Part I—PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

Chapter I—The Beginnings

§ 1. Documentary Clues

A good introduction to the rational discussion of the whole problem of origins is furnished in Radical Views about the New Testament, by Dr. G. A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, trans. from the Dutch by S. B. Slack (R. P. A., 1912). The Unitarian view is freshly put by Wilhelm Soltau in The Birth of Jesus Christ (Eng. tr., Black, 1903). Of the countless works discussing early Christian literature and the formation of the New Testament “Canon,” the following may be consulted with profit: All relevant articles in the Encyclopædia Biblica (A. & C. Black); Supernatural Religion: An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation, 6th ed. revised, 1875, two vols.; 3rd vol. 1877; R. P. A. rep. in one vol., 1902; A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot’s Essays, by the same author, 1889; An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, by Dr. Samuel Davidson, 2nd ed. revised, 1882, two vols.; The Apostolical Fathers, by Dr. James Donaldson, 1874 and later; Renan’s preface to his Saint Paul, the Appendice to his L’Antéchrist, and his Les Évangiles; E. B. Nicholson’s compilation, The Gospel According to the Hebrews, 1879; History of the Canon in the Christian Church, by Professor Reuss, Eng. tr. 1890; Apostolical Records of Early Christianity, by the Rev. Dr. Giles, 1886; Strauss’s second Leben Jesu, tr. in Eng. (not always accurately) as A New Life of Jesus, 2nd ed. 1879, two vols.; and the old research of Lardner on The Credibility of the Gospels (Part II, ch. i to xxix in vol. ii of Works, ed. 1835) which covers the ground pretty fully, indeed diffusely. As to the Pauline epistles see Van Manen’s article in the Encyclopædia Biblica, and T. Whittaker’s Origins of Christianity (R. P. A., 1909). The most comprehensive account of the early sources is Harnack’s Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (1893) in two great volumes; and the still bulkier Chronologie which follows thereon. More compendious surveys are Professor Gustav Krüger’s Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, 1895; and Dr. James Donaldson’s History of Christian Literature and Doctrine, three vols., 1864–66. Of real value is the survey of Professor Arnold Meyer, Die moderne Forschung über die Geschichte des Urchristentums, 1898. [The writings ascribed to the Apostolic Fathers are translated in the first volume of the “Ante-Nicene Library”; those ascribed to Justin Martyr in the second volume.]

§ 2. The Earliest Christian Sects

The sources as to the Nazarenes and Ebionites are given by Bishop Lightfoot in his ed. of the Epistle to the Galatians, p. 298, ff. (diss. reprinted in Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, 1892, p. 74, ff.); also in W. R. Sorley’s Jewish Christians and Judaism, 1881, p. 66, ff. Both proceed on the traditional assumptions. Critical discrimination between the Ebionites and “Nazarenes” begins in modern times with Mosheim, Vindicia Antiquæ Christianorum Disciplinæ contra Tolandi Nazarenum, 1720. See also his Commentarium de rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum, 1753, Sæc. II, § xxxix (Eng. tr. vol. ii, p. 194, ff.). His position was developed by Gieseler (1828), and has become the basis of later ecclesiastical historiography, as in the above-cited writers, and in Weizsäcker’s Apostolic Age. A new and more searching analysis of the phenomena, on lines previously suggested but not developed, is made by P. Hochart in his Études d’histoire religieuse, 1890, chs. iv and v. For the positions of the present section, in so far as they are not there fully reasoned, the grounds will be found in the author’s Christianity, and Mythology, Part III, 1st Div. § 9, and in the National Reformer, 1888, March 18 and 25, April 1, 8, and 15. On the Nazareth problem see Dr. Cheyne’s article in the Encyclopædia Biblica, and Professor Burkitt’s paper on The Syriac Forms of New Testament Proper Names (in Proc. of the British Academy, vol. v, 1912, pp. 17–18).

