-way Jewish lite rature, he has collected an extremely rich and useful mass of materials bearing upon primitive Christian history.
Samuel Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the New Testament (2 vols. , 1868), presents noteworthy evidence of
the progress of historical criticism in England since the begin ning of the sixth decade. In the first edition (1848-51) the author had maintained the genuineness of the whole of the New Testament writings, not excepting even 2 Peter, against all the objections of criticism. He then published an Intro duction to the Old Testament (1862-3), in which the stand point of the apologist was abandoned, and the intermediate position of Ewald was taken (e. g. the Pentateuch not by Moses, but not completed until the reign of Josiah, the Priestly Legislation preceding the Prophets). Six years later, the author having in the meantime resigned his position as theological professor in the Lancashire Independent College, and acquired full freedom to prosecute his critical studies,
appeared the second edition of his Introduction to the New
? ? ? ? 394 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Blt IV.
Testament, entirely rewritten, in which the standpoint of the Tubingen school was taken with almost too little reservation. The counterwork to it is the strictly apologetic Introduction of Salmon, which appears to enjoy well-nigh the rank of an authority in orthodox circles.
The latter is the case with the Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, by Westcott, now Bishop of Durham, the English Tischendorf. This work, which appeared in six editions between 1851 and 1881, belongs to that class of
apologies which, by their learning, an air of superiority towards the main arguments of the critics, and occasional minor concessions on secondary points, are accustomed to make a great impression, and really perform the service above referred to, of retarding the progressive theological spirit of an age. The best part of the book is the introductory chapters on the Jewish religion, and particularly the Messianic faith of the century immediately preceding our era. But with regard to the Gospels, the author holds that their contents are in complete harmony, or that only unessential differences in the form of narrative are to be met with. These are to be explained by the varied individuality of the writers, in whom the Divine image of the Saviour was reflected in diverse but mutually complementary forms. For the Gospels are all Divine in the highest sense, because they are in the highest sense human. The spirit in the Evangelists searched into the deep things of God, and led them to realise the mysteries of the Faith, as finite ideas, and not in their infinite essence.
This is such language as we have long been accustomed to hear from Neander ; instead of getting intelligible answers to definite questions, we have to listen to the mystical phrases of devotional literature, which appeal to the emotions and presentiment (Ahnung), where, from the nature of the case, the intellect alone is qualified to speak. Westcott's lectures, entitled The Historic Faith (1882), have the same apologetic purpose, being an historical and dogmatic exposition of the Apostles' Creed.
But influential as these and similar apologetic works (they are essentially so much alike that it does not seem necessary to give a list of their titles) may be for the present moment, they cannot arrest the stream of time. 1 This we may, finally,
1 The papers on the results of recent criticism of the Old Testament, read
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assure ourselves of by a glance at three important works of the last three lustra, with which our survey of English theo logy may conclude.
The anonymous work, Supernatural Religion. An In quiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation (3 vols.
, 1874- 1879, in seven editions) seeks, with the aid of an acute and
scientifically trained intellect and extensive historical learning, to overthrow the popular view of Christianity as a religion transcending the human reason and based upon supernatural institutions and miracles. With a view to this, the belief in miracles is first examined in general, its untenability being shown less from metaphysical than epistemological considera tions and analogies from experience, and the origin of the belief is explained from psychological and temporal conditions. When the proof from miracles has been thus in general de prived of its force, positively by the immutability of the order of nature, and negatively by the unreliability of human obser vation and testimony, the Christian legend of miracles is next submitted to trial by a detailed examination of the evidential value of the Biblical documents -- the Gospels and the Acts.
From an examination of the testimony of the Fathers the author finds that not one of the canonical Gospels is connected by direct testimony with the men to whom they are tradition ally ascribed, and that the later, in itself valueless, tradition is divided by a long interval of profound silence from the period of its alleged authorship ; the canonical Gospels continue to be anonymous documents until the end of the second century, without evidential value with regard to the miracles which they record. The internal evidence confirms this result of the external ; to say nothing of minor discrepancies which run through the first three Gospels, it is impossible to bring
the accounts of the Synoptists into harmony with the Fourth Gospel ; they annul mutually the force of their testimony. Like the Gospels, the Acts is a legendary composition of a late date, and cannot be regarded as a sober historical narrative, which renders the reality of the numerous miracles it reports
at the Church Congress, at Manchester, in 1888, by Dr. Perowne, the Dean of Peterborough, Professor Cheyne, of Oxford, and Mr. J. M. Wilson, the Head-master of Clifton College, supply one of many proofs of this. Mrs. Ward, the author of Robert Elsmere, very justly regards the debate on these papers as " The glorification of criticism. " See her striking article on " The New Reformation " in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889.
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incredible. The testimony of the Apostle Paul as to the resurrection of Christ remains then to be considered. A close examination of his evidence shows that, so far as it con cerns the earlier events, it rests upon indefinite hearsay and does not agree with the accounts of the Gospels, whilst the Apostle's own experience, in view of his peculiar and highly nervous temperament, must be looked upon as a subjective vision, as are also most probably the appearances to the excited disciples of Jesus. Accordingly the proof of the re surrection and ascension must be pronounced as absolutely and hopelessly insufficient. The examination of the historical sources has therefore confirmed the view of the improbability of miracles formed upon general grounds.
So far the author of this interesting book stands upon firm historical ground, and it will be difficult to upset his main position. But when he proceeds to draw the inference that the claim of Christianity to Divine revelation has no better foundation than the like claim made by other religions, he is advancing no longer an historical but a philosophical opinion, which is not by any means the necessary consequence of his critical results, but is based upon an inadequate estimate of the distinctive properties of Christianity as an ethical religion, and upon a superficial, external, dualistic idea of revelation. The defect of the work Supernatural Religion, as of Strauss's Leben Jesu, is that it employs destructive criticism ex clusively, and neglects to make clear, or even so much as to indicate, what is the lasting moral and spiritual truth that lies at the basis of the supernatural legends and dogmas. But while this is beyond doubt a very serious defect, it is equally certain, on the other hand, that the work of negative or destructive criticism must everywhere be first done as the conditio sine qua non of the positive or constructive task of a better understanding of the historical religion. And as the author himself describes his labours as but the negative pre paration for positive construction,1 we are not justified in judging them by any other standard ; and within the limits which he proposed to himself, the value of his contribution to
the end in view cannot be called in question.
