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NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.

TV yr ESSRS. CLARK have pleasure in forwarding to their Subscribers
¦'¦'-'¦ the First Issue of the Foreign Theological Library for
I BBS, viz. :—
EWALD'S OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
CASSEL'S COMMENTARY ON ESTHER.
The Second Issue for iBBB will comprise : —
DELITZSCH'S NEW COMMENTARY ON GENESIS. Vol. I.
KEIL'S HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL AKCHiEOLOGY. Vol. II. (completion).
The Volumes issued during 1 880-1 887 were: —
GODET'S COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO THE
ROMANS. Two Vols.
HAGENBACH'S HISTORY OF DOCTRINES. Three Vols.
DORNER'S SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Four Vols.
MARTENSEN'S CHRISTIAN ETHICS. (Individual Ethics.)
MARTENSEN'S CHRISTIAN ETHICS. (Social Ethics.)
WEISS'S BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Two Vols.
WEISS'S LIFE OF CHRIST. Three Vols.
GOEBEL ON THE PARABLES OF JESUS.
SARTORIUS'S DOCTRINE OF DIVINE LOVE.
RABIGER'S ENCYCLOPiEDIA OF THEOLOGY. Two Vols.
EWALD'S REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
ORELLI'S OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY OF THE CONSUMMATION OF
THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
SCHURER'S HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN THE TIME OF
JESUS CHRIST. Division IL Three Vols.
EBRARD'S APOLOGETICS. Three Vols.
FRANK'S SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY.
GODET'S COMMENTARY ON FIRST CORINTHIANS. Two Vols.
KEIL'S HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL ARCH.SOLOGY. Vol. I.
The Foreign Theological Library was commenced in 1846, and
from that time to this Four Volumes yearly (or about 170 in all) have
appeared with the utmost regularity.
The Subscription Price is 21s. annually for Four Volumes, payable in
advance. (The Subscription Price for the Volumes of New Series — 1880
to 1888 — is therefore Nine Guineas.)

Messrs. Clark take this opportunity of intimating that they now
allow a selection of
EIGHT VOLUMES at the Subscription Price of TWO GUINEAS
(or more at the same ratio) from the works issued in the Foreign
Theological Library previous to 1883, a complete list of which wiU be
found at the end of this volume.

C'

CLARK'S

rOEEIGN

THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.

NEW SERIES.
VOL. XXXIII.

©toalti'g ©IK anU Weto Testament STJetilogg.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
188 8.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
In demy Svo, price 10s. 6d.,
REVELATION;
ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
Translated by Prof. THOS. GOADBY, B.A.
' Ewald is one of the most suggestive and helpful writers of this century. This is
certainly a noble book, and will be appreciated iot lees than his other and larger works.
. . . There is a rich poetic glow in his writing which gives to it a singular charm.' —
Baptist Magazine. In demy 8to, price 8s. 6d.,
SYNTAX OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE OF
THE OLD TESTAMENT.
STtanlsatelj fonm tfje lEig^tlb ffierman iEKitfon,
By JAMES KENNEDY, B.D.
' It is well known that Ewald was the iirst to exhibit the Hebrew Syntax in a philo
sophical form, and his Grammar is the most important of his numerous works.' —
Athenseum.

OLD AM) MW TESTAMEFT
THEOLOGY.

HEINRICH EWALD,
LATE PKOFESSOR IS THE UNIVERSITIT OF gOtTINGEN ; AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY
OF ISRAEL," "PROPHETS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT," ETC.

2Cran0lateti from tf)e ffierman
BY THE
REV. THOMAS GOADBY, B.A.,
PRESIDENT OF THE BAPTIST COLLEGE, NOTTINGHAM.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
1888.

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIEB,
FOR
T. & T. CLAEK, EDINBUEGH.
LONDON, ..... HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
DUBLIN,  GEORGE HERBERT.
NEW YORK,  aCRIBNER AND WELFORD.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

rriHE selections from Ewald's Die Lehre der Bibel von Oott,
-^ of which this volume is composed, are published as a
contribution to Biblical Theology. As more than a contri
bution they cannot be regarded, nor indeed can Ewald's
whole work. For the purposes of Biblical Theology there
needs first of all adequate Biblical scholarship, true spiritual
insight, and a vivid historical sense, all of which Ewald
conspicuously possessed ; but there needs also a conscientious
and resolute determination to give prominence in exposition
only to that which the Scripture itself makes prominent,
which can hardly be claimed as belonging to Ewald, at least
in the same degree. Certain dogmatic, or as they may be
termed cosmical, mystical, and even philosophical presupposi
tions, in addition to well-known critical theories, are perhaps
somewhat too obvious in these pages ; while the bold,
original, and independent way of handling all doctrinal
questions, so characteristic of Ewald, but not necessarily
demanded by the subject, may fail to create in other minds
the confidence of his own. Nevertheless to those who know
how to use it, this Old and New Testament Theology, . like
Revelation; its Nature and Record, as portions of a work
containing the ripe result of the lifelong thought of one
of the ablest and foremost of the Biblical scholars of this
century, will be of great and abiding value, and will appro
priately supplement other works in the same province of a
different type.

vi PREFACE.
The importance of this branch of theological study is only
just beginning to be realized amongst ourselves, although for
some years it has received special attention and occupied
the place of a special "discipline" in the Universities of
Germany. At present there is absolutely no original work
in the English language dealing with the theology of Scrip
ture from a purely historical and critical point of view. It
is eminently desirable that some competent scholar and
theologian of Great Britain should undertake to familiarize
the mind of our time, not only with the idea but also with
the results of the study of Biblical doctrine in its origin and
historical development. The old systematic theology, if not
discredited, is at least suffering loss, and possibly perversion,
from the want of a sound critical and scientific basis. That
in all its vital and essential elements it will retain or recover
its hold upon the faith and conviction of mankind cannot
reasonably be doubted. But this desirable result will be
secured only by a thorough and careful study of Scripture
according to modern scientific method, and a fuller realization
of Scripture truth in the light of our present historical and
scientific knowledge. To this end Biblical Theology wiU lend
its powerful aid ; and writers like Ewald will be studied
with profit and advantage. All his conclusions may not be
accepted ; but his scholarship, his method of inquiry, his
spirit of earnest faith, and his fervid and even youthful
enthusiasm may at least be appreciated. Here and there in
these selections it may possibly appear that a position is
assumed which it is dif&cult to concede. Sometimes philo
sophy and mysticism may seem more prominent than theo
logy. Occasionally, as for instance when Darwin and his
imitators are spoken of, there is a severity of tone which is
surprising in one who, more than any other Biblical scholar,
reminds us of Darwin and his theory of evolution, and
especially of his patient and exact method of inquiry and
research. This severity would be inexplicable were it not
remembered what reckless and unscrupulous writers, both in

PEEFACE. Vll
England and Germany, have sheltered themselves under
Darwin's name without possessing anything of his spirit.
But whatever deficiencies may be discovered in Ewald's
discussions, there is no irreverence, there is no wanton trifling
with the deepest questions of life and religious experience.
High moral earnestness, a profound love of truth and Holy
Scripture, and a glowing spirit of faith, mark every page of
Ewald's writings. In the exposition of Paul's view of the
Atonement of Christ, the most zealous evangelical theologian
could not be more explicit. Upon the questioii of the whole
future of man as it is set forth in Scripture, so complete and
exhaustive a presentation as is to be found in the closing
chapters is hardly elsewhere obtainable ; although the specu
lative view of the final annihilation of evil may be considered
extra- Biblical. In the discussion of the sources of doctrine
in Scripture, of the narratives of creation, of the whole
subject of angelology, of the end and aim of human history,
of miracles, and of faith in its various aspects, Ewald's re
marks have a vigorous freshness and originality unsurpassed
in modern theological literature. Upon some other subjects
there is probably less of definiteness and fulness. But the
study of Ewald, we repeat, is commended, not so much for
his results as for his keenness and assiduity in research, for
his ample and varied learning, and above all for his historical
and critical, and so far purely scientific method. The trans
lator hopes shortly to present English readers with an analysis
of the whole work, especially for the use of students.
As to the title of this volume, and the numbering of the
sections or paragraphs, a word of explanation may perhaps be
necessary. The original work is entitled, Die Lehre der Bibel
von Gott, oder Theologie des Alien und Neuen Bimdes, and
consists of four volumes. The first volume discusses " The
Doctrine of the Word of God;" and a translation of the
substance of it, omitting only the general introduction, has
already been published under the title of Revelation; its
Nature and Record. The second and third volumes discuss

VIU PEEFACE.
"The Doctrine of God and the Universe," and from these
volumes the present selection has been made, Ewald's alter
native title of the whole work. Old and New Testament
Theology, being adopted. The fourth volume, as yet untrans
lated, deals with " The Doctrine of the Life of Man '' and " of
the Kingdom of God," and is a treatise on Christian Ethics
and on the nature of the Church, Jewish and Christian, and
the relation of the Church and the State, especially in Biblical
times. The whole work is regarded by Ewald as one con
tinuous treatise and numbered in consecutive sections ; and
this original arrangement it has been thought advisable to
retain for convenience of reference. This will account for
the present volume, distinct though it is in subject, com
mencing with § 143. The references in the notes to the
author's History of Israel and Commentaries on the Prophets,
on Job, and the Psalms, have been adapted to the English
translations. The notes in square brackets [ ] are added by
the translator.

Nottingham, 1888.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. The Docti-inal Element in the Bible, .... 1
II. The Limitation of all Human Knowledge of God, . . 37
III. Proofs of the Existence of God, .... .48
ly. The Variation of Language concerning God, ... 51
V. The Personality, Spirituality, Love, and Unity of God, . 58
VI. Unity in the Realm of Spirits, ..... 66
VII. The Name and Names of God, ..... 80
VIII. Chaos and the Universe, ...... 101
IX. The Narratives of Creation, and the Divine Creative Powers, . - 113
1. The Oldest Narrative ; The Spirit of God, . . .119
2. The Later Nan-ative ; The Man of God, . . .124
3. Wisdom as Co-ordinate Creator, .... 129
4. The Son of God as Co-ordinate Creator, . . . 133
5. The Word of God (the Logos) as Co-ordinate Creator, . 139
X. The World of Mankind and its Divine Aim, . . .147
XI. The Continually Progressive Order of the World, . . 186
XIL The Wonders of the Bible,  210
XIII. The Nature and Office of Faith, ..... 223
XIV. The Twofold Contents of Faith, ..... 228
XV. The Spontaneity of Faith,  255
1. The Trials of Faith, ..... 263
2. Empty Faith, ...... 268
XVI. The Necessity and Significance of Faith in Christ, . . 270
XVn. The Power of the Holy Spirit,  324
XVIII. The Christian Trinity  . 341
XIX. The Doctrine of Immortality, ..... 369
The End of the Whole Way of Man to God, . . .359
1. Belief in Immortality in the Earliest Ages, . . 364
2. The Egyptian and Israelite Idea of Immortality, . 370
3. The Idea of Immortality Transfigured, . . . 376
4. Doubts concerning Immortality, . . . 414
5. The Christian Belief in Immortality, . . . 420

OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.

I. THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE.
§ 143. I. TT^HE transition from the question of revelation
JL itself to that of the doctrines of the Bible
suggests, first of all, the inquiry how far and to what extent
it is possible to present such doctrines in the form of a
system, or to give a summary of them, consisting as they do
of very numerous and very varied details. For difficulties
meet us in the outset, and are readily perceived, inasmuch
as we know from our previous investigations that the Bible
is not a single book, not an absolute sharply - defined and
exclusive whole. Moreover, such dif&culties accumulate in
our path the more earnestly we undertake the task, the more
fully the Bible is known, and the more fairly and without
prejudice it is estimated in all its minutest contents and
most important principles. These difficulties may be said
to arise from two opposite sources.
1. On the one hand, the Bible contains in such unusual
abundance sayings, thoughts, narratives, by such different
authors, of such different periods of time, that it might from
the first seem quite impossible to discover therein a complete
and consistent system of doctrine. That it is a difficult task
to harmonize the contents of the Old and New Testaments is
obvious and readily acknowledged; indeed, so much has this
been felt in past times, that in the attempts, and still more in
the achievements, of different schools many considerable and
A

2 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
even pernipious errors have arisen. As to the main chief
parts of the first or the second half of the Bible, for example,
how utterly at variance with the Pentateuch, even to the
point of irreconcilability, seem to be many of the utterances
of the prophetic books ; and then, again, how divergent are
many things in the Epistles or the Apocalypse from what
we find in the Gospels ! More particularly still, in the
separate portions of each division of the Old and New
Testaments what differences appear, differences of prophet
with prophet, of Epistle with Epistle, of Gospel with Gospel,
even to the verge of contradiction ! Nor is this all. Not
only are seeming incongruities found in the larger portions
of the Bible, upon closer inspection they extend to individual
books and minutest details. Moreover, such apparent con
tradictions, whether unimportant or serious, are in our day
the more widely disclosed and the less possible to be over
looked, the more investigation is carefully directed to every
detail in the Bible, until it is traced back to its original form,
and known with unquestionable certainty.
It is, however, clear enough that most of the contradictions
found in the Bible, so far as they immediately relate to
questions of doctrine, are found in it only by mistaken
exegesis, or are regarded as far more important and
irreconcilable than in point of fact they are. As to
contradictions in numbers or in historical references, these.
are explained by the compilation of our present Bible from
different sources, by the origin of the earlier records, and by
erroneous readings which have crept into the text; here,
however, our concern is with doctrine alone. And here,
alas ! it is not merely the many confused and isolated threads
of somewhat casual errors that obtrude themselves upon
notice; radically perverse tendencies of the human mind
have applied themselves to the Bible, not infrequently with
the predisposition and artful purpose to discover as many
irreconcilable contradictions as possible, and publish them
to the world. This has happened not merely in ancient

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 3
and mediaeval times, when the light of knowledge was more
restricted and the warm glow of faith loved to concentrate
itself one-sidedly upon this or that portion of Scripture ; it is
not less observable in our own days, as, for instance, in the
serpent -like twistings and convolutions of the school of
Strauss and Baur, although these are days when we boast,
and justly, of honest inquiry and enlightened science. To
scatter the allusions of such mistakenly-alleged contradictions,
whether slighter or more considerable, there will be oppor
tunity enough in this work ; indeed, the whole of our better
science by its very existence and labours has furnished many
contributions to this end. Nevertheless, it is not to be ignored
that, apart from erroneously-alleged contradictions, not a few
doctrinal passages of the Bible placed nakedly side by side,
and regarded in their literal verbal teaching, bear no very
harmonious aspect, and appear even glaringly to contradict
each other. Such discrepancies, where they occur, should be
allowed to show themselves just as they are, that in the
endeavour to bring them into accord new errors may not
arise. But the possibility of resolving all such discords in a
higher harmony has already been given in our discussions
upon revelation and Holy Scripture. If the entire contents
and aim of the Bible find their agreement in certain funda
mental truths, in number perhaps few, but in significance
all-embracing and unalterable, this whole motley play of
colours in many varying utterances is only as the refraction
of the sun's light ; and each separate ray leads us back to the
great one light itself. Or, to speak without figure, this
whole well-nigh incalculable manifoldness, which superficially
considered seems at times to amount almost to serious
discrepancy, has arisen purely historically, and is historically
explicable. Thus a pure comprehensive truth, as it appears
in the Bible, may either become known gradually during the
long continuance of the development of the perfect true
religion, and not be wholly completed until we come to the

G

4 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
New Testament, — as the doctrines of immortality, of the
nature and significance of the Messiah and His kingdom,
and of the religious community, — and then the earlier ex
pressions are but rudimentary forms and first stages of it;
or it may meet us in the Bible developed at once, — as the
doctrines of God, of His relation to the universe, and of sin,
— and then the varying expressions of it are just so many
attempts, as occasion offers, to apply with increasing definite
ness in some special way what is given at first in its more
general form. In the one case a real contradiction would
arise only if the earlier utterances contained the direct
opposite of that which at last appears as the all-compre
hensive truth ; in the other, only if a subsequent expression
absolutely denied the intuition and doctrine given already in
its completeness. But there is no instance, as will be seen,
of either of these cases. It is somewhat different if an
expression appears casually more complete and simple in
one passage of the Bible than another, as the Ten Command
ments in the two copies preserved to us, or as so many
sayings of Christ preserved more fully and freshly in one
Gospel than in another. This is to be traced to authorship
and literary contingency, and shows how deficient as to
particular details all written records are in themselves, and
how necessary it is to collate and compare everything which
the Bible, as a literary memorial, presents.
But if the matter stands thus, .it is evident that the
disadvantage of this fulness of different utterances, thoughts,
and narratives, verging upon apparent irreconcilableness and
plain contradiction, turns out ultimately rather as a clear
gain. If, in the almost endless multitude of passages, one
passage may serve as the complement of the other and "ive
an inner and outer perfection when rightly placed by its
side and explained, the whole which in this way we have
presented to us and vividly grasp in its genuine coherence
may be the more surely and plainly known in its respective
parts. To force one Scripture harshly into agreement with

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 5
another, or to place it in a perverted relation to it, is neither
admissible nor of any service. But just as greatly should we
mistake the truth if the parts of the whole as they appear
are severed from each other further than their clear import
warrants. For that these parts sprang directly more or less
from an irresistible impulse and a higher need, is manifest
from previous discussions. Our concern is now to mark
trustworthily how that which with good reason we pre
suppose becomes verified in the details ; and what an actual
veritable whole thus results for our recognition. We do not
in the outset exclude the possibility that some thought may
occur in the Bible, and be presented as doctrine, which either
does not fit in at all with the rest, or has, comparatively
speaking, little fitness with it, for we may come to the Bible
with the general and sound presupposition that such may
be the case. It is for us to ask, however, whether an
instance of real incongruity occurs, or, should an apparent
incongruity occur, to note upon what stage it stands in its
connection with truths that are conspicuous as the central
truths of Scripture. And here, indeed, time and place, and
the special book in which such apparent or supposed dis
crepancy in thought is found, are not matters to be over
looked. § 144. 2. In making the attempt to reduce to a system,
or to one great consistent circle of doctrine, all the different
sayings, thoughts, and incidents of the Bible, so far as they
can serve this purpose, something adequate and satisfactory
is demanded, and no manifest gaps are tolerable, nor indeed
anything incomplete in itself or merely fragmentary. This
lies in the nature of all subjects of thought and inquiry,
if the mind of man investigates them with real ardour and
genuine interest ; and the more eagerly we conduct this
investigation, the more patent and the more serious are
such gaps when they occur. The Bible, however, notwith
standing all its superabundant fulness, which is the more
remarkable from its size as a book, has its limits nevertheless.

