Both works have been frequently reissued, the “Bitter Sufferings” as late as 1894.
Ch. G. Wilke, Tradition und Mythe. A contribution to the historical criticism of the Gospels in general, and in particular to the appreciation of the treatment of myth and idealism in Strauss's “Life of Jesus.” Leipzig, 1837.
Christian Gottlob Wilke was born in 1786 at Werm, near Zeitz, studied theology and became pastor of Hermannsdorf in the Erzgebirge. He resigned this office in 1837 in order to devote himself to his studies, perhaps also because he had become conscious of an inner unrest. In 1845 he prepared the way for his conversion to Catholicism by publishing a work entitled “Can a Protestant go over to the Roman Church with a good conscience?” He took the decisive step in August 1846. Later he removed to Würzburg. Subsequently he recast his famous Clavis Novi Testamenti Philologica—which had appeared in 1840-1841—in the form of a lexicon for Catholic students of theology. His Hermeneutik des Neuen Testaments, published in 1843-1844, appeared in 1853 as Biblische Hermeneutik nach katholischen Grundsätzen (The Science of Biblical Interpretation according to Catholic principles). He was engaged in recasting his Clavis when he died in 1854.
Of later works dealing with the question of myth, we may refer to Emanuel Marius, Die Persönlichkeit Jesu mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Mythologien und Mysterien der alten Völker (The Personality of Jesus, with special reference to the Mythologies and Mysteries of Ancient Nations), Leipzig, 1879, 395 pp.; and Otto Frick, Mythus und Evangelium (Myth and Gospel), Heilbronn, 1879, 44 pp.
Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte. (Scientific Criticism of the Gospel History.) August Ebrard. Frankfort, 1842; 3rd ed., 1868.
Johannes Heinrich Aug. Ebrard was born in 1818 at Erlangen, was, first, Professor of Reformed Theology at Zurich and Erlangen, afterwards (1853) went to Speyer as “Konsistorialrat,” but was unable to cope with the Liberal opposition there, and returned in 1861 to Erlangen, where he died in 1888.
A characteristic example of Ebrard's way of treating the subject is his method of meeting the objection that a fish with a piece of money in its jaws could not have taken the hook. “The fish might very well,” he explains, “have thrown up the piece of money from its belly into the opening of the jaws in the moment in which Peter opened its mouth.” Upon this Strauss remarks: “The inventor of this argument tosses it down before us as who should say, ‘I know very well it is bad, but it is good enough for you, at any rate so long as the Church has livings to distribute and we Konsistorialrats have to examine the theological candidates.’ ” Strauss, therefore, characterises Ebrard's Life of Jesus as “Orthodoxy restored on a basis of impudence.” The pettifogging character of this work made a bad impression even in Conservative quarters.
Georg Heinrich August Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel. (History of the People of Israel.) 7 vols. Göttingen, 1843-1859; 3rd ed., 1864-1870. Fifth vol., Geschichte Christus' und seiner Zeit. (History of Christ and His Times.) 1855; 2nd ed., 1857.
Ewald was born in 1803 at Göttingen, where in 1827 he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages. Having made a protest against the repeal of the fundamental law of the Hanoverian Constitution he was removed from his office and went to Tübingen, first as Professor of philology; in 1841 he was transferred to the theological faculty. In 1848 he returned to Göttingen. When, in 1866, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King of Prussia, he was compulsorily retired, and, in consequence of imprudent expressions of opinion, was also deprived of the right to lecture. The town of Hanover chose him as its representative in the North German and in the German Reichstag, where he sat among the Guelph opposition, in the middle of the centre party. He died in 1875 at Göttingen. His contributions to New Testament studies were much inferior to his Oriental and Old Testament researches. His Life of Jesus, in particular, is worthless, in spite of the Old Testament and Oriental learning with which it was furnished forth. He lays great stress upon making the genitive of “Christus” not “Christi,” but, according to German inflection, “Christus'.”
Christian Gottlob Wilke, formerly pastor of Hermannsdorf in the Erzgebirge. Der Urevangelist, oder eine exegetisch-kritische Untersuchung des Verwandschaftsverhältnisses der drei ersten Evangelien. (The Earliest Evangelist, a Critical and Exegetical Inquiry into the Relationship of the First Three Gospels.) The subsequent course of the discussion of the Marcan hypothesis was as follows:—