Naturally, a work of this kind attracted great attention
1 Preface, p. lxxvii, " Under such circumstances, destructive must precede constructive criticism. "
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wherever the English language is spoken. Never before had such a systematic attack, based upon solid learning, been made in English upon the external evidences of the Christian religion, which still continue to hold a foremost place, not merely in the popular, but also in the theological apologetics of England (Mansel, Newman, Mozley). It may, undoubtedly, be taken as a sign of the times that this book, in the first year
of its publication, passed through six editions, and that the periodical press of all parties gave long extracts from and reviews of which were for the most part, as appears from Lightfoot's complaint, of a favourable and even laudatory nature. The answer which Lightfoot, the late Bishop of
Durham, offered in the name of orthodoxy in a series of articles in the Contemporary Review, subsequently published as book, extraordinarily weak. Instead of calmly sur rendering the outworks and establishing the claim of the Christian religion to be a revelation (which was called in question) by an appeal to its spiritual nature and its position in the whole course of history, by which means the solely
negative standpoint of the author of Supernatural Religion would have been successfully impugned, the short-sighted scholar found nothing better to do than to submit the author's examination of references in the Fathers to the Gospels to petty criticism while, even all the Bishop's deductions were correct, the general result of the author's inquiries would not be in any way altered. not surprising that in his reply to Bishop Lightfoot, which has recently appeared, the author not only adheres to his historical positions as not upset, but that he also repeats his general conclusions in form of more pronounced antagonism. For his refutation, needed really other means than Bishop Lightfoot had at his command
required free, profound, and far-seeing philosophical and historical defence of Christianity, as the growingly perfect stage of the religious development of humanity.
And to such a defence the last decade has made in the highest degree valuable contributions in the works of Robert son Smith and Edwin Hatch, which, though they belong to very different departments, are closely allied by common, genuinely scientific method, an unprejudiced and acute criticism of authorities, and a fine insight into the conditions and causes of historical development. In 1881 and 1882 Robertson
Smith published two series of lectures, the one on The Old
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Testament in the Jewish Church, and the other on The Pro phets of Israel and their Place in History, which, together with the author's articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, hold a place amongst the best things that have been written on the religion of the Old Testament. He considers that the historical documents of our religion must be treated according to the same principles as are applied with such " valuable results to the other sources of ancient history. The timidity which shrinks from this frankness, lest the untrained student may make a wrong use of the knowledge put into his hands," as Robertson Smith truly remarks, " wholly out"of place in Protestant Churches," which ought to regard as religious as well as an historical gain to learn to read every part of the Bible in its original and natural sense. Much unnecessary exacerbation of dogmatic controversy would be avoided theologians were always alive to the fact that the supreme truths of religion were first promulgated and first became a living power in forms that
are far simpler than the simplest system of modern dogma. " The revelation recorded in the Bible had history which was " subject to the laws of human nature, and limited by the universal rule that every permanent spiritual and moral re lation must grow up by slow degrees and obey a principle of internal development. " This application of the idea of de velopment to the history of the religion of the Bible so far from detracting from its character as revelation that, as Robertson Smith admirably shows, the best way of proving
to show historically the unity and the consistent progress through centuries of the development of the religion of the Bible. " If the religion of Israel and Christ answers these tests, the miraculous circumstances of its promulgation need not be used as the first proof of its truth, but must rather be regarded as the inseparable accompaniments of a revelation which bears the historical stamp of reality. " Without en dangering, therefore, religious faith in the truth of the religion of the Bible, free discussion of the details of historical criticism may be fearlessly conceded. Of this freedom, Robertson
Smith himself makes use without any reservation. He confesses in the preface to his lectures on the Prophets his adoption of the main positions of the newer school of criticism, represented by Wellhausen, that the priestly legislation did not precede but follow the prophets, that the latter were
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therefore not the interpreters of a religion which had been previously fixed in the Law, but were the original representa tives of the ethical idea of God which was developed along with and out of the national history of Israel. To show this
in detail, is the noble design of his excellent lectures on the Prophets.
Simultaneously with Robertson Smith's lectures on the history of the religion of the Old Testament appeared the Bampton Lectures of the late Dr. Edwin Hatch, on The Organisation of the Early Christian Churclies (1881). In
the opening lecture the author gives a very instructive account of the historical method which ought to be followed in the inquiry before him. The first thing to test the docu ments as to their origin, their temporal and local surroundings, and the value of what they say. When the facts have thus been ascertained, the inquiry must proceed to the considera tion of the probable causes of the facts. Here careful attention must be paid to the difficulty arising from the fact that the same words do not always bear the same meaning, but alter with the development of the institution designated (e. g. eirl(TKOTro<s). The history of the past can never be pro perly understood when series of historical facts interpreted by its modern form and meaning we have to begin at the beginning, and trace the new elements step by step through succeeding centuries. To understand this process of develop ment, needful also to consider the resemblances which exist between Christian and non-Christian institutions, in order that similar phenomena may be referred to the same causes. Nor may the historian be deterred from such an inference by the supposition of the supernatural character of the Church. For the formation of the Church has been effected by God according to the same laws by which the life of human society generally produced. The divinity which clings to the Holy Catholic Church the divinity of order. " not outside the universe of Law, but within it.
