This, he adds, is the more probable, since now many of the leading Protestant clergy teach that even the ascension of Christ has no historical basis, but is symbolical only.

Now, what are Delitzsch's views of inspiration or revelation? Lest we may misrepresent him, we shall answer this question in his own words. He says: "I hold the view that in the Old Testament we have to deal with a development effected or permitted by God, like any other product of this world, but, for the rest, of a purely human and historical character, in which God has not intervened through a special supernatural revelation." He says again: "The modification of the original conception of revelation, deeply rooted in ancient orientalism, by a surrender of the verbal inspiration, made by both evangelical and Catholic theology, and even by the Church, irretrievably divests the Old Testament of its character as the 'Word of God.'" He believes in a revelation, of gradual growth and historical development. He comes out flat-footed against some of the modern critics, who seem to straddle the fence; he says that the term "divine revelation," as held by the Church, and historical or human development are irreconcilable contradictions." One or the other must be accepted. Tertium non datur. Then again, speaking of the Torah, or Law of Moses, he says: "The divine character of the Torah will have to be excluded from scientific discussion."

The only doctrine of revelation to which Delitzsch will subscribe is a general one, common to all men and times, where God speaks to the head and conscience of men, as he does in nature and history. Alexander the Great, for instance, appears with special clearness as the instrument of such a divine agency (Walten). God's fatherly love embraces all mankind, he speaks to all nations alike. He quotes Gunkel with approval, who says, "Far be it from us to limit revelation to Israel," and then as a parting shot taunts "the theologian" with the glaring contradiction, for saying in the same pamphlet, "Israel is and will remain the people of revelation." He then sarcastically adds, "Only theologians by profession should speak on the subject of revelation."

In conclusion, we must thank Professor Delitzsch for his third pamphlet, not that it contains a single new idea, but for its freshness and frankness. His language is generally perspicuous and unambiguous, especially when he speaks of inspiration and revelation. The Old Testament is no more inspired than other religious books. Indeed, the songs of Arndt are worthier of a place in our religious education "or to be carried by our boys every day to school," than are the war songs of the Old Testament. It would be a good thing for some of our American modern critics, who are sadly "on the fence," if they also could speak with more clearness and less ambiguity on the question of inspiration and the nature of revelation.

FOREIGN OUTLOOK.

SOME LEADERS OF THOUGHT.

Bernhard Weiss. It is interesting to find a man so old engaged in literary work with as much zest as he had in youth. But such is apparently the case with Weiss. During 1903 he not only published the seventh edition of his Biblical Theology of the New Testament, but also an entirely new work on The Religion of the New Testament (Die Religion des Neuen Testaments. Stuttgart, J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, Nachf.). This book differs from the same author's Biblical Theology of the New Testament in that it attempts to set forth, not the various types of Christian thought of the different individuals whose writings we have in the New Testament, but to show that those types are capable of being proved unitary. Not only are they not contradictory, they are not even divergent in such a sense as to suggest different growths from the same root. They are parts of a whole, in accord with each other, and all of them necessary to the whole. The multiplicity of ideas in the New Testament can be reduced to a unity-this is with Weiss axiomatic. The New Testament can be understood only when considered in the light of Christ as the revelation of a manifested salvation. The religious life of the New Testament kindles a similar life in the reader of the New Testament, and the personal experience thus arising is the proof of the unity of the New Testament through which that life flows. Under such circumstances it would be impossible that the various parts of the New Testament should contradict each other. If any New Testament document contradicted or hindered the development of the effect of the whole that document could not be a part of the revelation and would have to be excluded from the canon. The only elements constitutive of the New Testament not directly contributing to the whole unitary effect are a few ideas which are not fully assimilated to Christianity. The motive of Weiss in attempting to harmonize the details of New Testament teaching into a unit is that thereby the place of the cross in the Christian system is more clearly brought out. To Weiss the message of Jesus was the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. But taking the New Testament as a whole, not this teaching of Jesus, but the death of Jesus, is the fact that is emphasized; and it was the fact of the death that overcame the world, while the world overcame Christ as the teacher of his great truths. Such are the guiding principles in Weiss's conception of the religion of the New Testament. We must confess it does not seem to us that Weiss has succeeded very well. The attempt to harmonize all the different ideas of the New Testament depends upon arbitrary methods of reconciliation as truly as the oldfashioned harmonies of the four gospels did, and it is therefore as unsatisfactory. As to the argument from personal experience to the effect that since the New Testament as a whole produces that experience the New Testament must therefore be unitary, it overlooks the fact that it is not