6 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
which are not to be overstepped, and because of these cannot
possibly contain everything that to satisfy our desire we might
wish to have without limit. It does not offer such a special
solution as we would often gladly possess of every possible
or conceivable question in divine things as they relate to
humanity. Nor does it suffice to this end even if we extend
its limits as far as we may by taking in the so - called
intermediate books, or indeed the Apocrypha of the New
Testament. If we were to think of it as a book from which
some directly apt historical instance or example might be
drawn to throw light upon every difficult problem in our
higher life, how often should we seek for such instance or
example in vain ! Moreover, every new age brings with
it a multitude of new and complicated questions concerning
human affairs in their relation to God, and concerning
intricate circumstances of life about which it would be
foolish to ask counsel of the Bible at haphazard, as the
Romans once did of their Sibylline books, and as Moham
medans do so often now of their Qor'an. And yet it i^ not
to be doubted that all wise discussion of the doctrines of the
Bible must have regard to the needs and circumstances of
the present time, if that end is to be answered which is
proper to such discussion. This is the other side of the
matter. The difficulty in question must be rightly faced in its
whole extent and gravity, and the gaps of which we have
spoken must not be superficially filled up where they are
unquestionably found. As to how such breaks in a system
of doctrine are to be supplied there can be no doubt. If
they related to fundamental truths and conceptions which
are comprehensive and determinative of everything else,
possibility of remedy there would be none ; but how little
this is the case is evident to all candid investigation. The
firm foundations are never wanting ; and these being given,
the systematic superstructure will be secure enough if every
part of it rests directly upon such foundations, and if, wher-

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 7
ever there is something wanting to complete the edifice, it is
supplied in harmony with what is already given. It is true
that in every case where a break is observable, all the special
relations upon which everything turns are to be specially
investigated; but as certainly as the great divine relations
are known which ever condition equally and alike all the
infinitely various affairs of humanity, and as certainly as the
truths of the Biblical revelation, as we have seen, are not in
opposition to such relations, so certainly can the gaps of
which we speak be supplied with confidence from these two
sources of knowledge.
If, therefore, we ask where such gaps actually occur, we
must distinguish more sharply than we have already done
(§ 127) the two great halves of the whole contents of the
Bible, that which gives the material, which here may come
into contemplation, or the historical part, and that which
forms the remainder : two divisions which, measured by
palpable dimensions, almost exactly equal each other.
{a) Everything historical may more nearly or remotely serve
for exposition and confirmation of the general truths which
alone are the ultimate object of our inquiry ; it is indispens
able for the fulfilment of this purpose where the divine
touches more closely the human, and it is the chief thing
where, as pre-eminently in the case of Christ, it serves for
example in the religious hfe which man should observe,
and for doctrine in the knowledge of God which man should
possess. But everything historical, resolved into its elements,
consists of such an infinite number of reminiscences, that for
us to-day, whatever the number of the writings, it can never
be exhausted. On this side, therefore, wherever the Bible
shows gaps, whether smaller or more considerable, they may
be supplied from other sources ; and every such redintegra
tion may in its place be useful, and although only of
scientific significance, yet it may manifoldly enlarge and
strengthen our faith. But the parts of this whole long
history, of incomparably the highest importance for doctrine,

8 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
are just the parts of the Bible that have all the completeness
and trustworthiness we could wish. The fulness and clear
ness of historical reminiscences are, it is true, very manifoldly
graduated in the Bible, partly according to the special import
ance they have for the development of the great two
thousand years' history to its highest end, partly according
to the period which for us moderns reaches farther and
farther back, and becomes proportionally more ancient and
obscure. And thus the three years of the earthly work of
Christ occupy a larger space and have a more succinct and
yet a clearer fulness of narrative than any other time. Next
to these, the eras that find their immortal memorial in the
Bible in the most vivid and brilliant historical pictures are
the eras of progress properly so called, in which the true
religion made its great advances through sublime prophet and
apostle, or in which the development of the community
proceeded at a rapid pace through the irresistible power of
rare and extraordinary events, and through the infiuence of
princes of rare and extraordinary gifts. The time of Moses,
too, withdrawn as it is into something of obscurity, is suffi
ciently represented in its certainty and fulness, and in all its
pure elevation, by the portraiture of the great community-
founder and lawgiver, and the detail of acts of permanent
interest that illustrate it. " And even of the remotest ages of
time before Moses, the Bible has rescued not a few most
memorable reminiscences which stand out in inextinguishable
splendour, like stars amid the darkness. Indeed it may be
affirmed that in the development of this two thousand years'
history of unique significance, there is no point or situation
of importance concerning which some discourse or writing, if
short, yet the more luminous, has not been preserved as a
record and witness of highest value and most reliable autho
rity. Of the pre-Mosaic time we have such clear-shining
stars in certain poetic memorials ; ^ of the Mosaic time far
more ; of the long obscure period of the Judges we have the
' Gen. iv. 23 f., xlix. 22-26.

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 9
songs of Deborah, and some others that are clearly distinguish
able. In the same way the proportionately darker period of
the kingdom of the Ten Tribes is now, as is admitted,
illumined by many smaller but more vividly-shining literary
testimonies ; the great turn of affairs, the changed condition of
things between the time of the Old and the New Jerusalem,
is resuscitated to our view in all living reality in contem
porary writings which have long been almost veiled to us ;
the similar period of change from the Persian to the Grecian
time, on the one hand the Book of Baruch and the Psalter of
Solomon, on the other the Book of Esther, elucidate ; and
from thence accumulate more and more literary memorials,
now rediscovered, sprung from that stirring time. It may be
affirmed with justice that of each of the different great eras
of more than two thousand years, the most striking literature
has been preserved in the highest manifoldness and diversity,
and yet ultimately only as the most distinct witness of the
development of a great history. So pure and firm was the
historical sense which, as a product of the true religion, in
fluenced in a powerfully determinative way the compilation and
structure of the Bible, and which the Bible in its turn serves
to foster and preserve for all future time ; and so little of sig
nificance as to the chief historical purpose of Scripture are the
smaller or larger gaps which, to be siire, are to be found in it.
(6) Regarding, however, as a second division of the contents
of the Bible that which seeks to present its peculiar and pure
divine truths standing high above all the changes of history,
the question of certain conceivable breaks shapes itself alto
gether differently. The greatest, most necessary, most com
prehensive and unchanging of its pure truths are given in
Scripture with just the same completeness as certainty ; or if
anything appears wanting, the reason lies in what is incident
to humanity, and which no possible knowledge can remove.
To be sure, the application, for individuals in home and com
munity, of all these highest universal truths to the special
cases of human life, is so infinite that it is vain to expect

10 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
to find it in the Bible. From a more exact understand
ing, especially of the historical element in the Bible,
much that is doctrinal may be found, far more, indeed, than
superficial thought succeeds in winning ; but for all conceiv
able cases, even this means does not suffice. In point of
fact, however, such deficiencies, when they occur, may readily
be removed by a sound application of universal truths, if only
the special case be rightly regarded in all its peculiarity.
That which is truly decisive and important in this matter is
that it is exactly in all-comprehensive universal truths, filling
this whole sphere of knowledge, that no actual deficiencies are
to be found in the Bible. This, however, may be said to have
its possibility — for the Bible contemplated as a whole does
not offer to us any system of doctrine — only because this
series of universal truths resolves itself into the one unique
truth which, as we shall see, is given with the true religion
itself and penetrates all parts of Holy Scripture.
(c) In the centre between these pure truths and the history,
springing from both and uniting and sustaining them, stand
the sacred emblems and emblematic transactions as they
appear in the Old and New Testaments. As to their import
and end, the Bible leaves us in no doubt, since they go back
to the above-mentioned fundamental truths. But so far as
they arose historically and in detail very manifoldly, and we
desire to realize their manifoldness on all sides somewhat
exactly as it was in those times, so far the possible defici
encies that cling to everything historical, that is gathered from
ancient writings, still return. But here comes in tradition
as a helpful source of knowledge.
§ 145. 3. But that we do not act contrary to the tenor
of the Bible, if we attempt to elaborate such a system, may
be proved from the Bible itself. For in certain parts, that
by their contents and aim are most capable of such treatment,
it gives itself the clearest and finest precedents of it, showing
how a subject of manifold comprehension and multifarious
doctrine may in an adequate presehtment be luminously

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 1 1
systematized, and in all its essential elements condensed into
a synopsis ; nay, how for the most important public use and
service it must be so condensed. The oldest literary docu
ment for the guidance of all public life in the community,
and the very first basis of the Bible itself, the Decalogue
(§ 106), while the most ancient, is at the same time a nobly
finished attempt to give, in clear abstract and appropriate
tabulation, a connected view of all the most necessary com
mandments of life ; ^ and subsequently the whole of Deutero
nomy, although with a higher freedom, unmistakably follows
such systematization closely enough.^ Moreover, all the legal
ordinances also which come in between the smaller and more
ancient list of commandments, and the later copy of it in
Deuteronomy, are similarly arranged in symmetrical propor
tions, in order to bring the subject-matter, which is to be
thoroughly comprehensive, into one luminous view and easy
summary, well arranged in every possible division of it.
Even the prophets, too, when they seek to describe accurately
a great whole in all its parts, adopt such systematic ordering
of their material, as Ezekiel does in chapters xl. to xlviii.*
But what from the oldest down to its latest parts the Old
Testament clearly shows, is repeated, not, however, with any
constrained mechanical imitation, but with new creative
freedom, in the model prayer of Christ Himself and in the
gospel of the sayings of the Lord, the former — the smallest
and most perfect; the latter — the largest and in many respects
most instructive portion of the New. If all this proves what
uses such artistically-formed connection of doctrinal truths of
this department has for public instruction and service, other
parts of the Bible show how such attempts by many other
thinkers and writers * were freely made, and how they are
repeated in youthful Christianity as soon as the need arose,
and the leisure to make them offered itself.'
1 History, ii. 158-164. " lUd. i. 120. ^ Prophets, iv. 193-224.
* As in the Book of Proverbs xxx. 15-xxxi. 9.
^ Cf. Sieben Sendschreiben des Neuen Bundes, pp. 194 ff., 249 S.

12 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Here also we may point with reason to the higher art of
clear summary, of appropriate systematizing, and of exhaustive
condensation, which distinguishes all the Biblical writers even
of the most different types, in some more finished than in
others, but never wholly wanting in any, and in the case of"
the New Testament writings, varied as they are in character,
and infiuenced by the pressure of the age in which they
appeared, cannot be easily over-estimated. Only in our own
day has such an art in the literature of the ancient people of
the true religion been fully recognised in its special charac
teristics and varied forms and changes ; but that it was
present and operative in a high stage of cultivation we can
now surely perceive.^
Are we not then authorized by these precedents and
examples, given in the Bible itself, to attempt to reduce to
system its entire doctrinal contents, and to show the relation
of one doctrine to another ? To be sure, all these isolated
suggestions, affecting only parts of the teaching of the Bible,
are exceptional,^ and there is no attempt to systematize its
whole body of truth. If there were, the Bible would not be
the Book of books it is, and how we are to understand and
apply it would not then be left to our freedom. Still further,
when the Bible does present a summary of connected thoughts
and subjects, facilitating remembrance by a round number^
explaining the more briefly what is in itself manifold, uniting
together in one view what is really related, it but foUows the
need and custom of the time without prescribing for us a
binding rule or making it essential to apply a like method
everywhere. Such aids to our apprehension may be useful
in their place, but ought not according to the import of the
whole Bible to limit the scientific treatment of its truths, for
they are not found everywhere in Scripture, and still less are
they prescribed by it.
..^ *-'f;.^*'°P^^**' Pi^ssim. Revelation ; its Nature and Record, 315 tf. History,
vii. viii. ; and New Testament Expositions, passim.
* As Matt. xxii. 36-40.

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 1 3
§ 146. II. The second question that inevitably arises is
what is the doctrinal element in the Bible in the truest and
strictest sense of that term ; how is it to be found, and when
found formulated ? This is a twofold question whose different
aspects we cannot well treat separately. For, indeed, all the
contents of the Bible may be regarded as doctrinal in the
widest sense of the word, so far as they answer to the end
the Bible is to serve. But how and where the doctrinal
element is to be found and transformed into doctrine are the
points now to be considered.
When the Bible first won its pecuhar high estimation in
the world, and it was thought that with it was possessed for
free use the treasury of the loftier truths so long eagerly
wanted, it was read and employed for the immediate purpose
of learning, teaching, or proof, as occasion demanded or need
required. This began with the Pentateuch, and continued as
the extent of the Bible increased. We see this, by a most
ancient example, in the way in which the author of the
Book of Daniel employed the Book of Jeremiah, then held
sacred ; but this simplest use of the Bible remained essentially
the same, especially in the dominant schools, until the time of
the Talmud ; it extended to the New Testament books in
many ways, and with Christians was continued in relation to
the New Testament after the Bible had been supplemented and
closed. To employ Scripture after this fashion, it sufficed to
find in it here and there passages which might serve for the
renewing and improvement of the whole life, and by such
passages the heart seeking God was deeply touched with joy
and exaltation or with humility and penitence. In a wholly
different way such passages were also applied in the schools
for doctrine and proof. A more definite insight into the
entire Bible, in the mutual relations of all its different parts,
great and small, as well as into the full original meaning and
real connection of the contents as a whole and in detail, could
not thereby be obtained, and it was not felt to be necessary
to obtain it. Whilst, therefore, in common life, or even in the

14 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
schools, some passages and sentences of the Bible were pre
ferred to all others, were repeated a thousand times and
applied in the most varied manner, the drift of the wider
connection in which they stood was easily overlooked, and no
pains were taken to secure a more certain comprehension of
the whole context and of the smaller or large books. The
first two chapters of the Book of Job, for example, were read
very much, and from them was drawn a definite idea of Job's
condition ; but there was little or no conception of the prin
cipal aim of this sublime poem, far more difficult to grasp, and
only isolated flowers that struck the eye were selected for
contemplation. Still less was the sense of many a darker
prophetic word in its whole original sharpness and direct
tendency seized by the mind ; rather did the historical cir
cumstances from which every portion and every book of the
Bible proceeded drop more and more from view. Thus the
more readily, in the zeal to understand vividly what had
become obscure, were interpreters entangled in the net of
allegory, as we have already seen (§ 138).
A further error ^ which readily united with this first was
that the Bible might be employed as the sufficient basis for
the substance of all that man desired to observe and know, —
that, in fact, everything might be learnt and taught out of it.
And supposing by this principle the knowledge and doctrines
of common and apparently lower sciences and arts of life
were excluded, yet it was thought that it might be used so
much the more as the adequate, or at least the primary source
of all higher intellectual knowledge and arts. What it con
tained of legal matters and institutions of life for priests and
laity was to be the sole firm foundation and prescript for the
whole science of jurisprudence ; ^ the elements and outlines of
all ancient history were to be drawn exclusively from its
contents;^ even the best of other sciences, as medicine and
^ See note at end of this chapter.
^ From which view sprang everything that we may designate "Talmud."
' History, i. 200 ff.

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 15
the physical history of the earth and the whole universe, was
to be derived from its statements and suggestions. Now it is
no doubt certain that without the Bible we should be ill
informed about a large and extremely important portion of
ancient history; that in the main the Bible is genuinely
historical in its character ; ^ and that it affords us the first full
glimpse and sound apprehension of all true universal history.
Similarly, it presents to us numerous and in the highest degree
valuable ideas of a thousand important things which in so
cultured a nation as Israel already were established, and,
moreover, presents them in writings of an antiquity so remote
that few other writings are comparable with them. It gives
instructive fragments of primitive attempts at science, and by
the true religion it teaches still more may it wonderfully pre
pare and strengthen the mind for all further scientific investiga
tion and knowledge. And how much else of the highest value
may not be learnt from it, as, for example, the nature of all
genuine poetry and the like ! But all this is not the doctrinal
element that theological science seeks. For such science,
however, it proffers the only ample, comprehensive, and
specific materials, and it is misused if it is forced to yield
what does not belong to this sphere of knowledge.
But in reality Christianity had first to appear before such
prevailing misuse of the Bible could be gradually, successfully,
and with advantage repressed. And just as everywhere, where
in its later development the true religion had diverged from its
proper course, Christianity powerfully turned it back, so also
the work of Christ Himself, with His clear vision and
penetrating glance, tended to the right understanding and
employment of the Bible (§ 137. 1). And if in the brief
years of His earthly life this happened only in a few cases as
the course of His entire Messianic calling afforded opportunity,
and if subsequently with respect to the books of the Old
Testament, and gradually even with respect to those of the
New, the tendency to allegory returned, because all antiquity
1 Revelation; its Nature and Record, § 91 fif., § 125 if., pp. 300-350, 399-431.

16 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
was so easUy ensnared by it ; yet down to our own times
Christianity where it has flourished, as well in practical as in
scientific form, has always happily freed itself more and more
from this alluring art. If, therefore, we would rightly answer
the double question that has just been proposed, it is self-
evident that for us to-day there can be no admission whatever
of the claim to allegorize the contents of Scripture. It is just
as clear that we have to seek in the Scripture, what is to be
found in it as nowhere else, all that shall serve as doctrine in
divinely-human affairs, all, indeed, that is the proper subject of
this whole work. But if, in harmony with our aim, we desire
authentically and exhaustively to draw from Scripture doctrinal
material, we must proceed somewhat in the following way : —
1. Since the Bible is composed of a great number of
different books, and many of the most important of these,
if their origin and preservation are well considered, have
grown out of a far greater number of different works, we
must begin with a proper understanding of every one of these
parts, the greatest and the least, where and just as we find
them in the Bible ; and if we will proceed with precision and
certainty, accurate knowledge and exact discrimination are
pre-eminently important here, where the doctrinal element of
Scripture is in question. But then we have not merely to
consider separately the thoughts and truths which are con
tained in every portion of Scripture, and to estimate and
rightly apply the well-nigh inexhaustible wealth proffered to
us in such thoughts and truths ; we must first of all recognise
in their full exactitude and speciality, and where they are
found in their whole rareness and elevation, the doctrinal
contents and aim of every portion of Scripture regarded as a
whole and in itself, and we must neglect nothing that offers
its aid to us in this direction. For if the contents and aim
of every purely historical book are easily ascertained, and
have only in a limited sense any doctrinal significance, yet with
many of the familiar poetical and prophetic works this is
not so easy a task, while with the more artificial compositions

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 17
the drift and purpose will not be discovered without going
below the surface of the thought, and distinguishing and
estimating with care and precision the hidden art of the
writer. A whole great work is often only the transfiguration
of a single fundamental thought which may contain in itself
the noblest and sublimest material of doctrine ; and perhaps
nowhere in the entire compass of the Bible is it to be found
in so true and striking a form as here, if only it is rightly
understood as a whole. What a genuine poetic spirit seeks
to represent by artistic labour is disclosed to the contemplative
and eager mind only upon a full survey of the whole work ;
and in case, as with us to-day, careful perusal is necessary,
not till we reach the close, and review in wide retrospect the'
entire work, is it well understood in all its related parts;
But there are many creative fundamental thoughts of such'
lofty range and far-reaching significance, that only the art of
a genuine poet can suffice to represent them in all possible
clearness and impressiveness, especially when actual history
has not brought them vividly before the view in the universal
light peculiar to it. He who has not grasped the main
conception of the Song of Songs, of the; Book of Job; of the
Book of Daniel, of the Apocalypse, or, indeed, of the small
Book of Lamentations, or who does not trace out accurately
the artistic plan of the Book of Ezekiel, or even^ of the
book of the great Unnamed (Isa. xl.-lxvi.)^ of the Epistle of
Paul to the Romans, or of that anonymous Epistle to the
Hebrews, can neither truly mark and appropriate as it is the
high eternal truth each writer has in his mind and illustrates
by his word, nor recognise and distinguish the doctrinal
element contained therein ; either he will get nothing that
is certain and satisfactory from such works; or most likely
something that is erroneous. But even the doctrinal contents
of the separate parts, whether larger or smaller, of such
artistic compositions where the meaning is not indisputably
and at once certain and self-evident, can be confidently
apprehended and applied only by rightly marking the drift of

18 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
the whole work. Thus we should deprive ourselves not
merely of the certainty but also of the wealth and fulness of
the doctrinal elements of Scripture, nay, of many of its
grandest doctrines, if we did not start with the just discrimi
nation and proper handling of its original documents.
2. But, on the other hand, there may be in the Bible
single sayings, and rarely occurring short sentences and
passages interposed which, not less than the longest and best
preserved portions, demand for doctrinal purposes our fullest
consideration and most careful use. This is owing partly to
the deficiency which in general everywhere cleaves to all
literature received from antiquity ; partly to the special form
of development taken, as well by the entire two thousand
years' history of the true revealed religion as by its doctrinal
elements ; partly also to the nature of the many portions of
the Bible which, although full of the highest contents, are
of very rare type and character.
For, however highly the value of all writing and especially
of Holy Scripture is to be esteemed, as we have seen, it is
yet shown (§102 ff.) that it can never perfectly comprise in
it all that might be desired ; at least a book like the Bible
cannot, which is but a relic and survival of a much more
comprehensive and extremely manifold literature. For the
certain knowledge of doctrine in all its greatest and most
essential aspects, and in its own firm connection in our
immediate circle of thought, the Bible is perfectly sufficient ;
but many separate parts, which in this great whole have not
less their good significance and their large value, can be only
briefly and incidentally touched upon in the limited literature
of the Bible. What high significance through long centuries
must the name and conception of Jahveh, the Lord of Hosts,
once have had ! Yet this designation, though often repeated
in the Bible, sounds to us now as a somewhat obscure
reminiscence from an age in which it arose in full vividness,
and was readily intelligible in itself. So, on the other hand,
in the New Testament we meet with institutions important

THE DOCTRINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 19
in the life of the Christian community which are mentioned
only briefly, and much more briefly than we could wish ;
partly because the range of New Testament literature is
very restricted, and in these short books only the great new
things of faith are by preference mentioned ; partly because
much that the New Testament presents was not so perfectly
developed in the first age of Christianity as it subsequently
became. Thus, then, in the oldest portions of the Bible the true
religion may be discovered in its full livingness and splendour
as well as in the clear consciousness of its dissimilarity from
its opposite ; ^ but it does not follow that in the earliest ages
the true religion was perfectly developed in all the directions
in which human thought contemplates it. Rather may we
say that it reaches its many-sided consummation and the
ripe age of its perfectness only in the New Testament.^ In
revelation, therefore, we may speak of a process of develop
ment (§§ 24-90) ; but as this whole progressive development,
so far as it could first perfectly attain in One its true end;
reaches its highest point only in Christ, and in Him only as all
the forces of divine illumination and revelation coincide, so the
Old Testament may well contain many an expression, singular,
brief, and somewhat obscure, the first elements and anticipa
tions as it were of that perfect knowledge and revelation
which open upon us in the New Testament. And this
occurs most clearly in relation to that part of Revelation
which touches upon the side of human things, where shadows
and death fall, and which in itself is necessarily somewhat
dark. But as beside the sublimest pinnacle of truth a gulf
opens below, and rays from that pure splendour of light
striking down may penetrate the extremest and deepest
darkness, so in the New Testament we meet occasional brief
> The popular song which Lamech sings (Gen. iv. 23 f.) shows nothing of the
spirit of the true religion ; it i^ interposed only to point to this very deficiency,
and to the night-side of the human spirit that became ever darker.
2 According to the appropriate image of Col. i. 28, iii. 14, iv. 12 ; James i. 25,
iii. 2 ; Heb. v. 14, vi. 1, ix. 11.