§ 3. Personality of the Nominal Founder

Of the more rationalistic Lives of Jesus, so-called, that of Renan is the most charming and the least scientific; those by Strauss the most systematic and educative; that of Thomas Scott, “The English Life of Jesus,” the most compendious view of the conflicts of the gospel narratives. Evan Meredith’s Prophet of Nazareth (1864) is rather a stringent criticism of the whole Christian system of ethics, evidences, and theology (rejecting supernaturalism but assuming a historical Christ) than a scientific search for a personality behind the Gospels. It however passes many acute criticisms. Later German Lives of Christ, such as those of Keim and B. Weiss, are useful in respect of their scholarly comprehensiveness, but have little final critical value. A more advanced stage of documentary criticism than is seen in any of these is reached in the second section of the article Gospels, by Professor Schmiedel, in the Encyclopædia Biblica. The grounds on which the present section carries the process of elimination yet further are developed in the author’s Christianity and Mythology, Part III, The Gospel Myths, Div. ii; also in his Pagan Christs. Concerning the Talmudic Jesus the documentary data are given by Lardner, Works, ed. 1835, vol. ii; Baring Gould, The Lost and Hostile Gospels, 1874; Joel, Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte, Breslau, 1880; Derenbourg, Essai sur l’histoire et la Géographie de Palestine, 1867; Gustav Rösch, Die Jesusmythen des Judenthums, in Theolog. Studien und Kritiken, Jahrg. 1873, 1 Heft, pp. 75–115; R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (1904); T. Theodores, essay on The Talmud in Essays and Addresses by Professors and Lecturers of Owen’s College (Macmillan, 1874), pp. 368–70; and Lightfoot, Horæ Hebraicæ, on [Matt. ii, 14], [xxvii, 56], and [Luke vii, 2]. Later developments of the problem are to be followed in the works of A. Kalthoff, The Rise of Christianity (Eng. tr. R. P. A., 1907) and Was wissen wir von Jesus? (pamph. Berlin, 1904); T. Whittaker’s Origins of Christianity; Professor Arthur Drews’s The Christ Myth (Eng. tr. Unwin); Professor W. B. Smith’s Der vorchristliche Jesus (1906) and Ecce Deus (R. P. A., 1912); and Drews’s The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (Eng. tr. R. P. A., 1912). Compendious views of the process of textual analysis, as applied to the Gospels by students who still hold to the historic actuality of the Gospel Jesus, may be found in The Synoptic Problem, by A. J. Jolly (Macmillan, 1893); The Formation of the Gospels, by F. P. Badham (Kegan Paul, 2nd ed. 1892); The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, by Dr. Abbott and W. G. Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884); and The First Three Gospels, by J. Estlin Carpenter (Sunday School Association, 2nd ed. 1890). Of the extensive continental literature of this subject during the past half-century, typical and important examples are Baur’s Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien (1847), Scholten’s Het oudste Evangelie, 1868 (tr. in German, 1869); Gustave D’Eichthal’s Les Évangiles, 1863; H. J. Holtzmann’s Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtliche Charakter, 1863; Berthold Weiss’s Text-kritik der vier Evangelien, 1899; J. Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, 1905; A. Schweitzer’s Von Reimarus zu Wrede (Eng. tr. The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Black, 1910); and Alfred Loisy, Le quatrième Évangile, 1903; Les Évangiles Synoptiques, two vols. 1907–8. Loisy’s general conclusions are given in his Jésus et la tradition évangélique, 1910. Holtzmann’s Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament (2te. Aufl. 1885) is a good summary of the general discussion on the documentary side up to its date.

§ 4. Myth of the Twelve Apostles

As to the Jewish Twelve Apostles, consult Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums, 1850, ii, 159–60; Kitto’s Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, art. Apostle; Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, ed. 1716, liv. iii, ch. ii, §§ 7, 8, 10, 11; Mosheim’s Commentaries as before cited, Eng. tr. i, 121–23; and other authorities discussed by the author in the National Reformer, 1887, May 8 and 15, November 20 and 27, December 4; also in Christianity and Mythology, Part III, Div. i, § 19. For recent views on the alleged apostolic epistles see Professor Arnold Meyer’s work, cited under § 1. The text of the important Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, first published in 1883, is ably edited and translated by Professors Hitchcock and Brown (London ed. Nimmo), whose version was made the basis of a revised translation, with variorum notes, by the author, published in the National Reformer, November 1 and 8, 1891. The Teaching has appeared also in the following translations: By Dr. Farrar, in the Contemporary Review, May, 1884; by the Rev. A. Gordon (tr. sold at Essex Hall, London); by M. Sabatier with text and commentary (Paris, 1885); by Professor Harnack; and by the Rev. Mr. Heron in his Church of the Apostolic Age, 1888. As to its obviously Jewish basis compare Dr. Taylor’s Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 1886, with Harnack’s Die Apostellehre und die jüdischen beiden Wege, 1886. On the “Brethren of the Lord” see Bishop Lightfoot’s excursus, reprinted in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age. The Judas myth and the characteristics of Peter are discussed in Christianity and Mythology, Part III, Div. i, §§ 20, 21; also in Professor Drews’s Die Petrus Legende (Frankfurt a. M., 1910). For the Egyptian God Petra see the Book of the Dead, Budge’s tr., p. 123.

