THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
connection must be mentioned Augustine's De doctrina Christiana, which treated of the extent of the canon and of the use of translations. The Church of the Middle Ages was content with the work done by Cassiodorus, Augustine, and Junilius. But among the Jews there were the stirrings of a more vigorous life, exemplified in the investigations of Ibn Ezra in the region of special introduction.
By the revival of learning the Christians were made familiar with the results of Jewish investigations which were soon to lead to the enrichment of isagogical science. The interest in the Hebrew language grew into a wider concern for Oriental philology, which had a fertile field in the translations of the Old Testament, soon to become of use in the department of text-criticism. The earliest fruits ripened among the Roman Catholics in the work of a convert from Judaism, Sixtus of Sienna (d. 1599), the Bibliotheca sancta, which distinguished between protocanonical and deuterocanonical writings, and which dealt also with matters of special introduction. The
5. The Reformers did not enter this field, Reforma- tnougn the exegetical works of Calvin
t>„_:-.j contain materials for special introduction, and Luther necessarily had to do with the extent of the canon. Important was the work of Carlstadt, De canonicis scripturis (1520), in which he showed the superiority of the Jewish canon and made the canonicityof a Biblical writing depend not upon the authorship but upon its relation to that canon. The period immediately following the Reformation produced nothing notable. A. Rivetus (d. 1662) represents the standpoint of the age in his definition of Scripture as that which proceeds from God as the special author, who not only impelled (the scribe) to write and gave the thoughts, but even suggested the order and the words.
Out of this dogmatic quiet the theologians were shaken by the newer criticism, which began in the realm of the text. The Reformer Cappellus undertook investigations which showed that the traditional text was not altogether trust-
6. The w-orthy, and he was followed by the eve^V" Catholics Morinus and Richard Simon
Century ^'' l"1-)- The latter's Histoire critique was epoch-making in that it employed the literary-historical method, and showed that the Pentateuch could not be wholly the work of Moses and that other historical books had been worked over. Simon had been preceded by Hobbes, whose Leviathan had used the method of internal testimony, and Spinoza, whose Tractatus theologico-politicus had advanced a number of positions which were to be established later. Simon's book awakened much opposition and was suppressed, only to be reproduced in a Protestant land (Rotterdam, KiS."J). The ideas of Simon were further established in Protestant regions by the work of Johannes Clericus (q. v.), though the tendencies of Protestantism were conservative, and its supporters came later to hope that the learning of Carpzov would establish firmly the truth of the traditional views.
In the second half of the eighteenth century new doors were opened to Biblical criticism, especially by the researches of Sernler. At that time the attitude of criticism toward the Old Testament was unfriendly; it treated the collection from the historical standpoint only, but insisted upon understanding the times in which the writings originated. Of religion little was discovered in the Old Testament. Herder came to the help of
7. The tne defenders of the Bible with his EiSfh" discovery of the poetry it contained,
Cent rv an<^ ^"s newer tight was intensified in the work of Eichhorn, which outshone all the works of his predecessors and contemporaries. Special interest attaches to the researches of Eichhorn in general introduction, while the work of special introduction gained from his treatment of the books as constituting a Hebrew national literature. Yet permanent results were lacking from that period, excepting only the discovery by Astruc which forecast the documentary analysis of the Pentateuch.
A new era was opened by De Wette, who combined the literary with the historical method. Ewald carried the process on, not indeed in a work on Introduction, but in exegetical researches in which he employed it, using along with it a sympathetic appreciation rather than a rigid logic. Meanwhile the Pentateuchal problem was pushing to the front in the works of Vatke and Reuss, to receive its most advanced consid-
8. The eration from Wellhausen and Kuenen. Nine- rpne gj^g Q£ tne defense had mean-
Centurv wnile not been inactive, as the works of Hengstenberg, Havernick, and Keil abundantly prove, all of which contributed something toward the solution of the problems discussed. Between the two extremes represented by the men named come others who approach one or the other tendency, but the general characteristic of their labor is to bring into accord the assured results of criticism and the faith of the Church in revelation. The most notable example of this kind of work is Driver's Introduction. But the final solution of the problems raised by the science of Introduction will come not from that discipline but from the other branches of theology which build upon it. (F. Buhl.)
II. New Testament. — 1. History of the Discipline: The employment of the term "Introduction" with its present connotation in connection with the New Testament dates in modern times from Michaelis. But as in the case of the Old Testament, beginnings had been made long before. Besides the men mentioned above (I, § 4) as working in this department, Tyconius and Eucherius of Lyons attempted to supply the needed information about the origin, occasion, purpose, and history of the New Testament writings. The antagonism to the apocryphal books and heretical parties such as the Marcionites with their variant canon and the Montanists with their new prophecy enhanced in the second and third centuries the Church's valuation of the Christian books which had come to it from the apostolic age. The Muratorian Canon employed a legendary report of