Chapter II: Part 2

When I read an argument by Professor Schürer, and try to reply to it, I am conscious that we are arguing (so to speak) in the same plane. I feel that the attitude of my opponent to the evidence is substantially the same as my own. Whatever the presuppositions may be deep down in his mind, he at any rate keeps them in abeyance. No doubt we differ widely enough as to detail; but in principle I should credit my opponent with an attitude that is really judicial, that tries to keep dogmatic considerations, or questions of ultimate belief as much in suspense as possible, and to weigh the arguments _for_ and _against_ in equal scales. But when I pass over to the younger theologians, I no longer feel that this is so; we seem to be arguing, not in the same, but in different planes. There is a far-reaching presupposition not merely far back but near the front of their minds. I cannot regard them as fellow seekers in the sense that we are both doing our best to ascertain how far the events of the Gospel history really transcended common experience. I take it that on this point their minds are made up before they begin to put pen to paper.

They all start with the ‘reduced’ conception of Christianity current in so many quarters, that is akin to the ancient Ebionism or Arianism. But so far as they do this their verdict as to the Fourth Gospel is determined for them beforehand. The position is stated with great frankness by Mr. Conybeare:

‘It may indeed be said that if Athanasius had not had the Fourth
Gospel to draw texts from, Arius would never have been confuted. Had
the fathers of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries not known this
Gospel, or not embraced it as authentic, the Church would have
remained semi-Ebionite, and the councils of Nice and Ephesus would
never have taken place[16].’

This does not indeed quite correspond to the facts. To make it do so, we should have to blot out St. Paul, and other parts of the New Testament, as well as St. John. But just so far as the reasoning holds good, it is obvious that we may invert it. If a writer starts with a conception of Christianity that is ‘semi-Ebionite’ or ‘semi-Arian,’ he is bound at all costs to rule out the Fourth Gospel, not only as a dogmatic authority, but as a record of historical fact.

Another characteristic is common to the writers of the School of which we are speaking. The complexity of a critical hypothesis very rarely stands in the way of its adoption; but a very little psychological complexity acts as a deterrent. For instance, after quoting from B. Weiss some rather exaggerated language as to the freedom used by the evangelist in reproducing the discourses, Schmiedel goes on thus:

‘As compared with such a line of defence, there is a positive relief
from an intolerable burden as soon as the student has made up his
mind to give up any such theory as that of the “genuineness” of the
Gospel, as also of its authenticity in the sense of its being the
work of an eye-witness who meant to record actual history[17].’

So far from being an ‘intolerable burden,’ it seems to me that Weiss’ theory is not only in itself perfectly natural, nay inevitable, but that it is also specially helpful as enabling us to account at one and the same time for the elements that are, and those that are not, strictly genuine in the report of the discourses.

Jülicher writes to much the same effect as Schmiedel; and the passage which follows is indeed very characteristic of his habit of mind:

‘The defenders of the “genuineness” of the Gospel indeed for the
most part allow that John has carried out a certain idealization
with the discourses of Jesus, that in writing he has found himself
in a slight condition of ecstasy, in short, that his presentation of
his hero is something more than historical. With such mysticism or
phraseology science can have no concern; in the Johannean version of
Christ’s discourses form and substance cannot be separated, the form
to be assigned to the later writer, and the substance to Jesus
Himself: _sint ut sunt aut non sint!_...’

To please Professor Jülicher a picture must be all black or all white; he is intolerant of half-shades that pass from the one into the other. And no doubt there are some problems for the treatment of which such a habit is an advantage, but hardly those which have to do with living human personalities.

The French writers, like the German, have a certain resemblance to each other. To some of these points I shall have to come back in detail later. I will only note for the present that they are both allegorists of an extreme kind. I would just for the present commend to both a passage of Wernle’s:

‘This conception, however, of the Fourth Gospel as a philosophical
work, to which the Alexandrines first gave currency, and which is
still widely held to-day, is a radically wrong one. John’s main
idea, the descent of the Son of Man to reveal the Father, is
unphilosophical.... So, too, the Johannine miracles are never
intended to be taken in a purely allegorical sense. The fact of
their actual occurrence is the irrefragable proof of God’s
appearance upon earth[18].’

If the miracles of the Fourth Gospel were facts there was some point in the constant appeals that the Gospel makes to them; but there would be no point if these appeals were to a set of didactic fictions.

Within the last few months a monograph has appeared, which from its general tendency may be ranged with the works of which we have been speaking, though in its method it rather stands by itself, E. Schwartz, _Ueber den Tod der Söhne Zebedaei_ (Berlin, 1904). Dr. Schwartz is the editor of Eusebius in the Berlin series, and his point of view is primarily philological. He writes in a disagreeable spirit, at once carping and supercilious. The only generous words in his paper are a few in reference to the Church historian. He exemplifies copiously most of the procedure specially deprecated in these lectures. His monograph has, however, a value of its own, from the precise and careful way in which he has collected and discusses the material bearing upon the history of the Evangelist and of the Gospel in the first and earlier part of the second century.