20 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
words and sentences for the first time, which illumine with
their trembling radiance this shadowy realm of humanly-
divine existence, and which appear to us, therefore, so strange
and obscure that they can only proceed from the broad light
of Christ which has arisen in the heavens in its fullest glory,
as if seeking to penetrate at last that which is darkest and
deepest. Passages which refer to the descent into Hades are
instances of this. And yet in all such passages something of
the doctrinal element is contained which serves to the fuller
illumination of the entire realm of truth of which we here
speak. Furthermore there are occasional briefly-interposed sentences
and rare passages which, as it might seem, border closely
upon the limits of doctrine, but uplifted above it, readily pass
over into a realm in which doctrine is no longer supreme,
nor is alone to have attention. For if, as must be the case,
all doctrine moves only in the region of the knowable, or of
the demonstrable by means of what is already known, how
can we include in it expressions in which the rapt spirit,
caught up in the contemplation of divine things, overflows
with thoughts which reach beyond the knowable or the
intelligibly demonstrable, and which consequently reveal
nothing which falls within the province of doctrine, or is to
be placed on a level with what are commonly considered
doctrinal propositions ? The purely poetical or artistic element
in the Bible is not meant here ; how this serves for doctrine
will be subsequently explained. But passages like those in
the Old Testament, strictly speaking rare and brief, in which
the prophetic spirit not merely anticipates in general the
coming of a Messiah, but suggests with lofty and bold
freedom what He will be when He comes, — such passages
are meant, and these cannot be considered as belonging to
doctrine in the usual meaning of the term, because they
indicate something which at that ti&e reached out beyond
all real experience, and beyond the immediate laws of con
duct to which every one had to conform. Similarly, when

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 21
Christ in rare moments discourses of Himself, as in Matt. xi.
25-30 and John xvii., that is not according to the language
of the New Testament itself to be brought under the idea
of common doctrine. Such words, it is true, do not give to
us transient or even confused and untrue thoughts, for they
relate rather to the very basis of the eternal truths which
the Bible offers ; and yet we cannot introduce them into
any series of doctrinal propositions. Just on this account
must we distinguish, as well in this case where it is most
evident as in all similar cases, merely doctrinal material
from pure doctrine, and define the latter the more exactly.
What we call doctrine in the strictest sense must contain
truths which may be reduced to brief propositions, and
which form a firmly - compact circle of contents, never in
consistent with each other, and never contradictory. But
the doctrinal material which falls into this circle may be
infinite ; and only because the Bible, like every other book,
is of limited extent, is the doctrinal element in it not so
unlimited as we might well wish, whilst we properly con
sider even the rarest expressions of transcendent import and
range as capable of serving in some way as contributions to
doctrine. At the same time, since our subject deals with
doctrine concerning God, and therefore with what is infinite,
and leads out far beyond all sensuous experience and sensuous
perception, it would be perverse to assign to doctrine too
narrow a sense, and so diverge in the very outset into
oblique paths.
3. Only in this way must we therefore gather together all
the doctrinal material of the Bible in the one great whole which
we here seek. Let this particular material yield itself as it
may, whether from the briefest, most isolated, and apparently
obscure passages of Scripture ; or from the survey and corre
spondingly true comprehension of each of the larger and
connected portions ; or from the Scripture considered as a
whole ; everywhere it is thus with confidence to be drawn
from it, and each detail to be placed in its proper depart-

22 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
merit or framework, that thus the doctrine of which we are
in quest may finally appear.
§ 147. III. But we must here, in accordance with what
we have just said, more particularly determine the relation
to doctrine of all the doctrinal material in the Bible itself,
for in point of extent this material is almost incalculable and
difficult to compass, and in its origin and source unusually
diversified ; moreover, the way in which it is to be employed
for doctrine can be determined most justly and briefly only
in accordance with this very difference in source.
In the outset it is to be observed that we cannot in this
question regard merely books or divisions of the Bible. To
be sure, we shall do well to start from the purely doctrinal
portions or doctrinal books, for there are such, and they are
very conspicuous and readily distinguishable. Amongst
them are some that are of the utmost brevity and the most
comprehensive and eternal significance, as the original Ten
Commandments. If, however, the New Testament contains in
itself only few connected doctrinal portions, and no single
book that is purely doctrinal, that is accounted for by the
fact that at the time when it appeared Christianity was too
new in the world, and the doctrinal portions of the Old
Testament that had an ancient sanctity might especially
offer their manifold service. But everywhere where the
fundamental thoughts and truths may be embraced in the
full repose of sharp brevity, and a digested series of doctrines,
it is best provisionally to proceed from them, if we have
especially to do, as in this work, with the right understanding
and science of things. But were we to take the Ten Com
mandments and regard them as the basis of the immovable
structure of all doctrine, and compare and finally adjust with
them the contents of all the rest of the doctrinal parts and
special doctrinal books of the Bible, nay, were we also to
gather up the passages which, scattered up and down in
other portions and books of the Bible, bear immediately a
doctrinal import, and might be regarded as doctrine, — all this

THE DOCTRINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 23
would not suffice. For, on the one hand, each of these
portions, or even books, had always in the history of the
development and maintenance of the true religion only the
primary aim of preserving in a doctrinal connection certain
of its fundamental truths and obligations, as the situation of
the community demanded it ; so that they can be regarded
only as attempts and commencements in the task of sum
marizing for the community the whole doctrinal material of
the true religion ; and although the Ten Commandments are
of the most incomparable utility in this respect, and serve
as a model for so many later efforts, and form a precedent
worthy of all remembrance, yet in these attempts there
prevailed, down to the time of the New Testament, so great
a freedom and diversity that we cannot, in the evident
import of the whole Bible, make the Ten Commandments
the basis in such a way that we must interpolate into them
all other material of the same origin. Our aim goes beyond
this, is wider and larger, and seeks to compass the entire
contents and purpose of the Bible. On the other hand, all
these doctrinal portions and books, just because each of them
has only a special aim, presuppose many fundamental ideas of
the true religion, for example that of God Himself ; and all
such ideas we must without exception here take into con
sideration. And so we can only say that everything to be
drawn from this source is to be contemplated for our purpose
only as doctrinal material.
1. Amongst such material stands all that is prophetic,
wherever and in whatever form it may be found, whether
combined in a longer series or standing in something of
isolation, since, according to what has been already explained,
it is the creative commencement and inexhaustible source of
everything which appears in Scripture as pure doctrine. But
since all prophecy, the more original and living it is in itself,
takes its rise the more expressly from the reaction of the
prophet upon the given circumstances of the community in
his time, and upon the anticipation beforehand of the future

24 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
shaping of things from that time onward, so it is evident that
a prophet may insert here and there in the stream of his
discourse a sentence which is capable of immediate use as
doctrine just as it is; but elsewhere his words may contain
doctrinal material only, which must be reduced to general
truths and propositions, if they are to have place in the
whole connection of doctrines here to be presented. Applied
in this sense and spirit, the most specific utterances the
prophets make concerning the existing kingdom of God in
its Jiarrowest or widest area, concerning Israel or foreign
nations, and their present condition or their then coming
future, contain in themselves, rightly understood, a fulness of
eternally abiding doctrines, each of which deserves to be
j)laced in its proper department; and yet the special utter
ance is not in itself to be thereby dissipated or resolved into
pure generalities, when such an evaporation would contradict
the intent and purpose of all true religion. For all that is
spoken prophetically in the Old Testament concerning the
Messiah and His kingdom, and in the New is anticipated
concerning the glorified Messiah and His future, must in its
deepest and most indestructible sense remain especially
limited to this single personality, just on this account, that
for all true religion, as here developed, it is of unique and in
this its specific character of imperishable significance.
Still it is to be noted that Christ's words stand above all
ordinary prophetic words ; they are to be brought into this
connection indeed, but they so much transcend everything of
the kind that elsewhere appears in the Bible, that they would
have to be placed in a separate class, were it not advisable
in this survey to keep in view rather the general character
of the sources of discourse than the degree of its elevation.
From ordinary prophetic utterances, Christ's words are dis
tinguished by the mere predictive element falling into
the background before that which is purely didactic, and
except in certain passages never having any prominence ;
moreover, even from the purely didactic element such rare

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 25
words as Matt. xi. 25-30, John xvii., which may indeed be
best designated as the expression of the purest Messianic
feeling, are also distinguishable. Nevertheless calmly didactic,
clearly convincing, sharply defined utterances have in Christ's
discourse everywhere the precedence,^ so much so that all of
it must be taken far rather as doctrine than as doctrinal
material, were it not that even here also are some sayings
which it is not to be forgotten are limited in their primary
import by the time and locality of their origin, as especially
Matt. xxiv.
Still more is this separation between the purely predictive
and the calmly didactic utterances found in the contents of
the Epistles of the New Testament, where the former recedes
far more into the background and the latter entirely prevails,
whilst the expression of apostolic feeling in harmony with
the origin of the Epistles makes itself in most of them very
strongly perceptible. As with the apostles it is, generally
speaking, what is unique and unprecedented that at every
moment they are enabled to realize as against a whole
unbelieving world, wide in extent and alien in character ;
and as they have either to be faithless to all the priceless
treasures entrusted to them, or to preserve and increase them,
and to secure all salvation or lose everything; so all they
say or write overflows with this one inextinguishable and
clearest feeling, and transforms their discourse into words of
such clearness, certainty, and firmness, that in this respect
also they appear as the immediate and most worthy followers
of their Lord.
2. It is altogether different with what we must carefully
distinguish from prophecy and designate the poetic element
^ Just on this account also, according to the language and narrative of all
the Gospels, even of the Fourth and of Acts i. 1, the teaching of Christ appears
in the end only as the second great half of aU His work. His deeds being the
first ; whilst it is true, in the Old Testament, revelation itself {Revelation ; its
Nature and Record, p. 7 S.) is called briefly in its last aim doctrine, the
special deeds of the prophets being only rarely characterized as having a
doctrinal bearing.

26 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
in the Bible. However frequently these two wholly distinct
impulses and powers of the human spirit are to-day confused
and classed with one another, we must here, as elsewhere, keep
them sharply apart. According to its essential nature, and
therefore everywhere where it is not wholly degenerate,
poetry, in its invariable similarity, is nothing but the
expression of feelings by which the human spirit is so
deeply stirred that it cannot but express them in a peculiar
way ; — an expression marked by the higher repose of a
continuously inspired and lofty movement of discourse, whose
energy, as it ascends, is steadied to a corresponding and
appropriate equilibrium.^ Such poetry entirely fills some
books of the Old Testament, and is also scattered here and
there in all the rest, nor is it fully wanting in the New
Testament ; but rightly to estimate it, it must not be over
looked that it is to be taken in this discussion just in its
original and strictest sense. Only the poetry . of song or
lyrical poetry is here to be understood. Where this art is
applied for didactic, dramatic, or narrative purposes, — and of
these three different kinds of poetry there are instances in
the Bible, some of them of the highest and most finished
character, — portions of original, simple, and pure, i.e. of lyric
poetry may, it is true, enter into the composition, and these
are then to be regarded just as the former; but the special
chief thought from which the poet, as didactic poet, or as
dramatist, or as narrator, proceeds must, with its complete
realization and accomplishment, be selected from it, and into
this connection of which we here speak, only that actually
belonging to it must be brought.
Looking now, with this proper limitation, to the purely
1 [Ewald seems to mean that in poetry expression and feeling are equally
balanced, the first corresponding to the second. Cf. Die Dichter des alten
Bundes, i. 3-8. Cf. also Hazlitt's definition : " Poetry is only the highest
eloquence of passion, the most vivid fonn of expression, that can be given to
our conception of anything. ... It is the perfect coincidence of the image and
the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other
way, that gives an instant 'satisfaction to the thought.' "'\

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE, 27
poetic element in the Bible, wherever and in whatever con
nection it may be found, it is at once evident that if poetry
consists in the streaming forth, under such condition as we
have indicated, of the feelings of the human spirit in speech,
then, by virtue of the peculiar nature of this spirit and of all
human speech, thoughts lie at the basis of these feelings,
thoughts of the most different kind may be thus expressed,
proceeding from every possible experience, and varying with
every possible height or depth of knowledge. Moreover, all
the emotions that belong to religion find in poetry their
earliest and most powerful expression ; but if poetic pieces of
such a nature preponderate in the Bible throughout, not only
in such books as were intended to be collections of them, as
the Psalms, but also in all others, yet this character does not
necessarily mark all the passages of poetry that, for some
reason or other, have now a place in the Bible, and might
have been lost were they not so preserved.^ If, however, we
desire to consider every poetic composition as doctrinal
material, we may do so, but in the broadest sense, since even
the expression of ignobler feeling, when it meets us in song
in clear and captivating guise, may, by the force of its con
trast with what is better, teach us something good. But not
the less is it evident that even in such songs as are collected
for the purpose of being sung in the community, as the
Psalms, the expression of feeling may vary very much, whilst
it is proper that in order to eliminate whatever may be
possibly injurious to the practical life every mere feeling
should always be subjected to close examination and scrutiny.
Thus, therefore, if almost everywhere such feelings and
thoughts emerge from the poetic portions of the Bible as can
serve as immediate,- luminous, and noble materials in the
structure of a system of doctrine, nevertheless as to the rest,
even should they occur in the Psalter, it must first be asked
how far they can serve us for doctrinal purposes, and in what
connection they stand with the fundamental truths of genuine
^ As Gen. iv. 23 f. ; or as B. Isa. xxiii. 16 ; Job xxi. 14 f.

28 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
religion, which alone it is the ultimate aim of the Bible to
present.^ § 149. 3. Having thus dealt with those portions of Holy
Scripture that proceed from the Old Testament prophet^ and
their New Testament successors, and from the poets, and
with what appears in their language or their works as
immediate witness of their own peculiar spirit, — narrative
alone remains to be considered. Now it is self-evident that
every portion of historical reminiscence is to be turned to
account in this circle as doctrinal material, only in so far as it
contributes to the apprehension of the universal truths and
doctrines belonging to this whole province. This reminiscence
may rest upon a fulness of numerous, copious, and manifold
narratives which the Bible affords us for the separate
prominent heights of its whole history, or may be preserved
in mere names or rare suggestions; still a very valuable
contribution for doctrine may lie hid even in what at first
sight are but isolated survivals of a once larger history, and
may prove its value when found anew and rightly applied.
What high significance for doctrine there may be in the
half-faded names the Bible preserves, and in their brief sugges
tions of eternally memorable interventions of the effective
power of all true religion, we have already seen.
But the fuller and more graphic the presentation, in a
narrative of the Biblical history, of an event important for
the true religion and its community, the more helpful and
vivifying is its influence in the enlightened comprehension of
doctrine ; and the Bible has an inexhaustibly profound depth
of power in that it joins very closely together all history and
all doctrine essential to the understanding of it, so that the
one may be elucidated by the other. Since now, however, all
the conceptions and doctrines of revelation are secured only
in the conflicts of human history, and therefore the original
' As remarked in the previous volume, p. 426, with respect to the so-called
imprecatory Psalms.
2 § 146, p. 18 f.

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 29
truth of revelation is the more conspicuously evident, the
more clearly and certainly such historical reminiscence stands
before our view, it is manifest what significance the whole
wealth of the Bible in its shorter or longer narratives has for
our aim — a significance which nothing else could have. And
since all higher and better aspirations and endeavours of man
in genuine religion must first in conflict with their opposites
be subjected to the test of experience before they can be
raised to the position of precedents and doctrines ; it is
evident that in this matter history anticipates doctrine, and,
stage by stage, the highest examples of all human life must
appear before the first firm outlines of the perfect doctrine of
it can be sketched. Accordingly, where this occurs in the
highest degree, simple history is also at the same time
material for the noblest and purest doctrine, as is the case in
the New Testament in relation to Christ ; and for doctrine as
such nothing is then left but to ask and to show how the
highest phenomenon in human life and history thus given for
ever to knowledge and imitation, can actually serve to every
man for precedent and example.
But because the human mind may carry in itself an
anticipation of the perfection of all human life and an in
extinguishable yearning after it, before the highest historical
doctrine is thus manifest, so it is possible that the scattered
and faded reminiscences of lofty personages of the primitive
time may be involuntarily elevated and spiritualized to patterns
of such pure excellence. If now the chief part of the
reverence of heroes of antiquity proceeded from this source
among the heathen, with the people of Israel it was only the
three Patriarchs, nay, par excellence Abraham himself, the
remembrance of whom these retrospects and narratives more
and more thus renewed and transfigured ; so that especially
Abraham's history, as it appears in the Bible, has now become
a self-luminous, eternal doctrine of all life in the true religion ;
 at least in such purity and loftiness as was conceivable
before Christ had given in reality the true example of it.

30 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
And subsequently there was added also the spiritualizing of
the reminiscence of Elijah, since the purely prophetic type
of character kppeared more and more to rival that of the
old-world primitive age ; and in the case of Elijah we are
historically in a position to observe this with the more defi
niteness. Or where otherwise subsequent narrators renovated
for their contemporaries scattered and feeble reminiscences of
old historical magnates, summoning to life again in new
pictures all that had once been noblest in them, we must be
careful, if such narratives are to serve us as materials for
doctrine, to distinguish the double elements out of which
they grew ; nay, this distinction is here even most usefully
to be applied since such narratives supply, by the loftiness and
vividness of the universal truths which they make the more
freely, instructively, and luminously apparent, what they have
lost of the fulness and purity of first reminiscences. But we
must guard ourselves against mistaking or perverting the
actual historical element that lies in them, or holding as
fictitious or mere poetry that which, more exactly considered,
is rather pure historical reminiscence, however unwonted and
sublime it nevertheless at the first glance appears to us.
But in order to estimate aright the narrative parts of the
Bible, an important matter is not to be overlooked. The
highest points of all the history of the development of Revela
tion and the true religion itself, as before noticed, may in
voluntarily become the most memorable and vivid reminiscence
of all that infinitude which, corresponding to the eternal
nature of all religion, transcends the merely sensuous. The
higher that development mounts, the sooner and the more
numerously may arise, even immediately according to actual
history, short portions of narrative, which in one word may be
designated supersensuous. In such short narratives a hundred
special reminiscences of the grandeur or the strangeness of
historical phenomena, when some given circumstance may
furnish the occasion for it, condense themselves in a single
vivid representation of corresponding grandeur, but in such a

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 31
way that the meaning, which on account of the occasioning
circumstance is now associated with this representation,
transcends immeasurably the mere occasion itself; and the
fact that such vivid reminiscences and sometimes short narra
tives involuntarily and rapidly spring up after great historical
experiences, and become fixed and settled in the thought —
just this distinguishes them from the previously- noticed
transfigured but later reminiscences of once high historical
phenomena. Long since and often has it been made definitely
and sufficiently conspicuous how perfectly groundless it is
to suppose that the highest points of the whole history of
Christ and His apostles, touching as it were the very heavens,
originated only in comparatively late days. Those which,
according to the sources of our knowledge, prove themselves to
be the oldest, are just the highest, and only gradually did
similar narratives originate, following these standing examples.^
But even in the Old Testament, with respect to the history
of Moses and his time down to later ages, the same thing may
be manifoldly established. The historical conception of Moses'
time which Deborah expresses,^ and indeed that concerning
the destruction of the Assyrian army,^ must have been formed
early enough. It is just the freshest, the most powerful, the
first impressions, abiding in the mind as the rarest historical
experiences, that are most tenaciously preserved- in these
representations. That supersensuous truths, which lie too remote from the
common vision of. men, and are in themselves too dim for
sense, are brought most vividly before the eye and mind
in the dress of narratives of outwardly observable incidents,
was a very old feeling in Israel, — a feeling which, at different
times according to varying needs, constantly returned afresh in
some new form, and which sought and found correspondingly
varying expression. In times when much obstinacy was
momentarily to be feared among the people from some new
¦ Cf. Die drei ersten Evangelien, 2 Ausg. s. 59 ff. History, vii. 56-105.
2 Judg. v. 4 f. '2 Kings xix. 35. Cf. History, iv. 184 f.

