History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

Lecture VI. Free Thought In The Theology Of Germany From 1750-1835.

Phil. iv. 8.

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

We are about to study the history of the movement in German theology, which is usually described by the vague name of Rationalism,[656]—a movement which, whether viewed specially in its relation to theology, or to literature generally, must be regarded as one of the most memorable efforts of human thought. It was one aspect of the great outburst of mental activity in Germany, which within the last hundred years has created a literature, which not only vies with the most renowned of those which have added to the stock of human knowledge, but holds a foremost rank among those which are characterised by originality and depth. The permanent contribution made by it to the thought of the world is the creation of a science of criticism,—a method of analysis, in which philosophy and history are jointly employed in the investigation of every branch of knowledge. If however it be viewed apart from the question of utility, the works produced during [pg 211] this period, in poetry, speculation, criticism, and theology, must ever make it memorable for monuments of mental power, even when they shall have become obsolete as sources of information.

The theological aspect of this great period of mental activity, which we are about to sketch, has now probably so far assumed its final shape, and given indications of the tendencies permanently created by it for good or for evil, that it admits of being viewed as a whole, and its purpose and meaning observed.[657]

We shall deviate slightly from the plan hitherto pursued, of selecting only the sceptical form of free thought, and shall give an outline of German theology generally; partly because the limits that sever orthodoxy from heresy are a matter of dispute, partly in order that the movement may be judged of as a whole. The size of the subject will preclude the possibility of entering so fully into biographical notices of the writers, or into the analysis of their writings, as in former lectures. We must select such typical minds as will enable us to observe the chief tendencies of thought.

As the stages of history are not arbitrarily severed, but grow out of each other, we must briefly notice the mental conditions of the period in Germany which preceded the rise of rationalism; next indicate the new forces, the introduction of which was the means of generating the movement; and then explain the movement itself in its chief phases and present results.

We have previously had occasion to imply, that the Protestant reformation of the sixteenth century contained both an intellectual and a spiritual element.[658] The attempt to reconcile these has been the problem of protestant theology in Germany ever since. The intellectual element, so far as it was literary, soon [pg 212] passed into the hands of lay scholars:[659] the spiritual became a life rather than a doctrine, and the polemic or dogmatic aspect of the intellectual movement alone was left. The time from the passing of the Formula of Concord and the Synod of Dort[660] to the beginning of the eighteenth century, a period nearly corresponding with the seventeenth century, was in Germany an age of dogmatic theology. It was scholasticism revived, with the difference that the only source for the data of argument was the Scripture, not philosophy. But there was an equal absence of inquiry into first principles, an equal appeal to authority for the grounds of belief, and equal activity within these prescribed limits. It was marked, as among the contemporary puritans in England, by the most extreme view of biblical inspiration.[661] Not only was the distinction of law and gospel overlooked, and the historic and providential development in revelation forgotten; but Scripture was supposed to be in all respects a guide for the present, as [pg 213] well as a record of the past. Infallible inspiration was attributed to the authors of the sacred books, not merely in reference to the religious instruction which formed the appropriate matter of the supernatural revelation, but in reference also to the allusions to collateral subjects, such as natural science, or politics; and not merely to the matter, but to the smallest details of the language of the books.

Contemporary with this scholastic spirit was an outburst of the living spiritual feeling which had formed the other element in the Reformation. This religious movement is denominated Pietism. ([27]) Its centre was at Halle; and the best known name among the band of saints, of whom the world was not worthy, was Spener. Soon after the time when the miseries of the thirty years' war were closing, he established schools for orphans, and a system of teaching and of religious living which stirred up religious life in Germany. These two tendencies—the dogmatic and the pietistic—marked the religious life of Germany at the opening of the eighteenth century. The inference has been frequently drawn by the German writers, that they ministered indirectly to the production of scepticism; the dogmatic strictness stimulating a reaction towards latitude of opinion, and the unchurchlike and isolating character of pietism fostering individuality of belief. This inference is however hardly correct. Dogmatic truth in the corporate church, and piety in the individual members, are ordinarily the safeguard of Christian faith and life. The danger arose in this case from the circumstance that the dogmas were emptied of life, and so became unreal; and that the piety, being separated from theological science, became insecure.

During the first half of the century, certain new influences were introduced, which in the latter half caused these tendencies to develope into rationalism. They may be classed as three;[662]—the spread of the [pg 214] speculative philosophy of Wolff; the introduction of the works of the English deists; and the influence of the colony of French infidels established by Frederick the Great in Prussia. We shall explain these in detail.

The philosophy of Wolff was an offshoot directly from Leibnitz, indirectly from the Cartesian school. It is hardly necessary to reiterate the remark that the revolution in thought wrought by Descartes was nothing less than a protest of the human mind against any external authority for the first principles of its belief. Two great philosophers followed out his method in an independent manner; Spinoza, who attempted to exhibit with the rigour of deduction the necessary development of the idea of substance into the various modes which it assumes; and Leibnitz,[663] who, with less attempt at formal precision of method, starting with the idea of power, endeavoured, by means of the monadic theory, which it is unnecessary here to explain, to exhibit the nature of the universe in itself, and the connexion of the world of matter and of spirit. Wolff was a disciple of Leibnitz; great as a teacher rather than an inventor, who invested the system of his master slightly modified, with the precision of form which raised it to rivalry with the perfect symmetry of Spinoza's system. Adopting his master's two great canons of truth, the law of contradiction as regulative of thoughts, and the law of the sufficient reason as regulative of things,[664] he attempted in his theoretic philosophy to work out a regular system on each of the great branches of metaphysic,—nature, the mind, and God; by deducing them from the abstract ideas of the human mind.[665] The true method of conducting [pg 215] this inquiry would be strictly an à posteriori one, an analytical examination of our own consciousness, to ascertain what data the facts of the thinking mind furnish with respect to things thought of. But without any such examination Wolff, assuming in reference to these subjects the abstract ideas of the human mind as his data, proceeded to reason from them with the same confidence as the realists of the middle ages, or as mathematicians when they commence with the real intuitions of magnitude on which their science is founded. Thus his whole philosophy was form without matter; a magnificent idea, but not a fact. Yet though really baseless, it was not necessarily harmful.

This philosophy at first met with much opposition from the pietistic party of Halle.[666] The opposition was not due to any theological incorrectness, for Wolff was an orthodox Christian; but arose from the narrow and unnecessary suspicions which religious men too often have of philosophy, and the sensibility to any attempt to suggest a reconsideration of the grounds of belief, even if the conclusion adopted be the same. But the system soon became universally dominant. Its orderly method possessed the fascination which belongs to any encyclopædic view of human knowledge. It coincided too with the tone of the age. Really opposed, as Cartesianism had been in France, to the scholasticism which still reigned, its dogmatic form nevertheless bore such external similarity to it, that it fell in with [pg 216] the old literary tastes. The evil effects which it subsequently produced in reference to religion were due only to the point of view which it ultimately induced. Like Locke's work on the reasonableness of Christianity, it stimulated intellectual speculation concerning revelation. By suggesting attempts to deduce à priori the necessary character of religious truths, it turned men's attention more than ever away from spiritual religion to theology. The attempt to demonstrate everything caused dogmas to be viewed apart from their practical aspect; and men being compelled to discard the previous method of drawing philosophy out of scripture, an independent philosophy was created, and scripture compared with its discoveries.[667] Philosophy no longer relied on scripture, but scripture rested on philosophy. Dogmatic theology was made a part of metaphysical philosophy. This was the mode in which Wolff's philosophy ministered indirectly to the creation of the disposition to make scriptural dogmas submit to reason, which was denominated rationalism. The empire of it was undisputed during the whole of the middle part of the century, until it was expelled towards the close by the partial introduction of Locke's philosophy,[668] and of the system of Kant, as well as by the growth of classical erudition, and of a native literature.

