ART. 1. THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD'S PASSION,

ACCORDING TO THE FOUR EVANGELISTS.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE GERMAN OF OLSHAUSEN:

BY SAMUEL OSGOOD.

MORS CHRISTI, VITA MUNDI.

[The commentary on the New Testament by Dr. Hermann Olshausen, of which the above mentioned treatise constitutes the second division of the second volume, is a master-piece of philological and philosophical criticism. It unites many excellencies, that are rarely found in the same mind. It is remarkable for its exact criticism, and also for the power and beauty of its moral portraiture. It is instinct with faithfull of the very soul of Christianity, and at the same time, as attentive and deferential to the letter of Scripture, even to the minutest points, as the most acute hair-splitting philologist could desire. Its tone throughout is that of an elevated spirituality, and yet it never forgets, what most spiritualists are apt to lose sight of, that the spirit is manifested through a material organization, and that what we call matter as well as what we call spirit, may be divine. The reader will be struck by the latter peculiarity, in reading what the author says of Christ's presence in the communion sacrament, and of Christ's glorified body.

We endeavor to give the substance of the treatise. Of course it is foreign to the purpose of our Journal, to give Greek and Hebrew criticisms, such as scholars alone can understand. We leave

out nothing, that is important to the leading idea of the work, or to the impression, which this faithful delineation of these most affecting and momentous scenes in the world's history, must convey to every open heart. We will not even do the author the injustice to omit those passages, which contain doctrines, that we do not approve, and which we do not think essential to the general tenor of his work.

Olshausen is claimed by the orthodox of our country, as one of the shining lights of their faith. We are rejoiced at it. He probably is about as orthodox in their sense of the term, as any of the great German divines. But his orthodoxy is as different from our American Calvinism or Presbyterianism, as light from darkness. The diffusion of such works among our narrow orthodox dogmatists, would do more to liberalize the church, than any thing our liberal Christians can write. From such means, we have great hopes for the downfall of bigotry, and the reign of a pure Christian faith.

Some remarks will be found in these pages, in favor of the doctrine of the Trinity and the Atonement. We have no fear of their destroying the faith of our Unitarian readers. We should rejoice if they would do something to cure the sceptical kind of Unitarianism, which too much abounds in our denomination, and which recognizes in Jesus Christ no extraordinary Divine union with the Father, in the indiscriminate assertion of his humanity; and which recognizes no peculiar, saving and reconciling power in Him -in its unqualified assertion of man's entire competency to work out his own spiritual salvation. However, even the doctrinal opinions of the author, if fully looked into, will be found to be such, as a spiritually minded Unitarian might assent to.

We are to learn more of Jesus and his mission- we may never learn the whole of the sublime truth. Our present ideas of the Savior, are low and dead compared with what they will be, as we advance in spiritual knowledge. Each stage of the soul's progress in Christian knowledge, should be regarded as the grave, from which a more glorious knowledge is to arise. At each step in our moral progress, the vision brightens. The angel of Truth points to our past and present stage of progress, in the knowledge of the Savior, and says, "He is not here: he is risen. Why seek ye the living among the dead?"

It has been announced, that the whole of Olshausen's Commentary is to be translated, by some one at the Princeton Theological Seminary. We hope the announcement is true. We should rejoice, if our Calvinistic brethren would take into their own hands, the regeneration of their dying system of faith. We hope that whoever translates the work, will not so overlay it with notes and qualifications, as to smother all its life and soul.

The substance of the treatise at hand, may be published in two or three articles of our Magazine.-Translator.]

INTRODUCTION.

The accounts in the four Gospels, of the sufferings, death and resurrection of Christ, form in themselves so harmonious a whole, that we call them the Passion-history, and devote to them a separate consideration. All our canonical Gospels have not only, as its importance demands, treated this part of our Lord's history with peculiar exactness and predilection, inas much, as they give us such detailed accounts of a few days, that this is thereby distinguished from the other parts of the Gospel history; but aside from the manner of representation, an entirely different character is expressed in the portraiture of our Savior, from what we discover in the preceding pages of the Gospels. Although the garb of lowliness and poverty enrobed our Lord, from the manger to the cross, yet heretofore a surprising majesty was revealed under this garb. Although Jesus had not where to lay his head, he still ruled as Prophet and King. He spake, as never man spake, he commanded the hearts of his followers and reigned in the midst of his enemies, who, held by the viewless bands of the Spirit, could not limit the broad compass of his activity; he exercised unlimited power over the forces of Nature, ruled the storm, walked over the waves of the sea, fed thousands with a few loaves, healed the sick, drove away evil spirits. But in these last days of his earthly pilgrimage, this radiant glory, which surrounded his exalted appearance, vanishes altogether. His speech, alike gentle and powerful, is silent before the multitude of hearers, whom it had addressed in vain: Jesus confines himself to the little company of his disciples, and strives to plant in their hearts the undying germ of the kingdom of God: his glorious miracles cease, every thing brilliant, every thing extraordinary vanishes, the poverty and lowliness of the outer being reached inward through the whole soul; he sinks, as it were step by step, the more deeply down. The eye awake to the conception of true majesty and beauty readily sees in this utter uncomeliness, the secret glory of the Heavenly image, beaming forth the more purely and clearly. Although the active virtues shine the stronger, yet the passive ones are truly greater and the harder to exercise. These have their perfect work in Christ; the record of his sufferings breathes but a heavenly forbearance, gentleness, patience.