32 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
violence and domination, this feeling was traversed by the
very different feeling that, when direct and open expression of
them was dangerous, it would be safer and more useful to
clothe such truths of the genuine religion in the form of
a pleasing and in itself innocent recital of some story ; a
custom which grew into prevalency also in the dressing out
in graceful and attractive guise of truths concerning public
affairs in narratives of every colour and drawn from every
source, and thus presenting them as riddles to be solved
intellectually, rather than placing them coldly and nakedly
before the mind. Since now the most manifold finer
exercises and arts of the intellectual life were early cultivated
in Israel, and were continued amid all the changes of its out
ward lot, it is not surprising that narratives which flowed from
these three impulses penetrated into the Bible, and have to be
employed by us accordingly as doctrinal material. The simple
pictorial narratives (fables, parables) of the earliest ages, down
to those which surpass all others by their charming grace and
striking truth, springing forth creatively in Christ's inex
haustible flowing utterances, belong to this class, as well
as those portions of narrative in the Book of Job, originat
ing in artistic poetry and learned speculation, and the
stories still more artificial in their diverse aims and
methods which appear in such later books as Tobit, Daniel,
and Judith.
The narrative pieces of the Bible being of so very diversi
fied a character in their ultimate origin, it is evident indeed
that we must employ them as doctrinal material, each in
its own way. We have, therefore, carefully to estimate what
is simply historical, what proceeds from actually-experienced,
highly-significant history, whose truth is to be firmly held,
yet is nevertheless in its conception raised above all that
is sensuous and earthly, and touches the realm which we are
here chiefly in quest of, and must stedfastly apprehend, viz.
that of pure, although vividly-represented, spiritual truth ; or
what at once may be regarded as pictorial image of pure truth.

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 3 3
or even as an attempt to bring it near to the dim or averted
eye of man. The more delicate and genuine historical sense,
which is never to leave us in this science, and regard for the
truth of all history itself and the certainty that in all matters
of religion our own religion grows the more we recognise its
historical foundation, demand from us this procedure. But
nothing is so pernicious, nay, so destructive, for this science
and its results, as diluting or explaining away in this or that
direction, or denying what strict history teaches, whether in
its sensuous, supersensuous, or purely divine side. If now a
learned school has in our times become powerful, that mingles
all this in confusion, and because many narratives in the Bible
are not common or palpable history, as good as rejects more
or less, or seeks to annul all historical certainty in Biblical
narration, it is for us the more carefully, on the contrary, to
guard that historical truth everywhere, and the more surely to
realize its value in this science. i And one of the best means
of defending the historical trustworthiness of the Bible in its
essential limits may be afforded by the science we seek here
to handle, where everything historical rightly enters into that
wider and higher realm in which it receives its full signifi
cance and is recognised in its invariable necessity.
§ 150. From what has been said, we draw, however, in
this place some further results concerning doctrine so far as it
may be derived from the Bible or freely find support in it.
It must be acknowledged that in the course of long
centuries the doctrines deduced from Scripture have been
somewhat varying. At times a single particular doctrine was
elicited from its teaching, upon which incomparably great
stress was laid, although it could not properlj'- be found in it
at all ; at other times a whole system of doctrines was based
upon it, although this was just as arbitrary a procedure.
All this happened in the last centuries before Christ, and was
continued after Christ in relation to the New Testament.
1 The unhistorical character of the school of Strauss and Baur has long since
been established beyond all contradiction. C

34 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
The rare wealth as well as the great inner diversity of the
contents of the Bible favoured this procedure ; and the
apparent obscurity or ambiguity of many of its single
sentences or words also lent its aid to this end. Inasmuch
as the diversity of the ponderous and comprehensive doctrines
elicited from the Bible, since the German Reformation, three
hundred and fifty years ago, awakened a new and rare zeal in
its study, has increased more and more, and threatens to
become more and more burdensome, people are beginning to
treat such questions with disdain. It might be thought,
indeed, that the Bible must ultimately fare as the sacred
writings of other old and widespread religions have fared,
whose divergent exposition with the fundamentally opposite
doctrines drawn therefrom became at last a principal reason
for the irremediable divisions into which such religions fall.
The old Indian religion, that of the Old Testament, and Islam,
in large measure through the diverse interpretation and appli
cation of the contents of their sacred books, have each of
them fallen into the irreconcilable sections in which we see
them decaying at present. That in each case some other
cauges have been at work to widen the breach is, it is true,
undeniable, but does not alter the main position in the least.
The fact is that those religions either from the beginning
suffer from too great imperfection and want of definiteness, or
have not advanced to their ultimate consummation, as is the
case with the Old Testament religion when it disdains the
New. Where this fault exists, everything that is otherwise
ever so true in detail may easily more and more break up into
parts and dissolve in contradictions. With the old Persian
and Macedonian religions we should also see the same irre
vocable disruption, if they were not already so enfeebled by
their unhappy destiny that only the most fragmentary and one
sided remnant of them still lives. If in the case of Chris
tianity it is so far otherwise that we can recover from its
Bible a doctrine which unquestionably satisfies its simple, full,
entire contents and aim, and corresponds to all perfect true

THE DOCTEINAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE. 35
religion in so far as doctrine can, this is possible for certain
valid reasons. (1) In the first place, in Christianity itself
the few but indestructible fundamental truths are given to
which all the separate, in themselves real yet scattered, truths
contained in the Old Testament tend, and of which the most
manifold application to every individual case is possible, but
always an application to be enlightened and guided by such
earlier Old Testament truths. (2) In the second place, in this
Bible are contained the living evidences and documents by
which may be seen how everything, even the most manifold,
mounts up to its supreme elevation, from which, however, it
may be resolved again into its possible manifoldness. If now
we find in the almost inexhaustible manifoldness of these
living testimonies any detail which, true in itself, yet by its
special setting may easily work for us too one-sidedly, we are
not only free but obligated to supplement that detail from
other portions of knowledge and truth which are just as well
to be found in the Bible. So that in the end it is a real
advantage that the Scripture does not present itself to us as
hard, cold doctrine, settled and adjusted already, but rather as
a living garden of inexhaustible wealth, whose rich and varied
materials are alike available for the highest uses, wherein no
unhealthy growth has not its adequate corrective, and no
deficiency its possible supply. (3) And thirdly, the par
ticular words and sentences of the Bible, at least so far as
they have importance for the matter in hand, may be under
stood and applied to-day with far more certainty than in the
long ages that have intervened since its completion; so
that the clearness and correctness of our conception of the
whole have considerably increased.
In this way, still further, what is most of all to be desired
in connection with this subject may be brought about. To
reduce the manifold contents of the Bible to a system of
doctrine, pursuant to its own ultimate aim, is indispensable,
has its service which nothing can replace, and in reaHty has
been attempted in some form or other in every age. But

36 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
that this system of doctrine, without any prejudice whatever
to the excellence of the Bible, should be made more and more
perfect and certain, and should more and more guide in
common and bring into closer union all Christendom, which
is clearly possible, this is the special service which we may
have in view. Moreover, however necessary opinion and
doctrine are for man, yet everything which we call doctrine
has its deficiency. Doctrine comprehends general truths ; but
these general truths can each of them be fully and exactly
conceived only by real living experience ; and without such
experience constantly realized will be but a dead and empty
form. It follows, therefore, that doctrine must always be
purified and strengthened by direct reference to such full,
living, individual details, that it may not be unsuitably
applied. The knowledge and doctrine a man supposes himself
to possess and feels to be in themselves a kind of power, may
just on this account readily puff up.^ The consideration how
little he can do by them alone, and how necessary it is that
he should ever strengthen them afresh by investigation of the
infinite details they involve, disarms his vanity of its mischief.
And if such is the case with all doctriiie, much more is it with
this, which by new and actual experiences in life nmst more
and more expand.
P. 14, note 1. [In the History, vii. 207 f., Ewald says:
" The letter of the sacred Scriptures, as Philo understood it, or
supposed according to his foregone conclusion regarding its
sacredness he must understand it, was in his view, without any
further doubt or independent examination, absolutely divine,
both as pure truth and absolute duty, as the light of all know
ledge and all life. There is here an inner contradiction and a
most dangerous error, which he did not apprehend, just as in
our day so many Christian scholars do not perceive it in spite
of the New Testament, with its entirely different teaching. It
is not permissible to assign one thing a position as absolutely
holy and beyond all examination, and to expose another thing
' As Paul emphatically says, 1 Cor. iv. 18, v. 2, viii. 1, xiii. 4 ; Col. ii. 18.

THE LIMITATION OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 37
to every kind of examination, simply because it is not this
one thing the holiness of which is presupposed. It is not
permissible to subordinate certain branches of knowledge as
base menials to another branch, as of inviolable and absolute
authority, and yet after all to use these menials solely in
the sacred service of explaining and defending that indolent
mistress that has grown sluggish and immovable. On the
contrary, if science or philosophy is to be an indispensable
human possession at all, all matters and subjects, not except
ing the most sacred, must be equal before it, in order that
everything that is holy may authenticate itself by its own
truth as holy, and support and preserve all the innumerable
sciences in their relation to each other. If this is not done,
even that which must be necessarily regarded as holy does
not influence as it ought all knowledge and all life ; and, on
the other hand, everything that ought to support it from
below and sustain it before the world, is unable to fulfil this
proper function. But, on the contrary, by the employment
of false expedients there arises an outward embellishment and
excessive adornment of sacred things which for a time dazzles
the eye until it falls into decay, involving the sacred things
themselves in its ruin, and bringing about general confusion.
For it often happens in such cases that the various branches
of knowledge are pursued and cultivated only as far as they
are supposed to be handmaids of sacred things in their mis
understood sense, and are rejected, regarded with horror, and
anathematized when they appear to hinder the attainment of
that object."]

n. THE LIMITATION OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.
Preliminary Observations.
§ 151. The doctrine of God and His relation to the
universe opens upon us the highest and most difficult
portion of our task. Who among mortal men, even if
he takes the Bible as his starting-poiut and guide, and
seeks only to expound its utterances, can rightly and

38 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
adequately discourse of God ? God is upright and just, it
is true, as we read in the Psalms, and on this account one
can speak of Him so far with less embarrassment and more
completeness; He is transcendently elevated and purely
omnipotent also, and can bear with unruffled composure the
feeble and foolish words of man about Him, examples of
which are not wanting in the Bible. But the whole Scripture
shows, and especially the Book of Job with its unsurpassed
art, how severely is punished all thought and discourse of
God that is perverse and wayward, and how easily upon this
great theme even a truly pious and upright man may err.
Nothing indeed is truer than that no one of us can sufficiently
apprehend and fully set forth His incomparable greatness and
wondroils Being; while even those who were revealers of
God have confessed that human thought cannot fathom His
mysterious and hidden depths. " Behold, God is great, and
we know Him not ! " ^ " Lo, these are but the outskirts of
His ways ; and how small a whisper do we hear of Him, but
the thunder of His power who can understand ? " ^
It is nevertheless not to be denied, whatever some modern
sages may affirm, that he who suffers himself to be absorbed
and lost in profound contemplation of the living God, he who
bathes his own feeble and bounded spirit in His infinite and
eternal Spirit will the more clearly and justly apprehend Him,
and the better estimate and handle the things of the world
and of men. Impressions received in life and endeavour
here on earth impel man to strive after that which is beyond
himself, and to search into the whole Infinitude which con
fronts his thought. In this aspiration and quest the spirit
mounts up unceasingly and purely from height to height
to the certain and luminous realization of the true God ;
and the more surely man learns to find his repose and
to feel himself at home in communion with Him, the more
peaceful and penetrating will be his glance into the turmoil
and darkness of the world around, and the more will he feel
' Job xxxvi. 26. ^ /j j^^^j ^

THE LIMITATION OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 39
that everything is ordered in its being and its aim by an
energy that is inexhaustible and divine. This is the experience
of centuries and millenniums ; and in this respect no change
need be feared from any changes future years may bring.
For this reason we may look to the Bible for help, help
which we should seek in vain elsewhere. Here is a point of
antiquity, far removed from us and therefore the more calmly
to be surveyed, in which many of the best minds learned,
amid all conflicts with oppression and distress, to seek for
serenity of thought and energy of will in the true God and
His Spirit ; in which in the most grievous and widespread
darkness of the rest of the world they learned to do this
not for their own happiness and repose alone, but for the
light and salvation of a great community experiencing similar
needs and sharing a like aspiration ; and in which in the
ultimate course of events, amid limitations of time and
locality, and amid growing errors and widely prevalent
inconstancy, perfect success was at last vouchsafed.
§ 152. But it is just this thought of the Invisible that
many of our contemporaries would drive out and destroy.
On the very threshold of our discussion, therefore, we are
conscious how wide is the distance between the age in which
we live and the age in which the Bible was written. For
who does not know how many of our day, learned and
unlearned, wholly deny the existence of God, and press upon
us the question, why in the early ages of humanity God is
everywhere so much spoken of, and why even to-day some
minds that have not advanced with advancing knowledge
still think and speak of Him ? It seems to them as if there
were an enormous and fundamental difference between the
present and the past ; as if indeed, since the idea of God is
the pivot upon which the whole Bible turns, the Bible might
serve as a guide and basis for human life in old days, but
that now with our radically changed ideas and aims it is not
merely supeirfluous but injurious. This whole view, however,
is groundless and mistaken, as the whole Bible itself shows.

40 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
For as certainly as the existence of God and His truth are
presupposed in Scripture as self-evident, and as surely as the
Scripture will remain for all time the incomparably firmest
and most luminous literary witness of Him, so it does not
deny that there were men of mark enough in its day who
like our modern philosophers and their friends wholly denied
God, and, regarding this denial as the supreme wisdom of life,^
looked down upon those who thought otherwise as foolish
and antiquated,^ and lived happily enough to all outward
a,ppearance notwithstanding, and were held to be the sages
of their time and the rulers of its intellect. We know,
moreover, from the Bible itself that they sought to substantiate
their denial, partly from the apparent defect and baldness of
the conception itself, partly from the lot in life of men who
held it ;7 and it looks as if in them we had before our eyes
people well known among us to-day. But if we might be
troubled and disheartened for the moment at modern unbelief,
we must remember, as the Bible shows, that it was in times
when religion had lost something of its essential energy and
power and was no longer the pride of its nation Israel, and
when the deficiency of its ancient constitution and faith
began to be keenly felt, that such denial appeared.* Indeed,
it was somewhat subsequently to the eighth or seventh
centuries before Christ that a new darkening of the spirit
set in, and the disposition to deny God and divine things
paralleled that of our own day. So little did such denials
spring from a foreign source ; so little was a languid foreign
wind, Greek or otherwise, needed to cause these noxious
weeds to flourish ; and so little is the denial of God a new
scientific discovery or a mark of modeirn and advanced
thought. § 153. The Bible everywhere presupposes that we can
obtain in opposition to all error a true knowledge of God, and
' 1 Job ii. 9, xxi. 14 ff. ; Wisd. i. 16-ii. 20.
^ Prov. XXX. 1-14. Cf. Job xii. 6, xxi. 6-15, xxiv. 22-24, xxi. 29 ff.
' Job, passim; Ps. xxii. 8 ff. ; Wisd. ii. 10-?0.
' Ps. xiv., liii.

THE LIMITATION OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 41
it is this it seeks to give us. But not the less does it make
prominent and conspicuous that our knowledge of God and
things divine is limited. If, indeed, Christ Himself while in
the limits of this mortal body definitely asserted His want of
knowledge in respect to a matter of importance for religion in
His day,^ we can hardly doubt the reality of this limitation in
our own case. The question, however, is, in what does this
limitation consist, and whence does it arise ?
The true glory of man and his superiority to all the rest
of creation consists in part in this, that he has a percep
tion and knowledge of God such as no other earthly creature
possesses.^ Although in his distinction from God, man
belongs to the world, yet this apprehension of the Divine
constitutes him a wholly different creature from all others,
whether animate or inanimate. The Bible everywhere takes
this for granted and, as occasion offers, makes it plainly
conspicuous. In point of fact, however, there is another
characteristic by which even those who are estranged from all
religion, and are hostile to it, can measure the distance
between man and all other creatures. Whilst all the rest of
the world, the greatest and the smallest parts alike, show no
free and voluntary progress, man has passed through the
greatest changes, but never apart from his own freewill,
and always conjointly with some special bent of his own
mind ; as all history known to us during the many centuries
of his existence indicates, and as also the Bible throughout
attests. History in its very idea is on this account divisible
into two kinds, as different as possible from each other. For
we see, indeed, apart from man, in all regions of the universe,
not merely changes that are recurring, but such as are progres
sive, the characteristic of all that we call history, but we see
these changes accomplishing themselves while the things that
change are merely passive. Of what a different nature, on
the contrary, is all human history ! And if we would add
here that in the stricter sense of the true religion we cannot
• Matt. xxiv. 36 ; Mark xiii. 32. ^ §§ 11-46.

42 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
speak, nor does the Bible, of a history of God,^ we may by
this characteristic distinguish, at least provisionally, in what
relation man is to be conceived as standing on the one hand
to the rest of the world and on the other to God.
Nevertheless, pausing for a moment at this phenomenon of
human history alone, we see that the world, however long it
continues, manifestly turns upon man in large measure ; and
the nature and process of all the highest movement and
activity of man, briefly indicated above, may give to us a
conception of his ultimate destiny. There is a series, a
succession of stages, in the moulding and shaping of this
world. The present state of things, pre-eminently human, is
only a single stage, by no means the first and certainly not
the last. If we say that in this period of the world man has
a destiny appointed to him by his Creator, we shall not speak
incorrectly, provided only the idea of the true God and all
the fundamental thoughts of the Bible be accepted. Of
what character and what purport this destiny is, there is no
doubt. The spirit of man is placed in its earthly conditions
only that in the midst of them it may look forth and perceive
the visible and palpable all around, and recognise the Divine
that is beyond invisibly ruling all, and thus grasp that
great divine plan of the universe to the full realization of
which man is consciously to contribute.
This being the unalterable destiny appointed for the human
creation, it must here be firmly maintained, that man, not
withstanding his incomparable superiority to all other living
creatures of earth, has nevertheless, as a created individuality,
his limits just as definitely appointed. Enclosed in this
earthly body, and active only in connection with it, his spirit
may and ought independently to seek and freely to find the
' It is almost incomprehensible how a recent German philosopher should so
confound the true religion with heathenism as to speak of a "becoming" and
" growth " as possible in relation to God. Even of the Spirit in its primary
and purest sense to predicate historical change is impossible ; it is only where
it mingles with the human, or rather where the human brings it down to its
own errors, that we can speak of such change.