5. Recent Reaction.

Far as I conceive that all these writers have travelled away from the truth, they followed each other in such quick succession that it would have been strange if public opinion had not been affected by them. To one who himself firmly believed in St. John’s authorship of the Gospel, and in its value as a record of the beginning of Christianity, the outlook last autumn seemed as, I said, very black. A single book dispelled the clouds and cleared the air. Dr. Drummond’s _Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel_ is of special value to the defenders of the Gospel for two reasons: (1) because it is the work of one who cannot in any case be accused of dogmatic prepossessions, as it would to all appearance be more favourable to his general position that the Gospel should not be genuine or authentic; and (2) because the whole work is something more than a defence of the Gospel; it is a striking application to a particular problem of principles of criticism in many respects differing from those at present in vogue, and at the same time, as I cannot but think, a marked improvement on them.

To these points must be added the inherent qualities of the book itself—the thorough knowledge with which it is written, its evident sincerity and effort to get at realities, its nervous directness and force of style, its judicial habit of weighing all that is to be said on both sides.

Perhaps the most important and the most far-reaching of all the corrections of current practice is a passage in the text with the note appended to it upon the _argument from silence_. The text is dealing with the common assumption that because Justin quotes less freely from the Fourth Gospel than from the other three, therefore he must have ascribed to it a lower degree of authority.

‘But why, then, it may be asked, has Justin not quoted the Fourth
Gospel at least as often as the other three? I cannot tell, any more
than I can tell why he has never named the supposed authors of his
Memoirs, or has mentioned only one of the parables, or made no
reference to the Apostle Paul, or nowhere quoted the Apocalypse,
though he believed it to be an apostolic and prophetical work. His
silence may be due to pure accident, or the book may have seemed
less adapted to his apologetic purposes; but considering how many
things there are about which he is silent, we cannot admit that the
_argumentum a silentio_ possesses in this case any validity.’

To this is added a note which raises the whole general question:

‘An instructive instance of the danger of arguing from what is not
told is furnished by Theophilus of Antioch. He does not mention the
names of the writers of the Gospels, except John; he does not tell
us anything about any of them; he says nothing about the origin or
the date of the Gospels themselves, or about their use in the
Church. He quotes from them extremely little, though he quotes
copiously from the Old Testament. But most singular of all, in a
defence of Christianity he tells us nothing about Christ Himself; if
I am not mistaken, he does not so much as name Him or allude to Him;
and, if the supposition were not absurd, it might be argued with
great plausibility that he cannot have known anything about Him. For
he undertakes to explain the origin of the word Christian; but there
is not a word about Christ, and his conclusion is ἡμεῖς τούτου
εἵνεκεν καλούμεθα ὅτι χριόμεθα ἔλαιον θεοῦ (_Ad Autol._ i. 12). In
the following chapter, when he would establish the doctrine of the
resurrection, you could not imagine that he had heard of the
resurrection of Christ; and instead of referring to this, he has
recourse to the changing seasons, the fortune of seeds, the dying
and reappearance of the moon, and the recovery from illness. We may
learn from these curious facts that it is not correct to say that a
writer knows nothing of certain things, simply because he had not
occasion to refer to them in his only extant writing: or even
because he does not mention them when his subject would seem
naturally to lead him to do so[19].’

The remarkable thing in this note is not only its independence and sagacity, but more particularly the trained sagacity which brings to bear upon the argument just those examples which are most directly in point and most telling.

Professor Bacon, in the first of his recent articles (_Hibbert Journal_, i. 513), good-naturedly defends the present writer from the charge of wishing to discredit the argument from silence in general. And it is true that in the place to which he refers I had in mind only a particular application of the argument. Still I am afraid that I do wish to see its credit abated. At least it is my belief that too much use is made of the argument, and that too much weight is attached to it. There are two main objections to the way in which the argument is often handled. (1) The critic does not ask himself _what_ is silent—what extent of material does the argument cover? Often this extent is so small that, on the doctrine of chances, no inference can rightly be drawn from it. And (2) experience shows that the argument is often most fallacious. Dr. Drummond’s examples of this will I hope become classical[20].

Dr. Drummond’s book contains a multitude of passages like the above and exhibiting the same qualities. Many of them are a vindication of popular judgement as against the far-fetched arguments of professed scholars. The excellence of his method seems to me to consist largely in this, that he begins by making for himself an imaginative picture of the conditions with which he has to deal, not only of the particular piece of evidence which shows upon the surface, but of the inferential background lying behind it; that he thus escapes the danger of the _doctrinaire_ who argues straight from the one bit of evidence before him to the conclusion; and that he also constantly tests the process of his argument by reference to parallel conditions and circumstances in our own day which we can verify for ourselves.

If I were to express an opinion on the characteristic positions which Dr. Drummond takes up, I think it would be that, whereas he seems to me to overstate a little—but only a little—the external evidence for the Gospel, he at the same time somewhat understates the internal evidence. He gives his decision against the Fourth Gospel sometimes where I cannot help thinking that a writer of equal impartiality would not necessarily do so. It would also be unfair if I did not say that his general estimate of the historical trustworthiness of the Gospel is lower than I should form myself.

