Notwithstanding these and other similar criticisms, there are points on which Haupt agrees with Nösgen, and the discussion of these points leads to much interesting exposition. He agrees in the view that Christ's work of revelation begins with His public ministry, the history of the miraculous birth being treated as introductory to the latter. "He has not put the history of the birth, although he holds it to be thoroughly historical, at the beginning, but treated it as an explanation of what we see in the man Jesus, as a necessary postulate without which His self-consciousness could not be what it is. This, in my opinion, is the only right way to arrive at certainty respecting the real centre of the history, namely, that His birth was a miracle, not a natural product of human history." So, again, he commends Nösgen for disclaiming the view that there is nothing individual and peculiar in Christ's character, that He is simply the universal human ideal. "On the contrary, it is rightly maintained that Jesus exhibits thoroughly concrete, individual traits in every respect. He shows no aptitude for being scholar, artist, statesman, generalall at once. His human endowment is such that it corresponds to the task that lay before Him. His moral and religious character also was no universal one, but individual. The truer all this is, the more unreasonable it seems for Nösgen to decline the task of describing this individuality. He holds it impossible, because the description of Christ's inner life is above the reach of simply human psychology. Sinful men, like us, lack the inner likeness necessary for such a work. Doubtless there is some truth in this. We can never fully penetrate into the mystery of the Lord's inward life. No ordinary man, even, is wholly transparent to another. But it does not follow from this that no knowledge of other characters is possible. Many of the peculiar traits in the Lord's image can be ascertained and described. We only need to ask whether the first disciples did not carry in their soul a clearly defined, although imperfect, image of the Lord's character, in distinction from other men, or whether that image was to them wrapped in mist. If the former is certainly the case, it must have been possible for them to embody the image of this unique personality in words; and again the same must be possible to us in a more limited degree, on the basis of their narratives."

Finally, let us mention a novel suggestion of Haupt's. It is that the Lord returned to heaven at the Resurrection and at the close of each subsequent appearance to the disciples. "This, in my opinion, is the only view which corresponds to the Biblical narrative, and suits the circumstances. It is favoured, not only by the disappearance after every manifestation, not only by the fact that throughout the New Testament the Resurrection and Ascension are combined together, and by the fact that the Ascension, in the usual sense of the word, receives no special emphasis; but, above all, by the analogy of the Damascus manifestation. This, as we know, Paul places in the same line with the earlier appearances. If thus Christ revealed Himself to Paul out of this heavenly glory, the same may be true of the former cases. Nösgen cannot support his opposition by the saying to Mary, 'I am not yet ascended,' for Jesus immediately says in the present, I ascend.' There is no ground for the monstrous view that every time Jesus must have assumed the old body. For the undoubted meaning, at least, in Luke and John, is that the body in which He appeared was not the old one, and the same follows from the phrase, 'Thou fool,' with which Paul introduces the statement that the body sown is not the one that rises again, for it is sown a physical body, and it is raised a spiritual body."

Would that Dr. Haupt himself would give us a history of the New Testament revelation!

THE ULTIMATE TEST OF BIBLICAL FAITH. DR. KOENIG, Rostock (Neue Kirchl.

Zeitschrift, January, 1892).-The views of Dr. Haupt, hinted at in the previous article, and more fully expounded in a separate publication, are sharply criticized by the Rostock professor in a long and able article, which is also published separately (Die letzte Instanz des Biblischen Glaubens, Leipzig, Deichert). Dr. Haupt finds the supreme proof of the divinity of Christianity and the supreme ground of faith in the effects of faith on the individual. He makes the inward subjective evidence virtually supersede the outward historic evidence of Scripture. But how is the former to arise except on the ground of the latter? Must not the latter precede? Haupt's position has some affinity with the one taken by Dr. Dale in his work on Christ and the Gospels, where the same questions apply. It is easy to see how one who is a believer in the historical Christ of Scripture, though his knowledge and faith may be imperfect, may be led to a higher spiritual faith, which thenceforward holds its ground in face of all difficulties; but it is not easy to see how spiritual faith could ever arise in connection with ignorance or denial of the historical Christ. These are substantially the reasons which Dr. Koenig presses home in his essay; he has a much clearer and happier style than his colleague, Dr. Nösgen. Omitting personal questions, we may note a few points in his argument.