the details which produce the experience, but the unitary fundamental principle running through the whole. If Weiss had spent his strength in showing that there are certain great principles constitutive of the religion of the New Testament, and that they are each and all direct or implicit teachings of Jesus, he could have made out a good case. It is not necessary to the unity of the Christian religion that the conception of it held or emphasized by all the New Testament writers should be identical. Such a unity would not necessarily reach deeper than to mere externals. A unity in principle is entirely consistent with many divergences of individual application. And it is just the glory of the religion of the New Testament that it admits of such varied application. It seems to us also that Weiss erred grievously in making the message of Jesus one thing and the message of the apostles another. By so doing he destroyed the unity of the New Testament religion, and mutilated the teachings of Christ, who certainly did include in his message the fact and significance of his approaching death.

Alfred Seeberg. In a recent work on The Catechism of Primitive Christianity (Der Katechismus Urchristenheit, Leipzig, 1903, A. Deichert, Nachf.) Seeberg has attempted to turn all the "modern" critical conceptions of the origin of doctrinal and ethical formulas topsy-turvy. His claim is, in brief, that within a very few years after the crucifixion of Jesus there was extant among the Christians a well-formulated system of doctrine and of ethics, that this formed the substance of the teaching of all the apostles, and that this was accompanied by a practically uniform method of administering baptism and the Lord's Supper. This kind of theory is a severe blow to those who hold that practically everything we regard as peculiarly ecclesiastical is the product of an age considerably later than the apostles. Seeberg certainly has found coincidences between some expressions and teachings of Paul and such later documents as "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," which are, to say the least, striking. The "ways" of the "Teaching of the Twelve" have, Seeberg thinks, their origin in the "ways" Paul refers to in 1 Cor. iv, 17, where Paul's "ways" are not to be understood as his ways of doing things, but as the ways of life described by him. That such an ethical norm existed and was known to the Roman Christians from the first existence of the church in Rome is clear, thinks Seeberg, from Rom. vi, 17, where the "form of teaching" must, according to the context, have referred to questions of conduct rather than of opinion. According to Seeberg, therefore, when Paul speaks of his "ways" he uses the term "ways" as a technical designation of a tolerably well-fixed series of utterances on moral themes-a warning against certain sins and a recommendation of certain virtues. And he thinks that Matt. xv, 19, and Mark vii, 21, give us hints that there was essentially such a teaching among the Jews and that it was known and adopted by Jesus. So much for his opinion concerning the fixed ethical formulas of the earliest apostolic age. As to the doctrinal formula Seeberg is equally certain. He thinks Paul makes clear use of it in 1 Cor.

xv, 3-5, as also in Rom. vi, 1-7, and Col. ii, 11-13. But he thinks that Paul did not use the whole of this doctrinal formula in 1 Cor. xv, 3-5, but that he omitted there both the opening and the closing portions of it. The opening words of the formula must, according to Gal. iv, 4, and Rom. viii, 3, have declared that the living God, the Creator of the world, sent his Son, Jesus Christ (2 Cor. i, 19), who was of the seed of David (Rom. i, 3). The formula must have concluded, according to Rom. viii, 34; Col. iii, 1, and Eph. i, 20, with the reminder that Jesus Christ now sits at the right hand of God; that the evil spirits are subject to him (Eph. i, 21; Col. ii, 10-15), and that he will come to judge the world (Rom. ii, 16; 1 Thess. i, 10). This same formula, with slight modification, Seeberg sees in 1 Pet. iii, 18-22; iv, 5; and in 1 Tim. vi, 13, f., and 2 Tim. ii, 8; iv, 1. He thinks also that it was the basis of the speeches in the Acts, chapters ii, iii, v, x, xiii, and of the words of Jesus as reported in Luke xxiv, 44-47. Further, it is referred to in Heb. iii, 1; iv, 14; x, 23. What, now, shall we think of these extraordinary ideas? In the first place, it must be said that it is truly refreshing to find one who undertakes to determine what was apostolic and what post-apostolic by a study of the New Testament. This the great majority have not done; but have simply assumed that post-apostolic in time meant post-apostolic in thought; and that, as a consequence, if any ways of looking at things were found in post-apostolic literature they were not in existence during apostolic times. A careful study of Paul's "ways" as referred to above lends color to Seeberg's theory concerning an early ethical formula; and that there were doctrinal formulas in apostolic times Seeberg has once more made clear. But there is no sufficient reason to think that the ethical and doctrinal teachings of the earliest apostles or of Paul were in fixed form as early as Seeberg thinks they were. The great outlines of later ethics and doctrine were held from the first; their development into fixed formulas was the work of a later age.