THE LIMITATION OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 43
Divine, even God Himself, in order that, working together
with the divine spirit, he may realize the true joy of life,
and reach the ultimate goal of his destiny. But because all
created life in its primary possibility consists only of a
repetition of ebbing and flowing sensuous movements, upon
which the universe reacts more or less strongly, man, so long
as he moves in this sensuous separate body, can only move
within its limits, even in seeking and knowing God. The
consequences of this are the following : —
1. Man conceives the Divine only in sensuous images and
feelings immediately beheld and experienced ; for the spirit of
man in its activity is always influenced by the visible and
sensuous universe which surrounds it, and is only by such
influences and movements pointed to the Divine beyond.
All human speech is thus fashioned, and the result is in this
case most marked. There is confessedly not a single word in
all the different human tongues which in its ultimate origin
does not imply something sensuous. It is certain, therefore,
that man, notwithstanding all his higher spiritual gifts which
should subsequently lead him at the fitting season above and
beyond all that is seen and palpable, must from all primitive
time downwards have become familiarly conversant with the
knowledge and characterization of all objects of the outwardly
visible and perceptible universe, before he learned to designate
just as clearly all that stands above the sensuous, and that
may be distinguished as the realm of pure thoughts or the
supersensuous world. Since, however, the idea of God is
only the crown and all-embracing sum of these pure thoughts,
our contention as to the limits of our knowledge of God
is the more readily evident.
2. As a created individuality man is placed in the limits
of space and time that his spirit, within these limits indeed,
advancing from stage to stage, may apprehend with increasing
confidence and completeness the divine forces which, unlike
this world of sense, are invisible, which in any moment of
his earthly life he never knows perfectly because they are

44 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
infinite, and of which each new moment may increase his
knowledge. Therefore within such limits man may verily
apprehend the Whole of such divine forces, and thereby the
true God in His reality; for in apprehending Him he but
recognises the Infinite from which he himself has sprung ; but
he cannot resolve himself into it or become one with it or its
knowledge, so long as with continuance of the bodily limit
the ebbing and flowing of the necessary sensuous movement
is repeated. 3. The spirit of the individual man within its limits may
always be affected by the consequences of its own freedom
and that of the spirits of all other men, and therefore also by
possible error, whilst at the same time the least error, so far
as it goes, separates him from the knowledge of God, or at
least from the knowledge of a part of the divine working in
the future. Thus, then, is this briefly- sketched description of
the limits of all human knowledge of God completed. And
if these limits vary immeasurably in particular men, in
accordance with the incalculable diversity of the strength and
purity of the spirit in the individual, yet they are never
altogether wanting in any ; ^ whilst it is of the highest
moment distinctly to remember them.
§ 154. For that such Umits of all human knowledge of
God actually exist, and are insurmountable in our present
temporal experience, may well humble the pride of man
in our day and check groundless expectation. Nevertheless
it is not, more closely considered, a matter conditioned by
creation, so that he who does not assert such limits must not
assert creation itself: rather is it best represented as a
necessary accompaniment of the incomparable greatness of
created man himself, and the indispensable condition of the
divine aim for which he is formed. All this, however, must
be properly apprehended in its details, just as it is, viz. :
' Matt. xxiv. 36 suggests that no mortal man may foreknow and calculate, in
its temporal issues, what depends upon the attitude of individual men to God,
therefore upon their spiritual freedom, although all is certain to the divine
mind.

THE LIMITATION OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 45
1. The highest and noblest existence conceivable next to
God Himself is that of a creature with gifts and capacities
fitting him to know God in all His inexpressible glory and
majesty, and by means of this knowledge to shape his conduct
in harmony with the Divine. Still higher and nobler is it if
this creature does not in the possibility of the supremest joy
and blessedness stand alone by itself, but incalculably many
share this privilege ; and if such possibility diffused among so
many does not remain fruitless and inoperative but in the
long course of centuries is actually realized in the continuously
existing multitude more and more, and from stage to stage, —
realized differently, no doubt, in different individuals, largely
in some, less in others, or not at all, yet nevertheless so that
every creature may enjoy the highest happiness possible to it
in this creation, while all at last working together with God,
a new and higher creation arises, even as it exists already in
the divine thought. If a creature of this type must submit
itself to the limit of the mortal body, yet it is shut up therein
only that its spirit, stirred unceasingly by a thousand incite
ments to the knowledge and love of God, may more and more
break through the bodHy limits to know and love Him alone,
and thence to conform its own life to what is manifest of the
Divine. All this takes place, however, not as constrained by
a blind force, but purely by the incitements from within and
from without urging to the surmounting of all bodily limit,
and therefore guided by the free movement or, in one word,
the freedom of man's own spirit, since to know is always in
itself the quest and discovery of truth as against possible
error ; but it is only the individual search after and finding
of the Highest, i.e. the Divine, that affords true and infinite
joy. Thus the freedom of the human will is given along
with this limit, and this is the true nature and original
destination of freedom.
2. To surmount the limit of the narrow, dark body, and
to apprehend the universe and God, and especially to become
assured of the reality of the divine existence, man is thus

46 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
impelled; but only as his spirit during the continuance of
this creation abides within it, because only in this state can
he by his own activity and freewill know God in His whole
undoubted certainty, both in His nature and in His work,
that with the same free activity he may conform his life to
the Divine. Thus a second kind of limit is given to man's
knowledge and action. Enclosed in this body, the spirit may
and should learn to know God and conform its action to His ;
but because it is shut up in the body, within space and time,
and liable to error, it can never know everything about the
things of the universe, and copy all the divine procedure.
That is to say, within this limit it may and is to become the
imitator of God, but never to be as God Himself, an almighty
Creator ; consequently it can never know or understand how
all individual life arises, and when in the joint working of all
earthly things the end of that individual life shall come.
This second limit of all human knowledge and action, because
the question here concerns the life of man, is a limit of which
he may be conscious at every moment, and may at times be
painfully conscious ; and yet the Bible regards it as in the
highest degree necessary to remind man of the inevitable
existence of this limit, especially when he seeks arrogantly to
ignore it, or endeavours to raise himself above it, as if that
were an easy task.^
3. In point of fact, however, there is here the purest gain
for man, since the ultimate divine aim of his creation is just
as unattainable without the second limit as it would be
impossible without the first. For if, on the one side, man
had the capacity and power to be like God Himself as Creator,
he would not first strive to know Him ; he would therefore
forfeit all possibility of this pure joy and blessedness, as well
as surrender the privilege of becoming by conscious aspiration
competent to work together with God towards the new and
better era of the world ; in short, he would lose his whole
inborn glory. If, however, on the other side, he knew
1 Isa. xiv. 9 f. ; Rom. ix. 20 ff. ; 1 Cor. xiii. 9-12, Cf. § 34.

THE LIMITATION OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 47
beforehand exactly the time and character of his own end
and that of every other creature, and were in this respect
like the Creator, this would cripple the freedom of his will,
and, impairing the mightiest prerogative of mind, would rob
him of his glory in another way. The first limit, therefore,
becomes to man the initial and abiding impulse in the task
of realizing the divine aim to which he is appointed ; and
the second forms his constant safeguard and defence in this
same task of his whole temporal life. What seems to be an
evil is consequently rather an incomparable advantage, since
it runs back in each case to the divine aim itself
In Scripture this ultimate destiny of the life of the
individual man, and of all humanity, is interwoven with the
wide circumference of Messianic hopes, but a single brief
Biblical proof of it may here be offered. The Apostle John
is the latest New Testament writer, and has this special
excellence and distinction ; — standing at the close of the
entire development of the history of all true religion, he
perceives and apprehends most clearly, in the widest and
most peaceful survey, all its highest points and abiding
issues ; and with this is combined another distinction, — he
accustomed himself, as Christ's beloved disciple, firmly to
grasp and loyally to retain during a long life the inmost
thoughts and purposes of his Lord. In his Gospel this
favoured disciple cites the word of Christ, " No man hath
seen God at any time." ^ Now to behold God is the highest
aspiration man can cherish, — an aspiration that with its
increasing glow may be felt throughout the whole life. But
this saying of Christ's which John records may effectually
meet and moderate it. Indeed, if in the course of the long
ao-es of time man can attain only in part, and never fully
exhaust, all the knowledge he is allured and moved to seek
1 John i. 18. Cf. John vi. 46, xiv. 6-11. In passages like 3 John 6, when
John speaks of seeing God, there lies in his thought the addition, "through
or in Christ." John, like his younger contemporary Tacitus, leaves out what
is not necessary to say or add. Such terseness of Style was part of the culture
of the time.

48 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
as the supreme joy and satisfaction of his spirit, and as an
ultimate end of his existence, how much less has any one
ever seen God, whether with his outward or inward eye, oi
at least so seen Him in whom all creation centres that he
can fully explain everything respecting Him, as he might
some object of sense with which he is familiar ! But the
same John says, nevertheless, " We shall see Him as He is," ^
i.e. we shall yet see Him at the close of the present age ol
the world, and not merely with the spiritual eye as we
already see Him in the Old Testament, or more clearly still
in the New, by means of Christ's appearing, but immediately,
face to face. In these words the apostle expresses, in his
own simple and concise way, the end towards which all the
profoundest and most thoughtful speculation upon man and
his destiny leads us. It lies in the nature of creation and of
individual existence that everything has its limits, which it
cannot surmount, and in which alone it can rightly develop
itself according to its end and aim until that end is reached.
And so is it also with man. His limitations are fixed from
the beginning, not merely in relation to space and time, but
also for the sake of the movement and free action of his
mind itself

III. PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
"'¦ § 165. That God actually exists, notwithstanding all
doubt arising from human weakness, nothing so certainly
establishes as the true idea and nature of spirit. Doubt of
what is not immediately present to the senses is always
possible, and may be useful in order ultimately to consolidate
a firmer basis for belief He who denies God, however, must
deny his own spirit also ; and in that case, as a primitive
1 1 John iii. 2.
* [Paragraphs marked with an asterisk are moie or less condensed by the
Translator.]

PEOOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, 49
man withdrawn from present-day knowledge and culture, or
a man among men in the midst of the progressive working
together of the divine and human spirit in history, he will
come back again to the recognition of spirit and of God
Himself The denier of God who loves and is devoted to
intellectual culture and power, admits the existence of mind
or spirit, and must admit also a common mind or spirit
standing over all men, in which alone they find themselves
mutually intelligible, and can rejoice together in intellectual
gifts and exercises ; and if this be fully grasped, it will lead
to Him without whom mind or spirit itself cannot be a force
or hold its sway over men. The more the people of the
Bible felt themselves touched in a thousand ways by the
Spirit of God, and recognised such influence in their chief
men, the less they needed proofs of the divine existence.
Elaborate artificial proofs of God are attempted only where
His existence is denied, and even then are of little service
to a mind satisfied with sensuous objects ; the Bible does not
give them, although, as we have seen, there were men in its
day who rejected God. Against such men in Egypt and
Canaan, the living and only true God was made manifest;
in Babylon, and under Grajco-Romaic rule, they were reproved
with earnest words, or, where more suitable, with lofty deri
sion and solemn scorn. Heathen gods are envious of human
happiness, and punish by intrigue the arrogance of men. The
Bible knows no such conception of God, but represents the
heathen as given over to their foolishness, and by its terrible
consequences warned in the midst of their security of Him
whom they despised. This method of dealing with deniers
of God never becomes obsolete.
* § 166. Although giving no proofs of God's existence in
technical and scientific form, more closely considered the
Bible gives proofs for those who need them, — striking,
original proofs, proceeding from the inner certainty of the
thing itself, and of living and victorious power. (1) Where
from pressure of circumstances the mind is sunk in doubt

50 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
or despair. Scripture speaks in the old way of Revelation, or
in the direct word of God's prophet and messenger which
is its own witness, or in artistic fashion, as in the Book
of Job. Proofs are addressed to our capability of percep
tion ; the mind must be prepared by experience and made
intent by pressure of need to perceive and appropriate in
their whole force the highest proofs of God. As the poet
in the Book of Job shows the omnipotence and righteous
ness of God in their distinction and their continual operation,
he gives the whole proof required. From creation, as a
whole, in its eternal order, omnipotence appears ; from
history and the human world, righteousness ; and both
coincide. If God exists, only such can He be, only thus
can He act.
In the Hellenistic time a new way of meeting the deniers
of God was taken. In the Book of Job, in which there is a
prophetic spirit and inspiration, the proof is out of the mouth
of God, from above downward. In the Wisdom of Solomon ^
the proof is from below upward, i.e. from the greatness and
beauty of the universe, and from history to the existence and
nature of God. The distinction already familiar to the
mind between the heathen and the worshippers of the true
God had become a distinction between " nature " and " spirit,"
i.e. between a multitude of men unacquainted with the work
ing of the Divine Spirit, therefore " worldly " or " natural,"
and the people of God penetrated by that Spirit. The Book
of Wisdom shows men by nature vain, not knowing from good
things the good, nor from the works the Workmaster ; ^ mis
takenly, yet inexcusably, stopping short with creation itself,
not finding the Lord thereof, but making to themselves gods
that are dead. The proof from history is added, but is con
fined to the exodus of Israel from Egypt and its tokens
of divine retribution, for with all his eloquence the author was
' Wisd. xiii. 1-10.
^Cf. [" tends to know
The works of God thereby to glorify
The great Workmaster." — Milton.]

THE VAEIATION OF LANGUAGE CONCERNING GOD. 51
unequal to a wider survey. Philo and subsequently Paul'
recognise a similar method of proof of God from creation ;
but after Christ the historical proof became more manifest and
ready to hand. (2) For men distressed by the seductive
words or violent deeds of deniers of God, there is no such
copious presentation of proof Short, sharp rebukes of arro
gant folly suffice to show what are the true defensive weapons
in such case, as in Ps. xiv., Ixiv., and Prov. xxx. (3)
For all men the Bible is one continuous, manifold, yet con
sistent proof of the reality of God, in the great characters,
events, and teachings He inspires, and in those deeper ex
periences which lead us in the great history of the world
to find Him afresh, without whom that history were a dreary
waste. The Bible must be utterly destroyed before doubt of
God's existence can be other than a passing cloud over a firm
clear heaven.

IV. THE VARIATION OF LANGUAGE CONCERNING GOD.
§ 167. 1. As to the powers and capabilities by which
man can know God, and indeed at all times recognise Him,
we observe that all our capabilities, even such as are opposed
to each other, may be active and serve to this end, and all
may unite in it as in no other case. Dividing man's original
capabilities into three — (1) The receptive, as feeling and
experience, imagination and conception, anticipation, will and
desire ; (2) the reflective, as intuition, reason, judgment ;
(3) the recoUective, as memory and its deepest and highest
power, conscience ; we may say that every one of these con
ceivable capabilities of man leads to the knowledge of God.
Of the activity of the first series, the words and deeds of
all true prophets give the clearest evidence ; of that of the
second, the patriarchs afford a luminous example ; while the
wonderful power of conscience is seen in the later books
' Rom. i. 18-20, ii. 14 f. ; Acts xiv. 16 f., xvii. 24-31.

52 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
of Scripture as well as in the earliest. Everything that man
experiences without willing it, everything that forces itself
upon his mind, the greatest and slightest, as well as the most
violent and powerful feeling, may remind him of ¦ God ; all
reflection and inquiry also may lead him continually to this
last of all thoughts and highest of all realities ; and all this
the more readily, the more Revelation has become a great life-
power in human history, the higher the incentives to such
knowledge have risen since the days of antiquity, and the
more certain the confirmation of the truths of Revelation has
become in their corresponding progressive development. For
the whole man ever stands over against this single all-com
prehensive object of thought, God Himself, and on His part.
He too in His infinity stands over against man, although
never at any moment can man fully perceive Him in His
whole sublimity and Infinitude. So far, then, this reciprocal
relation is unique of its kind. For out of the whole incal
culable series of individual things, whatever touches the spirit
of man only excites in a peculiar way some special capability,
his desire or inquiry, his imagination or reason or conscience ;
and in order to appropriate it he turns towards it only some
one special capability. But God touches the spirit of man
equally on all sides, although sometimes more particularly on
this, sometimes on that; and if man is not to become or continue
estranged from Him, he must apply his spirit with all its
powers and capacities entirely to Him alone.'
§ 168. 2. If now we glance at the way in which the
knowledge of God can come to man through the various
capabilities of the spirit by which man ever stands open to
God and His working, the greatest distinction appears between
influences which proceed from the profounder or indeed pro
foundest agitation of the mind, and those which arise from its
more collected repose. Feeling and imagination admit pro
gressively of the highest degrees of excitement ; and these are
' As the Deuteronomist emphatically teaches, vi. 5, cf. iv. 29, x. 12, xxvi. 16,
xxx. 2, 6, 10 ; and an older example, Joelii. 12.

THE VARIATION OF LANGUAGE CONCERNING GOD. 53
always the primary and most immediate sources of any kind
of knowledge, and so of this higher and divine knowledge.
The supreme excitation is when in the Biblical sense of the
terms the spirit of man in all vividness not only hears words
from God, but beholds God Himself. In such tension of mind
it is as if the fetters of the body would break ; but even the
most remote and least actually visible object of thought which
the human spirit in its struggling efforts seeks to perceive,
may, as it watches intently, step forth in all vividness before
the bodily sight. And if, according to the narratives of the
Bible, theophanies or manifestations of the Divine were
customary, at least from the time of the patriarchs down
to that of Moses, it is not to be overlooked what a peculiar
glow suffuses to the human mind everything it vividly antici
pates, and desires above all things actually to experience,
or indeed longs to behold in living reality with the living eye,
in order to be convinced of its unquestioned existence. As
the glowing and ardent longing of the apostles subsequently
to the visible departure of Christ was not at rest until the
crucified One visibly appeared to them, and as we can
trace the fact of this occurrence in the history that lies so
much more open to us ; ^ so in the earliest times of the human
race must the burning desire have been enkindled to see the
Invisible as manifest as possible to the eye, and only the
manner in which this desire was satisfied, or held to be
capable of being satisfied, differed as the forms of worship
differed.^ But a knowledge of God and His will obtained from any
one of such ways of excited feeling is not on this account
mistaken. The question is rather, whether and how such
knowledge once arisen authenticates itself afterwards in the
earnest experience of life.^ And the same holds good so
much the more with respect to all the different ways upon
• The Christophanies of the New Testament must thus he closely connected
with the theophanies of the Old.
* Revelation; its Nature, etc., pp. 218-221. ' lb. pp. 37-42.

54 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
which a knowledge of God is won, because the question is
practical, and has really to do with the discovery of God's will
to men. § 169. 3. It is the characteristic of true religion freely
to open up all the avenues of the human spirit by which the
knowledge of God and His will may enter in, and the mind
may become familiar with it. The religion which the Bible
immortahzes, and which it commends as the type of all
excellence, has by such means attained its conspicuous
development from its first beginnings to its pure consumma
tion ; and the way being broken in the progress of this
knowledge by aid of all the diversified powers of the mind,
most easily has this religion been preserved in the face of
serious and long - continued narrowness and limitation of
thought. The vivid conception of God will the more readily
clothe itself in the language of warmest feeling and figure,
the more immediate and unfettered it is ; and since the
Bible presents to us varied and many-sided evidences of the
manner in which the knowledge of God and His will, in all
its stages, has arisen in the actual life of a nation, so in its
different portions therd prevails the language of feeling and
imagination, whilst there is not wanting anywhere, with
respect to the details of this knowledge, deeper reflection and
sure insight.
It is everywhere the immediate impression of the moment
which the language of feeling and figurative conception
follows. The impression may be very correct, but as it
springs from momentary excitation, a single feature of the
object of it may very naturally come into prominence. If
the object of it is the Infinite itself, i.e. God, this language
may here and there convey ideas that are opposed to each
other, without on that account asserting what is untrue.
Each expression may be perfectly just in its place, i.e. in
relation to the momentary feeling and special , circumstance,
although in the one the agitated, in the other the more
peaceful feeling and contemplation of the Infinite may be

THE VARIATION OF LANGUAGE CONCERNING GOD. 55
conspicuous. The Bible speaks in many serious passages of
the anger of God, and maintains in others, if possible still
more serious, that God is not angry;' it speaks of His
repentance, and yet asserts elsewhere that He is not man
that He should repent ; ^ it affirms that He sees all things,
and yet discourses as if at times He veiled His eyes;^
it teaches that He is everywhere nigh, nay, everywhere
present, and complains nevertheless that He stands afar off;*
it declares that no man hath seen Him at any time, and yet
tells us of His manifestations.^ Altogether vain would it be
to attempt to do away with such apparent contradictions.
Where the expression is sensuous, it is as if a poet discoursed,
and poetic language need not be taken too strictly. He were
an ill poet, apd unworthy of a place in the Bible, who with his
imagery said anything really wrong; rather must the word
of the poet be regarded as spoken from the' deepest and
therefore the truest feeling. In point of fact, however, such
vivid colours of discourse about God are found in the Bible
not with the poets only. Yet this much is to be conceded,
that such coloured language is more frequent with the poets
than with the prophets, and with the prophets than in
common discourse. Moreover, it may be noted that such
language is more diversified, more copious, more strongly
marked in the earlier than in the later times, so that the
period of composition of certain portions of Scripture may be
distinguished in this way.^ But these are after all small
matters in this question. The utterance of the pious soul to
God has always its peculiar fervour, familiarity, and impres-
• As Hosea says (xi. 9) at a lofty turn of his long discourse, which is burning
with the divine anger, iv. ff,
' Joel ii. 14 ; Gen. vi. 6 ; Num. xxiii. 19.
' Ps. X. 1 ; and often in Job's complaints.
* Ps. xxii. 1, 11, 19, XXXV. 22, xxxviii. 21, Ixxi. 12, x. 1.
' John i. 18 ; even still more strongly, 1 Tim. vi. 16.
•• The "repenting" predicated simply of God in Joel ii. 14, confirms the
other proofs for the firmly-established position that Joel is the oldest prophet
of whom a prophetic hook has been preserved. In the Psalter powerful
images, such as Ps. vii. 6 f., xi. 6, xviii. 26 f., ex. 1, indicate actual songs of
David.

