The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-23 00:00:00

EVENING, JANUARY 23, 1866.

Strauss Searchingly Eeviewed.

BY A CRITIC IN "THE ATIIEN.EUII."
During the last three weeks there has been
appearing in the columns of The Athenwum a re-
markable series of papers, in which the notorious
" Life of Christ," by D. F. Strauss, has been sub-
jectedto a singularly calm, a perfectly dispassionate,
and altogether, as we conceive, a very masterly
analysis. An analysis, so clear and searching of its
kind, that we are tempted to give the following ex-
tracts as exemplars of the critic's " quality" at once
as a Believer and as a Logician. " Perhaps no book
of a thousand pages ever written," he says, " has so
large an allowance of supposition to so small a mo-
dicum of proof as this Life of Christ' by
Strauss. It is nearly all postulate and infer-
ence—mist of the fancy, mirage of the
brain. Four pages in five are covered by repe-
titions of an argument wholly divorced from fact."
Further on he remarks—" One of our English wits
used to laugh at a confirmed book-maker for de-
canting one work into another, histories into travels,
memoirs into manuals ; as a trader with a small
stock of wine might decant Nuits into Volnay,
Volnay into St. George. But even this steady old
craftsman would hardly have poured his first volume
into his second, bodily. Working in the figure
known to logicians as a vicious circle—a line
of march on which there is movement and no
progress—Strauss not only puts his first volume
into his second, going once again over his
labours, in the same order of time, almost in the
very phrases used (under pretence of showing by
what tricks and forgeries the Imposture called the
Christian Church was raised) ; but he pours his pre-
face into his introduction, his introduction into his
first book kite, every subsequent book. The argu-
ment moves through a chain of propositions, hang-
ing on to three or four Fundamental Ideas :—such
as his assumptions that miracles are impossible, that
Christ is a myth, that man ends with the grave, and
that heaven is but a dream."
As for the non-existence of Christ, or what is
here spoken of as the mythical existence of the
Redeemer, the late Archbishop Whateley demon-
strated the flimsy and specious notion of that hypo-
thesis by his inimitable logical witticism, as it may
be called, demonstrating (!) that there "never was
such a person" as Napoleon Bonaparte !
" Herr Strauss's main purpose," continues the
Athens um critic, "is to show that Jesus was not the
Christ. If this could be shown, an end would be
made of many things now held in reverence ; an end
of church ministry, of dogmatic theology, of reli-
gion itself, in some degree of God."
And was it not such a creature even as Maxi-
milian Robespierre who remarked that If God had
not existed it would have been necessary to maven
Him?

" All that would remain of sacred tradition, and
of the policy which rests upon it, would be swept
away. For it is only a belief in its divine founda-
tion that preserves our faith alive. Strauss says that
if our Lord was a man of simple and pious nature,
clear in vision and pure in life, he had also many
defects of mind, as might be expected from his age
and country, such as unfit Him for the office of being
a permanent pattern to mankind. According to
this German view, He put the life of man in the
family in the background ; held only a passive re-
lation to the State ; set himself visibly against trade,
and left art and elegance out of hiz view of life.
These grave defects, now found in Jesus, are con-
sidered by Strauss to be of the highest moment ; for
not only, says he, are the details as to a man's con-
duct in such things wanting in our Gospels, but the
guiding laws; so that, in the German School of
Doubt, it is held to be impossible for any man to learn
from the precepts of Jesus how he should behave
as a citizen, and what he should do towards enrich-
ing his life by means of art and trade. In short, it
is clear from what is now advanced, that if Jesus
were not the Christ—if He held no divine commis-
sion—if He stood on the common ground of teacher
only, He would lie open to much damaging assault,
His character would require some rounding, his
preaching would need many supplements, and His
religion might be improved off the face of the
earth. To destroy His sacred character is therefore
the first step towards an abolition of His Church."
" If, therefore," continues the critic in the Athentruni
(very reasonably), "secular criticism may be em-
ployed on such a task, the same secular criticism may
also be allowed to step in to see how far the work is
being honestly done." He then thereupon writes,
in the manner following, upon a consideration of
the Sources of the Sacred Stories. " Strauss begins,',
he says, " with the Evangelists ; authors who stand
directly in his light. If Matthew and John were
companions of Jesus, as the Church declares ; if
Mark and Luke were companions of the Apostles,
as the Church also teaches ; and if these four men
wrote the books which bear their names, Strauss
would have no case to urge. No jury in the world
would be able to reject their fourfold evidence as to
things which they had seen and heard, even though
the things were in the last degree new and strange.
It was an old maxim of our law that, except in
Crown cases, one good witness was enough to esta-
blish any fact, even though it might involve the
issues of life and death. The Civil Code required
two good witnesses to prove a fact ; but many good
jurists have given the preference to our English
law. With a view to guard against abuse of power,
we also, in cases of treason, required the facts to
be proved by two witnesses ; though the rule was
often disputed by the Crown, and in Raleigh's case
it was wholly set aside. It is hard, as all experience
proves, to resist the evidence of [even] one good
witness."

