DOCTRINES OF RATIONALISM IN THE DAY OF ITS STRENGTH.
The church now presented a most deplorable aspect. Philosophy had come, with its high-sounding terminology, and invaded the hallowed precincts of Scriptural truth. Literature, with its captivating notes, had well-nigh destroyed what was left of the old Pietistic fervor. The songs of the church were no longer images of beauty, but ghastly, repulsive skeletons. The professor's chair was but little better than a heathen tripod. The pulpit became the rostrum where the shepherdless masses were entertained with vague essays on such general terms as righteousness, human dignity, light, progress, truth, and right. The peasantry received frequent and labored instructions on the raising of cattle, bees, and fruit. The poets of the day were publicly recited in the temples where the Reformers had preached. Wieland, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe became more familiar to the popular congregations than Moses, David, Paul, or even Christ. By this time we might reasonably expect the harvest from Semler's favorite theories. There was no school as yet by which he worked upon the public mind, but the greater portion of theologians caught up scrap-thoughts from his opinions and now dealt them out in magnified proportions to the masses who, like their Athenian predecessors, were ever anxious to learn what was new. That so many influences as we have seen in force should completely subdue orthodoxy is not wonderful, when we consider first the minds that originated them, and then the dull and frigid condition of the church.
But, as the fruit of these influences, there was no common system of theology adopted by the Rationalists. The reason is obvious. Rationalism was not an organism, and therefore it could have no acknowledged creed. Its adherents were powerful and numerous scouting-parties, whose aim was to harass the flanks of the enemy, and who were at liberty, when occasion required, to divide, subdivide, take any road, or attack at any point likely to contribute to the common victory. One writer came before the public, and threw doubt on some portions of the Scriptures. He was followed by another who, while conceding the orthodox view of those very passages, would discard other parts, even whole books, as plainly incredible. A third discussed the character and mission of Christ, and imputed a certain class of motives to him. A fourth attributed to him totally different, if not contradictory, impulses. There is no one book, therefore, in which we find an undisputed Rationalistic system, for the work that may represent one circle will give but a meagre and false view of another. Besides, what the most of the Rationalists might agree upon at one stage of the development of their skepticism, would be rejected by others, living a few years after them. The only means, therefore, by which we are enabled to arrive at some understanding concerning their opinions is to fix upon the time of their meridian strength, and then to hear what their representative men of that period say of the truths of revelation.
Now it cannot be doubted that Rationalism was most powerful after the decided impression made upon theology by the philosophical direction commenced by Kant, and by that of literature inaugurated by Lessing and followed by the Weimar poets. We are consequently under the necessity of hearing the statements of acknowledged Rationalists who flourished during this time, and, out of the chaos, arrive at the most probable and general views entertained by the people.
We shall see that the scene of spiritual desolation was repulsive enough to make every servant of Christ wish, with Wordsworth,—
"I'd rather be
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn—
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
Religion. All religion was held by the Rationalists to be mere morality. As to any such thing as conversion, they were agreed that it could be only a work of the imagination. All the regeneration at which we may reasonably expect to arrive is an inclination to obey the dictates of reason. He who follows the teachings of his own intellect cannot go astray, for this is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The Scriptures give a high coloring to religion, and represent it as necessary; but those writings are not as reliable as the innate revelation which every son of Reason enjoys.
Existence of God. With this view of religion in general, all the other vital doctrines of Christianity suffered an equal depreciation. The existence of God is conceded, but the proof is impossible. His personality cannot be affirmed; it is confounded with the soul of the world. Of course, the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be accepted; for reason sheds no light sufficiently clear to establish it. A high dignitary of the church, Cannabich, wrote a book in positive denial of the Trinity, original sin, justification, satisfaction of Christ, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. As for the Trinity, the early Christians had no such tenet, and it was never concocted until after the lapse of several centuries of the Christian era. Both philosophy and nature are as capable of establishing the evidence of God's existence as the Scriptures themselves. The idea we have of God is due to prejudice and education. The mass of the Rationalists said, with Lichtenberg, that instead of God making man after his image, man had made God after his human image.