Dr. Koenig says, "All my investigations into the attempts made in the course of centuries to construct a basis of Christian faith have convinced me that the real, not merely supposed, connection of Christianity with a real superhuman sphere cannot be established by any line of proof that starts from the teachings or effects of Christianity." The teachings in the strict sense are certain statements as to Christ's person, certain commands and promises. Are all these self-evidently Divine? If so, how account for the vast amount of unbelief? "Further, the effects of Christianity are never in the New Testament viewed as existing apart from historic Christianity, and, therefore, never treated as phenomena from which the Divine character of Christianity itself can be inferred. They are rather regarded as signs by which the persons experiencing them may recognize the fact of their own participation in the blessings of that union with Christ which is the fruit of faith. These effects are such as the sense of redemption, inward peace, &c. The reception of the Spirit is not treated as an independent attestation because of the ease with which natural and supernatural may be confounded." "To those who have already entered into actual relation to the Father by acknowledging historic Christianity, the Holy Spirit, the medium of Divine love (Rom. v. 5), is an earnest and pledge of the full inheritance of Christians, a proof that Christ and God are theirs."

"In modern days the teaching and effects of Christianity are treated in more than one direction as if they were independent proofs of the superhuman origin of Christianity, as if they were sufficient for this purpose without previous acknowledgment of Christianity. One way of doing this is to place the external and internal evidences of the Divinity of the religion of the Bible behind the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit. It is said that the former criteria yield merely a fides humana, and that a fides divina can be obtained only in the latter way, and, further, that the inward signs of the Spirit's workings in reading and hearing the words of Scripture are the sole conclusive proof of the Divine origin of Holy Scripture." Dr. Koenig has fully discussed this position in a separate work. In the article he goes on to say, "If it were true that in reading and hearing the Bible more persons felt moral and religious influence, and even improvement, than is the case, this would not establish a really unique connection of the Bible with an objective Divine revelation. To say nothing of the fact that other books give rise to elevated and elevating emotion, I must remark that the loftiest teachings of Scripture might

simply be the finest fruit of human culture. That the superhuman origin of the Biblical religion is not really established by such an inner testimony of the Holy Spirit' appears certain if we remember that such an orthodox man as J. D. Michaelis avowed that he felt no such testimony in his own life, that Romanists, down to Hettinger, make fun of the appeal to this proof in evangelical theology, and that David Strauss called the use of this testimony the Achilles-heel of the Protestant system. Now Haupt appears and wishes to turn the Achilles-heel into the Achillesshield. I feel myself compelled to declare that in what is called in the strict sense the doctrine of Christianity and its effects, no independent proof of the Divine origin of Christianity can be found, either according to New Testament teaching or in the nature of the case."

....

Of course Dr. Haupt does not maintain that any one can arrive at saving faith "without any knowledge of the Gospel, and especially of Him who not merely brought but is the Gospel." But let the following sentence be noted: "Even in the most hopeless cases, in which all assent to the Gospel is absent, this Gospel may yet prove itself a power of God. Despite their doubt, God's hand may by the message of the Gospel so powerfully seize men that they cannot shake it off." Dr. Koenig comments thus: "No words can hide the simple truth, that so long as all assent to the Gospel is wanting it cannot prove itself a power, much less a power of God. If a moral and religious change takes place in the soul of one in whom all such assent is wanting, two cases are conceivable. Either an unconscious assent to one element of the Gospel has taken place in this soul, although not evident to itself, much less to others, and in this case the Gospel may be the cause of the change; or, there is not even unconscious assent, and then the Gospel has not shown itself a power. The same judgment must be passed on the next sentence, 'Despite their doubt,' &c. For certainly if the doubt of the Gospel is merely partial, existing only on the surface of the inner life, the message of the Gospel may seize such men, so that they cannot shake it off; but not if this doubt is total and penetrates to the depths of the inner life. . . . Logic and psychology teach with inexorable stringency that the Gospel can only be regarded as the cause of a soul coming to acknowledge the things testified by the Gospel from the moment when at least some unconscious assent to the Gospel has arisen in the soul."

