History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology Part 12

CHAPTER XI.

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 pa.s.sers-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 pa.s.sing 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 circ.u.mstance 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 grat.i.tude, "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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sages 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 cla.s.ses of Germany, it was impossible for his disciples to live in harmony. The chief points at issue were the personality of G.o.d, 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 a.s.serted 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 G.o.d, 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 Tubingen.

He had experienced the several shades of opinion prevalent during his student life. Beginning with the Romantic School, lingering awhile with Schleiermacher, and finally pa.s.sing 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, pa.s.sionless, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.s 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 a.n.a.logy in the treatment bestowed by vultures upon the carca.s.s 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 ent.i.tled 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 p.r.o.ne 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances, susceptible of a natural interpretation.

Zacharias had a waking vision or ecstasy. Such a thing is not common, but in the present instance, many circ.u.mstances 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. x.x.x. 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 a.s.surance from G.o.d 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 circ.u.mcision 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 superst.i.tion, 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 a.n.a.logous 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 superst.i.tion worthy of the dim days of pagan legendry. In the world of mythology many great men had extraordinary births, and were sons of the G.o.ds. Jesus himself spoke of his heavenly origin, and called G.o.d his Father; besides, his t.i.tle as Messiah was "Son of G.o.d." From Matt. i. 22, it is further evident that the pa.s.sage of Isaiah vii. 14, was referred to Jesus by the early Christian church.

In conformity with this pa.s.sage 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 ill.u.s.trates 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; Kuinol 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 p.r.o.nounce out of the cloud the words, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." Under these circ.u.mstances 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 ma.s.ses 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 p.r.o.nounced 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, ma.s.s 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_ const.i.tute 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 Wurtemberg, Steudel of Tubingen. 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 a.s.sails 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 s.p.a.ce 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 accordees."

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 a.s.signs 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 t.i.tles 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 a.s.sured that he had ever kept in mind a purpose to do for the ma.s.ses 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 cla.s.s, 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 G.o.d 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 Tubingen, were unfortunate in their organized, systematic, and well-sustained effort to regain lost ground. We have reference to the labors of the Tubingen school.

Ferdinand Christian Baur was its founder. His works are numerous, and may be divided into two cla.s.ses: _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 Tubingen 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.