or upon future generations. They believed all they recorded, but were mistaken. What they regarded as history was only legend, and was the result of unconsciously attributing to Jesus the character and the wonderful works which they imagined the Old Testament foretold of the Messiah. They believed, Jesus himself believed, that he was the Messiah; and therefore, whatever qualities, pow. ers, or works the Scriptures, or tradition, or popular opinion and fanaticism, ascribed to the Messiah, must of course belong to Jesus. The growth of this legendary history was slow, unnoticed; and the authors, or the church itself which is the creator of the New Testament Christ, was unconscious of the work it was doing. And yet thirty years were sufficient to perfect this stupendous work, so gradual in its process! By degrees all the light and glory that the Jews expected or imagined in the coming Messiah, were gathered around the person of Christ; and this halo was continually brightened and enlarged by fresh additions from the Old Testament, from Rabbinical traditions, and popular desires and mistakas. The Old Testament, however, is the principal magazine from which the materials were drawn.* For an example of the manner in which they were appropriated, we might refer to the account in Luke iv, where the writer relates the rage of the people at the preaching of Jesus, and their attempt to destroy his life by throwing him from a precipice, and adds, "but he, passing through the midst of them, went his way." Dr. Strauss says that the design of the writer was to state that Jesus wrought a miracle to deliver himself from the hands of the people, but informs us that the " alleged miracle was only a poetical fiction unwittingly imitated from some things recorded in the Old Testament. "We cannot fail to acknowledge the

*See especially vol, i. pp. 80-82. Introduction § 14.

influence of the myth," says he, "which, wishing to embellish the history of Jesus, took a pleasure in representing Christ as a personage from whom a heavenly hand drove away his enemies, as in former times it had protected Lot, by smiting his foes with blindness (Gen. xix), and Elisha in the same manner (2 Kings vi); or rather as a personage who by virtue of his superiority, protected himself."

4. Quinet has given a very good outline of the plan of the work, which, in part, condensed, we will present here for the better understanding of the question in discussion. The circumstances of the Savior's birth appears to Strauss to be fabulous imitations of those recorded of the birth of Abraham and Moses. Nimrod and Pharaoh are the models for Herod's massacre of the babes of Bethlehem. Christ was represented as born in Bethlehem, in preference to all other places, in order to conform to the prophet's words. The star which guided the magi to the manger, was copied from the star promised to Jacob in Balaam's prophecy. The presentation of Jesus in the temple, was a story invented to glorify the man in the child. The disputing with the doctors at the early age of twelve years, was borrowed from the history of Moses, Samuel and Solomon, who displayed heavenly wisdom at the same age. The Gospel miracles are either copies from those in the Old Testament; or parables of Jesus manufactured, at a later period, into actual occurrences; or legends grown up on the foundation of what was originally an ordinary action of his. The miracle of the loaves and fishes points to the manna in the desert, and the twenty loaves with which Elisha fed the people. The water changed into wine is a distorted reminiscence of the unwholesome water restored by the prophet. The fig tree struck with barrenness was only a change into fact or history of a parable previously uttered. The transfiguration

is closely allied to that of Moses on Mount Sinai. The conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, reminds him of the meeting of Eliezer and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Tipporah. The crucifixion, it is true, is real, historical; but even this seems to be reluctantly yielded; for the cross reminds him strongly of the brazen serpent set up on a pole by Moses. The prophecies of Christ respecting his death and resurrection were imaginary; and arose from the fact that the disciples applied to him all the words of the prophets which could be forced into reference to him; and then, imagining he had risen from the dead (!), they also imagined he must have foretold these momentous events. Thus they deceived themselves! The agony in the garden and on the cross, the bloody sweat, the cup brought by the angel, are all taken from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The two thieves belong to Isaiah. The divided raiment, nailing the feet and hands, the sword thrust into his side, the gall and vinegar, the thirst, and the dying words of Jesus,Eli, lama sabacthani," are borrowed from the twentysecond and sixty-ninth psalm. The resurrection, as we have said, was imaginary; originating, probably, in a vision of the disciples, similar to that of St. Paul on his way to Damascus. The ascension is a copy of that of Enoch and Elias; the fiery horses of the latter being changed to clouds, the better to suit the gentle nature of Jesus. He does not fail to note that it also reminds him of the apotheosis of Hercules, Romulus, &c!*

66

See also the calm

* Voices of the Church, pp. 63–67; 23--36 hard feeling with which Strauss carries out his inquiry into all the details of the crucifixion and death of Jesus. vol. iii. pp. 252-396. The same also respecting the Resurrection and Ascension, pp. 311 -395. There seem, in the process, more indications of a love of ingenious criticism and theory, than of truth.

5. This is, perhaps, as good a sketch of the general plan and process of Strauss' work as our limits will allow us to give. It is of course imperfect, and does not do justice to a work which follows out this system with unequalled talent and skill, through fifteen hundred pages; and exhausts, it would seem, in their application to the Gospel histories, all the resources of sceptical philosophy, learning and criticism. Still the reader will gather from the outline given, a tolerably clear idea of the aim of the "Leben Jesu," and the method pursued in reaching that end.

6. We do not of course propose a labored and thorough examination of the work, or even its idea or theory. We have not space for it; and if we had, we have not the knowledge nor the ability requisite for the task. We design rather to point out some of the assumptions on which it rests; some of the perversions of the intention and meaning of the narrative; some of the false inferences and groundless conclusions which are set up with much parade-and, finally, to show that the theory of Dr. Strauss involves more and greater difficulties than it re

moves.

29

SECTION I.

THE ASSUMPTION OF STRAUSS. A MIRACLE IMPOSSIBLE. THE GOSPELS COMPLETE HISTORIES IN THEIR STRUCTURE

AND CONTENTS. THE "MUST BE

FOLLOWS THE "MAY BE."

1. PROFESSOR STRAUSS starts with the assumption that a miracle is impossbile.* He admits that the Gospel narratives are intended to set forth a miraculous history; that the authors meant to be understood as describing miracles, in the proper acceptation of the word. This is plain enough; the whole warp and woof of the story is miraculous, and the writers believed what they wrote. He utterly discards and explodes the views of the naturalistic school, which resolves the miracles into ordinary events, the results of natural causes. He shows indisputably that the evangelists did not so understand it, and that this explanation does not meet the difficulty. This expla nation failing, and a miracle being impossible, another method of interpretation must be applied, which brings out the mythical theory as the only satisfactory one in this dilemma.

* Introduction § 13. vol. i. 64.