That which is mythical grows up unconsciously. But if our Gospels were constructed to meet or to modify certain special historical circumstances, if tliey are to be regarded as artistic creations, or as ' tendency ' writings, they cannot be mythical, as Strauss maintained, nor can they be regarded as the spontaneous and unconscious workings of
* Nash, op. cit. p. 114.
t On the unsatisfactoriness of the attempt to apply the mythi- cal theory to the rise of the primitive Christian tradition, see esp. Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 487 ff.
t Cf. O. Zockler, Die christliche Apologetik im neumchnten Jahrhundert, 1904, p. 16.
§ See Lichtenberger, op. cit. p. 333 ; and .1. E. Carpenter, The Bible in the Nineteenih Ce.nturu, pp. '277, 278.
II Baur saw in the NT literature the workings of a compromise between the two radically antagonistic parties of Judaism and Paulinism. In the exigencies of his theory he divided the penod of literary development into three divisions— (1) Extending to A.D. 70, a period including the Uouptbrlcfe of St. Paul and the Apocalypse of St. John. Here the antagonism v" .-..■-.._»
between the original Ebionitit '
Extending ' ' ' - -'- Gospels of r
height
, and Paulinism. (2)
period we have the
the former being Petrine,
it bearing marks of con.
aatthew and St. L the latter (with the Acts) Paulii
ciliation with reference to the above antagonism, anu laier i..c Gospel of St. Hark (also of a conciliatory type), whilst Ephe- sians and Colossians were invented by the Pauline party for the same conciliatorv purpose. (3) Extending to A.n. 170, vi'hen the controversy was finally settled, and the conflicting extremes rejected by the ' Catholic ' Church, a period marked by the Gospel and" Epistles which bear the name of St. John, as also b}' the Pastoral Epistles assigned to St. Paul.
384
CRITIClS^r
CRITICISM
the human mind in its elTorts to impart reality to its hopes. One cannot, in short, have the ' mythical ' Gospels of Strauss and the ' tendency ' Gospels of Baur.*
But while Strauss thus attempted to adapt this later work to some of the results and methods of the Tiibingen school, he also came nearer to Baur in that he gave in this popular edition of his famous book an account of Jesus utterly incom- mensurate with the gieatnesa of His influence and of the position which He achieved. Baur had taken little or no account of Jesus Himself and His Person, and now Strauss, by withdrawing what he had conceded in the second edition of his Leben Jesu as to the greatness and moral perfec- tion of Jesus, was in a position no less imprac- ticable than Baur's, so far as any satisfactory explanation of the work and person of the Founder of Christianity was concerned. We cease to be so much surprised that Strauss should regard the history of the resurrection of our Lord as a piece of colossal humliug, when the Jesus whom he depicted was so insigniticaiit ; or that Baur should regard this same account of the resurrection as a fact outside the province of historical inquiry, when he made no serious attempt to answer the question who Jesus was, or to understand Him and His life.
This supreme importance of the Person of Jesus had been rightly emphasized by earlier writers of the century. Paulus, with all his faulty method, had at least recognized that the miraculnus in Christianity was Christ Himself. Ili^ I'lr^nn. Schleiermacher had seen in Christ tli. _r.ati-t fact in history, the one only sinless .iinl ]H'ifeit Man, in whom the Divinity dwelt in its fulness.' Herder, of whom it has been said that his Christ- llchc Schriften gave the first impulse to the immense literature generally known under the name of the Life of Christ, did not forget even in his constant denunciations of the corruptions of Cliristianity to hold up to admiration the Person of Jesus as the Prophet of the truest humanity.
This primary importance of the fullest considera- tion of the Person of Christ is nowhere seen more strikingly than in one of the enrliest .and most effective replies to Strauss' wdik. by C. Ullmann, a reply wliieh so influenred Sir.in-s ilna lie modi- fied his position, at least fci i i; i^ >. far as to concede to Christ a place lii-i >>i i. ,illy unique as a religious genius. As Ullmaiiu insisted, Strauss was by his own fundamental philosophical assump- tions debarred from doing justice to the Person of .Tesus.t But if Strauss' position is correct, then it is iiiipn-ssibln to understand why the disciples of Jcsus slinnl.l lia\-o regarded Him" as the Messiah ; for tiny colli. I srarcely have done so, and with such surprisiiiLr suinss. unless there had been something exti'aordinary about Him. The dilemma, there- fore, which 'Ullmann proposed was really this — Did Christ n-ffttr fhr Churrh. <-,■ ,/;,/ tli.- Church invent Christy If the former, Jesus must have been no mere Jewish Rablii, but a personality of extraordinary power ; if the latter, we have an invention which would make the history of Chris- tianity quite incomprehensible. It was, of course, open to Strauss to reply that whilst the powerful personality of Jesus had created the Church, yet subsequently mjrthical hopes and conceptions might have been at work, transforming and mag- nifying the idea of the Christ.^ But at all events for a time Strau.ss hesitated. He not only ac-