The book here translated is offered to the English-speaking public in the belief that it sets before them, as no other book has ever done, the history of the struggle which the best-equipped intellects of the modern world have gone through in endeavouring to realise for themselves the historical personality of our Lord. Every one nowadays is aware that traditional Christian doctrine about Jesus Christ is encompassed with difficulties, and that many of the statements in the Gospels appear incredi

Primitive Christianity was therefore right to live wholly in the future with the Christ who was to come, and to preserve of the historic Jesus only detached sayings, a few miracles, His death and resurrection. By abolishing both the world and the historical Jesus it escaped the inner division described above, and remained consistent in its point of view. We, on our part, have reason to be grateful to the early Christians that, in consequence of this attitude they have handed down to us, not biog

Before Reimarus, no one had attempted to form a historical conception of the life of Jesus. Luther had not so much as felt that he cared to gain a clear idea of the order of the recorded events. Speaking of the chronology of the cleansing of the Temple, which in John falls at the beginning, in the Synoptists near the close, of Jesus' public life, he remarks: “The Gospels follow no order in recording the acts and miracles of Jesus, and the matter is not, after all, of much importance. If a diffic

Johann Adolph Jakobi. Superintendent at Waltershausen. Die Geschichte Jesu für denkende und gemütvolle Leser, 1816. (The History of Jesus for thoughtful and sympathetic readers.) A second volume, containing the history of the apostolic age, followed in 1818. Johann Gottfried Herder. Vom Erlöser der Menschen. Nach unsern drei ersten Evangelien. (The Redeemer of men, as portrayed in our first three Gospels.) 1796. Von Gottes Sohn, der Welt Heiland. Nach Johannes Evangelium. (The Son of God, the Sa

It is strange to notice how often in the history of our subject a few imperfectly equipped free-lances have attacked and attempted to carry the decisive positions before the ordered ranks of professional theology have pushed their advance to these decisive points. Thus, it was the fictitious “Lives” of Bahrdt and Venturini which, at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, first attempted to apply, with logical consistency, a non-supernatural interpretation to the mir

Paulus was not the mere dry-as-dust rationalist that he is usually represented to have been, but a man of very versatile abilities. His limitation was that, like Reinhard, he had an unconquerable distrust of anything that went outside the boundaries of logical thought. That was due in part to the experiences of his youth. His father, a deacon in Leonberg, half-mystic, half-rationalist, had secret difficulties about the doctrine of immortality, and made his wife promise on her death-bed that, if

In their treatment of the life of Jesus, Hase and Schleiermacher are in one respect still wholly dominated by rationalism. They still cling to the rationalistic explanation of miracle; although they have no longer the same ingenuous confidence in it as their predecessors, and although at the decisive cases they are content to leave a question-mark instead of offering a solution. They might, in fact, be described as the sceptics of rationalism. In another respect, however, they aim at something b

According to Vischer's picture of him, the tall stripling made an impression of great charm, though he was rather shy except with intimates. He attended lectures with pedantic regularity. Baur was at that time still immersed in the prolegomena to his system; but Strauss already suspected the direction which the thoughts of his young teacher were to take. When Strauss and his student friends entered on their duties as clergymen, the others found great difficulty in bringing their theological view

Considered as a literary work, Strauss's first Life of Jesus is one of the most perfect things in the whole range of learned literature. In over fourteen hundred pages he has not a superfluous phrase; his analysis descends to the minutest details, but he does not lose his way among them; the style is simple and picturesque, sometimes ironical, but always dignified and distinguished. In regard to the application of the mythological explanation to Holy Scripture, Strauss points out that De Wette,

Aug. Wilh. Neander. Das Leben Jesu-Christi. Hamburg, 1837. Dr. Neanders auf höhere Veranlassung abgefasstes Gutachten über das Buch des Dr. Strauss' “ Leben-Jesu ” und das in Beziehung auf die Verbreitung desselben zu beachtende Verfahren. (Dr. Neander's report, drawn up at the request of the authorities, upon Dr. Strauss's “ Leben-Jesu ” and the measures to be adopted in regard to its circulation.) 1836. Leonhard Hug. Gutachten über das Leben-Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet von D. Fr. Strauss. (Repor

The “Gospel History” of Weisse was written, like Strauss's Life of Jesus, by a philosopher who had been driven out of philosophy and forced back upon theology. Weisse was born in 1801 at Leipzig, and became Professor Extraordinary of Philosophy in the university there in 1828. In 1837, finding his advance to the Ordinary Professorship barred by the Herbartians, he withdrew from academic teaching and gave himself to the preparation of this work, the plan of which he had had in mind for some time.