§ 5. Primary Forms of the Cult

The theory that the gospel narrative of the Last Supper, the Passion, the Betrayal, Trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection constitute a mystery-play or plays is set forth by the author in Pagan Christs. On pre-Christian Semitic “mysteries” see Professor Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, Lect. vi-xi; and on the ancient conception of sacrifice in general consult that work; also Wellhausen’s Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Eng. tr. Pt. I. ch. iii; the work of Fustel de Coulanges on La Cité Antique; and Dr. J. G. Frazer’s great treatise The Golden Bough (2nd ed. three vols. 1900, 3rd ed. nine vols., now in process of publication). Concerning the private religious societies among the Greeks, the standard authority is M. Foucart, Les Associations religieuses chez les Grecs, 1873; see also ch. xviii of Renan’s Les Apôtres. The imitation of pagan institutions in the Christian Church is dealt with by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch, in his Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890; and some of the relations between the Jewish Passover and coincident pagan feasts are suggested in the valuable old treatise of J. Spencer, De Legibus Hebræorum (1685 and later), lib. ii, cap 4. The part played by the child-image in pagan and Christian mysteries is noted in Christianity and Mythology, Pt. II, Christ and Krishna, sec. xiii. On other details consult Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Div. II. The question as to the rise of baptism comes up in the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, on which see Baur, Church History, Eng. tr., vol. i; where also will be found the material of the controversy on the date of the Easter sacrament. As to the manner of crucifixion in antiquity see Dr. W. Brandt’s Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christenthums, 1893, Theil II, § 5, and Pf. Hermann Fulda’s treatise, Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (Breslau, 1878).

§ 6. Rise of Gentile Christism.

The early and bitter strife between the Jewish and Gentile parties in the Christist movement was first exhaustively studied by the Tübingen school. See the important works of its founder, F. C. Baur, Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, 1853 (Eng. tr. The Church History of the First Three Centuries, 1878, two vols.) and Paulus, 1845 (Eng. tr. two vols. 1873); also the work of Zeller on the Contents and Origin of the Acts of the Apostles (Eng. tr. two vols. 1875, with Overbeck’s Introduction to the Acts, from De Wette’s Handbook). Compare the somewhat more conservative treatise of Weizsäcker, The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church, Eng. tr. two vols. 1894, and the orthodox Neander’s History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles (Eng. tr. two vols. 1851), where however some decisive admissions are made as to the narrative of the Acts. One of the most comprehensive surveys of the documentary discussion is J. Jüngst’s Die Quellen der Apostelgeschichte (Gotha, 1895). Some interesting concessions are made by Professor Ramsay in his work on The Church and the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 (1893). On the Gentile parallels discussed consult Frazer’s Golden Bough and Havet’s Le Christianisme et ses origines. The questions raised by the vogue of the term “Chrēstos” are well set forth and discussed in the brochure of the late Dr. J. Barr Mitchell, Chrēstos: A Religious Epithet, its Import and Influence (Williams and Norgate, 1880). Compare Renan, Saint Paul, p. 363, and refs. Various aspects of the general problem are set forth in the Monumental Christianity of J. P. Lundy (New York, 1876). For a full view of Gnosticism see Baur, Die Christliche Gnosis, 1835, and C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, 2nd ed. 1887; and for a survey of Samaritan tenets see J. W. Nutt, Fragment of a Samaritan Targum, 1874 (Introduction), and Reland’s Dissertatio de Monte Garizim, in his Diss. Misc., Pars I, 1706. A view of the ancient practices of cutting and gashing in the presence of the dead, etc., is given in John Spencer’s treatise De Legibus Hebræorum, lib. ii. cc. 13, 14. The Myth of Simon Magus was discussed by the author in the National Reformer, January 29, February 5, and February 19, 1893.

§ 7. Growth of the Christ Myth

For details and references as to the pagan myths embodied in the Gospels, see the author’s Christianity and Mythology, Parts II and III. The evolution of the doctrine of the Logos is discussed by Professor James Drummond, in The Jewish Messiah, 1877, and Philo Judæus, 1888; by M. Nicolas, Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs, 1860; and in Schürer’s Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Div. II, vol. iii. As to its early form among the Babylonians see Tiele, Histoire comparée des anciennes religions égyptiennes et semitiques, French tr. 1882, pp. 182–83. Dr. Frazer presents the evidence as to the Semitic usage of sacrificing a mock king in his Golden Bough, where however the problem is obscured by the acceptance of the Gospels as historical records. See also the article on Jesus als Saturnalien-König, by P. Wendland, in Hermes, xxxiii (1898).

