but then there are some works, such as walking on the sea, calming the storm, curing at a distance, and raising the dead, which the author is compelled to acknowledge as exceptional displays of concentrated energy-in short, as miraculous. He proceeds to adapt this difficult article of faith to the rational understanding by plausibly and carefully describing the psychological conditions through which it was brought about; first exalting as much as possible the mysterious efficacy of Christ's spiritual nature, and then enlarging on the high wrought expectations and earnest devotion of his followers, who in exceptional moments of enthusiasm saw the absolute and literal realisation of all they imagined and anticipated. But the two factors are really inseparable; and it is precisely from a conjunction of subjective feeling with objective circumstance that mythus is naturally generated. "Mythus in the gospels," says Strauss,3 "has two simultaneous sources; one the Messianic ideas and expectations; the other, the particular impression left by the personal character, actions, and fate of Jesus." So here a real basis of fact is assumed to be transfigured by the feelings of the beholders; an impressive personality on one hand and excited imaginations on the other produce the paradoxical result. But the purpose of the advocate is best served by dwelling, not on the combined result, but on the two elementary sources of the psychological product, the subjective and the objective, separately; making each a distinct matter of wordy amplification, until at length, without any abrupt shock or offensive declaration, the hiatus between fact and belief seems gently to close, like the far-seen Symplegades, by means of perspective effect and an unlimited expansion of the termini. To harp on the sub 1 Page 196, sq. Ewald designates these as "the more lustrous sparks and vivid lightning flashes of action, raising the already exalted spiritual agency to a still loftier pitch of power!" jective or ideal element of a given narrative is of course to make its objective fidelity and accuracy more or less problematical and suspicious. Yet Ewald, while verbally insisting on the historical reliability of the miracles, unhesitatingly proceeds to deal with them on the footing of figurative symbols and allegories. In regard, for instance, to the miracle of Cana, he says, we should miserably misinterpret the noble wine now and always flowing down into our souls, were we to institute a puerile enquiry how water could suddenly become wine, as if even now it were not in the best sense so converted wherever the spirit of Christ is duly felt,1 etc., etc. Similarly the feeding the five thousand is supposed to exemplify the beautiful serenity of faith which deepens in its trust with the urgency and severity of the trial; the transfiguration, too, shews how a true faith already clearly discerns the victorious form of life and glory under the lineaments of suffering obscurity, etc., etc. But then, after having treated the meaning of the miracle as exhausted in its spiritual significancy, Ewald still retains its literal truth as if unaffected by his previous treatment; although it is plain, especially in the explanation given of the raising of Lazarus and of the resurrection, that the spiritual idea alone is really considered tenable by the writer, who in reality shares in spite of himself the views of those whom he angrily denounces as blunderers and fools.3 In short all the resources of mythical interpretation are resorted to 1 See p. 224. 2 In a later work of Ewald, the "History of the Apostolic Age," the resurrection is similarly allegorised, as meaning the renewed spiritual life of Christ in the Christian mind, so that we entirely lose sight of the historical narrative in the assumed ideal significancy. 3 Thus Ewald remarks against Strauss that the idea of the New Testament narratives being suggested by Old Testament types is a mere vague unfounded hypothesis; but he immediately adds, "certainly the facts were expected to occur according to the old types, and the narrative shaped itself readily into a suitable form" (see note to p. 197). A singular way this of refuting an opponent ! But it is a common device; denounce your adversary in unmeasured terms for what he says, and then in slightly varying language quietly adopt his suggestions. without any open acknowledgment or direct use of an obnoxious expression; and so we get back to the old established arts of modern supernaturalism, consisting in circumlocutory phrases presented under every form of ambiguity and sanctimonious grimace. These unfailing resources of theological subtlety may remind us of the judicious principle of domestic management advocated by Caleb Balderstone, "a good excuse is better than the things themselves; for these maun be consumed with time; whereas a good come-off carefully and discreetly used may serve a gentleman and his family heaven knows how long." APPENDIX. A.-(PAGE 10.) HERE the writer must leave to abler hands the further prosecution of a subject of which the above is but a scanty outline. Yet the confession of incompleteness implies no absolute selfcondemnation. It is the inevitable condition of all human effort and pursuit to be elementary and provisional. This fact is, however, often very unjustly made a reason for disparaging all endeavour and pursuit of knowledge; and enquiry is met by the ignorant objection that it leads to no fixed or final result. Truth being infinite, philosophy must always remain an open question; yet the real fallacy is not in research, but in the false security of those who prematurely fancy their object won and their education finished. Churchmen monopolise the privilege of dogmatising; philosophy must be content to be ever learning without ever pretending to have reached its final goal. The two claims are indeed incompatible and hostile; and hence philosophical theologians—as for instance, Rothe1-are calmly anticipating the impending downfall of churches, thinking it their inevitable tendency to be absorbed in civil governments so soon as the latter shall become sufficiently enlightened and morally competent to supersede them. Governments ought doubtless to encourage and guide as well as coerce and punish; and it is important that State authority should in some way throw its influence into the scale of the spiritual interests and dignity of man. But then it is preposterous to perpetuate in the name of improvement an expedient especially adapted to promote mental suffocation and arrest; to tantalise us with stones in the name of bread, and in lieu of an educational establishment to maintain the absolute pretensions and costume of a medieval church. 1 See Dr. Schwartz, History of Recent Theology, p. 286. It was said by the late Dr. Arnold that government is not a police, a faction, or an army, but a moral institution. Government, he explains, should, as representing the State, desire those ends and contrive those means which the personified State ought to desire and contrive; and the true end of a state is only the truest and highest object of the individuals composing it. The State, therefore, he adds, is the perfect Church, and should do the work of the Church. Arnold rests this lofty vocation of the State, as compared with other associations, on the footing of its being the sovereign society; an immoral sovereignty being practically a despotism of evil. 1 But Dr. Arnold fails to shew how his moral State theory is to be realised. When he says that the State may as well adopt the "law of the New Testament" or the "law of Christ's church" for its rule of procedure as the code of Justinian,-he evidently speaks at random. For the law of the New Testament is vague, contradictory, and incomplete, ; it is certainly no such rule as municipal law could properly undertake to enforce. The Erastian identification of Church and State in this sense threatens a tyrannic indifferentism as noxious in one way as theocratic intolerance in another; or it may very possibly merge in such intolerance; for Dr. Arnold, assuming the evidences of what he vaguely terms "the Christian religion" to be "unanswerable," treats it as a mere question of time when the rejection of Christianity shall be properly dealt with as a moral offence. Immoral power is of course a fearful thing. But the only known way of making governments moral is the making them responsible; and this responsibility is effectually secured only when enforced by a moral and enlightened state of opinion. Modern politicians often confound "free" government with a system of mechanical equipoise and countercheck, from which the interference of arbitrary discretion is as much as possible removed. But true freedom is not mechanical; its seat is the human mind alone. No society subsists on a mere balance and artificial counteraction of automatic forces. "Government," says Mr. Mill,' is a machinery which will no more act for itself 1 Mill on Liberty, pp. 88, 90, etc. 2 Sir James Mackintosh on the Study of the Law of Nature, p. 63. |