The original purpose of this little volume was to indicate the place of the New Testament in the literature of the Hebrew people, to show in fact how it is comprehended in the scope of that literature. The plan has been widened to satisfy the demands of a larger class of readers, and to record more fully the work of its leading idea. Still the consideration of the New Testament literature is of primary importance. The writer submits that the New Testament is to be received as a natural product of the Hebrew genius, its contents attesting the creative power of the Jewish mind. He hopes to make it seem probable to unprejudiced people, that its different books merely carry to the last point of attenuation, and finally exhaust the capacity of ideas that exerted a controlling influence on the development of that branch of the human family. To profundity of research, or originality of conclusion, he makes no claim. He simply records in compact and summary form, the results of reading and reflection, gathered in the course of many years, kept in note books, revised year by year, tested by use in oral instruction, and reduced to system by often repeated manipulation. The resemblance of his views, in certain particulars, to those set forth by German critics of the school of Strauss or of Baur, he is at no pains to conceal. His deep indebtedness to them, he delights to confess. At the same time he can honestly say that he is a disciple of no special school, writes in the interest of no theory or group of theories, but simply desires to establish a point of literary consequence. All polemic or dogmatical intention he disavows, all disposition to lower the dignity, impair the validity, or weaken the spiritual supports of Christianity. His aim, truly and soberly speaking, is to set certain literary facts in their just relation to one another.
It has not been customary, nor is it now customary to assign to the New Testament a place among the literary productions of the human mind. The collection of books bearing that name has been, and still is regarded by advocates of one or another theory of inspiration, as of exceptional origin, in that they express the divine, not the human mind; being writings super-human in substance if not in form, containing thoughts that could not have occurred to the unaided intelligence of man, neither are amenable to the judgment of uninspired reason. To read this volume as other volumes are read is forbidden; to apply to it ordinary critical methods is held to be an impertinence; to detect errors or flaws in it, as in Homer, Plato, Thucydides, is pronounced an unpardonable arrogance. A book that contains revelations of the supreme wisdom and will must be accepted and revered, must not be arraigned.
Criticism has therefore, among believers chiefly we may almost say solely, been occupied with the task of establishing the genuineness and authenticity of the writings, harmonizing their teachings, arranging their contents, explaining texts in accordance with the preconceived theory of a divine origin, vindicating doubtful passages against the objections of skeptics, and extracting from chapter and verse the sense required by the creed. Literature has been permitted to illustrate or confirm points, but has not been called in to correct, for that would be to judge the infinite by the finite mind.
In accordance with this accepted view of the New Testament as a miraculous book, students of it have fallen into the way of surveying it as a detached field, unconnected by organic elements with the surrounding territory of mind; have examined it as if it made no part of an extensive geological formation, as men formerly took up an aërolite or measured a boulder. The materials of knowledge respecting the book have been sought within the volume itself, neither Greek, Roman, German nor Englishman presuming to think that a beam from the outside world could illumine a book
Which gives a light to every age,
Which gives, but borrows none.
The rationalists it is needless to say, avoided this error, but they betrayed a sense of the peril arising from it, in the polemical spirit that characterized much of their writing. In Germany, the tone of rationalism was more sober and scientific than elsewhere, because biblical questions were there discussed in the scholastic seclusion of the University, in lectures delivered by learned professors to students engaged in pursuits purely intellectual. The lectures were not addressed to an excitable multitude, as such discourses are, to a certain extent, in France or England, and particularly in America, and consequently stirred no religious passions. The books published were read by a small class of specialists who studied them as they would treatises in any other department of ancient literature. Nearly half a century ago the disbelief in miracles, portents, and supernatural interventions, was entertained and published by German university professors; stories of prodigies were discredited on the general ground of their incredibility, and the books that reported them were set down as untrustworthy, whatever might be the evidence of their genuineness. A miraculous narrative was on the face of it unauthentic. Efforts were accordingly made to bring the New Testament writings within the categories of literature. Criticism began the task by applying rules of "natural" interpretation to the legendary portions, thus abolishing the supernatural peculiarity and leaving the merely human parts to justify themselves. The method was the best that offered, but it was unscientific; "unnaturally natural;" confused from the necessity of supplementing knowledge by conjecture, and faulty through the amount of arbitrary supposition that had to be introduced. Attention was directed to the historical or biographical aspect of the books, and only incidentally to their literary character, as productions of their age.