I have spoken of Dr. Drummond’s book first because of its importance as a landmark in the study of the Gospel, and because it covers the whole of the ground with which we are concerned. But another book preceded it by a week or two in the date of its publication, which as yet deals only with a limited portion of this ground, and yet which, unless I am mistaken, presents qualities similar in general character to those of Dr. Drummond, though perhaps the expression of them is rather less striking. I refer to Dr. Stanton’s _The Gospels as Historical Documents_, Part I. Dr. Stanton’s book is planned on a larger scale than Dr. Drummond’s in so far as it includes all four Gospels; but as yet he has only dealt with the external evidence bearing upon their early use. An important part of the volume is naturally that devoted to the Fourth Gospel. Like Dr. Drummond, Dr. Stanton also presents a marked contrast as to method with the group of continental writers that we have just been considering. It was therefore a matter of special interest that his book should be reviewed a few months after its appearance by Dr. Schmiedel in the _Hibbert Journal_ (ii. 607-12). It is not very surprising that Dr. Stanton was moved to reply to his critic in the next number (pp. 803-7). There is a direct antithesis of contrasted and competing principles.

It may naturally be thought that I am a biased judge in such a case; but I confess that it seems to me that the advantage is very much on the side of my countryman. He shows without much difficulty that Dr. Schmiedel has seriously misrepresented him. Indeed one might say that the critic’s representation of views and arguments was not so much derived from the book he was reviewing as from his own internal consciousness of what might be expected from an apologist. This, however, is the personal, and more ephemeral, aspect of the controversy. It is of more general interest to note the critical assumptions made in the course of the review. The writer admits that his opponent ‘not unfrequently gives the impression of being animated by the sincere resolve to maintain nothing save only what can be assumed with certainty.’ ‘With certainty’ is characteristic; the writer attributes to Dr. Stanton (in this case) what he would have aimed at doing himself. In the eyes of the school to which Dr. Schmiedel belongs, I will not say exactly that all the data of which they approve are certain, but they are treated very much as if they were; in building up an argument upon them, possibilities easily and imperceptibly glide into probabilities, and probabilities into certainties. Dr. Stanton disclaims the idea of dealing with certainties; he would only profess to adduce facts on a nicely graduated scale of probability, which by their cumulative weight went some way to carry conviction.

‘Concerning Barn. iv. 14, [Dr. Stanton] says (p. 33) with justice that this is our earliest instance of the citation of a saying of Christ as “scripture.” In the year A.D. 130, the date upon which he rightly fixes for the composition of the _Epistle of Barnabas_, this estimate of the Gospels would have been in the highest degree surprising, since it is not until A.D. 170 that the next examples of such an estimate make their appearance.’ Dr. Schmiedel goes on (1) to have recourse to the accustomed expedient of suggesting that Barnabas is quoting, not from the words of the Gospel which are identical, but from a passage in 4 Ezra which is quite different; and (2) if that expedient fails, to represent the quotation as a ‘winged word,’ though it is expressly introduced by the formula ‘it is written.’

However, it is not of either of these points that I wish to speak, but rather to call attention to what Dr. Schmiedel thinks would be ‘in the highest degree surprising.’ Why so surprising? What substantial ground have we for expecting anything else? In the first place Dr. Schmiedel begins by exaggerating the significance of the phrase ‘it is written,’ as though on its first extant occurrence it would necessarily imply full canonical authority. And then he goes on to lay stress upon what is really little more than the absence of literature. If we take the whole extant Christian literature between the years 130 and 170 A.D., it would not fill more than a thin octavo volume, and by far the greater part of that is taken up with external controversy. What sort of argument can be drawn from such a state of things as to the exact estimate which Christians formed of their own sacred books? No valid argument can be drawn from it either way, and it is far better simply to confess our ignorance. It is reasonable to suppose that there was a gradual development in the process by which the Gospels attained to the position that we call canonical; but the data to which we have access do not allow us to map out its stages with any precision.

It seems to me to be a fundamental defect in the reasoning of Dr. Schmiedel and his school that they fail to see that the real question is, not simply, What is the evidence for this or that proposition? but, What is the relation which the extant evidence bears to the whole body of that which once existed, and how far can we trust the inferences drawn from it?

I pass over some quite unwarrantable assumptions which Dr. Schmiedel makes as to the apologetic point of view: such as that, ‘if there can be shown to be resemblance between a canonical and a non-canonical writing, the former is uniformly to be regarded as the earlier’; and that ‘Apocryphal Gospels would not have been used in the influential circles of the Church.’ Apologists would lay down nothing of the kind, though in a certain number of concrete cases they may think that the priority of a canonical to a non-canonical writing does not need arguing, and though they may also think that in some particular case the evidence for the use of an Apocryphal Gospel by a Church writer is insufficient.

Dr. Schmiedel easily satisfies himself that he has refuted an argument bearing on the Fourth Gospel. Professor Stanton had rightly maintained, ‘There must have been good grounds for believing that the Fourth Gospel was founded upon the apostolic testimony in order to overcome the prejudice that would be created by the contrasts between it and the Synoptics.’ He has shown, I think, in his reply, that the instances alleged against this are not relevant, and also that the part played by the two ideas of Apostolicity and Catholicity in the forming of the Canon are not quite correctly stated by his opponent. But even if they had been as stated the original contention would still have been left standing, because agreement with previously accepted writings was part of the idea of Catholicity. It is a sound argument to say that a work so independent as the Fourth Gospel must have come with good credentials to obtain the place which it held.