The second cause which ministered to generate rationalism was English deism. The connexion of England with Hanover had caused several of the works of the English deists to be translated in Germany,[669] and the [pg 217] general doctrines of natural religion, expressed by Herbert and Toland, were soon reproduced, together with the difficulties put forth by Tindal. But the direct effect of this cause has probably been exaggerated by the eagerness of those who, in the wish to identify German rationalism with English deism, have ignorantly overlooked the wide differences in premises, if not in results, which separated them, and the regular internal law of logical development which has presided over the German movement.

A more direct cause was found about the middle of the century in the influence of the French refugees and others, whom Frederick the Great invited to his court. Not only were Voltaire and Diderot visitors, but several writers of worse fame, La Mettrie, D'Argens, Maupertuis,[670] who possessed their faults without their mental power, were constant residents. Their philosophy and unbelief were the miniature of that which we have detailed in France. They created an antichristian atmosphere about the court, and in the upper classes of Berlin; and even minds that were attempting to create a native literature, and to improve the critical standard of literary taste, were partially influenced by means of it.[671]

We have now seen the state of the German mind in reference to theology at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the three new influences which were introduced into it in the interval between 1720 and 1760. The dogmatic tendency became transformed by the Wolffian philosophy; the pietistic retired from a public movement into the privacy of life; while the minds of [pg 218] men were awakened to inquiry by the suggestions of the English deists, or the restless and hopeful tone of the French mind. It was a moment of transition; the streaks of twilight before the dawn. Yet the signs of a change were so slight, that few could as yet discern the coming of a crisis, none predict its form.

We may now proceed to give the history of the theological movement which sprang up, commonly called Rationalism. It admits of natural division into three parts. The first, a period destructive in its tendency, extending to a little later than the end of the century, exhibits the gradual growth of the system, and its spread over every department of theology. The second, reconstructive in character, the re-establishment of harmony between faith and reason, extends till the publication of Strauss's celebrated work on the Life of Christ in 1835; the third, containing the divergent tendencies which have created permanent schools, reaches to the present time.[672] In all alike the harmony of faith and reason was sought: but in the first it was attained by sacrificing faith to reason; in the second and third, by seeking for their unity, or by separating their spheres. A distinguished name stands at the commencement of each period, representing the mind whose speculations were most influential in giving form to the movements. Semler inaugurated the destructive movement; Schleiermacher, the constructive; and Strauss precipitated the final forms which theological parties have assumed. In the present lecture we shall treat only of the first two of these movements.

The first of these periods, extending; from about 1750 to 1810,[673] contains two sub-periods. Till about 1790[674] we find the growth of rationalism. In the last decade of the century we shall meet with its full development; [pg 219] but at the same time the growth of new causes will be perceived, which prepared the way for a total alteration after the commencement of the present century.

The sub-period extending to 1790 is one of transition, in which we can trace three broadly marked tendencies in religion; one within the church, two outside of it. Such classes indeed slide away into each other; nature is more complex than man; but the use of them may be excused as facilitating instruction.

The movement within the church verged from a literary and dogmatic orthodoxy, which existed chiefly at the Saxon university of Leipsic, through the purely literary tendency, of which Michaelis may be taken as a type in the newly formed university of Göttingen, to the freethinking method typified by Semler, orthodox in doctrine, but in criticism adopting free views of inspiration, which mingled itself with the old pietism of the university of Halle.[675]

The two movements outside the church were, a literary one, indicated by Lessing, which found its chief utterance in the periodical literature, then in its infancy;[676] and a thoroughly deist one, connected with the court of Berlin, embodied in the educational institutions of Basedow.[677]

The movement which we have just named as existing within the church, differed from the older dogmatic one, in being a tendency toward an historical and critical study of the scriptures, instead of a philosophical study of doctrines. It embraced those whose teaching was not at variance with Christianity, and also those [pg 220] who manifested incipient scepticism. Two names, Ernesti[678] at Leipsic, and Michaelis[679] at Göttingen, represent the first class; the former applying criticism chiefly to the New Testament, the latter to the Old. The endeavour of both, especially of Ernesti, was to revive the grammatical and literary mode of interpreting scripture, as opposed to the dogmatic previously in use. Their spirit was not sceptical, but was that of men who felt the sceptical opinions round them; ethical and cold, like that of the Arminians of the preceding century.

Their system developed into rationalism in the hands of two of their pupils. Eichhorn was the pupil of Michaelis, Semler of Ernesti. The name of Eichhorn will recur later; Semler[680] must be considered now.

Semler was one of those minds which fall short of the highest order of originality, but by their erudition and appreciation of the wants of their time institute a movement by giving form to the current feeling of [pg 221] their day. Nurtured in pietism, he always retained signs of personal excellence; and his Christian earnestness is said not to have been destroyed by his speculations. His autobiography furnishes us with the means for the full comprehension of his character, and shows him to have been keenly alive to the difficulties which the English literature had suggested. His labours related to criticism, to exegesis, and to doctrine. As a critic he did not restrict himself to the examination of texts, but investigated the canonicity of the books of Scripture.[681] It is probable that the criticism commenced by R. Simon and Spinoza furnished hints for his views. He was one of the first to undervalue external evidence in the formation of the canon. The determination of the canon, i.e. of the list of books which are to be considered scripture, is a question of fact. What did the early church pronounce to be such; and does internal evidence bear out the idea? Semler undervalued the historical evidence of the church's judgment, and replaced it, not by careful study of internal critical evidence, like later rationalism, but by an à priori subjective decision, that only such books were to be received as conduced to a religious object. But it is in exegesis that he enunciated the principles which have left a permanent effect. He established what is called the historical method of interpretation.[682]

In the course of Christian history, three great methods for the interpretation of scripture have been used; the allegorical, the dogmatic, and the grammatical.[683] In the early church the tendency in the main [pg 222] was to the allegorical; in the middle-ages to the dogmatic; at the Renaissance and Reformation to the grammatical, which however in the seventeenth century was displaced by the allegorical[684] and dogmatic; and it was the work of Ernesti to restore it. Semler added the historic; by which is meant the method, which, after discovering the grammatical sense of the words, rests content exactly with the meaning which the circumstances of society could permit scripture to have at that age. It declines to search for mystical senses, or to use dogma as a clue to interpretation. This principle, so valuable in itself, yet, when abused, so fruitful in producing rationalism, was the discovery of Semler.

The application of this method of interpretation led him to the theory generally known by the name of “accommodation.”[685] He felt a strong reaction against the forgetfulness shown by the old dogmatic orthodoxy, which had regarded the Bible as one book, instead of a collection or historic series of books, and had confounded together the Jewish and Christian dispensations, and taken no cognizance of the development of religious knowledge in scripture. Accordingly he desired to remove the deist difficulty by separating the eternal truth in scripture from what he considered to be local[686] that the Mosaic law of divorce was an adaptation to the particular [pg 223] needs of the age, seemed to establish the validity of the principle that revelation was an accommodation to be judged of by the historic circumstances of the age for which it was intended. The principle had been applied by English theologians:[687] but it needed a delicate insight to apply it safely. Semler introduced it indiscriminately into prophecy, miracle, and doctrine; and stated his views in a form which, though well meant, is certainly most repulsive. We may cite an instance in the case of his view of the demoniacal possessions of the New Testament.[688] Not denying them, Semler probably considered them to be nothing but the diseases of epilepsy and madness. But he did not ridicule the narrative as a deist would, nor explain the facts away as legends or myths, as is the plan of the later schools, nor account for them by the supposition that the apostles were left in ignorance about physical science, and inspired only in religious knowledge; but he regarded the narrative as an intentional accommodation on the part of the teachers to their hearers, and consequently stated his views in a form which is the more repulsive as seeming to impute dishonesty.[689] He went so far as to consider some of the doctrines of the New Testament to be an accommodation on the part of our Lord to the Jewish notions; and regarded Christ's work as the compromise between the Mosaic and philosophical parties in the Jewish church, which afterwards were represented in the Christian by St. Peter and St. Paul respectively.[690] Though he himself held the apostles' creed, and was shocked at some later developments of [pg 224] unbelief,[691] yet he seems to have considered practical morality to be at once the sole aim of Christianity, and the supreme rule of doctrine.[692] He founded no school; but his influence decidedly initiated the rationalist movement within the church; one peculiarity of which will be found to be, that it was professedly designed in defence of the church, not as an attack upon it.