Doctrine of Inspiration. The Rationalists were fond of reasoning by analogy, and they used that method of argument freely in their discussions on the inspiration of the Scriptures. God never pursues the plan of operating immediately upon nature. His laws are the mediate measures by which he communicates with man. Gravitation is an instrument he employs for the control of the material world. Thus, in some way, does God impress upon man's mind all that he wishes to reveal, without any necessity of direct inspiration. The doctrine was, therefore, rejected because there was no need of it, and from this step it was easy to assume the position that there is no inspiration. This the Rationalists did assume. "Grant inspiration," said they, "and you bind us down to the belief that all the contents of the Scriptures are true. You force us to believe what our reason does not comprehend. The doctrine of inspiration opens the floodgate for the belief of a mass of mythical stuff which we will no more grant to be historically true than Niebuhr will admit the validity of the legends of early Rome." The poets of every land have enjoyed a sort of rhapsody when in their highest flights. This rhapsody or ecstasy is all that these idolaters of reason will concede. Doederlein's views of inspiration were much more elevated than those held by many of his confrères; but he too speaks of poetical excitement, and draws a line of distinction between the inspired and uninspired parts of Scripture. But Ammon represents this subject better than Döderlein. It was his opinion that the idea of a mediate divine instruction is applicable to all human knowledge. He rejects the notion peculiar to revelation. Inspiration cannot for a moment be accepted as an immediate divine impression, because it would compromise the supremacy of reason, and destroy man's intellectual and moral liberty. The diversity of style perceptible in the writers of the Scriptures is a proof that they were not influenced by immediate inspiration. "These writers themselves," say the Rationalists, "never claimed such extraordinary functions as those with which orthodox believers would now clothe them."
Töllner, a theological professor in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, wrote very fully on inspiration, and his work was held in great repute by many of the Rationalists who were inclined to supernaturalism. He held that the will, the matter, the words, and the order of both the matter and the words, might be objects of inspiration. But there are several degrees of inspiration. Some books were written without inspiration of any kind, and were only confirmed by God. In the Old Testament, Moses might have been directed to a choice of subjects, and his memory might have been strengthened. So of the Psalms and Prophecies. There is no such thing as inspiration of the historical books. It cannot be determined what degree was employed in the New Testament. In the Acts there was nothing more than natural inspiration. Luke and Mark were approved by the apostles, hence their writings may be received. Morus held that inspiration was sometimes only the inducing to write; sometimes an admonition to do so; sometimes revelation; and sometimes only a guarding from error.[40] Granting the Rationalistic denial of inspiration, we have no solid ground for any portion of the Bible. We find, therefore, that after this view had become prevalent the popular mind attached no importance to God's revealed will. Interpolations were imagined at every point of difficulty. Schröckh gives a sketch of the deplorable state of opinion on inspiration, when he says, "Inspiration was given up—interpolations in Scripture were believed to exist. In the oldest and partly in more recent history, instead of historical facts these writers saw only allegories, myth, philosophical principles, and national history. Where appearances of God and the angels, or their immediate agency, are related, nothing was seen but Jewish images or dreams. The explanation of all biblical books was pursued on new principles. The Song of Solomon was not mystical. The Revelations contained no prophecy of the fortunes of the church."
Bitter indeed must have been the emotions of the devout Christian on seeing the departure of inspiration from the opinions of the theological leaders of that day. Infinitely more exquisite must have been his pain than was that of the poet, who, sighing for the haunted and credulous days of olden time, said:
"The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religions,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths: all these have vanished."
