Critical Reviews

by B. B. Warfield

Table of Contents

PREFATORY NOTE

1. MACKINTOSH, The Natural History of the Christian Religion

2. BURGON, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Vindicated and Established

3. HASTINGS, A Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I

4. LANG, The Making of Religion

5. CHEYNE, Encyclopædia Biblica, Vol. I

6. DOUMERGUE, Jean Calvin, Vol. I

7. KENYON, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts

8. MCCABE, St. Augustine and His Age

9. DENNEY, The Atonement and the Modern Mind

10. SABATIER, The Doctrine of the Atonement, and its Historical Evolution: and Religion and Modern Culture

11. CHEYNE, Bible Problems and the New Material for their Solution

12. DODS, The Bible, Its Origin and Nature

13. STEVENS, The Christian Doctrine of Salvation

14. ORR, God's Image in Man, and its Defacement, in the Light of Modern Denials

15. DOBSCHÜTZ, Christian Life in the Primitive Church

16. MCTAGGART, Some Dogmas of Religion

17. FORREST, The Authority of Christ

18. BOUSSET, What is Religion?

19. KELLOGG, Darwinism To-day

20. OTTO, Naturalism and Religion

21. SMITH, The Christ of the Cross

22. HASTINGS, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. I

23. MISCH, Geschichte der Autobiographic, Vol. I

24. SEEBERG, Revelation and Inspiration

25. MONOD, Le Problème de Dieu et la Théologie Chrétienne depuis la Réforme, Vol. I

26. SANDAY, Christologies Ancient and Modern

27. SANDAY, Personality in Christ and in Ourselves

28. WEISS, Christus

29. HOLDSWORTH, The Christ of the Gospels

30. TROELTSCH, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben

31. VISCHER, Jesus Christus in der Geschichte

32. MACKINTOSH, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ

33. STREETER and others, Foundations

34. UNDERHILL, Mysticism

35. FRESENIUS, Mystik und geschichtliche Religion

36. FLEMING, Mysticism in Christianity

37. ROBINSON, The Christian Doctrine of Man

38. GLOVER, The Christian Tradition and its Verification

39. HEITMÜLLER, Jesus

40. HAERING, The Christian Faith: A System of Dogmatics

41. KNOX, Some Loose Stones

42. STEINLEITNER, Die Beicht im Zusammenhange mit der sakralen Rechtspflege in der Antike

43. HASTINGS, Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, Vol. I

44. HASTINGS, Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, Vol. II

45. MOZLEY, The Doctrine of the Atonement

46. VISSCHER, Van den Eeuwigen Vrede tusschen Wetenschap en Religie

PREFATORY NOTE

REV. BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE WARFIELD, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology in the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, New Jersey, provided in his will for the collection and publication of the numerous articles on theological subjects which he contributed to encyclopaedias, reviews and other periodicals, and appointed a committee to edit and publish these papers. In pursuance of his instructions, this, the tenth (and last) volume, containing a selection from those of his Critical Reviews which appeared in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review and The Princeton Theological Review, has been prepared under the editorial direction of this committee.
The clerical preparation of this volume has been done by Mr. John E. Meeter, to whom the thanks of the committee are hereby expressed.

ETHELBERT D. WARFIELD
WILLIAM PARK ARMSTRONG
CASPAR WISTAR HODGE
Committee.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

By WILLIAM MACKINTOSH, M.A., D.D.

Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons; New York: Macmillan & Co. 1894.

SOME fifteen years ago, the religious world was startled by the appearance of a volume bearing the simple title of "Scotch Sermons, 1880." It was a collection of twenty-three sermons by thirteen "clergymen of the Church of Scotland," and was designed to acquaint the public with "a style of teaching" which the editor thought was "increasingly prevalent amongst the clergy of the Scottish Church," and which made it its object so to present "the essential ideas of Christianity" as to show that they are "in harmony with the results of critical and scientific research." A good object, surely. The trouble with these sermons, however, was that they did not seek to consider the results of recent "critical and scientific research" in the light of the revealed truth of God, and to exhibit the harmony of all truth, whether derived from revelation or from nature; but, taking their point of view from current theorizing, pared down "the essential ideas of Christianity" to fit the assumed "results of the most recent critical and scientific research." The volume was appropriately estimated by Dr. A. A. Hodge in the issue of The Presbyterian Review for January, 1881 (ii. pp. 212–214). "The collection, as a whole," he said, "is utterly valueless, except as 'specimens of a style of teaching' which is said to 'increasingly prevail amongst the clergy of the Scottish Church.' Neither the learning nor the logic of these sermons avails to throw light upon any other subject of human interest under the sun. And neither the hearing nor the reading of such discourses could ever avail to promote any other valuable practical quality than that of patience. Some of these sermons do not contain any statements absolutely opposed to the essential truths of Christianity, but not one sets forth any doctrine or duty which can be in any special sense classed as Christian."

One of the writers represented in the volume was the Rev. William Mackintosh, D.D., of Buchanan, who contributed two sermons on the text, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7). With reference to these sermons, but more especially the latter of them, Dr. Hodge remarks: "Rev. William Mackintosh, D.D., Buchanan, discourses concerning the 'renovating power of Christianity.' He asks: 'What is the Gospel good for? What title has it to that designation? What service does it render?' (p. 162). This he answers thus: 'The problem of human life—the task appointed to us—is our deliverance from the sway of our lower nature, our surrender to the control of our higher nature. The powers by which we are enabled to accomplish this task are three. First. Our own higher nature itself. Secondly. The beneficent constitution of things in general, their tendency in favor of what is good. Thirdly. These two factors are brought into full operation by the revelation to our consciousness, of that which was implicitly contained in them of the Divine good-will, or paternal relation towards us, given us by Christ' (pp. 171–173). That is, all that Christ does for us is to assure us of God's good-will. With this encouragement we save ourselves, by the use of natural powers acting under natural conditions." Dr. Mackintosh's sermons, in a word, fairly illustrated the hint of the editor of the volume, that the sermons included in it belong to a class which are seeking to bring "the essential ideas of Christianity" into "harmony with the results of critical and scientific research." He himself describes his aim in them in such words as these: "Our endeavour has been to show what modifications of the popular construction of Christianity are needed to bring it into harmony with the laws of mental physiology" (p. 172). "The light which science sheds upon human destiny" is the light in which he would walk. And "science" with him is above all the investigation of physical nature: it is from this sphere that he would borrow his governing idea. "In these later times," he tells us with extreme naïveté, "science, in its researches into the material world, has lighted everywhere upon the traces of an all-pervading continuity" (p. 145); and this being true, we may now "confidently postulate" "the existence in the moral and spiritual worlds of an analogous principle." Wherefore, that a step may be taken towards the reconciliation of faith and science he devotes these sermons to showing that "the principle of continuity obtains in the moral sphere no less than in the material, and rules the succession of religious as of other phenomena" (p. 145; cf. p. 134).

The former of the two sermons is occupied with an attempt to demonstrate this "law of moral continuity." "The law of the spiritual harvest," we are told, "is that evil is the natural," nay, the inevitable, "product of evil; that nothing either good or evil ever perishes of itself, but must, in some way, influence, or enter as an element into, the future" (p. 146). This is an article of natural religion, and "underlies Christianity as much as does the existence and unity of God, or any other article of natural religion" (p. 134). It cannot be "shaken or removed by any subsequent revelation"; it is rather one of the tests of the truth of systems (p. 134). If we speak of God's judgment on sin, we must still think merely of this direct and infallible action of moral continuity, "without the intervention of any supplementary or epicyclical contrivance" (p. 139): for "the judgment of God is only another name for the natural and inevitable consequence of our lives" (p. 143). Divine judgment is therefore continuous and progressive, and all supernatural action is out of place in it: no divine fiat can interfere with moral development here or hereafter. "Such interference on the day of judgment is as inadmissible, because as inconsistent with human liberty, and with an inviolable order, as at any other crisis in the history of man" (p. 140). No, it is impossible to remove sin by a sovereign or forensic fiat: "the chain of moral sequence … is carried on in unbroken continuity" (p. 144)—we are under the operation of a universal law which acts, like all law, uniformly.

Under such circumstances we may well ask, What service, then, can the gospel render? The second sermon essays to offer a reply. "The gospel," we are told, "does not profess to exempt us from the law of … moral continuity" (p. 146), although it does show us the way from evil to good (p. 147). Certainly it does not offer us a supernatural change. But even physiology knows something of reversal of process; and there is a latent spiritual force within us to which the gospel may appeal. The dominance of sin indeed never becomes absolute and undisputed; so that the better principle has within itself the potency of a reactive force. Doubtless after evil habit has become confirmed, the better principle may seldom or never be led so to act by the mere sense of duty or moral obligation: it needs some new hope or new affection to arouse it. But under the stimulus of "the revelation to our mind of the paternal character of God, and of the gracious relation in which He stands to us," it is capable of very energetic reaction (pp. 153, 163, 165, 168). Thus a complete revolution is produced in our feelings and relations towards Him, and our religious life is elevated to a higher level (p. 153). "The problem of human life" then, "—the task appointed to us—is our deliverance from the sway of our lower nature, our surrender to the control of our higher nature. The powers by which we are enabled to accomplish this task are three: First. Our own higher nature itself, which is never wholly effaced, and which reacts against the evil, and makes us receptive of all the higher influences that may be brought to bear upon us from without. Secondly. The complex of all those higher influences—the beneficent constitution of things in general, their tendency in favor of what is good, which operates upon us more or less, even when we are unconscious of it.… Thirdly. These two factors for the accomplishment of the Divine purpose are consummated, or brought into full operation, by the revelation to our consciousness of that which was implicitly contained in them, but of which we had otherwise remained unconscious; by that revelation, we mean, of the Divine good-will, or paternal relation towards us, by which Christ has reënforced our better nature, enabling us to be intelligent fellow-workers with God in our conflict with evil, and giving a higher aim to our life.… It is … through our reason, through our conviction that God wills the triumph of our better nature, that we are animated to a triumphant forth-putting of its latent energies" (pp. 153–156).

So viewed, it is apparent that "the gospel can only be regarded as a revelation or discovery to man of a method of salvation which had always been possible in the nature of things" (p. 157); and doubtless many have used it apart from what we call the gospel (pp. 156, 157, 159). The gospel is not some new power which comes to our salvation; it is only an instrumentality to stir us up to save ourselves: "it will be distinctly apparent that the gospel can be a means of supplanting evil by good, only by discovering and evoking powers which had always existed.… The gospel deserves its name simply because it teaches and persuades us to cease from evil and to do well; to change the seed which we sow, and thus to obtain a better harvest" (p. 158). We call ourselves Christians, not because we fancy Christ has saved us by some sort of "expiation," but simply because we have obtained our knowledge of God as Father, which calls out our latent reaction against sin, "in some historical connection with the impulse given by Christianity" (p. 156). All that Christ did for us, "in the strict and literal sense, was to reveal to us the infinite placability of the Divine nature" (p. 158; cf. pp. 161, 162–163, 170). His teaching amounts to no more than "that nothing stands in the way of those who desire to break off their sins by righteousness, except the outward and inward opposition, which has been arrayed by the law of recompense against their better endeavours" (p. 167); and His work amounts only to this teaching. We may reverence His memory "as Mediator between God and man"; but only in the sense that "He it was who, from the depths of His own experience, imparted to men the knowledge of God as our Father in heaven; whose property it is to forgive the trespasses of His Children, and to incline their feet into the path of righteousness" (p. 170). How "humanity rose at length in Christ to the thought of God's absolute goodness" would be inexplicable to us, were it not that we have reason to believe that God has impressed on creation itself evidences of "His design to secure the triumph of what is good, and to deliver us from evil" (p. 155). But humanity in Christ having obtained this knowledge of the divine paternity, it is able in its power to react against sin and sow its seed unto righteousness. And so the very law of moral continuity will operate to bring it to moral perfection.

It is evident that Dr. A. A. Hodge was thoroughly justified in finding nothing either novel or distinctively Christian in this teaching. It is just the purest form of Socinian thought. The Unitarian layman, Mr. George William Curtis, gives perfectly clear expression to the same conceptions in that confession of his faith which leads his biographer to say that to him "conscience" (not Christ) was "the divinely appointed saviour of the world": "I believe in God, who is love; that all men are brothers; and that the only essential duty of every man is to be honest, by which I understand his absolute following of the conscience when duly enlightened" ("George William Curtis," by Edward Cary, 1894, pp. 7, 334, 339). Dr. Mackintosh could not express his own doctrine better: even down to the emphasis on honesty, it is quite the same. "Only he who feels that a necessity is laid upon him of bearing his own burden, and helping others to bear theirs," says Dr. Mackintosh, "may hope to grow into that noblest work of God, the simply honest man, the genuine disciple of Christ" (p. 172). To be simply honest is to be Christ's genuine disciple: not to depend on Him for "escaping responsibility for our vices." In this case, of course, any pagan may be a "genuine disciple of Christ." How entirely apart from all that is distinctively Christian Dr. Mackintosh's whole scheme of doctrine is, indeed, may be illustrated for us by a remark of Mr. Edmund Gosse, in his interesting "portrait" of Walter Pater. "When I had known him first," he says, "he was a pagan, without any guide but that of the personal conscience; years brought gradually with them a greater and greater longing for the supporting solace of a creed" (The Contemporary Review, lxvi. 1894, p. 805). Dr. Mackintosh is dominated on the contrary by a desire "to reduce the dimensions of dogma," to strip off everything from his creed but the one article of "moral continuity" (p. 170). Walter Pater, in other words, was moving upwards from his paganism to Christianity: Dr. Mackintosh had moved down from the heights of Christian truth to a merely pagan position. This is fairly illustrated again by an incident recorded by Dr. Denney, in his recent "Studies in Theology" (New York, 1895, p. 130). He tells us of a Hindu society, which was formed for much the same object which Dr. Mackintosh doubtless thinks he has secured in his sermons—"to appropriate all that is good in Christianity without burdening itself with the rest." "Among other things which it appropriated, with the omission of only two words, was the answer given in the Westminster Shorter Catechism to the question, What is repentance unto life? Here is the answer. 'Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience.' The words the Hindus left out were in Christ; instead of 'apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ,' they read simply, 'apprehension of the mercy of God.' … They were acute enough to see [continues Dr. Denney] that in the words they left out the whole Christianity of the definition lay.… I entirely agree with their insight. If the mercy of God is separable from Christ, independent of Christ, accessible apart from Christ, … there is no need and no possibility of a Christian religion at all." In a word, salvation by repentance and amendment is not Christianity—just because Christianity is specifically salvation by Christ. The essence as well as the glory of Christianity is that it provides for sinful man a Saviour.

We have dwelt thus fully on Dr. Mackintosh's contributions to the volume of "Scotch Sermons" because the treatise at present before us stands in such express relation to the earlier sermons that a clear apprehension of their teaching will greatly conduce to an understanding of this treatise. It is not merely that the present work occupies the same standpoint with the sermons and proclaims the same meager teaching, although now as "the religion of Jesus" rather than as the doctrine of Paul. It is that it is in effect a serious attempt to supply a rational basis for the teaching of the sermons. The sermons taught that the essence of Christianity is, Every man his own saviour. But they left the truth of this teaching dependent on Dr. Mackintosh's assertion. He said, This is Christianity; this is God's method of dealing with the soul; this is what Paul and Jesus teach us. But it was obviously not what Christians believed to be Christianity; what the creeds of the Churches set forth as God's method of dealing with the soul; what the founders of Christianity proclaimed as its substance; what the records of the New Testament represent as the teaching of either Paul or Jesus. In what alembic and by the aid of what reagents Dr. Mackintosh had been able to reduce Christianity to this "essence" remained hidden from his readers. On further reflection, he himself preceived that he had run beyond his warrant (p. 149): Paul, at least, taught a "heterosoteric" doctrine—to use E. von Hartmann's term. Otherwise, however, his original conception remained unchanged; and remained hanging in the air. After fourteen years, he gives the world at last an attempt to supply a foundation for his teaching. This is the real function of the present volume. It sets forth the conception of the origin and development of Christianity, which alone will harmonize with his teaching as to the nature of Christianity. He had taught that Christianity provided only for a natural salvation. Conformably to this he now argues that it is merely a natural religion, and, being a natural religion, can have had no other than a natural origin. The task which the author has set before himself in this volume is, thus, none other than to account for the rise of Christianity as a purely natural religion. There is no lack of frankness or of thoroughness in the manner in which this task is approached and prosecuted. "The attempt made in this volume," he says, is "to trace the origin of Christianity to the common religious instinct, working under the influence of natural forces and amid historical conditions" (p. v.). More specifically it attempts "to show that Christianity took its rise in a great spiritual and religious movement among the Jewish people, or in a great transformation of Jewish ideas effected by Jesus, and spreading from him to his disciples; and to find in that movement and in certain favouring circumstances and historical conditions, without looking beyond to any supernatural or transcendental causes, an explanation of the whole relative phenomena" (p. 4). Dr. Mackintosh means by the phrase, "the whole relative phenomena," all that it is capable of expressing. At no point and through no channel does he allow that anything above nature has entered into the formation of Christianity. Not in the person of Jesus Himself, and not in aught that preceded or followed Him. Jesus was no doubt the founder of Christianity; but His rising to whatever height of thought He attained, is entirely explicable from "the reaction of his mind upon the inherited and environing conditions, social and spiritual, present in Judea in his day" (p. vii.). All that had gone before was merely a natural spiritual and religious development, providing these inherited and environing conditions. All that came after was merely the progressive mythical and dogmatic corruption of the teaching of Jesus, through the working upon it of the imaginative and ratiocinative faculties of His followers.

Now of course Dr. Mackintosh does not suppose that the records of Christianity represent it as the merely natural religion which he conceives it to be. He freely admits that the account of the origin and nature of Christianity given in these records, if treated as trustworthy, would entirely justify the common conception of Christianity as supernatural both in origin and method. He even declares that if Christianity be the merely natural religion which he supposes, its genesis "must have differed widely, nay, enormously, from that which can possibly be gathered from a literal or textual exegesis, and an unsceptical study of the New Testament" (p. 586). He declares it therefore to be evident that "something more than a sound exegesis and hermeneutic will be needed to extract from" "the primitive records," "the proximate facts regarding the origin and development of the Christian system," if that origin and development are to be conceived as purely natural. "We have only to make the attempt," he adds, "to find that we cannot effect the removal of the supernatural element, as if it were a mere appendage or external fixture, so as to leave the residuum standing as it was. That element is, so to speak, chemically combined with the history, and can be discharged only by a process which involves a change or dissolution of the entire fabric, or, if this be thought to be an exaggerated representation, let us say rather that it is an element woven like a strand into the texture of the history, so as to be removable only by a general disturbance and dislocation of the evangelical narrative" (p. 45).

But if the case be such, surely it is incumbent on us to inquire, on the one hand, whence arises the justification for the attempt to remove so pervading and determining an element out of the primitive records, and, on the other, after the fabric has been dissolved, whence can be derived the clue for the recombination of the elements, into a new and now purely natural history of the origin and development of Christianity. Our author seeks his justification in the postulate of the impossibility of the supernatural. On the assumption of the impossibility of the supernatural, the supernaturalistic account of the origin of Christianity given in its primitive records cannot be true, and necessity is laid upon us to attempt to conceive its origin as a natural development. The clue for the reconstruction of the history, on the other hand, is sought at the hands of modern criticism: "the history, be it observed, being such as is arrived at by submitting the canonical records to the ordeal and sifting of modern criticism" (p. vi.). By the aid of these two assumptions—the assumption of the impossibility of the supernatural and the assumption of the validity of all the conclusions of the extremest type of modern criticism—Dr. Mackintosh supposes that he can reconstruct the history of the origin of Christianity so as to exhibit it as a purely natural religion. It would be too gross a circle to suppose that thus Christianity is directly proved to be a natural religion. What is apparently in Dr. Mackintosh's mind is that the success of his reconstruction of the origin and development of Christianity under these assumptions will react to give him increased confidence in the assumptions themselves. He seems to point to the consistency, the naturalness, the likelihood of his construction of the history as an evidence of its truth, and thus as an evidence that Christianity is not a supernatural religion. Why this should need evidencing if the supernatural is really impossible, is not, however, easy to see.

It must be admitted, to be sure, that Dr. Mackintosh does not make clear to us why we must assume the supernatural to be impossible. We are told that "the critical necessity of getting rid of the supernatural element" is so "imperative," that it justifies any conjectural reconstruction of the history which accomplishes it (p. 262). But when we inquire what this imperative necessity rests upon we never get much beyond the simple dictum that it is "in accordance with the demands of modern science." In the brief passage which is given to the formal treatment of the subject, this declaration is somewhat expanded (pp. 19 ff.). We are told that "science has brought into view certain considerations which strongly imply the impossibility of any infraction of the immanent laws of existence"; that it has found in every department of existence which it has investigated, "that all occurrences, phenomena, and sequences bear invariable witness to the control of law and to the sway of order—that what is called divine action never operates irrespective of such order, or otherwise than naturally—i.e., through, or in accordance with such order": and that therefore, "modern thought holds, in the form of a scientific conviction, what was matter of surmise or divination to a few of the leading minds in ages long past, viz., that the universe is governed by immutable laws inherent in the very nature and constitution of things—by laws which are 'never reversed, never suspended, and never supplemented in the interest of any special object whatever' " (pp. 23, 24). The stringency of the steps in this reasoning does not lie, however, on the surface. How we can infer from any study of the ordinary course of things, however protracted, prolonged, or complete, that an extraordinary event never occurs, and much more that it can never occur, it is not easy to see. An extraordinary event is by definition outside the ordinary course: and whether it occurs or not is not a matter of inference from the ordinary course, however completely investigated and understood, but a matter of observation; while whether it can occur or not is certainly not a matter of inference from its observed non-occurrence, but must rest on some principle deeper than experience can supply. The fact is that the impossibility of the supernatural can be affirmed only on a priori grounds, and no theist is entitled to affirm it. We may hold it to be improbable to the verge of the unprovable, but its possibility is inherent in the very conception of God as the personal author and governor of the universal frame. And if it is possible, then its actual occurrence is simply a question of experience and a proper subject for testimony. So soon, however, as it is once admitted that the actual occurrence of the supernatural is a proper subject for testimony it will be hard to contend that such wealth and variety of testimony as is available for the occurrence of supernatural events in the origin of Christianity can be mistaken. This, Dr. Mackintosh himself understands. "When a critic like Küenen," he remarks, "professes to believe, or not to dispute, the possibility of miracle in the abstract, and to be willing to leave that as an open and unsettled question, but at the same time shows himself very exacting as to the evidence for the miraculous element in Christianity as a whole, or for the miraculous works recorded of Jesus in particular, and declares that the evidence for these does not satisfy his canons of credibility, the likelihood is that, unconsciously to himself, there is an arrière pensée in his mind equivalent to the denial of the possibility of miracles; at least, that is the impression which the rigour of his criticism will make on the minds of others" (p. 23). An instinct for safety, therefore, leads him to deny the possibility of miracles. "Indeed," he exclaims, "it is easy to see that to grant the possibility of miracle in the abstract, is to surrender the whole position to the orthodox theologian. To say the very least, it is to place the supernatural character of Christianity among the things which cannot be disproved" (p. 22). But however inconvenient this fact may be for those who are determined to deny the reality of the supernatural in Christianity, it hardly supplies a philosophical basis for asserting the impossibility of miracles. Miracles remain a matter of observation and testimony. And if anything can be proved by testimony, the supernatural origin and nature of Christianity must be held to be proved.

It is possible, of course, to demur that this testimony evaporates in the caldron of modern criticism: and we must remember that our author, along with the impossibility of miracles, assumes the truth of the conclusions announced by this criticism. To him the Biblical accounts are not history but philosophy—the crude philosophy of men who could not but share in the errors and superstitions of their age. The true course of the history can be obtained only by seeking the kernel of fact concealed within this philosophizing envelope. "The religious movement as it went on from age to age created for itself a miraculous history, just because it knew not how otherwise to place itself on record." But "underlying the miraculous records of the Old and New Testaments there is the secret history of that great, non-miraculous religious movement which was of secular duration and ran through many stadia." "The historical records do not so much show the phases of the religious evolution as rather the religious standing of the writers who compiled them as a vehicle for the utterance and propagation of their own religious ideas." It is the task of "what is called the 'higher criticism,' " to eliminate these crude conceptions of the Biblical writers, and "trace and follow out the course of the underlying history" (p. 6), the result being, of course, the substitution of a non-miraculous for a miraculous account of the origin of Christianity. That Dr. Mackintosh's anti-supernaturalism cannot get along without this critical reconstruction of the Biblical histories, is obvious enough, and is clearly recognized by himself: "The volume which is here placed before the public could not possibly have been written until the new criticism had so far done its work, and may be regarded as an outcome of that great movement" (p. v.). It is only on the assumption of the full conclusions of the extremest form of this criticism that his work can claim consideration at all. To plead this critical reconstruction, however, as a support to his anti-supernaturalism, would involve a peculiarly gross form of the argumentum in circulo. The very principle of this criticism in the form in which alone its results would be available for such a purpose, is the denial of the supernatural; and results which depend on the rejection of the supernatural can scarcely be made a support for its rejection. Nor is an appeal to these critical results calculated to add strength to his case. They are themselves matters of pure assumption. Dr. Mackintosh simply adopts them and nowhere seriously attempts to justify them. No one else has succeeded in justifying them. Not only are they wholly without historical evidence; they possess no historical probability, they supply no natural historical sequence, and they cannot be made to coalesce with known historical facts or to fit into the known historical framework. A scheme which requires the assumption of their truth, stands condemned as impossible by its association with a congeries of such impossibilities. It is perhaps worth while to observe further, that even if these critical conclusions were admitted in their full extent as assumed, they would still fail to rid Dr. Mackintosh of the most stringent testimony to the supernatural. This is true even of that form of the supernatural which consists in miraculous occurrences in the origin of Christianity. The confessedly genuine epistles of Paul, by themselves, bear a testimony which cannot be gainsaid to the occurrence of supernatural events at the foundations of Christianity, culminating in that greatest of all supernatural events, the resurrection of Jesus. It is true equally of that form of the supernatural which consists in the manifested glory of the divine founder of Christianity. No critical reconstruction of Christian literature has yet availed—none which does not destroy not merely its texture but the very threads of which it is woven can avail—to eliminate from it its ineradicable testimony to the supernatural impression of that unique figure, or to the supernatural impulse that streams from it. It is the testimony not merely of one of His disciples, but of every line of Christian record and of every event of Christian history: "We beheld His glory, a glory as of an only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Still less will the whole body of assumed critical results avail to rid Dr. Mackintosh of that form of the supernatural which is equally an offense to him—a supernatural salvation, wrought out by Jesus and offered by Him through His followers to the world. When the most violent forms of critical reconstruction have done their worst, the results still embalm for us a Jesus who is and who claims to be a Redeemer and a Saviour, who does not proclaim an "autosoteric" but a "heterosoteric" salvation. Dr. Mackintosh, indeed, is constrained to admit as much. The critical residuum brought to his hands requires still further criticism that he may obtain from it an unmiraculous Jesus who requires men to save themselves and does not undertake to save them. The Jesus and the Christianity which Dr. Mackintosh offers us, therefore, is not the product of even the most radical criticism, but simply the creation of his own mind. What he believes to be sober, Jesus may be allowed to teach: but beyond the line of his own judgment as to sobriety of doctrine, no record can convince him that Jesus taught. "So long as we credit Jesus with sobriety of judgment, our guiding principle of criticism, viz., the rejection of the supernatural element, forbids us to regard these sayings as genuinely his" (p. 64). Here is Dr. Mackintosh's principle of criticism. It may not seem unlikely that if we are to make our Jesus on the pattern of our own souls, we may have to content ourselves with an unmiraculous Jesus. But if we are to have the Jesus of historical testimony, in any degree, we cannot escape acknowledging a supernatural Jesus—who Himself came from heaven and brings a message from heaven of redemption in His blood.

May not, then, the results of Dr. Mackintosh's reconstruction of the origin and development of Christianity serve as their own sufficient testimony? It is on this possibility that Dr. Mackintosh apparently places his dependence. He seems to say, Look at this picture of how Christianity was prepared for, how it was originated, how it was developed, how it was corrupted; and see if its naturalness, coherency, consistency do not justify the presuppositions on which the picture is founded. The plausibility of the suggestion arises from the happy use which is made of hypothesis in all forms of scientific investigation: the positing of a supposition, the deducing of the results which would follow on the assumption of its truth, the comparison of these results with observed fact, the establishment of the truth of the original supposition by the conformity of the results with known fact and the discovery through their suggestion of further facts not hitherto observed. The fallaciousness of such an appeal to this method as is at present proposed, however, is too glaring to require to be shown. Here the proposed assumptions are not suggested by the observed phenomena, but are dragged in from without and lack all inherent probability; the results they yield by deduction confessedly differ enormously from the facts as witnessed by testimony; their assumption does not put us in the road to the discovery of independent evidence of their truth, but sets us in opposition to the whole body of evidence. The sole appeal is made to the inner consistency of the results; and this obviously, so far as it exists, is an artificial product and the inevitable effect of the process by which they are obtained. Such an appeal, indeed, involves the grossest confusion between the verisimilitude of fiction and the verity of fact. If valid in a case like the present, it would be valid to demonstrate the objective reality of the whole mise en scène and action of every successful fiction: the "wizard of the north" would become a "creator" in the strictest sense, and his product would no longer be romances but actualities; and the objective reality of the world of Flat-Land would require to be affirmed. Self-consistency and "naturalness" may be carried to the point of that "inevitableness" which is the mark of the action of the best fiction, and they argue only the genius of the author: actuality is not reached on this road. After all, history is not an a priori but an a posteriori science, and the test of reality in its sphere is nothing else than conformity to fact as experienced and witnessed. Even then, did Dr. Mackintosh's reconstruction of the history of the origin and development of Christianity possess the qualities of self-consistency, naturalness, "inevitableness" to the highest conceivable degree, it would remain a mere idle sketch of what might have been on certain contingencies; it might fairly be contemplated by him with sadness as what he could well wish might have occurred—the poet tells us that "the saddest words of tongue or pen" are these, "It might have been"; but it could gain thence no claim whatever to be considered as what was.

What, then, are we to say of the claims of his reconstruction to be the actual history of the rise and development of Christianity, when we are obliged to deny to it, as we are, even this inner consistency and naturalness? It is only when stated generally and in the vague that it has the least verisimilitude. It sounds quite attractive to speak of Christianity as taking its rise "in a great spiritual and religious movement among the Jewish people," so that "Judaism and Christianity denote the successive stages of one long evolution of religious thought and sentiment": to represent the phase of this development which is specifically called Christianity, to have "been founded, proximately, in the great religious experience which befell Jesus in its purest form" and to have been "reflected in his life and teaching"; and to explain "that that experience was transmitted and propagated to the minds of his disciples, not, however, in its pure and original form, but through the medium of the impression made by the personality of Jesus on their emotional nature; and that that impression, acting on their imaginative and ratiocinative faculties, was what gave to Christianity the mythical and dogmatic construction which is presented to us in the New Testament and in the creeds of the Churches" (p. 4). But so soon as an attempt is made to fill in these vague outlines with a detailed history of the progress of this great religious movement—as it passed from heathenism into Judaism; through the various stages of the religion of Israel into Christianity; from the religion of Jesus to the doctrine of Paul and the mythology of John: all appearance of verisimilitude passes away and we are asked to leap all sorts of historical chasms and to assume repeatedly the most impossible sequences, in order that not a natural but a contra-natural evolution may be substituted for a supernatural history. The author enters, of course, into the labors of his predecessors and founds his attempted reconstruction of the history of this secular development on the assumed results of the critical schools of Wellhausen and Reuss, of Weizsäcker and Pfleiderer. All the historical impossibilities for which these schools are responsible in their efforts to eliminate the supernatural from the history of the Christian religion lie then, from the beginning, at his door. But these are not enough. From their results he merely takes his starting-point, and proceeds to cleanse the history of the last remnants of the evil leaven of supernaturalism and with it of the last traces of verisimilitude. Everything now hangs in the air: the most stupendous events, turning the whole course of the world's history, spring causelessly into existence; historical Christianity itself becomes a mighty beneficent force released out of a fermentation of delusion, error, and fraud.

We are dealing here with a mass of details which it is impossible to transfer to our pages in justification of our remarks, much more to examine with any fullness. We are reduced to the adduction of an illustration or two. Consider, for example, then, the lame and impotent explanation which is offered of the undeniable identity of the Christ of prophecy with the Christ of history. "In this fulfilment … we do not see the evidence of a prophetic fore-knowledge of events which took place five or six hundred years after the prophets lived; for that would manifestly be a supernatural prevision. But yet, the correspondence between the prophetic embodiment of the ideal, and the general features of the life of Jesus as reported by the synoptists, is so close, that no sane person can regard it as purely accidental. We therefore explain the fulfilment to ourselves as due fundamentally to the evolution of that religious idea of which Israel and the early Church were the organs" (p. 329). In other words, the correspondence between the prophets and synoptists is due to the simple fact that they shared the same ideal, and therefore expressed their ideal alike: the actual Jesus had nothing to do with either picture. " 'The prophets impersonated their ideal, while the Church idealized the person,' thus between them completing the circle of thought" (p. 330). That we may escape the admission of the supernatural here, therefore, we are asked to conceive the whole fundamental portrait of Jesus, even as given by the synoptists, as myth.

Consider again the explanation that is offered of the conversion of Paul. "Our explanation, then, of the Apostle's conversion is that it was occasioned by the moral and spiritual ideas introduced into his mind by contact and intercourse, though of a hostile kind, with the little band of men whom he persecuted.… When speaking of the doctrine of Jesus, we pointed out that it was his discovery of the evangelic view of the religious relation which satisfied him, that he himself, as the discoverer of that relation, was the promised Messiah. And our position now is that St. Paul, conscious of having derived this view, however mediately and indirectly, from Jesus, was satisfied that his claim to be the Messiah was well founded. The moment of Paul's conversion was just the moment at which, after much inward debate and misgiving, the evangelic view as taught by Jesus took absolute possession of his mind. As by a flash of inward light, he recognized the immense import of that new relation which formed the core of that teaching. The doctrine was so novel, so revolutionary in the religious sphere, of such startling range and gravity, and of such beneficent consequence to himself, that he readily believed all that the disciples alleged of the resurrection of him who had revealed it.… In the moment of crisis, when the new ideas gained the upper hand, it would appear to him as if Jesus had wrestled and prevailed, and cast him to the ground. The light, the fall, and the voice were but the form into which his sense of mental illumination and of subjugation by one who was stronger than he had thrown itself. And when he afterwards reflected on that wonderful experience, it would seem to him as if the struggle which had gone on within him had been brought to an issue by an act of self-manifestation on the part of Jesus, by an act of condescension to him personally, if not on his account, yet to him as a chosen instrument to transmit 'the benefit' to others" (pp. 370–372). In this subjective experience of Paul's, Dr. Mackintosh bids us find the sole "sight" of the "risen Jesus" on which the deathless conviction of His resurrection which animated the primitive disciples could be founded.

We say the "sole 'sight' of the 'risen Jesus,' " although we read in this paragraph itself of Paul's accepting the doctrine of the resurrection at the hands of those who were disciples before him. For, when we turn to the earlier passage where the origin of the belief in the resurrection on the part of the earlier disciples is treated, we learn that their language as to a "resurrection" is represented as purely figurative, and that they are supposed to have made no pretension of having seen even an apparition; but that now Paul is thought to have erroneously imputed his own experience to them. In such a passage as 1 Cor. 15:1 ff., then, the Apostle simply misrepresents the matter when he attributes "Christophanies" essentially like his own to others. The query, of course, inevitably arises, How, granting that Paul may have so misconceived the facts at first, is it conceivable that he should not soon have been set right? Dr. Mackintosh thinks it enough to reply that it is not at all likely that Paul and Peter ever found out their difference. "It is by no means likely that the conference of the two men would turn upon the nature of their experiences. St. Paul's mind would be prepossessed with the idea that the experience of Peter and his companions had been the same with his own, and he would feel no curiosity upon the subject, nor think of scrutinizing the details. On the other hand, Peter had by this time, we presume, accepted the sensuous representation of that experience in place of the real explanation; or, for the sake of convenience, he had adopted the figurative mode of describing it, and would naturally suppose that St. Paul in any allusion which he might make to a vision, might only be referring to a similar experience and employing that figurative style of expression which seemed to come naturally to all who spoke of that crisis of the spiritual life" (pp. 364 f.). The desperation of this hypothesis of mutual misunderstanding and of no intercourse between Paul and his fellow disciples on the foundations of his faith—especially in face of the explicit historical statements of his epistles—is evident on its face, and is illustrated by the looseness of its hold on Dr. Mackintosh's own mind. Shortly afterwards it suits his purpose, in a new turn of the argument, to assume the exact contrary: and the existence of this previous passage, or its essential place in the central argument of the book, does not prevent him from writing: "But as, by the time that the Apostle wrote his great Epistles, he had conversed with the earlier apostles, and no doubt with many of the first disciples, there is, to say the least, a huge unlikelihood that he could have remained ignorant of the leading events of the life of Jesus. It is hardly conceivable that he should not have taken care to inform himself as to the earthly life and teaching of one whom he adored as the Lord from heaven. His omission to do so would argue a state of mind so incurious and indifferent as to be unnatural and incomprehensible" (p. 377). And yet, though he professes to be informed as to Christ's resurrection appearances, we are to believe that he was not so informed, and never felt the need of becoming so!

We are at the center of Dr. Mackintosh's argument, we say, when we envisage his account of the rise of the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, and it may repay us to consider what he expects us to believe with reference to it. That no such resurrection ever took place is of course given at once, in his fundamental postulate of the impossibility of the supernatural. That not even a subjective vision occurred in the case of any but Paul, we have already incidentally seen to be his contention. How then does he account for the rise of that belief in the resurrection of the Master which was the dominating force in Christianity from the very beginning? The answer is to be found in observing that he subtly transmutes the problem into the essentially different one of how the disciples regained their belief in Jesus' Messiahship after the deadly blow inflicted by His death. Then he operates with platitudes like these: "the human mind is endowed with marvelous elasticity" and "does not willingly surrender itself to despair," so that a reaction is sure to supervene shortly after any deep depression. This inherent tendency of the mind was reinforced by the impression made on His disciples by Jesus, "which was too deep to be effaced by a single blow." And this was further reinforced by the great impression made by the nobility of His death, so that it is truer to say that the cross glorified Christ than that He glorified the cross. "The spiritual sense of the disciples had been so far trained and educated by their intercourse and association with Jesus as to discern the hidden 'glory' of the cross—i.e., of the death of Jesus upon it. No act of his life 'became him' or exalted him so much in their eyes, or so revealed his true greatness, as his death. It was not the Christ who, in the first instance, transfigured the cross, but the cross which transfigured the Christ.… The mode and spirit in which Jesus laid down his life was what above all else transfigured him in the eyes of his disciples and confirmed his claim to be the Messiah or the Christ" (p. 278). The reaction from their sensuous hopes which was consequent on Christ's death clarified their vision, and led them on to look for a spiritual kingdom, in which Jesus, though dead, might still reign: "When Jesus died, it was to the disciples inconceivable that a life of such divine beauty should have lapsed.… All that had been visible of him, all that was mortal of him, had been consigned to the tomb; but this undeniable fact could not prevent the rising conviction that the spirit within him had escaped, and soared into a new life in a higher and happier sphere. The sudden birth of this conviction in the minds of the disciples we hold to have been the true. Christophany, the apotheosis of Jesus" (pp. 285 f.). The disciples, then, did not suppose that Jesus had in any physical sense "risen again"; this was but a figurative mode of expressing their own resurrection to new hope: "What then actually took place on a day or days immediately subsequent to the crucifixion was, not that Jesus rose again from the dead, but that the disciples, commencing with Peter, emerged suddenly, as in a moment, from the more than sepulchral gloom, into which they had been plunged by the death of Jesus, and in which it seemed as if the light of faith had been forever extinguished" (p. 287). Thus the resurrection of Jesus is transmuted into simply the rise of a new hope in the minds of the disciples, unattended by any event in any way extraordinary. The subsequent discussion is occupied with an attempt to show how this hope propagated itself, and how it was, through a figurative use of language, altered into a belief in a physical resurrection.

It must not be overlooked what an important part the nobility of Christ's death on the cross plays in this construction. It was the cross that transfigured Christ to His first disciples. It was the cross that glorified Him to them. It was by the mode and spirit in which He laid down His life that His claim to be the Messiah was confirmed to them (p. 278). It is probably a vice inseparable from the mode of argumentation adopted in this volume that elsewhere, when the needs of the argument require it, precisely the contrary is asserted with reference to the effect of Christ's crucifixion upon His followers. "The crucifixion," we read (p. 374), "was in fact a sort of puzzle to the disciples, which, however, did not shake their faith in him as the Messiah, and in the truth of his doctrine and the reality of his resurrection." It was "an offense" which they could only hope would be removed by a glorious second coming. It is difficult to see how the cross could have been both one of the chief causes of the continued faith of Christ's first followers in His Messiahship and a difficulty to their faith in Him as the Messiah; both an offense and Christ's chief glory. But it is not very difficult to see how it happens that it is alternately represented as each in turn by our author. By the one representation he seeks to help himself over the difficulty of explaining, as a mere subjective fact, the rise of belief in Christ's resurrection in the hearts of His dejected followers, left forlorn by their Master's death. By the other representation, he seeks to help himself over the difficulty of explaining, as a Pauline invention, the rise of faith in Christ as a Redeemer, who died that we might live. For the former purpose he enlarges on the grandeur of Christ's death on the cross and its potent effect in enheartening His followers. For the latter purpose he enlarges on the offense of the cross to the first disciples, that the emphasis placed on it in Paul's theology may be made to appear singular. In spite, then, of the declaration on the one page that it was the cross which "above all else" "confirmed Jesus' claim to be the Messiah" to His first followers, he does not hesitate to say on another that they "maintained their faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, in spite of his ignominious death," while "he became the Messiah for Paul in consequence of it" (pp. 450 f.). So slight a hold on reality has Dr. Mackintosh's whole construction.

Could anything indeed possibly be more "unreal" than this whole explanation of the rise of faith in Christ's resurrection? The chasm that yawns between despair and enthusiasm is to be bridged over. Our author proposes to bridge it by postulating—nothing. Nothing occurred, he says: the disciples simply recovered their tone. They preached the resurrection: their followers believed in it. They themselves did not: they were merely using figurative language. By this figurative language they meant to express only their own recovery of hope. If we ask what occurred to mediate their recovery of hope and to lead them so to express it, he replies simply, nothing occurred. Nothing occurred! Nothing occurred at the root of the greatest revolution in the human heart and in the history of mankind the world has ever seen. No sun arose between that black Friday and that glorious Sunday to account for the new splendor which illuminated the world. Nothing occurred to create the Christian Easter and the Christian Sabbath. Nothing occurred to deflect the whole course of human life, to ring out the old and ring in the new, to implant in man new hopes, new ideals, new life. There is nothing in "Alice in Wonderland," half so incredible, half so contrary to the "order of nature." As certain as it is that new life and hope came to the disciples' hearts on that Sunday morning, as certain as it is that through this new life and hope Christianity sprang into existence, as certain as it is that Christianity still persists in the world, so certain is it that something occurred in Jerusalem on that Sunday morning, of so stupendous a nature as to bear in its bosom the promise and potency of all these stupendous results.

Not only, however, is Dr. Mackintosh's construction thus incapable of being carried through on any simple and consistent view of the history; it is incapable of being carried through without the imputation of dishonest intention and deed to the chief actors in the development of the Christian religion. This imputation is again already involved, of course, in Dr. Mackintosh's adoption of the conclusions of the most radical forms of modern criticism as the foundation of his structure: for those conclusions include no little imputation of fraud to the writers of the Biblical books. But Dr. Mackintosh is compelled to go yet farther in the same pathway. Not only is it found by him impossible to exonerate the procedure of the fourth evangelist in the forum of the modern conscience (pp. 532, 543), but Jesus Himself must stand convicted in the same court, guilty of one of the worst faults of religious innovators—the employment of familiar language to hide the novelty of a new proclamation (p. 140). The accusation is softened as far as possible: such conduct is represented as perhaps a virtue—certainly as but "the following of an instinct common to all religious reformers." But it remains an accusation of the use of a deception from which the truly honest man will shrink. A naturalistic origin for Christianity, it seems, cannot be obtained, save at the cost of something more important than even historical verity: it involves also the ruin of the moral character of its founders and builders. This surely cannot be held to be a recommendation of the construction, derived from the character of the results obtained by it.

But if Dr. Mackintosh's assumptions have nothing in themselves to recommend them, and are not confirmed by the results obtained on the supposition of their truth, where shall we go to find support for his construction of Christian history? He himself points out that his attempt to provide Christianity with a naturalistic account of its origin may have an alternative issue. "Either it may discredit the supernaturalistic theory of Christianity; or it may go far, in the way of a reductio ad absurdum, to demonstrate the untenableness of the anti-supernatural theory." The marked ability and unwonted thoroughness with which he has prosecuted his task—shrinking from no extremity of conclusion legitimately involved in his premises—offer certainly an unusual opportunity for a fair comparison between the two theories. No one possessed of any historical insight ought to hesitate an instant in deciding between them. The naturalistic construction is renewedly exhibited here as historically incredible: things do not happen so, cannot happen so in a world where the law of adequate causes rules. The intrusion of supernatural causes into the affairs of men may be difficult to believe: the multiplication of contra-natural effects in a chain of ever increasing complexity is impossible to believe. Dr. Mackintosh's volume thus acts, "in the way of a reductio ad absurdum, to demonstrate the untenableness of the anti-supernatural theory." The reader must conclude that Christianity cannot be explained as a natural religion: the "common religious instinct, working under the influence of natural forces," is inadequate to its production. But Dr. Mackintosh not only assumes, as we have seen, but solidly argues, that the supernatural origin and the supernatural nature of Christianity stand or fall together. The anti-supernaturalistic assumption must operate all through or nowhere. If it is admitted in the matter of the origin of Christianity, it must involve, as is shown in a very lucid Appendix, an anti-supernaturalistic construction also of the person of Jesus, of the nature of His work, and of the method of salvation. The converse is, of course, equally true. It would be difficult to refute the representation which Dr. Mackintosh makes of the implication of the Divinity of Christ in the conception of His work as expiatory (pp. 415, 416). His real starting-point, for this volume, it will be remembered, did not lie in a conviction of the naturalistic origin of Christianity, but in a conviction of the naturalistic character of the saving process (pp. 212, 149, note). The real object of the book is to support this conviction. That he may believe that "salvation" under Christianity is "autosoteric," he seeks to show that Christianity is itself a human product. The failure to show the latter will necessarily react on the possibility of believing the former. A supernatural Christianity is as unconformable with an "autosoteric" salvation, as a natural Christianity is with a "heterosoteric" salvation. The attempts to seek a middle ground, Dr. Mackintosh's trenchant logic grinds to powder: and here is likely to be found the chief service that his book will render. He who ponders the argument as he has wrought it out with such boldness and care, is likely to rise from its perusal with the conviction that the whole leaven of Socinian thought on the mode of salvation has gone to its judgment with Dr. Mackintosh's attempt to construct an anti-supernaturalistic Christianity. If we begin, for example, with the soteriological conceptions of McLeod Campbell, or let us rather say specifically of Dr. John Young—for it is from something like these, it would seem, that Dr. Mackintosh took his starting point—we must logically proceed to something like Dr. Mackintosh's conceptions of the origin and history of Christianity. Conversely, if the most elaborate attempts to conceive Christianity as in origin a purely natural religion go up in smoke, the fires which consume them must inevitably eat their way back to the correlated conceptions of the method of salvation.

The failure of Dr. Mackintosh's effort to construe Christianity as a natural religion, however, will react on his attempt to explain Christian salvation as "autosoteric" in other and more direct ways also, as well as by this logical correlation. For it must be evident that the failure of the attempt to explain away the supernatural in the origin of Christianity, will discredit beforehand the use of the same methods which are relied on for that result, to explain away the expiatory nature of Christ's saving work. The contrast which Dr. Mackintosh seeks to erect, in dealing with this matter, between "the religion of Jesus" and "the doctrine of Paul," is a purely artificial one, with no ground in fact. All of Christ's followers understood Him to teach that He came into the world to save the world by the outpouring of His blood: all the records of His teaching represent Him as offering Himself as a ransom for sin: the sacramental ordinances which He instituted for His Church embody the sacrificial and cleansing nature of His work in vivid object lessons. This witness cannot be eliminated. If we are to credit any historical testimony, it is quite certain that Jesus represented Himself as rendering the Father placable to sinful man by His own expiatory work, and not as merely discovering the Father's inherent "infinite placability." And if we are to credit Jesus in this, Dr. Mackintosh himself being judge, He must needs be more than man, and Christianity, as instituted by Him, is a supernatural religion, not merely as originating in supernatural acts, but also as supported by supernatural sanctions, and as operating in supernatural modes and with supernatural powers. The failure to explain away the supernatural in the origin of Christianity not only, however, discredits the process of explaining away this testimony, it also removes the motive to refuse credit to the testimony of Jesus to His redemptive work in what Dr. Mackintosh calls "the dogmatic or supernatural sense." It does indeed even more, as we have seen: it leaves this as the only conception of the nature of His work which will harmonize with the origin of Christianity, now shown to be supernatural, and therefore predisposes us to credit it. Supernatural pomp and display accompanying the advent of Jesus might have been unnecessary, unsuitable, incredible, if all that He came to do was to teach anew what men by feeling after had often before discovered without His teaching, and would often again discover without His teaching. But if He came truly as a redeemer of a lost race, to reverse the course of history and restore to men the favor of God, then it was fitting that He should bring heaven to earth with Him. So Dr. Mackintosh perceives; and we do not see that the argument can be resisted by which he exhibits it. He rightly therefore acts on the assumption that if salvation is "autosoteric," Christianity must be a natural religion, and must have its origin like other natural religions only in the religious instincts of men. And if we act rightly it must be on the parallel assumption that since Christianity, as is renewedly exhibited in this volume, cannot be construed as a merely natural religion in origin, neither can the salvation it offers men be construed as "autosoteric." Dr. Mackintosh has bravely thought himself through and correlated the parts of his system: the result is that in the collapse of a part the whole system is involved.

THE TRADITIONAL TEXT OF THE HOLY GOSPELS VINDICATED AND ESTABLISHED.

By the late JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, B.D.

Edited by Edward Miller, M.A.

London: George Bell & Sons; New York: Macmillan & Co. 1896.

THE CAUSES OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE TRADITIONAL TEXT OF THE HOLY GOSPELS.

By the late JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, B.D.

Edited by Edward Miller, M.A.

London: George Bell & Sons; New York: Macmillan & Co. 1896.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

By GEORGE SALMON, D.D.

London: John Murray. 1897.

ADVERSARIA CRITICA SACRA.

By FREDERICK H. A. SCRIVENER, M. A., D.C.L., LL.D.

Cambridge: University Press; New York: Macmillan & Co. 1893.

THE OLD SYRIAC ELEMENT IN THE TEXT OF CODEX BEZAE.

By FREDERIC HENRY CHASE, B.D.

London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 1893.

THE SYRO-LATIN TEXT OF THE GOSPELS.

By FREDERIC HENRY CHASE, B.D., D.D.

London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 1895.

FOUR LECTURES ON THE WESTERN TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

By J. RENDEL HARRIS, M.A., D.Litt. (Dubl.).

London: C. J. Clay & Sons; New York: Macmillan & Co. 1894.

THE most solid and immediately effective work done of late years on the text of the New Testament is doubtless that which the veteran New Testament scholar, Dr. B. Weiss, has lavished upon the determination of the actual text, the first fruits of which he gave us in his study of the text of the Apocalypse published in 1891 (see this Review, iii. 1892, p. 543), followed by similar studies of the text of the Catholic Epistles (1892), Acts (1893), and Paul (1896). The thoroughness of these studies is what would be expected from their distinguished author; and it is satisfactory to observe that, though he proceeds by a method of his own and exhibits a rare independence in both processes and conclusions, the results at which he arrives are in general confirmatory of those reached by the great editors of the text who have immediately preceded him (cf. Dr. C. R. Gregory's extended paper on Weiss's labors, published in the initial number of The American Journal of Theology, i. 1897, pp. 16 ff.). But though to this extent it must needs be said that the center of gravity of textual study of the New Testament has once more "left the shores of England," this is in no other sense true. The impulse given by the epoch-making publication of Dr. Hort's "Introduction," so far from having expended itself, may be said to be only now issuing in its natural results: and the list of titles given above bears witness to the facts not only that textual problems still engage the attention of British scholars, but also that recent English work on textual criticism is largely devoted to questions which have been raised by Dr. Hort's theories.

Dr. Scrivener's final volume is the only one of the list the whole contents of which are not in this sense the outgrowth of Dr. Hort's work. Its object is rather to preserve, for the benefit of the public, the critical collections of one of the most painstaking and deservedly honored of the scholars of our generation, accumulated, as he pathetically tells us, "during the broken and scanty leisure of forty years," and, at length, in weak health and dimness of sight, passed "laboriously through the press." The very title which he gives them modestly labels them as but the contents of a critic's "wastebook." As everybody acquainted with Dr. Scrivener's work will understand, this modest description in no wise implies that the work he offers to the public is not supremely well done of its kind. The volume is made up of a collation of Evan. 556, by which its affinities with 13, 69, 124, 346 are exhibited; a collation of a number of cursive copies of the Gospels, and of a number of the early printed editions; a collation of some MSS. of the Apocalypse; and the full text of a few fragments of Old and New Testament texts. In all, some sixty-three documents are here reported on; and though the value of the whole may not be very great, it is a welcome addition to our detailed knowledge of the documents.

The two volumes published by Mr. Miller from Dean Burgon's remains remove us at once from the calm atmosphere of the cloister into the arena where contending theories strive for the mastery. "It seemed like waking up after fifteen years' sleep," remarks Dr. Salmon, "to find, on looking at the new theological publications, that the controversy, Burgon versus Westcott and Hort, was still raging" (p. 1). It is inevitable, however, that the controversy should continue to "rage" until it is fought to a finish. The question at issue between the parties to it is the fundamental question of the textual criticism of the New Testament; and it is well that it should not be allowed to pass out of public sight so long as there is a single thing which is even plausible remaining to be said upon either side. Certainly the purity of Dean Burgon's motives, the enthusiasm of his research, the breadth and accuracy of his scholarship, and the vigor of the style in which he was accustomed to present his views, would make us loath to miss anything he might have had it in mind to say on so fundamental a problem. And it is certainly not those alone who hold with him in this controversy that are the losers by the incompleteness of the great project on which he was employed when death cut him off and added "another name to the … melancholy list of unfinished work." "He had been engaged," says Dr. Scrivener (p. vi.), "day and night for years, in making a complete index or view of the manuscripts used by the Nicene (and ante-Nicene) Fathers, by way of showing that they were not identical with those copied in Codd. א and B, and, inasmuch as they were older, they must needs be purer and more authentic than these overvalued uncials." The accomplished fragment of this uncompleted enterprise, filling sixteen thick volumes, is now in the British Museum, to make us grieve that the mind that directed the work was not spared to see it finished and to estimate its teaching. No doubt, disappointment was in store for him. The problem of the use of such collectanea is something other than Mr. Miller at least conceives it, and would involve work and reach results essentially different from what we have outlined for us in the hopelessly slight chapters in which he attacks the problem of "The Antiquity of the Traditional Text" (I. chaps. v. vi. vii. viii.). Dr. Scrivener appears to have foreseen the difficulty. For though he tells us (p. vi.) that the effect of even this fragmentary collection "on the stability of the opposite system is direct and cannot be shaken," he adds in a postscript (following p. ci.) the salutary warning: "The Dean's capital argument arising from the fact that the text used by Patristic writers is often purer than primary manuscripts written one or two centuries younger than they … needs, of course, much care in its application, and can only be insisted on when the context renders it quite clear what the reading before the elder writer actually was."

Besides this vast collection of Indexes to the Fathers, a large body of fragmentary papers were placed in Mr. Miller's care, together with the text of a recension of the Gospels. Mr. Miller has piously undertaken to raise out of these materials a monument to his friend's memory, and hopes ultimately to give us: (1) the text of Dean Burgon's recension of the Gospels, concerning which he informs us that it departs from the Received text in the Gospel of Matthew in about a hundred and fifty cases (I. p. 5); (2) the portion of the Indexes to the Fathers which relates to the Gospels, as some indication of the extent of "his apparatus criticus in that province of Textual Criticism, in which he has shown himself so facile princeps, that no one in England, or Germany, or elsewhere, has been as yet able to come near him" (I. p. viii.)—Mr. Miller meaning, in the copious adduction of patristic quotations as witnesses to the text; and (3) a treatise in two volumes in which an explanation is made of Dean Burgon's system, and his general case against the recent editors and in favor of the "Traditional Text" is presented. He has begun with this last-named item and the two handsome volumes now before us are the result. Unfortunately, the material left for them was in a very fragmentary state, and Mr. Miller has been obliged to supplement it continually. He has succeeded, however, in forming out of it a tolerably complete presentation of Dean Burgon's position, with a good body of that illustrative material in the way of the discussion of special readings which no one ever knew how to make more effective.

Dean Burgon was incapable of writing a dull page, and there is much that is valuable as well as interesting in these two volumes. Especially would we not willingly miss the charming discussions of individual readings at length, such as those of the "honeycomb" of Luke 24:42, the "vinegar" of Matt. 27:34, the "rich young man," and "the Son of God" of Mark 1:1, which are gathered into an Appendix to Vol. I, and the numerous briefer discussions scattered through Vol. II. culminating in the long Appendix on the periscope concerning the adulteress. It is not merely that these discussions give us a completer and more sifted view of the witnesses for the readings discussed, and bring together a mass of interesting information as to the use and understanding of these texts in the early Church; nor is it merely that they reopen the question as to the right reading in a number of very important passages of Scripture, and sometimes present considerations which cast doubt upon or reverse previous decisions—as we think is the case in a number of instances, as for example in Acts 20:24; Mark 6:22; Matt. 27:17; Titus 2:5 (see Vol. II. pp. 28, 32, 54, 65). Such detailed discussions as these perform the far more salutary office of keeping us aware that every reading in the New Testament requires to be discussed separately and to be determined on the merits of its own evidence. It may be true that, as Dr. Salmon complains (p. 33), a certain "servility" has been exhibited in the acceptance of Dr. Hort's results, and it may well be that his theory as to the history of the text and of the consequent general value of the several MSS. and other witnesses has not only been embraced sometimes with "servility," but applied often with a dull mechanicalness which is wholly alien to its very nature. But nothing can be more certain than that Dr. Hort's determinations of the relative value of witnesses are determinations of average values only, and that nothing could more sadly confound the whole system of criticism which he has given the world than to treat them as absolute and invariable. It may possibly be true that he himself used his materials a little too mechanically in the actual framing of his text, and that there may be some color to the reproach that he looked upon B as an infallible voice proceeding from the Vatican and upon the combination Bא as a manifest deliverance from heaven itself: it may possibly be true, also, that others, following him, have dismissed with too cavalier a contempt all the readings of the mass of the MSS. and have shown a disposition to prefer nonsense to sense when it was BאACD which babbled it. But such extremes of treatment of the authorities are not only not inherent in Dr. Hort's system, but are distinctly contradictory to his system. Neither on genealogical considerations, nor on considerations derived from the verdict of internal evidence of groups, can we suppose that everything in B or Bא, or in the "Neutral" or the "Neutral + Western" stirps is genuine, and everything in the later uncials and cursives or in the earlier Fathers is corrupt. This whole method of criticism is founded rather on averages and probabilities. The combination Bא, on genealogical principles, carries us back to an exceptionally good MS., but not to a perfect one: a perfect MS. never existed, and even a very bad one may sometimes correct the best. The group of MSS. classed as "Neutral," by the test of internal evidence of groups, evinces itself as exceptionally good; and that classed as "Western" exhibits itself as exceptionally bad. But the one group remains human—and humanum est errare; and the other group remains a group of witnesses to the New Testament text, and is not transformed into a body of MSS. of another work—and it therefore may sometimes give good witness. In a word, there is not only left place here for exceptions, but exceptions are to be expected. Discussions of individual passages like those which Principal Brown and Dean Burgon gave us, therefore, must be expected to bear good fruit and to aid substantially in the better settlement of the text. The discovery of the exceptions to the validity of the general rules for applying the testimony may, indeed, be even said to be now the chief task of the actual work of the textual criticism of the New Testament. It is with no reserves, therefore, that we can welcome the rich discussions of separate readings such as Dean Burgon's writings bring us.

Nor do we need to make reserves in welcoming the discussion which he gives us of the main grounds of difference in critical principles between himself and Dr. Hort. We do not, it is true, expect to see made good the principles advocated by Dean Burgon and Mr. Miller (with whom Dr. Scrivener only partially agreed, cf. I. p. 35). There is, of course, much that they contend for with which we are in hearty accord. That, for example, all witnesses to the text are to be taken into consideration and the restored text built upon the broad basis of the whole testimony, who will doubt? But who can doubt, either, that in taking all witnesses to the text into consideration, each is to receive a valuation proportionate to its relative importance and weight? And here we touch upon the real difference between the two schools. It is found in the relative value and weight which they severally ascribe to the two great groups of MSS.—represented roughly the one by the oldest uncials, BאACD, and the other by the great mass of codices. Accordingly the controversy is often said to be between the older few and the later many, as if the one party were determined in their preference chiefly by a predilection for antiquity, and the other by a predilection for numbers. Were this the case it would surely be an interminable controversy—for de gustibus non disputandum. But, of course, each offers a more rational basis for his procedure. Dr. Hort follows the old uncials not merely because they are the oldest MSS. which have come down to us, but because he thinks the text which they present is the most trustworthy and the best text, exhibited as such under the tests of genealogical evidence and the internal evidence of groups. Dean Burgon follows the mass of copies, not merely because of their overwhelming numbers, but because he thinks the text they present the most trustworthy transmission, evinced as such by the richness and fullness and variety of its attestation—coming from all ages, all parts of the Church, all classes of witnesses—and by the fact that, in the conflict of texts in the Church, it was this text which drove all competitors from the field and established itself as the single text recognized by the Church and (what appears to him an unavoidable corollary from this fact) by the Church's God, who surely may be supposed to have busied Himself in His providence with preserving to His Church in its purity the Word He had bestowed upon it by His inspiration. The grounds of Dr. Hort's preference, if with great succinctness and somewhat abstractly, yet clearly and unmistakably, were set forth in his "Introduction." We have lacked hitherto anything like an adequate presentation of the grounds of the preference of the school represented by Dean Burgon. It is to be regretted that the hand that planned this presentation was not permitted to complete it: even after the pious care expended by Mr. Miller upon the fragments left in his hands, the arguments retain an incompleteness unavoidable in the circumstances. But they enable us to see clearly the basis of the contention of the school they represent, and thus draw the issue between the two schools more exactly than ever before. In doing this, they distinctly advance the controversy towards its conclusion.

It may be suspected that Dean Burgon was nerved for the gigantic task of indexing the Fathers, partly, by the mistaken notion that the preference for the primary MSS. of the school he was opposing turned chiefly on their superior antiquity: he wished to turn its flank by showing that the Fathers who wrote at a date earlier than that of the origin of these MSS. familiarly used a different text. So far, we may say with Dr. Salmon, that "he might have spared himself much of this trouble if he had known how freely the facts which he brings forward were acknowledged by WH": he has engaged so far in "contradicting what had not been asserted, and laboriously proving what had not been denied" (p. 16). But in another aspect this investigation of the antiquity of the "Traditional Text" is an essential element in Dean Burgon's case. For the head and front of Dr. Hort's offending relatively to the "Traditional Text" is that he denies to it the rights of an original witness altogether, and explains it as a text which has not simply "grown," but has been "made"—assigning to its manufacture a somewhat definite date. If it can be shown to have been in existence and in common use prior to the date thus assigned for its origin, this contention, at least, of Dr. Hort's falls to the ground. It would not follow, indeed, that the "Traditional Text" is a preferable text to that transmitted by the primary uncials; but it could no longer be put summarily out of court as no simple witness to the contents of the autographs, but a critically constructed text of the third or fourth century. Our authors have therefore laid out their strength on what they call "the Pre-manuscriptural Period,—hitherto the dark age of Sacred Textualism," and they fancy that they have "abundantly established the antiquity of the Traditional Text, by proving the superior acceptance of it during the period at stake to that of any other" (I. pp. ix. and x.). Their argument, however, is vitiated by a series of fatal misapprehensions. Dr. Hort does not doubt that the "Traditional Text" was already predominant in Chrysostom's day, or that it was in existence probably a century earlier. Nor does he doubt that the elements out of which it was composed existed before its formation; he does not think of it as a pure invention of its originators—a kind of New Testament freely composed out of the whole cloth by the Antiochian critics. Nor does he consider that the text which he derives from the primary uncials (if one wishes so to describe it) was the text in predominant use up to the date which he assigns for the origin of the "Traditional Text." It does not avail to set aside his conclusions relative to the "Syrian Text," therefore, to show that certain elements of it were in currency long before the date which he assigns for its origination, or were in far more predominant use than the corresponding elements which enter into his own text. What we need, and what we do not in the least get, is some evidence that that composite entity which he calls the "Syrian Text" antedates the date he assigns for its origination, or (in order to satisfy the contention of our authors) antedates the origination of the text presented in the primary uncials.

For our authors are not content with an assault on Dr. Hort's construction of the history of the transmission of the text: they set over against it an antagonistic construction of their own. And it is just in this that the value of their contribution to the settlement of the controversy lies, since thus the precise alternative is laid clearly before us. The really telling objection to Dr. Hort's construction, heretofore, has been, that his whole theory stands or falls with a piece of wholly speculative history. It assumes a formal revision of the text of the New Testament, carried through with skill and completeness, by which its whole complexion was changed, and yet for which there is not a scintilla of historical evidence. This, it has been plausibly said, is incredible, and can be admitted on no other than purely inferential grounds. This form of attack on Dr. Hort's construction is abandoned by our authors. That the New Testament text passed through some such history as is outlined by him they explicitly allow. Mr. Miller, for instance, tells us (I. p. 197) that:

"The Tradition of the Church does not take shape after the model of a stream or streams rolling in mechanical movement and unvaried flow from the fountain down the valley and over the plain. Like most mundane things, it has a career. It has passed through a stage when one manuscript was copied as if mechanically from another that happened to be at hand. Thus accuracy except under human infirmity produced accuracy; and error was surely procreative of error. Afterwards came a period when both bad and good exemplars offered themselves in rivalry, and the power of refusing the evil and choosing the good was in exercise, often with much want of success. As soon as this stage was accomplished, which may be said roughly to have reached from Origen till the middle of the fourth century, another period commenced, when a definite course was adopted, which was followed with increasing advantage till the whole career was fixed irrevocably in the right direction. The period of the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, and others, was the time when the Catholic Church took stock of truth and corruption, and had in hand the duty of thoroughly casting out error and cleansing her faith."

Is there not here allowed, in full conformity with Dr. Hort's construction of the history, (1) a period of naive copying, with growing corruption; (2) a period of critical discrimination, "from Origen to the middle of the fourth century"; and (3) a period of the dominance of the critically chosen text? And is it not the problem of criticism, in such circumstances, to get behind this critically chosen to the naively transmitted text—that is, of course, to get to the text which underlies the total transmission?

Not, however, to press the implications of chance passages like this, in which, after all, more may be conceded than the writer would like to be held to, the mode in which our authors draw the lines of the debate implies the admission of some such history as that which Dr. Hort has suggested. For the very center of their contention rests on the supposition that there was a quasi-ecclesiastical critical revision of the New Testament text consummated in the period between Origen and Eusebius. Only, they represent the primary uncials and not the "Traditional Text" as the product of this revision: and it is therefore that they would discard the testimony of these primary uncials, which present, as they say, a "fabricated text," not a text which has grown up naturally in the ordinary course of copying, but a text which has been deliberately framed, and that not merely with critical but with sinister intent and effect. "Inadvertency," we are told, "may be made to bear the blame of some omissions: it cannot bear the blame of shrewd and significant omissions of clauses, which invariably leave the sense complete. A systematic and perpetual mutilation of the inspired Text must needs be the result of design, not of accident" (II. p. 23). Accordingly it is deemed to be in no other way than by the assumption of deliberate heretical depravation, possible "to account for such systematic mutilations as are found in Cod. B, such monstrous additions as are found in Cod. D, such gross perturbations as are continually met with in one or more, but never in all, of the earliest Codices extant, as well as in the oldest Versions and Fathers" (II. p. 201). Therefore they recognize in B and א "the characteristic features of a lost family of (once well known) second or third-century documents, which owed their existence to the misguided zeal of some well-intentioned but utterly incompetent persons who devoted themselves to the task of correcting the Text of Scripture, but were entirely unfit for the undertaking" (I. p. 234). "The fact is," we are told, "that B and א were the products of the school of philosophy and teaching which found its vent in semi-Arian or Homoean opinions" (I. p. 160). They are therefore among "the most corrupt copies in existence" (I. p. 25); "a reading vouched for by only B א C is safe to be a fabrication" (II. pp. 30 f.); and the proper mental attitude towards B is one of "habitual distrust" (II. p. 27). Now the result of this theory of the origination of the text presented by the primary uncials in a formal revision by which a "corrected text" characterized by abridgment was given the world by "some person or persons of great influence and authority," "in the age immediately succeeding that of the Apostles" (II. p. 22, note), is to draw the issue between Dr. Hort and Dean Burgon with unwonted sharpness. It is by it admitted that the differences between the "Traditional Text" and that of the primary uncials are not fully accounted for by the simple unwary corruption of copying: a formal revision has taken place. The issue is, Which text—that of the uncials or that of tradition—is the "corrected text," and which is the simply transmitted text? When the issue is drawn thus exactly, its decision cannot lie far off.

We know the grounds on which Dr. Hort relies for the decision of this question. He attempts to show by a critical examination of the "Syrian Text" that it presents the features of a composite text and that it presupposes the text of the primary uncials: that this latter text is one of the constituent elements out of which it was made. He attempts to show historically that the "Syrian Text," in its characteristic features, runs out, as we ascend the stream of time, in the early fourth or third century. He attempts to show by internal evidence of groups that the "Syrian Text" is inferior to that of the primary uncials. The grounds on which our present authors rely for their decision of the question are given in these volumes. They seek to rebut some of Dr. Hort's arguments: by an attempt to meet his critical argument from the phenomena of "conflation" as exhibited in the "Syrian Text"; by an effort to show out of the earlier Fathers the early prevalence of elements which enter into the "Syrian Text"; and by an exhibition of the subtle beauty of a number of "Syrian" readings. As positive grounds for their preference they appeal on the one hand to the curtailed and "clipped" character of the text presented by the great uncials, which they endeavor to show to be both deliberate and heretical in purpose and thus to discredit their witness; and on the other hand to the widespread and varied testimony to the "Traditional Text," and above all to the fact that it is the "Traditional Text" and thus must be considered, rationally, to have the presumption in its favor and, religiously, to represent the providentially preserved Word of God.

We would not willingly underestimate any item of the case for the "Traditional Text" thus presented. But we are bound to bear witness that after an honest attempt to weigh it impartially, in its entirety and in its several parts, it seems to us to halt fatally. We cannot indeed fail to be impressed when we read such a statement as this: "The advocates of the Traditional Text urge that the Consent without Concert of so many hundreds of copies, executed by different persons, at diverse times, in widely sundered regions of the Church, is a presumptive proof of their trustworthiness, which nothing can invalidate but some sort of demonstration that they are untrustworthy guides after all" (I. p. 17; cf. p. 33). But we observe that its whole force turns on the phrase "Consent without Concert," which is the very point in dispute. Dr. Hort seems to have shown that the consent is due just to concert, and his exhibition of that fact, as yet unrebutted, transfers the presumption at once to the older though fewer witnesses, which, on the test of internal evidence of groups, evince themselves also as the better. So, again, we are far from accounting the appeal to Providence either illegitimate or without force. We do believe that God has in His Providence been active in preserving His inspired Word to His Church. We do not believe that, after giving the Scriptures of Truth to mankind, He "straightway abdicated His office; took no further care of His work; abandoned those precious writings to their fate" (I. p. 11). But just because we believe in God's continuous care over the purity of His Word, we are able to look upon the labors of the great critics of the nineteenth century—a Tregelles, a Tischendorf, a Westcott, a Hort—as well as those of a Gregory and a Basil and a Chrysostom, as instruments of Providence in preserving the Scriptures pure for the use of God's people. Dean Burgon and Mr. Miller are able to reconcile with their appeal to Providence the early prevalence of a corrupt text which needed purifying in the fourth century: why cannot they reconcile with it also a further purification of this same text in the nineteenth century? The fact is, their point of view is determined not so much by a religious as by an ecclesiastical presumption. And when we probe their fundamental principle to the bottom, it is found to rest really on a high doctrine of the Church. Their prime consideration is, in a word, that "a certain exhibition of the Sacred Text—that exhibition of it with which we are all most familiar—rests on ecclesiastical authority" (p. 13). Their confidence in the "Traditional Text" is due to their view that that text "rests on the authority of the Church Catholic"; and they are strenuous in its defense because they cannot believe that the "probat of the Orthodox … Christian bishops "through so many years can be mistaken (p. 14): and therefore they fully recognize that the force of their appeal can be felt in its fullness only by "Churchmen." "How Churchmen of eminence and ability, who in other respects hold the truths involved in Churchmanship," they exclaim (p. 59), "are able to maintain and propagate such opinions" as those advocated by Dr. Hort, "without surrendering their Churchmanship, we are unable to explain." In a word, the root of the opinions here set forth as to the purity of the "Traditional Text" of the New Testament is to be found, not in considerations drawn from the history of the transmission of that text or from a critical estimate of the relative value of its actual witnesses, but in considerations which lie outside of the text itself and its own history in a general doctrine of the continuous authority of the Church, which itself rests on a special theory of the Church peculiar to certain sections of the Christian body. There is truth therefore in the judgment sometimes expressed that the two schools of criticism may be not inaptly discriminated as the Catholic and Protestant schools, a truth that lies deeper than what was in the mind of Dr. Salmon when he speaks of Dr. Hort's text as "a thoroughly Protestant New Testament" (p. 86). It may be doubted, at least, whether a thoroughgoing Protestant could find sufficient grounds for adopting Dean Burgon's conclusions; in any event the reasons which are only secondary with Dean Burgon and Mr. Miller must needs in his case be palmary, while what is determining in their case is out of court with him.

To decline the leadership of Dean Burgon and Mr. Miller is not quite the same, however, with throwing oneself unreservedly into the arms of Dr. Hort, as Dr. Salmon's little book shows us. His remarks were occasioned, in a sense, by the publication of Mr. Miller's earlier volume; and they take up its note in so far as they are mainly critical of Dr. Hort. But they in no wise echo its contentions. Dr. Salmon has no expectation of ever seeing Burgon "set on his legs again" (p. 33); he is "unable to accept his principles" and feels no confidence in his mode of conducting an investigation (p. 5). But he thinks that "in Dr. Hort's work will be found some rash decisions which calmer followers will regard as at least doubtful" (p. 33). His tone and manner of setting forth his own doubts as to certain of Dr. Hort's positions are so unobtrusive and modest and withal so winsome, that we are led to ask ourselves whether, as Dr. Salmon sometimes seems to think that clever advocacy supplies a ground for doubting the validity of the conclusions commended by it, we would not do well to stop our ears at once to his siren voice. With some of his criticisms on Dr. Hort's methods we find ourselves at all events at once in substantial agreement. With the strictures which he makes, for example, upon Dr. Hort's "question-begging nomenclature" (p. 43), we cannot help sympathizing; the "Old Syrian" version would have been just as "old" under a less controversy-inviting name; the "neutral" text just as "neutral" under a more "neutral" title. We are also in sympathy with Dr. Salmon's animadversions on Dr. Hort's overfreedom in conjectural emendation (p. 81); and, with more reserve, with his condemnation of his overstrained critical tendency to omissions in framing his text. The criticisms on Dr. Hort's account of the origin of the "Syrian Text" (pp. 73 f.), by which his theory is not rejected but simplified, we have also read with much general agreement.

With reference to the more important strictures which Dr. Salmon brings against Dr. Hort's procedure, we must express, however, more hesitation. The one of these concerns the end which Dr. Hort set before himself, viz., to get back to the autographic text. This Dr. Salmon considers far too ambitious a project (p. 40). The other, which is closely related to this, concerns the neglect of the Synoptic problem on Dr. Hort's part. Dr. Salmon thinks that Dr. Hort ought not to speak of "the individual words of the individual author" with reference to compositions like the Synoptic Gospels (p. 104); and criticizes Dr. Hort's words elsewhere where he speaks of "the genuine text of the extant form of St. Matthew," as if the two forms of expression involved an inconsistency. The confusion seems to us, however, to be Dr. Salmon's own. Surely, no matter how the Synoptics came into being, each of them, as a completed work, bearing traces of individuality in the object, methods, and modes of speech of its author (or "compiler," if you will), had an "autograph"; and it is to the recovery of this that textual criticism looks as its goal. To be sure, if we hold that our present Gospels were not "made" in any sense, but "grew,"—are but the products of gradual accretion, silently and undirectedly made—in that case it would be a misnomer to speak of their having had "an autograph." But though Dr. Salmon speaks (p. 148) as if something in a minor way like this may have happened with reference to them, he surely would not push such a hypothesis so far as to confound the oral and written stages of Gospel composition. The expression of the judgment, moreover, that Westcott and Hort have actually not attained the autographic text, but have given us only the text of an early Alexandrian MS. of probably the early third century (p. 52, cf. p. 155), and that their method could lead them to nothing else, ought not to carry with it the dictum that the autographic text is unattainable and that it is too ambitious to seek it. In any event, we find ourselves out of harmony with Dr. Salmon in both of these main contentions. Nor can we go with him in his partial accord with Blass's theory of a twofold recension of Luke—Gospel and Acts—as the explanation, so far, of the origin of the "Western Text."

But on approaching the problem of the origin of the "Western Text," it behooves us to take account of the remaining titles set at the head of this review. If the problem as to the origin and value of the "Syrian Text" may rightly be said to be the fundamental problem of the textual criticism of the New Testament, the problem of the origin and value of the "Western Text" may equally rightly be said to be its cardinal problem. To the investigation of this problem, therefore, much of the most acute and painstaking work of scholars has of late been given; and the books by Dr. Chase and Dr. Harris named above are among the most recent fruitage of these labors. Four chief theories as to the origin of the "Western Text," as Dr. Harris tells us (p. vii.), are now in the field. There is Resch's theory, "that the bifurcation in the primitive text of the New Testament is due to independent translations from a Semitic document (probably Hebrew)." There is Blass's theory that, in the Lucan writings at least, "they are due to the issue of two separate drafts from the hand of the original writer." These two theories have in common that they look upon the "Western Text" as having similar if not equal claims to originality with the rival transmission, and in sharing this common conception they share inevitable failure. For if there is anything certain in the textual criticism of the New Testament, it is that the "Western Text" is a corrupted text. A Semitic influence may well be traced at the root of the whole New Testament transmission: the men who wrote the New Testament were Jews; it may very well be that the men who first copied its books were Jews, or, when Gentiles, Semites of the first center of Gentile Christianity, Antioch: who shall say what depth of Semitic stain the various lines of transmission may not have received before they got well out of Semitic hands and from under Semitic influences—influences which were not localized, but were, if not dominant, yet certainly present in the first age in every Christian church in the world? Knowledge of additional incidents, and of additional details of the recorded incidents, in the life and work of our Lord and His apostles, may very well have been current in more centers of Christian teaching than one; and may very well have found their way into the text of Gospels and Acts, giving a color of authenticity to many a gloss. But any careful examination of the peculiarities of the "Western Text" will show again, as it has often shown heretofore, that they have distinctly the character of corruptions and not of original inheritances. "We thus arrive at the conclusion," Dr. Harris says in the last of his "Four Lectures" (which is devoted to this subject), "that 'the glosses in the Codex Bezae show signs of having been inserted from the margin' … and further 'the displacement which is observable in certain of the glosses, is a strong though not a conclusive argument, against the theory that those glosses formed a part of a primitive redaction of the text' " (p. 81). If we may thus summarily set these two first theories aside and assume that the "Western Text" is a corrupt text, and that the only problem regarding it is to account for and trace the origin of this corruption, we have in the books of Dr. Chase and Dr. Harris exceptionally happy advocacy of the two most likely hypotheses, viz., that this corruption is derived from Syriac and that it is derived from Latin influences, entering into and corrupting the original text.

Dr. Harris was first in this very inviting field of investigation. In his brochure on "The Diatessaron of Tatian," published as long ago as 1890, he was evidently testing the hypothesis that in the Diatessaron we might discover a source of the "Western" corruption. Failing to obtain standing ground for such a hypothesis, he turned to the opposite quarter and in his "A Study of Codex Bezae," published the next year, sought to explain the "Western Text" as due to corruption derived from the influence of a Latin version upon its parallel Greek text. In the enthusiasm of discovery he naturally at first pushed this theory to extremes, as he now candidly allows (p. viii.). But he still contends that much is explained by "reaction on the Greek text from the primitive Latin translations," adding "as well as, occasionally, from the Syriac Version" (p. viii.). The general theory of the origination of the "Western Text" substantially through Syriac corruption, which Dr. Harris had thus early discarded, has been enthusiastically taken up by Dr. Chase, and is advocated in detail in the two volumes named above. Dr. Harris' "Lectures," with which our list of titles closes, contains a series of sprightly criticisms on the more recent deliverances upon the subject, with a view to defending himself from criticisms made, orienting himself relatively to the work done, and in general advancing the subject. The first lecture explains why he cannot take Resch's advice and go back to Credner's crudities; the second criticizes Dr. Chase's book on the Acts; the third treats of Corssen and Blass on the "Western Text" of Acts; and the last investigates the character of the glosses in the "Western Text" of Acts.

We shall not enter here into any detailed account of the investigations and conclusions of either Dr. Harris or Dr. Chase. They are both engaged in pioneer work, and, as the one has found, so the other will find, need to abate the extremity of his claims. For, in his enthusiasm, Dr. Chase, too, announced in his former volume that he had discovered "the true solution of the problem of the Western Text"—or of the "Syro-Latin" text as he now wishes it called. That Syriasms are found in the "Western Text" we believe has been shown, as that Latinisms are found in it has also been shown; but the problem of the "Western Text" is a great problem and, as befits a great problem, its solution lags. That hopeful advances towards its solution are being made, and that valuable contributions towards its solution are offered both by Dr. Chase and Dr. Harris, is thankfully to be recognized; that it never was so near to its solution as now seems likely enough. But when it is solved, it will surely be found that so complex a problem has not an absolutely simple solution, but that a variety of factors have entered into its making and must be unraveled for its explanation. Some of these days, however, Dr. Harris will no doubt surprise us again, and this time, doubtless, with its real solution. Meanwhile there is no place to which one can go for more stimulating notes on the problem than to his brilliant brochures upon it (cf. this Review, ii. 1891, p. 688; iii. 1892, p. 543; and The Critical Review, ii. 1892, p. 130).

A DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE: dealing with its Language, Literature and Contents, including the Biblical Theology.

Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, M.A., D.D.

Vol. I: A—Feasts.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1898.

THE first volume of Dr. William Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible" was published at the end of 1863, and was reissued in America four years later in a thoroughly revised form, under the editorial care of Dr. H. B. Hackett and Mr. Ezra Abbot. Before the close of the year 1870, the four volumes of the American edition were in the hands of the public. Of course there were other works of the kind in the field, the most valuable of which were probably Dr. Patrick Fairbairn's "The Imperial Bible-Dictionary" (2 vols., London, 1866) and Dr. W. Lindsay Alexander's edition of Kitto's "Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature" (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1866). McClintock and Strong's "Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature," the publication of which was begun in 1867, sought to occupy so much wider a field that it hardly came into direct competition with the specific "Bible Dictionaries." It is true to say, at all events, that the "American Smith" immediately took its place on the tables of scholarly American ministers and students of the Word as the standard work of the kind. That place it has worthily and almost undisputedly held ever since. Meanwhile a generation of years has passed, and in these days of restless research a generation is a very long time, in which many changes of opinion must needs occur, and some not inconsiderable advance in knowledge may haply be made. It is easy, to be sure, to overestimate the "increase of knowledge" that has come with "the process of the years." Augustine points out that all the knowledge best worth having is acquired by the human animal in its infancy: it is the puling metaphysician who accomplishes the task set us by the oracle and learns to know himself, and, wiser than he may afterward become, separates off from himself the external world, and discovers about him other spirits like himself: it is in our earliest youth that we learn to think and speak and read: and what are all other acquisitions but relatively unimportant growths of these fruitful roots? Similarly what is best worth knowing about the Bible has not been reserved for the aging Church of the last third of the nineteenth century to discover. It is all duly set down in our Smith and Kitto and Fairbairn, and in our Calmet, too, and in whatever before that served to inform men what the Bible is, what it contains, and what one must know in order to understand and appreciate its message. Whatever else the last thirty years have discovered, they have not discovered the Bible, nor anything about the Bible of the first importance. Nevertheless the diligent labors of Bible students during this period have not been in vain: a considerable body of fresh information has been accumulated, sometimes of a corrective, sometimes of a supplementary character. The time has fully come to garner this new material and put it within the reach of all.

The most natural way of doing this was to build on the old foundations, and we were accordingly promised a revised edition of Smith. After the publication of its first installment, however, that project seems to have fallen through. In its stead, we have been bidden to look for two completely new Bible Dictionaries. The one of these, projected first by Prof. W. Robertson Smith, is being completed under the editorship of Prof. T. K. Cheyne, with the assistance of Dr. J. Sutherland Black; and its first part is announced to appear in the approaching October. It is expected to occupy what is known as a very "advanced" standpoint; to scorn "average opinion" and start out from "the latest that has been written" on each subject; and to apply the "most exact scientific methods" and thoroughgoing critical solvents to all that is Biblical. The other of our two promised Dictionaries, undertaken by the great firm of Messrs. T. & T. Clark, of Edinburgh, was understood to be laid out on less extreme lines and to aim at presenting rather what is known about the Bible than the latest conjectures concerning it by the least sober of scholars. It has outstripped its rival in speed of preparation, and its first volume now lies before us. Those who had looked forward to it, however, as throughout a reliable guide to what is really known of Biblical matters will be in some measure disappointed. The editor speaks of the care that has been exercised to exclude "unaccepted idiosyncrasies" from its pages. The success of the effort has been only partial. The trouble has been in the standard assumed. "Unaccepted" is a good word, but its value can be estimated only when we ask further, By whom? "Unaccepted" by a narrow circle of critical scholars which has acquired temporary vogue among us, has been the practical answer. And the consequences are that the sober reader finds the book characterized by the abundance of idiosyncrasies which crowd its pages and is offended by its apparent lack of coherence as a whole; and that the distinction between the two new Bible Dictionaries sinks at last very much into a question of details. The interval that separates the two is indeed just the interval that divides from one another the two Oxford colleagues, Drs. Cheyne and Driver. There is no need to minimize this interval; it is perceptible: but there is no difference in principle between the two; it is only a matter of a little more or a little less. The Edinburgh Dictionary both profits and loses by the difference. It loses by it in internal consistency and unity and in stability and hold upon the future—for, after all, the "moderate criticism" which it has elected to represent wavers between two opinions and must advance in one direction or the other through rapid changes; while for an extremer scepticism there is always a constituency—few perhaps but fit—it being true in this sphere too that the "poor we have always with us." It profits by it, in so much as the frying pan, after all said, is a better place than the fire; and in so much as the essentially mediating and inconsistent character of the standpoint of "moderate criticism" which it assumes has naturally justified the insertion of many articles of a more conservative tendency (although these are mostly on the "safe" topics, that is, on such subjects as impinge only indirectly on matters of "criticism") and especially has demanded a tolerably conservative attitude in matters connected with the New Testament. Despite its unsatisfactory critical point of view, accordingly, this new Dictionary is not only a rich record of, but also an important contribution to our present knowledge of the Bible: it has been edited with the highest skill and gathers in the most scholarly manner the results of modern research into Biblical matters: it is full, thorough, learned, and bids fair to be the student's vade mecum for the next few years.

From the book-maker's point of view, the new Dictionary has been modeled on "Chambers's Encyclopædia," and its page is a very close reproduction of that of that work. Perhaps the impression of the type is a little less clear, and certainly it falls short of "Chambers" in the matter of illustrations. Here indeed is the weakest point of the new Dictionary from a formal point of view. The illustrations are very few (only some forty-four separate figures occur in this whole volume, and only two articles—"Agriculture" and "Dress"—can be called "illustrated" at all), and also (we fear we must add) very poor. The Preface tells us that "the illustrations … are confined to subjects which cannot be easily understood without their aid." We should never have discovered for ourselves that this was the principle that governed their occurrence. Could we not, then, have been spared the odd inksplotch which is labeled "A 'Lodge in a Garden of Cucumbers' " (p. 532)? We could not, on the same ground perhaps, ask to be relieved from the "Cedar from the Besherri Grove" (p. 364), but we have our doubts whether it illustrates anything. This Cedar of Lebanon and the Porcupine (p. 304) are the only natural history subjects that are figured. In our judgment every animal and plant mentioned in the Bible should have been presented to the eye. In the matter of illustrations the new Dictionary falls lamentably not only behind what was to be expected of it, but also behind its predecessors.

The strength of the volume lies in what we may speak of as the scholarly character of its contents. Here we are specially struck with the admirable quality of the numerous short articles, particularly those on the obsolete and obsolescent words of the English Versions, which are mostly written by the editor and leave nothing to be desired. The proper names of the Bible are very thoroughly worked out, and a special word of commendation is due to the geographical terms. The same is to be said of the ethnological, geological, and natural history articles, the last of which, forming a very notable series of some sixty articles, we are proud to say are from the pen of an American scholar, Dr. George E. Post, professor in the American College at Beyrout. Along with Dr. Post some thirteen other American writers appear in this volume. Of these Dr. Willis J. Beecher has contributed the largest number of articles, which seems to be partly due to his having undertaken the article "Giant" (to appear in the next volume) with all subsidiary titles; we have from him at any rate the following twelve articles: "Anak," "Arba," "Avva," "Beth-Dagon," "Dagon," "Delilah," "Drunkenness," "Dwarf," "Ekron," "Emerods," "Emim," "Ephes-Dammim." Needless to say these are thoroughly satisfactory, the most extended one—that on "Drunkenness"—being a useful historical study of a rather neglected subject. Dr. Ira M. Price contributes seven articles: "Abrech," "Accad," "Assurbanipal," "Bayith," "Belshazzar," "Chaldæa," "Evil Merodach"—chiefly, as will be seen, on subjects connected with Assyriological learning. Four articles come from the hand of Prof. J. H. Thayer: "Abba," "Bar," "Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani," and "Ephphatha," all of which concern the Aramaic element in the New Testament. Three each are contributed by Profs. F. C. Porter, E. L. Curtis, G. T. Purves, and H. Porter. Prof. Frank C. Porter's contribution consists of the extended and valuable article "Apocrypha," along with short accompanying notes on Achior and Chelod: Prof. Curtis' of the important articles on the Chronology of the Old Testament and Daniel, man and book; all written from the standpoint of the presently fashionable sceptical criticism, the historical character of the book of Daniel being denied and indeed even the historical existence of a "Daniel" left in doubt. Prof. H. Porter writes about "Cupbearer," "Distaff," and "Dyeing"; and Prof. Purves most satisfactorily on "Crown," "Diadem," and "Darkness." Two articles each are contributed by Profs. W. A. Brown ("Cross," "Excommunication"), B. B. Warfield ("Doubt," "Faith"), and Lewis W. Batten ("Ezra," and "Ezra-Nehemiah"—from the standpoint of the sceptical criticism). Dr. Selah Merrill contributes a short note on Chorazin; Prof. J. Poucher a long account of Crimes and Punishments; and Prof. Francis Brown a long article on Chronicles, in which with great minuteness he gathers together all that can tend to break down confidence in the historical trustworthiness of the books—his general conclusion being that "it is plain that the character of the Chronicler's testimony, when we can control it by parallel accounts, is not such as to give us reason to depend on it with security when it stands alone." In all, the American contribution to the Dictionary consists of some one hundred and four articles. It is not such as to render the book an "international" book; but in point of scholarship it is a creditable aid to a British enterprise; and to it is due some of the longest and most important articles in the volume—such as those on "Apocrypha" (thirteen pages), "Chronology of Old Testament" (six pages), "Chronicles" (eight pages), "Crimes and Punishments" (seven pages), "The Book of Daniel" (six pages), "Faith" (twelve pages). Perhaps we can scarcely speak of it as fairly representative of American scholarship: American Old Testament scholarship, for example, is not only prevailingly but overwhelmingly "conservative," or, as it would be better called, historical, while the adherents of the school of sceptical criticism are here thrown prominently forward. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the Dictionary, it cannot be said that American aid has been despised, and certainly the American contribution does not in quality fall below the general standard of the work.

Fullness and thoroughness being among the objects which the editor has set before himself, quite a number of the articles have been allowed to "extend to considerable length." We have counted some seventy-five which extend to a length exceeding two pages, that is to say about three thousand words, each. One article—Mr. C. H. Turner's comprehensive paper on the Chronology of the New Testament—attains the dimensions of a treatise, filling twenty-two of these large pages. Two others exceed fifteen pages each, viz., Prof. Hommel's notable paper on Babylonia, and Mr. Crum's perhaps equally notable paper on Egypt. Prof. Hommel's paper on Assyria almost equals in length and quite equals in value the paper on Babylonia. Other papers exceeding ten pages are Mr. Headlam's careful study of the book of Acts (ten pages), Prof. Porter's article on the "Apocrypha" (thirteen pages), Prof. Stewart's article on "Bible" (thirteen pages), Mr. Gayford's article on "Church" (fifteen pages), Mr. White's article on "David" (thirteen pages), Mr. Strong's admirable paper on "Ethics" (twelve pages), and Prof. Warfield's paper on "Faith" (twelve pages). Some twelve more papers exceed seven pages: Dr. Plummer's "Baptism," Prof. Francis Brown's "Chronicles," Mr. Kilpatrick's "Conscience," Principal Robertson's "I Corinthians," Prof. Poucher's "Crimes and Punishments," Prof. Ryle's "Deuteronomy," Prof. Lock's "Ephesians," Prof. Davidson's "Eschatology of the Old Testament," Mr. Charles's "Eschatology of the Apocryphal and Apocalyptic Literature," Prof. Salmond's "Eschatology of the New Testament," Mr. Thackeray's "Books of Esdras," and Prof. Bernard's "Fall." Fifteen others exceed five pages, viz., Prof. Mayor's "Brethren of the Lord," Prof. Curtis' "Chronology of the Old Testament," Principal Robertson's "II Corinthians," Principal Whitehouse's "Cosmogony," Prof. Davidson's "Covenant," Prof. Curtis' "Book of Daniel," Mr. Mackie's "Dress," Prof. Peake's "Ecclesiastes," Prof. Kennedy's "Education," Mr. Forbes Robinson's "Egyptian Versions," Mr. Strachan's "Elijah," Mr. Harford-Battersby's "Book of Exodus," Prof. Skinner's "Ezekiel," and Principal Harding's "Feasts and Fasts."

It will not fail to be observed how many of the titles thus incidentally mentioned concern matters of Biblical Theology. The effort to give proper treatment to these subjects forms one of the special features of this Dictionary. We have noted in the volume such articles as the following which fall under this head: "Adoption" (J. S. Candlish, one and one-half pages); "Angel" (A. B. Davidson, four pages); "Anger (Wrath) of God" (J. Orr, one page); "Ascension" (J. Denney, one and one-half pages); "Assurance" (A. Stewart, one-quarter page); "Atonement" (J. O. F. Murray, one and one-half pages); "Baptism" (A. Plummer, seven pages); "Blessedness" (W. F. Adeney, one-half page); "Brotherly Love" (J. Denney, one-half page); "Calling" (J. Macpherson, one-fifth page); "Chastening" (J. Denney, three-quarters page); "Christology" (J. Agar Beet, three pages); "Church" (S. C. Gayford, fifteen pages); "Communion" (J. A. Robinson, two pages); "Conscience" (T. B. Kilpatrick, seven and one-half pages); "Conversion" (J. S. Banks, one-half page); "Corruption" (J. Massie, one-third page); "Cosmogony" (Owen C. Whitehouse, six pages); "Covenant" (A. B. Davidson, six pages); "Creed" (J. Denney, one page); "Curse" (J. Denney, one and one-half pages); "Demon, Devil" (Owen C. Whitehouse, four and one-half pages); "Election" (J. O. F. Murray, four pages); "Eschatology—Old Testament" (A. B. Davidson, six pages); "—Apocrypha" (R. H. Charles, eight pages); "—New Testament" (S. D. F. Salmond, seven and one-half pages); "Ethics" (T. B. Strong, twelve pages); "Faith" (B. B. Warfield, twelve pages); "Fall" (J. H. Bernard, seven pages); "Fasting" (V. H. Stanton, one and two-thirds pages); "Fear" (W. O. Burrows, one-half page). Many of these articles are admirable; all of them are carefully written; some of them are adequate. But they certainly are not consentient; and our pity follows the man who seeks to learn what the teaching of the Bible is by reading consecutively these topics in the Dictionary. The individualistic and idiosyncratic character of the volume comes out here no more strongly than elsewhere; but it is disturbingly present here as elsewhere; and it makes the reader wonder what the editor can mean by speaking of the book as a whole as "reliable and authoritative." If Dr. Orr is "reliable and authoritative" on the "Wrath of God," for example (as he certainly is), then Dr. Murray cannot possibly be "reliable and authoritative" on the "Atonement"—for he leaves no place for wrath in God. And if we rise beyond the question of mere harmony among the several writers, and ask after some general standard of doctrinal truth which has governed the admission of views, we shall ask in vain. All sorts of theological conceptions here struggle together and label themselves alike "Biblical." We can only say that as in criticism the standard of the book is mainly what can only be described as "sceptical," in theology it is mainly "Socinianizing"—though both terms must be taken here, of course, not in their precise, but in their broader connotations. It cannot be said, either, that the space allowed for the treatment of the topics under the rubrics of Biblical Theology is at all nicely proportioned to their relative importance. Surely, in any case, for example, the space allotted to the topics of Atonement and Baptism is not adjusted to the relative importance of the subjects. Nor indeed is the list of topics treated as complete as it might well be. We miss for instance any proper discussion of such topics as Creation and Fatherhood—the cross-references given in neither case fill the need. And we miss altogether such entries as Absolution, Age (the present and to come), Apocatastasis, Apostasy, Asceticism, Bearing Sin, Benediction, Beelzebub, Birth (new), Blood of Christ, Ceremonial, Communion, Conception (miraculous), Consummation, Descent to Hell, End (other than the mere term), Eternity, Exaltation, Example. In the interests of fullness and accessibility such topics should not be passed over.

We have set down frankly the impression the new Bible Dictionary has made on us at first sight. Space would fail us to undertake detailed criticism of the separate articles. Its characteristic mark seems to be accuracy, and it is obviously a book which has information to give with a lavish hand. The student will seldom consult it in vain: though he may sometimes refuse its leading, he will be always stimulated and instructed by its presentation. It is a book, moreover, which will beyond doubt improve with acquaintance. We congratulate the editors and publishers alike on the successful launching of so great an enterprise.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION.

By ANDREW LANG, M.A., LL.D.

London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Greene & Co. 1898.

IN HIS dedicatory letter to Principal Donaldson, Mr. Lang intimates that these chapters on the early history of religion "may be taken as representing the Gifford Lectures" delivered by him; "though in fact," he adds, "they contain very little that was spoken from Lord Gifford's chair." Unsystematic, diffuse, repetitious, desultory, "jotty," the whole discussion, nevertheless, not only is clothed with that piquant literary quality which Mr. Lang gives his writings, but is also of undeniable scientific importance.

The object of the book is to discuss afresh the origin of the two fundamental beliefs which lie at the base of what we call "Religion"—the belief in God and the belief in the immortality of the soul. If these beliefs arose, comments Mr. Lang, "in actual communion with Deity (as the first at least did, in the theory of the Hebrew Scriptures), or if they could be proved to arise in an unanalysable sensus numinis, or even in 'a perception of the Infinite' (Max Müller), religion would have a divine, or at least a necessary source. To the Theist, what is inevitable cannot but be divinely ordained; therefore religion is divinely preordained; therefore, in essentials, though not in accidental details, religion is true.… But if religion, as now understood among men, be the latest evolutionary form of a series of mistakes, fallacies, and illusions, if its germ be a blunder, and its present form only the result of progressive but unessential refinements on that blunder, the inference that religion is untrue—that nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis—is very easily drawn" (p. 51). The latter view has attained among anthropologists almost the position of a fixed truth. The current teaching is briefly that man first derived the conception of "spirit" from the phenomena of sleep, dreams, shadow, trance, and hallucination; that his first worship was directed to the souls of his dead kindred and to spiritual existences fashioned on the same lines; and that, as the result of a variety of processes, these "spirits" prospered until they became gods, and at last one of them became supreme: thus "the ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early fallacious reasonings about misunderstood experiences" (p. 1). Even so, Mr. Lang is not prepared to acknowledge that "religion" may be lightly set aside as only a huge blunder. "All our science itself is the result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses originally erroneous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived." Why may not our religion likewise, "even granting that it arose out of primitive fallacies and false hypotheses," have yet "been refined, as science has been, through a multitude of causes, into an approximate truth" (p. 51)? But it seems more directly to the point to ask whether the current teaching is accordant with the facts. Mr. Lang thinks that it is not. And it is the object of this book to show that in two crucial points it is not; or, as he more coyly expresses it, that "there are two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early stages has not been steadily contemplated" (p. 2). He proposes to reopen the matter at these two points and to raise anew the two questions: Whether man arrived at belief in the existence of a "soul" solely through a misinterpretation of such simple phenomena as those of sleep and dreams; and whether man attained the conception of God through an evolution from the idea of "spirit." To both questions he returns a negative reply. And it is the purpose of his book to validate these two negative replies.

Mr. Lang justly points out that the two positions thus taken up by him are independent of each other. The establishment of them both would be, of course, the ruin of the presently dominant theory of the origin of religion. But the establishment of both is not essential for that result. It might well be that man arrived at the notion of "spirit" through a misinterpretation of the phenomena of dreams and the like, and yet, if his idea of God is not a development of his doctrine of "spirit," this fact would have no bearing on the validity of his doctrine of God. Mr. Lang unites the discussion of the two questions in this volume thus, not because they are essential to one another, but because he conceives that the developed idea of religion, as prevalent among the higher races at present, is a complex of the two ideas of the immortality of the soul and of the existence of an infinite moral Ruler and Judge. He is, therefore, at pains to investigate the origins of both ideas. His book thus falls into two very different portions. In the first he seeks to bring forward indications that "the savage theory of the soul may be based, at least in part, on experiences which cannot … be made to fit into any purely materialistic system of the universe" (p. 2). In the second he presents evidence which shows that the idea of God was not dependent on or derived from the idea of "spirit," but was of wholly independent origin, and was capable of a very high development apart from the aid of the idea of "spirit"—though, of course, this idea supplied a formula by which the Mighty Being already envisaged could be more adequately conceived, as well as an elevating conception of man's own nature. The importance of thus separating the idea of God from that of "spirit" is obvious. But we do not see why the idea of immortality also may not equally validly and with equal advantage be separated from that of "spirit." Men believed in God, as Mr. Lang shows, without the aid of any metaphysical conception of "spirit." Why might they not equally readily have believed in their own future existence apart from a conscious elaboration of a doctrine of "spirit"? It is also a question worth asking at this point, What does Mr. Lang mean by "spirit"? In this query we may indeed place our finger on a weak point in the book. Mr. Lang does not seem to keep clearly before him any consistent definition of this term, fundamental though it is to his whole argument. He seems to use it prevailingly as equivalent to "ghost," and to conceive it merely negatively as over against solid matter. Indeed, as we read his pages we are reminded of the old scholastic pleasantry which replied to the query, "What is matter?" "Never mind"; and to the query, "What is mind?" "No matter." But what "spirit" is as distinguished from what it is not, Mr. Lang does not seem to stop to consider. If, however, "spirit" means, positively, nothing but thinking, feeling, willing being—that is, if it is practically a synonym for "person"—then, of course, every person has the idea of "spirit" (undeveloped of course) given in the most immediate and intimate action of his self-consciousness: and the idea of a personal Ruler is already the idea of a spiritual God and, as well, the idea of the continued life of a person is already the idea of spiritual immortality. The metaphysical development of this conception is, to be sure, a different matter. We are, meanwhile, confused, and we think Mr. Lang confuses himself, by his undefined usage of the term. We think, had he clearly discriminated the differing connotations of the word, he would have argued that the idea of "spirit" (= ghost) was no more necessary to the belief in immortality than it is to the belief in God: and would have sought (and found) evidence of early belief in continued life and in future rewards and punishments either before or certainly apart from the emergence in thought of any developed metaphysics of "spirit." Certainly, at all events, such a state of mind is not uncommon to-day. The whole first section of Mr. Lang's book, thus, appears to us unnecessary to his avowed purpose. It is not required to show that men arrived at the conception of "spirit" by a valid pathway in order to obtain a valid starting-point for belief in immortality. In the order of developing thought, the idea of immortality would rather precede that of "spirit" in this sense: men would naturally believe in their own future existence before they fully wrought out a theory of the mode of that existence. Nevertheless we are grateful for the chapters which investigate the possible and the actual grounds on which savage men may have come to the conviction of the existence of a something in man different from his bodily organism which they could speak of as "that in men which makes them live," and which they pictured as subject of experiences beyond the confines of the merely bodily life.

The professed purpose of these chapters is to offer evidence that the inference drawn by primitive man that he possessed a "soul" did not necessarily rest on phenomena which readily admit of a materialistic explanation. Mr. Lang marshals an array of supernormal experiences asserted to occur among savage races, on the basis of which such an inference would not seem so absurd as it is commonly represented. He then parallels these asserted supernormal experiences with similar ones, occurring not among savages, but among the cultured races of the modern world, and subject to the investigation of trained scientific intellects, with the effect of raising the question whether they are to rank merely among asserted experiences, or must not rather be believed to have actually occurred. "If so," he observes, "the savage philosophy and its supposed survivals in belief will appear in a new light," and it may at least be wise "to suspend our judgment, not only as to the origins of the savage theory of spirits, but as to the materialistic hypothesis of the absence of a psychical element in man" (p. 71). The discussion of these points leads Mr. Lang into a very obscure region—into the region of hypnotism, clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, hallucinations, prophetic dreams, and the like. It is too much of a jungle for unwonted feet to tread. But we think he fairly makes out his point that there are supernormal experiences in this obscure region which are as yet insoluble on the ordinary assumptions of materialism. The evidence will, of course, appeal to different minds with different degrees of force—and indeed to the same mind at different times very differently. Personal experience of or first-hand acquaintance with similar phenomena will count for much in the estimate put upon the narrative of such experiences in the case of others. But for ourselves we do not see how it can be successfully denied that such supernormal events as Mr. Lang relates occur. What interpretation is to be put on them is a different story. The savage man has been prone to explain supernormal knowledge of the remote, for example, by the assumption of the wandering of the separable soul temporarily from the body. Mr. Lang seems now and again to suggest that it may be explained as a telepathic communication from one mind to another. Others fall back on the assumption of common participation in the universal fühlende Seele, or on common contact with the Absolute. The savage man's theory does not seem the worst of these guesses—rather than accept any of which we prefer to remain (like Mr. Lang) without a theory, meanwhile abiding content with the conviction that there are experiences that come to the human animal which shake the foundations of the materialistic hypothesis. "No more than any other theory, nay, less than some other theories, can it account for the psychical facts which, at the lowest, we may not honestly leave out of the reckoning" (p. 172).

The great success of the volume is attained, however, in the discussion of the second of the questions to which it is devoted. Here, by an array not of strange experiences drawn from a dubious borderland, but of plain and open facts, Mr. Lang demonstrates that so far from belief in a moral Supreme Being being the last result of a slow evolution, due to the action of advancing thought upon the original conception of ghosts, it occurs (often apart from the conception of ghosts) in the lowest known grades of savagery in a strikingly pure and complete form, and is so widely spread as to suggest its aboriginal universality. The novelty of this exhibition is perhaps not so great as Mr. Lang thinks, though it is doubtless very novel, indeed, in the scientific circles for which he specially writes; but the importance of his solid contribution to the establishment of the fact cannot easily be overestimated. After his marshaling of illustrative cases drawn from every part of the world and his luminous discussion of the relations of their theism to the other beliefs of savages, it would seem that the crudities of the Animistic theory of the origin of the idea of God are forever antiquated. "The savage Supreme Being," says Mr. Lang, "with added power, omniscience, and morality, is the idealisation of the savage, as conceived of by himself, minus fleshly body (as a rule), and minus Death. He is not necessarily a 'spirit,' though that term may now be applied to him. He was not originally differentiated as 'spirit' or 'not spirit.' He is a Being, conceived of without the question of 'spirit' or 'no spirit' being raised; perhaps he was originally conceived of before that question could be raised by men.… In the original conception he is a powerful intelligence who was from the first: who was already active long before, by a breach of his laws, an error in the delivery of a message, a breach of ritual, or what not, death entered the world. He was not affected by the entry of death, he still exists" (pp. 203 f.). In a word, the Supreme God of the lowest races, who stands behind and above their Animism and Fetishism and even his own mythology (p. 198), has not been conceived metaphysically but religiously: he was not primarily a "spirit"—he was and remains the Eternal, Omniscient, Ethical Creator, Ruler and Judge of all things. No wonder that Mr. Lang is impelled to exclaim: "These high gods of low savages preserve from dimmest ages of the meanest culture the sketch of a God which our highest religious thought can but fill up to its ideal" (p. 208). To the origin of this conception he devotes little discussion, contenting himself with hints that he would reject the assignment of it to a special primeval revelation and would look with favor on the supposition that it represents an instinctive operation of the causal judgment seeking an adequate cause for the universe—to which he doubtless would not object to adding the action of that sense of dependence and responsibility which seems native to man as man. Its history he is inclined to trace in a progressive degeneration incident to the very advance of culture, the vera causa of which he discovers in the "attractions which animism, when once developed, possessed for the naughty natural man" (p. 281). He tentatively suggests that four stages in this history may be traced, represented by (1) the Australian unpropitiated Moral Being; (2) the African neglected Being, still somewhat moral; (3) the relatively Supreme Being involved in human sacrifice, as in Polynesia; and (4) the Moral Being reinstated philosophically, or as in Israel (p. 329). Whether, however, these stages can be made out or not, the mass of evidence offered for the main proposition is overwhelming; and we think Mr. Lang has shown with a clearness and force which should convince the most recalcitrant that the conception of a Supreme Being, the cause of all existences and the moral ruler of the world, is native to the human race, is possessed by even its lowest representatives, and can only with difficulty be eradicated or even obscured.

It is natural, of course, that Mr. Lang should wish to see how far his conclusions "can be made to illustrate the faith of Israel." His closing chapter is given to this subject. Perhaps it is not the most satisfactory portion of his book. Mr. Lang is as chary of the directly supernatural as most men of science of the day. But, apart from this, his remarks on the Israelitish religion and its course are most suggestive. He naturally looks upon the belief in Jehovah as "a shape of the widely diffused conception of a Moral Supreme Being, at first (or, at least, when our information begins) envisaged in anthropomorphic form, but gradually purged of all local traits by the unexampled and unique inspiration of the great Prophets" (p. 294). "Had it not been for the Prophets," he remarks, "Israel, by the time that Greece and Rome knew Israel, would have been worshipping a horde of little gods, and even beasts and ghosts, while the Eternal would have become a mere name—perhaps, like Ndengei and Atahocan and Unkulunkulu, a jest. The Old Testament is the story of the prolonged effort to keep Jehovah in His supreme place. To make and to succeed in this effort was the differentia of Israel. Other peoples, even the lowest, had, as we prove, the germinal conception of a God.… 'But their foolish heart was darkened' " (p. 220). Upon the current "critical" theories of the origin of Jehovah-worship, Mr. Lang accordingly pours a well-deserved scorn. "Have critics and manual-makers," he exclaims, "no knowledge of the science of comparative religion? Are they unaware that peoples infinitely more backward than Israel was at the date supposed have already moral Supreme Beings acknowledged over vast tracts of territory? Have they a tittle of positive evidence that early Israel was benighted beyond the darkness of Bushmen, Andamanese, Pawnees, Blackfeet, Hurons, Indians of British Guiana, Dinkas, Negroes, and so forth? Unless Israel had this rare ill-luck (which Israel denies) of course Israel must have had a secular tradition, however dim, of a Supreme Being" (p. 312). The uniqueness of the religious history of Israel does not then consist in the mere fact of its Theism, but in the preservation and on the whole steady elevation—not, of course, without periods of decline and degeneration (which Mr. Lang paints far too black, p. 283)—of this universal high Theism. In the account to be given of "the historically unique genius of the Prophets" by whose instrumentality Israelitish Theism was thus preserved and developed, Mr. Lang certainly falters: the divine purpose was exhibited in it, he is driven to admit; but beyond that single admission he will not go. But of the fact he is clear: here is a unique experience among the races of men—the progressive broadening and deepening of primitive Theism in one race, under the influence of a series of unparalleled religious teachers until a greater than all the prophets came to birth. And the uniqueness of the experience of Israel is all the more marked because of the relative indifference of Israel to the second stream of influence which, in Mr. Lang's theory, enters into the formation of religion in our modern conception of that term. "The great Prophets of Israel, and Israel generally, were strangely indifferent to that priceless aspect of Animism, the care for future happiness, as conditioned by the conduct of the individual soul" (p. 329). "They carried Theism to its austere extreme—'though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him'—while unconcerned about the rewards of Animism" (p. 295). And so it seems that "early Israel having, as far as we know, a singular lack of interest in the future of the soul, was born to give himself up to the developing, undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief in a righteous Eternal" (pp. 332 f.).

We may not find here quite all that we could wish: but surely we find what is fundamental in the Christian conception of the history and mission of the religion of Israel, and the germ of much else. One feels that Mr. Lang needs only to give a somewhat more detailed study to the development of that religion, to be forced to posit something more than what we may speak of as natural inspiration in the Prophets, for example, in order to account for their unique work. And one is strengthened in such a feeling by reading such a treatise, for instance, as Giesebrecht's "Die Berufsbegabung der alttestamentlichen Propheten." Giesebrecht is quite as keen as Mr. Lang can be, to account as far as possible for the prophetic teaching on natural grounds, that is, without the assumption of direct supernatural revelation; and his postulation of a natural Ahnungsvermögen as the basis of the Prophetic phenomena would, one would think, be attractive to Mr. Lang. But a reader of Mr. Lang's acuteness would soon discover that even Giesebrecht does not succeed in accounting for the Prophetic phenomena by eliminating all direct supernatural communication from them; and we fancy his candor would gradually lead him to the conviction that there is a deep discrimination between religions that he has not yet clearly made, which nevertheless the facts require—a discrimination by which, over against those religions which are the product of men's reaching up after God if haply they may grasp Him, is set the religion which is the product of God's reaching down to men if haply He may restore them to communion with Himself.

ENCYCLOPÆDIA BIBLICA. A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religious History, the Archæology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible.

Edited by the Rev. T. K. CHEYNE, M.A., D.D., and J. SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A., LL.D.

Vol. I: A to D.

New York: the Macmillan Company; London: Adam & Charles Black. 1899.

THE scholarly world has for some years been aware that there was in preparation a new Bible dictionary, originally projected by the late W. Robertson Smith, and after his death taken in charge by Prof. T. K. Cheyne and Dr. J. Sutherland Black, destined to be the mouthpiece of the newer criticism in its most radical form. The appearance of the first volume has disappointed none of the expectations which had been formed concerning it. The vigorous scholarship and indefatigable industry of Dr. Cheyne and the skill and experience of Dr. Black as an editor of encyclopædias justly led the public to look for a notable work at their hands. It is a notable work that lies before us. Every page is instinct with living learning, poured out without stint on every subject which naturally comes into view in a dictionary of the Bible. And it is safe to say that on no encyclopædia ever published has there been expended such a wealth of expedients to make it the handy, useful book of reference which it is the very mission of an encyclopædia to be. It is possible even that in both matters the thing is overdone. It requires a number of pages to put the reader in possession of the abbreviations, symbols, typographical devices, systems of cross-reference by the employment of which the book has been reduced in size and increased in handiness; and the average reader may be somewhat appalled as he contemplates the necessity of mastering this new language before he advances to the work itself. And he certainly will not read far into the latter before he will recall the familiar distinction between knowledge and wisdom and will begin to desiderate less of mere learning and more of good judgment in the matter laid before him: after all, he who consults a Bible dictionary is commonly more in search of safe guidance to the knowledge of the truth than desirous of spending his time in learning some new thing. When once he is adjusted, however, to these two conditions, he will no longer be disappointed in the book. He will certainly find the type too small (though it is remarkably clear), and he will often find the articles too compressed: both of these faults he will recognize, however, to be in the right direction. He will assuredly not find the book characterized by sobriety and restraint in criticism or by trustworthiness or reverence in its dealing with the Biblical material: he was not entitled to expect this in a work the very keynote of which has ever been announced as "advanced criticism," and that as interpreted by Dr. Cheyne. But he will discover himself in possession in this book of a mass of information as to all archæological, geographical, and physical matters connected with the Bible which it would be difficult to surpass elsewhere; and with a complete conspectus of the most recent conjectures as to its literary, political, and religious history, which will interest him extremely, and doubtless prove not less instructive than interesting. He justly expected all this in Dr. Cheyne's dictionary: he receives it in Dr. Cheyne's dictionary.