At any rate he remarks_" Roman law has 'pre-
sumed that in every case the depositions of two
witnesses would provo a fact, however new and
strange it may seem to be. No jurist has gone be-
yond this point. Blackstone inclined to think one
witness enough. Montesquieu allowed the evidence
of two loyal men to be sufficient, even in matters of
life and death. When the question is about the evi-
dence of FOUR WITNESSES, such as we find in the
Gospel narratives, there is no other legal, no other
logical, way of weakening their testimony, than [by]
showing that they could not have seen and heard the
things to which they depose."
Thereupon the Aiken munz takes into consideration
first of all collectively, afterwards one by one, the
credibility as witnesses of the Four Evangelists :
" Strauss's case," he says, " forces him to argue that
the Evangelists were not the Evangelists. So
long,' he (that is, Strauss) writes, as the Gospels
are accepted as strictly historical, no historical view
of the Life of Jesus is possible.' In other words, if
the Gospel narratives are true, Strauss's view of the
Life of Jesus must be false. To this conclusion every
one must come at last. The German critic has, in
some way, to get rid of the Evangelists; to prove that
the First Gospel v. as not written by St. Matthew the
Apostle, the Fourth by St. John the Apostle ; to
show that the Second Gospel was not composed by
St. Mark, the friend of Peter, nor the Third by St.
Luke, the companion of Paul. Such men could not
have been mistaken as to what they had seen and
heard. Strauss has to prove, therefore, not a mere
corruption of text, not the substitution of one word
for another, not the insertion of a phrase here and
there, but a complete fabrication of the narrative,
and that, not in one Gospel only, but in each and
all of the Four Gospels. He has to show that the
Evangelical histories are all pious frauds, adopted by
the Church, after the real companions of Jesus were
dead and gone.
" In arguing against the Gospel narratives in mass,
Strauss cites the Evangelists in a way subversive of
all rules of evidence. To wit : his case is, that our
Gospel of St. Matthew was not written by that
Apostle ; also that our Gospel of St. John was not
written by that Apostle; yet he cites the facts men-
tioned by John to damage Matthew, the facts men-
tioned by Matthew to damage John ! No court of
law would suffer such a course. If a witness is

good for one thing he is good for another. Y [The
cogency of all this, to our mind, is perfectly irre-
sistible.] A liar, a forger, is of no value in the

witness-box. If the author of the Fourth Gospel,'
says Strauss, ' is correct in saying that, before his
last journey to Jerusalem, Jesus had already often
sojourned there, had taught and worked there, then
the author of the First, who knows nothing of all
these earlier journeys and sojournings, cannot

