He has been the most influential factor in the necessary process of separation. There is no one with whom Hengstenberg feels himself more in agreement than with the Tübingen scholar. Had he not shown with the greatest precision how the results of the Hegelian philosophy, one may say, of philosophy in general, reacted upon Christian faith? “The relation of speculation to faith has now come clearly to light.”
“Two nations,” writes Hengstenberg in 1836, “are struggling in the womb of our time, and two only. They will be ever more definitely opposed to one another. Unbelief will more and more cast off the elements of faith to which it still clings, and faith will cast off its elements of unbelief. That will be an inestimable advantage. Had the Time-spirit continued to make concessions, concessions would constantly have been made to it in return.” Therefore the man who “calmly and deliberately laid hands upon the Lord's anointed, undeterred by the vision of the millions who have bowed the knee, and still bow the knee, before His appearing,” has in his own way done a service.
Strauss on his part escaped with relief from the musty atmosphere of the study—beloved by theology in carpet-slippers—to the bracing air of Hengstenberg's Kirchenzeitung. In his “Replies” he devotes to it some fifty-four pages. “I must admit,” he says, “that it is a satisfaction to me to have to do with the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung. In dealing with it one knows where one is and what one has to expect. If Herr Hengstenberg condemns, he knows why he condemns, and even one against whom he launches his anathema must admit that the attitude becomes him. Any one who, like the editor of the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, has taken upon him the yoke of confessional doctrine with all its implications, has paid a price which entitles him to the privilege of condemning those who differ from his opinions.”[60]
Hengstenberg's only complaint against Strauss is that he does not go far enough. He would have liked to force upon him the rôle of the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist, and considers that if Strauss did not, like the latter, go so far as to suppose the apostles guilty of deliberate deceit, that is not so much from any regard for the historical kernel of Christianity as in order to mask his attack.
Even in Catholic theology Strauss's work caused a great sensation. Catholic theology in general did not at that time take up an attitude of absolute isolation from Protestant scholarship; [pg 108] it had adopted from the latter numerous rationalistic ideas, and had been especially influenced by Schleiermacher. Thus, Catholic scholars were almost prepared to regard Strauss as a common enemy, against whom it was possible to make common cause with Protestants. In 1837 Joseph Mack, one of the Professors of the Catholic faculty at Tübingen, published his “Report on Herr Dr. Strauss's Historical Study of the Life of Jesus.”[61] In 1839 appeared “Dr. Strauss's Life of Jesus, considered from the Catholic point of view,”[62] by Dr. Maurus Hagel, Professor of Theology at the Lyceum at Dillingen; in 1840 that lover of hypotheses and doughty fighter, Johann Leonhard Hug,[63] presented his report upon the work.[64]
Even French Catholicism gave some attention to Strauss's work. This marks an epoch—the introduction of the knowledge of German critical theology into the intellectual world of the Latin nations. In the Revue des deux mondes for December 1838, Edgar Quinet gave a clear and accurate account of the influence of the Hegelian philosophy upon the religious ideas of cultured Germany.[65] In an eloquent peroration he lays bare the danger which was menacing the Church from the nation of Strauss and Hegel. His countrymen need not think that it could be charmed away by some ingenious formula; a mighty effort of the Catholic spirit was necessary, if it was to be successfully opposed. “A new barbarian invasion was rolling up against sacred Rome. The barbarians were streaming from every quarter of the horizon, bringing their strange gods with them and preparing to beleaguer the holy city. As, of yore, Leo went forth to meet Attila, so now let the Papacy put on its purple and come forth, while yet there is time, to wave back with an authoritative gesture the devastating hordes into that moral wilderness which is their native home.”
Quinet might have done better still if he had advised the Pope to issue, as a counterblast to the unbelieving critical work of [pg 109] Strauss, the Life of Jesus which had been revealed to the faith of the blessed Anna Katharina Emmerich.[66] How thoroughly this refuted Strauss can be seen from the fragment issued in 1834, “The Bitter Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” where even the age of Jesus on the day of His death is exactly given. On that Maundy Thursday the 13th Nisan, it was exactly thirty-three years and eighteen weeks less one day. The “pilgrim” Clement Brentano would certainly have consented, had he been asked, to allow his note-books to be used in the sacred cause, and to have given to the world the Life of Jesus as it was revealed to him by this visionary from the end of July 1820 day by day for three years, instead of allowing this treasure to remain hidden for more than twenty years longer. He himself ascribed to these visions the most strictly historical character, and insisted on considering them not merely as reflections on what had happened, but as the immediate reflex of the facts themselves, so that the picture of the life of Jesus is given in them as in a mirror. Hug, it may be mentioned, in his lectures, called attention to the exact agreement of the topography of the passion story in Katharina's vision with the description of the locality in Josephus. If he had known her complete Life of Jesus he would doubtless have expressed his admiration for the way in which she harmonises John and the Synoptists; and with justice, for the harmony is really ingenious and skilfully planned.
Apart from these merits, too, this Life of Jesus, written, it should be observed, earlier than Strauss's, contains a wealth of interesting information. John at first baptized at Aenon, but later was directed to remove to Jericho. The baptisms took place in “baptismal springs.”
Peter owned three boats, of which one was fitted up especially [pg 110] for the use of Jesus, and carried a complement of ten persons. Forward and aft there were covered-in spaces where all kinds of gear could be kept, and where also they could wash their feet; along the sides of the boat were hung receptacles for the fish.
When Judas Iscariot became a disciple of Jesus he was twenty-five years old. He had black hair and a red beard, but could not be called really ugly. He had had a stormy past. His mother had been a dancing-woman, and Judas had been born out of wedlock, his father being a military tribune in Damascus. As an infant he had been exposed, but had been saved, and later had been taken charge of by his uncle, a tanner at Iscariot. At the time when he joined the company of Jesus' disciples he had squandered all his possessions. The disciples at first liked him well enough because of his readiness to make himself useful; he even cleaned the shoes.