It Divine as the solar system Divine, because both the one and the other are expressions and results of those vast laws of the Divine economy by which the physical and the moral world alike move their movement and live their life. " It then shown in detail how the Christian communities were organised at first after the analogy of the Jewish synedrion and the Gentile associations, borrowing from them both the
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presbytery, or council of " old men," and the executive organs of self-government -- the bishop and the deacons. The bishop, at first only the president of the administrative body, gradually became of greater importance, in proportion as the need of an authoritative organ for preserving the unity of doctrine and of discipline arose. But all the time the right to teach and administer the sacraments still belonged to all members of the Churches in common ; the right of the priority of the clergy was as yet not exclusive. When the bishops laid claim to the exclusive possession of this right, the claim was energetically disputed by the Montanists, who maintained the superiority of individual gifts of the Spirit to official rule. Nor was ordination at first anything more than appointment to an ecclesiastical office, of the same kind as any appointment to a civil office, without implying the idea of the communica tion of exclusive spiritual powers. The clergy did not become a separate class before the fourth century, and then partly in consequence of the grant of special privileges from the State to ecclesiastical dignitaries, partly also from the growth of the influence of the analogy between the Christian and Mosaic dispensations, whereby Christian ministers became priests. The connexion between the individual Churches was also at first loose and voluntary ; it was under the influence and after the pattern of the State, again, that the organisation of the confederation of the Churches was brought about.
Hatch then raises the question, whether the organisation, thus effected, of the Christian communities into one general Church can be justly identified with the ideal Church of the New Testament, the "body of Christ. " He denies this, and establishes his position with great acuteness. The unity of the Church, he shows, was in the earliest period only " a common
relation to a common ideal and a common hope. " In the second period, the age of conflict with heretics, "the idea of definite belief as a basis of union dominated over that of a holy life " ; Christians were to be held together by their possession of the only true tradition of Christian teaching. In the third period was added insistence on Catholic order, without which dogma seemed to have no guarantee of permanence. " It was held not to be enough for a man to be living a good life, and to hold the Catholic faith, and to belong to a Christian association ; that association must be part of a larger confederation, and thesumofsuch confederations constituted theCatholicChurch. "
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 4OI
This is the permanent form of the idea of Catholic unity since the fourth century. It is true, it was not universally accepted; the Donatists were not to be convinced of the value of an outward unity which lacked inward purity and sanctity. They were put down with the aid of the State ; but the question they raised was not thereby solved, but still retains its full significance : the question whether external organisation constitutes the Church ? And Hatch answers the question in a truly Protestant spirit : " Subtler, deeper, diviner, than anything of which external things can be either the symbol or the bond is that inner reality or essence of union -- that inter penetrating community of thought and character--which St.
Paul speaks of as the ' unity of the Spirit' ! "
Hatch's book belongs, as is widely acknowledged, to the
best that have been written on the origins of our Church. If he had been spared to write the history of Church doctrine, after the same method as he has followed in his account of the organisation of the Church, what an instructive work that
? The unexpected and sudden death of this
would have been !
fine scholar must be regarded as a heavy loss not to Oxford only, but to Protestant theology generally ; yet we may hope that the seed sown by him will bear fruit far and wide. The place where Green and Hatch laboured and cast the light of philosophical and historical knowledge cannot fall back again into the night of the Middle Ages. The days of a Newman and a Pusey are for ever past for Oxford and for England.
G. T. DD
? ? ? Amraon 89.
Arnold, M. , 330 sq. , 390. Arnold, T. , 365 sq.
Bauer, Bruno, 226.
Baur, F. C, 224 sq. , 284 sq. Biedermann 137 sq.
Bleek 237.
Bredenkamp 275. Bretschneider 89.
Bruce, Alexander, 382. Budde 276.
Caird, John, 340 sq. Campbell 380 sq. Carlyle 311 sq.
Colenso 390.
Coleridge 308 sq. , 355. Curtiss 275.
Daub 132.
Davidson, S. , 393. Delitzsch 275.
De Wette 97 sq. , 227. Dillmann 275.
Dorner 156, 373. Duhm 276.
Edersheim, 393. Eichhorn 209, 227.
Erskine (of Linlathen) 378 sq. Ewald 237, 256.
Feuerbach 135. Fichte, J. G. , 57 sq. Finsler 275.
Flint 350 sq.
Froude, Hurrell, 356.
Gieseler 209, 284, Graf, H. , 258.
Green, T. H. , 344 sq.
Hagenbach 284. Hamilton, Sir \V. , 325.
Hampden 370.
Hare, Julius, 370, 372. Harnack 298.
Hase 205, 237, 282. Hatch 399 sq.
Hausrath 240.
Hegel 68 sq.
Herder 21 sq. , 210. Hilgenfeld 239.
Hofmann, C. von, 173 sq Holsten 240.
Holtzmann 240.
Hume 6 sq.
Jowett 386.
Kant 3 sq. , 32 sq. Kayser 258. Keble 356.
1 He claims this sympathy also for the reason that he did not share the national prejudices of his countrymen, but, on the contrary, spoke with fitting contempt of their contempt for everything German (see his remarks on '. German Neology," in his letter of 1849, Life and Letters, p. 97 of People's
In this respect how far he stands above Maurice !
G. T. C C
and not less on account of his views as to the authority of Scripture and the dogmas of the Church. Deeply as Robertson revered the Bible as the inexhaustible spring
ed. ).
? ? ? 386 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bit IV.
a witness which is to be reached not by the cultivation of the understanding, but by the loving obedience of the heart.
Accordingly, in interpreting the dogmas of the Church, he never troubled himself about their intellectual husks, but only about their kernel, the religious truths and moral principles which are to be found under the various dogmatic opinions as their real meaning. He was consequently, with all his strict ness in the condemnation of what is morally wrong, extremely charitable and catholic in the views he took of dogmatic differences of opinion. There was one principle which pro bably Maurice recognised in the dim distance, but which in his case remained confused eclecticism, but Robertson's deeper and clearer mind endeavoured to work out distinctly, and applied with unerring tact in various regions of contro versy : it was the principle, that the one truth which under lies the various partial views of opposing parties, and by this very partiality and onesidedness becomes falsehood, must be brought out into clear light as the essential thing common to both parties. An acute dialectical intellect and a rare power of sympathy in entering into the thoughts and feelings of others qualified him to perform, as few men could, the work of a peacemaker amid contending religious parties. If a longer life had been granted him (he died 1853, at the age of thirty-seven), and if he had had leisure to write the theological works which he had proposed to himself (that on
Inspiration, e. g. ), what a beneficial influence he might have
exerted on the development of theological thought, both in his own country and abroad ! But as it his Sermons and Letters are a rich source of truth and light, from which no
one can draw without feeling their purifying, strengthening, and elevating power they are the monument of genuine religious genius, whom for some time to come later generations will reverently recognise prophet of the higher development of Christian thought and feeling.