Lastly, when Dr. Schmiedel speaks so imposingly of ‘the silence of the entire first half of the second century in regard to the sojourn of the Apostle John in Ephesus,’ I would once more ask him what this silence amounts to. What is the total bulk of the literature on which the argument is based? Is it possible to draw from it an inference of any value at all[21]?

Footnote 1:

It is this last work that I consider an exception to the high standard
of ability in the group of which I am speaking. It is absolutely
one-sided. I do not doubt the writer’s sincerity, but he is blissfully
unconscious that there is another side to the argument.

Footnote 2:

_Einleitung in d. N. T._, 3rd ed., 1897; _Das Johannes-Evangelium_,
9th ed. (4th of those undertaken by Dr. Weiss), 1892.

Footnote 3:

For Beyschlag’s treatment of the Fourth Gospel see _Zur johanneischen
Frage_, reprinted from _Theol. Studien und Kritiken_ (Gotha, 1876);
_Neutest. Theologie_ (Halle a. S., 1891), i. 212-19; _Leben Jesu_ (3rd
ed., Halle, 1893).

Footnote 4:

English readers may be reminded that Dr. Ezra Abbot was an American
Unitarian who died in 1884. He was a leading member of the American
Committee which joined in the production of the Revised Version, and,
after serving as Assistant Librarian, became Professor of New
Testament Criticism in Harvard University in 1872. He was a scholar of
retiring habits, and was one of those who spend in helping and
improving the work of others time that might have been given to great
work of their own. His literary remains were religiously collected
after his death.

Footnote 5:

_Probleme d. apost. Zeitalters_, p. 92 f.

Footnote 6:

The writings of Dr. Delff that bear upon the subject of the Fourth
Gospel are _Die Geschichte d. Rabbi Jesus v. Nazareth_ (Leipzig, n.
d., but the preface is dated 1889); _Das vierte Evangelium
wiederhergestellt_ (Husum, 1890); _Neue Beiträge zur Kritik und
Erklärung des vierten Evangeliums_ (Husum, 1890).

Footnote 7:

Bousset thinks that this may mean ‘related to’ the high priest
(_Offenb._ p. 46 n.); but this is questioned by Zahn (_Einl._ ii.
483).

Footnote 8:

This book is not to be confused with _Die urchristlichen Gemeinden_
published two years earlier, and now translated under the title
_Christian Life in the Primitive Church_.

Footnote 9:

Professor Harnack gave a lecture, which I was privileged to hear, at
the Union Seminary on October 10, 1904.

Footnote 10:

_Das vierte Evang._ p. 12 ff.

Footnote 11:

_Enc. Bibl._ ii. 2555.

Footnote 12:

_New Light_, &c., p. 149.

Footnote 13:

A third article, on the internal evidence, appeared in January of the
present year, iii. 353 ff.

Footnote 14:

_Urchristentum_ (ed. 2, Berlin, 1902), ii. 389.

Footnote 15:

_Ibid._ p. 450.

Footnote 16:

_Hibbert Journal_, ii. 620.

Footnote 17:

_Enc. Bibl._ ii. 2554.

Footnote 18:

_Beginnings of Christianity_, ii. 166 ff.; cf. von Dobschütz,
_Probleme_, p. 94.

Footnote 19:

_Character_, &c., p. 157 f.

Footnote 20:

An incidental passage in Dr. Dill’s _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus
Aurelius_ (p. 120 f.) deserves to be set by the side of Dr.
Drummond’s. He is speaking of the _Satiricon_ of Petronius. ‘Those who
have attributed it to the friend and victim of Nero have been
confronted with the silence of Quintilian, Juvenal, and Martial, with
the silence of Tacitus as to any literary work by Petronius, whose
character and end he has described with a curious sympathy and care.
It is only late critics of the lower empire, such as Macrobius, and a
dilettante aristocrat like Sidonius Apollinaris, who pay any attention
to this remarkable work of genius. And Sidonius seems to make its
author a citizen of Marseilles. Yet silence in such cases may be very
deceptive. Martial and Statius never mention one another, and both
might seem unknown to Tacitus. And Tacitus, after the fashion of the
Roman aristocrat, in painting the character of Petronius, may not have
thought it relevant or important to notice a light work such as the
_Satiricon_, even if he had ever seen it. He does not think it worth
while to mention the histories of the Emperor Claudius, the tragedies
of Seneca, or the _Punica_ of Silius Italicus.’

Footnote 21:

The two books of Drs. Drummond and Stanton were reviewed by M. Loisy
in the _Revue Critique_, 1904, pp. 422-4, and Dr. Drummond’s by Prof.
H. J. Holtzmann in _Theol. Literaturzeitung_, 1905, cols. 136-9. Both
reviews were disappointing, though Dr. Holtzmann’s contains the usual
amount of painstaking detail. It is natural that play should be made
with the real inconsistencies of Dr. Drummond’s position; but his
weightier arguments are in neither case directly grappled with.

