"Besides the general impulse given by Strauss to the study of the four Gospels, he has done theology another good service. His book has given a deadly blow to ra- tionalism properly so called. Its paltry criticism and beg- garly interpretations of Scripture are nowhere more ef- fectually dissected than in his investigations of the differ- ent parts of the history and of the expositions that have been given of it. In a word, he has driven rationalism out of the field to make way for his myths; and Neander, Eberhard, and others have exploded the myths ; so that nothing remains but a return to the simple, truthful in- terpretations which, in the main, are given by the evan- gelical commentators."
In his Xeiv Life of Jesus (authorized translation, Lond. 1865, 2 vols. 8vo) Strauss thus defines his modi- tied and later position (p. 213): "I have, mainly in consequence of Baur's hints, allowed more room than before to the hypothesis of conscious and intentional fiction. This may properly be called myth as soon as it has gained belief and passed into the legend of a peo- ple or a religious sect; for its having done so invariably shows at the same time that it was formed by its author not merely upon notions of his own, but in connection with the consciousness of a majority." He therefore still maintains that " the myth, in its original form, is not the conscious and intentional invention of an indi- vidual, but a production of the common consciousness of a people or religious circle, which an individual does indeed first enunciate, but which meets belief for the very reason that such individual is but the organ of this universal conviction" (p. 206) ; and he proceeds to explain how in this way arose the account of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and the disappearance of his body from the tomb. Yet he adds, " But when we thus point out that an unconscious invention of such ac- counts was possible far beyond the limits within which they are generally considered admissible, we do not mean to say that conscious fiction had no share at all in the evangelical formation of myths. The narratives of the fourth tiospel especially are for the most part so methodically framed, so carried out into detail, that, if they are not historical, they can apparently only be considered as conscious and intentional inventions" (p. 208). Accordingly he discards the Gospel of John al- together as being purely fictitious. This is the suici- dal act of the mythical theorists ; for once brought to the alternative of receiving or rejecting the Gospel rec- ords as a simple question of veixicity, their battery is mimasked, and the argument becomes one of bold infi- delity. Faley has proved, long ago, that the N.-T. writers had no possible motive or opportunit)' for either self-deception or imposture.
Certain critics before Strauss had attempted to apply the theory of historical mythus to the Gospel narrative. By histoiical mythus is meant the adornment of actual facts by the imagination. Strauss, however, went fur- ther than this, and adopted what he calls the principles
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of pliilosophical mythus, i. e. "the expression of an idea in the form of an imaginary biography." But the weak point in Strauss's system, at whicli it finally broke down, was that he did not assert the whole Gos- pel to be mythical; he admitted certain statements in the N.-T. histories as facts. Here, then, his system was as great a failure as any other. The very aim of his method was to exclude everything capricious or hy- ])othctical ; the result of its application was to leave the field as nuich open to caprice and hypothesis as before. Nor (loos his eventual denial of the truthfulness of John's (lospel mend his system; it only introduces a fresh element of discrimination and consequent perplex- ity. Late researches go much deeper into the iilea of the myth and its application, particularly in the work of Sclielling, Ueb. d. Mijthtn d. altestm Welt (in Paidus, MiriiwnihUicii); Creuzer; F. Baur, of Tubingen, Sijm- bulik u. Mijtlwlor/ie, oder die Naturreliffion d. A Iter- thuns (Stuttg. 18-2-1-25, 8vo) ; Ottfried Miiller, of GiJt- tiiigen, /'rokffomena zu eiiier Wissenschnftlirhen Mi/lfiolo- «/jV" (Got ling. 1825); A. Batke, D. hilLTlKoL d. A. Test. (Berl. 1835). In the O. T. they consider as mythical the history of creation and of the fall of Adam, the con- sequent punishment, the flood, the origin of the various nations, and the election of the Jewish people, as well as their covenant with Jehovah ; the history of the pa- triarchs, the stay in Egypt of a family which grew into a nation (although, as shown by remaining monuments, this is based on a fact), their egress from Egj'pt, the giving of the law on ISIount Sinai, the forty-years' jour- ney through the wilderness, the account of the manner in which the Israelites came into possession of the Prom- ised Land. Then a great deal in the following books, as also in the later history of the people and of the kings, especially in the form as we find it in the Book of Chronicles, where all is made to promote the priestly interest ; the greater part of the history of the prophets, and even passages in the latest history of the people, as the apocryphal books, contain myths concerning the Maccabees. All through, tradition is connected with the myths which form an important element in these narratives, and both are in the whole history of the Israelites connected, in true Oriental style, with the historical element. These views, but often still more sweeping and exaggerated, were at that time advanced cautiously, and used to explain many passages in Seript- nre with some show of reason; the more as. all line of demarcation being destroyed by the generalization of some assertions, everything came to be measured by the same standard. The absurdities of these views, and their impiety, called into existence an opposite party which rejected the assertion of any myths being con- tained in the canonical Scriptures; and the views of the latter have gradually prevailed among the more candid and careful even of German critics. Traces, however, of this mythical theory in an obscure or sub- dued form are seen in Stanley's Lectures on the Ilvst. of the Jfirish Church; having evidently come over from I*;wald"s destructive and arbitrary methgd of treating Jewish history in his hraelit. Volk. A sounder and soberer criticism, however, has found means to restore the narratives of both the O. and the N. T. to their pro[)or rank as gemiine history. See Kationamsm.