We have still to take glance at the course of Biblical
criticism in Great Britain, and the review may be the more
rapid as the labours in this department of theology practically commenced but a generation ago, and have hitherto produced little of independent value. The credit of having done the work of pioneer in these studies in England must be accorded to the learned classical scholar and theologian, Jowett, who
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published in 1855 his exegetical work The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (2 vols. ), in which he introduced to his countrymen the results of Baur's critical labours. His own views hold a place midway between those of Baur and the traditional ones as to the relation of Paul to the earlier Apostles : there was not complete harmony, but neither was there absolute antagonism ; the difference was not so much of a dogmatic as of a practical nature, and on the part of the Twelve was due more to want of consistency than to an tagonism of principles ; though in accord with Paul on funda mental principles, they were attracted to Jewish practices by their national sympathies and habits. Some points of Pauline theology are discussed in the appended Dissertations with characteristic acumen and without
? dogmatic prejudice (e. g. the doctrine of election). Of special value is the careful
criticism of the text, and the amended authorised
English version. The principles of interpretation which Jowett ap plied in his Epistles of Paul he has expounded in the ex
tremely interesting essay, On the Interpretation of Scripture
the Essays and Reviews, 1860), in which he demands, quite in the spirit of Arnold, that the method of the classical scholar shall be applied in Biblical exegesis, in short, that
(in
" the Bible must be interpreted like any other book," and thus the study of the Scriptures be raised to the rank of the most valuable portion of the study of history and antiquity ; the best book for the heart ought to be made the best for the in tellect, so that its moral judgment of history might seem to
and correct the aesthetic standard of the classics. " Before we can make the Old and New Testaments a real part of education, we must read them not by the help of
custom and tradition, in the spirit of apology or controversy, but in accordance with the ordinary laws of human know
ledge. "
The year 1860, in which the Essays and Reviews appeared,
may be regarded as an epoch in the history of English theology, corresponding to the year 1835 in the history of German theology. The storm which this collection of theo logical essays by various authors called up in England had great similarity with the commotion produced in Germany by
Strauss's Leben Jesu. It is quite true that the causes of the commotion in the two countries were by no means of equal
complete
? ? ? 388 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bit IV.
importance. For the Essays and Reviews contain nothing that had not already been thought and said from the days of Whately and Arnold by not a few writers belonging even to the Anglican Church. The first essay, by Temple, Arnold's successor at Rugby, deals with the gradual and progressive education of the world, a thought which had from the time of Lessing formed part of the ordinary consciousness of the educated world, and which is to be found indicated in the Church Fathers, and in fact in the New Testament. The second essay, by Rowland Williams, gave an account, ex pressing substantial agreement, of Bunsen's Biblical Re searches. This was one of the essays which the opponents, High-churchmen and Evangelicals combined, selected as the basis of a prosecution for heresy. The charge was laid, that the general scope, tendency, or design of the essay as a whole was to disseminate unbelief in the Divine inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture, to degrade it to the level of mere human writings, to deny prophetic predictions and miracles, or to interpret them in an unorthodox way, and to explain away articles of the creeds. The trial, which took place in the Court of Arches, before Dr. Lushington, and in which Mr. James Stephen defended the accused essayists in a masterly manner, ended in a complete triumph for Liberal theology. Mr. Stephen remarked in the course of his defence that a poor compliment would be paid to the English people if they were deemed incompetent to bring into open discussion the views of Baron Bunsen. The design of the accusation was really nothing else than to put asunder reason and faith, which
God had joined together. But the questions which learning and criticism had raised would have to be settled ; the de cisive question was whether the clergy should be allowed to co-operate freely in the settlement. The authorities might perhaps close the mouth of the clergyman, but not of the lay
man, or of literature and history. Is it allowable to make a compact between Christ and darkness ; reason and Satan ? It is of greatest moment to Christianity itself that theo logians should be free to study the Bible. The decision of the Court, which was in accordance with these principles, sanctioned the rights of free theology in the English Church.
A leading representative of this new party, which may be described as the left and progressive wing of the Broad Church, was Arthur P. Stanley, the pupil and biographer
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
389
of Arnold. The fact that his high ecclesiastical position as Dean of Westminster did not prevent his sustaining friendly relations with Dissenters and heretics largely helped, no doubt, to modify the dogmatic exclusiveness of the Estab lished Church. His theological writings were valuable con tributions in aid of a free and unfettered study of Biblical and ecclesiastical history. Simultaneously with Jowett's com mentary on St. Paul, he published his kindred work, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (1855), which had been preceded by his Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age (1847), in which the realistic historic method of Arnold was applied to the history of the New Testament period in a way that departed far from the lines of customary dogmatic exegesis. To the same category belong his Lectures on the Jewish Church (1862), in which the history of Israel is treated in a manner midway between poetry and criticism, following very much the lines of Ewald. In an essay on the Theology of the Nineteenth Century, published in Eraser's Magazine, Feb. , 1865, Stanley characterised the method which he had followed. The theory of development, he maintains, has taken the first place in every field of religious and philosophical thought. It has had an important effect on the proper understanding of the Bible itself. The gradual growth, the imperfect forms, the varied
? of Revelation itself are now understood, and thus the greatest difficulties in the way of understanding the Bible are removed. We no longer expect to find in the Jews of the Old Testament premature Christians, or premature
astronomers or geologists. Together with this historical spirit, a characteristic of modern theology is the importance it attaches to the moral and spiritual aspect of religion. The value of internal evidence has now been recognised in theory as well as in practice, in theology as well as in philosophy, and its superiority to the proof from miracles. The spirit is placed above the letter, and practice above dogma. The first and clearest statement of this new principle is found in Arnold's Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture, the man to whose memory Stanley has dedicated such a noble monument in his biography.