LECTURE II
CRITICAL METHODS. THE OLDEST SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE FOURTH
GOSPEL

I. i. Defects in the Methods of current Criticism.

It is now rather more than eight years since Harnack wrote the famous Preface to his _Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur_. It was an instance of the genial insight of the writer, and a keen diagnosis of the criticism of the day.

The main outline of the Preface will be remembered. Looking back over the period from which Science was just beginning to emerge, the writer characterized it as one in which all the early Christian literature including the New Testament had been treated as a tissue of illusions and falsifications. That time, he went on to say, was past. For Science it had only been an episode, during which much had been learnt and after which much had to be forgotten. His own researches, Harnack explained, would be found to go in a reactionary direction even beyond the middle position of current criticism. The results might be summed up by saying that the oldest literature of the Church, in its main points and in most of its details, from the point of view of literary history, was veracious and trustworthy. In the whole New Testament there was probably only a single writing that could be called pseudonymous in the strict sense of the term, the so-called Second Epistle of St. Peter; and, apart from the Gnostic fictions, the whole number of pseudonymous writings down to Irenaeus was very small, and in one case (the Acts of Thecla) the production of such a work was expressly condemned. In like manner the amount of interpolation was also far less than had been supposed; and the tradition relating to this early period might in the main, and with some reservations, be trusted.

Baur and his school had thought themselves compelled, in order to give an intelligible account of the rise of Christianity, to throw over both the statements in the writings themselves and those of tradition about them, and to post-date their composition by several decades. They were driven to do this by mistaken premises. Starting with the assumption that all these writings were composed with a definite purpose, to commend some sectional view of Christianity, they were constantly on the watch for traces of that purpose, and they found them in the most unexpected places. The views of Baur and his followers had been generally given up; but the tendencies set on foot by them remained. The Christian writings were still approached in an attitude of suspicion; they were cross-examined in the spirit of a hostile attorney; or else they were treated after the manner of a _petit maître_, fastening upon all sorts of small details, and arguing from them in the face of clear and decisive indications. Baur thought that everything had a motive, and an interested motive. But, whereas he sought for the motive on broad lines, his more recent successors either gave themselves up to the search for minor incidental motives, or for interpolations on a large scale, or else they gave way to a thorough-going scepticism which confused together probabilities and improbabilities as though they were all the same.

Harnack went on to describe the results of the labours of the last two decades (1876-96) as constituting a definite ‘return to tradition.’ This return to tradition he regarded as characteristic of the period in which he was writing; indeed he looked forward to a time when the questions of literary history which had excited so much interest would do so no longer, because it would come to be generally understood that the early Christian traditions were in the main right.

* * * * *

This Preface of Harnack’s attracted considerable attention, and probably nowhere more than in England. English students hailed it as the beginning of a new epoch, and one in which they could be more at home. It fell in with certain marked characteristics of the English mind. Even the progressive element in that mind naturally works on conservative lines; it has been reluctant to break away from the past. The very advances of freedom, so steady and so sure, have not been revolutionary; they have been advances

‘Of freedom slowly broadening down
From precedent to precedent.’

But it was not only the destructive conclusions of continental criticism with which dissatisfaction was felt, and which gave an apologetic colour to much English work. The methods were in many ways not less distasteful than the conclusions. Englishmen felt, whether they said so or not, that there was something wrong. And therefore, when a scholar of Harnack’s distinction put their thoughts into words and pointed to the very defects of which they seemed to be conscious, their hopes were raised that at last a movement was begun which they could follow with sympathy, and in which they might perhaps to some extent bear a part.

When I take upon myself to speak in this way of ‘English students,’ I of course do so with some reservations. I have in mind the rather considerable majority of the theological faculties in our Universities, and I might say the majority of the teaching staffs of all denominations throughout Great Britain; for there are excellent relations, and a great amount of solidarity, among British teachers of Theology in all the churches. A good general representation of the average views would be found (e. g.) in Hastings’ _Dictionary of the Bible_. No doubt there is also the other type—the type represented by _Encyclopaedia Biblica_. There are not a few among us who are less dissatisfied with Continental methods, and who pursue those methods themselves with ability and independence. And beyond these there are very many more, especially among the cultivated and interested laity, who are acquainted in a general way with what has been done on the Continent, and who are impressed by what they take to be the results, though for the most part they have not time to test the processes. I say advisedly that this class is impressed by what it conceives to be results, because I imagine that, while there is a feeling that Continental scholars are freer in their researches and less trammelled than our own, there is also some reserve owing to the consciousness that the results have not been fully tested. To this extent I should say that the intellectual posture of this class was one of waiting—serious and interested waiting—rather than of complete committal either to one side or to the other.

Since my visit to America I seem to be better able to speak of the situation there, though closer acquaintance did but in the main confirm and define the opinion that I had previously formed. There are several differences between the conditions in the two countries. On the other side of the Atlantic there are probably greater inequalities of theological instructedness. They have a greater number of Universities and Seminaries, in which the standard varies more than it does with us. And while on the one hand general culture and that kind of vague knowledge of the nature and tendencies of criticism which goes with general culture is more widely diffused in these islands, on the other hand I should be inclined to think that a real first-hand knowledge of critical work is more often to be found there than it is here. This is due to the fact that a large proportion of the ablest professors and teachers have been themselves trained in Germany. And yet, in spite of these differences and inequalities, there is a general tendency, which seemed to me to embrace the whole nation.