For this is distinctly, and in a sense in which the other large dictionaries of the Bible are not, the dictionary of one man, and that one man Dr. Cheyne. It is somewhat important to note this fact clearly. For in the pious regard which the editors pay to the memory of the late Prof. W. Robertson Smith and the anxiety they exhibit to give due credit to his initiative—to which the "Encyclopædia" owes its origin—the impression is apt to be obtained that it is in some true sense Dr. W. Robertson Smith's dictionary of the Bible. Except, however, that it is in a fashion the carrying out of a project contemplated by him and by men whom he trusted and to whose hands he committed the task, it is in no sense Dr. W. Robertson Smith's dictionary. Confessedly the positions taken up in the dictionary are not those which Prof. Smith taught during his lifetime. Dr. Cheyne only contends that they are such as Prof. Smith—who was always in the van of critical opinion—would have taught had his life been prolonged to the close of the century. It is an opinion which Dr. Cheyne is quite entitled to hold. Certainly Prof. Smith occupied a position which in principle leaves nothing to choose between it and Dr. Cheyne's own: and if with prolonged life he had not "advanced" step by step with Dr. Cheyne in the application of their common principles this would have been due not to less radicalism of fundamental postulates on his part, but only to differences between the two in habits of mind, spirit, and mode of applying common presuppositions. We do not ourselves think that Prof. Smith could have failed to "advance" steadily toward the goal toward which Dr. Cheyne's own face is turned. Whether he would have embraced the same body of opinions which Dr. Cheyne publishes in this dictionary—which is proclaimed with some flourish to be Prof. Smith's own—may on the other hand be very seriously doubted. Prof. Smith's criticism was in principle all that Dr. Cheyne could desire: but he was a very serious-minded man, and liked to have some show of sober reason for his opinions. That these reasons were sound, that the apparently wide inductions on which he established his opinions were trustworthy, we are the last to believe. That Dr. Cheyne's patronizing air to his "more moderate colleagues," as only radical critics in the making, has a certain justification we do not question. But meanwhile it is true that Dr. Cheyne's critical methods have none of the apparent caution which characterized Prof. Smith's procedure, and that his critical opinions have none of the air of grounded judgments which Prof. Smith knew how to throw around his.

Nor can it even be said that what Prof. Smith intended or what Prof. Smith did has fared very well at the hands of the editors of the actual dictionary. This is certainly not precisely the dictionary Prof. Smith projected, if we are to believe the account of his purposes which Dr. Cheyne gives us in his Preface. And certainly the material which Prof. Smith left behind him has been treated in the most cavalier fashion. It appears to have been Prof. Smith's purpose to republish, in a revised and completed form, his own contributions to Biblical learning printed in the "Encyclopædia; Britannica," and to supplement these with such articles as were necessary to complete the scheme of an "Encyclopædia Biblica": and much work seems to have been done in the preparation of the briefer articles for this purpose. Almost none of this work has been given a place in the dictionary as published. The articles contributed to the "Encyclopædia Britannica" have not been revised and republished. Only in the single instance of "Chronicles," cared for by the comparatively sober hand of Dr. Driver, has this been done. The famous article "Bible" (spoken of in the Preface somewhat shortly as "inevitably provisional") has simply been passed by. New articles on "Canticles" and "David" by Dr. Cheyne, written from wholly different standpoints, have been substituted for those by Prof. Smith bearing these titles. While the minor articles "Angel," "Ark," "Baal," "Decalogue" have taken practically no account of what Prof. Smith had said on these themes in the "Britannica." The article "Baal" is signed indeed "W. R. S.—G. F. M.," but stands in no internal relation whatever to the "Britannica" article; while the only connection which the new article "Ark" has with Prof. Smith arises from the incorporation into it of a short extract from his "Bennett Lectures." Besides occurring along with Dr. Driver's initials at the end of the article "Chronicles," and along with those of Dr. Moore at the end of that on "Baal" (in this latter case one scarcely sees why), the initials "W. R. S." appear very infrequently in the pages of the volume—only, so far as we have noted in a somewhat hasty glance through its pages, at the end of the short and unimportant articles, "Abez"; "Adoni-Zedek"; "Adversary"; "Baalis"; "Barkos"; "Beth-Marcaboth"; "Bidkar." In a word, the only places where Prof. W. Robertson Smith is honored in this volume are the Dedication and Preface: in the body of the work he has practically no place and receives very scanty respect.

The book is distinctly therefore, we say, not Prof. Smith's, but Dr. Cheyne's. A very large part of it is written by Dr. Cheyne's own hand. It is, indeed, a marvel of industry and scholarship that one man could have written so much, so much to the point, and so much so learnedly and acutely as Dr. Cheyne has written for this volume. It deserves to be accounted one of the wonders of the literary activity that marks the close of the nineteenth century. And even what has not been actually penned by Dr. Cheyne bears for the most part the impress of his peculiar genius and reflects his modes of thought and feeling. He has had, of course, the choice of his collaborators in his own hands, and these have naturally been selected from the men most nearly akin to himself; and a large part of the work has been done by younger men, trained by himself, and working in the spirit with which he has indoctrinated them. The result is that we not only have "advanced criticism" in this new "Encyclopædia," but distinctively what we may perhaps be permitted to call without offense "Cheyneyesque" advanced criticism; and this is a variety which is certainly not marked by sobriety of judgment, but will strike most men—though they be "advanced critics" themselves—as sometimes erratic and often ungrounded. Thus even Dr. C. N. Toy—who of course welcomes the book as in the main learned and conscientious—feels impelled to enter a caveat against its over free resort to conjecture and the overboldness of its use of emendation of the texts with which it deals (The American Historical Review, v. 1900, p. 545). And Julius Wellhausen, in his biting way, does not hesitate to rebuke it for addiction to the employment of most doubtful data as if they were of historical value (Deutsche Literaturzeitung, xxi. 1900, coll. 9–12). Perhaps a transcript of a short section of Wellhausen's notice will exhibit, better than anything that we could ourselves say, this characteristic of the work. He remarks:

"The Dictionary projected by W. Robertson Smith was to be 'no mere collection of useful miscellanea,' but 'a survey of the contents of the Bible as illuminated by criticism.' To this his successors and especially the Chief Editor, Cheyne, have addressed themselves. The distinguishing characteristic of the work, at least so far as the Old Testament articles are concerned, is 'advanced criticism.' To the substantial indications of this belong: (1) the bold emendation and dissection of the Old Testament transmission, combined when necessary with subjective divination; (2) that conception of the general history of religion, of English origin, which was applied to Semitic antiquity by W. Robertson Smith, and has been lately applied to classical antiquity also by E. Rohde; (3) the effort to cast light on the Old Testament from Egypt and especially from Assyria and Babylonia. In the article on 'Bela,' written by Cheyne, we meet with the following with regard to the list of Edomitish kings in Genesis 36. In v. 32 we must read probably 'Bela b. Achbor' instead of 'Bela b. Beor,' and certainly 'his city was Rehoboth,' instead of 'his city was Dinhabah.' The city of Rehoboth lay in the North Arabian land of Musri. Thence came Bela and Saul, and also Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Mezahab (v. 39). For 'Matred' is a corruption of 'Misran,' 'Mezahab' of 'Misrim,' and 'Misrim' is merely a variant of 'Misran'; both represent the land of Musri. What unexpected gains for the understanding and correcting of the oldest Hebrew tradition spring thus from the discovery of this land in the cuneiform inscriptions! Not less fresh and important light as to the Ark is derived from the article 'Ark of the Covenant,' also written by Cheyne. It had never left, we learn, the land of the Philistines, up to David's day, but had only been transferred from a temple to a private house—and that, indeed, the house of Obed-edom in Gath; thence, however, David brought it up after a victory which he won over the Philistines. For it is certainly too incredible that David should have intrusted it in Jerusalem to the guardianship of a Philistine resident there. This is a convincing consideration, as Kosters also saw—with whom Cheyne agrees. Although I feel myself now, I confess, too old to follow such a lofty flight, it is nevertheless very pleasing to me to find here so full and faithful a portrayal of that latest phase of 'advanced criticism' which has hitherto been in some respects wholly unknown to me."

What strikes Profs. Toy and Wellhausen as bizarre and unbalanced may surely be looked upon without offense by others as registering something other than the ascertained and securely established facts of modern Biblical learning.

Of course the book, despite the dominance of Dr. Cheyne's hand, is not all of a piece. His touch is visible constantly; but all his helpers are naturally not of precisely one mind. In particular he complains in the Preface that "the literary and historical criticism of the New Testament is by no means as far advanced as that of the Old Testament"—which may be well taken as an expression of regret that he was not able to obtain New Testament scholars who were willing to treat their text with the license with which he himself and his pupils dealt with that of the Old Testament. In some instances at least, however, his complaint is only partially justified by the event. The most copious writer on New Testament subjects in this volume is Prof. Paul W. Schmiedel, of Zürich, whose contributions—"Acts of the Apostles"; "Alphæus"; "Apollos"; "Barjesus"; "Barnabas"; "Christian" (name of); "Clopas"; "Community of Goods"; "Cornelius"; "Council of Jerusalem"—would make a small volume; and assuredly they are sufficiently arbitrary and ungrounded, one would think, to please the most exacting of "advanced critics." But within the limits of "advanced criticism" there are of course the necessary grades of opinions to be recognized which always accompany the work of a variety of writers. Only in such rare cases as the article on the Epistles to the Corinthians by Dr. William Sanday and the ecclesiastical articles by Dr. J. Armitage Robinson is anything like a cautious voice raised. The body of helpers Dr. Cheyne has gathered around him, though selected very broadly from a geographical point of view (the work plumes itself on its "international" character), in a word, form a rather narrow coterie of like-minded scholars.

Some fifty-three writers are represented in the volume before us. Of these some thirty-two are British, fifteen Continental, and six American. Prof. Lucien Gautier, of Lausanne, writes an excellent article on the "Dead Sea"; and we confess that his name seems as out of place among its companions as do those of Profs. Sanday and Robinson. Prof. Tiele, of Leiden, and the late Prof. Kosters, also of Leiden, have been called on to write on their specialties. But the foreign contingent is mostly German: Benzinger ("Atonement" [Day of], "Circumcision," "Golden Calf," etc.); Bousset ("Antichrist," "Apocalypse"); Budde ("Canon of Old Testament"); Guthe ("Dispersion"); Jülicher ("Colossians and Ephesians"); Kamphausen ("Book of Daniel"); Marti ("Chronology of the Old Testament," "Day," etc.); Eduard Meyer ("Adonis," etc.); Nöldeke ("Amalek," "Arabia," "Aram," "Aramaic," etc.); Schmiedel (as above); von Soden ("Aretas," "Chronology of the New Testament," etc.); Zimmern ("Creation," "Deluge"). The six American writers have not been called upon for much very important work. The most copiously represented is Prof. George F. Moore, of Andover, whose articles, besides the extended paper on "Deuteronomy," chiefly concern matters of the neighboring idolatry ("Abimelech"; "Adoni-Bezek"; "Adoni-Zedek"; "Asherah"; "Ashtoreth"; "Asylum"; "Baal"; "Bezek"; "Chemosh"; "Cherethites"; "Dagon"; "Deuteronomy"). Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania, writes the important article "Canaan"; Prof. Nathanael Schmidt, of Cornell University, that on "Covenant"; Prof. Francis Brown, of Union Theological Seminary, New York, contributes two short notes, on "Carites" and "Dedan"; Prof. Robert W. Rogers, of Drew Theological Seminary, one on "Chiun and Siccuth"; and Prof. W. Max Müller, of the Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Philadelphia, four articles connected with his Egyptological studies—"Baalzephon" (§ 2), "Brick," "Camel" (§ 3), and "Candace." The mass of this American material is not very considerable, but its quality is equal to that derived from any other quarter.

Of two classes of articles a special word may perhaps be fitly said. The first of these includes those in the domain of New Testament Geography. These, as a body, appear distinctly inferior to the corresponding articles in Old Testament Geography. This is not because they are not full of learning; they are packed with information, often of a sort difficult easily to lay hands upon elsewhere. But it is because they are badly adjusted to their purpose. The majority of them are from the pens of Prof. George Adam Smith, of Glasgow, whose interests lie in Old Testament study, and of Mr. W. J. Woodhouse, Lecturer in Classical Philology at Bangor, whose interests lie rather in the classical than the Biblical region. The result is as might have been anticipated: they tell us much, but not as the New Testament student would fain have it told him, and often not what the New Testament student most needs to know. The other class of articles we wish to speak particularly of includes those of Dr. J. Armitage Robinson on prevailingly ecclesiastical subjects—"Apostle"; "Baptism"; "Bishop"; "Canon"; "Church"; "Deacon." These have been very much spoken against in some quarters as deeply dyed in Anglicanism and producing the strange anomaly of the conjunction in one "Encyclopædia" of the utmost radicalness of criticism with ecclesiastical teaching which cannot stand the test of the slightest critical examination. This conjunction would not, indeed, be unwonted; from Richard Simon's day it has ever been normal in certain quarters—and, indeed, when men feel the authority of the Scriptures breaking to pieces beneath their feet under the action of their critical postulates, it is not strange that they should temporarily grasp at the straw of "the Church." But in the present instance the criticism is so exaggerated as to appear to us thoroughly unjustified. Dr. J. Armitage Robinson does not write entirely without bias—perhaps nobody does; and his bias is an Anglican one. But he writes not only with adequate scholarship, but with so balanced a judgment and such transparent candor, that his papers stand out in this "Encyclopædia" as a shining light in the midst of a dark place.

His article on "Canon," indeed, we consider thoroughly bad: it begins with an a priori construction of the origin and early history of the New Testament Canon which is at war with all the facts and has not even a priori probability to recommend it: and this, of course, the careful collation of certain of the historical facts that follow does little to redeem. Those on "Church" and "Baptism" would rouse little remark, one way or another: the stress in the former is laid upon the point of the unity of the Church, and little reference is made to the deeper conception which has gained for itself the name of the "invisible Church"; while in the latter the discussion of the formulas of baptism is hardly satisfactory, but the general drift of the article is sober and balanced. In the article "Apostle" there is apparent a lack of grasp upon the more fundamental question of the apostolic authority. But the two articles on the most controverted topics—"Bishop" and "Deacon"—are really very good indeed, excellent instances of well-wrought-out statements of the essential facts, not written throughout without some bias, to be sure, but with careful guarding against the influences of personal traditions, and on the whole marking a successful effort to attain and state the truth without fear or favor. On all the main matters involved these two articles are distinctly on the right side. It would indeed be difficult to find anywhere a more accurate statement of the New Testament evidence than that given in the "General Conclusions" of the former article (§ 7, col. 580); and on the chief points—that the bishop is a development from the presbyterate by differentiation of function and not from the apostolate by localization of service, that the government of the local Church was in the hands of a plurality of presbyters with the bishops at their head, and that the diaconate was not a ministry of the word but a local ministry of subordinate, chiefly eleemosynary service—these articles are thoroughly sound and thoroughly non-Anglican. Indeed, were we to search the "Enclyclopædia" through for examples of pure and unbiased scholarship, intent only on discovering and setting forth the facts, we are not sure that we should find anything with a better claim upon our recognition than these carefully studied articles.

It is not possible to go into further details in reviewing a book of this kind. Perhaps enough has been said to suggest its general character. In comparison with the new "Dictionary of the Bible," publishing simultaneously under the editorship of Dr. James Hastings, it is more compressed, and more radically destructive in its criticism. It omits, moreover, not only all that large mass of explanations of the language of the Authorized Version which is so striking a feature in Dr. Hastings' work, but also all the professed treatment of topics of Biblical Theology which is almost the most characteristic feature of Dr. Hastings' work. To us, we do not hesitate to say it, Dr. Hastings' work is far the more trustworthy and the more really scientific and the more valuable book. And we say this with our eyes fully open both to the immensity of learning packed away in the "Encyclopædia Biblica," which makes it an indispensable guide to those who wish to know the latest facts discovered in Biblical archæology and as well the latest guesses hazarded in the way of the reconstruction of the Biblical history; and also to the sad fact that Dr. Hastings' work is itself filled with the "results" of a Biblical criticism which differs from that which vitiates the whole substance of Dr. Cheyne's less in principle than in stage of development. It remains true, however, that Dr. Hastings' work is by far the more sober and by far the more trustworthy, as well as the more comprehensive of the two. But the two, remarkable products of our day of minute learning as they are, leave the way still open for a really satisfactory "Dictionary of the Bible"—a "Dictionary of the Bible" written from the standpoint of established faith in the trustworthiness of the Bible—its trustworthiness in its account of itself, in its account of the origin, nature, and development of the religion whose history it records, and in its account of the facts, doctrinal, ethical, and historical alike, which it recounts. Dr. Cheyne declares not without some superciliousness that his book is based on a criticism that "identifies the cause of religion with that of historical truth." Of course. So is everybody's. The point of difference turns on what we deem "historical truth": and that is largely determined by the processes by which we suppose it can be attained. What we need is a "Dictionary of the Bible" which is sound in its views of historical truth and which does not wreck the cause of religion by insisting on adjusting it to a history which is at bottom, as Wellhausen puts it, "Weissagung aus den Eingeweiden." Who will give us, now, a "Dictionary of the Bible" which renounces speculation and sets out the facts?

JEAN CALVIN. Les hommes et les choses de son temps.

Par E. DOUMERGUE.

Tome Premier: La Jeunesse de Calvin.

Lausanne: Georges Bridel et Cie, Éditeurs. 1899.

CALVIN has had to wait long for an adequate biography. But this first volume of the work projected by M. Emile Doumergue, of Montauban, gives us hope that he will have it ere the fourth century since his birth runs wholly out.

We are not forgetful or unappreciative of those who have already labored in this field. How many they are any good bibliography will exhibit—say, for example, the select list given by Dr. Schaff at the head of his treatment of "The Reformation in French Switzerland" in the seventh volume of his "History of the Christian Church." How good they are everyone who has sought to know this greatest man—nay, as Renan was compelled to recognize, this greatest Christian—God has given the modern Church, has had ample opportunity to appreciate. There has been left us little excuse for not knowing John Calvin. The description of the wealth of our means of information with which M. Ant. J. Baumgartner opens his admirable lectures on "Calvin Hébraïsant et Interprète de l'Ancien Testament" is no more than just. A considerable number of really good biographies of Calvin already exist—biographies which seem to leave almost nothing to be desired—Henry's (1835–1844), Bungener's (1862), E. Stähelin's (1863), Kampschulte's (1869–1899), Lefranc's (1888). These have been supplemented by the publication of his correspondence by Jules Bonnet (1854), Herminjard, and the Strasburg Editors; by the great Strasburg edition of his works with its illuminating prefaces; and by an incredible number of special essays and articles. "Thanks to his biographies," remarks M. Baumgartner, "we have seen cleared up many an obscure point, many a detail of his life as youth, student, mature man; thanks to his commentaries we are better prepared than ever to appreciate the astonishing, multifarious, almost superhuman activity of this supernaturally courageous man, this vere theologus, this incomparable theologian, as Melancthon fitly called him.… His latest biographies enable us to penetrate deeply into his inner life; and make it possible for us to witness his early studies, to see in action the factors which produced his first works, and the unrolling of the diverse phases through which his spiritual or intellectual development passed." He concludes: "We should not be wrong, therefore, to be satisfied with what we know." Yet he at once adds a "nevertheless." And we must echo this "nevertheless."

It is possible, to be sure, to exaggerate this "nevertheless." Dr. A. Pierson certainly exaggerates it when, in the Preface to the first part of his "Studien over Johannes Kalvijn," he represents mere "studies" about him and not a complete biography of him as alone possible as yet; and speaks of the present duty of the historian as the renunciation of the legends set forth by Henry, Merle d'Aubigné, Stähelin, and not wholly eliminated from even the, in many ways, admirable work of Kampschulte; and the careful and patient eduction of the truth from the authentic records—or at least the demonstration that the riddles of this life are incapable of resolution. As if no one had trodden this hard pathway of detailed investigation before himself; and as if such painstaking investigation could result only in revolutionary conceptions of the course of this life! Before Pierson and after Pierson such studies have been vigorously prosecuted, and our knowledge of Calvin's life has been correspondingly enriched. The older biographies had already made use of the results of many of them. Much has, however, been acquired since, and thus an adequate biography has remained a desideratum up to to-day and grown daily ever more a desideratum.

It is one of the reasons we have for hoping that M. Doumergue is about to give us this adequate biography that he has neglected none of the "studies over John Calvin" that have hitherto been made. Everything seems to be in his control. And controlling all that has been hitherto brought to light he has added investigations of his own: and better than that, he has brought to his task a clear intelligence and a trained literary habit; a detailed knowledge not only of the whole compass of the literature concerning Calvin—earlier and later—but of the times in which he lived and the currents of thought in which he was formed and amidst which he labored; and as well an acute as well as calm faculty of judgment. Above all he has brought apparently a keen and instinctive sympathy with the personality he is depicting. We do not know how fully this sympathy extends to the doctrinal and ethical teachings of Calvin—subsequent volumes of the work will determine this; but this first volume enables us to say that if M. Doumergue is able to write as sympathetic an account of Calvin's labors in Geneva and of his theological teaching as he has written of his youthful development and his preparation for his work, he will give us at length an adequate biography of Calvin. There will no doubt remain details which will require further investigation: there will no doubt be expressed historical judgments which will need correcting: the really definitive treatise on no subject will ever be written. But if the promise of this first volume is fulfilled in the remaining four we shall have a portrait of the greatest of the Reformers which will adequately present his grand figure before the eyes of every sympathetic reader.

It will doubtless have been already noted that the book has been planned on a scale which, so far as bulk in concerned, ought to be adequate. Here are nearly six hundred and fifty quarto pages devoted to "the youth of Calvin." For the depicting of his entire life five such great volumes are to be subsidized. It is a veritable monument which M. Doumergue is raising to the memory of the greatest of theologians. And everything has been done to make this monument, even in its externalities, worthy of the memory it is to enshrine. The publishers have spared no expense and no pains to turn out a perfect piece of work—the best of paper, the best of type, the best of presswork vie here with the best of editing to produce a volume that it is a pleasure to the eye to look upon and to the hand to handle. Archæological knowledge and artistic skill have combined to illustrate it richly and illuminatingly. The illustrations alone almost suffice to carry us back into the sixteenth century and to place us among the scenes, in the midst of the companions, in the presence of the literary products, in contact with which Calvin's youth was passed. Already in this we see revealed one side of M. Doumergue's furnishing for the task he has undertaken. M. Doumergue is evidently an enthusiastic archæologist. No archæological detail escapes his keen sight or fails to set him throbbing with enthusiasm. Perhaps his antiquarian zeal is even a little excessive. Perhaps when he reaches, for example, his chapter on "Protestant Paris in the Sixteenth Century," his ardor runs a little away with him and he almost forgets his Calvin for a season in his engrossment with the old streets and old houses and their multifarious associations. All this, to be sure, is in accordance with his theory of how a biography should be written: he would fain present to us not a dead abstraction called "Calvin" but a concrete living man in the midst of the rich life in which he was immersed. And certainly his archæological enthusiasm has borne good fruit in adorning the volume and throwing a local atmosphere around the portrait that is painted. The life of the sixteenth century stares us in the face here on every page, and even he who runs cannot fail to read it off from the beautiful cuts which are lavished everywhere. And let no one imagine that because M. Doumergue is an archæologist he is therefore dull. He appears incapable of writing a tiresome line, whatever may be his subject. Indeed, if the book errs in the matter of its style, it errs in precisely the opposite direction. It is the temperament of the dramatist, of the orator, of the journalist, rather than that of the antiquary which is revealed to us in these sparkling, lively, ever moving pages, full of literary art and Gallic vivacity. The touch is light with French gayety, the disposition of the material lucid with French clarity, the story is told with the verve and liveliness of which only a French pen is capable. There is not a dull line from the beginning of the volume to the end of it, and he is a poor reader who, having begun it, will not be content to stay until he reads through to the last page.

This volume treats, as we have said, of the youth of John Calvin; and it treats of it in the full light of all that has been brought to knowledge upon this obscurest period of his life. Of course the investigations of Lefranc and the studies of Lecoultre and of Herminjard are largely used: but the whole mass of recent discussion also has been thoroughly winnowed and a keen intelligence is brought to bear upon its criticism and utilization. The period covered by the volume extends from the birth of the Reformer in 1509 to the publication of the first edition of the "Institutes" in 1536. Along with his personal development, of which we get a picture even more vivid and even more winning than that offered by Lefranc himself, we have all the currents of thought of his time and all the influences that played upon him—Humanism, Faber Stapulensis and the religious movement of which his teaching was the source, and all the reformatory impulses that were aroused in the France of the day—fully depicted for us. We are shown the Noyon of his boyhood, the Paris of his youth, the Orleans and Bourges of his opening manhood, the France of his years of persecution, the Bâle of his refuge, and all the streams of intellectual and religious life that were flowing through them: and then we are shown the young Calvin moving through them all and thrown out into relief against them all, until we almost feel as if we had lived his life with him and might well claim him as our boyhood's friend.

And let us note the phrase which we have thus unpremeditatedly used to describe the impression the picture of the youthful Calvin, as limned by M. Doumergue, makes on us. We feel as we read this flowing but precise narrative which so vividly brings his figure before us, we say, as if we might well claim him as our own boyhood's friend. For it is distinctly a friendly, attractive, lovable youth who is here presented to us, one whom we look upon distinctively as a friend—whom to look upon is to love. We have been taught to think of another kind of Calvin—even in his youth: somber, sour, forbidding, inaccessible, almost a hater of the human race (as other Christians before him have been slanderously designated). We have been told that the iteration and severity of the denunciation he visited upon his young companions earned everywhere their disgust, and won for him at their hands the unenviable nickname of "The accusative case." It is only a part of the Romish legend—fully exploded by Lefranc and now again by Doumergue. A serious-minded youth he was, of course, and one filled with a gracious piety and schooled in a strict morality: he was certainly no Rabelais rioting among his companions—but as certainly he was neither an anchorite nor an accuser of his associates. Born to a competency, reared in the company of the great and the cultured, living on terms of frank and free intercourse with the choicest spirits of his time, the young Calvin reveals himself to us as an open-minded, affectionate young man of irreproachable morals, decent habits, and frank manners—somewhat sensitive perhaps but easy to be entreated, and attracting not merely the admiration but also the lasting affection of all into contact with whom he came. He finds his Biblical prototype not in Elijah or in John the Baptist but distinctly in that other John who was at once a "son of thunder" and the "apostle of love." This is how M. Doumergue sums up the chief results attained by his minute study of Calvin's life among his fellows during these years of preparation:

"Thus he journeys from place to place, from north to south and from south to north, through France and through the churches, seeing, hearing, observing, noting, enriching his heart and his conscience not less than his understanding with all that he encounters among men as well as in libraries; a prodigy of work, of rigorous self-denial (ascétisme), and yet full of youthfulness, highly esteemed, always welcomed. All circles dispute for him, and on all he exercises that mysterious influence, that irresistible power of seduction and attraction which is one of the most characteristic signs of the sovereignty of genius. All who know him love him; and those who love him cannot resist the wish, or let us say the necessity, of seeing him again. They leave, one after another—Noyon: his brother, his sister, his successor in the chaplaincy of the Gésine, his successor in the curacy of Pont l'Evêque, and the King's lieutenant, Laurent of Normandy;—Paris: his master Mathurin Cordier, his fellow pupils of the house of Montmor, his friends the Cops, his friends the Budés;—Orleans: the sons of his friend Daniēl;—Bourges: the Colladons;—Angoulême: his host himself who cannot be separated from him;—Poitiers: Véron, the procureur Babinot, the lecturer in the Institute, Saint-Vertumien: a strange enough procession, but one which attests the fascination exercised upon hearts by one whom men have dared to reproach with not being able to feel or inspire affection" (p. 515)!

In a word the legend of Calvin's hard and unlovable disposition, on any real acquaintance with his life, goes up in the same smoke with those other legends—the product with it of the malignant imagination of hate—which have pictured him as of low extraction and of criminal habits—branded for nameless vice at Noyon, convicted of theft at Orleans, and a victim of all sorts of evil passions.

One of the chief preoccupations of M. Doumergue in studying the early years of Calvin is naturally the preparation it formed for his subsequent labors. The hand of Providence is indeed so clearly revealed in the training of the future Reformer that it has ever been the subject of admiring remark: Dr. M'Crie, for example, has written a very striking page or two on it in his posthumous work on the "Early Years of John Calvin" (pp. 2, 22, 77, 78). The more careful study of his early years only increases the impression of the singular preparation which they formed for his subsequent career: and M. Doumergue does not permit this side of his task to escape him. The words we have just quoted from him, indeed, are a portion of an eloquent passage in which he sums up the elements of this preparation. It was certainly long, he remarks, but assuredly also most marvelous.

"Driven from Noyon by the plague while still little more than a child, he falls in with the best teacher of Latin of the age, Mathurin Cordier, who waits before leaving Paris to teach him. Then at Orleans he falls in with the best master of Greek of the age, Melchior Wolmar, who seems to have come from Germany, whither he is about to return, in order to inculcate his method upon him: two incomparable masters who prove incomparable instructors. Not content with teaching him the languages they speak to him also of the Gospel of Christ.

"It was for him, it seems, that the Middle Ages had preserved its somber college of Montaigu, so that before it disappeared it might initiate him into all the secrets of an irresistible dialectic. For him too it was that modern times had hastened to establish the College of France, that he might attend its first lectures and later rank among the masters of Humanism.

"And on the benches of these schools, while his cousin, Robert Olivétan, is pressing him to read the Bible, he almost had opportunity to elbow Loyola, who pronounced the vow of Montmartre, and Rabelais, who wrote Gargantua: the Jesuitical spirit and the Gallic spirit, the two inspirations of the anti-Calvinistic opposition.

"And even this is not enough: here is our young man encountering the most illustrious professors of law,—l'Estoile, who is still at Orleans, and Alciat, who is just arrived at Bourges. They mold his mind to that kind of precise, exact, realistic thinking which permits him to be not merely the theologian but the legislator of the Reformation.

"Nevertheless Providence had not yet accomplished more than half its task. What is intellect without life? And these wonderful years of study are at the same time wonderful years of experience. The Church takes care to reveal to him all its failings, all its most secret vices. It gives him personal experience of its weaknesses and its hardnesses. It endows him abusively with its benefices; it casts him unjustly into prison; it obliges him to rescue the dead body of his father from its anathemas. While yet a babe he commences to visit the bizarre relics of Ourscamp; later he looks upon the episcopal disorders at Angoulême; he listens to the legends of Poitiers; and just as he is leaving France, the Franciscans are still playing before his eyes the farce of Orleans, that he may sound the lowest depths of a superstition which ends in vulgar trickery.

"But by the side of the shadow destined to repel him shines the light destined to attract him. If Calvin was the pupil of Béda, chief of the Sorbonnic band, he is also the protégé of the friends of Le Fèvre d'Etaple, the Cops and the Budés, and he passes through all the stages of the Fabrician movement. He allies himself intimately with Gérard Roussel, and the venerable Le Fèvre prolongs his life to more than a century that he may be able to give him his blessing at Nérac. Similarly before enduring his martyrdom, Estienne de la Forge receives him into his house and permits him to learn the piety and heroism of the nascent Church, while Quintin, chief of Libertines, and Servetus, chief of Antitrinitarians, present themselves in Paris to horrify the young doctor with their dangerous heresies."

Then follows the description of the enchanting personality which the young man bore through all these experiences, which we have already quoted. This was the youthful David—intellectually and morally fair of eyes and goodly to look upon—whom God had chosen to overthrow those new Goliaths, the King, the Pope, the Emperor, and to conduct Protestant Christianity to its destined victory: and this was the way God chose to prepare him for his great work.

We have quoted M. Doumergue as saying that the young Calvin "passed through all the phases of the Fabrician movement," and the remark bids us pause to call brief attention to the most interesting controverted question which is treated in the whole volume. This concerns of course the conversion of Calvin. It has become customary to date the conversion of Calvin in 1532 or later. M. Doumergue enters the lists with great spirit for an earlier date, and would carry it back, say, to 1528. We cannot go here into the reasons pro and con. It may well be that too much stress is laid by M. Doumergue on the necessity of a development of Calvin's religious life through stages, if not slow, at least not unprepared: Calvin himself speaks of his conversion as "sudden." It may well be that a little of that Gallic spirit which is such an ornament to Frenchmen attaches itself to his argumentation and that he is a shade overzealous for the purely French origination of French Protestantism. But certainly he marshals the facts and inferences with amazing skill, and the result of his construction is to leave an impression on the mind of the reader which is very strong that Calvin was no stranger to the new doctrines through his years of study at Orleans and Bourges, and that if we are still to speak of a "conversion" as late as 1532 it must be in the purely spiritual sense. Long before this he assuredly had known and yielded intellectual assent to the central elements of the new teaching.

We know it is a very inadequate introduction to our readers that we are giving M. Doumergue's notable book. Our consolation is that we shall have subsequent occasion, on the appearance of the remaining volumes, to call attention to it anew. The first volume exhibits it as a piece of solid historical work, fortified by ample citations of the sources, and presented in a charmingly direct and readable narrative style. No one can pretend hereafter, to know John Calvin who does not take account of M. Doumergue's full, rich, and thoughtful study of his life and work. We look forward with the greatest eagerness to the appearance of the subsequent volumes, and we can wish nothing better for them than that they may prove as thorough and illuminating for their own periods as this first one is for the years of Calvin's youth.

OUR BIBLE AND THE ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.

By FREDERIC G. KENYON, M.A., D.Litt., Hon. Ph.D.

With Twenty-six Facsimiles. Second Edition. Eyre and Spottiswoode, etc. 1896. Third Edition, revised and enlarged, with Twenty-nine Facsimiles and an Appendix on Recent Biblical Discoveries. 1898.

THE PALAEOGRAPHY OF GREEK PAPYRI.

By FREDERIC G. KENYON, M.A., Hon. Ph.D. (Halle), Hon. D. Litt. (Durham).

With Twenty Facsimiles and a Table of Alphabets.

Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1899.

HANDBOOK TO THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

By FREDERIC G. KENYON, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts, British Museum.

With Sixteen Facsimiles.

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited; New York: The Macmillan Company. 1901.

THE publication of Dr. Kenyon's "Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament" furnishes a fit occasion for bringing together for cursory remark the chief contributions he has hitherto made to the better or wider understanding of the history and state of the text of the New Testament. We have accordingly associated with this latest of his works on the subject two earlier publications, one more popular, one more scientific in its scope, to both of which the present volume bears a somewhat close relation. We have observed the attribution to him of yet another volume which would naturally fall into the same series—a collection of "Facsimiles of Biblical Manuscripts in the British Museum" (1900): but this happens not to have fallen in our way. There is also, of course, the somewhat long list of his editions of Greek texts from the British Museum papyri, which more remotely bear upon his work on the problems of the New Testament text. These began, it will be remembered, with almost the unexpectedness of an explosion, in the simultaneous publication in 1891 of the text and translation of Aristotle's "Constitution of the Athenians" and the volume of "Classical Texts from Papyri in the British Museum," containing fragments of Demosthenes, Herodas, Homer, Hyperides, Isocates, etc. Certainly here was an achievement for a young man under thirty, whose scientific expression hitherto had been practically confined to the preparation of the earlier parts of the "Catalogue of Additions to the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum" (1888–1893). A separate facsimile edition of Herodas and an edition of the "Orations of Hyperides against Athenogenes and Philippides" (1892) quickly followed. Later there was added an edition of the Odes of Bacchylides (1897), while other papyri fragments have been from time to time given to the world through the periodical press (Class. Rev., vi. 436; Rev. de Phil., xvi. 181, xxi. 1; Journal of Philology, xxi. 296; Mélanges Weil, 1898, p. 243), and still others in those beautiful volumes, "Greek Papyri in the British Museum, Catalogue with Texts"—the first of which with one hundred fifty plates appeared in 1893, and the second with one hundred twenty-three plates in 1898. In the comprehensive Introduction to this last-named work, we find much which has been drawn upon—with appropriate amplifications and modifications, of course—in the books which we have placed at the head of this article, and to this extent this "Catalogue" might readily be looked upon as part of Dr. Kenyon's direct preparation for writing his latest book, with which we are now more immediately concerned. But it is not unfair to treat the whole series as bearing witness rather to Dr. Kenyon's general palæographical learning, and thus as only indirectly facilitating the preparation of his treatise on New Testament Textual Criticism. With the two earlier books, which we have placed at the head of this article, the case is different: in different ways and degrees, it is true, but equally really, both stand immediately at the root of the "Textual Criticism" and contribute directly to its pages. It might almost be said, in fact, that this treatise is but an amplified, enriched, and scientifically heightened recension of the portion of "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts" dealing with the New Testament text, which, among other additions, has incorporated also the cream of "The Palaeography of Greek Papyri," so far as it is applicable to the New Testament.

It is not our purpose, however, to revert to these volumes more than is necessary to call attention to them and place them in their right relation to the volume more particularly in hand. The earlier of them is a remarkably successful attempt to put into the hands of educated Bible readers a readable and accurate account of how the Bible has come down to us. It opens with three general chapters on Variations in the Bible Text, The Authorities for the Bible Text, and The Original Manuscripts of the Bible. The Hebrew Text and the Versions of the Old Testament are then treated in two chapters; and these are succeeded by three in which the Text, Manuscripts, and Versions of the New Testament are dealt with. A single chapter is given to the Vulgate in the Middle Ages: and then the book closes with two chapters tracing the fortunes of the English Bible, in its Manuscript and Printed Forms. No pretension is made to originality: the book is frankly based on the work of others, which it only proposes to popularize. It's note is sobriety and judiciousness. Only in a single matter has it gone astray by accepting bad guidance. This is a very serious matter in itself, though here of less importance because forming no essential part of the book: it concerns the account given of the origin and history of the Canon, both Old Testament and New (cf. pp. 27, 95). One wonders, again, that Dr. Kenyon, of all men, with his first-hand knowledge of papyrus documents, should not have known in 1898 how the papyrus-paper was manufactured (p. 19: the matter is set right in the later books—"Papyri," p. 15; "Handbook," p. 19). But (with the exception of the matter of the Canon) they are only minute flaws that can be picked in this good book. It easily takes rank with the best popular expositions we have.

The treatise on "The Palaeography of Greek Papyri" stands at the opposite pole from "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts" in point of originality. This is original or nothing: it pretends to be only an essay, but it undertakes to break entirely new ground. Though strictly scientific in contents, it is so clearly written and marshals its material with such skill that its interest is by no means dependent solely on its novelty. The brief opening chapter, entitled "The Range of the Subject," contains a welcome précis of the history of the recovery of papyrus documents, chiefly from the sands of Egypt. The second chapter summarizes what is known of papyrus as a writing material, and provides what we may call the archæology of the subject. The palæography of the non-literary papyri is briefly surveyed in the third chapter; this branch of the general subject being passed over succinctly because it is not new. The proper subject of the book is reached in the fourth and fifth chapters, in which the palæography of the literary papyri is for the first time worked out systematically. Finally the transition to vellum is described in a sixth chapter, and some useful tables and lists are added in an Appendix. The quality of sobriety and judiciousness which characterized the more popular volume are equally in evidence in this, and gives an air of fine restraint to the whole which vastly adds to the comfortable confidence of the reader: he is easily persuaded that he is in the hands of a competent and safe guide and passes on from page to page in a docile spirit. For a book breaking new ground this is a noticeably modest and eminently satisfying one.

On turning to the "Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament," one notes at once the same qualities of style, tone, manner which characterized its predecessors. It is an eminently well-written book: it is a markedly calm and sober book: it is a thoroughly well-informed book. The same tone of moderation and good judgment which met the reader in the former volumes delights him here also. It is a positive pleasure to read these quiet, judicious pages, so free from all special pleading, and so aloof from all whimsical extravagances. One feels assured from the outset that he is getting a fair summary of the present attainment of the art in which he is being instructed. Perhaps he will miss a little the individual note; will feel the lack of the stimulus that attends enthusiastic advocacy; and will scarcely avoid receiving an impression that he is getting an essentially outside view of the subject—something like the summing up of a judge in a case in which he has had no personal part to play. His consolation will be that he feels himself in the hands of a fair-minded and well-informed judge whose guidance he can trust.

The eminent sobriety of the book is at once brought to the attention of the reader in the opening chapter, where the function of criticism is expounded. He will note for example with satisfaction the circumspect position taken up with reference to the practice of conjectural emendation (pp. 2, 6, 14–15). It is "a process precarious in the extreme, and seldom allowing any one but the guesser to feel confident in the truth of its results." "Where documentary evidence is plentiful, conjecture will be scarce; but where the former is wanting, the latter will have to try to take its place to the best of its ability. In the case of the New Testament the documentary evidence is so full that conjecture is almost excluded." "Where the evidence is so plentiful and varied as it is for the New Testament, the chances that the true reading should have been lost by all are plainly very much smaller.… It is universally agreed … that the sphere of conjecture in the case of the New Testament is infinitesimal; and it may further be added that for practical purposes it may be treated as non-existent. No authority could be attached to words which rested only upon conjecture." This is eminently prudent. But the reader may be pardoned for wondering whether it goes to the bottom of the matter. He will certainly desiderate some account of the nature of the conjectural process and the natural limitations of its use. This he does not get.

For it will not suffice him to be told that exceptionally plentiful or early attestation will exclude it. If he is a receiver of letters, he knows from his own experience that autographs themselves constantly contain errors which conjecture both can and must remove. If he is a reader of popular literature, he knows from repeated observation that such errors may persist through a million copies issued in scores of editions. He has himself corrected hundreds of them. He opens, we will say, the fifth volume of the English Translation of Harnack's "History of Dogma," at chapter vi. (p. 274), and he reads in the title of the chapter of "The Cralovingian Renaissance." Will he hesitate to correct this at once to "Carlovingian"? A few lines lower down he reads of "the Neoplatonic type of thouoht": and with as little hesitation corrects the errant second "o" into a "g." He turns the page and on p. 277 the word "activitv" meets his eye and is at once made "activity": and when a little lower down he reads "the king-emperor of the Franks and Romans was the successor of Augustine and Constantine," he as promptly corrects the "Augustine" into "Augustus." Nor does he hesitate on p. 285 when he reads that "Christ was as man sacrificed for sakes" to insert "men's" before "sakes," nor a little lower down to change the order of the words "the then Incarnation" to "then the Incarnation." Neither does he do all this with fear and trembling, but with confidence and assurance.

Nor will he be satisfied by being told that the sacred text is too holy to be thus corrected by conjecture. If it is obviously wrong he will be apt to think it too holy not to be corrected, whether by conjecture or what not, so only it be corrected. He takes up, for example, the Brevier 16mo edition of the Revised New Testament, issued at the Cambridge University Press in 1881, and at 1 Cor. 3:5, he reads: "What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye Lord believed; and each as the gave to him." Because this is a sacred text, will he decline to transfer the word "Lord" to its proper place before the word "gave"? Or he takes up the "Editio critica minor ex viii. maiore desumpta" of Tischendorf, published in 1877, and on p. 945 he runs into mere nonsense, due to the misplacement of a whole line from the first to the seventh place on the page. Sacred as the text is, he is not likely to wait to consult the MSS. before he readjusts the lines and goes on his way in entire confidence both in his readjustment and in the authority of the text as readjusted. Or if he takes up the Barker and Bill Bible of 1631 and reads at Exod. 20:14, "Thou shalt commit adultery," will he decline to insert at once the "not" so obviously required, or to act on the thus amended text, because forsooth "no authority can be attached to words which rest only upon conjecture"? Would he have to wait until he consulted other copies (which are happily extant and accessible in these cases) before he gave full confidence to such conjectures and assigned full authority to them? We must not confuse the authority due to the Biblical text with the method of procedure by which the Biblical text is ascertained. When once ascertained, it has the authority that belongs to it as the Biblical text: and the only valid question is, Whether it is really ascertained. This question clearly has nothing to do with the nature of the text ascertained, but purely with the nature of the processes by which it is ascertained. Processes that are valid for the ascertainment of a secular are equally valid for the ascertainment of a sacred text, and it has no bearing on their validity that the texts when thus validly ascertained have the imperative of law in them, or the authority of God's holy word.

Enough has doubtless been said, however, to make it manifest that appeals to the sacredness of the New Testament text, to the multitude of its depositories, to the antiquity of its attestation, do not really touch the question of the applicability of conjectural criticism to it. There are limits to the successful use of conjectural emendation: but Dr. Kenyon's comfortable remarks do not even hint to us what they are or where they are to be found. Roughly speaking, they may be suggested by the broad remark that a bad text may be successfully emended by conjecture; a good text, not. That is to say, in proportion as a text is really bad—in proportion as gross errors are sown thickly through it—in that proportion does conjectural emendation find its opportunity; just as anyone, looking over a "dirty proof-sheet," will find numerous opportunities to correct it without consulting the "copy"—errors of spelling, errors of grammar, errors of transposition, omission, insertion, and the like. On the other hand, in proportion as a text is good, in that proportion does the sphere of the safe application of conjectural emendation shrink. This is because in a good text all the grosser errors have been eliminated, and such errors as remain belong to a different order: it is no longer a question of mere blunders of careless reproduction but a subtle question of style or meaning—and here tastes differ and the fear lies near at hand that we are not correcting the scribe but the author himself, and hence not restoring but corrupting his text. The reason why the New Testament text is inaccessible to conjectural emendation is then, not because we have so many witnesses to it, nor because we have such early witness to it, nor yet because it is so sacred—though each of these facts doubtless enters, in its own way, into the production of the correctness which has secured the result—but shortly because it has been so excellently transmitted to us. The New Testament text, as it comes into our hands, is so good a text that there has been eliminated from it the fomes conjecturæ.

Even here, however, we need to make distinctions. The New Testament text as it lies in any given single manuscript is certainly not removed from correction by conjecture; it rather gives occasion for even the easiest and most obvious conjectures. No manuscript in existence is free from a set of incuria which any and every reader of it will correct as he reads—just as he will correct the incuria of any printed book, as we illustrated above from a few pages of Harnack's "History of Dogma." If we needed to print the New Testament from a single codex—as many of the classical authors have been from time to time printed—we should need cursorily to correct it, as we cursorily correct them, by conjecture pure and simple, without raising any question about the propriety of the process. When we speak of the inapplicability or the practical inapplicability of conjectural emendation to the New Testament text, we are having in mind not that text as it lies actually in this or that single document, but an already emended text derived from a comparison of witnesses and already editorially revised. And the reason why this already castigated text is inaccessible to conjectural emendation is simply because it is so good a text that the opportunity for conjectural emendation has been removed. Still another distinction, however, must be made at this point. If the New Testament text is removed by its excellence from the chance of emendation by conjecture, it is still not removed from the application of conjectural criticism. No text can be too good to be criticized: the only proof we can have of its excellence is through criticism. The autograph itself, if we had it, and whatever approach to the autographic text we may have attained by our most careful and wise use of the documentary evidence, must be subject to the further critical scrutiny of our best powers to betray its shortcomings or certify its correctness. The last resort in any process of criticism, bestowed on any text whatever, is just conjectural criticism. That is to say, the final step in settling any text is the careful scrutiny of the text as provisionally determined, with a view to learning whether it commends itself to the critical judgment as the very text of its author. This is essentially the application of the conjectural process to the entire text: and it is just as essentially this if no errors are detected by the process or no remedies for detected errors suggested, as it would be if it were found still full of difficulties and impossibilities, cures for which we proceed to suggest. So far is it then from true to say that conjectural criticism has no place in the text of the New Testament, and that we must have some surer foundation for the authoritative Word of Life than conjecture can supply, that it would be truer to say that the final establishment of every word of the New Testament is due to the application of this mode of criticism, and that it is on its authority that our ultimate confidence is built that what we have in our hands is the veritable Word of Life that God has given us through His servants the apostles. It may sound paradoxical: it is in truth a paradox of just the same order as the fundamental philosophical truth that all knowledge is built on faith: and it is just as true as that undeniable proposition. No more can the documentary critic boast himself as over against the "conjectural critic," than can the sensationalist boast himself over the "believer."

We have permitted ourselves to run beyond all reason in these remarks on conjectural criticism because we have fancied they might so illustrate the matter as to permit us to say more intelligibly what we wish to say in the way of criticism of Dr. Kenyon's book. We have already remarked that he seems to approach the subject of the textual criticism of the New Testament a little too much from the outside—as if he had not after all entered sympathetically into its processes. We wish to add that accordingly far too preponderant a place is in this volume given to the externalia of the art with which it deals. Dr. Kenyon tells us all about the Manuscripts, and the Versions, and the Patristic quotations; he tells us all about the history of the art in the past; he outlines the present state of the textual problem as it is discussed in the schools: and all with admirable skill. Nobody could do it better. But as to the art of textual criticism itself—the reader will rise from the book but little wiser than he opened it. He has not read a page without pleasure; he has not read a page without profit; he has not read a page without admiration. For all that Dr. Kenyon has set out to tell us, we could not have had a better guide. But Dr. Kenyon has not elected to tell us how we must proceed in undertaking the great and, to each of us, indeed necessary task of actually criticizing the text of the New Testament. He informs us (pp. 15, 16) that "the function of the textual critic is, first, to collect documentary evidence, and, secondly, to examine it and estimate its value." There is not a word about applying it to the actual formation of the text! Accordingly, he goes on to say: "The object of the present volume is to show what has been done in both these directions." It is no part of its object, then, to teach us how to exercise the art of textual criticism. Its point of view is purely historical and at most it provides us with an estimate of a condition attained. "In chapters ii.–vi.," he proceeds, "an account will be given of the available textual material—the copies of the New Testament in the original Greek, the ancient translations of it into other languages, and the quotations from it which are found in the early writers of the Christian Church. The materials having been thus passed in review, an attempt will be made in chapters vii. and viii. to summarise what has hitherto been done in the way of using these materials, to discuss the principal theories now current with regard to the early history of the New Testament text, and to estimate the general position of the textual problem at the present day." This is an exact record of the contents of the volume. All this is done and done admirably. But when all this is done there yet remains the whole subject of the textual criticism of the New Testament. In a word, Dr. Kenyon's volume is devoted to the externalia of the subject and treats these externalia exceedingly well. He does not profess to do more. He does not do more.

It will be observed that our criticism of the volume turns rather on what it does not contain than on what it does contain. The volume is indeed somewhat remarkable for its omissions. There are minor surprises in this regard as well as the great surprise we have tried to suggest. We read over the Table of Contents: I. The Function of Textual Criticism; II. The Autographs of the New Testament; III. The Uncial Manuscripts; IV. The Minuscule Manuscripts; V. The Ancient Versions; VI. Patristic Quotations; VII. Textual Criticism in the Past; VIII. The Textual Problem. Where shall we find what we may call the archæology of the subject discussed? Where shall we look for some sufficing account of various readings, their ordinary character, their several modes of origination? Where shall we discover the proper modes of dealing with these variations outlined: the different kinds of evidence, internal, whether intrinsic or transcriptional, and external, in its various modes of application? What has become of the Lectionaries? But we pause in the long list of inevitable questions. Compare the Table of Contents of a contemporaneously appearing primer on "The Text of the New Testament"—almost in its contents as defective as this—we mean the Rev. K. Lake's contribution to the "Oxford Church Text Books" (London, 1901)—and we shall see at least how odd it is that some of these topics are not formally recognized as substantial constituents of a "Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament." Mr. Lake's table runs: The Object and Method of Textual Criticism; The Apparatus Criticus of the New Testament—the Greek MSS., the Versions, Patristic Quotations, Liturgical Evidence; Chapter Divisions and Stichometry; History of Modern Criticism; The Western Text.

No doubt some of the topics left unrecognized in Dr. Kenyon's Table of Contents are nevertheless to be found tucked away in some corner or other of the book. The Index helps us to discover an incidental mention of the Lectionaries among the pages devoted to the Minuscule MSS. (pp. 109, 122). Some classes of variations and some canons of criticism are cursorily mentioned and even criticized in the opening chapter on "The Function of Textual Criticism." Some archæological and palæographical details are given in connection with the descriptions of the MSS. And perhaps some suggestions as to the method of procedure in criticism may be picked up in the course of the historical remarks that occupy the concluding chapters. But this only advises us that there is not only an insufficiency in the treatment of these things, but also a confusion of formal arrangement of the material. This formal confusion emerges even in the captions of the chapters. What are we to make of the caption of the second chapter, for instance: "The Autographs of the New Testament"? Of course this chapter does not treat of "the autographs of the New Testament." It is, on the contrary, a very illuminating description of the first period of "The Manuscript History of the New Testament"—the period during which it was propagated on papyrus, a period of which Dr. Kenyon has a special right to speak with authority and on which he writes most interestingly and instructively. It is with something like irritation that we see hidden under such a misleading title this admirable chapter, in some respects the most welcome in the volume, outlining as it does the history of the New Testament for nearly four centuries and adding a new chapter to that history from first-hand knowledge.

Next after this chapter on the Papyrus period, the two closing chapters of the book are likely to commend themselves to the reader. The intermediate chapters leave little to be desired in the presentation of their own subjects: but they are necessarily more of the nature of compilations and have less of the attraction of novelty. The penultimate chapter surveys the history of textual criticism in the past; the last one, under the title of "The Textual Problem," really summarizes recent discussion regarding the families of text precised by Dr. Hort. Both turn as on a pivot upon Dr. Hort's textual theory, and provide a most useful account of the debates that have raged of late around it,—especially with reference to the origin and value of the so-called "Western" text—giving a singularly judicial summing up of the results so far. Dr. Kenyon finds Dr. Hort's working out of the history of the text essentially unaffected by more recent investigation. His own view he represents as "substantially the same as that of Hort, though with some modifications." He outlines it as follows: "The early history of the New Testament text presents itself to us as an irregular diffusion of the various books among the individuals and communities which embraced Christianity, with few safeguards against alteration, whether deliberate or unintentional. To that stage, which follows very soon on the production of the original autographs, belong the various readings, early in their attestation yet comparatively rarely convincing in themselves, which we call the δ-text, and which Hort terms 'Western,' and Blass (in the case of the two books of St. Luke) 'Roman.' In Egypt alone (or principally) a higher standard of textual fidelity prevailed, and in the literary atmosphere of Alexandria and the other great towns a comparatively pure text was preserved. This has come down to us (possibly by way of Origen and his pupils) in the Codex Vaticanus and its allies, and is what we have called the β-text, and what Hort calls 'Neutral.' Another text, also found in Egyptian authorities, and differing from the last only in minor details, is that which we call the γ-text, and Hort 'Alexandrian.' Finally there is the text which, originating in the neighbourhood of Antioch about the end of the third century, drew together many of the various readings then in existence, and with many minor editorial modifications developed into a form which was generally adopted as satisfactory throughout the Eastern Church. This is the α-text of our nomenclature, Hort's 'Syrian'; the text which monopolised our printed editions until the nineteenth century, but which is now abandoned by all but a few scholars" (pp. 309–310). Dr. Kenyon rightly represents this as substantially Dr. Hort's construction of the history.

The modification of Dr. Hort's position which he thinks recent research points to consists in a slight abatement of the hegemony which Dr. Hort ascribed to the "Neutral" text, and a consequent admission of the probability that "among much that is supposititious there is also something that is original" preserved in the "Western" text. Put in this general way there is nothing in this proposition which Dr. Hort could ever have thought of denying: as Dr. Kenyon at once points out, instancing the case of the readings which Dr. Hort awkwardly called "Western non-interpolations." Apparently what Dr. Kenyon means to suggest is simply that more "Western" readings may ultimately have to be accepted as over against "Neutral" readings than Dr. Hort supposed. Certainly this may well be true; it may easily be true under Dr. Hort's reading of the history of the text. But it is worth while to keep in mind that it was not alone on "genealogical" principles that Dr. Hort's preference for the "Neutral" text was based. It was equally on the verdict of "internal evidence of classes" and "internal evidence of groups." And here we must call attention to the neglect of these powerful instruments of criticism of which both Dr. Kenyon and Mr. Lake are guilty in their exposition of Dr. Hort's theory of criticism. They seem to have focused their attention so exclusively on Dr. Hort's genealogical distribution of the texts that they have permitted to slip out of view his exposition of the critical processes which he calls by these names. No doubt there are faint echoes of them left even in Dr. Kenyon's exposition: but they are so faint that they give no proper account of themselves and pass practically off the stage altogether. The consequence is that Dr. Hort's theory appears as practically only a theory of the history of the text, and even his genealogical method falls back into practically little more as an engine of criticism than Dr. Tregelles' "comparative criticism." It is much more than this; and supplies, by its attention to the force of attestation consisting of cross-witnesses, an organon of a value not known before his day. When further reinforced by the results of his "internal evidence of groups" and "internal evidence of classes" it has a value and decisiveness which no reader of Dr. Kenyon's account of it would be likely to perceive. The essence of the matter may be summed up in a word by saying that Dr. Hort trusts his "Neutral" text so fully not merely because he adjudges it the earliest and most carefully transmitted text, but because he has thoroughly tested it and finds it in any case supereminently the best text. The "Western" text is treated as a corrupt text, not in forgetfulness of its early and wide distribution, but because on testing it betrays itself, whatever its origin, intrinsically a depraved text. Dr. Hort has solid reasons to give for this judgment: it is a pity to permit these reasons to fall out of notice and to treat the question as if it were chiefly one of age and distribution and external attestation.

This neglect of the elaborate processes of "internal evidence of groups" and "internal evidence of classes" in the exposition and estimate of Dr. Hort's theory is symptomatic of the age as well as peculiarly characteristic of the external tone of Dr. Kenyon's book. Dr. Kenyon almost seems to fancy that we can get along in reconstructing the text of the New Testament very much with the external evidence alone. Nothing could be more mistaken. The use of internal evidence, recognized or unrecognized—both intrinsic and transcriptional—accompanies every step of the process, and it is not the least of the merits of Dr. Hort's method that this constant dependence of critical procedure on internal evidence is drawn out from obscurity and made explicit. Had Dr. Kenyon given us such a chapter as no one could have written better and as ought to have been included in his excellent treatise, on the methods and processes, the philosophy and the practice of criticism, he would have been forced to acknowledge and expound the place of internal evidence in every step of the work; and he could never have left his readers in ignorance of the large part it plays in Dr. Hort's methods and the unavoidably constant use made of it by every critic who actually forms a text. Neither could he have left his readers supposing that the ultimate question of the "Western" text is the question of its origin rather than the question of its value. We do not know when, where, or how it came into being; but there is an organon of criticism in our hands by which, pending the settlement of these questions, we can already assure ourselves that it is not the original text of the New Testament, just because it can be shown to be a corrupt text—the most corrupt text, in fact, that has ever had a large circulation in the Church.

It does not follow, naturally, that the question of the origin of the "Western" text is of little interest or of little importance. It has rightly become the leading question of post-Hortian investigation. But the very character of the text itself excludes, from the beginning, all hypotheses concerning its origin which would make it out to be the original text of the New Testament. We do not ourselves see why the most likely hypothesis of its origin may not be found in a modification of Prof. Ramsay's theory of its origination in a revision by an Asiatic scribe, or, to speak more exactly, in a multiplication and distribution of his glossator. In his admirable chapter on the Papyrus period of the New Testament transmission, Dr. Kenyon draws a vivid picture of how we must suppose that the New Testament circulated in this period. He has, wholly unnecessarily, introduced into this account some highly unsupported and insupportable views as to the origin and history of the New Testament canon (pp. 23, 39–40, 270). There never was a time when the New Testament books were "regarded as ordinary books and not as sacred"—at least if we are to let history decide the question for us. There never was a time when the text, because so looked upon, was treated with a certain contempt by those who yet valued it sufficiently to copy it. The character of the monuments of the text is enough to assure us of that—choose we even designedly the worst text extant as a witness. But there was a time when the multiplication of the New Testament manuscripts was in the hands not of professional "publishers," but of private zeal: when it was circulated from hand to hand and, as it were, subterraneously, as believer after believer sought and obtained this or that fragment of it for his own use—a single book or, at most, group of books—possibly laboriously copied by himself from a companion's cherished exemplar, almost certainly secured painfully at the hand of some amateur copyist. This mode of propagating itself belonged to that "servant form" which the New Testament shares with Christianity itself and Christianity's Founder; it must needs so make its way among the humble of the earth, whose names are written in heaven.

Consider how the Book of Acts, for instance, thus passed from hand to hand—laboriously, unskillfully, but most lovingly copied out by unwonted fingers on the cheapest of material, from the cherished manuscript of some humble Christian "evangelist" or "prophet" perchance—long carried in his bosom, often thumbed with clumsy, work-worn fingers, rubbed, frayed, annotated with loving care to mark its sense and preserve items of information picked up here and there and thought fitted to illuminate the narrative, perhaps even to enrich it. How could such a text as the "Western" fail to grow up in such circumstances? In a region like the Mediterranean littoral from Cæsarea to Rome, full of humble Christians of whom some had known Paul (many, those who had known Paul) and all knew something of an intimate character of this or that locality or of the origin and history of this or that church touched on in the narrative—can it surprise us that the text so framing itself should be filled with bits of authentic information possessing every mark of original and first-hand knowledge? Consider how notes first put into the margin by a Mnason or a Tychicus, or some one who had known such "ancient believers," would be cherished by the humble copyist who was "privileged" to transcribe them. And consider at the same time how less "authentic" annotations would inevitably become confused in the course of time with these. For ourselves we do not see how a text like the "Western" text of Acts could fail to grow up in the conditions in which this book was certainly circulated through the first four hundred years. And the character of the "Western" text of Acts is in our judgment the standing and shining testimony, not to the license with which the text of the book was treated, but to the amazing care with which it was dealt with, the real reverence with which it must have been handled. It is, after all is said, a great wonder that the text did not come out of these four centuries of private multiplication mangled and mauled beyond recognition. Nothing could have preserved it so pure except such a reverential handling as comported with its sacred character.

In a word the glossator who made the "Western" text—which is not a uniform text in all documents representing it, it must be remembered, but has its local and temporal variations—may well have been the Christian community itself from Jerusalem to Rome, working with "local knowledge" at its disposal as well as with loving zeal. The "Western" text in this view would be just the "popular" text of the first four centuries. Alongside of it would coexist, of course, what we may venture, for the sake of a distinction, to call the "ecclesiastical" or the "official" text, provided we do not read into these terms later connotations: we mean a text propagated for the use of churches rather than of individuals, and therefore much more carefully, or perhaps we should rather say effectually, guarded, copied doubtless by professional hands, taken from old and well-preserved copies in use in mother-churches and the like. This transmission would continue a line of descent for the text of a more "aristocratic" and of a more trustworthy kind, and would naturally provide a text to which other texts in circulation would stand related as either corrupt popular parallels or artificial scholastic revisions. If we do not mistake we have in this general scheme the real nature of the "Neutral," "Western," and "Alexandrian" texts suggested. And looking at the whole problem from some such point of view, no discovery of the antiquity of the "Western" text, its wide extension, the exactness and air of original information of many of its distinctive readings, and the like, can disturb us: it is all just what we should expect and we are thoroughly prepared for it. It is all full of interest to us: all full of instruction: historically we expect to profit much from it: but we shall be slow in preferring the "popular" text to the "official" text.

Meanwhile, let us repeat that even with the "Western" text in view, we can scarcely emphasize too strongly the excellence of the transmitted text of the New Testament. Dr. Kenyon has some admirable remarks in his opening chapter on the superiority of the New Testament transmission to that of classical authors, in point both of number of witnesses and relative closeness of testimony. Its superiority in exactness of textual transmission is even more marked. Dr. Hort's estimate is that in seven-eighths of the New Testament we have the actual autographic text in hand, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of it practically so. This is no exaggeration. We may read nine hundred and ninety-nine words consecutively with the comfortable feeling that we are reading the author's own words: and then we may put our finger on the thousandth word and estimate precisely the amount of doubt that attaches to it and the amount of difference in sense that would result in the settlement of the doubt in any possible way. This is of the providence of God, and ought to be recognized as such. What actually printed text is nearest to the autographic text, it may meanwhile be somewhat difficult to decide. We certainly should not with Dr. Kenyon recommend the text that underlies the Revision of the English Bible made in 1881, as a standard text for common use. This text does not even pretend to provide a standard text: but is essentially a compromise text altered from the Receptus only where compulsion was laid on the Revisers. Mr. Weymouth's or Dr. Nestle's "resultant" text would be better: Westcott and Hort or Weiss better still. What the practical worker really needs is a good text, say Westcott and Hort's; a good digest of readings, either full or such as is given in Dr. Hort's "Introduction" or Dr. Sanday's "Appendix"; and a brief practical outline of how to use the evidence, such as is given, for example, at the end of Dr. Hort's first volume. So equipped even the beginner may hopefully enter into the work of scrutinizing the text of the New Testament. If now he wishes to know all the important things about the externalia of the art of textual criticism as applied to the New Testament, what can he do better than add this admirable volume of Dr. Kenyon's? Only he must not expect to get out of it anything very helpful outside the limits of the externalia. For Dr. Kenyon has not designed to put, and has not put, anything beyond the externalia into it.

ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE.

By JOSEPH MCCABE.

New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1903 (published December, 1902). [Also: London: Duckworth & Co. 1902.]

MR. MCCABE was formerly known as the Very Reverend Father Anthony of the Order of Saint Francis. He came, however, happily to see the error of his monastic ways, and very properly gave them up. Discharging thus his duty to himself, he has further discharged it to humanity by revealing some of the abuses of the monastic system in two somewhat pungent and very profitable volumes published during the closing years of the last century—"Twelve Years in a Monastery," and "Life in a Modern Monastery." With the opening of a new century he has turned to new themes, and we are already his debtors for two interesting essays in Christian biography—one dealing with "Peter Abelard," published in the midsummer of 1901, and the other, this "St. Augustine," published but little more than a year afterwards. We would gladly forget his past distresses and rejoice only in his present gifts. But Mr. McCabe will not permit this. He drags his past on with him and persists in writing his biographical studies from the point of view of what he himself calls the "escaped monk." In the study of Abelard, this was of little importance: Mr. McCabe's monastic experiences perhaps even prepared him the better to understand Abelard and his times. In this study of Augustine, it has brought something very like ruin.

Our complaint is not merely that Mr. McCabe occasionally obtrudes reminiscences of his own experiences into his biographical sketches. This is a fault of taste. After all, we go to a life of Augustine to learn about Augustine and not about the author; and it is for the moment a matter of indifference to the reader that the author has, say, been injuriously spoken of (as e.g. p. 201) for having followed his bent and exposed the abuses of a mode of life he once shared. But there is not very much of this in the book and it could not in any event seriously injure its value.

Our complaint is not even merely that Mr. McCabe has brought with him into the broader life he now enjoys a cynical temper and a carping spirit which warp his judgment and deform his pages. Surely the bitterness he is constantly exhibiting against "ecclesiastics" and "hagiographers" is somewhat superfluous. And it is not rendered more engaging by the circumstance that he includes under these complimentary designations well-nigh the whole body of his predecessors in the study of his subject—so that there runs through his book a vein of scorn of previous biographers of Augustine. "Mr. Marcus Dods," for example, is an "ecclesiastic" and hence represents the facts of Augustine's life "in safe terms" (p. 38). The picture that "most of his ecclesiastical biographers" draw of Augustine's unregenerate days—though transcribed from Augustine's own account—is mere "pretense" (p. 54). When the biographers follow Ambrose's version of a matter they are "trustful hagiographers" (p. 113). Certain articles in Smith and Wace's "Dictionary of Christian Biography" are recommended as "choice specimens of the literary art of tempering justice with mercy, which is so admirably cultivated by the ecclesiastical writer" (p. 312). Drs. Milman and Smith are satirically characterized as "safe commentators"; and it is added: "If we must have our Gibbon served up with an abundance of ecclesiastical sauce, it is at least time there was an improvement in its quality" (p. 111). This kind of thing is really very bad, and it is unfortunately pervasive (cf. e.g. pp. 58, 146, 206, 222, 281, 355, 397, 413). And the unhappy facility of innuendo thus exhibited is permitted to cut much deeper than merely into the credit of previous students of the subject. "It is probable," Mr. McCabe tells us, "that Manicheism did no more than Christianity towards the purification of the Empire" (p. 64). "It is impossible," he says with a truly monkish skill of suggestion, "to discuss here what probability there was of Mithraism absorbing Christianity instead of Christianity absorbing Mithraism" (pp. 105 f.). Similarly, "whether it be that 'Plato wrote a human preface to the Gospels,' as De Maistre said, or that the evangelists wrote a human appendix to Plato, as others think, it is hardly our duty to inquire here" (pp. 158 f.). Speaking of Augustine's commentaries on Genesis, he drops the incidental remark: "One reads them with a feeling of pity now that Mr. Sayce and other reputable scholars have told us whence these stories were copied" (p. 217, cf. pp. 362, 379). Possibly some piquancy may be added to the page by this mode of writing. It will scarcely add to the confidence with which the reader will commit himself to the guidance of the author. But even such faults may possibly belong to the form rather than to the substance of a book.

Our real complaint begins when we note that Mr. McCabe's whole presentation of Augustine's life and character is affected by his point of view, and that not merely in tone and proportion but also in its very substance. He has given us a very different Augustine from the Augustine of what we may call, to please Mr. McCabe, "the hagiographic tradition"—that is to say, of history, as that history is set down in contemporary accounts (including Augustine's own narrative in his "Confessions") and embodied in contemporary records. He looks at Augustine through spectacles which have distorted his figure out of all proportion—throwing up into great prominence subordinate elements in his character and unimportant aspects of his life, and obscuring the really significant features. Augustine was above all else and before all else the "reformer of Christian piety," as even Harnack puts it—"even Harnack," for as Prof. West truly points out (Presbyterian and Reformed Review, xii. 1901, p. 183), Harnack does not himself do justice in his thought of Augustine to his "personal religion." He revolutionized the whole conception of the truly "Christian life" and introduced into Christendom a completely new ideal of Christian feeling and aspiration. Of all this Mr. McCabe has not a word to say. Of the real significance of Augustine's doctrine of Grace for his own inner life and for the history of thought, he betrays no conception. Here is Hamlet with Hamlet left out with a vengeance. On the other hand the wholly insignificant matter of Augustine's attitude towards marriage and his deflected opinions about the sexual passion are thrown out into a prominence beyond all reason. It might be unjust to say that every nasty story and every morbid expression is sought out and exploited to Augustine's discredit. But a very undue emphasis is certainly thrown on this aspect of Augustine's life and teaching.

Even such distortions of the figure he is drawing do not constitute, however, Mr. McCabe's worst fault as a biographer of Augustine. The fact seems to be that the whole portrait that is presented is dominated by the conception that its tendency was distinctly downward, and that, taken in its entirety, it was fraught with evil rather than good for the Church and the world. To secure this effect Mr. McCabe is at considerable pains first to discredit Augustine's own account of the evil of his early life and then systematically to depreciate the attainments of his later life. His was, it seems, a bright and essentially good boyhood and his young manhood blossomed out into a high-minded devotion to "reason." But then, alas, he fell under the domination of "authority." Reason gradually ceased to be his "darling" (p. 207, cf. pp. 233, 479). He steadily became more and more a dupe to silly miraculous stories (p. 466), a contemner of all that is valuable in life (p. 213), a slave to the ecclesiastical machine, an intolerant controversialist who stopped at no means to secure the defeat of his opponents (pp. 214, 232)—if not a blasphemer, yet certainly a persecutor and injurious. "The bloody pages of mediæval history rise before us as we dwell on his later ideas" (p. 398). Thus Augustine's progress according to Mr. McCabe was the opposite of Paul's: his development, like that of the Church itself, according to Harnack, was a "pathological" process. It is quite likely that (like Harnack, in the parallel case) Mr. McCabe might deny this and declare that "on the whole" there was, in his view, an "advance." We should be forced to reply (as in the case of Harnack) that he has not so depicted it. The reader takes away from his book the distinct impression that Augustine grew steadily a worse man and a more evil influence as he grew older.

If we ask after the account we are to give of this low view of Augustine's character and work, we must probably make a distinction. Ultimately, it seems to us, it must be traced to Mr. McCabe's point of view as an "escaped monk." He has approached the study of Augustine with a poignant hatred of the monachism of which Augustine was one of the founders in the West—with all that monachism implies of depreciation of the earthly life and its delights and duties alike: and with an equal hatred of the great ecclesiastical system of which monachism has ever been a part and a stay and of which Augustine's teaching, on one of its sides, has supplied a chief theoretical support. This side of Augustine's character and teaching has loomed so big before him as to obscure all else. Augustine the monk, Augustine the ecclesiastic: this is the Augustine he has known and this is the Augustine he has painted. This Augustine he has sought to portray with truth and justice: but he could not think Augustine the monk and ecclesiastic an admirable figure. Above all, he was consumed with zeal to set forth the monk and ecclesiastic as essentially unlovely and essentially injurious to all the higher ideals of living. Accordingly he has given us an Augustine who gradually grows hard and evil before our eyes under the influences of those erroneous—those destructive—views of life and religion, under the influence of which the Christian world has ever since grown harder and harder and more and more corrupt. This is as much as to say, of course, that Mr. McCabe's sketch of Augustine's life is not an essay in pure biography, but is essentially a polemic treatise. It is another assault of the "escaped monk" upon the system from which he has, doubtless through throes and suffering, separated himself. In his first books he gave us a picture of the working of monasticism in modern life: in his "Peter Abelard" he gave us a picture of monastic life in its mediæval conception: in his "St. Augustine" he gives us a picture of the working of the monastic idea in its inception. If he had only put his book forward as a study of such evil tendencies as entered into Augustine's life it would not be so bad. There were these evil tendencies in Augustine's life, and they ought not to be minimized or neglected. Cromwell was right in demanding that the artist should paint truly the wart on his nose. But it would hardly do to look at the wart through a microscope and paint it and it alone in this exaggerated light in all its hideous rugosities, and label it "Cromwell." It is something like this that Mr. McCabe has done to Augustine.

The process by which Mr. McCabe has been able to persuade himself that he was drawing a true portrait of Augustine supplies us with a not inapt illustration of "higher-critical" methods. He tells us in the Preface that his attempt is "to interpret by the light of psychology rather than by that of theology," or, as he otherwise expresses it, that he has "brought to the story a saving tincture of Pelagianism": that he has "tried to exhibit the development of Augustine as an orderly mental and moral growth." This, of course, involves the elimination of all "supernaturalism"—say, in this instance, obvious divine leading and cataclysmic conversion. The account given of his spiritual development by Augustine himself in what Mr. McCabe calls "his seductive Confessions" is therefore set aside at once as "perverse." A very harsh judgment is passed, in fact, on the "Confessions." They "may be fine literature, but they contain an utterly false psychology and ethics" (p. 24). In them, Augustine is "sternly bent on magnifying his misdeeds" (p. 39). Something like this is said by others also, as, for example, by Harnack and Boissier and with the same general intent. But they speak far less extremely than Mr. McCabe and never dream of carrying "reconstruction" practically so far. The only documentary evidence being thus discredited, the way is open to give to Augustine an "orderly mental and moral growth"—that is, of course, to attribute to him such a development as on the whole seems to the special biographer natural in the circumstances. There is assigned to him, therefore, a noble heathen youth, breaking down into a sort of weariness toward early middle life, under the stress of which he flees to "authority" for refuge, and then progressively deteriorates to the end.

It is rather odd to observe how different the constructions of this "orderly" life are in different hands under this method. To make the life "orderly," that is, to give it the appearance of a continuous development in one natural line, Boissier and Harnack represent Augustine as having been essentially a Christian from his infancy. There is no "Prodigal son" here, says Harnack. "Rather do the Confessions portray a man brought up from youth by a faithful mother in the Christian, that is, in the Catholic faith." Boissier takes his start from that wonderful conversation which the converted Augustine held with his dying mother at Ostia, when he seemed borne by the mystic breath of her devotion up to heaven itself. "I picture to myself," he says, "experiences on his part of something of the same sort in his infancy, while his mother talked to him of Christ, as she tried to make a perfect Christian of him and spoke to him words he could never forget." Seeking precisely the same end, Mr. McCabe pursues a precisely opposite course. Monnica, he tells us, showed no particular zeal in imbuing the early years of her son with Christian principles, and her later devotion can be supposed to have had only some indirect influence on the course of his development. He grew up frankly heathen: and betrays in the "Confessions" some embarrassment with respect to her early neglect (p. 10). It was not until he was about twenty that his mother "entered upon the long and passionate devotion to her son's conversion which has earned for the simple, ignorant woman an immortal place amongst the mothers of men" (pp. 66–67). Even then, the low-born (p. 194), ignorant, but earnest woman had her limitations as a religious guide. She did not object very much to Augustine cherishing a concubine, but she objected very much indeed to his cherishing a heresy (p. 66). From all which it appears that the picture drawn of Monnica is as much "lowered" in tone as that drawn of Augustine himself.

The mention we have just made of Augustine's concubine leads to raising the question whether the treatment Mr. McCabe gives this certainly sufficiently disgraceful episode in Augustine's life is thoroughly judicious. His attaching himself to a single mistress and living in faithfulness to her for fourteen years is rightly pointed to as implying "(for those days) a rare moderation of character" (p. 40). To say this is, however, probably inadequate. The truth seems to be fairly expressed in the words of Dr. Marcus Dods that are scoffed at on an earlier page (p. 38), viz.: that in this union Augustine formed "a connection which was not matrimonial in the strict sense." That is to say, it was matrimonial in a secondary sense, fully recognized as legitimate by the Lex Julia and Papia Poppæa, and entailing no moral dereliction, though of course not ranking in social standing with "connections that are matrimonial in the strict sense" (cf. Plumptre, in Smith and Cheetham's "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," i. 1875, p. 422; Moyle, in Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," i. 1890, p. 526; Leonhard, in Pauly-Wissowa, "Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft," iv. 1 [siebenter Halbband], 1900, coll. 835 ff.). It was, in a word, a form of marriage, adapted to the case of women of the lower classes, who could not legally become wives of citizens of Rome. So fully was it recognized as a legitimate relationship that there was a strong tendency to give it ecclesiastical sanction. A Synod at Toledo, A.D. 400, for example, decreed: "If anyone who has a believing wife has [also] a concubine, let him not communicate. But let not him who has no wife, but instead of a wife has a concubine, be repelled from communion; only let him be content with union with one woman, whether wife or concubine, according to his pleasure: but let him that lives with others be rejected, until he desists and is restored through penitence" (Mansi, "Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio," iii. 1901, col. 1001; cf. Loofs, in Herzog, "Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche," ed. 3, ii. 1897, p. 261). Here we have simply a repetition in an ecclesiastical ordinance of the existing civil law and the general judgment of society. It doubtless represents the usage in Africa in the fourth century, and indeed is thought by many to represent the usage of the whole Church up at least to the fifth century (cf. Herzog, as cited, x. 1901, p. 746). Perhaps a due recognition of this fact will account for any winking at the relation which Monnica may be supposed to have exhibited—although the remark of Mr. McCabe (p. 66) that "she seems to have accepted his companion without a murmur" appears to be only an inference from the silence of the "Confessions."

Such unions, however, though irreproachable under the law of the Empire and involving no moral degradation in the estimation of the highest heathen circles—in which, accordingly, there was more or less tendency among the Christians themselves to acquiesce—nevertheless were discouraged in the Church. When Augustine came to prepare for baptism it appears to have been treated accordingly as a conditio sine qua non that this connection should be brought to a close. It seems to be thoroughly out of place, therefore, to animadvert on Augustine's coldness and insensibility towards the companion of all these years, when he prepared to put her from him and to take a wife as a preliminary to baptism (p. 143). In the first place he was not insensible: he tells us that there was left on her departure "a raw and bloody wound in his heart where she had lain." In the next place, he seems to have had no choice. In accepting Christianity he accepted its code of moral law: and he did not accept Christianity in a cold and calculating spirit but under the stress of a great religious and moral upheaval. That he did not solve the problem by marrying his concubine, as Mr. McCabe suggests might have been the proper course, probably in no way argues that he had "no sense whatever of obligation to the woman who had shared his life for fourteen years" (p. 143). It is explained by Mr. McCabe's own remark immediately following: "Evidently, she belonged to a much lower condition of life than his own." "Let a concubine," says the "Apostolical Constitutions" (viii. 32), "who is a slave of an unbeliever, and confines herself to her master alone, be received [to baptism]; but if she be incontinent with others, let her be rejected. A believer who has a concubine,—if she be a slave, let him cease [from her] and take a wife legitimately: if she be free, let him take her as his legitimate wife; and if he does not, let him be rejected." If we may suppose these regulations fairly to represent the usage at Milan at the end of the fourth century—no very violent supposition—they explain Augustine's case as neatly as the recently recovered Laws of Hammurabi fit into all the plications of the episode of Hagar. We need only presume that Augustine's concubine was of servile or equivalent condition to bring his action into exact harmony with the regulations.

Mr. McCabe has indeed said (p. 42): "It does not seem likely that Augustine's mistress was a slave"; though he needs to add that nothing whatever is told us about her social position and, as we have seen, he allows at a later point, that she was "evidently" of a much lower condition of life than Augustine. That Augustine treated her as a slave is evidence enough, in such circumstances, to justify the supposition that she was a slave. Certainly the parting was not unattended with the deepest emotion on both sides. Augustine tells us that she went away "vowing to God" to keep herself free from future connections. This is surely a fine and pathetic touch. Mr. McCabe treats it with incredible coarseness. Because the "hagiographer"—including in this case M. Boissier!—generally considers that the meaning is that she entered a nunnery, Mr. McCabe, with his customary "anti-hagiographic" fury, actually contends that it probably means that she went away cursing and swearing! "Vovens tibi," he says, "may very well mean that 'she vowed and swore [every African, including Augustine, swore habitually] she would have nothing more to do with men'; either in anger or in her great love for Augustine" (p. 147, note). Surely every simple-hearted reader—we use the epithet inviting Mr. McCabe's scorn—will perceive that a serious vow to God alone can be meant. With such an instance as this before us of the lengths Mr. McCabe can go in his "anti-hagiographic" rage, it is hardly necessary to seek further illustrations of the lowering effect it has had on the picture he is painting of Augustine under its influence.

The book is very free from minor slips in statements of fact. There is a perfectly blind note on p. 449 on the relations of Augustinian and Calvinistic doctrine. There occurs a note on p. 499 in which a curious slip which Dr. Hodgkin made in the first edition of his "Italy and her Invaders," relative to the opponent with whom Augustine deals in the "Opus imperfectum" is mentioned: in his second edition Dr. Hodgkin corrected it duly, as also other slips of the same kind that deformed the first issue. On p. 292 we meet the odd phrase "Christian Presbyterians"—as designating a body including M. de Pressensé "and others": we have not fathomed the designed implication. On p. 41 Paulinus of Pella is quite decisively represented as the grandson of Ausonius: the point is still, perhaps, disputable. On p. 380 it is doubtless the insufficiently overseen printer who has foiled the author's evil counsel by giving us בְקֵכָה for נְקֵבָה. But a truce to such things. We shall mention only one more for the sake of the curious interest that attaches to it. On p. 416 Mr. McCabe speaks of the attribution of Pelagius' Commentary on Paul's Epistles to Gelasius and "then … to Jerome himself, the most bitter opponent and critic of its real author," as "a unique and precious fact in the history of heresy." Did Mr. McCabe bear in mind that the "Confession of Faith" presented by Pelagius to Innocent was actually admitted into the "Libri Carolini" at the close of the eighth century as Augustine's; and indeed was produced as Augustine's in 1521 A.D. by the Sorbonne against Luther? There is really no limit to which ignorance cannot go in the confusion of doctrines—as the Presbyterian Church has lately had much occasion to observe!

Let us not close without a word of appreciation of what is praiseworthy in the book. If the portrait which it gives us of Augustine is distorted, it is yet sharply drawn and brings to notice real traits of his character which may now and again be obscured by the "hagiographer." The book may very profitably be read, therefore, along with the "hagiographers" and may supply a useful supplement to them: though assuredly some of the "hagiographers"—say, Tillemont, Bindermann, Böhringer, or Rauscher—must needs be read along with it as a corrective, if we are not to be altogether misled in our estimate of Augustine. It certainly is a very easy book to read: the style is pleasantly flowing and though deformed by cynical turns, yet attractive and picturesque. There does not seem to lie behind its narrative as careful study of the sources as lay behind the narrative of the "Peter Abelard," but Mr. McCabe, as we have said, makes few slips in matters of fact and writes out of a considerable acquaintance with the ecclesiastical life of the fourth and fifth centuries. A high degree of literary skill is exhibited and much historical feeling. If Mr. McCabe can only bring himself to write in a purely historical spirit, we feel sure he has a great service to render to the Churches.

THE ATONEMENT AND THE MODERN MIND.

By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.

New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. 1903.

AFTER Dr. Denney's valuable study of "The Death of Christ" in the New Testament (reviewed in this Review, i. 1903, pp. 492 ff.) this interesting little volume is most welcome. It performs an important service in vindicating the essence of the Atonement of Christ, culminating in His death, as a substitutionary offering to God. Its sturdy defense of the objective work of Christ and its significance for human salvation commends it powerfully to the reader whose heart is set on the Christ of the New Testament. Nothing could sum up better the great reality than the penultimate sentence: "It is the goal of our life to be found in Him; but I cannot understand the man who thinks it more profound to identify himself with Christ and share in the work of redeeming the world, than to abandon himself to Christ and share in the world's experience of being redeemed." The true note of Bible religion rings in that: this is, after all, not fundamentally a religion of imitation but of trust. And what could be better than the retort made to those who are accustomed to insist that there is no Atonement in the parable of the prodigal son, that there is no Christ in that parable either? So that, if we are to take that parable as the quintessence of the gospel, it will be a gospel without Christ as well as without expiation.

That this high note dominates the volume we rejoice to recognize: that it is not sustained without faltering throughout the volume, we suppose is due as much as to any other one circumstance to the point of view from which it is written. "The Atonement and the Modern Mind" is the title given to the volume. What is "the modern mind"? Perhaps we ought not to ask that question after listening to Dr. Denney describe in such detail and with such brilliancy of touch precisely what it is, or rather precisely what he takes it to be. We rise from this discussion, however, with the conviction that Dr. Denney has not escaped the common tendency to project one's own mind, or to spread out one's own associates, into "the general," and to mistake this for "the modern mind." Important a factor in life as Glasgow has become, however, it is not the world: neither is semi-sceptical Britain the world: nor yet even civilized Europe. There is after all but one "mind" to be considered, and this is the human mind; and the human mind is fundamentally much the same in modern times as it has always been, and is accessible to much the same rational and emotional appeal. The fact of the matter is that Dr. Denney writes here—as elsewhere—under the narrowing and clogging influences of the "Apologetical School," which Dr. Bruce unfortunately founded in Glasgow. If he could only shake himself free from these deadening traditions, cease to fancy that he must adapt the gospel to this or that temporary and local manifestation (or degree) of unbelief, refrain from mixing a constant apologetical leaven with the Bread of Life, whether as expounded exegetically from the page of Scripture or enforced didactically in constructive exposition, and give us the pure, positive truth as it lies in Scripture and is assimilated from it by his own strong and devout mind and heart—then we should get something worth while from Dr. Denney!

It is to be hoped that it is due merely to the faltering way in which, from his apologetical standpoint, Dr. Denney sets forth his doctrine of the Atonement in order to adjust it to "the modern mind," that we cannot quite make out whether his theory of the Atonement rises essentially above what is known in history as the Grotian or Rectoral theory. Perhaps as concise a statement of the chief elements of his theory as anywhere in the volume is given on pp. 112–113. "The New Testament," we read there, "teaches that forgiveness is mediated to sinners through Christ, and specifically through His death: in other words, that it is possible for God to forgive, but possible for God only through a supreme revelation of His love, made at infinite cost, and doing justice to the uttermost to those inviolable relations in which alone, as I have already said, man can participate in eternal life, the life of God Himself—doing justice to them as relations in which there is an inexorable divine reaction against sin, finally expressing itself in death." When the terms in this passage are explained in accordance with their use elsewhere in the volume it seems to be fairly the Rectoral theory of the Atonement that is in mind. Accordingly, it is taught at once that the Atonement of itself only renders the forgiveness of sins possible: what renders it actual in the case of any sinner is an act on his own part. "It is possible on these terms, and it becomes actual as sinful men open their hearts in penitence and faith to this marvellous revelation, and abandon their lives unreservedly to the love of God in Christ who died for them" (p. 113). "Substitution" is taken in this theory thus in a notably lowered sense. As our substitute, Christ merely "stands in the midst of us, the pledge of God's love"—"a divine challenge to men which is designed to win our heart." It is only "when men are won—when that which Christ in His love has done for them comes home to their souls—when they are constrained by His infinite grace to the self-surrender of faith"—that we can say He is become our "representative." God may make Him our Substitute: only we ourselves can make Him our Representative. From which it would appear that, at the decisive point, we are our own saviours. This may be very gratifying to the "modern mind": it is intolerable to the Christian heart.

The greatest flaw in Dr. Denney's teaching, however, is that it proceeds upon an essentially "rationalistic" basis—we use the word in the historical and not in the vulgar opprobrious sense of it. He does indeed tell us that "the Christian religion is a historical religion, and whatever we say about it must rest upon historical grounds"; and that we owe what we know of the Atonement to the testimony of Christ which is "in the last resort the testimony of Scripture." But he goes at once forward to add that we do not receive the things thus historically mediated to us and testified to us by Scripture on the authority of Scripture. There can be, it seems, no such thing for the mind as "blank authority." "It cannot believe things—the things by which it has to live—simply on the word of Paul or John," nay, "it can just as little believe them simply on the word of Jesus." "Truth is the only thing that has authority for the mind, and the only way in which truth finally evinces its authority is by taking possession of the mind for itself." The Atonement is to be accepted, therefore, "not on the authority of any person or persons whatever, but on the authority of the truth in it, by which it has won its place in our minds and hearts." We prize the Scriptures because of this truth we find in them, not the truth because we find it in Scripture. Certainly Christian Wolff would have welcomed such teaching, despite the different metaphysics underlying it, as indistinguishable from his own. When we read it, we wonder only that Dr. Denney has been able to set forth so high a theory of the Atonement: and we wonder greatly how he expects to convince any man that the theory he sets forth is true. He does not know that there was a teacher sent from God named Jesus except on testimony that to us in the last resort is the bare testimony of Scripture: he does not know that this man died for our sins except simply on the word of this Jesus: he does not know that this death was acceptable to God and atones for sin, or how it atones for sin, or how it is made available for us—or anything that enters into the essence of the transaction—except on the bare authority of Scripture. He does not know one-tenth part of what he has told us about the Atonement, and what he insists upon as constituting its very heart, except on the faith of these very Scriptures to which he will accord no real authority. When at the close of the book he tells us, to clinch the matter, "And I am very sure that in the New Testament" the exercise of trust in Christ "is first and fundamental," it appeals to us; but we resent it a little from him. He has given himself no right to urge that argument. We are deeply thankful that Dr. Denney expounds the Atonement to us so richly and so truly. But we look at his foundations and can see no reason why he should be so sure he is right; and we see no reason why to-morrow he may not expound to us something else—which may happen then "to find him"—with equal confidence and equal inconsequence. We are as sure as he can be that we cannot get along without heart experience and that certitude which can come from nothing but the witness of the Holy Spirit in the heart. We wish he saw as clearly as we do that neither can we get along without the "external authority"—authority, we say—of revelation, embodied in the Holy Scriptures. That is, if we are to be and to abide Christian men, in all the meaning of that term.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT, AND ITS HISTORICAL EVOLUTION. AND RELIGION AND MODERN CULTURE.

By the late AUGUSTE SABATIER.

Translated from the French by Victor Leuliette, B.-ès-L. (Paris), A.K.C.

London: Williams & Norgate; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1904.

NO ONE who has ever read ten lines of the writings of the late Prof. Auguste Sabatier but will have been impressed with the grace of his style and the truly Gallic attractiveness of his method of opening and presenting a subject. His learning seemed only to adorn, his polemic zeal only to add zest to, what seemed always primarily a piece of literature. Whatever else he was he was always eminently readable. The two essays which combine to make up the little volume at present before us are like the rest of his writings in these things. They are like the rest of his writings also in the poverty-stricken thinness of the religious conceptions which they present to us as the only form in which Christianity can hope to live—or rather must expect to die—in the conditions presented by modern culture.

The second of these essays is really an address which was delivered at the Religious Science Congress at Stockholm, September 2, 1897. It undertakes to elucidate precisely the problem of the relations of religion and modern culture. These relations, we are told, are summed up in the one word "conflict." The principle of modern culture is expressed in the single term "autonomy"—that is to say, "the unconquerable assurance of the human mind, in its present advanced state of development, that it possesses within itself the norm of its life and of its thought" (p. 169). It, of course, scouts the "heteronomy" in which traditional religion entrenches itself. Traditional religion, on the other hand, too timid to trust the human soul to its inherent religious instinct, and clinging in one way or another to "external authority," profoundly distrusts the efforts of the human spirit, characterizing every department of modern culture, to realize its independence. What is to be done and what is the outlook for the future? Prof. Sabatier counsels cessation of the external conflict, and points with hope to the mutual interpenetration of religion and culture.

At this point, we delight to say, we are heartily at one with Prof. Sabatier; and the section of the address in which he pictures the coming reconciliation through mutual internal influence, is a beautiful expression of a noble conception, and as well, as we shall be happy to believe, a true forecast of the ultimate issue. "To the violent and sterile conflict which we have just described there succeeds the closest and most active solidarity" (p. 212). Scientific men having become religious, the science they produce will exhibit the traits of their religion. Religious men having become scientific, the religion they serve will take on the forms of rational and intellectually defensible expression. "Being an inner inspiration, a deep-seated life, kindled within the soul itself by the spirit of God, piety will not act from without upon science in order to curb it beneath a strange law; it will not impose its methods or assign its limits to science, still less will it dictate its conclusions. But it will call forth and maintain, within the heart of the scientist, the sacred flame of the religious, that is to say, absolute love of truth" (p. 212). Similarly religion will manifest itself as "in communication and close touch with human culture" (p. 218). It is the vision of the lion and lamb lying down together: and, we praise God for it, it is a vision that is to be realized.

It is all the more regrettable that, when we look closely at Prof. Sabatier's personal expectation—perhaps we would better say, individual prophecy—of the precise manner in which this great end shall be attained, we discover that the side of the lion where he looks (and hopes) to see the lamb lie down is the inside. He tells us, indeed, that religion is to borrow nothing from culture, but to go its own way to its own perfect development. But he conceives that religion in its perfect development will possess nothing that culture can take the least interest in. The process by which religion is to make itself "agreeable to the general culture of modern times" is a process of "freeing itself from worn out forms and old ideas." And to Prof. Sabatier every form and idea is old and worn out except the pure products of the religious sentiment itself. The Socinian criticism, the Rationalistic assault, the demands of Modern Culture, these, in Prof. Sabatier's apprehension, are the successive instruments by means of which religion has been progressively purified; and the pure religion he commends to us as the religion of the future is accordingly just a highly sentimentalized natural religion. He expresses this dreary conclusion in terms so gracious and so suggestive that we scarcely realize that it is merely bald natural religion that is commended to us. We read almost without shock of the doctrines of the Trinity, of the Person of Christ, of the Sacrificial Atonement as so much "Christian mythology" which has "broken down beneath the blows of the rationalism of the eighteenth century" (pp. 221 f.). Under the sense of the beauty of the conception of piety which describes it as "the sensitiveness of the heart for God," we almost fail to catch what is meant when we are told that "the permanent Christian consciousness will be the religious consciousness of man, induced by the experience of filial piety wrought in the soul of Christ" (p. 204). It is with all the more shock that we realize in the end that when Prof. Sabatier commends to us the religion of Jesus, he means rather the religion which Jesus had than the religion that has Jesus.

The earlier of the two essays affords an illustration of how fully Prof. Sabatier in the religion he commends to modern men was prepared to do without Jesus and all that Jesus has stood for in the religion He founded. Its subject is the doctrine of the Atonement, and its method is what Prof. Sabatier calls "the historical method." That is to say, it is dominated by the assumption that when you have worked out the historical development of a doctrine you have "explained" that doctrine—which in the view of writers of this class is the same as to say you have explained it away. The object of this essay is to trace "the historical evolution of the doctrine of the Atonement," with a view to rendering any doctrine of Atonement incredible. The first half of it is occupied with the Biblical conceptions of Atonement; the last half with the ideas that have been entertained by the teachers of the Church. The one class of conceptions is treated as of as little authority as the other: and it is not unassuring to those of us who believe in a doctrine of Atonement on the authority of Scripture, to observe from such an exposition as is here given us that it can be got rid of only along with the authority of Scripture. When we are told that the sacrifices of the Old Testament are of merely human origin and significance, for example, it comforts us somewhat to learn that it has to be allowed that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (a treatise we admire even more than we do Prof. Sabatier's) thought very differently. And when we are told that the idea of substitution is crude and impossible, it brings us some consolation to learn that confessedly it is positively contained in the teaching of Paul, a writer in whose view we cannot help placing some confidence with respect to such a matter.

The essay is professedly a historical one. Perhaps it is not wrong in us to take interest in it, therefore, chiefly from the historical point of view. Its main interest to us at all events arises not from any help it brings us for understanding the Atonement, but from the information it gives us of what Prof. Sabatier was accustomed to teach concerning the Atonement. For it cannot be without very great significance to those living in this modern age to have so authoritative an exposition of what it is that is commended to us by the leaders of the new thought as to the essence of Christianity. Let us say at once, however, that we find nothing particularly new in Prof. Sabatier's doctrine of the Atonement. He himself is conscious that it is the outcome of the Socinian and Rationalistic criticism, and in point of fact it merely reproduces the characteristic view of these schools of destructive criticism, driven to the last extremity.

According to Prof. Sabatier the gospel is summed up in the parables of the prodigal son and of the publican (p. 123), and he makes it the reproach of the orthodox that they find only a part of the gospel in these parables and seek a supplement for them in other passages of Scripture. Accordingly "God needs neither mediation nor satisfaction" (p. 120). "The Father is satisfied if the prodigal son, confessing his sins and condemning his errors, earnestly repents and returns to his Father's house" (p. 120). "In order to accomplish the work of the salvation of sinners, Jesus then had no need to influence God, whose love has taken and forever retains the initiative of forgiveness. God has no need to be brought back to man and reconciled with him" (p. 125). Christ's entire work consists, therefore, in reconciling man to God, "in bringing about in the individual and in humanity the state of repentance in which alone the forgiveness of the Father can become effective" (p. 126). For the only thing God asks and can ask as the ground of forgiveness of the sinner is simply repentance on the sinner's part. "Forgiveness for the sinner who repents from the bottom of his heart: such is the message of the Gospel. What constitutes the superiority of the Christian conception of the Father is precisely that it rises above the feeling of retaliation and vengeance, and that it wills not the death of the sinner, but his conversion and life. What satisfaction does the Father in the parable require in order to forgive his repentant son who returns to him?" (p. 112). "From one end of the Gospel to the other, forgiveness of sins is promised simply to repentance and faith, because, in the inner life of the soul, repentance and faith are in reality the beginning of the defeat and destruction of sin" (p. 120). It is not taught indeed that "repentance is the cause of the forgiveness of sins": "this cause," it is remarked, "is none other than the love of the Father for His children." "But repentance is the necessary and sufficient condition"; and "it is impossible to conceive God the Father rejecting one of His children who returns to Him, condemning himself, deploring his sins, and craving forgiveness" (p. 124). Repentance, in one word, "is salvation itself" (p. 127). "There is no atonement other than repentance" (p. 127). From which it would seem to follow that the atoning act is the act of man, not of Christ, and that Christ's whole work consists in bringing man to perform this atoning act of repentance.

How Christ accomplishes this, is that He so touches our hearts as to make us grieve over our evil entreatment of our loving Father. In this work of touching our hearts, no doubt, His passion and death have their high part to play. But we must not fancy that they in any way affect God and stand in any sense in His sight as a reason or ground of His acceptance of our persons. "The death of Christ is an essentially moral act, the significance and value of which proceed solely from the spiritual life and the feeling of love which it reveals" (p. 110). "The cross is the expiation for sins only because it is the cause of repentance to which remission is promised" (p. 127); and there is no other atonement than this repentance (p. 127). Jesus is, then, only in a modified sense our Saviour. Indeed, though He has done what He did supremely, what He did has no uniqueness about it—it is in kind no other than what many others than Himself have done and are still doing. "The work of Christ ceases, then, to be isolated and incomprehensible" (p. 131); "the sufferings and death of the righteous and of the good operate in the same way as the passion of Christ upon the conscience of the wicked; … which signifies that they help to produce that state of repentance in which the forgiveness of sins and the work of salvation devised by the divine mercy may be realized" (p. 133). Not merely Paul then, who claims (Col. 1:24) a part in this work, "to the scandal of all future orthodoxies" (p. 133), but "all God's servants" have stood by the side of Jesus, as along with Him and in the same sense (though not in the same degree) in which He is, our saviours. Christianity thus emerges before us "as the religion of universal redemption by love" (p. 134).

The point that ultimately focuses our attention as we read Prof. Sabatier's exposition emerges in this last declaration. Christianity, we are told, is the religion "of universal redemption by love." Whose love? Even the old Socinianism would reply, as a matter of course, God's love. Not so Prof. Sabatier. With him, it is everybody's love. He has, in a word, transmuted Christianity into bald Altruism; in his soteriological theory he has substituted the universe of sentient creatures for God and His Christ. Such, he tells us, "are the authentic data of the Christian consciousness": and with this he would stop. The deeper basis he declines to probe. "But if the philosophic mind would go further and ask whence proceeds this supreme law of the moral world which has made self-denial, disinterested self-sacrifice, and brotherly love the ransom of sin and the means of its progressive destruction, we may well be led to confess our inability to answer" (p. 135). Perhaps, then, the reader may be excused if he takes leave to doubt whether there is any justification in reason or Scripture for representing "brotherly love" as "the ransom of sin"—especially if his own Christian consciousness (taught, no doubt, by the Scriptural declarations) declines to add its seal to it. If we are to rest on an ipse dixit we may without offense, perhaps, prefer the ipse dixit of our Lord Himself (Matt. 20:28) and of the Apostle Paul (1 Tim. 2:6, Titus 2:14) that our Lord is Himself our Ransom, because He has given His life for us.

Prof. Sabatier's new Christianity has too much the appearance of old infidelity to attract us. And when he tells us that it is only in some such form as this that Christianity can hope to persist in the conditions of modern culture—the watchword of which is "autonomy"—we should be dull indeed if we did not apprehend that the meaning of this, translated into terms of more brutal frankness, is simply that there is no place for Christianity in the modern world. "Altruism"—yes, we may wonderingly admit that altruism works and on a basis of pragmatism may find a place for itself, though we are at a loss for an ultimate justification of it to "reason." But "Christianity"—well, certainly as Christianity has been heretofore understood (except by the Socinians and Rationalists), there can be no place for it. Do not the eighteen centuries of this "heteronomic" Christianity which have been lived out in the world, then, give an indication that it too "works"? And are we so sure that it will not find a justification for itself in "reason"—provided that "reason" has not been hopelessly warped by too great hospitality to the assaults of Socinian and Rationalistic criticism? The fact is that the ipse dixit of Prof. Sabatier weighs no more than that of Faustus Socinus or of Julius Wegscheider, and we see no reason for listening in him to what we should pay no attention to in them.

BIBLE PROBLEMS AND THE NEW MATERIAL FOR THEIR SOLUTION.

By T. K. CHEYNE, D. Litt., D.D.

London: Williams & Norgate; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1904.

THE "Crown Theological Library," of which this volume forms the eighth number, is a new propaganda of what in our modern nomenclature is miscalled "liberal" Christianity. The most of the essays hitherto published in it are translations from the German and French of characteristic papers by such men as Friedrich Delitzsch, Harnack, Herrmann, Pfleiderer, Lobstein, Réville, Sabatier. They give the series the appearance of an attempt to naturalize in lands of English speech the variety of "liberal" Christianity now so flourishing on the continent of Europe. An occasional paper of English authorship has, however, been included. Among these certainly none can put in a better claim to either representativeness or readableness than this sprightly essay by Dr. Cheyne. Were it only on the score of literary delight no one ought to miss anything which Dr. Cheyne writes. The fine patience with which he bears with the intellectual backwardness of the uninstructed multitude whom he considers it his duty to correct; the tender solicitude with which he chides his fellow laborers in the field of Biblical criticism for their slowness of heart to believe all that this prophet has spoken; the depth of the interest which he exhibits in the religion which he makes it his business sedulously to undermine; the carefully chosen phraseology with which he gloves the hand with which he crushes; the childlike frankness with which he confesses his own great attainments and achievements, and congratulates the Christian world on its possession in these confused days of a guide to truth who unites within himself such clearness of sight, loftiness of aim, courage and tenderness—is it not all most engaging? When we add to these fascinations of manner the rich residuum of facts which the prudent reader may always strain out from Dr. Cheyne's imaginative constructions, and the stimulus which he is sure to receive from contact with so widely-read a scholar, it will be readily understood with what pleasure each succeeding publication of Dr. Cheyne's is received by a very broad public.

The present essay is an expansion of a lecture delivered before a society called "The Churchmen's Union," and is couched throughout in the tone of a heart-to-heart talk from a churchman to his fellow churchmen, with whom he feels heartily at one in all that is of the deepest concern, though not perhaps insensible that it has fallen to him to become the leader of his brethren to a better outlook than may possibly at present obtain among them. He describes the task which he undertakes as "partly an exposition of new facts, partly a plea for a bolder style of Biblical criticism, justified and invited by those facts" (p. 5). This bolder Biblical criticism which he wishes to commend has its application not merely to the Old Testament, but also, and chiefly in this lecture, to the New. The new facts to which he appeals are the facts unearthed by recent Oriental archæology. In effect the lecture is a plea for the employment of the results of recent research in the field of Oriental archæology not merely to the elucidation but the reconstruction of the Biblical records—in both Testaments. Their bearing on the understanding of the Old Testament has been more fully recognized and therefore is here less fully entered upon: their bearing on the understanding of the New Testament it is therefore made the business of the greater part of the lecture to insist upon. "In short"—the lecturer himself thus sums up this part of his contention—"there are parts of the New Testament—in the Gospels, in the Epistles, and in the Apocalypse—which can only be accounted for by the newly-discovered fact of an Oriental syncretism, which began early and continued late. And the leading factor in this is Babylonian" (p. 19). The purpose of the lecture may be, therefore, not unfairly described as an attempt to popularize the application of Pan-Babylonism for "accounting for" the New Testament as well as for the Old—although, of course, "Pan-Babylonism" must be understood here in no narrow sense, but rather, in accordance with Dr. Cheyne's effort to do justice to the entire range of recent Oriental investigation, broadly enough to include the entirety of ancient Shemitic culture.

The contention of the lecture with respect to the Old Testament is, in brief, that "it is a fact, which cannot be argued out of existence, that we have recently acquired two new keys to the Old Testament, by which great problems are being brought nearer to a solution." One of these, he continues, "is furnished by a critical Assyriology, soon, we may hope, to be reinforced from South Arabia; the other, by a more methodical textual criticism" (p. 185). Why anyone should attempt "to argue out of existence "such a fact as is here asserted, we cannot ourselves imagine. No one doubts the value of "a critical Assyriology" to Old Testament interpretation; and certainly one of the chief desiderata of Old Testament criticism is "a more methodical textual criticism"—for nothing has brought greater or more deserved reproach upon the reigning school of Old Testament textual criticism than its subjective arbitrariness. Dr. Cheyne is simply confusing in his thought the recognition accorded to "the two keys to the Old Testament" he instances, and the reception given to the use which he himself has made of these keys. The heartiest recognition of the value of "a critical Assyriology" "reinforced from South Arabia" is entirely consistent with a most decisive rejection, for both method and result, of Dr. Cheyne's attempt to apply what he deems the results already attained by these branches of investigation to the problem of the interpretation of the Old Testament. And the most convinced conviction of the clamant need of a "more methodical textual criticism" of the Old Testament, happily, need not commit us to the acceptance of Dr. Cheyne's textual criticism of the Old Testament: it may, on the contrary, be the very reason why we cannot accept Dr. Cheyne's textual criticism, either in methods or in results. There is much that Dr. Cheyne says about the textual criticism of the Old Testament with which we find ourselves in full agreement. We agree, for example, that the ascertainment of the traditional text or texts and the ascertainment of the true text are two different problems, and ought to be kept separate. We agree, moreover, that the ascertaining of the texts that underlie the Massoretic and the Septuagint transmissions is the prior duty, to which succeeds the further duty of "approximating as closely as possible to the true text" that lies underneath both transmissions. We agree, moreover, that much of the current criticism of the text is arbitrary and subjective and can lead us nowhither. We feel no impulse to demur to the declaration that further criticism of the text must take "account of Winckler's discovery of Musri and Kûs in the inscriptions." But we should be sorry to think that this agreement in obvious principles would commit us to the acceptance of the new Bible which Dr. Cheyne has written on the basis of his Jerahmeel theory, or even of the new Psalms which he has produced by the help of a criticism which seems to us in its subjectivity and arbitrariness to surpass all that has gone before it—though that, of course, is saying a good deal.

The real purpose of the volume is to carry into the New Testament—somewhat vi et armis, it must be confessed—the "Pan-Babylonism" which has already become an old story in Old Testament criticism. Its fundamental thesis is that "facts of Oriental archæology (including mythology) may hopefully be brought into connection with the New Testament" (p. 61); or, to be more specific, that "the form of the most peculiar and difficult New Testament statements can only be accounted for by the newly-discovered fact of the all-pervading influence of Oriental and more particularly Babylonian and Persian systems of belief" (p. 62). When stated in this broad manner there is nothing, of course, in principle to be objected to this thesis. The New Testament writers were men of their time, and wrote, of course, in language and modes of statement formed under the influence of the ideas of their time. It would be strange if there were discoverable in their thought and speech no traces of systems of belief which could with any show of right be called "all-pervading." The mischief lies in Dr. Cheyne's definition of what he calls "peculiar and difficult New Testament statements," and his determination of the line which divides the "form" of these statements from their "essence." The particular "peculiar and difficult statements" which he adduces as illustrations of his thesis are the New Testament accounts of "the Virgin-birth of Jesus Christ, His Descent into the nether world, His Resurrection, and His Ascension." As the result of his discussion he suggests that "on the ground of facts supplied by archæology, it is plausible to hold that all these" "four forms of Christian belief" "arose out of a pre-Christian sketch of the life, death, and exaltation of the expected Messiah, itself ultimately derived from a widely current mythic tradition respecting a solar deity" (p. 128).

We must observe the slight difference in language between this last-cited proposition and the one formerly cited. There Dr. Cheyne spoke of the possibility of accounting for the "form" of certain "New Testament statements" from the influence of certain Oriental beliefs: now he speaks of these Oriental myths supplying an account of the "form" of certain "Christian beliefs." It is, in fact, the latter and far more serious proposition which his arguments are directed to justify. His contention is not that the New Testament writers tended to express the facts of the virgin-birth, the descent into hell, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord in language which had been formerly employed to express certain Oriental myths, and which therefore preserved a certain coloring derived from them. It is rather that Christians had already, when the New Testament was written, come through the influence of these myths to express their fundamental ideas in terms of a virgin-birth, descent into hell, resurrection, and ascension. The fundamental ideas so expressed, therefore, have in themselves no implication of a virgin-birth, descent into hell, resurrection, ascension as actually occurring: these things all belong to the mythical form and are to be accounted for, not as things that really happened and are therefore recounted in the narrative, but as modes of conception inherited from immemorial mythological stories, running back, for the most part, to Babylon for their original forms. What the real nature is of "the essential Christian truths" which are enshrined in these mythical forms as in their "suitable caskets," and to which the faith "of the Christian is pledged," Dr. Cheyne indicates to us only with brevity—his main object in this lecture being to show whence the forms were derived, not what the substance is. In his most succinct statement he tells us that "the chief of them are,—the uniqueness of the personality of the Lord Jesus, and the immense worth of His act of absolute self-sacrifice; then, by inference, the indestructibleness of His personality, its perpetual redemptive capacity, and its identity with that manward aspect of the Divine Nature, so full of mingled grandeur and compassion, which, by early efforts of theological thought, acquired the names of the Messiah, the Son of God, the Word of God" (p. 129). It is only (or at least chiefly) these few starved and hunger-bitten dogmas that he recognizes as the substance of those "forms" of Christian belief.

Dr. Cheyne, of course, tells us that there is nothing disparaging to the Christian beliefs in his theory. He means, of course, the Christian beliefs he has just enumerated as "the essential Christian truth" enshrined in these mythological caskets. He would scarcely say that there is nothing in his theory disparaging to the Christian's beliefs of a virgin-birth, descent into hell, resurrection, and ascension for Christ. At least those who will read, even with the best will, his equation of the Messiah and Michael and Marduk, and of the virgin-mother with the mother who was virgin only in the sense that she was not a wife, will scarcely credit that Dr. Cheyne supposes that there is nothing in his theory disparaging to the Christian belief in the virgin-birth of our Lord and Saviour. But these beliefs are in his theory not Christian beliefs, but only the forms in which the real Christian beliefs have become enshrined as men have sought to give them expression, limited as they were by the modes of expression accessible or familiar to them. If any chance still to look upon such beliefs as themselves "Christian beliefs," "essential Christian truths," which enter into the very fabric of Christianity (as all of the Lord's apostles did, and the Lord Himself as reported by them), why then, of course, he must recognize that the Christianity of which they are essential parts is shattered by Dr. Cheyne's theory. The most interesting part of Dr. Cheyne's theory thus comes to be the conception of the essential truths of Christianity—of the nature, that is, of the Christian religion—which it embodies and, if it should prove to be sound, necessitates. These essential truths—we have already enumerated them—constitute in effect Dr. Cheyne's Confession of Faith. Do they constitute also Christianity? Certainly not—as Christianity has been hitherto understood, whether by its founders, or its propagators, or its adherents. The upshot of Dr. Cheyne's theory, then, is that it offers us a new Christianity—a Christianity independent of such old forms of belief as the virgin-birth, the descent into hell, the resurrection, the ascension.

Is this new Christianity an improvement on the old Christianity? That is the great question. That is to say, for Dr. Cheyne. It is not an important question for the rest of us. For judging by the evidence that is here presented for it, it is not apt to become the Christianity of very many others, at least of those who are used to give a reason for the faith that is in them. But Dr. Cheyne's main interest, one would think, since this has become his Christianity, would naturally center in the query whether this is an adequate Christianity. And one would think that, trained as he has been as a "Churchman," Dr. Cheyne might well cherish serious doubt on that point. The new Christianity he offers us is certainly not the Christianity one would expect from a good Churchman—whose professed creed is the Thirty-nine Articles, incorporating as they do "the Three Creeds"; and whose ordinary vehicle of public worship is the Book of Common Prayer. Of course, the modes of expression—and even the conceptions expressed—found in these documents may also be represented as mere "forms," quite as well as the modes of expression—and conceptions expressed—found in the Scriptures. But two questions will arise here—one for us, and one for Dr. Cheyne. We should ask where this interpretation of modes of expression and conceptions expressed as mere "forms"—husks concealing a kernel—is to end? Whether it may not be ultimately applied even to the essential truths of Christianity which Dr. Cheyne himself still enumerates as such? Dr. Cheyne should ask, and one would think should ask seriously, whether, if his representation be true, Socinianism has not at length won its tardy victory? For after all Dr. Cheyne's new Christianity is just old Socinianism.

THE BIBLE, ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE. The Bross Lectures, 1904.

By the Reverend MARCUS DODS, D.D.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1905.

BY THE munificence of the late William Bross, a considerable sum of money has been placed in the hands of the "Trustees of Lake Forest University," the proceeds of which they are charged to use to create a literature of exposition and defense of the Christian religion. It is specified, among other particular objects that should be sought under this general commission, that an effort is to be made "to demonstrate the divine origin and authority of the Christian Scriptures." It was quite natural, therefore, that among the earlier works called out under the stimulation of this bequest, there should be one on the origin and nature of the Bible. It may be doubted, however, whether Dr. Dods's lectures are calculated to meet perfectly the expectation aroused by language which speaks of a demonstration of the divine origin and authority of the Christian Scriptures. Dr. Dods, of course, believes that the Scriptures are a product of a movement of life and thought which originated in a divine impulse, and that there is much that is divine, and therefore authoritative, in them—that their main burden and central message, in fact, is divine. But around this central core, he believes that much that is human in origin and far from authoritative in effect has been woven like a widely extended web, or shall we say like the coma of a comet that surrounds, partly transmitting, partly obscuring, the light of the nucleus.

In this Dr. Dods is but a respresentative of a general tendency which is at the moment very active in Christendom. Men everywhere, deeply affected by the assault which has been made in our day, perhaps with unexampled vigor and subtlety, upon the Christian system as a divine revelation, and especially upon the Christian Scriptures as the vehicle of that revelation, have sought to ease the situation by casting away what they have deemed the husk in the hope of saving what appeared to them the kernel. They have commended to us, therefore, a new and reduced Christianity, documented in a new and reduced body of Scriptures. Dr. Dods is by no means an extreme representative of this tendency. But gradus non mutant speciem. In this book also he appears before us as the "concessive" apologist, the "mediating" theologian, and begs to put in our hands a Bible, which, in his view, is much more rationally conceived in its origin and nature than the old Bible was, and therefore, in his opinion, may be much more successfully defended. We certainly shall not deny that a certain measure of ease may be purchased for the defender by simply declining to defend; although it is not always certain that, so long as what we consider the citadel is to be defended, its defense is made really easier by the surrender of what we may deem outposts but which may prove to be approaches. We gladly recognize that Dr. Dods would fain defend what both he and we look upon as the citadel. But we find it impossible to admit that what he would yield as indefensible outposts are either indefensible or can be yielded safely or loyally. We rejoice that we have a fuller and richer Christianity than Dr. Dods feels bound to proclaim, and Scriptures far more divine in their origin and nature than he is inclined to admit. We believe that the defense of this richer Christianity and these more completely divine Scriptures is not only possible but imperative, if we would preserve Christianity in the world. And we believe their defense to be logically easier than that of the lowered views which Dr. Dods would commend to us. We do not believe that half-truths are more easily defended than whole ones; and we look upon the "concessive apologetics" which Dr. Dods represents as inimical to Christianity, and all the more to be firmly resisted because its assault is more insidious and therefore more dangerous than open attack.