Credibility of the Scriptures. Schenkel affirms that Rationalism consists in giving up all the historical characteristics of Christianity and of Christian truths, and in the reduction of religion to the universal conclusions of reason and morality. The accuracy of this definition is very perceptible when we consider the wantonness of the assaults of the Rationalists upon the Scriptures as the canon of faith and practice. This period was marked by desperate attempts to overthrow the early history of all countries, and to convict historians of stating as fact what was only vague tradition. As the Bible was alleged by the supernaturalists to be the oldest historic record, great pains were taken to dissipate the mist from its accounts of supposed verities. The writers of the Scriptures, the friends of Rationalism held, were only men like ourselves. They had our prejudices and as great infirmities as we have. They were as subject to deception and trickery, and as full of political and sectarian rancor as partisans in these times. All through the Old Testament we find traces of biased judgment, Jewish national pride, sectional enmity, sectarian superstition, and rabbinical ignorance. It is but little better in the New Testament, for the disciples of Christ and the writers of the gospels were as susceptible of error and bigotry as their predecessors.[41]
The writers of the Scriptures were utterly destitute of any such great designs as the orthodox attribute to them. They had no intention of writing for posterity, and were the mere chroniclers of what they had heard from others and seen for themselves. The Bible is, like the essays of Seneca, an excellent book for elevating the people by its moral tone. As a revelation of God's will it only takes its place beside others which God had previously made, and has been making in a natural way, ever since.[42] All ages and nations have their communications of knowledge, and the setting forth of any truth in a clearer light is a revelation.[43] There are many steps necessary for the education of the race and for its intellectual and moral development. The Scriptures are a very good aid to such a great consummation.[44] But they are full of errors, which we must leave for the supremacy of pure Reason to dissipate forever.[45]
We cannot forbear to give Wegscheider's testimony on the scanty measure of Scriptural credibility and authority in his own words. "But whatever narrations," he says, "especially accommodated to a certain age and relating miracles and mysteries, are united with the history and subject-matter of revelation of this kind, these ought to be referred to the natural sources and true nature of human knowledge. By how much the more clearly the author of the Christian religion, not without the help of Deity, exhibited to men the ideas of reason imbued with true religion, so as to represent, as it were, a reflection of the divine reason, or the divine spirit, by so much the more diligently ought man to strive to approach as nearly as possible to form that archetype in the mind, and to study to imitate it in life and manners to the utmost of his ability. Behold here the intimate and eternal union and agreement of Christianity with Rationalism.... The various modes of supernatural revelation mentioned in many places of the sacred books, are to be referred altogether to the notions and mythical narrations of every civilized people; and this following the suggestion of the Holy Scripture itself, and therefore to be attributed, as any events in the nature of things, to the laws of nature known to us. As to theophanies, the sight of the infinite Deity is expressly denied: John i. 18—1 John iv. 12—1 Tim. vi. 16. Angelophanies, which the Jews of a later date substituted for the appearances of God himself, like the narrations of the appearances of demons found amongst many nations, are plainly destitute of certain historic proofs; and the names, species, and commissions attributed to angels in the sacred books, plainly betray their Jewish origin. The business transacted by angels on earth is little worthy of such ministers.... The persuasion concerning the truth of that supernatural revelation, which rests on the testimony of the sacred volume of the Old and New Testaments, like every opinion of the kind, labors under what is commonly called a petitio principii."
The Bible is, in fact, of no more authority and entitled to no further credence than any other book. It is not worth more, as an historical record, than an old chronicle of Indian, Greek, or Roman legends.[46] The evangelists did not get their accounts of the doings of Christ from observation, but from a primitive document written in the Aramaic language. The gospels were not intentional deceptions; but that they are as well the work of error as of wisdom, no candid interpreter can deny. The life of Christ which they contain is but an innocent supplement to the Metamorphoses of Ovid.[47] Tittmann went so far as to affirm that the Scripture writers were so ignorant that they could not represent things as they really happened. Of course he excludes their capacity for inspiration.
Doctrine of the Fall of Man. While some Rationalistic writers conceded that Moses was the author of the whole or parts of the Pentateuch, his version of the origin of sin was universally rejected. The temptation by the serpent was, with them, one of the most improbable myths ever drawn up from the earliest traditions of nations. Whether Moses wrote much or little of the books attributed to him, his sources of knowledge were monuments and tales which he saw and heard about him. It is likely that he derived his idea of the fall of man from some hieroglyphic representation which he happened somewhere to see. As for the entrance of the serpent into Paradise, it is just as improbable as the rabbinical notion that the serpent of Eden had many feet. In the opinion of some, the whole narrative is only an allegory, or "a poetical description of the transition of man from a more brutish creature into humanity, from the baby-wagon of instinct into the government of reason, from the guardianship of nature into the condition of freedom."[48] Kindred to this theory is Ammon's; that at first man obeyed instinct only, and that his desire to eat the forbidden fruit was the longing of his mind to understand truth. But the great injury which these men thought they had visited on this doctrine was their assumption that man had not fallen, and that instead of being worse than he once was, he is every year growing purer and holier than at any previous stage of his history. This was flattering to their inflated pride, and their wish became father to their creed. With Eichhorn, the narrative of the fall was only a description of Adam's thoughts.