The tendency which we have just studied was within the church. The two now about to be named were external to it. The one, earnest and scholarlike, formed chiefly on the model of English deism, is represented by Lessing. The other, modelled after Rousseau, was practical rather than intellectual, and aimed at remodelling education as well as altering belief.

Lessing,[693] a name honoured in the history of literature, is little known in England, save by his exquisite comparison of art and poetry, called the Laocoon.[694] He was one of those whose labours remain for the benefit of other ages, like that of the coral worms, which die, but leave their work. That a native German literature exists, is the work of Lessing as pioneer; that it is worth studying, is the result of his criticism and influence. Finding literature just arising, and the dispute still raging between the Saxon and Swiss schools, whether it should model itself after reason and form like the French literature, or after nature and the soul like the English, ([28]) he showed the true mode of uniting the two by turning attention to Greek models; [pg 225] and, in conjunction with Nicholai and the Jewish philosopher Mendelssohn, established a critical periodical, which became the agency for a literary reformation. But the point of interest, in relation to our present subject, is his influence on religion. Availing himself of the right which his position as librarian of Wolfenbüttel, a small town near Brunswick, gave him to publish manuscripts found in the library, he edited, in 1774 and the four following years, several fragments of a larger work, which he professed to have found. They are usually called the Wolfenbüttel fragments. ([29]) Till recently their authorship remained a secret. They are now known to have been written by the learned Hamburg philosopher, Reimarus.[695] They treated very nearly the same subjects, and in much the same tone, but with consummate skill, as the English deists. Reimarus, as is now known, in the introduction[696] to the larger unprinted work from which they were extracted, gave his own intellectual history, his early doubts on the doctrines of the Trinity, and the destruction of the heathen; and also on the history of the Old and New Testaments; and ends, like the English deists, with resting in natural religion.

The first two[697] fragments, published by Lessing, touched only upon the question of tolerating deists, and on the custom of declaiming against human reason in the pulpits. The third referred to the impossibility that all men should be brought to believe revelation on rational evidence. The fourth and fifth attacked the Old Testament history, such as the passage of the Red Sea. The sixth directed an assault against the New Testament; pointing out with unsparing severity the discrepancies in the accounts of the resurrection. The concluding one was on the object of Christianity, in [pg 226] which our blessed Lord's life and work were represented as a defeated political reform.

These views however were not professedly sanctioned by Lessing, for he added notes in refutation of them, and stated his object to be merely to stimulate free inquiry.[698] His wish was gratified in the tremendous effect which the publication produced. In the literary controversy which ensued, and which embittered his few remaining days,[699] he explained himself to be a doubter rather than a disbeliever; and defended himself by urging the distinctness of the religious element in scripture from the scientific; asserting that, as Christianity existed before the New Testament, so it could exist after it. The Christian religion is not true, he said, merely because evangelists and apostles taught it; but they taught it because it is true. And in order to restore Christianity to its true place in the estimation of thinking men, he composed or edited a well-known work[700] on the Education of the World,[701] which became a fertile source of thought for the philosophy of history, and was designed to explain the function of the Jewish religion in reference to the Christian, and to the world. The theology of Lessing's coadjutors however, if not also that of Lessing himself, did not rise higher than that of the more serious among the English deists.[702]

The other tendency, more decidedly sceptical even than that of Lessing, gave definite form to the extreme [pg 227] sceptical opinions excited by French philosophy, which had been fermenting in German society, and had earlier expressed themselves. It is best represented by Edelmann,[703] and by the unhappy Bahrdt, who passed gradually from Semler's school into this. Its religions tenets were simple naturalism, moral as distinct from positive religion; and it was connected with the attempt by Basedow,[704] patronised by Frederick, to establish educational institutions on the model proposed in Rousseau's Emile. The name which it gave to the movement was, the Period of Enlightenment (Aufklärung-zeit),[705] which expressed the consciousness of illumination, and the yearning for deliverance which was finding its expression in France; and this name therefore has been usually adopted among foreign writers to describe this period of the history.

Such are the historical tendencies from about 1750 till about 1790—cold but learned orthodoxy; the commencement of critical rationalism, and open deism. About that time new influences came into operation, the effects of which are at once evident. Without taking account of the excitement caused by the political events of the French revolution, we may name two such new causes of movement—the literary influence of the court of Weimar, and the philosophy of Kant.

The centres of intellectual activity in Germany now changed. We are so apt to forget that Germany, especially at the end of the last century, formed a set of [pg 228] independent principalities, which varied in taste, in belief, and in literary tone, that we fail to realise the individuality of the scenes of literary activity. At the end of the last century there was one spot which became the very focus of intellectual life. The court of Karl August at Weimar, insignificant in political importance, was great in the history of the human mind.[706] There were gathered there most of the mighty spirits of the golden ago of German literature,—Herder, Wieland, Goethe, Schiller, Jean Paul; a constellation of intellect unequalled since the court of Ferrara in the days of Alphonso.[707] The influence made itself felt in the adjacent university of Jena; and this little seminary became from that time for about twenty years,[708] until the foundation of Berlin, the first university in Germany. In it alone the philosophy of Kant became naturalized.[709] Some of the ablest men in Germany were its Professors; and about this time Jena and Weimar became the stronghold of free thought.

Except in the case of Herder,[710] the literary influence was not directly influential on theology. But it gave moral support to theological movement; though ultimately, by introducing a truer and more subjective appreciation of human nature, it was the means of generating [pg 229] the deep insight in the critical taste of thinking men which furnished the death-blow to rationalism. The same remark is true of the effects of the philosophy of Kant.[711] Its ultimate result was valuable in removing the eudæmonism common in ethics, and turning men's attention to the moral law within. But its immediate effects were to reinforce the appeal to reason, and to destroy revelation by leaving nothing to be revealed.

The nature of this system, so far as is necessary for our purpose, may be soon told. Kant, dissatisfied with the distrust in the human faculties induced by the scepticism of Hume, and the one-sided sensationalism of Condillac, carried a penetrating analysis into the human faculties;[712] attempting to perform with more exactness the work of Locke, to measure the human mind, which is the sounding-line, before fathoming the ocean of knowledge. Like Copernicus inverting astronomy, he reversed metaphysics, by referring classes of ideas to inward causes which before had been referred to outer.

He detected, as he supposed, innate forms of thought[713] in the mental structure, which form the conditions under which knowledge is possible. When he applied his system to give a philosophy of ethics and religion, he asserted nobly the law of duty written [pg 230] in the heart,[714] but identified it with religion. Religious ideas were regarded as true regulatively, not speculatively. Revelation was reunited with reason, by being resolved into the natural religion of the heart. Accordingly, the moral effect of this philosophy was to expel the French materialism and illuminism,[715] and to give depth to the moral perceptions: its religious effect was to strengthen the appeal to reason and the moral judgment as the test of religious truth; to render miraculous communication of moral instruction useless, if not absurd; and to reawaken the attempt, which had been laid aside since the Wolffian philosophy, of endeavouring to find a philosophy of religion.[716] From this time in German theology we shall find the existence of the twofold movement; the critical one, the lawful descendant of Semler, examining the historic revelation; and the philosophical one, the offshoot of the system of Kant, seeking for a philosophy of religion.

