RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wrath of God Wratislaw
within the sphere of the special covenant, because of personal fellowship between God and man. A distinction must be drawn between an objective wrath, which, pregnant with destruction, lowers over a sinful world, breaking with fury from time to time, and a personal wrath manifested by God toward and apperceived by individuals. The latter is felt in proportion to the tenderness of conscience, and thus is found especially among believers. Among these the sense of divine wrath may become excited to a morbid experience confounding truth and error, as in the case of many mystics. In the atonement, he who places himself under the wrath of God over the sinful world, in order to withdraw it from others, must do this by the free ethical assumption of the judgment of penalty pending over the world. On the other hand, only he is qualified to do this who is the organic head of the race. The coalescence of the two produces the ethical mystical view, presented here as the Biblical. In this substitute is realized that toward which humanity aspired symbolically by their sacrifices, and for which God set up a type in the Old Testament, not only in the sacrifices and prophecies but on the whole in the entire institution in which he accepted propitiation, whether through persons, acts, intercessions, or suffering. As before Christ the time of wrath was indeed the time of ‘‘forbearance” (Rom. iii. 25-26), so, inversely, in Christ, the revealer of grace and truth, the wrath and curse over sin come first to light in the full sense; and there is ushered in the crisis continuing throughout the centuries dividing the human race into ‘‘vessels of wrath” and ‘‘vessels of mercy,”’ until the last day of wrath (see Day or THE Lorp) shall bring the ultimate decision. To those who persist to the end in self-estrangement from God, it can mean only interminable separation from him and the divine life. (ARNOLD RiEGGf.) BrsuiocRaPHy: For discussions of the Biblical idea the reader is referred to the works named in and under BrsuicAL THroLocy. From the dogmatic standpoint the literature is to be found in the works specified in and under Dogma, Docmatics; and under Srn. Consult further: Lactantius, De ira Dei, Eng. transl. in ANF,
vii. 259-280; A. Ritschl, De ira Dei, Bonn, 1859 (cf. L.
Haug, Darstellung und Beurtheilung der Ritschl’ schen
Theologie, Ludwigsburg, 1885—combats Ritschl); idem,
Rechtfertigung und Verséhnung, ii. 119-156, 3 vols., Bonn,
1870-74; F. Weber, Vom Zorne Gottes, Erlangen, 1862; C.
von Orelli, in ZK W, 1884, pp. 22-33; W. G. T. Shedd, Doc-
trine of Endless Punishment, New York, 1886; J. Ninck,
Jesus als Charakter, pp. 27-40, Berlin, 1906; M. Pohlenz,
Vom Zorne Gottes. Hin Studie tiber den Einfluss der
griechischen Philosophie auf das alte Christentum, Géot-
tingen, 1909.
WRATISLAW, ALBERT HENRY: Church of England, Slavonic scholar; b. at Rugby (28 m. s.e. of Birmingham), England, Nov. 5, 1821; d. at Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth, Nov. 3, 1892. He studied at Rugby School, and at Trinity, later at Christ College, Cambridge (B.A., 1844; M.A., 1847; and fellow, 1844-53); became a tutor of his college; in 1849 visited Bohemia, studying the Czech language in Prague; was head master of Felstead School, 1850-55; of Bury St. Edmunds Grammar School, 1855-79; and held the college living of Manorbier in Pembrokeshire, 1877-89, when he retired to Southsea. From 1850 to 1870 Wratislaw
Wrede Wright
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
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was deeply engaged in scholastic work, and in 1877 he delivered lectures at the Taylorian Institution in Oxford, which were published as The Native Literature of Bohemia in the Fourteenth Century (London, 1878). He translated from the Bohemian the Adventures of Baron W. Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (London, 1862), and a number of poems issued as Lyra Czecho- Slovanska (1849). His theological works embrace Barabbas the Scapegoat, and other Sermons and Dissertations (London, 1859); Historical and Statistical Sketch of the Slavonic Protestants, in the north of the Austrian Empire (1861); Notes and Dissertations, principally on Difficulties in the Scriptures of the New Covenant (1863); How Saints are made at Rome in Modern Days (1866); Intercourse and Intercommunion among Christians. Rome and England. Two Essays (1866); Life, Legend, and Canonization of St. John Nepomucen (1873); and John Hus. The Commencement of Resistance to Papal Authority on the Part of the Inferior Clergy (1882).
BrstiocrapHy: DNB, Ixiii. 68-69.