Reason and experience suggest the order of salvation to be that a man hears of Christ, believes in Him as Divine, however imperfect his knowledge and faith, and then further receives Him as a Saviour. His experience then reacts on and confirms his previous faith. Haupt says, "Experience, daily renewed, of the saving powers contained in Christ's person, gives the believer a guarantee of the reality of that which Scripture says of Him." Koenig replies, “With what right can any one be called a believer, unless he is already assured of the truth of what Scripture says of Him? How, moreover, can any one be convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, and that saving powers are contained in His person, unless this Jesus proved Himself in His earthly existence a being towering above the human level, and certain knowledge of this has been preserved to the present? How can any one trace some influences of his present experience, which he regards as saving powers, to the person of Jesus as their cause, unless he already regards as certain what Scripture affirms of Jesus? (e.g., 1 Cor. xv. 23-28.) It is thus anew evident that the person of whom Haupt speaks is viewed on the one side as one to whom at least all essentials related in Scripture about Jesus are already certain, and who is therefore justified in thinking that these experiences are connected with the Saviour Jesus Christ, and that on the other side he is said to obtain a guarantee of the reality

of what Scripture tells about Jesus only by these experiences. But have arguments in a circle ever given support to a cause? It would fare badly with the historical reality and objective truth of Christianity if no other kind of proof were possible. Christianity would then be unhistorical, something merely immanent, a mere flash of human experience."

Dr. Koenig further holds that this new grounding of Christian faith is neither that of the Reformers, who always maintained historical Christianity, nor Christian, nor really religious, unless "religious" is taken in a general, non-Christian sense. "Christianity cannot be divorced from the personality of Jesus the Christ, and the statements of His chosen witnesses. Christianity is a definite historical phenomenon. To call a congeries of ideas, out of harmony with the principles involved in Christ's person and taught by Him and attested as His, Christianity, is unhistorical caprice." The new line of proof is finally designated as "subjectivistic." Haupt of course protests against the charge, which the critic proceeds to support by further arguments. As other critics make similar protests against the position taken up by Haupt, the latter will probably see occasion to reconsider some details of his argument. In Der Beweis des Glaubens for January, 1892, Prof. Grau, of Koenigsberg, notices Haupt's statement that, "the Gospel must first show its regenerating force in a man, from which then the true and absolutely certain assurance of its truth will follow," and asks, "How can the Gospel make an impression on a man who denies or doubts the facts of which it consists ?

PREPARATIONS IN HEATHENDOM FOR CHRISTIANITY. BY DR. HORNBURG, Pastor in Stralsund (Beweis des Glaubens, January, 1892).-We are coming to see more and more clearly that there are no abrupt beginnings in history. Great events and great men have their roots, or points of connection, in the past; otherwise they would fail to influence the world. This is true even of Christ and Christianity. We see how Judaism was a Divine preparation for Him who came in "the fulness of time." But it may seem to be otherwise with the heathen world; yet it was not. The difference, indeed, between the Jews and other nations in this respect was vast; still, those nations were not overlooked by God, as the Books of the Prophets alone prove. The writer of the article considers the preparation of the heathen world in three aspects-in regard to the knowledge of God, of man, and of fellowship between the two.