During the next twenty years, from 1790 to 1810, when so many influences were operating in common, it is not easy to measure the effect of the speculative philosophy upon particular minds with such exactness as to ascertain which ought properly to be classed in the destructive tendency, and which gave signs of the reaction. We must however be careful to exclude those younger minds[717] that were already appearing on the field, to become the heroes of the subsequent history, whose tone was so decidedly affected by new influences as to belong to the age of reaction.

In this sub-period we may name three tendencies: (1) the continuation of the Exegesis inaugurated in the last epoch by Semler, until about the end of the century it found its utmost limit in Paulus,[718]—the result of the [pg 231] age of illumination; (2) a dogmatic tendency, more or less the growth of new influences introduced by the new philosophy, which attempted to reconcile reason with the supernatural, and may be represented in its nearest approach to orthodoxy, at the end of this period, by Bretschneider;[719] and (3) the awakening of a distinct expression of the appeal to the supernatural which had never quite died out in the church, in the Arminianism of Reinhardt in the north, and of Storr in the south.[720] The last needs no further investigation; but we shall consider briefly the other two.

The exegetical method which formed the first was that which is now usually called the old or common-sense rationalism.[721] This form of rationalism differed from the English deism and French naturalism, in not regarding the Bible as fabulous in character, and the device of priestcraft;[722] but only denied the supernatural. By them the apostles had been regarded as impostors; and scripture was not only not received as divine, but not even respected as an ordinary historical record; whereas rationalism was intended as a defence against this view. It denied only the revealed character of scripture, and treated it as an ordinary history; and, distinguishing broadly between the fact related [pg 232] and the judgment on the fact, sought to separate the two, and explained away the supernatural element, such as miracles, as being orientalisms in the narrative, adapted to an infant age, which an enlightened age must translate into the language of ordinary events.

Eichhorn at Göttingen[723] applied this view to the Old Testament. Deeming miracles impossible, he did not regard them as fraud, but admitted on the contrary that the agents or narrators honestly believed them. The supernatural was not imparted to deceive, but was the result of oriental modes of speech, such as hyperbole, parable, or ellipsis, in which the steps by which the process was performed were omitted. The smoke of Sinai was considered a thunderstorm; the shining of Moses's face a natural phenomenon.

The principles which Eichhorn applied to the Old Testament, Paulus of Jena extended to the New.[724] The miraculous cures were explained by an ellipsis in the omission of the natural remedies; the casting out of devils as the power of a wise man over the insane; the transfiguration as the confused recollection of sleeping men, who saw Jesus with two unknown friends, in the beautiful light of the morning among the mountains: nay, trespassing on still more holy ground, he dared impiously to explain away the resurrection of our blessed Lord by the hypothesis that his death was only apparent. These are a specimen of the mode of exegesis adopted in this school, which is usually specifically called Rationalism. In this mode Jesus appeared to [pg 233] be merely a wise and virtuous man; and his miracles were merely acts of skill or accident. Paulus presented this as the original Christianity. The theory did not last long, save in the mind of its author, who lived until a recent period, to see the entire change of critical belief. Attributing the supernatural to ignorance, it did not even propose, like the later schools, to explain the marvellousness of the phenomena, objectively by so plausible a theory as legends, nor subjectively by myths:[725] it was too clumsy, not to say irreverent, an explanation of the facts to satisfy a people of deep and poetical soul like the Germans.

While this is a specimen of the critical side of rationalism, its dogmatic side varied from natural ethics to a kind of Socinianism. But in all alike, as its name would imply, it not only asserted that there is only one universal revelation, which takes place through observation of nature and man's reason; but that Christianity was not designed to teach any mysterious truths, but only to confirm the religious teaching of reason; and that no one ought to recognise as true that which cannot be proved to him rationally. The doctrine of a Trinity was necessarily disbelieved; the death of Christ regarded as an historic event, or a symbol that sacrifices were abolished. Holiness was reduced to morality. Extreme veneration for the Bible was called Bibliolatry.[726] Religion was represented as acting by natural motives: the ethical superseded the historic. The early theologians of this dogmatic branch of the [pg 234] school are now little known; but we may name Bretschneider[727] as the type of the least heretical portion of it at the close of this period, who believed Christianity to be a republication of natural religion, supernatural but reasonable: and, as the literary tendency of this school continued to exist in Röhr,[728] after the movement had become extinct in other minds, so Wegscheider,[729] until a recent period, was the solitary instance of the dogmatic position slightly modified.

This completes the history of the first of the three movements, the destructive action of rationalism. The most flourishing period of this form of it was about the beginning of the present century. We have seen it originating in the rational tone of Wolff's philosophy, and the well-meant but ill-judged exegesis which Semler exhibited under the pressure of sceptical difficulties. Stimulated by critical investigations, and by the strong wish which operated on our own theologians, to find the cause of everything, its adherents were led into a [pg 235] disbelief of the supernatural, and ended in explaining away the miraculous, and reducing Christianity to natural religion. The movement, it will be observed, was professedly not intended to be destructive of Christianity. Instead of being inimical, it originated with the clergy, and aimed at harmonizing Christianity with reason. But it contained its own death. The negative criticism is essentially temporary.

The activity of thought was already producing change. We have previously stated that even the Kantian philosophy itself, though at first stimulating the appeal to reason, fostered a deeper perception of duty, and thus prepared the way for a moral reawakening.[730]

We shall accordingly now proceed to state the causes which introduced new elements into the current of public thought; and then describe the gradual progress of the reactionary movement which ensued from them.

Four causes are usually assigned. The first of them was the introduction of new systems of speculative philosophy.

It is not unusual, in those who have no taste for speculation, and who understand only the prosaic, though in some respects the truer, philosophy of Scotland, to despise the great systems of German speculation. Yet, if the series be measured as an example of the power of the human mind, whatever may be the opinion formed in respect to its correctness, it stands among the most interesting efforts of thought. Though the writers can be matched by isolated examples in former ages, perhaps no series of writers exists, hardly even the Greek, certainly not the Neo-Platonist nor the Cartesian, which, in far-reaching penetration, in minuteness of analysis, in brilliancy of imagination, in loftiness of genius, in poetry of expression, in grasp of intellect, in influence on every branch of thought or life, approximates to the series of illustrious thinkers which [pg 236] commenced with Kant and ended with Hegel.[731] The two philosophers at this time whose teaching formed a new influence, were Fichte[732] and Jacobi.[733] Details in reference to their systems must be sought elsewhere.[734] It is only possible here to indicate their central thought, in order to notice their effects on theological inquiry.

We have seen that Kant had reconsidered the great problem, commenced by Descartes and Locke, concerning the ground of certitude, and the nature of knowledge; and had revolutionised philosophy, by attributing to the natural structure of the mind many of those ideas which had usually been supposed to be derived from experience. In his system he had left two elements, a formal and a material; the formal, or innate forms, through which the mind gains knowledge, and the material, presented from external sources. It was the former or ideal element which was examined by Fichte; the latter by Jacobi.

