History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion Part 28

Note 33. p. 255. The Name Jehovah.

The name ???? is written _Jehovah_, by transferring to it the vowel points of the word _Adonai_, ????, which the pious scruples of the Jews led them to subst.i.tute for it. It was probably read _Yahveh_. In reference to the meaning of _El_, and _Jehovah_, see Gesenius's _Lexicon_ on the words ??

(p. 45. Engl. Transl.), and ???? (p. 337); also the word _hajah_, ???, (p.

221.) See likewise Hengstenberg's _Authentie. des Pentateuches_, i. 222 seq.; especially p. 230, where he shows that _jahveh_, ????, is derived by regular a.n.a.logy from the future of the verb _hajah_, ??? ( = _havah_, ???). See also M. Nicholas's _Etudes Crit. sur la Bible_, pp. 115, 163; and the article _Jehovah_ in Smith's _Biblical Dictionary_.

Note 34. p. 256. The Use Of The Names Of Deity In The Composition Of Hebrew Proper Names.

A curious list of these is given by Dr. Donaldson. (_Christian Orthodoxy_, pp. 235, 6.)

Examples of names before the age of Saul, compounded with _El_, are seen in _El_-kanah, _El_-i, Samu-_el_, Abi-_el_. When Saul reigns we find the name Jah or Jehovah appear, in _Jeho_-nathan, Ahi-_jah_, Jedid-_iah_; and during the regal period in the list of kings, Jos-_iah_, _Jeho_-abaz, _Jeho_-i-akim, Zedek-_iah_; and among the prophets, Isa-_iah_, Jerem-_iah_, Mica-_iah_, _Jeho_-sheah. After the fall of Judah we find the name El reappear; e.g. Ezeki-_el_ ( = Hezek-_iah_), Dani-_el_, Micha-_el_, Gabri-_el_, _El_-ias.h.i.+b, Shealti-_el_. After the captivity the name Jah recurs; e.g. Nehem-_iah_, Zephan-_iah_, Zechar-_iah_, Malach-_iah_. The name _El_-i-_jah_ ( = my G.o.d is Jah) is an instance of a word compounded with both names.

Donaldson tries to generalize from the above to the effect, that, previously to the age of the early kings, proper names compounded with _El_ were prevalent; and in the regal and prophetic age, those compounded with _Jah_; again, after the fall of Judah, and in the captivity, those with _El_; and after the captivity, with _Jah_. But the selection is too limited to admit of such a generalization being satisfactory. It does however prove the knowledge of the twofold conception implied by the use of the names.

Lecture VII.

Note 35. p. 264. The Hegelian Philosophy.

The purpose of this note is to supply references to sources for the study of Hegel's philosophy; and also to point out the parallel and contrast in the central thought and tendency of the philosophies of Sch.e.l.ling and Hegel.

The most intelligible account of Hegel's system is given by Morell, _History of Philosophy_, ii. 161-196; and the best general view of its tendencies, especially in reference to theology, is contained in an instructive article by E. Scherer, in the _Rev. des Deux Mondes_ for Feb.

15, 1861, from which a.s.sistance has been derived in this lecture. The student will also find great help in Chalybaus's _Hist. of Spec. Philos._ ch. xi-xvii (translated 1854); and A. Vera's _Introduction a la Phil. de Hegel_, 1855; together with his French translation of Hegel's _Logic_.

(Vera is one of the few Italians who understand Hegel.) The _Philosophie der Geschichte_, and _Geschichte der Philosophie_ are the two most intelligible of Hegel's works; the former of which is translated into English; but the study of his _Logic_ is indispensable, for seeing the applications of his method, as well as for appreciating his metaphysical ability and real position.

Sch.e.l.ling and Hegel both seek to solve the problems of philosophy, by starting _a priori_ with the idea of the absolute; but in Sch.e.l.ling's case it is perceived by a _presentative_ power (intellectual intuition), and in Hegel's by a _representative_. The former faculty perceives the absolute object; the latter the absolute relation, if such a term be not a contradiction. In each case the percipient power is supposed to be "above consciousness;" i.e. not trammelled by those limitations of object and subject which are the conditions of ordinary consciousness. In both systems a kind of threefold process is depicted, as the law or movement according to which the absolute manifests itself.(1069) Sir W. Hamilton has shown the inconsistencies of Sch.e.l.ling's system, in criticising that of Cousin, who was his great exponent; see _Dissertations_, ess. i.