1. The Knowledge of God." The religions of heathenism are essentially naturereligions, either growing from the soil of the natural heart, or tending to deify nature, or both at once. As long as the nations adhered in heart to the gods of heathenism, the time for Christ's appearance could not be fulfilled. The religions of heathenism must first lose their power before such a religion as the Christian one could take root." This was actually the case at the Christian era in Eastern countries like Egypt and Asia Minor, as well as in Greece and Rome. The preparation was both negative and positive. Negative, because the old faiths, after undergoing all sorts of repairs and adaptations, had fallen into universal discredit; the ground was clear of everything but the ruins of old ideas and worships. "In Rome, at the time of the Civil Wars, religion and morality were bankrupt, the sacredness of contracts and of marriage had perished." There were also the beginnings of positive preparation in the speculations which had been going on for centuries in Greece. The doctrine of the logos spermatikos was widespread; Xenophanes had a glimpse of the Divine unity. The same is true of Heraclitus of Ephesus; Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle went further in the same direction. To Socrates "the Godhead was the

reason of the world, and as much greater as the world is than our body, so much is that reason in the world greater than our reason." To Plato, the multiplicity of phenomena was reduced to unity in his doctrine of ideas: "The idea of a thing is its permanent essence. True, there are many ideas; yet above all these there must be one which is the origin of the rest-a supreme idea, embracing all, conditioning all. This is the alone essential being, better than the good, more beautiful than the beautiful. The supreme being can only be one; this is involved in the word. It is unchangeable. To what could it change? To better? Then it would not be already perfect. To worse? Then it would be no longer perfect. It is almighty, because it is the origin of other beings; all-good, because it has provided for all in the best way; truthful, because it knows all, and has no need to deceive." Aristotle also taught one God: "He is the immaterial, eternal form, giving form to all matter, moving all, Himself unknown. He is the end to which all tends." "So taught many philosophers, and although their public was limited to the educated, although these abstract convictions could not create a new religion for the people, still their doctrines had an effect on wide circles of the people."

2. Man's Destiny and Moral Character. In the early days of Greece and Rome the individual was absolutely subordinate to the State. He had no value and no rights apart from the State. But by degrees a change of view was brought about. The merciless tyranny and harshness of the State provoked reaction. Sheer despair drove men into rebellion, and so the rights of the individual soul began to be asserted. Here also the speculations of Socrates and Plato, followed and borrowed by Cicero and Seneca, rendered great service. "The end of man is not the well-being of the State, but virtuous living in the individual," became a maxim. To the question as to the destiny of the soul a twofold answer was given-to seek the highest good and enjoy immortality. Stoics, Epicureans, sceptics gave different definitions of man's highest good; but the noblest is Plato's-likeness to God. He also speaks most clearly on immortality. Seneca calls the day of death "the birthday of eternity." The ancient mysteries also fostered faith in immortality. At the same time contemporary writers, like Seneca and Plutarch, give utterance to despairing confessions of sin and wretchedness. Prof. Hausrath says, "The complaint raised by the Hebrew conscience in the dawn of history is the evening prayer of Hellenic philosophy."

3. Hope of Redemption. Many remedies were tried. Some thought help was to be found in a return to ancient religious simplicity, others in foreign worships, such as the worship of the Egyptian Isis, the Asiatic Cybele, the Persian Mithras; Judaism also had its proselytes in Rome. The need of a mediator was felt universally. But who is the mediator to be? Seneca's advice was to choose some great character like Cato or Laelius, and strive to imitate him. Plutarch's "Lives" seems to be inspired by the same thought. The Emperor-worship, which grew to such vast proportions, was designed to meet the same need. Others, who saw the futility of such a remedy, took refuge beneath the forms of Hercules, Apollo, and Esculapius. Philo, again, in his doctrine of the Logos, who is the mediator of all Divine action and revelation, is feeling after the same truth. All these experiments failed, and could not but fail. Still, they were confessions of a need which was to be met in a better way. "It is true the victory of the new religion was not to be an easy one. Old prejudices were too firmly rooted, too closely intertwined with the entire life of society and State. And a conflict for life and death with heathenism was ordained by Providence for the good of Christians themselves. But the final victory was not doubtful. Christ was born when the fulness of time was come."