Philo, Strauss, Renan und das Urchristentum. (P., S., R., and Primitive Christianity.) Berlin, 1874. 155 pp. Christus und die Cäsaren. Der Ursprung des Christentums aus dem römischen Griechentum. (The Origin of Christianity from Graeco-Roman Civilisation.) Berlin, 1877. 387 pp. Bruno Bauer was born in 1809 at Eisenberg, in the duchy of Sachsen-Altenburg. In philosophy, he was at first associated entirely with the Hegelian “right.” Like Strauss, he received a strong impulse from Vatke. At this st

Vol. i. 1st ed., 1831; 2nd, 1835. Part i. 543 pp.; Part ii. 406 pp. Vol. ii. 1838. Part i. 452 pp.; Part ii. 417 pp. Richard von der Alm. (Pseudonym of Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany .) Theologische Briefe an die Gebildeten der deutschen Nation, 1863. (Theological Letters to the Cultured Classes of the German People, 1863.) Vol. i. 929 pp.; Vol. ii. 656 pp.; Vol. iii. 802 pp. Ludwig Noack. Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grund freier geschichtlicher Untersuchungen über das Evangelium und die Evangelien. (Th

Ernest Renan was born in 1823 at Tréguier in Brittany. Intended for the priesthood, he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, but there, in consequence of reading the German critical theology, he began to doubt the truth of Christianity and of its history. In October 1845, shortly before the time arrived for him to be ordained a sub-deacon, he left the seminary and began to work for his living as a private teacher. In 1849 he received a government grant to enable him to make a journey to

Die Halben und die Ganzen. (The Half-way-ers and the Whole-way-ers.) 1865. Daniel Schenkel. Das Charakterbild Jesu. (The Portrait of Jesus.) Wiesbaden, 1864 (ed. 1 and 2). 405 pp. Fourth edition, with a preface opposing Strauss's “ Der alte und der neue Glaube ” (The Old Faith and the New), 1873. Karl Heinrich Weizsäcker. Untersuchungen über die evangelische Geschichte, ihre Quellen und den Gang ihrer Entwicklung. (Studies in the Gospel History, its Sources and the Progress of its Development.)

W. Baldensperger. Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Lichte der messianischen Hoffnungen seiner Zeit. (The Self-consciousness of Jesus in the Light of the Messianic Hopes of His time.) Strassburg, 1888. 2nd ed., 1892, 282 pp.; 3rd ed. pt. i. 240 pp. Johannes Weiss. Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes. (The Preaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God.) 1892. Göttingen. 67 pp. Second revised and enlarged edition, 1900, 210 pp. So long as it was merely a question of establishing the distinctive char

Emil Schürer. Das messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu-Christi. 1903. Akademische Festrede. (The Messianic Self-consciousness of Jesus Christ.) 24 pp. Wilhelm Brandt. Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christentums auf Grund einer Kritik der Berichte über das Leiden und die Auferstehung Jesu. (The Gospel History and the Origin of Christianity. Based upon a Critical Study of the Narratives of the Sufferings and Resurrection of Jesus.) Leipzig, 1893. 591 pp. Adolf Jülicher. Die Gleich

Gustaf Dalman. Grammatik des jüdisch-palästinensischen Aramäisch. (Grammar of Jewish-Palestinian Aramaic.) Leipzig, 1894. Die Worte Jesu. Mit Berücksichtigung des nachkanonischen jüdischen Schrifttums und der aramäischen Sprache. (The Sayings of Jesus considered in connexion with the post-canonical Jewish writings and the Aramaic Language.) I. Introduction and certain leading conceptions: with an appendix on Messianic texts. Leipzig, 1898. 309 pp. A. Wünsche. Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der Ev

Die Geschichte Jesu. Erläutert. Mit drei Karten von Prof. K. Furrer (Zürich). (The History of Jesus. Preliminary Discussions. With three maps by Prof. K. Furrer of Zurich.) Tübingen, 1904. 414 pp. Otto Schmiedel. Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. (The main Problems in the Study of the Life of Jesus.) Tübingen, 1902. 71 pp. 2nd ed., 1906. Hermann Freiherr von Soden. Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu. (The most important Questions about the Life of Jesus.) Vacation Lectures. Berlin, 1

The coincidence between the work of Wrede 259 and the “Sketch of the Life of Jesus” is not more surprising in regard to the time of their appearance than in regard to the character of their contents. They appeared upon the self-same day, their titles are almost identical, and their agreement in the criticism of the modern historical conception of the life of Jesus extends sometimes to the very phraseology. And yet they are written from quite different standpoints, one from the point of view of l

The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Saviour. It loosed the bands by which He had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine, and rejoiced to see life and movement coming into the figure once more, and the historical Jesus advancing, as it seemed, to meet it. But He does not stay; He passes by our time and