Ask Dr. Dods what the Scriptures are and he will tell you, A body of books which we set apart from all others and assign a place of supremacy because they "are all in direct connection with God's historical revelation which culminated in Christ" (p. 23). Like all Dr. Dods's definitions (it is inherent in the position he occupies) this is—inadequate. If we should say the Bible is the documentation of God's self-revelation for the purpose of human salvation, that would be a more adequate description of the internal characteristic of the Scriptures—expressing, indeed, their unifying principle. But the plain fact is, to put it in briefest terms, that the Scriptures are the corpus juris of Christians imposed on them as such by competent authority. This competent authority is proximately the apostles, acting as Christ's authoritative agents in founding His Church. Thus apostolicity (in the sense of apostolic imposition, not authorship) is and always has been the principle of canonicity. There is no gain in blinking this plain fact, and seeking to transmute it into some more immanent principle. The Christian Church is a manufactured article; it was founded; and its character was impressed on it and its law imposed on it by its founders. Of course we may ask why the apostles imposed just this particular body of books on the churches which they established as Christ's authorized agents in founding His Church. And doubtless, in pursuing this inquiry, we shall ultimately reach the principle that these books stand together as constituting the "canon" which the apostles gave the Church, because they constitute as a whole the documentation of God's revelation of Himself for salvation. But nothing could be more confusing than to confound this internal principle of unity with the external principle of canonicity, though good men, as, for example, Luther, have in every age been guilty of the confusion—with the most unfortunate results. Throughout its whole history authentication as God's law for His Church has been the proximate ground of the reception of the canon, although, of course, throughout the whole history of its formation organic participation in the revelatory process has been the principle of the constitution of the canon. And it is on the same ground that the canon must continue to be received if received at all. It is a grave error to represent this rational procedure as a desertion of the principle which governed the fathers of the Reformed Churches. They, as little as we, sought to determine the "canon"—which is a matter of history—on the basis of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti—which is a matter of experience: on that basis is determined not the "canon" but "the Word of God." From his standpoint Dr. Dods very naturally finds the method of the Reformed doctors a little confusing: but the confusion is his, not theirs. They treated the Scriptures as a unit because the Scriptures are a unitary apostolic book; and they then asked if this book "found them." Discovering that it did, they recognized it as "the Word of God." Of course, Dr. Dods may say that apostolicity cannot justly be claimed for all these books. That is a matter of opinion, concerning which we differ with him and concerning which the fathers of the Reformed Churches differed with him. That the body of the apostles imposed a Bible on the Church is not disputable; that this Bible contained all the books, and no others, which our present Bible contains we consider historically substantiated: that this collection as a whole is "the Word of God" is experimentally verifiable. This strikes us as a much more reasonable method of dealing with the matter than Dr. Dods's fluctuating way, which involves a confusion between the historical question of what constitutes the canon and the vital one of what is the Word of God to me—analogous to the common confusion of the Scriptures as the principium cognoscendi and the Scriptures as the means of grace.

Let us, however, revert to the primary definition which Dr. Dods gives of the Bible as constituted of books which we set apart from all others and give a place of supremacy because they "are all in direct connection with God's historical revelation which culminated in Christ." What is to be observed here is that all that Dr. Dods can say of Scripture is that it is "in direct connection with" revelation: and that the adjective "historical" which he attached to "revelation" is not to be read as distinctive, but as descriptive. That is to say, Dr. Dods believes in no other than a "historical" revelation; what he teaches is that God reveals Himself only in the sequence of historical events, while Scripture is only one product of this revelation, working through human minds. The theory, as will at once be perceived, is that which was given great vogue in the middle of the past century by the attractive presentation of it by Richard Rothe, and which has been more recently commended, with some caution but much earnestness, to English readers by the late Prof. A. B. Bruce. As commonly presented, its essence is that it confines revelation to the series of divine acts in history, while it treats inspiration as the correlate of revelation, or, as Dr. Dods prefers to phrase it, its "complement" (p. 97)—the action of the Divine Spirit on the human spirit by virtue of which the latter "perceives, appreciates, accepts, and in certain cases records the revelation of God." In this view the Bible is no part of the revelation (though why the production of the Scriptures may not be conceived as an element in the series of the redemptive acts of God it is hard to perceive), but is simply its record; and its record, so far as appears, in purely human strength—apart, that is, from the effects of that so-called inspiration by which in Dr. Dods's view men are enabled sympathetically to receive and possibly to record revelation. "The essential elements in revelation," explains Dr. Dods, "have been understood and interpreted by men." "In the Bible we have that selected revelation which inspired men have accepted and seen fit to record." "God has revealed Himself, and the leading facts of this revelation are recorded for us in the Bible, and from these facts we can gather what God wishes us to know about Him and how He wishes us to think of Him" (pp. 96, 97). In other words, all that we commonly know as "direct revelation" is denied or retired to the background: revelation is made to consist in an immanent action of God through man by virtue of which a series of events are produced which are then perceived and interpreted by human spirits prepared for their task by a corresponding action of God upon them enabling them to see and appreciate these events aright. The latter divine activity is then called inspiration. Inspiration has, therefore, no direct concern with the record; it is distinctly not graphical but personal.

We shall not pause to point out how little support this construction has in the letter of Scripture itself. Scripture represents revelation, normative revelation, as through the medium of speech, or at least in a mode best represented by speech. "Thus saith the Lord" is its typical expression. And Scripture assigns inspiration not to the person but to the written product: to it, it is "every Scripture"—or, as it is probable we should translate it, "the entire Scripture"—that is given by inspiration of God. Let us pause only to call attention to the lowered supernaturalism of the theory; and also to the inconsequence of the reasoning by which it is supported. "What has been the method of revelation?" asks Dr. Dods. "Our answer to this question," he replies, "depends upon our idea of God. If we believe in God as immanent in the world and man, then we shall necessarily believe that God reveals Himself through human sensitiveness to the Spiritual and inquiry after Him. If we believe in God as merely transcendent, we shall think of Him as moving man from without" (pp. 78–79). Now, why has Dr. Dods—shall we say subintroduced?—the little word "merely" into the last clause, by the introduction of which the exact parallelism of this clause with the preceding one is broken? In point of fact, "merely" must stand in both clauses if they are to be taken, as they are treated here, as true disjunctives. And, in point of fact, Dr. Dods actually reasons throughout the volume on a presupposition which tends to treat God as "merely" immanent and as operating in the world solely "through human sensitiveness to the Spiritual"—though we thankfully recognize that in dealing with the miraculous element in the Gospels a higher note is struck. Indeed, he at once goes on to say in our present passage: "In the one case revelation will be internal and natural; in the other it will be external and supernatural,"—and proceeds to point out that "belief in the immanence of God tends to abolish the distinction between the natural and the supernatural." It is this tendency, showing itself everywhere, which leads Dr. Dods to pare down the supernatural character of the Bible; it is it which lies at the root of his denial of the infallibility of the Bible—or of its "literal infallibility" as he elects to call it, in the effort to save for the Bible, even on his theory of its origin and nature, a sort of infallibility in a single sphere.

How inadequately Dr. Dods thinks of the supernatural element in the Bible may be observed as well as elsewhere at the point where, in an attempt to break the force of the Bible doctrine of inspiration, he cries out with emphasis (in opposition to the direct testimony of Scripture) that it is not the book but "the man who is inspired" (p. 117). But where does Dr. Dods suppose that this man that is inspired came from? He apparently imagines that he is given by the world—or by himself—and that God comes to him, finds him as he is, and does the best He can with so poor and inadequate an instrument. It is "with all his natural powers and idiosyncrasies" that "he becomes the organ of the Spirit"—as if, therefore, the product would necessarily be different from what the Spirit might have made it if only He had had a better instrument! "Inspiration does not lift the inspired person out of all his limitations, but uses him as he is, and all his faculties as they are," he asserts, with no pause to consider, that all these natural powers and idiosyncrasies, all these faculties and capacities, that make the man, are themselves, down to the last one of them, of God; that the man himself is what God made him and what God made him precisely for this end, that through him He might give this precise word to men; that God the almighty ruler of the world does not have to put up with the best man He can find and agree to abide the result, but first forms the man to suit His purpose, and then uses him to accomplish His purpose, and so produces through him precisely what He wills. It is, ultimately, this defective sense of the divine, even in its immanent working, which lies at the root of our modern tendency to depress the supernatural; and the evidences of it face us everywhere. Thus, for example, we find Dr. Dods using such language as this: "God was compelled" (p. 85), "It was useless for Christ to die until …" (p. 86),—as if God were under the domination of men and needed to wait on man and walk warily lest He should get beyond His tether. It is amazing that any thinking man could imagine that by such shallow expedients as this language embodies, the great problem may be solved of why God Almighty operates in this world by process. The current employment of such language is the saddest indication of how far the men of our day have lost the vision of God, and of how prone they are to operate in their thinking with the will of man as really the prime factor of importance in the world's history. It surely is no wonder, therefore, that, even though but a little under the influence of this modern blight, Dr. Dods should show himself throughout these lectures working under the fatal confusion of man's thought of God with God's revelation of Himself, and that he should accordingly be continually treating the record as the record of how man (under whatever divine impulses) had come to conceive of God rather than of how God from time to time revealed Himself to man.

We have written somewhat desultorily, but we hope we have made it clear that the fountain of Dr. Dods's inadequate conception of Scripture as the documentation of God's revelation of Himself for salvation, lies in his inadequate conception of the modes of the divine operation in the world—in a word, in his chariness with regard to the supernatural. He wishes apparently as little supernatural a book as he can, as a Christian man, manage to get along with. The writers of Scripture, it is undeniable, held the diametrically opposite view. There was no antecedent opposition to the supernatural in their minds. They lived in a supernaturalistic atmosphere. They saw God in everything and above and over everything. And they give us a frankly supernatural book. Dr. Dods says that it is not the book but the man that is inspired: Paul says that every, or all, Scripture is God-breathed. Dr. Dods says that much of Scripture is of little or no spiritual value; Paul says it all is profitable to make the man of God perfect. Dr. Dods says that whole stretches of it are untrustworthy for historical or other not directly spiritual purposes, and no part of it is untouched by human fallibility; the writers of the New Testament say as the end of all strife, "It is written!" and Jesus Himself says that when we adduce Scripture we adduce what cannot "be broken." It is possible that in a matter of fact like the infallibility of Scripture, however, Scripture will not, on Dr. Dods's view, be implicitly trusted. We must at least ask, however, how he will practically get along with his fallible Scriptures. He gives his strength to proving that, fallible as they are, they yet preserve a true picture of Christ, and that Christ, once given us, becomes the criterion of Scripture. Now, of course, this is the main thing. The Scriptures exist to give us Christ; and when they have brought us to Christ they have performed their fundamental function. No human being who knows the Scriptures and has by them come to Christ will deny that. But what Christ is this that we shall get from our fallible Scriptures? We know the Christ which the infallible Scriptures give us: and every lineament of that divine-human form is precious to us. Shall we be able to retain this form in all its lineaments on the basis of a fallible Scripture? How much of it goes, with the infallibility of Scripture? Nothing essential, says Dr. Dods: and we might conceivably be willing to content ourselves with the Christ he preserves for us. But what about the Christ that Wernle gives us? or Wrede? or Oscar Holtzmann? or Auguste Sabatier? or Réville? or Brandt? or Harnack? Which Christ of the fallible Scriptures shall we be ultimately forced to put up with? Will He become to us at length only a vague figure who lived in Galilee nineteen centuries ago and made a religious impression on His followers of such depth that it has propagated itself down to our day? And when we have got our Christ from Scripture, what Scripture will that Christ in turn give us? The Christ the Scriptures as they stand give us, is the Christ that said of Scripture, "It cannot be broken." Everywhere throughout the whole extent of the Scriptural representation, it is this attitude that He holds to Scripture. It seems quite clear that this is not the Christ that Dr. Dods would have us receive from Scripture; or at least, if we receive Him, it is clear that he would not have us accept His Scriptures at His estimate. It appears that we are to estimate Scripture not by His teaching, then, but by His "standard." That He was conscious of no incongruity of Scripture with His standard—even that is not to weigh decisively with us. We are to do our own judging: we are easily to reject all that does not approve itself to our estimate as measuring up to Him. It may seem to some of us, indeed, that we thus come into grave danger of discrediting the very Christ we have received. But as we have received Him only from a fallible Scripture, perhaps we may be justified in adjusting Him when received to our own ideals. Many pursue this method. But in that case what warrant, other than our own subjective conception, have we for the Christ we finally adopt and make the criterion of Scripture? And if we are to make the Scriptures that give us the Christ and then make the Christ which gives us back the Scriptures—it will be hard if we do not ultimately find ourselves arrived at the goal for which we set out.

Subjectivism is, in truth, the gulf into which all our modern theorizers inevitably fall. Dr. Dods no more escapes it than the others. What he really gives us is therefore an ideal sketch—a "program," is it not, that they call it?—of what he would like to be the principle of the canon, the nature of revelation, the function of inspiration, the extent of infallibility, and the like; of what he would find it commodious, in accordance with his preconceived opinions as to God and the world, to hold and teach and defend on these matters. For what is really the principle of the canon, the nature and method of revelation, the effect of inspiration, the infallibilty of Scripture,—for the facts, hard or comforting as we may esteem them—we must go elsewhere. That what Dr. Dods could wish were the facts approaches much nearer to what they are than what they are represented as being by many others, sharers with him in the modern prepossessions against the supernatural—though adopting them more exclusively or developing them more consequently than he—we very gladly recognize. Dr. Dods still believes in the general historical trustworthiness of the Gospels; and, although unwarrantably assailing their trustworthiness in many details (on, let us say it frankly, very frivolous grounds), yet sturdily and successfully defends the essential historical soundness of their narrative, and especially the trustworthiness of the portraiture of our Lord which they present. Dr. Dods even believes in and defends the reality of the miraculous element in the life of Christ as it is depicted by the evangelists. These are great things to say of one who is so much affected by the modern spirit which, as he himself tells us, is swayed by nothing more profoundly than "the presupposition of the incredibility of miracles" (p. 134), and to which the presence of a supernatural element in a narrative is enough to condemn it at once as unhistorical. We rejoice that Dr. Dods would preserve to us at least a supernatural Redeemer, even if he draws back before too supernatural a Bible. We could wish, of course, that he had gone on and done as much justice to the supernaturalism of revelation and inspiration and the resultant Scriptures as he has to the supernaturalism of the person and work of our Lord. As it is, he inevitably seems to us to have handled these matters far too lightly and to have presented only, as he himself remarks of Prof. Huxley in a similar case, "another demonstration that the ablest man may sometimes be satisfied with touching but the surface of a subject."

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SALVATION.

By GEORGE BARKER STEVENS, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1905.

DR. STEVENS, although since 1895 Professor of Systematic Theology in Yale Divinity School, has hitherto been known to the wider public chiefly as a writer upon themes of Biblical Theology, the fruit, doubtless, of his studies while he was Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the same University ("The Pauline Theology," 1892; "The Johannine Theology," 1894; "The Theology of the New Testament," 1899; "The Teaching of Jesus," 1901). There was no doubt a little volume of not very great significance called "Doctrine and Life" published in 1895. And more to the point, there was always a strong dogmatic tone in the professed Biblical studies, and there were always intruded into them not merely a dogmatic method, but large elements of purely dogmatic discussion. And as Dr. Stevens has been very much of a dogmatist from the beginning, so he has from the beginning been very much the dogmatist he exhibits himself in the present volume. From his earliest publication the same tendencies of thought which meet us here in their full flower were already present. Already in the volume on "The Pauline Theology" (1892), for example, the divine righteousness is resolved into the divine love, and the doctrines of "original sin" and "satisfaction" are rejected. Even the same methods of argumentation and the same insufficiency in the statement of opposing views which characterize the present volume are already noticeable in that. We must confess to some surprise, therefore, at the chorus of astonishment which has greeted the appearance of this volume. Doubtless, Dr. Stevens' theological conceptions have somewhat ripened during the interval which separates it from its predecessors, and in the process of his special studies for it, but this is very much the kind of book on "the Atonement" which any reader of his former works should have expected to receive from Dr. Stevens.

We shall not profess to have found the volume pleasant reading. The polemic tone in which it is cast from beginning to end, strident from the commencement, finishes by becoming rasping. It is not obvious that the opinions thus endlessly controverted have been sympathetically appreciated. It is not even obvious that the trouble has been taken thoroughly to understand them. Certainly they are not always stated in their completeness; and they are not seldom refuted in mere caricature. The reader acquires an unpleasant feeling as he proceeds in the volume that the language of scorn, rising even to vituperation, is now and again depended upon to do the work of argument. Dr. Stevens does not like the doctrine of "penal satisfaction." Not liking it, he is entitled to argue against it, and (if he can) to refute it. It may be questioned, however, whether its refutation is advanced by declaring that it makes God a Shylock (p. 410) whose most distinguishing characteristic is "his appetite for revenge" (p. 331 et seq.). And it seems more than questionable whether this procedure is justified by the open declaration that the advocates of such a doctrine are past arguing with. Take, for example, this sentence: "It seems to me that one who can adopt the principle which underlies the penal theory of our Lord's sufferings—that God is so just that He cannot forgive the guilty until He has first punished the innocent—thereby renders himself inaccessible to all considerations of equity and morality" (p. 383). In Dr. Stevens' view sin itself, in its most complete development, does not reduce man to so hopeless a condition (p. 316): he remains always accessible to appeal and open to conviction. It is inconceivable that he really considers his Christian opponents in worse case than the worst of sinners. His language is the language of simple vituperation.

The book is laid out, on lines usual in such treatises, in three parts. These parts would commonly be described as occupied successively with laying the Biblical foundation, tracing the historical development, erecting the dogmatic construction. These descriptions appear, however, to apply to Dr. Stevens' three parts only in a somewhat modified sense.

The discussion of the First Part (pp. 1–135), for example, seems devoted less to laying firmly a Biblical basis for a doctrine of Atonement than to removing all Biblical basis for such a doctrine. In Dr. Stevens' view there are almost as many Biblical doctrines of Atonement as there are Biblical writers: which is as much as to say that there is no Biblical doctrine at all. He does not deny that the "theory of penal satisfaction" is taught in the Bible. He intimates rather that it is taught by Paul; although when he expounds Paul's teaching for us, it takes in his hands much more of the appearance of the governmental theory (p. 60). He seems not very averse to allowing even that it may be implied in certain sayings attributed to our Lord in even the Synoptic narrative. But on that very account he doubts the authenticity of these sayings. And he does not feel bound to believe all that Paul taught. He is a modern man, and can no more "think in terms of late Jewish theology" (as Paul did) than he "can think in terms of pre-Socratic philosophy" (p. 74). He claims the right, then, to distinguish "between the specifically Christian and the characteristically Jewish or rabbinic in Paul" (p. 75). Making this distinction, he ascribes Paul's doctrine of a substitutive atonement, of a "propitiation of God" (p. 61, note), to his Jewish inheritance; and rejects it from the possibilities of thought. "The men of to-day can no more appropriate the outward forms of Paul's Jewish thought respecting expiation than they can adopt the cosmology or demonology which he derived from the same source" (p. 74). "What is Pauline? What is Scriptural? Is every conception of which Paul made use a necessary part of his religion, and of ours,—physical death due to sin, our sin due to Adam's, Christ's speedy, visible return to earth? As I have frequently intimated, it seems to me that no fruitful investigation of the beginnings of Christian theology can be made without recognizing the distinction between the contingent thought-forms of the first Christian thinkers and the essential religious life and fundamental Christian certainties concerning God and the experience of salvation which they were seeking to expound and to philosophize" (p. 131). The upshot of his discussion of "the Biblical basis of the doctrine," therefore, is to free himself from the trammels of much of the Biblical teaching. Only the teaching of Jesus, it seems, is to be implicitly trusted: and that, not the entire teaching attributed to Jesus, but only the Synoptic tradition of His teaching: and not even that in its completeness, but only so much of it as Dr. Stevens' criticism spares.

In the historical section of his treatise (pp. 136–261) Dr. Stevens does not attempt "to write the history of the doctrine of salvation in the Church"; but quite properly confines himself to outlining "the principal types of theory which have obtained in Christian thought regarding the specific problem of atonement." These types of theory he conceives to be fundamentally three, which may be roughly designated by the names of the doctrine of "Satisfaction" and the "Governmental" and "Moral Influence" theories. The first two of these he discusses in their founders, Anselm and Grotius, and in their modern representatives of various kinds, under the names of "modern penal satisfaction theories" and "modern ethical satisfaction theories." He devotes no separate chapter to the founders or early representatives of the Moral Influence theory, but, adverting to Abelard and the Socinians only incidentally in the chapters devoted respectively to Anselm and Grotius, reserves what he has to say of this third type of theory to a final chapter on "modern 'subjective' theories." It cannot be said that the several theories which come up for discussion in this series are dealt with dispassionately. The tone is severely critical throughout; and the object seems to be not so much to estimate the elements of truth discoverable in each as to clear the way for a passionate advocacy of the Moral Influence theory. The instability of the compromising Grotian theories is recognized (see especially p. 531), and the real opponent of the " 'subjective' theories" is perceived to be the doctrine of Satisfaction. To discredit this doctrine becomes, thus, the chief purpose of these chapters. So engrossed is Dr. Stevens with this task that he does not stop to state the doctrine in its completeness before he refutes it; and thus falls into a carping habit which expends its criticisms upon isolated and, we must add, often misconceived elements of the doctrine. He is aware that although Anselm struck out the fundamental statement of the doctrine, it did not come to its rights until it received restatement at the hands of the post-Reformation divines. This has not led him, however, to any careful exposition of the doctrine as taught by the post-Reformation divines. He prefers to close the matter with a scornful allusion to "that period of Protestant scholasticism and hyperorthodoxy," and its "provincial extravagances," which "have no right to the name of orthodoxy in the comprehensive use of that term" (p. 252). The result is that his polemic is vitiated by its lack of comprehension. The most astonishing oversights are committed; the doctrine attacked is scored for lacking elements which really lie at its very core; and the whole polemic misses its mark and degenerates into an amusing, perhaps, but certainly most ineffectual criticism of detached modes of expression. Though the doctrine of Satisfaction is rooted in the infinite love of God, Dr. Stevens, in criticism of it, elaborately argues out in opposition to it the necessary origin of the saving work of God in His love (p. 246), and ostentatiously compliments an advocate of it here and there as "damagingly admitting" this common proclamation of the whole body of its adherents. Though Christ's "active obedience" enters as an essential element into the doctrine—as even F. A. B. Nitzsch ("Lehrbuch der evangelischen Dogmatik," 1892, pp. 468, 484), to whom he defers much, would have told him—he blames the doctrine for a total neglect of the whole side of Christ's work which consists in His sinless and holy life in the world. Though it is of the very essence of the doctrine that Christ purchased by His Satisfaction both release from the dominion of sin and a title to holiness, together with the only prevalent instrument of sanctification, the Holy Spirit, he reproaches it with not correlating justification and sanctification in a vital and adequate way. Though the peculiarity of the doctrine of Satisfaction among attempts to explain the nature of the work of Christ lies in its conception of the reconciliation wrought by Him as mutual, he assaults it as making nothing of the attractive power of the manifestation of the love of God in Christ, the force of the demonstration of God's righteousness made on the cross, the moving influence of the perfect example of our Lord's holy life. In a word, Dr. Stevens is in such haste to thrust the doctrine of the Satisfaction of Christ out of the way, that he does not stay to grasp the doctrine itself, but is ever hastily thrusting aside something else which his hands have seized. The consequence is that naturally he is never satisfied that he has thrust it aside. He tells us over and over again that it is all over with the doctrine of Satisfaction; and yet he is ever returning to slay afresh the slain. He cannot get done with it. And finally he seeks his comfort in the assertion that it never needed any slaying anyhow: it long since died of itself. "It has been, at no period, entirely unchallenged; it has had its rivals and its critics, until now, at last, there is scarcely a reputable theologian anywhere who ventures to come forward in its defense" (p. 251). He calls F. A. B. Nitzsch and private letters from Kaftan and Ménégoz to witness that it has disappeared from the European Continent, and adds his own assurance that it has equally disappeared from Britain and America—at least in "noteworthy" publications (p. 187). He declares that, "for better or for worse, this theory is moribund" (p. 187), is "obsolescent" (p. 260), and finds practically no place "in the literature of investigation, in the theological monographs and doctrinal systems which are attracting attention and exercising widespread influence to-day" (p. 261). In short, he is continually assuring his readers that the doctrine of Satisfaction is already out of the way, and yet he is perpetually returning to the charge and elaborately refuting it. Is it not unseemly thus to hack a corpse? And is it not strange that as the book comes to its close (p. 531) this poor dead theory—and by this time, one would think, not merely safely dead but sufficiently mangled—is still set forth as living, between which and the Moral Influence theory alone "lies the choice" ("forever irreconcilable theories"); and the reader is recommended—if he is not convinced by this volume that the Moral Influence theory is the truest and most satisfactory—to go on and read Dr. W. N. Clarke's "Outline of Christian Theology" and Dr. T. V. Tymms's "The Christian Idea of Atonement"? It sounds very much as if the weary combatant would say, "I have done my best to kill this thing; but it won't stay killed: now I lay down my sword" (shall we say "my hacked sword"?) "and leave the task to my fellow combatants: perhaps they may succeed where I have failed."

Throughout the whole Third Part of the volume (pp. 262–536)—which is entitled "Constructive Development of the Doctrine"—the polemic element continues to occupy a large space. But in the fourteen chapters which constitute this part an attempt is made to elaborate and commend the special form of the Moral Influence theory to which the work is consecrated. This task involves a survey of a great number of the topics of theology; and they are expounded—if we may be permitted to use a general term in a general sense—in what must be spoken of generally as the Socinian sense. The doctrines of historical Christianity are, in other words, reduced, here, at least "to their lowest terms." We thankfully recognize that there are many expressions scattered through the discussion which show that this is not Dr. Stevens' inheritance, and that he has not adjusted himself perfectly to the lowered views of the doctrines which he is, nevertheless, in the main, commending. He can even criticize a treatise on the Atonement on the ground of its want of "scripturalness" (p. 243). If he objects to Anselm's phrase which ascribes to God "outraged dignity," he can himself speak of His "affronted love" (p. 275). If he scouts the analysis which distinguishes between justification and sanctification, he yet claims its benefit in distinguishing between the forgiveness of sin and the removal of its moral consequences (pp. 355–356): "Forgiveness is but one factor in salvation"; "the pardon of sin is never conceived in Scripture in separation from the cleansing, life-bestowing action of the divine Spirit"; "forgiveness is a name for the beginning or restoration of right personal relations," etc. If the conception of guilt is minimized almost to the vanishing-point, it yet is explicitly retained (pp. 319, 337, 355)—although race-guilt is denied and no guilt is allowed to stand in the way of acceptance with God. Nevertheless it must be regretfully allowed that Dr. Stevens' theology is of a piece—as indeed all theologies must be, since, as Dr. Orr has tellingly pointed out afresh ("God's Image in Man," 1905, pp. 7, 8, 12, 13, 23), it is impossible to hold the Socinian doctrine of Atonement and not hold along with it a Socinianizing doctrine of everything else—of God, of sin, of the person of Christ, of the application of salvation.

We are not asserting that Dr. Stevens "does not believe in the deity of Christ." But we are constrained to admit that no reader of the chapter in this volume on "The Personality of the Saviour" could venture to affirm that it is taught in it. There seems to us in this chapter (we trust we are mistaken) a notable falling off from the position (already somewhat unsatisfactory) in his "Theology of the New Testament." There, Dr. Stevens represented "the metaphysical Sonship," the "ontological deity" of Jesus, rather as an inference we draw from the ethical facts or the data of our Lord's manifestation than as an element of His own consciousness: but he at least expressed his own earnest conviction of its reality. Here, although we are told that "the divinity of Christ is presupposed in the Christian view of His Saviourhood" (p. 298), we are also bidden to magnify "the moral and religious significance of His person" and be careless what "its metaphysical background" may be. Men may have "tried to exalt Him by ascribing to Him all manner of metaphysical characteristics and powers," but what "the Gospels place in the forefront of their portraiture is just His moral completeness, His perfectly filial consciousness, His stainless, untainted holiness" (p. 290). Just how much or just how little this may mean the reader may be puzzled to determine. Nor will he feel sure that things can stand at this point. For he can scarcely fail to note with blanching countenance the attenuated grounds on which alone Dr. Stevens can rest an assertion of moral completeness, perfect filial consciousness, untainted holiness for Jesus. With the feeble hold he has on the trustworthiness of the Scripture records, as he partly perceives himself, there is no sufficient reason to be derived from them for so great a conclusion: and to say that "the divinity of Christ"—does that mean His "metaphysical deity"?—"is presupposed in the Christian view of His Saviourhood" may not suffice one who does not hold to "the Christian" but to "the Socinian" "view of His Saviourhood." This "view of His Saviourhood" has not been historically correlated with a clear and firm faith in the "metaphysical deity" of Jesus.

On another matter we feel less hesitancy in speaking decisively. Dr. Stevens exhibits a remarkable sensitivity to the "charge" that the Moral Influence theory of the Atonement implies a lowered view of sin (pp. 267–268, 390, 392, etc.). One does not wish to be offensive: but is not the truth of the "charge" not only inherent in the case, but also plain matter of fact and universally recognized? Is Dr. Orr bringing a railing accusation against his brethren when he says ("God's Image in Man," p. 11): "It is a truism that, with defective and inadequate views of sin, there can never be an adequate doctrine of redemption: it is, in fact, precisely because so many superficial views of sin are abroad, that there is at the present time so general a recoil from the Biblical declarations on the need and reality of atonement." Certainly if we needed an a posteriori proof of the truth of this dictum, we should not need in order to supply it to go farther than Dr. Stevens' own chapter on "The Sin from which Christ Saves" in this volume. Of course, no one supposes that either Dr. Stevens or any other advocate of these lower views of "the Atonement" does not think sin a bad thing, a very bad thing: or that they cannot discourse eloquently about its badness. But no one who reads this chapter can doubt that Dr. Stevens does not think sin so bad a thing as it has been thought by the advocates of those "provincial extravagances" of the "era of Protestant polemic scholasticism," which included among them the doctrines of original guilt, total depravity, and inability. It is, in fact, part of the very purpose of this chapter to discard these "extravagances," "exaggerations": and in calling them "extravagances," "exaggerations," Dr. Stevens advertises his own view as, relatively to them, a "lowered" view. It surely cannot be offensive, then, to say that it is only because this "lowered" view of sin and its effects on man is Dr. Stevens' view, that his view of the Atonement seems to him adequate. If he held the "exaggerated" view "taught, for example, by Augustine and Edwards, and embodied in the Westminster Confession," he would not be able to content himself with his view of the Atonement.

It can scarcely be necessary to prolong this notice in order to explain in detail what Dr. Stevens' view of the Atonement is. He did not leave it to this point in his treatise first to avow it: and we have not been able to follow his treatise thus far without repeatedly suggesting it. Let it suffice to say it is simply a form of the very prevalent Moral Influence theory, and like all forms of this theory finds the atoning fact, the actual thing which brings man into right relations to God, not in Christ or in anything which Christ was or taught or did, but in man's own act of repentance and return to God—Christ's whole function consisting in inducing man to repent and return to God. It is only by a figure of speech therefore that it can be said that "Christ gives us repentance and so remission" (p. 354). For how does He "give" it? Only by "making us to feel and know our sin, and showing us the sure way to escape from it." There is nothing upon which Dr. Stevens waxes more passionate than upon man's inalienable power to repent, "to heed and respond to the gospel invitation" (p. 316). On this view one may well ask, What then becomes of those who lived and died before Christ came? Only two views are possible. Either they are hopelessly lost, or else Christ's work is not necessary to salvation. The former alternative Dr. Stevens, of course, does not take; he even (absurdly enough) tries to fix it on the "Satisfaction theory" (p. 379). The latter is, then, inevitable to him: and he boldly embraces it in a theory of what he calls "Eternal Atonement" (chap. x. pp. 433 ff.), in which he teaches that "the word 'atonement' represents a process and not a merely single event—that it designates the operation in history of certain laws or forces of the divine life which are perpetually operative, an action of God in relation to sin and salvation which has been continuous throughout human history" (p. 433). Thus our Lord's "saving mission is a transactional expression of eternal atonement" (p. 440): "the earthly life and suffering of Christ are the historic form of an eternal reality, a perpetual process" (p. 442). All of which, being interpreted, means that it is not what Christ did on earth which grounds salvation, but "the dateless passion of God on account of sin"; and that "God is, by His very nature, a sin-bearer." Why, then, the mission of Christ? Why His sufferings and death? There is a chapter (chap. viii.) on this too. It's axiom is that "Christ came to realize in the world the ends of God's holy love" (p. 401). "Christ did not come to procure, but to proclaim and bestow forgiveness" (p. 386). In any event that He did not come earlier leaves it certain that what He did in the world was not necessary for the salvation of man—that nothing He did in the world was essential to salvation. If the world did not need His work for so many ages, it can have stood in no need of it at all. Search and look: it is inherent in the very nature of the Moral Influence theory to depreciate the importance of the mission of Christ. He becomes only one Saviour among many (Bushnell, Sabatier). His work is really unessential to salvation. Undeniably this is not the Biblical view. Undeniably it is not the view of the Christian centuries. Is it a view tolerable to the Christian heart? The plain fact is that the lowered views of the Atonement now becoming so prevalent are unconformable to all the presuppositions of the Christian faith, and involve a reconstruction which will ultimately transform it into a merely natural religion.

GOD'S IMAGE IN MAN, AND ITS DEFACEMENT, IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN DENIALS.

By JAMES ORR, D.D.

London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1905.

DR. ORR'S "Stone Lectures" were listened to in Princeton with great pleasure. Their publication in this handsome volume will carry to a wider audience their fine exposition of the fundamentals of Christian anthropology and their vigorous protest against a tendency, apparently growing among us, "to wholesale surrender of vital aspects of Christian doctrine at the shrine of what is regarded as 'the modern view of the world' " (p. vi.). What renders this protest most valuable is that it is particularly directed against weak evasions of the issue raised by the conflict between the Christian view of the world and that "congeries of conflicting and often mutually irreconcilable views" which is commonly spoken of as the "modern view." Dr. Orr has the courage to recognize and assert the irreconcilableness of the two views and the impossibility of a compromise between them; and to undertake the task of showing that the Christian view in the forum of science itself is the only tenable one. This task he accomplishes with distinguished success: and this is the significance of the volume.

The material is divided into six lectures. In the first of these the issue is stated, and the actual irreconcilability of the two views demonstrated. The Biblical doctrine of God, man, and sin is set sharply over against the "evolutionary" view of them, the exaggerations sometimes found on both sides are cleared away, and the residuary conflict made plain. The second lecture, proceeding to details, sets the Bible and the new views of the nature of man over against one another, and shows that no scientific facts really endanger the Bible doctrine that man differs in kind and not merely in degree from the lower creatures. In the third lecture it is shown that the extreme evolutionary theories have broken down before the advance of knowledge, and that, on the data of science itself, man stands forth as the product not of nature but of a Higher Cause intruded into nature. The fourth lecture extends this argument with especial reference to the mental nature of man. In the fifth lecture the great question of sin is grappled with, and the Biblical view of sin as a racial fact rooted in voluntary action on the part of the creature is powerfully commended. Finally, in the sixth lecture, the Biblical account of death as non-natural to man and the result of sin is defended: and the bearing of the whole discussion on the entirety of the Christian system explained. At the end a body of valuable material is collected in a series of Appendixes which support, and in some instances advance, the positions taken in the text of the lectures.

What impresses the reader of these admirable lectures most is their fine balance. In the statement neither of the Biblical doctrine nor of the "modern view," nor in their comparison, is there any exaggeration. The two are just calmly set over against one another and investigated in their bases and relations. Perhaps the most striking feature of the exposition of the Biblical doctrine is the just insistence upon the unity of man as "a being composed of body and soul in a unity not intended to be dissolved." A firm grasp upon this element of the Biblical doctrine notably clears the air. It not only puts in their right aspects death and the resurrection—the former as the product of sin and the latter as the necessary fruit of redemption from sin: but it throws the whole question of the origin of man into a new light. It perhaps may not be too much to say that the hinge of the Biblical anthropology lies here: and that the argument of Dr. Orr turns upon his clear appreciation of it. Next to this, we are struck perhaps by the searching analysis and account of sin given in the fifth lecture. The question arises, as we read, why sin cannot be characterized, in contradistinction to that "love" in which the fulfillment of the law consists, as just "lovelessness" or, in its positive manifestation, "hate." This would be only another way—whether a better way or not may be open to question—of reducing sin to the principle of selfishness.

Some striking minor points in Dr. Orr's arguments should also be mentioned. Among these is his suggestion (p. 152) of the impossibility of disparate development of mind and body, with the inference he draws from it that, therefore, it can scarcely be credited that the body of man was formed by the accumulation of insensible variations from a brutish original, and the soul made all at once by a divine fiat for the completed man. Body and mind must go together: and a great brain with a little mind is just as unthinkable as a little brain with a great mind. The argument does not seem to be available, however, as against a theory of evolution per saltum. If under the directing hand of God a human body is formed at a leap by propagation from brutish parents, it would be quite consonant with the fitness of things that it should be provided by His creative energy with a truly human soul. And this leads us to say that the precise point in the question of evolution is, after all, not whether the new forms proceed from older ones, whether by or without the directing hand of God; but whether the forces concerned in the production of the new forms are all intrinsic in the evolving stuff. Man may "breed" many varieties of pigeons, fowls, sheep; and the varieties he "breeds" may often come per saltum. But they all find their account in the forces operating in the materials dealt with: his directing hand cannot be traced in the chain of efficient causes, all of which are discoverable in the evolving stuff. Accordingly, under man's hand we can have nothing but an "evolution," an unrolling—a drawing out into new forms of what was potentially present in the evolving material from the beginning. If this were all that God does, there would be no "creation" in the case whatever. We do not quite understand, therefore, Dr. Orr's remark on p. 87, to the effect that "evolution" and "special creation" are not mutually exclusive, whether as terms or as things. Surely "evolution" means just "modification"; and "creation" just "origination": and surely "modification" and "origination" are ultimate conceptions and mutually exclude one the other. You cannot "originate" by "modifying"; you cannot "modify" by "originating." Whatever comes by "evolution" that certainly cannot arise by "creation"; and whatever is "created" certainly is not "evolved." The old definition of "creation" as the making of something partim ex nihilo, partim ex materia naturaliter inhabili—ex materia inhabili supra maturæ vires aliquid producere,—is certainly the sound one. Unless the thing produced is above what the powers intrinsic in the evolving stuff are capable of producing (under whatever divine guidance), the product is not a product of "creation" but of "providence." And "providence" can never do the work of "creation." Dr. Orr fully understands this and argues therefore that the apparition of man implies the intrusion of a new cause, that it is a creation, strictly so called: and this is what makes the remark on p. 87 inexplicable. Let man have arisen through the divine guidance of the evolutionary process, there is no creative act of God, but only a providential activity of God, concerned in his production, unless there has been intruded into the process the action of a cause not intrinsic in the evolving stuff, causing the complex product to be something more than can find its account in the intrinsic forces, however divinely manipulated. Evolution can never, under any circumstances, issue in a product which is specifically new: "modification" is the utmost that it can achieve—"origination" is beyond its tether.

One of the most pregnant passages in the volume is that (p. 188) in which it is briefly demonstrated that for a moral being to exist in a non-moral condition is really for it to exist in an immoral condition. We may in the abstract distinguish actions into those that are right, wrong, and indifferent. But there are no indifferent acts: in the concrete all acts are good or bad. So we may in the abstract speak of conditions which are moral, non-moral, and immoral. But for a moral being, a state of non-morality is a state of immorality. Such a being is either good or bad; never neither good nor bad. This simple demonstration cuts up by the roots the whole Pelagian standpoint.

As we have already pointed out, Dr. Orr's whole treatment of sin is very sane and satisfactory. Only, we demur to what seems to us the overemphasis of the fact of "heredity," taken in the strict sense, in this connection. We hear indeed of "the representative principle" (p. 277), and the "inheritance" of death is apparently hung upon it. But the transmission of sin appears to be hung at least mainly upon the principle of "heredity" (e.g. pp. 235, 242). This seems to us a mistake, and to involve us in many unnecessary difficulties, as, for example, the difficulty of accounting for our "inheritance" of specifically Adam's first sin (why not Eve's? and why not the sins of all our ancestors?) and the difficulty of accounting for our Lord's failure to "inherit" sin. We are burdened with the guilt of Adam's first sin and have received its penalty. Surely that is enough. We do not need to defend the theory of the "inheritance" of acquired qualities in order to account for it; the principle of representation is enough. And we do not need to insist that a son tends to inherit the moral character of his parents, which (on the broad question) certainly is not borne out by common experience: the children of the pious are not uniformly pious nor are those of the vicious uniformly vicious, and assuredly few would contend that the specific forms in which piety and vice are manifested are on the average transmitted. It seems much better, then, to follow what appears to us the simple Scriptural representation, and to say that we partake in Adam's sin because he was our representative, and that he was constituted our representative because he was our father and was naturally indicated as such for that office.

We have in these remarks, we think, noted everything with respect to which we should feel disposed to question even Dr. Orr's modes of developing his subject. Perhaps a query may be placed also against his remarks (pp. 153–154) on the difficulty created for a purely evolutionary theory by the necessity of the production of not a single instance, but of a pair of human beings. We do not feel this difficulty as strongly as Dr. Orr appears to feel it. Why should there be a pair? Nothing is more common in the experience of breeders than the origination of a new type through an individual sport. And what is the difficulty of obtaining a pair or more of the same fundamental type? Ex hypothesi the new variation is slight; and that implies the coexistence of many individuals of almost equal advantages. And nothing is commoner in the experience of breeding than the production from the same parentage of a succession of individuals of the same or nearly the same "sporting" characters. Perhaps also a query may be placed over against the strong statement (p. 257) to the effect that "there is not a word in Scripture to suggest that animals … came under the law of death for man's sin." The problem of the reign of death in that "creation" which was cursed for man's sake and which is to be with man delivered from the bondage of corruption, presses on some with a somewhat greater weight than seems here to be recognized. But these are matters of no importance to the march of the general argument of the book. The book is a distinct contribution to the settlement of the questions with which it deals, and to their settlement in a sane and stable manner. It will come as a boon to many who are oppressed by the persistent pressure upon them of the modern point of view. It cannot help producing in the mind of its readers a notable clearing of the air.

CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

By ERNST VON DOBSCHÜTZ, D.D.

Translated by the Rev. George Bremner, B.D., and Edited by the Rev. W. D. Morrison, LL.D.

London: Williams & Norgate; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1904.

THE task which Prof. von Dobschütz has set himself in this attractive volume is to present an exact and detailed picture of the moral condition of Christians during the first century of the Church's existence (A.D. 30–A.D. 130). Perhaps the title under which the book is published is a little too broad. There are two sides to what we commonly know as "Christian life"—a Godward and a manward side, or perhaps we may better say a religious and a moral side. It is the latter of these to which Prof. von Dobschütz confines his survey. The mystical side of the Christian life he puts out of sight. What he undertakes to investigate is its ethical manifestation. He is not attempting, however, a history of Christian Ethics in the first age: he has nothing to do here with the teaching of the apostles and their successors. What he is essaying is to determine the actual practice of Christians during the first century of their existence in the world. The question he raises is, What kind of people were these early Christians? He wishes to determine by an exact and detailed study whether the Christians did or did not introduce into the world actual moral health: whether they were, or were not, "good men."

The answer Prof. von Dobschütz returns to his question is an affirmative one. The early Christians were good people. As over against the background of heathen immorality—even of Jewish formalism—they stand forth as lights in the world. They not only taught a high and searching morality: they lived it. He thinks it worth while to emphasize this answer and to substantiate it by an exhibition of the evidence for it drawn out with convincing detail. For it is not the answer which has of late been universally given. At an earlier period, indeed, it was customary to idealize the first Christian communities. Of late, however, too black a picture has often been painted. Hausrath, for example, "from all sorts of statements gleaned in the darkest corners and dipped in the deepest hues" has drawn "a picture so gloomy that one is compelled to wonder where Christianity ever found the power to conquer the ancient world" (p. vii.). In his view the worst of Christian Churches of to-day "approaches the ideal of the Sermon on the Mount more closely" (p. 363) than the best of the second century. If we understand Prof. von Dobschütz, he believes Hausrath has exaggerated both the end-terms of the development. He agrees perfectly with Hausrath that Christianity has developed from the beginning until now—if not steadily yet substantially—in moral fiber and moral manifestation. Only he believes it started at a higher level and (probably) has reached at the present a lower level than Hausrath maintained. The difference between the earliest Christianity and the latest in point of moral attainment is less in his view than in Hausrath's. It is the purpose of this volume to show that it started at a higher level and to establish the height of this level.

In Prof. von Dobschütz's view—a view which in our judgment he substantiates—the level from which it started was very high. "It is astonishing," he remarks at the end of his survey of the condition of the Pauline Churches as reflected in Paul's letters—"it is astonishing what Christianity in a relatively short time made out of these motley and confused heathen groups; earnest men working out their salvation with fear and trembling, saints fully aware of the moral tasks of their consecration. If their judgment was often immature, their goodwill and vigour were great" (p. 137). Of course the ideal was not realized, least of all by every Christian. "But," Prof. von Dobschütz remarks as he closes his survey of the whole century, "offences against it were exceptions, and have less significance, as they awoke at once the moral consciousness of the spiritual leaders and of the congregations. If even one half of the Christians lived as we have described, something great was already achieved. Certainly more of them did. The discipline exerted by this majority was, apart from other considerations, an invaluable moral achievement" (p. 371). The actual morality of the Christians constituted and constitutes to Prof. von Dobschütz's mind, indeed, its best apologetic. "It is the most effective proof of the truth of Christianity" (p. xiii.). It was so in those early ages themselves: the Apologists appeal, as they were thoroughly entitled to appeal, to what Christians were as a proof of their divine calling. The heathen—Pliny, Lucian, Celsus—were compelled even, against their will, to witness to the correctness of the picture the Apologists drew. As a fact, it was not the superiority of Christianity's dogmatic system, nor even of its ethical teaching which constituted its power. It was (and it is) the superiority of its life. "Stoicism and Neoplatonism after all produced moral thoughts of great beauty and purity, thoughts which are more imposing to superficial contemplation than the simple commandments of Christianity. Yet neither of them could enable artisans and old women to lead a truly philosophical life. Christianity could and did; the apologists point triumphantly to the realisation of the moral ideal among Christians of every standing. That was due to the power which issued from Jesus Christ and actually transformed men" (p. 379). It was in this sign that Christianity conquered, and in it that it must ever conquer, when conquer it will and does.

Prof. von Dobschütz's method is to pass the literary remains of the period from A.D. 30 to A.D. 130 in review, reproducing the moral condition of the Churches as reflected in them, in the form of a running comment. This method has some obvious advantages. Not least among them is to be accounted the vividness and life it enables Prof. von Dobschütz to impart to his pages. The result is that he has given us a most engaging book, and the attention of the reader is held unflaggingly to the end. We have been especially attracted by the portrayal of the situation underlying the Shepherd of Hennas in the final chapter. But this method is attended also with some disadvantages. Among these is that it tempts the writer to overload his pages with material not germane or only remotely germane to his subject. Prof. von Dobschütz has not escaped this danger, and his successive chapters read often more like studies in the general situation of the Churches addressed in the several epistles or presupposed in the documents he analyzes, than like specific investigations into the moral condition of the primitive Churches; in a word, like sections in Biblical or Patristic Introduction. The reader finds it almost as much of a task to gather from his flowing and interesting pages a clearly-cut and sufficing account of the morals of the early Christians as it would be to derive this from the original documents themselves. It is a graver matter that it throws into exaggerated prominence an inconvenience which would, no doubt, attend any mode of studying such a subject—we mean the influence on the result of the author's individual opinions as to problems of literary history. The consecution of the New Testament books, for example, and the authenticity, authorship, and provenience of them—in this mode of presenting the material—become very important matters indeed, and dominate not only the structure of the volume but the outline of the picture presented in it of early Christian morals.

This is a specially important matter to us, since we do not at all share Prof. von Dobschütz's opinions as to the problems of New Testament Introduction. There is nothing in them, to be sure, peculiar to Prof. von Dobschütz; his views are just the views prevailing in the extremer wing of modern critical reconstruction of the literary history of the New Testament. And no one could expect him (as he himself suggests in the Preface) to include a justification of his views on literary history in this volume. But the value of the volume to all who do not share these views is seriously impaired by the unnecessary prominence given them in its structure; and this the more since Prof. von Dobschütz strives to present his material not statically but dynamically—that is to say, in perspective, with an indication of what he deems the development of Christian morals through the century of which he treats. Obviously divergent views of the consecution of the witnessing documents will work havoc here. If Colossians is to be treated as Paul's; and Ephesians as an imitation of it from the hands of the next generation; and the Pastorals as ecclesiastical documents of a generation later—why, clearly the picture of "the development of morals" (if any such development can be traced) will be different from that derived from these documents conceived as the product of a single pen and of a period covering only five or six years. From the latter point of view the confident tracing of a development as witnessed by these documents must seem to rest on an illusion supported by overstrained niceties of interpretation. And in any case Prof. von Dobschütz cannot be acquitted of this fault. When no marked distinction is discovered in the moral condition of Christians as pictured in Philippians, and that pictured in the two Epistles to the Thessalonians; and yet a significant development is traced between the moral assumptions underlying Colossians and Ephesians, it seems obvious that the scales employed do not give equal weights.

We rise from the perusal of Prof. von Dobschütz's book, accordingly, with a great sense of indebtedness to the author and with much spoil in our hands: but we rise from it also with a conviction that there are some things in it which are not derived from the sources. We feel confident that if Prof. von Dobschütz had begun simply by investigating the moral condition of the Churches underlying each document in turn, and then had compared these results and combined them in a single account, he would have spoken less of a regular development through the century; and certainly he would have put the documents into classes differing somewhat from the arrangement he has given them, in what seems to us, so far as the New Testament documents are concerned, not only an unhistorical but also an unnatural order. And, then, had he presented the material thus gained under rubrics derived from the moral categories, instead of in the quasi-chronological order he has preferred, derived from his personal opinions as to the consecution of the documents, his readers would have gained from him not only a truer but a much clearer and more convincing conception of the state of Christian morals during the first Christian century. In a word, in our judgment, Prof. von Dobschütz's study of the morals of the early Church suffers from his wrong views of the composition of the documents with which he deals; and suffers from this unduly on account of the method of presentation which he has adopted.

At the close of the volume, a series of "Notes" (six in all) are printed, in which some interesting ancillary questions are discussed in a more scholastic way than was consonant with the more popular style of the body of the work. One of these is devoted partly to a justification of the author's view of Paul's curse upon the incestuous man at Corinth; this view we do not find it possible to share. The most important of them is an attempt—the author emphasizes that it is only an "attempt"—to survey the terms employed in early Christian literature to express moral ideas. This is a valuable contribution to a department of study hitherto much neglected: and it may be commended to students as a beginning of importance in a new line of research. The book is fairly well translated, and reads in general smoothly and clearly. The proof-reading is not immaculate. There is even an appearance (perhaps it is only appearance) of assigning a new work to Ignatius with the title of "Heresy" (p. 246), even a treatise to our Lord bearing the designation of "Life of Poverty" (p. 265; what is really meant appears—though even then somewhat awkwardly—upon p. 376).

SOME DOGMAS OF RELIGION.

By JOHN MCTAGGART ELLIS MCTAGGART.

London: Edward Arnold. 1906.

DR. MCTAGGART presents us in this volume with a reasoned plea for atheism. His atheism is based neither upon materialism nor upon a complete scepticism, but upon an idealistic metaphysic. The particular form of idealism to which he holds is that which (as he supposes) underlay the systems of Fichte, Hegel, and Lotze; and which conceives reality as ultimately consisting of a harmonious system of self-existent selves: it may perhaps be designated idealistic pluralism. He does not in this volume set forth the grounds on which he holds to this metaphysic. It is not its purpose to establish his metaphysical basis. It is its purpose to examine the evidence for the great trilogy of natural religion—God, Freedom, Immortality—with a view to determining whether this evidence is adequate. The method of the reasoning is, therefore, critical, and its trend is negative. Dr. McTaggart holds, indeed, that there exist arguments of sufficient strength to justify a belief in human immortality. But these are not the arguments which are commonly relied upon, but reduce to those which establish the idealistic theory of the fundamental nature of reality. And as it is not the purpose of this volume to determine the fundamental characteristics of reality these arguments are not adduced. All that is done is, by a critical examination of the arguments ordinarily relied upon in disproof of immortality, to remove objections out of the way, and then to suggest that, as the really telling arguments for immortality are metaphysical rather than moral, they tend to commend to us a doctrine of eternity rather than of immortality—a doctrine of preëxistence as truly as of postexistence, for human beings—Dr. McTaggart himself being inclined to construe this eternity of existence in terms of transmigration. With his fundamental conception of reality as a system of selves, freedom presents no necessary inconsistency, provided this freedom be not construed out of relation to the law of causality. Accordingly, if we understand him aright, Dr. McTaggart argues for the doctrine of human freedom ordinarily called the freedom of self-determination, but called by him, in accordance with a distribution of theories of his own, the freedom of self-direction; although it is possible that he may push his determinism to a mechanical extreme. This chapter is chiefly notable for its clear and convincing refutation of the theory of indeterminism. It is in its examination of Theism, however, that the interest of the volume culminates. There is no suggestion of a God inherent in Dr. McTaggart's fundamental metaphysic: and he finds no reason to believe in a God in the lines of argument usually relied on to prove His existence. He feels quite certain that there is no such God as the higher Theism demands—an omnipotent Creator and Director of all. To him all existent reality is eternal and ultimate (p. 234)—and there is therefore no place for a Creator, and the Divine Being, if such exists, is limited by the coexistence of the rest of existing reality. He might find a place for a non-omnipotent, non-creative God—if there was only valid evidence of His existence. But he discovers none. "There seems to me," he says, "only one reason why we should not believe in his existence—namely, that there is no reason why we should believe in it" (p. 260). The issue of the whole discussion is therefore that the slate is clean: we have no guidance on these great subjects of God, Freedom, Immortality except the implications of our metaphysical theory. And as in Dr. McTaggart's view a true metaphysic conceives reality as an eternal self-existent system of selves, a true religion, founded on this metaphysic, will do without a God, but will allow a self-determined freedom and an immortality construed as eternity a parte ante as well as a parte post. Meanwhile all non-metaphysicians are warned off the religious terrain. No man is justified in holding opinions on these great subjects save as the result of metaphysical study. Religion is therefore for the metaphysician alone. "And thus we are driven to the conclusion that, whether any religion is true or not, most people have no right to accept any religion as true" (p. 293). We may regret this, but we may in part console ourselves with the reflection (among others) "that the man who has no religion cannot have a bad one" (p. 294).

As Dr. McTaggart's purpose in this volume is not to establish conclusions but to clear away conclusions illegitimately established, we should perhaps attend more to his critical method than to what we may incidentally learn of his positive opinions. The progress of his discussion is as follows. He first undertakes to demonstrate the importance of dogma, or rather its indispensableness to religion. Next he endeavors to show that the customary arguments relied on for the establishment of religious dogma are illegitimate. Taking up then the three great dogmas, he examines in turn the ordinary basis for belief in Immortality, Freedom, and God, and finds it in all cases inadequate; indicating, however, as he goes on, that there exists nevertheless good reason in his metaphysical assumption for belief in immortality and freedom, defined in accordance with its requirements, but not for belief in God. Summing up, finally, he contends that there remains nothing but our metaphysical determinations to rely upon for the establishment of dogma. The dialectic employed by Dr. McTaggart in his destructive reasoning is very sharp and clear-cut, but not seldom also very formal, descending at times into purely verbal reasoning and even to something not far removed from what has been not very euphoniously called "choplogic." Great reliance is placed upon definition and the verbal analysis of definition; and it would go hard with any logician if he could not put into his definition precisely what he purposed subsequently to bring out of it by analysis. Dr. McTaggart's logical sense is very acute, and with much of his reasoning the reader will be carried convincingly along: but it not seldom fails to convince because it fails in content. We cannot take space here to illustrate either its excellences or its defects. These may, however, be sufficiently suggested by some desultory remarks on one or two points of primary importance to Dr. McTaggart's argument.

Dr. McTaggart considers "that no man is justified in a religious attitude except as a result of metaphysical study" (p. 292). This judgment rests, however, ultimately on Dr. McTaggart's definition of religion. If religion be so defined as to make it rest on metaphysical conclusions, it should require less than an octavo volume to determine it to be unjustifiable in one who has made no metaphysical study. According to Dr. McTaggart, religion is that "state of mind" which "may best be described as an emotion resting on a conviction of a harmony between ourselves and the universe at large" (p. 3). If this be true, it is clear that no one is entitled to possess a religion until he has contemplated "the universe at large," and has attained a conviction that he himself is in "harmony" with it. Yet it is notorious (and Dr. McTaggart is at once compelled to admit it) that men are religious who have no conception whatever of a "universe at large"; and that others are religious whose most fundamental conviction is that they are out of harmony with the universe as they conceive it. Why make so long and devious a circuit to get at a fundamental trait of human nature? Why not recognize at once that religion is simply the reaction of the human spirit in the presence of (add the qualification "real or imagined" if you will) higher powers, perceived as such? Here is a perfectly simple definition which covers all the instances. It may indeed be argued—and successfully argued—that these "higher powers" must be personal since nothing less than personal can be higher than persons; and indeed that they must be one, since the involved attributes are singular; in a word that religion can come to its rights only in Theism, which is in and of its very nature Monotheism. But religion may exist without coming fully to its rights: else it could not exist at all as a "state of mind" of creatures like us. And we need only to recognize that systems like Buddhism which are formally atheistic, and thinkers like Spinoza and Hegel, who think of the higher power in relation to which they perceive themselves as standing, as impersonal, conceive this higher power imperfectly and are absorbed in the contemplation of this or that aspect of it, as, for example, its immensity, its all-inclusiveness, its universal operation,—to understand that their response to its perception may be essentially religious. Religions thus differ from religions as the conceptions entertained by their subjects of the nature of the higher powers which are their objects differ, and as the conceptions entertained by their subjects of their own relations to these higher powers differ. When these higher powers are conceived as persons, as they are explicitly almost invariably and, one may say, implicitly always (and that seems the significance of Mr. Dickinson's remark quoted on p. 10 that religious emotion is dependent on the universe being "greatly and imaginatively conceived"), then the sense of dependence which lies at the root of all religion (because it grows out of the perception of powers as "higher") is completed by a sense of responsibility (because these powers are perceived as "personal," that is, as moral agents); and the response of human nature will take form from the moral judgment which the subjects of religion pass upon themselves. Religions become thus fundamentally religions of fear or religions of hope; and the conceptions, emotions, and usages developed by them take form as one or the other of these emotions preponderates in them. Religion is not, therefore, so much "that particular happiness which comes from the belief that we are in harmony with the universe" (p. 9), as rather that particular state of mind which grows out of the conviction that there are higher powers upon our relations with whom our happiness depends. Happiness does not lie, therefore, at the root of religion, as is contended by both Dr. McTaggart and Mr. Dickinson, to whom no attitude towards the "universe" is religious unless it brings with it "rest and peace and happiness"; but is rather the end sought in religion—by various means according to the place of each religion in the scale of religions. Religion therefore is not based on a precedent conviction of a harmony already existing, but rests on a desire for harmony earnestly sought after. And above all, it is not based on a conviction of harmony existent between us "and the universe at large," but on a desire to secure harmony between us and "the higher powers," however conceived. The attempt to substitute the "universe" for "God" in the conception of religion, which characterizes both Dr. McTaggart's and Mr. Dickinson's definitions, is simply an outgrowth of their own philosophy and contradicts the entire phenomenology of religion. It is not "the universe" perceived as over against himself which is the source of man's religious ideas, emotions, actions. It is distinctly "the higher power," contemplated ordinarily distinctly as personal, and one may believe always obscurely so conceived or else the religious reaction does not follow. This broad fact of human religion becomes thus itself a witness to God. Resting on no metaphysical reasoning it presupposes no "metaphysical study." It is the immediate reaction of the human spirit to a part of its environment, and it becomes thus a guide to metaphysical reasoning rather than waits upon its results. It is only if we shut our eyes to what is and embody in our definitions our metaphysical theories that we can draw out of those definitions conclusions inconsistent with a valid religious experience and a sound religious conviction quite independent of metaphysical study.

It is perhaps especially in his argument against the validity of Theism that Dr. McTaggart's vice of purely verbal argumentation becomes most glaring. The hinge of his argument here, it is not too much to say, is his doctrine of omnipotence. Omnipotence, he would have us understand, means a power to which, and to the exercise of which, no limitation of any sort whatever can be conceived. "An omnipotent person," he says, "is one who can do anything" (p. 202): "there is nothing that an omnipotent being cannot do" (p. 166). It is scarcely credible, but Dr. McTaggart does wish us to believe that this implies that an omnipotent being must be conceived as able to make the sum of two and two five or a thing to be and not be at the same time! And on the basis of this absurdity he gravely reasons that an omnipotent being could not be a person and could not have the benefit of the ordinary theodicy in view of the evil in the world—or indeed, even of the teleological argument for His existence, because forsooth the employment of means is in and of itself inconsistent with omnipotence! "There is nothing," says he, "that an omnipotent being cannot do.… A really omnipotent being cannot be bound by the law of Contradiction. If it seems to us absurd to suggest that the law of Contradiction is dependent on the will of any person, we must be prepared to say that no person is really omnipotent" (p. 166). "If he is bound by" the law of Identity, or "by the law of Contradiction and the law of Excluded Middle," "he is not omnipotent" (p. 203). Of such a God it may not be supposed that He has permitted sin to exist, in order that a greater good may be attained; for "any good result which might follow from the sin and the punishment could be obtained by such a God, in virtue of his omnipotence, without the sin or the punishment" (p. 165). Nay, such a God cannot be supposed to use means at all, for, ex hypothesi, means have no worth in themselves, but owe their entire value to their supposed necessity in attaining a valuable end. But an omnipotent God cannot require means to attain any end: "and therefore it would be inconsistent with his wisdom to use them, since they are of no value except to get an end which he could get as well without them" (p. 201). Not only then can He have the benefit of no theodicy which turns on a doctrine of means: but the teleological argument if valid in the discovery of means is His refutation—if means have been used, it is no omnipotent God who has used them. Now, all this, we say, is quite astonishing. When we affirm omnipotence we affirm unlimited power, it is true, but we affirm only unlimited power. The omnipotent person is a person whose power has no limits. He can do all that He wills. But certainly this unlimited power imposes no limits upon His other attributes—His wisdom, say, or His goodness. It is not necessary in order to be omnipotent to be an idiot or a devil. By virtue of His omnipotence such a being can accomplish all He will: all that is the object of power is in His power. But it does not follow that He may therefore will the foolish or the wicked: foolishness and wickedness raise no question of power but of wisdom and of goodness. The law of Contradiction, for instance, does not belong within the sphere of power: its place is in the sphere of wisdom; and it is no limitation of the omnipotent God's power to say that He is incapable of folly. It is not a limitation of His power which renders it impossible for Him to make the sum of two and two five: it is the perfection of His reason. One might as well talk of a steam engine being made strong enough to draw an inference, as of omnipotence possessing such might as to transcend the law of Excluded Middle. These things are things which are unrelated to power: and concerning which power has no function. And the same is true of the employment of means in order to secure ends. There is here no question of power but of wisdom. If the ends are more wisely secured by means than by power, then it is the part of wise omnipotence so to secure them. If the ends are outside the ends of power, then no omnipotence can make the first step towards securing them. The plausibility of Dr. McTaggart's argument here seems to depend entirely on its generality and abstractness. Some ends are objects of power, and it may seem strange that an omnipotent being should reach them by means rather than by immediate act. There may be reasons why He should: but these reasons lie outside the ends themselves. Other ends, however, are obviously unattainable by power, because they are not objects of power. And it happens that the specific ends sought in the creation of the universe and in its government are not only supposed by the framers of theodicies, but also are in themselves intrinsically of this last sort. It is not within the power of omnipotence, for example, to secure a manifestation of the divine justice and grace without objects of such kind that upon them justice and grace may be secured. These things do not belong in the sphere of "power." The reason why God is supposed not to attain that better thing which is attained by the presence of sin in the universe, without sin, is not, then, because He is supposed to lack in power, but because the attainment of this end in itself requires sin as its condition. We may accord with Dr. McTaggart in his criticism of special theories which have been advanced. We agree with him that the attempt to make the presence of sin the inevitable result of the creation of free agents or the inevitable result of government by general laws, and so justifiable in God's universe, is a failure. But it does not follow that the very idea of a theodicy derived from the use of sin as a means to a glorious end otherwise unobtainable is inconsistent with the conception of an omnipotent God, because forsooth omnipotence can have no need of means. Omnipotence has the same need of means for the attainment of ends not themselves the direct product of force as impotence itself has: and omnipotence abnegates none of its prerogatives when it subjects itself to the government of wisdom, goodness, and truth. To affirm that God is omnipotent is not to assimilate Him to the hurricane or the volcano which blindly acts in all its power on all occasions; but to affirm that infinite righteousness, holiness, goodness, and love is served by equally infinite power—that whatever God wills, He can execute, and that therefore the infinite holy, righteous, and good Will will work its ends, and that in its own time and way, according to what is the absolute Best.

From these specimens the quality of Dr. McTaggart's reasoning may be not unfairly judged. Let it suffice to say further merely that the charm of his style carries the reader over many a doubtful argument. With his criticism upon the current reasoning by which Immortality is established or supposed to be established, we find ourselves very much in sympathy. Only, as our metaphysical presuppositions differ fundamentally from his, we differ substantially with him in the relative estimate we put upon the several varieties of reasoning which are employed. To the metaphysical reasoning we attach little value: to the moral, more: but we should not be greatly disturbed were all of it pronounced inconclusive. "We have a more sure word of prophecy"; and it is Jesus Christ who has "brought life and immortality to light." No doubt it may seem below the dignity of metaphysics to consider facts of experience in determining a question like this. But plain men often find the empirical establishment of facts very great aids to belief. Thinking as we do of souls as manufactured articles, and of the ultimate nature of reality as something very different from a "joint stock company," we have no tendency to construe immortality in terms of eternity a parte ante as well as a parte post—the less so, that it is precisely upon the metaphysical arguments for immortality that we lay the least stress. With respect to Freedom, we go very fully with Dr. McTaggart, if we correctly understand him, although there are some of his arguments which do not appeal to us, and we consider him more successful in refuting indeterminism than in meeting the objections to determinism—because, chiefly, of the intrusion of his peculiar metaphysical views into this portion of the discussion. So soon as he enters formally upon the discussion of Theism, we part company with him in toto. Here everything seems to us unreal and deformed by verbal subtleties; and the conclusion arrived at impresses us as already given in the metaphysical presupposition rather than as derived from the critical process. The discussion may be recommended to students, however, as a good whetstone for their wits.

THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST.

By DAVID W. FORREST, D.D.

Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1906. New York: Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons.

THERE is a story told of an impetuous and somewhat headstrong cavalry leader in our great Civil War which is brought back to our memory by Dr. Forrest's book. He had just ordered a daring charge, when he was interrupted by an aide-de-camp, riding furiously and bringing imperative orders from the general in command, to draw back. "Of course I obey my superior officer," he said, with no attempt to conceal his chagrin. "But," he at once added, his face clearing up, "Mr. Aide-de-camp, this is a very remarkable order, which I find it difficult to understand. And how do I know it has not suffered some 'sea-change' in its transmission through you? And, indeed, how do I know 'the old man' is quite himself this morning?" "Men," he said, turning to his forces, "charge!" The authority of Christ, says Dr. Forrest, is of course final. It has in all ages been acknowledged by the Christian Church to be final (p. 1, cf. pp. 101, 392). But it certainly is not always easy to ascertain precisely the bearing of either His commands or His example (pp. 160, 393); and in point of fact men have repeatedly and in great masses and through long periods gone astray in their appeal to His authority. Nor is it easy to be sure that some of the phrases transmitted to us "have not come to us coloured by later reflection" (p. 399): His disciples certainly misunderstood Him in some of His utterances and modified them to suit their own convictions (pp. 312, 317, 319), and though "the question of subsequent modification or interpretation touches" different parts of His teaching with more or less force, it is legitimate on all occasions to raise it (p. 292). And in any event Jesus' own outlook was bounded by the horizon of a man of His own time, race, and social and intellectual opportunities. The mysteries that press on us pressed similarly on Him. The mystery of suffering, for example—"we have no reason to suppose" that the data required for its solution "lay within Christ's purview more than within ours" (p. 141). "The detailed course of the kingdom in the world" was "inscrutable" to Him as to us; because "the influences that determined it were infinitely complex," and above all the factor of the free human will comes in to modify all forecasts (p. 300, cf. p. 312). It is not difficult for us to convict Him even of positive errors. No doubt He shared the current opinion which attributed the 110th Psalm to David, and the later chapters of Isaiah to Isaiah (p. 69). Nor did He err only in matters of Biblical criticism. "His teaching in many of its parts is coloured by temporary Jewish influences" (p. 96): even the Parables, at least those "that portray the final judgment," are affected by "suggestions from Jewish traditional belief" (p. 292). Thus we are carried through the whole sorites and—despite the occasional accidental dropping of such a phrase as "Christ teaches with authority" (p. 331)—the only conclusion that can be reached is that no such "authority" can justly be assigned to the teaching of Christ as has "in all ages been acknowledged by the Christian Church" (p. 1). As we read we are inevitably reminded of Nelson at St. Vincent, vociferously protesting his subjection to his admiral's authority, but taking great care to clap his glass to his blind eye, and, crying out "I see no signal," to go his own way.

And here we must emphasize the phrase "his own way." For we must not suppose that Dr. Forrest puts aside the authority of Jesus in favor of that of the Scriptures. As he says himself, generalizing on an individual instance: "He who believes that Christ's thought had its limitations will not think that Peter's knowledge in such a matter was infallible" (p. 330, cf. p. 413). "Is it at all likely," he demands, "that the Apostle was commissioned to reveal an eschatological truth which was concealed from the Lord Himself, or which He deliberately refrained from proclaiming?" We do not pause here to point out that according to John's representation (John 16:12–13) precisely this might seem very likely; or to point out that according to Dr. Forrest's own principles there seems no good reason why the later writer, after mature reflection and the teaching of experience, might not have known better than Jesus. What we are concerned to point out here is that so far from falling back from Christ's authority upon that of the Holy Ghost speaking through the apostles, it is one of Dr. Forrest's aims in setting aside the authority of Christ to escape also from the authority of Scripture. It is, in fact, just because Christ's authority authenticates the Scripture that Christ's authority is onerous to him. He sweeps the field clean and leaves himself logically without any "external authority" at all. And he succeeds very fairly in living practically up to this logical result (pp. 372, 382, 421, cf. pp. 2, 64, 68). There is, of course, an appeal here and there to Scriptural teaching as if there were some good reason why we should not outrun the "scriptural warrant" for this or that (p. 50). But this occasional slip is explicable usually from the influence of long habit and from a sense of the force of the appeal upon those addressed. There is exhibited no great tendency to defer to the detailed teaching of John or Paul or Peter: but rather a suggestion here and there of an underlying hesitancy in appealing to it. At one point, no doubt (p. 330), there seems to be a hint let fall that we may appeal from any one apostle to "the common primitive faith" as a better basis of confidence. What is not shared by all or a plurality of the apostles, we are told, "according to every sound canon of biblical criticism," "can only rank as a theologoumenon" of the individual; and as not "forming part of the common primitive faith" fails, by implication, of normative authority (p. 330). The New Testament, however, is treated on the whole as but a product of the Church (p. 383) which can possess no higher authority than belongs to the Church—even though it comes from "the creative period of the Christian faith" (p. 421). We say truly, then, that Dr. Forrest strips himself of all "external authority," and stands forth as, in some sense, autonomous. Has he not the Spirit as truly as any of the apostles? And does not the promise of guidance into all the truth belong to him as really as to them? And does there not lie behind him a much longer and a much wider experience than lay behind them—through which the Church has learned many things?

We have thought it best to begin thus by stating briefly the central and determining line of thought of Dr. Forrest's volume, that we may have before us at once the principles which have controlled his thought, and the issue to which he would conduct us. We may properly revert now, however, to the manner in which these principles and conclusions find utterance. Dr. Forrest takes for his subject "The Authority of Christ": and his end is to determine the sphere in which that authority—shall we say is available or shall we say is extant?—and its "character"—or shall we say its mode of operation?—within that sphere. In one word, Dr. Forrest's purpose is to investigate the limits of Christ's authority both extensively and intensively. In what sphere is He authoritative? he asks; and then, How authoritative is He in that sphere? He cannot be said to proceed in his discussion in a right line: nor does the book give the impression of a unity. One gets the suggestion as he reads that it may have been composed piecemeal, at perhaps disconnected periods, and not in all its parts with the same precise end prominently in view and with the same definitions and presuppositions vividly in mind. Nevertheless the whole is bound together in some sort of unity by the fact that the whole treats in one way or another of the authority of Christ: and if at one time there seems an implicit recognition underlying the discussion of the plenary authority of our Lord's declarations and only a zeal to provide against their misapplication, while at another there seems a tendency to deny at least absolute authority to His declarations themselves, the reader still is able, with a little care, to find his way amid the resulting ambiguities. If we may be allowed a conjecture as to the composition of the book, we may perhaps suppose that it originated in a strong feeling on Dr. Forrest's part that "the authority of Christ" has been and is frequently much too lightly asserted; and has accordingly been invoked for a multitude of points of view and conceptions, usages, and practices for which no colorable warrant can be found in the recorded teaching and example of Jesus. Here is, for example, a portentous sacerdotal system like that of the Church of Rome. Or here is an impracticable scheme of conduct like that propounded by Tolstoy. Or here is a thoroughly indefensible withdrawal from public life and avoidance of the common duties in which our complicated modern social organization enmeshes us. Or here is an innumerable body of particular crochets more or less offensive to sane thought. And for all of them alike "the authority of Christ" is confidently appealed to. The case obviously calls for a serious examination of the basis on which "the authority of Christ" is claimed for these things, and Dr. Forrest has felt this obligation and has given us a series of excellent chapters in which the interpretation of Christ's precepts and the general bearing of His teaching is searchingly examined and illustrated. It is a dreary mass of crass and often evident misinterpretations and misapplications of Christ's words which he has to expose.

If Dr. Forrest had stopped at this point, although there would certainly remain points of detail which would invite criticism, he would have made us all his debtors. But unfortunately there are a number of instances in which the authority of Christ is invoked for matters not to Dr. Forrest's mind, with regard to which it cannot be denied that the recorded words or example of Jesus warrant the appeal. And Dr. Forrest has unhappily permitted himself to be misled on their account into an attempt to discredit the authority of Christ. He pleads that we must not raise the dilemma in men's minds "as to whether the acceptance of His authority is compatible with loyalty to truth" in any region of their investigation (p. 2): and he does not seem to perceive, or at least does not stay at this point sufficiently to consider, that if this principle is given universal validity it amounts to saving Christ's authority in name while discarding it in fact throughout the whole range of knowledge. Under its pressure, he seeks to escape the dilemma, first, by throwing doubt upon the exact transmission of our Lord's words and example; and next by invoking a theory of the incarnation by which the authority of His teaching and example, even when fully before us, is reduced to the vanishing-point. The book thus becomes a sustained attempt to throw off the authority of Christ altogether; and by this driftage of the argument its own unity is, as we have said, seriously marred. For what is the use of arguing at great length that the teaching and example of Christ have been misapplied by this or that class of reasoners or body of Christians, if we are not quite certain what the teaching and example of Christ are, and they have no authority at any rate? The assertion in the opening chapters of the book of a theory of the incarnation which robs the teaching and example of Christ of all authority, antiquates beforehand the argument of the later chapters that the teaching and example of Christ have often been grossly misinterpreted by those who have appealed to them. The argument of these later chapters proceeds on a major premise which has already been discredited, and can command our attention only if the assertion of the former chapters is rejected by us. The gravamen of the case the book seeks to make out certainly lies therefore in its opening chapters, in which Dr. Forrest attempts to expound the incarnation as in its very nature voiding the authority of Christ; and that attempt must therefore claim our previous attention. We think this unfortunate, for the excellence of the volume lies in its later chapters, in which the proper use of Christ's authority is studied. But we have no choice. Both the logic of the case and Dr. Forrest's own arrangement of his matter demand of us to seek the crux of the volume in its opening chapters and its theory of the incarnation.

This theory of the incarnation is nothing other than that kenotic theory which, after enjoying a remarkable vogue in the middle of the last century, has in more recent years fallen very much out of credit, as continued discussion has thrown more and more into light its inherent weaknesses, or rather impossibilities—metaphysical, exegetical, theological, and religious. Respectable in the hands of its first propounders as an attempt to do justice to Christological data neglected by the Lutheran construction in which they had been bred, it has lost the respect of men when it has become only a fig-leaf to hide the nakedness of those who, fallen from their first estate of trust in the God-man, yet shrink from standing forth in a bare naturalistic conception of the person of Jesus. It is thus, unfortunately, that it appears in Dr. Forrest's pages, as in those of most of its remaining advocates. Dr. Forrest declines to enter into the deep questions which such a theory necessarily brings with it. "It is quite futile," he says, "to seek to disparage the idea of the Son's self-limitation by asking what became of His cosmical function during the incarnate period" (p. 95). And then he enumerates a number of the suggestions which have been made to meet this and similar difficulties raised by the kenotic assumption, with the general implication that any of them will do well enough—although no one of them has yet been invented which does not fatally infringe upon either the Christian doctrine of the Trinity or our fundamental conception of God. With these things, however, Dr. Forrest does not concern himself. His concern is rather with the right of men to hold to be false, what the Son of Man recognized as true. Says he: "The frank recognition that such was the character of the Son's incarnate state is a prime necessity for Christian faith at the present time. For this age is pre-eminently one of historical research, bent on discovering as far as possible the actual facts of the past. Now it has been demonstrated beyond dispute that there are sayings of our Lord which, taken literally, seem to conflict with established results of biblical investigation, and that His teaching in many of its parts is coloured by temporary Jewish influences. When Professor Pfleiderer, on grounds such as these, ridicules the notion that Christ is a 'final definitive authority,' the only right reply is: We do not claim that Christ's word is final in all spheres.… We can only gain for Christ His true place and essential significance by plainly recognizing, not only that the limitations are there, but that they are the inseparable accompaniments of a historical Incarnation" (pp. 96–97). Which, being interpreted in the brutal language of the streets, means just that we cannot in the face of modern research sustain the claim of Christ to "authority." Dr. Forrest would, indeed, distinguish and say, except in the "sphere of faith and conduct" (p. 3)—or, as he puts it here: "We do claim that He has embodied in His person and in the principles He has expounded the final revelation of religious truth and practice, of 'what man is to believe concerning God, and what duties God requires of man' " (p. 97). The care with which this language is chosen should not, however, pass unobserved. Even in "the sphere of faith and conduct" Dr. Forrest is not prepared to claim absolute and indefectible authority for every utterance of Jesus. "His teaching in many of its parts is coloured by temporary Jewish influences," and we shall need to take these into account in applying it to our own times: and this "revelation" of religious truth and practice does not find its embodiment so much in spoken words enunciating final doctrine and promulgating final precepts, as in lives quickened by the Spirit He has sent and efflorescing under His influence into true thinking and high acting. There is, thus, at least a tendency in Dr. Forrest's discussion to reduce the authority of Christ to His immanent action on the conscience of the race, or of His Church. "That He constantly confronts us with an obligation which presses down upon us from the Unseen" constitutes "what we call the authority of Christ" (p. 7). This seems to mean that Christ is the incarnate conscience of the race; and His authority consists in the coincidence of His demands on us with the demands of our religious and moral nature. "He quickens the impulses and resolves" of our moral and religious nature, and we respond to it in a higher outlook and upward aspiration—

"Then a sense of law and beauty,

A face turned from the clod—

Some call it Evolution

And others call it God."

Dr. Forrest calls it Christ: and sees here Christ's authority manifested. It is thus that Dr. Forrest adjusts his profound reverence for Jesus as the "final authority" of Christians and his inability to find in His recorded teaching a final authority for his thinking and acting. It is always painful to disturb such adjustments: and the more painful as it becomes evident that the adjustment is in the individual an expedient to retain as much as is possible to him of the higher truth. But what choice have we? In this sphere too the maxim will be found to have in all its absoluteness its inevitable application: "Ye cannot serve two masters."

Dr. Forrest's impulse to the adoption of the kenotic theory of the incarnation seems then to be rooted in mental perplexity in view of the conflict between some of Jesus' utterances or points of view and some suggestions of recent research. This perplexity is voiced in such phrases as this: "If Christ is declared by us to guarantee the accuracy of what is scientifically disproved, or at least improbable in the last degree, we are much more likely to imperil His claim than to establish the disputed point" (p. 69). And certainly we may be permitted to suspect that the dogmatism with which the elements of the kenotic theory are asserted and the fundamental postulates of the Chalcedonian Christology are discarded, is a reflection of the terror with which the dilemma Dr. Forrest finds himself in inspires him—the terror lest all trust in Christ be destroyed in wide circles by the conflict between His utterances and recent theory. But Dr. Forrest seeks support for his theory from Scripture. Why he should be exigent in this matter is not very apparent, in view of the weak hold which the authority of Scripture has upon him, particularly in its historical element, the only element on which he can depend for the dramatization of our Lord's life on earth, from which he derives his chief support in advocating the kenotic theory of His incarnation. But, permitting that to pass, Dr. Forrest has persuaded himself that the Scriptures give us, both in their didactic teaching and in the portrait they draw of Jesus in the Gospels, a kenotized Christ; and he supports himself on this their supposed testimony. We cannot say, however, we have found anything very new or particularly strong in the exegetical argument with which he has favored us.

To the great passage, Phil. 2:6 ff., he consecrates two long passages (pp. 98 ff. and 338 ff.)—one of them a formal discussion in the kenotic interests: and, of course, he says many things in both of them which command our attention and exhibit his own careful study of the passage. But in neither discussion can he be said to have advanced the matter in hand. The more formal discussion (pp. 98 ff.) even acquires a somewhat unpleasant flavor from the sustained effort made in it to rid it of its two most obvious theological implications—that of the unbroken persistence of the Son of God "in the form of God" after His incarnation, and that of the consequent coexistence in the incarnate Son of "two natures." It is quite certain that in the phrase ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, the participle embodies the conception of continuance and, therefore, declares not merely that Jesus was before His incarnation "in the form of God" but also that He retained that "form of God" after His incarnation. The sixth verse indeed, as its tense-forms unmistakably indicate, lays the basis in one broad negative statement for the entire positive statement given in verse seven, and there analyzed into two parts—not less, then, for the "He humbled Himself" than for the "He emptied Himself." The unbroken continuance of our Lord "in the form of God" is therefore of the very essence of the assertion; and it is it which governs the choice of the language throughout the entire passage. It is this that accounts not only for the λαβών and the γενόμενος (in both instances), but also for the ἐν ὁμοιώματι and the σχήματι, which have seemed to many "to point to an apparent rather than to a real Incarnation" only because the ruling idea of the passage, that Christ Jesus always continued to be—because He was by nature and could not but be—"in the form of God," has been lost sight of. It was because He continued in His incarnation to be "in the form of God," that He is said, not to have come to be in "the form of a servant," but to have taken "the form of a servant": there was here no exchange of one "form" for another, but an addition of one "form" to another; as the ecclesiastical language has accurately phrased it, there was an "assumption." Accordingly He is said, not to have "become man," but to have "become in the likeness of men." The docetic inference had been excluded by the "He took the form of a servant"; there is no illusion here, but a real assumption of the "form," that is, of the characterizing quality, of all that belongs to, the servant's nature. The transmutation notion is now excluded by the assertion that He did not, in assuming humanity, "become man" exactly, but only "became in the likeness of men": He remained much more than He seemed; though His humanity was a real humanity, really "assumed," and He lived in the sight of man within the limits of this humanity so as to appear only man, this was not all—He remained "in the form of God" all the time as well, and therefore was only "in the likeness of men."

Whatever He did therefore as man—within the limits of the humanity He had assumed—He did voluntarily, by an ever fresh act of voluntary self-abnegation. His dying, for instance—that was not an inevitable sequence of His incarnation, but an additional act of voluntary self-devotion. He who is and remains "in the form of God" may properly at any and all times claim and exercise His right of "being on an equality with God" the deathless one, and not die: and this possibility and right is wholly unaffected by the fact that He has assumed into union with Himself "the form of a servant," and thus has made it possible for Him to act here too "in the likeness of men." Accordingly we are told, in order that the example of our Lord in His self-abnegation may be exhibited in its full extent, that "being found in fashion as a man," "He humbled Himself"—it is a voluntary act of His own, not an inevitable consequence of His changed nature, no longer in His power to do or to prevent; and that He did this "by becoming"—it is a change to the unnecessary, not a submission to the inevitable, that is signalized by the term—"by becoming subject even unto death." Death, then at least—and all that led up to and accompanied and issued from death in His subjection to human conditions—was not the unavoidable and irresistible consequence of His incarnation, coming of itself as the necessary lot of the nature He had, not assumed, but become; but an additional act of humiliation voluntarily entered into in the prosecution of His mission by Him who, just because He remained "in the form of God," had no necessary part in death, but might well have held to His inherent right to be in this matter also, on "an equality with God." Not only is at least this much so imbedded in the passage that it cannot by any artifice of exegesis be driven out of it, but it constitutes the main and emphasized teaching of the passage, on which hangs its whole value to Paul in his exhortation to his readers to look not to their own things but each also to the things of others, and thus to have the mind in them which was in Christ Jesus.

The meaning of the passage to us, then, is precisely that, according to Paul, the Son of God did not lay aside His divine "existence form" in "becoming man," but, retaining in full possession all that characterizes God as God and makes Him that specific Being we call God (for that is the significance of "being in the form of God"), took to Himself also all that characterizes a servant as a servant and makes Him that specific being we call a servant; and having so done, willed to live out a servant's life in the world, subjecting Himself from moment to moment, by uncompelled and free acts of His unweakened will, to the conditions of the life which, for His own high ends, He willed to live, and manifesting Himself thus to man as "in the likeness of men," "in fashion as a man," though He was all the time Lord of all. This is, of course, the precise antipodes, the express and detailed contradiction, of the entire kenotic construction. It is the assertion of the dual nature of our Lord: for according to it the humanity of our Lord was something added to (λαβών) His divine nature, not something into which His divine nature was transmuted. And this includes of course the assertion that within the person of Christ there are two "minds"; though both matters are denied by Dr. Forrest with intense dogmatism. "No matter how real may be the affinity of divine and human nature, these two diverse methods or forms of operation can by no possibility coexist within the same conscious personality" (p. 89, cf. pp. 51, 91); "there was but one mind, that of the Word made flesh" (p. 58, cf. pp. 53, 90). It is also the assertion of the retention, in the incarnate state, in possession and use, of the whole body of divine attributes, which in their sum make up "the form of God"; although this too is not only denied but scoffed at by Dr. Forrest. He complains of those who occupy the same position here with Paul, that they "calmly transfer" "what is true of the Son in His timeless existence" "to Him in the period of His humiliation, as if the continuity of His absolute attributes were self-evident" (p. 65, cf. pp. 51, 53, 59). It is further the assertion that the controlling factor in our Lord's whole earthly manifestation, as well as in His entire life-history, is His divine nature, since it was He who was in the form of God who not only "emptied Himself" by taking the form of a servant, thus becoming in the likeness of men; but also, being found in fashion like a man, humbled Himself by becoming subject even unto death and that the death of the cross; although this too Dr. Forrest sharply denies (pp. 91–92).

But above all for our present purpose—for this is the hinge on which the whole kenotic controversy turns—it is the assertion that our Lord's life of humiliation on earth was a continuous act of voluntary self-abnegation, in which He by the strong control of His absolute will to live within the bounds of a human life, moment by moment denied Himself the exercise of His divine attributes and prerogatives in all that concerned His mission, because He had come to do a work and for the doing of it behooved Him thus to do; and not the unavoidable natural development of a purely human life incapable as such of escaping the changes and chances which are necessarily incident to humanity. By this assertion Paul sets aside at one stroke the whole kenotic contention, to which it is essential to hold that in our Lord's life of humiliation "there was not merely" (as Bishop O'Brien puts it in words adopted and utilized by Dr. Forrest, p. 93) "a voluntary suspension of the exercise" "of all His infinite attributes and powers," "but a voluntary renunciation of the capacity of exercising them, for the time." And not only Paul, we may add, but the whole Gospel narrative as well, to which Dr. Forrest would make his appeal, as if it dramatized Christ's life on earth as not only a purely human one but a helplessly human one. A very simple test will exhibit this. Let any simple reader of the Gospels be asked whether their narrative leaves upon his mind the impression that Jesus' life and acts were determined for Him by the necessary limits of a well-meaning but weak humanity; or were not rather the voluntarily chosen course of a life directed to an end for the securing of which He daily denied Himself the exercise of powers beyond human forces. No simple reader of the Gospels will be easily persuaded that Jesus' life was what it was because He had for the time lost the capacity to act in superhuman powers: that it was, for example, lack of power rather than lack of will which withheld Jesus either from making the stones bread at the demand of the tempter (else where was the temptation?), or from coming down from the cross when challenged thereto by the scoffing multitude. But when we have assured ourselves that the limitations within which Jesus' life were cast were voluntary from day to day and act to act—and not the necessary sequence of a change which had once for all befallen Him at His incarnation—we have cut up the kenotic theory by the roots.

The advocate of the kenotic theory who, under the condemnation of the Epistles, seeks comfort from the Gospels, certainly has a claim upon our pity. No one of the evangelists, assuredly, shares his conception. To one and all alike Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, and to each and all alike a divine manifestation is both a manifestation and a manifestation of what is divine. "Even the oldest Gospel," says that Bousset whom Dr. Forrest repeatedly quotes as if he were an "authority" in such matters,—on this occasion indeed speaking truly—"even the oldest Gospel is written from the standpoint of faith; already for Mark Jesus is not only the Messiah of the Jewish people, but the miraculous eternal Son of God whose glory shone in the world. And it has been rightly emphasized that in this regard our three first Gospels are distinguished only in degree from the fourth." And again: "In the faith of the community, which is shared already by the oldest evangelist, Jesus is the miraculous Son of God in whom men believe, whom men set wholly by the side of God" ("Was wissen wir von Jesus," 1904, pp. 54, 57). It would be hard if writers, writing for the express purpose of depicting a divine Being manifesting His deity in His daily course, should have so missed their mark as to have presented us rather with a portrait in which only a human life is manifested. That they have not done so is obvious to every reader of their Gospels. And when Dr. Forrest attempts to make it appear that they have done so, he not only wilfully shuts his eyes to one whole half of their representation, but sets himself in direct contradiction to their whole portraiture of Jesus. It is he, not they, who tells us that Jesus had a "bounded, outlook," was "subject to all the influences of His immediate surroundings," and even in His "perfection" was not "absolute" but "conditioned" (pp. 11, 12). In their view Jesus' outlook had no limits, He was master of all circumstances, and His perfection was just the perfection of God. So far from Jesus' "perfection" being to them "conditioned, not absolute," "derived, not creative," negative, not positive ("His sinlessness means that He did not at any point of His progressive experience deflect from the specific ideal of service set before Him by God," p. 12), it was just the realization in a human life of the perfection which constitutes the ethical content of the idea of God (Matt. 5:48), asserted by Jesus as His own possession as the Son of God (cf. Volkmar Fritzsche, "Das Berufsbewusstsein Jesu," 1905, pp. 31–32). According to the evangelists thus Jesus' perfection is the manifestation of the τελείωσις of God in flesh: a manifestation made under the conditions of human growth, it is true, but a manifestation, and a manifestation precisely of the τελείωσις of the absolute God. Others needed daily to seek from God forgiveness of their unceasing sins: He, needing no forgiveness, is the dispenser of forgiveness to others, and even commits to others the right to remit sins. As self-evident as is the evil of all others (Matt. 7:11), so self-evident is it that "doing the work of the Father" brings them into unison with Him (Matt. 12:50): since whatever the Father has, in that does He share (Matt. 11:27).

It surely is hopeless to appeal to evangelists seeking to present this conception of Jesus, in order to validate a theory that in the days of the flesh He was phenomenally mere man with no capacity left Him for divine activities. Of course they represent Him as growing in wisdom, and as therefore at every stage of His growth lacking in complete knowledge and perfected wisdom: as subject to changing emotions—and there might have been included, only there does not chance to be included, in this, the experience of the emotion of surprise; as making inquiries and learning by experience. All this belongs to another side of His complex personality—the human side, which the evangelists, though they do not dwell upon it so fully or make its validation so much the end of their writing, yet are as far from obscuring as His divine dignity and powers. If we begin with the dogmatic announcement, "There was but one mind in Christ," naturally—cadit quaestio. If there was but one mind in Christ, then certainly He could not have been at one and the same time the subject of knowledge and ignorance, He could not have been at once God and man. But then, the whole Gospel narrative becomes at once a mass of contradictions: contradictions which cannot be voided by resolutely shutting our eyes to one and that the main line of representation and focusing attention on the lower and less emphasized series. Thus we are brought, to say nothing more, into flagrant contradiction with the main purpose and general trend of the evangelical narrative. It is designed to set forth Jesus to us in His divine majesty: to it He is the manifestation of God in the flesh. To Dr. Forrest, He reveals nothing but human limitations in His life. "Confessedly, what we desire to discover is the revelation which God has been pleased to give us in Jesus Christ. We see that in certain instances Christ is represented as characterised by limitations. Of what value is it to say that, while these existed for Him in one sense, they did not exist in another? The sphere in which they did not exist is, ex hypothesi, outside the range of the revelation" (pp. 55 ff., cf. p. 79). It is worth while to insist on this and similar passages. For they are not chance utterances but belong to the essence of the situation. What we have to interpret is a double series of parallel facts. The means of interpretation adopted is neglect of one whole series and exclusive validation of the other. The result is that all that is left to be said of Jesus in the days of His flesh is that He was subject to human limitations.

Let us not blink this shocking result. All that Christ was, in the days of His flesh, was, according to this conception, that limited nature whose outlook was bounded, which was accessible to temptation and was the subject of moral growth (p. 79). This was absolutely all there was to Him. Behind this there were no depths in that personality. The Scriptures tell us that God's outlook is boundless, that He is essentially perfect, that He is not tempted of evil. In what sense was this Jesus, then, who was nothing beyond and above the nature whose outlook was bounded, which suffered temptation and was the subject of moral growth—and who therefore was not in any recesses of His being perfect as God is perfect—in what sense was this Being God? Dr. Forrest wishes to recognize Him as God. In order to recognize this Being as God, however, he must redefine Deity and in redefining it he must define it away. The ultimate difficulty of all theories of the class that he is defending is thus brought before us. Having set their hearts on a merely human Christ, and yet feeling unwilling to yield up frankly the divine Christ of the Gospel revelation, they end by debasing the idea of God to the human level; so that in the end we lose not only our divine Christ but God Himself. That simply is not God which is imperfect, and in process of perfecting by means of temptation. If this is all that Christ is, then Christ is not God; and Dr. Forrest continues to call Him such only by stress of old habit and by a willing delusion. Dr. Forrest seeks to make capital (pp. 94, 95) out of the consent of the humanitarian theorizers with the orthodox in their perception of the absurdity of the kenotic hypothesis. If it is any comfort to him to cry out against the upper and nether millstones grinding together, he ought not to be denied that small comfort. It ought, however, not to seem unnatural that every consistent thinker—whether his consistency is of belief or of unbelief—should think ill of a theory which inconsistently wishes to be both at once.

We cannot illustrate here in detail the straits into which Dr. Forrest is brought by his attempt to interpret the Christ of the Gospels as a mere limited human being in His phenomenal manifestation. It admits of no doubt, for instance, that the evangelists represent Him as sharer in the whole extent of the divine knowledge, differentiated from the prophets (with whom Dr. Forrest confuses Him, p. 7, though He never calls Himself a mere prophet) just in this—that to the prophets God reveals some items of knowledge, while His Son shares in all He knows (Matt. 11:27). We have lately had occasion to point this out, however (see Hastings' "Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels," article "Foresight"), and will not here go over the ground again. Let us take the sole example we can allow ourselves, then, from another sphere—that of the divine power which the evangelists ascribe to Christ; but which Dr. Forrest in the interests of his theory denies to Him, insisting that He wrought His mighty works, like other instruments of God's will, only by means of the power of God graciously exerted, now and again, in His behalf. In the course of his argument he necessarily, however, comes across this phenomenon of the Scriptural representation: that Jesus in working a miracle says, "I will: be thou clean"; "I say unto thee, arise"; while His disciples say, "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth"; "Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." In face of this contrast Dr. Forrest knows nothing better to urge than this paradox: that "the emphasis which He puts on His own personality is an assertion, not of His independence of the Father, but of the entireness of His dependence upon Him"! By this he apparently hopes he will persuade us that the distinction here drawn only means that Christ was more dependent—more perfectly dependent, he would say—on an exterior power for the working of His miracles than His apostles even!

Surely no one will contend that the Son is "independent" of the Father; much less that the Mediator of the Covenant, in His covenanted work, acts "independently" of the Father. Here is only one of those "undistributed middles" which are as characteristic of Dr. Forrest's reasoning as the misplaced "only" is characteristic of his style: for the whole plausibility of his paradox here depends on the ambiguity of the use of the words "dependent" and "independent." The plain man will be slow to believe, however, that the contrast between the "I will" of Jesus and the "Jesus Christ maketh thee" of His disciples, is not a contrast between the relatively independent action of the Lord and the relatively dependent or instrumental action of the apostles, in the matter of working miracles. It is nothing less than obvious, indeed, that the difference in the modes of statement means that the power by which the miracles of Jesus were wrought was in some high and true sense His own power, while that by which those of the apostles were wrought was not in this high and true sense their own power. So far from it being possible to say that Jesus "was not the worker of His own miracles," we must go on to say that, according to this representation, He was the worker not only of His own but also of those of His disciples as well. The whole series—His and theirs alike—was His work. Is this a false testimony of the authors of the historical books of the New Testament? Jesus Christ on earth or in heaven—but whether on earth or in heaven, the same Jesus Christ incarnate—is the real source of the power by which the miracles, whether of His own or of His disciples' working, were wrought: and what is really significant of the record is that it takes pains by its "I will" and "Jesus Christ maketh thee whole," to say this of all alike. There is no such distinction then in the minds of these writers as that which Dr. Forrest draws between the earthly and the exalted Christ, in respect to this question. Of course this is not to say that God the Father was not concerned in the working of these miracles, and that they were wrought "independently" of Him: that the Man Jesus was not conscious of resting on the Father's power, or of doing merely the Father's will: that in all His mediatorial work He did not act as the "Sent of the Father"—as His "delegate," if you will. These are deeper questions than can be touched upon in this notice: but it is surely already superabundantly evident that they are not to be lightly set aside, as if there were no profound problems here of the interrelations of the Persons of the Godhead—by the shallow expedients at the disposal of a kenotic theory. Enough that here too, as at every other point, the kenotic theory runs precisely athwart the most emphatic deliverances of the Gospel narratives.

In the failure of the kenotic theory on which he bases his whole argument, the entire structure of Dr. Forrest's attempt to reduce the authority of our Lord in sphere and character alike, of course falls to the ground. It will scarcely do to say that God is authoritative only in the spheres of faith and conduct. It is, of course, open to Dr. Forrest to follow his Bousset and his companions, and assail the trustworthiness of the Gospel report of Christ's teaching and life. We have already seen that he exhibits a tendency here and there to find in the evangelic report the intrusion of the later reflection of the community. We cannot believe, however, that he is prepared to carry this to such lengths as, like Bousset, to disengage from the Christ of faith as presented in the evangelists a Christ of fact who was merely man, and perhaps something less than an average man; much less to such lengths, as, with Pfleiderer, to lose the real Christ altogether behind the veil of the Christ of faith. The retention of the Christ of the evangelists in any recognizable form, however, entails the retention of the Christ of authority—authority in His declarations as well as in the religious impression He made, and in His declarations in all spheres as well as in those of faith and conduct. Of this Christ, it is illegitimate to speak, as Dr. Forrest speaks of his kenotic Christ, as if He were liable to repeat in His teaching Jewish errors (p. 69), and not quite able to forecast the future in which His authority might be wrongly applied. There remains to us, of course, the whole duty of carefully weighing His words and example and of seeking to apply them only according to His will. Whatever value Dr. Forrest's book possesses to us will be found to lie in its earnest attempt to perform this work in several departments of thought and action. He has, of course, not been able in even this serious and careful discussion to place himself on a plane which is above criticism: but he has led us through a study of the relation of Christ's teaching to individual and corporate duty which is cast in a high note and cannot fail to interest every reader.

We must not neglect to say frankly before closing, nevertheless, that in the course of his discussion Dr. Forrest occasionally hints at theological positions which we cannot share and which on another occasion we should like to traverse—such as, for example, his very defective doctrine of providence in connection with an exaggerated doctrine of freedom (pp. 139, 140, 142, 143, 146), or his conception of the gift of the Spirit without distinction of His miraculous endowment of the apostles and His indwelling in the people of God, or, indeed, his fundamental conception of Christianity as summed up in "the filial spirit" (pp. 153, 202). Nor would we neglect to say equally frankly that we deprecate the apparently confused way in which certain findings of modern criticism are here and there utilized, as if they stood apart item from item and did not form a part of a closed system of anti-supernaturalistic interpretation. But on none of these things can we dwell now. We shall only stay to say in a word that Dr. Forrest's second work does not seem to us to fulfill the promise of his first one: but exhibits him as embarking upon a line of thought from advancing in which his well-wishers will heartily pray he may be saved.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

By WILHELM BOUSSET.

Translated by F. B. Low.

New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1907. (London: Williams & Norgate.)

PROF. BOUSSET tells us that "the object of this little book is" to help us "to understand the meaning of the phenomenon which we call religion" (p. 6). It is the phenomenon which he undertakes to expound; that is to say, he deals directly with the phenomenology rather than with the philosophy or the psychology of religion. In other words, his method is historical. He traces what he conceives to be the history of the development of religions from their beginning in the first vague manifestations of the religious aspirations of man to their culmination, we do not say in Christianity, but in the liberal Christianity of the twentieth century; and through this medium of history he seeks to convey to the reader a conception of what religion is.

Prof. Bousset's book is, therefore, historical in form. But it is not primarily historical in purpose. As there are some novels which are written "for the novel's sake," and some which are written "for a purpose"; so there are some histories which are written for the history's sake and some histories which are written "for a purpose." And Prof. Bousset's history of religions is of the latter class. He does not trace the varied forms of religion which have been prevalent among men merely that he may make these forms known to us; nor even that through them and their sequence he may make the development of religion known to us; nor even that through this development he may make what religion as religion is known to us. His real purpose, dominating his whole undertaking, is that he may make Christianity—naturally, as he conceives Christianity—known to us. The book, therefore, very properly culminates in two long chapters on the Nature and the Future of Christianity, for which in point of fact the whole of the preceding chapters have been written and to which they lead up. In a word, Prof. Bousset's little book is a study of the nature and prospects of Christianity from the point of view not so much of "comparative religion" or of the "history of the religions," as of the so-called "comparative-religion" or "history-of-religion" (religionsgeschichtliche) school. It is in other words an attempt to explain Christianity, in its entirety, as a religion among religions, the product like other religions of the religious nature of man.

Prof. Bousset is quite frank and quite emphatic in the expression of his point of view upon the main matter at issue—whether, to wit, Christianity is just a religion among religions, the product, like all other religions, of the religious nature of man. Nor does he wait for his exposition of the course of religious development to suggest this, or to establish it. He announces it already in his Introduction, practically as a postulate; and sets out on his exposition of the course of religious development, therefore, with his goal well in view. The distinction so often drawn between "revealed and natural religion"—as if, forsooth, "the religion of the Old and New Testaments is revealed religion," and "all others are natural religions, the product of man's thought or imagination"—is in his opinion thoroughly untenable—"impossible" is his word (p. 8)—and, indeed, "irreligious and Godless" (p. 7). For not only is it not accordant with the principle of historical evolution, but it implies a "narrow-minded and melancholy view of the history of humanity." This mode of speech is determined by the shock which it gives Prof. Bousset that anyone should suppose God to have allowed "the nations" "to go their own way" without guidance from Him, the implication being that all religion is the product in a sense of "revelation." Elsewhere his thought swings around the opposite focus of the ellipse. The thinking of men imbued with modern culture, he tells us, "rests upon the determination to try to explain everything that takes place in the world by natural causes; or—to express it in another form—it rests upon the determined assertion of universal laws to which all phenomena, natural and spiritual, are subject" (p. 283). "Historical science," accordingly, "puts before itself the object of explaning all intellectual events by reference to a universal law" (p. 288). There is, no doubt, always "the riddle of personality and individuality" which enters everywhere into the fabric of history; but this is not the same thing as—or in any way analogous to—the intrusion of a supernatural factor. The "halo of the supernatural" which has in the past "clung around 'sacred history' " has been disrupted. We can now believe only in an evolution of religion shaping itself in accordance with "the universal evolution of civilization," and it is in consequence no longer possible to "believe in a Divine revelation, in the old acceptance of the term, which restricted revelation to one special province" (p. 289). Thus we see the curve of the ellipse turn back on itself. When we speak of "the natural course of events" and of "the direction of Divine revelation," we are speaking of one and the same thing, and the upshot of it is that Christianity is no more "revealed" than any other religion and is just as much a product of human thought and imagination as any other religion. It takes its place among other religions as just one of them—the purest form, the highest and most perfect, religion has yet reached: but certainly not the only true religion, "but simply the most complete species of the genus" (p. 9).

It is to exhibit this of Christianity that Prof. Bousset has written his book. As was natural, he takes his start from the beginning. Religion being natural to man, there never was a time when men did not have religion; or if we, from the evolutionary standpoint, must say that "there must be some point of time when religion had its beginning," that point of time must be placed so early that "wherever human life advanced a stage religion was evolved" (p. 2). Its first beginnings were no doubt of a low character—corresponding to the low intellectual and social development of its creators. Prof. Bousset puts "animism" at the basis of all religious development; and then traces the gradual evolution of religious conceptions and practices from it, in stages running pari passu with the development of social organization, up through tribal and natural to universal religions. Prof. Bousset is a scholar of wide reading and an expositor of decided gifts; and much that he tells us of these several phases of religious construction is well conceived and well told. But by means of it all he is working his way steadily onward to an explanation of the religion of the Bible—or, from his point of view, we should say, of the religions of the Old and New Testament writings in their several stages—as of purely natural origin. He is careful, therefore, to insert accounts of the successive stages of religion which he thinks he finds set forth progressively in the several strata of the Biblical books in their proper places in the advancing evolution. And so he comes at last to the origin of Christianity.

Christianity, like certain other high religions of "reform" character in this, owes its origin, of course, to the impulse received from a great personality, the greatest religious personality the world has (as yet) seen. An element of inexplicability is thus introduced into it; for who can read the riddle of powerful personalities? But this does not prevent our perceiving that it grew naturally out of the soil of its own time. What Jesus did may indeed be summed up almost entirely in one word: He simplified the developed Judaism of His day. The Jewish Rabbis are quite right in saying that everything that Jesus taught may be found taught beforehand in Judaism. The proper retort is to acknowledge that the Rabbis had said all that Jesus said—and to add that "unfortunately they said so much else besides" (p. 217)! What Jesus did was not to add to their teaching but to subtract from it. The note of His teaching was simplification. He freed religion from rationalism, ceremonialism, legalism, and scribism. And doing so, He gave us Christianity. For the Christianity of Jesus is just the Judaism of His day freed from these elements and thus reduced to the simple doctrine of God as Father, who forgives the sins of men, because He is good.

The Christianity of Jesus, we say: but not the Christianity we know, or indeed the Christianity a modern man can accept. For the development of religion did not stop with Jesus. After Jesus came, for example, Paul. And Paul's Christianity is not the Christianity of Jesus. For one thing, the Christianity of Paul worships Jesus, and Jesus worships God alone. For another thing, the Christianity of Paul talks of an atoning sacrifice, of which Jesus knew nothing. For yet another thing, the Christianity of Paul has incorporated into it sacramental acts, to all which that of Jesus is a stranger. Nor did the development stop with Paul. After Paul came Old Catholicism; and after Old Catholicism, Mediævalism; and after Medievalism the Reformation; and after the Reformation has come—or at least is coming—Modernism. And it is not the Christianity of Jesus or the Christianity of Paul—or even the Christianity of the Reformation, great as is the advance of the Christianity of the Reformation on all preceding Christianities—which can lay claim to being the highest of religions, but the Christianity of Modernism now at last assuming firm outlines and a stable form. The old order has changed and given place to a new: "since the Reformation the whole structure of human life has entirely altered, and history and experience teach us that when this happens religion assumes other forms" (p. 271). A new Christianity conformable to the data supplied by modern culture is, therefore, now called for.

"The narrow Pauline idea of redemption, which was developed by St. Augustine and strengthened anew by Luther" (p. 275), must go. We must "no longer speak of the 'divinity' of Christ" (p. 279). And with the "divinity" of Christ must go all its corollaries—primarily the self-contradictory doctrine of the Trinity. The idea of an atonement and of a vicarious sacrifice, of course, goes too (p. 282). And indeed the whole conception of the supernatural which has hitherto ruled—which contradicts not only "our whole mode of thought" but also "our changed belief in God" (p. 285): and with this idea of supernaturalism must go also not only the whole notion of an inspired book, but also of a special revelation (p. 289). This is not to return to the Christianity of Jesus. The Christianity of Jesus lies at the root of Christianity; it does not appear at its apex. Jesus believed in the supernatural: we cannot (p. 286). We cannot accept His demonology or His eschatology (p. 292). Even much of Jesus' moral teaching is too one-sided or ascetic to be possible to a modern man (p. 295). It is ours not slavishly to copy but to grow. "We take our stand by Jesus" only in the Parable of the Lost Son and "on the ground of the absolutely simple conviction that God is to be found in the good, and that faith in the Heavenly Father includes moral deeds and moral work in the human community." Here is the creed of the Christianity into which all the religious development of all the ages meets and coalesces: "God the Father; life in accordance with His will, spent in joyful work for the service of the world; forgiveness of sins and eternal hope" (p. 298).

We must bear in mind that it is this Christianity which Prof. Bousset has in view when he tells us that Christianity is the last and best of religions and that the future of religion is bound up in it. What place does Christ take in this Christianity? None whatever. He is merely the impressive religious personality back to whose impulse is traced the development which has issued, after two thousand years, in it. If we can say of the Jewish Rabbis that they taught all that Christ taught, but the mischief of it is that they taught so very much more: so we must say of Christ that if He taught all of this "abiding" Christianity, the mischief again is that He taught so very much more. Why call this new Christianity by His name any more than call this Christianity Judaism? He did not more "simplify" Judaism than our moderns are "simplifying" Christianity. And let us particularly note what this new "simplification" reduces us to. It is just God, morality, immortality. "God the Father"; "life in accordance with His will, spent in joyful work for the service of the world"; "forgiveness of sins and eternal hope." Is there any religion which does not embrace these three elements of "natural religion"? No doubt the conception of God, the conception of morality, the conception of immortality which are commended to us bear the traces of Christian teaching. It is God "the Father." It is life "in the service of the world." It is "forgiveness of sins." We are thankful that it is proposed to retain this much of the contribution of Jesus and of His accredited apostles to the religion of the world. But it is worth while to observe that when Christianity is reduced to a "natural religion" in its origin, it is reduced also to a "natural religion" in its contents: it shrinks at once to the meager contents of the familiar trilogy, of God, morality, and immortality.

The main question of course recurs, Has Prof. Bousset succeeded in reducing Christianity to a "natural religion" in its origin? He has certainly put together an account of the origin and development of religion, into which he has interspersed an account of the origin and development of the religions of the Scriptural narrative, including Christianity, in all its developments, on the assumption that it is equally with all the rest a "natural religion." But this is merely Prof. Bousset's historical argument for the naturalistic origin of Christianity. He says, in effect, "See, if this be conceived to be the way religion has come into existence and developed itself in the course of the ages, then Christianity may be conceived to be a growth of nature." The "if" here is, however, a mighty one and covers an immense assumption, or rather a whole series of immense assumptions. Behind it lies the assumption of the validity of all the results of the Graf-Wellhausen critical reconstruction of the history of the development of the Old Testament religion; and of all the results of "the history-of-religion" critical reconstruction of the history of the New Testament development. Behind it lies the assumption of the invalidity of all the evidence of the divine origin of the religion of the Bible, of the divine mission of Christ, of the revelation of truth through His Spirit to the apostles: in a word, of the whole body of the claims of the founders of Christianity, substantiated as those claims are by a mass of the most varied evidence. In one word, behind it lies the simple assumption of the naturalistic origin of Christianity. Prof. Bousset's essay amounts, therefore, merely to this declaration: "See, if Christianity is merely a natural religion, this is the way it must be conceived to have come into existence." The argumentative value of his presentation will reduce, therefore, simply to this: that a self-consistent scheme of the origin of Christianity as a natural religion can be constructed. For the testing of the value of this presentation as an argument, we should have, therefore, to examine into the self-consistency of the presentation primarily; then into the legitimacy of the combinations that are made, the exactness of the facts which are marshaled, and the inclusiveness of the explanations which are offered.

This is not the place to enter into such a detailed examination. But it is not out of place to remark simply that in none of these items is Prof. Bousset's presentation in our opinion impeccable. In addition to the primal assumption to which we have adverted, his presentation is burdened with a mass of minor assumptions. The facts are adjusted to fit the thesis, instead of the thesis inferred from the facts. And the whole presentation takes, therefore, merely the form of a plausible effort to justify a foregone conclusion. If this is in its details at least the course of the development of religion we must assume in case Christianity be deemed a natural religion, we can only say that Christianity cannot be deemed a natural religion. It does not naturally emerge out of its environment as here presented.

DARWINISM TO-DAY.

By VERNON L. KELLOGG.

New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1907. With good analytical Table of Contents and an (insufficient) Index.

A BOOK like this has long been greatly needed: and this ever increasing need is admirably met by this volume. Of course, Prof. Kellogg writes from his own point of view, and he would not be human if he did not leave some things to be desired. Readers of his book should supplement it by reading also some such book as Rudolph Otto's "Naturalism and Religion"; as readers of Otto's book should certainly supplement it by reading Prof. Kellogg's. If what Otto has to say, for example, upon teleology, and the relation of teleology to mechanical explanations of phenomena, will help the reader to correct Prof. Kellogg's unreasonable objection to all that he calls "mystical" in our world-view, Prof. Kellogg will on the other hand give him a far richer knowledge of, if not a deeper insight into, the great debate which has been going on of late upon the factors and processes of the development of organized forms. No one can have been unaware of this debate or of the gradual modifications it has been working in the attitude of the scientific world to the traditional Darwinian conceptions. But the general reader has lacked adequate guidance to an exact estimate of the drift of the discussion, and has been liable to be left in a state of mental confusion or to be unduly swayed by the latest advocate of a special line of theory he may have chanced to read. A comprehensive survey of the whole field of the debate from the hand of a competent guide is what he has needed. And this is what Prof. Kellogg has given us in this volume.

Prof. Kellogg wisely begins at the beginning—with a lucid account of what Evolution means, in general, and what that particular theory of Evolution known as Darwinism really is. And he rightly finds the differentiation of Darwinism, specifically so called, in the Selection Theories—or, let us say, that we may keep our eyes fixed on the real pivot of it all, in the theory of Natural Selection. Keeping this central point well in sight, he next gives his readers a careful and clear account, in no way glozing its extent or its seriousness, of the widespread revolt of biological investigators during the last few decades against the principle of Natural Selection—against ascribing to it the whole work of species-forming, and even at times against ascribing to it any effectiveness or capacity for species-forming. Having thus exhibited the attack on Darwinism in its full reach and force, he next, with equal care and fullness, recounts the defense which has been made of it—a defense sometimes very strong, but always involving certain concessions which go to modify or even to transform the rôle which is ascribed to Natural Selection in the molding of forms. This leads naturally to a survey of the new theories of species-forming which have been suggested, whether as auxiliary to the theory of Natural Selection, designed to supply its deficiencies, or as alternative to it, designed to supplant it. This survey has not been carried through without betraying Prof. Kellogg's own predilections; the volume naturally closes, therefore, with a chapter on Darwinism's Present Standing, in which the results of the debate are summed up and Prof. Kellogg's own conclusions outlined. These conclusions may be briefly stated in these two sentences (p. 374): "Darwinism, as the all-sufficient or even most important causo-mechanical factor in species-forming and hence as the sufficient explanation of descent, is discredited and cast down." "Darwinism, as the natural selection of the fit, the final arbiter in descent control, stands unscathed, clear and high above the obscuring cloud of battle." That is to say, Prof. Kellogg recognizes in Natural Selection a true cause, actually working in nature, to the control of which the stream of descent is subjected, so that when we look at the whole course of development, we see it moving on under its guidance. But he recognizes also that Natural Selection rather works on the stream of descent than produces it, and accounts rather for the general channel in which it flows, than for itself, whether in its main character or many of its minor characteristics. He evidently conceives himself as standing midway between the contending extremes, allowing to Natural Selection a most important function in species-forming, but denying to it the omnipotence which the Neo-Darwinians are prone to ascribe to it.