have been a companion of Jesus—not the Apostle
Matthew.' But if John did not write the Gospel
which bears his name,—if that work were the
pious fraud of a Greek in the second century,
—if it were fabricated by one who had never
seen Jesus, who had never spoken to an Apostle,
who had never been in Jerusalem,—why cite it ?
You cannot ask the Court to believe a paper which
you yourself describe as spurious. The rule of law is
clear. Any tyro at the bar can see that if it should
be part of his case to prove that Alpha is a personator,
an impostor, not to believed on his oath, it is out of
the question to dream of putting the same Alpha into
the witness-box against the good faith of Beta. 4
tainted witness is out of Court. Strauss proceeds on
the complacent plan of taking all that makes against
him as bad. It is an easy method. One of two
things : the Fourth Gospel is either true or false ; if
true, it is must be admitted, along with all that it
proves ; if false, it is incapable of being used so as to
damage Matthew's claims.—[Q. E. I).]
"Further, in dealing with the patent fact that some
of the Evangelists record sayings, miracles, journeys,
which others omit,—for example, the case under
notice of Christ's earlier visits to Jerusalem,_
Strauss treats an omission as though it were a contra-
diction. Yet a glance through a shelf of biographies
would show him that omission is not rare. No
writer preserves all the facts. [Now mark, espe-
cially what follows Xenophon gives one side of
Socrates, Plato another. The lives of Alexander,
of Caesar, of Charlemagne, vary as much as the
lives of Christ. Mallet forgot that Bacon was
a philosopher, Campbell that he was a Chris-
tian. One account of Cromwell omits the
battle of Na.seby ; another, his journey into
Ireland ; a third, his refusal of the crown. But
the neglect to state a fact is not a contradiction of it.
The purpose of each writer must be taken into ac-
count. A view of Our Lord's Sayings might be
given with very little reference to his journeyings
to and fro. In a collection of his Miraculous Cures
it might not seem necessary to trouble the reader
about dates and the order of events. In Europe
we should think little of such points ; in the East
they would think nothing at all. The truth is, that
such literal prudery as would have precluded an
art of verifying dates, had no existence in the East.
Yet Strauss declares that the Second Gospel could
not have been written by a friend of St. Peter, on
the ground that if it had been so, the Apostle
could not have failed to draw the attention of his
author to that radical defect in the First Gospel,'
(the omission of Christ's early visits to Jerusalem),
' and to have urged him to the correction of it.'
See what this passage assumes as true. First, that
Peter must have thought the omission a radical de-
fect. Suppose he thought it of no moment whatever ?
St. Matthew's Gospel is a collection of discourses.
When outward facts are mentioned, it is mainly so
far as they illustrate the sayings. When Matthew
has no speech, no parable to record, he is silent.
May not Peter have thought this kind of record
better for the Church than a narrative of journey-
ings to and fro ? Peter's spirit was intensely orien-
tal, and the teaching of oriental races is by word and
not by fact. The Avestas are sayings. , The Vedas are
sayings. The Prophetical Scriptures, the Talmud, the
Koran, are all books of sayings. In Luke and in John
we can trace the more active spirit of a western race.
These Evangelists, writing under Greek and Roman
influence, added more to the narrative than to the
hortative part ; there western readers being excited
no less by what Jesus did than by what he said.
The Hebrews had another genius ; and Peter was a
Hebrew in his heart of hearts. Second, the passage
assumes that if Peter thought it a defect, he must
have communicated this opinion to St. Mark. Third,
that if Mark received such a hint from Peter, he
must have remembered and followed it, whether he
thought it of any moment or not. Do all these
assumptions weigh so much as one little fact ?
Strauss seems to think that when a man takes
pen in hand he is bound to write down everything.
Does any one do it ? The way to bore a man, says
a French proverb, is to tell him all you know. We
are sure that Plato knew more of Socrates than he
wrote. We are equally sure that Tacitus could have
told us more of Seneca than he does. It would be an
odd argument to urge against the genuineness of
Plato, that in his account of Socrates he has omitted
some points, some sayings, some traits, which
Xenophon preserves !"

One after another the arguments of Strauss, as ap-
plied to the Four Evangelists in succession, are placed,
as it were, under the oxihydrogen microscope —by
being subjected turn by turn to the scrutiny of the
critical acumen of the even-tempered and keen-
witted and eminently logical Believer writing in the
Athenxum.