That the problems of Biblical criticism can no longer be suppressed, that they are as it were in the air of our time, so that theology could not escape them, even if it took the wings
degrees
? ? ? 39? THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea, was strikingly shown at the beginning of the sixties by the re markable case of Bishop Colenso. He had gone as Bishop to Natal with the orthodox belief in the inspiration of the
Bible, with the object of converting the Zulus, and returned home as a critic to call in question the integrity and historical character of the Books of Moses. In the course of his in struction of the heathen, their doubts led him to make a more careful examination of the Biblical text, and in the process it grew arithmetically certain to the keen and mathematical intellect of the Bishop, that it was impossible to maintain the correctness of the Mosaic records. The historical inquiries thus started led him step by step to further results; he per ceived the composite character of the Pentateuch as consist ing of component parts of various ages and sources (the Elohistic and Jahvistic sections), he perceived the gradual
growth of the Levitical Law, of which some portions origin ated before Deuteronomy, that before the time of Jere miah, other portions not until after Ezra, being inserted into the earlier portions of the Pentateuch. In a word, Colenso arrived, by his originally quite independent path of inquiry, at results which are in substantial agreement with the views of the Biblical science of our day. But the Bishops of the Anglican Church, instead of calmly examining the honest studies of their brother, felt called upon to break a lance for Moses and the infallibility of the letter of the Bible, and demanded the deprivation of the Bishop of Natal. Once more the Secular Court, the Queen's Privy Council, was wiser than the Churchmen, and pronounced the Bishop the legitimate occupant of his see (1865).
Amongst the opponents of Colenso was to be found not only Maurice, who had himself suffered as a persecuted heretic, but even Matthew Arnold, who substitutes the moral order of the world for the God of the Bible, and with this object in view takes great liberties in the interpretation of the Bible. In an essay in Macmillari Magazine (Jan. and Feb. ,
1863), he demanded that the Biblical historian should show great consideration for the edification of his readers. In order not to do violence to their devout feelings, and not to endanger the interest of the practical religious life, he ought, Arnold thinks, to attenuate the difficulties which might be stumbling- block to faith in the Bible, to go out of the way of what
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doubtful, such as the miraculous stories, by using nice gener alities, a method of which Stanley had given a perfect model in his Jewish Church. Without doubt Matthew Arnold ex pressed the views of the great majority of Englishmen on this matter, and perhaps the views of the men of his age. It may also be granted that there are practical interests at the bottom of such advice which have some justification. On the other hand, it ought to be perceived, as Matthew Arnold seems to have subsequently perceived, that the claims of the purely scientific spirit to present the simple historical truth are equally well founded, and that both those practical religious, and these absolute scientific interests will be better promoted
by the separation of the two kinds of Biblical interpretation -- the practical and the learned, -- than by a confused amalga mation of both. These hybrid forms, with their indefinite- ness, half-truths and compromises, have little value in the pro motion of an exact knowledge of the historical facts ; the only use they serve is to check, in a time of transition, such as ours is, the too rapid advance of some and to prepare others gradually to receive what is new ; in that way facilitating and securing an orderly and steady development of general opinion, and avoiding sudden leaps and catastrophes of a
? kind. This is without doubt the duty which the modified orthodoxy of the English Broad Church party has to perform at present, and perhaps for some time to come. The acknowledgment of the legitimacy of this purpose, and respect for those men who endeavour to realise quite consistent with decided assertion of the rights of strictly scientific historical research in theology, uncontrolled by any secondary considerations whatsoever. The representatives of this purely scientific research are, however, so much in the minority, not only in Great Britain, but everywhere, that there no reason to fear lest the development of the general religious consciousness should go on at too rapid rate.
Whilst the Colenso controversy was still engaging public attention England, R. W. Mackay, (who had previously by his Progress oftlu Intellect, as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and he Romans (1850), -- learned work, but burdened with too great weight of material -- made himself known as a free inquirer in the department of religion) published the very instructive book, The Tubingen School and its Antecedents (1863). An introductory review of the
dangerous
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? 392 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
relation of religion to theology, of the origin and development of dogma, of the influence of modern philosophy on the doctrine of the belief in miracles and inspiration, and of the
of Biblical criticism from the Socinians to Strauss, is followed by an excellent account of the critical labours of F. C. Baur and his disciples, of their method and its new
results, the author professing himself an adherent of the school. In an appendix polemical notes against the opponents of the criticism of Baur, amongst others Ewald, Ritschl, and Lechler, which show accurate knowledge, are added. To this book the merit is to be ascribed of having promoted
an acquaintance with the stricter form of German criticism in wider circles in England. Nor are there wanting signs of the ferment produced by this criticism. Oxford itself could not escape its influence, where T. H. Green introduced, together with German speculative philosophy, the critical results of the Tubingen school to his circle of friends.
A pendant to the various Lives of Jesus which appeared on the Continent during the sixth decade originated in Cambridge, Ecce Homo : A Survey of the Life and Work ofJesus Christ (1866). This anonymous book (said to be by Professor Seeley, the author of Natural Religion), pro
duced a deep impression, and greatly promoted the cause of more unfettered religious thought in Great Britain, although, or perhaps because, it was not directly critical, but, upon the basis of the narratives of the four Gospels, drew a picture of the moral personality of Jesus with great delicacy of feeling and a profound perception of his peculiar greatness and originality. The nature of Christian morality, as distinguished from Jewish and Heathen legality or philosophy, is derived from the character of Jesus and the personal impression he made upon his disciples. therefore, the personality of Jesus as delineated Seeley produces to some extent rather the impression of an artificial composition than that of real historical truth, this the unavoidable consequence of the author's neglect of any critical examination of the sources the personal claims of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics' discourses of the Messianic Judge being ascribed to Jesus himself straightway. By this means the portrait of the man, which really the object aimed at, ac quires an unintelligible, problematic aspect. Still, Ecce Homo
takes a foremost place amongst the books of this class.