The place of Darwin in the history of the evolutionary theories is determined by the fact that he first pointed to a vera causa, actually working in the world, to which could be plausibly ascribed the production of the various forms which occur in the animated universe. The essence of his suggestion consisted in the very simple proposition that if multitudes more beings are born into the world than can possibly live in it, it will be inevitable that those which are least fitted to live in it will be crowded out, which will result naturally in the survival of the fittest in each generation. Thus there will come about the gradual molding of organized beings to fit their environment. The strength of the theory lies in its simplicity, and its apparent appeal to nothing but recognized facts. We all know that overproduction is the law of life. We all know that no two individuals are precisely alike. We are all prepared to allow that in the struggle for existence which seems inevitable in these circumstances it will be the fittest among these unlike individuals which survive. We are equally prepared to admit that, as "like begets like," the fittest will reproduce in their offspring their fitnesses. Who, then, can deny that in the course of innumerable generations going on thus, very considerable modifications from the original stock might be produced? Is there not given here, then, an adequate account of the whole course of development of animate forms?

Certainly the theory looks very simple and convincing. But so soon as we transfer it from the region of imaginary construction to that of fact, difficulties arise. Many of the objections which have been urged against it seem to us, to be sure, to be little justified. These are largely directed against its consistency or completeness as a logical construction. From this point of view, however, as it seems to us, the theory is unassailable. When, for example, it is objected—as it has been persistently objected—that it provides only for the survival of the fittest, not for the production of the fittest; that it leaves unexplained the whole matter of the cause of variation and particularly of the causes of the actual variations which occur; that it has no account to give of the opportune appearance of the variations needed, or of the repeated consecution of variations in the same direction in the line of actual descent—and the like: the mark seems to us to be completely missed. The Darwinian theory does not need to concern itself with the origin of the fittest, the cause of variation, the causes of the specific variations which occur, or their opportuneness or consecution. It is logically complete in the simple postulates of variation, struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest. If we admit, as all must admit, that no two individuals are ever exactly alike, then we must admit that some of these individuals are more fit to exist than others; that is given in the very fact of difference. We need not concern ourselves with how the "fitness" arises; relative fitness is inherent in the mere fact of difference. Neither need we concern ourselves with the objection that relative fitness in some particulars in a given individual may be offset by relative unfitness in other particulars. To estimate in these circumstances which organism is on the whole most fit to survive might puzzle us: it cannot puzzle Nature, which acts simply along the line of the resultant. Wherever two individuals exist it is inevitable that one will be "fitter" than the other: wherever thousands or millions of individuals, generically alike, come into being, there necessarily exist among them some, few or many, who will be "fitter" than the rest. And if these thousands or millions of individuals come into being in such circumstances that the great majority of them must needs be crowded out, the survival of the "fittest" seems certain; and as this process goes on through generation after generation, the line of descent must follow the line of relative fitness.

Logically unassailable as the theory is, however, so soon as we presume that this process has actually gone on, we find ourselves faced with many difficulties. The difficulties are important—or let us frankly say, as it seems to us, are destructive of the theory. But they do not lie against the logical completeness (and therefore the plausibility) of the theory, but rather against its actual working power. It may be suspected that it is often an underlying sense of these factual difficulties, subtly modifying the objector's point of view as to the conditions of the problem to be solved, which accounts for the pressing of the (really ineffective) logical difficulties. These real difficulties raise such questions as these: What reason is there to believe that the struggle for existence in animate nature is severe enough rigorously to eliminate in each generation all but the fittest to survive? What reason is there to suppose that the differences by which (as we all must agree) individuals are discriminated from one another, are great enough to form telling factors in the struggle for existence, even supposing it to exist in the rigor which the theory postulates? What reason is there to suppose, even if the variations are great enough to furnish a handle for selection and the struggle for existence is severe enough to weed out all but the fittest in each generation, that this process, continued from generation to generation, will result in any great modification of type, and the successive generations will not rather fluctuate around a center, as variation itself fluctuates around this center, and thus on the whole the type remain stationary? Or if there is marked on the whole an increasing divergence from the original type as the line of descent advances through the fittest of each generation—a general divergence on the whole amid much fluctuation (which seems the most that, on the theory, can be possibly postulated)—what reason is there to suppose that this divergence could advance very far in the time at disposal? And above all, what reason is there to suppose that this slowly increasing divergence produced by the survival in each generation of only the "fittest"—through the many fluctuations to this side and that which, on the hypothesis, must occur—could in the time at disposal produce the infinite variety of animate forms which has actually come into being? Or, to put the question in its sharpest form, could not only bridge the gulf which separates the amœba from man, but bridge it by a steady upward advance—upward, that is, not merely in the sense of ever more and more perfect adjustment to the environment, nor even in the sense of progress "from homogeneity to heterogeneity," to ever greater complexity of structure, but measured by an absolute standard of value? For this is what has really happened, if the palæontological record has anything at all to tell us; and it has happened, if any trust at all can be placed in the calculations of the physicists, with a rapidity which confounds thought. The formal completeness of the logical theory of Darwinism is fairly matched, therefore, by its almost ludicrous actual incompetence for the work asked of it.

Of course, this has become ever more and more apparent as time has passed, and workers in the relevant fields of research have escaped somewhat from the obsession of the specious plausibility of the Selection Theory and looked more squarely in the face of the problems to be solved. Here and there, no doubt, as was inevitable, there has been a disposition exhibited to gloze its inefficiency, and to "cure" its defects by ineffective remedies. A recent instance of this is noted by Prof. Kellogg, when he records (p. 55) Prof. Ray Lankester's appeal to the properties of radium as offsetting the physicists' calculations as to the time available for the possible existence of life on the earth. If, Prof. Lankester argues, the sun contained a fraction of one per cent of radium, that would offset its estimated loss of heat and, "upsetting all the calculations of the physicists," give us the thousands of millions of years which are needed (on the Darwinian hypothesis) "to allow time for the evolution of living things." When men catch at straws like this to buttress their theories with, it becomes clear what a strawy foundation they are building on. Nor would the concession of the thousands of millions of years needed (but not obtained) relieve the difficulties of the case, which have led biologist after biologist to suggest supplementary theories designed to meet the failure of the main theory in this or that aspect of it, or, in ever increasing numbers as time has gone on, to propose alternative theories, and in extreme instances to assume an attitude of opposition to the doctrine of descent altogether. Thus De Vries's theory of "mutations" may be supposed to be ultimately due to the feeling that "natural selection" must have marked variations to work on; Eimer's theory of "orthogenesis" to the feeling that some account must be given of the advance of development along a straight line; Nägeli's theory of a "principle of perfection" in organisms to the recognition of the steady advance of the line of evolution towards something that looks very much like a goal.

The result of it all is that Darwinism, specifically so called—that is, as a particular theory accounting for the differentiation of organic forms—stands to-day not merely as Prof. Kellogg somewhat too gently puts it (p. 5), "seriously discredited in the biological world," but practically out of the running. Even the most extreme Neo-Darwinians (like Weismann) have been compelled to supplement it by auxiliary theories which altogether change its complexion. It is quite true also, on the other hand, however, that nothing has come to take its place; as Prof. Kellogg truly puts it (p. 375): "these bitter antagonists of selection are especially unconvincing when they come to offer a replacing theory, an alternative explanation of transformation and descent." The real state of the case seems to be that the deficiencies of the Darwinian hypothesis have come to be widely recognized and numerous suggestions have been made, which severally provide for, or seek to provide for, this or the other of these deficiencies. But no one of these will serve any better than Darwinism itself serves—possibly not even so well as Darwinism serves—as a complete "causo-mechanical" explanation of the differentiation of organic forms. Each severally—all in combination (so far as they can be combined)—still leave something, and something essential, to be desired. The problem still presses on us; a great variety of suggestions are being made to solve it; it remains as yet unsolved.

What most impresses the layman as he surveys the whole body of these evolutionary theories in the mass, is their highly speculative character. If what is called "science" means careful observation and collection of facts and strict induction from them of the principles governing them, none of these theories have much obvious claim to be "scientific." They are speculative hypotheses set forth as possible or conceivable explanations of the facts. This is fully recognized by Prof. Kellogg. "What may for the moment detain us, however," he says (pp. 18 f., cf. p. 382), "is a reference to the curiously nearly completely subjective character of the evidence for both the theory of descent and natural selection.… Speaking by and large we only tell the general truth when we declare that no indubitable cases of species-forming or transforming, that is, of descent, have been observed; and that no recognized case of natural selection really selecting has been observed.… The evidence for descent is of satisfying but purely logical character; the descent hypothesis explains completely all the phenomena of homology, of palæontological succession, of ontogeny, and of geographical distribution; that is, it explains all the observed facts touching the appearance in time and place on this earth of organisms and the facts of their likenesses and unlikenesses to each other.… The evidence for the selection theory … also chiefly rests on the logical conclusion that under the observed fact of over-production, struggle is bound to occur; that under the observed fact of miscellaneous variation, those individuals most fortunate in their variations will win in the struggle; and, finally, that under the observed fact of heredity, the winners will transmit to their posterity their advantageous variations, all of which inter-acting facts and logically derived processes will be repeated over and over again, with the result of slow but constant modification of types, that is, formation of new species" (cf. pp. 92, 394). What is thus true of the theory of descent in general and the specific theory of selection put forward to account for this descent, is equally—often far more—true of the auxiliary and substitutionary theories which have been suggested to fill out the deficiencies of the latter or to supplant it (cf. pp. 382, 391). These are often hyper-speculative theories, which have only this to recommend them to our consideration—that if they be conceived to represent fact they may supply an explanation of the facts of observation. Thus far, there is no other reason than this for supposing them to represent fact. And it is obvious that a vivid imagination may supply many competing theories of this hypothetical sort and all of them prove subsequently to have no basis whatever in reality. The lay reader may be excused if, reading over the outlines of these several theories, he is oppressed with a sense of their speculative character; in a word, of their unreality. For ourselves we confess frankly that the whole body of evolutionary constructions prevalent to-day impresses us simply as a vast mass of speculation, which may or may not prove to have a kernel of truth in it. All that seems to us to be able to lay claim to be assured knowledge in the whole mass is that the facts of homology and of the palæontological record suggest that the relation of animate forms to one another may be a genetic one. So soon as we come to attempt to work out for ourselves a theory of the factors and process of the differentiation of these forms, we are in the region of pure speculation and can claim for our constructions nothing more than that the facts leave them tenable. Whether they ought to be held as well as are capable of being held, we seem to lack all direct evidence.

The next thing that most strongly impresses the lay reader is the amazing zeal which is exhibited by our biological workers for these speculative theories. It is not merely that every man has his theory and sets great store by it, however speculative it may be. It almost seems at times that facts cannot be accepted unless a "causo-mechanical" theory be ready to account for them: which looks amazingly like basing facts on theory rather than theory on facts. Prof. Kellogg himself is no stranger to this state of mind. He is at least repeatedly telling us of this or the other contention that it is unacceptable because no "causo-mechanical" theory explaining its operation is forthcoming. It almost seems at times as if it were "causo-mechanical" theories rather than facts that our biological investigators are on the lookout for. And let us note well, that it is a "causo-mechanical" theory alone that satisfies them. There must be no "mysticism" involved; we had almost said no "mysteries." They seem to say to us that nature is as plain as a book and has no secrets which are intrinsically secrets, but only secrets in the sense that they are not yet found out. But above all, they not only seem to say—but, if we are to take Prof. Kellogg for an example, do say—that there must be no loophole left in our explanations for the intrusion of even directive forces from without. It is enough for Prof. Kellogg to condemn a theory out of hand, if it involves the recognition—or the suspicion—of the working in animate nature of forces deeper—or higher—than physico-chemical ones. Accordingly the Neo-Vitalism which is playing its part in the biological circles of Germany is set aside with a bare word. "Bütschli has well pointed out," we read, "that Neo-Vitalism is really only a return to the old 'vital principle' belief, and that we are now, and have been ever since our practical giving up of the vital principle notion, making steady progress in the explanation of life-forms and life-functions on strictly mechanical and physico-chemical grounds" (pp. 226–227). Even when it is introduced "under a pseudo-scientific guise," therefore—as, no doubt, for instance by Driesch, who in positing "an extra-physico-chemical factor" (which he calls "psychoid"), yet is careful to represent it as "an attribute of, or essential kind of potentiality pertaining to, organized living substance"—the assumption of the interworking into the phenomena of organic life of anything above "physico-chemical" forces is treated as out of the question. The whole animate universe is to be explained on the basis of these forces alone, and no theory of it is even to be taken into serious consideration which is not ready with a "causo-mechanical" explanation on these grounds. Here is a chance sentence, for example, which seems to indicate in a word the settled point of view of Prof. Kellogg himself certainly and apparently of those whom he naturally represents: "Nägeli's automatic perfecting principle is an impossibility to the thorough-going evolutionist seeking for a causo-mechanical explanation of change" (p. 387).

This amounts, it will be seen, to a definitely polemic attitude—of a rather extreme kind—towards teleology. It is true that teleological language is sometimes employed. In the immediate context of the sentence just quoted, Prof. Kellogg speaks of the occurrence of "determinate or purposive change." But this is only an instance of that "personifying language" which is the bane of naturalistic writers. What he means is that "the simple physical or mechanical impossibility of perfect identity between process and environment in the case of one individual and process and environment in the case of any other" will automatically produce such a variety in individuals as will result in "the change needed as the indispensable basis for the upbuilding of the great fabric of species diversity and descent." That is to say, he is here only saying that the simple fact of unlikeness between individuals—so that no two individuals are precisely alike—provides materials for selection to work on and precludes the necessity—on Darwinian ground—of inquiring into the causes of variation or seeking out a principle of orthogenesis. There will always be "a fittest" at hand. We have already pointed out the sense and limits in which this contention is valid. What is here interesting us is that this is all that Prof. Kellogg means by "determinate or purposive change." His polemic attitude towards all real teleology in the evolutionary process—to the intrusion into it of the guidance of purpose, properly and not abusively so called—we will not say is betrayed, it is expressed, over and over again in this volume. In criticizing the type of theory represented by Nägeli and Korschinsky which assumes "a special tendency towards progress" in the organism—"an inner directive force," an "inner law of development"—for instance, Prof. Kellogg writes (p. 278): "It is needless to say that but few biologists confess to such a belief. However much in the dark we may be regarding the whole great secret of bionomics, however partial and fragmentary our knowledge of the processes and mechanism of evolution, such an assumption of a mystic, essentially teleologic force wholly independent of and dominating all the physico-chemical forces and influences that we do know and the reactions and behaviour of living matter to these influences which we are beginning to recognize and understand with some clearness and fulness—such a surrender of all our hardly won actual scientific knowledge in favour of an unknown, unproved, mystic vital force we are not prepared to make. As Plate well says, such a theory of orthogenesis is opposed, in sharpest contrast, to the very spirit of science." Again (p. 376): "Modification and development may have been proved to occur along determinate lines without the aid of natural selection. I believe they have. But such development cannot have an aim; it cannot be assumed to be directed toward advance; there is no independent progress upward, i.e., toward higher specialisation. At least, there is no scientific proof of any such capacity in organisms. Natural selection remains the one causo-mechanical explanation of the large and general progress toward fitness; the movement toward specialisation; that is, descent as we know it." Still again, criticizing von Kölliker (p. 330): "He included in his general theory of heterogenesis a basic plan of progressive evolution. Such a conception has in it too much ontogenic orthogenesis; it is too redolent of teleology for present-day biology." Teleology itself is seen then to be the bête noire of biology as represented by Prof. Kellogg. "Certainly," we are told (p. 375), "no present-day biologist is ready to fall back on the long deserted standpoint of teleology and ascribe to heterogenesis or orthogenesis an auto-determination toward adaptiveness and fitness." "Definitely directed variation" he may with Weismann allow to exist (p. 199); "but not predestined variation running on independently of the life conditions of the organism as Nägeli … has assumed" (cf. p. 381). As he expresses it with the polemic edge well turned out, in another place (p. 377): "Nor can any Nägelian automatic perfecting principle hold our suffrage for a moment unless we stand with theologists on the insecure basis of teleology." That is to say, the ultimate objection to Nägeli's "principle of perfection" is—just that it is too much like teleology—the "teleology of the theologists." In other words, the scandalon is precisely teleology, in any form.

Now all this is very depressing. The anti-teleological zeal of Mr. Darwin is well known: the vigor with which—as, for instance, in his correspondence with Asa Gray—he repelled the intrusion of teleology into his system betrays his fundamental thought. The anti-teleological implication of Darwinism, taken in its strictness—when it becomes a system of pure accidentalism—is obvious. But it could have been hoped that we had got by now well beyond all that. Some lack of general philosophical acumen must be suspected when it is not fully understood that teleology is in no way inconsistent with—is rather necessarily involved in—a complete system of natural causation. Every teleological system implies a complete "causo-mechanical" explanation as its instrument. Why, then, should the investigators of the "causo-mechanical" explanation array themselves in polemic opposition to the very conception of governing purpose? Above all, why should they make the test of the acceptability of theories, the recognition or non-recognition by them of teleological factors? This gives the disagreeable appearance to the trend of biological speculation—we do not say of biological investigation—that it is less interested in science for science's sake, that is, in the increase of knowledge, than it is in the validation of a naturalistic world-view: that it is dominated, in a word, by philosophical conceptions, not derived from science but imposed on science from without. Of course, there are many workers in the biological, as in other scientific fields, to which this will not apply. And it may well be contended that the drift of thought among investigators in these fields is precisely towards the recognition of the mystery of life and life-processes, of their inexplicability on purely physico-chemical grounds, of the necessity of the assumption of the working of some higher directive force in the advance of organic development—in a word, towards just that vitalism and teleology which Prof. Kellogg scouts, not as excluded by observed fact or by proved theory, but as inconsistent with "the scientific spirit"—which seems as much as to say with an a priori philosophical attitude. In the meanwhile, however, it seems clear that much of our scientific thought is still under the control of a very definite anti-teleological (which is as much as to say an a-theistic, for teleology and theism are equipollent terms) prejudice.

We should be sorry to close even so desultory a notice of a book so competent and so informing on a note of blame. After all, the book is not an anti-teleological treatise; and though its allusions to the hypothesis of teleology in organic nature are disturbing, they are only allusions. What the book undertakes to do is to "present simply and concisely … the present-day standing of Darwinism in biological science," and to outline "the various auxiliary and alternative theories of species-forming which have been proposed to aid or to replace the selection theories" (p. iii.). And this it does well, with thorough knowledge, with sufficient fullness, and with adequate exactness. Prof. Kellogg exhibits here great skill in expounding and much penetration in criticizing the several views which have been advanced, and commends his own views to us by their moderation and balance. He impresses us as a safe guide to the history both of evolutionary speculation and of biological research. Readers desiring to know the present state, whether of knowledge or of opinion, in this sphere of research, cannot do better than to resort to his comprehensive and readable volume.

NATURALISM AND RELIGION.

By Dr. RUDOLF OTTO.

Translated by J. Arthur Thomson and Margaret R. Thomson. Edited with an Introduction by Rev. W. D. Morrison, LL.D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons;

London: Williams & Norgate. 1907.

DR. OTTO is introduced by his English editor to his new audience as "a thinker who possesses the rare merit of combining a high philosophic discipline with an accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the science of organic nature." The appearance of the name of Prof. Thomson on the title-page of the book as translator, may be taken as an additional guarantee of the scientific competency of the author. The book itself fully meets the expectations so aroused. We do not, indeed, share the author's philosophical standpoint; and still less can we homologate the theological conceptions which may occasionally be read between the lines. But there can be no question that the book is ably thought and attractively written; or that its author is exceptionally well informed in the current scientific discussion of Germany, and is exceptionally well equipped to expound it alike in its details and in its general drift. As a result we have in the book an admirable survey of recent German speculation on the origin and nature of the world and man, and a strong and convincing defense of the right of religion in the face of modern thought.

Dr. Otto calls his book "Naturalism and Religion," and explains its purpose as "in the first place, to define the relation, or rather the antithesis, between the two; and, secondly, to endeavour to reconcile the contradictions, and to vindicate against the counterclaims of naturalism, the validity and freedom of the religious outlook" (p. 1). Or, as he somewhat more crisply expresses it at a later point, "to define our attitude to naturalism, and to maintain in the teeth of naturalism the validity and freedom of the religious conception of the world" (p. 278). The real subject of the book is, therefore, Naturalism; and its real purpose is to assert over against Naturalism the right of religion. Its primary purpose, in other words, is polemic rather than constructive. It is less concerned with the positive exposition and development of the religious conception of the world than with the vindication of the right of a religious conception of the world. Of course Dr. Otto has not written so much without suggesting what, in his view, the religious conception of the world includes. He has even formally outlined and briefly expounded and even argued its elements. But neither the strength nor the mass of the book is given to it, but is expended rather on a careful critical survey of current forms of Naturalism, with a view to exhibiting its essential failure. From our point of view the value of the book is immensely increased by this circumstance. For Dr. Otto's philosophical and even theological conceptions would necessarily dominate his positive construction of the world-view to which he would give the name of religious. And, as we have already explained, we do not particularly care for Dr. Otto's philosophical or theological views. But in his exposition and criticism of Naturalistic theories he is moving on ground common to all who would cherish a religious world-view of any sort. And here we can follow his lucid expositions and his trenchant criticisms with unalloyed satisfaction.

Dr. Otto's philosophical standpoint is that of a convinced Kantian idealism, or perhaps we ought rather to say he is a disciple of that mixed product of Kant and Jacobi, Jacob Friedrich Fries, who has lately been disinterred in Germany and given at least some semblance of renewed vitality. Although he doubtless transcends Fries's anti-teleological view of nature, some slight echo of it may perhaps be detected in his willingness to admit that a direct study of nature will not yield a teleological view of it. The Friesian leaven is more in evidence, however, in his view of religion as rooted primarily in a sense of mystery, upon which he then engrafts, to be sure, the sense of dependence in which religion centers, and the conception of teleology in which, we may say, it culminates. The peculiar extension he gives to the implications of the feeling of dependence, by which he derives from it the assurance not only that man, the subject of this ineradicable and surely not misleading feeling, is a contingent being, but that so is the whole world itself, has, perhaps, its roots in the same idealism. The external world which is our creation, can scarcely be less dependent than the beings whose creation it is. One gets the impression that Dr. Otto's objection to Naturalism turns less on the obliteration by Naturalism of the distinction between matter and mind, than on Naturalism's attempt to work this obliteration the wrong way about. The external world from which Naturalism would explain mind, he would rather explain from mind. And so it comes about that as the argument runs on it seems almost to become rather a plea for spiritualism than for what we commonly speak of as a religious interpretation of the world. Its thesis almost appears to be summed up in the striking and strikingly true remark (p. 283) that "mental science, from logic and epistemology up to and including the moral and æsthetic sciences, proves by its very existence, and by the fact that it can not be reduced to terms of natural science, that spirit can neither be derived from nor analysed into anything else." At this point, however, we are a little puzzled by the rushing in of another current of Dr. Otto's thought, which almost sweeps away this spirit, the substantial existence of which he seems to have so firmly established. We must not talk, it seems, of its "substantial nature" (p. 330)—that is "a matter of entire indifference" (p. 331); what concerns us is only its "incomparable value" (p. 331). "What lives in us … is not a finished and spiritual being … but something that only develops and becomes actual very gradually" (p. 298). Whence it comes … who can tell? Or whither it goes? All we know of it is, lo! it is here. And, that it is the manifestation of something that is. "There is no practical meaning in discussing its 'origin' or its 'passing away,' as we do with regard to the corporeal. Under certain corporeal conditions it is there, it simply appears. But it does not arise out of them. And as it is not nothing, but an actual and effectual reality, it can neither have come out of nothing nor disappear into nothing again. It appears out of the absolutely transcendental, associates itself with corporeal processes, determines these and is determined by them, and in its own time passes back from this world of appearance to the transcendental again" (p. 358). Is this only another way of saying that "the soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar"? Or does it, as we much doubt, mean much more than this? Decidedly Dr. Otto's philosophy needs watching. And we may be glad it does not form the staple of his book but only lies in its background.

What forms the staple of his book is the exposition and criticism of Naturalism. Naturalism, he tells us, exists in two forms, naive and speculative. And speculative Naturalism entrenches itself in two great contentions, the one embodied in the Darwinian doctrine of evolution, the other in the mechanical theory of life. To the exposition and criticism of these two great contentions of Naturalism Dr. Otto accordingly devotes himself. To the Darwinian theory chapters 4 to 7 (pp. 85–186) are given; to the mechanical theory of life, chapters 8 to 11 (pp. 187–359). The discussion in both cases is full, the exposition clear, the criticism telling.

In dealing with the Darwinian theory, Dr. Otto very properly distinguishes between the theory of descent in general and the specific form given this theory by Darwin's hypothesis of the indefiniteness of variations and the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. The former, he points out, has maintained its ground, or perhaps we may even say has strengthened its stakes. Dr. Otto intimates, almost as a matter of course, his own adhesion to it. The latter, on the contrary, has become in the estimate of wide circles, not merely suspect, but even disproved. Dr. Otto intimates that he himself will have none of it. But it is precisely in this peculiarly Darwinian theory of "natural selection" that the virus of Naturalism in current evolutionary speculation is prominent. The theory of descent is in no sense specifically Darwinian: it is far older than Darwin and remains the conviction of multitudes who are definitely anti-Darwinian. What is specifically Darwinian is the appeal to the factors of overproduction, indefinite variation, struggle for existence and consequent elimination of the unfit and the survival of the fittest as containing in themselves the true account of the modifications which have produced the multitudinous forms of life. Thus teleology was reduced to an illusion and suitability substituted in its place: utility became the one sufficient creator of all that is living. The widespread dissatisfaction with, and even rejection of, this account of organic development which marks the present state of discusion may be taken as at the same time, therefore, a refutation of the Naturalism which underlies it, because it is an exhibition of the inadequacy of mere utility to account for all things. As investigation has gone on it has become clearer and clearer to numerous students of the subject that variations do not occur indifferently in every direction, but turn up opportunely. As Du Bois-Reymond expressed it in his vivid way, Nature's dice are loaded; not accidentalism but purpose rules her acts. The greater organism of the animate world grows apparently like the lesser organism of the individual being along fixed lines by definite steps to determined ends. "Natural selection" may have a part to play in the process: but it is in wider and wider circles coming to be believed that it is a very subordinate part. It can work on only what is given it; and it does not seem to have indefinite variations in every direction to work on, but, rather, very definite variations in one direction. The goal attained is, therefore, not determined by it, but by the inherent tendency of the developing organism. So, at least, an increasing number of students of nature are coming to think.

Dr. Otto's method is marked by a very large infusion of the concessive spirit. He betrays no tendency to drive antitheses into contradictions; and he does not permit the cause of teleology in nature to be identified with the extremest anti-Darwinian opinions. On the contrary, he is quick to point out that purpose has no quarrel with means; and can live, therefore, under the strictest reign of law. It is not law which is fatal to purpose, but chance. Nay, says he, "absolute obedience to law, and the inexorableness of chains of sequence are, instead of being fatal to 'teleology,' indispensable to it." "When there is a purpose in view," he argues, "it is only where the system of means is perfect, unbroken, and absolute, that the purpose can be realised, and therefore that intention can be inferred" (p. 83). Accordingly, therefore, he considers it possible to embrace in a teleological interpretation "the whole system of causes and effects, which, according to the Darwin-Weismann doctrine, have gradually brought forth the whole diversity of the world of life, with man at its head" (p. 150). For why may not this be looked upon "as an immense system of means," intricate no doubt, but working to its end with inevitable necessity—which may therefore be the manifestation of intention (p. 151)? At a later point, when dealing with the mechanical theory of life, he reverts to the same line of remark to show that mechanism has in it nothing inconsistent with purpose (pp. 222–223). Mechanism may be only the way in which purpose realizes itself. Of course, the danger here is that we may fall thus into a deistic conception of the method of what we theologically call "Providence." But this does not seem necessary, even when the whole of what we call nature is conceived as "a machine." Though the guiding hand of purpose be conceived as everywhere and at all times immediately operative, nevertheless the whole account of the several phenomena would be found in the efficient, not in the final causes. In no case are the final causes to be conceived as additional efficient causes producing with them a resultant effect. They are and remain only final causes and operate only through and by means of the efficient causes. Each phenomenon finds its whole account when severally considered, accordingly, in its efficient causes. It is therefore indifferent to purpose whether the events which occur under its government occur as products of mechanical or free causes. "Providence," then, which is but another way of saying "purpose," is as consistent with a mechanical theory as with any other theory of life: because "purpose" is not discerned in the separate phenomena but in their combination. Romanes was quite right, therefore, when he regretfully said of his earlier mistake in ruling purpose out of the universe: "I had forgotten to take in the whole scope of things, the marvelous harmony of the all." Dr. Otto is anxious that his readers shall not make the analogous mistake of supposing that because a thing is "caused" it is therefore not "intended." He does not imagine, of course, that in this vindication of teleology in relation to mechanism, he has done all that is necessary to validate the religious view of the world. He rightly supposes, however, that he has by it done something to remove some current objections to the religious view of the world; for there are still some who imagine that when they say mechanism they deny purpose. How far the alleged mechanism rules is another question.

The most striking feature of Dr. Otto's method is, however, his employment of exposition as argument. His book thus becomes a mirror of current thought on the subjects with which he is dealing. The inherent weakness of the Darwinian construction of the factors of evolution, for example, he exhibits less by direct argument of his own against it than by a running exposition of the course of evolutionary thought in latter-day Germany. The first impression the reader gets from this survey is of the uncertainty of the conclusions which are from time to time announced. He soon perceives, however, that amid the apparent confusion there is a gradual and steady driftage in one direction, and that that direction is away from Darwin's conceptions. Whatever in the end he may come to think of Darwin's theory in its application to nature, he receives a strong impression that it is fairly illustrated in this section of human research and thought. Here is certainly exhibited indefinite variation in all directions, struggle for existence, and—let us hope—the survival of the fittest. It may become us to bear in mind, to be sure, that the survival of the fittest is not quite the same as the survival of the true. It may be only the survival of the theory that fits in best with the presuppositions and prejudices of the times. Nevertheless truth is strong; and we can scarcely doubt it will (finally) prevail. And one gets the impression that, in this case, what seems likely to prevail in the meantime is the truth, and that this truth is hostile to the anti-teleological schematization of Darwin; and, indeed, to his whole construction of the main factors of evolution. Indeed, it seems at times as if the new investigators were inclined to react from "natural selection" a shade too violently, and not content with assigning Darwinismus to the Sterbebett were determined to deny to "natural selection" not only any real effectiveness or capacity for species-forming, but even reality itself. Dr. Otto avoids this extreme. He not only recognizes its operation in nature as a vera causa but points out that its obvious reality and actual working is the main cause of the attractiveness of the theory which found in it the one great agency in species-forming (pp. 156–157). Nevertheless, he holds firmly with the more recent thought, which discovers for it only a very subordinate rôle to play in nature; and he points out with great clearness that its dethronement and the substitution for it of theories of evolution dominated by the recognition of inherent tendencies in the organism and progression along right lines, is the definite relegation of Naturalism too to the Sterbelager, so far as it had entrenched itself in the doctrine of evolution.

In dealing with the mechanical theory of life, Dr. Otto employs much the same method which he uses in dealing with the doctrine of evolution. Here, too, he avoids dogmatism and relies largely on the effect a mere tracing of the history of research is fitted to produce. For the progress of investigation has been away from the mechanical view of life. We have lived to see the dawn of a new age of "vitalism"; and even where the name is scouted and the thing deprecated, the edges of the old mechanical theory have become very frayed. On the basis of present-day thought, Dr. Otto is justified in emphasizing the mystery of life and in pointing decisively to the supremeness of mind, so making way for the religious view of the world from this point of sight also.

Enough has doubtless been said to manifest the high value we place on Dr. Otto's discussion. It would be difficult to find elsewhere in such brief compass so full and lucid a survey of the recent German literature on evolution and the nature of life. And it would be, we are persuaded, impossible to find another work of such compressed form in which the failure of Naturalism as a theory of the world is more tellingly argued.

THE CHRIST OF THE CROSS: or the Death of Jesus Christ in its relation to Forgiveness and Judgment.

By Rev. J. GIBSON SMITH.

Wellington, N. Z.: Gordon & Gotch (London: Gordon & Gotch). 1908.

MR. SMITH'S object in this strongly and even fervently written volume is to propose what he takes to be a new theory of the Atonement. It is not, however, as new as he takes it to be. It is in point of fact one of the most prevalent theories of the Atonement in this age of lowered conceptions of the guilt of sin, and heightened conceptions of man's own part in the saving process. Stated in its barest outline, it is the theory that the ground on which God receives sinful man back into His favor is just man's own repentance and faith, while the part of Christ is simply to induce acceptable repentance and faith in man. This is, of course, only a form—one of the highest forms, certainly—of the so-called "Moral Influence" theory (see "The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia," i. 1908, p. 352b).

Mr. Smith, to be sure, formally repudiates the "Moral Influence" theory—as he states it, that is; and that means, in one of its special forms (p. 57: "as thus stated"). But his own theory is only another mode of stating essentially the same view. He thinks he draws away from the "Moral Influence" theory (of course, in the unacceptable form of it which he outlines) in two particulars—inasmuch as he gives an essential place in his theory to the death of Christ, and makes this death "answer to some demand in the nature of God, as well as to some need in man" (p. 57). The wariness of this language should not pass, however, without observation. If an essential place is given to the death of Christ, it is not that the salvation of the sinner is grounded in the death of Christ; it is grounded in the sinner's own repentance and faith and nothing more. The necessity which is vindicated for the death of Christ arises merely out of the sinner's need of influences issuing from the death of Christ to produce in him such repentance and faith as will be acceptable to God. And if the death of Christ may be said in this indirect way to "answer to some demand in the nature of God," it directly meets no demand of the nature of God at all. It operates only to secure from man the repentance and faith which meet the demand of God's "holy mercy." The death of Christ thus terminates solely on man, affecting him; and not at all on God, affecting Him—save through the effect it works in man, by inducing in man acceptable repentance and faith.

Mr. Smith does occasionally, to be sure, incidentally use language which may seem to imply or assert that the death of Christ has an effect on God. Thus, we read (p. 54) of a "remission of sins on the ground of the death of Christ," and again (p. 36), of "obstacles to man's forgiveness in God" which Christ has come and removed. But these perhaps not unnatural reversions to the common language of Christianity must naturally be interpreted according to the terms of his own theory. And according to the terms of his theory Christ's work does not terminate on God supplying the ground on which He forgives sins, and does not remove any obstacles on God's part to the forgiveness of sin. In his view there is on God's part no obstacle to man's forgiveness, and God requires no death of Christ, or anything else of the kind, to enable Him to remit sin. All that is required to enable God's free mercy to flow forth to sinful man, is that the conditions of forgiveness necessarily imposed by a holy God on sinners should be fulfilled (pp. 106 f.). And Christ's work does not fulfill these conditions. It terminates wholly on man, enabling him to comply with the necessary conditions of acceptance with God and so be saved. "Therefore," we read (p. 106), "even though there is mercy eternally in God, and even though God requires no satisfaction to His retributive justice before He can show mercy, yet the mercy of God must remain eternally unavailable for sinful man unless, through the mediatorship of a Saviour from sin, he is enabled to comply with the conditions which God's holiness must always impose upon God's mercy." Man, in other words, is his own saviour, though, of course, only as empowered thereto by Christ. God accepts man only on the fulfillment by himself of conditions of salvation, not on the fulfillment of any conditions by Christ. Christ's whole work is to enable man to save himself: and only as man, thus enabled, saves himself can he be saved. The function which Christ performs in the saving process is not, then, that He does anything for man, but that He enables man to do all that it is necessary to do for himself.

This line of thought is very familiar. It is, moreover, the natural line of thought for one who occupies the general theological standpoint of Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith has turned his back upon the governing conceptions of his Reformed forefathers, and adopted instead the point of sight of their Arminianizing opponents. He considers himself in doing so only to be rising out of the "earth-born mist" of "fatalism," and to be according to men only "the full possession of their moral freedom" (p. 97). That is to say, in plain English, Mr. Smith takes his starting-point in a Pelagianizing anthropology; his position relatively to the condition of the human race being as nearly as possible that of historical Semi-Pelagianism (pp. 125–127). Man being thus conceived to need only incitement to enable him to do all that God requires of him, God is, on the other hand, conceived as requiring no satisfaction for guilt, but freely extending mercy to all who return to Him in acceptable repentance and faith. The resultant soteriological scheme travels thus in an ellipse around the two foci of the divine offer of mercy up to the uttermost (p. 215), and the free dealing accorded to this offer by man. Man may accept this offer; and the power to accept it is native to him; he needs divine aid only to work fully out to their complete issues the results of his acceptance of it. Or man may reject this offer, and may not in any mechanical or miraculous fashion be deprived of his power to reject it, even up to "the point of the Breaking-Strain of the Soul"—beyond which he can but reject it, and before which, of course, he may equally readily accept or reject it. His destiny being thus determined by his own choice, he who accepts God's proposals of mercy will on this acceptance, being united by faith with Christ, be, through spiritual discipline received from Christ, more and more enabled to repent and believe, and on this beginning be accepted by God on the guarantee of Christ that this imperfect repentance and faith will ultimately ripen into perfect. There would seem to be implied here a doctrine of "Perseverance," and, though this is nowhere explicitly asserted, it is everywhere implied and frequently stated in less theological language. Otherwise the scheme is the familiar Arminian one and has nothing to distinguish it from what we hear on every side of us, every day. And Mr. Smith's acumen is to be commended for perceiving that in this scheme there is no place for a doctrine of expiatory atonement; and for seeking another doctrine more conformable to his general theological point of view. If God's mercy is "free" and man's will is "free" in the senses of "freedom" ascribed to them respectively by this type of thought, a doctrine of expiatory atonement is an impertinence. And this is one of the most telling evidences of the falsity of the system. For the doctrine of an expiatory atonement is undoubtedly taught in the Scriptures, and no scheme of salvation can be the true one which, we will not say can find no place for it, but does not make it central.

Mr. Smith, of course, would deny that a doctrine of expiatory atonement is taught in the Scriptures. And it is in his effort to support this denial, if anywhere, that original material is presented by his book. He finds five "large tracts of Scripture which at least seem to be opposed to the theory" of "satisfaction to justice" in the blood of Christ (pp. 23 ff.). Three of these he subsequently, however (very justly), abandons—apparently as raising only prima facie objections to the expiatory doctrine of the Cross—and hangs his case on the other two (pp. 66 ff.). These, which he speaks of as "two great, important, perfectly plain, and intelligible truths" of Scripture, hitherto neglected, he calls "the Truth of the Crime of the Crucifixion" and "the Truth of the Coming Judgment" (pp. 66–67). These two plain facts of Scripture, that the Crucifixion of the Lord of Glory was a terrible, "a unique and transcendent" crime, and that there looms before men a yet future judgment in which God's righteousness will be manifested in retributive justice—he represents as utterly inconsistent with the expiatory theory of the Cross. "The former truth," he declares (p. 81), "leads us to reject that theory because it is impossible—for how can God's most holy justice be satisfied through the commission of a crime on the person of His Son, or through the Son's submitting to have a crime committed upon His person? The latter truth calls upon us to reject the expiatory theory, because it is unnecessary, for how can it have been necessary that God's retributive justice, which is, in the future, to be satisfied to the full in the final Judgment, should already have been satisfied to the full upon the Cross?" A great portion of his volume is occupied with the elaboration and enforcement of these contentions, and he quite properly places one of them, in a quotation from Mr. W. L. Walker's "The Spirit and the Incarnation," in its forefront as the motto of the whole. The entire argument, indeed, turns on them as on its hinge and stands or falls with them. And yet—can it be necessary to point out the confusions on which both of them rest?

When Mr. Smith declares, "It is simply inconceivable that the crucifixion of Christ can be, at one and the same moment, a terrible crime which God is bound to regard as a crime, and also a means of satisfying God's retributive justice" (p. 73)—what can the astonished reader do but pause in wonder and ask, Why? Why does not the philosophy of Gen. 1:20—"And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive"—apply here as it applies throughout God's dealings with men? Of course, Mr. Smith cannot sustain his own contention. He finds himself compelled to admit that the Scriptures declare that "the death of Christ was divinely appointed, and foretold, that Jesus endured it of His own free will, and that it was a death for sin, by which the salvation of believing sinners was secured" (p. 73); that in that death "the purposes of God were carried out" (p. 76), and the like. From which it emerges that the difference between him and those whom he opposes here does not concern the question whether the same transaction may be on man's part a crime deserving punishment and on God's part a vehicle of blessing for the race, but solely the question of what particular purpose of God is accomplished by this particular crime of the Cross. The tentative attempt to distinguish between indirect and direct utilization of man's crimes by God for the attainment of His ends (p. 92) may be neglected here as not directly applied by Mr. Smith to this question, and, indeed, as obviously not applicable to it. The plain fact is that Mr. Smith's whole contention at this point is but an attempt to confuse the reader's judgment by directing and holding his attention to the moral quality of the human acts involved in the crucifixion of Christ, to the exclusion of contemplation of the tremendous purpose of God in that great transaction. To say (p. 78) that it is "the supposition of the expiatory theory" "that there was practically no crime in the Cross at all, and that God's justice was satisfied thereby" is to set in collocation things which stand out of all relation to one another. Rather, on the supposition of the expiatory theory there was an immense crime committed in the crucifying of Christ, and God's justice was satisfied thereby.

When we say, however, that God's justice was satisfied thereby we are hard on the heels of Mr. Smith's second "great tract of Scriptural truth" which he represents as inconsistent with the doctrine of satisfaction in the blood of Christ—the Truth, as he calls it, of the Coming Judgment. By this he means simply that if Jesus satisfied the divine justice on the Cross, then there can remain no more remembrance of sin, and accordingly there can be left no place for a Coming Judgment. Did we not have it here repeatedly flaunted in our face, it would be incredible that anyone could fail to distinguish between the satisfaction rendered on the Cross for Christ's people and the judgment which still hangs over those who are "without." It is quite true that those who are in Christ Jesus do not come into judgment; but how that abolishes the judgment impending over those who are not in Christ, it is, we do not say difficult, but impossible, to see. What has blinded the eyes of Mr. Smith here is no doubt the strength of his revulsion from the Reformed doctrine of a "definite atonement," and his consequent zeal for a so-called "universal atonement." He is quite right in insisting that a universal satisfaction for sin on the Cross would have abolished all impending judgment. There is a certain validity, therefore, in his reiterated assertion that if, "according to the expiatory theory, God's retributive justice" (simpliciter) "was satisfied on the Cross," if there was made on it "a complete satisfaction of retributive justice," so that "God's retributive justice has already been satisfied to the full upon the Cross" (p. 74), there cannot remain any real judgment for the future. But it is safe to say no one but convinced Universalists—who do abolish all future judgment and usher all into eternal life—has ever taught such a universal atonement as this. The most convinced advocates of the so-called "universal" satisfaction for sin, Arminian as well as Calvinist, have made it hypothetical, conditioned in its efficacy on faith, so that its expiatory value inured only to believers, and a place of judgment remained for all unbelievers. We do not say that this hypothetical scheme will work: we do not think it will, and we commend recent Arminian thinkers for seeing that it will not work and discarding it. What we do not commend in them is that in discarding it they discard the expiatory doctrine and set themselves to invent lowered views of the atonement more conformable to Arminian principles. The un-conformableness—which we believe to be real—of Arminian principles with the Biblical doctrine of the substitutive satisfaction of Christ, is the condemnation, not of that doctrine, but of the Arminian principles which cannot be united with it in a consistent system of truth. But all this aside, what Mr. Smith has set up in his universal expiatory atonement which satisfies the divine retributive justice simpliciter, leaving no retribution for the future, is a man of straw. Nobody holds to such a doctrine. Nobody holds that Christ has rendered satisfaction for the sins of any but "believers," whether these believers be conceived as the elect of God, who believe because God has bought them by the precious blood of His Son, or whether they be conceived as sinners who, by believing, have made themselves the beneficiaries of the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God. A satisfaction, however, for the sins of believers, cannot be said in any way to affect the necessity or the ethical value of the proclamation of a coming judgment for those who do not believe. Surely, if it is only by such confusions as these that the expiatory doctrine of the Cross can be attacked, it lies safely entrenched behind the mass of direct Scriptural evidence by which it is established.

The positive side of Mr. Smith's argument for his theory of the Atonement is no more solid than its negative side. What he has undertaken to commend to us in the stead of the expiatory doctrine of the Church is a theory of salvation on the ground of our own repentance and faith, induced in us by a work of Christ undertaken and accomplished for this end—that He might lead us perfectly to repent of our sins and believe in God our Saviour. For the validation of such a theory it would be necessary to show, (1) that repentance and faith can avail to ground acceptance of sinners by God; (2) that a repentance and faith such as can avail with God can be exercised by sinful men; and (3) that the work of Christ was directed towards and was adapted to and was efficient for the production in sinful men of a repentance and faith such as may avail with God. It cannot be said, however, that Mr. Smith has shown any of these things.

The first of them he does not even attempt to show. He simply assumes it, remarking lightly (pp. 107 ff.) that as a self-respecting man will certainly require repentance and faith as conditions precedent to his own bestowals of forgiveness on any brother man who has sinned against him, so God will demand the same conditions "with this infinite difference, that God must demand, not a relatively true repentance and a relatively genuine faith, but a perfect repentance and a perfect faith" (p. 109). Much effort is expended to show that this at least must be demanded by God—that nothing but a perfect repentance and a perfect faith will suffice; but no effort is made to show that this will suffice with God. That is just assumed. After the late Prof. Moberly's acute and sustained argument of this point—even which we can but judge ineffective—one would have anticipated that no subsequent writer would be able to pass it over. But cardinal point as it is to the whole theory, Mr. Smith leaves it a mere assumption that repentance and faith can avail to commend a sinner to God; and an assumption, let us add, which is at variance at once with all Scripture, all experience, and all the dictates of natural justice. In point of fact, for example, no man ever does, and no man ever contends that we ought to, "forgive," that is, absolve from punishment, criminals, say, on mere repentance: else; no murderer who seriously repents of his crime would be hanged. The speciousness of his argument here depends on treating sin for the nonce merely as something personally offensive to God, rather than as something morally wrong.

This initial difficulty, or rather impossibility, having been, we will not say transcended, but put out of sight, Mr. Smith's theory is immediately face to face with another equally intractable. How can sinful man render to God the repentance and faith which a holy God must require before extending mercy? We have seen that Mr. Smith is insistent in asserting—properly enough—that this repentance and faith must be perfect. Dr. McLeod Campbell cut the knot by affirming that Christ Himself, sympathetically identifying Himself with sinful man, offered up to God in his stead a perfect repentance. Mr. Smith, however,—very properly again—rejects this expedient as inoperative (pp. 61, 120). Where, then, is sinful man to get this perfect repentance and faith, accept anything less than which God cannot "without denying Himself" (p. 109)? Mr. Smith is no Pelagian and cannot say that it is the ineradicable privilege of every man to be perfect whenever he chooses. He is rather at pains to show that "natural men," though capable of repenting and believing (for Mr. Smith is a Semi-Pelagian), are not capable of such repentance and faith as God—the All-holy One—is able to accept as enough (p. 110). Here, clearly, we are at an impasse.

Mr. Smith gets over this impasse by teaching that God accepts the promise for the performance. After all, then, God does accept our imperfect repentance and faith (though He cannot do so "without denying Himself"), because He foresees that this imperfect repentance and faith is after a while to become perfect. "The Scripture doctrine deals with possibilities that will by and by become actualities, and which, in the sight of Him who is the Alpha and the Omega, are as good as actualities already" (p. 44). "It is because God, who sees the end of all things in their beginnings, sees that great day as though it were present now, that He is able, in entire consistency with His holiness, to grant forgiveness of sins to the sinful man who is united by faith to the Christ of the Cross" (p. 180). "It is because God finds in the faith of the Christian believer this certainty of becoming, in the end, perfect, assured knowledge that sin is worthy of death, that He is able, in entire consistency with His holiness, to bestow a full and free forgiveness on the sinner whose faith unites him to the Christ of the Cross" (pp. 194 f.). There is, of course, here confusion worse confounded. The question raised is, On what ground can God accept sinful man into His favor? The answer returned is that there can be no other ground than a perfect repentance and faith. It is admitted, however, that no man can render this perfect repentance and faith until after he has been received into the divine favor and as a result of that favor. It is the product in him of the Holy Spirit received in Christ, and, if we do not misunderstand the author, is never realized in this life (e.g. p. 284). It is actually taught, however, that God receives man into His favor on the ground of this perfect repentance and faith foreseen as certainly to be realized by him who is in Christ (e.g. p. 267). That is to say, man is received into the divine favor on the ground of the foreseen product of that favor! Of course, this is only a roundabout way of saying that sinful man is accepted by God on the ground of his weak and imperfect faith and repentance by which he becomes united with Christ, through whom he is enabled gradually to perfect his repentance and faith. Stripped of its labored verbiage, in other words, Mr. Smith's elaborate theory reduces simply to the common Arminian doctrine. Man's imperfect faith and repentance is the proper ground of his acceptance with God, who graciously accepts it as perfect and undertakes to make it perfect through spiritual influences brought to bear on man in Christ.

Thus we are brought to the part which Christ, according to Mr. Smith's theory, plays in the salvation of sinful man. Put briefly, this is the part of producer and guarantor of the perfect repentance and faith in man, on the ground of which alone a holy God can receive sinful man into His favor. The whole of Christ's work is, according to Mr. Smith, devoted to this end—that He may qualify Himself to impart and then may actually impart to sinners the perfect repentance and faith on the ground of which alone a holy God can accept them as His children; while meanwhile he guarantees to the holy God this perfect repentance and faith on the part of those who believe in Him. "The holy God is able to accept" the sinner "as one of His own children, because he is united by faith to a Saviour, who is now able, because He has acquired through His experience on earth a perfect human hatred of sin, and a perfect human love of righteousness, and a perfect human knowledge of God, to communicate these eternal possessions of His to all human beings who believe in Him, and thus to enable them in the end to comply to the uttermost with the conditions of divine mercy. God therefore knows that the Saviour is an all-sufficient surety for the ultimate perfection of all who trust in Him.… And therefore God, who sees the end of all things in their beginnings, is able even here and now to reckon as righteous every true believer in Jesus Christ" (p. 267).

In such passages as this—which are rather frequent—there are brought together in commodious succinctness all the essential elements of the theory. These concern (1) the qualification of Christ to communicate a perfect repentance and faith to those who believe in Him; (2) the method of communication by which the perfect repentance and faith are imparted by Christ to those who believe in Him; (3) the capacity of Christ in the meanwhile to act as guarantor of this perfect repentance and faith in His people.

It is to the first of these elements of his theory that the author addresses himself with most fullness, and we may say predilection. The whole volume may be said without unfairness, indeed, to be a sustained attempt to show that Christ "has through His death on the Cross become eternally qualified to impart through the Holy Spirit to all who believe in Him a perfect human hatred of sin, a perfect human love of righteousness, and a perfect human knowledge of God" (p. 267). The presupposition is that a divine, or an angelic, hatred of sin, love of God, knowledge of God is incommunicable to man (p. 149). If these things were to be communicated to man, therefore, it behooved the Son of God to become man, that in the way of a true and pure human experience He might acquire a hatred of sin, and a love of righteousness, and a knowledge of God, which, while perfect, should be truly human, and thus capable of being communicated to man. This is the account, according to Mr. Smith, of the incarnation and the sufferings of the Son of God—and what He did and all that He endured were necessary to the acquisition by Him in human experience of these great possessions (e.g. p. 164). What the essential difference is between a perfect hatred of sin, love of righteousness, and knowledge of God in the divine heart—or in an angel's heart—and in a man's heart, which renders the former incommunicable to those who are expected to be perfect even as their Father in Heaven is perfect, to be imitators of God, sharers in the divine nature, and partakers of His holiness, and to have the same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus when He was in the form of God and might well have clung to His equality with God—while the latter is communicable to them—the author does not stay to tell us.

Nor, indeed, does he make it very clear how this humanly acquired hatred of sin, love of righteousness, and knowledge of God which he declares to be alone communicable, is actually communicated to those who believe in Christ. He tells us, certainly, broadly, that it is "imparted through the Holy Spirit" (pp. 221, 267, 283–284), and by a "process of spiritual discipline" (pp. 194, 207), but he does not go into details here. He does, indeed, make it plain that in his view there is no "irresistible" activity of the Spirit contemplated. The Holy Spirit, it seems, in taking the things of Christ and showing them to man does not operate "by way of force or of overwhelming demonstration to the senses," nor "in such a way that men could not, if they chose, quench the Spirit; but by reasonable and spiritual persuasion, so that those who did not accept the salvation offered in Christ might do so of their own free and deliberate choice" (p. 283). "God Himself," therefore, "cannot render it certain that every man shall accept His offered mercy" (p. 213). Man's "moral freedom" must be preserved at all hazards! Thus the impartation by Christ to men of perfect repentance and faith cannot be a prevalent impartation. It is of the nature of a tender rather than of a true communication. We are told, therefore, that it is effected through, first, a revelation of the Truth, and next an impartation—doubtless through suasion only—of a spiritual power (p. 259). We read accordingly (p. 124): "He is able to declare the truth with certainty, authority, and assurance, and so [italics ours] produce in sinful man that all-essential, God-acceptable faith which, when it attains its culmination, ceases to be any longer merely faith, but is transmuted into certain and assured spiritual knowledge." This truth is "sympathetically communicated and willingly received" (p. 229), and it is only "by accepting the crucified Christ as their Saviour" that men "are enabled to become partakers of that perfect human hatred of sin and that perfect human love of righteousness which Christ through the Cross has acquired," and that God may possess for them "a guarantee that in the end they shall be freed from all complicity with sin, and made worthy to enter fully into His holy kingdom" (p. 203).

Only, we miss the ground of this guarantee. If the Spirit's work is only suasive, and no recreating power is exerted, how are men who, by reason of sin, cannot repent and believe perfectly, to be made able to do so? Can suasion overcome an inability? And how can we call an act of mere suasion a true "communication"; or in such circumstances declare that the Saviour, who is able no doubt to supply "all the spiritual gifts" necessary to sinful man's perfection, in the way of proffer, is able also to guarantee the acceptance and improvement of these gifts by sinful man? Do we not find ourselves in the unfortunate position of being compelled to say, not merely that "God Himself cannot render it certain that every man shall accept His offered mercy" (p. 213), but that God Himself cannot render it certain that any man shall accept it? And by parity of reasoning, so far from God knowing "that there is not one of the Saviour's flock that will not in the end be presented before Him wholly spotless and clean" (p. 267), are we not compelled to say that He cannot know that any one will be so presented before Him? If the Saviour of the world is to be limited in His saving work to what is euphemistically described as doing "the best possible for man, by saving him while still respecting his freedom of will" (p. 155), it is absurd to speak of Him as able to "guarantee to the God of all holiness that the man who was truly His should at once, in some degree, and at last perfectly, become partaker of that perfect, holy, human hatred of sin and that perfect, holy, human love of righteousness which He, as the Sinless Man, by suffering sin to do its utmost worst upon Him, and thereby fulfilling to the uttermost the will of the Father, had made His own forever" (pp. 165 f.). If the very principle of our construction is to preserve to men as moral agents a moral freedom which in its very definition is made to involve uncertainty, we can obtain no certainty by assuming the play upon these men of any merely moral inducements.

We perceive, then, that Mr. Smith's theory of the Atonement fails at every salient point. Proclaiming salvation solely on the ground of perfect repentance and faith, it fails to show that perfect repentance and faith will avail with God, or can be supplied by man, or can be communicated to man by Christ. It stands indeed more completely bare before its task than is usual with theories of its class. Dr. Moberly had something at least specious to say of the atoning power of repentance and faith. Dr. McLeod Campbell had a perfect repentance to offer in the sympathetic expression of repentance by Christ. The Germans, with their inheritance from the Lutheran doctrine of the "Means of Grace," have something plausible to urge of the revolutionary effect of the Cross when brought home in its true meaning to the hearts of men—which the Andover divines were not slow to avail themselves of. Of none of these expedients to give a superficial appearance of completeness to his theory does Mr. Smith, however, avail himself. His theory is certainly not really weakened by this refusal to invoke the aid of unavailing expedients. But it stands out more barely in its essential inefficiency through their absence; and its ineffectiveness is perceived with more startling distinctness. Its main difficulty is, however, no other than that on which all other autosoteric theories are wrecked—and that is just its autosoteric character. If man can save himself or must save himself, he does not need a Saviour. And if nevertheless it is urged that he does need the work of Christ to induce him or to enable him to save himself, new difficulties at once emerge.

For example, what are we to say of those who lived before Christ, on whom, therefore, no influences from the Cross could play? Mr. Smith declares boldly that Christ "came that He might become eternally qualified to be the Saviour not of Jews only, but of the whole world—of all generations of men, past, present, and to come" (p. 173). But we can only reply, Such an effect, on his theory, were impossible. Does he not in the very assertion declare that Christ came in order to qualify Himself to become a Saviour—and that His saving power arises from effects "produced in His own being and character by His experiences in the midst of sinful men"? f And does he not over and over again tell us that the saving effects of Christ's work depend on influences which were incapable of working except after the saving work was accomplished (cf. p. 267: "is now able"), and which play not on God but on men? Now, if Christ came as the God-provided substitute for sinners and expiated the guilt of our sins on the tree, why, of course, God could act upon this great satisfaction in prospect as well as in retrospect: for God's promissory note is as good as the money down. But if He came to qualify Himself to communicate to men a spiritual power attained by Himself only in the course of His earthly work—why, of course, this communication cannot be made until He is qualified to make it and it can be made only to those who are exposed to those influences which spring from it. The universal loss of the entire human race before Christ is the inevitable result of finding the saving fact in an action of man's own will under influences streaming from the Cross.

We do not put this consideration forward, of course, as the matter of main importance: but only as an incidental result which may bid us pause and think. The matter of main importance is, naturally, that no man at all can ever be saved by such an Atonement—because man is ex hypothesi incapable in his sin-bred inability of responding, in a saving act of faith and repentance, to any inducements brought to bear on him from the Cross. He needs not merely inducements to action but recreating grace, and an Atonement which purchases for him the recreating Spirit as well as the proffer of mercy. It is here that the true opposition between the two views lies. It is the old opposition between "grace" and "free will." "I am at present reading our Erasmus," wrote Luther six months before he inaugurated the Reformation movement by nailing his theses on the door of the Schloss-Kirche at Wittenberg: "I am at present reading our Erasmus, but my heart recoils more and more from him.… The human is to him of more importance than the divine.… Those who ascribe something to man's freedom of will regard these things differently from those who know only God's free grace." Here we have the real hinge of the Reformation announced to us; and the core of the gospel. There is an impassable gulf fixed between those who hang the efficacy of Christ's work upon the "free" action of man's will, and those who ascribe all to God's free grace. They are of different religions.

We have noted an occasional misprint in Mr. Smith's volume—for example, p. 173, line 4, "alienable" for "inalienable." We may be permitted to suppose, therefore, that the monstra "true and proper incarnate man," "sinless incarnate humanity," "Sinless Incarnate Man," "sinless incarnate humanity," occurring on pp. 151–152, are to be attributed to the printer.

ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS.

Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, M.A., D.D.,

with the Assistance of JOHN A. SELBIE, M.A., and other scholars. Vol. I: A-Art.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1908.

THE first volume of Dr. Hastings' new "Encyclopædia" makes a very handsome appearance. The type and the column are apparently the same as in the "Dictionary of the Bible" and the "Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels"; and we are sorry to say we cannot commend this type, which seems to make a singularly severe demand upon the eyes. But by the omission of the ruling around the page and an increase in the width of the margin, and above all by a change in the paper, a much clearer and more attractive page is secured than in the earlier "Dictionaries." More is done also to render the use of the "Encyclopædia" convenient. The list of authors who have contributed to the volume contains an intimation of the articles written by each. This is an excellent innovation. A still more excellent innovation is the printing of a page (p. xv.) of topic-headings, which do not occur in the "Encyclopædia," but the topics represented by which are treated under other heads. This will enable the reader to find "Aben Ezra," for example (under "Ibn Ezra"), or "Adventism" (under "Chiliasm"), or "Affinity" (under "Blood Relationship"), and not hastily conclude that the "Encyclopædia" has overlooked such topics. The articles are ordinarily, moreover, divided into numbered sections, with headings in black type; and sometimes a summary of their contents is given at the outset in a sort of "table of contents." These expedients place the substance of the articles more readily at the command of the reader.

The cosmopolitanism of scholarship is illustrated anew by the list of writers whom Dr. Hastings has called to his aid in the preparation of the matter of the volume. Nearly two hundred have been engaged on the work. About a sixth of these are Americans (some thirty-three); about a tenth Germans (some twenty); something over a twelfth Frenchmen (some fourteen); while a few more are derived from still other foreign sources—two or three each are Dutchmen, Belgians, Finns, Scandinavians, Hindoos; and there are also Armenians, Japs, and even an Apache Indian. It belongs also to the emancipation of scholarship from conventional bonds that we meet in this list of presumable authorities on questions of religious and moral erudition such names as Mrs. Rhys Davids, Catherine Julia Gaskell, Mary Alicia Owen, Mary Mills Patrick, Bertha Maud Horack Shambaugh, Florence Melian Stawell. Place aux dames! It is a principle Dr. Hastings seems to have acted on when he gave Miss Shambaugh twenty-one columns in which to tell about the "Amana Society"—a type of religious thought the influence of which is apparently confined within the narrow limits of eighteen hundred souls. Dr. Hastings in his Preface offers no doubt an explanation of this generous allotment of space to an insignificant movement; but it is questionable if the explanation will not read to most of us more as an apology than as a justification.

The question of the proportionate distribution of space in a book like this is to be sure one of the most difficult which confronts an editor. It certainly is not a simple question. There are many other things which have to be considered besides the relative importance of the topics; and all judgments of the relative importance of the topics are not likely to agree. For the critic to object to the editor's assignment of space commonly means little more, therefore, than that he and the editor think differently in the matter. Even so, however, it is not unfair to say that Dr. Hastings' assignments of space seem sometimes bewildering. There are few greater topics than Art, and there is a great deal that is very important said in the two great articles "Architecture," "Art," in this volume. But the volume, which covers nearly the whole of the letter A, has only nine hundred pages in it; and nearly one hundred ninety of these—about one-fifth of the whole—are given to these two topics "Architecture" and "Art." In an "Encyclopædia" specifically of religion and ethics, that strikes us as excessive. This is not the only instance in which the special character of the "Encyclopædia" seems to be lost sight of. Here is an article—a most excellent article—for example, on "A Priori," extending to sixteen columns, much of it cast into fine type. There are applications of the a priori, no doubt, both to ethics and religion: but does the article itself, or the topic itself, fall naturally into either category? And here is an admirable article on "Aristotle, Aristotelianism," one of the shorter articles—shorter, though one of them is on "Arianism" and another on "Arminianism," both of which, if they do not deserve well of religion, yet loom large in the history of that religion which we call Christianity—which seem to keep "Architecture" and "Art" from running into each other and absorbing the volume. Aristotelianism also has certainly played a great part in the history of that same religion: but we hear nothing of that here, though, to be sure, we are bidden to look for "Scholasticism," where no doubt the story will be told. Aristotle, too, had an ethical system, which is very appropriately (and finely) outlined here, but not as if it were the main matter of concernment. In short, the article is just what an article on "Aristotle, Aristotelianism" ought to be—in a general encyclopædia, or an encyclopædia of philosophy or of classical biography. It has no particular adjustment to this special "Encyclopædia." And here is a good short article on "Anæsthesia"; we have profited from reading it—but we have looked in vain in it for any allusion to or connection with ethics or religion. The editor, it will be seen, has interpreted the scope of the "Encyclopædia" broadly. This has its advantages—and its disadvantages. We get much more in the book than the title gives us right to expect—much of which, perhaps, as it was not to be looked for in this "Encyclopædia," will possibly not be looked for in it. But, as a consequence, we get perhaps less than the title might lead us to expect—the articles more properly falling in its special field being unduly compressed to make room for those which possibly might just as well be reserved for another place.

Among the topics which seem out of place in this "Encyclopædia" are those on the technical terms of evolutionary speculation—unless, indeed, we are to conceive "Evolution" a religion. Such articles are those on "Accommodation," "Adaptation"—even "Abiogenesis" (to which are given two articles of the same general import, with an additional cross-reference to yet a third, "Biogenesis," which must cover again much the same ground). Both authors who write on "Abiogenesis" would apparently commend it to us as the formula for the origin of life, Prof. J. A. Thompson with caution and scientific hesitancy, Mr. Edward Clodd with bold assertiveness. Mr. Clodd does not indeed tell us, as another recent writer does, with unconscious repetition of the Greek myth, that the atmosphere quickened the sea and begot life—and prove it, as the author in question does, by a chemical analysis of the alleged parents. "The elements contained in sea-water," we read in this remarkable statement, "are sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, chlorine, sulphur, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and iron. The composition of the air is nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon. The elements contained in living matter are these identical things. In the heavy carbonated air above, and in the solvent water on the land beneath, there lay in mobile contiguity the essential elements of living matter." "We see, then, for there is no other way out of it, that not only did the air and water at the beginning of things contain in contiguity the elements of living matter, but that these elements did naturally unite to form this living matter." Mr. Edward Clodd, on the contrary, contents himself with the broad declaration, as one "generally accepted by biologists," that "in its passage from the nebulous to the more or less solid state, our globe reached a temperature and general conditions which made possible the evolution of the organic from the inorganic." It would be interesting to know what this temperature was, and what were these "general conditions." But though "the inter-relation between living and lifeless matter is a fundamental canon of the theory of Evolution, which recognizes no break in continuity," it has apparently no evidence for it as yet available, except the theory of evolution itself. This freedom of speculative construction is not confined, however, to evolutionary biology. It has invaded history and archæology as well. How little the declarations of the Scriptures can stand against it may be observed from such articles as those on "Adam," "Antediluvians," "Ark." Prof. Kennett, who writes the last of these, thinks he knows what was in the Ark much better than so late a writer as the Deuteronomist. It was the brazenserpent! The Ark was originally the box in which a snake was kept, which the Israelites worshiped, and there was subsequently substituted for it "the bronze seraph, or, to call it by the name by which it is generally known, the brazen serpent." It was, in a word, the shrine of the serpent—the god of fertility. These be thy gods, O Israel! Fortunately, Prof. Kennett's pseudo-scientific speculations are no more authoritative than Mr. Clodd's: there is no more reason for believing that the Ark was the shrine of the serpent than that life is the product of "a certain temperature" and "certain general conditions."

It gives the reader an odd impression, we may remark in passing, to turn over a few pages and read the article "Adaptation" in close conjunction with these on "Abiogenesis." Evolution, we learn, is simply a process of "Adaptation." The fittest in every generation survives; that is to say, there is a constant progress towards more perfect adaptation. Why, then, one may well ask, has there not been a tolerable adaptation attained long ago? Or, remembering "Abiogenesis," we may rather ask, Why was there not a perfect adaptation from the beginning? If the living organism is in the first instance the spontaneous production of the "environment" it is inconceivable that it should not begin by being in perfect adaptation to it. How could the environment produce an organism out of adaptation to itself? And starting thus in perfect adaptation to its environment, how could the living organism ever get out of this adaptation to the environment of which it is not only at the start but throughout merely the expression? From start to finish the "environment" is but the mold in which the organism is cast, and the cast surely must repeat the features of the mold. If the mold changes the cast changes with it, that is all: and it is not so much a question of "adaptation" which implies a certain independence of mold and cast, as of simple reproduction. The evolutionary idea here resembles very closely what we read of Alice in the Looking Glass, who, we remember, had to run with all her might just to keep standing still. And here another difficulty faces us. This living organism which is in the first instance the spontaneous product of its environment and must therefore begin in perfect adaptation to its environment—of which it is indeed but the expression; and which continues ever but the product of its environment and should therefore steadily express its environment and change only as it changes that it may abide in complete adaptation to it—does nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it from the beginning spurns the slime (of which it is just the expression) and soars upwards and advances steadily to higher and higher things! That is what has happened. The law of development of organic forms has not been to ever closer and closer adaptation to the environment. They began ("abiogenesis" being postulated) in perfect adaptation to the environment. The law of their development has been to ever fuller, richer, more elevated manifestations of what looks very much like a new thing with forces all its own, which struggles with its environment and conquers it; which ends, indeed, by adapting its environment to itself. This is not the behavior of crystals, say, which form themselves in pools of evaporating sea-water; and dissolve again and reform afresh as the water is alternately diluted by the rain or wasted by the sun—but never stand over against the mother-water and insist on going their own way. It is all very puzzling—on the postulates of the thoroughgoing evolutionism of Mr. Clodd, which Mr. Clodd tells us is the doctrine (unuttered or expressed, we may suppose) of all biologists.

Let us return, however, to our "Encyclopædia," which goes out of its way to teach these puzzling things. The mass of the articles, of course, are those which one would naturally look for in an "Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics," and so far as can be judged the vocabulary is very full. Nearly every name of importance in the history of religion and ethics will be found here, either the subject of a separate article or referred to in more general discussions: and if an index of names is supplied the "Encyclopædia" will be a very full guide to the leaders of religious and ethical thought. The major topics of religious and ethical import are all treated: and, what is more noticeable, a place has been found for a wealth of minor topics—down even to such as "Accidie" and "Action Sermon." There are some unexpected omissions, however, among these minor topics: for example, our eye catches the heading "Accommodation," and in an "Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics" we naturally expect to find it a discussion of the ethics of so-called "accommodation" in teaching. It proves to treat, however, only of evolutionary and psychological "accommodation." We wonder whether, when "Economy" comes to be dealt with, it will be only a "political" (or perhaps "household") economy, to the exclusion of ethical, that will be touched on?

We have been ourselves, naturally, interested particularly in the articles which deal with topics belonging to the history of the Christian religion, and especially to the history of Christian thought. There are many of these, some comprehensive and some more particular, and in the main they are sufficiently careful and full, although as a class they do not show a very firm grasp of either the substance or the development of doctrine. Two of them we have already mentioned, as among the shorter articles somewhat in danger of being crushed out of sight between the great articles, "Architecture," "Art"—those on "Arianism" and "Arminianism." These are very fair samples of all of their class. "Arianism" is dealt with quite externally, in the main correctly enough, but without insight. No one could derive from the article any real comprehension of the place of Arianism in the history of Christian thought, or of the internal development of the doctrine. Arminianism, on the other hand, is, from the point of view of a convinced Arminian, very fairly presented. The article is rambling, not to say repetitious, and not very exact in its statements, but, on the whole, leaves on the mind a generally clear view of the nature of Arminianism. It opens, to be sure, with an amazing account of the Calvinistic doctrine of the decree. Dr. Lindsay, in the article on "Amyraldism," had already spoken of this, if not wisely yet not altogether without prudence. But here we hear of the "decree of salvation" being "antecedent to the Fall" (not to the decree of the Fall); and of this being a party position, that is, Supralapsarian; while the characteristic of Infralapsarianism is the "connecting the Fall with the permission of God, instead of with His foreordination." Confusion could not easily be more confounded. Of course, no Calvinist imagines that a decree of God was made subsequent to any event in time; and all Calvinists hold that the Fall was permitted, and that it was also foreordained. The difference between Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism was (and is) merely whether in the order of thought the foreordination of the Fall (which both teach) as a thing permitted to occur (which both teach) precedes or follows the foreordination of some men to life and some men to death (which both teach). Why will men persist in writing on such themes so mechanically that they do not even consider the meaning of the terms they employ? The language elsewhere in the article and that even in matters of the first significance is often very misleading. Thus, for example, we read: "The Remonstrance is first negative, stating the five Calvinistic articles in order to reject them." "The five Calvinistic articles"—by no means. What was stated was five articles selected by the Remonstrants from the Calvinistic doctrinal sum, to be attacked by them. Proceeding, we read that the Synod of Dort "promulgated five heads of doctrines of its own." What was done by the Synod was to set forth clearly its own doctrine with respect to the five points of Calvinistic teaching brought into dispute by the Remonstrants. Not only are the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England claimed as almost Arminian, but it looks as if even the Lambeth Articles were represented as substantially Arminian: at least the sentence referring to them (p. 811a, at bottom) is ambiguous. It is allowed that Arminianism has no definite theological distinctness, and yet Arminius is ranged by the side of Athanasius and Augustine as one of the three greatest leaders in theological definition (p. 809a, top). Athanasius, it seems, has determined the doctrine of God; Augustine, the doctrine of man; Arminius, the essential relations between God and man!

The article on "Abelard" is informing and appreciative—too appreciative. That on "Anselm" (by the same writer) is brief and sketchy, and in its remarks on the "Cur Deus Homo" is dominated by prejudice. No adequate understanding of the doctrine of Satisfaction is shown; though it is rightly denied that it owes its form to the influence of Teutonic law. The Atonement seems to have proved a thorny subject to the contributors to this "Encyclopædia." For example, the otherwise very excellent brief article on "Acceptilation" sharply criticizes Turretine for the phrase: "We admit no Socinian acceptilation." Turretine is, however, quite within his rights in this phrase: the Socinian doctrine of the Atonement, which holds that God forgives sinners their debt without any payment at all, being precisely described by the term "acceptilatio." It may be another matter whether Socinus himself employs the term "acceptilatio" to describe his doctrine. Grotius says he does (but not in chap. iii. of his "Defensio," as is here stated, but in chap. vi.), and the author of the article, following Crell, says he does not. We have not looked the matter up. But in any event Grotius does not misrepresent Socinus' meaning, but quite accurately defines the meaning of "acceptilatio" (Amsterdam edition of 1679, p. 320a)—telling us that "acceptilatio" is used even where no payment precedes, is opposed to some payment, and is figuratively defined as an imaginary payment. It would be difficult to catch Grotius napping in the matter of significance of law-terms, whatever we may think of his own doctrine of the Atonement. It is not the Socinian but the Scotist doctrine of the Atonement which is abusively described by the term "acceptilatio," as our author tells us, and ought thereby have been saved from his mistaken criticism of Grotius and Turretine.

Among the best of the articles of the class we are speaking of is that on Thomas Aquinas, although its encomium is somewhat excessive. The same must be said of the estimate of Origen in the excellent comprehensive article on "Alexandrian Theology," by the side of which the equally excellent one on "Antiochene" must be placed. The article on the "Albigenses" is thoroughly good, and that on the "Anabaptists" is also very satisfactory. There are very few articles in this volume on specifically doctrinal points. Among them those on the "Anger" or "Wrath" of God and on "Annihilation" are perhaps the most outstanding. The former is, however, a carefully rather than profoundly thought article, though it has much in it that is suggestive. Among articles of another class, we have not been attracted to that on "Agnosticism"; and still less to that on "Absolute," which seems to us a little pretentious. The article on "Apologetics" does not appear to us to be quite adapted to its place in the "Encyclopædia." Most readers would expect to find in it an account of "Apologetics," its idea and place in the theological encyclopædia, method, history. Instead it is an attempt to outline a system of apologetics—an attempt sure to prove unsatisfactory, if for no other reason than the limitations of space.

A notice of a work of this kind as it passes from article to article may easily run to an inordinate length. We have probably said enough to suggest the general features of the volume before us. It is comprehensive, learned and, so far as we have been able to test it, interestingly written. It is to be followed by nine or eleven more, and it is already evident that the completed work will be a welcome and valuable addition to our encyclopædic literature.

GESCHICHTE DER AUTOBIOGRAPHIE.

Von GEORG MISCH.

Erster Band: Das Altertum.

Leipzig und Berlin: B. G. Teubner. 1907.

THIS considerable volume is only one of three which shall contain a comprehensive history of autobiography. The work was undertaken in response to an offer of a prize for such a history, made through the Prussian Academy of the Sciences in 1900 ("Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften," 1900, p. 55). Two manuscripts were presented—the one written more from the point of view of purely literary history (a history, therefore, of autobiographies), the other from a more philosophicosocial standpoint (a history, therefore, more of autobiography). The prize fell to the latter ("Sitzungsberichte," etc., 1905, p. 686); and it is this treatise, the first part of which now lies before us. Although only a fragment of the whole work, this first part has nevertheless a completeness of its own. It gives us the entire history of autobiography in the old world. It has indeed a higher claim to unity than this merely external fact may suggest. For the history of autobiography in the old world is not merely the history of the inception and development of autobiographical writing through a definitely marked literary period. It is the history of the growth of this literary form from its first tentative beginnings to its culmination; for this literary form reached its culmination as the old world was passing away. We can say even more than that. Both as a purely literary mode and as the expression of individuality autobiography attained its climax in a single work, which came into existence just as the old world was dying. The history of autobiography in antiquity may almost be read, therefore, as the history of the production of a single great work—the long preparation for it, ending in the finished product. And this is really the ground of our deepest interest in this history. For this one great work into which all these lines of preparation, so carefully traced by Dr. Misch, issue, is Augustine's "Confessions." The history of autobiography in antiquity may be looked at, then, as at bottom only an orderly study, in a genetic way, of Augustine's "Confessions." All that goes before them but leads slowly up the long slope to these heights. All that comes after rests in their shadow.

No one who reads Dr. Misch's detailed study of the origin and development not merely of autobiographical forms, but of autobiographical life-expression, will fail to feel this. Dr. Misch feels it himself, and from the beginning of his work keeps his readers' eyes set on the "Confessions" as the goal to which all tends. He is eager that it shall not be inferred from the circumstance that complete autobiographies in the strict sense scarcely attract attention in the Græco-Roman literature until the time of Augustine, that they were a new invention of that age. In point of fact, he insists, the bases for all the autobiographical developments of this age were laid in antiquity, "and Augustine's work is not a beginning but a completion" (p. 9). It is a part—a very large part—of his task to trace out the lines of development through which autobiography thus slowly came to its rights. He begins at the beginning, by pointing out the autobiographical form which is taken in the Assyrio-Babylonian and Egyptian inscriptions. He fully recognizes, however, that the creation of true autobiography depends on the development of personality and the individualistic habit of looking at things. This he finds to have arisen first on Greek soil and to have received its first impulse from the introspection fostered by the Socratic self-consciousness, reinforcing our natural need of self-expression and desire to be understood—not to say to be admired. Nevertheless autobiographical writing was slow in working out its inevitable destiny. Throughout the whole period of Greek culture up to the birth of Christ, it held only a very secondary place in literature. Only in the one species of political autobiography have we anything like a complete series of works of this order either preserved or witnessed to us. Beyond this, the cultivation of this literary form was in the hands of the rhetoricians, and it was from this subordinate region of life that the first Greek autobiography worthy of its name—the so-called "Antidosis" of Isocrates—has come down to us (B.C. 353). In this artificial defense of himself against an imaginary opponent, the rhetorician, in full consciousness of the novelty of his task, undertook, for the benefit of the ill-informed and of future generations, to depict his own character, his course of life, and his training: to make known the truth concerning himself, and to set out "an image of his mind and of his whole life"; fondly hoping thus "to leave behind him a monument to himself more lasting than statues of brass." The example thus set by Isocrates was not, however, at once widely followed. At least there have come down to us, for the space of some three hundred years, outside of the steady succession of political autobiographies from Alexander down, little or no traces of autobiographical writing. After the time of Cicero, however, the stream began to flow with gradually increasing fullness, and by the second century after Christ we find ourselves in the presence of an astonishing variety of autobiographical forms. Here side by side appear Hadrian's "Vita," Galen's treatises on his own books, Marcus Aurelius' "Meditationes," the romance of Apuleius with its autobiographical conclusion, the "sacred orations" of Ælius Aristides, the subject of which is his daily communion in his sickness with the deity, the visions of the martyr Perpetua and numerous Hellenizing histories of conversion like those of Justin and Cyprian.

One of Socrates' immediate pupils, Antisthenes, on being asked what he had gained from philosophy, replied, "the power to hold converse with my soul." Yet throughout all the centuries alike of Hellenic and Hellenistic culture few attempts seem to have been made to create a literary form of self-inspection. The history of his development which Cicero gives in his "Brutus" is perhaps the completest attempt at self-analysis which was made before Augustine (p. 196). From Cicero the line of the evolution of the literary expression of self-consciousness ran through Marcus Aurelius' "Meditationes," to culminate in connection with Hellenistic Mysticism, in the lyrics of Gregory of Nazianzum and the soul-history of Augustine (p. 48). From the second Christian century on, there appears in particular a whole series of what we may call "conversion-histories." These move at first in the purely intellectualistic region, but more and more lay stress not merely on the result but the process. Rhetoricians, moral philosophers, Christian Apologists all supply examples. It became the fashion for a would-be teacher, as a device of argumentation, to tell of his own conversion to the philosophical standpoint which he would fain commend. Perhaps the most striking illustration of this fashion is supplied by Dio Chrysostom, the best of the cynico-stoic traveling preachers of the first century. He had had an uncommonly deep experience of transition, itself not uncommon at the time, from mere rhetoricism to practical philosophy; and on the basis of his varied experiences as a cynic apostle, he delivered in Athens on his return from exile his great oration περὶ φυγῆς, in which he commends his experiences as a guide to life (p. 293). The narration of his conversion given by Justin Martyr at the opening of his "Dialogue with Trypho" is of essentially the same type: it is intended as an illustration of the insufficiency of heathen philosophy drawn from his own experience. And the matter is not essentially altered when, in the next century, the climax is no longer a merely intellectual surrender to a new teaching, but is traced to the divine grace and attributed to the effect of baptism—as in Cyprian's letter to Donatus. Here too belongs the autobiographical sketch which Hilary prefixed to his "De Trinitate," as a description of how he came to be a believer in the true God, whom he commends to his readers. Aristides of Smyrna claims to have invented, in his ἱεροὶ λόγοι (A.D. 170–179), a new form of those religious orations which it was customary to deliver at religious feasts, in honor of the divinity which was being celebrated. The novelty of his performance consists, however, only in transferring the real motive of the discourse from the glorification of the deity—the materials for which might be gathered from other spheres than his own experiences—to the most intimate portrayal of the orator's own personality. Sick in body and soul, he had cast himself on the mercy of Asclepios, and now wishes to tell all the healing operations of the god of which he had been made the recipient. Thus throughout the whole Hellenistic and Hellenistic-Roman period—say from 250 B.C. to 250 A.D.—the stock of autobiography (growing out of roots set in the Attic period) was flourishing and throwing out abundant branches to this side and that. Its flowering-time was, however, not yet.

That came only in the changed conditions of the fourth century after Christ, as the old world was passing away and men, in the dissolution of the social fabric which had seemed so stable, were driven back upon themselves. Seven hundred years after Isocrates had first invented autobiography as a rhetorical form, the last of the great heathen rhetors, Libanius, opens the series of great autobiographies of the flowering-time of this species of literature (p. 357). From the century and a half beginning with, say, 360 A.D., more non-political autobiographies are known to us than from all the preceding years put together. And in what variety do they come! And how wide a sphere of interest do they sweep! "Now we could fancy we were holding converse with a monk or a feudal lord of the Middle Ages, now we see before us a later humanist, now we hear the tone of romantic lyricism, and Augustine's work in its tendency to the philosophical grounding of the life-whole recalls the type of the newer autobiography since Rousseau" (p. 357).

"In the seventh decade of the fourth century there falls the notable autobiography (now lost) written in the mixed style of the moral romance, by the converted Spaniard Acilius Severus, the title of which, 'Peira or Catastrophe,' has been preserved for us by Jerome. The leader of the Syrian Church, Ephrem († 373), wrote at about the same time autobiographical 'Confessions.' From the last famous representative of pure Rhetordom, the 'heathen' Libanius, to whom one of the greatest Christian preachers in the Greek tongue, John Chrysostom, went to school, we have a long autobiography, 'Bios or of my own Tyche'; nor is it without religious significance. His friend and admirer, the Emperor Julian, … was certainly prevented only by his early death from putting together his life in an independent representation. Then the new epoch in autobiography vigorously announced itself in Gregory of Nazianzum, the poet among the Church Fathers: his great autobiographical poems from the eighth and ninth decades of the century, the product of ecclesiastical controversy and solitary contemplation, have internal form and beauty; and his subjective religious lyric, nourished on metaphysical speculation, stands over against the historical portion of Augustine's 'Confessions' as another typical form of the expression of personal religion. About A.D. 400 Augustine's book appeared. It made an epoch only in the West, since it was the Western culture alone which was able to bear Augustine's spirit and to enrich itself from him. In the East, the development proceeds in the autobiographical species, too, along the antique way, and precisely because the working of genius is here not in question, the further constructions from this time, which nevertheless have their place in the general evolution, illustrate the necessity in the course of things. Along with Gregory, there appears in the Greek Church the Neoplatonic-Christian bishop Synesius of Cyrene; he too built out of his metaphysics a personal religious poem and in a special work, 'Dio or of my own Life,' he delineated his conduct of his life (about 406). And that it was not in Gregory alone that the mighty conflicts of the Church awoke a sympathetic subjective echo, we are advertised by the title 'Tragoedia,' by which was designated the autobiographical work of a heresy-hating Bishop of Constantinople who was cast out as a heresiarch, Nestorius—a work (about 432) of which we can now ascertain only that there was room in it for the justification of his own teaching, and for the communication of records after the fashion of the church history writing of the day. But even in Latin Christendom, Augustine's 'Confessions' were not the end of the antique development; side by side with direct imitations of this work there were still composed in Southern Gaul and Ireland autobiographies of quite individual types. And while the Hellenistic traditions were still making themselves independently felt,—in autobiographical opening poems and in the end even in a great antique phenomenon, in Boëthius' 'Consolation of Philosophy' (524)—Augustine himself in the evening of his life produced still something new in this department, in his 'Retractations' (427)" (pp. 347–348).

We have transcribed this rather long passage because it sets Augustine's "Confessions" for us in the midst of its congeners and helps us to realize how much, in the matter of form at least, it belongs to its time. There was no lack of analyses of the human soul in that period: it was rather the epoch of searching studies of men—in history, biography, and romance. "The age in which Augustine's 'Confessions' came into being must be thought of as flooded with such soul-portraitures" (p. 110). Nor was it an age in which men were backward in speaking frankly of themselves. Witness, for example, the autobiographical opening verses not only of an Ausonius, but of a hymn-writer like Prudentius; and the autobiographical prolaliae of a Hilary. Or witness rather the smug satisfaction with which Jerome closes his work on "The Illustrious Men" with an account of himself. It is not because Augustine's "Confessions" do these things that they are so remarkable and great: it is because they do these things so remarkably and greatly. Needless to say that Dr. Misch fully appreciates the unique greatness of the "Confessions" among other books of their order which have come down to us from antiquity—or perhaps we should rather say among other books of what Dr. Misch looks upon as of their order. For we cannot for ourselves admit that the "Confessions" are exactly described when they are called an autobiography or a self-portraiture, or an analysis of the writer's soul, or even a history of his conversion. The "Confessions" contain these things rather than are them. It is often a nice question, no doubt, whether a book of autobiographical contents shall be classed as strictly an autobiography or not. But the question does not seem to be so very nice a one, when the book to be classified is only in part of autobiographical contents, and even in its autobiographical contents does not seem to be governed by a strictly autobiographical motive. Only nine or ten of the thirteen books of the "Confessions" contain any autobiographical material at all, and as Dr. Misch duly points out (p. 424), a "full half of the autobiographical part of the work deals with one period of only four years—the time in which Augustine's conversion fell; the entire period of youth up to Augustine's twenty-eighth year being compressed into a first briefer part." It would appear more appropriate, therefore, to speak of the book as a "conversion-narrative" than as an autobiography, and to find its forerunner as such in Dio Chrysostum's περὶ φυγῆς and its analogies in the prolaliae of Justin and Tatian and Hilary and Augustine himself in his earliest and most Hellenistic writings, composed at Cassiciacum. Dr. Misch seems occasionally almost on the point of so classifying it, inadequate as such a characterization of the book obviously would be. And he frankly allows not only that Augustine's fundamental purpose lies outside the autobiographical narrative, which is really only ancillary to it, but that a very large portion of the contents of the book are out of place in an autobiography and mar the unity of the work considered as such. "The essential and conscious purpose of Augustine," he writes (p. 414), "does not lie in the narration of his individual experiences, but in the arousing of religious affections and ideas." Again (p. 415): "He not only interposes in the life-history philosophical speculations, the unfathomable problems of which are resolved into questions addressed to God, but he adjoins to it as its last part—filling more than a quarter of the whole—purely didactic discussions, which, strung on the thread of the first chapter of Genesis, enlarge in turn on God, the Trinity, the creation of the world." Such topics, Dr. Misch very properly remarks, one would expect to find discussed in a dogmatic rather than in an autobiographical treatise, and in their treatment he thinks the form of "confession" can be only artificially kept up. Dr. Misch has, of course, his own way, if not of justifying, at least of accounting for and so far of condoning the inclusion of this incongruous matter in an autobiography. Augustine passes at the eleventh book, it seems, for example, into a "confession of his knowledge and ignorance"—surely a topic sufficiently autobiographical. This appears much the same as to say with Dr. Gibb and Mr. Montgomery in their recent edition of the "Confessions" (p. 332) that what Augustine does here is to pass from the description of his religious and moral condition to outlining "what might be called, in modern phraseology, his 'theological position.' " Would it not be better frankly to allow that neither these closing books—constituting "more than a quarter of the whole" work—nor much else in the "Confessions" can be brought without forcing into the legitimate scope of an autobiography or yet of a "conversion-history"? And that, therefore, the "Confessions," despite the wealth of autobiographical material which they contain, and despite the central place taken in them by Augustine, are not strictly speaking either an autobiography or a "conversion-history"?

In point of fact, the subject of the "Confessions" is not Augustine's self, nor were they written to make himself known; though they were so written as to make him known and to enable him to say that the first ten books are about himself. This Dr. Misch partly perceives, not merely in recognizing that in the autobiographical details which Augustine incorporates into the "Confessions" he has a purpose beyond "the narration of his individual experiences," and in describing that purpose as "the awaking of religious affections and ideas," but also in discovering at the bottom of the "Confessions" the underlying purpose (securing their unity) not to make known the soul alone, but the soul and God. This Dr. Misch interprets as Neoplatonic mysticism. He wishes us to find "the fundamental religious sentiment of the 'Confessions' " in "the yearning of the mystic for cessation, rest, eternity" (p. 416), and its great end, in the depicting of the hidden working of God in all that is, and the rising of the soul towards and its losing itself in God. "For this," says he (pp. 417–418):

"For this is the kernel of the inner form: the several component parts are not brought together according to the rhetorical rule of pleasing variety, but the nature of the connection is the result of a firm structure, and this fundamental form itself is not simple, but issues from the higher unity which comprehends in itself the contradictions which are resolved in it. God and man draw apart from one another in the phenomena of life and in the description of these phenomena, and yet remain always bound together; in the hymns of longing and love their perfect unity sounds forth. The form does not wish to follow the historically given psychological reality of the individual existence, but will make perceptible that which is in truth going on in the objective reality: this reality lies in a metaphysical Beyond, out of which the narrated history, like a variegatedly agitated color-play, proceeds without separating itself from it—and the Beyond itself lies not in a transcendental distance, but in the continual presence of God's person, who embraces even erring souls with His love and is to be found by their will. Thus the history of the soul which the first ten books of the 'Confessions' depict and explain, receives its unitary structure through a Neoplatonic-Christian monotheistic mysticism, which conceives the relation of God with the soul at once as uniform presence and as historical process. The inner form is two-voiced, comparable to the relation of two lines, one of which, symbolizing the Being of God, goes smoothly and quietly on from eternity to eternity, while the other, in broken, ultimately ascending course, pictures the struggle and striving of the soul towards its divine source and end; the two, however near they may approach each other, can never in any natural way come together, until the unfathomable experience of unity with God brings the resolution of all contradictions."

We certainly do not agree with Dr. Misch in this neoplatonization of the "Confessions"—as we do not agree with him in his too generous estimate of the amount of Neoplatonism Augustine carried over into Christianity with him and the consequent relation of his first Christian writings to his later ones. But there is involved in Dr. Misch's construction, however obscurely, recognition of the fact that Augustine is not primarily writing of himself in the "Confessions," but at least of the relation of God to his soul, or let us say, better, of the dealings of God with his soul. The true subject of Augustine's "Confessions" is not himself but God, and his real object in writing them was not that men might know him in all the depths of his being—though he does reveal himself in them in all the depths of his being: but that men might know God and learn from His dealings with Augustine the wonders of His Grace. Its fundamental note is therefore not even that great declaration, "Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee," fundamental as this note is to the whole fabric of the "Confessions"; but may be summed up, in Augustine's own language, in the two words Ab Eo, "From Him!" And therefore Dr. Misch is perfectly right when he writes (p. 424): "All gifts of nature, even his mother herself and the nourishing of his infancy, are derived from the superabundance of Grace. It belongs to the nature of a pragmatic biography to carry the life-history as far back as possible, to the very generation itself: but in this case the exposition proceeds not from the natural derivation but from the metaphysical obscurity which surrounds the origin of the soul: and thus the narrator can advance regularly without a break from the introductory prayer." And therefore it was also that the "Confessions" from the first wrought so powerfully in the world as a religious force—even on Augustine himself, both when writing them and whenever he reread them (p. 414). They focused men's eyes on God, the God of Grace, and worked in them that frame of mind which lies at the root of all true religion—utter dependence on God.

We have permitted our attention to drift somewhat away from Dr. Misch's book to Augustine's. Our excuse is that it is Dr. Misch's aim to direct our attention to Augustine's book. We must return, however, for a moment, before closing, to Dr. Misch's volume. His analysis of Augustine's "Confessions" as the culminating autobiography of the old world, filling some forty pages, is very able and suggestive. We have already indicated that there are some things in his view of the "Confessions" with which we cannot agree. There are many more to which our assent is very hearty; and the discussion as a whole is very informing. It is immediately preceded by chapters on the general tendencies of autobiography in this age of declining antiquity, and especially on the lyrics of Gregory of Nazianzum. In these chapters we are made acquainted with all the similar works which immediately preceded Augustine's—including his own "Soliloquies." In a closing chapter the final shoots of the tree of antique autobiography are described to us—particularly the "Eucharisticos Deo" of Paulinus of Pella, the "Confession" of St. Patrick, Augustine's own "Retractations," and last of all Boëthius' "Consolation of Philosophy." One or two quotations may perhaps help us to catch the note in which Dr. Misch brings his survey of autobiography in antiquity to a close:

"Thus Augustine's 'Confessions' have entered as an active force into Time. They are one of the few books which in all periods in which spiritual life has existed in the West have been much read; the verbal expression of inward conditions has been influenced by Augustine up to our own day. He himself at the end of his life bore witness to the effect of his autobiography upon his contemporaries, and subordinated to it in point of effectiveness all his other writings, which were nevertheless of extraordinary influence. 'No one of my works has found a wider circulation, or more eager reading, than the books of my Confessions.' And already in the succeeding decade there appeared literary imitations of it: they continued among the newer peoples, ending by passing outside the religious sphere to coöperate in the development of spiritual history in the world's literature. The continuity of autobiography in the West rests in large part on the effect of this one work" (pp. 440–441).

"No fewer than four autobiographical works with the title 'Confessio' or 'Thanksgiving,' 'Eucharisticos,' are known to us from the century following the 'Confessions' (about 400). Three of their authors come from Southern Gaul; there had long existed there a lively literary impulse and rhetorical training held its place, unaffected by Christianity, into the time of the Ostrogoths, so that this province of the disintegrating western empire attained at last the leadership in the decadent literature" (pp. 442–443).

"This was the first wave of Confessions, which swept over the West and laid hold even of an unlettered man in the far North. He who gave rise to it was a great writer without a fellow in the Latin tongue since Cicero and Tacitus. Summoning all his art, Augustine related to the human race the history of the spirit; the spiritual development reached its goal with his conversion and the self-biography ended with the question, What am I now?—the answer to which gave a poetic delineation of the inner form of the religious life, which had hitherto been a closed book. To narrate his further life-history, his administration as bishop and his ecclesiastico-political acts, which would seem to be the natural ending of his autobiography, time—so the 'Confessions' explain—was too precious. What was left was his writings: in them he conceived was gathered up his work which belongs to God and the world. They gave him occasion for a special biographical work [the "Retractations"], which coming from another attitude towards life, exhibits the self-delineation of later antiquity from a new side" (p. 455).

"What an immense undertaking it is, however, for a leading mind to take its own product again as material for treatment and to compact it into an ultimate whole! We think of Goethe, whom the idea of a history of his works, taken up as a consequence of a collected edition, drove onwards to the great product of an evolutionary-historical biography in 'Dichtung und Wahrheit.' Or of Vico's 'Vita,' which, remaining in the narrower limits of the exposition of his life-work, made for the first time in this type of authors the notion of a natural development fruitful for biography" (p. 456).

"Here again, as in the 'Confessions,' Augustine could borrow the outward form from literature. Independent treatises on their own books are encountered by us among the Hellenistic autobiographies, and it is no doubt simply an accident of transmission that this species is met with only in isolation, in the cases of Galen and Cicero. Hellenistic traditions were still operative in the epoch of Augustine; this is evident precisely for the lesser sorts of author-autobiography. The autobiographical opening poem appears not only in an Ausonius, but even in the hymn-poet Prudentius, who expected a future reward for his pious verses and accordingly transmuted the enconiums with which these autobiographies customarily ended into hopes for heaven; the biographical prolaliae in didactic writings served in Hilary and the young Augustine to display the spiritual development of the author, and Saint Jerome did not deny himself in his book on 'The Illustrious Men,' the addition at the end of his own self, with name, origin and catalogue of writings" (p. 459).

"Philosophy in person appeared to Boëthius. She bears the appearance of antiquity: her self-woven garment is faded, soiled and torn, but an inexhaustible youth and radiant eyes shine from her awe-inspiring countenance. She had once in her freedom pointed out to the Greeks the way to make men known in their personality; while still a maiden she was able to give to the best a consciousness of themselves. Autobiography was as deeply indebted to her as to religion which found the divine kernel in men as 'life.' And the 'Consolatio philosophiae' along with Augustine's 'Confessions' stands, with Dante, under the foundations of the 'Vita nuova' " (pp. 465 f.).

It is with such words that Dr. Misch ends the first volume of his survey of the history of autobiography.

REVELATION AND INSPIRATION.

By DR. REINHOLD SEEBERG.

London and New York: Harper and Brothers. 1909.

PROF. REINHOLD SEEBERG is one of the leaders of that school of recent German thought the object of whose research is a "Modern Positive Theology," or, as Prof. Grützmacher, another of its leaders, prefers to phrase it, a "Modern-positive Theology." We are happily relieved from all necessity of explaining to the readers of this Review the nature of this "Modern Positive Theology," by the admirable exposition of it which was given by Dr. C. W. Hodge in the April number. It will suffice now to remind ourselves that, as its very name advises us, it attempts to be at once "modern" and "positive." It wishes first of all to be "modern"; but in being "modern" it does not wish to break utterly with the historical faith of the Church—it wishes so far to remain "positive." In one word, its purpose is—as Prof. Grützmacher's mode of phrasing its chosen self-designation perhaps most clearly suggests—to "modernize" the historical faith of the Church. The particular elements of that faith which Prof. Seeberg undertakes to "modernize" in the booklet now before us, are the doctrines of Revelation and Inspiration. In its German form this booklet constitutes the seventh and eighth "Hefte" of the fourth series of the well-known "Biblische Zeitund Streitfragen" which have been publishing for the last five or six years "zur Aufklärung der Gebildeten." Belonging to the fourth year of this publication, this booklet appeared in 1908, and is now (1909) offered afresh for the enlightenment of the English educated public. It would fain show them that "the opinion that the Bible is a religious book is compatible with strict historical criticism of its contents"; that it is possible "to avoid the errors of the old doctrine" of Revelation and Inspiration "while not surrendering any of its material value." From the language of this statement it is already apparent that Prof. Seeberg is concerned to preserve the religious value of the Bible; but it is also apparent that he supposes that its "religious" can somewhat sharply be distinguished from its "historic" contents, and the one be taken and the other left.

The task which Prof. Seeberg has set before himself is not a new one. It is rather the task which everyone who has not liked "the old doctrine" of Revelation and Inspiration has set before himself for the last hundred years; "the kernel and the husk" has been the watchword of a century's criticism and reconstruction of Christian doctrine. Anything new Prof. Seeberg has to offer must be sought, therefore, in the particular manner in which he attempts to separate the kernel from the husk, and in the particular elements in "the old doctrine" which he accounts respectively kernel and husk. Even here, however, diligent search will be needed for the detection of anything specifically new. He tells us certainly that he has "attempted to outline the main features of a new theory of Inspiration"; and there are, no doubt, new elements discoverable in the details of his treatment of the subject. But in essence this "new theory" proves to be just the old theory which Richard Rothe set forth so winningly in his "Zur Dogmatik" a half century ago (1869) that it has infected the great body of subsequent thinking. The earnestness with which Prof. Seeberg works out his theory, however; the evident seriousness of his purpose to secure to Christianity a really revelatory character; and the modifications he has introduced into Rothe's theory for the furtherance of this end; will justify dropping out of sight for the moment the affiliation of his theory with Rothe's and seeking to learn from his own development of it how "the Modern Positive Theology" would have us think of the Bible, and what it would have us understand by the two great terms, "Revelation" and "Inspiration."

Prof. Seeberg's purpose requires of him two tasks, a negative and a positive one. He must clear the ground by showing that "the old theory of inspiration" must be "definitely abandoned," "in all its forms and details." And, then, on this cleared ground he must build up the structure of his "new theory of inspiration," "avoiding the errors of the old doctrine" but retaining all in it "of material value." In prosecuting the former of these two tasks he follows the ordinary lines of the destructive criticism with which we have long been only too familiar, and repeats all its most glaring faults. The notions which have become traditional in so-called "critical circles" as to the formation of the Biblical Canon, the ground of the authority of the Bible, the trustworthiness of the Biblical record, are assumed, and "the old theory" condemned for its lack of accord with them. There is no need to dwell on this destructive side of the argument. There is nothing distinctive in it; it is conventional in the extreme. We pause only to advert briefly to a few isolated points.

The whole elaborate "critical" theory of the slow establishment of the New Testament books into a position of authority—the formation of a New Testament Canon—is here renewedly exploited, although it is already refuted by the innocent admission that these New Testament writings were given to the Church by their authors as authoritative documents: "As the authors of the Epistles were apostles, or at least men gifted with the Spirit, these letters were also [the reference is to "the so-called Synoptic Gospels"] regarded as authoritative documents, as indeed they were intended to be (e.g. 1 Cor. 7:40)" (p. 11; italics ours). The authoritative New Testament was imposed on the Church by its founders, not evolved by the Church in the course of its controversies; and the same is true mutatis mutandis of the Old Testament. The entire labored theory of the development of the Canon, of Old and New Testament alike, which has been worked out by the "critical" school is an invention which flies flat in the face of all the facts.

The old Protestant doctrine of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti to the authority of the Scriptures is, as is usual among the "critical" writers, misconceived in the interests of a merely subjective grounding of the authority of the Scriptures: "Calvin gave them Luther's subjective foundation" (p. 24). To students of Calvin it is needless to say he did nothing of the kind. What Prof. Seeberg, in common with the entire "critical" school, has done is to confuse the testimonium Spiritus Sancti to the contents of Scripture with the testimonium Spiritus Sancti to the divine origin and authority of Scripture. Dropping out the latter altogether, he endeavors to represent Calvin and the Reformers in general as basing their absolute assurance of the divine origin and authority of Scripture on the former. That, closely related as these two testimonies of the Spirit are, Calvin did not confuse them, the readers of this Review do not need to have pointed out to them afresh (see number for April, 1909, pp. 262 ff.). Suffice it to say that Calvin would have agreed with Prof. Seeberg's declaration that "it is sheer nonsense to say that the accuracy of a genealogical table, for instance, or of the number of years of a king's reign, or of a miraculous story, or of the date of the composition of a book is [immediately at least] guaranteed by that living witness of the Holy Spirit" in us which gives us "inward assurance of the grace of God, of the Divine presence of Christ, of sin and forgiveness of sins, of virtuous impulses, in short, of the religious and moral truths of Scripture" (pp. 25–26). But Calvin also taught, what Prof. Seeberg has not yet learned, that the Spirit witnesses also to the divine origin and authority of Scripture in all its extent, through the nöetic effects of His regenerating grace, by which the renewed spirit is enabled and led to perceive and estimate in their full validity the indicia of divinity in the Scriptures, and so to recognize the hand of God in the book of God. The odd thing is that the view which Prof. Seeberg wrongly attributes to Calvin and scores as absurd as Calvin's, proves to be very much his own view. In polemic against Calvin (wrongly interpreted) he declares (p. 26) that the "course of religious experience can never lead us to any certain conclusions with reference to the several historical facts related by Scripture." Unless we have greatly mistaken his meaning, however, it is precisely on the basis of the course of religious experience and on nothing else, that he himself rests our certainty with reference to the great facts of revelation (pp. 111–114). His argument for their reality runs indeed expressly thus: we have a certain religious experience; this religious experience is the product of the teaching of Scripture; this teaching implies the reality of certain facts; "the reality of these facts and words is thereby guaranteed" (p. 112)—that is to say, they are guaranteed ultimately by our own religious experience, and everything is thus made to hang on an "analysis of the nature of religious experience" (p. vii.). Of this, however, more later.

Prof. Seeberg eases his task of refuting "the old theory of inspiration" by always speaking of this "theory" (it is the "theory" of Christ and of His apostles) in its least acceptable and, we may add, least accepted form. To him it is always the theory of "dictation," taking "dictation" in its most literal sense, in which revelation and inspiration are identified, and men are supposed to be employed by God as mere implements which contribute absolutely nothing to the product, not even as much as a flute contributes to the tone of the music played on it. Accordingly he is able, appealing to 1 Cor. 1:16, to cry out: "No one would regard such a confession of ignorance as inspired by the Holy Spirit" (p. 27). Certainly no one could suppose ignorance to be the result of inspiration. But why should not confession of an ignorance which is real be made under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Is He not the Spirit of Truth? "To what purpose," he demands again, "should God inspire ideas which men already possessed" (p. 27). But why speak of "inspiring" ideas at all? Ideas are not "inspired" but "revealed," to employ Prof. Seeberg's distinction. Certainly ideas which are wrong could not be incorporated into an inspired body of teaching; but it is not so evident that only ideas which are directly revealed could be incorporated into such a body of teaching. Accordingly, it is only against the extremest theory of mechanical dictation that it is valid to argue that the use of sources by the inspired writers is fatal to inspiration (p. 31). The "hand of the writer may be held by the Holy Spirit" so that he writes only what the Spirit wills, and yet he proceed in his work precisely as an uninspired writer would, seeking the same ends. We have no intention, however, of following Prof. Seeberg into the details of his argument. We merely point out the serious fault in it that it is so framed as to give the impression that "the old theory of inspiration," with which the detailed credit of the Bible is bound up, is the theory of verbal dictation, rejecting which we are free to adopt some such theory as Prof. Seeberg's own. This is not the state of the case. Few have ever taught the theory of verbal dictation, though no doubt a Quenstedt, for example, did; it is certainly by no means characteristically the "old theory of inspiration"; and between it and such a theory as Prof. Seeberg proposes there stretches a great gulf, in our passage through which we shall encounter many other theories, which would need to be examined and set aside before such a one as his could come into serious consideration. Prof. Seeberg eases his task unduly when he presents the theory of dictation (which practically nobody holds) and his own theory (which nobody ought to hold) as the alternatives between which his readers must choose.

It is time we turned, however, to Prof. Seeberg's positive construction.

This runs, as we have already had occasion to note, on fundamentally the same lines as Rothe's. According to Rothe God "manifests" Himself in a series of marvelous historical acts and dispositions; for the understanding of which He "inspires" chosen men by an internal action of His Holy Spirit on their heart and mind. Similarly, according to Prof. Seeberg, revelation consists in the series of the divine acts by which God redeems the world; in a word, in the "history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte)"; while inspiration consists in the operation of the Spirit of God on the hearts and minds of particular men, by means of which they are enabled to understand these divine acts and so to make them operative in the minds of men. "Revelation," says he with concise directness, "is not the imparting of certain abstract ideas to the human race; revelation is history" (p. 39): and revelation being thus just history, the way "God reveals Himself to the human spirit" is "through His guidance of the course of historical evolution" (p. 41). Two things need, however, to be borne in mind here that we may not do injustice to the theory. It is not "the entire stream of historical development" which we have in mind when we speak of revelation, but the "small section of history which we call the history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte)" (p. 116). And words too may be deeds: "the thoughts and words evoked by God in the actors who are part of this history" are themselves elements in this history (p. 41), so that "utterances directly caused by God" may be counted in among "the historical facts caused by God" (p. 59) and prophecy becomes "itself direct revelation," introducing as it does, "new words of God into history" (p. 77). Revelation remains thus, however, speaking generally, just the historical development of redemption; facts, not words. But facts must be understood and put into words to become operative. And this is the function of inspiration, which is "simply the influence of the Spirit directed to produce the understanding of the given facts of revelation" (p. 59). "Revelation," we read, "itself consists of historical facts caused by God" (p. 59); "Inspiration consists in the fact that the Spirit of revelation creates in His first witnesses the right, sufficient and efficacious understanding of revelation" (p. 57). Again: "We understand, therefore, by inspiration … certain effects worked by the Spirit of God in the souls of the prophets and the first witnesses of Christ through which they were enabled to understand revelation—its facts and its words—and make it intelligible" (p. 69). Revelation, therefore, strictly taken as such (for the exact meaning of the term is not constant in Prof. Seeberg's discussion), would remain inoperative if it were not supplemented by inspiration (p. 52). "The Spirit of God," we read (p. 57), "produces, in the first place, the revelation or the facts of salvation (Heilstatsachen) in word and deed. Now this revelation is to become historically operative in humanity. For this purpose it is necessary that witnesses to it should arise who recognize and can express its nature in a way that will make it operative. It is the Spirit that works in revelation who, by special stimulus (Wirkung), brings forth in the first witnesses this understanding whereby revelation can be made historically operative. And it is the production of this understanding which we characterise as inspiration."

The chief thing we observe in this construction is that it provides only for the acquisition of divine truth, not at all for its communication. "Revelation" and "Inspiration" are both absorbed in the attainment of truth by its chosen witnesses; nothing is left to safeguard its transmission to others. We have reached the prophet by their means; we have not reached the Scriptures. For us, however, the prophet exists only in the Scriptures: the Scriptures lie between us and the prophets. What does it advantage us if God has revealed Himself in a series of redemptive acts and His Spirit has enabled chosen witnesses to understand and interpret these acts, unless these inspired interpretations and these revealing acts are trustworthily communicated to us? It may soothe us to be told that the Scriptures are "the literary monument which tells us" of the divine "deeds which have led men to salvation" and of the divine "knowledge of salvation" to which certain men of old have attained; that they are "a special effect of revelation," "a literature precipitated, so to speak, by the process of revelation through history" and "thus indirectly themselves also revelation" (p. 45). But will all this satisfy us? What we wish to know is whether these Scriptures are a trustworthy record of these revelations. And this question presses upon us with greater persistency since Prof. Seeberg, in clearing the ground of "the old theory of inspiration," has assured us and endeavored to prove to us, that the Scriptures are not always trustworthy either in their record of facts or in their inculcation of principles—that, for example, they contain statements which are "notoriously false," presuppose antiquated cosmologies, perpetuate popular errors (like the belief in demoniacal possession), set forth outgrown world-views and even present absurd interpretations of facts and prophecies (pp. 26–29). It is in his endeavor to meet this question that Prof. Seeberg is perhaps most individual.

He assures us that despite their many faults as a general historical record—let "criticism" do its worst as to that—the Scriptures can be fully trusted precisely as a record of revelation; so fully trusted that, possessing as we do no other understanding of the revelation-history and its thoughts than that deposited in the Scriptures, we may safely take the contents of the Scriptures as the expression of the divine revelation for us (p. 45). The ground on which this assurance is based has a sufficiently Pragmatistic appearance. It is in brief that Scripture serves all the purposes of revelation to us and therefore is revelation. The complex of ideas presented to us by the Scriptures works in us a remarkable inward experience, in which we find ourselves in the living presence of God. And "since we experience in the thoughts of Scripture a Divine effect, we characterise it on the ground of experienced faith as Divine revelation" (p. 48). It is "a judgment of our faith" to which we thus give expression; and this judgment carries us very far. It not only assures us that the Bible is a revelation, but it guarantees to us the historical character of the facts of which this revelation is an interpretation. When we experience the ideas based on these facts as true, this assuredly should carry with it the reality of the facts on which these ideas are based (p. 49). To the elucidation of this point a whole section is given (pp. 111–114). "Inspiration," we are told (p. 112), "was an effect of the operation of the Spirit of God, through which a man learned to understand the nature of the facts given him. From this it follows, however, that so far as inspired knowledge can be gained from a fact or a word, this fact and this word are guaranteed as actual. If God produces knowledge by means of certain particular facts, these facts must needs also be produced by God. The more paradoxical and miraculous these facts are the more certain is this conclusion. If then the apostles through God's Spirit gained inspired knowledge from the resurrection of Christ, the actuality of the resurrection is thereby established for everyone who feels the witness of the Spirit in the Bible. If the words of Jesus and the oracles spoken through the prophets have become the object of inspired understanding, then for the religious view their reality is proved thereby." We need only bear in mind that this guarantee does not extend to the minute details of historical occurrence, or to the verbal accuracy of texts, but is available only for the establishment of the reality of the great facts of salvation (Heilstatsachen) and ideas of revelation (Offenbarungsgedanken) to feel assured that we have in it a thoroughly satisfactory criterion of reality.

It can scarcely escape us that precisely what we have here is an attempt to discover a basis for confidence in the great facts recorded in the Bible and the great ideas set forth in it without implication of the historical trustworthiness or of the authority of the Bible itself. The basis of confidence is shifted from the Bible to Christian experience, or what we used to call "the Christian Consciousness," and the Bible is made to play the rôle only of vehicle of transmission. The whole conception of an authoritative book is set aside and we are to accept in the Bible only what Christian experience validates. It is asserted on the other hand, however, that Christian experience validates all the great "salvation facts" and "revelation ideas" brought to us by the Bible. There is of course nothing new in this general position; but it is well worth carefully noting as indicatory of the place in the history of thought of the Modern-positive Theology. By it the Modern-positive Theology takes its place as only a part of that general tendency which has been long operative in the German churches, to substitute, as the seat of authority for the Christian man, his own inner experience for the infallible book which the Reformers substituted for the infallible Church: in other words it is only the latest outcome of that great subjectivistic movement of thought inaugurated by Schleiermacher.

Nothing could be further from our wish, of course, than to deny or doubt the validity of "the argument from experience," which at its height is only another name for the testimonium Spiritus Sancti to the contents of revelation. There is such a thing as the "assurance of salvation"; and this assurance of salvation does validate the great "salvation facts" and "revelation ideas" brought to us by the Bible, and is not dependent on a precedent confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible: to the Spirit-prepared heart these great facts and ideas are their own credentials. But this is not to say we can get along very well, then, without a Bible. After all it was from the Bible that we got these great facts and ideas to which our "Christian experience" sets its seal that they are real and true; and the authoritative Bible, if it is not the prius of this "Christian experience," may well prove to be its posterius. In point of fact, no one doubts that the doctrine of the detailed authority of the Scriptures—their "inspiration" in the old sense—belongs to the "high doctrines" of Christianity, and does not underlie our first confidence in its fundamental facts, which rests rather on the general historical trustworthiness of the Biblical record. But it is another question whether Christianity, as a system of truth, can dispense with this "high doctrine," and can even get along without the general historical trustworthiness of the Bible record, abandoning it to a naturalistic "historical criticism" and contenting itself meanwhile with an appeal to "Christian experience." For one thing, this were to shift the Christianity which we are to teach from an objective to a subjective foundation, and to limit its content to the few "vital" truths which "find" us, with the ultimate elimination of all objective basis for these "vital" truths themselves and the relegation of them for their content as well as for their validation to the subjective experience itself. For we must not conceal from ourselves, for another thing, that a procedure such as is proposed will necessarily introduce a schism into our mental life which cannot be permanent and which can have but one issue. What is the use of our telling ourselves that our experience of religious effects arising from the ideas gained by the apostles in fellowship with the risen Christ, guarantees for us the fact of His resurrection "for the religious point of view" (p. 112, cf. p. 49), if our critical examination of the historical record convinces us that in point of fact Christ did not rise from the dead, for the scientific point of view? We cannot continue to believe on the warrant of our religious experience what we know to be contrary to fact on the verdict of our scientific investigation. Unless we are prepared to accept the validation of the facts and ideas brought to us by the Bible on the faith of "religious experience" as the validation of the trustworthiness of the Bible as a record of facts and ideas, we shall be driven for our entire Christianity into the most unreal subjectivism. But so soon as we adopt the former attitude, our "religious experience" becomes a testimony not only to the facts and ideas which "find" us but to the trustworthiness of the Biblical record which brings us these facts and ideas, and the first step is taken in the validation of an authoritative Bible. This first step taken, others will necessarily follow, and we shall soon find ourselves in the possession of an objectively and not merely subjectively established Christianity. And we shall find ourselves in possession of this objectively established Christianity ultimately precisely because we shall find in our hands an authoritative Bible, and for no other reason whatever. What the ground of the Bible's authority is, what is the nature of the divine operations by which it is communicated to the Bible, what is its extent, and what is its degree—such questions as these may still remain open to investigation. But the Bible's authority having been once established we may be disposed and indeed required to listen to its own testimony on these subsequent matters; and if its own testimony is followed we shall have as a result nothing other than the "old Protestant theory" of inspiration. It really admits of no question that the Bible conceives itself the product of the Divine Spirit in such a sense that it is the pure expression of His mind and will. And nothing is more certain than that the Bible stands forth in the world at once as a great spiritual fact, and an interpretation of this fact; that this is a fact which "finds" us and produces in our hearts spiritual effects. Does not the maxim hold here too that unique spiritual effects infer unique spiritual causes? And if our religious experience quickened by the Scriptures and their message fails to validate the great fact of the Bible, how can we plead it as the validation of other facts implicated in it?