Chapter II—The Environment

§ 1. Social and Mental Conditions in the Roman Empire

The sociological forces and tendencies in the Greek and Roman civilizations are discussed in the author’s Evolution of States, Part I; also in A Short History of Freethought, vol. i, ch. iii, v, vi, and vii. For the social bearing of ancient religion consult Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité Antique; Boissier, La Religion romaine d’Auguste aux Antonins (2 tom. 4e édit. 1892); Burckhardt, Griechische Culturgeschichte, 3 Bde. 1898–1900; Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (five vols. 1896–1908); Maury, Histoire des religions de la Grèce antique, 3 tom. 1857; and Kalthoff’s Rise of Christianity. Renan has many suggestive pages on social conditions, particularly in Les Apôtres; but heed must be taken of the frequent contradictions in his generalizations. As to the religious life of the Greek private religious societies, see ch. xvii of Les Apôtres; the treatise of M. Foucart, before cited; Dr. Hatch’s Bampton lectures on The Organization of the Early Christian Churches; and his Hibbert lectures on The Influence of Greek Ideas, etc., before cited. For Rome, see Professor W. Warde Fowler’s Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero (1909); and Professor Samuel Dill’s Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1908).

§ 2. Jewish Orthodoxy

Schürer’s Jewish People in the Time of Christ gives the main clues from Josephus, the Talmud, and the O. T. apocrypha. See further M. Friedländer’s Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Christenthums (Wien, 1894) for light as to the relations between the Pharisees and the common people. For a good general view see Reuss, Histoire de la théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique (2e édit. 1860), liv. i. Nicolas, Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs, 1860, gives a fuller research. Accounts of the surviving “Nestorians” are given in Missionary Researches in Armenia, by E. Smith and H. D. O. Dwight, 1834, and in Dr. A. Grant’s The Nestorians, 2nd. ed. 1843.

§ 3. Jewish Sects

A good conspectus and discussion of the data as to the Essenes is given by Dr. Ginsburg in his pamphlet The Essenes, 1864. On the sects, see also Schürer, Div. ii, vol. ii; Bishop Lightfoot, Dissertations on the Apostolic Age; and Oskar Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 1895.

§ 4. Gentile Cults

A general view of non-Christian in relation to Christian religion is most readably presented in M. Salomon Reinach’s Orpheus: Histoire generale des Religions (6e édit. 1909). The best mythological dictionary is Roscher’s great Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, but Preller’s Griechische Mythologie and Römische Mythologie and Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (three vols. 1844–49) give most of the data. A general notion of the infiltration of pagan religion into Christianity may be gathered from Les Saints Successeurs des Dieux by P. Saintyves (1907); and Rendel Harris’s The Dioscuri in Christian Legend (Oxford, 1903). In regard to the cults of Attis and Adonis, consult Frazer’s Adonis, Attis, Osiris (vol. iv of new ed. of Golden Bough) and Foucart Des Associations religieuses chez les Grecs; for the cult of Dionysos, the same and Frazer’s Golden Bough; also (with caution) Mr. R. Brown’s Great Dionysiak Myth, two vols. 1877–8, and the older Recherches sur le Culte de Bacchus of Rolle (3 tom. 1824), both works of great learning. Lucian’s treatise De Dea Syra gives special information on Syrian religion. Sidelights are thrown on the cults in question by the Christian Fathers, in particular Julius Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum (best ed. Halm’s); Epiphanius, De Hæresis; Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies (trans. in Ante-Nicene Library, vol. vi). The main clues to the Osiris cult are in The Book of the Dead (Eng. tr. by Budge, 1898) and Plutarch’s treatise On Isis and Osiris, which should be read, however, in the light of Tiele’s or some other competent History of Egyptian Religion. The main data as to Mithraism are collected in the author’s essay in Pagan Christs. The standard research on the subject is Cumont’s Textes et Monuments Figurés relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra (1896–9: add. vol. 1913). Valuable light is thrown on the oriental side of Christian mythology by Professor Hermann Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verständnis des Neuen Testaments, 1903, trans. in The Monist, Chicago, 1903.

