The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-16

ton. Memoirs OF the life and teachings OF
Jesus we're called forth by the necessity of
having a written standard of doctrine to
which to appeal to amid the growing differ
ences of opinion which disturbed the Church.
Thus the earlier gospels exhibit, though In
different degrees, the indications OF modi-
flying, sometimes of an overrullng, dogmatic |
purpose. There is, indeed, no conscious vlo- |
lation of historic truth, but from the varied |
mass Of material supplied by tradition, such |
incidents are selected as are ft to support |
the views of the writers concerning the per-
sonality of Jesus. Accordingly, while the |
early gospels throw a strong light upon the
state of Christian opinion at the dates when
they were successively composed, the infor-
nation which they give concerning Jesus
himself is, for that reason, often vague, un-
critical and contradictory. Still more is this
true of the fourth gospel, written late in the
second century, in which historic tradition
is moulded in the interests of dogma until it
becomes no longer recognizable, and in the
place of the human Messiah of the earlier ac-
counts, we have a semi-divine Logo3 or E N,
detached from God and incarnate for a brief
season in the likeness of man.
Not only was history subordinated to
dogma by the writers of the Gospel narra-
tives, but in the minds of the fathers of the
Church who assisted in determining what
writings should be considered canonical, dog
matte prepossession went very much further
than critical aeumen. Nor is this strange
when we reflect that critical discrimination
in questions of literary authenticity is one of
the latest acquisitions of the cultivated
human mind. In the early ages of the
Church, the evidence of the genuineness of
any literary production was never weighed
critically; writings containing doctrines ac-
| ceptable to the majority of Christians were
quoted as authoritative, while writings which
supplied no dogmatic want were overlooked,
or perhaps condemned as apochryphal
A striking Instance of this is furnished by
the fortunes of the Apocalypse. Although
! perhaps the best authenticated work in the
| New Testament collection, its mlllenarian
doctrines caused it to become unpopular as
! the Church gradually ceased to look for the
| speedy return of the Messiah, and accord
! ingly, as the canon assumed definite shape,
it was placed among the "Antilegomena, or
doubtful books, and continued to hold a pre-
carious position until after the time of the
Protestant Reformation. On the other hand,
the Fourth Gospel, which was quite unknown
and probably did not exist at the time of the
quartodeciman controversy CA. ID. 1863, was
accepted with little hesitation, and at the be-
ginning of the third century is mentioned by
Iren@us and Tertullian as the work of the
Apostle John. To this uncritical spirit, lead
ing to the neglect of such books as failed to
answer the dogmatic requirements of the
Church, may probably be attributed the loss
of so many of the earlier gospels. 1t is
doubtless for this reason that we do not pos
sess the Aram@an original of the "Logia"
of Matthew, or the Memorabilia" of Mark,
the companion of Peter, two works to which
Papias CA. d. 120) alludes as containing
authentic reports of the utterances of Jesus.
These considerations will, we believe, sufi
GENTLY explain the curious circumstances
that, while we know the Jesus of dogma so
intimately, we know the Jesus of history 80
slightly. The literature of early Christianity
enables us to trace with tolerable complete
ness the progress of opinion concerning the
nature of Jesus from the time of Paul's early
missions to the time of the Nicene Council;
but upon the actual words and deeds of Jesus
it throws a very unsteady light The dog
matte purpose everywhere obscures the his
torc basis.
This same dogmaiic prepossession which has
rendered the data for biography of Jesus so
scanty and untrustworthy has also until COM
paratively recent times prevented any un-
biased critical examination of such data as we
actually possess. Previous to the eighteenth
century an attempt to deal with the life of
Jesus upon purely historical methods would
have been not only contemned as irrational,
bat stigmatized as impious And even in the
eighteenth century, those writer's who had
become wholly emancipated from ecclesiastic
tradition were so destitute Of all historic
sympathy ana SO unSRlileu IN Sclentlnc
methods of criticism that they utterly failed
to comprehend the requirements of the prob
lem. Their aims were in the main polemic,
not historical. They thought more of over
throwing current dogmas than of impartially
examining the earliest Christian literature with
view of eliciting its historic contents and,
accordingly, they accomplished but little.
Two brilliant exceptions must, however, be
noticed. Spinoza, in the seventeenth GEN.
tury and Lessing, in the eighteenth, were
men far in advance of their age. They are
the fathers of modern historical criticism;
and to Lessing in particular, with his enor-
nous erudition and Incompatible sagacity,
belongs the honor of initiating that method of
inquiry which, in the hands of the called
Tubingen school, has led to such striking
and valuable conclusions concerning the age
i and character of the New Testament litera-
ture. But it was long before any one could
: be found fit to bend the bow which Lessine
8 and Spinoza had welded. A succession OF
D able scholars-Semler, Eichhorn, Paulus
t Schleiermacher, Bretschneder, and De Wette
4 were required to examine, with German
3 patience and accuracy, the details of the sub.
D ject, and to PROFOUND various unteuable
: hypotheses before such work as
s that of Strauss The ''Iife of Jesus" pub
Q lished by Strauss when only twenty-six years
r of age is one of the monumental works OF
: the nineteenth century, worthy to rank as
g historical effort along with Niebuhr's "His
Q tory of Rome" VOLTS ''Prolegomena, ol
! Bentleys Dissertation on Phslaris. 1t in
!, stantly superseded and rendered antiquateC
: everything which had preceded it; nor has
9 any work on early Christianity been writer
s in Germany for the past thirty years which
has not been dominated by the recollection