What Prof. Seeberg has sought to do, it will be observed, is to supply a reasoned basis for the common notion that the Scriptures are authoritative only in spiritual matters—"for faith and practice" as the phrase goes—and for all else may be freely delivered over to the hand of the destroyer. Our confidence in what the Scriptures transmit to us, he says, is grounded in our religious experience; and therefore, he seems to say, we have ground for confidence only in that element of Scripture which religious experience directly validates. There are therefore two sides to Prof. Seeberg's argument, a positive and a negative side, and the trouble is that the negative side fits ill in with the positive side. Conceived as an attempt to show that in Christian experience we have a basis for confidence in the great Christian facts and ideas which underlie and give form to that experience, we may find help and comfort in it. Conceived as an attempt to show that, having in Christian experience this basis for confidence in the great Christian facts and ideas, we may dispense with an authoritative Bible, we can look upon it only as an assault upon the foundations of the Christian faith. The former element is the "Positive," the latter the "Modern" element in the "Modern Positive Theology"; and they do not agree together. The one is fundamentally Supernaturalistic and the other fundamentally Naturalistic; and a Supernaturalistic Naturalism or Naturalistic Supernaturalism is a contradiction no less in fact than in terms. If in a supernaturalistically created Christian experience we have a guarantee of the truth of the great revelation-ideas brought to us by the Bible and constituting its substance, and of the reality as well of the great salvation-facts with which these ideas are connected in the Bible as their interpretation, then we have in this Christian experience a guarantee of the trustworthiness and authority of the Bible which records these facts and develops their meaning. And if we will not admit the validity of this guarantee in the one case, we cannot put confidence in it in the other: the "scientific" considerations which lead us to reject it in the one may compel our rejection of it in the other also. The question which really faces us in both cases alike is, What is the real state of the evidence? Not abstractly, Is the positive evidence of religious experience or the negative evidence of "scientific" investigation most conclusive? But concretely, Is the positive evidence of religious experience or the negative evidence of "scientific" investigation most conclusive in this case? We cannot set each off by itself and follow both, each with one-half of the soul. Nor can we decline the task of estimating the weight of the evidence as a whole, by shutting our eyes to one or the other variety of the evidence, or attending to them only alternately. Christianity is neither a mere philosophy nor an empty illusion: it is objectively real and subjectively operative, and finds its rooting both in its inspired record and in its spiritual efficacy.

LE PROBLÈME DE DIEU ET LA THÉOLOGIE CHRÉTIENNE DEPUIS LA RÉFORME.

Par VICTOR MONOD.

I. Étude historique. Foyer Solidariste: Saint-Blaise, près Neuchâtel (Suisse);

Roubaix, 123, Boulevard de Belfort. 1910.

M. VICTOR MONOD is profoundly disturbed by the condition of current opinion upon the nature and activities of God. The idea of God he thinks has perhaps never before been made the object of more intense and widespread study. But the issue of the prolonged debates of recent centuries has been little more than an immense confusion. Nearly every thinking man has formed a different conception of the Divine Being for himself. "In the teaching of the Churches heterogeneous philosophies and contradictory religious aspirations are juxtaposed or superficially amalgamated" (p. 3). The question is raised whether "the Christian doctrine of God is essentially amorphous and irrational or is only compromised to-day by lack of critical spirit and of historical knowledge in some of its adherents" (p. 4). M. Monod's convictions lie in the line of the latter alternative, and he naturally wishes to do his part to clarify the atmosphere. The task he has undertaken is essentially a dogmatic one. But it has its natural if not necessary historical approach. "To draw out in order," he explains, "the solutions of the problem of God which have been proposed by the great theologians, to set them in the historical framework which explains them, to indicate how they have been engendered by successive corrections or reactions, to discriminate, in a word, the vital necessity to which the succession of divers theological systems has responded; these have appeared to me the indispensable preliminaries of a methodical study of the question" (p. 4). Accordingly he gives us now this "historical study," while the dogmatic construction to which it is to lead us up waits a more convenient season. He does not feel bound, however, to pass in review in this "historical study" the whole history of the idea of God, in detailed exposition. He is not writing a history of the idea of God but a historical introduction to his own forthcoming attempt to put together a competent exposition of the idea of God. He therefore confines his survey to the historical antecedents of his own construction.

In point of fact, M. Monod confines his survey of the history of the idea of God to two epochs, the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries; and in these two epochs to two great outstanding movements of thought, the Reformation, or better, the Reformed theology, and the Kantian criticism. The conceptions of God characteristic of these two great movements of thought he sets over against one another in sharp antithesis, discriminating them under the contrasting designations of "God as sovereign" and "God as a moral person." The antithesis obviously is a false one; the two designations are not mutually exclusive. It is also historically unjust: the Reformed theology throws an emphasis upon the moral personality of God which cannot be exceeded, and the moral personality of God is not the most outstanding feature of the conception of God developed by the Kantian movement. M. Monod himself cites Calvin as declaring that God is good by a necessity as stringent as that by which He is God, and that it would be easier to sever the light of the sun from its heat than to separate God's power from His righteousness; while the very stress which the Reformed theology places on the will of God is a stress on His personality, since he who says will says person. And M. Monod himself points out how the moral character of God evaporates in, for example, the thought of M. Ch. Secrétan in the face of the demand of "absolute freedom" for Him. The real distinction between the Reformed and the Kantian movements in their relation to the idea of God lies quite apart from the question of His moral personality, although, of course, it concerns very distinctly the question of His sovereignty. The difficulty with Kantian speculation has been indeed to find any place for God at all in its scheme of things. Beginning with calling in God only as a postulate of the moral imperative, it ends by limiting His action in the interest of human freedom. The whole tendency of the Kantian thought is spoken out when M. Secrétan remarks: "There seems no place in the world for both man and God" (p. 146); and M. Monod's dilemma is from the Kantian standpoint a very real one: Render with Calvin all glory to God and man is reduced to nonentity; vindicate with Kant all man's liberty and all man's dignity and you have (with Schleiermacher) no use for God save, perhaps, for the Judgment Day. The issue that is drawn between the Reformed thought of the sixteenth and the Kantian thought of the nineteenth century is not between a sovereign and an ethical God; it is between God and man. And the movement from the one to the other is a veritable revolution by which God is dethroned and man elevated to His place as the center of the universe. M. Monod puts it not unjustly in a passage which we gladly quote entire (p. 108): "Just as for Copernicus the earth so far from being a pivot about which the stars revolve, describes an ellipse around a fixed sun, so for Kant the objects which constitute the external world so far from determining knowledge are subject to laws impressed by the mind. This figure can be adapted to indicate the way in which the Kantian theology sets itself in opposition to the theology of the sixteenth century. God is no longer the central star of the religious domain; He is only a satellite, a postulate of the mind. The point of departure is the thinking subject, his rights and his needs; the nature and the attributes of God can be determined only as functions of the exigencies of the human being. And the whole effort of Kant bears on a point which theologians of the sixteenth century had not thought to investigate: In what is God necessary to man? Is the existence of God legitimated by the needs of reason?" In a word the sixteenth century conceived man as the creation of God, existing for God and serving His ends; men now are prone to think of God as, if not exactly the creation of man, yet as existing for man and serving man's ends. The center of the universe has shifted; and God has become as has been, perhaps wittily, perhaps bitterly, said, very much a domestic animal which man keeps, as he does his horse or his cow, to meet certain specific needs of his being.

About half of M. Monod's volume is given to an exposition of each of these two types of thought concerning God. The latter half, dealing broadly speaking with the Kantian notions, under the rubric of "God as a moral person," appears to us the more penetrating and satisfactory piece of exposition, chiefly because it seems to us the more sympathetically worked out. The master-thought of this movement is shown to be the conception of the greatness of man: "the idea that man so far as he is man and because he is man has right to the free efflorescence of his personality and can recognize as legitimate no authority which is not judicially constituted" (p. 102). This master-thought is traced in its enunciation to Kant, to whom God exists only as a moral postulate and only so far as His existence may be made consistent with what Kant deemed the necessities of the moral responsibility of man. So determining has the conception of "freedom" thus conceived become in modern thought that M. Monod incidentally drops the remark, as if it were a matter of course, that since Kant "liberty and morality have become so indissolubly bound together that Luther's and Calvin's doctrine of the subject-will has become merely an incomprehensible curiosity to the contemporary consciousness" (p. 121). After Kant, no doubt, there comes Schleiermacher, in whose system there is no place for any other liberty than "that of Spinozistic spontaneity, autonomous vitality," the capacity of "reaction upon finite beings which exert a certain determination on man, and of determining them in turn" (p. 133); and who led in the interest of the religious feeling a reaction towards a kind of spurious Calvinism which would preserve a divine sovereignty without emphasis upon the divine personality. "God, for Schleiermacher," we read (pp. 130 f.), "is therefore a mysterious master of whom we know only one thing,—that He commands and that we ought to obey. He is an active Being and not a dead Law, but He is not less an abstract Being, with no name and no countenance, known only by the hand which He presses against us. The Sovereign God of Calvin, the Monarch of good-pleasure and individual feeling is gone; but on the celestial throne there still remains in austere idealization the Scepter, the Baton of command." But Schleiermacher does not mark the end of the series. After Schleiermacher comes Secrétan—Secrétan to whom "freedom" is at once the first and the last word of philosophy, a "freedom" for man which admits of no limitations and a corresponding "freedom" for God which enables Him to keep out of the way of this "free" man—by virtue of which He is infinite only if He wishes it, and can be finite as well if He wishes it, knows what He wishes to know and is ignorant of what He wishes to be ignorant of. "If God is God," says Secrétan, "it is only because He wills it" (p. 148). Thus Secrétan finds his way out of the great difficulty of his school of thought by pressing to its extreme its primal postulate. It has been common to say that if "freedom" be defined as this school defines freedom, then we have to choose between a "free" humanity and a "free" Deity; both cannot be "free" in this sense, which knows no difference between freedom and ability. Secrétan replies that the difficulty disappears if only you make God free enough, if only you ascribe to Him "absolute liberty," a liberty which is capable of everything; for, then, He would be free not to be God, or even to abnegate His freedom itself. "Secrétan, we see," remarks M. Monod (pp. 148 f.), "commences by attributing to the absolute Being a fathomless freedom and sovereignty, but he adds that the day on which pure freedom resolves itself into an act, the day on which creation takes place, the reign of Law, of Relation, of Determinism commences." For M. Monod's present purpose, Secrétan has spoken the last word which has yet been spoken in the way of solving "the problem of God"—that is to say, in the effort so to conceive God that man may be left "free," in the exaggerated sense of freedom assumed by this school. But this last word has not, he thinks, solved the problem; and the way is open for another attempt to reach a true conception of God—a conception which shall do better justice to both sides of the problem, the side rooted in man's sense of dependence as well as that rooted in his sense of freedom. For the terms in which this solution may be worked out, however, we shall have to wait for the dogmatic discussion which, M. Monod promises us, shall follow this historical sketch. We may, indeed, already perceive that what M. Monod proposes to do is to set over against "God as sovereign" and "God as moral person" alike the conception of "God as Father." This is, of course, to introduce another false antithesis, and to substitute tropical for scientific treatment. But despite these drawbacks with respect to method it is quite possible that M. Monod may give us in his dogmatic treatment a very happy solution of the problem of the conception of God. We are content to wait to see.

Meanwhile we note that M. Monod already recognizes that there is another side to the problem besides that of human "freedom" and "responsibility" so insisted on by the Kantian thinkers. This other side of the problem is that which forms the burden of the Reformed theology; and M. Monod has begun his book with a survey of it as given expression in that theology. We have already intimated, however, that we do not think this survey as illuminating, because not as sympathetic, as that given of the Kantian theories. It would seem that with all his desire to do justice to that sense of dependence on God which is the psychological reflection of the Divine Sovereignty, M. Monod is to some extent preoccupied with the current overestimate of man in his present condition in the world, which has its ultimate roots in a defective sense of sin. He himself very fairly describes this current point of view when, speaking of the surprise with which the modern man hears Calvin describe the doctrine of predestination as "sweet and savory," he offers this account of it: "The reason is that the condition of man does not appear to us as tragically horrible as it does to the Calvinists; we are surprised at the rejection of the lost, the Reformed of the sixteenth century were astonished rather at the salvation of the elect" (pp. 57 f.). This is but to say that a Pelagianizing estimate of man in his powers, achievements, and present condition cannot accord with an Augustinian soteriology; the current estimate of man is distinctly Pelagianizing and therein lies the whole account of its ineradicable opposition to the Reformed theology. Borne along to some extent, doubtless, by this current of modern thought, M. Monod finds himself out of tune with the Reformed soteriology, and most of all with its emphasis on predestination; and finding himself out of tune with it, he is not quite able to comprehend it, much less to do full justice to it. He recognizes, indeed, the religious value and the practical motive of the Calvinistic doctrine of the divine sovereignty; he even exaggerates this aspect of it, by representing it as a product of religious experience in such a sense as to give it only a subjective grounding, in this connection misconceiving the doctrine of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti. "We see," he remarks (p. 15), "that while scholasticism limited its art of persuasion to two processes, reasoning and the citation of an inspired text, the Reformation made appeal to a third authority, … the inward witness of the Holy Spirit." The "witness of the Holy Spirit" was not to the Reformers, however, in any sense a "third authority" operating apart from (perhaps in opposition to) reason and the Scriptures—as anyone may satisfy himself by merely reading the anti-Anabaptist chapters in Calvin's exposition of it at the opening of the "Institutes"; but a power of God clarifying reason in its use of the Scriptures and acting only confluently with them. M. Monod's partial sympathy with the Reformed doctrine as an expression of religious experience is therefore itself a symptom of his real lack of complete sympathy with it; and when he goes into its particulars his lack of complete sympathy is manifested in not infrequent failures to enter fully into its spirit which betray him into certain errors of judgment regarding it. There occur even occasional lapses in apprehension of declarations of the advocates of the view he is controverting, which lead him into no doubt unconscious but nevertheless regrettable misrepresentations of their contentions. Thus for example the "De dono perseverantiae," xx. is cited (p. 59) as an avowal on the part of Augustine that "it was the Pelagian controversies which caused him to defend the doctrine of election in its integrity." What Augustine really says is precisely the contrary, namely, that before the controversy broke out he had taught the whole doctrine of election with clearness and emphasis, and had been compelled by the controversy only to do more laboriously and abundantly what he was doing in any event. Immediately after quoting Zanchi's clear statement of his ordo decretorum (which is, on this occasion at least, expressly Infralapsarian: "creation, fall, election, redemption"), and while in act of inveighing against Zanchi's scholasticism, M. Monod shows so little care for the niceties of the subject as to attribute to Zanchi Amyraut's ordo decretorum. "Once, once only," he cries, "God has thought of man and assigned him his destiny. Thenceforward everything is evolved with the rigor of a mathematical theorem: creation, fall, redemption, election, reprobation, crimes and virtues, prayers and blasphemy, all has been willed, foreseen, foreordained by God" (p. 81). Are then the differences which separate Supralapsarian, Infralapsarian, and Postredemptionist too small to hold a place in the mind of one who consigns them all alike to the oblivion of an incomprehensible past?

It is naturally, however, when M. Monod undertakes professedly to report the objections to predestination that his failure of sympathy with the doctrine works most havoc in his reasoning. Here we have arrayed all the old uncomprehending arguments: predestination deprives the work of Christ of all significance, it menaces the authority of the moral law, it dissipates the guilt of man, and the like. What underlies everything, however, is failure to realize that predestination is never supposed to determine ends apart from means. It would for example be as intelligible to argue that when a king has determined to take a city he may at once intermit all concern about armies and engines of war—the determination will take the city; or that when a physician has determined to cure a patient, he may safely neglect to administer the remedies—the determination will cure the patient; as that when God has determined to save His people, all significance in the work of Christ, the only means by which the determined salvation is to be accomplished, is taken away. How reasoners like M. Monod are pursued by this incomprehensible uncomprehendingness is oddly illustrated in a footnote in which he wishes to ascribe to Luther himself, that sound and fervent predestinarian because sound and fervent believer in God and His grace, the objection to predestination that "it renders singularly vain and futile the work of Jesus Christ." We quote this footnote (pp. 66 f.) in full: "This was the objection of Luther. Towards 1542 he wrote: 'I hear that the nobles and great people emit such criminal talk about predestination as to say, If I am predestinated I shall be saved whether I do well or ill, and if I am not I shall be damned. I shall gladly combat this impious language if my uncertain health will permit me. If this talk were sound, the incarnation of the Son of God, His passion, His resurrection and all that He has done for the salvation of the world would be abolished. What end would be served by the prophets and all the Holy Scriptures? What by the Sacraments? Let us cast off and trample under foot this talk'—Commentary on Gen. xxvi. Opera, Witebergae. 1580. Vol. vi. 353.—How far we are here from the affirmations of the De Servo Arbitrio!" Needless to say, the words quoted from Luther have no such implication as M. Monod puts on them. In them Luther promises that if only the infirmities of his health permit, he will confute those who abuse the doctrine of predestination, saying, "If I am predestined, I shall be saved no matter whether I do well or ill; if I am not I shall be damned." To give a brief hint of the line his confutation will take, Luther adds that if such talk were sound "the incarnation of the Son of God, His passion, His resurrection and all that He has done for the salvation of the world would be abolished"—the prophets and the whole of the Sacred Scriptures, the sacraments would be useless; wherefore, says he, we should reject and trample under foot such prating. What Luther says in this none too vigorous language is, as we all at once perceive, simply that if predestination is perverted into a predestination of ends apart from all means—so that those predestinated to life will live no matter what they do—then the significance of all means is taken away and this is tantamount to abolishing Christ and all His work, the Scriptures and all the Means of Grace, since these are the means by which the predestined end is attained. But he says this only in objection to a manifest perversion of the doctrine of predestination, and in vigorous defense of the doctrine of predestination. And when M. Monod cries out upon it, "How far we are here from the affirmations of the De Servo Arbitrio," he merely betrays how far he himself, is from understanding not Luther merely whom he quotes (perhaps at second-hand; possibly through the deflecting medium of Luthardt) and the "De Servo Arbitrio" which he refers to, but the whole Reformed doctrine of predestination which he is in act of expounding and criticizing. Luther speaks here in complete and even enthusiastic accord with the affirmations of the "De Servo Arbitrio," and can be misunderstood only by writers who, not being in agreement with Luther, are determined to make Luther be in agreement with them.

We have no intention, however, of indulging in a series of petty criticisms of the details of M. Monod's exposition of the Reformed doctrine. We have merely wished to illustrate by a few instances taken at random from his pages a vein of failure in comprehension which runs through them and vitiates their conclusions. There is much in his exposition and criticism meanwhile that is worthy of remark—particularly, if we may specify, his connection of the political and religious thinking of the times. We can only express the conviction that if M. Monod had approached the study of the Reformed theology with the sympathy with which he has approached the study of the post-Kantian movement, he would have found an acceptable doctrine of God less a problem to his thought, because he would have found it already worked out for him in that great body of Augustinian thinking which has been the possession of the world for nearly a millennium and a half. The scandalon of this body of thinking has ever been, and is, that it thinks of God as God, and will not have His glory diminished by the exaltation of man. M. Monod himself says (p. 84): "The error of Calvinism was, above all, that it did not recognize the specific character and unique value of the human person." The charge is quite untrue. Calvinism fully recognizes the high value of human personality. But Calvinism certainly does not allow that the human person has power to set itself by the side of the Divine. And the retort is just that the error of anti-Calvinism has always been, and continues to be, that it does not recognize the specific character and unique value of the Divine person. M. Monod sometimes speaks as if he would charge Calvinism with wiping out the gulf which separates man from the beasts that perish. It does not do that. Calvin teaches rather that man is raised infinitely above the brutes by that sensus deitatis which is ineradicably imprinted on his nature, and by reason of which he aspires to immortality (e. g. "Institutes," I. iii. 1, 3; v. 4). But Calvinism resists and will continue to resist every effort to wipe out the greater gulf which separates the creature from his Creator. We have said advertently "greater gulf." For we stand with Calvin, or rather with Augustine,—for Calvin is quoting Augustine here ("Opera Calvini," ed. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, viii. col. 286)—when he declares that "he is assuredly mad who does not ascribe to God a far greater preëminence above himself than he allows to the human race above the beasts." And we stand with Calvin when (still after Augustine) he adds that what is most becoming in the sheep of God's flock is quiet submission to His will; and when he adjoins, now on his own behalf, that this would assuredly be more fitting than, after the example of Pighius, to substitute man for God and demand that each man should earn his own destiny on the ground of his own virtues. The "problem of God" is to be solved for the twentieth century as for all that have preceded it, not by deifying man and abasing God in his presence, but by recognizing God to be indeed God and man to be the creation of His hands, whose chief end it is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And this is as M. Monod truly perceives, just Calvinism.

CHRISTOLOGIES ANCIENT AND MODERN.

By WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D.

Oxford University Press, American Branch. 1910.

PUBLICITY is one of the striking characteristics of our times. Our Village Improvement Societies, demanding the removal of all fences, are but a symbol of a universal temper. Perhaps Dr. Sanday is the first scholar, however, who has deliberately elected to do his studying in the public view. He has, as it were, knocked down the walls of his study, and, taking his seat in the open, invited all that pass by to observe him writing his great book on the Life of Christ. It is pleasant to be taken thus into a great scholar's confidence; and we have all profited by the series of charmingly written volumes in which Dr. Sanday has laid before us the processes of his preliminary studies for his great task. The volume now before us, he tells us, is probably the last of these, and it does not yield in interest to either of its predecessors. We confess, however, to a certain decrease in the interest with which we look forward to the work to which they lead up, as we have read one after the other of these preliminary studies. They pass in review a great mass of modern research, and whatever they touch upon they illuminate. It would be difficult to find a more sympathetic survey of the recent literature of Gospel criticism or a more useful guide to the intricacies of modern constructions of the person of Christ. But it is possible for width of sympathy itself to become a snare; there are other qualities than breadth of importance to a teacher of fundamental religious truth; and it is not strange that the term "latitudinarianism" has even acquired an evil connotation. As we have reread, one after the other, Dr. Sanday's preliminary studies, while our admiration of the extent of his learning and the clearness of his comprehension of the currents of recent thought has steadily grown, misgivings have grown with it of the firmness of his grasp on the fundamental problems which must underlie and give its body to a Life of Christ which would do justice to the deposit of faith. It was distinctly not reassuring to observe the nature of the hospitality which he accorded in the earliest of these volumes to certain very wiredrawn hypotheses as to the personality of the author of the Fourth Gospel. It was not more reassuring to observe the nature of the commendation which he gave in the second of them to Albert Schweitzer's brilliant, in some respects surely epoch-making, but sadly negative history of what Schweitzer's translators call, not unfairly from their point of view, "the quest of the historical Jesus." Nor does reassurance come with the present volume, with the feebleness of its hold upon the Biblical and Historical Christologies, its readiness to fly for refuge to doubtful modern speculations as supplying the key to the mystery of our Lord's person, its determination to have a Jesus who in all His earthly manifestations was, phenomenally, "strictly human." If the outline given on pp. 179 ff. of what Dr. Sanday calls "the working of our Lord's consciousness," in which is briefly traced His career from the cradle to the grave, is to furnish, as seems likely, the schematization of the coming Life of Christ, the mold which is to determine the lines of its structure, then, we may as well say frankly at once, we shall have no interest in the new Life of Christ whatever. For then it will be nothing but one more of those "reduced" Lives of Christ, of which the world has already too many, the writers of which, deserting the testimony of the sources, have as Renan puts it "imputed themselves to their victim," and, creating a Jesus after their own image, permitted Him to function only within the limits of their own consciousness. It will be a matter of sincere regret if, after the warnings of even a Wrede and a Schweitzer, Dr. Sanday should only again "psychologize" the Life of Christ.

The title of the present volume—"Christologies Ancient and Modern"—might lead one to expect to find it a historical sketch of Christological thought in the Church, or perhaps a critical discussion of the chief Christological theories which have been current in the Church. It is not quite either of these. Its leading motive is rather the suggestion of a new Christological theory, the Christological theory which is to underlie the forthcoming Life of Christ. Even so, however, the general drift of ancient Christological thought up to Chalcedon, and the chief forms of German Christological construction of the last century are lightly sketched, to form a background against which the new suggestion may be thrown out. These sketches are drawn, of course, by the hand of a master, although only leading principles are brought out, with no attempt to enter into details. In these circumstances probably we ought not to scrutinize with too much care the occasional details which are rapidly alluded to. Otherwise we might question the description of Tertullian's Trinity, without qualification, as "what is called an 'economic Trinity' " (p. 26), and we should certainly demur to the rendering of his οἰκονομίας sacramentum by "the mystery of the divine appointment" (p. 25). Dr. Sanday himself at a later point uses the term "economy" in Tertullian's sense, when (p. 45) he speaks of projecting "our ideas of Personality into the internal economy of the Godhead"—which, by the way, is precisely what Tertullian was in the act of doing, when he wrote the passage which Dr. Sanday quotes. The language which is used in speaking of the Chalcedonian formula (pp. 52–55) again does not seem to us to retain perfect exactness. The Chalcedonian fathers would seem to have done all they could to save themselves from the charge of conceiving the Two Natures as "separable and separate," when they solemnly declared that they were united ἀδιαιρέτως, Leo's "agit utraque natura quod proprium est cum alterius communicatione" would seem to preclude the supposition that these two natures were conceived as "operating distinctly"; and the emphatic "without confusion, without conversion" of the decree, would certainly appear to render it impossible to describe it as allowing "by a system of mutual give-and-take" "for the transference of the attributes from one nature to the other"—which is a characteristic feature not of the Chalcedonian but of the Old-Lutheran Christology. Nor do we think it happy (p. 104) to take over Paul's words in 2 Cor. 5:19 in the form, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself," without remark, as a fair expression of the Ritschlian view of Christ's person. We suppose it to be unquestionable that these words, as they stand in Paul's epistle, have a Soteriological rather than Christological content, and should be read, "God was, in Christ, reconciling the world with Himself," or to put its full point upon it, "It was God who was reconciling the world with Himself in Christ"; and it is hardly desirable to perpetuate a perversion of an apostolical phrase by making it in its perverted use the vehicle of a special Christological hypothesis. Small incidental matters of this kind, however, are scarcely more worth adverting to than the incapacity the American publishers show (pp. 27, 40, 51, 121) to print a Greek phrase correctly, a matter which must be especially mortifying to Dr. Sanday and his British publishers alike, to whom such things are unwonted.

The center of interest in the volume lies not in its historical but in its constructive aspect, in "the tentative modern Christology" which it outlines. This is dominated by a gently expressed but perfectly firm refusal of the doctrine of the Two Natures on the one side, and a fixed determination, on the other, to have a Jesus who, phenomenally at least, shall be "strictly human." It will go without saying, of course, that if there be not Two Natures in the person of Christ, then there can be but one; and He must be conceived, therefore, either as a purely divine Nature as Person, or as a purely human Nature as Person. In the former case we shall be landed inevitably, of course, in some form of Docetism; in the latter as inevitably in some form of Humanitarianism. Dr. Sanday, as is his gracious wont, speaks kindly of the Docetists, and seeks and finds the element of truth which they saw and endeavored to conserve. But he does not cast in his lot with them. Neither (very properly) will he consort with the Kenotists who think to have in a one-natured Jesus both God and man, on the theory that a shriveled God is a man, and that Jesus, who was nothing but a man, may be thought to have been God before He shrunk into human limits—thus losing really both Natures in the attempt to make one two. There is nothing left for Dr. Sanday, therefore, but a pure Humanitarianism. His historical sense, however, and his Christian heart will not permit him to think of Christ "merely as man." He feels compelled to recognize deity in Him as well as humanity. But not deity alongside of the humanity. Why not, rather, he suggests, deity underlying and sustaining the humanity—as deity underlies and sustains all humanity? Then we may think of Christ as "strictly human"; but, as man differs from man in the richness and fullness with which the divine that underlies his being surges up in him and enters into his consciousness, and Jesus stands in this incomparably above all other men, we may think of Him as incomparably the divine man. Thus Dr. Sanday would cut the knot of the Christological problem. Obviously, what he gives us is at best only a new Nestorianism, a Nestorianism stated in terms of modern speculation; Jesus Christ is a man in whom God dwells in a fullness in which He does not dwell in other men. At worst, what he gives us is a devout Humanitarianism, a Humanitarianism stated in terms of mystical contemplation: the doctrine of the Incarnation gives place to a theory of Divine Immanence, and Jesus Christ is just the God-filled man.

The basis of Dr. Sanday's suggested Christology, we perceive, is a mystical doctrine of human nature. Support for this mystical doctrine of human nature he seeks, we must now note, in recent speculations as to the subliminal self. Nobody doubts, or has ever doubted, that mental processes take place below the threshold of consciousness. And nobody doubts that God operates on the human soul, as we say, "beneath consciousness." The peculiarity of Mr. Myers' doctrine of the "subliminal consciousness"—as it is misleadingly called, for how can we speak of unconscious consciousness?—to which Dr. Sanday attaches himself, is that this "subliminal consciousness" is supposed to be not merely the larger but the nobler part of the self. "The wonderful thing is," writes Dr. Sanday (p. 145), "that while the unconscious and subconscious processes are (generally speaking) similar in kind to the conscious, they surpass them in degree. They are subtler, intenser, further-reaching, more penetrating. It is something more than a metaphor when we describe the sub- and unconscious states as more 'profound.' It is in these states, or through them, that miracles are wrought …" Our subconscious states and operations are not subnormal, or even normal, but supernormal. Nay, they are even divine; for beneath our subliminal selves lies the ocean of the Infinite, and, as we are open at the bottom, the tides of the Infinite wash in. If we pass down deep enough into our subliminal being, then, we shall find God; or, if the tides of the Infinite wash in high enough, they will emerge in our consciousness. Dr. Sanday pictures our human consciousness "as a kind of 'narrow neck' through which everything which comes up from the deeps of human nature has to pass" (p. 176). This "narrow-necked vessel," he tells us, has an opening at the bottom. "Through it there are incomings and outgoings, which stretch away into infinity and in fact proceed from, and are, God Himself" (p. 178, italics ours). "That," he adds most naturally, "is the ultimate and most important point … Whatever there may be of divine in man, it is in these deep dim regions that it has its abiding-place and home." Accordingly he refuses to follow Sir Oliver Lodge when that scholar speaks of this "larger and dominant entity" and greater self which is "still behind the veil," as "not anything divine but greater than humanity." "I should not like to put upon it this limitation," says Dr. Sanday (p. 193). Dr. Sanday apparently supposes that the conception of human nature thus enunciated will homologate with the Biblical doctrines of divine influence, of the indwelling Spirit, of the framing of Christ in us. It will not. Its affiliations are rather with pantheizing Mysticism, if we ought not to say outright, with Pantheism—that is if, as we suppose, the distinction of Pantheism from Mysticism lies in its postulating as an ontological fact what Mysticism proposes as an attainment of effort.

On the basis of this mystical view of humanity, Dr. Sanday suggests that we may frame our conception of the Person of Christ. With Him, too, as with us, whatever there is of divine must be looked for in the subliminal regions. As "the proper seat or locus of all divine indwelling, or divine action upon the human soul, is the subliminal consciousness," so "the same, or the corresponding, subliminal consciousness is the proper seat or locus of the Deity of the Incarnate Christ" (p. 159). It is safe to transfer the analogy of our human selves to Him so far at least as to understand that whatever there was of divine in Him it was in "these deep dim regions" that it had "its abiding-place and home" (p. 178) and in coming up into consciousness "must needs pass through a strictly human medium" (p. 165). "We have seen," writes Dr. Sanday (pp. 165 f.), "what difficulties are involved in the attempt to draw as it were a vertical line between the human nature and the divine nature of Christ, and to say that certain actions of His fall on one side of this line and certain other actions on the other. But these difficulties disappear if, instead of drawing a vertical line, we draw rather a horizontal line between the upper human medium, which is the proper and natural field of all active expression, and those lower deeps which are no less the proper and natural home of whatever is divine. This line is inevitably drawn in the region of the subconscious. That which was divine in Christ was not nakedly exposed to the public gaze; neither was it so entirely withdrawn from outward view as to be wholly sunk and submerged in the darkness of the unconscious; but there was a sort of Jacob's ladder by which the divine sources stored up below found an outlet, as it were, to the upper air and the common theatre in which the life of mankind is enacted." The precise meaning of this is perhaps not altogether clear. What it seems to say is that the difference between our Lord and us lies fundamentally here—that the Infinite washes into His subliminal self more constantly and more freely than into ours; and so, though His life, "so far as it was visible, was a strictly human life," yet "this human life was, in its deepest roots, directly continuous with the life of God Himself" (pp. 167 f.). "If St. Paul could quote and endorse the words of a pagan poet claiming for the children of men that they are also God's offspring," Dr. Sanday goes on to expound; "and if they are this notwithstanding that they are confined in the body as creatures of perishable clay; if in spite of these limitations it may still be said of them that in God they 'live and move and have their being,' might not the same be said in a yet more searching and essential sense of Him who was Son in a more transcendent and ineffable mode of being than they?" Dr. Sanday assures us that there is ample room left here for the Homoousion, "whatever the Homoousion means." We suppose he means that we may understand, if we will, that the whole of that "self-determination of the Godhead" which we call "the Son" may have invaded the subliminal recesses of the being of Jesus, as the Infinite washes in varying measures into all of us. But even so, does the man Christ Jesus differ from us, into the subliminal being of all of whom the Infinite washes in varying measures, otherwise than in degree? And how does this conception of Jesus separate itself essentially from that, say, of Ernest Renan who writes as follows ("Vie de Jésus," ed. 3, 1863, p. 75)? "The men who have most highly understood God … have felt the divine in themselves. In the first rank of this great family of true sons of God, Jesus must be placed. Jesus had no visions; God does not speak to Him from without; God is in Him; He feels Himself with God, and He draws out of His own heart what He says of His Father. He lives in the bosom of God and enjoys constant intercourse with Him; He does not see Him but He hears Him … He believes Himself in immediate relation with God, He believes Himself God's Son. The highest consciousness of God which has ever existed among men, was that of Jesus." Surely this is as eloquently said as that: does it not also present as lofty a conception of Jesus' relation to the Divine Being?

We are not endeavoring to convey the impression that Dr. Sanday's attitude towards our Lord's Person is the same as Renan's. He tells us expressly that it is not. It would be monstrous to doubt Dr. Sanday's complete loyalty of heart to the true deity of Christ, which he constantly asserts in the face of all gainsayers. But it is quite another question whether the mode of conceiving the Person of our Lord which he tentatively puts forward for our consideration conserves the true deity of Christ. We cannot think it does. Dr. Sanday very properly discriminates contemporary Christian thought into two main types which he calls "full Christianity" and "reduced Christianity," each of which has a Christology of its own. The Christology which he has worked out here in outline only, distinctly belongs to the type which he calls "reduced Christianity." How could it help doing so when it is insisted that the humanity of our Lord must be taken in such real earnest that His life "so far as it was visible" must be conceived as "a strictly human life" and His consciousness (Dr. Sanday says His "human consciousness" but in the circumstances the adjective seems decidedly otiose) as "entirely human," and yet the application to Him of the Chalcedonian conception of the Two Natures is firmly declined? No adherent of the doctrine of the Two Natures will fall a whit behind Dr. Sanday in the seriousness with which he takes the humanity of our Lord: the true and perfect humanity of the Lord is as real and as precious a part of the doctrine of the Two Natures as is His true and perfect deity. To the adherent of the doctrine of Two Natures as truly as to Dr. Sanday "the human consciousness of the Lord" is "entirely human." But to him "the human consciousness of the Lord" is not the entirety of His consciousness, and he will not say that "whatever there was of divine in Him, on its way to outward expression whether in speech or act" (why not say "in thought" too?) "passed through, and could not but pass through, the restricting and restraining medium of human consciousness" (p. 167). For the adherent of the doctrine of the Two Natures is determined to take the deity of the Lord in real earnest also; and this is not taking the deity of the Lord in real earnest but is subjecting it to the yoke of the humanity. When Dr. Sanday says, therefore, "If whatever we have of divine must needs pass through a strictly human medium, the same law would hold good even for Him" (p. 165), the adherent of the doctrine of the Two Natures draws back. This could be only if our Lord were not only human as we are, but divine also only as we are. We may indeed say this of His human nature, in which the Spirit dwells as He dwells in us, only without measure while He dwells in each of us according to his measure. But we must not leave Christ's divine nature (which we have not) wholly out of account! He is not merely the most perfectly God-indwelt man who ever was—though He is that. He is God as well. And He is God first and man only second. Why should He who is God and the Living God, infinitely full of the incomparable activities which we call divine, on assuming a human nature into personal union with Himself forthwith become incapable of life-expression save through "the restricting and restraining medium of human consciousness"? If we begin with the categories of purely human activities and proceed by confining the activities of our Lord to these, whatever else we include or exclude in our conception of Christ, we exclude the idea of God manifest in the flesh. The adherent of the Two Natures has this advantage over all such constructions of the Person of Christ as this which Dr. Sanday proposes—that in doing justice to the humanity of Christ (and none can surpass him in the earnestness with which he takes the humanity of Christ), he does justice also to His deity.

The doctrine of the Two Natures, it must be confessed, is not very much in favor in the circles of modern scientific theology. Dr. Sanday, though himself turning away from it, finds himself impelled by his mere sense of justice to say a good word for it as not, after all, so black as it is painted. There are many causes which concur to produce this widespread indifference or rejection of it. Among them there should not be permitted to fall out of sight this very potent one—the change in men's attitude to the Bible. For the doctrine of the Two Natures is a synthesis of the entire body of Biblical data on the Person of Christ, and a synthesis which has been worked out in the crucible of life, not in that of mere intellectual inquiry. Work so done is done for all time. The principle of the Chalcedonian formulation does full justice to the entire body of the Biblical data: but men are no longer seeking to do full justice to the entire body of the Biblical data. The Bible has fallen to pieces in their hands, and they are impatient of an effort to synthetize all its points of view, as an artificial attempt to induce a fictitious unity in a variegated array of unrelated notions. What each successive investigator is endeavoring to accomplish is to penetrate behind the superincumbent mass of Biblical ideas to discover, if he may, not the common truth which binds them all together and finds trustworthy if partial expression in each, but the lost truth which has been covered up and hidden under them all and can be recovered only by tearing them away and laying bare the forgotten reality beneath. The Bible having been lost, the Christ of the Bible has naturally been lost also; and each thinker is left very much to his own imagination to picture how it were fitting that God should become man. Meanwhile it is certain that we know absolutely nothing of the facts of Christ's life or its manifestations except what the New Testament writers tell us, and on many grounds their account of it and of its rationale is far more apt to be true to the reality than any we can invent for ourselves to-day. If we are searching for the real Jesus we shall find Him nowhere else than in the New Testament writings, and we can have few better proofs that we have found Him than is furnished by this fact—that all the representations of the New Testament writings are capable of so simple and so complete a synthesis as is provided in the doctrine of the Two Natures. In it all the Biblical data are brought together in a harmonious unity in which each finds recognition and from which each receives its complete exposition. The key which unlocks so complicated a lock can scarcely fail to be the true key: and when the key is once in our hands we may turn the argument around and from the details of the key authenticate the wards of the lock into which it fits. That all the data of the New Testament synthetize in the doctrine of the Two Natures authenticates these data as component elements of the Great Reality, because it were inconceivable that so large a body of varying and sometimes apparently opposite data could synthetize in so simple a unifying conception were they not each a fragment of a real whole.

PERSONALITY IN CHRIST AND IN OURSELVES.

By WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D.

New York: Oxford University Press, American Branch. 1911.

DR. SANDAY'S "Christologies Ancient and Modern," published last year, was reviewed in this journal for January, 1911, pp. 166–174. His purpose in that book was, he tells us, to suggest a "tentative modern Christology." The "modernness" of the Christology he suggested consists in two things. First, it deserts the historical Christology of the Two Natures and proposes to us a Christ who is, phenomenally at least, of only a single nature, and that nature purely human. Secondly, it seeks to explain what is divine in Christ by pointing to the "subliminal self" which underlies the conscious self of every man, and explaining that even in common men this "subliminal self" is invaded by divine influences—or rather washed into by the divine—and may well be supposed in Christ's case to have been so invaded in a unique measure. Thus, as was pointed out in our review of the book, the divine-human Christ of the New Testament, and of historical Christianity deriving from the New Testament, was reduced to a purely human Christ, in whom God dwelt, though in a fuller measure, just as He dwells in all men.

In the pamphlet now before us, Dr. Sanday gives us a supplement, or perhaps we may rather say a complement, to the "Christologies Ancient and Modern." As the title of the pamphlet advises us, its interest lies in the philosophical basis which that volume proposed to us rather than in the Christological structure erected on it. The pamphlet consists of two lectures delivered in November, 1910, in which an effort is made to ascertain precisely what personality is in man, with a view to preparing the way for Dr. Sanday's doctrine of the subliminal self as the locus of divine influences; and a "retrospect" in which he passes in review such of the criticisms of the "Christologies Ancient and Modern" as he considers especially worthy of remark, chiefly or wholly, again, with reference to the philosophical side of that work. As will be seen, the Christology suggested in that work passes largely out of sight in this supplementary material. This we think a pity. Partly because we do not find Dr. Sanday's further remarks on the philosophical basis of his new Christology very helpful; and partly because the purpose of the book was, after all, to suggest a new Christology, and the Christology suggested ought to hold, and in our own case, we frankly admit, does hold the place of chief interest.

It must be confessed that the few allusions to Christology which are found in the pamphlet are distinctly discouraging. In reading the book, one could not help hoping that, in the enthusiasm of propounding a new theory of the Person of Christ, Dr. Sanday might have failed to observe all its implications, and especially its reduction of Christ to merely a divinely endowed man. But our startled eyes can scarcely miss taking up from the pamphlet phrases and even paragraphs which, though few, seem only too clearly to intimate that Dr. Sanday's conception of the Incarnation is fatally inadequate, that the Incarnation is reduced in his thought of it to mere inhabitation, and that, indeed, to all appearance it is confused with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Already at the opening of the first lecture we hear the Incarnation spoken of as "the meeting of Human and Divine" (p. 4), in a context which suggests that its specific character is not fully allowed for. But it is towards the end of the second lecture that the most disturbing phraseology occurs. It is not merely that inexact language is employed. Such a phrase as "His incarnate nature" (p. 47), for example, as Dr. Sanday uses it, is distinctly untheological. In strict speech it can mean nothing but our Lord's Divine Nature: which is the one Nature in His Person of which incarnation can be affirmed. But Dr. Sanday does not mean by it His Divine Nature, in distinction from His Human Nature; but apparently uses the phrase to speak of our Lord's total Being as some sort of composite. What clear sense can be attached to the term "incarnate" in the phrase does not appear. If our Lord has but a single nature and that nature is human, to qualify this nature by the epithet "incarnate" seems merely a very loose and misleading way of saying that Christ's human nature is in some way more divine than that of other men. "Incarnate" has sunk to be little more than an honorific epithet, notifying us that in Christ we are dealing with a particularly divinitized man.

A couple of pages further on Dr. Sanday cites Paul's great words: "Nevertheless I live, yet not I; but Christ liveth in me"; and pronounces them the enunciation of an ideal which "never has been, and never will be, completely realized." Paul, however, is not here proclaiming an ideal but describing an experience; and an experience cannot but be realized. Not only Paul, but every Christian, in point of fact, realizes this experience; and no one is a Christian at all of whom it cannot be affirmed, each no doubt in his own measure; for it is only another way of saying that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us and takes the guidance of our lives, and "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." But Dr. Sanday comments on it as follows: "If we could conceive of it as realized we should say, not that there were two Gods, but that there were two Incarnations" (p. 49). This comment is not perfectly clear to us; we do not understand what the import of the negative clause is. But it seems certainly to imply this much: that in Dr. Sanday's mind a perfect indwelling would be an incarnation—the ideal of Paul carried to its complete realization is what Dr. Sanday understands by Incarnation. "Incarnation" is, therefore, in its mode an indwelling.

On the immediately preceding page (p. 48) he tells us this explicitly. There is only one God, he tells us, and only one Divine; and the Holy Spirit who dwells in us is the same Holy Spirit who dwelt in Christ. What is the difference, then, between Christ and us? "The difference," he tells us, "was not in the essence, nor yet in the mode or sphere, of the indwelling, but in the relation of the indwelling to the Person" (italics his). The "Divine influences" working alike in Him and in us "do not hold and possess" our person, "as the Deity within Him held and possessed the Person of the incarnate Christ" (italics again his). Then, does the fact that the Holy Spirit (Dr. Sanday explicitly mentions the Holy Spirit as the indwelling agent), dwelling alike in us and in Him, "held and possessed" His Person—"meaning the whole Person—each several organ and faculty—but especially the central core of Personality, the inner, controlling, and commanding Person"—as He does not "hold and possess" ours, constitute our Lord "the incarnate Christ"? "Incarnation," we perceive, is reduced explicitly to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit: Christ is just the man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells without measure. Needless to say, here is a complete evacuation of the meaning of the term "incarnate"; and equally needless to say, here is a complete evacuation of the conception of incarnation. Christ is merely a man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells in greater measure than He dwells in other men. He is not God and man; He is not even God in man; He is man with God dwelling in Him—as, but more completely, God dwells in all men.

Now, of course, the Scriptures teach that the Holy Spirit does dwell in Jesus Christ, and they teach that the Holy Spirit that dwells in Him is the same Holy Spirit that dwells in us, and that He dwells in Him after the same fashion in which He dwells in us, only beyond measure in Him, while He dwells in us each according to his measure. But the Scriptures do not confound this indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the human nature of Christ with the Incarnation. This indwelling is, according to the Scriptures, additional to the Incarnation, and fits the human nature which is assumed into personal union with the divine in the Incarnation for its great companionship. The substitution of this indwelling of the Spirit in Jesus Christ for the Incarnation is just the elimination of the Incarnation altogether: Christ's Divine Nature is cut away from Him and His Spirit-indwelt Human Nature is presented to us as the whole Christ. How this differs in essence from Socinianism and Ebionism, it would certainly be interesting to learn.

If we may be permitted conjecturally to penetrate behind what lies on the face of Dr. Sanday's pages and attempt to discover the origin of the error which has led to these conclusions, we should be inclined to find it in a conception of the incarnating act as the entrance of God into a man, or a human nature, so that God, so to speak, clothed Himself in human nature. Such is not the conception of Scripture. According to Scripture God the Son did not at the incarnation enter into a man, but took a human nature up into personal union with Himself. Accordingly "assumption" is the theological term to describe the act; and it would be truer to speak of the human nature of Christ as existing in God than of God as existing in it. Jesus Christ is primarily not a man in whom God dwells, but God who has assumed into personal union with Himself a human nature as an organ through which He acts. Even historically, the term Incarnation does not mean the insertion of Deity into flesh, or humanity. Incarnari, incarnatus, incarnation are just the Latin equivalents of σαρκόομαι, σαρκωθείς, σάρκωσις (cf. Irenæus, "Adv. Haer.," I. x. 1, III. xix. 1) and mean just "to be made flesh," "made flesh," "making flesh." The impression which has grown up among us that reads the sense of the insertion into flesh into them, is just a "disease of language," and is perhaps responsible for more bad thinking on the Incarnation than we realize.

This pamphlet has been incorporated into a new edition of the "Christologies Ancient and Modern" (1911).

CHRISTUS. Die Anfänge des Dogmas.

Von Professor D. JOHANNES WEISS,

Heidelberg. Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher für die deutsche christliche Gegenwart. Tübingen. 1909. Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).

CHRISTOLOGIE DES URCHRISTENTUMS.

Von JOHANNES WEISS

(in Schiele's "Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart," i. 1909, coll. 1711 ff.).

PAULUS UND JESUS.

Von JOHANNES WEISS.

Berlin: Verlag von Reuther und Reichard. 1909.

JESUS IM GLAUBEN DES URCHRISTENTUMS.

VON JOHANNES WEISS.

Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). 1910.

JESUS VON NAZARETH. Mythus oder Geschichte? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Kalthoff, Drews, Jensen.

Von JOHANNES WEISS.

Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). 1910.

DIE GESCHICHTLICHKEIT JESU. Von Professor JOHANNES WEISS und Professor GEORG GRÜTZMACHER.

Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). 1910.

THERE is no representative of contemporary German thought with respect to the criticism of the Gospel history and the origins of Christianity who is better worth listening to than Johannes Weiss. Of a temper but little less radical than William Wrede himself, he approaches Wrede also in sharpness of vision, independence of spirit, and bluntness of speech. He may perhaps even not unfairly be looked upon as Wrede's successor as the enfant terrible of the "liberal" school. The very thoroughgoingness of his naturalism makes him bold; he abandons without fear entrenchments which have become habitual to "liberal" thought, and frankly declares untenable contentions which "liberals" have been accustomed to treat as key-positions; he is so secure in his naturalism, it seems, as scarcely to feel the need of any protection for it whatever. As we read his treatises we are sensible of coming into contact with a vigorous mind, stored with learning, bent on understanding the origin of Christianity and its record—understanding them, of course, as a naturalistic mind understands "understanding," which means just the discovery of the complex of causes and conditions out of which they naturally proceeded and the processes by which they naturally came into being; but nevertheless understanding them—in which is involved also the exact ascertainment of the precise things which are to be naturalistically accounted for. In both stages of this proceeding he is very instructive to us. In his attempts to determine the exact things which are to be explained from natural causation, he displays a very unusual clearness and acuteness of perception and becomes a not unwelcome guide to many points of difficult exegesis and historical construction. In his attempts to naturalize the things thus determined, he makes unwontedly plain to us the violence of the assumptions on which alone the naturalization of the origins of the Christian religion can be accomplished.

By some chance it was bought about that Johannes Weiss gave repeated expression to his views on the great subject of the Christology of the New Testament during the early months of 1909. Then came the publication of Arthur Drews's "Die Christusmythe," and in the early months of 1910 the sudden bursting into flame of the fire that it had kindled and that had been smoldering for the preceding year. Of course Johannes Weiss, in company with his fellow "liberals," was drawn into this controversy, by which the entire structure of the "liberal" Christology was thrown violently on the defensive; and in his effort to treat a sensational subject unsensationally he was led to give another expression to his Christological conceptions. Thus, we have from him a series of little volumes put forth within the limits of a twelvemonth, in which his ideas concerning Jesus and the development during the New Testament period of the thought of His followers concerning Him, are stated over and over again with different audiences in view and with different and even opposite antagonists in mind. We cannot complain that we are left in any doubt as to how he himself thinks of Jesus or as to how he thinks Jesus' first followers thought of Him.

The first book upon our list, entitled "Christ: the Beginnings of the Dogma," appears in the well-known series of "liberal" handbooks publishing under the general title of "History-of-Religion Peoples' Books for the Present-Day Christianity of Germany," and is accordingly of a semi-popular character. It undertakes to describe the development of the doctrine of the Person of Christ through the New Testament period under the successive rubrics of "the Belief of the Primitive Community," "Paul," and "the Christology after Paul"; and in doing this, it seeks to preserve a strictly historical point of view. It opens with these words: " 'What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?'—so still runs to-day the burning question by which our church is split up, many earnest Christians disquieted, and not a few conscientious men hindered from entering into a close relation to the Person of Jesus and His religion. No attempt will be made in the following pages to give a definitive reply to this question: the author feels no call whatever to obtrude his convictions in this matter on others. He certainly thinks it would be desirable, however, that even those who are not theologians, so far as they are earnest inquirers and not afraid of a little labor, should come to clearness as to what the earliest witnesses to our religion really teach with respect to the Person of Christ, what the old difficult and obscure terms 'Son of God' and 'Son of Man,' 'Lord' and 'Messiah' really meant at first, and what convictions of belief the oldest confessors intended to express by them." Of course the historical objectivity announced in this declaration is not preserved in the discussion itself (or, for that matter, throughout this declaration itself), as indeed it could not be. The author is soon found reading his own faith back into the primitive Christian community and, indeed, making his booklet a historical argument for his own point of view. In another one of the little volumes, indeed,—that entitled "Paul and Jesus" (pp. 4–5)—he drops the mask entirely and openly pleads the cause of his personal Socinianism against that Christianity which he confesses to be, and to have been since the beginning, dominant. "Primitive Christianity," he says there, "is—at least in one part of it—Christ-religion, that is, there stands at its center an inner relation of faith to the exalted Christ. This form of religion has throughout the millenniums passed as the real Christianity, and there are still to-day innumerable Christians who know and wish no other form of faith. They live in the most intimate communion of soul with the 'Lord,' pray to Him and long to see Him face to face. Alongside of this there flows another religious stream which is no longer able to find a religious relation to the exalted Christ and has its full satisfaction in permitting itself to be led to the Father by Jesus of Nazareth. Both forms of religious life stand in our church side by side; it were to be wished that they would tolerate one another and that the preaching of the Gospel should not suffer violence from either of them. I make no concealment of my profession, along with the majority of recent theologians, of the second of these views, and my hope that this view will gradually become dominant in our church. But as a historian I must say that it is widely different from the ruling view of primitive Christianity, from the Pauline view. On the other hand, however, I must decidedly maintain that the historical Jesus, as far as we can perceive Him, saw His task in drawing His followers into the direct experience of sonship with God, without demanding any place for Himself in their piety."

The second publication on our list is the article on "The Christology of Primitive Christianity" in Schiele's new religious Cyclopædia. It follows the same lines as the first—of which it is in point of fact only a somewhat condensed repetition, coinciding with it often in its very language.

From these two the fourth—"Jesus in the Faith of Primitive Christianity"—differs only in that it professes to give account of the varieties not of doctrinal but of religious attitude towards Jesus which follow one another in the New Testament development. We read in its introductory words: "The task which my theme sets me, is not to describe the origin of the doctrine of Christ in primitive Christianity: it is not the oldest forms of confession and systems of belief which are the subject of this recital. I wish to try to show what place Jesus occupied in the religion of the earliest Christians, how their religious life stood related to Him, and what they got from their faith in Him for their practical life-task." The schematization of this new theme, however, turns on the same pivot as before—"the weighty religious personality of Paul"; and the chief forms of the religious relation to Jesus are held to be determined by the circumstance whether they are or are not affected by the influence of Paul's modes of feeling and expression. There are treated in turn, therefore, "belief in Jesus before Paul, Paul himself, and the post-Pauline piety, especially that of John." It has been found impossible, moreover, of course, to describe religious attitudes save in terms of religious conceptions; so that what we get is, after all, another account of the varieties of doctrinal attitude towards Jesus, reflected in the pages of the New Testament, differing from its companions only in its greater warmth of tone and the greater generality of its treatment. And even these differences are due doubtless as much to the original end for which this brochure was prepared, as to its particular subject. It was delivered as an address to the Thirteenth Conference of Christian Students held at Aarau in March, 1909, and was published first in the Proceedings of that Conference, whence it has been reprinted in this pamphlet.

The pamphlet on "Paul and Jesus" is also a reprint, in this case in enlarged form, from an article which appeared in the Monatschrift für Pastoraltheologie. It does not, however, like the "Jesus in the Faith of Primitive Christianity," bear its original practical purpose stamped upon its face. In form it is a purely critical inquiry in which Weiss orients himself on the question of Paul's relation to Jesus, particularly with reference on the one side to Wrede's radicalism—by which Paul was made the real founder of what we know as Christianity, a wholly new phenomenon, far more unlike Jesus than Jesus was unlike the higher forms of Jewish piety—and on the other, to the replies to Wrede of men like Kölbing, Kaftan, and Jülicher. Needless to say that Weiss's attitude is far nearer to Wrede's than to that of Wrede's critics. Although he recognizes a much closer relation of Paul to Jesus, and a much more profound influence upon Paul by Jesus—insisting even (for purposes of his own, especially in order to render the naturalization of the appearance of Jesus on the road to Damascus easier) on a personal acquaintance of Paul with Jesus—he is yet as emphatic as Wrede himself in conceiving Paul's Christianity as essentially a different religion from that of Jesus, as at bottom not a development but a transformation of it: "I therefore cannot agree that Paul's Christology and doctrine of Atonement was fundamentally only a further spinning out of a thread already begun by Jesus; and from the point of view of the historian, I hold the sharp exaggerations of Wrede more right than the softenings of his opponents" (p. 8). In making this position good he necessarily requires to review the development of Christological doctrine in the early Christian community, so that there is much material in this pamphlet too which runs parallel to the discussion in its companions and Weiss is quite right in speaking of the series as, conceived from an internal point of view, a single work, whose several sections mutually illuminate one another.

The last two documents in our list—entitled respectively, "Jesus of Nazareth: Myth or History?" and "The Historicity of Jesus"—are separated from their fellows by the circumstance that their face is turned in an opposite direction and they make it their task to vindicate the views common to the whole series against a sudden attack from the rear. The little pamphlet on "The Historicity of Jesus" is of weighty enough contents to claim our especial attention did it stand alone. But the contribution to it of Johannes Weiss is little more than a succinct and gracefully worded repetition of the main conclusions to which he gives more extended expression in the larger document which lies before us under the name of "Jesus of Nazareth," and with this larger treatise in our hands we may neglect the smaller. As our present concern is with Weiss's views, we may also pass over with only a word Georg Grützmacher's lecture combined with his in the smaller publication. It is an interesting discussion from the point of view of the historian, of Drews's new religion, and a very strong reassertion as over against Drews's (and also, of course, the Social-Democratic) view of the origins of Christianity, of the principle that great religious movements are always rooted in great religious personalities, and every great religion has and must have a personal founder. With so much hint of the contents of the smaller pamphlet we may be permitted to turn from it to the larger. This gives us the manuscript basis of two lectures delivered in Berlin in the height of the excitement aroused by the exploitation of the assault upon the historicity of the man Jesus, of which Arthur Drews had become the popular exponent. But it attempts very much more than the mere refutation of this assault, as indeed it needed to do, if it was to have any substance. For the assault itself, it must be acknowledged, is in itself pitiably weak, and required rather to be exposed than answered. Its exposure is certainly admirably managed by Johannes Weiss, though it is, no doubt, drawn out to an inordinate length—for which he duly apologizes in his Preface. When he had pointed out that the fundamental trouble with Jensen is that he cannot read, expressed his sincere sympathy with Drews for his severe attack of "mythologitis, complicated with that infantile ailment etymologitis," and courteously given utterance to the hope that W. B. Smith's mathematics may be better than his theology,—he had perhaps said all that needed to be said in their direct refutation. The contention of these writers that Jesus never existed cannot by any possibility be true, and the grounds they urge in its defense are a mere mass of crudities. The "positive" theologians of Germany have therefore very properly simply passed them by unnoticed. The "liberal" theologians are not, however, in a position to do this. For, however absurd the central contention of the new school is, and however weakly it is supported, it yet lies on the face of things that the method employed by the new school in defense of it is just the method of the "liberal" theologians themselves—their method "reduced to absurdity" no doubt, but nevertheless in all essentials the same method. It has lain in the necessity of the case, therefore, that the "liberal" theologians should orient themselves carefully with reference to the new views; and this is what Weiss undertakes in this book.

In one of his footnotes (p. 16) Weiss somewhat tartly remarks, that despite his respect for Schmiedel, he must say he might have been in better business than in giving W. B. Smith's book on "The Pre-Christian Jesus," a send-off by providing it with a preface. But Schmiedel did much more than give Smith's book a "send-off" by providing it with a preface. He very distinctly suggested in that preface that Smith's method is the "scientific" method, and his results therefore worthy of respectful consideration. Weiss himself does not find himself in a position to object in principle to the method (p. 14), or indeed to reject in the mass the results, of this new radicalism. He esteems Kalthoff's method, indeed, above that of Drews or Jensen; but this seems mainly due to Kalthoff's restriction of himself largely to generalities without proceeding to those details in the handling of which the absurdities of Drews and Jensen are most amusingly manifested. And he may distinguish between their results as more or less acceptable; but in the fundamental contentions of the new speculators he more or less fully shares. They cannot assert with more energy than he does, for example, that the whole Christ-theology of the Church is mythical. He is not even in a position to offer effective opposition when they declare that this mythical Christ-theology is the aboriginal Christian theology, behind which there is—nothing. He does indeed for himself declare that there is behind it a more primitive Christianity, a Christianity to which Jesus is just a man who has been exalted after His death to world-dominion—an "adoptionist Christology," as it is the fashion to call it. But he discovers this more primitive view by very unconvincing methods of dealing with the records, all of which, he is compelled to admit, already present the higher Christology. As the result of Weiss's own criticism of the documents it is plain enough that the adherents of Jesus from the beginning held Him to be just God manifest in the flesh; and Weiss himself has been led by this fact to seek and find a pre-Christian basis for their high Christology. He still supposes, indeed, that this was first brought into Christain circles by Paul; but there seems no reason why, if it were in the air, others than Paul might not have been affected by it, even indeed Jesus Himself, who, Weiss does not doubt, believed in His own Messiahship and might very well have believed therefore even on naturalistic grounds in His "transcendental" Messiahship. In any event, the plain truth is that when Drews asserts roundly that "the Jesus of the oldest Christian communities is not, as is commonly thought,"—that is, in liberal" circles—"a deified man, but a humanized God" ("Die Christusmythe," 1910, p. 211), he announces a fact which cannot be successfully denied, and it is the announcement of this indefeasible fact which gives all its force to the movement which he represents. One would think that, already trembling on the verge of the recognition of this fact on his own account, Weiss would in the face of its new assertion, now from the radically naturalistic and no longer "positive" side, simply admit it and adjust his theories to it.

But the establishment of this fact, we must observe, is nothing less than the death-blow of the old "liberalism." The fundamental contention of the old "liberalism" is not merely that Jesus was a mere man, but that He was only gradually deified in the thought of His followers. The "liberal" theologians may conceal for a time the seriousness of the blow they have received by crying out loudly upon the fantastic element of the new speculation—its attempt to eliminate the figure of Jesus altogether and to hang the whole account of the origin of Christianity on a myth. Any number of pamphlets, however, on "the burning question," "Did Jesus ever live?" will not extricate them from their difficulties. It has been driven home to men's consciousness afresh that Christianity is rooted not in the deification of a man but in the incarnation of a God, and whatever else may come out of the controversy it will no longer be possible for the bald Socinianism which has dominated German theological thought for a generation or two to rule the minds of men. Negative theology must find a better way of accounting for the origin of Christianity than by the religious impression made on men's hearts by the happy, holy life of the man Jesus who trusted Himself wholly to the love of His Father. The transition, as we have said, ought not to be difficult for men like Johannes Weiss who already stands so near to the new platform that a very short step indeed would place him fairly on it. He already believes that "there was already existing among Jews and heathen alike before the appearance of Jesus a Christology, that is a doctrine of the Messiah, or at least the materials for a Christology, and at the moment when the Messiah was found in the person of Jesus, the scattered elements, which lacked only a combining middle-point, gathered together like a crystal about its core" ("Christus," pp. 4–5; Schiele's "Die Religion," col. 1713). He already believes that this fact accounts for the rapidity of the development of a high Christology among the followers of Jesus. And he already thus reduces the rôle of Jesus in the production of this high Christology to that of a mere occasion for the crystallization of elements already in solution in contemporary thought. A very little earlier dating of the process would enable him to free himself from his unjustified assumption of a precedent "adoptionist" Christology; and it should not require a very much further attentuation of the role of Jesus in it to dispense with His "impression" altogether. And then, what would he have more than Kalthoff or Drews or Jensen—except a little sounder scholarship and a little more reasonable mode of picturing the origin and growth of the "Christ-myth"?

Meanwhile, however, Weiss throws himself along with his fellow "liberals" valiantly into the not difficult task of defending "the historical Jesus" from the assaults of Kalthoff and Drews and Jensen. And incidentally, while doing so, he makes clearer his own views as to the origins of Christianity and its records. It is exceedingly pleasant to see him in the unwonted rôle of an apologist; and it must be confessed that he plays the part very well. They tell us that it came to such a pass in ancient Rome that two augurs could not meet one another without smiling. But Weiss can develop quite a sound method of criticism in the face of Jensen and Kalthoff and Drews with no apparent shamefacedness. We read for instance (pp. 83–84) this: "In theological investigation there are especially in dominant operation two manias. First, there is the tendency, before the understanding of a narrative in itself has been acquired, to go off in search of what lies behind it—for the mythological, astral, or even political antecedents.… I do not at all deny the value of such a world-embracing history of ideas, but it is hard to carry it out in a really scientific manner, and it is of doubtful value to trace back to primitive forms of thought complicated, refined, and individual phenomena.… Secondly, there all too often intrudes between the source and the reader a really morbid scepticism.… If it is unscientific to give credence to a writer on his mere word, it is just as unscientific to refuse credence to a source where what it relates is wholly unexceptionable merely because it could no doubt possibly be fabulous.… Over against our evangelical tradition, not merely the miraculous stories, there is arrayed to-day a mood of what I can call nothing else but distrust, which in no way arises from the matter itself, but from an excess of critical feeling, which goes often enough hand in hand with a touching lack of critical sense.…" If only Weiss would follow his own prescription! For this is the same Weiss who, having framed for himself a pretty scheme of the development of the Christological thought of the Church—a scheme which supposes Jesus to have made no claims to a divine dignity for Himself, but His followers first to have exalted Him, after His death, to the side of God as world-ruler, then, under the influence of Stoic ideas to have made Him a kind of secondary God (Paul), and finally to have put Him quite on a level with God (John)—on finding that the entire body of New Testament writers present a Jesus who was divine and claimed to be divine, seeks to wrest from them unwilling testimony to an "earlier" view of which they themselves know nothing and vigorously contradict; on finding no "direct evidence" of an "adoptionist Christology" among Christ's earliest disciples endeavors to make indirect evidence of its early prevalence out of records which certainly did not bear this meaning to those who have transmitted them to us; on finding Paul openly declaring Christ to be nothing less than God over all, just, without a scintilla of objective ground for doing so, throws out the text in which Paul makes this declaration as "inconceivable" in Paul's mouth—that is, discordant with Weiss's theory of what Paul ought to have said ("Christus," p. 29)! In other words, he sustains his radical position only by neglecting his own prescribed methods of sound critical procedure. Thus he seems to hang between two destinies. Either he must continue to use the methods common to him and his more radical opponents, and then he can scarcely escape their extremities of negation. Or else he must follow the sounder methods he tells them they ought to follow, and then he can surely not fail ultimately to reach "conservative" conclusions. It appears to be only a new instance of the old difficulty: "I see the good; the evil I pursue."

In would be interesting to call attention to the numerous matters of importance to the understanding of early Christian Christology on which Weiss speaks in these treatises with his usual point and force. This notice is, however, already long; and perhaps it will suffice, after what has been already said, simply to transcribe, in concluding, the opening and closing words of the two formal presentations of his views upon the early development of Christological thought. In these passages, he himself sums up the substance of his findings.

The opening words we take in the form in which they occur in the article in Schiele's Cyclopædia (coll. 1712 f.):

"It is a burning question for science as well as for the Church: On what does the belief of Christianity in the Son of God, in His deity, in His names 'Lord' and 'Son of Man' rest? How did this belief come into being? The older theology did not see any problem in this question; for it was self-evident to it, that the belief of the early Christians merely gave clear expression to what Jesus Himself had witnessed of Himself. The primitive Christian Christology was, therefore, only the fit description of what was actually given in the Person of the Lord. The newer theology, since it strives to conceive the historical personality of Jesus ever more clearly as purely human, feels a problem here. How was it possible that the early Christians should so unhesitatingly and with such assurance transfer a fullness of divine predicates to a personality the human traits of which are still recognizable by us? And—to sharpen the problem—how can it be explained, that so lofty and developed a doctrine did not work itself out in a long development, but lies before us essentially complete already in the oldest literary witnesses, the epistles of Paul? The newer theology answers: this rapid development of Christology to its highest and farthest-reaching expression has its ground in this—that, already before the appearance of Jesus a Christology existed among Jews and Hellenists alike, that is to say, a doctrine of the Messiah, or at least the materials for a Christology; and at the moment when the Messiah was discovered in the Person of Jesus, the scattered elements, which had lacked only a combining center, gathered together like crystals around their core. There was hardly needed any particular reflection; the same expressions which had been in use previously of the future Messiah, were applied at once to the present Messiah—of course with the adjustments which were required by what was peculiar to Jesus, especially by His death on the cross; and the Christology was in substance complete. But there never was a Jewish doctrine of the Messiah, however completely worked out, which had power to transmute the longings for a better future into the joyful assurance that the fulfillment of the hope had come. And all Hellenistic speculation about the highest middle-being between God and man could never awaken the clear and inspiring conviction that the divine Logos was present in a particular, well-known, heart-winning personality. This transformation of speculation into religious intuition, of a Messiah-idea into a Jesus-figure—this combination of hitherto disconnected elements of conception into a fixed middle-point—presupposes a power of attraction of which we cannot form a strong enough notion. What a powerful indirect or direct influence must Jesus' personality have exerted upon the souls of His adherents, that they should have believed such things about Him and have been ready to die for this belief! Thus there lies at the basis of the doctrine of Christ, at every stage of its development

The closing words we take in the form in which they occur in the tractate, "Christus" (pp. 87–88):

"We have traveled over a long road: from the Jewish-Christian idea of a political Messiah to the doctrine of the heavenly Messiah and Son of God; from the adoptionistic exaltation-Christology to the doctrine of the preëxistent 'Man' and 'Son of God,' and to the Logos-Pneuma-Christ; through the difficult questions of the incarnation to the conception and presentation of the Gospels. The total impression has been that primitive Christianity made use of already existing forms and ideas, in which to , a belief in Jesus which we must sympathetically feel, even though often enough it seems choked by speculation."bring to expression, in a manner capable of being understood by all, and yet at the same time absolute and determinative, the overwhelming impression made by the Person of Jesus. Predicates were sought out which declared that there were contained in Him the ideal, and the highest religious goods. To the men of old time the predicate of deity offered itself continually for this purpose. In varied forms this was applied to Jesus. Thus, however, the problem was raised that nevertheless the true humanity which was perfectly clearly preserved in memory and tradition, should not be lost. The efforts to find a solution, which were made, are altogether incomplete and only create new questions. A chain of inexpressibly complicated and in the highest degree unhappy controversies attached itself to this, until the famous compromise-formula of 'one Person in two Natures' was invented, which can never give satisfaction, no matter how acutely it may be thought out. For the question must be continually raised afresh how it can be imagined that Godhood and manhood can be united in a single earthly person. For the modern man striving earnestly and longingly after clearness and certainty all these Christological formulas have already about them something strange and foreign, because they are products of the utterly different soil of ancient thought. What was altogether easy for an ancient man to conceive, that a man should be in reality an incarnate God—as, for example, the Roman emperor or Antiochus Epiphanes—or that a Plato might be the Son of a God, cannot make entrance into our minds, because we feel much too sharply the unpassable boundary line that divides the divine and the human. From all the stammering attempts to express the nature of Christ in formulas, we can learn only how mighty the personality must have been which has inspired men to such a faith, stirred their phantasy after such a fashion, and occupied their thought through thousands of years. The less we are able to understand and adopt the Christology the more strongly are we thrown back upon the Person of Jesus. To understand Him, to receive our impression from Him, to let ourselves be drawn by Him into His life with the Father—this is more important than to find a formula of confession, in which we may be at once dogmatically correct and historically true."

These words are surely very pathetic. For what is their burden but just this: we are modern men, and as modern men simply cannot believe in a divine Christ; but we cannot do without Jesus and will therefore think of Him as greatly as we can—as a truly heroic man. Meanwhile what is most strongly borne in on us as we read is that Weiss does not find his merely human Jesus in the records but imposes him on the records. The whole effort of the newer theology, he says, is "to conceive the historical personality of Jesus ever more clearly as purely human." The test of all conceptions of Christ is, Do they offer us a merely human Christ? The one thing that cannot be allowed is that that Man who walked the earth and has created the new world, was in any respect more than man. At all hazards we must not allow that God has entered in this Man into the sphere of human life. The rock of offense is the Incarnation: and anything is more credible than that. When we make our Socinianism the major premise of all our reasoning, is it strange that what we take out of our premises as our conclusion is just Socinianism?

THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS. 41st Fernley Lecture.

By the Rev. W. W. HOLDSWORTH, M.A.

London: Charles H. Kelly. 1911.

MR. HOLDSWORTH's Fernley Lecture makes a book of excellent quality. If we cannot quite say that it brings a contribution to our knowledge of the great subject with which it deals, we must at least find it a thoughtful and readable discussion of this great subject in the light, and to some extent under the dominance, of modern views. Its subject is "The Christ of the Gospels." But this subject is construed somewhat broadly. Mr. Holdsworth himself outlines the task he undertakes as follows (p. 18): "We are not concerned here with the efforts of the Church, nor with the degree of success it attained. Our investigation is with the Records upon which the Church has been built up. What is the doctrine of the Person of our Lord which is given to us in the New Testament? How did it come to find a place in those writings? The double question calls for at least an outline statement from the writings as a whole, and then for some measure of historical criticism of the Four Gospels. When we have thus considered the Records, it may be possible to build up from the writings such a statement of our Lord's Person as will present Him once again to His Church as the one true object of her adoration; the God-Man, in fellowship with whom a man may find the very fullness of his life."

We perceive that Mr. Holdsworth has a constructive purpose in view; his object is to reach a new statement of the doctrine of the Person of Christ which will "once again" present Him acceptably to the Church's adoration. The phraseology suggests that he feels dissatisfied with the statements of this doctrine with which the Church has hitherto been compelled to content itself, as well as that he recognizes that in discarding them the Church has fallen away also from its proper attitude to its divine Lord; he hopes by a restatement to help the Church to recover its lost ground. The method by which he hopes to attain this object is a critical re-examination of the Evangelical records; thus he expects to obtain a basis for interpretation which will yield a truer view of the Person of the Lord than either the new or old views which have hitherto been prevalent. He quite properly, however, supposes that this new interpretation can be most hopefully made in the light of a general view of the teaching as to our Lord's Person of the New Testament as a whole. Accordingly, after a short Introduction, he begins with a rapid survey of "The Christology of the New Testament," which is very well done indeed, and shows a true historical sense, a clear expository talent, and a thoughtful mind. From this he passes to a somewhat lengthy discussion of what he calls "The Gospel Record," that is, to a critical investigation of the origin and historical character of our Gospels. Here he does not appear to us to move with such sure step, and seems to speak more as a reporter of the views of others adopted by himself with scarcely sufficient basis of individual consideration. Finally, in four chapters entitled respectively "The Synoptic Jesus," "The Johannine Christ," "The Higher Synthesis—Jesus Christ," and "The Gospel Message" he presents his constructive view of the Christ of the Gospels, and offers it as the solution of the difficulties created by modern conditions and as a new point of crystallization for the Church's adoration of its Lord. Along with much that is strikingly said and winningly argued here, we cannot help thinking that Mr. Holdsworth is least successful in this part of his task. The conception he offers us of "the God-Man" is vague, and in danger of running off into a subjectivity which affords little support to faith.

Precisely what the view of Christ's Person which Mr. Holdsworth would commend to us is, remains a little difficult to determine. He is constant in his affirmation of the true deity of Christ. And he does not always shun the language of the Chalcedonian Christology. He can speak of "incarnation" (p. 222) as if he were using the term in its historical sense; and indeed of the "incarnation" meaning "the union of two natures, human and divine" (p. 41). He can even employ the precise Chalcedonian affirmation and declare that it is the teaching of the Gospels and the sole firm foundation for faith. "If our faith is to have a sufficient objective we want exactly what is offered us in the Gospels—a true humanity and a complete divinity united in one Person" (p. 237). Yet he can speak of this same doctrine as creating "a fatal dualism" in our Lord's Person (p. 211), and as "representing our Lord as governed by two distinct personalities which, if they do not conflict, at any rate alternate" (p. 138). He declares that "no explanation yet offered as to how perfect God and perfect man could attain to a unity of consciousness in one Person can be considered sufficient" (p. 210). Nothing but a "complete fusion" of the two natures would satisfy him: "It is possible that the Christian Church will never be able to frame a definition that will perfectly express the complete fusion of two natures, one human and one divine" (p. 194). Accordingly he can write such a passage as the following (p. 132): "We may even accept without fear of loss or compromise in that which has interpreted us to ourselves, and filled us with living hope, that to our Lord Himself the consciousness of a true humanity, simple and undivided, preceded the recognition within Himself of Deity. Nothing but confusion and vagueness of thought awaits us if we allow ourselves to think that the God He was came before His consciousness from the earliest days. The puerilities of the Apocryphal Gospels are a sufficient warning to us of the penalties which the Church will pay if any attempt be made to confuse or divide the complete Personality of our Lord by positing in Him a clear sense of inherent Deity from the first. We do not gain, but lose, when we thus divide the Person of Jesus." This is surely a remarkable passage from any point of view: among the others, however, not least from a logical point of view. The assertion is distinct that our Lord was both God and man: the implication is express that in later life He was fully conscious of being both God and man: we are warned, nevertheless, not to suppose that he could have possessed this consciousness of being both man and God in early life: the reason assigned is that this would be to "divide the Person of Jesus." Why, meanwhile, it should "confuse or divide the complete Personality of our Lord" to "posit in Him a clear sense of inherent Deity" "at the first," any more than at the last, remains dark. Light begins to dawn only when we begin to suspect that Mr. Holdsworth does not intend his Chalcedonian language in a Chalcedonian sense. When he speaks of "the union of two natures, human and divine" in Christ, he does not seem to mean that these two natures are two distinct natures; he seems to mean that they are just one nature, which is both human and divine. He does not seem to mean that Christ has a human nature and a divine nature; he seems to mean that Christ has a nature which is both human and divine. And what he seems to mean in the passage before us is that this single nature, in reality as divine as it was human,—or divine because it was human—as it could not be perceived by others, so could not perceive itself, to be divine until it had reached its perfection of development. Perhaps it is even implied that it is not divine except in its perfect development. It is our Lord's perfect humanity that is His deity.

Let us hope we are misreading Mr. Holdsworth's meaning. There are passages which would lend some color to such a hope. He speaks, as we have seen, of "two natures" in Christ, and of their "union" to form "one Personality." We read (p. 41): "It is evident from such passages as we have been considering that to St. Paul the Incarnation meant the union of two natures, human and divine" (cf. p. 29). We read again (p. 47): "No candid critic of such writings can deny that the faith of the first disciples gathers around one who was to them both perfectly human and perfectly divine." And yet again (p. 48): "For them the human and the divine had made one Personality, unique and consummate." There are other passages which might easily fall in with these, as when we read that (italics his) "it was through His humanity that His first disciples learned to discover in Him a divinity before which they bowed in worship" (p. 131), that "the Synoptic writers, in delineating the humanity of our Lord, lead up to His divinity" (p. 164), and even that "the humanity they had depicted made an interpretation in terms of divinity inevitable" (p. 165)—though we begin to wonder why any humanity can demand interpretation in "terms of divinity," and this wonder is increased when we read in similar language that "when we find in Him a perfect humanity we are close upon the Deity which transfigures, indeed, but never destroys it" (p. 133), which appears to imply that a perfect humanity approaches divinity. And our hope is quite dashed when we read plainly that "perfect manhood" "stamps Him as divine" (p. 141), and that "a manhood so complete" as His can be "accounted for only in terms of Deity" (p. 157). In such expressions the separating lines that divide humanity and deity seem quite washed out and the underlying conception seems to be that to be complete and perfect man is to be God. And therefore it is, doubtless, that instead of speaking of our Lord's divine-human Person Mr. Holdsworth prefers to reverse the terms and to speak of His "human-divine Person" (p. 215). We regretfully conclude therefore that there is floating before his mind a conception which enables him to speak of our Lord as divine as well as human, because He is perfectly and completely human. We gladly confess, however, that this conception seems to remain somewhat vague to him and that his recognition of the true deity of our Lord is far more significant of his attitude to Him than the explanation which he seems to suggest of how it is that He can be God as well as man. It is not reassuring, nevertheless, to see him appeal in the end with sympathy to the modes of representation of Wilhelm Herrmann and Albrecht Ritschl.

The lack of clearness in the presentation of his conception of the Person of Christ attends also occasionally Mr. Holdsworth's less important statements. On pp. 30–31, for instance, he cites Rom. 9:5 in this somewhat odd and misleading paraphrase: "As concerning the flesh He is of the patriarchs, but in Himself He is God blessed for ever"—precisely what he means to convey by which it somewhat puzzles us to determine. He adds immediately: "There is good reason for believing that in one passage (Col. 2:3) the true reading directly gives to Christ the name 'God,' but even if we do not press the reading of the Vatican MS. in this passage," etc. From the context, we suppose that Rom. 9:5 is cited as "directly giving to Christ the name God"—as it well might be. The succeeding words therefore are very confusing to the reader, and not less so that it does not appear that the name "God" is directly given to Christ in Col. 2:2, and especially not in the reading of B, where χριστοῦ seems to stand in apposition to τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ θεοῦ and not to τοῦ θεοῦ alone. Again, after reading on p. 154 that "the language used" in Matt. 11:25–30 "indicates the preëxistence of the Messiah" (why, by the way, "the Messiah" here?), with a supporting footnote from Dr. W. C. Allen's "Commentary on St. Matthew," it is rather confusing to read on p. 164 that the Synoptics know nothing of the preëxistence of Christ, and this is introduced only by John in his account of Christ's self-testimony. Of course every time the Synoptics represent Christ as calling Himself "the Son of Man" they record an implication of a claim to preëxistence, and the implication of preëxistence is not easily excluded from His recorded representations of His earthly life as a mission to which He has come forth (Mark 1:38) or upon which He has been sent (Luke 4:43). We cannot think, either, that the suggestion that there was no recognition of our Lord's divinity among the disciples until after His resurrection (p. 49; we are stating the point more strongly than Mr. Holdsworth does) is quite consistent with the general representation in the volume with regard to our Lord's claims and His disciples' apprehension of them. It was not merely "in the light of Easter Day and of Pentecost" that His followers "knew that 'this Jesus' was 'the very God' " (p. 48). What could His disciples have understood Him to mean by the great declaration of Matt. 11:25–30, which Mr. Holdsworth understands to involve a distinctly divine claim, and also asserts not to stand as a "rock in the sky" in the Synoptic Gospels (pp. 152 f.)? What meaning could they attach to such a declaration as that of Mark. 13:32? What was floating before Peter's mind when he made his "great confession" (Matt. 16:16) with its double designation of his Master as not only "the Christ," but "the Son of the living God"—even though we may agree that in its full reach it "was scarcely understood even by the man who made it" (p. 132)? What meaning did His followers attach to His response to the solemn adjuration of the High Priest (Matt. 26:63–64)? We do not ask here what meaning they could attach to the culminating enunciation of essential deity by our Lord recorded in Matt. 28:19, because that was spoken after His resurrection and may take its place therefore side by side with Thomas' high ascriptions in John 20:28—and for another reason also, to which we shall immediately advert.

This is the unhappy readiness which Mr. Holdsworth occasionally exhibits to throw doubt on the trustworthiness of the records in their reports of our Lord's sayings. This is of course incidental to his critical position over against the Evangelical documents, which, as we have already hinted, seems to us artificial and secondary. He does not hesitate to argue for the relative priority of one account as over against another on grounds which posit the modification of the language attributed to Jesus in accordance with the changing beliefs of His reporters (p. 61). The small place which such argumentation takes in his pages in comparison with what we have grown accustomed to in writers of less conservative instincts, does not affect the principle on which alone it can rest. Thus he is not at all averse to supposing that there is "a considerable element of subjectivity" to be found in our Lord's discourses as reported by John, which, though given "in the vivid form of direct speech," yet present us the Master's teaching only as "enlarged and interpreted by the recording apostle" (p. 121). This same "subjectivity" he carries also into the Synoptic reports. Thus, in particular (p. 122): "It has often been pointed out that the words of the great commission (Matt. 28:19) do not read like that which we have been accustomed to find given as sayings of Jesus in the earlier Gospels. The baptismal formula is more like an expansion made when baptism was more of a sacrament than it was in the days of Jesus, and when the Doctrine of the Trinity was seen to be an inevitable deduction from our Lord's teaching of His own relation to the Father. That there was an underlying 'saying' of Jesus thus amplified few will wish to deny, and as the words appear in the earliest MSS. and versions without any suggestion of hesitation, they cannot be considered an interpolation from later times. It appears, however, in the form of a divinely directed expansion of some simpler phrase. The gift of the Spirit at Pentecost had thrown a flood of light upon the Person of our Lord and upon His relation to the Father, and in that light the injunction of our Lord was interpreted. The great commission is not less authoritative because it contains an interpretation of a command which was probably simpler in expression though equally profound in meaning." Such criticism is essentially frivolous. Jesus could not have said what is here put into His mouth; for what is here put into His mouth belongs to the ecclesiastical usages and the doctrinal formulation of a later time. But He doubtless said something of importance (if only we had it!); and we may accept even the injunctions of a later time as "authoritative." Meanwhile there is no reason in the world for transferring what Matthew ascribes to Jesus to the later community, except unwillingness on the part of the critic to believe that Jesus could have established "the sacrament of baptism" and could have announced that doctrine of the Trinity which all men afterwards (but not Jesus) could see "to be an inevitable deduction from our Lord's teaching of His own relation to the Father." In a word, the critic's ungrounded theory of the development of doctrine in the first years of Christianity—a theory which denies to our Lord the capacity to draw "inevitable deductions" from His own claims—becomes a Procrustean bed on which he measures the trustworthiness of all documentary evidence; and that is as much as to say that he imposes his hypothetical construction on the records instead of drawing his constructions from the records. From which we may perceive that whatever we may say of the subjectivity of Matthew's account of our Lord's saying, we cannot deny the intense subjectivity of Mr. Holdsworth's interpretation of Matthew's account.

Mr. Holdsworth's general critical attitude is that of the present dominant school of Gospel-criticism, set forth, however, in as genial and reverent a tone as it admits of. We suppose very few will go with him in the hearty acceptance he accords to Dr. Arthur Wright's highly artificial hypothesis of successive editions of Mark as the true account of the phenomena of the Synoptic tradition. There are also, of course, other individualisms in his treatment of the critical problem. But these are unimportant. What he gives is in general merely a very clear exposition of current views, supported after the usual fashion. Though he knows and praises Dr. Lightfoot's "admirable discussion of the word logia," he can still tell us that when Papias says that "Matthew composed his logia in the Hebrew tongue, and each man interpreted these as he was able," he "evidently means that St. Matthew collected and arranged a considerable number of the sayings of Christ which were floating about the Christian Church" (p. 75). He can still tell us also "that there can be no doubt that the earlier use of the word [ιολόγν] was in the sense of what we know as an 'oracle,' that is, a short condensed utterance" (p. 77). Is a "short condensed utterance" what we know as an "oracle"? Or is an "oracle," with us, not rather, a sacred, an authoritative utterance? In any event the latter is what λόγιον was to the Greeks. The word is not (in usage at least) a diminutive, and it has no implication of brevity. Its implication is that of divinity. And Papias' statement does not represent Matthew as "collecting sayings of Christ" but as "composing his Scriptures." Mr. Holdsworth, even in the company of the great host of New Testament scholars who do the same, should not confound λόγια with λόγοι. The simplicity with which he does so may be perceived by comparing the footnote on p. 74 with the text. In passing we may call attention to what seems to us a remarkable sentence on p. 58: "But the appearance of logia preserved upon pieces of papyrus shows that there were documents at a very much earlier stage of Church history than is indicated by the more ordered collections which we have in the first Gospel." We pass the employment of the term "logia" to denote the "sayings" of Christ found on certain fragments of papyrus: it was the term adopted by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt and though unfortunately adopted and misleading in its use, yet finds some justification in the authoritative manner in which these "sayings" are put forward. But do any of these scraps of papyrus antedate ("very much earlier") A.D. 70, before which Matthew was written, or that earlier date at which the "Discourses" used by Matthew were put together? Is there any reason to imagine that the collection of "sayings" which they draw upon, antedates the "Discourse-source" which Matthew draws upon and which must have been put together within the first decade or so after the Crucifixion?

We must not give the impression that Mr. Holdsworth's book is compact of errors. On the contrary it is a very unusually good book of its kind; so good—so reverent and so generally "positive" in its point of view—that it is worth while pointing out in what respect it fails to sustain its high level. It will be read with pleasure by everyone who will enjoy a generally sound and telling presentation of the evidence of the deity of our Lord, derived from the records. And there are scattered through it remarks of unwonted insight and helpfulness. We esteem one of these the suggestion (p. 42) of the source from which Luke may have obtained the speeches of Peter which he incorporates in the early chapters of Acts. Why not from Mark? Mark was a companion of Peter's, and also of Paul's, where Luke must have come into contact with him. And those who think that Mark's Gospel underlies Luke's (we are not of that number) can scarcely refuse to allow that Mark's reports may also underlie what Luke gives us of Peter's speeches. The whole treatment of the Christology of Peter's speeches (pp. 42 ff.) is suggestive. We shall give ourselves the pleasure, however, of referring to only a couple of passages which show the delicacy and precision with which Mr. Holdsworth is able to deal with burning questions in modern church life. There is, for instance, the question of "social betterment." Could anything more neatly hit off the truth than this? "The reproach has been flung at the Church that sometimes 'the modern priest is more concerned for the unemployed than for the unrepentant.' That the gospel of Jesus Christ contains a definite social reference and prospect few will wish to deny. In accepting and using the language of Jewish eschatology our Lord shows that He, too, has a social and political promise for the world. But the material good is always a secondary product of the kingdom" (p. 245, italics ours). The world is to be bettered through its conversion—otherwise not: the preaching of the gospel is therefore the prime instrument of social betterment. Then there is the question of "church union." "We are justified, then, in seeking the unity which all desire, not along the lines of organic unity, nor in any system of Church orders, however revered they may have become, and however charged they may be with historic association, but wherever the presence of its one Lord is realized. Where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He is in the midst; and it is impossible for any one, unless blinded with prejudice, to deny that it is the presence of the Christ that makes the Church" (p. 249). These, too, are golden words, and a golden day will dawn for the churches when their leaders cease to seek unity in anything else than "in Christ." There are few names in which more crimes against the Church of Christ have been committed, and are being still committed in our day—not least on mission ground—than the name of "unity." A show of organized strength in the face of the world is everywhere being made to take the place of the only real strength, which comes out of loyalty to Christ and His Word. Everywhere men are busy building a big house over a divided family and reck nothing of that divided heart which can prosper in nothing.

DIE BEDEUTUNG DER GESCHICHTLICHKEIT JESU FÜR DEN GLAUBEN.

Von ERNST TROELTSCH, Dr. phil. et theol.

Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). 1911.

TROELTSCH'S chief merit as a writer on theological themes lies in his straightforward downrightness. Among the sentimentally in consistent naturalists which crowd the ranks of "modern" theologians, he shines forth as the consistent naturalist, who will have nothing to do with half-measures. In the Lecture which at present lies before us there is, however, a greater appearance of "halfness" than is customary with him. He is clear that religion is a natural phenomenon; and that Christianity as truly as any other religion is a natural phenomenon. He sees no reason why in the natural development of human life and culture Christianity may not be transcended, and a different religion take its place. He, therefore, will not affirm the "eternity" of Christianity. But he sees no immediate prospect of the replacement of Christianity by a new religion. He is sure that Christianity is so related to the culture of the Mediterranean basin that so long as that culture endures, so long will Christianity endure. And he writes to show that the historicity of Jesus is essential to Christianity. Thus the thesis of his Lecture is the indispensableness of the historicity of Jesus for faith. And yet, he will not admit that this indispensableness is absolute. What is indispensable for faith now may cease to be indispensable hereafter. Who knows whether the culture of the Mediterranean basin is the ultimate culture? Who, then, can know whether the religion which is bound up with the culture of the Mediterranean basin is the ultimate religion? Meanwhile we know that for the culture of the Mediterranean basin Christianity is the only possible religion; and that for Christianity the historicity of Jesus is indispensable. This is the ground on which Troeltsch stands.

The Christianity which, in Troeltsch's view, is the only possible religious expression of the culture which has been developed in the Mediterranean basin, and to which he wishes to show that the historicity of Jesus is indispensable is, of course, not historical, or, as it is more willingly called in some quarters, "traditional" Christianity. For any Christianity the object of whose faith is a divine Christ, and the center of whose gospel is the saving work of this divine Christ "propitiating God and thus freeing men from the consequences of their infection by original sin," to raise question of the historicity of Jesus by whom this redemption has been wrought, were nonsense. "From this standpoint the raising of this question would be nothing else than to display the death-certificate of the whole of Christianity" (p. 5). The same is true of those "mixed forms" which "share the fundamental change which the Christianity of the modern world has suffered,—the transmutation of the real miracle of redemption wrought out in a historical act, into an ever new redemption through the knowledge of God"—but who "connect this redeeming faith-knowledge with the knowledge and recollection of the historical personality of Jesus, which here comes into consideration, however, with respect to neither its miracles, nor its separate declarations, but the total effect of the religious personality" (p. 11). "This," continues Troeltsch, "is the view, founded by the later, ecclesiastical Schleiermacher, which has been presented with most emphasis by Ritschl and Herrmann. For Schleiermacher it is the suggestive power of the personality, which, working on through the mediation of His community, and conspicuous in the portrait of the Gospels, conquers the religious inefficacy, unconquerable everywhere outside the sphere of Jesus' influence, and creates the might, certitude, joy and permanence of the knowledge of God. What apart from the faith-creating influence of Christ remains mere idea and presentiment, becomes by means of this personal influence continued in the community victorious and effective force. With Ritschl the same idea is referred less to the suggestive power of the personality than to the authority of Jesus, producing assurance of the forgiveness of sins. Christ by this authority makes Himself Lord and King of the Kingdom of God, or of the Kingdom of God-trusting capacity of life, and it is by the knowledge of Him mediated by the community that there comes the assurance without which sinful man dared not, and may not dare, to believe in God's sin-pardoning grace. With Herrmann the humiliating and exalting fact of the personality of Christ is a historical reality which only the evil and impenitent will can deny, just as it is only the believing will, yearning after God and convicted of its sin, that sees it. It is this fact alone that gives the courage to believe in God as sin-pardoning grace, and with it, the bright delight in and power to all the goods conformable to conscience, while he who cannot become sure of this fact of God falls into doubt, or soothes himself in scepticism and loses the habit of religious needs. It is clear that in all these cases, Christianity is a thought of God, an idea, a faith-knowledge of the true nature of things. All notion of a historical redemptive miracle happening once, and of the foundation of an institute of grace carrying it on, is lacking. But the idea is still, in its efficiency, bound to the historical personality of Christ, by which alone power or certitude is lent it, and the idea so strengthened made the property of a community united in the recollection of Christ. The presupposition for such a mode of thought, besides the silent assumption of the knowableness of the religious personality of Jesus and its effectiveness by means of the mediation of the tradition and the abiding community, is the essential incapacity of men who do not know Christ for hearty faith in God. 'Without Christ I should be an atheist'—that is the express or silent necessity which is here assumed for men who do not know Christ. The consequence corresponds to the presupposition which places Christianity in sharp contrast with extra-Christian humanity. The Kingdom of God, or the Christian community, or the Church as the object of faith, or the redemption-connection proceeding from Christ—that is the sole region of redemption, and the necessary, eternally abiding collection of the redeemed in the Kingdom of Christ. It will last till the end of humanity, and will extend unto eternity as the collection of humanity in the religious communion of absolute salvation and of absolute truth made possible by Christ" (pp. 11–13). Evidently those who think thus cannot raise a question of the historicity of this Christ without self-stulification.

There can be no question, then, of the historicity of Jesus except among truly modern thinkers who know, like David Friedrich Strauss (in his Christian period), how to distinguish between the principle of Christianity and the Person of Christ (p. 10); and who have learned that "in the first instance Christianity is a living faith in God, new at every moment, and that redemption is an ever new work of God in the soul through the operation of faith in God: or, otherwise expressed, that Christianity is a particular faith in God, a peculiar knowledge of God with its corresponding mode of life, or, as it is called, a religious idea or a religious principle" (pp. 5–6)—not, however, necessarily intellectually or philosophically conceived. On this ground there is no historical work of salvation postulated in the background, and there is no inner necessity for the assumption of a historical Jesus. And it is not strange that men standing on this ground should be moved by the increasingly radical conclusions of the historical criticism of the Gospel narratives to raise the question whether it is any longer necessary—or possible—to give significance to Jesus for faith. In ever wider circles there is a feeling growing up that the riddle of the Gospels is incapable of solution, and that the figure of Jesus is fading from sight. And even though it be recognized that the more radical conclusions that are sometimes drawn are unjustified, can faith in God be really inseparably connected with a historical object subject to such critical doubt? "Must it not rather be made inwardly independent of all essential relation to historical elements which in any case are subject to science and which, under scientific examination, show a form so far removed from the religious life of to-day" (pp. 4–5)? "Thus there is to remain, then, nothing but a purely historical-factual and a pedagogical-symbolical significance of the Person of Jesus for the Christian idea! We are to come back to Lessing's declaration of the third Gospel, or to Ibsen's representation of the third kingdom, where religious faith maintains and propagates itself without historical supports, purely by its own purifying and redeeming force, and is to develop itself in connection with the totality of life, freely, out of its own inner depths!" (p. 23). "That in very fact," remarks Troeltsch, "seems to be the outcome of it all"—and then he adds a "But …"

But—this is never the way religion exists or propagates itself in the world. There is no clearer result of the history of religions and religious psychology than that what is essential in religion is not dogma or idea, but cultus and communion. "The third kingdom where in religion each stands off to himself and the spirit develops itself in perfect freedom and isolation in the individual, will probably never come, any more than the state and society which rest simply on the natural coalescence of individual interests or reasons" (pp. 28–29). There will never be a really active Christianity apart from communion and cultus; and "as we need cultus and communion so also we need Christ as the head and point of union of the community. For the Christian knowledge of God has absolutely no other means of producing union and making itself visible, and lectures on the philosophy of religion will never create and never propogate a real religion" (p. 31). "So long as there exists a Christianity in any sense whatever, it will be bound up with the central place of Christ in worship" (p. 29). It is idle, therefore, Troeltsch declares, to talk of a Christianity without Christ, and if criticism ever really disproves the historicity of Jesus or even abolishes all real knowledge of Him—that is the end of Christianity. On religio-historical grounds a Christless Christianity is an impossibility: "Christianity, in the central position of the personality of Jesus, does not have a distinguishing peculiarity which separates it from all other religions and renders redemption possible to it alone, but only fulfills in this a general law of the life of the human spirit, though after a fashion peculiar to itself" (p. 42).

To those who suppose that the historicity of Jesus may go and His personality be retained as "a symbol," which will serve the same purpose as a rallying-point as His reality, Troeltsch has this to say: "But the state of the case being such, certainly a real and principial indifference regarding the historico-critical questions is impossible. No doubt Jesus is in this sense the symbol of Christian faith in general. But those who imagine that for such a symbol a rooting in historical fact is a matter of indifference, and that the great work of the history of religions is precisely the mythical embodiment of ideas, are for their own person far removed from entering into and giving themselves inwardly with enthusiasm or practical labor to a faith-circle, the idea of which is embodied by this mythical symbol. They merely impute to believers, that they, in their humbler limitation, may be altogether content with a mythical symbol. Such imputations, as those for example made by Samuel Lublinski, are nothing more than examples of those æstheticizing toyings with reality which are so common nowadays, where the æsthete purposes to the believer that he shall satisfy his life-hunger on a mystical symbol, because he himself considers that what has to be quieted in the case is not at all a real hunger for conviction and certainty, but only a playful demand of the fantasy. For one who really belongs inwardly to the Christian life-world, it is impossible to hold that the center and head of the community, the point of reference of all worship and of all apprehension of God, is simply a myth, no matter how beautiful it may be. As God is to him not notion and possibility but holy reality, so will he stand with this, his symbol of God, also on the firm ground of real life. It is for him of true importance that an actual man lived, strove, believed and conquered thus, and that from this actual life there has flowed a stream of power and certainty down to him. The symbol is to him a real symbol only because behind it there stands the figure of a preëminent actual religious prophet, by means of whom he not only comes to the knowledge of God, but on whom he stays and strengthens himself in his own uncertainty, as he requires now and again support in a superior personal-religious authority, and reiteratedly experiences it in life. This is what is legitimate in Herrmann's talk of the 'fact of Christ.' What is under consideration, however, is not that the assurance of salvation of the individual can be won only by becoming assured of Jesus, but that there can be no productive and strengthening life-coherence of the Christian spirit without gathering about Jesus, and a gathering about Jesus must also go back to a real living life if it is to have real power and veracity" (pp. 31–33).

The point of Troeltsch's contention thus is that religion is after all a social affair and consists at bottom in associated worship, and this associated worship requires for its persistence a rallying-point which must be envisaged as real. So soon as the reality of this rallying-point is doubted, the whole religious life centering in it crumbles. Christianity can persist, therefore, only as the historicity of Jesus, its rallying-point, remains beyond question in Christian circles. The historicity of Jesus is not given in the persistence of Christianity; it is rather its presupposition and depends, like all other questions of historicity, on the results of historical research. But whenever—if ever—the results of historical research prove unfavorable to it, then the death-knell of Christianity is sounded. It is precisely here that Troeltsch separates himself with most decisiveness from what he calls that mediating type of thought represented by Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Herrmann, and their followers; and in separating himself from them refuses to find in Christianity the ultimate religion and therefore to claim for Jesus the place of eternal redeemer of men. "If the central position of Jesus," he reasons, "is established by means of the miracle of a power and assurance which overcomes all weakness and incapacity to faith born of original sin, then the religion of humanity must always remain Christianity, and all religious communion in all eternity must turn about the center of the person of Christ. Then, with Schleiermacher, Christ will be designated the second Adam, or with Ritschl, He and His community will be represented as the essential-purpose of God, identical with the world-purpose, and from the one as from the other a bridge can be thrown over to the old Christology of Nicæa and Chalcedon. But if it is to be established upon universal social-psychological necessities, then there can be inferred from it only, that so long as the special Christian prophetic piety persists—bearing in itself the Stoa and Platonism and so much more besides—all possibility of a community and a cultus, and with them all real power and propagation of belief, is bound to the central position of Christ in faith" (pp. 47–48). How long this specific Christian piety will persist is, no doubt, another question; and it is a question a prudent man will not be quick to give a response to. Enough for us that it is bound up with the culture of the Mediterranean basin, and for us who are the products and the vehicles of that culture another form of religion is meanwhile impossible. Christianity will abide as long as the culture of which we are the exponents abides; and so long as Christianity abides, Christ must hold the central place in faith, and that as a really existent and historical person. This is the last word of social-psychological research.

We shall not enter into any extended criticism of Troeltsch's position. The problem which he raises is a purely academic one. It amounts in effect to asking how small a place can be assigned to Christ in our religious life and His historicity yet remain indispensable. Troeltsch's contention is that though His rôle be reduced to that of a mere symbol, a symbol of the peculiar faith in and knowledge of God which constitutes our religion, for the fulfillment of even this attenuated rôle He yet requires to have really existed. This may be true; if true, it may be interesting; but it is altogether without practical importance. For Troeltsch does not pretend that the Christianity—if it can justly be called Christianity—which looks upon Jesus as a mere symbol is playing any large part in the religious life of the world. He does indeed tell us that "die Gegenwart" is turning with avidity to this reduced Christianity: that there are not a few to whom Jesus has become only "the historical starting-point of the Christian life-world, and His portrait only of pedagogical importance or a symbol of Christianity"; and that, if everything does not deceive us, such a point of view is destined to become very much more widespread in the circles of German culture than it now is (p. 17). But he also tells us that it is not manifesting any great productive power, and gives little promise of a great future; "that in fact almost all the religiousness of to-day draws its life from modifications of the strong religious treasures propagated in the churches and in them alone" (p. 23). So long as all the vital and productive religion in the world is manifested in connection with the historical (or, if you will, "traditional") forms of Christianity, we need not concern ourselves greatly with the question whether the historicity of Jesus is indispensable also for the more advanced (or debased) forms of "Christianity" (if the word be allowed) which are without vitality or probable future. We only note, with whatever satisfaction the facts are fitted to give us, that in Troeltsch's opinion religion cannot flourish or propagate itself, in the conditions of our Mediterranean culture at least, apart from the recognition of the historicity of Jesus, and that the historicity of Jesus is in any event an assured fact, and indeed that the fundamental character of His teaching is beyond question (pp. 4, 38). We have our own opinion here, which goes much further than Troeltsch would allow, and we believe our opinion is firmly grounded; but we are not without interest when we learn that even to an extremist like Troeltsch "the decisive importance of the personality of Jesus for the origin and formation of Christianity," and "the religious-ethical ground character of the preaching of Jesus" are "established with certainty" (p. 38). We are pleased to hear such an extremist declare that the "allegation of the non-existence of Jesus is without doubt a monstrous thing, and also the allegation of the impossibility of knowing the fundamental traits of His preaching is a great exaggeration" (p. 4). We wish we could hear him go on and declare that doubt of the true deity of Jesus is also a monstrous thing, and denial of His great atoning act a gross absurdity. Were his opinions determined by purely historical considerations, he could so declare; and so declaring, would understand how nonsensical the raising of the question whether the historicity of Christ is indispensable to Christianity is; for he would understand that a Christianity which knows nothing of a Divine Christ or of an Atoning Death of Christ is just not Christianity at all. The question of the indispensableness of Christ to Christianity is in a word just the question of the nature, or, as it is now fashionable to phrase it, of "the essence," of Christianity. A Christless Christianity is no more a contradiction in words than a non-atoning Christ is a contradiction in fact; Christianity involves the acknowledgment not of Christ simpliciter but, as Paul insists, specifically of "Christ as crucified."

JESUS CHRISTUS IN DER GESCHICHTE.

Von D. EBERHARD VISCHER.

Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). 1912.

EBERHARD VISCHER always writes interestingly, and this Address—for it is an Address, delivered at a Conference of Christian students—is no exception to the rule. In substance it is a popular presentation of the argument developed at length and with more scientific stringency in his well-known article on "Historical Certainty and Faith in Jesus Christ," published in the Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche for 1898 (viii. pp. 195–260). Although, therefore, it declares on its title-page that it is a "Contribution to the Drews- and Jatho-Debates," it has only the slightest connection with these debates. They are mentioned only that the reader may be counseled to let them alone and go behind them. No doubt Drews and Jatho may be answered point by point. But what then? The real question still remains untouched. For it is Vischer's "conviction, that by this labor, necessary and meritorious as it is, the difficult questions raised by Drews and his predecessors are by no means answered; that, on the contrary, precisely by this defense the real problem which is in debate, is made a burning one—the question, to wit, of how a historical personality, which, because it belongs to history, shares also the lot of all that is historical and passes more and more into the past—of how such a personality can possess at the same time abiding significance, can be for humanity the guide, who guides them, despite all the changes of times and relations, most surely and most directly to the eternal Ground of all Being and Becoming. It is precisely by a defense which follows the doubts of the historicity of Jesus step by step, which takes up every consideration urged against the sources which come into account and tries its weight, that it first becomes thoroughly clear what it means that Jesus Christ too is a historical object" (pp. 6–7). What is historical belongs to time, nay, rather to a time; and as times succeed times, it fades more and more into the past, to which, indeed, it inherently belongs, bearing its character and meeting perhaps it needs, but certainly not ours upon whom a new heaven and a new earth have dawned. Jesus Christ as a historical object cannot escape this twofold result of His very historicity. He becomes only a shadowy figure in the fading past; and what may be discerned of Him through the mists of time belongs distinctly to the past, separated from our modern world by a deep chasm. "What has this historical Jesus, this figure of a Jewish Rabbi in His indefiniteness and in the limitations of His times, in common with what Christianity has believed and confessed itself to possess in Christ? How can the significance which a great part of mankind has ascribed, and continues to ascribe, to Jesus for its relation to God, be combined with the knowledge that Jesus is a historical object, and all that is historical is transitory? This is the real religious problem which comes into discussion in this controversy over the historical Jesus" (pp. 8–9).

Having thus posited the problem, Vischer addresses himself to solving it. At the outset, he is concerned that we shall adopt the right method. It is usual to begin with an investigation of the oldest tradition concerning Jesus, first of all of the conception of Christ of the earliest Christian community, and to ask, first, how far this is credible, and then how far we can recognize to-day a guide in this Jesus shown to be historical. This, Vischer considers a bad way: we shall scarcely go through with it without subjecting the results of our researches to a certain amount of manipulation to make them fit our needs. He recommends to us, therefore, an opposite way. Let us begin, he says, with the other end—with what Jesus Christ has been and is to men, and proceed backwards from that to what He was as a historical figure. "Let us turn from the investigators who dispute over the trustworthiness of the oldest tradition, to the company of those who from the times of the first disciples until to-day have gathered about Jesus Christ as their Lord. What have they always believed that they found in and through Christ? And whence have they drawn this assurance, confident in which many have gone to their death?" (p. 10). The argument which he proposes, it will be seen, is that from effects to their cause; and the principle on which he proceeds—a principle fully developed, and defended at length, in the earlier article to which we have already adverted (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 1898)—is that not only a sound, but the only sound, method of reaching absolute certainty as to past things is through observation of their present effects. Of past personalities and events necessarily implied in present conditions we may have true certainty; of all other past things only a greater or less degree of probability may be attained.

Proceeding on this principle Vischer passes in rapid review what we may call the sequences of Jesus in history and emerges at length in the following conclusion. "If now, after this journey through history, after this survey of what the Christian community, yes, humanity in general, have received from Jesus, and ever anew receive from Him, we turn back to the problem from which we started out, we have now found the right standpoint for replying to the questions contained in it. Now, at length we are in a position to give a clear and distinct answer to the question as to the historicity of Jesus. And it is certainly not too much to say that the arguments brought against it appear to us now simply ridiculous. Not because we now—as no doubt we are accustomed to hear—occupying the standpoint of faith, have no need to give heed to the objections of historical science, but because we have struck out the method by which alone we can attain to a real, complete knowledge of historical objects, the method, to wit, of inference from the collective, still tangible, effects to their causes. Undoubtedly it is altogether right when, in order to obtain an assured judgment as to Jesus, all the testimonies to Him that lie before us, in and out of the Bible, are examined in the most exact manner, according to the methods which the historian applies in all his investigations; the Gospels, before all, as well as the Epistles of Paul, and the well-known passages in Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius. Only so will we guard ourselves from substituting, on the ground of actual and alleged religious experiences, phantasies for the historical actuality … We would not, then, by an appeal to the Christ of faith juggle with the Christ of history. But neither would we neglect when dealing with Jesus what seems to us a matter of course in the case of every other great man. To the still existing vestiges from which we can and must infer the greatness or nature of a historical phenomenon, there belong, not merely the oldest written testimonies which give an account of it, but, much more, its work and the effects which proceed from it. It would be a remarkable historian who should carefully collect all the notices about Dante, and search the whole history of his times for traces of his existence, and not put himself under the influence of the 'Divina commedia,' but leave it to one side unheeded … Of course, the greater a personality is, the more important he is for the history of mankind, so much the more impossible is it for any rightly to comprehend his actuality and personality except those who stand under his influence, and possess the organs to feel the imperishable power of his work. That is true again of a Dante and a Goethe, of a Giotto and a Bach, of a Francis of Assisi and a Luther as well as of a Jesus. And we are asking no exceptional treatment for Him, when we reply to those who combat His historicity: Only when we attend to Jesus' effects in history and experience them in ourselves are we in position to decide this question. It is therefore quite intelligible when to the plain Christian who lives in the gospel, the conflict over the historicity of Jesus seems absurd. Only after we have traced the effects of Jesus through history and taken account of what the Christian community believes it possesses in Christ, and why it believes it possesses it, do we understand also how far Jesus Christ, in spite of being a historical man, affected in many respects by the limitations of His time, of His people, and of His locality, yet can possess abiding religious significance" (pp. 34–38).

What it is important to observe here is that Vischer is not arguing that the Christ of faith may be indifferent to historical assault. He is seeking the certitude of history, not of faith. And he is arguing that history gives us a Jesus whose existence is not merely probable, in however high a degree, but absolutely certain; certain with the certainty of the axiom that every effect must have a cause. His method is to point out that historical certainty does not wait upon the criticism of the witnessing documents, but may be grounded in quite other considerations; nay, wherever it exists, indeed, must always rest on other considerations—on the observation, in a word, of historical effects. Had history preserved for us no single intimation of the existence of Dante, the existence of the "Divina commedia" would compel—not suggest—his postulation. And had historical records preserved for us no single intimation of the existence of Jesus Christ—or, what comes to the same thing, should historical criticism obliterate every existing intimation of His existence—there exist in the world effects, quite as palpable as the "Divina commedia," which compel—not suggest—His postulation. What the consideration of these effects gives us is not probability, however high, but certainty. Of course the estimation of the effects and the discovery of the nature of their cause implies a certain capacity of appreciation. To infer a Raphael from the Sistine Madonna, a Beethoven from his Sonatas, a Dante from the "Divina commedia," implies specific endowments in the observer; likewise to infer from the effects which He has wrought in the world a Jesus Christ, has its implication also of endowments in the observer. This circumstance, however, no more in the one case than in the other, destroys the validity of the inference. It only directs us to its proper organs. Nor does Vischer desire by this appeal to the witness of the effects to set aside the appeal to the critically examined sources. So far as, under criticism, they yield a positive result, they supply, according to him, the details as to the personality inferred from His effects in the world. There could have been no "Divina commedia" had there been no Dante; but it is from the historical notices of Dante that we draw our portrait of Dante. Our certainty that there was a Jesus is drawn from the effects He has wrought in the world; what manner of Jesus He was, we are to go to the criticized testimonies which have come down to us to tell us. To put it coarsely, our certainty of the existence of Jesus is given us in the effects He has wrought in the world; our conception of what this Jesus thus certified to us was is given us in the critically reconstructed records.

To put it thus coarsely does injustice to Vischer's position. It does not seem to do as much injustice to it, however, as it ought to. It can scarcely be contended that the inference from effects is only to the existence of a cause, without involving anything as to the nature of that cause; the qualitative is as stringent as the merely quantitative inference. It is not the existence of merely a man, but of a genius, and of a genius of quite specific gifts, that we infer from the "Divina commedia," the Sistine Madonna, the Sonatas of Beethoven. What from the effects Christ has wrought in the world? Vischer himself tells us (p. 11) that, in whatever various ways men may have expressed it, the one thing which Jesus Christ has meant to all the world, in all ages, may be summed up in the one word, God. What, then, if the criticism of the sources gives us, as the Jesus that really lived, not God but man? In his eagerness not to juggle away "the historical Jesus" in the interests of the Christ of faith, and in his fear that men shall set their phantasies in the place of the historical actuality in their thought of Jesus, Vischer does not here do justice to his own principle of interpretation. When we survey the effects of Jesus in the world we are compelled to infer as cause, not some Jesus merely, but a Jesus of a very particular quality, of a quality which alone could be the cause of these effects. And that Jesus is not the Jesus which Vischer would commend to our acceptance on the basis of the criticism of the sources. How, after his survey of these effects, he can still recommend us to see in Jesus merely a man is a standing wonder. No matter what Jesus criticism extracts from the sources, the Jesus which actually was is the Jesus which is required to account for His effects in the world. Or rather, no criticism of the sources can be sound which eliminates from them the Jesus which corresponds to the effects which He has wrought in the world; for it is undeniable, that the Jesus which lies on the face of the sources is the very Jesus who appears in these effects. It will not do to attempt to account for the presence of the Divine Jesus in the historical records on the ground that it is a natural creation of those who have felt the effects of Jesus, and to substitute for Him another Jesus who stands in no recognizable relation to these effects. What needs to be accounted for is not the rise of the Divine Jesus in the consciousness of His first followers, but the fading of the Divine Jesus out of the consciousness of so many of His later followers. It is this last estimate of Him which stands in contradiction with the observed effects He has left in the world.

We wonder, in this connection, what Vischer can mean by words like these (p. 25): "Yea, even the death on the cross, this frightful enigma (furchtbare Rätsel), for the solving of which the deepest thinkers have ever afresh labored …" To Vischer Jesus Christ, though bringing to the world a revelation of God which has revolutionized the world, was after all only a Rabbi of Nazareth, who cannot Himself, but only God who has revealed Himself in Him, be our comfort and support in life and in death (p. 39). Why should the death of such a one, even on the cross, be a frightful enigma, to which profound thinkers devote continual labor in the hope of reaching a solution of it? Is there any enigma in a good man who throws himself athwart the religious prejudices of a fanatical people, falling a victim to their hate? What is there in Jesus' death more than in that of Socrates, which will justify us in speaking of it as a "frightful enigma," which ever presents itself to the investigation of profound thinkers, in the hope that, mayhap, they may fathom its mysteries? On Vischer's view of who and what Jesus was there is no mystery here whatever; no enigma to solve. What should a Galilean Rabbi do, but, after awhile, die? And what could a good man do other than die a martyr to his cause? And what could be more natural than that the zealots for the law should slay Him who made Himself greater than Moses and the Prophets and clothed Himself (with whatever meaning) with those prerogatives of God, the forgiveness of sine on earth, the judgment of the world? (On the inevitableness of Jesus' death on Vischer's presuppositions, see the instructive exposition of Julius Kaftan, "Dogmatik," ed. 4, pp. 570–572.) And as for the cross, how else could He have managed to die by judicial sentence, just then and there? If there be an enigma here to study, a mystery worthy of the thought of men of thought, it is because there is something more in Jesus than a Rabbi of Nazareth, and something more in His death than the natural end which a Rabbi of Nazareth who called down on Himself the wrath of His fanatical compatriots would make. That there was something more both in Him and in His death is certain, with that historical certainty which, Vischer insists, resides in the necessary implication of an adequate cause in observed effects. We wish he himself had followed his argument until he had uncovered precisely what this something more is.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST. International Theological Library.

By H. R. MACKINTOSH, D.Phil., D.D.

Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1912.

PROF. MACKINTOSH tells us in his Preface that he has designed his book "chiefly as a student's manual," and (that it may serve that end) that he has wished to make it "cover with a fair measure of completeness, the whole field of Christology." This seems to promise us a plain, objective, comprehensive treatise. But we are afraid these qualities are scarcely those which most strikingly characterize it. The language in which it is written is overloaded, burdened with superfluous qualificatives, and, though often brilliant, often also not very exact. The presentation is individualistic to its finger-tips. And comprehensiveness of treatment is sought chiefly by prefixing to the constructive discussion—the author calls it, significantly, "the reconstructive statement"—an equally long survey of the "history of Christological doctrine." Under this heading we class together the first two Books, which are entitled respectively "Christology in the New Testament" and "History of Christological Doctrine," because, though formally distinguished, their subject-matters are dealt with much after the same fashion. They together occupy two hundred and eighty-four pages, leaving for the "reconstructive statement" the remaining two hundred and fifty pages.