It was summed up in a few words by one of the Methodist Bishops (it will be remembered that the Episcopalian Methodists are strong in America) with whom I had some conversation. He had, I believe, been secretary of some Board of Religious Education, and spoke with wide knowledge. I should be afraid to say how many students had passed through his hands. And, speaking of these students, he said that their general attitude was this: ‘They want to keep their faith; and yet they also want to see the realities of things.’

The same description would, I believe, fit the teachers and professors as well as the students, including those trained in Germany. They too want to keep their faith, and to help their students to keep their faith. As compared with the state of things in Germany, there is a more general and sustained effort to make their teaching positive and constructive; and this constructive teaching takes, I suspect, in most cases very similar lines—I should describe it as in the main Ritschlianism of the Right. At the same time, they too want to see the reality of things; in other words, they want to teach by strictly scientific methods. And the only further remark that I should have to make would be that they are perhaps a little inclined—and it naturally could not be otherwise—to look at these methods through German spectacles.

Now I would not hesitate to carry this generalization still further. We, in this country, have probably a greater number of cross currents; there is a greater number of _media_ that stand between the individual and his ultimate aims and wishes, in the shape of loyalties to this or that church or party. And yet I think that, broadly speaking, we should not be wrong in summing up what is really at the bottom of the minds and hearts of the whole Anglo-Saxon race in the same words: ‘They want to keep their faith; and yet they also want to see the realities of things.’

It is the equilibrium of these two propositions that is most characteristic. I fully believe that motives of the same kind are present among the Germans as well as ourselves. I could easily name a number of German professors who, I feel sure, are as anxious to keep their faith as we are. At the head of the list I should put Harnack himself, whose views have been so much discussed in this country. There is, however, a greater diversity of attitude among the professorial body as a whole. And so far as they were agreed—I am speaking especially of the widespread liberal branch—they would, I think, all invert the order of the two propositions: they would give precedence to the desire to get at realities; and they would identify this getting at realities with the use of scientific method. The reason is that in Germany, more than elsewhere, the prevalent standards of judgement are essentially academic. The Universities give the lead and set the tone for the whole nation; and the Universities have now been accustomed for many generations to an atmosphere of free thought.

Now it is far from my intention to undervalue, either the use of scientific method in general, or German science in particular. I have the highest opinion of both. By far the greater part of the advance that has been made in Theology—and I believe that a great advance has been made in our own country as well as elsewhere—I would again appeal to Hastings’ _Dictionary_ as representing a sort of average—has been due to the stricter application of science; and a great part of this has been German science. Honour must be given where honour is due. We must not hold back the full recognition that at the present time Germany holds the first place in Science, and that its output of scientific work is perhaps as great as that of all the rest of the world besides. I am not sure whether this is an exaggeration, but I hardly think it is.

But in all the more tentative forms of science, such as philosophy, history, and theology, there is, or at least has been so far, a double element, one that is stable and permanent, and another that is more or less local and ephemeral.

If I proceed to offer some criticisms upon German critical methods, I am perfectly well aware that the Germans in turn would have something to criticize in ours. At the present day discussion is not limited to any one country, but is international. It is by scholars of different race and training comparing notes together that mistakes are corrected, methods gradually perfected, and results established. I shall not hesitate therefore to point out where it seems to me that German methods have gone wrong. And I feel that I can do this the more freely when a scholar of Harnack’s high standing has set the example. The faults that we seem to have noticed in German criticism are very much those which he has indicated: it has been too academic, too _doctrinaire_, too artificial, too much made in the study and too little checked by observation of the facts of daily life. The very excellences of the German mind have in some ways contributed to the formation of wrong standards of judgement. More than other people the Germans have the power of sustained abstract thought, of thoroughness in mustering and reviewing all the elements of a problem, of thinking a problem out in such a way as not to leave gaps and inconsistencies. Hence they are too ready to assume that all the rest of the world will do the same, that if an important piece of evidence is omitted in an argument it can only be because it was not known, that carelessness and oversights and inconsistencies are things that need not be reckoned with. And there is also too great a tendency to argue as though men were all made upon one pattern. There is a want of elasticity of conception. And, to sum up many points in one, there is a great tendency to purism or over-strictness in the wrong place, and to over-laxity also in the wrong place, to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.

What one desiderates most is greater simplicity, greater readiness to believe that as a rule, in ancient times as well as modern, people meant what they said and said what they meant, and that more often than not they had some substantial reason for saying it.

ii. Instances in which Criticism has corrected itself.

These are not merely _a priori_ reflections, but they are based upon experience of the actual course that criticism has taken. By this time criticism has a considerable history behind it. It has corrected some of its mistakes, and is able to look back upon the course by which it came to make them. In this way it should learn some wholesome lessons.

I will take three rather conspicuous examples in which criticism has at first gone wrong and has afterwards come to set itself right, in the hope that they may teach us what to avoid in future. I imagine that they may be found to throw some side-light upon the particular problem of the Fourth Gospel.