§ 5. Ethics: Popular and Philosophic

The parallels and coincidences between the teachings of Paul and of Seneca are fully set forth by Bishop Lightfoot in the excursus on Paul and Seneca reprinted in his Discussions on the Apostolic Age, where also the significance of the parallels is considered and the literature of the subject described. In the general connection may be consulted Havet’s Le Christianisme et ses origines, 4 tom. 1872–84; Martha’s Les Moralistes sous l’empire romain, 14e édit. 1881; Lecky’s History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne; Professor Dill’s Roman Society During the Last Century of the Empire of the West; Baur’s Drei Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der alten Philosophie und ihres Verhältniss zum Christenthum (new ed. 1876), where there is a thorough discussion of Seneca’s case; Professor M. Baumgarten’s Lucius Annæus Seneca und das Christenthum (1895); Uhlhorn’s Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism (Eng. tr. from 3rd Ger. ed. 1879); Renan’s Marc Aurèle, and ch. xvii. of Les Apôtres; W. Soltau’s Das Fortleben des Heidentums in der altchristlichen Kirche, 1906; Professor Max Pohlenz’s Vom Zorne Gottes: Eine Studie über den Einfluss der Griechischen Philosophie auf das alte Christentum, 1909; J. A. Farrer’s Paganism and Christianity, 1891 (rep. R. P. A.); W. M. Flinders Petrie’s Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt, 1898; and Ludwig Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity, Eng. tr. by Marian Evans (George Eliot). The Jewish Rabbinical ethic is defended as against Christian attack in an able article on “Rabbinic Judaism and the Epistles of Paul” by C. G. Montefiore in the Jewish Quarterly Review for January, 1901. Some of the other issues are discussed in detail in the author’s Short History of Freethought, vol. i, chs. iv, vi, vii.

Chapter III—Conditions of Survival

§ 1. Popular Appeal

See the references to ch. ii. § 5, concerning the prevalent moral ideas. As to the Montanists and other ascetic and antinomian sects see Baur, Church History, Eng. tr. vol. i, Pt. III, also Hatch, as cited. Concerning the results of the need to appeal to the pagan populace, note the admissions of Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, 2 Cent. Pt. II, chs. iii and iv; of Dr. John Stoughton, Ages of the Church, 1855, Lect. iv; of Waddington, History of the Christian Church, 1833, pp. 87, 89; and of Milman, History of Christianity, B. iv, chs. i and iii.

§ 2. Economic Causation

The organization of the Assyrian and Babylonian priesthoods may be gathered from Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians. On the Greek priesthoods compare Burckhardt, Griechische Culturgeschichte, Bd. II, Abs. II, § ii. As to the wealth of the priestly caste in Egypt see Diodorus Siculus; and on that of Rome, Gibbon’s 15th chapter. On the later Judaic priestly finance see the references given as to the Jewish Twelve Apostles under ch. i, § 4. The process of growth of an order of “ethical lecturers” is indicated by C. Martha, Les Moralistes sous l’empire romain, 4e édit. 1881; also by E. Havet, Le Christianisme et ses origines, tom. i, ch. iii. Compare Grote, History of Greece, end of ch. xlvi, and his Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, per index, as to the sophists. The financial side of the pagan mysteries is partly illustrated in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Compare also Foucart, Des Associations religieuses chez les Grecs. Gibbon’s fifteenth chapter deals in the main with a later period, but throws general light on this also. See also Renan’s Marc Aurèle, ch. xxxi; and especially Dr. Hatch’s Hibbert Lectures, lect. iv, and Lecky’s History of European Morals.

§ 3. Organization and Sacred Books

Dr. Hatch’s Organization of the Early Christian Churches recognizes, on nominally orthodox principles, the fact that the structure was a natural adaptation to environment, on old type-lines. Of the movement of Apollonius of Tyana, good accounts are given by Professor A. Réville, Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ of the Third Century, Eng. tr. 1866; by Mr. T. Whittaker in his Apollonius of Tyana, and other Essays (Sonnenschein, 1906); and in the essay of Baur in his Drei Abhandlungen. Two somewhat “free” translations of Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius have lately been produced—by Dr. F. C. Conybeare and Professor Phillimore (each 2 vols.)—as to which see the Literary Guide of April, 1913. On the formation of the canon see the references to ch. i, §§ 1, 3. As to Manichæism see those given below, Pt. II, ch. ii.

§ 4. Concession and Fixation

On developments of doctrine in general the fullest modern treatise is Harnack’s History of Dogma (Eng. tr. 1894, six vols.), but the critical student must revise many of Harnack’s judgments. The same author’s Outlines of the History of Dogma (Eng. tr. 1893) are at many points suggestive; and Hagenbach’s History of Dogma is still useful. Hatch is well worth consulting in this connection.

§ 5. Cosmic Philosophy

As to the Fourth Gospel and the doctrine of the Logos see the references given for ch. i, § 7; also the relevant articles in the Encyclopædia Biblica; the work of Loisy on the Fourth Gospel, before cited; the fourth and fifth chapters of Renan’s Les Évangiles, which give his latest ideas on the problem; Reuss’s Histoire de la théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique, 2e édit. 1860, tom. ii, liv. vii; and J. J. Tayler’s treatise, An Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel (1867). Baur and Strauss may also be profitably studied.