Fichte began to teach at Jena soon after 1790. Grasping firmly Descartes' principle, “Cogito, ergo sum,” he conceived that, as we can only know ourselves, there is no proof that the datum supposed to be external is anything but a form of our own consciousness; and thus he arrived at a subjective idealism not unlike that of bishop Berkeley.[735] Under his view God was only an idea or form of thought; a regulative principle of human belief, the moral order of which the [pg 237] mind was conscious in the universe; and, as atheism was suspected to follow as an inference from his views, he became the subject of persecution. But the instincts of the heart, as well as the arguments of the understanding, were too potent for him; and when he had thus as it were shut up man within the circle of his own finite self, he strove to find a logical passage into a knowledge of the infinite by a principle analogous to that of Spinoza; viz. by regarding both self and the outer world, the subjective and objective, to be identified in some absolute self-existence, of which they were respectively phases.[736]

This aim was only partially effected by Fichte, and was completed by his distinguished successor, Schelling.[737] Schelling saw that the subjective tendency had been pushed too far; and, relying on the spiritual sense through which men of all ages have conceived that they saw the infinite, the reality of which accordingly seems to be attested by a universal induction, he tried to grasp the idea of the self-existent One, who is the one absolute Reality, the one eternal Being, the eternal Source from which all other light is derived, and from which all things develope. “Intellectual intuition” he thought to be the means by which we have this knowledge of the infinite, and are able to trace the development of it into its limitations in nature and in the mind. The method is analogous to that of Spinoza, save that the infinite is studied dynamically instead of mechanically, as a movement not a substance, in time not in space.

The roll of these great thinkers, whose speculations were suggested by the formal side of Kant's philosophy, is not yet full. But the two which have been named wrote and affected thought, the one before, the other soon after, the commencement of the present century. Hegel followed in the same track, but influenced [pg 238] thought at a later period.[738] He too aimed at solving the same problem as Schelling: he too sought to transcend the conditions of object and subject which limit thought; but it was by assuming a representative or mediate faculty that transcends consciousness, and not, as Schelling, an intuitional or presentative.[739]

Such were the philosophers who aimed at solving the problem of knowledge and being from the intellectual side. Jacobi on the other hand attempted it from the emotional. Perceiving the necessity of finding some justification for the material element which Kant had assumed in his philosophy, he sought it in faith, in intuition, in the direct inward revelation of truth to the human mind. He thought that, as sensation gives us an immediate knowledge of the world, so there is an inward sense by which we have a direct and immediate revelation of supernatural truth. It is this inward revelation which gives us access to the material of truth. His position was analogous to that of Schelling, but he asserted the element of feeling as well as intuition.

These philosophies, of Fichte, Schelling, and Jacobi, formed one class of influences, which were operating about the beginning of the century, and were the means of redeeming alike German literature and theology. Their first effect was to produce examination of the primary principles of belief, to excite inquiry; and, though at first only reinforcing the idea of morality, they ultimately drew men out of themselves into aspirations after the infinite spirit, and developed the sense of dependence, of humility, of unselfishness, of spirituality. They produced indeed evil effects in pantheism and ideology;[740] but the results were partial, the good was general. The problem, What is truth?—was through their means remitted to men for reconsideration; and the answers to it elicited, from the one [pg 239] school,—It is that which I can know:—from the other,—It is that which I can intuitively feel:—threw men upon those unalterable and infallible instincts which God has set in the human breast as the everlasting landmarks of truth, the study of which lifts men ultimately out of error.

These systems had even a still more direct effect on the public mind. They were the means of creating a literature, which insinuated itself into public thought, and familiarised society with spiritual apprehensions long obliterated. The school of literature commonly called the Romantic,[741] commencing with such writers as Schlegel and Novalis, fanciful as it may in some respects seem to be, created the same change in the belief and tastes of the German mind as the contemporary school of Lake Poets in England. The German literature bore the marks either of the old scholasticism, or of the materialism introduced from France, or of the classic culture introduced by Lessing and his coadjutors. The element now revived was the mediæval element of chivalry, the high and lofty courage, the delicate æsthetic taste, which had marked the middle ages. Herder,[742] to whom Germany owes much, disgusted with the stoical and analytic spirit of the Kantian philosophy, had already attempted, and not in vain, to throw the mind back to an appreciation of old history, and especially had manifested an enthusiastic admiration of Hebrew literature; but now, as if by one general movement, the public taste was turned to an appreciation of the freshness of feeling, and fine elements of character, which existed in the Christianity of the middle ages.[743]

This literary movement prepared the way for and accompanied another, which, though occurring a little later, may be reckoned as the third influence which caused a religious reaction. Indeed it is the one to which the Germans attribute the chief effect. It is found in the outburst of national patriotism which took place in the liberation wars of 1813;[744] the spontaneous chivalry which made the heart of Germany beat as the heart of one man, to endeavour to hurl back Napoleon beyond the limits of the common fatherland. In that moment of deep public suffering, the poetry and piety of the human heart brought back the idea of God, and a spirit of moral earnestness. The national patriotism,[745] which still lives in the poetry of the time, expelled selfishness: sorrow impressed men with a sense of the vanity of material things, and made their hearts yearn after the immaterial, the spiritual, the immortal: the sense of terror threw them upon the God of battles. It was the age of Marathon and Salamis revived; and the effect was not less wonderful.[746]

A fourth influence remains to be noticed, which was in its nature more strictly theological, and limited to the church. When after the return of peace the tercentenary of the Reformation was celebrated in 1817, an obscure theologian at Kiel, named Harms,[747] [pg 241] published a set of theses as supplements to the celebrated theses of Luther, which, by the excitement and controversy unexpectedly occasioned by them, turned attention anew to the study of the reformational and biblical theology, and created a revival of the spiritual element which was too much forgotten.

Such were the four influences—the philosophical, the literary, the political, the spiritual,—which entered into German life, and produced or increased the reaction that took place in German theology in the period which we are about to sketch.

We placed the limits of this second period from about 1810 till the literary revolution caused by alarm at Strauss's work in 1835.[748] It was in 1810, in the depth of Prussian humiliation, when Halle had passed into one of the kingdoms dependent on France, that the university of Berlin was founded. Schleiermacher, Neander, and De Wette, were its teachers. The first was the soul of its theological teaching; and through his agency it became the great source of a religious reaction. It is around these names that our studies most centre. The signs indeed of some other movements are traceable. The deistic rationalism is not dead, but it is dying: it is a thing of the past: a return to strict dogmatic orthodoxy is also visible in the Lutheran clergy rather than in the university; but it is as yet in its infancy: and a new form of gnosticism is observable in the philosophy of Hegel, but the full development of it belongs to the next period. The field is now occupied by the partial reaction to orthodoxy, which aimed at a reconciliation of science and piety, of criticism and faith.[749] Schleiermacher, with is follower Neander, will typify the philosophical and [pg 242] more orthodox side of it; perhaps De Wette, and at the end of the period Ewald, the critical.

Schleiermacher[750] was by education and sympathy eminently fitted to attempt the harmony of science and faith, to which he devoted his life. Gifted with an acute and penetrating intellect, capable of grappling with the highest problems of philosophy and the minutest details of criticism, he could sympathise with the intellectual movement of the old rationalism; while his fine moral sensibility, the depth and passionateness of his sympathy, the exquisite delicacy of his taste and brilliancy of imagination, were in perfect harmony with the literary and æsthetic revival which was commencing. German to the very soul, he possessed an enthusiastic sympathy with the great literary movements of his age, philosophical, classical, or romantic. The diligent student and translator of Plato,[751] his soul was enchanted with the mixture at once of genius, poetry, feeling, and dialectic, which marks that prince of thinkers, and he was prepared by it for understanding the speculations of his time. The dialectical process through which Plato's mind had passed ([30]) represents not improbably, in some degree, the history of Schleiermacher's own mental development as traceable in his works. The conviction derived from Plato's early dialogues, that the mind, in travelling outward to study the objective, could not prove the highest realities, but must have faith in its own faculties, prepared him for imbibing the philosophy of Jacobi. The looking inward [pg 243] to the deep utterances of the soul, the interpretation of the objective world by means of the internal, prepared him for Fichte. The mystical attempt to understand the ideas themselves, to use the archetype for creating an ontology from the objective side, observable in Plato's latest works, found its parallel in Schelling. Schleiermacher had large sympathies with these three processes, but mainly with the first; which was to be expected from his purpose. Aiming at gaining spiritual certitude rather than speculating for intellectual gratification, Jacobi's philosophy appeared to combine the excellences of the other two systems, the subjective character of the one, and the intuitional of the other; with the additional advantage of seeming to give expression to the instincts of the heart, as well as the intuitions of the mind. Beyond all these qualities, Schleiermacher inherited from his Moravian education the spirit of pietism, which, almost extinguished by the recent activity of mind, had retired to the quiet sphere where a Stilling[752] or an Oberlin[753] communed with God and laboured for man.