Miracles. It was no surprise to the wise disciples of Reason that there should be found numerous records of miracles in the Bible. It was just what might be expected from such writers in that gray morning of antiquity. The first chroniclers seized upon tradition; and their successors, seeing how well their fathers had succeeded, merely imitated them by catching up new ones, or enlarging upon the old account. By a sort of infection, therefore, we find what purports to be a revelation. Whatever harmony there is, was the result of an aim which was not lost sight of for a moment. Nature was the first teacher; and though she was competent, we have been poor disciples. She is instructing us all the time, though we have listened less to her than to the other auditors who sit about us. Lichtenberg says in poetical language, that "When man considers Nature the teacher, and poor men the pupils, we listen to a lecture and we have the principles and the knowledge to understand it. But we listen far more to the applause of our fellow-students than to the discourse of the teacher. We interlard the lecture by speeches to the one who sits next us; we supply what has been poorly heard by us; and enlarge it by our own mistakes of orthography and sentiment."
No branch of Scriptural faith attracted more of the wrath and irony of the Rationalists than miracles. They saw how important their service was to the authority of the Bible, and therefore bent all their energies for their overthrow. They denied their possibility in the strongest terms, averring that they degrade the character of God, and violate that noble nature of the human mind, which is necessarily bound to the most certain laws of experience, and can discern no positive marks of supernatural agency.[49] The miracles of the New Testament receive no better treatment than those of the Old. In every case they have no foundation in history. Various reasons are assigned for their presence in the Bible; in some cases they are only legends of mythologic days; in others, the pure fancy of the writer; and in others, hyperbolical descriptions of natural occurrences. Thus, while there was a diversity of opinion concerning the narratives, there was perfect union as to the purely natural character of the events.
We may particularize, in order to present more clearly the Rationalistic method of interpreting miracles. When Korah, Dathan and Abiram, with their fellow-unfortunates, were swallowed up, they only suffered what many others have done since,—destruction by a natural earthquake. This was the opinion of Michaelis. Others, more ingenious, thought that Moses had taken care to undermine privately the whole of the ground on which the tents of the sinners were; and, therefore, it was not surprising, either that they fell into the cavity, or that Moses should know this would be their fate. Eichhorn held that the three offenders, with their property, were burned by the order of Moses. Dinter explained Jacob's struggle with an angel by relating a recent dream. His brother having lately died, Dinter dreamed soon after that a man, with a little peep-show, presented to his view all sorts of pictures, and at length showed him his dead brother. The vision said, "To show you that I am really your brother, I will print a blue mark on your finger." The dreamer awoke and found not a blue mark but a pain which lasted some days. This profound exegete then asks, "Could not something similar have happened in Jacob's case? Even the less lively occidentalist sometimes relates as real what only happened in his mind. Why should we be surprised at a similar occurrence in the warmer fancy of the Eastern man?"
But of all the critics of miracles we must give the palm to Paulus. Let us hear how he accounts for the tribute-money in the mouth of the fish. "What sort of a miracle," he asks, "is that we find here? I will not say a miracle of about sixteen or twenty groschen, for the greatness of the value does not make the greatness of the miracle. But it may be observed, that, as Jesus generally received support from many persons, in the same way as the Rabbis frequently lived from such donations; as so many pious women provided for the wants of Jesus; and as the claim did not occur at any remote place, but at Capernaum, where Christ had friends; a miracle for about a thaler would certainly have been superfluous. But it would not only have been superfluous and paltry,—it would have taught this principle; that Peter, even when he could have remedied his necessities easily in other ways, might and ought to reckon on a miraculous interference of the Deity,—a notion which would entirely contradict the fundamental principle of Jesus, or the interference of the Deity. There is nothing of a miraculous appearance in this narrative, nor was there to Peter himself. Had there been, the fiery Peter would not have been cold-blooded at such a miracle, but would have expressed himself as in Luke v. 8. There is nothing more meant here, than that Christ designed to give a moral lesson; namely, that we should not give offence to our brethren, if we can avoid it by trifling circumstances. Hence, Christ said to him in substance, 'Though there is no real occasion for us to pay the tribute, yet as we may be reckoned enemies of the temple, and may not be attended to when we wish to teach what is good, why should not you, who are a fisherman, and can easily do it, go and get enough to pay the demand? Go then to the sea, cast your hook and take up the first and best fish. Peter must, therefore, have caught either so many fish as would be worth a stater at Capernaum, or one large and fine enough to have been valued at that sum. The opening of the fish's mouth might have different objects, which must be fixed by the context. Certainly, if it hang long, it will be less salable. Therefore the sooner it is taken to market, the more probable will be a good price for it."
