The two works of Renan and Strauss were followed by a deluge of literature on the life of Jesus, the historical value of which is very various. To give an account of all these books would require more space than is at my disposal. I must confine myself to the work of Theodor Keim, an English translation of which has been published under the “Theological Translation Fund.” The work is so distinguished by the richness of its learned material, and the ability with which it is handled, as to constitute it the best representation of the present condition of our knowledge of the life of Jesus. Keim’s standpoint differs from that of Strauss by the warmth of religious feeling and enthusiasm which pervades his entire work, while at the same time no fetters are laid upon the critical reason; freedom and piety join hands, in order to be just to the double claim which the truth of history on the one hand, and the church on the other, are justified in presenting. The most brilliant part of Keim’s work is his delineation of the religious personality of Jesus,—how in it were combined, in a unique degree, strength and harmony, complete openness towards the world, with perfect inwardness towards God, so as to become the source of a new religion, in which self-surrender and liberty, humility and energy, enthusiasm and lucidity, are blended, and the chasm of previous ages between God and man filled up. His description of the psychological development of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus out of inward experiences and outward impressions and impulses, is also drawn with great delicacy of touch; at all events, it is an able and suggestive effort to penetrate, as far as the state of the sources admits, by means of sympathetic and reproductive divination, to the personal experiences and mental states of the religious genius from whom a new epoch in the world’s religious history proceeded. Still, as in the kindred efforts of Renan, Weizsäcker, Beyschlag and Weiss, we may never forget how much, with the poverty of the ascertained historical materials, is left to the uncontrolled power of combination and divination; in other words, to the imagination, which at best can do no more than roughly and approximately arrive at the truth, while it may no less easily go far astray. It is certainly to be deemed an advance that in the more recent works on the life of Jesus the subject of main interest is not so much the external miracles as the internal, the problems of the peculiar nature and development of his religious consciousness and character, his view of his vocation, his attitude towards the Messianic idea, and the like. Yet this advance is manifestly attended by the temptation to sacrifice the caution of historical criticism to the production of a biography as rich in detail and as dramatic in movement as possible, and to represent things as the ascertained results of critical examination, which are really nothing more than subjective combinations of the writers, to which a certain degree of probability may be attached, though the possibility will always remain, that the actual facts were something quite different. The subtle examination of the question, whether Jesus himself ever declared himself to be the Messiah, or spoke of his return in celestial glory, by Martineau, in his Seat of Authority in Religion, is in this respect deserving of all attention, and is of great value, as at least supplying a needed lesson in caution in view of the excessive confidence with which questions such as these have been treated by Renan, Keim, and later writers. In any case, the reserve and caution of Strauss are quite justified as a corrective and counterpoise to the extravagances committed in the opposite direction.

With regard to the miraculous narratives of the Gospels, the advance of more recent criticism beyond the first book of Strauss has been in two directions. First, these questions no longer constitute the central point of historical interest, but are subordinated in importance to the problems of the religious consciousness of Jesus. Secondly, we do not now seek to interpret these narratives so exclusively and without distinction from the one motive of the transference to Jesus of the types of the Old Testament; but the great difference between the various narratives of miracles is clearly recognised, and various clues are accordingly used in their explanation; whilst in one narrative we observe merely symbols of religious and dogmatic ideas, in others we discover, behind the glorifying tendency to idealism, some background of historical fact, for instance, in the miracles of healing, as is now very generally acknowledged. It cannot be denied, it is true, that with this perfectly legitimate endeavour is connected the peril of falling back into the old abuses of rationalistic artifice. Even Keim has not quite escaped this danger, inasmuch as he abandons the basis of strict history in the case of the story of the resurrection of Jesus, and makes concessions to supernaturalistic dogma; as the sequel of which the old doctrine of miracles may be readmitted into Lives of Jesus, as is really the case in the works of Beyschlag and Weiss.

In this danger appears the necessity for the continued prosecution of the negative work of criticism, a duty as yet by no means supererogatory. The inclination to sink into the slumber of dogma is so natural to every generation that the most uncompromising critical intellect must without intermission stand upon the watch against it. And as this task was performed by Strauss in his first Life of Jesus in a manner that may serve as a model for all time, the book, like every truly classical work, must ever retain its value. Strauss’s criticism broke down the ramparts of dogmatism, new and old, and opened to the inquiring mind the breach through which the conquest of historical truth might be won.

Otto Pfleiderer.

Certior factus ex Britannia, librum meum, quem de vita Jesu XI abhinc annis composui, virorum ejusmodi studiis faventium cura in linguam Britannicam translatum, brevi illic in publicum proditurum esse, lælitia anxietate temperata commoveor.