WREDE, vré/de, WILLIAM: German New- Testament scholar; b. at Biicken (25 m.s.s.e. of Bremen) May 10, 1859; d. at Breslau Nov. 23, 1906. He received his education at the gymnasium at Celle, the universities of Leipsic and G6ttingen, and the theological seminary at Loccum; became inspector of the theological foundation at G6ttingen, 1884; took a pastorate at Langenholzen, 1887; returned to Gottingen to teach, 1889; became extraordinary professor for the New Testament at Breslau, 1893, and professor, 1895. His principal works are Untersuchungen zum ersten Clemensbriefe (Gottingen, 1891); Ueber Aufgabe und Methode der . . . neutestamentlichen Theologie (1897); Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien (1901); Charakter und Tendenz des Johannesevangeliums (1903); Paulus (Tiibingen, 1905; Eng. transl., Paul, London, 1907); and the posthumous Vortrdge und Reden (1907); and Die Entstehung der Schriften des Neuen Testaments (1907; Eng. transl., The Origin of the New Testament, New York, 1910).
The two works for which Wrede is best known, the Messiasgeheimnis and the Paulus, illustrate well both the excellences and the defects of their author as well as his services to theological science. Even in his first work on the First Epistle of Clement, he revealed himself as not only a learned, careful, and keen-sighted scholar, but also as an independent and thoughtful critic. Anew he proved the value of that letter as a source of knowledge not only for the Roman community but for the general tendencies and needs of the postapostolic generation. His interest was not in the details, but in the general relations both to the preceding and the following literature and events. So in his treatment of New- Testament theology he bound together religion and theology. His Paulus deals with a side of what he regarded as within the province of New-Testament theology. In all this work he consciously limited himself to certain lines of investigation, not. because he had no interest in what lay beyond, but because in this chosen field he found problems that required answers which he felt he must find before he advanced to the wider field, in answering, which, too he felt that he was preparing himself for advance.
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In his researches he did not permit himself to be fettered by tradition, no matter what its source. While he honored profoundly his teachers, he subjected himself to none of them; he neither belonged to a “school” nor did he build one. As a teacher he evinced these same qualities, took his work earnestly, and stimulated his pupils to thoroughgoing patience and industry in their labors.
His Paulus ig rather a work of art than a popular book, though it bélongs to a popular series. It does not concern itself with detail, but is a polished treatment of the essential life and work of the apostle, comparing that life with the life of Jesus. In that it does not furnish a purely historical decision it reflects Wrede’s subjective standpoint. The author regards Paul as the second founder of Christianity, the builder of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, who changed, by his doctrine of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ, the religion of Jesus. Not that he charges Paul with a fault here, but rather regrets that it was Paul who did what had tobe done. Asa check upon the unwholesome and panegyrical exposition of the life of Paul, Wrede’s work was valuable; but Wrede does not present the entire Paul to his readers, it is a profile picture which he paints. Similarly in his treatment of the Gospel of John, only one side is presented, not a consideration of the entire problem. A one-sidedness of another kind comes to light in the Messiasgeheimnis. To bring up earnestly the question whether, according to the consensus of the New Testament, Jesus conceived of himself as Messiah was a great service and as a stimulus has borne good fruit. Since his work investigation concerning the self-consciousness of Jesus has taken a new start. The error of Wrede lies in the fact that he overestimated the conclusiveness and deliberateness with which the evangelists individually assumed one or another of the view-points possible in their time. He worked too much in logical categories, asked too often why and how; he handled Mark and Paul as though they were men of our times.
In spite of these defects his short period of work, shortened even beyond the actual time by calamity and illness, was uncommonly fruitful. His plow went deep, and he scattered his seed beyond his own furrow. (G. A. J&LICHER.)
WRIGHT, CHARLES HENRY HAMILTON: Church of England; b. at Dublin Mar. 9, 1836; d. in London Mar. 22, 1909. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1857; M.A., 1859), and was ordered deacon in 1859 and ordained priest in the following year. He was curate of Middleton- Tyas, Yorkshire, in 1859-63, chaplain of the English church at Dresden in 1863-68, chaplain of Holy Trinity, Boulogne-sur-Mer, in 1868-73, incumbent of St. Mary’s, Dublin, in 1874-85, and of Bethesda Church in the same city in 1885-91, and vicar of St. John’s, Liverpool, in 1891-98. After 1898 he was clerical superintendent of the Protestant Reformation Society. He was also Bampton Lecturer at Oxford in 1878, Donellan Lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1880-81, and Grinfeld Lecturer on the Septuagint at Oxford in 1893-97, besides being examiner in Hebrew at different times to the universities of Oxford, London, Manchester,