Paulus and Ammon coincide in the following interpretation of one of the miracles of the loaves and fishes. There were always large caravans traveling near the time of the feasts, and they carried a plenty of meat and drinks on camels and in baskets. Now it is not according to Eastern hospitality to see your friends near you when you are eating, without asking them to join you. All that Jesus meant by saying they were without food was, that they had not a regular meal; and that therefore he collected them, arranged them in parties, and set those who had food the example of giving to those who had none, by doing so himself, with the small portion which he had. As long as eating was going on, Christ made the twelve go about with their baskets and give what they had to all who wished it. The baskets were not entirely emptied, nor was any one left hungry; otherwise the needy would have applied to the stock of the Apostles. Jesus, pleased to have done so much with so little, desired them to collect what there was in the different baskets into one.
Our wise critic, the daring Paulus, finds as little difficulty in explaining away the miracle of Christ walking on the sea. When Christ saw that the wind was contrary, he did not wish to sustain the inconvenience of such a voyage; but walked along the shore and resolved to pass the disciples, as the wind was against them. From the state of the weather they coasted slowly along, and when they saw him walking on the land they were frightened. On their calling out, Christ desired Peter, who was a good swimmer, to swim to the shore and ascertain that it was he. Peter ran around to the proper side of the ship and jumped into the sea. When he was frightened by the violence of the waves, Christ who was standing on the shore, put out his hand and caught him. The boat put to land and they both got in!
Such was the common method of explaining miracles. The Rationalists were so opposed to the idea of the supernatural, that each was accounted for in some other than the Scriptural way. Many volumes were written on this subject alone, until the people became thoroughly imbued with the opinion that the Scriptures are nothing more than a well-intended and exhaustive Jewish mythology. It became a mark of superstition to credit a miraculous event, and the few who still adhered to this pillar of the Christian faith found themselves pitied by the learned and derided by their equals.
Prophecy. The adventurous men who could deal thus with miracles would not be supposed to be more lenient to the prophecies of the Scriptures. We, therefore, observe the same skeptical rejection of the prophets. We have not dwelt at length upon the particular books which received their thrusts, for this would be quite too lengthy a task for the present volume. It is probable, however, that there is not a book of Scripture, or even a chapter, which these men would have remain just as we find it in the canon. "Something must be done with it," they argued, "no matter what it is. It is older or later than we have been accustomed to think. It was, of course, written by some one else than the accredited author."
A large share of these criticisms centered on the works of the prophets, for it was one of the most persistent efforts of Rationalism to destroy popular faith in them. Ammon discoursed boldly against them and attempted to convert every prophetic expression into a natural remark. He held that Christ himself directly renounced the power to prophesy, Mat. xxiv. 36; Acts i. 7; and that there are no prophecies of his in the New Testament. Prophecies are recorded in the Bible as uttered by men of doubtful character. Many of them are obscure, and were never fulfilled. Others were made after the events, and all were reckoned imperfect by the Apostles. These accusations apply to all the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments. The argument for them needs whatever excuse it can find, in the delirium of the prophets who were transported out of their sobriety, in the double sense in which they are quoted in the New Testament, or in the remarkable variety of interpretation. In fact, there is a moral objection to them, to say nothing of their historical character. They would favor fatalism, take away human freedom, and be irreconcilable with the Divine perfection. What Christ said concerning the destruction of Jerusalem is not a prophecy, because not stated with sufficient clearness. Jesus followed the style of interpretation found in the Talmudic and Rabbinical writings, and transferred to himself many things in the Old Testament, which really referred to future changes in the state of the Jews. He used the Jewish ideas of a Messiah to further his own notions of founding a spiritual kingdom. The prophecies in the Old Testament merely give a poetical dress to affairs occurring in the prophet's or the poet's life time.[50] Even the prophets made but little if any claim to the great gift ascribed to them. They were good politicians who had made a study of their subject; and, from the mere force of natural shrewdness and long experience, could see coming events. Paulus argued at length against Christ's prophecy of his own resurrection. His first proof is that the apostles did not so understand him, as is clear from the women seeking to embalm him; and from the apostles not believing at first the story of his resurrection. Then Christ had no notion of returning shortly. He would not have thought it necessary to cheer his disciples as he did before his death if he could have prophesied that in three days he should join them again. All the promises of meeting again refer to his joining them in a future life. Wegscheider adds that Christ, though he reproaches his disciples with their want of faith, does not allude to their distrust of any prophecy of his; and that the phrase three days is often used of what will soon happen. Scherer, a clergyman of Hesse-Darmstadt, represented the prophets of the Old Testament as so many Indian jugglers, who made use of the pretended inspiration of Moses and of the revelations of the prophets to deceive the people. He treated those who still have any regard for the prophecies of the New Testament as enthusiasts and simpletons; called all the predictions respecting the person of the Messiah, nonsense; accused the prophets of being cunning deceivers; and said that the belief of those prophets has preserved incredulity on the earth.