Nam ut gratulari sibi æquum est auctorem, cujus operi contigit, patriæ terræ ac linguæ fines transgredi, ita sollicitudo eundem subeat necesse est, ne, qui domi placuit liber, foris displiceat, aut cujus inter populares vel adversariorum numero creverat auctoritas, apud exteros neglectus in obscuro maneat. Solum enim cœlumque vix minore libri quam plantæ periculo mutant. Et facilius quidem transtuleris opera in illis rebus versantia, de quibus inter diversas gentes communis quidam aut certe parum discrepans sensus obtinet: ut, quæ poetæ aut disciplinarum quas exactas dicunt periti proferunt, inter politiores hujus seculi nationes fere solent esse communia. Neque tamen vel hoc in librorum genere plane æquum Germano cum Britannis aut Gallis certamen. Peregrina enim cum facilius nostra quam illorum et lingua et indoles recipiat, longe frequentius poetæ quoque illorum in nostram quam nostri in illorum linguas transferuntur. At Germanicum opus in theologiæ et philosophiæ quasi confinio versans, si trajicere in Britanniam parat, ne illa quidem inter utramque gentem sensus et studiorum communione adjuvatur. Tam diversa enim utrimque via istæ disciplinæ processerunt, ut in theologia impii, in philosophia superstitiosi Britannis Germani iidem videamur. Cum iis, qui in Britannia ausi sunt, historias, Judæorum et Christianorum religione sacratas, examini ut ajunt critico subjicere, nihil agendum esset, nisi ut Lockii sui atque Humii principia philosophica, sicut ad reliquas omnes historias, ita ad illas etiam, quas legibus istis hucusque superstitio subtraxerat, adhiberent: in Germania ad hoc monstri res degeneraverat, ut superstitioni a theologorum potissima parte derelictæ philosophia succurreret, critico ergo non simplex sanæ philosophiæ contra theologorum superstitionem, sed duplex et contra philosophorum ex sanioribus principiis deductas ineptas conclusiones, et contra theologorum propter philosophica ista auxilia ornamentaque inflatam atque induratam superstitionem, certamen ineundum esset. Ex hoc rei statu proprie Germanico natum opus meum, nominibus insuper atque opinionibus theologorum ac philosophorum nostratium refertum, nec scholarum etiam vocabula, quibus nostræ tantum aures assuevere, satis evitans, a Britannorum usu ingenioque non posse non abhorrere, tam probe scio, ut de translato in eorum linguam, licet interpretatio, quantum quidem ejus inspicere potuerim, et accurata et perspicua sit et librum, quantum in ipsa est, popularibus commendet, num gaudendum mihi magnopere sit, mehercule nesciam.

Accedit, quod a primo libri mei ortu duo lustra, et a recentissima etiam editione unum jam lustrum intercessit. Ut tum, quum opus inchoabam, via incedebam, quam pauci ingressi, totam emensus nemo erat, ita per primum illud lustrum nullæ fere nisi adversariorum voces audiebantur, principia mea negantium et historiam in Evangeliis vel meram, vel levissima tantum erroris rumorisve adspersione tinctam contineri affirmantium, cum quibus non modo non disputandum, sed a quibus ne discendum quidem quidquam erat, quod ad rem et ad librum vere emendandum pertineret. Proximo demum lustro viri vestigia mea non refugientes neque evitantes, sed persequentes, ubi ego substiteram longius progressi, rem revera juverunt atque promoverunt. Narrationes in Evangeliis traditas, quas rerum vere gestarum esse persuadere mihi non potueram, mythorum in modum, qui inter antiquas gentes inveniuntur, aut in ore populi a minutis initiis coaluisse et eundo crevisse, aut a singulis, sed qui vere ita evenisse superstitiose in animum induxerant, fictas esse existimaveram. Quod ut sufficit explicandis plerisque eorum, quæ dubitationem moventia tribus prioribus Evangeliis continentur: ita quarti Evangelii auctorem ad tuendas et illustrandas sententias suas haud raro meras fabulas scientem confinxisse, a Baurio, theologo Tubingensi doctissimo, nuper ita demonstratum est, ut critici me judicii rigori religiosius quam verius temperasse intelligam. Dumque prima a Christo secula accuratius perscrutantur, partes partiumque certamina, quibus nova ecclesia commovebatur, in apricum proferunt, narrationum haud paucarum, quas fabulas esse ego bene quidem perspexeram, sed unde ortæ essent demonstrare non valueram, veram in illis primæ ecclesiæ motibus originem detegere theologis Tubingensibus contigit.