Had we the space for so doing we would here
gladly select from each of these analogies of Strauss's
occasionally specious but always shallow arguments,
as applied in succession to the Four Evangelists,
what appear to us to be the salient or most striking
passages.

A single one of these, however, must suffice. It
is the one in which, with exquisite and yet irre-
sistible power, the critic sets aside and scatters to
the winds of heaven Strauss's utterly frivolous
argument that the explanatory style noticeable in
tho Gospel of St. Mark is indicative of its being a
late production, and therefore a pious fraud !
" Strauss observes," says the critic, " that if Mark
has to mention the Jordan, he explains that it is a
river; if he speaks of the Pharisees, he explains
their tenets ; if he goes to Olivet, he explains that
if stands over against the Temple Mount. In a
hundred cases, where Matthew takes his reader's
knowledge of places and customs for granted, Mark
does not. What then? It is clear that Mark does
not assume in his readers such familiarity with the
geography of Palestine, with the customs of Jews,
as Matthew. But surely such a fact suggests a
distant audience rather than a distant time. No
Hebrew would at any time and in any place require
to be told that the Jordan is a river, that the Pharisees
fast, and that Olivet stands over against the Temple.
A man writing in Palestine, living among Jews,
would never need to hint at such things ; but one
writing in Rome, as Mark is said to have done, would
naturally explain such points. An Englishman,
writing in London about the late Primate, would
not think of saying that the Thames is a river, that
bishops are peers, that Lambeth Palace stands op-
posite to Westminster Abbey; but the same man,
writing in Calcutta for Parsecs and Hindoos, would
be very likely to give these useful scraps of infor-
mation, and their appearance in his narrative would
suggest the separation of distance, not that of
time."

Enough, however. As cogently as he writes of
Strauss's learned (!)twaddling as applied to one
Evangelist, the reviewer in the Athenteum will be
found to have written also of the other three
Evangelists. We have too grateful a sense
of the delight with which we have read the
criticism throughout, to remain dumb in regard
to the fact of its appearance. And while
directing attention thus to that fact, we would avail
ourselves of the opportunity thereby afforded us
for expressing a hope that the series of papers we
are here referring to may be at once collected toge-
ther for separate publication in the form of a bro-
chure or livraison.

At the Mansion-house, yesterday, Mr. John
Pernewan, surgeon, of Redruth, was brought up on a
charge of having forged certain transfers of shares in the
Hallenbeagle Mining Company. On a second warrant the
prisoner was charged with forging an endorsement to a
bank cheque for the payment of £llB 10s. Evidence
having been given as to the manner in which the forgery
had been committed, the Lord Mayor remanded the pri-
soner and refused to accept bail.
MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR IN THE ISLE OF MAN.—A
man named John Kormode, upwards of sixty years of age,
who had been engaged to drive a gig with the mail from
Douglas to Castletown, met his death in a niysterious man-
ner on Monday night. He arrived safely at Ballasalla, but
when the gig was 'near Castlotown it was stopped, as there
was no driver in it. A search was at once instituted for

the missing man, but it was not until the next afternoon
that his body was found in the river. The mails were all
right, but the step of the gig was broken, and the general
belief is that the deceased was dragged from the vehicle
and drowned by his assailants, as the river was far out of
his way: Deceased has left a widow and four children.—
Liropool Courier.

LOSSES BY FIFE. —The fire insurance companies
of New York sustained losses in the year 1865 amounting
in all to $43,139,000, an unusually heavy amount. They
had to pay on 354 fires. This is stated to include only
fires in which tlio loss reached as much as $20,000.

TI till EDITION.

SUN OFFICE, 7 o'CLocK.

AMERICA.