56 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
siveness ; no one can take this colour from it ; and all human
speech is too feeble not to betray itself as such, when the
finite spirit, shut up in these bodily limits, converses of or
with the Infinite. Indeed, we may go a step further and
observe how, according to the few but sublime and ever
instructive Biblical examples of it,' the language of prayer,
if of a leader of the community, shapes itself in the midst of
emotion of mind in the solemn festive hour, wholly otherwise
than that of the individual man struggling in the deepest
needs of life for divine deliverance, as in so many Psalms.
But even such prayers cannot hide from our view the fact
that the language of fervent piety of God and unto God is
always very different from that which weighs and ponders
the thought of the distance that ever separates the finite from
the Infinite Spirit.
That a contradiction between occasional expressions about
God may so far be found in the language of the Bible cannot
be denied. But if the fundamental general truths concerning
the nature and working of God stand by their side as they
do firm as a rock, this varied play of colour in discourse is
intermingled, in the incalculable variety of human situations
and circumstances, only in such a way as it is inconceivable
human words should not intermingle it. And in the struggling
needs of life let language be ever so passionately excited by
momentary impressions of pain, or let that of devout prayer
in sacred places ever so freely overflow with the deepest
inward emotion and the most familiar confidence ; yet where
the true religion, with the fulness and purity of its universal
truths, once forms the immovable basis of experience, all
these many- coloured changes of discourse are understood only
in the higher sense of that religion; there is no thought
whatever of denying its great truths, and no direct intention
to deviate from them. These universally predominant truths
1 Not merely in the New Testament such pieces shine forth, as Matt. xi.
25-30 ; John xvii. ; also in the Old Testament, passages like Gen. xxxii. 10-13 ;
1 Kings viii. 23-53 ; and songs of the congregation, like Ps. xc. and others, are
in this case conspicuous.

THE VAEIATION OF LANGUAGE CONCERNING GOD. 57
about the nature and working of God we have only carefully
to recognise, as the Bible teaches them, to comprehend at
once how such apparently glaring contradictions can never
theless so often stand peacefully side by side with them
without disturbing the higher unity from which in this case
everything originally flows, and to which everything ultimately
returns. In short, we find in the Bible the greatest variation of
language concerning God, because, as we may certainly
perceive, all the different powers and capabilities of the
human spirit are nowhere else so profoundly and fully
touched, so freely and fervently moved to discourse of God
and unto God, nor so accustomed to it, as in the community
of the Biblical religion. Still further, amid all this varied
play of change, in which as in one grand orchestra all the
different faculties of the human spirit take their part in
concert, nowhere does a discord, which we wish absent, offend,
or detract from the sublime elevation of God. Nevertheless
a progress is here also perceptible from the more sensuous
colouring of the earlier ages to the purest and most equable
spiritual type of discourse in the later time, — a purification so
to speak carried on through two thousand years of culture
and development till the highest simpHcity conceivable is
attained, as we find it in the New Testament. How altogether
different was it in heathenism ! The child-like innocence of
genuine feeling and knowledge of all that is divine appears
in the unfading flowers of Vedic song ; and then, even early,
sensuously low and unworthy thoughts overwhelmingly press
in, till at length artificial conceptions and artificially purified
expressions intermingle. But neither the language of a
Cleanthes, a CalHmachus, and of the modern Orpheus, nor
that of the later Brahmins and Buddhists, though very
divergent, can for one moment compare with the Biblical
language in itself and in its development. Nor is it to be
denied that already among the Greeks the song of Homer,
notwithstanding its beauty and fascination, broke the way

58 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
and facilitated the transition to this deep and marked
decline.

V. THE PERSONALITY, SPIRITUALITY, LOVE, AND UNITY OF
GOD.
* § 170. A special feature of that higher fervid language in
relation to God is that, to the human spirit, God, although
invisible, nevertheless in all vividness always appears as a
being like itself, i.e. confronts man as a person. Without
doubt this representation goes back to the very earliest ages
in which in his quest of Him the existence of God first
presented itself to the thought of man. When the hidden,
mysterious Being, everywhere sought and difficult to find
whose existence and whose light man everywhere felt the
need of, came at last in luminous certainty before his spirit,
then came before him that Thou which from the very first
moment must appear as wholly different from every other
Thou, and which afterwards became to him more and more
the infinite and eternal Thou, who a thousand times veiling
Himself again and becoming lost to him, yet must again with
renewed zeal and increasing necessity be sought by him, and
seemed with every new discovery only still more wonderful
and infinite ; and to whom, notwithstanding His immeasurable
elevation and wonderfulness, he nevertheless felt himself
drawn nearer and nearer as to his only, his first and last
helper, and his one eternal and ever-present though invisible
friend. Such is God as person, as He confronts man as
person, and as He always appears to him ; and we may
say must always appear to him, so long as man believes
in God and will not allow himself to be separated from
Him. This is the primary and true signification of the word
person, so often and so seriously misunderstood among us
to-day. For the prosdpon, which in its re-emergence in the

THE PERSONALITY, SPIRITUALITY, LOVE, AND UNITY OF GOD. 59
Latin word persdna has undergone some noticeable changes,
signifies just " the countenance," then the definite individual
man so far as he confronts others and is known as man, since
no other visible creature is recognisable and distinguishable
to man by the countenance as man is, especially if suddenly
and unexpectedly countenance meets countenance. It is just
man in his ^fuU, living, and moving distinct appearance that
is briefly designated " person ; '' and the word may thence
indicate also the self in its best and noblest manifestation,' as
soul indicates the self in its inner Hfe and worth. There is
only One countenance which man once strugglingly sought
till he found it confronting him in 'its whole luminous
certainty, which was afterwards ever to be before him, and
might ever be before him if he desired to behold it; that is
the countenance of God Himself; and this meets him now
unceasingly even where he may not wish to see it. Upon
one countenance man ought continually to gaze, one counten
ance only continually to seek, before one countenance never
to retire with dread, but look up to it as to the countenance
of his one friend, and, as he may be able, speak in its
presence, if he desires not that this same countenance should
in anger turn itself against him f that is the personal God.
No doubt to speak of the countenance of God in this way is
to speak human language ; but man can only speak of God
in human language, and the thought and subject itself will
not suffer thereby in the least, if only just views of God are
otherwise firmly established in the mind. In this way, in
old time, psalmist and prophet spoke of God, realizing His
presence and His salvation ; and in this way, after Christ's
appearing, the more readily could the glowing and joyful
heart know and rejoice in Him. Indeed, God appears in the
whole Bible as a person, or, as we might say, in all livingness
• 2 Cor. L 11, trsXA-i ¦TfUu'a-ci in the sense of "many" living actual "men."
In ancient times thus arose the word Hvlfuirss, "man-countenance," i.e. actual
man, whether male or female.
' According to the ancient phriiseology in Lev. xx. 3, 5, 6 ; repeated
subsequently, Ps. xxxiv. 16 ; Ezek. xiv. 8.

60 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
and fully-efficient activity.' Here lies the charm of the
language of the Bible, from the patriarchs downwards through
psalm and prophecy to the supreme height of the New
Testament ; it is language steeped in the fervour of deep
feeling and emotion — the language of men who know the
reality of the divine love and consolation, and have gazed
into the open countenance of God. All possible dangers in
speaking of God as a person the Scripture thus avoids, though
without undue restraint and anxiety chilling the free fervour
of devotion. In its phraseology in this respect there is no
suggestion that God is arbitrary and capricious, or acts from
sudden wayward impulse as a human person may act.
* § 174. Caprice with God is impossible. The ego in man
should control his caprice ; in God there is no caprice. If any
thing may be said to correspond to the nature of God, it is
rather the direct contrary of caprice, which in one word we may
express as law. Law is the bridle of human caprice ; but if
about every law as it is apprehended and executed among men
there is nevertheless something imperfect, so that it cannot
alone suffice for them, there may, on the contrary, very well
be conceived a law which fully coincides with the nature and
the work of God. For in its pure signification law is the
expression and the manifestation of that which, according to
the inner proper nature of things, ought to be, and cannot
be otherwise, what is fixed and necessarily determined ; and
in this sense God is from the beginning and always the law
of all the universe itself, so that everything that is known and
current among men as law goes back to Him so far as it
corresponds with Him and His revelation. As it is said in
the Bible, " God is spirit," " God is love," when His eternal
essence on this side or that is to be defined by a short concise
expression ; so it would be said, God is law, if there were a
place appropriate for it. But such expressions only rarely
occur ; yet the sense is given frequently, as in the Psalms,
" God is my rock," " my salvation," " my light," only these
^ Als voll-lebendig, vollwirkend.

THE PERSONALITY, SPIRITUALITY, LOVE, AND UNITY OF GOD. 61
phrases through their primary reference are made much more
obvious and intelligible. But God can only be " my Rock "
if He is in Himself Rock, i.e. immovably and for ever the same,
and so the stedfast and immovable defence of His people.
* § 175. " God is spirit ; " that is to say not a spirit, one
among many spirits, but not sensuous, not palpable to sight
and sense, but the opposite — spirit. Upon the recognition of
this truth Moses built the old community of the true God ;
Christ regards it as self-evident, and the basis of the new and
perfect life. That Moses held this truth is attested not only
by the Decalogue, but also by the firm and ancient tradition
which assigns to him the phrase " the God of the spirits of
all flesh," i.e. who knows and judges the innermost thought
of men, and in whose spirit all the spirits of men live and
move. * § 180. How does this truth of the pure spirituality of
God find expression in the Bible generally and as a whole ?
(1) Man in distinction from all other earthly creatures is a
spiritual being or person, and as such can in thought and
aspiration and action never fervently and profoundly enough
lose himself in communion with the living personal God ;
who is ever above him yet, if he will, is so nigh at hand ;
wl(o is rnysterious and hidden yet at times so wondrously
manifest, all mystery dissolved. He, the frail, feeble earthly
one, can discover aright himself and his way in the Infinite,
to Him with inquiry and request, with complaint and sighing,
urgently approach, in His countenance find his true strength,
his consolation and eternal joy ; and indeed upon His will
as upon no other confess himself dependent, and in Him
though His creature recognise his only eternal helper and
friend. The more fervent and familiar is this intercourse of
man with God, the more persevering, undisturbed, and trans
figured it becomes, the more fully before his eyes do the
clouds part, the clouds that veil all knowledge and hope
and faith, and the more invincible becomes his spirit in God
and His spirit. This is the basis of all true religion, first for

62 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
the individual, then for the whole great community, and in
many things by means of this again for all men. So now we
see individual men as well as the community, in the Book of
Psalms and in similar portions of the Bible, placing themselves
in this relation to God, addressing Him with the most human,
spontaneous, and child-like speech, as if from man to man, or
as if the Invisible stood visibly present to the sight ; and yet
no word is uttered, no thought arises that does violence to
the certainty that He, the only Almighty One, is no object
palpable to sense, no Being of the sensuous world ; and in all
such thinking and discourse and consequent action the spirit
of man allows itself to draw near only to the spirit of God.
(2) Moreover, prophets and prophetically -minded historians
abound in images and representations of God's working
among men, and speak often as if God were beheld as man
acting and discoursing, and thus bring down the Infinite and
Divine to the finite and human ; but always do they retain
a certain elevation of thought and language even where as in
the narratives of the time of the patriarchs the picturing is
boldest. (3) Furthermore, the relation of man to God amid
the complications and enigmas of life is represented with
clearness and dignity, with artistic power and deep instructive-
ness, as in the Book of Job ; biit never as with the heathen
is a stage-play made of it. The word does everything; and
the human word is in itself spiritual, coming immediately
from the spirit and addressing itself directly to the spirit.
(4) Last of all, Christ in the New Testament revives the old
freshness and simplicity of discourse, then largely lost or
perverted by allegory ; and if in the apostolic time the person
of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit are exalted to the
Christian Heaven, there is not only shown the lofty tran
scendent mind of the Old Testament, but God becomes nearer
and more vividly certain to man.
* § 194. With omnipotence as comprehending the whole
significance of the word, " God is spirit," the mind cannot
rest. The question is asked, whereto it serves ? " God is

THE PERSONALITY, SPIRITUALITY, LOVE, AND UNITY OF GOD. 63
spirit," as against the universe, that is the first fundamental
truth, the first predicate of the subject, God. Many predicates
are needed to describe worldly natures, one predicate includes
everything that underlies the essential nature of God. To
this a second is added, equally simple, equally comprehensive,
and the question just raised is answered ; for " God is Love."
Akin to so much Christ Himself said, and to the whole circle
of thought in which, in the spirit of His Lord, John moves,
this sentence without doubt comes from Christ. It means
God is not to be conceived without love ; love conditions
His being so perfectly and so exclusively that He is what He
is because of it. Love is not like spirit, the mere impulse
and power of a life; it is that definite power and impulse
which determines and fills the movements and acts of God
as spirit, and differentiates His life in our thought from other
conceivable kinds of life. The world is created as the scene
and sphere of the infinite manifestation and realization of
love, in which, out of God's infinite fulness of love, love ever
works. Language only with difficulty finds a word to
designate the love of God — a love without self-seeking and
sensuous passion.
* § 197. But the relation of love is reciprocal : its forms
of manifestation are varied and diverse according to man's
willing participation in it or otherwise. In upholding the
order of creation and its end, — the realization of love, —
the Creator must turn against the creature who resists His
will. In the painful results of resistance man feels the
" anger " of the Creator. The idea is derived from human
anger, but has its full justification. The more earnestly a
religion conceives the relation of man and of all human
history to God, the less will it shrink from admitting the
thought of God's anger. Prophet and psalmist eloquently
depict it; the Baptist, too, and the apostles take up the
word ; Christ, though Himself not incapable of anger, rarely
mentions it, but the Apocalypse sets forth the " wrath of the
Lamb." God's anger is zeal for His law and kingdom as

64 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
against sin which opposes both, and is the zeal of wounded
or violated love.
¦'• § 198. But love always retains its superiority over anger,
and in its working superabounds. The sins of the fathers
are visited upon the children to the fourth generation, mercy
is kept for (unlimited) thousands. Not anger but love is
beyond all conception God's chief attribute. Even the
chastisements of God are the chastisements of fatherly love.
This transfigured thought of love, as first and last in God,
penetrates more and more the deeper life of the old com
munity ; becomes the foundation of Messianic anticipations,
and of the zeal and stedfastness of the better prophets ; rings
in calm sure tones through the songs of devout singers ; seeks
in Job its sublimest and convincing proof; enters at length
into the realm of the old sacred traditions to clothe them
afresh with new charm ; and finally, as with other great
truths, does not remain simply a demand of thought, but in
Christ's appearing finds its most glorious realization and
fulfilment, and so recognised by the Apostles Paul and John,
becomes for all time and for all nations an imperishable
truth, the unfailing spring of the most blessed and beneficent
life. * § 207. The setting of the truth, "God is one," as of
the two truths previously presented, is of a somewhat late
period. But the first commandment involves it; Job states
it incidentally ; the Deuteronomist expresses it definitely,
with solemnity and emphasis, when demanding undivided
love and unwavering loyalty to Jahveh. The preamble of
the Decalogue gives the ground of the first commandment,
for He who redeems is Loyd and Judge ; but the immediate
purpose might be to guard against reverence for Kamosh,
Moab's god. Zechariah connects this truth with Messianic
hopes;' Paul, in the Galatians,^ with the unbrokenness of
all divine truth in history.
* § 210. Amid the plurality and diversity of religions more
' Book of Zechariah, xiv. 9. ^ Gal. iii. 20.

THE PERSONALITY, SPIRITUALITY, LOVE, AND UNITY OF GOD. 65
or less false, to know and cleave to the one true God was from
the first not so much a divine dowry as a divine task. The
fascination and apparent advantage found in manifold deities
must be resisted, and truth become more distinctly realized
and more firmly held from its contrast with error. Neither
in the Bible nor out of it can we trace historically the rise
and progress of monotheism up to Moses. Sacred tradition
in Israel clearly and rightly assigns the chief place in such
early beginnings to Noah, to Abraham, and the patriarchs,
but would have acknowledged them elsewhere could they
have been found. Moses stands alone in this great history
with his clear knowledge of God, and the founding of a
community upon it. In the long and obstinate conflict
which succeeded down to the times subsequent to David
and Solomon, Jahveh was the one God of this nation,
inseparable from the very thought of it, and more and more
recognised in His truth and in the blessedness of His
salvation. Indeed, Jahveh became now the one sole glory
and chief boast of Israel, the battle-cry against the enemy,
the only confidence and hope of the national life, celebrated
after the precedent of the Song of the Red Sea in a thousand
lyrics which resounded in the solemn annual festivals pre
serving freshly the remembrance of His deeds of salvation,
and having also in priest and prophet never-failing and
eloquent advocates and servants, who rehearsed the high
truth and immortal power of this great and splendid name.
Nay more, Jahveh, the one Lord, became and remained as the
better soul and undying life of this people, so also the true
unity of the nation and its religious fellowship ; and that
other gods should not have sway in their midst, but He alone
should be their God, was regarded as self-evident and un
questioned truth.
In the New Jerusalem, however, the particularism in
volved in the phrase, the God of Israel, was to some extent
surmounted, and the disadvantage of binding up the worship
of the one God with the fortunes of one nation overcome.
E

66 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
The view widens out already, until it compasses the signi
ficance of the true God for all mankind, and rises above the
conception of the God of Israel in any limited sense. Nor
would the truth have suffered or been hindered in its diffusion
had it come from a smaller circle of humanity than Israel. Even
in Israel one tribe was specially charged with its maintenance
and preservation, Levi ; nay, one man, Moses : as also Christ,
in the greatest day of all history, bore in Himself and
revealed in His whole manifestation the full and peculiar
conception of God which marks the Christian faith. Indeed,
it must ever be so, for such is the law of progress in the
promulgation of truth. Nothing stands firmer than that the
knowledge of the truth of God, in the course of all human
history, must first proceed from a smaller circle, nay, strictly
speaking, from one man, in whom it lives in its intensest and
freshest power. Only in ever-widening circles can it spread,
and only from stage to stage can it become a sure possession
of all mankind. But certainly to secure continuance and
further development, it is better that it should rest in a
community ever increasing, than in the mind and spirit of
one, or a few individuals. It is the highest praise of Moses '
that, according to that grand narrative, he refused the honour
of being himself the new central-point from which a nation of
the true God should proceed. The duty, however, whether of
the smallest or the widest circle where truth dwells is thence
so much the more to take care that it should go forth from its
midst speedily and with increasing prevalence, in order that
it may ultimately reach and compass all mankind. So did
the mighty Messianic hopes, specially embracing Israel first
of all, grow into hopes for all the world.
VI. UNITY IN THE EEALM OF SPIRITS.
* § 214. According to the Bible, intermediate spiritual
beings or divine spirits fill up the wide distance between
' Ex. xxxii. 31-xxxiii. 6, 12-17. Cf. History, ii. 183 ff.

