at Dr. Harnack's consen'atism ; but he soon made it clear that the acceptance of the date or the authorship of a book by no means involves the acceptance of its contents. Hiihn's series of 'Helps to the Understanding of the Bible,' which has had a large circulation in Germany, is not very satisfactory in relation to the Gospels. Hiihn, however, admits that the ' Logia ' which were used bv Matthew, if not composed h\ him, date before A.D. 70. Of the author of the Gospel of Mark he holds that nothing definite can he known ; but at the same time he speaks of Matthew as composed after 70, and of Mark as being of an earlier date. Luke is the latest of the three, and, like so many advanced critics, Hiihn places Luke after 70 on the ground of 212124. But it does not increase our confidence in Hiihn's researches when he places St. John's Gospel at 135-140, and gives as one of his chief reasons the passage Jn 5*3, in which he sees a reference to Bar Cochba (a.d. 132), who came ' in his own name,' and was recognized as the Messiah of the Jews (Das Xeue Testament, 1904, p. 13 ff.). In answer to Huhn's inference from Lk 2121 see Blass, Philology of the Gospels, 1898, p. 41.
" See Biblical World (Chicago), December 1895, art. 'Sources of the Life of Christ,' by Professor Burton ; and the Church Quarterly Reoiew, January 1905, art. 'The Synoptic Gospels and Recent Literature,' pp. 416, 417.
CEITICISM
CEITICISM
393
to describe. It Mould have been impossible after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the entire boule- versevient which that catastrophe caused, to re- create, as it were, the conditions which prevailed socially, politically, religiously before that capital event.* This impression of truthfulness which the contents of our Gospels cannot fail to make, is wit- nessed to even in quarters in which we might not altogether expect it. Thus Jiilicher speaks of our Gospels as of priceless value as authorities for the history of Jesus ; and even if much of their data may be uncertain, Jiilicher nevertheless maintains that ' the impression of the Saviour which they leave on the reader's mind is a faithful one ; if the total picture of Jesus which we obtain from the Synoptics displays all the magic of reality, this . . . is owing to the fact that they . . . painted Jesus as they found Him already existing in the Christian communities, and that their model corresponded in all essentials to the original. 't
18. In concluding this article, it will not be un- fitting, especiallyin a Dictionary devoted to the sub- ject of ' Christ and the Gospels,' to emphasize once again the importance attached to the Person of Christ in the current literature of to-day. It would be easy to refer in this connexion to the statements made by representative writers in England .and America. We turn, e.g., to Professor Nash's History of the Higher Criticism, and we find him speaking (p. 25) of ' that Christ who is humanity's Amen to all the Divine promises ' ; or to Dr. P. Gardner's Historic View of the NT, and we find him maintaining (pp. 88-91) that the founder of Christianity stands above all other religious teachers. J Even Professor Schmidt can speak again and again of the wonder- ful personality of Jesus : ' While other teachers may and will do much for our modern world, the heal- ing, purging, elevating influence of Jesus is of priceless value. No man can come into contact with him without feeling that life goes out of him ' {The Prophet of Nazareth, p. 360).
At the Liverpool Church Congress, 1904, one of the speakers on NT criticism, Professor F. C. Burkitt, remarked at the close of his speech that the only time when .Christians would have cause to be afraid was when the far oft' figure of Jesus Christ no longer attracted the critic and the stu- dent, but that there was no evidence that that day was within sight. The last statement finds ample corroboration in the English and German litera- ture of to-day. § We may look again at the little series of popular books to which reference has been made as in progress of publication for the Gemian people. One of them is entitled Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu, by Professor Wernle of Basle, whose name is widely known in England for his works on the Gospels and the Beginnings of the Christian Religion. Here again we find this same primary importance attached to the Life and Person of Jesus, in spite of so much which betrays impa- tience of any definite dogmatic teaching. What-
• Swete, Critical Questioiis, pp. 47, 48 ; and Lepin, op. cit. pp. xxi-xxx.
t See Church Quarterly Review, I.e. p. 411 ; and also Jiilicher, Eiiileitung in das NT^, p. 294.
{ In a noteworthy passage {op. cit. p. lOn) the same writer says, after referring to the fact that Jesus does not use the phrase ' Our Father in hea\en ' as including both Himself and His disciples : ' It would not show a'want of the critical spirit to go further than this, and to maintain with Professor Harnacli that Jesus assigned a special significance to His death in rela- te the forgiveness of__sins, claimed an unique dignity