history
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At this point the learned work of the late Dr. Edershe1m, Tlie Life and Times ofJesus the Messiah (2 vols. , 1883), may V
be mentioned. It is a harmonistic combination of the nar
ratives of the Gospels, with a decided apologetic purpose, and without any concession to the most important objections of historical criticism. But the scientific value of the book consists in its rich collection of materials as to the condition of Jewish life and beliefs at the time of Jesus. It meets thereby a real and urgent want of Biblical research in our day. For it is very true, as the author observes in his preface, that a light is cast by these contemporary circum stances and analogies upon many parts of the gospel history itself, by which our knowledge of the origin of our religion under the forms of Judaism, and yet in opposition to its spirit, is essentially furthered. It is probable that strictly critical
research may make often another use than the author himself would wish of the learned materials which his book supplies ; where he finds confirmation of the historical character of a narrative in the New Testament, or of a discourse in the Fourth Gospel, others may discern rather the source of the literary origin of the narrative or the discourse in question. But in any case, the good service the author has rendered should be thankfully acknowledged ; by laborious studies, pursued through many years, in out-of-the-way Jewish lite rature, he has collected an extremely rich and useful mass of materials bearing upon primitive Christian history.
Samuel Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the New Testament (2 vols. , 1868), presents noteworthy evidence of
the progress of historical criticism in England since the begin ning of the sixth decade. In the first edition (1848-51) the author had maintained the genuineness of the whole of the New Testament writings, not excepting even 2 Peter, against all the objections of criticism. He then published an Intro duction to the Old Testament (1862-3), in which the stand point of the apologist was abandoned, and the intermediate position of Ewald was taken (e. g. the Pentateuch not by Moses, but not completed until the reign of Josiah, the Priestly Legislation preceding the Prophets). Six years later, the author having in the meantime resigned his position as theological professor in the Lancashire Independent College, and acquired full freedom to prosecute his critical studies,
appeared the second edition of his Introduction to the New
? ? ? ? 394 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Blt IV.
Testament, entirely rewritten, in which the standpoint of the Tubingen school was taken with almost too little reservation. The counterwork to it is the strictly apologetic Introduction of Salmon, which appears to enjoy well-nigh the rank of an authority in orthodox circles.
The latter is the case with the Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, by Westcott, now Bishop of Durham, the English Tischendorf. This work, which appeared in six editions between 1851 and 1881, belongs to that class of
apologies which, by their learning, an air of superiority towards the main arguments of the critics, and occasional minor concessions on secondary points, are accustomed to make a great impression, and really perform the service above referred to, of retarding the progressive theological spirit of an age. The best part of the book is the introductory chapters on the Jewish religion, and particularly the Messianic faith of the century immediately preceding our era. But with regard to the Gospels, the author holds that their contents are in complete harmony, or that only unessential differences in the form of narrative are to be met with. These are to be explained by the varied individuality of the writers, in whom the Divine image of the Saviour was reflected in diverse but mutually complementary forms. For the Gospels are all Divine in the highest sense, because they are in the highest sense human. The spirit in the Evangelists searched into the deep things of God, and led them to realise the mysteries of the Faith, as finite ideas, and not in their infinite essence.
This is such language as we have long been accustomed to hear from Neander ; instead of getting intelligible answers to definite questions, we have to listen to the mystical phrases of devotional literature, which appeal to the emotions and presentiment (Ahnung), where, from the nature of the case, the intellect alone is qualified to speak. Westcott's lectures, entitled The Historic Faith (1882), have the same apologetic purpose, being an historical and dogmatic exposition of the Apostles' Creed.
But influential as these and similar apologetic works (they are essentially so much alike that it does not seem necessary to give a list of their titles) may be for the present moment, they cannot arrest the stream of time. 1 This we may, finally,
1 The papers on the results of recent criticism of the Old Testament, read
? ? ? ? Ch. II ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 395
assure ourselves of by a glance at three important works of the last three lustra, with which our survey of English theo logy may conclude.
The anonymous work, Supernatural Religion. An In quiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation (3 vols.
, 1874- 1879, in seven editions) seeks, with the aid of an acute and
scientifically trained intellect and extensive historical learning, to overthrow the popular view of Christianity as a religion transcending the human reason and based upon supernatural institutions and miracles. With a view to this, the belief in miracles is first examined in general, its untenability being shown less from metaphysical than epistemological considera tions and analogies from experience, and the origin of the belief is explained from psychological and temporal conditions. When the proof from miracles has been thus in general de prived of its force, positively by the immutability of the order of nature, and negatively by the unreliability of human obser vation and testimony, the Christian legend of miracles is next submitted to trial by a detailed examination of the evidential value of the Biblical documents -- the Gospels and the Acts.
From an examination of the testimony of the Fathers the author finds that not one of the canonical Gospels is connected by direct testimony with the men to whom they are tradition ally ascribed, and that the later, in itself valueless, tradition is divided by a long interval of profound silence from the period of its alleged authorship ; the canonical Gospels continue to be anonymous documents until the end of the second century, without evidential value with regard to the miracles which they record. The internal evidence confirms this result of the external ; to say nothing of minor discrepancies which run through the first three Gospels, it is impossible to bring
the accounts of the Synoptists into harmony with the Fourth Gospel ; they annul mutually the force of their testimony. Like the Gospels, the Acts is a legendary composition of a late date, and cannot be regarded as a sober historical narrative, which renders the reality of the numerous miracles it reports
at the Church Congress, at Manchester, in 1888, by Dr. Perowne, the Dean of Peterborough, Professor Cheyne, of Oxford, and Mr. J. M. Wilson, the Head-master of Clifton College, supply one of many proofs of this. Mrs. Ward, the author of Robert Elsmere, very justly regards the debate on these papers as " The glorification of criticism. " See her striking article on " The New Reformation " in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889.