UNITY IN THE EEALM OF SPIRITS. 67
God and man,' and form a kingdom of themselves. How
are we to regard this realm, especially as evil spirits appear
in it, and what is its relation to the divine unity ? Difficulty
arises from the diversity in the Biblical representations, and
from the fact that scarcely here and there is a hint, and
nowhere is a precise doctrine of angels or spirits, given.
Nevertheless the idea of the true God is almost everywhere a
safeguard against serious error. Our survey may distinguish
five periods.
* § 215. I. To the primitive pre-Mosaic mind a countless
host of divine spirits seemed to fill the entire universe, and
especially the human world. The forces of nature, the shocks
and changes in human history, were attributed to the power
of spirits, good or bad; and a fresh, child-like imagination
gave more and more definite life and coherence to these
creations of fancy. One spirit might acquire pre-eminence
in the thought and lead on to the idea of God. Whenever
it was that the mind of man was first animated and inspired
by such idea, a first movement was then made towards
revelation and monotheism : a beginning only, which on
one side diverged into polytheism, with its myths or fables
of the gods. But there are no myths in the Bible ; the
mythical element is heathenish, or of heathenish tendency.
Amid early aberrations a feeling for the Better and the True
was not wanting. The mission and work of Moses are
inexplicable on any other hypothesis. The Bible shows us
the patriarchs holding fast the knowledge of the true God
against the more sensuous tendencies of idolatrous wives and
children; and nowhere supposes Babylonish, Egyptian, or
Canaanitish polytheism as the original form of faith. Till
Moses, however, the imperfect beginnings of true divine
knowledge were not effectually separated from idolatry, nor
old ways of thinking thoroughly transformed.
' The doctrine of angels is commonly included in that of creation, as if
angels were only creatures like the rest, and must be considered as on a level
with them. How erroneous this is, and even contradictory to the sense of
Scripture itself, will be seen.

68 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
^' § 216. II. During and immediately after the Mosaic
period only so much of the earlier conception could be retained
as could accommodate itself to the new fundamental thought
of God. The feeling of the infinite number and variety of
divine powers working in the world was reconciled with the
knowledge of the one God by regarding such powers as divine
envoys and representatives, and the new name " messengers
of God " or " angels " was given to them. 1. Such messengers
are a medium of divine revelation ; lead the way in difficult
but divinely-approved undertakings ; shield the godly from
danger ; stir up to war ; bring pestilence ; chase and annihilate
foes. There is no distinction between good or bad angels ;
the bad spirit is sent of God ; ' so firmly is the idea of the
unity of the whole realm of spirits retained. 2. Their forms
are glorious as became their nearness to God ; human, as if
they were the original type of all human beauty. They come
and go suddenly, unexpectedly ; they discourse as heavenly
prophets, and speaking in the name of Jahveh they are them
selves sometimes spoken of as god or gods ; and it is only
gradually and especially by their sudden disappearance that
it is recognised that they are angels of God.^ 3. They are
regarded as on a footing of equality with one another ; yet as
Israel was specially God's, so the angel that led Israel was
Jahveh's angel, and received the honour and consideration
proper to his Lord. This was especially the case when there
was no prophet like Moses, and no king in the nation ; and
it reappears also in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, which
somewhat reproduced the time of the Judges. They had no
name ; but Jahveh's angel bore with him, for authentication
and defence, the name of the Lord, as an ambassador the
signet of the King. 4. They come singly and execute their
commission. But in sacred places, or where the faithful
assemble for prayer, many are present.
"'' § 217. There would have been no thought of a realm of
.spirits, if there had not been previously a profound recognition
1 Judg. ix. 23 ; 1 Sam. xvi. 14-23, xviii. JO. * Judg. vi. 21 f., xiii. 20-23.

UNITY IN THE REALM OF SPIRITS. 69
of what spirit and God signify. Heaven is regarded as the
home of these spirits, and their unity rests upon their relation
to God, whose servants they are, and whose commands they
wait to receive and execute. They are as one of the many
and different arches of the temple of the genuine Mosaic
religion. When the warHke spirit prevails, they are the
irresistible, well-marshalled army of the Lord of Hosts. When
other times come, and counsel and wisdom are needed, they
wait around the judgment-seat of the Lord of all the world to
execute His decisions ; in such cases, however, they are not
so much messengers as " gods," or to express their subordinate
relation, " sons of Gpd," as the younger members of the royal
house were king's sons. Moreover, they are eternally young ;
and in the simple and innocent conceptions of Mosaism there
is no desire to know anything of bad spirits.
* § 218. III. In the third age, the ideas concerning the
realm of spirits rapidly expand, and with rare boldness and
freedom. The firm basis of true religion Moses laid is not
subverted, it is true ; but with the power and glory of the
new kingdom wider and more varied conceptions of the
spiritual world arise, conceptions showing their development
chiefly in three directions. 1. The idea of God admits of no
addition from creative imagination ; it is otherwise with ideas
concerning angels. The fourth narrator of the primitive
history breaks through the old rigid limits, and in the story of
the angels who reveal the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
surpasses in vivid picturing all that is found elsewhere in the
Bible : the angel of Jahveh appears with two ordinary angels
who execute the divine judgment. Poets and artistic writers
soon follow upon the path thus opened. The angel of Jahveh
becomes, in the Book of Isaiah, the angel of the countenance
of Jahveh,' as the first minister of a king who stands con
tinually before him ; or the prince of the army of heaven,
" the captain of the Lord's host," as in Joshua.^ Subsequently
angels as priests surround the divine throne interceding on
1 B. Isa. Ixiii. 9. " josjj_ y_ i3_vi. 2.

70 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
behalf of the earthly kingdom of God ; or are " watchers '' of
God's indestructible sanctuary ; ' the former conception being
very much favoured at the time when the earthly temple had
been destroyed.
""' § 219. 2. Representations and usages of the primitive
age are not, as we have seen, at once extirpated by the true
religion, but are rather taken up into its own circle of ideas,
united with its truths, and remodelled accordingly. Two cases
of this kind are very important. (1) The first is that of
cherubs and seraphs, winged celestial forms in the service of
the supreme God. The cherubs are of huge dimensions, the
means of divine communication between heaven and 6arth,
and thence tokens of the coming and presence of God, guardians
of places sacred to Him, and so of the ark ; the seraphs are of
delicate mobile form, keen-eyed watchers around His footstool,
and are only rarely mentioned, but they were once of high
significance. (2) The second case is that of Azazel,^ a bad
spirit, dwelling in the desert, invading cultured lands to
injure man, associated with uncomely shaggy beasts of forest
and wilderness,^ the direct contrary of cherub and seraph, and
indeed opposed to Jahveh. Azazel was not an essential
element in Mosaic faith, but a relic of earlier times, preserved
in national games and festive usages,* as were old heathen
gods in the Middle Ages in Germany. Mosaism devoted the
so-called scapegoat to Azazel. (3) Other old ways of repre
senting things spiritual and divine reappear in the prophets,
especially in Ezekiel, to some extent also in Job, but Jeremiah
refrains from using them. There might be something of
Assyrian influence in Ezekiel's bold picturing, but the basis
of all such strongly-coloured presentation of divine things is
primitive. Where these world-old conceptions had an inner
truth in them, that was seized upon and applied ; where they
were irreconcilable with the spirit of the true religion, they
1 B. Isa. Ixii. 6f. 2 Lev. xvi. 8-10. Lev. xvii. 7.
* Antiquities, pp. 362-3. [Where Ewald says, in a note, " It is an error to
identify Azazel with the later Satan ; historically at any rate they cannot bo
brought into connection." — Tfi.]

UNITY IN THE EEALM OF SPIEITS. 71
were dealt with in different fashion, and employed under the
dominance of that spirit to illustrate higher truths. (4) The
old reverence and awe in contemplation of the starry heavens
also returns ; the stars in Deborah's song, in Job and in
Isaiah,' are images of the angels surrounding God's presence ;
the " star of Jacob," of Balaam's prophecy, and the " Lucifer,
son of the morning," in the Book of Isaiah, and the like, do
not necessarily suggest Babylonish influence. Nevertheless,
in Israel such conceptions always lie in the background, or
are rather the flowers and adornments of discourse ; actual
reverence for the orbs of heaven is firmly rejected.
* § 220. The motley and numerous mythological ideas of
early times that continued to exist in Israel side by side with
the doctrine of the true God and the thought of His mes
sengers and angels, found no free development. They were
hostile and irreconcilable, they remained fixed and without
flexibility. In the heroic age from Moses to David, no epic
was conceived, nor could be conceived, though the materials
were given. The cause lay in the irreconcilablity of Jahveism,
and its purely good angels and spirits, with the heathen con
ception of a world of deities many of whom were evil. But
the narrow circle of the older representations was at length
boldly broken through, even to the imperilling of the funda
mental truth concerning God, when the idea of Satan arose.
Whence did it come ? Not from the thought of bad spirits
which Israel never lost after the time of Moses, nor from the
primitive superstition of satyrs or any other sportive and
mischievous creatures of heathen fancy, but from the thought
of an angel of God become an adversary (Satan) to man for
heeding not Jahveh's warning, as in the case of Balaam.^
The Hebrew word for a bad enemy, Satan, is suggestive of
what is hidden and secret, like the occurrence of a bad
thought or a whispered word of temptation. A bad spirit
' Job XXV. 3, xxxviii. 7 ; B. Isa. xl. 26.
^ Num. xxii. 22-32. jOtJ'b V ilM, "to be to him for Satan," i.e. to be an
adversary against him.

72 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
tempts David to number Israel ; here an angel is not said to
become a Satan, but the spirit is the expression of the divine
anger against David. As in a kingdom there is a public
prosecutor, some poet might make conspicuous one out of a
multitude of accusers or Satans who would henceforth become
" the Satan." In Job Satan is introduced without explanation
as a known and familiar conception. In Zechariah' the angel
of the Lord vindicates, but Satan accuses, Joshua : here the
j»presentation is less simple. But the whole conception is
purely Hebrew ; to trace it to Persian sources is groundless
and unhistorical. Nevertheless, a bad yet divine spirit is, in
the true reHgion, a contradiction ; and if such spirit is thought
of as conditionless, an insoluble contradiction. The true
religion, however, keeps out heathen fancies, accepts the
belief that even divine spirits may err and go astray, and now
at length speaks of those angels as " holy " who surround
God's throne as intercessors or as interpreters of God's will
for man ; so the unity of the divine rule is preserved.
* § 221. IV. During and after the exile it was very
difficult to resist the influence of the wisdom, the art and
customs of the Eastern nations who dominated the world ;
and especially when the Persians, distinguished as they were
by an earnest religion, were supreme. Israel was in a recep
tive and plastic mood : even the liberation of Cyrus gave
them no lasting energy or pure independence. Zoroastrian
usages and ideas were strongly felt, not, indeed, in the value
of the higher truth concerning God, but in conceptions as to
the lower world of spirits. The later prophets show this in
comparison with Jeremiah and Ezekiel ; and in the follow
ing centuries new appropriations not free from danger are
perceptible. Three chief forins of such influence may be
distinguished. 1. Zoroastrianism sharply divides impure from pure, bad
from good spirits, and its whole religion rests on this dis
tinction. Nothing can be more opposed to Mosaic mono-
Mii. 1-3.

UNITY IN THE EEALM OF SPIRITS. 73
theism than the duaHsm of the Persian faith, with its kingdom
of Ormusd and Ahriman in perpetual conflict. The Mosaic
and the Persian conceptions could not and did not blend, as
did subsequently Christian and Oriental ; but the mind of
Israel in its oppression and discontent furnished for centuries
a favourable soil for the introduction of some perilous
elements from the darker side of Zoroastrian ideas. (1)
Belief in the spirits of the desert revived; and in the
creatures of the waste places,' referred to poetically in th«
Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah ; in Zephaniah and in the
demon's of Baruch, we hear the echo of this belief and mark
the characteristic of the new time. (2) The fear of bad
spirits and demons now fully enters into Israel, and is not
dispelled until Christ comes. Even in the Book of Isaiah^
night spirits, ghosts, liliths are spoken of; in Tobit, Asmodeus,
a wicked spirit, is prominently mentioned ; the old heathen
gods are regarded as demons ; the Septuagint often translate
"idols" by "demons," while the name "bad angels" disappears.
(3) Satan is now regarded as fully separated from God,
vehemently opposed to Him, purely hostile in nature, and
an autocrat over an infinite host of bad spirits, indeed an
independent Lord. The idea of Satan is also now connected,
and rightly, with the serpent in Paradise. In the last
centuries before Christ the imagination was very active on
this subject as new and affording large material for reflection;
and probably about this time Satan was represented by some
poet as a spirit who had fallen through self-seeking and love
of untruth, and as bringing death into the world ; of all which
there is no trace in Job. So also he was connected with
Beelzebub and Belial, and made to have his home and
servants in the lower air.
* § 222. 2. Again, Zoroastrianism holds that to every
visible, sensuous existence a spirit corresponds as its counter
part, separable and independent, and visible by others in fine
>Isa. xiii. 21 f., xxxiv. 13 f. ; Jer. 1. 39, Ii. 37; Zeph. ii. 13; Bar. iv. 35.
^ xxxiv. 14.

74 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
aerial or luminous form. This doctrine, consistently carried
out, gives a new conception of the universe. In the origin of
it we see the second source of all ideas of spirits, the first
being man's feeling of contact with a higher spiritual nature
and a mightier spiritual power in revelation. On the other
hand, a spirit may go forth from man corresponding to him,
and be conceived aS his permanent and better nature, sepa
rated from all that is mortal and sensuous, imperishable in
death. Moreover, as over against changing, feeble, earthly
priests, the possibility of heavenly, immortal priests was
imagined, so over against imperfect realizations of duty in
living men was a lofty spiritual ideal placed, which was
detached from them as their spirit. Such conceptions being
carried through every part of the human and non-human
world, many and diverse spirits appeared to fill the universe.
Coming into close connection with the true reHgion, there
arose from these conceptions the strange blending of ideas
and representations, of which the most important are — (1) that
the spirits of things are their angels, — angels in harmony
with the old Hebrew way of thinking ; and (2) that every
thing in this realm of spirits is, as far as possible, subject to
the unity of the supreme will of the true God. Thus every
man has his angel, or spiritual counterpart and phenomenon ;
every community of men also ; every authority and power of
earth, good or bad ; every great heathen state ; and even the
elerpents — air, fire, water, wind. No book now exists in
which this whole view of things is set forth creatively and at
large. But much that occurs in the later prophets, in some
of the Epistles, and in the Apocalypse, we are thereby enabled
to understand. For example, the " Rahabs, dragons, levi
athans," " high ones on high," of the Book of Isaiah ; the
" princes of Persia and Javan," of the Book of Daniel ; the
"thrones, dominions, principalities, powers," "the world-
rulers," " the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly
places," and "the prince of the power of the air," in the
Ephesians and Colossians ; " the angel of the under-world,"

UNITY IN THE REALM OF SPIRITS. 75
" the angel of the waters," " the angel having power over the
fire," in the Apocalypse ; and even in the Acts, when Rhoda
announces with gladness that Peter is at the gate, the reply,
" It is his angel," — these ' and other passages may thus be
explained. Nor is it surprising, when this whole representa
tion is considered, that the Book of Enoch should speak of
the true God as " Lord of Spirits."
§ 223. 3. The more numerous and diversified the spirits
became, the greater the need for names and numbers. This
is genuinely Zoroastrian, but in Jahveism it is an innovation.
The name Asmodeus is taken over in Tobit ; ^ but this is
exceptional, generally everything is recast as it comes into
the circle of Hebrew ideas. There is imitation and rivalry ;
the round numbers are sometimes the same ; but new names
of Hebrew derivation are employed. The development from
Zechariah to Daniel was considerable. Perhaps the chief
points to be noted are the following : — (1) Zechariah^ modifies
what he appropriates. " Seven eyes " are engraved by the
hand of God on the headstone of the new temple, but these
eyes are the " eyes of Jahveh," and the stone is " one," and
the eyes represent as in sevenfold form the Mosaic angel of
the countenance, while the seven lamps and the number
seven are Mosaic. The Zoroastrian conception is that of
seven good spirits surrounding the throne of heaven, as seven
princes or councillors surround the throne of the earthly
king. In the Apocalypse,* the seven lamps of burning fire
before the throne are the seven spirits of God. Moreover,
Zechariah's expression,^ " Jahveh's eyes run to and fro in the
earth," is closely connected with the four angels or spirits of
heaven who go forth from the Lord with quick chariots and
horses. Tobit's "seven holy angels;" Daniel's "watchers
and holy ones of heaven ; " Timothy's " elect angels," are
1 Isa. XXX. 7, xxiv. 21 f., xxvii. 1, Ii. 9 ; Ezek. xxix. 3 ; Dan. x. 13, 20 f. ;
Col. i. 16 ; Eph. vi. 11 f., cf. i 21, ii. 2, iii. 10 ; Rev. ix. 11, xvi. 5, xiv. 18 ;
Acts xii. 15.
" Tob. iii. 8, 17. ' Zech. iii. 9, iv. 10, 2.
* Rev. i. 4, iv. 5. ' Zech. iv. 10, i. 8, vi. 1-8.

76 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
also essentially related conceptions.' Some writer between
Zechariah and Daniel must have given to the Zoroastrian
seven spirits Hebrew names. Four of such names, com
pounded with el, i.e. God, and answering to the " man,"
" lion," " ox," " eagle " of the cherub, we can gather from
Daniel and Enoch, viz. Michael (who is as God), the ancient
Jahveh-angel ; Uriel (fire of God) ; Raphael (health - God) ;
Phanuel (countenance of God). The three remaining places
were supplied by the cherubs and seraphs, but in such a way
that Ophane,^ the living chariot-wheels, representing the holy
chariot, was united with them. To these seven angelic
natures, Gabriel (the man-God), angel-interpreter, and heavenly
friend of the prophet, being added, the first imaginative view
of good angels is completed. Similarly, seven bad spirits
were conceived as about Satan, four surrounding their luler,
and three connected with the throne. Sammael, the poison-
god, answers to Raphael. But the whole series was long
treated with freedom., (1) In Enoch, Gabriel is put in the
place of Uriel ; multiples of the number seven are employed ;
and an angel of punishment has special prominence.
(2) Things, places, signs of divine power long held sacred
have new and striking names of spirits given to them, as
" Abaddon " for the under-world, " the gates of death," and
the Talmudic name for the rain-angel. (3) To creatures of
the earth spirits are poetically ascribed, as in the Psalms,
Ecclesiasticus, and the Apocalypse. Thus the threefold
gradation of the realm of spirits extends, as in the last three
verses of the 1 0 3rd Psalm, {a) to God's immediate presence ;
(J) to the powers of nature, as stars, winds, and the under
world ; (c) to earthly creatures. The whole universe is thus
summoned in its spiritual hosts to praise God, and the chief
conception of Jahveism remains uninjured.
* § 224. The significance of this greater freedom in the
view taken of the world of spirits may now be estimated.
' Tob. xii. 15 ; Dan. iv. 13, 17, 23 ; 1 Tim. v. 21.
* From Ezek. i. 15-21 ; cf. Prophets, iv. 29 f.

UNITY IN THE EEALM OF SPIEITS. 77
The change began before the contact with Zoroastrianism ;
this only accelerated it. But for the feeling of restraint
prevalent still in the old community, something far more
after the fashion of a great heathen epic than examples such
as the Book of Tobit gives, might have been attempted.
There did, however, arise such works as the Books of Enoch
and the Book of Jubilees. Probably angelic narratives were
preferred the more the desire was felt not to speak too
sensuously of God. It was i^ these last times that angels
were represented as winged ; the innovation starting from the
conception of cherub and seraph. The change is marked in
Daniel, where Gabriel is said to draw near " in full flight." '
The whole patriarchal representations suggest not winged but
rather glorious human forms ; Jacob's ladder upon which
angels of God ascended and descended would have no
appropriateness if angels were winged. Angels of light
are now also distinguished from Satan, a fiery dragon, and
his angels.
* § 225. As a whole, the innovation did not mark any
progress, but was rather a peril and danger to the true
religion. A great gulf was placed between the kingdom of
the Good' and the Bad ; and Satan with his crowd of angels
and spirits was regarded too much as just as independent
and powerful as God Himself This was of course denied in
words ; but of what avail was it simply to give to Satan an
origin only at the beginning of the world, and place his
overthrow at the extreme end of it, if meanwhile he dominated
with a despotic power over all its long history ? That the
supreme truth of the divine unity had suffered deeply, and
that it had vanished so completely from thought and realiza
tion in practical Hfe that it could be restored only with
difficulty, was evident and manifest. One proof of it may be
seen in the difference between David's exorcising Saul's evil
'Dan. ix. 21. [Gesenius renders "wearied iu flight;" hut explains
" flight " by " a swift course ; " and adds " LXX. rd^c^i ftpifCM;." In the Vat.
viri/iifcs is found.]