The first example that I will take shall be from the criticism of the Ignatian Epistles. I may assume that the Seven Epistles are now generally allowed to be genuine, and written by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome sometime before the end of the reign of Trajan (i. e. before 117). This result is due especially to the labours of two scholars, Zahn and Lightfoot. It is instructive to note with what kind of argument they had to contend.

Both in their day had to stem a formidable current of opinion. Bishop Lightfoot wrote in the Preface to his great work dated ‘St. Peter’s day, 1885’:

‘We have been told more than once that “all impartial critics” have
condemned the Ignatian Epistles as spurious. But this moral
intimidation is unworthy of the eminent writers who have sometimes
indulged in it, and will certainly not be permitted to foreclose the
investigation. If the ecclesiastical terrorism of past ages has lost
its power, we shall, in the interests of truth, be justly jealous of
allowing an academic terrorism to usurp its place.’

I should not find it difficult to produce parallels to this kind of intimidation in the case of the Fourth Gospel. To look back in face of them upon the issue of the Ignatian controversy is consoling.

Much was said in the course of the controversy about certain features of style and character as unworthy of an Apostolic father. It was enough to answer with Bishop Lightfoot that ‘objections of this class rest for the most part on the assumption that an Apostolic father must be a person of ideal perfections intellectually as well as morally—an assumption which has only to be named in order to be refuted[22].’

It is true that the letters contained exaggerated language of humility, and also an exaggerated eagerness for martyrdom. Beside these general features, there were a good many strange and crude expressions of other kinds. It is needless to say that it did not in the least follow that such expressions could not have been used by Ignatius. But if the critics had been willing to study the letters a little deeper and with a little more sympathy, they might have found reason to change their estimate even of these acknowledged flaws.

In dealing with Ignatius it is always important to remember that we have to do with a Syrian and not a Greek. Certainly the language that he wrote was not in his hand a pliant instrument. It always cost him a struggle to express his thought; and the expression is very often far from perfect. The figure of the writer that one pictures to oneself is rugged, shaggy (if one may use the word), uncouth; and yet there is a virile, nervous strength about his language which is at times very impressive. And even his extravagances differ in this from many like extravagances, that they are not in the least insincere. For instance, if we read through the letter to Polycarp, we shall see in it a really great personality. And Ignatius had a very considerable power of thought as well as of character. Outside the New Testament, he is the first great Christian thinker; and he is one who left a deep mark on all subsequent thinking.

I have little doubt that the strong expressions of humility that are found from time to time in Ignatius are wrung from him by the recollection of the life that he led before he became a Christian. They are doubtless suggested by St. Paul, and they spring from a feeling not less intense than his.

The humility of St. John is a different matter. But as very shallow and obtuse criticisms are sometimes passed upon it, the Ignatian parallel may serve as a wholesome warning. I shall have occasion to return to this point later.

The main arguments against the Ignatian authorship of the letters were drawn from the seemingly advanced condition of things which they implied in the way of heretical teaching on the one hand, and church organization on the other. The objections on these grounds have been quite cleared up; and now the letters supply some of the most important data that the historian has to go upon.

It will be remembered that Bishop Lightfoot began by converting himself before he converted others. He had been inclined to think at one time that the shorter Syriac version represented the true Ignatius. He tells us himself how he came to give up this opinion. He says:

‘I found that to maintain the priority of the Curetonian letters I
was obliged from time to time to ascribe to the supposed Ignatian
forger feats of ingenuity, knowledge, intuition, skill, and
self-restraint, which transcended all bounds of probability’
(Preface to the First Edition).

This is another bit of experience that it may be worth while to bear in mind.

* * * * *

My second example is perhaps in this sense not quite so clear a case, that there is not as yet as complete a _consensus_ in regard to it as there is in regard to the Ignatian Letters. It is taken from the discussions which have been going on at various times in the last twenty-five years as to the genuineness of the treatise _De Vita Contemplativa_ which has come down to us among the works of Philo.

A marked impression was made on the side of the attack by a monograph by Lucius, _Die Therapeuten u. ihre Stellung in d. Gesch. der Askese_, published in 1879. This, together with the acceptance at least of the negative part of its result by Schürer, inaugurated a period during which opinion was on the whole rather unfavourable to the treatise. A reaction began with two articles by Massebieau in 1888, followed by the important and valuable work of Mr. F. C. Conybeare, _Philo about the Contemplative Life_, Oxford, 1895. The success of this defence may be regarded as clenched by the accession of such excellent and impartial authorities as Cohn and Wendland, who are bringing out the great new edition of Philo, and of Dr. James Drummond. It is true that Schürer reviewed Mr. Conybeare in an adverse sense so far as his main conclusion was concerned, and that he still maintains his opinion in the third edition of his _Geschichte d. Jüdischen Volkes_ (1898); but I must needs think that his arguments were satisfactorily and decisively answered by Dr. Drummond in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_ for 1896.

One or two points in this reply of Dr. Drummond have a general bearing, relevant to our present subject.