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incredible. The testimony of the Apostle Paul as to the resurrection of Christ remains then to be considered. A close examination of his evidence shows that, so far as it con cerns the earlier events, it rests upon indefinite hearsay and does not agree with the accounts of the Gospels, whilst the Apostle's own experience, in view of his peculiar and highly nervous temperament, must be looked upon as a subjective vision, as are also most probably the appearances to the excited disciples of Jesus. Accordingly the proof of the re surrection and ascension must be pronounced as absolutely and hopelessly insufficient. The examination of the historical sources has therefore confirmed the view of the improbability of miracles formed upon general grounds.
So far the author of this interesting book stands upon firm historical ground, and it will be difficult to upset his main position. But when he proceeds to draw the inference that the claim of Christianity to Divine revelation has no better foundation than the like claim made by other religions, he is advancing no longer an historical but a philosophical opinion, which is not by any means the necessary consequence of his critical results, but is based upon an inadequate estimate of the distinctive properties of Christianity as an ethical religion, and upon a superficial, external, dualistic idea of revelation. The defect of the work Supernatural Religion, as of Strauss's Leben Jesu, is that it employs destructive criticism ex clusively, and neglects to make clear, or even so much as to indicate, what is the lasting moral and spiritual truth that lies at the basis of the supernatural legends and dogmas. But while this is beyond doubt a very serious defect, it is equally certain, on the other hand, that the work of negative or destructive criticism must everywhere be first done as the conditio sine qua non of the positive or constructive task of a better understanding of the historical religion. And as the author himself describes his labours as but the negative pre paration for positive construction,1 we are not justified in judging them by any other standard ; and within the limits which he proposed to himself, the value of his contribution to
the end in view cannot be called in question.
Naturally, a work of this kind attracted great attention
1 Preface, p. lxxvii, " Under such circumstances, destructive must precede constructive criticism. "
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397
wherever the English language is spoken. Never before had such a systematic attack, based upon solid learning, been made in English upon the external evidences of the Christian religion, which still continue to hold a foremost place, not merely in the popular, but also in the theological apologetics of England (Mansel, Newman, Mozley). It may, undoubtedly, be taken as a sign of the times that this book, in the first year
of its publication, passed through six editions, and that the periodical press of all parties gave long extracts from and reviews of which were for the most part, as appears from Lightfoot's complaint, of a favourable and even laudatory nature. The answer which Lightfoot, the late Bishop of
Durham, offered in the name of orthodoxy in a series of articles in the Contemporary Review, subsequently published as book, extraordinarily weak. Instead of calmly sur rendering the outworks and establishing the claim of the Christian religion to be a revelation (which was called in question) by an appeal to its spiritual nature and its position in the whole course of history, by which means the solely
negative standpoint of the author of Supernatural Religion would have been successfully impugned, the short-sighted scholar found nothing better to do than to submit the author's examination of references in the Fathers to the Gospels to petty criticism while, even all the Bishop's deductions were correct, the general result of the author's inquiries would not be in any way altered. not surprising that in his reply to Bishop Lightfoot, which has recently appeared, the author not only adheres to his historical positions as not upset, but that he also repeats his general conclusions in form of more pronounced antagonism. For his refutation, needed really other means than Bishop Lightfoot had at his command
required free, profound, and far-seeing philosophical and historical defence of Christianity, as the growingly perfect stage of the religious development of humanity.
And to such a defence the last decade has made in the highest degree valuable contributions in the works of Robert son Smith and Edwin Hatch, which, though they belong to very different departments, are closely allied by common, genuinely scientific method, an unprejudiced and acute criticism of authorities, and a fine insight into the conditions and causes of historical development. In 1881 and 1882 Robertson
Smith published two series of lectures, the one on The Old
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? 398 THEOLOGY IN* GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
Testament in the Jewish Church, and the other on The Pro phets of Israel and their Place in History, which, together with the author's articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, hold a place amongst the best things that have been written on the religion of the Old Testament. He considers that the historical documents of our religion must be treated according to the same principles as are applied with such " valuable results to the other sources of ancient history. The timidity which shrinks from this frankness, lest the untrained student may make a wrong use of the knowledge put into his hands," as Robertson Smith truly remarks, " wholly out"of place in Protestant Churches," which ought to regard as religious as well as an historical gain to learn to read every part of the Bible in its original and natural sense. Much unnecessary exacerbation of dogmatic controversy would be avoided theologians were always alive to the fact that the supreme truths of religion were first promulgated and first became a living power in forms that
are far simpler than the simplest system of modern dogma. " The revelation recorded in the Bible had history which was " subject to the laws of human nature, and limited by the universal rule that every permanent spiritual and moral re lation must grow up by slow degrees and obey a principle of internal development. " This application of the idea of de velopment to the history of the religion of the Bible so far from detracting from its character as revelation that, as Robertson Smith admirably shows, the best way of proving
to show historically the unity and the consistent progress through centuries of the development of the religion of the Bible. " If the religion of Israel and Christ answers these tests, the miraculous circumstances of its promulgation need not be used as the first proof of its truth, but must rather be regarded as the inseparable accompaniments of a revelation which bears the historical stamp of reality. " Without en dangering, therefore, religious faith in the truth of the religion of the Bible, free discussion of the details of historical criticism may be fearlessly conceded. Of this freedom, Robertson
Smith himself makes use without any reservation. He confesses in the preface to his lectures on the Prophets his adoption of the main positions of the newer school of criticism, represented by Wellhausen, that the priestly legislation did not precede but follow the prophets, that the latter were
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PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
399
therefore not the interpreters of a religion which had been previously fixed in the Law, but were the original representa tives of the ethical idea of God which was developed along with and out of the national history of Israel. To show this
in detail, is the noble design of his excellent lectures on the Prophets.
