SUPPLEMENT.

RECENT ATTACKS.- ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.- EXCLUSIVE TRAITS OF CHRISTIANITY.—THE CLAIM OF JESUS TO BE THE MESSIAH.

It is now thirty-three years since the preceding lectures were published. Since that time there has been incessant activity, both in attacking and defending the Christian Evidences, and it seems due to those who study the lectures, that some reference should be made to what has been done.

ATTACKS OF THE CRITICAL SCHOOL.

Strauss. The mythical theory.-The most notable attack that has claimed to have any thing new, has been from what is called the Critical School. This school became prominent in Germany, on the publication, in 1835, of the "Life of Jesus," by Strauss, in which he sought to establish the mythical theory. The narratives of the New Testament he placed on the same basis as the myths respecting the heathen gods. Denying miracles, he regarded the character of Christ as the result of the Messianic ideas of the Jews, embodied without conscious fraud in the Gospel narratives. That there might be time for such myths to arise, he undertook to show by criticism that the Gospels were not written till near the close of the second century.

Baur.-Conscious deception.-Strauss was followed by Baur, a professor in the University of Tübingen,

and by the Tübingen School. This school is identical with that of Strauss, as rejecting miracles and relying upon "criticism;" but attributes less to the mythical theory, and more to collusion and fraud. Hence, as willing to avoid the difficulties encountered by Strauss, in assigning the Gospels to so late a date, they place them earlier.

Renan.-Legendary theory.—Following the Tübingen School, relying on the same weapon, and also rejecting miracles, came Renan. His "Life of Jesus" had an extraordinary popularity, due in part to its style, and, in part, to its falling in with the general skeptical tendency on the continent of Europe. He is more ready than his predecessors to assign the usual dates to the writings of the New Testament, but adopts, so far as there is a difference, the legendary, rather than the mythical theory. His work is lively, sentimental, and has been well said to be a novel rather than a biography. He speaks in the highest terms of Jesus, yet thinks he had weaknesses, and imputes to him conscious deception.

In connection with these leaders was a large number of others of the same general school, as Schenkel, Keim, Schwegler, Hilgenfeld and others.

Of this attack of the Critical School, taken as a whole, it may be observed:

The old assault in different form. First, That it is really a continuation of the deistical attack of the last century. It is so, because its criticism is mainly in the interest of a denial of the supernatural generally, and of the miracles of the New Testament in particular. These miracles, the writers of this school set aside at the outset. They assume that they are "unhistorical." Thus, Strauss, as quoted by Prof. Christlieb, says, "We now know for certain, at least what Jesus was not, and did not do, viz., nothing superhuman or supernatural."

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Baur, speaking of history, says, "Its task is to investigate what has happened in the connection of its causes and effects; but the miraculous, in its absolute sense, destroys the natural connection." Renan, too, in his essay on "The Critical Historians of Jesus," says, "Criticism has two modes of attacking a marvellous narrative, for as to accepting it as it stands, it cannot think of it, since its essence is denial of the super natural." In his introduction to "The Life of Jesus," he says, "Till we have new light we shall maintain this principle of historical criticism, that a supernatural relation cannot be accepted as such; that it always implies credulity or imposture." And these are the men who claim impartiality in the criticism of works, a prominent feature of which is the narration of miraculous events! It seems like judicial blindness that they should thus proclaim their own unfitness for the work they undertook.

Disagreement of the critics among themselves. It is to be observed second, That these witnesses against Christ no more agree among themselves than did those at his trial before the High Priest. The original theory of Strauss was that of myths unconsciously growing up. That of Baur was invention for a purpose. These are incompatible theories, and both have ceased to attract attention in the land of their birth. "The number of those," says Prof. Christlieb, "who represent Baur's theory, whole and entire, is, at least among German theologians, very small. In Tübingen, there is now no longer any Tübingen School."

Renan's theory also incompatible with that of Strauss. Renan adopts the legendary theory. He says, "I should prefer the words legend, and legendary narratives, which, while they concede a large influence to the working of opinion, allow the action and the personal character of Jesus to stand out in their com

pleteness."* Again, he says, "Legend, and not myth, is the proper word for the stories of the earliest Christian period." Adopting this theory, he assigned, as the theory of Strauss did not permit him to do, an early origin to the Gospel narratives. In his introduction to the "Life of Jesus," he says, "Upon the whole, I accept the four canonical Gospels as authentic. All, in my judgment, date back to the first century, and they are substantially by the authors to whom they are attributed, but in historic value they are very unequal." Of the Gospel by John, so much called in question of late, he says in the same introduction: "But that in substance, this Gospel issued towards the end of the first century from the great school of Asia Minor, which held to John; that it presents to us a version of the Master's life, worthy of high consideration, and often of preference, is demonstrated by external evidence and by an examination of the document itself, in a manner to leave nothing to be desired." How incompatible Renan himself regards this with the view of Strauss, will be seen from his saying, "It is a capital point in his [Strauss's] theory, that our four Gospels cannot, in their actual form, be assigned to an earlier period than the end of the second century." He also says of Strauss, that he "lacks all feeling for history and fact, and never leaves the questions of myth and symbol." It is thus that while these men taken singly, might be regarded as formidable, they cease to be so when taken together.

Seeing thus the avowed unfitness of these men for their work, and the incompatibility of their theories, we turn to the theories themselves.

The real objection. As intimated above, the real objection is in the fact that the Gospel narratives affirm miracles. With a certain class of scientists, this has

• Religious History and Criticism, p. 189. ↑ Ibid. p. 194. Ibid. p. 187.

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become more and more an offence, but no theological dogmatism ever exceeded that which assumes a priori that miracles are to be regarded as "unhistorical," that is, that they cannot constitute a part of a true history. To say that, is to beg the whole question. Perhaps there never was a more flagrant instance of the tendency of the human mind to pass from one extreme to its opposite. Constantly referring us to the tendency in former times to regard as miraculous, events that we now refer to natural causes, and disregarding the truth that no natural tendency ever wholly misleads us, these men go, with a weakness quite equal to that which they despise, to the opposite extreme. If it may be said, looking at nature alone, that there is a presumption against miracles, yet, as was shown in the second lecture, looking at nature in relation to man in his present condition, the presumption would be in their favor.

Miracles essential, but of only relative importance. — In themselves, miracles are of little importance. The one important thing is the personality of God, and miracles are important as the only means of showing that. In fact, any manifestation of God as personal, is substantially a miracle. Revelation is itself miraculous, and hence miracles are not incidental, or needed simply as evidence. They enter in as a part of the system. Take from Christianity the miraculous element and it would not be a religion. In the view of a science that knows of nothing above nature, and so can explain nothing, a miracle must seem impossible; but, viewing nature as the theatre of a moral government, and subordinate to it, miracles might be anticipated if the exigencies of that government should demand them.

The question one of fact and evidence. The question would then be, and is, simply one of fact and of evidence. Did Christ rise from the dead? If He did, to say that that fact would be incapable of proof, would