Possessing therefore the two great elements which had been united in the Reformation,—endowed on the one hand with the largest sympathy with every department of the intellectual movement, and the mastery of its ripest erudition, and at the same time with a soul kindled with a hearty love for Christianity,—he was fitted to become the Coryphæus of a new reformation, to attempt again a final reconciliation of knowledge and faith. Whether we view him in his own natural gifts and susceptibilities; in the aim of his life; in his mixture of reason and love, of philosophy and criticism, of [pg 244] enthusiasm and wisdom, of orthodoxy and heresy; or regard the transitory character of his work, the permanence of his influence; church history offers no parallel to him since the days of Origen.[754]

His early education was received in the university of Halle; an institution which had long been the home of pietism, and has continued with but few intervals[755] to evince much of the same Christian spirit. He became professor there early in the century,[756] until the town passed, as already stated, into the power of the French. He removed to Berlin when that university was founded,[757] and continued to exercise his influence there, from the pulpit and the professor's chair, for a quarter of a century, until his death.[758]

Before the conclusion of the last century, while still the literary influence of Weimar was at its height, he wrote Discourses on Religion,[759] to arouse the German mind to self-consciousness; which produced as stirring an effect in religion[760] as Fichte's patriotic addresses to the German nation subsequently in politics; and from them may be dated the first movement of spiritual renovation, as from the latter the first of German liberation from foreign control. In successive works his views on ethics and religion were gradually developed, until, in his Glaubenslehre ([31]) he produced one of the most important theological systems ever conceived. We can give no idea of the compass exhibited in that work, nor spare time to trace the growth in Schleiermacher's own mind as new influences like that of [pg 245] Harms, which he rejected, indirectly influenced him; but we must be content to define his general position in its destructive and constructive aspects.

The fundamental principles[761] were, that truth in theology was not to be attained by reason, but by an insight, which he called the Christian consciousness,[762] which we should call Christian experience; and that piety consists in spiritual feeling, not in morality. Both were corollaries from his philosophical principles.

There are two parts, both in the intellectual and emotional branches of our nature;—in the emotional, a feeling of dependence in the presence of the Infinite, which is the seat of religion; and a consciousness of power, which is the source of action and seat of morality;—and in the intellectual, a faith or intuition which apprehends God and truth; and critical faculties, which act upon the matter presented and form science.[763] In making these distinctions, Schleiermacher struck a blow at the old rationalism, which had identified on the one hand religion and morality, and on the other intuition and reason. Hence from this point of view he was led to explain Christianity, when contrasted with other religions, subjectively on the emotional side, as the most perfect state of the feeling of dependence; and on the intellectual, as the intuition of Christianity and Christ's work: and the organ for truth in Christianity was regarded to be the special form of insight which apprehends Christ, just as natural intuition apprehends God; which insight was called the Christian consciousness.[764] Thus far many will agree [pg 246] with him. Perhaps no nobler analysis of the religious faculties has ever been given. Religion was placed on a new basis: a home was found for it in the human mind distinct from reason. The old rationalism was shown to be untrue in its psychology. The distinctness of religion was asserted; and the necessity of spiritual insight and of sympathy with Christian life asserted to be as necessary for appreciating Christianity, as æsthetic insight for art.

In its reconstruction of Christian truth, however, fewer will coincide. Following out the same principles; in the same manner as he regarded the intuitions of human nature to be the last appeal of truth in art or morals, so he made the collective Christian consciousness the last standard of appeal in Christianity. The dependence therefore on apostolic teaching was not the appeal to an external authority, but merely to that which was the best exponent of the early religious consciousness of Christendom in its purest age.[765] The Christian church existed before the Christian scriptures. The New Testament was written for believers, appealing to their religious consciousness, not dictating to it. Inspiration is not indeed thus reduced to genius, but to the religious consciousness, and is different only in degree, and not in kind, from the pious intuitions of saintly men. The Bible becomes the record of religious truth, not its vehicle; a witness to the Christian consciousness of apostolic times, not an external standard for all time. In this respect Schleiermacher was not repeating the teaching of the reformation of the sixteenth age, but was passing beyond it, and abandoning its reverence for scripture.

From this point we may see how his views of doctrine as well as his criticism of scripture were affected by this theory. For in his view of fundamental doctrines, such as sin, and the redeeming work of Christ, inasmuch as his appeal was made to the collective consciousness, those aspects of doctrine only were regarded [pg 247] as important, or even real, which were appropriated by the consciousness, or understood by it.[766] Sin was accordingly presented rather as unholiness than as guilt before God;[767] redemption, rather as sanctification than as justification; Christ's death as a mere subordinate act in his life of self-sacrifice, not the one oblation for the world's sin;[768] atonement regarded to be the setting forth of the union of God with man; and the mode of arriving at a state of salvation,[769] to be a realisation of the union of man with God, through a kind of mystical conception of the brotherhood of Christ.[770]

Hence, as might be expected, the dogmatic reality of such doctrines as the Trinity was weakened.[771] The deity of the Son, as distinct from his superhuman character, became unimportant, save as the historical embodiment of the ideal union of God with humanity.[772] The Spirit was viewed, not as a personal agent, but as a living activity, having its seat in the Christian consciousness of the church.[773] The objective in each case was absorbed in the spiritual, as formerly in the old rationalism it had been degraded into the natural. It followed also that the Christian consciousness, thus able to find as it were a philosophy of religion, and of the material apprehended by the consciousness of inspired men, possessed an instinct to distinguish the unimportant from the important in scripture, and valued more highly the eternal ideas intended than the historic garb under which they were presented.

The ideological tendency, as it is now called,[774] the natural longing of the philosophical mind that tries to [pg 248] rise beyond facts into their causes, to penetrate behind phenomena into ideas, grows up in a country, as is seen by the example of ancient Greece, when the popular creed and the scientific have become discordant. Suggested in Germany by the old rationalism, it had been especially stimulated by the subjective philosophy of Kant and Fichte. Historic facts were the expression of subjective forms of thought. The Non-ego was a form, in which the Ego was expressing itself. This theory, suggested to Schleiermacher from without, fell in with his own views as above developed, and affected his critical inquiries. When he involved himself in the great questions of the higher criticism, which have been already treated in connexion with Semler, subjective criticism[775] was used in an exaggerated manner, not merely to suggest hypotheses, or to check deductions by Christian appreciation, but as a substitute à priori for historic investigation. In the controversy as to the composition of the Gospels, which will be hereafter explained, he was led, by his ideological theory and his instinctive perception of the relative importance of doctrines in theological perspective, to abandon the historical importance of miracles as compared with doctrine, and also the verity of the early history of Christ's life, considered to have been communicated by tradition; while he held fast to the moral and historical reality of the latter.[776]

These remarks must suffice to point out the position of Schleiermacher. We have seen how completely he caught the influences of his time, absorbed them, and transmitted them. If his teaching was defective in its constructive side; if he did not attain the firm grasp of objective verity which is implied in perfect doctrinal, not to say critical, orthodoxy; he at least gave the death-blow to the old rationalism, which, either from an empirical or a rational point of view, proposed to gain such a philosophy of religion as reduced it to morality. He rekindled spiritual apprehensions; he above all drew attention to the peculiar character of Christianity, as something more than the republication of natural religion, in the same manner that the Christian consciousness offered something more than merely moral experience. He set forth, however imperfectly, the idea of redemption, and the personality of the Redeemer; and awakened religious aspirations, which led his successors to a deeper appreciation of the truth as it is in Jesus. Much of his theology, and some part of his philosophy, had only a temporary interest relatively to his times; but his influence was perpetual. The faults were those of his age; the excellencies were his own. Men caught his deep love to a personal Christ, without imbibing his doctrinal opinions. His own views became more evangelical as his life went on, and the views of his disciples more deeply scriptural than those of their master. Thus the light kindled by him waxed purer and purer. The mantle remained after the prophet's spirit had ascended to the God that gave it.