The Person of Christ. The historical method of interpretation was applied by the disciples of Reason to the Gospel narratives of the character and atonement of Christ. The various circumstances surrounding the writers, the prejudices probably actuating them, the customs they witnessed, and their ignorance and consequent impressibility by a stronger mind, were all taken into the account. The Rationalists, therefore, place Christ before us as we would naturally expect him to appear after taking everything into consideration. They do not show him to us as he is, but as the nature of the case would lead us to expect him to be. There were many who charged him with unworthy motives and national prejudices. Reimarus accused him of rebellious, ambitious, and political views. "Afterward," says Stäudlin, "came out writings enough in Germany in which Christ was said to have performed his miracles by secret arts or by delusions. All proofs of the truth and divinity of his religion were taken away. He was exhibited either as a deceiver or self-deceiving enthusiast; and every possible objection to Christian morality as well as to the form of Christian worship was violently urged. Among the writers of these works were even theologians and preachers! What could be the consequence, except that they who still held somewhat to Christianity should set it forth as pure Rationalism, and that others should endeavor to extinguish it, and to introduce a pure religion of reason quite independent of Christianity and separated from it."
An anonymous publication appeared in 1825, entitled Vindiciæ Sacræ Novi Testamenti Scriptuarum, in which Christ was declared to have deceived himself! Thereupon the Christians were obliged to elevate their founder's mean condition by wonderful stories. The first myth is concerning John the Baptist. Then follow the wonderful stories of Christ's birth, the advent of the wise men, the baptism, temptation, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. There are doubts and difficulties connected with the resurrection, and though the apostles constantly assert its truth, the probable story is that the followers of Jesus, enraged at his death, gave it out that, being taken from the power of the wicked, he lived with God and enjoyed the reward of his virtue. They represented the life of their master to themselves and others in the most glowing colors, and so by degrees, said that he was still living, raised from the dead, and rewarded. Then all these things were told and believed, and it was not easy to contradict them or even examine their value.
Paulus affirmed that Christ did not really die but suffered a fainting fit. Bahrdt conjectured that he retreated after his supposed death to some place known only to his disciples. According to Henke, Christ was a remarkable teacher, distinguished and instructed by God. Inspiration was what Cicero ascribes to the poets; the doctrine of the Trinity came from Platonism; the name "Son of God" is metaphorical, and describes not the nature but the qualities of Christ; and personality is ascribed to the Holy Ghost through a prosopopœia not uncommon in the New Testament. The chief service of Christ was his doctrine. As a Divine Messenger it was his business to bring forward new and pure religion adapted to the wants of all mankind, and to give an example of it. His death was necessary to prove his confidence in his own doctrines, and to present an illustration of perfected virtue. Wegscheider took the position that Christ was one of those characters raised up by God at various periods of history to repress vice and encourage virtue. All notions of his glorification, however, are groundless, and the atonement is a mere speculation of the orthodox.