Perhaps we ought to give some illustration of the looseness of the language of which we have complained. We begin with the simplest forms. On p. 43 our attention is directed to the "suggestion that in the earliest faith two forms of faith in Christ went side by side, in peaceful rivalry: that to which He was but a prophet and forerunner, and that to which He already appeared as authentically Divine in majesty and redeeming power." It is then very correctly remarked that no such division of opinion is traceable in the New Testament, but it is surprisingly added (italics his): "Both estimates were held by all Christians." What is intended is clear enough and very true: but what is actually said is, strictly taken, nonsense—for no one could possibly have combined the beliefs that Jesus was both "but a prophet" and that He was God. The fatally pleonastic "but" wrecks the precision of the statement. Similarly we read on p. 108 of "St. John's usage of the title 'Son of Man,' " whereas the fact of course is that John never uses that title, but only quotes Christ as using it; on p. 118, in an exposition of the Prologue to John, that it declares of the Logos that "He was from the beginning," when what it really declares of course is that in the beginning He already was, which is something very different; on p. 125, that the apostolic habit of praying to Christ may be regarded "as the practical 'deifying' of Jesus," whereas the truth is that Jesus was not held to be God because He was prayed to but was prayed to because He was held to be God; on p. 129, that it was possible for the first Christians "to accentuate either Christ's Divine unity with, or His personal distinction from, the Father," where the adjective "Divine" is quite without meaning; on p. 228, that according to Thomas Aquinas the two natures of our Lord "are not so much united, as brought into a common relation to the Logos," which after some reflection may no doubt be made to yield its meaning, but is a very awkward way of expressing it; on p. 266, that according to Thomasius the Logos by His exinanition "became capable of forming the centre of a single personal Life," as if He had not formed the center of a single personal life from all eternity; on p. 318, that the "influence" of Jesus has in every age "continued to reconcile men with God," an expression which we would be loath to believe fairly embodied Prof. Mackintosh's conception of the work of Christ; on p. 323, that the Greek idea of salvation naturally led to defining our Lord's Person "in terms of substance, not spirit," an instance of an inveterate habit of false antithesis; on p. 386, with respect to the attribution of "an impersonal humanity" to our Lord, that "we are rightly told that the truth against which the phrase is designed to safeguard is this, that the humanity of our Lord had no independent personality," where, however, the disturbing "against" is probably a printer's error; on p. 397, with reference to Mark 13:32, that if Jesus "could thus be ignorant of a detail connected in some measure with His redemptive work, the conclusion is unavoidable that in secular affairs His knowledge was but the knowledge of His time"—certainly as fine a specimen of non sequitur as could easily be turned up anywhere. We have purposely chosen these instances from statements of no great intrinsic importance: they illustrate better on that account a fault of style.

But the fault illustrated invades the most important statements also, in which overstatement, incomplete antithesis, disturbing adverbial and adjectival qualificatives abound. Take such a sentence as this, for example: "God and man are one, but the unity results not from the formal juxtaposition of abstract natures, but from spiritually costly experiences of reciprocal possession and coalescence" (p. 371). What is a "formal juxtaposition of abstract natures"? Had Prof. Mackintosh said simply "juxtaposition of natures," his meaning would have been clear, though question might still be raised of the justice of the use of this expression to describe the orthodox doctrine of the Person of Christ. But what a "formal" juxtaposition of natures is, and how "abstract" natures can be juxtaposed, whether formally or any other way, we must profess our inability to imagine. We are equally puzzled to divine what it means to say that the unity of God and man in the Person of the exalted Jesus "results from experiences of reciprocal possession and coalescence." Where "reciprocal possession and coalescence" are experienced, one would think unity already given—not requiring yet to be constituted. And when we remember that in Prof. Mackintosh's view, as we shall see, there never existed in Jesus Christ—certainly not prior to His exaltation—any two factors (God and man) to experience "reciprocal possession and coalescence," we shall begin to realize how loose and unmeaning the expression is. Take another example. We read (p. 270): "If we hold with conviction that Jesus is one in whom God Himself enters humanity" (this is itself a fatally ambiguous expression) "then He does so either with all His attributes unmodified, or in such wise as to manifest only those qualities which are compatible with a real human life." The false disjunction is flagrant. God may enter the human race by assuming into personal union with Himself a human nature without any modification taking place in any of His divine attributes (this in point of fact is precisely what did take place); and yet manifest ordinarily, in His life "in the flesh" only those of His divine qualities which are compatible with the real human life which by virtue of His assumed human nature He willed to live.

Perhaps, however, a longer passage will give us a better insight into Prof. Mackintosh's methods of sentence building. We will take one from pp. 455–456. "It is, of course, true," we read, "that Christ, both in His own mind and in that of the apostles, stands in positive relations to the Divine fore-knowledge. But we do not exhaust the special connection of Christ with God by relating Him merely to the Divine thought. So far He is on the same plane as the creatures." Here there is a quite clear declaration that Christ in common with the creatures was the object of the divine foreknowledge (and therefore has not existed eternally), and with it an intimation that He differs from the creatures in being something more than the object of the divine foreknowledge. The statement, therefore, at once follows that this something more is that He—and by immediate inference, not they—is the object also of the divine will. But in accordance with Prof. Mackintosh's usual manner, he cannot make this statement simply. Qualifying clauses are introduced, and qualifying clauses of such a character as confuse the antithesis and indeed go far towards abolishing it. What we actually read is: "The filial connection is so close that we must also think Christ as eternally related, and related as an eternal fact, to the will of God—as the timeless object of His producing and sustaining love." What the disturbing intercalated phrase "and related as an eternal fact" means and what its function in the antithesis is, are not immediately clear. Any fact, eternally contemplated as such in the thought of God and eternally decreed as such in the will of God, might be appropriately designated, perhaps, on that account "an eternal fact," that is, a fact which has from all eternity been certain to occur. But this does not seem to exhaust the meaning of the phrase as here used. It seems to be intended to designate Christ, as distinguished from the creatures, a fact which has existed eternally not merely in the thought of God, nor merely in the will of God, but also in actuality. But thus the antithesis is confused. The main declaration of the sentence is that Christ differs from the creatures in being the object not merely of the eternal divine thought but also of the eternal divine will. The assertion that He differs from them further in, unlike them, existing eternally in actuality is inserted in the midst of this declaration without preparation for it and in such a manner as to confuse the consecution of thought. Things are not bettered by the addition of the explanatory clause—"as the timeless objects of His producing and sustaining love"—although the qualification "timeless" here attached to "object" confirms the explanation of the phrase "an eternal fact" as a declaration of the eternal actual existence of Christ. For the eternal Christ which was formerly said to be the eternal object of the divine thought, and has just been said to be the eternal object also of the divine will, and that so as to exist coeternally with this will, is now said, not merely to be also the "timeless object" of the divine love, but also to owe His existence and His persistence in being alike to that love. What would appear to be meant is that the love of God eternally produces and sustains in being as its timeless object Him whom we know as Christ in accordance with the eternal will and, behind that, the eternal thought of God. So far have we traveled from the simple antithesis which differentiates the temporal Christ from the creature as the object not merely of the thought but also of the will of God; and we begin to suspect that that fundamental antithesis was never intended to be drawn at all, and that Prof. Mackintosh did not have it in his mind to deny that creatures are eternally the object of the divine will as well as of the divine thought (which nevertheless his words do emphatically deny), but only wished to deny to them the eternal actual existence which he affirms for Christ. Be that as it may, having now ascribed Christ to the love of God as His producing and sustaining cause, Prof. Mackintosh passes at once away from this idea again and reverts to the mere "thought and will of God." He proceeds: "The thought and will of God cannot be conceived save as imparting reality to Christ." This can scarcely mean that God cannot be conceived as a thinking and willing being save as bringing into being the man Christ, as a phenomenon in time and space. It appears to be Prof. Mackintosh's mode of stating the old argument that a duality in the Godhead is given in the very idea of a self-conscious and loving God, an argument to which, we may remark in passing, he does not seem elsewhere to accord quite conclusive force. If so, we perceive how completely he has passed in the course of a few sentences from the phenomenal Christ with which the paragraph began to the noumenal Christ. The concluding sentence carries on this new line of thought. "Or, to put it otherwise," we read, "the Father revealed in the Son cannot be thought as fully real in abstraction from the Son in whom alone we apprehend Him." The change of terms here from "Christ" to "Son" is no doubt the sign that now the phenomenal Christ has been definitely left in the background, although to Prof. Mackintosh, "Son" is not always elsewhere—at least primarily—the designation of the preincarnate person. We appear to have arrived nevertheless at the thesis that God, if He is to "be thought as fully real," must be thought of as dual—Father and Son. We apprehend Him only in the Son in whom He is revealed; and in abstraction from the Son we cannot think of Him as real. Even here, however, we are haunted with a doubt whether a new idea is not intended to be subtly suggested—the Ritschlian principle that we know God only through Christ. On the whole, nevertheless, we seem by searching to have found out the author's thought. But we have had to search for it.

The intelligent reading of a book written after this fashion is not an easy task. We are not always sure it is a rewarding one. Logical consecution not having always presided over its composition, it does not easily yield its meaning to logical analysis. We are tempted again and again to take it "in the vague" and to depend for the ascertainment of its meaning on the general impression it leaves on the mind—much, for example, as we take the illusive writings of, say, Maeterlinck. The thought seems to be so congested in Prof. Mackintosh's pregnant sentences that it refuses to flow out liquidly to the reader.

And even when we reach the thought our difficulties are not all over. Prof. Mackintosh says many good things well and strongly. We have noted numerous passages where truths of importance, often truths disputed in circles with which Prof. Mackintosh manifests a certain sympathy, are stated with clearness and force. And the drift of the whole discussion is on the side of the angels. But the points of view from which Prof. Mackintosh approaches his task and the presuppositions with which he endeavors to accomplish it, gravely compromise his results, or rather, if we are to speak quite frankly, render it from the first impossible that he should succeed in reaching a satisfying solution of the problems which it offers. Even when he is endeavoring to state facts which are generally allowed, it is impossible for him, with his presuppositions, to state them so as to be generally acceptable. This is perhaps sufficiently illustrated by the very first affirmation he makes. The authors of the New Testament, he tells us (p. 2), "are eventually" (not a very well chosen adverb here, one would think) "one in their view of Christ." "Two certainties are shared in common by all New Testament writers: First, that the life and consciousness of Jesus was in form completely human; second, that this historic life, apprehended as instinct with the powers of redemption, is one with the life of God Himself. In Christ they find God personally present for our salvation from sin and death." This is Prof. Mackintosh's substitute for saying that throughout the New Testament our Lord is looked upon and presented as both God and man. It is a very poor substitute: it fails indeed to make it clear that the New Testament recognizes Him as either God or man, and in its positive statements it stands in no relation whatever to New Testament teaching. Nothing could be more untrue than to say that "the life and consciousness of Jesus" are represented in the New Testament as "in form completely human." It would be nearer the truth to say that the whole New Testament is written to show that neither the life nor the consciousness of Jesus was even in form completely human. John expressly tells us this of himself: and, as Prof. Mackintosh recognizes (p. 5, note), even Mark draws Jesus "as He appeared to contemporaries, living out the truth of Divine Sonship" (italics ours). Not forgetting, Prof. Mackintosh adds, it is true, "the human limitations of this Divine personality," but as he supports this only by a passage (6:5) which, as he subsequently himself explains (p. 14), does not in the least support it, we may be justified in leaving the qualification out of account. How can it be said of one who is reported; as declaring, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was I am" (John 8:58), that His consciousness is represented as "completely human"? Nay, how can Prof. Mackintosh tell us in one breath that the consciousness of Jesus is represented throughout the whole New Testament as "in form completely human," and almost in the next breath (p. 29) remark on "the unconditioned character of His self-consciousness" as depicted even in the Synoptic Gospels as a rock on which low views of His Person even in the days of His flesh inevitably make shipwreck? Is an "unconditioned self-consciousness" "in form completely human"? We cannot withhold the expression of our sympathy for Prof. Mackintosh in the difficulties he experiences in attempting to impose his a priori schematization of the Person of our Lord on a New Testament text obviously so impatient of it. Neither is it the New Testament view that the "historic life" of Jesus Christ, that is to say, we suppose, the life He lived in what the Epistle to the Hebrews calls the days of His flesh, "is one with the life of God Himself." They represent it rather as a life in a true sense alien to the life of God, a life altogether unnatural to Christ as God, a life of humiliation, characterized by obedience, whereas it belongs to God to reign (Phil. 2:7 f.). Nor is the matter helped by the insertion more suo of the qualifying clause, "apprehended as instinct with the powers of redemption." This is not a New Testament phrase and it represents a point of view which is not a New Testament point of view. Jesus Christ according to His own testimony came into the world on a ministry of mercy and redeems men by giving His life as a ransom for their sins. It is redolent of a totally different conception to say that His life on earth "was instinct with the powers of redemption"; and if His life on earth were apprehended as thus "instinct with the powers of redemption," this would not justify us in pronouncing it on that account "one with the life of God," and in point of fact the majority of those who so apprehend it do not therefore consider it "one with the life of God." To find "God personally present for our salvation from sin and death" in Christ is not to find Christ God, and those who have made this and like phrases their shibboleths do not in point of fact find Christ God. If this were all that could be said for the New Testament conception of Jesus on His divine side, then nothing is said which might not be said of any good man in and through whom God works for the salvation of sinful men. That it is not all that must be said Prof. Mackintosh knows very well, and tells us in detail in his subsequent treatment of the conception of Christ presented in the several portions of the New Testament. It is all the more to be regretted that he permits his a priori schematization of the Person of the Lord to confine his statement here of the common New Testament doctrine to such a doubtful minification. Obviously we shall not find our way a step in Prof. Mackintosh's book unless we keep clearly in mind the presuppositions of his speculative doctrine of the Person of Christ. Those presuppositions color all his thought and all his expressions, and make the book merely a historico-speculative presentation and defense of his particular "reconstruction."

We shall confine ourselves in what follows to some remarks on three of the fundamental presuppositions which Prof. Mackintosh brings with him to his attempt to expound the doctrine of the Person of Christ, and which condition or rather determine his entire conception of that doctrine. These concern his ontology of spiritual being—if "ontology" is the right word to use in connection with his conception of the nature of spirit; his point of view with reference to the Christian doctrine of the Two Natures of our Lord; and his opinions with reference to Kenosis.

Prof. Mackintosh gives his adherence to a very explicit, and we may add somewhat extreme, voluntarism in his conception of the nature of spirit (cf. pp. 113–114, 166, 188, 221, 304, 334, 416, 421, 422, 424, 500). "There is in the universe," he declares (p. 114), "nothing more real than will, the living energy of spirit; nothing more concrete and actual, whether it be in God or man." Again, "To the modern mind will is the very core and essence of personality" (p. 188). And more explicitly still, "The ultimate and central reality of things is Will" (p. 417). Prof. Mackintosh does not mean by these declarations merely to assert the primacy of the will among the constitutive attributes of personality. He means to replace the conception of "substance" by the conception of "will" in representing to himself the being of spirit. When he comes to form a conception of the Person of Christ, therefore, he has no divine "nature" and no human (spiritual) "nature" by the union of which in one person he can think of it as constituted. He has nothing on which to fix his thought but the Divine Will and a human will. He has no other formula for a divine-human Christ, then, except the affirmation of the identity of Christ in will with God. "What the believer wishes to assert is not that Christ is manifestly superhuman and so far partially Divine, but that His will, the personal energy which moved in Him, is identically the will of God" (p. 422). "Let men perceive that in Christ there stands before them One who in spiritual being—that is, in will and character—is identical" (italics his) "with God Himself, that in Him we have to do with nothing less than the Eternal, and at once it becomes plain that revelation can go no further" (p. 424). Does the deity of Christ consist then merely in the identity of His will with God's? Prof. Mackintosh would deprecate the qualification "merely": identity of will with God is identity with God, for God is just Will. "If behind all will and thought there exists in God a mysterious incognizable substance, not to be described in terms familiar to human experience, but representing the point through which the thread of cosmic relations passes and constituting the inmost essence of the Divine life, then indeed the oneness of Christ with God"—on the hypothesis that it is a oneness of will—"is after all only relative" (pp. 113 f.). But if will is not "something less and lower than ultimate reality" (p. 113)—then, "if we are inspired by Christian faith to affirm that Jesus Christ is identical with God in will—a Will manifested in His achievement—we have reached a point beyond which no advance is possible; for in ethical terms, the highest terms available, we have affirmed His ontological unity with God in a sense generically different from that which is predicable of man as man" (p. 304). We may "speak," indeed, "loosely of making our wills one with God's" (p. 417), and we certainly do not mean that thereby we become really one with God. But this is not all we mean when we speak of Christ's will being one with God's: we do not mean this "partially, or intermittently, or by way of metaphor; it is one identically" (p. 417); we mean that "the self-conscious active principle of the Son's life" (we interrupt the quotation to ask if this change in terminology is not significant) "subsisted in perfect and identical union with the Father" (p. 417). There can be no doubt, then, that Prof. Mackintosh wishes, under his new point of view, to teach the real deity of Christ, as identity in Will with God. "In every conceivable sense in which this is a true estimate of His Person, it also is a metaphysical estimate," he remarks (p. 304), in defense of himself against the reproach that he is teaching a merely (he would object again to the term "merely") ethical view of Christ's deity. It is another question, however, whether the constructon he offers us really gives us a divine Christ. He himself is constrained to add, immediately after the last quotation we have made from p. 417: "This of course does not carry us once more beyond the moral relations of love and trust; that were to deethicise Sonship all over again. What is meant is that these relations must be interpreted at their full value—as significant of truth proper, not mere metaphors—and when we take them so, it appears that essentially (which means not in virtue of some ineffable substance, but in that central Will by which personality is constituted) Christ is one with God." This is a blind saying. If we do not get beyond the moral relations of love and trust in asserting Christ to be one with God, it seems an abuse of language to speak of this union as "essential." And in any case to speak of Christ's unity with God as a unity not in "substance" (we pass the gratuitous characterization of this "substance" as "some ineffable substance" as only another instance of Prof. Mackintosh's mannerism) but only in "Will," has its dangers. We do not affirm that a doctrine of real incarnation is impossible if spiritual being be defined as just will; but undoubtedly this ontology presents grave difficulties to thought in construing the idea of incarnation, and Prof. Mackintosh does not appear to us to have overcome these difficulties. With all his manifestly good intentions he may prove to have given us a Christ who is rather ethically like God than a Christ who is God.

That Prof. Mackintosh has not succeeded in speaking always in the terms of his ontology is not surprising. To conceive will without a subject of which it is the will is not easy: to speak of it otherwise than as someone's will is impossible. This difficulty is not to be covered up by contrasting the rival ontologies as "metaphysical" and "ethical" or even as "quantitative" and "qualitative" conceptions of God. When we are asked to think of God rather as "Purpose" than as "Infinite Thing or Quantity" (p. 500), or "to put aside the category 'substance' and construe the facts freshly in terms of personality" (p. 334), or to "place the reality of God" rather in His "will and character" than in an "inscrutable and unethical substance" (p. 421), or not to assume "that substance as a category is higher and more adequate than Subject" (p. 416), it is a poor reader who does not fully understand that there is only an attempt being made to "rush" his judgment by calling names. The question is not whether God is to be conceived as a Thing or a Person, Substance or Subject, but whether He is to be conceived as Person or mere Attribute, as Subject or mere Activity. When Prof. Mackintosh equates "Subject" with "intelligent conscious Will," and this in turn with "personality, or self-consciousness," he is only hastily gathering fig-leaves to conceal the nakedness of the idea of bare Will, which he affirms that God is. How can there be Will save as the will of some Subject, self-consciousness without a self to be conscious of itself; and what is an "intelligent conscious Will" except a short way of saying an intelligent, conscious, voluntary Agent? No doubt Person is the highest of all categories, and Purpose is the constitutive quality of Person; but we confound all thought if we wish to make this Purpose the Person rather than the Person's. To evaporate God into His activities or functions is simply to abolish God and can end in nothing but Ritschlian phenomenalism. Some of Prof. Mackintosh's historical judgments may illustrate further the difficulties into which his voluntarist ontology may bring him. Expounding Origen's Christology he mentions that father's ascription to the Son of homoousia with the Father and then adds (p. 166): "It is quite in harmony with this homoousia that Origen should elsewhere describe the Son as 'begotten of the Father's will,' for in the spiritual realm no contrast exists between will and substance." Again, speaking of Athanasius (p. 188), he remarks: "We should put differently his point that God is Father 'by nature, and not of will,' for to the modern mind will is the very core and essence of personality." A point of view which obliterates the distinction between Arian and Athanasian is certainly a powerful solvent. It is perilous to attempt to construct the doctrine of the Trinity held by any thinker from fragmentary remarks. But it is difficult to understand what sort of a doctrine of the Trinity can be built up on Prof. Mackintosh's postulates, and we have read his final chapter, which is entitled "Christ and the Divine Triunity," without receiving full enlightenment. The one thing he seems to be sure of (cf. also pp. 452–454) is that the eternal distinctions in the Godhead are not, in any very intelligible sense at least, distinct persons.

If the distinct Persons of the doctrine of the Trinity present a difficulty to Prof. Mackintosh's thought which he seems scarcely to know what to do with, the Two Natures of the doctrine of the Person of Christ present to it an impossibility which he knows very well what to do with, and against which he therefore turns his direct polemic (cf. pp. 14, 29, 46, 73, 85, 127, 155–157, 164, 214, 228, 236–237, 293–299, 371). To one who, as Prof. Mackintosh does, acknowledges Christ to be truly God, there would seem no escape from recognizing two natures in the constitution of His person—that is, of course, unless the extremest docetism is embraced and His bodily nature is treated as an illusion. Prof. Mackintosh enunciates, it is true, with apparent approval the proposition, "All that is Divine in Christ is human, and all that is human, Divine" (p. 214); but he will scarcely extend this to our Lord's body. We must suppose his vigorous denial of two natures to Christ to refer therefore only to the spiritual side of His person. Even here, no doubt, he admits that at least an appearance of duality has always been recognized and must be recognized. "He was always viewed as both things—heavenly Divine Spirit, and true man who had suffered and died," he tells us (p. 127). He even writes (p. 85): "As a matter of fact, the duality is simply indissociable from the Christian view of Jesus. Faith is conscious of the personal presence of God in Him; it is therefore inevitable that He should be regarded alike in a Divine or eternal aspect—implying somehow a real pre-existence—and in an aspect for which He fulfils His mission under the conditions of time." But he insists that this duality concerns merely "two aspects" (italics his) "of a single concrete life" (p. 295); and he fulminates loudly against and cheerfully caricatures what he calls the false "hypostatization" (it is not precisely the term we should have expected) of these aspects into "distinctly functioning substantialities which may be logically estimated or adjusted to each other, or combined in unspiritual modes" (p. 295). Thus, he insists, "an incredible dualism" is introduced into our conception of the Person of Christ, which substitutes for "that perfect unity which is felt in every impression of Him" (p. 294) a "formal juxtaposition of abstract natures" (p. 371) that "leaves a profoundly disappointing impression of unethical mystery and even, in a sense, duplicity" (p. 294): "no longer one," our Lord is thus "divided against Himself." Moreover, he insists, an impossible impersonal "human nature" is thus assumed to lie back of the personality "enjoying some kind of real being apart from the unifying or focal Ego" (p. 295). This is of course mere caricature. The doctrine of the Two Natures does not suppose that there ever existed or ever could exist an impersonal human nature, and never dreamed of attributing any kind of reality to any human nature apart from "the unifying Ego." To say that the denial that the human nature assumed into personal union with Himself by the Logos possessed an independent personality, reduces it "in itself" "to unconscious and impersonal elements" (p. 207, cf. pp. 386–387) is only to play with words. No one ever imagined a "human nature" which was or could be "unconscious and impersonal." The conjunction of a human nature with a divine nature in one conscious and personal subject no doubt presents an insoluble problem to thought. But this is just the mystery of incarnation, without which there is no incarnation; for when we say incarnation we say Two Natures—or can there really be an incarnation without a somewhat which becomes incarnate and a somewhat in which it becomes incarnate? And it is really indisputable (despite Prof. Mackintosh's caveats) that the Two Natures are everywhere presupposed in the New Testament, which simply cannot be interpreted in its allusions to our Lord without their aid, and in which there are passages like Phil. 2:6, where they are frankly mentioned. The successful explanation of how Christ could be both "of the Israelites as concerning the flesh," and "God over all" (Rom. 9:5), and yet not of two natures, is a task we do not envy any man who undertakes it. It does not help to this explanation, of course, to declare Christ's humanity only modified deity—the preëxistent Son of God transformed into a man—so that the "Two Natures" are after all but one nature, for that finds the source of His humanity in the bosom of God, whereas Paul finds it in the Israelitish race, or more specifically in the seed of David (Rom. 1:3). We might no doubt take a roundabout way and explain that the Son of God became incarnate only through the mediation of the whole line of our Lord's Israelitish ancestors. It would be hard in that case to be sure to vindicate for Jesus Christ a more express deity than belonged in common with Him to each of the long line through which Luke, let us say, traces Him back to end at last in the words, "which was the Son of God." But if that difficulty were only got over we might explain the rest by serving ourselves with a rather odd formula of which Prof. Mackintosh seems fond (e.g. p. 365, cf. p. 469) and say that thus the incarnation was with Him "immediate, though by no means unmediated." On the whole, however, we think it easier, and in every way more satisfactory, just to follow the New Testament teaching and accept the doctrine of the Two Natures.

Prof. Mackintosh prefers, however, to explain our Lord's humanity as modified deity, and thus comes forward as a belated champion of the Kenotic theories (for references, see Index, sub voc. "Kenosis"). He finds what he calls "the profoundest motive operating in the Kenotic theories"—it certainly is the nerve of their appeal to the devout mind—in what he speaks of as "the wondrous nature and subduing magnitude of the Divine sacrifice" (p. 265): "they wished to throw into strong relief the exceeding greatness of the step downwards taken by the Son of God when for our sakes, though rich, He became poor." In this, however, they possess no advantage over the common doctrine. And in the very act of emphasizing this motive Prof. Mackintosh himself seems to allow that the fundamental motive of the Kenotic theories was rather "to signalise the reality and integrity of our Lord's manhood," and elsewhere he more justly explains that "it was precisely the wish to read the divinity of Christ through His true humanity which inspired the Kenotic theories of His person" (p. 421). In point of fact the Kenotic theories owe their origin to a determination to see in Jesus Christ "in the days of His flesh," phenomenally at least, nothing more than a human being; and it is therefore that Albrecht Ritschl described them as merely verschämter Socinianismus. It is from this point of view that Prof. Mackintosh takes his start, insisting that Jesus was not merely purely man but a man of His time whose life on earth (we emphasize the telling words) was "a distinctively human phenomenon, moving always within the lines of an authentically human mind and will" (p. 400) and indeed, as Dr. Sanday expresses it, "presenting all the outward appearance of the life of any other contemporary Galilean" (p. 398). So obvious does Prof. Mackintosh consider this that he even affirms that "were it conceivable that we were forced to choose … between the conviction that Jesus preserved true manhood in all its parts, and the assurance that He was the Son of God come in flesh for our salvation, our plain duty would be to affirm His humanity and renounce His deity" (p. 395). Certainly on this ground the Kenotic argument is conclusive, if Jesus is nevertheless held to be God and the doctrine of the Two Natures is discarded. If Jesus is God and nothing but God, and yet on earth was man and nothing but man, why then, of course, it must be that God has been metamorphosed into man; it is a truism that "no human life of God is possible without a prior self-adjustment of deity" (p. 470). This is the whole of the argument which is presented with much elaboration (cf. especially pp. 469–470). The difficulties with it are naturally, that Jesus is not represented in the New Testament—the sole source of our knowledge of His person—as in His essential being God and nothing but God; nor is His life on earth there presented as, in Prof. Mackintosh's sense, "unequivocally human" (p. 469); and the conception of a metamorphosis of God into a man which is assumed is as Albrecht Ritschl declared it to be ("Justification and Reconciliation," E. T. 1900, pp. 409–411) "pure mythology." The particular manner in which this metamorphosis was accomplished in Prof. Mackintosh's opinion was not as supposed by Thomasius, by the abandonment by the Son of some of His attributes, explained for the purpose to be merely "relative" (such as His omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnipresence), while others, designated "immanent" or "essential" (such as His holiness and His love) were retained; but by the "transposition" or "modification" (both terms are used) of all His attributes (p. 477). The Son, it is explained, continues, as incarnate, to possess "all the qualities of Godhead" (the italics are Prof. Mackintosh's), only now "in the form of concentrated potency rather than of full actuality, δυνάμει rather than ἐνεργείᾳ." No explanation is suggested of how, when God thus ceases to be God, He yet remains God—for does not the very idea of God involve not only the conception of immutability, against the emphasis of which Prof. Mackintosh vainly inveighs as if it were rather immobility, but also the conception embodied in the Scholastic phrase of "actus purus"? One who is only potentially God is certainly not acually God, as indeed Prof. Mackintosh naively confesses when he writes the sentence, "What Christ is by potency, with a potentiality based on His personal uniqueness, God is actually for ever" (p. 479). God to be God must be all He can be actually, and He must be all this "actually for ever." When He ceases to be actually what God is, He ceases of course to be God. How far Prof. Mackintosh is prepared to press his idea of the reduction of God in Christ is revealed to us startlingly by a phrase let fall on p. 470: "We are faced by a Divine self-reduction which entailed obedience, temptation, and death"; and that this is not a chance inadvertence we may learn from its virtual repetition ten pages later: "Prayer and death are the seals of His oneness with us" (p. 480). It must be carefully observed that what is said here is not that the Divine Subject, by assuming into personal union with Himself a human nature, became a sharer in the obedience, temptation, and death, which belong to humanity; but that God Himself, not by a "fictitious" communicatio idiomatum but in His own Being, obeyed, was tempted, died. God Himself not merely acquired knowledge slowly and by effort, felt temptation and learned obedience by that which He suffered, but endured the last indignity of death! One would question whether Prof. Mackintosh really means what he says, did he not with such persistence insist that the Infinite became just finite in Christ, or as he himself expresses it, "descended into the sphere of finitude" (p. 481). "Only one limit to God's presence in Him remained," he tells us (pp. 414 f.)—"the limit of finitude"; so clear is he that Jesus Christ is just a finite being. And yet He is just God! We must confess that Prof. Mackintosh permits to himself language in all such matters which dazes us. He tells us that "it belongs to deity, not indeed to be immutable, but to be eternal" (p. 423), and we mark the statement as giving us at least one stable feature of deity by which we can recognize it when we see it. But we soon read of the "Eternal passing into time," and thereby losing knowledge in the eternal form and requiring to retain it, if He retains it at all, as "discursive and progressive" (p. 477, cf. p. 470); and soon afterwards we meet with the declaration that time and eternity are not essentially disparate. If "God and man are not definable as opposites" so also "time is susceptible of eternity" (p. 503)—a declaration the meaning of which we confess is dark to us.

The oddest thing about Prof. Mackintosh's Kenoticism, however, is that he seems to think he has a Biblical basis for it. He does not depend, indeed, "on two or three isolated passages in St. Paul" (p. 469), and it is well he does not, as not even two or three passages suggesting or even allowing it can be discovered. He seems to think that Jesus is dramatized in the Gospel narratives as living an exclusively human life, "moving always" (note the "always" again) "within the lines of an experience humanly normal in constitution, even if abnormal in its sinless quality" (pp. 469 f.). Were this so, it would be very remarkable; for certainly the evangelists did not intend so to depict Him. John assuredly not; and just as assuredly not the Synoptists, as Prof. Mackintosh indeed appears to recognize (p. 5, note 1). And surely it were remarkable that that long line of acute and diligent scholars who for a century and more have been engaged in "the quest of the historical Jesus" have not up to to-day found it out. Then were their long quest over. What a poor showing Prof. Schmiedel, for example, makes, with his meager list of nine "pillar-passages," presenting, as he tells us, an unmistakably human Jesus, and presenting this human Jesus, as he tells us again, in definite contradiction to the whole drift of the narrative—if the whole narrative really presents us with nothing but a normally human Jesus! Will Prof. Mackintosh, by a stroke, stultify the whole long, laborious struggle of the Liberal critics—"from Reimarus to Wrede"—to discover a merely human Jesus beneath the narrative of the Gospels? If there is one thing that is certain, it is that the Gospels know nothing, in any of their parts, of a normally human Jesus: their whole effort is to place before us in vivid dramatization a distinctively superhuman Jesus.

We are neither insensible nor unappreciative of the elements of value in Prof. Mackintosh's work. We heartily recognize that its fundamental note is adoration of the divine Saviour. But it must be frankly recognized that its theoretical construction of the doctrine of the Person of Christ is quite impossible. It ought by now to be clearly understood that no resting place can be found in a half-way house between Socinianism and orthodoxy. We cannot have a Christ purely divine in essence and purely human in manifestation. And what on this ground can be made of the exalted Christ? Does He remain after His ascension to heaven the purely human being He was on earth? Or does He, on ascending where He was before, recover the pure deity from which He was reduced that He might enter humanity? In the one case we have no divine Christ, in the other no human Jesus, to-day: and the Christian heart can consent to give up neither. Prof. Mackintosh takes the latter of the alternatives, and greatly magnifies the place of the Resurrection "as a 'crisis' in the constitution of Christ's person" (pp. 370–371). The exalted Lord in heaven has become as our Saviour indistinguishable from the Father. Is He still man? Prof. Mackintosh wishes us to believe that He is—how, since His humanity belonged to, nay was, His humiliation, he does not, he cannot explain. "There is now," he says, "a Person in whom the focus of a human life is become indissolubly one with the last reality of being, so that the heart of man and the heart of God beat in the risen Lord with one pulsing movement, one indistinguishable passion to save and bless" (p. 371). This is rhetoric. In cold fact, the exalted Lord, having laid aside the modifications of deity by virtue of which He entered into the sphere of finite life, has necessarily laid aside His humanity (which was only this modified deity), and that He was once man can be to Him only a memory. Ritschl pointed out that on the Kenotic postulates "Christ, at least in His earthly existence, has no Godhead at all." It requires to be pointed out now that in the form which Prof. Mackintosh gives these postulates, He has in His exalted state no manhood at all—except always His body! Of course Prof. Mackintosh does not wish this result. He strives manfully to escape or at least to gloss it. It is unavoidable. And it is because such results as these are unavoidable on his postulates that we think that these postulates are as unacceptable to truly Christian feeling as they are repugnant to right reason and in contradiction to the whole drift of revelation.

FOUNDATIONS. A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of Modern Thought. By Seven Oxford Men—

B. H. STREETER, R. BROOK, W. H. MOBERLY, R. G. PARSONS, A. E. J. RAWLINSON, H. S. TALBOT, W. TEMPLE.

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited. 1913.

THE character of this book is fairly intimated by its title. The "Seven Oxford Men" who have written it describe themselves as young men; and, as young men, they conceive their place to be in the advance-line of progress. They feel their responsibility to the church to which they belong; they are loyal in heart to that church; but they consider that the nature of their responsibility is of a different kind from that of older men. It may be the part of older men to conserve what has been attained; to the younger men belongs the task of leading on to what is yet to be acquired; their responsibility is "the responsibility of making experiments." And the times in which we find ourselves living call loudly for experiments. They are times of transition. The Victorian age is gone; and the assumptions on which Victorian religion was built up have been dissipated. What was thought to be the bed-rock has become shifting sand. A new world has come into being, a new world which is asking questions. The repetition of old answers can serve no purpose. New answers must be framed, and these answers must be couched in the "terms of modern thought." Young men, children of the new age, cannot breathe "the atmosphere of pre-'critical' and pre-Darwinian religion." They think in other terms; they must at least attempt to express what they think in the terms of the thought-world in which they live. And, indeed, to be perfectly frank, if Christianity cannot be expressed in terms of this new thought-world, Christianity is doomed. Men of the time are under the stress of a great obligation, therefore, at least to attempt to pour the old wine of Christianity into the new bottles of modern thought.

Adventuring upon this necessary task of transfusion, our "Seven Oxford Men" present us with nine trial essays. They "do not profess to have covered the whole field." They have confined themselves to the problems which seemed to them the most fundamental, or on which they felt they had something to offer. And they speak modestly of what they offer: it is not put forward as the solution, but only as a contribution towards the solution of the problems they have approached. The nine essays which are given, after a general exposition of the modern situation calling for restatement of fundamental principles, treat in turn of "the Bible," "the Historic Christ," "the Interpretation of the Christ in the New Testament," "the Divinity of Christ," "the Atonement," "the Church," "the Principle of Authority," "God and the Absolute." Probably only a coterie of Anglican writers—among Protestants at least—would have hit upon just this series of topics, when dealing with Christian fundamentals; could have chosen to write of the Church, for example, instead of the Holy Spirit, or could have separated "the Principle of Authority" so far from "the Bible" and attached it so closely to "the Church." Certainly the "Critical" preoccupation is very prominent. And one will naturally wonder how, in this age of Psychological investigation, even so short a series of fundamental problems could be outlined without including a single topic belonging to the subjective life—not Sin, for example, or any of the great stages or steps of the recovery of the soul from sin to holiness. The disclaimer of all pretension to have covered the whole field must no doubt be borne in mind here; as must also the fact that the book is not altogether silent on these great subjects. If they are not made the subjects of separate essays, they come up for discussion incidentally, sometimes for rather full discussion. Sin for instance is discussed as fully as its own proper subject in the essay on "the Atonement," and the essay entitled "the Interpretation of the Christ in the New Testament" is almost a brief sketch of New Testament Theology. Meanwhile the precise series of topics selected for professed discussion is worthy of remark, as is also the order in which they are discussed. Some explanation is given in the brief Introduction of the rather odd postponement of the discussion of the existence of God to the end. This amounts to saying that it was thought best to examine in the light of modern knowledge the actual sources from which Christians have derived their conception of God before the validity of the belief in God itself was brought to the question. This would seem a natural ordering of the material if a negative conclusion all along the line were aimed at; it seems to us an unnatural order since it is a positive conclusion that is aimed at.

No one will doubt that Christians of to-day must state their Christian belief in terms of modern thought. Every age has a language of its own and can speak no other. Mischief comes only when, instead of stating Christian belief in terms of modern thought, an effort is made, rather, to state modern thought in terms of Christian belief. The writers of this volume seem not to have escaped this danger. They are preoccupied with modern thought and appear to suppose that Christianity must be assimilated to it. They open their Introduction by telling us that "Christianity" as well as "its traditional theology" originated in a past of outworn conditions; and they apparently intimate as the condition of the survival of "Christianity" that "its theology" shall not be "out of harmony with science, philosophy, and scholarship." This is, of course, to lay down an impossible condition, if "Christianity" is to be supposed to have any determinate content. For "science, philosophy, and scholarship" are not stable but varying entities, and nothing but a most habile chameleon could manage to keep in harmony with them from age to age. Of course what is meant is our own "science, philosophy, and scholarship"—which seems to be only a naive way of transferring the claim of infallibility from "Christianity" and "its theology" to ourselves. Nothing is more certain, however, than that a "Christianity" and a "theology" which are closely in harmony with the "science, philosophy, and scholarship" of to-day will be out of harmony with the "science, philosophy, and scholarship" of to-morrow. After all, is it not enough to ask that "Christianity" and "its theology" shall be in harmony with truth? And if it is to be in harmony with truth, must it not be out of harmony with all the half-truths, and quarter-truths, and no-truths, which pass from time to time for truth, while truth is only in the making? A "Christianity" which is to be kept in harmony with a growing "science, philosophy, and scholarship," beating their way onward by a process of trial and correction, must be a veritable nose of wax, which may be twisted in every direction as it may serve our purpose.

The question is of course a question of standard. Is our standard Christianity? Or is our standard our own "science, philosophy, and scholarship," that is to say, the congeries of notions which we have taken up as the outcome of the impact upon us of the results of modern investigation, deeply or shallowly, widely or narrowly, understandingly or misunderstandingly assimilated? If we hold Christianity to be true, we shall naturally sit loosely to the "science, philosophy, and scholarship" of any passing moment, so far as it seems to traverse the truth of Christianity, and look forward to the better day when trial and correction shall be over and the unity of truth shall be vindicated by its manifested harmony. If we do not hold Christianity to be true, we shall naturally substitute for it the findings of the momentarily accepted "science, philosophy, and scholarship" as at least provisionally the most likely hypothesis. What is a standing puzzle is why we should wish to call by the name of "Christianity" these provisional findings of our "science, philosophy, and scholarship" substituted for it. If "Christianity" has no stable meaning, the name has no content: it is in the strictest sense of the word an empty name. It is a purely formal designation for whatever may chance in any age or in any company to be the sum of the conclusions presumed for the moment to be commended by "science, philosophy, and scholarship." Coteries at one in nothing save in the lack of the thing, may be at each other's throats in strife over the monopoly of the name. Would it not be better to allow that "Christianity" is a historical entity and has a definite content? And then, when we have drifted away from this historical entity with its definite content, just frankly to acknowledge that we are to that extent no longer "Christians"? That was, for example, what Strauss did. But that is not now the fashion. Men nowadays cheerfully give up the substance, but never the name of Christianity. Rudolf Eucken asks, "Can we still be Christians?" and answers with emphasis, Of course! but the "Christianity" we embrace must be a very different Christianity from that which has hitherto borne the name. So also Ernst Troeltsch declares himself still a "Christian" (a "free Christian"), though his "Christianity" has been so "refashioned" that it has become nothing more than an "immanent theism," the quintessential extract of the religious development of mankind, which still clings to the name of Jesus only because it needs a rallying-point and a name to conjure with. We are not suggesting that the writers of our present volume have drifted away from Christianity as have Rudolf Eucken and Ernst Troeltsch. But we are suggesting that they have in common with such writers the tendency to employ the term "Christianity" to express not a historical entity of fixed content, but just what they may themselves happen to believe. They have lost to this extent an objective standard of what Christianity is.

How completely they have lost an objective standard of what Christianity is appears at once from the first essay proper in the book—that on "the Bible." It is written by Mr. Richard Brook. Its central contention is that the Bible has no "authority." It is simply the record of the religious experience of its writers. These writers were no doubt religious geniuses, and their religious experience is therefore in a sense normative. "We go to the Bible in order to deepen and correct our religious lives by the aid of the Biblical writers" (p. 66). "And so I go to the Bible, as others have gone before me, to learn from those who have heard God speak, seeking by their help to see the vision they saw, and finding in their words inspiration and power" (p. 71). In this sense we may still speak of the "authority" of the Bible. "Yet it still remains true that the ultimate appeal for each is to his own experience" (p. 59). The Bible may inspire, it cannot directly instruct: we go to it specifically for religion, not for, say, theology (p. 68). The theology of the Bible is necessarily very inadequate: our own may be—one would think, must be—better: "in some ways our theology may be more adequate than that of St. Paul" (p. 68). But not our religion. We may, nay must, kindle our flame from Paul's, but we can interpret the implications of the fire once enkindled in our hearts better than he could. "We can learn more religion from the humblest saint," we are told, "than from the greatest theologian" (p. 68), but this is only half of what is meant to be conveyed to us: the point is the entire separation of saintliness from theology, and the other half of the lesson we are expected to draw from the illustration is that we cannot learn theology even from the greatest saint. For religion "we may, or rather we must go to St. Paul," for example, but we may safely neglect his theology. Theology is "the intellectual interpretation" of religion, and we must needs do our own interpreting, and we feel ourselves better equipped for the task than Paul was.

Clearly all this rests on a fatally false conception of the relation of religion and theology. "Theology," we are told crisply, "is the science of religion" (p. 38). This, however, it of course just is not. Ex vi verbi it is the science of God. It most decidedly is not "the reflexion upon religious experience, the attempt to interpret, to understand and to systematise it." That is what "the science of religion" is—quite a different thing from "theology." What theology is, is reflection on God and on all that we know concerning God. It is not then the product of religion any more than—or indeed as much as—religion is the product of it. What it precisely is, is the product in the intellect of the same body of facts of which religion is the product in the life: religion and theology are parallel and interactive products of the same body of facts and are too intimately related to be separated (cf. p. 379). One would like to see religion defined without involving theology. Is not religion the reaction of the human spirit in the presence of God? And how is the human spirit to be in the presence of God except by intellectual apprehension? By as much as man is an intelligent being, by that much he cannot react to objects unperceived. Perception, ripening into conception, underlies all religious reaction; and as is the perception ripening into conception, so is the religion. Otherwise we should be committed to the proposition that fetishism is as good a religion as Christianity. For precisely that in which fetishism differs from Christianity is its theology: take away the differences in the conception of deity and you take away the differences in the religious functioning. Mr. Brook is not so far from adopting this view as could be wished. "The same religious experience will be differently interpreted, not only at different times," he reasons in his endeavor to lay a basis for refusal to be governed by the "theology" of the Biblical "writers" (p. 38), "but even by different individuals at the same time. The Professor and the Blacksmith, in so far as they are religious, may have the same religious experience, but their 'theological' views, their 'thoughts' about God, are and must be widely different." Why not, instead of the Professor and the Blacksmith, say the Christian and the Fetish-worshiper: gradus non mutant speciem? Is it not because the Professor and the Blacksmith are surreptitiously supposed both to be Christians, that is, to have the same "theology" underlying and giving form to their religious experience? In point of fact the Professor and the Blacksmith, though both have religion, will not and cannot have the same religious experience save as they have the same theological conceptions. If one conceives of God as a stock or a stone and the other as an infinite moral person, their religious reaction and the whole complex of their religious experience will be utterly different. Religion, in all its manifestations, waits, like all other human functioning, on the operation of ideas: here too the line of action is from perception, through emotion, to volition. And nothing can be more certain than that if the theology of the Bible is discarded, the religion of the Bible is discarded with it. We shall certainly have religion: we cannot avoid that: man is a religious animal. But our religion will not be the religion of the Bible unless—among other elements of it—our religious conceptions, that is, our theology, be the religious conceptions, that is to say, the theology, of the Bible. It is the gravest kind of self-deception to imagine—to bring the matter to its sharpest point—that we can discard the religious conceptions of Paul, or of Jesus, and remain of the same religion as Paul or Jesus, because forsooth we feel that we too, like them, are religious beings and function religiously. Christianity is not a distinctive interpretation of a religious experience common to all men, much less is it an indeterminate and constantly changing interpretation of a religious experience common to men; it is a distinctive religious experience begotten in men by a distinctive body of facts known only to or rightly apprehended only by Christians.

As this rejection of all external authority in religious conceptions is principial, it should extend to the authority of Christ also. There are indications that it does so. Jesus is declared to have been not only "not formally impeccable" (though "actually sinless") but also "in nowise exempted from such intellectual limitations, or even (within the spheres of science and history) from such erroneous conceptions of fact, as were inseparable from the use of the mental categories of the age and generation among whom He came" (p. 368). It is even allowed, though guardedly, that His ethical teaching was conditioned by the shortness of His view: "Doubtless had the Master explicitly contemplated the centuries of slow development still awaiting humanity, the actual form and phrasing of many a precept would have been different. Doubtless, too, He would have let fall a word or two on the creative moral value of institutions like the Family and the State" (p. 109). There is even a shocking paragraph in which Jesus' whole view of His work is represented as a "venture of faith," as if it were a speculative invention of His mind to explain "the facts of the world," that is to say, the experiences to which He was subjected: "Because He believes in the goodness of God, Jesus Christ is sure that His death cannot mean either the end of His life or the ruin of His work. His faith leads Him to see in the apparent failure of His ministry the vindication of the teaching of Deutero-Isaiah as to the redemptive value of suffering, and therefore He sees in the Cross the salvation of mankind, and beyond the Cross the triumph of His risen life" (p. 51). "Doubtless," it is added, "this was a venture of faith, but essentially it was a venture which faith was bound to make." No compelling reasons are given why we should feel bound to make the venture with Him; why the theological interpretation of the facts of His life made after this fashion by a man of His "intellectual limitations" should be authoritative to us.

The essay on "the Divinity of Christ" (which is by Mr. William Temple) opens with a couple of sentences which, taken in themselves, announce an important truth, that, duly considered, might correct the tendencies of thought to which we have adverted—though Mr. Temple employs them for quite a contrary purpose. They are: "The central doctrine of Christianity has been made unduly difficult by the way in which believers inevitably tend to state it. It is really a doctrine about God; but it is made to appear as if it were primarily a doctrine about a historic Person, who lived at the beginning of our era." In themselves these words might be taken to mean that in thinking of Christ we should always take our start from His Divine Nature and work out from that as our—as it was His—starting-point: though Mr. Temple himself takes the opposite course. In his attempt to construct a doctrine of the Person of Christ it is from the voluntarist standpoint that Mr. Temple works; and he fails precisely as voluntarists are accustomed to fail, by giving us a Christ who seems to be divine only as one can be said to be divine who is one in purpose with God. It is already ominous that he is constrained to tell us that Paul of Samosata was the first to attempt a construction on this presupposition (p. 226). He hopes to escape the ruin wrought by Paul by refusing to distinguish between Will and Substance (p. 247): to the voluntarist "Will is the only Substance there is in a man; it is not a part of him, it is just himself as a moral (or indeed 'active') being." It may be doubted, however, whether he really escapes. It does not make Christ God to say that, while His "Will, as a subjective function, is of course not the Father's Will," yet "the content of the Wills—the Purpose—is the same" (p. 248); that "what we see Christ doing and desiring, that we thereby know the Father does and desires." This only makes Christ (so far) like God. And what shall we do with a passage like this (pp. 248 f.): "He is the Man whose will is united with God's. He is thus the first-fruits of the Creation—the first response from the Creation to the love of the Creator. But because He is this, He is the perfect expression of the Divine in terms of human life. There are not two Gods, but in Christ we see God. Christ is identically God; the whole content of His being—His thought, feeling, and purpose—is also that of God. This is the only 'substance' of a spiritual being, for it is all there is of him at all. Thus, in the language of logicians, formally (as pure subjects) God and Christ are distinct; materially (that is in the content of the two consciousnesses) God and Christ are One and the Same. The human Affections of Christ are God's Affections; His Suffering is God's; His Love is God's; His Glory is God's." This is undoubtedly to exalt Christ: does it exalt Him as more than the greatest of the sons of men? Is it not an illusion to suppose that thus the true deity of Christ is vindicated? Let us assume whatever ontology of spiritual being we choose: let us declare that Will is the essence of spirit—if that is not a contradiction in terms. But let us not suppose that thus we abolish the distinction between distinct Subjects. That the contents of Christ's will is the "same" as the contents of God's will, His purpose the "same" as God's purpose, does not identify Him with God. If it did, then, when two men "have the same thought or the same purpose" they would be "merged into one another"; and it is not enough to say, in order to escape this, that the identity in their case "extends to a very small part of the content of consciousness, while in the case" of Christ and God, "it extends to the whole" (p. 250). We are in danger here of juggling with the ambiguities of "identical," whether as homoousios or homoiousios. To justify the position taken it would seem that one must accept the postulate that all spirit is one, and individualization is the result only of differences in the "content" of that will which constitutes its being. When the "content"—the "purpose"—becomes one, the artificial (and temporary) barriers are broken down and spirit becomes confluent. Unless this pantheism is permitted to lie unacknowledged behind our thought, to speak of Christ as identical with God in content of will—in purpose—does not seem to be to speak of Him as divine.

It is part of the "modernness" of these essays that they are very chary in acknowledging the occurrence in our Lord's life—or in the origins of Christianity in general—of what we have been accustomed to call miracles. More than one of the writers carefully define miracles away. "The best definition of a miracle," we read (p. 167, cf. p. 138) "is that it is something which when we are confronted by it compels us to say, 'This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes': it is no less marvellous if after our first sense of wonder has calmed down we are enabled to see a little further into the divinely-ordered process by which the event was brought about." The Virgin-birth is not discussed (cf. p. 81). The Resurrection is elaborately explained away by Mr. B. H. Streeter (pp. 127–141) in the interests of the "objective vision hypothesis," and while it is obvious that some of his colleagues agree with him, we are glad to learn (p. 135) that not all of them do. Mr. Streeter can even say (p. 132): "I know of no living theologian who would maintain a physical Ascension in this crude form, yet so long as emphasis is laid on the physical character of the Resurrection it is not obvious how any refinement of the conception of 'physical' really removes the difficulty." He is certainly right in thus bringing together the Ascension and Resurrection—both are physical or neither is: and we think him right in declaring that if they are in any sense physical no refinement of the conception of "physical" will help. In the meanwhile it must be borne in mind that the totality of the testimony is to a physical resurrection. There is not only the empty tomb, which Mr. Streeter but lamely accounts for; but the whole account of the resurrection appearances, culminating in the explicit declaration of our Lord recorded in Luke 24:39 (of which Mr. Streeter makes no use), is to be reckoned with—as well as Paul's clear exposition that our resurrection-bodies which are to be like Christ's are veritable "bodies" and are composed of "flesh" (1 Cor. 15:39, 40).

Where the conception of the Person of Christ is so inadequate the conception of His Work is not likely to be less so. We are not surprised to find accordingly that only a "subjective" Atonement is admitted by some of the writers. This seems to be the position of Mr. Temple. In the essay on "the Atonement," which is by Mr. W. H. Moberly, however, a somewhat higher doctrine is taught—the doctrine developed by Dr. R. C. Moberly in his well-known and powerfully reasoned "Atonement and Personality," in which penitence is made to do the work of expiation and Christ's work is summed up in vicarious penitence, whatever that can be. Mr. Moberly accordingly speaks of "moral transformation" as if it could "constitute an atonement for sins," that is, as if, "in removing the cause of estrangement" it removed, "as it were automatically, the estrangement between God and man" (p. 293). He recognizes indeed that man's own penitence would be inadequate; not, he adds, "because it is merely penitence (i.e. only a change of character), but because it is incomplete penitence (i.e. only a partial, and therefore very probably a transitory, change of character)" (p. 295). Thus we escape out of a purely "subjective" atonement—which is a blessing. But all that is offered objectively is a vicarious penitence of Christ, which is perfect and complete—not indeed in itself but in and with its effect in inducing penitence in us: "vicarious penitence is only redemptive when it succeeds in becoming more than vicarious" (p. 310). So firmly grounded is Mr. Moberly in his theory that he even permits himself to write: "if vicarious penitence is unmeaning and impossible, the problem of atonement is insoluble; for penitence that is not vicarious, the unsupported penitence of the sinner himself, is never complete or whole-hearted" (p. 308)—from which we learn that not only in his view can penitence atone, but only penitence can atone! Having referred the atoning efficacy in Christ's work thus to His "vicarious penitence," Mr. Moberly is naturally greatly embarrassed in having Christ's death on his hands, to which, rather, the New Testament writers—and indeed Christ Himself—as well as the historical Church refer it. After some pages of discussion he arrives at the point where, as he says, "we can dimly see how the fact of sin and the requirements of holiness made it necessary that Jesus should die" (p. 313)! The method of Mr. Moberly's essay (a method we do not like) is to set over against each other the "liberal" and the "conservative" views and to seek an "inclusive" view as presumably better than either. It is noticeable that in stating the "conservative" view there is repeated intrusion of elements drawn not from the doctrine of Satisfaction as expounded by the great teachers of the Church, but from the Grotian or Governmental Theory (pp. 288, 302, 305). The "conservative" view thus does not get a fair hearing, and is made the object of criticisms which do not touch it. As the essay draws to its close Mr. Moberly addresses himself to answering some objections which seem to lie against the whole idea involved in the Christian doctrine of the Atonement. Among them he raises this one—that provision is made by it for only a fraction of the human race (p. 331). "How can we possibly believe in a divine scheme of salvation for the human race which 'leaves whole continents out of its ken'?" In other words, if Christ is the Saviour of the world, must He not save the world? Mr. Moberly acknowledges that he has "no complete answer" to this objection, but he thinks he can "see the direction in which an answer is to be sought." This answer is, in brief, that we do not need to know Christ to be Christ's, supplemented by the suggestion that Christ can do His saving of the world in the next world (p. 332)! The Scriptures, it is needless to say, have a very different answer. We infer that Mr. Temple agrees in principle with his colleague here, from the circumstance that we find him endeavoring from a wrong point of view to grasp the idea of the "invisible Church," putting into it the heathen sages also, "each in his degree"—whatever that may mean (p. 341).

It is in dithyrambic strains that Mr. Temple speaks of the Church, making use at times of forms of speech to which it is difficult to attach an exact meaning. Some particularly remarkable results are attained by his endeavor to give to language struck out originally from a view of the Eucharist which he does not share, validity from his new point of view as to the "sacrifice of Christ." Jesus is veritably in the Eucharist as beauty is in a great picture, though it is not every eye which can see Him there. "His sacrifice is perpetual": once only in the history of men has its whole nature been set forth, "but the sacrifice itself, which is His obedience and the submission of His will, is eternal" (p. 344). There is a devotion and a mystical ecstacy which is altogether admirable throbbing through his words, but the fire which glows in them has not been kindled at Calvary. Noble words are spoken about the communion of the saints into which we enter at the Eucharist (pp. 343 f.): our hearts are quickened by the vision which is summoned up of the saints of all ages gathered with us around the table of the Lord, participants with us in the body that was broken and the blood that was shed for us. But the underlying thought is not that of the altar. There seems to be something bizarre in suggesting that the phrase which calls the Church "the Body of Christ" is "probably taken from the Eucharist" (p. 340, cf. p. 185). Surely "This is my body" refers to Christ's literal, not figurative body—to Christ, that is, not to His disciples. They did not eat themselves in symbol! The latter part of the essay on the Church is filled with shrewd good sense, and exhibits a clear perception of the nature and value of Church unity.

In Mr. Rawlinson's essay on "the principle of Authority" a careful comparison is made between various views. It is a pity that Congregationalism is taken as the proper representative of Protestantism in the matter of Church organization and authority. It is as insular as Anglicanism itself: and has no existence outside of lands of English speech. A world-wide polity like Presbyterianism would have afforded a much truer representative type. Take for example the idea of "the invisible Church." If the twenty-fifth chapter of the Westminster Confession—or its parallel in any of the representative Reformed confessions—had been in Mr. Rawlinson's mind he could scarcely have written as he has written on pp. 394–395, 404. In the very interesting discussion of the origin of the Christian ministry which is attached to this essay the ordinary confusions into which Anglican writers of liberal tendencies fall are not escaped. When Mr. Rawlinson says that the "ministry appears to have very early assumed the form of a bishop, presbyters, and deacons to each eucharistic assembly," he seems unaware that, though he defines the individual church in different terms from those that would be natural to a Presbyterian, he has described precisely the Presbyterian polity. When he goes on to say that "the modern diocese is virtually an expansion of the primitive congregation by means of the delegation to presbyters of functions originally episcopal" (p. 422), he is very lightly springing wide chasms. The bishop, the presbyter, the deacon—and the officering of the local church—have each and every one of them suffered a sea-change which has transmuted them into something different from what they are, say, in the Pastoral Epistles—which Mr. Rawlinson, by the way, treats with strange neglect. From a "pastor" of a congregation, the Bishop has become the ruler over many congregations. The Presbyter has ceased to be a co-ruler with the Bishop; and shrinking from a plurality in each congregation to a singularity, has become a pastor. The Deacon from "a server of tables" has lost all connection with the local church and become an inchoate Presbyter. The local church instead of possessing a Bishop, a college of Presbyters, and a college of Deacons, has left to it only a single Presbyter. In other words from Presbyterian the church has become Episcopal—and that is a total transformation.

The final essay,—on "God and the Absolute"—by Mr. W. H. Moberly, is the longest in the volume, and while very able is also very unsatisfying. It is in effect an attempt to interpret the doctrine of God in terms of the absolutist philosophy. It with difficulty escapes sheer pantheism, if indeed it does escape it. It is a hard saying to be told that "God Himself must be religious" (p. 512), even though this is transmuted into the declaration that, being a Trinity, He "can know God." It is a harder one to be told that "the union of God and man is necessary to the full reality of either" (cf. p. 520), or that God could not still remain God without creation, incarnation, and atonement (p. 511). It is perhaps even a still harder one to be told that "the world and its history is essential to the very Life and Being of God" (cf. p. 341).

Throughout the whole volume there is apparent a spirit of readiness to weigh and appreciate points of view other than that which may be thought hereditary with its authors. What is more remarkable, this open-mindedness is manifested not merely towards what is commonly known as "liberalism" but also towards what is known in average Anglican circles as "sectarianism." For party-spirit apparently dies more hardly than Christian principle. We have known men who were cheerfully willing to give up the deity of Christ but not baptism by immersion alone; and latitudinarian Anglicanism has perhaps been more common than a truly tolerant one: even our modern "Evangelicals" are solicitous to be understood to be "good churchmen." No one would mistake the writers of this volume for anything but Anglicans. There are indications that they might even be classed as "High Anglicans": Mr. Temple for example pleads for prayers for the dead and the invocation of saints (p. 346); and remnants show themselves here and there of that smug self-felicitation on the position of Anglicanism midway between Romanism and Protestantism, which betrays so many Anglicans into the notion that the coming unity of Christendom must crystallize as Anglican. But few books have emanated of late from Anglican circles in which is manifested a greater readiness to consider the positions of writers of other communions of Christian men, or to weigh afresh the distinctive contentions of traditional Anglicanism. We take it that a remark like the following is typical of the general mental attitude of the volume. "In its strictest and most traditional form the theory of an original Apostolic succession has perhaps broken down; but the liberalized restatement of it, which is to be found in the writings of Duchesne and Batiffol abroad and the present Bishop of Oxford at home, is at least a tenable interpretation of the evidence as viewed in the light of certain antecedent presuppositions" (p. 383). We may think it still too much to say even so much as this, and question whether the view still clung to is compatible with the facts. But we recognize the openness of mind which is manifested in the position assumed. And this, we take it, is the most encouraging feature of the volume.

We have dealt with the volume not as a collection of separate essays but as a single whole, because we are asked to do so (p. viii.).

There is a good Index.

MYSTICISM. A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness.

By EVELYN UNDERHILL.

London: Methuen and Co., Ltd. [1911.]

THE MYSTIC WAY. A Psychological Study in Christian Origins.

By EVELYN UNDERHILL.

London and Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. 1913. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.

IMMANENCE. A Book of Verses.

By EVELYN UNDERHILL.

London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. [1912.]

THE MIRACLES OF OUR LADY SAINT MARY: brought out of divers tongues and newly set forth in English.

By EVELYN UNDERHILL.

New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1906.

THE primary object of this notice is to give some account of Miss Underhill's "The Mystic Way," in which she formally presents her views of the origin and nature of Christianity. We have associated with this book in the heading, however, the titles of such others of Miss Underhill's publications that have come into our hands as are serious in form, in order that "The Mystic Way" may be seen in its setting. We should not like to suggest that Miss Underhill's novels by which she has been previously known—"The Grey World," 1904, "The Lost Word," 1907, "The Column of Dust," 1909—were written without serious purpose or are without significance as disclosures of her mind and of the direction of her studies. On the contrary they already reveal to us the intensity of her engagement with what is loosely called the mystical aspects of life, and no doubt embody, in an imaginative form, much of what she would consider symbolically at least wholesome instruction for our sense-preoccupied world. In "The Grey World" we are told how the neurotic son of a London tailor, dying in a hospital, catches a glimpse, as he passes through it to his next incarnation, of that "grey world" which lies behind this, and lived in consequence throughout his next earthly life with the curtain which hides that world from our view worn rather thin. It is a Dean's son, who is the hero of "The Lost Word"; and we are shown in it how, brought into intimate contact from his earliest years with the symbolism and mysterious romance of a great cathedral, he found his way, despite the insistent pull of earthly passion, into dimly apprehended relations with an unseen permanent existence where he held communion with the great artistic spirits of the past. In "The Column of Dust" we learn how a bookseller's clerk in London summons a spirit, who, however, refusing to be used by her, uses her rather, and how out of it all sacrificial love comes to its rights. In all three alike Miss Underhill seeks her inspiration in præternatural themes, and manifests a profound preoccupation with the supernatural, not to say the morbid, phases of life. From these novels alone we might assure ourselves that here is a writer who is ready to insist seriously that there are more things, not in heaven merely but here on earth, than are dreamed of in our starveling five-senses philosophy: and indeed that the most real things which surround us are not those which we touch with our clumsy fingers and gaze at with our dull eyes and taste with our gross tongues. It is not a matter of surprise that such a writer should come forward at length as a serious eulogist of Mysticism.

Among Miss Underhill's serious writings we need not delay long over her little volume of verses. In the greater number of the pieces included in it an attempt is made to give expression to mystical moods. These do not seem to us the most successful. Strange to say Miss Underhill's muse does not appear to move easily in such moods. We quickly gain the impression also that verse is not her most happy medium of expression. There are some lofty conceptions; there is much fine language; here and there a well-turned phrase meets us; we can smile at a conceit like that embodied in "The Idol"; we can respond to the stirring counsel of "Memento, Homo"; we can thrill with the grim lesson of "The Backward Glance." But the volume leaves us cold—and uninstructed. Little more need be said of the collection of "The Miracles of Our Lady Saint Mary." For all that appears on the surface, a purely literary motive might have presided over its production. Here is a byway of mediæval literature but little trodden by recent feet. Not merely students but amateurs "of mediæval manners and Christian mythology" may find interest in exploring it. Certainly Miss Underhill has done her work well and made this sufficiently dreary series of folk-stories and hagiographs as attractive as possible. There is a sentence near the close of the brief but competent Introduction, however, which may suggest that she may have had a deeper than a merely literary purpose in seeking to give new life to the Mary-legends. Speaking of the mediæval attitude towards the Virgin she remarks upon the "simple and familiar friendship, mystical adoration, and unfailing trust" which were given to "Goddes Moder and oures" by those who, as she phrases it, "were in every sense her children." And then she adds that it is "the aim of this book" "to drag back," not only the "literary expression" of this sentiment "from the shadow-land to which it has retreated," but the "sentiment" itself. May we infer that Miss Underhill has had, then, a directly religious motive in seeking to revive the knowledge of the Mary-legends?

It is not altogether easy to make quite sure of Miss Underhill's precise religious standpoint. On the basis of her two solid works on Mysticism alone—which embrace her professed contribution to religious discussion—we might readily think of her as a Modernist Romanist. We do not suppose we do her injustice at any rate in imagining her in congenial society when in the company of, say, Friedrich von Hügel or George Tyrrell. Many of their points of view she certainly holds in common with them; some of their suggestions she works out in detail; and, if we mistake not, the ultimate issue of her religious thought is very much theirs—perhaps, we may add, in somewhat extreme expression. The whole argument of the work which is more especially in our mind as we write—"The Mystic Way"—might be represented as the detailed explication of a tendency apparent in von Hügel (it is no doubt present in more or less strength in all Mystical writers), to which Söderblom calls sharp attention—the tendency, we mean, to think of Jesus as only a high-point in the religious development of humanity, which attracts the eye of men and to which we must also aspire, while there is withheld from Him all truly creative effects on the religious life of the world. Perhaps it is not right to hold George Tyrrell too closely to everything he wrote in even the last years of his singularly un-unified career. But he seems to have meant it seriously when in the early days of the last year of his life he declared: "Houtin and Loisy are right, the Christianity of the future will consist of mysticism and charity, and possibly the Eucharist in its primitive form as the outward bond: I desire no better." Perhaps even Mysticism no doubt seemed to him something less than solid ground: "Mystics think they touch the divine," he explains in one of his moods of scepticism, "when they have only blurred the human form with a cloud of words." The precise effect of Miss Underhill's discussion of "The Mystic Way," in any event, is to place her in the same category with Houtin and Loisy and Tyrrell as here expounded. She reduces Christianity to simple Mysticism.

The background of the volume called "The Mystic Way" is provided by Miss Underhill's magnum opus, the elaborate volume on "Mysticism." This volume is brilliantly written. All the resources of a trained literary art are expended upon it, and its pages are not only illuminated with numerous well-chosen extracts from the Mystical writers who are thus permitted to tell in their own quaint and often singularly impressive language exactly what they are, but are also gemmed with vivid phrases caught from the Mystics and used by Miss Underhill in her own composition with exquisite skill. Above all it is written with a verve and enthusiasm which impart to it an élan (as Miss Underhill would call it, in deference to Bergson) that sweeps the reader well-nigh off his feet. It is divided into two parts, called respectively "The Mystic Fact" and "The Mystic Way," in the former of which an attempt is made to tell what Mysticism is in contrast with other tendencies, while in the latter the several steps and stages of the Mystical process are described in detail. The effect is that we have what Mysticism is elaborately explained to us twice over, and one would think it must be the reader's own fault if he rises from the book without a clear conception of exactly what it is that Miss Underhill at least would have him think Mysticism to be. It is an indication of the fluidity of the notion—perhaps also of the almost incurable ambiguities of the current usages of the term—that one requires, even so, to pause and consider before he is quite sure of the precise limits of the sense in which Miss Underhill employs it.

Formal definition of the term begins for us already in the Preface. "Broadly speaking," we read there (p. x.), "I understand it to be the expression of the innate tendency of the human spirit towards complete harmony with the transcendental order; whatever be the theological formula under which that order is understood." This is "broadly speaking" indeed. By the final clause, Mysticism is at once separated from all "positive religions" whatever; and (as we are immediately told) it is made matter of indifference to the experience of "mystic union" in which it "attains its end," whether that union is conceived to be with "the God of Christianity, the World-Soul of Pantheism, the Absolute of Philosophy" (p. x.). "Attempts to limit mystical truth—the direct apprehension of the Divine Substance—to the formulae of any one religion," we are accordingly told later (p. 115), "are as futile as the attempt to identify a precious metal with the die which converts it into current coin." It is upon the little word "innate," however, that the hinge of the definition turns. Mysticism is "the expression of the innate tendency of the human spirit towards complete harmony with the transcendental order." In other words it is "natural" religion; and it is therefore that it is quite independent of all possible conceptions of that "only Reality," which is here called "the transcendental order." Let philosophers call it "the Absolute"; let theologians call it "God"; think of it as Personal Spirit, think of it as the impersonal ground of Being, think of it how you choose: the human spirit moves by its own intrinsic gravitation towards it, and this gravitation towards it is Mysticism. Obviously "Mysticism" is used here as but a name for the inherent native religiosity of the human spirit.

Subsequent formal definitions advance us but little beyond this. Thus, for example, when at a later point Miss Underhill is again (as in the Preface) animadverting upon the loosenesses of the current usages of the term, she emerges with this crisp assertion (p. 86): "Mysticism, in its pure form, is the science of ultimates, the science of union with the Absolute, and nothing else." She does indeed go on to declare that "the mystic is the person who attains to that union, not the person who talks about it"; that it is not a matter of "knowing about" but "Being" (she spells it with a big B); but she seems already to have closed that question by defining it as "science"—for "science" is "knowing about" ex vi verbi. When, among sciences, she declares Mysticism to be this particular science, namely, "the science of ultimates," she seems to identify it with what we are accustomed to call Metaphysics; but that she can scarcely mean this is manifest from the parallel phrase which she immediately adjoins: "the science of union with the Absolute"—for certainly Metaphysics is not that. What is apparently meant to be asserted is that Mysticism is the systematized knowledge of "union with the Absolute"; or, since the emphasis is thrown on the practical side, perhaps we may say (as we speak of "pugilistic science") that Mysticism is expertness, acquired skill in attaining "union with the Absolute."

Accordingly as this discussion approaches its end Miss Underhill reformulates her definitions thus (p. 97): "Mysticism, then, is not an opinion: it is not a philosophy. It has nothing in common with the pursuit of occult knowledge. It is not merely the power of contemplating Eternity. It is the name of that organic process which involves the perfect consummation of the Love of God: the achievement here and now of the immortal heritage of man. Or, if you like it better—for this means exactly the same thing—it is the art of establishing his conscious relation with the Absolute." What was formerly declared to be a "science" has now become explicitly an "art": but in varying the term we do not escape from the thing—behind the "art" the "science" necessarily lies. Miss Underhill says the Mystic is the man who has attained to union with the Absolute. Let us be more modest and say that the Mystic is the man who professes, or supposes himself, to have attained to union with the Absolute. Then Mysticism surely may be fairly described as that congeries of notions which are presupposed or implicated in this profession; or, if we choose, in the practice of the art by which this end is supposed to be attained. It would seem, therefore, that it must inevitably embrace a doctrine of the Absolute; a doctrine of the relation of the human spirit to this Absolute; a doctrine of the possibility of the human spirit attaining "union with the Absolute"; a doctrine of the nature of this "union with the Absolute" which the human spirit may attain. Here certainly there is "an opinion," or rather a body of opinions; and certainly there is here "a philosophy," and, we are afraid we shall have to add, what, despite the vagueness which may be allowed to cling to the several notions involved, looks very much like that specific philosophy which we know as Pantheism. It is notorious that in the history of religious thought the types which it has been commonly agreed to speak of as Mystical have ordinarily been associated with Pantheistic or at least Pantheizing conceptions: the very language of Mysticism has been dictated to it by Pantheism, and it is therefore in any event difficult for the Mystic to express himself without at least seeming to declare himself a Pantheist. Miss Underhill has reduced this Pantheizing implication to a minimum in her formal definitions. Therefore in the one now before us she avoids even declaring that Mysticism is the "science of union with the Absolute." Instead, she says that it is the process by which man enters into the conscious enjoyment of the love of God—by which, she truly says, he "achieves" "his immortal heritage": and in the alternative clause she explains that what Mysticism seeks is the establishment of "conscious relation with the Absolute." Obviously these are carefully chosen phrases. If we were to abide by the breadth of their suggestion Mysticism would be what indeed Miss Underhill calls it (p. x.), just "the science or art of the Spiritual life." Every "other-worldly-minded" man would be a Mystic.

Clearly Mysticism, however, is not denned by merely declaring that it is the "art of establishing conscious relation with the Absolute." Its peculiarity resides rather in the nature of the process by which it seeks this end and the nature of the condition in which, when it is achieved, it finds this end accomplished. There are other views proposed to us of what "the immortal heritage of man" consists in, and of how it may be achieved. There is, to go no further, Christianity, which thinks that it can point the way to the enjoyment of "the perfect consummation of the Love of God," and finds the Way in Christ. Mysticism is not sufficiently defined by simply declaring that it differs from all these by—"doing the trick." Many have essayed to penetrate to "the Reality behind the veil," says Miss Underhill (p. 4): "but if we may trust the reports of the mystics—and their reports are given with a strange accent of certainty and good faith—they have succeeded where all these others have failed, in establishing immediate communication between the spirit of man, entangled as they declare amongst material things, and that' only Reality,' that immaterial and final Being, which some philosophers call the Absolute, and most theologians call God." It is a great claim—if only it can be substantiated. Its substantiation is, however, the last thing the Mystic seems to think of. "We have seen," writes Wilhelm Fresenius ("Mystik und geschichtliche Religion," 1912, p. 82), "how the Mystic has never posited the question of the substantiation of religion, has never made inquiry into its moral right, into its truth, but his soul has been filled with the search after the experience of the Eternal. And when he has found this Eternal, when he has felt this Imperishable, then he is content, the fact of this feeling establishes for him its right. Why does the question not now spring forth of the 'How' of this feeling, the investigation into whether this feeling may not rest on illusion—that is, in the forum of the moral judgment?" So soon, however, as the substantiation of its great claims is seriously attempted Mysticism, it is evident, must emerge from vague phrases and define itself sharply in its method and aim. It is unfortunate, then, that in her definitions Miss Underhill falls into the very common habit of using to describe it terms so wide that they provide no differentiation at all. How persistently this bad method is followed by writers on the subject may be illustrated by the definition given by O. C. Quick in two recent articles in the Journal of Theological Studies. "Mysticism," he says, "is the claim made by the soul to the apprehension of a wider reality in no sense mediated by the data of sense-perception" (xiv. 1913, p. 2; cf. xiii. 1912, p. 164). If that were an adequate definition, Mysticism would be merely spiritual apprehension: and all who believe in the accessibility of spirit to spirit would be Mystics. Even William James's well-known definition ("The Varieties of Religious Experience," 1902, p. 508) is better—for at least it is discriminating. He finds the "nucleus of agreement" among all Mystics in the feeling of the subject that his higher self is "conterminous and continuous with a More of the same quality, which is operative in the universe outside of him, and which he can keep in working touch with, and in a fashion get on board of and save himself when all his lower being has gone to pieces in the wreck." Clearly on this conception Mysticism is fundamentally Pantheistic, and therefore Quick criticizes it. It is not inclusive, he says, of Christian Mysticism through which there runs a profound feeling of "infinite otherness" from God; and he goes on to insist that Mysticism embraces every and "any direct consciousness of God's presence and nature" (Journal of Theological Studies, xiii. 1912, p. 172). By thus broadening the skirts of Mysticism to enclose all "sense" of God, we may of course rid it of its Pantheistic stamp; but the question is whether we are not merely merging it thus into a wider category. What it concerns us to take note of here, however, is merely that this is Miss Underhill's method. To her the typical form of Mysticism is Christian Mysticism, as manifested especially in the great Mediæval Saints. She is therefore careful to define it so as to make it include them; and she then proceeds to expound it from them as its purest examples. This seems to stand the whole matter upon its head. It is not in virtue of their Christianity that the Christian Mystics are Mystics: Miss Underhill, as we have seen, herself allows that their Mysticism is quite independent of their Christianity. We might better say that it is in despite of their Christianity; and that therefore Mysticism in them is modified by their Christianity just so far as their thought and practice is determined by their Christianity. They are Mystics not by virtue of what they have in common with other Christians, but by virtue of what they have in common with other Mystics—with Al Ghazzali, say, for instance, or with 'Attar and Sadi and Jalálu'd Din, or to sum it all up in one word, say, with Plotinus. And what they have in common with these other Mystics is precisely Pantheizing tendencies of thought. Miss Underhill would have us believe that Mysticism appears always in the train of great periods of abounding culture; it is the consummate flower of human culture (p. 541). We think it truer to say that it appears always in the train of periods of the dominance of a Pantheizing philosophy: it is the effect in the religious mind of prevalent Pantheizing thought.

Miss Underhill allows (though this is far from all that she allows) that the Mystics at least speak the language of Plotinus (p. 544). So true is this, that even she, though set upon cleansing the idea of Mysticism from the smudge of Pantheism (e.g. pp. 38, 119), yet herself speaks the language of Plotinus, if indeed she stops with that. Though she may on occasion therefore insist that in his achieved "union with the Absolute," the Mystic does not lose his identity in God, but "in the Mystic this union is conscious, personal thought"; and even indeed that what the Mystic "calls 'Union with God' is only his utter identification with the interests of the spiritual life"—she naturally cannot maintain this point of view, and everywhere lapses into language with quite other implications. For, as Fresenius (op. cit., pp. 50–51) reminds us, it is of the very essence of Mysticism to maintain the immediate presence of the divine in man, needing only to be recognized and felt; and it is therefore that it is by the way of "contemplation" that the Mystic bids us seek and find God. Miss Underhill herself tells us that "the whole claim of the Mystics ultimately depends on man's possession of pure being in 'the spark of the soul' " (p. 119, note 4)—"pure being" being but a synonym for the Absolute. Accordingly she tells us that there is a point "where Subject and Object, desirous and desired, are one" (p. 86). Or more elaborately: "That there is an extreme point at which man's nature touches the Absolute: that his ground, or substance, his true being, is conterminous with the Divine Life which constitutes the underlying reality of things; this is the basis on which the whole Mystic claim of possible union with God must rest" (pp. 65–66). And again: "The Mystics find the basis of their method not in logic but in life: in the existence of a discoverable 'real,' a spark of true being, within the seeking subject which can, in that ineffable experience which they call the 'act of union,' fuse itself with and thus apprehend the reality of the sought Object. In theological language, their theory of knowledge is that the spirit of man, itself essentially divine, is capable of immediate communion with God, the One Reality" (p. 28).

That in this "ineffable experience" called "the act of union," something more is achieved than merely the identification of ourselves "with the interests of the spiritual life"—something very much like the identification of ourselves with God—emerges from such statements as the following: "All pleasurable and exalted states of Mystic consciousness in which the sense of I-hood persists, in which there is a loving and joyous relation between the Absolute as object and the self as subject, fall under the head of Illumination" (p. 282). "The real distinction between the Illuminative and the Unitive life is that in Illumination the individuality of the subject—however profound his spiritual consciousness, however close his communion with the Infinite—remains separate and intact" (p. 295). "No doubt there were hours in which St. Catherine's experience, as it were, ran ahead; and she felt herself not merely lit up by the Indwelling Light, but temporally [temporarily?] merged in it.… Her normal condition of consciousness, however, was clearly not yet that which Julian of Norwich calls being 'oned with bliss'; but rather an intense and continuous communion with an objective Reality which she still felt to be distinct from herself.… Catherine, then, is still a spectator of the Absolute, does not feel herself to be one with it" (p. 297). Clearly, then, when the "Unitive Life" itself is attained it is no longer a mere "communion" with the Absolute, but in some more intimate sense a "union" with it, by virtue of which the "oneness" of the two is experienced as a fact.

That the achievement of this union with the Absolute should be represented by some Mystics at least (p. 496) as "deification" can occasion no surprise. These Mystics certainly do not bate their breath when they speak of it: Miss Underhill herself calls their language with respect to it "blunt and positive" (p. 501). "If we are to allow," she writes, however, "that the Mystics have ever attained the object of their quest, I think we must also allow that such attainment involves the transmutation of the self to that state which they call, for want of exact language, 'deified.' The necessity of such transmutation is an implicit of their first position: the law that 'we behold that which we are, and are that which we behold.' Eckhart, in whom the language of deification assumes its most extreme form, justifies it upon this necessity. 'If,' he says, 'I am to know God directly, I must become completely He and He I: so that this He and this I become and are one I' " (p. 502). It is easy to point out that these same Mystics nevertheless protest that by this transmutation the creature does not really become God; and that others prefer the figure of marriage with God to that of deification to express the "mystic union" which they seek in common. But this is only to say that they are Christians as well as Mystics, and that their Christianity modifies their Mysticism: it does not throw doubt upon but rather establishes the fact that the truly—unmodified—Mystical doctrine involves the identification of the creature with the deity. And that for a much deeper reason than the merely epistemological one pointed out by Miss Underhill in the passage just quoted from her (p. 502), or even than that general one adduced by E. Lehmann in the following instructive passage ("Mystik im Heidentum und Christentum," in "Aus Natur und Geisteswelt," No. 217, p. 4; E.T. p. 7): "What constitutes the main distinction between mysticism and other piety is that the ordinary pious man has above everything an eye for that which distinguishes him from God: for his insignificance in contrast with God's greatness, for his finiteness in contrast with God's infinity and eternity, for his sinfulness in contrast with God's holiness. In their feeling of this distinction men remain clearly conscious of their humanity and look upon their God as something peculiar, different from themselves. Of this distinguishableness of God, however, the Mystic will know nothing. God is to him indistinguishable as He is incomprehensible, invisible and infinite and therefore all-embracing. No one is in a position to draw a sharp line between humanity and deity; and therefore this line is capable of being crossed and man accordingly can attain this union." Behind this somewhat negative attitude there lies the positive conviction of the Mystic that there exists in himself a native spark of "pure Being" which is in and of itself divine, and that it is his part to blow this spark into a flame that he may become truly himself in the consciousness that he is really God. "The achievement of reality, and deification," says Miss Underhill (p. 503), "are then one and the same thing: necessarily so, since we know that only the divine is the real." Accordingly "the Mystic Way" begins "by the awakening within the self of a new and embryonic consciousness; a consciousness of divine reality, as opposed to the illusory sense-world in which she was immersed" (p. 536). There is nothing more fundamental to the whole Mystical consciousness than the conviction that what we shall see when we retreat into the "cell of self-knowledge" is just that Reality which stands to it for God.

One of the natural results of thus conceiving oneself is inevitably a certain intellectual and spiritual pride. The Mystic has a hearty contempt for his fellow men, who are still shut in by "the hard crust of surface-consciousness," and who know only "the machine-made universe presented by the cinematograph of sense," from which he has escaped (pp. 536–537). For himself—he has been made aware of Reality and has come from out of the cave of illusion, to live hereafter on the supersensual plane (p. 147). According to Miss Underhill the whole external world in which we live is not only of our own creation but is miscreated by us—being but the product of our deceiving senses: nay, each man creates an exclusive world for himself, since the senses of no two men act precisely alike; or rather, each man creates successively a series of exclusive worlds of his own, since his senses never function twice precisely alike; and we have only to imagine what would happen if our senses were "arranged upon a different plan" (p. 7)—if for example, as William James suggests, we heard colors and saw sounds—or if "human consciousness changed or transcended its rhythm" (p. 37), to understand in how illusory a world it is that the ordinary man lives. Quite so: if our senses were radically different and "the rhythm of our human consciousness" were radically changed, we should undoubtedly be in a different world—for our senses could not be different nor could the "rhythm of our consciousness" be changed unless we were in a different world. We may find it a pleasant exercise to speculate on what kind of a world would be involved if we had radically different senses or the world-movement proceeded in a radically different rhythm: as we may work out, for example, the nature of a world in which two and two would make five and in which space would have only two or as many as four dimensions. So, holding a key in our hands, we may find a diversion in mentally picturing the changes that would be involved in the wards of the lock by radical differences in the notches on the bit of the key. Meanwhile our senses, the stream of our consciousness, are thus and not otherwise; and that means that the world of which we are a part, and correlated to which we are by means of our senses, and of the movement of which we are aware in the "rhythm of our consciousness," is thus and not otherwise. We may as well "accept the universe": for it is this universe that is; and to be out of harmony with it is only to be intellectually, morally, and spiritually mad. It is the condemnation of Mysticism that it must begin by declaring that the world of appearance is illusion and that the rhythm of normal consciousness is a mere jangling, out of tune with reality.

But the Mystic has no more contempt for the man in the street who persists in accepting the world for what he knows it to be, than for what he calls "popular Christianity," as a religion fit only for the man who "lives in the world of sense." For himself he lays claim to a higher plane of religious functioning. "Thus," we read, "in spite of persistent efforts to the contrary, there will always be an inner and an outer Church: the inner Church of the Mystics who know, the outer Church which, operating beneficently it is true, but—roughly speaking—upon the magical plane, only knows about" (p. 199). The Mystic has got beyond "prayer," for instance, "as understood by the multitude, with all its implications of conventional piety, formality, detailed petition—a definite something asked for, and a definite duty done, by means of extemporary or traditional allocutions addressed to the anthropomorphic Deity of popular religion" (p. 366). He has also got beyond the great redemptive acts of God by which God has intervened in the world to lay an objective basis for the salvation of sinners: each and every one of these—the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the rest—is seen by him to be a symbol of a subjective experience which takes place in his own soul. "The one secret, the greatest of all," Coventry Patmore is quoted as saying (p. 141), "is the doctrine of the Incarnation, regarded not as an historical event which occurred two thousand years ago, but as an event which is renewed in the body of every one who is in the way to the fulfilment of his original destiny." The Mystic, Miss Underhill explains, does not so much deny that the Incarnation is a historical event, as merely look by preference upon it as a symbol of inward experience. And "thus," she adds (p. 142), "the Catholic priest in the Christmas Mass gives thanks, not for the setting in hand of any commercial process of redemption, but for a revelation of reality"—citing in support a passage from the Roman Missal which certainly only in isolation can be pressed into her meaning. Similarly, we read in a little Mystical manual which has come into our hands written quite in Miss Underhill's spirit ("The Path of the Eternal Wisdom: A Mystical Commentary on the Way of the Cross," by John Cordelier [manifestly a pseudonym], London, John M. Watkins, 1911): "The Cross-bearer of the Universe as He passes in our midst does not act for us but in us: by an enhancement of our energies, a call to us to use our vitality in greater or less self-regarding efforts" (p. 63).

There is probably nothing in the treatment of Christianity by the Mystical writers which is more offensive than this sublimation of the great constitutive facts—in which the very heart of Christianity is to be found—into symbols of subjective transactions. An unusually inoffensive statement of what is attempted is given in the following explanation by a recent writer (H. Erskine Hill, The Expositor, August, 1913, p. 192): "To most men the transitory is the real world, and hence its events and facts assume an absurdly exaggerated importance. To the mystic, on the other hand, the real world is the spiritual, and nothing that happens under conditions of time and space can be anything but reflections. For example, he would not say that the salvation of the world depended on what happened on Calvary, but that what happened on Calvary made manifest once for all the eternal Sacrifice on which the salvation of the world depends. He does not think of the Virgin Birth at Bethlehem as the coming of the eternal Christ into the world, but as the manifestation to the world that He is there all the time." It may be, as we are told, that this is "the lifting up of the Son of Man 'out of the earth' which will draw all men unto Him." It is abolishing the scandal of the Cross and removing the offense of the Incarnation by the simple expedient of pushing them both out of sight. He who thinks that the importance of the Incarnation and the Atoning Sacrifice as transactions in time and space is capable of "absurd exaggeration," or doubts that the Eternal Christ came into the world through the Virgin's womb, thus assuming flesh for our redemption, or that the salvation of the world depends absolutely on what happened at Calvary, has assuredly lost all sense of Christian values. He may remain a Mystic, but he has ceased to be in any intelligible sense a Christian.

We have no intention of following Miss Underhill further into the intricacies of her rich and closely packed discussion. We have thought it worth while, at the cost of whatever space it might require, to attempt to get a somewhat clear conception of precisely what she represents Mysticism to be, because thus the significance of her volume entitled "The Mystic Way," with which we are now more immediately concerned, may be most easily and clearly displayed. For, having thus expounded Mysticism in its nature in the one book she simply turns in the other and says, It is just this Mysticism which what we know as Christianity really is. "The Mystic Way" is, in other words, nothing but an elaborate attempt to explain Christianity as natural religion; and as that particular variety of natural religion which is known as Mysticism, the nature of which Miss Underhill has even more elaborately expounded in her work called "Mysticism." "The Mystic Way" is indefinitely the thinner work of the two. It gives no such impression as "Mysticism" does of being the fruit of long and loving absorption in its subject. It seems rather to be the product of an impulse; to have been somewhat hastily composed; and to resemble a lawyer's brief got up for an occasion and betraying no very large-minded survey or deep consideration of its subject. There is a certain extremity in its contentions, a certain pressure put on the facts which are adduced, a certain overanxiety to make out a case, a certain—to speak frankly—appearance of special pleading combined with insufficient familiarity with the subject-matter, which are at least not so apparent in the other volume. We cannot quite say the volume reads like an afterthought, for all that is said here lies implicitly in the earlier volume and there are not lacking hints in it of what was to come; but the explication of the implications as to Christianity of the earlier volume in the later one has proved a task for which Miss Underhill was not quite prepared and indeed has brought her sharply up against a barrier which is to be removed only by an act of supreme violence. To this extent the second volume, while intended as a corollary to the first, is in actual fact a refutation of it.

The thesis sustained in "The Mystic Way" is, as we have just said, that what we know as Christianity is simply a great irruption of Mysticism. What it sets out to prove is accordingly that Jesus was only a Mystic of exceptional purity and energy; that Paul, John, all the great leaders of early Christianity were just so many outstanding Mystics; and that all the phenomena which accompanied the origin of Christianity and have been thought to be supernatural in character, are just Mystical phenomena, and may be paralleled in the experiences of other Mystics and thus shown to be natural—natural, that is, to Mystics. In the elaboration of this proof the Synoptical record of the life and teaching of Jesus is subjected to a detailed examination with a view to the explanation of all the phenomena as Mystical; and then the teaching of Paul and of "the Fourth Evangelist" is poured into the same molds. This is followed by some account of "three of the special forms taken by the Mystical impulse in the early Church," with an Appendix on "St. Macarius the Great of Egypt." And finally, an attempt is made to show that the whole underlying spirit of the liturgy of the Mass is Mysticism. The point of view and method of the discussion are given expression in the Preface in the following words: "The examination of Christian origins from the psychological point of view suggests that Christianity began as a Mystical movement of the purest kind; that its Founder and those who succeeded Him possessed the characteristically Mystical consciousness, and passed through the normal stages of Mystical growth. Hence its nature is best understood by comparison with those lesser Mystical movements in which life has again and again asserted her unconquerable instinct for transcendence; and the heroic personalities through whom the Christian vision of reality was first expressed, are most likely to yield up the secret of their 'more abundant life' when studied by the help of those psychological principles which have been deduced from the general investigation of the Mystical type" (p. viii.). It is important to observe that what is proposed here is an essay in comparative religion; that Christianity is defined as just a Mystical movement; and that it is placed in its proper position among Mystical movements as only one of the class, so that its explanation may properly be sought from the general characteristics of its class.

We say it is important to observe this. For there is an odd suggestion made here and there, that Christian Mysticism may be set off in a class by itself, and separated by a great gulf from other Mysticism—a gulf so wide that one might think that there could be no bridge of inferences cast over it from one to the other. "We are still too often told," we read on the page immediately preceding that from which we have just quoted, "that Christian Mysticism is no integral part of Christianity; sometimes, even, that it represents an opposition to the primitive Christian ideal. Sometimes we are asked to believe that it originated from Neoplatonic influence; that Pagan blood runs in its veins, and that its genealogy goes back to Plotinus. Far from this being the case, all the doctrines and all the experiences characteristic of genuine Christian Mysticism can be found in the New Testament; and I believe that its emergence as a definite type of spiritual life coincides with the emergence of Christianity itself, in the person of its Founder" (p. vii.). Accordingly, exaggerating beyond all recognition the very natural differentiation of Christian Mysticism from other types of Mysticism made by James Leuba and Henri Delacroix, as they confine their study for the moment to this particular class of Mystics, Miss Underhill is ready to proclaim that "the Christian Mystic" "represents, so far as the psychical nature of man is concerned, a genuine species apart" (p. vii.), "constitutes a true variation of the human species" (p. 41). This is not figurative language. Miss Underhill really wishes us to greet in the Christian Mystic the actual superman. As in the age-long process of evolution the emergence of intelligence introduced a new kind of being and set the factors of evolution on a new plane, she explains, so the emergence of the Christian Mystic has again introduced in evolving humanity a new kind of being and raised humanity to yet a new plane. Miss Underhill is never tired of telling us therefore that the Christian Mystic is not merely morally or religiously different from other men, but is in the strictest sense a new "biological species." "Here we see, in fact," she asserts (p. 11), "creative evolution at work; engaged in the production of species as sharply marked off from normal humanity as 'normal' humanity supposes itself to be marked off from the higher apes. The élan vital here takes a new direction, producing profound modifications which, though they are for the most part psychical rather than physical, yet also entail a turning of the physical machinery of thought and perception to fresh uses—a cutting of fresh paths of discharge, a modification of the normal human balance of intuition and intelligence." "If this be so," she remarks again (p. 6), "the spiritual evolution of humanity, the unfolding of its tendency towards the Transcendental Order, becomes as much a part of biology as the evolution of its stomach or its sense."

This "fortunate variation" which has befallen humanity as the ultimate (so far) outcome of a process which has been "continuous from the first travail of creation even until now," it must be carefully observed, has come to it only at the advent of Jesus Christ. "And I believe," we read, "that its emergence as a definite type of spiritual life coincides with the emergence of Christianity itself, in the person of its Founder" (p. vii.). Again: "The first full and perfect manifestation of this life, this peculiar psychological growth, in which human personality in its wholeness moves to new levels and lives at a tension hitherto unknown—establishes itself in the independent spiritual sphere—seems to coincide with the historical beginnings of Christianity. In Jesus of Nazareth it found its perfect thoroughfare, rose at once to its classic expression; and the movement which He initiated, the rare human type which He created, is in essence a genuinely biological rather than merely credal or intellectual development of the race. In it, we see life exercising her sovereign power of spontaneous creation: breaking out on new paths" (p. 35). And still again: "More and more as we proceed the peculiar originality of the true Christian Mystic becomes clear to us. We are led towards the conclusion—a conclusion which rests on historical rather than religious grounds—that the first person to exhibit in their wholeness the spiritual possibilities of man was the historic Christ; and to the corollary, that the great family of the Christian Mystics—that is to say, all those individuals in whom an equivalent life-process is set going and an equivalent growth takes place—represents to us the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, in respect of the upward movement of the racial consciousness. This family constitutes a true variation of the human species …" (p. 41). If these and such deliverances mean anything, they mean that with Jesus Christ something new came into the world, something so new that all that had been in the world before it is inadequate to its explanation. And yet Miss Underhill proposes to treat it as only an instance of "the Mystical type," and on the ground that it manifests "the characteristically Mystical consciousness" to explain it from general Mysticism of which it is obviously only a specific manifestation!

The expedient by which Miss Underhill escapes from the impasse into which she has brought herself by her isolation of Christian Mysticism as a new creation in the world, is as remarkable as the exaggerations by which she has brought herself into it. Having separated Christian Mysticism off from all other so-called Mysticisms as something (in the "biological" sense) specifically different, she cheerfully proceeds at once to mix it up again with them all. Here is the passage in which she does it (p. 42): "This new form of life, as it is lived by the members of this species, the peculiar psychic changes to which they must all submit, whatsoever the historic religion to which they belong, may reasonably be called Christian; since its classic expression is seen only in the Founder of Christianity. But this is not to limit it to those who have accepted the theological system called by His name. 'There is,' says Law, 'but one salvation for all mankind, and that is the Life of God in the soul. God has but one design or intent towards all Mankind, and that is to introduce or generate His own Life, Light, and Spirit in them.… There is but one possible way for Man to attain this salvation, or Life of God in the soul. There is not one for the Jew, another for a Christian, and a third for the Heathen. No; God is one, human nature is one, salvation is one, and the way to it is one.' We may, then, define the Christian life and the Christian growth as a movement towards the attainment of this Life of Reality; this spiritual consciousness. It is a phase of the cosmic struggle of spirit with recalcitrant matter, of mind with the conditions that hem it in. More abundant life, said the great Mystic of the Fourth Gospel, is its goal; and it sums up and makes effective all the isolated struggles toward such life and such liberty which earlier ages had produced." If we understand this paragraph (in which Christ ceases to be the first to become only the classic expression of Christian Mysticism) it amounts to saying that we may fairly call by the name of Christian Mysticism, any spiritual movement in which we may discover those characteristics which we have discovered in the movement which we have designated by that name. And this would seem to amount to nothing less than saying that the element common to all Mystical movements is not their Mysticism but their Christianity! It is a complete bouleversement of values. Something was originated by Christ. We will say it was Mysticism. But Mysticism obviously was not originated by Christ; it exists apart from Him, it existed before Him. But that can be remedied by recognizing all Mysticism by virtue of our agreement that Mysticism was originated by Christ, as Christian! If Christianity is just Mysticism, why of course Mysticism is Christianity, and Christianity, since Mysticism has nothing to do with Him, has nothing to do with Christ.

We do not intend to enter into the details of Miss Underhill's elaborate explaining away of the whole supernatural element of Christianity in her effort to transmute it into just Mysticism, to her reduction of the prophet to "a spiritual genius," of Paul's mighty works to "a growth of automatic powers," of the Son of Man to "the forward-marching spirit of humanity." There is nothing distinctive about the processes she employs or the conclusions she reaches. We may briefly allude only to her dealing with what she calls "the confused poem of the resurrection" as an instance in point. The only fact that emerges clear from it, she tells us, is that "a personal and continuous life was veritably recognized and experienced: recognized as belonging to Jesus, though raised to 'another beauty, power, glory,' experienced as a vivifying force of enormous potency which played upon those 'still in the flesh' " (p. 149). This cannot be accounted for, she thinks, on purely subjective lines. The thing seized upon was "the indestructibility and completeness of the new, transfigured humanity; the finished citizen of the Kingdom of God" (p. 150). The vision then was "of a whole man; body, soul and spirit transmuted and glorified—a veritable 'New Adam' who came from heaven" (p. 151). And it was of course by the intuition, not the senses, that he was "seen" (p. 152). Certainly, no such "whole man" existed as the Jesus that was seen. As the Ascended Christ (p. 233), so naturally the Resurrected Christ was "discarnate." All this, of course, we have heard before: Miss Underhill's rationalism is certainly of the commonest garden variety. Take this amazing specimen (p. 219, note 2), relatively to the employment of "John" to designate the author of the Fourth Gospel: "I retain for convenience' sake this traditional name, which may well be that of the actual author: 'John' was a common name in Christian circles." Surely enough there are five hundred and ninety-five "Johns" listed in Smith and Wace. But what made "John" so favorite a name "in Christian circles"? And how does Miss Underhill know that "John" was a common name in Christian circles at about the time the Fourth Gospel was written, say at the turning-point of the first and second centuries? None of Smith and Wace's five hundred and ninety-five "Johns" belong to that period except one ("The Presbyter John")—and he was not invented until later. The irruption of "Johns" in Christian circles means an earlier date by a generation for the Gospel of John; for it is not allusions to John in other books but the writings attributed to him which have made the name of John precious to Christians.

That there are elements—fortunately extensive, even dominating elements—in that historical phenomenon which we know as "Christian Mysticism" that derive from Christ and what He brought into the world, of course no one will deny. It is these elements which constitute this Mysticism that particular variety of Mysticism which we call Christian Mysticism, and which justify, or rather require, that it should be studied apart, as Henri Delacroix has done in his excellent volume on "Les grands mystiques Chrétiens" (1908), which Miss Underhill misquotes in her efforts to make Christian Mysticism out to be a wholly new creation in the world. We shall all approve of Delacroix's going to the great Christian Mystics by preference to learn what Christian Mysticism is, lest, as he says, he should see only the lower characteristics of it and so miss the greatness of these great men. And we shall all approve also of his going rather to those of them who have lived and practised Mysticism than to those who have merely written about it. But we shall not doubt any more than he doubts that a doctrine underlies the practice of even these practical Mystics, or that this doctrine by virtue of which they are Mystics derives not from Christ but from Plotinus. "No doubt," he writes, "—and we shall show it in this book—doctrine intervenes in experience, and there is, to speak it out, no great Mystic who has not grounded his experience in a doctrine and who has not up to a certain point made doctrinal preoccupations intervene in the constitution of his experience.… We have shown that throughout the whole course of Christianity there has been an almost continuous Mystical doctrine deriving from Neoplatonism.… We shall find it again as a substructure and an implicit theory in the Mysticism of experience" (p. iv.). In a sense the source of all of Miss Underhill's woes is her determination that Christian Mysticism, as it is Mysticism, shall find its starting-point in Christ and not in Plotinus. "Above all," she writes, "we shall be in conflict with those who … consider the Mystical element in Christianity to be fundamentally unchristian and ultimately descended from the Neoplatonists" (p. 58). Nevertheless it was she herself who, when not so deeply intoxicated with this theory, told us that "Christian philosophy, especially that Neoplatonic theology which, taking up and harmonizing all that was best in the spiritual intuitions of Greece, India and Egypt, was developed by the great doctors of the early and mediæval Church, supports and elucidates the revelations of the individual Mystic as no other system of thought has been able to do" ("Mysticism," p. 125); that "we owe … above all to Dionysius the Areopagite, the great Christian contemporary of Proclus, the preservation of that mighty system of scaffolding which enabled the Catholic Mystics to build up the towers and bulwarks of the City of God" (p. 125).

Least of all can any one deny that there is a sense, a wide sense, a sense too wide for the historical meaning of the term Mysticism, in which Christianity is mysticism. It is of the very essence of Christianity that God has immediate access to the human soul and that the Christian enjoys direct communion with God: it is of the very essence of Christianity that it is in Christ that every Christian lives and that it is Christ who lives in every Christian. If there is nothing that shocks the Christian more in Mysticism than its tendency to seek God apart from Christ—as W. Herrmann says, "to leave Christ behind" ("Communion of the Christian with God," E.T. 1913, p. 30), he is equally shocked when Herrmann on his own part declares: "We cannot speak of a communion with the exalted Christ" (p. 291). We shall not turn our backs on Mysticism therefore to throw ourselves into the arms of that Ritschlianism in which Miss Underhill, perhaps rightly, sees the most determined modern enemy of all mysticism. But neither need we in revolt from Ritschlianism cast ourselves into the arms of that Mystical individualism which would throw man back on what we have seen Miss Underhill speaking of as the "revelations of the individual" ("Mysticism," p. 125). There are some words of Herrmann's which, deeply vitiated though they are by his inadequate view of the person and work of our Lord, and of the relation of the Christian to Him, may yet bring us a needed warning here. "The Christian," says he (p. 193), "can never even wish that God should specially appear to him or speak down to him from heaven. He receives the revelation of God in the living relationships of Christian brotherhood, and its essential contents are that personal life of Jesus which is visible in the Gospel, and which is expounded by the lives of the redeemed." It certainly is not merely in the communion of saints that we have communion with God; it is not only in and through the community of Christian men that we receive the impression of the living Christ; "the personal life of Christ," that is, the aroma of His holy personality lingering behind Him in the world, does not constitute the essential contents of the revelation of God; the whole conception of the work of Christ and of the substance of the gospel here outlined is in direct contradiction with what the gospel itself proclaims. But it is true that the Christian ought to be, and will be, satisfied with the revelation of God in Christ, and cannot crave special and particular revelations, each one for himself. The one revelation of His grace which God has given to His people in His Son is enough for the needs of all and floods the souls of all with a sense of its completeness and its all-sufficiency. As Dr. A. Kuyper beautifully expresses it, God the Lord does not feed His people each by himself but spreads a common table of the abundant supply of which He invites His whole family to partake. But just because the common supply is enough for all, He gives in it personal communion with Him, the Master of the feast, to each and all; and in that communion abundance of life. "Humanity," says A. H. Strong ("Philosophy and Religion," 1888, p. 225) finally "is a dead and shattered vine, plucked up from its roots in God, and fit only for the fires. But in Christ, God has planted a new vine, a vine full of His own divine life, a vine into which it is His purpose one by one to graft these dead and withered branches, so that they may once more have the life of God flowing through them and may bear the fruits of heaven." "It is a supernatural, not a natural, process," he adds. And it is only "in Christ," we may add with the utmost emphasis.

MYSTIK UND GESCHICHTLICHE RELIGION.

Von WILHELM FRESENIUS, Lic. theol.

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. 1912.

LICENTIATE FRESENIUS is an admiring pupil of W. Herrmann, and has written this little book apparently for the purpose of defending the so-called "historical" conception of religion, held by Herrmann in common with his fellow Ritschlians, against the "mystical" conception of religion which is now again becoming very widespread. According to the so-called "historical" conception of it, religion is not a native possession of the human soul; it is something which meets man in the course of the process of living. It is an experience—an Erlebnis, something that occurs to him—which some day befalls him—begegnet, encounters him—when he finds himself face to face with goodness manifested in a personal life with such power that he cannot choose but utterly surrender himself to it. Religion is thus a fact which occurs in a human life, a transaction, a transaction of the man's own; yet it is rather produced in him than by him—through the might of the goodness revealed to his observation. "A man cannot make religion for himself; nor can he acquire it by labors or performances of any kind whatsoever—he can neither earn it by works nor excogitate it by brooding. It has always itself laid claim to be a gift of God to man. Therefore, the only path to religion lies in observing and marking the experiences of our own life, if perchance there may speak to us in them a power of love and goodness which we cannot withstand. Experiences arise in our own life, however, only in our commerce with other men, with personalities in whom we are able to put trust, that is, from whom we receive the impression that they have risen above purely instinctive life to personal being. By their means we are turned to that which raised them out of their nothingness. We Christians accordingly speak of the Christian community as that with the existence, vitality and historical power of which the possibility of religious life is for us indissolubly bound up. And it is therefore that we designate religion, because it is attached to human intercourse and its historical, personal root, as historical religion" (p. 64). Religion, in this view, therefore arises in the soul of man in particular conditions of time and space, under influences brought to bear upon him from without—under the influences, to be more specific, of other personalities which impress him as good. In the formal definitions which Fresenius frames (p. 63), "religion is the experience which the morally thinking man makes, when the power of the good so encounters him that he must surrender himself to it utterly"; and (p. 65) "the Christian religion is the experience which the morally thinking man makes of the Person of Jesus, when the power of the good so encounters him in it, that he must surrender himself to it utterly."

With this conception of religion as evoked in man by a quite specific experience, which comes to him from without, the Mystical contention that we must look within ourselves to find God stands obviously in direct contradiction. "It is the characteristic of all Mysticism," Fresenius remarks in bringing this contradiction to view, "that it maintains the immediate presence of divine life in man, which needs only to be recognized and felt,—and it is therefore that in all mysticism it is contemplation which self-evidently forms the best way to God—while historical religion has always presented itself as the new life, which comes into being by the action of person on person and is not already (even though hiddenly) present in man" (pp. 50–51). It is not strange therefore that Fresenius looks with alarm upon the irruption of Mystical ideas which seems at present in progress and posits the problem which is raised by this irruption in such phrases as these—"whether we are to be saved from the religious exigencies of our day by giving our attention to historical religion, to the gospel of Jesus as the Reformers understood it, or by sinking ourselves into the feeling of infinity and by speculatively contemplating that which lives in our souls by nature" (pp. 54–55). For Fresenius emphasizes that what the Mystic finds in the soul is merely its natural endowment. "We have heard religion—or rather its Mystical form—," he says, "compared with the contemplation of nature and art; what we experience and feel in the enjoyment of nature, in gazing on a beautiful painting, in listening to a symphony by a master, that—so we have been told—is essentially related to religion, or rather is religion's self, because it is the apprehension and feeling of the eternal and imperishable. But just as surely as the enjoyment of nature and art can evoke mysticism, just so surely is the infinite which is felt in it not the God of religion. For Christian piety at least, God is not the Eternal, Imperishable which we feel, but the Power for Good which comes into contact with us, above time and eternity, in the personalities who evoke confidence (Zutrauen) in us,—which Power is not maintained by us to be God, but manifests itself to us as God. Where, however, God is sought and found in indefinite feelings, in experiences of the infinite, there He is nothing but a name for the unknown and incomprehensible which arouses that feeling. Man then humbles himself before a power which he does not know, but which, if he will not give himself the lie, he postulates, and from which he then, since he cannot get along without them, arbitrarily forms conceptions—which perhaps, however, are actually derived from historical religion" (p. 82).

Obviously the debate between the Ritschlian, as represented by Fresenius, and the Mystic turns primarily upon the question of what, when the Mystic sinks himself into himself, he finds there. The Mystic says he finds God. The Ritschlian says he finds nothing but an indefinite and indefinable feeling of the infinite which he arbitrarily dubs God. This question at once, however, passes into another: the question of the conception of God. To the Mystic, Fresenius intimates, God is simply Immensity; to the Ritschlian He is the Good: to the former therefore He is a mere thing, to the latter He is a Person—for when we say "good" we say Person. As over against all Mystical phantasies, therefore, the Ritschlian stands for "the personal God, who drawing near to us in religious experience, calls us to ethical, personal life" (p. 88). This great transaction takes place, of course, at a given point of time and thus the Ritschlian stands for what he calls "historical religion." "Thus over against historical religion which springs out of personal life-experiences in the social organism there stands history-less Mysticism which forgets the social organism in arbitrarily produced feelings and phantasies" (p. 89). That the contradiction of these conceptions may be felt in its full force, however, the phenomenalism which rules the Ritschlian conception must be borne in mind. To this phenomenalism Fresenius manages to advert even in this brochure (p. 73), speaking with some contempt of the old Lutheran dogmaticians who still believe in a substantial soul (it is "the thing in itself," he remarks in parenthesis) and, over against this human soul, in a substantial God. As they did not find the real nature of man in his activities, he complains, so they did not find God "in particular activities, in historical acts and personal operations" but postulated a somewhat behind these activities of which they endeavored to frame some conception and which they sought afterwards to bring somehow into connection with historical facts. For the "soul" of man he would substitute a series of activities under the conception of "Life" (Leben), and correspondingly for the substantial God he would substitute a series of activities also known as "Life" (Leben). And as God consists only in His activities, of course He can be known only in His activities, and it is idle to seek Him as lying inert in the human heart.

It certainly were hard choosing between two such one-sided conceptions of God—a God who is bare Immensity (or "Reality," as it is the irritating habit of the Mystics to call Him), or a God who is bare Activity. Fortunately we are shut up to no such option. Nor can the question of what may be found in the human soul be thought to be closed by the unfortunate fact that many of those who have turned their contemplation in upon it have found there apparently nothing but a vague sense of immensity. There are mystics and mystics. Indeed Fresenius, as he addresses himself to the study of mysticism and the possibility of there being a mystical element in religion, is oppressed no more by the multitude of the mystics who require to be taken account of than by the immense variety of definitions of mysticism which claim attention. Quot homines, tot sententiae. To ease his task Fresenius selects three recent writers of importance, whom he considers fair representatives of divergent types of Mystical thought and endeavors to derive from a study of them a working notion of what Mysticism stands for at the moment at least. These are Friedrich von Hügel, Nathan Söderblom, and Georg Klepl. To the first of these thinkers "Mysticism is the specifically Catholic ideal of piety" (p. 10); to the second it is "the essential content of Christianity, and that precisely of Protestant Christianity" (p. 28); to the third (he does not employ the term) it is the abiding basis of all possible religion in these sophisticated times. As the result of his induction Fresenius strangely arrives at the conclusion that, as a phenomenon in the Christian Church at least, Mysticism is distinctively Catholic or at least Catholicizing. He had no doubt thrown Söderblom out of consideration, somewhat arbitrarily one would think, because of his identification of mysticism with the general supernatural element in Christianity. But one would suppose that Klepl—who does not, however, consider himself a Mystic—was as far as possible from a Catholicizing conception of religion.

The truth seems to be that Fresenius has not in the end been able to emancipate himself from his traditional Ritschlian conception here. Ritschl, Harnack, Herrmann are cited in support of his finding (p. 85) and the volume closes with a quotation from the well-known pages of Harnack's "History of Dogma" (E.T. vi. 1899, pp. 99 f.) in which he warns evangelical Christians off from too complete a sympathy with Mysticism—merely because of their delight in the warm spiritual life which it exhibits—on the ground that it is essentially Catholic and cannot be Protestantized. Despite so great an array of authority we cannot help thinking this finding a mistake. The evangelical Christian may be well put on his guard against Mysticism—to which he cannot unreservedly give himself, as Harnack truly observes, "if he has made clear to himself what evangelical faith is"; and no doubt the legalism and formalism of the Romish teaching have ever been powerful contributory causes to the production of Mysticism in the Catholic Church. But it finds its impelling cause clearly elsewhere and therefore it is not even exclusively an intra-Christian phenomenon. We can scarcely deny the name of Mystic to Plotinus or Jalálu 'd Din, to Greek or Persian, Muslim or Hindu saint. In the actual definition of Mysticism to which Fresenius comes, if it be considered merely as a definition of Mysticism within the limits of the Catholic Church, we may nevertheless find our way. "Mysticism," says he, "is the ideal of piety which is necessarily formed on the basis of a legalistic, Catholic or Catholicizing conception of religion, by men, weary of the burden of ecclesiastical tradition and cold formalism, who seek after a personal experience and assurance of faith, and, utilizing religious tradition and customs as means to their end, find the goal of their search in an indefinite and indefinable feeling of the eternal which is arbitrarily maintained to be God" (pp. 83–84). Mutatis mutandis the same might be said for Mysticism in the Protestant Churches, or for Mysticism among the Mohammedans or the Hindus. Everywhere Mysticism avails itself of the forms of religion and the theological formulas under which it grows up as means: everywhere it lays hold of the sense of the immense and the eternal which it finds in the soul. It remains still a question, however, whether its discovery of God through this feeling of the immense and the eternal is altogether arbitrary.

To go at once to the root of the matter, what Mysticism really is, is, at bottom, just natural religion. That its form has been given it so prevailingly—perhaps we ought to say, constantly—by the influence of Pantheizing thought may be treated here as accidental; though it must be confessed that it has much the look, historically, of an essential characteristic, in which case we should have to define Mysticism as Pantheizing natural religion. Meanwhile we are not to be driven or tempted from the position that men are by nature religious and will in any event have a religion; that there has been ineradicably implanted in them a sensus deitatis (as Calvin has taught us to call it) which inevitably becomes a semen religionis. Fresenius himself is compelled to allow the presence in man of "a religious disposition, or an inborn religious capacity" which provides the psychological possibility of religion (p. 60); and he freely admits that this "capacity for religion" has enabled multitudes to become actually religious under influences wholly unknown to us (p. 16). His contention only is that it must be called into action by influences coming from without and of a personal-ethical kind: it never, according to him, functions independently so as to produce religion. The Mystic, on the contrary, insists that it normally effloresces into actual religion whenever opportunity is given it to function. The difference here is fundamental and rests on divergent ontologies. If it be reduced to the single question of whether God approaches man only from without, through the medium of other personalities acting upon him by the way of a so-called "ethical" appeal; or rather Himself forms a part of man's spiritual environment in contact with whom man exists and of whom he has immediate experience, we must pronounce the Mystic certainly in the right. And this we may surely do without prejudice to complete rejection of the entire Pantheizing coloring of the common (or shall we say constant?) Mystical presentation. The mischief of Mysticism lies not in its claim to find God through the ineradicable natural instincts of the soul but in its persistent effort, being natural religion, to substitute itself for supernatural religion, that is to say, for Christianity. The relation of Christianity to natural religion seems to be very frequently, we might even say commonly, misconceived. They are not two religions, lying side by side of one another, of which one must be taken and the other left: whether with the Ritschlian we take Christianity (or rather, what they mistake for Christianity) and leave natural religion, or with the Mystics we take natural religion and leave Christianity. As what is called special revelation is superinduced upon and presupposes what is called general revelation, and these two form one whole, so Christianity is superinduced upon and presupposes natural religion and forms with it the one whole which is the only sufficing religion for sinful man. Although Mysticism is not Christianity, therefore, Christianity is mysticism. There are multitudes of Mystics who are not Christians, but there is no Christian who is not a mystic—who does not hold communion with God in his soul, and that not merely as the God of grace by virtue of whose recreative operations he is a Christian, but as the God of nature by virtue of whose creative, upholding, and governing operations he is a creature. We may or may not be able to make out a historical claim to the name of Mysticism to express this Christian mysticism; the name may be preëmpted by something essentially different and any attempt to rescue it to this nobler usage may be productive only of confusion. We may think it futile to distinguish, as has often been attempted (von Hügel quotes the distinction from Rauwenhoff, as Charles Hodge quoted it from Nitzsch), between Mystik and Mysticismus, as designations respectively of the "white" and the "black" Mysticism. But the name apart, the thing lies at the very foundation of the Christian religion: there is no Christian religion where there is no inward communion with God.