(reprinted from the _Edinburgh Review_, 1829); and Mr. Mansel has extended a similar a.n.a.lysis to Fichte and Hegel. (_Bampton Lectures_, ii. and iii; and article _Metaphysic_ in _Encyclop. Britann._ 10th ed. p. 607, &c. See also Remusat _De la Philosophie Allemande_, Introduction.) Yet a grand thought, even though, psychologically speaking, it be an unreal one, lies beneath the awkward terminology of the systems of Sch.e.l.ling and Hegel; and their _method_ has influenced many who do not consciously embrace their philosophy. The effect produced by Sch.e.l.ling is the desire to seize the prime idea, the _beau ideal_ of any subject, and trace its manifestations in the field of history; a method which is seen in the French historic and critical literature of the followers of Cousin in the reign of Louis Philippe. (See Note 9, and the references given in Note 44.) The spirit produced by Hegel, is the desire to realise the truth contained in opposite views of the same subject; to view each as a half truth, and error itself as a part of the struggle toward truth. This spirit and method are seen in such a writer as Renan, and is clearly described in the pa.s.sages quoted from Scherer and others in Note 9.

Note 36. p. 271. The Christology Of Strauss.

The following extract from Strauss's work conveys his Christology.

"This is the key to the whole of Christology, that, as subject of the predicate which the church a.s.signs to Christ, we place instead of an individual, an idea; but an idea which has an existence in reality, not in the mind only, like that of Kant. In an individual, a G.o.d-man, the properties and functions which the church ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; in the idea of the race they perfectly agree. Humanity is the union of the two natures;-G.o.d become man; the infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude: it is the child of the visible mother and the invisible father, Nature and Spirit: it is the worker of miracles, in so far as in the course of human history the spirit more and more completely subjugates nature, both within and around man, until it lies before him as the inert matter on which he exercises his active power: it is the sinless existence, for the course of its development is a blameless one, pollution cleaves to the individual only, and does not touch the race or its history. It is Humanity that dies, rises, and ascends to heaven; for, from the negation of its phenomenal life, there ever proceeds a higher spiritual life; from the suppression of its mortality as a personal, rational, and terrestrial spirit, arises its union with the infinite spirit of the heavens. By faith in this Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, man is justified before G.o.d; that is, by the kindling within him of the idea of humanity, the individual man partic.i.p.ates in the divinely human life of the species. Now the main element of that idea is, that the negation of the merely natural and sensual life, which is itself the negation of the spirit, is the sole way to true spiritual life.

This alone is the absolute sense of Christology. That it is annexed to the person and history of one individual is a necessary result of the historical form which Christology has taken." _Leben Jesu_, vol. ii. -- 151. (pp. 709, 10. 4th ed. 1840); in the English translation, vol. iii. p. 433.

Note 37. p. 278. Strauss.

A few facts concerning the life and writings of Strauss may be interesting.

He was born in 1808, and was educated at Tubingen and Berlin. He was _Repet.i.teur_ at Tubingen in 1835, when he published his _Leben Jesu_, described in the text of Lect. VII. In 1837 he published his _Streit-schriften_, or replies to his critics. In 1839 he was elected Professor of theology at Zurich, an appointment which produced such popular indignation that it was cancelled, and a change of government was caused by it. In 1840 he published _Die Christliche Glaubenslehre im Kampfe mil der modernen Wissenschaft dargestellt_; in which, after an introduction concerning the history of opinions on the relation of the two, he discussed the principles of Christian doctrine, such as the Bible, Canon, Evidences, &c. and next the doctrines themselves; viz. (part i.) on the divine Being and His attributes, as an abstract conception; (part ii.) on the same, as the object of empirical conceptions in its manifestation in creation, &c. See _Foreign Quart. Rev._ No. 54. 1841; and C. Schwarz's _Gesch. der n. Theol._ b. ii. ch. i. He published also _Monologen in dem Freihafen_, translated 1848; _Soliloquies on the Christian Religion, its Errors, and Everlasting Truth_.

In 1848, the revolutionary year, he was elected to the Wurtemburg Parliament; and took the conservative side, to the surprise of his const.i.tuents. He has subsequently lived chiefly at Heilbronn, engaged in literary labours; mostly writing the lives of sceptics, or persons connected with free thought whose fate has been like his own. Among these have been, a sketch of Julian, 1847, intended probably as a satire on the romantic reaction conducted by the late king of Prussia; a Life of Schubart, 1849, a Swabian poet of the last century; one of Maerklin 1851, his own early friend; one of N. Frischlin, 1856, a learned German of the sixteenth century; a life of Ulric von Hutten, 1858; and _Gesprache von Hutten_, 1861; also _Kleine Schriften_, 1861; and a work on _Reimarus_, 1862, concerning which see Note 29. Some of these works are reviewed in the _Nat. Rev._ Nos. 7 and 12.

Note 38. p. 273. The Replies To Strauss.

Schwarz gives an interesting account of the various replies to Strauss, and of the works written by various theologians to support their own point of view against his criticisms. _Gesch. der n. Theol._ p. 113 seq.