In strict truth he did not found a school. Though his mind was dialectical, he had too much poetry to do this. Genius, as has been often observed, does not create a school, but kindles an influence. The university of Berlin, the very centre of intellectual greatness in every department from its foundation, was the first seat of Schleiermacher's influence; and the political importance of the capital added impulse to the movement. The reaction extended to other universities,[777] [pg 250] and not only marked the chief theologians of an orthodox tendency which are commonly known to us,[778]—Tholuck, Twesten, Nitzch, Julius Müller, Olshausen,—but even modified the extreme rationalist party, and diffused its influence among theologians of the church of Rome.[779]

It is impossible to specify the views of those who were the chief representatives of the effects of Schleiermacher's teaching. One however, his friend and colleague, deserves mention, the well-known church historian Neander.[780] Brought up a Jew, he passed into Christianity, like some of the early fathers, through the gate of Platonism; and, knowing by experience that free inquiry had been the means of his own conversion, he ever stood forth with a noble courage as the advocate [pg 251] of full and fair investigation, feeling confidence that Christianity could endure the test. More meditative and less dialectical than Schleiermacher, and too original to be an imitator, he surpassed him in the deeper appreciation of sin and of redemption; placing sin rather in alienation of will than in the sense of discordance, and holding more firmly the existence of some objective reality in the anthropopathic expression of the wrath of God removed by Christ's death.[781] His great employment in life was history; not, like his master, philosophy and criticism. Viewing human nature from the subjective stand-point, the central thought of his historical works was, that Christianity is a life resting on a person, rather than a system resting on a dogma. Hence he was able to find the harmony of reason and faith from the human side instead of the divine, by noticing the adaptation of the divine work to human wants. The inspiration of the scriptural writers was viewed as dynamical not mechanical, spiritual not literal;[782] and Christianity as the great element of human progress, being the divine life on earth which God had kindled through the gift of his Son.[783] The great aim accordingly of Neander in his historical sketches was to exhibit the Christian church as the philosophy of history, and God's work in Christ, realised in the piety of the faithful, as the philosophy of the Christian church. The history of the church in his view is the record of the Christian consciousness in the world. The subjective and mystical spirit engendered by such a conception, was in danger of converting history into a series of biographies; but the deep influence which it possessed in contributing to foster the reaction against the old rationalism will be obvious. It becomes us to speak with reverence of the writings of a man whose labours have been the means of turning [pg 252] many to Christ. Though lacking form as works of art, yet, if they be compared with works of grander type, where church history has been treated as an epic, we cannot help feeling that the depth of spiritual perception and of psychological analysis compensates for the artistic defects. We are conducted by them from the outside to the inside; from things to thoughts; from institutions to doctrines; from the accidents of Christianity to the essence.

Neander's teaching, while an offshoot from Schleiermacher, marks the highest point to which the principles of the master could be carried. It advances farther in the hearty love for Christ and for revelation, and bears fewer traces of the ancient spirit of rationalism; being allied to it in few respects, save in the wish constantly exhibited to appropriate that which is believed; but the wants of the heart, not the conceptions of the understanding, are made the gauge of divine truth, and the interpreter of the divine volume.

We pointed out that the great reaction in the present century was marked not only by the philosophical and doctrinal school just described, but by a contemporaneous one, which employed itself on literary and critical inquiries in reference to the Bible, and was the continuation of the earlier rationalist criticism on improved principles. The most important name representing this critical movement in the beginning of the period was De Wette. ([32]) Perhaps too we may without injustice mention, as a type of it at the close of the period, a theologian who is almost too original to admit of being classified—the learned Ewald.

De Wette was nurtured amid the old rationalism of Jena, at the time of its greatest power, about the beginning of the present century; and imbibed the peculiar modification of the doctrines of Kant and Jacobi which was presented in the philosophy of Fries.[784] It was the appeal to subjective feeling thence [pg 253] derived which preserved him from the coldness of older critics, and caused his labours to contribute to the reaction. His works were very various; but the earlier of them were especially devoted to the examination of the Old Testament, and the later to the New.

The peculiarity of this school generally may be said to be, a disposition to investigate both Testaments for their own sake as literature, not for the further purpose of discovering doctrine. These writers are primarily literary critics, not dogmatic theologians. Like the older rationalists, they are occupied largely with biblical interpretation; but, perceiving the hollowness of their attempt to explain away moral and spiritual mysteries by reference to material events, they transfer to the Bible the theories used in the contemporary investigations in classical history, and explain the Biblical wonders by the hypothesis of legends or of myths. Though they ignore the miraculous and supernatural equally with the older rationalists, they allow the spiritual in addition to the moral and natural, and thus take a more scholarlike and elevated view of the Hebrew history and literature. The system of interpretation adopted is the transition from the previous one, which admitted the facts but explained them away, to the succeeding one of Strauss, which denies the facts, and accounts for the belief in them by psychological causes.

The wish to give a possible basis for the existence of legend, by interposing a chasm between the events and the record of them, stimulated the pursuit of the branch of criticism slightly touched on by their predecessors, which investigates the origin and date of scripture books. They transferred to the Hebrew literature the critical method by which Wolf had destroyed the unity of Homer, and Niebuhr the credibility of Livy. Not a single book,—history, poetry, or prophecy,—was left unexamined. The inquiries of this kind, instituted with reference to the book of Daniel, were alluded to [pg 254] in a former lecture;[785] and those which relate to the Gospels will occur hereafter.[786] At present it will only be possible to specify a single instance in illustration of these inquiries—the celebrated one which relates to the authorship and composition of the Pentateuch. It is the one to which most labour has been devoted, and is an excellent instance for exhibiting the slow but progressive improvement and growing caution shown in the mode of exercising them.[787]

As early as the time of Hobbes and Spinoza it was perceived that the Pentateuch contains a few allusions which seem to have been inserted after the time of Moses; a circumstance which they, as well as R. Simon, explained, by referring them to the sacred editor Ezra, who is thought to have arranged the canon: but about the middle of the last century a French physician, Astruc,[788] pointed out a circumstance which has introduced an entirely new element into the discussion of the question; viz. the distinction in the use of the two Hebrew names for God,—Elohim and Jehovah. It will be necessary to offer a brief explanation of this distinction, in order that we may be able to perceive the line at which fact ends and hypothesis commences, and understand the character of the criticism which we are describing.

It is now generally admitted that the word Elohim [pg 255] is the name for Deity, as worshipped by the Hebrew patriarchs; Jehovah, the conception of Deity which is at the root of the Mosaic theocracy.[789] El, or the plural Elohim, means literally “the powers,” (the plural form being either, as some unreasonably think, a trace of early polytheism, or more probably merely emphatic,[790]) and is connected with the name for God commonly used in the Semitic nations. Jehovah[791] means “self-existent,” and is the name specially communicated to the Israelites. The idea of power or superiority in the object of worship was conveyed by Elohim; that of self-existence, spirituality, by Jehovah. Elohim was generic, and could be applied to the gods of the heathen; Jehovah was specific, the covenant God of Moses. ([33])

In this age, when words are separated from things, we are apt to lose sight of the importance of the difference of names in an early age of the world. The modern investigations however of comparative mythology enable us to realize the fact, that in the childhood of the world words implied real differences in things; not merely in our conceptions, but in the thing conceived.[792] But the explanations above offered will show that, independently of the general law of mind just noticed, a really different moral conception was offered by Providence to the Hebrew mind through the employment of these two words.