As Christianity is mysticism without being Mysticism, so also is it a historical religion without being "Historical Religion" in the sense of Fresenius and his school. In calling religion "historical" Fresenius and his school mean nothing more than that its origin in every individual case is to be sought and found not in some innate disposition of the man but "in his own history," that is, as he explains (p. 21), "in the experiences of his life, in the effects of living personalities, in occurrences which can maintain their right before his clear ethical judgment." Their minds are not at all on the great historical occurrences by which the God of Grace has intervened in the sinful development of the race by redemptive acts—the incarnation, the atonement, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost—but merely on the life-experience of the individual man, in the course of which, they affirm, religion is brought to him as one item in the temporal series of his experiences. Of the great redemptive acts of God by which Christianity is constituted and by virtue of which, lying at its heart, it is a "historical religion" they will know as little as the Mystic himself. To them, too, all religion, inclusive of Christianity, as a, or the, religion, is independent of all occurrences of the past and is purely a present experience of man. They differ with the Mystic here only in making it an experience, not of man's native life of feeling, but of his presently acting ethical will.

When remarking on this matter Fresenius carefully explains that "the deepest difference" between von Hügel the Mystic and Herrmann, the advocate of "historical religion," "lies here in this: that Hügel seeks to assign its place in the soul-life of man to religion as a given entity (psychological method), while Herrmann exhibits its origin in the spiritual-ethical life of man and establishes it as a power which works from person to person and is therefore historical (historical, systematic method)" (p. 21). So eager is he not to be misunderstood, by the use of the term "historical" here to imply some recognition of the historical elements of Christianity as that term is ordinarily understood, that he attaches a note to the word to explain that he, like Wobbermin (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, xxi. 1911), distinguishes between the two German terms geschichtlich and historisch and applies only the former, but never the latter, to his Christianity. To him Christianity has ceased to be a "historical" (historische) religion and the "faith" which he calls by that name is absolutely independent of all "historical" (historische) facts. This includes even the fact of Jesus. We must not be misled here by the place which "the Person of Jesus" holds in the "Christianity" of Herrmann and of course also in that of his pupil Fresenius. Fresenius has been at pains to explain to us that it is the geschichtliche Jesus, not the historische Jesus, that is here in question. It is a matter of indifference to him and all those of his way of thinking whether there ever existed any historische Jesus: all that is important is that we shall have a genuine "experience" of Jesus, that He should come to us geschichtlich, that is, in a real encounter with our soul. This constitutes Him to us the point of inspiration needed to awaken us to religious life and it is indifferent to us whether He really ever lived on earth (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, xxii. 1912, pp. 244–268). Not merely have the incarnation, the atonement, the outpouring of the Spirit—all the redemptive acts of God—gone; the "historical Jesus" may go too. On no fact of the past whatever can Christianity rest: it is purely for each man an experience of his own.

Certainly no Mystic could cut himself more completely loose from the historical elements of Christianity than is done here. And, by virtue of the fact that all that makes Christianity that specific religion which we call Christianity lies precisely in these historical elements, the neglect or rejection of them is the rejection of Christianity. The whole life-work of Herrmann may have been to show how a man of our day may still be a Christian; but unfortunately he has done this by adapting what he calls Christianity to the point of view of the "man of our day," and the outcome is that he solves the problem by dissolving Christianity. The "historical religion" which Fresenius offers us is therefore no more Christianity than the Mysticism of the most extreme of the Mystics, and brings us not a single step closer than it to a real Christianity. Of course if the whole difference between Mysticism and "historical religion" were reduced to the single question of whether Christianity is the product of the native religious sentiment or comes to man from without and is embraced by an act of his own ethical will, we should have unhesitatingly to give the right to "historical religion." We have not had to wait for the Ritschlian school to learn that faith comes by hearing; or that as believing implies hearing so hearing implies a preacher. By virtue of the very circumstance that Christianity is a historical religion and is rooted in facts which have occurred in the world and through which the redemption which has come into the world has been wrought out, it must be communicated. And nothing is more sure than that there can be no Christianity apart from the working upon the heart of these historical facts as proclaimed, appreciated, and embraced in confident faith. The action of the ethical will in laying hold upon the Saving Christ is of the essence of Christianity and there is no Christianity without it.

What Fresenius brings into contrast in his discussion is, then, merely two extremely one-sided conceptions of religion: the religion of the mere feelings and the religion of the bare ethical will. Neither has any claim to the name of Christianity. For Christianity is a historical religion and neither of these conceptions of religion has any essential connection with history. The religion of the mere ethical will is just as purely a merely natural religion as is the religion of the mere feelings. The Christian may therefore stand by and watch the conflict of these standpoints with interest indeed but without concern. Each tendency—"Mysticism," "Historical Religion"—is engaged in validating elements of the religious life, which enter into and find their due place in Christianity. But not only is each fatally one-sided in its exclusive insistence upon its own element of religious experience, but both in combination fall far short of even a complete account of natural religion; and neither has any place whatever in its system of thought for that supernatural religion which alone can avail for the needs of sinful men. The problem which presses on us is not whether, in the religious conflicts of our time, we should turn for rest and peace to "Mysticism" or to "Historical Religion"—to the religion of the feelings or to the religion of the ethical will: but whether there is not some more comprehensive religion which will take up into itself and engage the whole man, intellect, sensibility, and will alike, and meeting him in his actual condition of weakness and corruption and guilt, rescue him from his lost state and renew him in all the elements of his being, to present him to God a new man. After all said Christianity remains the only religion which meets the case.

MYSTICISM IN CHRISTIANITY.

By the Rev. W. K. FLEMING, M.A., B.D.

London: Robert Scott; New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company. 1913.

MYSTICISM AND MODERN LIFE.

By JOHN WRIGHT BUCKHAM.

New York and Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press. [1915.]

THESE two books illustrate a movement of recent thought which both of them are eager that we should recognize as in progress. This is a movement towards a reawakened interest in Mysticism, and even toward a reversion to it as a satisfying religious point of view. Such a movement was for religious men inevitable in the prevalent decay of confidence in the Christian revelation. For Mysticism is religion, and supplies a refuge for men of religious mind who find it no longer possible for them to rest on "external authority"—as George Tyrrell both expounded and illustrated for us. Once turn away from revelation and little choice remains to you but the choice between Mysticism and Rationalism. There is not so much choice between these things, it is true, as enthusiasts on either side are apt to imagine. The difference between them is very much a matter of temperament, or perhaps we may even say of temperature. The Mystic blows hot, the Rationalist cold. Warm up a Rationalist and you inevitably get a Mystic; chill down a Mystic and you find yourself with a Rationalist on your hands. The history of thought illustrates repeatedly the easy passage from one to the other. Each centers himself in himself, and the human self is not so big that it makes any large difference where within yourself you take your center. Nevertheless just because Mysticism blows hot, its "eccentricity" is the more attractive to men of lively religious feeling. But it is just as scornful as Rationalism of the supernatural, of "external revelation," of historical foundations for religion. Face to face with the supernatural revelations recorded in the Christian Scriptures, it reduces them to "mystical phenomena," and assimilates them to the experiences of a Plotinus, or of a Sadi. Face to face with the historical foundations of Christianity, it treats them as symbols of transactions which take place within the souls of men. It is of the very essence of Mysticism to find God within the circle of the individual's experience. So soon as any other "way" of coming into "contact" with God is proposed than by sinking into ourselves, Mysticism is radically deserted. And because not the perception of God but God Himself is found in the human soul, and by implication in every human soul, God is ultimately confounded with the human soul: at his deepest depths man is God. No doubt, being a religion and not merely a philosophy, "unification" is presented by Mysticism as an achievement rather than as a postulate. And no doubt we may learnedly distinguish between Pantheism and Panentheism, between Pantheism and Negativism. All such efforts to escape from the coils of the serpent, however, are futile. Mysticism, in its fundamental basis of underlying conception, is just Pantheizing Anti-supernaturalism. And such it has shown itself—in greater or less purity of manifestation—in its entire historical development.

This is what Mysticism, with a capital M, is. Spell it with a lower-case m, and we may possibly broaden it out into only another name for natural religion. As it is religion, it is of course when so understood admirable. As it remains natural religion, it is equally of course, for fallen men, inadequate. Its relation to Christianity is that of natural religion to the religion of revelation. It goes without saying that it finds "for itself in Christianity a field of the richest and most fruitful soil." This is saying too little. We must say that only in Christianity can it attain its true development and complement. For Christianity is not an unnatural religion disputing the field of religion with natural religion. It is natural religion reinforced by supernatural republication and sanctions, and completed by the addition of what is needed for a religion for men in the unnatural condition induced by sin. It takes up natural religion into itself and gives it the power to come to its rights while it enlarges it by adding to it the supernatural religion needed for sinful man. But it goes equally without saying that mysticism, understood as natural religion, is not, in some of its less complete developments, confined to the soil of Christianity. Just because it is natural religion it is present wherever human nature is present and functions religiously; and we do not need Schleiermacher to teach us that there is no human self-consciousness which is destitute of the God-consciousness. Of course, then, "it has been at the root of any and every religion worthy of the name, in its original and indefectible 'feeling after God, if haply it may find Him.' " Wherever man exists he is "in contact" with God: and wherever men are "in contact" with God they may "know" Him if only they will attend to Him "in contact" with whom they are. We may even use the word "know" in its full sense. We see no reason to dispute Plotinus' dictum that God to be known must be "seen" or "felt." If God be a mere hypothesis, however fully that hypothesis is verified, He can scarcely be said to be "known." That He is we may be sure; but to know that God is, is not yet to "know" God. We may acquire after a while good reason to believe that Mars, say, is inhabited: that would not warrant us in saying that we "know" the beings whose bare existence we have found reason to believe in. God is known only by those who being "in contact" with Him have looked upon Him with that eye of the soul to which He is visible. If this be mysticism, we are all mystics: not merely Augustine with his doctrine of the intelligible world and the sensus internus by which it is perceived, but Calvin also with his doctrine of the sensus deitatis which is the semen religionis. But it certainly is not Mysticism in any historical sense of that term.

The fault of books like those now before us is that they confound Mysticism (which is Pantheizing Anti-supernaturalism) with mysticism (conceived as conscious living, moving, and having our being in God) and then interpret Christianity in terms of the resultant confused idea. The effect is to desupernaturalize and dehistoricalize Christianity, and to reduce it to a merely natural religion, or rather to substitute merely natural religion for it. Christ is ranged with other masters; and the Christianity which He died to give to the world is explained as already in the possession of men before and quite apart from Him; as lying always, in fact, at the disposal of men in the depths of every man's own heart. This is the fundamental point of view which lies beneath and gives their ground-color to both of the books now before us, though it manifests itself in the discussions of each, of course, in a degree and manner of its own. Mr. Fleming's book is historical in form. Its task is to present a succinct account of the manifestations of Mystical thought and of the Mystical attitude in the historical development of Christianity. His mind is on Mysticism with a capital M, and he represents its presence in the Christian life and thinking of the ages as the saving salt by virtue of which Christianity has been made, and maintained, as a religion. Mr. Buckham's book has more the form of a discussion of principles. Some of the chapters which constitute it were written originally for separate publication and the unity of the volume suffers somewhat from this fact. But a sufficient internal unity is given to the whole by the common purpose, pervading all parts alike, to assimilate Mysticism and Christianity to one another. This assimilation is effected by first interpreting Mysticism in terms of Christianity—the stages of "the Mystic Way," for example, are expounded in a fashion which may enable the Christian to "receive it" but scarcely the Mystic to recognize it as his own—and then interpreting Christianity in terms of Mysticism. What comes out as a result is something which is neither Mysticism nor Christianity, but a good deal more the former than the latter. Anti-doctrinal zeal is a fundamental trait of both books; their misprision of evangelical teaching and practice is marked; their hatred of Calvinism and all its works intense, though not very intelligible, or indeed even intelligent. Observe this list of names brought together by Mr. Buckham as not very commendable for the theology they represent: "Arius, Pelagius, Abelard, Dominic, Socinus, Calvin, the Westminster Divines, Priestley"!

It is interesting to observe what Mr. Buckham makes of Christianity in his determination to give it a common denominator with Mysticism. In one passage, he formally expounds "the essence of Christianity." We do not quarrel with him that, in his anti-dogmatic zeal, he seeks primarily the essence of Christianity as spiritual experience. What we quarrel with him for is the particular spiritual experience which he segregates as constituting the specific essence of Christianity. This he phrases as "a filial communion and coöperation with God, so deep and real as to transform life." Obviously, there is nothing specifically Christian in this. "This spirit came through Jesus," he says. But then he adds immediately: "Not that it is absolutely new with Jesus." He adds again, indeed: "But it was so intense and fructifying as to exercise an almost"—this "almost" is intensely revealing—"creative influence upon those who came to share it with and through Him." But this does not remove the fatal fact that nothing exclusively Christian is discovered in "the essence of Christianity." Christianity may bring what it brings with a special poignancy of appeal; but it is a matter of degree not of kind after all. So Pelagius said that men could be saved apart from Christianity as truly as by Christianity, only they could be saved more easily under Christianity: just as a boat would convey you from Carthage to Italy by sail more easily to yourself than if you had to row it across—but you could row it across all right if you had to. Christianity is a good religion; no doubt the best religion; but you can do very well without it.

But, now, how did Mr. Buckham arrive at this remarkable "essence" for Christianity? By historical induction, it seems. "It is only as we grasp that which is common in Christian experience, in the first century and in our own, and in all that intervene, that we understand the essence of Christianity," he tells us. And then he tells us, that proceeding after this fashion he finds the essence of Christianity what we have seen. Did anybody ever reason with more delightful circularity? We presume that the spiritual experience of those alone who possess the essence of Christianity is truly Christian experience; and we presume equally that the essence of Christianity is the spiritual experience of those only who are truly Christians. We may know who are truly Christians by observing who have truly Christian experience; and we may know what truly Christian experience is by observing what is the experience of those who are truly Christians. Or, shall we say rather that the spiritual experience common to all who call themselves Christians is "the essence of Christianity"? If only a single man from the time of Christ until to-day who has called himself a Christian and has not been truly a Christian be included in this induction, the conclusion is vitiated. We should get not what is common to all Christians, but what is common to Christians and non-Christians. This is what has happened to Mr. Buckham. He gives us not the essence of Christianity, which is a specific religion, but the essence (from his point of sight) of religion. And that is the reason why after saying that this "filial communion and coöperation with God," to be Christian, must be "so deep and real as to transform life," he immediately, bethinking himself of the other religions with which Christianity is confounded in his thought, qualifies this and says of it that it is only "an almost creative influence."

We have noted that Rationalism does not lie any too far away from Mysticism. Mystics sometimes betray a tendency to Rationalistic turns of thought. Mr. Buckham does not altogether escape. Does God send trouble? is a question which seems quite to bowl over his attempt to interpret the universe in terms of God. In reporting the attitude of the Mystic towards "the disasters and ills" of life he interjects a remark on his own account to the effect that these disasters and ills of life "are acts of nature rather than of God, or His only as belonging to a world that is His." What wretched dualism have we here? Mr. Buckham seeks to salve his defection by intimating that Mysticism at least does not go so far astray here as Evangelicalism—that bête noire both of himself and Mr. Fleming. "Evangelicalism," he tells us, "went too far" in the direction of attributing the dark and the storm to the sending of God and interpreting "the lightning javelins of fate" as "hurled by His hand." The Mystic has not urged, he affirms, that disasters are direct acts of God, and especially not that they have been sent with punitive intent: he has only endeavored to utilize trouble when it comes for his own purification and perfection. All this is obviously not only unevangelical, but irreligious, if we can make a distinction here. He who does not see the hand of God in all that befalls him is a Rationalist more extreme than even such an extreme Rationalist as Wilhelm Herrmann. He has not only torn God out of his heart (where the Mystic finds Him), but even out of the universe (where the mere Theist must see Him).

"The experience of the mystics as a whole," writes Mr. Buckham, "offers a striking exemplification of the saying of Christ as to the life of the Kingdom consisting in a renewed childhood." What saying of Christ is this? Mr. Buckham seems conscious that there is something wrong here; for he immediately adds, "Not that such a life has the weaknesses and limitations of childhood, but, rather, its vision, its faith, its confiding communion." Has childhood—infancy would be the truer term—"vision, and faith, and confiding communion"? The mistake here is not to be condoned merely because it has become so common. The kingdom of heaven is not an infantile estate in which the immature alone may be at home; nor is it a children's paradise. Men are not to renew their childhood in it, but to put away childish things. We rise not sink into manhood, and the kingdom of heaven consists not in reduced men but in enlarged men—built up into the fullness of the stature of manhood in Christ. What our Lord said was not that life in the kingdom consists in a renewed childhood, but that no man can enter the kingdom save as an infant enters the world, naked and bare of all claim on his own behalf, utterly dependent on God for all and receiving all from His mere grace. It is to that state that we are to turn, humbling ourselves, if we are to enter the kingdom. To receive the kingdom as a gratuity from God is a very different thing, however, from using it as a crèche.

We may of course speak of a "mystical aspect of Christianity," and we may even speak of "the doctrine or rather the experience of the Holy Ghost," as "the real truth of mysticism." The term "Christ-mysticism" may have a good meaning. But in the ambiguity of the word "mysticism" all such modes of speech may also be gravely misleading. If it be true as R. C. Moberly said it was true, that "had only all Christians understood, and lived up to their belief" in the Holy Ghost, "they would all have been mystics," it is certainly not true, what he immediately adds, "or, in other words, there would have been no 'mysticism.' " All Christians not only might have been, or may be, but actually are "mystics" in the sense of the former clause: communion with God is of the very essence of Christianity: Paul tells us in so many words, that "if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His." No man is a Christian who has not the experience of the indwelling Christ. But "Mysticism" is still with us and is another matter. This is a Pantheizing anti-supernaturalistic religiousness which must not be permitted to come to us in the sheep's-clothing of "essential Christianity" on the ground that it is only another name for "spiritual inwardness." It is most decidedly something very different from that.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF MAN.

By H. WHEELER ROBINSON, M.A.

Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1911.

THE task which Mr. Robinson has set before himself, put briefly, is the restatement in modern terms of the essential features of Christian anthropology. He occupies, however, the very modern standpoint which conceives everything as in a flux. What the Christian doctrine of man is, is therefore not a fixed thing but an ever changing—perhaps Mr. Robinson would prefer to say, an ever developing—quantity. It must be conceived as process, and studied as history. Even "its statement in terms of to-day can be no more than a cross-section of this continuous development" (p. 2). There is no way of stopping the flow and obtaining once for all a precipitate. We can tell what Christian men used to think about man—what the writers of the New Testament thought, and how, standing on the shoulders of the writers of the Old Testament, they came to think it; what the Christian men of any subsequent age thought and how, standing on the shoulders of the preceding ages, they came to think it. We can tell what the Christian men of to-day think, and how, in the midst of the influences which play upon them they have come to think it. But who can tell what the Christian man of to-morrow will think? And above all who can isolate from the steadily flowing stream, we will not merely say the constant elements, the elements which, up to to-day, have remained characteristic of Christian thought, but the permanent elements, the elements which will always remain characteristic of Christian thought? The weakness of the genetic method to which Mr. Robinson commits himself is revealed in such questions. We may speak of the Christian doctrine of man "beginning historically with the life and teaching of Jesus Christ"; we may represent the whole subsequent historical development as but "the record of the germination and growth of the seed sown by Jesus Christ"; we may declare that it has never "lost its vital continuity with Him who is its source"; we may praise it for its power to slough off what is outworn and to assimilate new elements which in the enlarging knowledge of the increasing years present themselves to it. But what we cannot gloze is that we have on this ground lost all right to speak of any such thing as the Christian doctrine of man. There have already been many doctrines of man held temporarily by Christians, and for aught we know there will be many more. Unless we can lay our hands upon a continuous teaching characteristic of all who are Christians, bearing the mark not only of constancy so far, but of permanency forever, it is idle to talk about "the Christian doctrine of man." There is no such thing.

What is needed to give us a really Christian doctrine of man is obviously an authoritative standard of Christian doctrine. And Mr. Robinson has no such authoritative standard of Christian doctrine. The only authority which he ultimately recognizes is just his own personal decisions as to what were right and fitting (pp. 273–274). If we say, with our fathers, that the Scriptures are authoritative, clearly their authority rests on the inspiration of their writers, and the inspiration of their writers is reducible to "the Christian experience created in them by the Spirit of God." But we have Christian experience as well as they and from the same source. "The potential authority of the Scriptures becomes actual over us only through the continuity of this experience within us, as mediated by the historic society." That is to say, we company with Christians; by our association with them a Christian experience is begotten in us which we refer to the Spirit of God; we see this same Christian experience reflected in the Scriptures; and so far, but only so far, we recognize them as authoritative. This, Mr. Robinson speaks of as a "unity of the historical and individual consciousness" which "goes back," he declares, "at last to the Spirit of God, on whom both depend." Thus he transmutes the "Schriftprinzip" of the fathers into a "Geistprinzip," but a "Geistprinzip" which reduces at last to a mere "Selbstprinzip." For he proceeds: "This is the religious expression of what is more than a pragmatic appeal to consciousness; we may put it philosophically by saying that the only rational appeal to authority is ultimately an appeal to intrinsic truth." Whatever manifests itself to us as intrinsically true we accept as true. It is its self-evidencing quality which authenticates it to us. This is the language of Lessing and the old Rationalism. Only, by it, they reduced what could be accepted as true to rational axioms. Mr. Robinson does not wish to do that. "We appeal," he says, "to the intrinsic truth, the self-evidencing credibility of the experience which runs through Bible, and Church, and the life of the Christian man to-day." There is something else, in his view, in man, the source of sound convictions of truth, besides the bare rational faculty: but there is no other source of sound convictions of truth than what is in man. We accept as true only what evinces itself to us, being what we are, as true on intrinsic grounds: only what is self-evident to us. The Scriptures have no authority to us; their contents are accepted by us only so far as they accredit themselves to us on intrinsic grounds. Even the testimony of Jesus is without authority to us. This does not mean that we have no reverence for Jesus or fail to recognize His uniqueness among men. "We may emphasize as we may, and ought, the closeness of His relation to the ideals of Israel, the intimate interweaving of His thought as well as His life with all the tendencies of His time; we may recognize the limitations to His power in the defeat of His hopes for Israel, and the limitations to His knowledge, as in the eschatological outlook of some at least of the discourses ascribed to Him in the Synoptic Gospels; the fact remains that there is a uniqueness in His own consciousness of Himself, in the historic presentation of His personality in the New Testament, and in His influence on the subsequent centuries of human life, that forbids us to regard Him as simply one of ourselves" (p. 279). It only means that whatever we think of Him, we cannot always think well of what He teaches us, and therefore cannot accept His deliverances as authoritative enunciations of truth. "Not only did the Light of the World shine first on Semitic faces, and flash its glory to us from the jewels of Oriental parable and paradox, but, in the humility of the Incarnation, the divine Thought was moulded to the pattern of Jewish conceptions. In particular, the eschatology of the Gospels is distinctively Jewish, and its influence on Christian thought has been out of all proportion to the worth of its forms. Scientific conceptions of the world and of the limits of its material destiny have replaced the panorama of Jewish apocalypse in the modern man's imaginative forecasts; the ultimate questions lie beyond both modern and ancient forms" (pp. 80–81). We may manage perhaps to believe in Jesus; we cannot always believe Him. We have no authoritative guide to truth except our own personal judgment, depending, as Mr. Robinson would add, on the Spirit of God.

When Mr. Robinson begins his book on "The Christian Doctrine of Man" with two chapters on "The Old Testament Doctrine of Man" and "The New Testament Doctrine of Man" respectively, we must understand, therefore, that he is not seeking and finding in the Old and New Testaments a doctrine of man which shall be normative for Christian thought, but only writing the first two chapters of the history of Christian thought concerning man—tracing its roots in Hebrew soil, observing its first blades as they shoot up from that soil in the teaching of Jesus and His first disciples. He is even at pains to warn us in the opening words of the former of these chapters not to fancy we can get authoritative guidance for our thinking from the data with which it deals. "The object of this chapter," he says (p. 4), "is to collect and interpret the evidence afforded by the Old Testament as to the ideas of human personality current amongst the Hebrew (or Jewish) people. It is customary to refer to the result as 'The Old Testament Doctrine of Man,' and the custom is here retained for the sake of convenience; but it must not be supposed that any formal statement of belief on these matters is contained in the literature itself, much less that the title is intended to suggest that the results of our inquiry are necessarily binding for Christian faith." A much greater wrong is done to the Old Testament, however, by this method of approaching it than merely voiding it of its authority. It does not profess to be a record of the ideas current among the Hebrew (or Jewish) people. It professes to contain a revelation from God to the Hebrew (or Jewish) people. And though of course much can be learned from it of the ideas current among the Hebrew (or Jewish) people, this is from its own point of view merely incidental, while its main communications are from quite another source. To lump both elements of its contents together as ideas current among the Hebrew (or Jewish) people is already to discredit the Old Testament in its most fundamental assertions. Mr. Robinson does it, however, an even greater wrong than this. He insists, not only on interpreting it "on the plane of 'natural' development," but actually on assimilating its teaching (against its own loudest protest, since Israel proclaims itself a unique nation in contrast with heathen nations) to that of ethnic thought. The euphemistic way in which he expresses this fell purpose to stifle all that is unique in the Old Testament is this: "The Bible is here studied simply as ancient literature, and simply in the light of ancient thought." The meaning of this is that the start is taken from "primitive thought" as that thought is ascertained by the anthropologists in their study of so-called "primitive peoples," and the Old Testament is forced into its grooves. Thus, if the Old Testament tells us that God, having formed man of the dust of the ground, "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul," we are at once told that we have here "the common idea of the breath-soul, which is so frequent in animistic thought, and indeed provides a name for animism (Latin, anima)" (p. 15). If the solidarity of the human race is assumed in the Old Testament, we are told that we meet here only that idea of "corporate personality" which is so widespread an item of "primitive psychology" (pp. 8, 27, etc.). If the Old Testament proclaims the great fact that the Spirit of God acts immediately upon the spirit of man, we are reminded of "the ancient conception of the accessibility of personality to all manner of external influences, not exercised through the natural sense-organs," and are asked to think of "telepathic powers" ascribed to all, of "the phenomena of fetishism and totemism, demonology and witchcraft, of a vast world of possible outside influences extending (for the Hebrew) right up to the Spirit of God" (p. 7; cf. p. 10). The interpretation of the Old Testament, in this sense, "simply in the light of ancient thought," means nothing less than the degradation of the Old Testament; and we cannot wonder that when after such evisceration of its teaching the contributions of the Old Testament to dogmatic thought come to be summed up (pp. 55–60) little is left but to deny that it supplies any basis for the doctrines of the universality of sin, inborn sinfulness, or a racial fall.

The New Testament is as little authoritative for Mr. Robinson as the Old Testament. But he shows himself, nevertheless, deeply interested in its correct exegesis, and expounds its teaching under the three rubrics of the Synoptic Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, and the Johannean writings, far beyond the direct needs of his special topic. With many of his exegetical findings we find ourselves in full accord: many of them seem to us, on the other hand, perverse and the outgrowth of zeal, say, to be rid of such doctrines as those of the fall of the race in Adam, original sin, and what Mr. Robinson calls "total depravity," under the impression apparently that by that term man is declared to be as bad as he can be. "Jesus," he tells us, "has no concern in tracing sin back beyond the will of the individual, but short of this He will in no case stop" (p. 94). He does not mean that Jesus finds sin only in the actual volition, as distinguished from the disposition of the heart: he recognizes that Jesus always carries sin "back past the external act to the inward disposition." He only means that Jesus says nothing of a fall in Adam. He does not even admit that Paul does. Speaking of Rom. 5:12–21, he remarks: "The present passage certainly supplies no clear proof that he did, or exegetes would not be so divided as they are on this crucial point of exegesis" (p. 119). Paul, he strongly contends, teaches in Rom. 7:7–25 the "doctrine of the fall of each man through the weakness of his physical nature," and takes "no account of the pseudo-historic Adam other than is implied in the fact that he was the first to fall in this way" (p. 118). Making thus every man the Adam of his own soul, we can hardly suppose him to ascribe in Rom. 5:12–21 any further direct influence of "Adam's act upon racial sin than belongs externally to the example and unique place in history of that act" (p. 120). The exegesis of this latter passage is very sinuous; and as a result Paul is made out a pure Pelagian. At least, however, he is allowed to teach the universality of sin as did Jesus before him; and that should have protected Mr. Robinson from certain remarks on Luke 13:1–5: "Jesus expressly refuses to allow any inference to be drawn from a calamity to the guilt of the sufferer" (p. 95, note); and John 9:2–3: "It should be noted that Christ explicitly rejects the view that present suffering is necessarily the punishment of sin" (p. 139, note 3); generalized on another and equally mistaken basis: "Suffering, as the Book of Job has taught us, does not necessarily imply sin; but sin must necessarily imply suffering" (p. 310). The truth is that what we are taught by these passages is only that it is not possible for us to point out the particular ground of any particular instance of suffering: that sin does not underlie all suffering they do not in the least suggest. Side by side with his difficulties with "total depravity" (some very remarkable remarks upon Jesus' teaching with regard to it are to be found on p. 93), Mr. Robinson's difficulties with the Biblical doctrine of predestination should be mentioned—seeing that these difficulties appear also to root in his extreme zeal for human "freedom." It should not fail to be observed that he is already compelled to recognize the complete sovereignty of God as the Old Testament view (p. 63)—a recognition not really broken by the attempt to set up "two conditioning facts," in the goodness of God and the freedom of man (p. 64). When he reaches Paul he is still harping on the "double truth" of the grace of God and the freedom of man, with a view to leaving an impression that though Paul never even saw that they needed reconciling, and much less suggests any reconciliation of them, they are yet wholly irreconcilable. In Mr. Robinson's own mind (surely not in Paul's) there is nothing for it but that the divine factor should give way to the human.

The history of the Christian doctrine of man subsequently to the New Testament is traced in the chapters bearing respectively the titles of "Dogmatic Anthropology" and "The Contributions of Post-Reformation Science and Thought." The former of these traces the history through the Reformation period, the latter thence to our own day. The discussions of the former period are presented as dominated by the contrast between grace and free will; those of the latter by the problem of personality. Both chapters are ably written and are full of interesting detail. The discussion of the Augustinian-Pelagian debate is particularly well done; and the exposition of the revived Augustinianism of the Reformers is clear and decisive. It Is wrong, however, to say that the doctrine of "immediate imputation" comes into Protestant theology late. It is Zwingli's doctrine, the formal characterization of which (p. 223) is misleading: it is only the guilt of "inherited" corruption, not "the guilt of Adam's first sin" which Zwingli doubts. It is wrong again to speak of Calvin's doctrine of predestination as "supra-lapsarian" (p. 225); Calvin was explicitly infralapsarian. But the trouble here lies doubtless in the widespread misapprehension of the meaning of these terms. It is absurd, of course, to repeat from Fairbairn that "Calvin was as pure, though not as conscious and consistent, a Pantheist as Spinoza": Calvin's theism was exceptionally pure and conscious. And it is equally absurd to repeat the inconsiderate charge against Calvin of Scotist elements of thought; Calvin stood, in his thought of God, at the opposite extremity from Scotism. We do not know what to make of a clause like this: "Pre-scientific supernaturalism, so far as it subordinated the events of Nature to the control of God, glorified divine wilfulness and human self-importance" (p. 238). Surely no one will deny that "the events of Nature" "are subordinated to the control of God": and surely that God controls "the events of Nature" does not carry with it the necessity of "willfulness" on His part. If what is meant is merely that before the age of "the reign of law" men ventured to believe that God would intervene in the affairs of the world for the benefit of His people, why, it is to be said, that there is every warrant in Scripture and Reason—and surely in "Christian Experience"—for believing that yet, and that in any event the denial of it is expressed in unnecessarily violent terms. We have gained immensely, of course, from the growth of scientific knowledge and in nothing more than in the deeper conception of the orderliness of the world which it has brought us: but this gain would be dearly bought if it separated us further from God, and left us in the hands rather of a machine. To be sure that all the events of Nature, and of History as well, are under the direct control of God cannot give us a "piecemeal" and "erratic" world. Law and God are not contradictories and if they were, it were better to choose God than Law for our portion. The chief interest in this chapter culminates, however, in the discussion of "evolution," which enters in during this period as a factor of importance in man's thought of man. The current ineptitudes in dealing with this subject reappear here. We cannot speak of evolution as relating "simply to the method of man's creation" (p. 242): evolution cannot create—it presents a substitute for creation, and undertakes to show us how man may come into being without being created, by just, as Topsy says, "growing." Nor can we follow when we are bidden to look forward to further evolution with hope for ourselves, especially when this is connected with some thought of personal immortality (pp. 243–244). The doctrine of evolution has no hopeful message for us concerning our individual future; it teaches us to look not beyond death but beyond ourselves for what is more nearly to approach the longed-for goal. But of this we shall have something to say later.

The volume not only closes but culminates in its last chapter, for which we may believe the whole was written. It is entitled, "The Christian Doctrine of Man in Relation to Current Thought"; but what it is is the systematic statement "in modern terms" of what the writer believes to be "the essential features of Christian anthropology" (p. 344). In the light of the whole history outlined in the preceding pages, he now essays to gather up what a Christian man finds himself permitted by modern thought to think of man. He sums it all up in five propositions: man has worth to God as spiritual personality; he is an individual self, possessing moral freedom and responsibility; sin is that which ought not to be; man is dependent on divine aid for the realization of spiritual possibilities; personal development must be defined in terms of social relationship. Personality, Freedom, Sin, Society—these are the topics which engage attention; and the interacting factors which determine conclusions are fundamentally the doctrines of evolution on the one hand, and of human autonomy on the other. Mr. Robinson's acceptance of the doctrine of evolution is quite decided and goes the whole way; but it can scarcely be said to be without misgivings. He apparently rejoices to be able to say that "modern views of the Bible and of the origin of the race remove Adam's transgression from the data of the problem," say, of the universality of sin (p. 269), but he is still compelled to add that evolution "still leaves us with an unsolved mystery of iniquity," which, he holds, "throws us back on personal freedom" (p. 302). He will not admit indeed that any other explanation of the universal sinfulness which our observation informs us of is tolerable than just that of personal freedom. "The search for explanation, other than freedom, springs from an inadequate view of personality" (p. 304). But Mr. Robinson knows as well as we do that freedom will not account for universality of action: he finds his exit from the difficulty as others do—by denying sin to be sin and affirming that only that is sin which is "freely" done by man. "The general conclusion is that whilst we may speak of the whole mass of evil tendencies in the race, transmitted from one generation to another by heredity, organic and social, as alien to the divine purpose for man, we must not call it sin in the full sense, since, apart from personal freedom appropriating it, it lacks the essential element of guilt.… Admittedly, this view of the facts leaves unexplained the universality of sin; yet if there be such a thing as real personal freedom, how can we ever go behind it, without denying its reality?" (pp. 306–307).

This is not all, however, which Mr. Robinson is willing to sacrifice to his unreasonable theory of freedom. To make room for it he is ready to curtail the omnipotence of God and His universal providence. God must have "limited Himself" when He created "finite personality, possessing moral freedom" (pp. 334 ff.); and the divine providence, while no doubt its "general purpose" shall be realized, must "leave room for the contingency which is a mark of human action" (p. 336). The predestination which lies behind particular providence is of course also denied, but strangely enough a particular foreknowledge is still allowed to God, on the remarkable ground that what God foreknows is unknown to us and thus cannot fetter our choice. "Thus there is full scope for human contingency; for divine foreknowledge does not enter as an operative force into our volitional activity" (p. 337). How foreknowledge differs in this from foreordination is not explained to us. What God has foreordained is certainly as hidden from us as what He foreknows: and His foreordinations therefore enter as little as His foreknowledge as operative factors into our volitional activity. Of course we shall infallibly choose what God has foreordained that we shall choose. But no less shall we infallibly choose what He has foreknown that we shall choose: otherwise it could not be foreknown. The choice is as certain in the one case as the other; and the choice is as free in the one case as the other. Of course Mr. Robinson is not to be expected to be affected by such considerations. He is not even affected by the fully recognized fact that the quality of freedom which he demands for moral responsibility cannot be justified on psychological analysis (p. 292),—so that he is compelled to say, "On the level of psychological analysis, freedom"—that is such a "freedom" as he demands—"seems impossible": though he adds, "On the level of moral personality, freedom"—that is this kind of "freedom" which he has in mind—"is essential." We have no reason to believe this last assertion, however, except on the authority of its assertion. The plain fact is that it demands a kind of freedom for the grounding of moral responsibility which not only does not exist, but is not moral at all. God surely is a moral personality and immensely responsible; but He certainly does not possess a kind of "freedom" by virtue of which He may choose independently of the "set" of His nature. It is absurd to say we have no moral responsibility, unless we have equal power to choose as we choose and to choose as we do not choose.

The difficulties of the evolutionary scheme, taken as a complete account of the universe, seem to culminate in such facts as these: the presence among existences of living beings, among living beings of persons, among persons of the divine-man, Jesus Christ. If evolution itself is called on to give an account of these things, we must posit life as latent in the non-living, personality as latent in the impersonal, deity as latent in the undivine. The alternative is to suppose that life, personality, the divine are introduced from without—and that is to break away from the evolutionary principle as the sole organon of explanation. We are not quite sure that Mr. Robinson preserves throughout his discussions complete consistency in this matter. But ordinarily at least he takes his courage in his hands and goes the whole way with the evolutionary demands. We may feel considerable satisfaction as we begin to read this sentence (p. 278): "Whilst all personality is dependent on evolution for the clay of its physical manifestation, all personality must transcend the course of such physical evolution by the inbreathed breath of spiritual life." So far, it looks as if Mr. Robinson intended to allow for an intrusion from without at the point of the production of personality. But our satisfaction is at once dashed by the addition of this closing clause: "though that breath of God go back to the very beginnings of life." The "breath of God" producing spiritual life was then, according to him, already present, though no doubt only latently present, through the whole series of non-personal living-beings. And there is no reason for stopping at the beginnings of life: it must have been equally present, though only latently present, also in the non-living existences that lie behind life. Similarly, with reference to Jesus Christ, we read (pp. 279–280): "From such conceptions it is not far to the recognition of all human personality as the partial manifestation of the pre-existent Son of God; i.e. the supra-naturalistic element we have recognized in all personality is spiritually akin to its one transcendent manifestation in Jesus Christ." And again (p. 280): "If it be asked how such an Incarnation be conceivable in connection with the acceptance of evolution, the answer is not an appeal to supernatural birth (necessary to Augustinianism only), but to the presence of personality in and amid the working of natural law in the case of every man." The Incarnation is, then, not a new beginning except in the sense that every new species is a new beginning; it is a new form taken on by what is old—actually present in the evolving stuff beforehand. Accordingly Mr. Robinson quotes here with evident emphasis on the comparison made, Illingworth's words ("Lux Mundi," ed. 1904, p. 152), to the effect that the coming of Christ "introduced a new species into the world—a Divine man transcending past humanity, as humanity transcended the rest of the animal creation, and communicating His vital energy by a spiritual process to subsequent generations of men." If we read Mr. Robinson aright here, then, he would posit the divinity which was "brought out" in Jesus as already latent in all personality, in all living beings, in the non-living existences which lie back of all. Jesus Christ is not an intrusion of the Divine into the human race; he is merely a modified man, as man is a modified beast, and a beast is a modified thing. All that is patent in Him was latent beforehand not only in us, but in the amœba and in the sea-water. Such a theory has express affinities with Manichæanism and Gnosticism, with their extraction of the spiritual and the divine from entanglement with matter; it brings into clear view the Pantheistic background of the evolutionary philosophy (as lucidly expressed by, say, Le Conte); but it is not recognizable as Christian.

Another difficulty which is thrust upon Mr. Robinson by his evolutionism—we have already adverted to it briefly—concerns the outlook for the future. Mr. Robinson strenuously argues for personal immortality—that is for the immortality of the soul, for, being rather of Plato than of Paul, he has doubts of resurrection; is not "death the natural fate of the bodily organism"? He cannot be content "with an ultimate philosophy which does not carry up all these values and personality itself into God as their home and source and hope" (pp. 287–288). But on evolutionary ground, is this reasonable? Is it even to be desired? From the evolutionary point of view Christ is a new species, as different from present humanity as humanity is different from the beast. From Him as starting-point a new kind may come into being, a new kind which after a while (it did not happen so with Christ) may win to itself deathlessness. But what of those who lived before this new species had its birth? What of those who have lived since it made its appearance in the world, but have manifestly fallen behind it in the qualities of the new life? What of all mankind up to to-day, no one individual of whom has been quite a Christ? We might as well confess it frankly—evolution has no hope to hold out for personal immortality. It bids us look forward to an ever bettering race, not to an ever bettering individual. It tells us to see in the individual a stepping stone to a higher individual to come, built up upon its ruins in the survival of the fittest. How can it promise eternal survival to the unfit? And to what of the unfit will it promise it? If we are to project into eternity the unripe to abide forever, instead of seeing an ever increasing succession of the riper and yet riper—how far down the scale of unripeness does immortality extend? If the merely personal—not yet the divine—has in it the power of an endless life, why not also the merely living—not yet personal? Is not the logic of the matter shut up to this alternative: since from the bottom up all that is to come is latent in the evolving stuff, and hidden in the amœba itself (or the clod, for the matter of that) there already exists, although not yet manifested, all the divinity that is in the Christ—all is immortal and "the spirit" that is in every form that ever existed shall live on forever; or else the immortality which crowns all is not attained until the end of the process is reached—which is not yet. We must not permit the fundamental fact of the evolutionary principle to pass out of sight, that the goal to which all tends is not to be found in the future of the individual, but in the successors of the individual. On an evolutionary basis, immortality must mean the persistence of the evolving stuff in every higher manifestation, and cannot mean the persistence of the unripe individual itself. When Mr. Robinson proclaims then the immortality of the soul, and of all souls, and indeed the ultimate perfection of every soul—for Mr. Robinson would fain "trust the larger hope" and believe in the ultimate blessedness of all (p. 338)—he is drawing his faith and his high hopes from some other than an evolutionary fountain. And to be perfectly frank we do not see that Mr. Robinson has left himself any fountain from which he can draw them. Evolution, plus the autonomy of man, with some sense of wrong-doing and ill-desert and a more or less vague feeling of the goodness of God, constitute but a poor basis for any eschatology. In point of fact we cannot form any sure expectation of what is in store for us, unless God has told us of it. Where no authoritative revelation of God is allowed, no express eschatology is attainable.

THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND ITS VERIFICATION.

By. T. R. GLOVER.

New York: The Macmillan Company. 1913. (Being the Eighth Course of the Angus Lectures, 1912.)

THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF A CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.

By T. R. GLOVER. Third Edition.

London: Headley Brothers. 1912. (Being the Fifth of the Swarthmore Lectures, 1912.)

UNDER the title of "Life and Letters in the Fourth Century," Mr. Glover published some dozen or more years ago (1901) fifteen studies of typical figures and movements in the literature of that century in which heathenism was dying and the Church was advancing to take its place as the governing force of the Roman world. It is a delightful volume full of insight and marked by great delicacy of touch and it gave us great pleasure to say as much, in reviewing the book in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (xiii. 1902, pp. 664–666). When, a few years later (1907), he was called upon to deliver the Dale Lectures in Mansfield College, Oxford, Mr. Glover was well advised to adopt for them the same method of treatment which he had so successfully used in his earlier volume. The subject he chose was "The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire," and the resulting volume (1909) contains ten graphic studies of the various forms of religion which jostled each other in the opening centuries of the Christian era, presented, as he says, "not in the abstract, but as they show themselves in character and personality." This too is a delightful volume, vivid and illuminating. There are essays on the Roman Religion, the Stoics, and Plutarch; on Celsus and Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian; on the Conflict of Christian and Jew and the struggle between "Gods and Atoms." In the midst of them there stand essays also on "Jesus of Nazareth" and "The Followers of Jesus." These are not the best essays in the book. Mr. Glover is essentially a humanist; his interest lies in literature and the expression of personality in literature; his charm consists in his lightness of touch, the daintiness of his handling of his material, a certain fastidious humor which is poured over all. These are not the qualities which fit one best to deal with Jesus of Nazareth or those first missionaries of the cross who, "in deaths oft," broke a way through the ingrained prejudices of the old world's life and thought for the entrance of Christianity. Nor are Harnack and von Dobschütz and Weinel, Wernle and Pfleiderer, Wellhausen and Bousset, nor even Prof. Burkitt, and certainly not Mr. Conybeare, the best guides to the understanding of the beginnings of Christianity or the person of its founder.

Not that Mr. Glover fails in appreciation of the human personality of Jesus, or of the new spirit which animated His followers. He only fails to appreciate that there was anything more than a human personality in Jesus or that His followers were animated by any other spirit than may be summed up in the immense impression made upon them by Jesus' human personality. In his attempt to portray this human personality he says many fine and beautiful things about Jesus; many of the traits which really characterized Him he catches and knows how to throw vividly forward. He understands His uniqueness and the uniqueness of the religion He founded, and has such things as this to say about it: "As its opponents were quick to point out,—and they still find a curious pleasure in rediscovering it—there was little new in Christian teaching. Men had been monotheists before, they had worshipped, they had loved their neighbors, they had displayed the virtues of Christians—what was there peculiar in Christianity? Plato, says Celsus, had taught long ago everything of the least value in the Christian scheme of things. The Talmud, according to the modern Jew, contains a parallel to everything that Jesus said—('and how much else!' adds Wellhausen). What was new in the new religion, in this 'third race' of men? The Christians had their answer ready. In clear speech, and in aphasia, they indicated their founder. He was new" (p. 116). But of the real uniqueness of Jesus Christ and of the religion which He founded—of the redemption of the world in His blood ("the blood of God," Paul calls it), of the regeneration of the world by His Spirit ("the Spirit of Jesus" is, with Mr. Glover, but His influence, His character "repeating itself in the lives of men and women": pp. 139–140), Mr. Glover has no sense. And therefore his chapters on "Jesus of Nazareth" and "the Followers of Jesus" flat dreadfully among the more sympathetic studies which otherwise fill the volume. Jesus Christ is too high for him: he cannot attain to Him. Accordingly there creeps over one as he reads these chapters something of the feeling of unreality and insufficiency, though happily in indefinably less degree, that assaults the soul as we read the pages of, say, Renan. As an expounder of the color and movement of life in the ages of transition from heathenism to Christianity, Mr. Glover moves with firm step and shows unending skill: when he passes to expound Jesus Christ and His gospel he has got beyond his métier.

It seemed to be needful to say some such things as these about a volume which we are not now reviewing, because we may thus be enabled to make clear, in the fewest possible words, the exact nature and character of the volumes which we are reviewing. In them Mr. Glover turns aside from the portrayal of the ideas and personalities of the later classical period to undertake the exposition and defense of fundamental Christianity and of its function in the world. It will scarcely be necessary for us to say that these volumes are therefore of indefinitely less value than the former ones. Of course, in these too Mr. Glover writes interestingly: probably he could not write uninterestingly if he tried. He writes here, it is true, with what seems almost exaggerated simplicity of diction. It would appear that he is determined to be thoroughly understood by "the general." But all the old brightness is here. Indeed, many of the old bright sayings are here, for Mr. Glover has permitted himself in perhaps an unusual measure to treat his former (Dale) Lectures as a mine from which to derive gems for the ornamentation of the plainer pages of his later (Angus and Swarthmore) Lectures. The reader of the former volume, at all events, continually meets in the pages of the later ones fine turns of speech which are already familiar to him; mingled, no doubt, with others which are here new, derived from other fields of learned and loving research. Here, too, Mr. Glover, as is natural, writes largely en historien. This is his point of view. He has swept the wide horizon with widely opened eye and stands forward to tell his less fortunate brethren, as simply as may be, how Christianity appears to him and what seems to him to be its function in the world. We are bound to say also that the "reduced" view of the Person of Christ and of the essence of His work as an atoning sacrifice, which was thrown clearly, if even then prudently, up to observation in the more scientific Dale Lectures, retires into the background in the more popular Angus and Swarthmore Lectures; or perhaps we may even say recedes out of sight. It is doubtful if the cursory reader of these Lectures, while he might feel that not always all was said that might well be said, would detect any tendency to transpose the great music of Christ and His gospel into a lower key. The whole treatment is instinct with reverence for Christ, and that not merely as the historical source of the whole movement which we call Christianity but as its moving factor still; everywhere there is evident the most complete dependence on the Holy Spirit; and the fervor of Christian love glows on every page.

Behind the deep devotion to the person of Jesus which is everywhere manifest, we do not easily see that, after all, this Jesus is to Mr. Glover no more than a good man, who was not a "mediator between God and man, making atonement" in His blood ("Conflict," p. 156); whose death on the cross was only "a pledge of His truth," "making possible our reconciliation with God" (p. 139); and whose entire function it has been to reveal to us with new poignancy the great fact that God is our Father (p. 142). Who could imagine that beneath the constant references to the Holy Spirit as the power of a new life in Christians, there lies nothing but a reference to the "influence of Jesus" "repeating itself in the lives of men and women" (p. 140), which though Paul may call it "the holy spirit" (note the lower-case initials) we may speak of perhaps as "the Christian instinct" (p. 150)? And certainly when we read the appeals to the Great Commission we are hardly prepared to understand that it is extremely doubtful ("Conflict," p. 114) whether this Commission is allowed by Mr. Glover, we will not say merely to be an utterance of our Lord's, but even to be a genuine portion of Matthew's Gospel. We read at the end of his Swarthmore Lecture these moving words: "We have found the nature and purpose of a Christian Society, and we can sum it up in familiar words: 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature'; and, if we obey, we in our turn shall be able to speak of 'the Lord working with us, and confirming the word with the signs following' " (p. 85). It is not likely that Mr. Glover attaches any authority to either text which he here cites: it is not likely that he believes either to be a genuine part of the Gospel in which it is now found. His bringing them together in this solemn passage may help us to form an estimate of how much significance we may attach to his citation of the Great Commission as if it were of importance to Christians; and also of his method of dealing with his audiences. Clearly in these Lectures Mr. Glover has not wished to wound the sensibilities of his hearers by any suggestion of critical hesitations, or of doctrinal doubts. He has wished to speak to them on the basis of whatever of Christian belief—and more, of whatever of Christian sentiment—remained common to him and them. No doubt his justification of this course would be that Christianity after all is a life, not a dogma: and no doubt this justification is valid—to a certain extent. Thus, at all events, the Lectures gain immensely in usefulness as addressed to Christian audiences: they may be read with profit by all. But they lose equally in significance—unless we are to read them as signs of the decay of Christianity as a doctrine and of its persistence merely as a traditional sentiment, seeking still to justify itself as such by its fruits. We wonder if Mr. Glover does not feel as he delivers such Lectures much as he portrays Plutarch as feeling as he argued for the old religion which he looked out upon with saddened eyes in its decay—that "delightful man of letters," as Mr. Glover describes him, "so full of charm, so warm with the love of all that is beautiful, so closely knit to the tender emotions of ancestral piety—and," Mr. Glover adds, comparing him with Seneca, "so unspeakably inferior in essential truthfulness" ("Conflict," p. 111).

It was highly appropriate that the distinguished son of Dr. Richard Glover should be called upon to deliver a course of the Angus Lectures; and the general tone of the Lectures which he has delivered on that Baptist foundation is a testimony to the Christian training which he received in the Baptist manse at Bristol in which he was bred. The subject chosen—"The Christian Tradition and its Verification"—gives large opportunity for the manifestation of a Christian heart, and the opportunity is taken. The verification of the Christian tradition is sought in experience; and the effort of the lecturer is to give to his hearers some sense of the immense mass of experience the Church of Jesus Christ has accumulated of Him; with the hope that by its contemplation they will be led on to experiment and by experiment to the discovery of "what life in Truth is." The Lectures are six in number and are entitled in their order: The Challenge to Verification, the Use of Tradition, the Significance of the Christian Church, the Experience of the Early Church, Jesus in the Christian Centuries, and the Criticism of Jesus Christ. The practical note is everywhere dominant, but it is no unintellectual Christianity that Mr. Glover recommends. As he elsewhere expresses it ("Conflict," p. 125): "It is only the sentimentalism of the Church that supposes the flabby-minded to be at home in the Kingdom of God: Jesus did not." What Mr. Glover aims at is the consecration of all human powers to the service of Christ: "action," he says, "is impossible without some working theory, and this very fact drives earnest men into speculation" (p. 37). He suggests, indeed, in a somewhat Sphinx-like saying, that "Jesus Christ is not a teacher to be quoted" (p. 31); but what he seems to mean is that His words are not to be repeated merely but lived. If he gives too secondary a place in the Christian life to the life of the mind (which is emphasized in the declaration that we must love the Lord our God, as with our whole "heart" and "soul," so also therefore of course with our whole "mind"—"the whole understanding, all the powers of thought and will," as Meyer explains it), he yet insists on the life of the mind. And he places Christ at the center. "The plain fact is that, in the long run, despair is at the heart of every religion without Christ; and if man or woman is to get through the world at all, it must be by the hardening or deadening of the more sensitive parts of human nature. Marcus Aurelius' Diary is a sort of breviary of despair" (p. 63). "One thing has always stood out clearly sooner or later. Whenever the Church at large, or any church in particular, has committed itself to any scheme of thought that has lessened the significance of Jesus Christ, it has declined. Error always tells; and the error of over-estimating Jesus Christ ought to have told by now, but the experience of the Church so far suggests that it has no real reason to dread any danger from over-estimating Him, but rather that the danger has always come from obscuring or abating His significance. It is, I think, worth while to reflect upon what this involves. The faith has been tested in every compromise that Christians have attempted, and if it is still held, it is with some warrant" (pp. 86–87). Good apologetics, that! Can we have read Mr. Glover wrong, when we have read him as "obscuring and abating the significance of Christ," both in His Person and in His work? We could wish he had known "Jesus Christ and Him as crucified" better, and Wilhelm Herrmann less well!

The Swarthmore Lecture runs somewhat on the lines of the third of the Angus series. Its leading topic is the significance of the Christian Church, and its keynote is perhaps struck in some such words as these: "We do not enough value the fact that the story of the Christian religion is the story of personality influenced by personality—re-birth constantly the product of the influence of the re-born" (p. 27). There may be an echo of Wilhelm Herrmann in this and we are glad therefore to read on the next page: "The blessing comes from a higher source, but the broken bread is given by human hands"—followed by some illuminating remarks. We do not wonder that surprise has been felt that this particular topic was chosen for a lecture addressed to Friends. Mr. Glover defends his choice of topic in an interesting Preface, the upshot of it being (if we understand him) that Friends especially need instruction on the Church. This is probably true; at all events it is instruction on the Church that Mr. Glover gives them—and he does it very well. Beginning with the inheritance we have in the Christian Church, he ends with the duty of the Church to the world, while between the two he expounds the relation of the individual to the Church. In the center of all, here too he sets Jesus Christ. "From the very beginning and ever onwards right in the centre of all their thoughts, the Christian communities have had Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in whom God was, reconciling the world unto Himself. He has been the leaven within the Church, disruptive, propulsive, recreating and stirring, the permanent life, the guarantee and promise of a future that shall progressively transcend the past—

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years,

but the living Christ, always recognized, and owned and loved by the Church. The great function of the Church has been to witness to Him, and to bring the world face to face with Him" (pp. 42–43). We ask again, Can we have misread Mr. Glover when we read him as holding to a "reduced" Christ? For the rest, we call attention to two small points. One is the comma, in the first sentence we have quoted, after the phrase "in whom God was." This gives a particular interpretation to 2 Cor. 5:19—an interpretation which, indeed, is wrong, but which seems notable on Mr. Glover's lips. The other concerns the allusion to the Parable of the Leaven, in which an interpretation of that Parable which Mr. Glover repeats in more than one of his series of Lectures, is adverted to. This interpretation conceives that Parable as teaching not so much, as it has been customary to expound it, the hidden, pervasive growth of the Kingdom in the world, as the seething fermentation of life which takes place in the Church of Christ—in the individual man and in the community. The leaven, says Mr. Glover, works; and in its working bubble after bubble breaks; the breaking of the bubbles is not an indication that the end has come, but that there is life at work behind them. The interpretation again is wrong; but again it is not without its significance on Mr. Glover's lips.

We must not close without pointing to a passage in each of the Lecture-courses which has pleased us vastly. In the Swarthmore Lecture we point to the section on "Grace" (pp. 33–37)—" 'the greatest of all the Catholic doctrines,' Renan said" (p. 33). In the Angus Lectures we point to the passage on the phrase "From the foundation of the World" (pp. 135–140),—in which is enshrined "the great fact of God's love as antecedent to all things—of Christ as the embodiment of purposeful love—of the universe itself in all its range as a Cosmos indeed, inspired and achieved by love, and subservient in its last detail to love" (p. 139).

JESUS.

Von W. HEITMÜLLER, D. u. Professor der Theologie in Marburg.

Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr. 1913.

THIS volume contains a reprint of the Article "Jesus Christ" in the third volume (1912) of the encyclopædia published under the name of "Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart"; together with an Address on "Jesus of Nazareth and the Way to God" delivered on March 11, 1913, at the seventeenth meeting (at Aarau) of the Conference of Swiss Christian Students.

The occasion of the publication of the volume is not without its interest. The Theological Faculty of the University of Marburg has for some time been in controversy with the Prussian Kultusministerium over the appointments made from time to time to its professorships. One fruit of this controversy was a pamphlet—his opponents call it a Brandschrift—by Jülicher bearing the title of "Die Entmündigung einer preussischen theologischen Fakultät." Notice was taken of this pamphlet in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, and in the course of some remarks upon it the Freiherr von Schenk of Schweinsberg, who happened to be not only a deputy of the Chamber but also President of the Konsistorialbezirk Kassel, within the bounds of which the University of Marburg is situated, took occasion to comment also, with some sharpness, on Heitmüller's Article "Jesus Christ" (April 5, 1913). This is what he said:

"I am constrained to show you by means of a scientific work to what such a critical tendency can lead. I will be quite brief and, with the permission of the President, will read from the scientific work, 'Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart,' only the following sentences from the Article Jesus Christ, II, Particular Questions in the Life of Jesus. 'For the Jewish conception there lies immediately comprehensible in the idea of "the Son," that God stands to Jesus in a special relation of trust and love; as "the Son" Jesus knows Himself as before all other men the object of the special love of God. As we must understand from the context, He knows Himself as the Son precisely because He knows God in a unique fashion and God has made Him the vehicle of Revelation. Vehicle of a unique revelation, the Son absolutely—we are almost appalled (erschrecken) by the loftiness of this consciousness. It is certainly in no way a divine consciousness, but yet a vocational consciousness which almost oversteps the bounds of humanity and evacuates all the human experience which is otherwise manifested—with reference to which we might ask indeed whether it can be made consistent with soundness and clarity of mind.' (Hear, hear! and for shame! from the Right.) 'Here is the point at which the figure of Jesus becomes mysterious, almost unearthly to us. But' … Now comes the But, for were the author to stop at this point and not proceed to this But, I am convinced that he, like any professor who propounds such teaching, must be liable to have a process entered against him for blasphemy (deputy Heckenroth, very true!) or at least for overstepping his professorial privileges. The text being read proceeds: 'But we have scarcely the right to distrust the essential contents of our passage, Matt. 11:25 to 27, and that the less that the whole manner of conceiving the significance of Jesus (Revealer) which meets us here corresponds very little with the modes of thought of the primitive community.' Gentlemen, I am constrained to place my finger upon this point, because I say to myself, Here is an absolutely essential point, which must receive attention, for here there comes to an end what is otherwise spoken of as a theological tendency; here there meets us a point of view which is absolutely different from what we otherwise speak of as the Christian point of view (very true! from the Right). We are not dealing here with two tendencies, but with two world-views (very true! from the Right), with two completely diverse religions. They cannot be forced under the shibboleths of 'positive' and 'liberal' or dealt with from the standpoint of party politics.… Gentlemen, no indulgence can be shown to such things—even under the mantle of freedom of teaching (Lehrfreiheit). I am convinced, if we enter upon such a pathway, that we must ultimately reach the point where it must be said, What is here offered to the people has nothing in common with Christianity except the name, but intrinsically nothing more. The monistic conception of life is making way among ever wider circles of our people, not merely among the professors at the universities, among the educated and learned—no, it is already penetrating into very wide circles of all ranks, and the more deeply our population descends on the downward sloping road of the monistic conception of life, the more firmly and steadily must the Kultusminister, as the first counselor of the throne, take his stand upon the high Christian world-view, and give expression to this his point of view in his decrees and acts.…"

To the man in the street these must seem very sensible and straightforward remarks. But they naturally gave great offense at Marburg. The venerable Herrmann at once protested against them in behalf of his colleagues, in an open letter addressed to von Schenk and published in Die Christliche Welt for May 1, 1913 (No. 18), and Heitmüller has felt compelled by them to lay the Article attacked before the wider audience before which he was incriminated, as his sufficient defense. In republishing thus this Article Heitmüller adds to it the Swiss Address as offering "a practical-religious supplement" to it. The Article is a scientific statement of what we historically know of Jesus. The Address deals with "the complex of the much discussed questions which concern the significance of the historical Jesus for faith." The two together may supply us, their author thinks, with some suggestion at least of his whole attitude, scientific and religious, towards Jesus.

The line which Heitmüller takes in reply to von Schenk is apparently a simple denial that he can justly be charged with ascribing to Jesus an unsound mind. He therefore contents himself at this point with a simple reference to a passage in his Article in which he expressly declares that the attempt to represent Jesus as of unsound mind has not succeeded. This passage (p. 89) runs as follows: "As assured data of the tradition, we have the vocational consciousness transcending the limits of the prophetic and the fact that Jesus laid claim to the Messianic dignity in some sense or other. That these two facts raise difficult psychological questions, scarcely needs to be emphasized. And when of late the mental soundness of Jesus has been questioned, and He has been presented as a pathological subject, this attempt has at least a possible point of attachment here. It has not succeeded and it can never succeed. The poet of the parables, the framer of the proverbs, was as sound as ever man was. And in this sound consciousness we find that content! Much can be brought forward to mitigate the puzzle; we are in no position to solve it." It is right to recall, however, that von Schenk does not represent Heitmüller as declaring Jesus to have been of unsound mind. He represents him as saving himself from that by a "But." The gist of his representation appears to be that Heitmüller deals frivolously with the charge that Jesus was of unsound mind and seems indeed to treat it as a preferable hypothesis to the ascription of a divine self-consciousness to Him: that he even appears to suggest that had Jesus' mysterious self-consciousness been but a little more exalted than he allows it to have been, we should have had to admit that He was of unsound mind. And this representation we can scarcely deny to be fairly justified.

The self-consciousness of Jesus is manifestly the crux of Heitmüller's presentation of Him. He declares it roundly to be merely human. "That the self-consciousness of Jesus," he says (p. 68), "was through and through a human one, will be regarded as self-evident by every one who without hindrance from ecclesiastical dogma, makes use of the sources and of the historical criticism which is indispensable with reference to them." But in the palmary passage, which von Schenk cites (p. 71), it is only by dealing most drastically with Matt. 11:27 (which is there under discussion) and violently reconstructing its text after the unfortunate example of Harnack, that he can reduce the lofty self-consciousness there ascribed to Jesus to something which he can pronounce human; and he seems indeed only barely able to pronounce even what he makes it soundly human. A little later he speaks of "this self-consciousness which far transcends all human experience and seems to lift its subject out of the series of men" (p. 118); and again at the end of the Article (p. 148) of "that extraordinary vocational consciousness transcending all human analogies, which, if we regard it as sound, can be represented only as an intimation that in this man in peculiar measure a creative, or as the pious man puts it, a divine life has entered into history." The constant recurrence of the suggestion that this self-consciousness may be thought to be unsound—or is thought by some to be unsound—may serve the purpose of conveying to the reader a keen sense of its exaltation. It also, however, leaves the impression on the reader's mind that in Heitmüller's view Jesus' self-consciousness just falls short of being unsound; and that, even after he has reduced it far below its actual representation in such an unassailable passage as Matt. 11:27. The conviction unavoidably forms itself, accordingly, that Heitmüller, after all said, finds himself with a Jesus on his hands whose self-consciousness is so little "through and through human" that he does not quite know what to do with it, and is compelled to allow that those who pronounce it a deranged self-consciousness have some show of justification, even after he has reduced it from the actual representation of it in, say, Matt. 11:27. And, if this reduction be not allowed—as it cannot be allowed—what then? We cannot see that Heitmüller safely escapes from the antithesis, aut Deus aut non sanus; and since he will not have the Deus at any cost, that he has any just ground of complaint against von Schenk's charges. He does seem upon the verge of assigning to Jesus a diseased self-consciousness (and that is all that von Schenk charges) and he appears to save himself from this result only by dealing with extreme violence with his texts.

The vigor of Heitmüller's Socinianism in his conception of Jesus' person has already become evident. He will not hear of Jesus being anything else than a man and a man of His times. How he obtains this purely human Jesus from records which present a very different Jesus lies in that mystery of "Liberal criticism" with which we are so familiar nowadays: Heitmüller's critical methods differ in nothing from those current in the "Liberal" circles of which he is an ornament, and require the less to be adverted to here in detail that we have recently had occasion to explain them pretty fully in this Review (xi. 1913, pp. 218 ff.). By means of this "criticism" very drastically applied, he manages to extract from records which present to us a divine Jesus, a purely human figure; from records which present to us a supernatural Son of God surrounded by an aureole of miracle, a simply natural man who wrought no miracle. Not at Nazareth only, but throughout His career, He could do no mighty work, though He laid His hand on a few sick folk and healed them. Jesus had an impressive personality and may be credited with "faith-cures" (p. 67); it was from this beginning that tradition, certainly very rapidly, transmuted Him into "the Aesculapius of His people" (p. 60). But the historian can allow to Him no real "miracle" (p. 61). When "the historian" is done with the records, indeed, we find ourselves with very much less real knowledge of Jesus in our hands than we could wish. Heitmüller desires to separate himself, it is true, from that overstrained scepticism with reference to the knowledge of Jesus which he recognizes has been of late far too common even among theologians (p. 153). But he recoils from the other extreme also, which would have it that we know Jesus "as if He were one of our contemporaries" (p. 154). The way in which he would express himself is this (p. 41): "What we can attain by this procedure is certainly far less than we could wish. It of course does not suffice for writing a Life of Jesus; but neither is it enough even to sketch a portrait of His character or of His activity. There are individual traits of the portrait of Jesus which we distinguish, some of them clearly, some of them only in obscure outlines; there is often lacking the unifying bond and if we are prudent and desire to proceed with surety we will do well to make very little use of complementary and psychologizing inferences. On the other hand what we can grasp historically is not little and it includes what is most important. Whether the Christian can found his faith on it is a question which it is not the historian's business to answer and the Christian should not raise it."

It must be admitted that Heitmüller is not very exigent with reference to the historical foundations of a Christian's faith. That is a matter which is more fully discussed in the Lecture at Aarau; but there are some odd hints regarding it even in the encyclopædia Article which it may repay us to take note of in passing. When discussing the story of the Virgin-birth, he determines it to be an invention of Gentile Christians on the model of the heathen myths of divinely-begotten men, possibly in misapprehension of the proclamation of Jesus as the "Son of God" (pp. 45–46). Yet he can tell us (p. 43) that "the question as to the right of the faith which comes to expression in it, is not strictly speaking at all subject to the judgment of the historian." The historian, it seems, can only "determine whether this faith showed itself early or late, and in whom it is found in the primitive Christian community." The plain man is apt to think that when it has been shown by the historian that the belief that Jesus was born of a virgin stands on a par with the similar belief as to Plato, it is already determined that it has no right to exist. At an earlier point the distinction here suggested is drawn broadly out (pp. 12–13). "The pious man, even the simplest and most unlearned, on sinking himself believingly in these faith-laden accounts, finds the Jesus who kindles faith and whom faith needs. But the historian who does not ask what Jesus means for faith, but would fain ascertain and present what can be known of Jesus' life, acts, and nature by means of the generally recognized instruments and methods of scientific research, is able only through infinitely toilsome and complicated investigation to establish the treasure which is hidden in these writings on really sure reports. The chief question for him, before he uses them, is that which concerns the historical value of these sources." Is not this "the chief question" for the man who seeks spiritual life in them too? We observe that even Heitmüller says that the pious man finds what he seeks in the Gospels only when he sinks himself in them believingly (bei glaübiger Versenkung). Can he ponder believingly upon accounts whose historical truth he suspects or denies? To recommend the pious man to kindle his faith by narratives which he knows or suspects to be fables is a frivolity which must avenge itself in the degradation of faith into empty sentimentality.

The state of the case is not really altered by Heitmüller's view that though the Evangelical narratives are not historically trustworthy we come into contact in them with Jesus' "creative personality." How can we come into contact with Jesus' "creative personality" in accounts of words which He did not speak and deeds which He did not do? Meanwhile, we are led by this remark to observe Heitmüller's point of sight. According to him, though we obtain from the Evangelical narratives very little knowledge about Jesus, we do obtain from them a very vital knowledge of Jesus. Not that they enable us to form a clear conception of His whole personality. We may regret this; but we may congratulate ourselves that what is most important lies within our reach—a sufficient insight into His religious character, at least in its fundamental traits. "No doubt insight into its development is here too almost wholly denied to us, and thus we lack an important key to its full understanding. But we discover nevertheless its outlines and the chief elements of it" (p. 107). There are (apart from Jesus' acts) two sources for our knowledge of it: His words, and the religious life of the primitive Christian community, quickened by Him, from which we can argue back to the personality which inspired it (p. 108). Through these means we come into touch with the really creative thing in Jesus, which was just Himself. "The secret of His efficacy from His death on rests in His personality, which received its peculiar stamp from that extraordinary vocational consciousness, leaving all human analogies behind, which, if we regard it as sound, can be taken only as an indication that in this man a life, in peculiar measure creative—the pious man says, divine—has entered into history. Filled with life in and with God, sustained by this enigmatical consciousness, Jesus' personality has become—that is its significance—a 'power of God' from which ever new streams and surges of religious power have proceeded and proceed, the inexhaustible source of religious life, out of which Christianity still to-day draws" (p. 148).

In these few words there is compressed a brief exposition of Heitmüller's whole conception of the function of Jesus, of Heitmüller's entire "Christianity." Elsewhere he merely expands it, as, for example, thus (pp. 105–106):

"The pious zeal of the dominant ecclesiastical party and the prudent calculation of the magistracy had won in the unequal conflict with the bold Galilean prophet. In the gibbet at Golgotha they had prepared an abrupt ending of the history of the Messiah Jesus. Yet at and with Golgotha this history really began: the history of Jesus in His community, which has not reached its end even to-day. And this history leaves no doubt of the answer which is to be given to the historian's question, Where the original and creative element, the effective force of the manifestation of Jesus is to be sought, in what its world-historical significance is grounded. Not in His sacrificial death on the cross, as dogma has determined. Nor yet, as modern opinion wishes, in His teaching or preaching, which is called by predilection, 'the gospel.' It needs only a glance into the beginnings of the Christian community to perceive the truth. The disciples had in their enthusiasm hoped that Jesus should redeem the people Israel. Their hope was shattered by Golgotha. Like sheep who have lost their shepherd they were scattered, without guides, without hope. But in a little while we find them again in Jerusalem, at first behind closed doors, then, however, in the streets. At first they whispered it in the ear—then, however, they proclaimed it from the housetops: that Jesus is nevertheless the Messiah. Rapidly the little band of simple Galilean men and women became a company which was feared and persecuted and yet thus only increased. What turned these fishermen and peasants into missionaries, these fainthearted and stupidly fleeing disciples into heroes, the little community into the mustard-seed whose branches should soon shade the whole earth? What was the mark of this community? The knowledge of the preaching of Jesus? The no-doubt valuable new information on religion and ethics which it contains? Certainly not. But the personality of Jesus. To Him the hopes and the thought of this band attached themselves, from Him it looked for everything in life and death; that He would come was its hope, its prayer that He would come soon. Jesus, He Himself, was the power which wrought here, not some kind of knowledge or other, which He had discovered and proclaimed; not some kind of transaction or other which He had wrought. Jesus Himself is the 'gospel.' His personality was what was new and creative, that entered into history, animated the community, and has worked itself out in humanity."

This is eloquently said, but certainly not truly. On the face of it, it was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, not His "personality," which reanimated His overwhelmed followers. Heitmüller, by the way, has strangely little to say of Jesus' resurrection: apparently he does not consider it even worth refuting, as he refutes, say, the Virgin-birth. But he had nevertheless, immediately before the passage which has been quoted, said this: "After a short time, we see His Galilean adherents back in Jerusalem; they proclaimed that Jesus was nevertheless the Messiah, that He was risen from the dead. This, however, belongs no longer to the history of the 'historical Jesus,' but to that of the primitive Christian community" (p. 104). On the face of it it was not "the personality" of Jesus that conquered the world, but the glad-tidings that God was reconciling the world with Himself in Christ—a text which Heitmüller misquotes (p. 169). Paul, for example, preached not Christ simpliciter but Christ "as crucified." Nor was Paul the first to preach this. There is no "double gospel" in the records of the New Testament; and it was Jesus Himself who declared that He had come to give His life a ransom for many—a text which Heitmüller vainly strives to rob of its true content and bearing (p. 117). It is not by the influence of His "creative personality" but by His blood of the covenant which is shed for many that Jesus has redeemed the world.

These ideas of course recur in the Aarau Address, the precise purpose of which is to show that—and how—Jesus may still be the—or a—way to God. This Address begins, like a sermon, with a text; and this text is taken from the words of Philip, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." In Heitmüller's view (for he makes as strangely little of Sin here as of the Resurrection in the encyclopædia Article) the one thing needful is that we should "see the Father," that is, in his sense, realize God as Father. What Jesus does is merely "to show us the Father," that is, by the impression made on us by His religious personality lead us to be, like Him, religious-minded. He is not the only one who can show us the Father: there are other ways of finding God and many there be who go to Him by them. We should not lose our faith, then, even were He to vanish out of history: should He prove a mere myth, we could still find our way to the Father. But Jesus is a Way to God; and we, in our surroundings, can not only best find our way to God by Him but the loss of Him as the inspirer of our faith would be a great loss indeed.

In developing these ideas Heitmüller begins by pointing out that the starting-point in all seeking after God must be found in our hearts. But only the starting-point. We cannot attain complete, victorious certitude of God, clearness as to that which He means for us, in isolation. "Generality, paleness, indeterminativeness, characterize the religious experiences which we make in ourselves, in independence. They are without blood and sap, without triumphant, compelling power, without concrete content. Content and convincing, emancipating power are received by them, they become revelation of God, only and first when they fall in with a powerful experience of God outside of us, only by contact with the stream of religious life which surrounds and flows about us" (p. 158). Now, the religious life which thus surrounds us is in its peculiar form Christian—goes back to Christ as its source. "Not in all cases—that we wish to recognize—but certainly for the most part, when men meet us with living faith in God, we hear that they owe to Jesus ultimately the best that is in them" (p. 161). Thus Jesus meets us in the way and serves as the rallying-point for the religious-minded. "His figure is the symbol and vehicle of all religious goods and knowledge" (p. 162). And as time has gone on the richness of this symbolism has become ever greater. Into it has been interwoven all that the later generations of the Christian community have experienced, and thus "the traits of His figure have been deepened, the outlines of its form here and there have been altered"—there have been contributions made to it by a Paul or a Luther or a Schleiermacher—and "thus Jesus, or what men have taken and still take for Him, the source and symbol and type of the Christian community's experience of God, as a whole," becomes indirectly and mediately, through His community, the way to God for us (p. 162). This, however, is not all: throughout Christian history, Christian faith has been powerful, rich, and clear in proportion as Jesus has been clearly laid hold of, and thus He has been also directly and immediately the way to God for many (p. 163). "This is certain—we wish to say it once more: that it is in any case not necessary that for men of the present day Jesus should be directly the guide to God, that the religious life of the individual should relate itself immediately and constantly to Jesus, be determined by Him, correct itself with reference to Him. There are other media of revelation, other ways to God. God lets Himself be found, experience of God can grow and gain power, through the community—and indeed also through the religious life outside the community" (p. 163). But all through the Christian ages, nevertheless, "Jesus, the historical form of Jesus of Nazareth, has been the immediate way to God for many," and He can still be such for us. It is a mistake to think of Jesus as wholly a figure of the past. "Jesus belongs in any event also to the present—in His effects. In manifold reflections and radiations He reaches in His effects up to our day. And we have to deal with that Jesus, who in His effects can be a part of our reality, not with the various fragments and externalities which are no doubt important for the historian, and belong to His person, not with His several conceptions and ideas, with His view of the world and of nature and the like, but with His entirety, His personality, His essence, with that which has worked and works" (pp. 164–165).

If we ask where we are to find this really historical Jesus, "not the symbol and vehicle of the Christian religion, but the historical form of Jesus, of course that which is operative in history"—we must certainly say, not in the presentation of exact research. "The historian who works with the instruments and methods of exact research, and for good or evil must confine himself to them, can certainly even with the richest sources, grasp and set forth only details, particular traits, of a historical figure, not its personality. Here, however, we can have to do only with the indefinable, mysterious somewhat which we call personality—it is the source of the effects which proceed from a man. The personality is not, however, grasped by the instruments of exact history alone" (we beg the reader not to omit to mark this "alone"); "it is true even of the men with whom we live that we recognize and grasp their personality, their real nature, not through exact observation of details; they can be perceived only by the inner eye, intuitively understood—experienced" (pp. 165–166). There is perpetrated in this representation a complete reversal of the facts of life: if anything in life is certain, it is certain that it is precisely by the intense observation of details, often no doubt done unconsciously, and by their vital synthesis that we arrive at that vivid sense of personality which moves us in others. But working on this false analogy Heitmüller proceeds. Thus also we grasp the personality of Jesus by coming into contact with Him as He has lived in history; best of all in the narratives of Scripture (though Scripture, we have been told, does not depict Him as He really was!), when read—almost a lost art nowadays—simply and at large. Thus we meet with a character to which religion is first and God is all. Gazing upon this personality, we do not acquire indeed a faith in the history of Jesus, but we acquire faith by means of the history of Jesus (p. 175). No doubt, we do not see Jesus as He was, but only as He has been interpreted to us—by a Luther, by a Schleiermacher. "But what Paul, Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Luther, and Schleiermacher experienced by means of Jesus, and on which we also nourish ourselves, was nevertheless also an effect of the historical Jesus." "And what if now," Heitmüller proceeds to ask, "it were proven that Jesus was only the reflection and the cult-figure of a community? It has not been proven—but even if proven, then, what comes to the individual from the history of Jesus in the Gospels—which in that case would be a history of the oldest Christian community—by means of reception of it and living into it, bears in itself its own inner necessity and truth. No doubt, among other things we must in that case refrain from relating ourselves to Jesus and by this we would lose much. Above all for the times of inward uncertainty and weakness in our life with God, we should not be able to find support in this—that this manner of experiencing God has been actually a reality in its purity and compelling power in a man. It would be a great loss, but certainly not destructive of faith itself" (p. 176). After this clear declaration that Jesus may indeed be useful but cannot be necessary to faith ("Christian faith," mind you!) Heitmüller has little more to add except this positive declaration with which his Lecture closes: "Jesus' significance is a purely one-sided and limited one, and on that very account a very great and abiding one: it rests on the absolute forcibleness of His consciousness of God, which precisely for this reason makes Him the revelation of God for others, and in the apprehension of God as holiness and love. Thus He is a source of power; from which there ever proceed new waves and surges of that faith in God, the exposition and further development of which remains the task left to the exigencies and gifts of the different generations—to the Spirit who takes of the things of Jesus (John 16:12 ff.). Our generation too has had its particular task. But we too, like all generations, may with Philip turn to Jesus with the confident request: 'Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us' " (pp. 177–178).

We have transcribed the argument of this Lecture with perhaps unnecessary fullness, because it seems to be put forward by Heitmüller as his defense against the charge that what he teaches is "Christianity" only in name, and has nothing but the name in common with anything that has hitherto been known by that name. Clearly it offers no sufficing defense against that charge. Under the name of "Christianity," indeed, it is clear that Heitmüller teaches a religion which stands in so external a relation to Christ, that it can get along very well without Him, and appeals to Him only to enable it to do a little more easily perhaps, perhaps a little more thoroughly, what it would be quite able to do even though He never existed. Jesus is an encouragement, an incitement, an inspiration to religious endeavor: nothing more. Obviously this has nothing but the name in common with the Christianity which sees in Jesus Christ not merely a revelation of God as Father, but the reconciliation of God to sinful man. Here, as von Schenk truly says, are not two varieties of "Christianity," but two different religions, and the only question is, which of these two religions is Christianity. We know which is the Christianity of Jesus, of Paul, of all the New Testament writers, who all alike present Christ as offering in His blood a ransom for the sins of the world. This is not the "Christianity" of Heitmüller. We cannot profess to be of both parties here. They stand in crass contrariety to one another and we must choose between them; and choosing between them, we must frankly declare of which of these two religions we are.

THE CHRISTIAN FAITH: A SYSTEM OF DOGMATICS.

By THEODORE HAERING, D.D.

Translated from the second revised and enlarged German edition, 1912, by John Dickie, M.A., and George Ferries, D.D. Two volumes.

London and New York: Hodder and Stoughton. 1913.

HAERING'S "Der christliche Glaube" was published in the autumn of 1906, and was briefly but sufficiently noticed in this Review for January, 1908 (pp. 166–167), by Dr. C. W. Hodge. The appearance of an English translation of its second edition—which was published in 1912—would in itself call for nothing more than an intimation of that fact, with some remarks, perhaps, upon the nature and extent of the changes introduced into the second edition, and the quality of the English rendering. On the former matter there is no need to enter into detail: the changes made are rather of the nature of expansions than of alterations. Of the latter matter we cannot speak with entire satisfaction. The sense of the original is doubtless conveyed in the translation. But the clearness with which the original was credited by its German readers ("marvelously perspicuous" is Titius' characterization of it) is certainly conspicuously absent from the translation; and all the charm which they also attribute to the book as a popular religious discussion is dissipated. We have found the reading of the English version somewhat heavy going.

An adventitious importance has been given to the English translation, however, by the unmeasured (and let us say at once, gravely misleading) praise which has, on the occasion of its appearance, been lavished on the treatise. An influential journal, widely circulated in both hemispheres, for example, announces it as "theology at its best." Had the proper qualification been inserted, and the book announced merely as Ritschlian theology at its best, little exception would need to be taken to the characterization. Haering's theology is exceptionally good Ritschlian theology. But no Ritschlian theology can be really good theology. Ritschlianism would not be unfairly described as the form taken in the later years of the nineteenth century by Socinianism, squeezed into the molds of Neo-Kantian philosophizing. And in the nature of the case, Socinian theology is bad theology, no matter in what philosophical garb—and, we may add, no matter with what religious fervor—it may be set forth. Haering brought to the exposition of Ritschlianism a warm religious nature, deeply steeped in Swabian Pietism, and, from the publication of his maiden-book ("Ueber das Bleibende im Glauben an Christus," 1880) in the first days of "the movement" (the first literary symptom of the existence of "the school" was the publication in 1876 of Herrmann's "Die Metaphysik in der Theologie"), he has been diligently engaged in pouring the new wine into these old bottles. The wine has in the process no doubt taken on some of the flavor of the bottles, but the bottles have certainly burst. Despite the many modifications it has received at his hands—all of them, happily, in the direction of a fuller recognition of essential Christian truth—and despite the profoundly religious tone which he has cast over the whole exposition, what Haering gives us remains just Ritschlianism, and that is to say just Socinianism—Ritschlianism, Socinianism in the richest religious expression possible to them, perhaps, but Ritschlianism, Socinianism still.

When we say Ritschlianism, however, we say not only Socinianism but Socinianism in a decadent form. A quarter of a century has elapsed since Albrecht Ritschl died (1889), and the stir which his theological teaching began to make during the last decade of his life has already quieted down, and the movement which he inaugurated has largely merged in the general course of unevangelical thought. Perhaps it would be too much to say that his system has been already "relegated to the ineffectual past," for there still remain with us men of mark—among whom Haering holds a conspicuous place—who have drawn a great part of their inspiration from it. But these are mostly men somewhat advanced in life; and it is not without its pathetic side to witness the publication by them, in their declining years, of system after system of a dogmatics, which, to put it brusquely, has had its day. There may not be wanting, indeed, some indications that the true state of the case is not altogether concealed from themselves, and that, in presenting their several transcripts of the Ritschlian system, they write consciously as much as historians of thought as they do as religious teachers. Haering, for example, not only makes no pretense of writing "definitive dogmatics," but even asserts roundly that there cannot be any such thing: "the dogmatics of any one generation," he repeatedly declares, "comes in the next to belong only to the history of dogma" (e.g. p. 21). He has even erected what he calls "the mutability of dogmatics" itself into a dogma, and finds for it crisp gnomic expression. "Theologies," he remarks (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, xx. 1910, p. 166), "change as doth a garment, and only the gospel abides."

In utterances like this there is obviously betrayed, however, much more than mere distrust of the permanence of one's own system in act of being expounded. What is uncovered is a veritable despair of dogmatics as such; or, to put it in its true light, a profound disbelief in the real—or "universal," as it is fashionable to phrase it—validity of what is yet somewhat oddly called religious knowledge. It is the same point of view which finds expression in the rampant individualism of Haeberlin's declaration that the results of dogmatics "can never be the same for all theologians, just because and so long as the forms of piety which are described are not the same" (Schweizerische theologische Zeitschrift, xxiii. 1906, pp. 17 f.); or in Herrmann's even more disintegrating representation, which not only gives to each man his own necessarily peculiar dogmatics but will not permit any man to have a self-consistent dogmatics even for himself, since each several one of his "ideas (Gedanken) of faith" will necessarily bear traces of the peculiar occasion out of which it individually arose ("Die Kultur der Gegenwart," I. iv. 1906, pp. 616 ff.). The root of these disturbing deliverances is pointed out by Herrmann himself when he warns his brother Ritschlians off from the notion that a universally valid expression of faith is possible, on the ground of the inseparable correlation of that assumption with that conception of revelation which sees in it a supernatural communication of truth (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, xvii. 1907, p. 29). Only an objective revelation of truth can supply a basis for an objectively valid dogmatics. And as the Ritschlians will not have an objective revelation of truth, they are in no position to give us anything better than individualistic, which is to say, subjective dogmatics.

Haering, of course, as a good Ritschlian points to revelation as the source of all religious knowledge. But to Haering, of course, as to his fellow Ritschlians, revelation is not "propositional" but purely "personal." To Christians at least (p. 144), it is summed up in the "personal life" of Christ (p. 293). Nothing can exceed the emphasis with which Haering insists upon this. "The revelation of God in Christ," he tells us (p. 262), "is the source, norm and basis of all Christian religious knowledge." Again (p. 317): "The revelation of God in Christ is the ground and norm of all religious knowledge." Further (p. 317): "As revelation is the ground, so is it the norm, of Christian knowledge of God, as regards its content and compass, as well as its nature." As regards its content, God is what He reveals Himself to faith in Christ as being. As regards its compass, God is nothing except what He is according to His revelation of Himself in Christ. The Christian Glaubenserkenntnis is, in a word, as is repeatedly asserted, ganz und gar the knowledge of the revelation of God in the "personal life" of Christ. No mode of statement is omitted which could emphasize the exclusiveness of the personal revelation in Christ as the source of Christian religious knowledge. But as this revelation is "personal" and not "propositional" it requires to be interpreted. The instrument by which the personal revelation of God in Christ is received and translated into religious knowledge is described as "faith." Sometimes, indeed, Haering speaks of the revelation in Christ as if it directly produced "faith": "the revelation of God in our religion," he says (p. 201), "is a revelation which produces faith, i.e. trust." But this is at once varied to the somewhat different form of statement, that God's "revelation consists in a self-attestation capable of producing personal trust." What is meant is apparently that God's manifestation of Himself in Christ is of such a sort that faith may find a basis for the knowledge of God in it—if it will. For Haering is very jealous of what he looks upon as the "freedom" of faith, and will not have the knowledge of God thrust upon any man by sheer revelation. In his view there are therefore two factors which must coöperate in the production of religious knowledge—Revelation and Faith: and only in their conjunction can religious knowledge arise. "It is a revelation which faith has to interpret, and it is faith which has to interpret the revelation" (p. 421). Revelation alone cannot give religious knowledge; and, though neither can faith alone give it, yet it is faith which works up into knowledge what in revelation is only the raw material for it. If without revelation there is no object of knowledge, without faith there is not only no subject able to assimilate this knowledge, but no "knowledge" as yet to be assimilated. Religious "knowledge" is the product of a voluntary "faith" working upon a "revelation" which at the most is a mere "manifestation." On the face of it, here is a purely subjective theory of religious knowledge.

Haering, it is true, makes some effort to escape from this subjectivity; to avoid making faith, in effect, the creator of its own object. We find him, for example, vigorously asserting that "judgments of value," in the sense in which that concept is employed by him and his fellows, include in themselves "judgments of being." He strongly protests, indeed, against the representation that a value-judgment leaves the reality of the object of it undetermined (pp. 65 ff.). He protests further against the representation that the reality of its object is affirmed only on the ground of its value; that it is, in other words, an assumption or postulate resting on subjective experience. This appears to mean that a judgment of value presupposes the recognition of the reality of the object whose value is affirmed, and the recognition of it on some other ground than its value. Nevertheless, when an instance in point comes under discussion, and we are told dutifully (p. 67) that "the validity of judgments of faith"—here the judgment of value concerning God—"depends on the living conviction that the supreme reality in question"—that is, God—"manifests itself," it is at once added, "but only to one who consents to recognize its reality as of value for him personally, not in the irresistible way in which the laws of logic demand recognition." The fat is obviously again in the fire. The will is brought in as the decisive factor in conviction: such a conviction is distinctively a voluntary conviction, and in this differs from the conviction wrought by logical reasoning, which, in contrast with it, is a compulsory conviction. This surely implies that the conviction in question is purely personal—that is to say "subjective"—and cannot impose itself on another—that is to say is not of universal validity. On what grounds could we impose on others convictions which even with ourselves we recognize as not imposed but as voluntary? Another, obviously, shares such convictions, if he shares them at all, also only voluntarily; that is by a purely personal, subjective act. The process by which the individual obtains a religious conviction, then, it would seem, is that by a voluntary act he recognizes value for himself in the object before his mind; and when it thus, by this voluntary act on his part, acquires value to him, it becomes "real" to him in a "living conviction." On the face of it, this is an extraordinary thing for it to do. But in any case, have we not here a purely subjective process? The ground adduced for the alleged reality of the object certainly appears to be its recognized value to the subject. And that value surely to all appearance is attributed to the object, not because of any compulsion of recognized fact, but by a voluntary act of the subject's own. That a "living conviction" of "reality" can arise in this fashion is sheerly incredible. All convictions, of whatever kind, are the product of course of evidence, and are not producible at will; and each conviction naturally rests on evidence fitted to produce that particular conviction. Judgments of being must rest, therefore, on evidence of reality, not on "recognition of value"; as indeed we have seen Haering himself compelled to allow—in words.

These remarks have brought us to the center of Haering's doctrine of Faith. It is not easy, to be sure, to determine precisely what he means by faith, despite the fundamental place held by this conception in his system. One reads the inordinately long Apologetical Introduction to his treatise with suspended mind, looking, and ever looking in vain, for some clear definition of the exact sense in which the ever recurring "faith" is employed: and the want is not supplied even in the section of the Dogmatic part of the volume which expressly treats of Faith. It emerges, however, with sufficient clearness that faith is with Haering distinctively "voluntary conviction." It is without significance for our present point that he sometimes broadens his definition so as to include feeling as well as volition in the source of faith; as in the (for the elucidation of Haering's view) pregnant sentence: "Faith, on the ground of determinations (Entscheidungen) of the volitional and emotional spirit, in coöperation with the historical self-revelation of God, is sure of a reality which is inaccessible to theoretic understanding (Erkennen), compulsory knowledge (zwingendes Wissen)" (p. 257). As "voluntary conviction," he is never weary (as in the sentence just quoted) of setting "faith" over against "compulsory knowledge," a thoroughly misleading opposition (cf. the, no doubt insufficient, strictures of Titius, Theologische Rundschau, x. 1907, p. 378), which nevertheless forms the hinge of his whole treatment. According to this distinction, convictions which we cannot choose but have are knowledge; convictions which we have or not as we choose are faith. He even occasionally falls into the unhappy habit of setting "knowledge" and "faith" unqualifiedly in contradiction to one another, as if either we could believe what we know to be false, or that need not be true which we know. Thus in speaking of reservation in prayer with respect to earthly things, he remarks (p. 536), "It does not spring from faith, but from fear of the power of knowledge"; and again he tells us (p. 540) that certain reservations in defining miracles result from a feeling that "a decision on the point has already been pronounced in another quarter, from the side of knowledge." In such contrasts "faith" is in danger of appearing purely arbitrary. In any event Haering makes its complete voluntariness so of its essence that he exhibits an almost morbid fear lest its "freedom" should be curtailed. "Compulsion," he declares (p. 209), is "the greatest enemy of all faith." God can propound faith to us, but He cannot produce it in us: He can only ask "whether we bestow our trust on Him in Jesus," "whether we are willing to let ourselves be laid hold of by His love revealed in Jesus." So alien is compulsion to faith, indeed, that it is laid down as axiomatic, that "in the interest of faith" there cannot be any revelation which "compels assent on grounds of logical necessity"; and even that "there cannot be any testimony to" a revelation, "so homogeneous in itself and so uniformly authoritative, that it is not left to the believing community to fix the grade of authority which shall belong to each part of the record." The very nature of the divine revelation with which faith deals is thus accommodated to the nature of faith as necessarily voluntary: God Himself cannot "rush" the jealously guarded defenses of its voluntariness. In the sphere of knowledge, in a word, compulsion may rule—we must accept what presents itself to us as true: throughout the whole realm of faith, freedom reigns—what we accept here we accept at our own option. Faith thus comes forward in Haering's system as a contribution which we ourselves bring to the production of religious knowledge. There can be no religious knowledge without faith, and faith lies in our own power. Whatever religious knowledge we have we work up at our own option out of non-compulsory materials. The function of faith in the production of religious knowledge is, indeed, so magnified that it almost seems at times as if it were supposed to bring something to its objects which lends them a reality not possessed by them in themselves.

This is not to be obscured by representing what is meant as merely that it is only to religious susceptibility that religious data appeal. It has become quite common nowadays to say that the whole object of Ritschl and his followers in their doctrine of "value-judgments" and "faith" is to maintain that only one with religious susceptibility is competent to form a judgment in religious matters. If this were the case, certainly no writers could write more misleadingly or indeed more trivially. No one has ever doubted that only a religious being can apprehend religious truth, as no one has ever doubted that only a moral being can apprehend moral truth; or—to push the matter to its conclusion—that only a rational being can apprehend truth at all. It requires as special an endowment to know that two and two make four as it does to apprehend the excellence of virtue or to perceive the beauty of holiness. But that it is not this truism which Ritschl and his followers wish to express by their doctrines of "value-judgments" and "faith" is plain from the circumstance that it does not cover the ground claimed by their contentions. We do not need to go further here than to ask: what becomes then of this immense emphasis on the voluntariness of faith? Our religious susceptibility is not subject to the control of will. Does the susceptibility which responds to the moral quality of a virtuous act, or which, say, is sensitive to the music of a sonata of Beethoven, either exist or not, only at our option? By virtue of the presence of the susceptibility in the subject the object is apprehended more adequately than otherwise it would be—that is all. Nothing is apprehended which is not "there" independently of its apprehension, and no increase of reality is brought to the object by its more complete apprehension. Value-judgments, judgments of appreciation, in other words, are not substitutes for judgments of being but supplements to them: they are superinduced on them and make only for more adequate knowledge of what is already less adequately known on other grounds.

The blight of Haering's conception of faith as an essentially voluntary act affects his whole system, and vitiates even his most promising concessions to an objectively valid Christianity. The function he assigns to revelation, for example, as a factor in the production of religious knowledge carries with it necessarily a strong assertion of the actual historical existence of Jesus Christ, the personal revelation of God; and an equally strong assertion of the historical trustworthiness of our records of Him. Haering therefore explicitly recognizes that, since Jesus Christ is the source and basis of Christian faith, "for all others than those contemporary with that historical revelation which produces faith, there must be historical primary sources of information (geschichtliche Urkunden, 'historical records') regarding it" (p. 279). Though he does not go the length of Kähler's "whole Biblical Christ," in positing the object of faith, he cannot satisfy himself with Herrmann's meager and vague "inner life of Jesus." He argues that we must be historically assured of much about Jesus before He can serve as a revelation of God to us. To Kähler's astonishing declaration that there is not a single fact concerning the historical Jesus of which we can be historically sure, he opposes the recognition that "a certain measure of historical credibility (Glaubwürdigkeit) is indispensable, and its place can be taken by no amount (Gewalt) of religious value" (p. 281). That Jesus may work upon us as a revelation of the love of God we must know Him; and to know Him—seeing that He is a historical figure—we must have trustworthy historical accounts of Him. Haering even goes so far as to include in the trustworthy historical knowledge that we must have of Him, the knowledge of Him as the conqueror of death. He therefore makes the trustworthiness of the accounts of the "resurrection" of Jesus—as to the "fact" of it only, however, not as to its "mode," as he too explains in the customary effort to deny the resurrection while seeming to allow it—neccessary to the creation of Christian trust in the complete sense. Indeed, he seems almost inclined to throw his circle out more widely still, and to bring (contrary to his fundamental principle) the preparatory "revelation" of the Old Testament itself into the compass of the grounds of faith, and even the march of God's providence in the world, and nature itself—when viewed from "the storm-free center of the revelation of Jesus." But no sooner do we begin to congratulate ourselves on such apparently notable concessions than we are rudely called back to the qualifications which eviscerate them all.

If Haering is willing to say flatly that "it is all over with faith" if it can be shown that "Jesus is only a creation of faith" (p. 217), he will not say that faith cannot exist unless it can be shown that Jesus is not a creation of faith: he will allow that "knowledge" can destroy "faith," he will not allow that "faith" needs the aid of "knowledge," or indeed can profit by "knowledge." No sooner does he declare, then, that faith requires the historicity of Jesus for its validity than he begins to qualify. We must ask after the message of historical trustworthiness which history can supply, and which faith may demand. And Haering's contention is that history can neither supply nor faith ask certainty—but only probability. No doubt, he sometimes speaks as if he were only denying that history can supply or faith demand precise "demonstration," in the strict sense of that word as the designation of a mode (not degree) of proof. But his real meaning goes further than that. "If the tradition concerning Jesus possessed compelling credibility (zwingende Glaubwürdigkeit)," he argues (p. 217), "we should have what we have elsewhere had to renounce in the name of faith, on account of faith's very nature—that intelligent men would be compelled to believe, or rather, not to believe, but to recognize as indisputable fact. On the contrary, there is no such compulsion in the sphere of history, so soon as we pass beyond the establishment of external facts and simple connections." The statement is, perhaps, not perfectly clear in all its suggestions; but this much seems plain—history does not yield facts which intelligent persons, conversant with the historical evidence, are compelled to accept as facts—beyond at least certain external facts in their external connection. History presents to us (beyond this) only data which we may (however intelligent and however well-informed historically) accept or reject with good conscience—at our option.

History does not make, for example, the reality of Jesus Christ—such a Jesus Christ as may be recognized as a revelation of the love of God—so certain that every intelligent man, conversant with the historical evidence, must assent to it as indisputable. All that history can bring us, as Haering goes on to explain (p. 218), is a sufficiently high probability (Wahrscheinlichkeit) to enable the "religiously susceptible" "to surrender themselves to the impression of this person" "with a good conscience." If the religiously susceptible man makes this venture of faith, he may indeed attain through this to a certainty of the existence of this Jesus. But assuredly, then, the certainty he thus attains is the product of his faith, not of the historical evidence—since, says Haering, this certainty "but for that surrender would be unattainable" (p. 218). We seem here perilously near to making Jesus—the Jesus in whom we find the revelation of the love of God—"only the creation of faith": and, in that case, Haering himself being witness, "it is all over with faith." Haering does, indeed, go on to say that the purely historical evidence of the existence of this Jesus must be sufficient to compel the man who will not accept it "to admit, in order to maintain a good scientific conscience, that he is kept from giving his assent, not by compelling grounds of a historical character, but by a theory of the universe opposed to the Christian" (p. 218). Apparently this means that though there cannot be compelling grounds in history for affirming that Jesus existed—the Jesus in which faith sees the revelation of the love of God—neither must there be compelling grounds discoverable in history for affirming that He did not exist. History is not to say the decisive word as to the fact, one way or the other. All that can be asked of history—all that history can give—is room for believing in Jesus, on other grounds—grounds apparently of "religious susceptibility." Historical evidence cannot establish it; but historical evidence must not exclude it. It may be proper to ask here how the history which cannot give compelling evidence of the existence of such a Jesus, can be supposed to be possibly able to give compelling evidence that He did not exist. Are not these equally historical facts? If we deny that history is capable of making the existence of such a character certain, do we not in that very act deny that it is capable of making His non-existence certain? And is not the upshot simply then, that history cannot give any certainty in such a matter at all; and our actual conviction with respect to it, whether positive or negative—must rest upon and be the product of our own subjectivity? In a word, does not Haering appear here in a purely anti-historical role? What, then, becomes of his theory of religious knowledge, which requires for its production the two factors of "revelation" and "faith"? If the "revelation" itself depends for its reality on the "faith"; and without "faith" can be looked upon only as a possibility not absolutely refuted by objective historical evidence—are we not on the plane of a pure subjectivity? Is not, in any express sense, the Jesus in which "faith" finds the revelation of the love of God, in that case, the creation of "faith" itself?

We have other misgivings also about the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, upon which Haering hangs the entirety of the Christian's religious knowledge. We can for our own part cheerfully allow that the revealing Christ is more convincingly accessible to us in the historical records than Haering will admit. We could grant him what he cannot accept from us, then—a thoroughly trustworthy access to Christ. But how can we be assured that the holy love of God is revealed to us in this Christ's "personal life"? Haering scouts all external evidence, such as that of miracles and the like, and presents instead this: "the drawing near on God's part in a historical personality must prove itself real, through God's inmost being revealing itself in His whole life and work" (p. 205). We are to know that this life and work is a revelation of God (otherwise unknown) not because it is convincingly attested as such, but just because "God's inmost being reveals itself in the whole life and work." Circular reasoning could scarcely be more bold. How can we know that God's inmost being is revealed in this person's whole life and work, unless we already know God and know what His inmost being is? And what in that case becomes of our complete dependence on the revelation in Christ for our knowledge of the God of holy love? Haering continues: "God's will of love towards sinners must confront us in the work of this personality, in a manner so effectual, that His work can be experienced as the work of God, and consequently excite in us trust in the love of God." But how can we recognize God's will of love for sinners in the work of this personality unless we previously know of God's will of love for sinners? The question becomes indeed a very pressing one, on Haering's ground, What reason have we for believing that God is love?—though he gives us to understand that the entirety of his theology is summed up in that proposition. According to Haering we can know nothing of God except by revelation, and this revelation is for Christians (for non-Christians there are hints that a substitute may be found) wholly included in the personal life of Christ. Not in what Christ teaches, nor in the details of what He did; but in the general drift of His life as historically transmitted to us (in a probable record) and received in a religiously susceptible soul. But how can this general drift of Jesus' life, even though transmitted to us with entire trustworthiness in history, reveal even to the religiously susceptible that God is love? On Evangelical ground the revelation of the love of God in Christ is clear enough; for herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins; for God commendeth His own love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But on Haering's ground? On Haering's ground we have no other reason for believing that God is love, except that Jesus Christ lived and wrought in that firm belief—if indeed we can assure ourselves, amid the uncertainties of historical testimony, that He did so live and work. It is as subject of faith—Himself exercising perfect trust in God—that He becomes the producer of faith in us. We believe that God is love for no other reason than that Jesus believed that God is love. Is it more than a case of spiritual contagion? And is such spiritual contagion enough to base our whole hope in life and death upon? Haering is perfectly right when he declares that we can postulate "pardoning love" to the Righteous God as a fact, only on the basis of an actual revelation. But he will admit no revelation in word. Where, on his ground—without any Divine Son of God and without any Atonement wrought in His blood—do we get any actual revelation in fact of the pardoning love of God? In his view Jesus was sinless: how, in His "personal life"—not in His teaching—does He manifest to us specifically "the pardoning love" of God?

Obviously we are at the center of Haering's Christology when we raise such questions. Like all good Ritschlians it is the work of Christ which chiefly interests Haering and he accordingly (like all the rest) begins with it, and only infers from what he supposes Christ to do, what he is willing to allow that Christ is. The work of Christ is all included for him in this—that He reveals God to us as holy love, though, as we have seen, it puts him on his mettle to make out that He does this. Of course, everybody knows that from the beginning Haering has stood out among the Ritchlians as the one among them all who was striving to formulate the most adequate doctrine of Atonement. Gustav Ecke, pointing out the shortcomings of the teaching of Ritschl and Gottschick (the most completely Ritschlian of the Ritschlians), feels able to speak of "the surmounting of these shortcomings by Haering." And indeed Haering must be given the credit of having made effort after effort to find some "objective aspect" for Christ's work on Ritschlian assumptions ("Ueber das Bleibende im Glauben," 1880; "Zu Ritschls Versöhnungslehre," 1888; "Zur Versöhnungslehre," 1893). What he has put forward with this end in view, however, he has had steadily to retract (a fair brief account of the course of his thought here may be read in Bensow, "Die Lehre von der Versöhnung," 1904, pp. 106 ff.), until in the present volumes not a vestige—or perhaps we may say literally just a vestige—of it remains. He still divides the work of Christ, viewed as regards its content, into His prophetic and His priestly work; and describes the former as wrought by Christ "as God's personal Revelation of Himself for us," and the latter as wrought by Him as "our Representative before God." He thus appears as still fain to discover some Godward side to Christ's work. But he discovers none. The best he can do is to represent that God is pleased with the perfection of Christ's revelation of His holy love to men. How this redounds to our credit remains meanwhile, as Wendt points out (Theologische Literaturzeitung, xxxii. 1907, coll. 646–647), unexplained; and we may add inexplicable.

As Haering still speaks thus of a "priestly" work of Christ, in which He "represents" us before God, so, continuing his careful use of old categories which have lost all their content to him (he actually orders his treatise on the Trinitarian categories of "Faith in God the Father," "Faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God," "Faith in the Holy Spirit of God and Christ," though he does not in the least believe in the Trinity), he still speaks also of a "kingly" work of Christ. His exposition of the work of Christ is thus cast in the familiar molds of His office-work as Prophet, Priest, and King, while yet there is assigned to Him none other than His "prophetic" work. The kingly work of Christ is the work of the exalted Christ, and that Haering throws stress on this work of the exalted Christ stamps him at once as belonging to the Ritschlian "Right." Though he thus asserts his belief in a continued saving work for the exalted Christ, however, Haering is careful not to let it be supposed that he considers such a belief an essential element of the Christian religion: he thus preserves a place among good Christians for his fellow Ritschlians of the "Left," who will not hear of any saving work for the "hidden" exalted Christ (p. 660). And in his own Ritschlian fear of mysticism (no "Christ Mysticism" for him) he is careful to confine this work of the exalted Christ within very narrow limits and not to permit it to add anything of importance to His work on earth—not advancing here in substance of teaching beyond what he had already taught in his earliest work (1880). When he describes "the work of the exalted Lord" as consisting solely "in the fact that He makes His historical work on earth operative" (it is meanwhile not made clear how He does this), he is only remaining true to the necessary implications of Christ's saving work as he conceives it, which he makes to consist wholly in the revelation of the love of God to us through His trustful life in complete recognition of that love.

When we think of the exalted Christ we naturally think of that Resurrection by which, according to the Scriptures, He entered upon His glory. Haering's dealing with the Resurrection is very characteristic. He adverts to it twice (pp. 211 ff., 627 ff.), and then leaves us not quite certain what he believes with respect to it. He allows that it is essential to complete Christian faith to hold that, when the disciples "saw the Lord, they were not self-deceived, that He actually showed Himself to them as the Living One" (p. 211). All theories of merely "subjective vision" must then be rejected (p. 629). Beyond this, however, he will not go. He too wishes to draw a distinction between "the fact" and "the mode" of the resurrection; and thus to cover up the actual denial of all "resurrection" by those who talk of an "objective vision"—or, as Haering prefers to phrase it, "a vision which has an objective basis." His chief concern is that all should agree that it is unimportant what we think became of the dead body, so only we understand that the person Jesus did not at death pass wholly out of existence—as if we could talk of a "resurrection" of what never died, or as if Jesus' disciples required assurance that He, like other men, still lived after that experience which we call death. We may infer that Haering attaches great importance to this attitude towards the question of our Lord's resurrection from the circumstance that he repeats it in his booklet, called "Persönlich-Praktisches aus der christlichen Glaubenslehre" (1911), and there expresses his thanks to his theological friend Max Reischle for "well-considered and pious words" on "the mode and manner" of the resurrection of Christ, to which "nothing essentially new has been added since" (p. 108). What Reischle has to say on the matter, however, whether in his articles in the seventh and eighth volumes of the Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche or in his later "Christliche Glaubenslehre in Leitsätzen" (ed. 2, 1902), is merely that while the resurrection experiences of the disciples cannot be scientifically proved not to have been a delusion, yet they are assured facts of faith, though even to faith "the question as to the how" of them remains unanswerable. That is to say, we can be sure only "that the crucified One really lives as the Lord of His kingdom and revealed Himself to His disciples as the Living One." What Haering thinks so fine in Reischle, therefore, is only his teaching that we cannot be sure that Christ ever rose from the dead, but we need not concern ourselves about that—all that is important is that His spirit did not die with the body and that He has entered into His glory.

With the idea of the exalted Christ there is associated the thought of prayer to Him, and Haering is accordingly led at this point to face this question (p. 665). He treats it with the chary caution with which he deals with all such matters. He permits us to pray to Christ; but he adds: "All invocation of Jesus is … adoration of God who is revealed to us in Him." That is to say, we do not invoke Jesus as He is Himself God, but only as an intermediary through whom God reaches us and we Him. The notion has its affinities with Karl Thieme's insistence that Christ deserves our adoration because of His "representative unity" with God.

With this introduction Haering proceeds formally to discuss the "Divinity of Christ" (pp. 667 ff.). He is willing for himself to employ the term, "Divinity" of Christ—but only as an indication that "saving faith" embraces God and Jesus in one act of confidence; and so, "in the view of saving faith" Jesus "belongs on the side of God." But, we may add, no more truly than "as He who reveals God, He belongs really to us" (p. 669). Just because He is the revelation of God, we are told, He "is not God; otherwise He would not be a revelation of God" (p. 670). Accordingly, throughout the whole treatise, Jesus is treated frankly as a human being, in his nature not different from us, His brethren.

It would naturally be supposed that with this view of Jesus' nature, Haering would make as short work of the notion of the pre-existence of Christ as, say, his fellow Ritschlian, H. H. Wendt, in his contemporaneously published "System der christlichen Lehre," whose "Dynamistic Monarchianism" differs from Haering's only in its greater frankness of expression. Strange to say, however, Haering appears to feel compelled to attribute some sort of preëxistence to Jesus. We say he appears to do so; for despite the somewhat lengthy discussion given to the matter, it is not made perfectly clear. He speaks of the preëxistence of Christ as one of the Grenzgedanken unsrer Glaubenserkenntnis, "limitative-notions of our faith-knowledge"—a truly Germanic phrase which our translators render, not with complete lucidity, "conceptions that mark the limit of the knowledge which we have of faith" (p. 695). Precisely what Haering means by a "limitative-notion" is not, however, obvious, and little light is thrown upon it by his explanations (pp. 704 ff.). These close with these words: "The logical right of the notion may be maintained by its friends in the measure in which they take it seriously that it is really a limitative-notion, one which surpasses the power of our knowledge—this being understood in the sense of the theory of knowledge of the Critical Philosophy, which does not maintain limits of knowledge arbitrarily but recognizes those that really lie therein" (pp. 705–706). We are apparently referred here to Kant, who employs the term—or rather its cognate, Grenzbegriff—on a single occasion, of "the inconceivable something behind the phenomenon." "Finally, however, the possibility of such noumena is wholly incomprehensible, and what lies outside the sphere of phenomena is (for us) empty, that is, we have an understanding which extends itself problematically further than that, but no intuition (Anschauung)—and not even a conception of a possible intuition, by means of which objects outside the field of sensibility are given to us and the understanding can extend beyond this in an assertory way. The concept (Begriff) of a noumenon is therefore only a limitative-concept (Grenzbegriff), intended to confine the claims of sensibility within proper bounds, and therefore only of negative use. It is nevertheless not arbitrarily invented, but hangs together with the limitations of the sensibility—without being able to posit anything positive beyond the limits of the sensibility" ("Kritik der reinen Vernunft," ed. 1, p. 235). Accordingly, Rudolf Eisler ("Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe," i. 1910, p. 462) tells us that "Kant understands by a limitative-conception (Grenzbegriff) a conception which sets limits to, circumscribes, the claims of sensibility, and which at the same time leads to the limits of our knowledge, inasmuch as it posits something to thought without being able to define it qualitatively, positively." For himself, Eisler broadly defines limitative-conceptions (Grenzbegriffe) as "conceptions which contain as content the existence of a transcendent object, without embracing (adequately) along with that its qualities; or conceptions which lead to the confines of the knowledge whose contents are valid at once for the subjective and for the objective reality." If we are to be governed by these definitions, it would seem that we must understand Haering, in representing the preëxistence of Christ as a limitative-notion, to be declaring it something which we must declare to be real, while yet we renounce all claim to comprehend what it is.

But if we will turn to the discussion of the same matter by Otto Kirn ("Grundriss der evangelischen Dogmatik," ed. 1, 1905, p. 92; ed. 2, 1907, p. 99; ed. 3, 1910, p. 107)—with whom in general Haering shows strong affinities—we will discover that the representation of the preëxistence of Christ as a limitative-conception (Grenzbegriff) is consistent, among Ritschlian theologians, with denial of, not its comprehensibility merely, but its reality as well. The passage is instructive enough to justify giving it in its entirety. "The Logos idea," says Kirn, "contains thus the ultimate explanation of the historical manifestation of Christ; but it gives us no knowledge of His prehistoric being. Logos means revelation, and the revelation of God to us belongs to history. The attempt to speculate upon the hypostatic distinction of the Logos from the Father, leads inevitably to subordinationistic ideas which do not do justice to the Christian faith. For only communion through Jesus Christ with God—in the most unlimited sense of the word—preserves to the Christian revelation its absoluteness and to the Christian salvation its certainty. The Sonship of Christ to God also enables us to illuminate the life-connection of the historical Jesus with God, but not the eternal, intradivine life-process which forms the basis of the historical redemptive revelation. The attempt to pass beyond these limits, such as is made by means of the notion of the eternal generation of the Son, yields nothing further, but only reduplicates the faith-knowledge oriented to history. The idea of preëxistence forms therefore a limitative-conception (Grenzbegriff) of our theological thought. It declares that the historical Christ has eternally His central and universal place in God's will of salvation, and that the content of His life, His redemptive holy love, comes from God and is an eternal content of the supernatural life of God. We would, therefore, more correctly speak of the super-historical character of the revelation of God in Christ than of the pre-historical existence of Christ with the Father." Here the preëxistence of Christ is represented as a "limitative-conception" and yet explained as only "ideal," as the phrase goes. An elaborate argument is devoted to showing precisely that Christ did not exist "really" before His earthly career began. It does not follow, therefore, that Haering intends to represent the pre-existence as real, from the mere fact that he calls it a "limitative-notion."

Nor are all our hesitancies at once dissipated by the circumstance that Haering explicitly speaks of it as "real." The Ritschlians (perhaps Haering conspicuously among them) are so accustomed to employ phraseology consecrated by long usage in novel senses or in new applications, that it behooves us to scrutinize their language closely before accepting it in what may seem to us its obvious meaning. Not to go beyond this very matter of the preëxistence of Christ, H. H. Wendt, on the low ground of his frankly acknowledged Dynamistic Monarchianism, can still find an element of truth in the doctrine of the preëxistence of Christ, and can still speak of this preëxistence as "real," not "ideal." "We have," he remarks, "merely not to refer the idea of real, eternal preëxistence to the historical man Jesus Christ as a whole, but to that which was divine in Him, to the Holy Spirit which He bore in Himself. And this eternal preëxistence of the Holy Spirt is not a personal preëxistence, like that of the Logos in the Athanasian conception. Real preëxistence was not possessed by the 'Son.' For 'Son' of God is not the Holy Spirit but the personal man Jesus in which the Holy Spirit showed Himself operative. Of this man we can only affirm ideal preëxistence; that He as mediator of the redemptive revelation, which was to lead to the establishment of the Kingdom of God, belonged to the eternal redemptive plan of God and was the object of God's loving prevision and provision" ("System der christlichen Lehre," ii. 1907, p. 379). It is no doubt sufficiently bizarre to speak of the eternity of the God who employed the man Jesus as His organ as, in any sense, a "real preëxistence" of Jesus Himself. But this is the way the Ritschlians employ language.