The method pursued by Strauss was strictly scientific and literary, though on the surface it seemed to be concerned with biographical details. By treating the narratives of miracles as mythical rather than as legendary, as intellectual and dogmatic rather than as fanciful or imaginary creations, and by tracing their origin to the traditionary beliefs of the Old Testament, he ran both literatures together as one, showing the new to be a continuation or reproduction of the old. The construction, otherwise, of the New Testament literature concerned him but incidentally. The first "Life of Jesus," published in part in 1835, was devoted to the discussion of the gospels as books of history. The second—a revision—was published in 1864, contained a much larger proportion of literary matter in the form of documentary discussion, made frequent references to Baur, and other writers of the Tübingen School, and attached great weight to their conclusions. In the "Old and the New Faith," published nearly ten years later, the main conclusions of Baur are adopted as the legitimate issue of literary criticism, though without attempt at formal reconciliation with his own original view.
Baur's method was original with himself. He finds the key to the secret of the composition of the first three Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and portions of other books, in the quarrel between Paul and Peter feelingly described in the second chapter of the letter to the Galatians. The "synoptical" Gospels, he contends, and with singular ingenuity argues, are the results of that controversy between the broad and the narrow churches; are not, therefore, writings of historical value or biographical moment, but books of a doctrinal character, not controversial or polemical,—mediatorial and conciliatory rather than aggressive,—but written in a controversial interest, and intelligible only when read by a controversial light. Baur called his the "historical" method, as distinguished from the dogmatical, the textual, the negative; because his starting point was a historical fact, namely, the actual dispute recorded, in language of passionate earnestness, by one of the parties to it, and distinctly confessed in the attitude of the other. But Baur's method has a still better title to be called literary, for it is concerned with the literary composition of the New Testament writings, and with the dispute as accounting for their existence and form. His studies on the fourth Gospel, and on the life and writings of the Apostle Paul, are admirable examples of the unprejudiced literary method; by far the most intelligent, comprehensive and consistent ever made; simply invaluable in their kind. They contain all that is necessary for a complete rationale of the New Testament literature. These, taken in connection with his "History of the First Three Centuries," his "Origin of the Episcopate," his "Dogmengeschichte," put the patient and attentive student in possession of the full case. But Baur lacked constructive talent of a high order, and has been less successful than inferior men in embracing details in a wide generalization.
Renan adopts the method of the early rationalists, but applies it with a freedom and facility of which they were incapable. He takes up the Gospels as history, and sifts the literature in order to get at the history. He claims to possess the historical sense, by virtue of which he is able to separate the genuine from the ungenuine portions of the Gospels. It is a point with him to show how the character of Jesus was moulded by the spirit of his age, and by the literature on which he was nurtured; but his treatment of the evangelical narratives as a mass of biographical notes reflecting, with more or less correctness, the personality of Jesus, is not quite compatible with a rational or even a literary treatment of them as a continuation of the traditions of the Hebrew people. The constructive force being centred in Jesus himself, the full recognition of the creative genius of the Hebrew mind, which was illustrated in Jesus and his age, was precluded. Renan is in a measure compelled to make Jesus a prodigy—an exceptional person, who baffles ordinary standards of judgment; and in so doing distorts the connection between him, the generations that went before, and the generations that came after. Strauss does more justice to the New Testament literature, in attempting only its partial explanation. Baur does more justice to it in seeking a literary explanation of the writings as they are. Renan picks and chooses according to our arbitrary criterion, which capriciously disports itself over a field covered with promiscuous treasures.
Lord Amberley's more recent attempt reveals the weakness of the common procedure. Without the learning of Strauss, the perspicacity of Baur, or the brilliant audacity of Renan, he strays over the field, making suggestions neither profound nor original, and rather obliterating the distinct impressions his predecessors have made than making new ones of his own. His chapter on Jesus will illustrate the confusion that must issue from a false method, which does not deserve to be called a method at all.