The work was criticised,-

I. From the old school of orthodoxy, (a) by Steudel, Strauss's own teacher, in a work called _Vorlaufig zu Beherzigenden zur Beruhigung der Gemuthen_. () From the new orthodoxy, by Hengstenberg, in the _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_. (?) From the school which formed the transition between this and that of Schleiermacher by Tholuck;, in _Glaubwurdigkeit der Evangelischen Geschichte_, 1837.

II. From the school of Schleiermacher, (a) in Neander's _Leben Jesu_, () in Ullmann's _Studien und Kritiken_, 1836. part iii. Reprinted as _Historisch oder Mythisch_.

III. By the Hegelians; 1. from the "right" of the party (using the ill.u.s.tration drawn from the distribution of political parties in the foreign parliaments), (a) by Goschel in the work _Von Gott, dem Menschen und dem GottesMenschen_, 1838; () by Dorner in the _Geschichte der Person Christi_, 1839. (?) by Gabler and Bruno Bauer, who at that time was on the side of orthodoxy: 2. from the Hegelian "centre" in Schaller's _Der Historischer Christus und die Philosophie_, 1838; 3. from the "left," (a) by Weisse, _Die Evangelische Geschichte kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitet_, 1838: () by Wilke, _Der Ur-evangelist_; both of whom regard St. Mark's as the primitive evangile; and (?) by Bruno Bauer, _Kritik der Synoptiker_, 1842, when he had changed to the opposite side of the Hegelian school: (d) by Luetzelberger; (e) by A. Schweizer; both of whom wrote on St. John's Gospel. Several of the latter were not intended to be replies to Strauss, but attempts to reconsider their own position in relation to him. This was particularly the case in reference to the works which were written by the Tubingen school, (see next note,) of which Schwarz gives a description, p. 153 seq.

Note 39. p. 278. The Tubingen School.

The leader of the historico-critical school which bears this name, was C.

Baur (1792-1860), author of various works on the history of doctrine, and on church history both doctrinal and critical. His work against the Roman catholic theologian Moehler, which first made him noted, was _Gegensatz des Protestantismus und Katholicismus nach den principien und Haupt-dogmen der beiden Lehrbegriffe_, 1833. An account of his works is given in C.

Schwarz's _Gesch. der neuest. Theol._ p. 165. The following may be here specified: his work on the history of the doctrine of the atonement, _Die Lehre von der Versohnung_, 1838; also _Lehrbuch der Christlichen Dogmengeschichte_, 1845, and _Die Christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte_, 1853; the last part of which has been published since his death. Some interesting remarks, comparing him with Strauss and Schleiermacher, (though hardly fair to the last,) appeared in the _National Rev._ Jan, 1861. See also the sketch by Nefftzer in the _Revue Germanique_, vol. xiii. parts 1 and 2.

The other members of the school besides Baur have been Schwegler, the commentator on Aristotle's Metaphysics, and author of a Roman History (died 1857); Zeller, also a writer on Greek philosophy, now Professor of philosophy at Marburg; whose appointment to Berne in 1847 has been elsewhere stated to have caused a similar excitement to that of Strauss to Zurich; Koestlin, Professor of aesthetics at Tubingen; and Hilgenfeld, Professor of theology at Jena, who is the best living representative of the modified form which the school has now a.s.sumed. Respecting these theologians, see the notes which Stap has affixed, in the _Revue Germanique_, vol. ix. p. 560, &c. to a French translation of a part of Schwarz's _Geschichte_.

Concerning this school see Baur's _Die Tubinger Schule_, 1859. The organ of it from 1842-57 was the _Theologische Jahrbucher_, edited by Baur.

Since it ceased to be published, Hilgenfeld has created a new journal, the _Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftliche Theologie_, which receives the support of critics not directly of the Tubingen school, such as. .h.i.tzig and k.n.o.bel.

Perhaps Schneckenburger ought to be ranked with the same school; and Gfrorer also, author of a work on Philo, 1831; but he differed in holding the authenticity of St. John's Gospel; and in 1846 became a Roman catholic, and Professor at Freiberg. See also a paper in Von Sybel's _Hist. Zeitschr._ for 1860, part iv. translated in _Biblioth. Sacr._, Jan.

1862. The Tubingen school has met with able opponents, e.g. Thiersch, Dorner, Ewald, Bleek, Reuss, and Hase.

Note 40. p. 281. The German Theologian Rothe.

Concerning this theologian, now Professor at Heidelberg, see C. Schwarz's _Geschichte der neuesten Theologie_, p. 279 seq. The cause why the remarks in the text are so brief in regard to Rothe is, that the writer has not been able to see his more important works, which are out of print; and accordingly he derives his knowledge of him at second hand.