Simultaneously with Robertson Smith's lectures on the history of the religion of the Old Testament appeared the Bampton Lectures of the late Dr. Edwin Hatch, on The Organisation of the Early Christian Churclies (1881). In
the opening lecture the author gives a very instructive account of the historical method which ought to be followed in the inquiry before him. The first thing to test the docu ments as to their origin, their temporal and local surroundings, and the value of what they say. When the facts have thus been ascertained, the inquiry must proceed to the considera tion of the probable causes of the facts. Here careful attention must be paid to the difficulty arising from the fact that the same words do not always bear the same meaning, but alter with the development of the institution designated (e. g. eirl(TKOTro<s). The history of the past can never be pro perly understood when series of historical facts interpreted by its modern form and meaning we have to begin at the beginning, and trace the new elements step by step through succeeding centuries. To understand this process of develop ment, needful also to consider the resemblances which exist between Christian and non-Christian institutions, in order that similar phenomena may be referred to the same causes. Nor may the historian be deterred from such an inference by the supposition of the supernatural character of the Church. For the formation of the Church has been effected by God according to the same laws by which the life of human society generally produced. The divinity which clings to the Holy Catholic Church the divinity of order. " not outside the universe of Law, but within it.
It Divine as the solar system Divine, because both the one and the other are expressions and results of those vast laws of the Divine economy by which the physical and the moral world alike move their movement and live their life. " It then shown in detail how the Christian communities were organised at first after the analogy of the Jewish synedrion and the Gentile associations, borrowing from them both the
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? 400 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1 82 5. [Bk. IV.
presbytery, or council of " old men," and the executive organs of self-government -- the bishop and the deacons. The bishop, at first only the president of the administrative body, gradually became of greater importance, in proportion as the need of an authoritative organ for preserving the unity of doctrine and of discipline arose. But all the time the right to teach and administer the sacraments still belonged to all members of the Churches in common ; the right of the priority of the clergy was as yet not exclusive. When the bishops laid claim to the exclusive possession of this right, the claim was energetically disputed by the Montanists, who maintained the superiority of individual gifts of the Spirit to official rule. Nor was ordination at first anything more than appointment to an ecclesiastical office, of the same kind as any appointment to a civil office, without implying the idea of the communica tion of exclusive spiritual powers. The clergy did not become a separate class before the fourth century, and then partly in consequence of the grant of special privileges from the State to ecclesiastical dignitaries, partly also from the growth of the influence of the analogy between the Christian and Mosaic dispensations, whereby Christian ministers became priests. The connexion between the individual Churches was also at first loose and voluntary ; it was under the influence and after the pattern of the State, again, that the organisation of the confederation of the Churches was brought about.
Hatch then raises the question, whether the organisation, thus effected, of the Christian communities into one general Church can be justly identified with the ideal Church of the New Testament, the "body of Christ. " He denies this, and establishes his position with great acuteness. The unity of the Church, he shows, was in the earliest period only " a common
relation to a common ideal and a common hope. " In the second period, the age of conflict with heretics, "the idea of definite belief as a basis of union dominated over that of a holy life " ; Christians were to be held together by their possession of the only true tradition of Christian teaching. In the third period was added insistence on Catholic order, without which dogma seemed to have no guarantee of permanence. " It was held not to be enough for a man to be living a good life, and to hold the Catholic faith, and to belong to a Christian association ; that association must be part of a larger confederation, and thesumofsuch confederations constituted theCatholicChurch. "
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This is the permanent form of the idea of Catholic unity since the fourth century. It is true, it was not universally accepted; the Donatists were not to be convinced of the value of an outward unity which lacked inward purity and sanctity. They were put down with the aid of the State ; but the question they raised was not thereby solved, but still retains its full significance : the question whether external organisation constitutes the Church ? And Hatch answers the question in a truly Protestant spirit : " Subtler, deeper, diviner, than anything of which external things can be either the symbol or the bond is that inner reality or essence of union -- that inter penetrating community of thought and character--which St.
Paul speaks of as the ' unity of the Spirit' ! "
Hatch's book belongs, as is widely acknowledged, to the
best that have been written on the origins of our Church. If he had been spared to write the history of Church doctrine, after the same method as he has followed in his account of the organisation of the Church, what an instructive work that
? The unexpected and sudden death of this
would have been !
fine scholar must be regarded as a heavy loss not to Oxford only, but to Protestant theology generally ; yet we may hope that the seed sown by him will bear fruit far and wide. The place where Green and Hatch laboured and cast the light of philosophical and historical knowledge cannot fall back again into the night of the Middle Ages. The days of a Newman and a Pusey are for ever past for Oxford and for England.
G. T. DD
? ? ? Amraon 89.
Arnold, M. , 330 sq. , 390. Arnold, T. , 365 sq.
Bauer, Bruno, 226.
Baur, F. C, 224 sq. , 284 sq. Biedermann 137 sq.
Bleek 237.
Bredenkamp 275. Bretschneider 89.
Bruce, Alexander, 382. Budde 276.
Caird, John, 340 sq. Campbell 380 sq. Carlyle 311 sq.
Colenso 390.
Coleridge 308 sq. , 355. Curtiss 275.
Daub 132.
Davidson, S. , 393. Delitzsch 275.
De Wette 97 sq. , 227. Dillmann 275.
Dorner 156, 373. Duhm 276.
Edersheim, 393. Eichhorn 209, 227.
Erskine (of Linlathen) 378 sq. Ewald 237, 256.
Feuerbach 135. Fichte, J. G. , 57 sq. Finsler 275.
Flint 350 sq.
Froude, Hurrell, 356.
Gieseler 209, 284, Graf, H. , 258.
Green, T. H. , 344 sq.
Hagenbach 284. Hamilton, Sir \V. , 325.
Hampden 370.
Hare, Julius, 370, 372. Harnack 298.
Hase 205, 237, 282. Hatch 399 sq.
Hausrath 240.
Hegel 68 sq.
Herder 21 sq. , 210. Hilgenfeld 239.
Hofmann, C. von, 173 sq Holsten 240.
Holtzmann 240.
Hume 6 sq.
Jowett 386.
Kant 3 sq. , 32 sq. Kayser 258. Keble 356.