Coming nearer home to Haering, we may profitably observe how the question of our Lord's preëxistence is dealt with by his life-long theological friend, his fellow Swabian, Max Reischle. Reischle feels able to speak of "an eternal Being of Jesus Christ" after a fashion wholly incomprehensible to us, and is able to connect this with the idea of the Logos, thought of, however, not as a distinct hypostasis in the Godhead but only as "an aspect, tendency, mode of operation of the Divine Being Itself." "If, however, we raise the question," he proceeds, "whether we are to carry into the eternal Being of the θεὸς λόγος, also the personal life of the historical and exalted Christ, distinct from that of the Father" (for it is only to the historical and exalted Christ that a distinct hypostasis is allowed, p. 62), "only so much as this can be said: Since the action of the Logos is intelligible to us only with respect to and in the person of Jesus Christ, we can never in our faith think away this personality from the conception of the Logos; but we must always think, as of the eternal God as Father of Jesus Christ, so also of the eternal Logos or of that eternal self-determination in God, as related to Jesus Christ. But what the nature of this relation is, we are, as finite beings, incapable of penetrating, and still more of making it the starting-point in an explanation of the incarnation of Jesus." "Thus," he adds, "we are in the question of the eternal origin of Jesus Christ, ever again brought back to this—the believing recognition, not only back of, but in His earthly personal life, and in the activities of the exalted one, of the eternal Divine Being determining the time-course" ("Christliche Glaubenslehre in Leitsätzen," ed. 2, 1902, pp. 119–120). There is a distinct refusal here to allow to Christ any personal preëxistence, and the reduction of His preëxistence to that of the impersonal Logos inseparably connected with Him in our thought, while the meagerness of this result is partially covered up by a suggestion that we are, as finite creatures, incapable of understanding such relationships, and a reference to the manifest presence of the eternal God with Jesus Christ. If our necessary thinking of God as Father of Jesus Christ, he intimates, does not carry with it the consequence that God was always the Father of Jesus Christ, neither does our necessary thinking of the Logos in connection with the person, Jesus, carry with it the consequence that the Logos was always connected with that person.

The impulse to suspect that Haering's doctrine of the preëxistence of Jesus may also evaporate under our gaze into some such mist as this, arises not only generally from its astonishing incongruity with the scheme of his teaching as a whole, but more particularly from the immense difficulty of taking it literally in the face of his decisive rejection of the doctrines of the Trinity on the one hand and of the Two Natures of our Lord on the other. With him God is a monadic divine person and Jesus is a monadic human person, and on those postulates it seems impossible to construe to thought a real personally preëxistent Christ. He cannot be thought of as a personal distinction in the Godhead; for there are no personal distinctions in the Godhead. He equally cannot be thought of as some sort of a "middle-being": whatever else Jesus is to Haering, He is a genuine man, a human being with all the qualities of humanity. Will he then project Him back into eternity as some kind of a "heavenly man," despite his strong asseveration that He "belongs to us"? The monstrosity of these notions in the general context of Haering's thought bids us pause before we take his words at their face value. Is it not more probable that like his fellow Ritschlians here he has some subtle meaning in mind, which does not appear on the surface of his words, especially since he tells us that his advocacy of the preëxistence of Christ will commend itself in proportion as we accept the notion strictly as a "limitative-notion," that is to say, as something quite incomprehensible to us? Meanwhile, it must be admitted that he seems to ascribe to Christ as a fact, whatever we are to say of the mode, a real personal preëxistence. "This limitative-notion," he says, "may be formulated" ("by those who accept it" seems to be added in the later text) "as follows: the love of God, effective to us in Christ as the Son, is so truly love of God, effective self-revelation of His nature, that it is eternally directed to Him, the vehicle of this eternal love, not only in the sense of ideal preëxistence—to Him as the temporal-historical correlate of the eternal love of God—but also apart from His earthly existence, as love of the Father for the Son, in the mystery of the eternal life of God, or then, accordingly, because no other word stands at our disposal, in real preëxistence; and—this the other side of the same notion—this Son, eternally loved by God, is, as sent by the Father into the world, so come into the world by an act of love of His own" (p. 704). It certainly seems to be said here not only that God's love for the Son is eternal, but that the Son whom God loves is eternal; not only that the Son was sent into the world by God, but that He came into the world by an act of His own. All things considered it does not appear strange that Haering's confidence in such a "limitative-notion" should not seem quite complete. He speaks of its "advocates," to be sure, as "convinced." But he agrees that they must not "make assent to it an essential element of saving faith itself"—that is to say, of the necessary content of the Christian religion—"but," he adds in the later revision of his text, "shall rather leave open the possibility that, in the progress of knowledge with regard to the Christian salvation, it may be superseded" (p. 707).

We have been interested to observe how Haering's critics, sharing his general Ritschlian point of view, understand him on this matter. A. Titius (Theologische Rundschau, x. 1907, p. 460) seems merely to record the fact that Haering holds such an opinion. "The doctrine of Christ's real preëxistence," he writes, "is accepted" by Haering, "with respect to its kernel indeed as a 'providentially supplied limitative-notion' (p. 449), but along with that also not as an 'essential element of saving faith itself' (p. 451)." H. H. Wendt (Theologische Literaturzeitung, xxxii. 1907, col. 647) seems to drop a sly suggestion that Haering's recognition of a real pre-existence for Christ may possibly be classed in Haering's view along with that knowledge which passes away. "With circumspect reserve," he writes, "Haering permits the New Testament ideas of the real preëxistence of Christ to pass as limitative-notions, which the Christian community may retain, 'so as to lose nothing of the mystery of God's revelation of love in Christ, until in other conditions of existence a more perfect knowledge of it discloses itself' (p. 449)." E. Günther ("Die Entwicklung der Lehre von der Person Christi im XIX Jahrhundert," 1911, pp. 330–331) deals with the matter at more length, but also, it seems, with a slight undertone of sarcasm. "Perhaps the most difficult point in Haering's Christology," he says, "is his doctrine of preëxistence as a 'limitative-notion.' If he advances beyond the so-called ideal preëxistence this is wholly from motives derived from religion and the New Testament. The ideas of the love of the Father who gives the Son and of the humble self-surrender of the Son who came into the world by an act of love of His own, are to him too valuable to be relinquished (p. 449). The origin of the Pauline and Johannine Christology is also a problem for Haering, which, however, is not capable of being solved—or perhaps is already solved—from analogies and connections derived from Comparative Religion (pp. 443–448). But he who will not abandon the notion of the real preëxistence should give it expression on the one side only as the ultimate culmination of the immediate conceptions of faith, and on the other with the conscious reservation that there can exist for us in this region no knowledge (p. 450). We may conjecture that in this reference many will rather be disposed to speak of the limits of thought than of 'limitative-thoughts' (die Gedankengrenze als Grenzgedanken). They will, however, be gladly ready with Haering 'without curtailment of their particular gift, encouraged rather by a noble rivalry, weary of mere negations, to unite in a real affirmation' (p. 452)." Whatever they may think of the procedure, neither Titius, Wendt, nor Günther appears to doubt that Haering intends to teach a real personal preëxistence for Christ.

We shall not follow the details of Haering's system further. With his reduction of the person of Christ to the dimensions of a mere man (despite that "rock in the sky" of a problematical incomprehensible preëxistence), and of the work of Christ to merely impressing men with the conviction that God is "holy love" (despite the ineffective efforts to discover in this some value to God); with his reduction of God Himself to mere Love—whatever that may mean—(despite the incongruous insistence against his master, Ritschl, that "righteousness" and "wrath" have a place in the Divine nature): it is easy to understand what a "reduced Christianity" he sets forth. The fundamental difficulty lies of course in the lack of "external authority." It is not to be wondered at that one who, having discarded the authority of the revelation of God embodied in the Scriptures, finds his task as a theologian only in "giving expression to the religious interpretation of the gospel which is attainable at the period" at which he writes,—that is, who seeks his guidance not in a sure word of God but in shifting public opinion—should be able to set forth only a meager and lowpitched system of doctrine. Or that he should sit rather loosely to what he does give us. Certainly there is observable in the teachings of such writers, and not least in Haering, a certain "elasticity," as it has been euphemistically phrased. He has his own faith-judgments; but so also have others: why should he demand exclusive recognition for his own? So, to take examples only from matters which have come before us, Haering will not "dogmatize" on the "mode" of the resurrection of Jesus; on the saving activity of the exalted Christ; on the employment of the term "divinity" with reference to Christ; on even his poverty-stricken notion of some sort of preëxistence for Christ. In his hands Christianity takes on the appearance of a highly elastic cord in rapid vibration; there may be a solid cord somewhere, but all that appears to sight is a vague and tenuous lozenge of unstable and unsubstantial material. Despite the parade of apologetical substructure a sense of unreality gradually grows upon the reader as he proceeds through the volumes, and he closes them with the feeling that he has not been given a solid system of Christian doctrine; not even a "gospel"—a body of glad-tidings—which Haering would no doubt prefer that it should be; but only a collection of the more or less plausible religious opinions of a good man conscious of lacking any firm ground for his feet.

SOME LOOSE STONES. Being a Consideration of Certain Tendencies in Modern Theology Illustrated by Reference to the Book called "Foundations."

By R. A. KNOX.

Second Impression.

London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1913.

MR. KNOX is a member of that coterie of young Oxford Fellows out of which come the "Seven Oxford Men" who wrote the Liberal Manifesto called "Foundations" (see the notice of it in this Review, xi. 1913, pp. 526–538 [or pp. 320–334 of this volume]). Not being of their way of thinking and, naturally, being aware of the approaching publication of the book, he greeted its birth with a brilliant satire, parodying Dryden's "Absalom and Achitophel," under the somewhat lurid title of "Absolute and Abitofhell." There were those who thought that if the book was to be attacked at all, it would better be seriously attacked; a proposition the universal validity of which would not have been allowed, to be sure, by John Calvin, say, or Pierre Viret—though we are not sure that Mr. Knox would care to support himself on the judgments of precisely these great men. At any rate, having enjoyed his burst of laughter, Mr. Knox has turned to earnest remonstrance and has written this volume of criticism in which he traverses the main positions taken up by the authors of "Foundations." He still, however, conceives himself to be engaged rather with the writers of "Foundations" than with their doctrines; or rather, perhaps we should say, he conceives himself to be engaged with their doctrines primarily not on their own account but as expressions of the personalities of their propounders. He insists that he is not writing a theological book: he is rather occupied, he suggests, in "a study in psychology" (p. vii.). What interests him particularly is the psychology—the "far more intricate psychology," he says, than that of "the Prophets, or of the Apostles, or of the Fathers, or of the Schoolmen"—of "the modern theologian." The most wonderful thing about our wonderful "modern theology" to Mr. Knox is, apparently, that there are people who can think that way.

Even the attitude of the Modern Theologian to his task seems to Mr. Knox an odd one. The Modern Theologian is apparently less concerned in the discovery of precisely what is true about Christianity, than in the ascertainment of how much can be made easily to pass as true among "modern men." He seems oppressed by the mass of scientific opinion around him; but what daunts him is not so much the effect of this scientific opinion on his own faith, as "its effect on the faith of other people." Therefore, there enters into all his work an apologetic tone which produces even "at times a cynical indifference to abstract truth." "For we are not concerned, now, to find how we can represent truth most adequately, but how we can represent it most palatably. We ask of a doctrine, not, 'Is it sound?,' but, 'Couldn't we possibly manage to do without it?'; not, 'Is it true?,' but, 'Can I induce Jones to see it in that light?' " (p. 9). Jones has been to College and has heard of Hegel. He is a good man: "anima naturaliter Christiana, and all that." But when it comes to Christian doctrine, Jones has difficulties. Concessions are in order: it will not do to estrange Jones's "modern mind"! Mr. Knox is outraged by such an attitude. "The great argument used now against any theological proposition," he breaks out (pp. vii. f.), "is not, that it is untrue, or unthinkable, or unedifying, or unscriptural, or unorthodox, but simply, that the modern mind cannot accept it. It is the modern mind that accepts this, and rejects that, that expresses itself in terms of A rather than in terms of B, that thinks along these lines rather than along those, that shrinks, or ratifies, or demands. And after reading a few paragraphs of such ostensibly psychological discussion, I find myself sorely tempted to exclaim, in an equally psychological spirit: 'If the modern mind has really got all these peculiar kinks about it, then, in Heaven's name, let us trepan it.' "

Even this, however, is, according to Mr. Knox, not the worst of the matter in the case of the authors of "Foundations." The Jones to whom they are so assiduous in adjusting their teaching is a "back number." "In a word, our objection is, not that Jones is unreal, or unimportant, or unrepresentative, but that he is sixty" (p. 11). It was forty years ago that Jones went to College: and the strenuous efforts which the authors of "Foundations" are making "to convert our great-uncles" must strike the really "modern mind" as a sad anachronism. The world has moved in this generation: tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. This "modern mind" to fit it into the queer corners of which the authors of "Foundations" are so busy whittling down Christianity, always an impertinence, has become fairly non-existent. Jones has receded into the background; and his grandchildren are of a very different temper. They wish no "accommodations" of doctrine made for them. "I have never met (outside of Senior Common Rooms) any demand from questioners for restatement or accommodation of my beliefs to theirs: they want rather to know what the Church does say, in order to see whether they can accommodate their beliefs to mine" (p. 13). "Against all this complicated process I am convinced that the cry of the average man is, 'Tell me what you do believe and always have believed … and then I will see about it' " (pp. 15–16). "The modern mind does not want pulp. It wants something that it can close its teeth on" (p. 18). "More dogma is wanted, pulpitfuls of it." The actual mind of the day demands not quieting compromises but clearly-cut differentiations and consequent consistency of convictions.

The fundamental difficulty of the Modern Theologian leading him to sit loosely to Christian truths lies, Mr. Knox thinks, in his method of approach to them. He approaches them by way of hypothesis instead of by way of presupposition, or a posteriori rather than a priori. Looking at them only as so many propositions proposed for consideration, and approaching them (professedly) wholly without prepossessions, he sets to work framing hypotheses, on the ground of which they may be accounted for. Obviously any number of conflicting hypotheses may be framed: there are few bodies of alleged facts which may not find some kind of explanation on any one of a score or of a hundred hypotheses. And at the last resort, there always remains the simple explanation of the amazing report brought by the child: "the little boy lied" (more or less). There is no limit to the number of hypotheses which may be suggested to account for any body of alleged facts, except the limits of the fertility of the imagination. And there are no final grounds of discrimination between the several hypotheses proposed. More than one will account for the facts on the assumption that it is true. And each man becomes enamored of his own hypothesis and twists the facts to make them accord with it. We soon find ourselves in the midst not merely of a confused mass of hypotheses but also of a confused mass of doubted facts; and we seek in vain for a firm footing. Everything, however, is different if we approach a body of truths presented for our acceptance with presuppositions rather than hypotheses in our hands. Presuppositions are solid things, on which we can take our stand. We already believe, say, in God, and in a personal God who acts purposively; and in a God of love who intervenes in a sinful and miserable world for its salvation. We bring these things with us as facts of which we are assured, not as hypotheses which we are testing; and what a different aspect is taken on by the body of Christian doctrine! Now everything is clear, and solid and sure. And the difference hangs, says Mr. Knox in effect, wholly on the difference in standpoint.

Mr. Knox, it will be seen, is an "authoritarian." And that is well. We cannot get along in this world of fact without authority. Without authority we may assure ourselves, it may be, of what must be; we cannot be assured of a single thing that merely is. And Christianity, as a historical religion, is a religion of facts and is therefore built up, in all that makes it that specific religion which we call Christianity, on authority. We may be theists without authority but not Christians. The blows which Mr. Knox strikes in the name of authority are without doubt fatal and he does especially good service when he exposes the inconsequence of the attempt to substitute religious experience for authority as the foundation of conviction. "As a matter of modernist psychology," he writes, "this appeal to experience is very interesting. The modernist will not allow himself to be regarded as in any way prejudiced in favour of one particular theological system. He therefore collects together the testimony of innumerable other people, primitive Bishops, mediæval nuns, and contemporary charcoal-burners, who were and are, beyond any shadow of dispute, prejudiced theologians—prejudiced by what they believed upon a basis of purely traditional authority. And the result of this appeal is served up as if it were the most modern of all critical investigations, an essay in psychology. But if a priori assumptions are to play no part in modern theology, spiritual experience must play no part in modern theology, for spiritual experience is based on a priori assumptions" (pp. 193–194). "The whole argument from experience," he comments, "seems to rest on the assumption that you can first make people believe, on the strength of Bible documents or inherited tradition, certain clearly defined dogmas; and then, when they have got accustomed to this way of thinking, you can come and knock away the supports on which the belief rests, Biblical or traditional, and say, 'We have now proved the truth of these doctrines, because we have reared on them so splendid an edifice of faith' " (p. 190).

Valid, however, as is Mr. Knox's appeal to authority; and sound as is his contention that authority lies at the basis of all Christian faith; it must be confessed that he gives no adequate account either of the ground or the nature of the authority to which he makes appeal. His argument thus hangs in the air, and the impression is created that the authority on which Christianity rests is accepted by its votaries by a purely arbitrary act of will. This is indeed, to all appearance, true in Mr. Knox's own case; otherwise, we surely would catch in his numerous allusions to it some hint of a rational basis of his acceptance of authority. He is, it would seem, just a "traditional" Christian and is inclined to give validity to the traditional Christianity which he accepts, chiefly one would imagine, despite his solid refutation of that ground of faith, because of the beneficent results of his acceptance of it. He would scarcely expect us to take literally "the crude metaphor" by which he attempts to illustrate his attitude to Scripture and Tradition (pp. 33–34): "You have a motor-car with two headlights, each throwing out its rays obliquely in either direction. The hedge on each side is illuminated by one lamp only, but in the centre of the road the two lights converge, and mark out a triangular area of brilliant clearness. The two lights of Scripture and Tradition (if we may pursue this crude metaphor) may be said in the same way to provide sufficient guidance for our course only where they overlap. Beyond this area, speculation is at liberty to botanize in the hedgerows." If we were really to "pursue this crude metaphor" Mr. Knox would have left himself no authority at all. If neither Scripture nor Tradition has any authority by itself—and he apparently deprives each severally of authority—they cannot have any authority when combined—on the principle at least in which Mr. Knox tells us he was brought up (p. 190), viz. that 0 + 0 yields still 0. Authority is not a thing of degrees: it is either absolute or non-existent. He must therefore look upon either Scripture or Tradition as by itself authoritative if their combination is to be authoritative. And it is quite clear that it is to Tradition, not to Scripture, that Mr. Knox really accords authority. When he says therefore, "It is only at the points where Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition combine to form a defined doctrine, that he"—he who thinks with Mr. Knox—"pretends to stand on sure ground, in virtue of a presupposition" (p. 33), we can but understand him to mean that his faith rests not on Scripture simpliciter, but on Scripture, as interpreted by Tradition—that is to say, that he finds his authority not in Scripture at all but in Tradition; in other words, that he is a traditionalist in the sense of the Church of Rome. Authority to him thus spells Tradition, and Tradition spells "Church," and "Church" spells practically Rome. Mr. Knox in a word is a High Anglican, indistinguishable in his theory of authority from the general doctrine on this subject of the Roman Church, except, perhaps, for a little drawing back when the place of the Pope in the definition of dogma comes into consideration (cf. p. 193). His pleading for a commanding place for authority in religion is largely vitiated, therefore, by the circumstance that his own view of the nature, seat, and ground of authority in religion is baseless and untenable.

This fundamental inconsequence in his own point of view does not prevent Mr. Knox, however, from exposing the inconsequences of the "Modernist" point of view, as illustrated in the authors of "Foundations," in a very trenchant manner. In successive chapters he traverses the greater number of the essays in "Foundations" and points out in them tendencies of method and treatment which annul their conclusions. He speaks himself of having dealt only very cursorily with Mr. Moberly's essay on the Atonement. But we are not sure that the strictures on this essay do not constitute the best piece of criticism in the volume. The notion that our Lord offered for us a "vicarious penitence" is very properly scored. Can there be such a thing as "vicarious penitence"? If there can be, can it take away sin? And if it can take away sin, must it not be because it, as suffering, is "actually allowed to count in the eye of divine justice as satisfaction for sins which we have committed"; and if this is so, how does it avoid the criticism that "it is immoral that the sufferings of one man should be accepted as satisfaction for the sins of another" (pp. 162–163)? The essence of the matter is touched in a passage like the following: "But this surely is clear, that if we are to hold the full traditional view of the Atonement, we must suppose that the brand left by our sins is not twofold, but threefold. They leave a mark on our own souls—true. They leave a mark on the lives of men around us—true. But over and above all this, they leave a mark in the book of life, a black mark on our records, which no human penitence can efface. There is an objective disturbance in the moral order which our sins have created, and only one thing could right it, the Sacrifice of Christ, to which we have contributed not a jot or a tittle on our own part. And there can be neither Catholicism nor Evangelicalism where the fact is not realized" (pp. 170–171). Some of the remarks on the deity of our Lord and the Incarnation are equally pungent, and that whether the attempt to substitute the category of will for that of substance in construing the one doctrine or the notion of kenosis in construing the other, is under discussion. To be "of the same mind" with one another is not to have numerically only one "mind" among us; and when two beings will the same thing it is not clear that they are therefore but one. And if anything such as the Kenotists assert happened at the Incarnation we certainly cannot say that Jesus was God, but only that He was a man who once had been God. The Virgin-birth and the Empty Tomb (though Mr. Knox stumbles sadly with reference to our Lord's resurrection-body) and the Ascension are all dealt with in adequate fashion. Mr. Knox is willing even to become aggressive here. "Mr. Streeter says he knows of no living theologian who would maintain a physical Ascension in this crude form. I have no claim to be a theologian. I can only say that as a person of ordinary education I believe, as I hope for salvation, in this literal doctrine; I believe, that whatever change may have glorified the Risen Body when it passed beyond the cloud into a new mode or sphere of existence, the earth has ever since the Ascension been the lighter by so many pounds' weight, and the sum of matter in the world the less by so many cubic inches of volume" (p. 85). Such "materialism" may shock some ears: but the issue ultimately comes to just that.

There are, of course, other passages with which we feel less satisfaction. We do not quite go with Mr. Knox in his dealing with miracles; especially in his inability to separate between Biblical and Ecclesiastical Miracles. We certainly do not go with him in his treatment of Scripture: especially in his discussion of the eschatological utterances of our Lord. His Romeward tendencies—which are numerous and decisive—are an offense to us. His obsession of "freedom" is equally regrettable. Even here, however, he shows his characteristic courage and in the interests of "free-will" cheerfully denies that we have any solid ground for anticipating the conversion of the world. Enough: there is much in Mr. Knox's book which is crude and unconsidered. But this cannot destroy its general value as an exposure of the weaknesses of "modernism"; and it is in this that its significance lies. It is an earnest and successful plea to reasonable men to draw back from these shifting shoals where "we have to be reassured by a yearly statement from Dr. Sanday, comparable to the weather report, as to 'what we may still believe' " (p. 35), and to plant our feet firmly on the rock. The fine air of conviction which suffuses it, and the brightness of the style, should give the book a wide circulation and, we trust, will give it, in its main message, large acceptance.

DIE BEICHT IM ZUSAMMENHANGE MIT DER SAKRALEN RECHTSPFLEGE IN DER ANTIKE.

Von FRANZ STEINLEITNER, Dr. phil.

Leipzig: Kommissionsverlag der Dieterich'schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, Theodor Weicher. 1913.

"THE following essay," says the author, "moves in the frontier region between philosophy and theology, in the field of the history of religion."

Hermann Usener and his school have led the way to the study of the problems in the history of religion presented by that period "when young Christianity entered upon its victorious course in the slippery field of the religious syncretism and theocracy of vanishing antiquity, and introduced into the history of mankind a completely new epoch of its spiritual life" (p. 5). Franz Cumont in his great Mithras-works and, after him, Hugo Hepding in his studies on the Attis-worship, have shown us how to illuminate dark subjects by collecting the scattered material from every quarter and subjecting it as a whole to intelligent scrutiny. The road having been opened by such competent hands, it has been diligently walked in; investigation into "the chaos of ideas and religious usages of that period of strong religious agitation" has been pushed steadily on. We need recall but such leading names as A. Dieterich, Anrich, Reitzenstein, Wendland, and the essays published in the "Archiv für Religions-wissenschaft," in the "Religionsgeschichtlichen Versuche und Vorarbeiten," and, in part, in the Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristentums. As a result we understand as never before the vital contact in which the world of antiquity, which was passing away, and the rising world of Christianity stood with one another; how "the two worlds, however inimicably they envisaged one another and bitterly struggled with one another, were nevertheless inseparably bound together"; how "the Christian spirit, liberated from Judaism, formed a new body for itself out of the members of dying antiquity, and thus the spirit of Greece and the religiousness of the Orient, stamping themselves on Christian ideas and usages, won new life for themselves and lived in Christian clothing" (p. 5).

When we remember, however, that the earliest Christianity gained its adherents largely from the lower classes, and afterwards established itself preëminently in the region in which the old popular religions most flourished, it will be perceived that in the investigation of the process of the Hellenization of Christianity, the study of the popular religions can least of all be neglected. "Along with the popular religion of Greece, whose usages were concentrated in the Mysteries, the Oriental religions come into consideration, and not least among them the Phrygian worship, which was spread throughout the whole of Asia Minor, and whose inscribed and sculptured monuments are found scattered over the whole of the Roman Empire" (p. 6). In these circumstances it has seemed to the author eminently worth while to attempt to gain a better knowledge of the popular religious ideas and usages of the Phrygian and Lydian cults. As a contribution to that end, he has selected a particular element in their religious usages for investigation, the institution of Confession. "Whether and how far this sacrament of the Church is to be considered an inheritance from old Oriental piety and beliefs may be left meanwhile out of consideration. The fact is that this cult-institution existed in the Oriental religions which strove with Christianity for the dominion of the world, and everywhere in the Roman Empire set themselves in the longest and most lasting opposition to its victory" (p. 6).

The material for his investigation Dr. Steinleitner finds in a considerable body of Lydian and Phrygian inscriptions of the class commonly called Votive or Expiatory Inscriptions, coming from the second and third Christian centuries, supplemented by some inscriptions from Knidos of the first or second century before Christ, and a few literary notices. This material he gathers together from all sources, reprints, and reëdits with an adequate commentary. This constitutes the first part of his work (pp. 7–74). The second part (pp. 75–123) is an essay, founded on this collected material, on "Confession in Antiquity." This essay really constitutes a very interesting exposition of the theology of the inscriptions and gives us a valuable insight into the religious ideas which ruled the minds of the people of Asia Minor near the opening of the Christian era. The first chapter treats of "the relation of man to deity in the Lydian-Phrygian religion"; the second of "sin and punishment according to the Lydian and Phrygian Expiatory-Inscriptions"; the third of "religious administration of justice in Lydia and Karia"; the fourth of "Confession in the cults of Asia Minor"; while the fifth adds a section on "a confession in the mysteries of Samothrace and the Isis-worship."

When Dr. Steinleitner comes to sum up at the end (pp. 121 ff.) the results of his discussion, he naturally lays his stress on the chief object which he had in view, namely, the establishment of the existence of a regular institution of Confession in the primitive religion of Lydia and Phrygia, "in which the sinner confessed his sin before the priest as the representative of the deity in order to propitiate the deity and thus to become free from sickness and want, the consequences of the sin." Other elements of the old religion, however, interest us more: most of all its conception of deity as both all-powerful and as intimately concerned with human life in all its manifestations. "If we sum up briefly what has been said," remarks Dr. Steinleitner at the end of the discussion of this matter, "the religion and life of the Lydian and Phrygian people in its lower strata appears as dominated by the belief that the deity is the absolute lord and owner of his worshiper, but no ruthless tyrant, like, say Baal in the Syrophoenician religion, but certainly the τύραννος or κύριος and yet also the greatest benefactor and the righteous judge, from whose hand the believer receives blessing and calamity as a child receives its mother's caresses and its father's chastisements" (pp. 81–82). Dr. Steinleitner seems to consider this conception of deity one-sided in its emphasis on the power and all-pervading activity of God. It seems to us a conception which does great credit to its sharers.

One of the results of it was to develop a series of epithets for the deity which expressed its power and rulership, and among these epithets κύριος was prominent. "The title κύριος, which meets us in this inscription," says Dr. Steinleitner on one occasion (p. 60), "is a divine predicate, conceived in a genuinely Oriental fashion and thoroughly intelligible in the Eastern world, that occurs in Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, and that found also its way into the religious language of Christianity." Christianity did not derive its employment of κύριος as an epithet of God—or as a standing designation of Christ—from the folk-religions of the Orient: it is well to know, however, that the heathen converts to Christianity could find no difficulty in catching the high implications of the term as used by Christians.

Another result of this conception of God was the highly super-naturalistic coloring given by it to the whole view of life. "A further characteristic of the Lydian-Phrygian religiousness and of its view of the relation between God and man," writes Dr. Steinleitner (pp. 80–81)," is the belief in epiphanies of the deity in which the deity reveals its might suddenly and unexpectedly to believers, a belief shared, no doubt, with the Lydians and Phrygians by other stocks of Asia Minor. The notion of the epiphany of a god or demonic being is primitive Greek, and was possessed also by other peoples. But between the idea and significance of the ἐπιφάνεια of the deity or of a demon in the popular belief of the Greeks and divine appearances in the belief and conception of the peoples of Asia Minor and the Orient, this difference exists—that the appearance of the deity for the pious Oriental on the ground of his belief in an absolute dependence on the deity, extending to all situations in life, and of its constant care for the health of his soul, which shows itself in atonements, expiations and all kinds of asceticism, means not only a beneficent intrusion into the life of the individual or the establishment of a community, but also an experience of religion, in the mystical sense, in which he lives and moves." Dr. Steinleitner wishes, it is true, very illegitimately to apply this point of view at once to the conversion of Paul in a naturalistic psychological explanation of the supernatural features of the narrative. Paul was anything but a cold casuist, like his Pharasaic companions; his religiously readily excitable character, his inward faith, his vital mysticism can at bottom find its roots only in the Anatolian inheritance of the former tent-weaver of Tarsus. We must consider also the whole mystical nature of the Apostle: he experienced other ecstatic conditions and could relate "visions and revelations of the Lord." "Out of these psychological and religious foundations, which Paul had brought with him from his Anatolian home with its old traditions of visible epiphanies of the deity, and its ever new experience of the δυνάμεις of gods and demons in ecstasies and visions, we may perhaps explain his experience of Christ before Damascus as an ecstatic, visionary occurrence" (p. 81, note 2). But even such a bizarre use of it as this does not destroy the value to the student of the New Testament of the fact here made evident that "ἐπιφάνεια is in this religious language the terminus technicus for a sudden and unexpected appearance of the deity, in order to help its worshipers in time of need and misfortune" (p. 19). When Paul speaks of the glorious epiphany of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, he was using language which had a perfectly determinate meaning for his readers.

It is perhaps natural that in inscriptions of this kind the only sins which are mentioned are breaches of the rules of the cult, by which breaches the deity is supposed to be offended, and it may not be quite justified to infer from this fact that the Lydian-Phrygians had no consciousness of distinctly ethical faults as sin. There is a tendency apparent to extend the responsibility for acts of sin beyond the individual who actually commits them to his group; and there is an instance of vicarious satisfaction for a fault—a brother undertaking the task for a sister. There is even an instance in which the sin appears to be carried back of the sinful act to the sinful wish. On the whole, however, we get little help to the understanding of New Testament language from this section. We note only that the word for sinning is ἁμαρτάνω (ἁμαρτία occurs, but not frequently). We lay no stress on the mention of an "unpardonable sin." And we do not find ourselves particularly interested in the treatment of sickness (ἀσθένεια) as the punishment of sin, or of the use of κολάζειν and κόλασις with apparent preference for the notion of punishment.

The most valuable contribution which these inscriptions make to the interpretation of the New Testament is due to the appearance in one of them—perhaps in two others—of the term λύτρον, to express the means by which immunity from the consequences of a fault was secured from the deity. For naturally the confession of the fault to the priest did not complete the making of satisfaction for it. The climax and completion of the expiatory process was formed rather by the erection of a tablet on which the sin and its punishments with the name of the sinner were notified, and that by requirement of the god. The ordinary expression for this command to make expiation in the Lydian inscriptions is ἐπιζητεῖν, although sometimes ἀπαιτεῖν also occurs. In the case of the particular inscription which we have mentioned, however, we read λύτρον κατʼ ἐπιταγὴν Μηνὶ Τυράννῳ καὶ Διὶ Ὀγμηνῷ καὶ τοῖς σὺν αὐτῷ θεοῖς. The interpreters have puzzled themselves over this λύτρον. Sir William Ramsay and Perdrizet take it in the sense of εὐχή; Buresch leaves to it its sense of "ransom" but scarcely knows what then to do with the inscription. Steinleitner with too great deference to A. Deissmann, as we think, starts with the idea of the price of emancipation for a slave, and thinks that we must assume that a man was supposed to come into bondage to the deity by sin and required to be ransomed out by this expiatory offering. We see no reason why we should travel so roundabout a pathway to so simple a conclusion. The λύτρον simply indicates the expiatory tablet as the price paid to the god for immunity for the fault committed. And thus we have before us a special use of λύτρον, parallel to the special use of it which Deissmann has so fully illustrated as the emancipation-price of slaves, in which it is used as the immunity-price of faults in the service of deity. The point of interest is that we have here a usage of λύτρον very closely akin to the sense in which it and its derivatives are employed in the New Testament—in our Lord's great saying in Mark 10:45, Matt. 20:28, for example, and in the apostolic doctrine of "Redemption." When we read for example in Heb. 9:15 of a "ransoming of trangressions" we are moving in the same circle of ideas as when we read in this inscription: "Artemidorus the son of Diodotus and Amia, together with his six kinsmen, knowing and unknowing, a ransom according to command, to Mēn Tyrannus and Zeus Ogmenus and the gods with him" (p. 36). This is "a ransom of sin": it is a price paid (though not of silver or gold) by means of which is obtained "the remission of sin" (Eph. 1:7, Col. 1:14).

DICTIONARY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, D.D.

Vol. I: Aaron—Lystra. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons;

Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1916.

WITH this "Dictionary of the Apostolic Church" presumably the series of Biblical Encyclopædias which was begun by Dr. Hastings' "Dictionary of the Bible" will be brought to completion. The first volume of the "Dictionary of the Bible" was issued in 1898; the last volume of this "Dictionary of the Apostolic Church," the first of which is now before us, will scarcely be issued much before the middle of 1917. Twenty years, or thereabouts, will have been consumed, therefore, in the preparation and publication of the series. The intermediately published "Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels" was supposed to have been keyed to a little more popular note than the general "Dictionary of the Bible." It apparently was therefore found by a larger public of more practical value; and a call was made for another work which should do for the rest of the New Testament what that Dictionary had done for the Gospels. The present work is the answer to this call. It should be noted, however, that it is not precisely a Dictionary of the rest of the New Testament. There are circles in which the New Testament is losing its uniqueness, and the editors of this Dictionary live within those circles. They think in terms not of the delivery of the revelation of God, and its assimilation, but of periods of the developing Church. They present us with a Dictionary, therefore, not of the Apostolicum, as the ancients would have called it, dividing the New Testament into "the Gospels and the Apostles," but of "the history of the Church as far as the end of the first century." Here the Epistles of Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Ignatius, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache—although it is not pretended that all of these fall within the first century—are set ostentatiously by the side of the Epistles of Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse of John; the Apocryphal Gospels and Acts and Apocalypses are added; and we are invited to contemplate the first Christian century in the total mass of the literature to which it gave birth. This has hardly been done in the practical interests of ministers of the Word, requiring help in preparation for their ministrations in the sanctuary.

As is his wont, Dr. Hastings has gathered to his aid in the preparation of this Dictionary a large company of competent scholars. About a hundred writers take part in it. Among them there are seven Continental scholars (P. Batiffol, E. von Dobschütz, H. Jordan, O. E. Moe, A. von Schlatter, A. Thumb, J. de Zwaan)—four of whom, it will be observed, are Germans: these contribute in all thirteen articles, none of which, however, except Schlatter's stimulating article on the Holy Spirit, lies at the center of things. Besides five scholars who reside in Canada, eight of the writers are Americans. These are C. A. Beckwith, S. J. Case, J. A. Faulkner, S. Mathews, A. T. Robertson, G. L. Robinson, A. C. Zenos—and our own Dr. Vos, who contributes the articles on Brotherly Love, Goodness, Joy, Kindness, Longsuffering, Love. The American writers contribute some twenty-six articles in all, but again none of these lies at the center of things. Dr. A. T. Robertson might have made his articles on such topics as Bond, Debt, Deliverer, Destruction important, but he has chosen rather to work formally and briefly.

There are naturally included in the scope of this Dictionary general articles on the several books of the New Testament, from Acts to Revelation. A general article on "Gospels" has been added, supplemented by isagogical material in the article on Luke (the person). These, along with such ancillary material as that supplied by such articles as those on Epistle, Letter, Dates, provide a tolerably complete Introduction to the New Testament Books. The general tone of this Introduction is sufficiently "Liberal," although many "Conservative" opinons are mixed in. Take the question of the dates of the Synoptic Gospels, for instance. W. C. Allen, who writes the article "Gospels," is inclined to very early dates—Mark in the neighborhood of 45, Matthew about 50, and Luke between 47 and 60. Similarly A. C. Zenos seems not disinclined to assign Mark to about 60, Luke to about 61, and Matthew to about 68. Even Kirsopp Lake (p. 20) does not seem quite sure that Luke was written later than 70, and this would carry with it an earlier date for at least Mark. The Book of Acts, Lake would still date in the decennium 90–100; he speaks of Harnack's argument for its early date as one-sided and expects a reaction from it; and he is still inclined to represent Acts as dependent on Josephus (pp. 20, 721). With respect to this last point it is a satisfaction to be able to point to the excellent article on Josephus, by E. von Dobschütz, whose solid refutation of the dependence in question reads almost as if it had been written with direct reference to Lake's argument for its likelihood. We note in passing that von Dobschütz opposes the recent tendency to pronounce the famous passages in Josephus which mention Christ to be genuine.

When we turn to the theological side of the Dictionary our attention is naturally attracted first to the great articles on God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The article on God is written by Dr. A. J. Maclean, a Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church, to whom we owe quite a number of other theological articles. It is conceived in excellent spirit and is written with clearness and force. It is valuable in this Dictionary, among other things, for its correction of many details in the article on "Christ, Christology," where that article shows overdeference to modern "critical opinions." For, as is natural, its strength is given to the doctrine of the Trinity and that involves discussion of, say, the deity of Christ and the passages in which it is expressed. Perhaps we should say that there is a slight uncertainty of touch exhibited here and there, as, for example, with reference to the idea of "Subordination," which is too easily accepted from the language of the traditional formularies and not independently grappled with. It is odd that the appended "Literature" does not mention a single work on the specific subject of the article, that is, the apostolic doctrine of God. We could wish that the purely empirical fact that the term "God" appears in the pages of some of the Epistles of the New Testament as the personal name of the Father, in contrast to "Lord" and "Spirit" as the personal names of the other persons of the Trinity, had been expressed in some other way than in the sentence: "It must be borne in mind that, when the name 'God' is used absolutely, without pronoun or epithet, it is never, with one possible exception, applied explicitly to the Son as such or to the Spirit as such" (p. 460). A careless reader may easily take out of this sentence more than the facts stated in it warrant.

The article on the Holy Spirit is written by Prof. A. Schlatter, who employs in it a reconstructive method of expounding the apostle's doctrine. This inevitably introduces a speculative element into the exposition, which makes it very stimulating but does not always command assent. The presuppositions of Schlatter intrude and it becomes the task of the reader to untangle the two threads of the Biblical teaching and the theologian's own thought. As is Schlatter's habit, he says many very searching things in the progress of his exposition, and numerous detached passages may be cited from the article in which important truths are given exceptionally exact and pungent statement. The paragraph on the effect of the operation of the Spirit on the body (p. 576) is an instance in point—but it is too long to quote here. Take instead this brief statement of the Spirit's action in saving men—which constitutes an excellent description of what the old theologians call "Effectual Calling": "The Spirit gives man the power of choice, makes his volition effective, and induces him to bring his will into subjection to the Divine Law" (p. 575). Or take this pregnant criticism on Perfectionism: "As the perfectionist finds complete satisfaction in the communion with God bestowed upon him by the Spirit, his hope for the future dies away (1 Cor. 15:12, 2 Tim. 2:18); for naturally such a religious attitude could have no final ideal standing supreme above present attainment. It thus tended to arrest that forward process into which Saint Paul had brought his churches (Phil. 3)" (p. 581).

We regret that we cannot speak with satisfaction of Prof. C. Anderson Scott's article on "Christ, Christology" (twenty-two pages)—which should be the central article of the volume. Dr. Scott's critical harness clanks about him dreadfully as he moves, and he does grave injustice to the writers he is expounding by what seems to be sheer inability to enter sympathetically into their thought. The result is that he forces them not only into inconsistency with one another but also into inconsistency with themselves; and, having wrought his will upon it, holds their thought up before us in shreds. Paul, according to him (p. 195), "held with equal conviction and emphasis two propositions which seem contradictory: 'There is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all'; and 'Christ is God for me.' " He adds: "perhaps they find their synthesis in that saying which is at once the simplest and profoundest account of the whole matter: 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' (2 Cor. 5:19)"—which involves, of course, a wrong understanding of 2 Cor. 5:19, as of much else besides. And this is what he says of John: "It is in this document where the human nature of the Son and His dependence on the Father are asserted with the strongest emphasis that His Divinity is for the first time expressly acknowledged (1:1; 20:28). If John thus leaves an unsolved problem for posterity to attack it is better to recognize that it is so" (p. 199). But, that Johannes Weiss says so, is really no good reason for asserting that John left an unsolved problem for posterity to attack. Why should we deny to the apostolic writers the synthesis which is essential to give the harmony to their thought in which it evidently serenely moved, merely because our own halting minds, poisoned with carping criticisms, the very reason of existence for which is to break in upon their serene harmony, fail to see it with their clarity of vision?

Dr. Scott tells us, it is true, that "St. Paul had no doctrine of the Trinity." But he tells us this only because he is endeavoring at the moment to show that Paul had no doctrine of a hypostatically distinct Spirit. Paul, according to him, identified Christ and the Spirit, and "the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, was for him (apart from the identification with the Risen Christ) the energy of the Divine nature" (p. 189). We congratulate the readers of this Dictionary that they only have to turn over to Schlatter's article on the Holy Spirit to learn better (p. 574b: "3. The Spirit sent by Christ"), and have only to turn to Allen's remarks on the Trinitarian formula in Matt. 28:19 (p. 475a) to be set right on the main matter. We revert for a moment, however, to the citations we have just made from Dr. Scott. He declares that "the divinity of Christ is for the first time expressly acknowledged" by John, and yet he declares that Paul held with complete conviction and asserted with emphasis, "Christ is God for me." The saving clause to enable Dr. Scott to make a synthesis of his own words lies of course in the words "for me." Paul was convinced, it seems, that Christ was God "for him," but not that He was God for other people. This subjectivizing of Paul's assertions about Christ is thoroughly unjustifiable. Paul does not tell us what Christ was "for him"; he tells us what in his view Christ was. Dr. Scott tells us, it is true, with the emphasis of formal announcement: "St. Paul never gives to Christ the name or description of 'God' " (p. 194). But he tells us this again only because he cannot see that such a statement could be made consistent with Paul's monotheism, although at the end, we have seen, he has to admit that Paul did hold in conjunction his monotheism and the conviction that Christ was God—"for him." In point of fact, however, Paul does give to Christ both the name and the description of God. He gives Him the name of God for example in Rom. 9:5, and not the bare name of "God" merely, but the description of "God over all"; he gives Him the name of God in Titus 2:13, and again not merely the name of "God" but the description of "our great God and Saviour." He describes Him as God in Acts 20:28, in Phil. 2:8 ff., and in Col. 2:13 ff., and in numerous places besides. No doubt Dr. Scott has his own way of explaining away all such descriptions. But this is to be set to the charge of his exegesis: they cannot be explained away. If we are to be permitted to put an artificial meaning on every statement which is inconsistent with a generalization which we wish to foist upon an author, no author's meaning is safe and it becomes a folly to write.

The quality of Dr. Scott's exegesis may be gauged by observing the curious interpretation which he gives of Rom. 1:4. He represents Paul as teaching here that as born of the seed of David Jesus had been "Χριστὸς κατὰ σάρκα and υἱὸς θεοῦ in the Messianic sense"; "but after and in consequence of the Resurrection, He has entered upon the status of Son of God in an exalted form, set free from 'the likeness of (weak and) sinful flesh' " (p. 189). This should mean, ex vi verborum, that to Paul Christ while on earth was but "the fleshly Christ" and only became the spiritual Son of God after and in consequence of the Resurrection. The passage certainly does not mean this; and no doubt this is something more than Dr. Scott would have it mean. Where, however, does Paul speak of Jesus being or being conceived as Χριστὸς κατὰ σάρκα? Not at Rom. 9:5 or 2 Cor. 5:16 where alone the terms are brought together. It is safe to say that it would have been simply impossible for Paul to speak of Jesus as Χριστὸς κατὰς σάρκα. And where does Paul suggest that Christ in His exaltation has been set free from "the likeness of sinful flesh"? That would be to teach that Christ was incarnate only upon earth and ceased to be incarnate in His exaltation. When he comes formally to expound Rom. 8:3, Dr. Scott discards the translation "sinful flesh" in favor of "sin's flesh"; that is, if we understand him, he wishes to take the genitive as genitive of possession rather than of characterizing quality. He explains that this "flesh" is not conceived by Paul as originally or inherently sinful—as Jülicher, for example, will have it, saying "there never was any other kind"—but has become so "historically and experimentally" (p. 192). This is well, so far as it goes: but the point is that "flesh" has thus, according to Dr. Scott, become "an appanage of sin" in all its manifestations. Now Christ took this flesh, flesh as the possession of sin. "The σάρξ which He assumed was truly human flesh; it was, for such it had come to be historically, 'sin's flesh'—flesh that was in the grasp of sin" (p. 193). In being made in the likeness of sin's flesh, therefore, Christ took flesh that was in the grasp of sin, flesh "as it was conditioned by sin, tyrannized and enslaved by it." This would seem to be inconsistent with the term "likeness" here, and flat in the face of such a phrase as meets us, say, in 2 Cor. 5:21. But Dr. Scott does not mean to say that Paul teaches that the flesh which Christ took was actually sinful. He supposes that he meets the difficulty by saying: "He 'knew no sin' (2 Cor. 5:21), and yet in His case the σάρξ was the medium of sin's assault upon Him." Obviously the conclusion does not match the premises. And what is the use of erecting a problem to be solved in this way?

The difficulty of stating statistical facts with exactness and without misleading implications is proverbial. Dr. Scott does not escape scatheless. He makes these statements with respect to what he, not altogether exactly, speaks of as Luke's use of Χριστός in the early chapters of Acts, with a view to illustrating the writer's constant consciousness of its official sense. "He never employs it," he says, "as a proper name. His name for our Saviour is either 'Jesus' or 'the Lord'; and Χριστός when it stands alone always means 'Messiah.' This is specially significant in passages where 'Christ' and 'Jesus' occur together, in apposition; e.g. 3:20, 'that He may send the Messiah who has been before appointed—Jesus'; 5:42, 17:3, 18:5, 18:28, 'showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah' " (p. 178). He speaks of these three facts as "completely attesting" the primary fact asserted, namely, that Luke always uses Χριστός with its official sense in mind. But we observe at once that the first of the three statements is inexact. To make it exact, the qualifying clause employed in later statements must be inserted. It is true only that Χριστός "when it stands alone" does not occur as a proper name. It does occur as a proper name in conjunction with other designations: "Jesus Christ" (8:12, 9:34, 10:36, 48), "Jesus Christ, the Nazarene (3:6, 4:10), "the Lord Jesus Christ" (11:17), "our Lord Jesus Christ" (15:26). And its occurrence as a proper name in these compounds renders the inexact statement misleading. They show that "Christ" has so fully taken the place of a proper name in the consciousness of the community that even such compounds could be formed. Dr. Scott's second statement thus becomes also inexact and misleading. It is true that "Lord" is the ruling designation of Jesus in Acts; "Jesus" on the other hand is comparatively sparingly employed, and only in particular circumstances which rendered it peculiarly natural to employ it: it occurs sometimes in conjunction with not only "Lord" ("the Lord Jesus") but "Christ" itself ("Jesus Christ") or both ("the Lord Jesus Christ"). It is no doubt a tardy remembrance of the use of "Jesus" along with "Christ" which compels the qualified form of the assertion in the second half of this second statement: "and Χριστός when it stands alone always means Messiah." It only rarely, however, stands alone; and when it does so, it is chiefly in such statements as "showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ"—which are scarcely ad rem. Even the last of the three statements thus becomes misleading. Some of the passages cited in it are not from the first part of Acts. Only those passages are adduced in which the order is "Christ Jesus" (17:3 certainly belongs in any event to a different category), not those in which the order is "Jesus Christ." And the possibility that "Christ Jesus" in 3:20 and 5:42 as well as in 24:24 (the omission of which from Dr. Scott's list seems to show that he does not consider it to the point) may be a proper name, as it frequently is in the Epistles, is not allowed for. The statistics of the occurrence of Κύριος in I and II Thessalonians, p. 187b, are marred by the same kind of inexactness of statement. Decidedly, the reader would do well to scrutinize these statistical statements before drawing inferences from them in support of propositions.

If we do not like Dr. Scott's article on "Christ, Christology," we like Dr. A. S. Martin's articles on "Grace" and "Justification" even less. It would probably have been impossible to discover a person more unfitted to deal with these subjects sympathetically. The treatment of Grace is vitiated from the beginning by the determination of the writer to set man over against God as His fellow, not to say—as a personal spirit like Him—His equal. Coöperation becomes thus the formula for the relation of the two, and a cooperation which ever tends to a certain equalization. Grace is not merely given; it is taken. God and man work together to all effects, God's willingness to help being matched by man's willingness to be helped. It is a case of mutual love, the love of God to man meeting the love of man to God, and the conjunction of the two issuing in a common effect. Accordingly there is nothing "infallible" or "irresistible" in grace: it is merely God's side of a mutual activity—which is barren, and to say the truth, not even instituted, until and unless man's side is in evidence also. All this is, of course, quite un-Biblical. When Paul declares, for example, on the one side, that man is carnal, sold under sin, and on the other, that sin shall not rule over those who are not under law but under grace, he certainly allows for the voluntary activities of men, but as certainly he presents the grace that comes to them gratuitously as both "infallible" and "irresistible." "Sin shall not rule over you"; it is a definite promise of what shall be. "For ye are under grace": the reason is defined; grace is a power which irresistibly brings the result. What Martin has done is to transform the almighty power of God which creatively works its effect into a mere influx of immanently acting influence, which in concourse with the human soul, as a second cause, makes towards an end. The article "Grace," in these circumstances, becomes not one on Grace itself, that is, the divine activities in saving the soul, but on "the grace-filled life," that is, the growth of the human soul under the divine influences. Everything is subjectivized—translated into terms of human action. This is sometimes nothing less than absurd. Take this definition of Election: "Election expresses the soul's experience and certainty of saving grace" (p. 510). Or this definition of Grace itself: "Grace is a sense of God's favor."

We are not sure that it is possible—we are sure that it is very difficult—to obtain from Martin's discussion of Justification any clear conception of how he really thinks it is accomplished. Take the section, for example, in which he sums up what he conceives to be meant by "the new righteousness" in Paul's teaching—that is to say, in his own. We are told (p. 671) that we cannot "stand before God's righteousness" on the basis of a self-righteousness which is the righteousness of the Law. Then we are told that "there is another righteousness, never lost sight of under the old Law, which has now appeared in Jesus Christ" and is "by Him made ours." But we seek in vain to learn what this "other righteousness" is, or how it is made ours by Christ. We are told that it is "presented in Christ"; that "it awakes in the sinner penitence and faith—a love of Christ's holiness, a hatred of his own sinfulness"; and that it does this "by God's grace." We are told that the very thing provided in it is a provision "to bridge the chasm between God and sin." But we are not told what it is. And when an effort is made to point out how it "bridges the chasm between God and sin" it is in this, if not confused, certainly confusing sentence: "In Christ God gives His own righteousness, which is the end and meaning of all faith." What is "the end and meaning of all faith"? God's own righteousness? Or the gift of God's own righteousness in Christ? And what is this righteousness of God's own, which He gives in Christ, and which, or the gift of which, is the end and meaning of all faith? Until we know that we are told nothing and we are not in the least told that. We are only told that "he who receives it"—whatever this mysterious "it" is—"in initio receives it virtually in extenso; such is the mode of God's gift of it."

This sounds so good that we are the more anxious to know what "it" is. And fortunately we strike now a stream of lucid writing, which, however, does not obviously relate itself to what has been said before. "The condition of possible or future righteousness," we read, "is the right attitude or intention of mind towards the actual present righteousness. It is possible to justify or accept as right only that attitude which at the time is the nearest right possible for the person. In the initial moment of contrition, the only possible and right posture of the sinner is that consciousness of himself which could not be the beginning of his hatred of sin if it were not to the same extent the beginning of a love of holiness. Where this exists in love and sincerity, even though it be but the beginning of an infinite process, it is possible and right to accept and treat as right that which as yet is only a first turning to and direction towards right (cf. 1 John 1:8–10)." This is an admirably clear statement of the doctrine, not indeed of Paul, but of current modern Pelagianism, which bases God's acceptance of the sinner on the sinner's own righteous conduct, but (here is where it differs from fifth century Pelagianism), in concession to the imperfection of the sinner's righteousness, supposes that God accepts the will for the deed, takes the beginnings in anticipation of the completion, is willing, in other words, to accept the sinner's note of hand in lieu of the cash down, as the purchase price of His favor. But that "other righteousness" presented in Christ, described as "God's own righteousness given in Christ," "which is the end and meaning of all faith"—what has it to do with this Pelagian scheme? God demands from man a righteousness of his own, and graciously accepts its first motions as if the completion were already present—that is all we have here.

Martin does make some effort to institute a connection between our righteousness and Christ. But it seems lame and ineffective. He proceeds (p. 671): "Thus the righteousness of faith"—we have not heard before of any "righteousness of faith" but our righteousness is suddenly called by this name—"thus the righteousness of faith begins with our sense of sin and experience of impotence, and God's loving acceptance of this repentance in us is the condition, starting-point, and earnest of a righteousness in us which is maintained and increased through Christ's,"—it is the possessive case and hence means "Christ's righteousness"—"in whom we see revealed all the presence and power of God in us, and in consequence all the power in ourselves necessary to its actual attainment and possession." We can attach no other meaning to this sentence except this: that we begin our own righteousness with a sense of sin and experience of impotence; that God lovingly accepts this repentance as the condition, starting-point, and earnest of a righteousness of our own ("in us"); that we then see all the presence and power of God "in us"—that "in us" is very disturbing!—revealed in Christ, which apparently means that we see already manifested in Christ all that we hope to be, that complete righteousness of which we as yet have only the beginnings; that this is equivalent in some way unexplained ("consequently") to seeing in Him "all the power in ourselves necessary to its actual possession"—"its" being apparently the complete righteousness already manifested in Christ and begun in us; and finally, that this sight of these revelations in Him "maintains and increases our faith." This seems to mean nothing more than that the righteousness which we begin in ourselves and which is accepted by God as the promise and potency of a completed righteousness yet to come, is maintained and increased by the inspiration of Christ's example: we see in Him what we fain would be, and that inspires us to become it. Accordingly Martin continues: "Faith in Christ as our righteousness can justify us because it is based on the one condition in ourselves of becoming righteous—a loyal disposition—and the one power without ourselves to make us righteous—the righteousness of God." We do not profess to understand that sentence; but it seems to be explicated by the next one which runs: "The grace of God in Christ makes the sinner righteous, by enabling him to make himself righteous. It starts the process by regarding and treating as righteous the penitent believer." Thus, out of all the confusion, we get—mere Pelagianism. And this is represented as the doctrine of Paul!

No doubt Martin would not confess himself a Pelagian. And it is very true that he frequently makes use of expressions which are inconsistent with the complete Pelagianism of this reasoned statement of doctrine. The main point to insist on, therefore, is his lack of clarity. And perhaps it is well to note that he is not very exact in his history of doctrine. At one point in the article on Grace (p. 512), he undertakes to discriminate Pelagianism, Augustinianism, and Semi-Pelagianism. He does it thus: "In the Pelagian view, grace precedes and assists the natural (unregenerate) will; in the Augustinian, grace prepares and assists the regenerate will; in the Semi-Pelagian, grace is not operative at all till man's will (indifferent) brings it into play." Did anyone ever hear such confusion? We are tempted to conjecture that the terms Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian have accidently got interchanged. But that correction will not cure all the faults of the statement. It is hopelessly incompetent.

That we should meet with this bald Pelagianism here should not in the least surprise us. Pelagianism is the anthropological aspect of that "reduced Christianity" which calls itself "modern Liberalism." It is, therefore, very much in evidence in this Dictionary which is tinctured everywhere with this "Liberalism." We open it, for example, at the article "Hardening." This is written by Prof. James Strahan. We find him struggling unsuccessfully with the ascription of "hardening" to God. The reason is simply that he does not believe in a "Fall." He does not recognize that man stands before God as a guilty creature, who already deserves all the punishment which may befall him. He quotes Hermann Schultz as saying, "Nor does any one doubt that it is an effect intended by God, when, at a certain stage in sin, His revelation makes the heart harder" (p. 522)—and in quoting this saying approvingly he undermines his whole labored argument (and Schultz's as well)—if indeed man be a sinner. Every man is always, the Scriptures being witness, at that stage of sin that any manifestation of God makes his heart harder; and it requires a creative operation by the Spirit of God to beget in him a new life. Dr. Strahan is a professor in the M'Crea-Magee Presbyterian College, Londonderry, Ireland; and Dr. Martin is a minister of the Church of Scotland and was formerly an examiner in Divinity in Edinburgh University. We have sometimes fancied that it is the men of these better traditions who have fallen most hopelessly under the newer "reduced" influences. We were glad, accordingly, to see that the article on the Freedom of the Will has been committed to a good Wesleyan, Prof. W. F. Lofthouse. When we read it, we were gladder still. We may not agree with everything Prof. Lofthouse says: but there is nothing shallow here. The article is written not only with solid learning but with true insight, and at least touches the full truth. Prof. Lofthouse knows not only his own philosophy but his Paul. His article is like an oasis in a dry land.

DICTIONARY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, D.D.

Vol. II: Macedonia—Zion, with Indexes.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1918.

THIS concluding volume of Dr. Hastings' "Dictionary of the Apostolic Church" is the product of the labors of about a hundred scholars. Five of these are from the Continent, and a dozen are Americans. The material contributed by the Continental scholars is not large in amount nor of the first importance. P. Batiffol writes on Polycarp; E. von Dobschütz on Philo; H. Jordan on Writing; O. E. Moe on Moses; A. von Schlatter on Paraclete. The American writers are C. A. Beckwith, S. J. Case, J. A. Faulkner, W. M. Groton, K. Kohler (who, although a Jew, has been intrusted, among others, with so intimately Christian a subject as "Shepherd"), A. T. Robertson, G. L. Robinson, T. G. Soares, G. Vos, B. B. Warfield, and A. C. Zenos. Of these the largest contributions have been made by the late Prof. Groton of the Episcopal Divinity School, Philadelphia, and Prof. Case of the University of Chicago. Prof. Groton writes the long (thirteen pages) and valuable article on "Mystery, Mysteries," which will serve admirably as a succinct introduction to the study of this obscure subject. Besides some shorter articles ("Seed," "Theudas," "Tribute") Prof. Case writes the long articles (nineteen pages in combination) on "Peter" and the "Epistles of Peter." The even longer article on "Paul" (twenty-one pages) is written by Prof. James Stalker, an old hand at the subject. Articles on such topics legitimately occupy large space in a Dictionary of the Apostolic Church. When we say Peter and Paul we almost say Apostolic Church—as the narrative of the Book of Acts may suggest to us. There are other long articles in the volume, however, the scope of which passes so far beyond the Apostolic Church as to set the reader to wondering as to the principle on which they have been admitted. There is, for example, Prof. James Moffatt's article on "War." It is an altogether admirable treatise on the attitude of the early Church to war. It quickly, however, gets beyond anything that can be called the Apostolic Church and does not stop till it reaches Augustine. And there is Principal Thomas Lewis' excellent article on "Persecution." It finds no stopping-place short of the Reformation.

It is the policy of this Dictionary to interpret the phrase "Apostolic Church" purely temporally. It means to it merely the Church of the first century. It is an incidental good result of this bad point of view that besides articles on the New Testament books we get admirable articles on what we may perhaps still speak of as subapostolic writings, and indeed on Jewish writings dating from a time somewhere about the Apostolic Age. We have not only articles on Polycarp (P. Batiffol)—poor Papias is left out—and the Odes of Solomon (A Mingana), but also articles on Philo (E. von Dobschütz), Sirach and Wisdom (D. S. Margoliouth), the Psalms of Solomon (G. B. Gray), the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (A. L. Davies), and Sibylline Oracles (James Moffatt). It may no doubt be said that a knowledge of these writings is important, both as regards their language and their thought, for a complete understanding of the Apostolic Age. Such a plea would be much more valid for the Jewish writings antedating the apostolic times than for the subapostolic writings. There is really no good reason for including subapostolic writings in a Dictionary of the Apostolic Church. The gulf between the two groups of writings is as wide as that which divides any two groups of writings, contiguous in time, known to history. If we needed any proof of that, it would be supported by the result of attempting to smelt the two groups together in this Dictionary. For, if the excellence of the articles on the several subapostolic books tends to lead us to condone their intrusion into the Dictionary, the case is far different with the habit of tacking on to article after article on apostolic teaching on this or that subject, a paragraph on the teaching of the subapostolic writers on it also. If this begins by being amusing, it ends by becoming wearisome. There is no section of the history of doctrine less exhilarating than that which deals with the subapostolic Fathers. It was a true saying of a great man long ago that they would be better named supapostolic babies. No matter how close they stand to one another in time, the apostolic and the subapostolic writers cannot be compressed into the same category. The attempt to do so is a blunder.

Underlying the attempt to wash out the boundary line which separates between the apostolic and subapostolic writings, and the consequent habit of speaking of the latter as "first century writers outside the New Testament," a low view of the inspiration and authority of the New Testament writings is usually discoverable, and in general a chariness with respect to the immediately supernatural in the origins of Christianity. Of course one would not require to look long before he found something of this sort among the hundred or so writers who have coöperated in the preparation of this volume. On the whole, however, even those whose personal views leave little place for an authoritative Scripture or for direct supernaturalism appear to have sought to write objectively. Prof. A. R. Gordon, of M'Gill University, who writes the good article on "Scripture," seems to doubt whether the Christian can take the Old Testament, in its own sense, as authoritative to him, but he nevertheless tells us frankly that "the high Jewish theory of the inspiration of Scripture is fully accepted in the New Testament," where the words of Moses, David, Isaiah and the other prophets are "attributed directly to God" and are looked upon as the final norm alike of faith and of conduct. In the article "Miracles" by Bishop Maclean, we meet on the other hand with an attempt to explain miracles away, which was rather unexpected in this quarter. Many of the "miracles" recorded in the New Testament, we are told, are clearly not miracles in the strict sense; many which seemed miracles to those who witnessed them we can now see were not really miracles; many more, the natural mode of working which, that even we may not yet see, no doubt those who come after us will see. Perhaps "the theory of 'relative miracles' propounded by Schleiermacher" may commend itself to us. "This theory substitutes for a contravention of nature a miraculous knowledge. Certain persons had a greater hold upon the secrets of nature than their contemporaries." "But," it is added, "this was by a divine interposition"; and is not the essential thing, as Dr. Sanday says, "the divine act"? What is troubling Bishop Maclean is the conception of nature as an absolutely closed system, in which everything that occurs must be the product of its own intrinsic forces operating normally; no intrusion from without is possible, or, at least, can be admitted to have ever occurred. Doubtless God made it; but having made it, He never afterwards has interfered with its mechanical working, for any purpose whatever. Whatever occurs is "natural." Of course Bishop Maclean seizes hold of that remark of Augustine's—which has frequently before been as gravely misused as he misuses it—that a "portent" happens not against nature but against "known nature." On the repeated occasions when he made this remark Augustine was not reducing our conception of miracles to merely "natural" events but elevating and enlarging our conception of "nature." There is a "nature," he says, above the nature spread out for our observation, the "nature," to wit, of the Divine Decree: for everything that God wills becomes by that act a natural thing to occur although it does not occur by means of the "natural" forces: it cannot be said to be "unnatural" though it be "supernatural," for the constitutive fact of all nature is the will of God. It is enough to dispose of Bishop Maclean's theory of "relative miracles" to ask what is the difference, on its basis, between a miracle and a trick, between the miracles of Moses before Pharaoh, say, and those of the Egyptian magicians? Despite his reduction of miracles to tricks, we observe, Bishop Maclean is concerned to show that the Apostolic Age was marked by abounding miracles, while the Post-Apostolic Age lacked them.

Perhaps the best way to obtain a fair conception of the quality of a book like this is to take some one general subject and observe how it is treated in its several parts by the various writers to which they have been committed. We choose the broad subject of Salvation for this purpose. There is a general article on "Salvation, Save, Saviour," by Principal Darwell Stone, of Pusey House, Oxford. It seems to be a fair example of what such an article should not be. It consists in the main of statistics of no great significance, and an analysis of Dr. Stone's own doctrine of salvation supported item by item by proof-texts bent to its service. It is certainly only a crochet which denies that "save" in James 5:15 refers to bodily healing. On the other hand Prof. A. T. Robertson of the Louisville Baptist Seminary gives us in the article "Mediation, Mediator" a refreshingly clear, straightforward, and instructive account of the apostolic teaching on the saving work of Christ. The skillful grammarian is always in evidence and the exact meaning of the sacred writings is sought and brought out with very telling effect.

A group of articles bearing on the expiatory work of Christ—"Ransom," "Sacrifice," "Propitiation," "Reconciliation"—has been committed to Prof. Frederic Platt of the Wesleyan College at Birmingham. The short article on "Ransom" covers the ground fairly well, and reaches the eminently just conclusion expressed at the end, that by the employment of this term it is implied that "life in the higher sense "has been lost by man, and he "has no means of buying it back"; but "Christ has laid down His life as a price or means of redemption by which the forfeited possession was restored" (p. 298). The article on "Sacrifice" is much longer and more thorough, but is marred by its presupposition of the modern critical view of the composition of the Old Testament and the development of Old Testament religion, and by its estimating the whole Biblical material from this point of sight. A certain continuity in the development of the notion of sacrifice from the most primitive conceptions to that of developed Christianity is assumed. It is even supposed (p. 431) that traces of all the main theories of primitive sacrifice which have been broached by speculators may be discovered in the New Testament; and the necessity of choosing between them in our search for the original significance of sacrifice is avoided by the suggestion that all of them may have been held in those primitive ages the influence of which was still felt by the men of the New Testament. It is more reasonably declared, however (p. 431), that "the one constant element in primitive sacrifice persisting to apostolic times that modern research, both anthropological and psychological, seems to warrant is that sacrifice appears to have pleased the object of worship and secured the favor of deity—i.e. it was 'propitiatory' in the broadest sense." It is recognized that, at the time the Levitical system was formed, the "piacular or expiatory sacrifice" had become prominent. "It was the expiatory type that constituted the daily sacrifices—the continual burnt-offering—up to apostolic times; it was regarded as most perfectly embodying, through its vicarious character, the sacrificial idea" (p. 432). That having been said, there seems no reason for the hesitation regarding the conception attributed to sacrifices in later Judaism, at least so far as the Judaism contemporary with the apostles is concerned. It is allowed that Christ referred to His death as sacrificial; that "at a very early period," that is, in the Apostolic Age, the death of Christ was regarded as expiatory; and that "this sacrificial interpretation of His death is imbedded in subsequent types of apostolic teaching" (p. 434)—that Peter sharply asserts the vicarious nature of the sufferings of Christ, Paul "clearly regards the death of Christ as substitutionary," and the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistles of John make use of the same conception. Nevertheless there is some haggling over the question whether the Apostolic Church is to be said to have regarded Jesus' death as sacrificial or only to have employed sacrificial language illustratively of His death. We gain an impression that if the Scriptures were more definitely authoritative to Prof. Platt his conclusions would possess a more decided character. The just decisiveness with which A. B. Bruce's suggestion is repelled (p. 434b), that Paul's ideas of Christ's sacrifice were colored more by the analogy of Greek and Roman human sacrifices than by that of the Levitical system, is the more welcome that more hospitality seems to be shown to this suggestion in the article on "Propitiation" (p. 283a). That article suffers from diffuseness and from an attempt to draw nice distinctions of somewhat doubtful validity. It insists, for example, that the classical and pagan use of the Greek "term must not be carried over into the New Testament," with a vigor which can scarcely fail to seem excessive, when it emerges that "although such phrases as 'propitiating God' or God 'being propitiated' are foreign to apostolic teaching, the Pauline view relates the propitiation to God as recipient" (p. 282a). To give any plausibility to the distinction, such exaggerated language requires to be used as this: "The idea of directly appeasing one who is angry with a personal resentment against the offender … is foreign to biblical usage" (p. 281)—which is of course true, but concerns less the usage of the word than the conception of the deity. The attempt to distinguish between the usages of Paul, "the Johannine writer," and the author of Hebrews is equally futile. The fact is that the usage of words of this stem m the New Testament is too meager to supply a basis for such speculations. It does not make a pleasant impression when, after we have been told that the verb "propitiate" is construed in classical Greek regularly with the accusative of the person propitiated, it is added, "this construction is never used by apostolic writers." This can hardly be a significant fact when the verb occurs only twice in the New Testament. In the Septuagint it occurs in the banned construction and that with God as its object (Zech. 7:2). Certainly the God of Christians is a different kind of person from the gods of the heathen, but we can never so "ethicize" the conception of propitiation as to rid it of the implication that it removes obstacles in Him (and not merely in us) to His favorable regard of us. That Prof. Platt does not himself think that we can, we learn with more distinctness from the article on "Reconciliation." In it (p. 301b), he even uses such language as this: "God's anger is real; it is not simply official as the hostility of a law-giver in the presence of a law-breaker; it is personal, but not a fitful personal resentment.…" He goes on to tell us, it is true, in quite modern fashion, that it is but the seamy side of love—"love's crowning sign, not its contradiction"—but this appears to be merely the repetition of a conventional mode of speaking and scarcely represents any very clear thought. We are glad to say that Prof. Platt very decidedly represents the fundamental reconciliation wrought by the blood of Christ to have been the reconciliation of God. He feels bound to insist, however, strenuously and at length, that the transaction is mutual. This is not so plain as far as the direct Scriptural representations as to our Lord's "reconciling work" are concerned. If any are inclined to adduce the passive imperative of 2 Cor. 5:20 in this connection, they may profitably consult the passive imperative of Eph. 5:18. Prof. Platt misconstrues the "in Christ" of 2 Cor. 5:19 after the fashion now so common, and founds some pretty theologizing on his misconstruction.

A large number of the elements that enter into the conception of Salvation come in for discussion in Prof. James Moffatt's long and brilliant article on "Righteousness," chiefly of course from the point of view of Paul's teaching. Prof. Moffatt touches nothing which he does not illuminate, and everyone will be his debtor for this searching and stimulating discussion. There are naturally some things he says, with which we should be compelled to take issue. We are thankful to be able to say, however, that with the larger part of the discussion we are heartily in agreement, and that we find many important truths enunciated in it in unwontedly sharp and telling language. This is the way in which at the opening of the section on the "technical Pauline use of the term 'God's righteousness' " (p. 376) he sums up the content of the several passages which deal with that notion: "What is common to all is the presupposition that this righteousness, this state of acceptance with God, this right relationship between the righteous God and sinful man, is brought about by God. It is not the goal of a laborious quest of man for God. The initiative is with Him. That is what the genitive signifies." We will not deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting further one or two crisply phrased truths. "Because the Christian is sure of final acquittal, he is to live up to it. Or, to put it in an antithesis: he is not to be saved because he is good, he is to be good because he is justified" (p. 380b). "To be justified by faith was God's gift. But it was more than a gift; it was a vocation, a career—Aufgabe as well as Gabe" (p. 392a). Every reader of this article will find himself instructed.

We have already with Prof. Moffatt's article passed over from articles dealing with the procuring of salvation to those in which its application is expounded. At the head of these stands the late Prof. T. Nicol's (of Aberdeen) excellent article on "Predestination." He is perhaps unduly exercised over the antinomy between predestination and free will, and repeats the banal comment, now widely current, on the change in voice in Rom. 9:22, and in his short article on "Reprobate" he unhappily even enlarges on this matter. This comment only illustrates the straits in which those find themselves who would fain discover some hint in Scripture of a fundamental distinction in the nature of the Divine decree as it concerns the several classes of men. The article as a whole, however, is both well conceived and well worked out, and even with respect to the antinomy mentioned the right note is struck. "Whilst St. Paul … affirms the doctrine of absolute predestination to life, he asserts no less clearly the truth of human responsibility" (p. 263). That is the truth, accurately expressed. Prof. W. F. Lofthouse, of the Wesleyan College, Birmingham, the author of the good article on the Freedom of the Will in the first volume of this Dictionary, writes here an article on the "Will" in the apostolical writings which we find interesting rather than satisfactory. We shall not be easily persuaded to look on faith as "unswerving attention" (whatever may be the psychological effects which may be shown to result from sustained attention) rather than confident entrusting of ourselves to Christ. "If the attention is concentrated" on Jesus conceived as the Son of God, says Prof. Lofthouse, expounding the notion of faith in I John, "the universe of evil around him is powerless to harm the Christian" (p. 680). We demur to this representation of the nature and working of faith even with reference to the teaching of I John, and much more with reference to its presentation in the New Testament at large. Prof. Lofthouse is much occupied with the relation of God's will to man's in the processes of salvation. He sums up the matter very fairly. Man's will, he says, "acts properly only when it is roused and directed by Divine grace. The necessity for its exercise will never be superseded; but the more it is exercised under Divine control, the more it becomes God's will in man, and the more it becomes man's own will, acting at last in complete freedom" (p. 680b). But he is disturbed about the initial act of salvation. "Man's will appears to be clearly called for," he says, "by such passages as 2 Cor. 5:20, 'Be ye reconciled to God,' but against them Rom. 9:18 may be quoted …" (p. 679). If we are to be saved by grace, he argues, we are also to be saved through faith; and if the one might lead us to suppose we are to be merely passive in salvation, the latter "shows that this is very far from being the case." We must mind, however, our prepositions—"by" and "through" convey the notification of different and not inconsistent relations; and with respect to passivity and activity, we must distinguish times—a famous old formula speaks accurately, regarding the initiation of salvation, of man being "altogether passive therein until—." We have already pointed out how easily the passive imperative in 2 Cor. 5:20 is misunderstood. We are not exhorted there to lay aside our enmity to God, and even less to secure from God the laying aside of His enmity to us. The means by which God is reconciled to men is not their faith but the blood of Christ. We need not wonder that we find it difficult to express the passive imperative with accurate simplicty in translation. A phrase like this (Eph. 5:18), "Be ye filled in the Spirit," requires paraphrasing. Prof. Lofthouse writes also the article on "Repentance." It is a distinctly disappointing article. It is written under the influence of preconceptions which the Biblical statements, conceived as they are only as references to the subject by early preachers, have no power to dispel. The rich literature on the subject is almost entirely passed by in the appended Literature.

According to Prof. D. S. Adam of Melbourne, who writes on "Union with God," salvation consists essentially in the complete expression of the Divine Logos in man, who, as made in the image of God, furnishes "a form of being capable of expressing the Divine Logos in fullness of measure," and by his sin only conditioning the nature "of the task which the perfect Son of man and Son of God, when He appeared on earth, had to undertake" (p. 631). He is very careful not to commit the apostolic writers to the doctrine of the Trinity, and is equally careful to commit them to such doctrines as the institution of "a certain metaphysical union between man and God, in virtue of creation"; the necessity of the incarnation independently of sin; and the redemption of man through the union of the Logos with him in the incarnation. We are in a different atmosphere in Prof. T. G. Soares' (of Chicago University) article on "Regeneration." He seeks to throw the New Testament doctrine up against a background supplied by Jewish Apocalypticism and the heathen mystery religions. But he is very much afraid of sacramentalistic and magical conceptions slipping in; and labors so hard to "ethicize" the notion as to go far towards desupernaturalizing it. He gets the cart before the horse in his interpretation of such passages as 1 John 5:1, 4:7, 2:29, in which, in John's meaning, the begetting from God is not the effect but the cause of faith, love, righteousness. The reader is confused by a repeated odd use of the word "status" as if it expressed nature rather than relation. An appearance is created as if Prof. Soares' conception of regeneration vibrated between that of justification and that more commonly connected with the term regeneration, and as if he may perhaps wish to wipe out this distinction. The article on "Sanctification" (as also that on "Saints") is written by Mr. Robert H. Strachan, Minister of the Presbyterian Church at Cambridge. "Sanctify, sanctification" are to him terms of relation, not of condition, much less of process. "Holy" really means sacred, and "to sanctify" means to make sacred, and "sanctification" the state of having been made sacred. As this is a thing God does, it is done absolutely and all at once. "Our moral progress is not a growth into holiness out of a state of comparative unholiness. That would be to negative the Christian gospel. Rather it is a growth in holiness. The act that makes us holy is done once and for all" (p. 452). In itself, therefore, sanctification has nothing to do with ethical conduct. It means merely that we belong to God. But as the God we belong to is an ethical Being, belonging to Him involves ethical conduct on our part. Sanctification thus necessitates ethical conduct and this conduct may be progressively ethical. The standard of this ethical conduct is not, however, "statutory" law, but the Christ within us. The ethics of the saints is autonomous; precisely what they are as saints is freemen in Christ Jesus. "All legal statutes are out of place in the Christian life." Even the teaching and example of Christ are subject to our critical scrutiny. "This is dangerous doctrine," says Mr. Strachan himself. But he comforts himself by adding: "All great doctrines are dangerous." At another point he quotes Paul's declaration that the law is good and holy and righteous. This, he says, however, illustrates only one side of Paul's teaching; it has reference only to those whose walk as saints has only begun—to babes in Christ. "Obedience to law is good for those to whom God says only 'Thou shalt' or 'Thou shalt not' … For the Christian, for 'those that are sanctified,' the 'law' of sin and death is done away altogether, and obedience to the law of God is merged in a higher and nobler loyalty to the God and Father of Jesus Christ, and above all in a sense of supreme indebtedness" (p. 452). It is true, of course, that the Christian has a more constraining motive to "conformity with God" than even the commands of God's holy law; and it is true also, of course, that the recreating Spirit is by His recreation of him writing the law of God on his heart, so that he becomes more and more a law to himself: but the law of God must remain ever his standard, and the words of Christ must be always valid, that not one jot or one tittle of it shall pass away until all of them are accomplished. It would be harsh to speak of Mr. Strachan's teaching as antinomian—but that way antinomianism lies.

The article "Perfect, Perfection" by Principal J. G. Tasker of the Wesleyan College, Birmingham, confines itself to tracing the usage of the words in the New Testament. This it does very interestingly. The article on "Perseverance" by Mr. A. S. Martin of Aberdeen on the other hand enters fully into the subject and gives it a treatment which is excellent in conception and eloquent in presentation. The paragraph near the beginning on the antinomy of preservation and perseverance—or, as Mr. Martin phrases it, of the religious and the moral aspects of the matter—is especially finely worked out. "The more dependent the spiritual sense," he says (p. 186), "the more intense the moral independence." It is a good saying when we are told later that to the religious man "any attempt to claim for man ability or sufficiency" "must appear as nothing less than religious illiteracy" (p. 188). And it is an equally good saying when we are told that the Christian agonistes is "slack in no element of its manifold nature" (p. 190) but throws all that he has and is into the good fight. There is a little wavering at the end as to the relation of God and man in the work. God has the initiative in salvation. But "He waits on the start of our effort." This, it appears, is because "our effort is the beginning of His gift, the first stirring of 'the grace that is in us' from Him, and which can be ours in no other way." "And so," it is added, "after the start, throughout the whole of our moral growth, every new stirring in us is of our effort and of His gift and increase (Phil. 2:12). We are never from first to last simply quietistic receivers of something infused." The statement is not free from ambiguity and does not carry its broad meaning with certainty. But it awakens a fear that its spiritual affiliation may be with Erasmus, rather than with Luther—and Paul. Every saving work of God actifies the soul, but no saving work of God waits on the soul's activities.

We shall not follow the treatment of the elements of salvation into the eschatological field. There are important articles on topics which fall in this region, which invite remark—articles for example on "Resurrection," "Parousia," "Paradise," "New Jerusalem." We have already occupied, however, as much space as is at our disposal. And perhaps enough has already been said to convey a fair conception of the character of the discussions which fill the volume.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.

By J. K. MOZLEY, M.A.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1916.

MR. MOZLEY has packed an immense amount of detail into these two hundred and odd small pages, and has done so without in the least overweighting them. The book is written in a charming style, clear and pointed; and so far as its two main sections are concerned—those on the Biblical material and on the history of the doctrine—it is not only informing but illuminating. We do not think Mr. Mozley has done justice to himself in the third—the constructive—section. He devotes only twenty of his two hundred and twenty pages to it, and although he enhearteningly tells us that we cannot live without a doctrine of the Atonement, he ventures only to give us, not a doctrine, but merely suggestions "towards a doctrine." The worst of it is that the reader is apt to think in the end that this is just as well. The doctrine to which the lines of suggestion laid down appear to point, seems to be of a surprisingly low order—for Mr. Mozley: lower than the doctrine which he himself finds suggested by Paul, or by our Lord Himself, or by the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. A book on the Atonement, which, after two thousand years of Christian living and thinking and teaching, manages to come to a close without telling us just what the Atonement is, can scarcely be thought other than a portent: but it is better so than that such a book should seek dogmatically to impose upon its readers, as the issue of all these years, a wholly inadequate doctrine of the Atonement.

The notion of Atonement which Mr. Mozley suggests may possibly lie at the end of our search after a doctrine, could we penetrate far enough, may perhaps be shadowed out in the following two sentences. Christ's death has a relation to sins not His own, which implies an intervention that amounts to a mediation between God and man. As the result of this mediation, the situation as between God and man changes. In expounding the notion thus vaguely expressed, Mr. Mozley lays stress primarily on sin's desert of punishment, a punishment which is at bottom retributive; and on the penitent soul's recognition of the justice of its punishment and yearning after the removal of that estrangement from God which is the primary effect of sin. The divine response to this penitence, he tells us, is forgiveness; and if we cannot quite equate forgiveness with the cancellation of punishment, we can say that it cancels a situation, that it changes punishment from retributive to restorative. Suffering, we are now told, always implies sin. The sufferings of Christ, therefore, who, we must bear well in mind was not Himself a sinner, but the Son of God, must therefore stand in relation to sin and could not leave things as they were. They altered the nature of the reference of suffering and death to sin; they so transformed death to us, indeed, that it loses its character as judgment: "the element of judgment, universal in death, spends itself in the Cross" (p. 216).

This may be expressed, says Mr. Mozley, "by saying that Christ bore penal sufferings for us and in our stead." We do not discover in his further exposition, however, any adequate justification of this excellent mode of expression. What we get instead is an explanation of how Christ is related to the race, by virtue of which His acts stand in a quite unique relation to the action of the race. Mr. Mozley does not think of Christ's humanity as "inclusive" or "generic." His mind rests rather, in accordance with modern feelings of solidarity, on the "almost limitless reaction of individuals and their acts upon other personalities" (p. 217). Apparently this carries us no further than the notion that Christ's saving work is accomplished by His so affecting men as to lead them "to identify themselves by way of aspiration with the work of Christ." This enables Mr. Mozley to say of this "work of Christ," that it is not the work of man but Christ's own work; though he adds as if that were the significant point, "it is also not the work of a divine non-human redeemer, but of Christ as Man fulfilling human obligations" (p. 218). The upshot, then, seems to be no more than that Christ, entering the human race and sharing with it the sufferings and death which had come to it as the punishment of sin, transmutes suffering and death for this race from retributive to restorative, and in the reactions of personality on personalities quickens men to identify themselves with "His work"—which seems scarcely to mean more than to imitate His lofty attitude towards life and its evils.

If we have not misunderstood Mr. Mozley's exposition of it, we can hardly look upon the theory of Atonement which he thus tentatively suggests as more than an elevated form of what is known as "the moral influence theory," the nerve of which is the reaction of Christ's personality on the lives of His fellow men. The actual atoning fact appears to be discovered not in what Christ does, nor even in what He is—but in what men do under the inspiration of His life among them. And therefore the discussion is brought to a close with such questions as these (p. 218): "Is there anything immoral if God looks at men's inchoate moral achievements and forgives their moral shortcomings, that is, their sins, in the light of the moral completeness of Christ's life? If He reckons faith as righteousness, when in the act of faith man recognizes the moral obligations that press upon him for fulfilment, confesses his own failures, admits the justice of punishment as that which he has deserved, and at the same time points to the complete fulfilment of the law, the complete confession of God's holiness, and the voluntary endurance of penal suffering and death by Christ from within humanity?" Translating these questions into affirmations, there is suggested here that God, looking at men's inchoate moral achievements, forgives their moral shortcomings, that is, their sins,—for so sin is inadequately defined—and that He does this "in the light of"—whatever that may mean, but scarcely "on the ground of"—"the moral completeness of Christ's life." It is suggested again that God reckons faith as righteousness in certain circumstances, namely, when in the act of faith man recognizes the moral obligations that press upon him for fulfillment, confesses his own failures, admits the justice of punishment as that which he has deserved, and at the same time points to Christ's complete fulfillment of the law, complete confession of God's holiness, and voluntary endurance of penal suffering and death from within humanity.

Why men should thus point to Christ's holy life and to His death, as if God's action with respect to men could or should be affected by them, remains unexplained. Why the fact that Christ's sufferings and death come from "within humanity," should be adduced when only the modern notion of solidarity is in question, as a ground for God's dealing with humanity otherwise than according to its strict deserts, remains unexplained. How Christ's suffering and death can be spoken of as penal, is only lamely explained. We cannot wonder then that Mr. Mozley can only add by way of conclusion: "We go beyond what we have a right to assert if we say with Anselm that God was bound by the satisfaction which Christ provided and the merit which He won to treat man after a particular manner; but we have a right to say that it is neither unreasonable nor immoral that He should do so." Is not this a confession that no basis has been laid for firm confidence in salvation "for Christ's sake"? And is not even the negative conclusion presented too bold? Would it after all be reasonable—would it be moral—for God to accept men as righteous in His sight on the grounds here stated? The questions which have vexed all the ages start into sight: Is repentance an adequate ground for the forgiveness of sin? Is man able in his own strength to repent adequately of his sin? We would fain read Mr. Mozley's phrases: "in the light of the moral completeness of Christ's life," pointing "to the complete fulfilment of the law, the complete confession of God's holiness, and the voluntary endurance of penal suffering and death by Christ from within humanity,"—as indicative of the attribution to Christ of some real law-keeping and penalty-paying on behalf of man. But, with the best will in the world, we have been unable to find in his expositions just warrant for doing so. We are ever driven regretfully back upon the recurring fear that Mr. Mozley's suggestions for a possible doctrine of the Atonement reduce in the last analysis to the presentation of man's own repentance plus an unjustified appeal to Christ's life and death (unjustifiedly spoken of as "penal"), as having taken place "within humanity," as the ground of forgiveness. The fundamental idea seems to be that repentance secures forgiveness; and the fundamental effect of Christ's life and death seems to be conceived as awakening men to repentance. So far as appears, the interposition of Christ—His mediating intervention—has this for its sole effect: and the attempt to suggest for it a Godward operation also seems to have failed. This, as we have already mentioned, is, according to Mr. Mozley's own expositions, below what the Scriptures teach in all their parts: and we believe it to be below also what Mr. Mozley himself wishes to teach. It seems to us perfectly clear that he must allow to our Lord's life and death a much more distinct substitutive character and a much more distinct propitiatory effect upon God if he would raise the theory to which his suggestions point above the rank of a purely subjective one.

It is with great pleasure that we turn back from Mr. Mozley's unfortunate constructive chapter to the brilliant chapters in which he expounds the Biblical teaching with respect to atonement. There are three of these: one on the Old Testament; one on the testimony of the Synoptic Gospels; and one on the New Testament interpretation, dealing with the rest of the New Testament. They are all marked by an adequate command of the literature of the subject, a clear, critical, and independent judgment and luminous exposition. The tendency of them all is to vindicate for the Biblical writers a consistent testimony to the need and provision in Christ of an objective atonement. The chapter on the "testimony of the Synoptic Gospels" is an especially admirable piece of writing, well-informed, sympathetic, penetrating. The account given in it of the consistently eschatological school of Gospel criticism, the discussion of the "ransom" passage, and, perhaps in a somewhat less eminent degree, that of our Lord's words at the last supper, are particularly instructive and leave us with an impression which cannot easily be dissipated that Jesus did represent His death as having the effect of an expiation of sin.

Even in these admirable chapters, however, we meet with some odd uses of language, which are forerunners perhaps of the failure in constructing a doctrine of Atonement in the end. Thus in discussing the Old Testament foundation Mr. Mozley distinguishes very sharply not only between "substitution and vicarious punishment" on the one hand and atonement on the other, but between propitiation and expiation. He is willing to admit that the Old Testament sacrifices were expiatory, but not propitiatory, much less vicarious or substitutionary. This is a series certainly of very delicate distinctions, and the distinctions are as unusual as they are delicate. We have been accustomed to hear of a propitiation without expiation, but scarcely of an expiation without propitiation: and it is difficult to comprehend how expiation of sin can be made through the medium of another's death, and substitution and vicarious punishment be avoided. It is already evident that Mr. Mozley uses current terms in not quite their current meanings—and that is at least confusing. His notion appears to grow out of the idea that sacrifices are essentially gifts—gifts intended, not to appease, but to make amends: gifts, that is to say, speaking in the language of the older theories of sacrifice, not of the order of bribes but of the order of fines. He quotes Piepenbring approvingly (p. 22) to the effect that "expiatory sacrifice" is "like every other sacrifice, a corban, a gift": "a guilty person" offers it to God "to make amends." In his own language, he explains that "the sacrificial system assumes that sin makes a barrier between man and God; and that before the covenant relationship with Jahveh, which the individual normally enjoys as a member of the covenant people, can be restored, the sin must be covered or wiped out. For that Jahveh Himself has made provision, and the final act of reparation is the presentation and sprinkling of the blood, the most sacred of all earthly things, as the equivalent of life" (pp. 22–23). The most notable thing about this definition is what we may call its prudence. Precisely what sacrifice is, it is difficult to learn from it: or what really removes the barrier which sin has erected between men and God. We are told that, for its removal, "sin must be covered or wiped out,"—the two meanings assigned to kipper by differing schools of philologists being both prudently allowed for. We are told that God has made provision for this, but are not told what the precise nature of this provision is: we are only told what the final (may we take this as equivalent to essential?) act of "reparation" is. Are we to take "reparation" here as descriptive of what is accomplished by the "covering" or "wiping out" of the sin of the earlier clause, or as what is accomplished by the presentation and sprinkling of the blood? And how is "reparation" wrought in either case? The definition is vague at the crucial point, and covers under generalities questions which must be faced and settled if the sacrificial system of Israel is to be understood. The reader is just about to conclude that nothing is discovered in Old Testament sacrifices except "making amends," and that this is paralleled by the prophetic demand of nothing but repentance, when he is happily pulled up by a ringing denial that repentance and amendment sum up prophetic religion and finds himself reading with delight a good exposition of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah which brings clearly out the conception of vicarious punishment embedded in that passage.

Somewhat similarly in the chapter on "the New Testament interpretation" we find Mr. Mozley boggling at the word "punishment" as a description of Paul's view of the sufferings of Christ. He is willing to allow that Paul holds these sufferings to be "penal." "For St. Paul," he says, "there is a penal element in the Cross" (p. 72). "Christ on the Cross," he (with agreement) quotes Feine as saying, "has endured what mankind had to expect." But he will not allow the word "punishment" in this connection. This seems rather wiredrawn. What is the difference in the fundamental connotation of punishment and penalty? Apparently two difficulties lie in Mr. Mozley's mind. He does not wish to say that Christ suffered precisely what we should have suffered had we borne the penalty of our own sins. And he does not wish to make Christ's sufferings punishment to Him. He has no question that Christ's sufferings were vicarious; and he has no difficulty with the idea of substitution. But he balks at saying that Christ "was vicariously punished." He agrees (with Herrmann) that "St. Paul thinks of Christ as suffering what we should have suffered." But he adds at once that His sufferings "had not the same quality or character as ours would have had," and commends Beyschlag for declaring that "Jesus does not die the eternal death which we as sinners have deserved" (p. 73). He agrees (with Jülicher) that according to Paul "God reckons Christ's sufferings to mankind as punishment endured by it." But he adds at once, "That is not to equate suffering and punishment." "St. Paul's doctrine is not one of atonement and expiation through punishment, but rather of expiation instead of punishment, in which respect he anticipates Anselm." We may speak, he says through the medium of a quotation from Pfleiderer, of Paul teaching, not that Christ suffered "vicarious punishment," but certainly that He suffered death vicariously; not that He suffered this as a punishment, but that He endured it as a penalty. If the thought arises unbidden in our minds that we are very close to logomachy here, we correct it at once by perceiving happily that Mr. Mozley is only, very properly although not very clearly, attributing to Paul the doctrine of "satisfaction." The doctrine of "satisfaction" denies that Christ's sufferings had "the same quality or character as ours." What it affirms is that they had the same value. It denies that He died the eternal death that we sinners deserved. What it affirms is that His sufferings and death had the same value in the sight of God that our eternal death would have had. According to it, in this sense Christ did not bear our punishment, but something which took the place of our punishment. There was "a vicarious quittance of the penalty"; but this was wrought by paying it. Similarly with all his denials Mr. Mozley allows that according to Paul what was done by Christ was penal and what He endured was penalty. It must be confessed, however, that only a few pages after thus expounding Paul as teaching the doctrine of "satisfaction," Mr. Mozley, by an odd inconsequence, lapses for a moment in seeking to reproduce Paul's thought (p. 79) into phrases made familiar to us by the Rectoral theory.

Mr. Mozley is not the first writer on the history of the doctrine of the Atonement who has found pitfalls dug for him by the differing conceptions of the Atonement indicated by the Scholastic terms—ultimately derived from the Roman law—solution, satisfaction, acceptilation, acceptation. He is probably not primarily responsible for the confusion of the last two in the Index, in which there is but one entry "acceptatio," the references under which refer indifferently to acceptatio and acceptilatio in the text. But this confusion in the Index only follows the confusion in the text. Mr. Mozley blames Grotius for accusing Socinus "of applying the word acceptilatio to the remission of sins," and adds, "whereas his own theory has no coherence at all apart from the Scotist idea, to which the term acceptilation is technically applied, that God can fix a value as He will" (p. 155). And he speaks of Dr. Dale's well-known treatise as containing much which recalls Grotius "and the theory of acceptilatio, that Christ's sufferings were not the actual penalties of sin, but were accepted by God in place of, or as of equal value with, those penalties" (p. 179). Grotius may be wrong in saying that Socinus himself calls his theory by the name of acceptilatio, but he does Socinus no injustice in describing it as a theory of acceptilatio; and though we ourselves might agree that Grotius' own theory is little better than Socinus' in this respect, Grotius would have repudiated this imputation with vigor, and (being learned in the law) would have opened his eyes with wide surprise to hear acceptilation identified with "the Scotist idea that God can fix a value as He will." Has he not himself carefully explained to us that acceptilation is applied in law to discharges which are made without any payment at all, and has he not sharply separated his own theory from complicity with such notions, because, as he says, it provides for "some payment"? Scotus, of course, does not use the term acceptilatio of his theory, though he freely employs acceptatio, a term in such general use, to be sure, that it can scarcely be called a technical law-term: and Grotius would have so little denied that he himself taught an acceptatio, that he proclaims that fact with full voice when he gives the name of satisfactio to his theory. It is one of the things which Mr. Mozley does not seem quite to apprehend that when we say satisfaction we have already said acceptation; that acceptation is of the very essence of satisfaction; and that the difference between the Church doctrine of the "satisfaction" of Christ and the Scotist theory of "acceptation," as it has become the habit to speak of it, does not turn on the presence or absence of "acceptation" in the transaction—"acceptation" occurs in both views—but on the part assigned to this "acceptation" in the two views severally. The constitutive fact of the doctrine of "satisfaction" is that the reparation "accepted" by God is held to be per se equivalent to the obligation resting on the sinner. The characteristic feature of Scotist theory, on the other hand, is that the reparation provided is declared to possess no intrinsic equivalence to the obligation, but to be "accepted" by God in its place by an act of gracious will. The whole zeal of the satisfactionists is expended throughout all the centuries of debate in this matter on insistence upon this difference: and "equivalence" becomes thus their most insistent watchword. A "satisfaction," ex vi verbi, is the rendering of an equivalent; not the very thing in obligation (that would be solutio in the strict sense) nor something merely "accepted" in lieu of the obligation (that would be acceptatio in the Scotist sense) but, in distinction from both, a real equivalent.

Through failure to hold in mind these distinctions Mr. Mozley sometimes goes astray in his criticism of theories and writers. For example, it is questionable whether a remark like the following does not miss the mark: "Thomas, apparently, does not keep to the Anselmic distinction aut satisfactio aut poena. Rather does he think of 'satisfaction by the legal penalty merited and duly borne,' and so of penal expiation" (p. 138). Every satisfaction is an alternative to penalty: the infliction of the precise penalty would be solutio (in the strict sense), not satisfactio. Anselm's aut … aut brings this out, that lying in the line of his argument. When on the other hand the interest shifts and the purpose is to bring out that what was offered was a real satisfaction (and not something arbitrarily accepted in lieu of a real satisfaction), the insistence is transferred to the complete equivalence of what Christ bore to the penalty incurred. Accordingly what Aquinas is insistent for is that "he properly satisfies for our offense, who exhibits to the offended one what he loves equally or more than he hates the offense." "The passion of Christ," he says accordingly, "was not only a sufficient but a superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the human race" (p. 136). To insist thus that what Christ bore in His satisfaction was in no respect less than the poena incurred by sinners is in no way inconsistent with saying that what He offered to God was a satisfactio, not the poena itself. It is only a slightly different mode of employing terms. Anselm also is at pains to show that the satisfactio offered by Christ was fully equivalent in value to the poena the place of which it took. Aquinas is as clear as Anselm that the satisfactio offered by Christ was not the poena itself but took the place of the poena to which we were bound by our sin.

The matter may perhaps be better illustrated by Mr. Mozley's remarks on John Owen and Richard Baxter, to neither of whom is he able quite to do justice, precisely because his apprehension of the implications of "satisfaction" is not altogether perfect. It is true that the personal attitude of the two men towards Grotius is different; but it is unfair to represent Baxter on that account as holding the Grotian rather than the strictly penal view of the atonement. When Baxter "denies that Christ paid the same penalty as was due from men, and contends that the idea of satisfaction can be preserved only if Christ paid an equivalent, but not the same, penalty, with avowed approval of the Grotian satisfactio non est solutio eiusdem" (p. 157), he is standing squarely on the ground of "satisfaction"—and the assertion that "satisfaction is not the payment of the very thing," is "Grotian" in no other sense than that Grotius, as a jurist, of course knew the legal commonplaces and repeats them on occasion. It is on the selfsame ground of "satisfaction" that Owen equally squarely stands. The difference between the two amounts only to this: that Baxter's zeal is to show that Christ's work, being a satisfactio, is not a solutio in the strict sense; while Owen's zeal is to show that Christ's work, being a satisfactio, is not an acceptatio in the Scotist sense. In his righteous zeal—it is a very righteous zeal—Owen does modify the language ordinarily employed by satisfactionists, and insists that Christ made payment eiusdem and not merely tantidem, although, as he of course adds, not per eundem; and even asserts that His satisfaction discharges ipso facto. He explains, however, that by his idem he means merely full equivalence—"there is a sameness in Christ's sufferings with that in the obligation in respect to essence, and equivalency in respect of attendancies,"—and that by ipso facto he means, not "apart from God's acceptance," but "without any further conditions"—intending to exclude Grotius' insertion of a condition, not absolutely procured by Christ, on the performance of which alone by the sinner would Christ's satisfaction take effect on him. Owen departs from the doctrine of satisfaction by his strong insistence on one side of its contention as little as Baxter does by his equally strong insistence on its other side. They both stand firmly on the fundamental Christian doctrine of "the satisfaction of Christ," a doctrine which magnifies at once the infinite grace of God in the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake (which is what Baxter had in mind to assert) and the perfection of the satisfaction for our sins wrought by Christ (which is what Owen had in mind to assert).

Mr. Mozley writes with an obvious desire to be not only fair but sympathetic and generous in his presentation of and judgments on the opinions he reviews. Of course he speaks from his own standpoint, and that means that he must distribute his commendations and condemnations from the point of view of his particular notion of the nature of our Lord's atoning work. We do not know that satisfactionists have much ground for discontent with the judgment he passes on their position—or at least on their position as reproduced by what he calls "the rigid American school of half a century ago." He names here Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and A. H. Strong in his earlier, and in our judgment better, teaching. And this is what he says of them: "Given their premisses as to the inspiration of Scripture, and the validity of a perfectly precise method of deduction with the use of hard and fast ideas, and their conclusions afford little scope for logical disintegration" (p. 177). We surely ought to be satisfied to have it recognized that this doctrine which we teach as Scriptural is Scriptural—provided Scripture be trusted wholly in what it says and its teachings be drawn from it by a perfectly precise method. When Mr. Mozley adds that nevertheless the conclusions thus arrived at are morally disquieting, that seems to us, in the circumstances, an arraignment of the moral character of the Scriptures from which they are derived by precise deduction: and we console ourselves by recalling that when Paul taught these same conclusions (we shall remember that Mr. Mozley at one point interprets Paul as we have seen in terms of the doctrine of "satisfaction"), the Pharisees and the Libertines united in declaring them immoral. Paul himself did not seem to think so.

No small part of the value of Mr. Mosley's volume is given it by the wideness of his survey of the history of the doctrine. He has not permitted his view to be narrowed to any coterie or to any single class of writers. Not only writers of every age and land, but, what is more unusual, writers of every ecclesiastical connection and type of thought, are given equal attention, and are treated with like care and interest. Mr. Mozley does not conceal his predilections; but his sympathies are wide, and, we rejoice to say, are most warm for the more deeply Christian types of thought. The book thus acquires a distinctly conservative tone and despite what seems to be the deficiencies of the constructive doctrine of Atonement outlined in it, will make for sane and sound views.

VAN DEN EEUWIGEN VREDE TUSSCHEN WETENSCHAP EN RELIGIE. Rede uitgesproken op den 26en Maart 1920 ter herdenking van den 284en geboortedag der Utrechtsche Universiteit.

Door den Rector Magnificus Dr. H. VISSCHER.

Utrecht: Drukkerij Universitas. 1920.

PROFESSOR VISSCHER'S RECTORALE REDE.

Door Dr. H. W. VAN DER VAART SMIT.

Overdruk van het Gereformeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1920.

Baarn: Drukkerij Oranje Nassau, R. K. v. d. Berg. 1920.

IT IS a somewhat exigent position in which a theologian finds himself, when, as Rector Magnificus of a great University, he faces "the four faculties" for the purpose of delivering to them his Rectoral Address. There are many points of view represented among his hearers; and some of them are quite intolerant of anything which he, as a theologian, may have to bring before them. In his Rectoral Address Prof. Visscher has chosen the rôle of peace-maker. Looking out upon a hard-bestead world, he bespeaks the cooperation of all in the pressing task of saving Western civilization from the dissolution with which he appears to think it threatened.

Prof. Visscher seems fairly to groan within himself as he surveys the social unrest of the day. The times are out of joint. The whole world is suffering from a one-sidedness of development which has destroyed the spiritual equilibrium—and is not harmonious growth the condition of social health? True, progress has hitherto been made, not on a straight line of advance, but as a ship tacks back and forth in its course. But the leg of Diesseitigkeit on which the social ship in our Western world is now sailing seems to Prof. Visscher an inordinately long one; and he trembles lest it should prove that the ship has lost its bearings and may never get back on the balancing tack of Jenseitigkeit. Indeed, he does not wish it to do just this. The leg of Jenseitigkeit is itself only a tack. He wishes the ship to cease all tacking and sail straight onward, in the teeth of whatever wind, directly to its goal.

Why should not science and religion, for example, live in harmony, each contributing its part to the spiritual health of mankind? Each has its own sphere, and each has only to keep its own place and the harmony is complete. And surely their harmonious co-working is a clamant duty of the times. "For the salvation of Western humanity there rests on science and religion the most pressing call to work in harmony for the regeneration of civilization. Science has the task of subjecting nature to the scepter of reason, in order thus to make it ancillary to the full development of human life. But because of its very nature, it is unable of itself to bring about this ripe result. The happiness of the peoples is not the product of it alone. Quite the contrary. It is social health alone that secures the happiness of the people. And it is religion, which sheds the light of eternity on human life, that is the wellspring of moral strength. Science and religion are the two spiritual powers which in harmonious coöperation can save the peoples of civilization. Or is it possible to save them? If the social movement continues to refuse to take the factor of religion up into itself, the destruction of our civilization is certain, and science, too, will go down in the common ruin."

It is under the impression of so great a need, and with so high a purpose in view, that Prof. Visscher undertakes the discussion of the relations of science and religion. He is at bottom pleading for the right of religion to a part in the social development of the day. This plea, however, takes the form of an attempt to show that science, properly conceived and properly presented, cannot possibly invade the field of religion, nor religion the field of science. Thus the discussion becomes formally a discussion of the relations of science and religion; and much is very richly and much is very wisely said of the relations of these two spiritual forces to one another as they have actually wrought in the life of mankind. The discussion suffers somewhat, however, from a vacillation in the use of the terms, which no doubt it would be difficult to avoid in any case with terms so loose and general—too loose and general to lend themselves to exact discriminations. It is so managed, moreover, that it seems at times on the point of becoming a discussion of the relations between knowledge and faith, if not between intellect and feeling. It is too obvious to require argument, however, that we cannot out of hand identify, on the one hand, intellect, knowledge and science, and, on the other, emotion, faith and religion. Both science and religion are products of the human spirit and the human spirit does not function thus in sections. It is, however, the attempt to bring into comparison precisely these two things, "science and religion," that works the most mischief. We might bring, say, research and religion into relation, or "science" in some narrowed sense, and theology; but "science" in the narrowed sense in which Prof. Visscher understands that term and "religion" in the purely subjective sense which Prof. Visscher strangely puts upon "religion," move in such different spheres that they are unrelatable—there is no tertium comparationis between things so disparate. You might as well talk of instituting relations between the planet Neptune and the League of Nations.

We have noted that Prof. Visscher narrows the conception of "science" for the purpose of his discussion. By it he means merely physical science. But physical science is far from being all the science there is. There is, for example, as we have suggested, theology. Theology is as truly a science as physical science; it is as truly a product of the intellect; it deals as truly with facts; it is as truly a knowledge. It is theology, the science, not religion, the life, which should be set in comparison with physical science. The thrusting of "religion," so understood, into its place has the effect of depriving it of—or at least of obscuring—its fact-content. Of "religion" it may be possible to say—what could not be said of theology—that it is only a manner—perhaps only an emotional manner—of looking at facts with which as facts "science" alone has to do, so that "science" and "religion" cannot possibly come into conflict. It is "science" alone which determines facts while it is the sole function of "religion" to suffuse these facts, given to it by "science," with a glow of transcendental emotion. It is a melancholy page which Prof. Visscher writes under the influence of this point of view, when he attempts to illustrate it by examples. Had he drawn his examples from natural religion his mistake might have been less glaring. But he draws his examples from revealed religion. The effect is that he seems to require Christianity to surrender to natural science—for it is of "natural science" alone that he speaks—all question of facts, while it confines itself to a "valuation of them in relation with God." This appears to abolish all supernaturalism from the fact-basis and fact-content of Christianity. For the "science" to which is assigned the determination of the facts which will be allowed actually to have occurred, is defined not only as a science which cannot know anything of God—for whom it has no organ—but a science which can take cognizance of nothing which does not proceed mechanically.

The actual examples considered are drawn from the creation of the world, miracles, answers to prayer, the resurrection of Christ. Of the creation of the world we are simply told that science which knows nothing of origins and confines itself to the phenomena lying before it, has nothing to do with it. We gather, however, that neither has Revelation. It is a mistake to read the creation narrative as a statement of fact; it merely gives expression to the purely religious valuation (waardeering) of the cosmos. For the rest, we prefer to transcribe Prof. Visscher's own words. "Lessing," he says, "declared that 'miracle is faith's most darling child.' And are not science and miracle in conflict? In point of fact science recognizes no miracle. But that does not yet bring it into conflict with religion. Because the chemist subjects bread to exact analysis—does that prevent the pious man from receiving his food from God's hand? Necessity teaches man to pray and to the petitioner the deliverance comes as an answer to his prayer. Does this forbid a scientific explanation of the occurrence? But let us come to the most critical matter of all. The Crucified One is proclaimed as risen from the grave. Is there any place for resurrection in exact science? Whenever it shall be brought before it as a phenomenon. Not before. And then it will have to investigate it as a physiological problem. But it is precisely here that the difference comes clearly to view. In the world-order of religion, life and death are not conceived as physiological processes, but are religious-ethical values (waarden). The resurrection is for religion an element in the great regenerative process which, by God's creative act, is producing out of this world-order a new heaven and a new earth."

Despite the reassuring tone of its closing words, the reader may be pardoned if he receives from this paragraph a very unpleasant impression. There is an appearance at least that the actual occurrence of strictly miraculous events in the foundation of Christianity is denied. Miracles and providential answers to prayer seem to be brought into the same category. The one, as the other, appears to be conceived at best as the product of the concursive action of God; at worst, as only a subjective way of looking at facts wholly "natural" alike in their nature and in the mode of their production. And what shall we say of the manner in which the resurrection of Christ is dealt with? "Science," we are told, can have nothing to do with it until it is presented to it as a "phenomenon." Is it not precisely as a phenomenon that it lies in the sight of all men—an occurrence in space and time verified by the senses? And has not even the "physiological problem" been adequately determined? Has it not been established on unexceptionable observation that the resurrection-body, like that which was laid in the grave, was a body of flesh and bones? When now it is immediately added that life and death are not conceived in the religious world-order as physiological processes, but as religious-ethical values, can we escape a distressed feeling that religion—precisely the Christian religion—is in danger of being politely bowed out of the world of fact? Precisely what characterizes Christianity, however, among the religions, is that it is a "historical religion," that is, a religion whose facts are its doctrines; which does not consist in a "tone of feeling," a way of looking at things—as for example the perception of a Father's hand in all the chances and changes of life—but has to tell of a series of great redemptive acts in which God the Lord has actually intervened in the complex of nature and the stream of history in a definitely supernatural manner. If these facts are denied as actual occurrences in time and space, Christianity is denied; if they are neglected, Christianity is neglected. Christianity is dismissed from the world of reality, and evaporated into a sentiment—"an iridescent dream."

We have no wish to be read as asserting that Prof. Visscher intends to deny, or is ready to neglect, the series of great redemptive acts of definitely supernatural character, which are constitutive of Christianity. We are only pointing out that an impression to that effect is inevitably created by the sharp contrast in which he places science as the only organ of objective reality and religion as moving in a purely subjective sphere. Whatever may be said of religion as a general world-phenomenon, native to the spirit of man, that religion which is Christianity is inseparably bound up with its "facts," and stands or falls with their objective reality. Any science which leaves no place for these facts, as such, is not neutral but antagonistic to Christianity; and between that science and this religion there must be not eternal peace but eternal war. Prof. Visscher apparently supposes that he escapes this result by so defining science as to exclude facts of supernatural origin from its ken. Facts of supernatural origin, however, are not different in nature from other facts. There is no reason to suppose that the chemical composition of the wine made at Cana or the physical properties of the loaves and fishes with which our Lord fed the multitudes—or of His resurrection-body, for that matter—differed from those of "natural" wine and bread and bodies. If facts like these have actually occurred in time and space, they necessarily come under the scrutiny of that science whose function is to give an account of phenomena. Prof. Visscher seems, however, to have made a mode of escape for himself—by confining the function of science to pure description. He tells us, it is true, that the knowledge for which this science seeks is a knowledge of relations, and he even declares with some formality that "its object can be nothing else than the world, as it presents itself as a system of relations to the knowing subject." When we say relations, however, we have already said metaphysics; and if among the relations determined there is included not merely that of antecedence and consequence, but of cause, we are already embarked on an inquiry which cannot stop short of origins. Prof. Visscher tells us, however, not only that everything which exists behind phenomena lies beyond the sphere of his science, but that this science must repel the conception of a supernatural, mystical, non-mechanical factor and confine itself to the world in which "everything proceeds mechanically." If he really means us to understand the science with which he deals after this fashion—as strictly limited to the world of mechanical causation, of which it undertakes nothing more than a descriptive account—it may not be impossible to contend that its failure to take cognizance of the supernatural facts constitutive of Christianity in no way dismisses them from objective reality. It may be the result merely of the limitations of a purely descriptive science which does not take cognizance, even descriptively, of the whole field of objective reality, but only of that portion of this field which is governed by mechanical necessity. In this case it might be true enough that "all the results of this exact science are consistent with religion," because the world of religion "is a different and a wider world than the system of relations which exact science," so conceived, "builds up with immense labor." An eternal peace may well be declared between the two, bought not at the cost of religion—the fact-content of Christianity—but at the cost of science.

Whether this limited conception of science, as seeking only a descriptive account of mechanical reality, can be maintained is another question. Certainly, in any case, the science with which Prof. Visscher proclaims religion to be eternally at peace, has never, whether in the limitations which he puts upon it, or in the perfection which he ascribes to its deliverances, existed on sea or land. He is not unaware of course of the subjective side of science; but he appears to neglect it in the prosecution of his discussion, and to identify the science of which he speaks with the objective system of realities itself, which he apparently imagines to be perfectly reflected in the human intellect. Thus he seems to think of science as the pure product of the pure intellect of a pure humanity working purely. We shall get no such science as that until the world of reality is reflected in the consciousness of the perfected humanity of the completed palingenesis. The science and religion of perfected humanity will of course be in harmony. What we have in the meantime, however, is only the distorted reflection of reality in warped intellects, dimmed by imperfections and clouded by prepossessions. Could we listen directly to the teaching of that "beautiful Maiden bearing the torch of enlightenment," to whom Prof. Visscher introduces us, we should of course yield to it instant and complete obedience. But this "calm-eyed Science" is not to be encountered in the Market-place, and is not to be met with in the Rialto. She speaks to us only in the voices of her servants, and each of them has his own—well, say personal equation. After all is said, the voices of the scientists are not the voice of Science. And no inability which religion—the Christian religion—may show to live in peace with the one can argue disharmony with the other. No more here than elsewhere can millennial conditions be anticipated. There is no conflict between science and religion: they are not only, as Prof. Visscher declares, two expressions of our spiritual life, but two revelations of God. But conflict between science and religion will continue so long as we toil and moil in the present distress; they are only expressions of our spiritual life, and in these days of our tribulation our spiritual life is faulty in all its expressions. It is only when that which is perfect is come, that here too imperfection shall put on perfection.

There is no help for it, then; science and religion must just strive together until both the one and the other lie perfect in the minds of the perfected. Principially, there is no conflict between them: actually, the conflict is without cessation. There is no menace in this struggle. What would be ominous would be if the struggle should cease, especially if it should cease through either one or the other losing heart or selling its soul for a patched-up peace. We take it that the gist of Prof. Visscher's Address is to call on religion to recognize science's right to exist, to call on science to recognize religion's right to exist. If we may so read it, we shall all heartily echo the call. Of course neither will wait for the permission of the other to exist. Whether we accord them permission or not, both exist side by side, not only in the social organism, but in every man's own soul. The problem is their adjustment to one another. In the soul of the individual and in the community of mankind alike, the adjustment can be attained only through conflict. As they wrestle together each is more and more purified and perfected; each grows ever stronger. Now the one may seem to get the advantage; now the other. But through the struggle both push steadily onward. The advance is a zig-zag progress, but it is ever advance. At the end lies the goal; the goal, not of one but of both; then the struggle ceases because both emerge from it perfect. Science too is a builder in the Kingdom of God, and along with religion advances its coming. No less truly than religion itself, it is a son of God, and works as He has taught it how.

It is not surprising that the ambiguities of Prof. Visscher's treatment of his theme have caused distress to those who have been accustomed to look to him for guidance and support. Acute expression is given to this distress in the remarks on the Address by Dr. van der Vaart Smit. As he reads it, it dismisses from Christianity the whole element of direct supernaturalism. We cannot deny that there is far too much color of justification for such an interpretation of it. It is true, moreover, that Prof. Visscher seems to impose on himself with the phrase "exact science," that he conceives too narrowly of science as purely "materialistic-mechanistic," that he has forgotten theology in his absorption with "religion." Still we hope that the intended meaning of the Address is not that which Dr. Smit finds in it. Prof. Karl Heim contributed to the "Studies on Systematic Theology" presented a year or two ago to Theodor von Haering, on his seventieth birthday, a very interesting sketch of the history of the doctrine of "The Double Truth." In it he tells the story of a young instructor in the University of Paris, in 1247, John Brescain by name, who, holding a professorship alike in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Theology, thought it right to teach Averroism in the one, with its denial of individual immortality and the resurrection, and Christianity in the other, with its affirmation of both. His case proved not to be singular: a whole party developed itself at the University of Paris, which declared that such things were true secundum fidem catholicam but not secundum philosophiam—as if, says the Episcopal Rescript, sunt duae contrariae veritates. We are not insinuating that Prof. Visscher holds to the doctrine of "the double truth," or lives under its shadow; but we think that the state of mind in the University of Paris in the thirteenth century may afford us a not unsuggestive parallel to such a complete disassociation of science and religion as Prof. Visscher seems to wish to carry through.

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Critical Reviews by B. B. Warfield, Copyright © 2021

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