Nor was the difference unknown or forgotten in later ages of Jewish history. The fifty-third Psalm, for example, is a repetition of the fourteenth with the [pg 256] name Elohim altered into Jehovah. In the two first of the five books into which the Psalms are divided, the arrangement has been thought to be not unconnected with the distinction of these names.[793] In the book of Job also the name Jehovah is used in the headings of the speeches of the dialogues; but in the speeches of Job's friends, as not being Israelites, the name Elohim is used.[794] In the book of Nehemiah the name Elohim is almost always used, and in Ezra, Jehovah; and in the composition of proper names, which in ancient times were not merely, as now, symbolical, the names El and Jah respectively are employed in all ages of the Hebrew nation: and, though no exact law can be detected, it seems probable that in the great regal and prophetic age the name Jehovah was especially used. ([34])

These remarks will both explain the difference of conception existing in the Hebrew names of Deity, and show that the Jews were aware of the distinction to a late period. When we advance farther, we pass from the region of fact into conjecture.

The distinctness of conception implied in the two names has been made the basis of an hypothesis, in which they are used for discovering different elements in the Pentateuch. Throughout the book of Genesis especially, and slightly elsewhere,[795] the critics that we [pg 257] are describing have supposed that they detect at least two distinct narratives, with peculiarities of style, and differences or repetitions of statement; which they have therefore regarded as proofs of the existence of different documents in the composition of the Pentateuch; an Elohistic, in which the name Elohim, and a Jehovistic, in which the name Jehovah was used; upon the respective dates of which they have formed conjectures.

Though we may object to these hazardous speculations, we shall perceive the alteration and increasing caution displayed in the criticism, if we trace briefly the successive opinions held on this particular subject.

Astruc, who first dwelt on the distinction, regarded the separate works to be anterior to Moses, and to have been used by him in the construction of the Pentateuch.[796] Eichhorn took the same view, but advanced the inquiry by a careful discrimination of the peculiarities which he thought to belong to each. Vater followed, and allowed the possibility of one collector of the narratives, but denied that it could be Moses. Thus far was the work of the older critical school of rationalists. It was purely anatomical and negative. It is at this point that we perceive the alteration effected by the school which we are now contemplating.

De Wette strove to penetrate more deeply into the question of the origin, and to attain a positive result. His discussion was marked by minute study; and he changed the test for distinguishing the documents from the simple use of the names to more uncertain characteristics, which depended upon internal peculiarities of style and manner. The conclusion to which he came was, that the mass of the Pentateuch is based on the Elohistic document, with passages supplemented from the Jehovistic; and he referred the age of both to a rather late part of the regal period. Ewald, with great learning and delicacy of handling, has reconsidered the question[797] and, though arriving at a most extraordinary [pg 258] theory as to the manifold documents which have supplied the materials for the work, has thrown to a much earlier period the authorship of the main portion; and the views of later critics are gradually tending in the same direction. Both study the Pentateuch as uninspired literature; but De Wette absurdly regarded it as an epic created by the priests, in the same manner as the Homeric epic by the rhapsodes: Ewald on the contrary considers it to be largely historic.[798]

This statement of mere results, too brief to exhibit the critical acumen shown at different points of the inquiry even where it is most full of peril, will show the increasing learning displayed, and the appreciation of valuable literary characteristics. It will be perceived that prepossessions still predominate over this criticism; but they are of a different kind from those which existed earlier. They are not the result of moral objections to the narratives, but of the contemporary critical spirit in secular literature. The discrepancy of result obtained by the process is a fair practical argument which proves its uncertainty; but its adherents allow that both in art and literature internal evidence admits of few canons, and consequently that the result of criticism could only admit of probability.

The general summary of the movement shows a steady advance in criticism, as was before shown in doctrine, toward a higher and more spiritual standard. [pg 259] It is not the recognition of the inspired authority of scripture, but it is some approach to it. Instead of the hasty denunciation of narratives or of books as imposture, seen in the Wolfenbüttel Fragments, or the merely rationalist view of Eichhorn and Paulus, we perceive the recognition of spiritual and psychological mysteries as subjects of examination; and even when the result established is altogether unsatisfactory, valuable materials have been collected for future students. If we were to abandon our position of traditional orthodoxy, and accept that of Schleiermacher in doctrine, or of De Wette in criticism, it would be a retrogression; but for the Germans of their time it was a progress from doubt towards faith. It was not orthodoxy, but it was the first approach to it.

This double aspect, philosophical and critical, of the reaction, brings us to the end of the second period in the history of German theological thought.

It has already been stated that the elements of other movements existed, which were hereafter to develope; and that one of these was an attempt, originating in the philosophy of Hegel, to reconstruct the harmony of reason and faith from the intellectual, as distinct from the emotional side. It bore some analogy to the gnosticism of the early church; and the critical side of it gave birth to Strauss.

We have traced the antecedent causes which produced rationalism, and two out of the three periods into which we divided the history of it. We are halting before reaching the final act of the drama; but we already begin to see the direction in which the plot is developing.

It is when a great movement of mind or of society can be thus viewed as a whole, in its antecedents and its consequents, that we can form a judgment on its real nature, and estimate its purpose and use. As in viewing works of art, so in order to observe correctly the great works of God's natural providence, we must reduce them to their true perspective. It is the peculiarity of great movements of mind, that when so [pg 260] viewed they do not appear to be all shadow and formless, nor acts of meaningless impiety. They are products of intellectual antecedents, and perform their function in history. In nothing is the Divine image stamped on humanity, or the moral providence of God in the world, more visible, than in the circumstance, of which we have already had frequent proofs, that thought and honest inquiry, if allowed to act freely, without being repressed by material or political interference, but checked only by spiritual and moral influences, gradually attain to truth, appropriating goodness, and rejecting evil. Thought seems to run on unrestrained, stimulated by human caprice, sometimes by sinful wilfulness; yet it is seen really to be restrained by limits that are not of its own creation. In the world of conscious mind, as in unconscious matter, God hath set a law that shall not be broken. Reason, which creates the doubts, also allays them. It rebukes the unbelief of impiety, making the wrath of man to praise God; and guides the honest inquirer to truth.

A period of doubt is always sad; but it would be an unmixed woe for an individual or a nation, if it were not made, in the order of a merciful Providence, the transition to a more deeply-seated faith. It is a means, not an end.

You tell me, doubt is devil-born.

I know not; one indeed I knew

In many a subtle question versed,

Who touch'd jarring lyre at first,

But ever strove to make it true:

Perplext in faith, but not in deeds,

At last he beat his music out.

There lives more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts, and gathered strength,

He would not make his judgment blind,

He faced the spectres of the mind

And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own.[799]

Religious truth is open to those who will seek it with humility and prayer.

In addition to the natural action of reason, the fatherly pity of God is nigh, to give help to all that ask it, and that endeavour to sanctify their studies to His honour. Even though the search be long, and a large portion of life be spent in the agony of baffled effort, the mind reaps improvement from its heart-sorrows, and at last receives the reward of its patient faith. “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”[800] If we are thankful to be spared the sorrows of the doubter, let us admire the wisdom and mercy shown in the process by which Providence rescues men or nations from the state of doubt. “The Lord God omnipotent reigneth;”[801] and He shall reign for ever and ever.

[pg 262]

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