One of the most popular and direct of all the writers on the opinions of the Rationalists was Röhr, the author of the Briefe über den Rationalismus. He dwells at length upon nearly all the opinions we have mentioned, but his portrait of Christ demands more than a passing notice. He assumes a position, not very lofty, it is true, but yet much more favorable than some of the authorities to which we have referred. Christ had a great mission, and he felt that a heavy burden was upon him. Still he was only a great genius, the blossom of his age and generation, and unsurpassed in wisdom by any one before or after him. His origin, culture, deeds and experience, are yet veiled, and the accounts we have of him are so distorted by rhapsody that we cannot reach a clear conception of him. He had a rare acquaintance with mankind, and studied the Old Testament carefully. He possessed a large measure of tact, imagination, judgment, wisdom, and power. His wisdom was the product of unbiased reason, a sound heart, and freedom from scholastic prejudices. He knew how to seize upon the best means for the attainment of his human purposes. He embraced in his plan a universal religion, and to this he made all things minister. All his doctrines were borrowed from the Old Testament; and the most admirable can be found as far back as the time of Moses. He performed no miracles; but they seemed miracles to the eye-witnesses. He uttered no real prophecies, but his mind was so full of the future that some of his predictions came to pass because of the natural foresight possessed by him. His cures are all attributable to his skill as a physician, for every Jew of that day had some medical knowledge. His apostles propagated Christianity because of the influence wrought upon them by their master. Fortunately for his fame, Paul published him far and wide. Had it not been for that apostle, Christianity would never have gone further than Palestine. There is nothing more remarkable in the spread of this religion than in that of Mohammedanism, which has made such great inroads upon Arabia, Egypt, Northern Africa, and Spain. Röhr, however, reaches the climax of skeptical praise when he says of Christ that he was a "Rationalist of pure, clear, sound reason; free from prejudice, of ready perceptions, great love of truth, and warm sympathies,—an exalted picture of intellectual and moral greatness. Who would not bow before thee?"
The Rationalists made each act of Christ the subject of extended remark. Whenever they came to a serious difficulty they boldly attempted its solution by a few dashes of their unscrupulous pen. We may take the temptation in the wilderness as an example. One writer says that Christ, after his baptism, went into the wilderness full of the conviction that he had been called to a great work. He was hungry; and the thought came to him whether or not he was able to change the stones into bread. Then the conviction arose that his authority was not great enough to enchain the affections of the people. He wondered if God would not support him if he fell; but Reason answered, "God will not sustain you if you disobey the laws of nature." Then, standing on the top of a mountain, he conceived the idea of possessing the surrounding lands, and of placing himself at the head of the people to overthrow the Roman power. The whole affair was a mere individual conflict.
From what we have now said, the opinions of the Rationalists on all points of Christian doctrine become apparent. The sacraments are only symbols of an invisible truth. Baptism is merely a sign of the purity with which a Christian ought to live. The Lord's Supper is but a memorial of the death of Jesus, and unites us with him only morally. The church is a human institution, whose teachings may be very distinct from the will of God. It gives therefore only relative aid. The future judgment is only a Rabbinical vision. Every one receives retribution for his faults in this life; and there is no eternity save that of God, in whom all beings are absorbed.[51]
By this barren creed all foundation for a holy life was taken away. The people, believing such absurdities, were transported from a period which is declared by the word of God to be blessed by the "dispensation of the Spirit" to a cold age in which the excellence of the intellect was measured by the ingenuity of its thrusts at the Scriptures, and in which the highest piety was the strictest obedience to the dictates of natural reason. The inspired advice given to the seekers of wisdom was travestied and made to read, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of Reason that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." The Christian of that day had but little to minister to his spiritual growth. All the endeared institutions of his church were palsied by the strong arm of the Rationalists, who had nothing to put in their place. Their time was spent in destruction. They would pull all things down and erect nothing positive and useful. The doctrines which they professed to believe were mere negatives,—the sheer denial of some thing already in existence.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] Rose, State of Protestantism in Germany. Notes on Ch. iv.
[41] Von Ammon: Biblische Theologie.
[42] Daub.
[43] Herder.
[44] Lessing: Menschengeschlect. Rosenmüller: Stufenfolge der Göttlichen Offenbarungen.
[45] Wegscheider: Institutiones Dogmaticæ.
[46] Eichhorn: Einleitung.
[47] Paulus: Kritische Commentar über das Neue Testament.
[48] Kant.
[49] Wegscheider: Institutiones Dogmaticæ.
[50] Eichhorn: Die Hebräischen Propheten.
[51] Von Ammon. Quoted from his Magazine in Saintes' Histoire du Rationalisme.