- --

ARRIVAL OF THE CITY OF LONDON
( Via Roches Point.)
NEW YonK, Jan. 13 (Morning).
The New York Herald.states that President
Johnson has positively determined to reconstruci
his Cabinet, retaining two of its present members,
It is rumoured that Mr. Stanton. will supersede Mr.
Adams in London.
Mr. Sumner has stated in the Senate that Mr.
Seward will be absent for three weeks.
Twenty-two regiments have been mustered out
in Texas.
The diplomatic correspondence laid before Con-
gress includes an intercepted letter from Captain
Maury to Mr. Benjamin Wood, which says :
" The South is connected with the Gwynn enter-
prise. Napoleon will give him all the aid he de-
sires. He will go out as director-general in charge
of a very peculiar kind of colonisation." In July
Mr. Seward enclosed the intercepted correspon-
dence to Mr. Bigelow, and requested him to
present it to M. Drouyn de Lhyus, and
to inform him that any favour shown by
Maximilian or the French Government to
the Gwynn or any other Confederate colonisation
agents would tend to increase in America the popu-
lar impatience at French intervention, because it
will be regarded as imparting dangers to, or at least
as a menace against, the United States.
If these statements are to be believed, Mr. Seward
assumes, with the President's sanction, that the
Emperor Napoleon has deserted his neutrality.
On the 14th of December last Mr. Seward writes
to Mr. Bigelow—" Your despatch of November
24th seems to discourage, on our part, expectations
of an early withdrawal of the French from Mexico.
It must be remembered, however, that the opinions
on that subject which you received from M. Drouyn
de Lhuys, were expressed not only without the
Emperor's positive sanction, but also in the absence
of any knowledge on the part of the French
Government of the definite conclusion of the Pre-
sident on the subject discussed. It is desirable to
leave no part of those opinions open to misappre-
hension. It is signally desirable that we shall be
authorised to infer that such expositions of Impe-
rial views as are given to us in the name of the
French Government are made with the Emperor's
approval."

President Johnson has sent to the Senate the re-
ports of Mr. Stanton and the Attorney-General
upon Mr. Davis's trial. Mr. Stanton states that Mr.
Davis was captured and is still held by the military
power. He now awaits the demand of the proper
Government authorities for his trial upon the
charges of treason, inciting to the assassination of
President Lincoln, and murdering Federal soldiers.
The Government decided to try Mr. Davis first for
treason, but this is delayed in consequence of Mr.
Chase, the Chief Justice, refusing to hold a Court
under present circumstances in the judicial district'
of Virginia. The Attorney-General supports the
postponement of the trial of Mr. Davis and other
rebels until civil authority is completely restored in
the districts where the offences were committed.
The Government has informed the house that
the Executive had no official data on the subject of
the alleged kidnapping of Madame Iturbide's child
by Maximilian.

In the Senate the Military :Committee has re-
ported a bill fixing the future strength of the Federal
army at seven regiments of artillery, ten of cavalry,
and sixty of infantry. One new regiment of artil-
lery and two of cavalry will consist of coloured

troops.
The aggregate strength of the army will be
60,000.

Mr. llowe has offered a resolution providing
provisional governments for the Southern States.
A bill proposing an additional cotton tax has
been introduced, and referred to the Committee
of Ways and Means. A Bill has also been in-
troduced to punish counterfeiting with death, and
has been referred.

The War Department has ordered 10,000 more
troops to be mustered out.

The Mobile Advertiser states that Gen. Thomas
has officially announced that all Federal troops
will be withdrawn from Alabama and Georgia,
and that arms and ammunition will be furnished
to the militia.

The Fenian Congress has adjourned sine die, and
has abolished the titles of President and Senator.

WV •
The government will be conducted by the Head
Centre and a Central Council of five. O'Mahoney
has been elected Head-Centre for 1866. Roberts
and the Senators have been expellei from the bro-
therhood.

A letter has been published from Stephens, dated
the Irish Republic, Dec. 23, appointing o'lllahoney
American representative and financial agent of the
Irish Republic, and ignoring the existence of the
Senate.

The Inman steamship City of London, from New
York on the 13th inst., arrived at Queenstown at
10 a.m. to-day (23d instant), with the mails, 190
passengers, and $171,694 in specie. She landed
30 passengers, and proceeded for Liverpool at
10.35 a.m.