Lucius had maintained that the treatise was of Christian origin, and that it was composed not long before the time of its first mention by Eusebius. The history of the text is opposed to this; and Dr. Drummond is quite right in saying ‘the argument seems valid that Eusebius did not make his extracts from a work which had been recently sprung upon the market, but from one which had already undergone a long process of transcription.’ I may point to Dr. Schmiedel’s article in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ as one of many examples of reasoning similar to that of Lucius in regard to the Fourth Gospel. It is a common thing among critics to think it unnecessary to allow any but the smallest interval between the first production of a book and the date of its first mention in the literature that happens to be extant. I would not lay down an absolute rule. Circumstances vary in different cases. But I would contend that in any case they need careful consideration, and that assumptions like those of Lucius and Schmiedel are highly precarious.

The next point I would notice is the argument from identity of thought and style. One of the striking features in Mr. Conybeare’s book was the vast accumulation of parallels both in thought and expression between the _De Vita Contemplativa_ and the certainly genuine works of Philo. Dr. Schürer thinks that this might be due to imitation. On that head I should like to quote Dr. Drummond:

‘The purely literary evidence will affect different men differently.
To those who have no difficulty in attributing to the forger a
boundless power of refined imitation it will carry little weight. To
others who act upon the proverb, _ex pede Herculem_, and believe
that successful forgery in the name of an author, if not of high
genius, at least of unusual ability and distinguished style, is an
exceedingly difficult art, this line of evidence will come with
almost overwhelming force. It is easy enough to imitate tricks of
style, or to borrow some peculiarities of phrase; but to write in a
required style, without betraying any signs of imitation; to
introduce perpetual variation into sentences which are nevertheless
characteristic; to have shades of thought and suggestion, which
remind one of what has been said elsewhere, and nevertheless are
delicately modified, and pass easily into another subject; in a
word, to preserve the whole flavour of a writer’s composition in a
treatise which has a theme of its own, and follows its own
independent development, may well seem beyond the reach of the
forger, and must be held to guarantee the genuineness of a work,
unless very weighty arguments can be advanced on the other side.’

This paragraph seems to be very much in point for those who, like Schmiedel, H. J. Holtzmann and Professor Bacon, would distinguish the author of the First Epistle of St. John from the author of the Gospel.

On this point it is also worth while to consider Dr. Drummond’s replies to the inconsistencies alleged to exist between particular details in the _De Vita Contemplativa_ and the other Philonic writings. There is always a tendency in the critical school to make too much of these little _prima facie_ differences, which generally shrink a good deal on closer examination.

* * * * *

My last example shall be taken from the _Vita Antonii_, ascribed to, and now generally believed to be a genuine work of, St. Athanasius. The _Vita Antonii_ holds an important place in the literature of the beginnings of Monasticism. As such it was involved in the wholesale scepticism on that subject which was pushed to its furthest limits by the late Professor Weingarten in the seventies and eighties. How complete the reaction has been may be seen in the recent edition of the _Historia Lausiaca_ by Dom Cuthbert Butler. Among Weingarten’s converts was our English scholar, Professor Gwatkin; and I do not think that anything could speak more eloquently than just to transcribe the list of objections brought against the _Vita Antonii_ by Professor Gwatkin in his _Studies of Arianism_ (Cambridge, 1882). I proceed to give the more important of them in an abridged form:

‘In the rest of the works of Athanasius there is no trace of
Antony’s existence. Considering the grandeur of the saint’s
position, and his intimate relations with the bishop of Alexandria,
this fact alone should be decisive.’

Observe the argument from silence, which is enlarged upon in the
remainder of the paragraph.

1. The treatise is addressed to the monks of the West, whereas
‘monasticism was unknown in Europe in the reign of Valentinian, and
at Rome in particular when Jerome went into the East in 373; and at
Milan it had only lately been introduced by Ambrose at the time of
Augustine’s visit in 385.’

2. ‘Apart from its numerous miracles, the general tone of the _Vita_
is unhistorical. It is a perfect romance of the desert, without a
trace of human sinfulness to mar its beauty. The saint is an
idealized ascetic hero, the _mons Antonii_ a paradise of peaceful
holiness. We cannot pass from the _Scriptores Erotici_ to the _Vita
Antonii_ without noticing the same atmosphere of unreality in both.
From Anthanasius there is all the difference of the novel writer
from the orator—of the _Cyropaedia_ from the _de Corona_.’

3. ‘Though Athanasius had ample room for miracles in the adventures
of his long life, he never records anything of the sort.... But
miracles, often of the most puerile description, are the staple of
the _Vita Antonii_, and some of them are said to have been done
before the eyes of Athanasius himself, who could not have omitted
all reference to them in the writings of his exile.’

Again, the argument from silence.

* * * * *

4. ‘Antony is represented as an illiterate Copt, dependent on memory
even for his knowledge of Scripture.’ Yet he alludes to Plato,
Plotinus, &c., and in general reasons like a learned philosopher.

5. ‘The _Vita Antonii_ has coincidences with Athanasius in language
and doctrine, as we should expect in any professed work of his....
But the divergences are serious’....

6. It is implied throughout the _Vita Antonii_ that the monks were
extremely numerous throughout the East during Antony’s lifetime. Now
there were monks in Egypt, monks of Serapis, long before; but
Christian monks there were none’ (_Studies of Arianism_, pp. 100-2).