Even if we consider the person of Christ as merely human, the story of his sorrows presents a touching and deeply affecting image. But the higher view of his person alone can give

:

the true idea of the events, which the Evangelists record of our Lord's last days on earth. The faith, that in Christ Jesus, the word of the Father was made flesh, that all the prophets have spoken of him and his appearing, that he was appointed to raise up that, which was sunk in guilt by the fall of man, and to restore the lost this faith first gives to the story of the Passion the full meaning, which belongs to it, and shews the connection between the sufferings and death of Jesus, and his resurrection, as the object of the most momentous concern. His sufferings and death do not appear to the eye of faith, as something brought on by the power of circumstances, as a sacrifice for a truth, an exalted idea: but as a free will offering of the Son of God, for the reconciliation of a sinful world and his resurrection, as the necessary consummation of his death of pure love, since its all conquering power subdued death, and life could not be held in its bonds.Thus as we see in the history of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, the middle point of the Gospel; the fountain of new life, which rests in him, forms peculiarly the idea of it. It will seem less improbable to us then, than it usually appears to men, that the minute circumstances in this history, which are very often specially stated, constitute important features in this most remarkable picture: all will have a meaning for us, because it relates to Him and to Him at these holy moments. The importance is not to be given to the outward events as such; a nobler, a far deeper idea of the history presses upon the believer, according to which we discover in the particular circumstances, not mere accidents, but an order divinely willed, which by deeds and events speaks to the world like a creating Fiat. Although henceforth, the mouth of Truth was silent, and crucified Love gave no more admonitions to men, still the whole career of our Lord speaks, and he still speaks with more life and power to the world of sin, through all the events, by which he finished his course, than all the warnings and exhortations of the prophets and men of God. The suffering, dying and victoriously rising Savior, with all the various attendant circumstances, affords a complete model of the great contest between the powers of Good and Evil, about which the world's history turns in its developement. In this view, the history of the Passion takes its deep, we may say, its infinite character. If in the history of the last moments of Christ on earth, we look only at the outward side, there the griefs of many another sufferer may seem in some respects more severe, according to the torments heaped upon him; in some respects more imposing, through the firmness

and consequence of the struggler, while Jesus appeared anxious and faltering in his inmost soul, (a circumstance, which will be more closely examined in the consideration of the agony of the Lord in Gethsemane ); in some respects more attractive through the abundance of striking occurrences in the contest. But viewed on the inner side, every other historical occurrence can be no more compared to the sufferings and death of Christ, than any human teacher can be compared with our Lord's self. While it is the most exalted office of an earthly sage, to be a genuine inquirer after Truth, Christ himself is the actual Truth, which the former seeks.All the rays of shining virtues, which have appeared in all the earthly champions and sufferers for Truth and Right, are united in him, as the Sun, and melted into an unutterable unity, both of essence and nature.

PART FIRST:

ON THE SUFFERINGS AND DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST.

(MATT. 26, 27. MARK 14, 15. LUKE 22, 23. JOHN 18, 19.

Before proceeding to the explanation of particulars, we give in few words, a general view of the four Gospels, in regard to the order of events, in the portion of history we are considering. While John, as early as the thirteenth chapter, describes the Savior's last supper with his disciples, (a description, which together with the accompanying sayings, of our Lord reaches to 17 chap. 19 verse,) Mark comes much later to the description. It may hence seem, as if the joint consideration of all four Gospels in this section of Evangelical history, must have great difficulties. But upon a sufficient consideration, these difficulties appear far less, than would be supposed.Except an account of the anointing by Mary at Bethany, which has already been considered in the exposition of John, the three synoptical * Evangelists give no fact, which is to be placed before the last supper; only in two short remarks, that are couched in general terms, the particulars of which have their explanation elsewhere, they speak of the wicked plotting of the Pharisees and the treachery of Judas. Hence the matter stands in such a way, that we have only two distinct accounts of the last supper of Jesus with his disciples:

This treatise following, and being part of the exposition of John, the three other Gospels are therefore called Synoptical.