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

War Jesus Ekstatiker?

Eine Untersuchung zum Leben Jesu (Was Jesus an Ecstatic? A Study in the Life of Jesus). By Oscar Holtzmann, Tübingen, 1903, J. C. B. Mohr. Before any estimate can be made of the worth or worthlessness of this book it will be necessary to ascertain the sense in which the author uses the word ecstatic. Unfortunately he employs the term in such a variety of meanings which are so diverse and unconnected that it is difficult to determine just what he does mean. Among other things that he says of the ecstatic are the following: The ecstatic is the instrument or medium of a spirit foreign to himself, and acts when impelled by this spirit. Manifestations of ecstasy are seen in acts of an unaccountable, sudden, or passionate kind. The ecstatic speaks what is dictated or designated by the spirit, and his speech is as unaccountable and unexpected as his deeds. Holtzmann adds to these accounts of the ways of the ecstatic certain definitions that tend to confuse us, though in some ways they give dignity to ecstasy. For example, ecstasy is sometimes identified with enthusiasm (apparently in a good sense),

sometimes with fanaticism, sometimes with excitement, sometimes with revelation, or inspiration. Everything in the thought or deed of anyone is ecstatic which lies far beyond the circle of the ordinary human, or which transcends the common way of looking at things. Holtzmann is sure that Jesus was at times an ecstatic; and he thinks that the recognition of this makes our thought of Jesus clearer and more vivid. He thinks that John the Baptist was also an ecstatic, and that in this respect Jesus was a follower of John. Without this ecstasy Jesus never could have come to think of himself as the Messiah. This ecstatic state began with his baptism, and the Spirit which controlled him was the Spirit of God. From that time on Jesus knew that he was under the influence of a Spirit hitherto foreign to him. These preliminaries being settled, Holtzmann proceeds to decide which of the words and acts of Jesus were or were not ecstatic. Among the speeches of Jesus those in Luke x, 18-24, and Matt. xii, 28, and xix, 28, are ecstatic; while the eschatological speech of Jesus in Mark xHỉ is not ecstatic. This belief in the immediate end of the world, and that he himself was destined by God to be the Lord of the future, was ecstatic, and out of this belief flowed the idea that the kingdom of God was not wholly in the future, but was actually effective then and there. The eight woes of Matt. xxiii were in some degree ecstatic. The ecstatic in Jesus sometimes manifested itself in his miracles, as, for example, in the cursing of the barren fig tree and the stilling of the storm, but not in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Jesus's prophecy of his suffering and death betray ecstasy, without which the worth of his self-denial could not have been recognized by him. The word of Jesus concerning his burial in connection with the anointing at Bethany was not, but his words and actions in connection with the Last Supper were ecstatic. According to Holtzmann there were instances in which Jesus was a vigorous opponent of the ecstatic state, and his book contains a lengthy section on the nonecstatic activities of Jesus. This is a strange book. Its chief value is, perhaps, in the fact that it gives us a new grouping of the words and deeds of Jesus, and thus helps us to see them apart from the traditional connections. The book is also an honest attempt to recognize the influence of the Spirit of God in the work of Jesus-the Holy Spirit is the foreign Spirit which, sometimes at least, wrought through Jesus. But just here is also the weakness of the book. It assumes that the Spirit of God is essentially foreign to Jesus, whereas the assumption of the New Testament writers is that the Spirit of God is, so to speak, native to him. Holtzmann's attempt to classify the words and deeds of Jesus as ecstatic and nonecstatic will appear to most readers as arbitrary and unsuccessful.

Jesus, was er uns heute ist (What Jesus is to the Man of To-day). By Alfred König, Freiburg i. B., 1903, P. Waetzel. This book is an attempt to show what Christ, apart from any elaborate doctrine concerning his person, is, religiously, to the modern world. The book is in two principal parts, the first treating of the rejection of Christ by the modern man, the second of the grounds upon which Christians affirm his worth