78 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
spirit, and the difficulty or impossibility of exorcising demons
of the later time. Moreover, on the one hand, demons grew
more numerous and were held as for ever lost, while on the
other, angels and angel-princes were looked upon as mediators
with God, and appealed to in prayer as never in the Psalms
or the Old Testament. From the Essenes similar errors
penetrated into the early Christian Church. While Sadducees
denied both angels and spirits, Pharisees delighted in gross
conceptions such as are found in the Books of Maccabees, and
such as in their case became a new kind of heathenism. But
the development of the true religion in this nation forbids our
treating this thought of Satan's almost limitless power as
merely casual or accidental. Whatever other reasons there
were for this more terrible view of Satan, the chief reason
was that the changes and trials of its history had given to
this community a fuller conviction of the tenacious power and
ever-growing weight and burden of evil, and a deeper and
still deeper consciousness of the earnest conflict it involved.
Where the idea of the true life is clearly and fully realized,
the idea of death is the more frightful. The days had long
passed away when evil could be playfully driven out in
annual festivity, or when poetry could rise to a conception of
Satan like that in the Book of Job.
* § 226. 5. Only Christianity could lift this heavy weight,
and bring the whole movement of thought to its true end.
It did this, however, not by a direct one-sided effort, but by
its whole tendency, and by the perfecting of all true religion.
(1) Christ's whole life was one long conflict with evil; and
where the power of evil was most concentrated, viz. in
demoniacal possession, there salvation and heaHng were
specially and signally wrought. Before the presence and
word of Christ, demons fled, and Satan himself But not in
the traditional sense so much was Satan regarded, rather as
associated with the stirring of all evil thought in the mind,
as is seen in Christ's rebuke of Peter. Filled with Christ's
spirit, the disciples realize in the new kingdom that Satan's

UNITY IN THE REALM OF SPIEITS. 79
power is broken; the prince of this world, this decaying
heathen condition of things, is cast out. (2) Upon the
whole realm of spirits a new light is thrown, giving to it its
true meaning as representative of the divine presence and
influence upon man and in the whole creation. There was
no denial of the existence of angels, but a return to the
simpler colouring of the early narratives, and a disapproval
of all fear of spirits and all worship of angels. (3) Especially
is it manifest that neither in itself nor at any moment of its
existence does the realm of spirits set aside the rule of the
one God, or break up the unity of His power. Mythology,
whether heathen or demoniacal, vanishes before the true God.
Good angels are servants of God, devils believe and tremble,
but bear no fruit of faith.
* § 227. The doctrine of spirits finding its conclusion in
youthful Christianity, fittingly and artistically represents the
deep significance and conflict of historical spirits, i.e. men,
with super-historical, i.e. in some sense divine spirits. - The
long development ends, all allowable freedom is obtained, and
the Christian spirit, bringing back everything to the unity
of all that is divine, brings both the true freedom and the
true consummation to this development. Artistically angels
represent some one special quality or idea ; they are not as
man of mixed nature, mutable, variable. The tendency of
its own spirit no angel can change.' To appeal, on the
contrary, to fallen angels is hardly admissible, as the concep
tion is quite isolated, and rests upon a later interpretation of
the sixth of Genesis. But angels are spoken of as desiring
to penetrate the mysteries of salvation. As to the number
of angels, art has a wide field, and as to the fear of them the
older conception makes it a means of chastisement in the
hand of God. Heathenism would create a goddess out of
this terrible fear, and worship it ; Jahveism stops where a
false devotion might be fostered, and only takes out of
' Similarly as an immovableness of gaze marks to the Hindoo the appearing
of a god, or as the heathen god can be no other than it is.

80 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
heathenism what is true and applicable to the true religion.
The darker side of the realm of spirits attains in Christian
art its freest presentation in the Apocalypse. But such
freedom never falls into the mistakes that have appeared in
Italy and elsewhere since the fifteenth century.
[In § 244, Ewald says, "Angels are purely spiritual
beings ; they belong to God and spirit. The Bible nowhere
says they were created ; still less suggests when they were
created. The spiritual and divine extends in a thousand
ways into this material universe, but it does not first
exist by or with the universe. The curious questions
whence angels came and how long they have existed belong
to Gnosticism. The Book of Jubilees undertakes to answer
them, and shows its better sense by not making bad angels
existent on the first day of creation. Strictly speaking also
angels are without variability of character, variability belong
ing only to created beings, and indeed properly only to man.
Bad angels in Scripture are angels who execute divine
punishment on man. In the latest books of the New
Testament, Jude 6, 2 Pet. ii. 4, are echoes of representations
found in the Book of Enoch. The origin and idea of bad
spirits may be traced to Gen. vi. 1—4, where the sons of God
are spoken of as mingling with the daughters of men. There
may be thus ground for anticipating that one day Satan and
all his angels will be destroyed."]

VII. THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD.
§ 228. There is no single idea which, when once it has
entered into human consciousness and speech, is able to main
tain itself so unchanged amid all the changes of time, as the
idea of God. It has in reality but little in common in
point of separability with other ideas,' and it suffers by means
of them no permanent obscuration. Like God Himself, the
idea of Him is to humanity not only equally necessary and
1 As, for instance, the idea of "man," which is at once separable by others, as
"husband," "wife," "child."

THE NA.ME AND NAMES OF GOD. 81
indispensable, but also altogether incomparable ; and, as is said
of Him in His essential Being, it absolutely brooks no rival.
The Hebrew language has a simple and in the highest degree
primitive name for God, which represents this purely unique,
incomparable, unchangeable, and uniform characteristic. The
more there arose gradually in the long course of the full develop
ment of the idea of the true God many other names, some of
which stood in the highest respect, and found free currency
for very long and seemingly unlimited periods, the more dis
tinctly is this characteristic observable. In point of fact, this
persistent continuance without change, from the first recog
nisable ages to the end, of a single name for God, side by side
with a number of other names that were successively used, is
one of the most peculiar and rightly understood instructive
phenomena which the Bible presents to us. By the names
of God, however, is meant here not the many designations
that in freely varying discourse, as His various attributes are
contemplated, may have been employed, but the brief desig
nations actually current as standing names for God.
The Hebrew Elo'ah is etymologically and historically the
remarkable word by which the simple but true idea of God
has been preserved firmly from remotest times, all through
the great and constant changes that followed. It goes back
to the very beginning of the whole Semitic family of lan
guages, and has been firmly retained from primitive times as
few other words have in all the Semitic tongues save one.'
According to its formation it signifies properly " power," just as
" Lord " does ; and it is the correlative of the word which, in
the early Semitic speech, designates man as a frail, feeble
creature. It suggests, therefore, as already familiar in the
first ages of the Semitic race, a somewhat profound view of
God and man, very different in origin from the idea of God in
other families of language. It aflbrds also proof of the asser
tion that with this Semitic people, in times so far back as to
be scarcely calculable, there had become powerful a higher
1 The jEthiopic. F

82 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
view of the divine, a view involving consequences of the
utmost importance for the succeeding nations of the race, but
especially for the Hebrews. And it is remarkable that the
word, according to all indications, continued to have this signi
fication " Lord," i.e. God, in the plural formation which in other
words also made more definitely prominent in the sense of
that original language just this idea of " Lord." In later times,
however, this signification became gradually weakened and lost
by reason of a feeHng in relation to language that was wholly
changed.' But the peculiarity from the first was this, that
the word indicated properly God as Lord, since He is indeed
the only one who deserves this name unconditionally and in
every moment of human life ; but in a list of other words
which likewise in general had something like the signification
of Lord, it was conspicuous in this special meaning, God, and
was regarded as no other as sacred. ,
Moreover, this word was originally the only Semitic word
set apart for the idea of God. There was, indeed, in early
times another word for God, which we know from the Hebrew
and Phoenician, viz. El ; but it is clearly only an abbreviation
of the original term, after it may have been much used, as
the Hebrew very distinctly shows. ^ It appears generally as
the first or last part of a compound proper name,^ and the
frequency with which it was so used was manifestly the
primary cause of the abbreviation. Only rarely and in poetry
is it employed without some descriptive word connected
closely with it ; and in the phrase, " in the power (El) of thy
hand," its original signification is remarkably preserved.
§ 229. If now it is asked how, side by side with this word,
so clear in its idea from the very first, and so unchanged
in its form, as all subsequent history proves ; and just in this
very nation of Israel, so delicate in its perception of divine
ideas, and so .loyal too in the main in its devotion ; neverthe
less, so many other words arose and set themselves almost in
rivalry with it, we shall have to think through what and how
1 Lehrbuch, § 1786. ^ Ibid., § U6d. = _A^g Elisheba, Ishmael.

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 83
many great temporal changes the true religion must pass till
in inner and outer conflict it reaches at length its ultimate
consummation. This unique kind of religion which, in the
nation of Israel, under Moses and the long series of the great
prophets to Christ, experienced so many and such mighty
transformations, must have received from that primitive time
a firm settlement and foundation, which it never lost again,
and upon which, because it was so firm, the series of sub
sequent changes could be accomplished ; and the witness of
this is just the unshaken, stedfast continuance of that primi
tive name for God. But of the greatness and duration of the
many confiicts which this religion had to sustain from within
and without before it reached its goal, witness likewise the
many other names for God, which in the long interval arose,
and which in distinction from the simple name for God may
be designated proper names. These orginated, as already
briefly suggested, from two different causes.
1. It may, perhaps, be thought that had all the members of
that primitive Semitic race, in which this simple name for God
arose, remained ever afterwards unchanged in their religion,
no other name for God would ever have obtained currency in
its midst. But as mankind in those early times was more
and more widely dispersed, unity in religion was superseded by
diversity, because the Oracle, as the original source of it, was
no longer the same, but was sought in a hundred different
places for smaller or larger communities. Very early that
primitive Semitic race must have been divided ; and every
separate nation of it had soon its special deity, and therefore
a special or, what is the same thing, a proper name for it side
by side with the old original name, which became now the
general name for a possible multiplicity of gods. If then each
nation, whether greater or smaller, designated its God by
a special or proper name,' how should not that nation in
which, to be sure, the better religion was preserved and
further developed, feel itself compelled to distinguish that
1 Cf. Micah iv. 5 ; Deut. iv. 7 f., v. 23.

84 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Deity whom it recognised as the true God by such a special
proper name, and affix to it its own more definite idea ?
Opposition from without rendered such a course necessary.
But as the true religion, once finding firm foothold in a nation,
by its collision as well with other powerful kinds of religion
as with its own still remaining imperfections, passes through
conflicts of which a religion less true scarcely knows anything ;
'SO may it also, by the victory of the Better and more Perfect
hidden in it, experience at each decisive moment such a
transformation that its newly-modified condition throws upon
the supreme and single object of its thought, i.e. upon the
thought of God Himself, a wholly new light, and calls forth a
new idea of Him, and so a proper name that shall declare
most plainly the peculiar characteristic of the true religion in
its inner and outer relations as they now exist.
2. So it happened with this religion and this community
several times, but always at such intervals as coincide with
the stages of the whole development of the true religion
to its highest perfection. One new proper name followed
another upon each of such stages successively, so long as the
first impulse continued, whilst the original common name,
entirely unchanged, was retained side by side with the new
name. The whole variation of names here in question takes
place therefore only in one of these two directions, and is
simply a change of proper name.
All proper names of a deity, even more than those of a
man, have a certain measure of inflexibility, inasmuch as
marking the special individual characteristic in all brevity,
they do not, like ordinary substantives, easily and pliantly
unite in close combination with another word expressing an
independent idea. One can readily say, " my God," or the
" God of love," " a gracious God ; " but not, or indeed only
upon a new accession of strength in discourse,' " my Zeus,"
" the Zeus of love," " a gracious Zeus," although Zeus is
originally one and the same with God. On this account
' Lehrbuch, § 286c.

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 8 5
in Hebrew the original word for God, with its general and
flexible idea, could not be lost in the presence of these newly-
occurring proper names of God. The same result, however,
could be brought about from a somewhat different cause. If
the proper name of a definite deity among the nations
became necessary because each of them, even the smallest,
assembled around some special deity and sought to attach
themselves especially to it, was this hostile separation of the
nations and their gods to last for ever ? Was there no
possibility that at least from that nation which owing to its
special religion must feel the primary impulse and vocation to
offer it, a great turning towards the Better should in this re
spect be introduced ? One of the possibilities of this lay also
in the fact that this nation gradually accustomed itself to
employ, with increasing frequency, that name of God which
expresses nothing but the general relation of God to all
humanity, and to employ it where traditional custom would
have given the first place to one of the proper names. We
shall see how important this becomes.
3. Between these two sharply-opposed usages, viz. on the
one hand, the employment of different names in each of the
different branches of the Semitic race to mark its distinctive
religious peculiarity, or of new names in the nation of the
true religion to note its special stage of development ; and on
the other, the retention for various reasons of the one universal
name, side by side with the new names, a place may be
found for a third. That is .to say, a special type of name
might be formed, consisting of names best designated as
familiar names, or names of endearment, springing from the
glow of devotion and the fervour of wrestling prayer, whether
of the individual or the whole community ; such as " my
God," " my Lord," " our Lord ! " As the glow of pure love
could never be so powerfully kindled in any ancient nation
as in this, nor could anywhere else so persistently continue to
burn, we see what high significance such names would at
length more and more attain in it.

86 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
§ 230. From these general observations coming to detail,
nothing in the outset seems more noticeable than that in the
five great modifications of the divine name we recognise
anew the five stages of the progress of all true religion
towards its consummation, and the five great periods of the
history of Israel, viz. the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, the Kingly,
the Post-exilian, and the Christian. So evident is it that
the whole national history of Israel coincides with its
religious history, and that while each stage is distinguished
by a change in the name for God, yet all along the whole
question in decision involves ultimately only the right idea
of the true God, and its firm and steady maintenance.
1. In the earliest age known to us with any precision, we
can already mark the existence of two names for God in
close relation to each other. The Book of Origins shows us
sufficiently that the patriarchs, when it seemed necessary to
distinguish their God from others then worshipped, no longer
regarded him as Eldhim simply, but as El-Shadddi. This is
a proper name compounded in the early Hebrew fashion with
the main word for God, and signifies God Almighty. In
the first period it was found only in this compound form,
but subsequently and chiefly through the free usage of the
poets it was abbreviated to " Almighty " ' simply. It would
appear then that the patriarchs, by means of this compound
word, distinguished the God acknowledged by them as the
true God, much as the heathen distinguished their chief
deity as '' Maximus " or " Optimus Maximus " ; but in point
of fact it was under a different relation and different circum
stances that they recognised their God as the true God ; as
indeed is historically established.^ The Hebrew name for
¦ Joel i. 15 leads the way with a play on the word ; the Book of Job
follows ; more remote is the poetic passage. Num. xxiv. 4, 16 ; and also
Ezek. i. 24 (with "El," x. 5) ; Ps. Ixviii. 14, xci. 1 ; Ruth i. 20 f. On the
other hand, in Gen. xlix. 25, El is to be read for Eth.
^ [Cf. History, i. 317-323, where Ewald shows that Abraham knew God as
the true God, not simply as being almighty, but as spiritual, invisible, heavenly,
the one God of heaven and earth. — Tb.]

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 87
God thus reverenced as Almighty, points back indeed to a
very distant past, for though its original sense may even
to-day be clearly enough ascertained, yet the word Shadddi
in its formation and use lies remote from all ordinary
Hebrew, and comes into it only as a rare fragment of a
language of very primitive times. Moreover, the name
perceptibly vanishes from actual life subsequently to the
age of Moses, and is preserved only in the traces of early
antiquity that remain in a few proper names and alliterative
phrases, or is artistically revived in the picturing of the
ancient time by some poets of the middle period of Israel's
history. But the more surely is there in this very name
an indication of an elevated life in the true religion which
must have formed the first firm basis of all succeeding
development of religion in the community of Israel. The
Book of Origins therefore marks with the greatest distinct
ness the time and occasion in which the true God revealed
Himself to the patriarchs under this name.^
Almost the same in signification is the name " Most High
God," ^ with whose blessing Melchizedek once greeted Abraham.
It might very well happen that in those early times, when
errors did not yet oppress men on every side with their
whole weight of mischief, pure religion should seek to
maintain itself in some limited Canaanitish circle. Never
theless, we know nothing that is very precise of the finer
distinction that unquestionably existed between the religion
of Melchizedek and that of Abraham ; but the more must
we admire the gracious way in which, in this interview,
Abraham in adding Jahveh's name in his reply did not
deny, but indeed acknowledges this distinction, yet held it
^ The Book of Job shows this very strongly ; but even in Numbers and
the Book of Ruth altered times are depicted. As to the rest, the LXX. iu the
Pentateuch no longer understood the word, and translate it strangely ; in the
Book of Job, on the contrary, it is sometimes rightly rendered fxiTiixfi.raif.
2 Gen. xvii. 1, xxviii. 3, xxxv. 11, xlviii. 3, cf. Ex. vi. 3, are the only
passages, excepting Gen. xliii. 14, and the oldest expression of all, xlix. 25, where
the word is found in the Book of Genesis.
^ El-Eljdn, four times employed. Gen. xiv. 18-20, 22. LXX. o S^^nrras.

88 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
to be no reason for unfriendliness. And it is as a reminis
cence of these primitive times that Hebrew poets used the
same name in abbreviated form, " the Most High," to make
conspicuous the lofty superiority of the true God over all
heathen deities,'— as another proper name from these early
times, that of the " eternal God," ^ has been preserved as
familiar to the patriarchs. But neither of these names could
manifestly gather about it so large and enduring a community
as could that of El-Shadddi.
2. The splendour of this proper name, the import of
which was at first imperishably blended for a long season
with that of the true religion, nevertheless wholly faded
from all actual present realization as soon as there entered
with Moses the transformation, as of the whole nation, so
especially of its religion. In this transformation was
involved not merely for this, but for all nations without
exception, the supreme turning-point of the destiny of all
nations, as the higher antiquity could bring it. Moses
announced his oracles in the name of Jahveh, and thereby
placed this proper name as that of the true God, as spirit
and love, in inseparable connection not only with all genuine
religion, but also with the whole existence of the community.
The reflection of the glory and sanctity of this transfigured
religion was afterwards thrown in even stronger rays upon
this proper name. Henceforth it was the sole proud badge
and magnificent war-cry of Israel, as against the worshippers
of other gods,^ the quickener of inexpressible yearning and
devotion in prayer of every form and type ; the sacred name

" In Ps. xcvii. 9 this sense is clearly expressed. How much in favour this name
was from the oldest poets downwards, is evident from Ps. vii. 17, xxi. 7,
xlvi. 4, Ivii. 2 ; Num. xxiv. 16, and many other passages. The prophets, on
the contrary, never use it, for Isa. xiv. 14 does not come into the reckoning.
In the ruins of Phoenician antiquity, the name has not hitherto been
rediscovered. ^ Gen. xxi. 33.
^ The splendid song of victory, Ex. xv. 1, begins with this name, and with
lofty fervour resounds here for the first time (ver. 3) the "Jahveh is His
name," so often afterwards repeated. Concerning the origin and primary

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 89
in which all the prophets of this community discoursed,
which in • solemn festive moments shone resplendent upon
the brow of the high priest,' and which at length every
citizen of this nation and member of this community loved
to carry with him as part of his own name,^ and inscribe it
on his signet-ring as a memorial.^ In short, no other proper
name of the true God was ultimately so sacred as this,
or left behind it after it had vanished from common use
such broad and inextinguishable traces of it's unique signifi
cance and power. Its sound and its meaning appeared,
indeed, in the course of a whole millennium after Moses,
inseparably and inevitably ^bound up for ever with the
existence of all genuine religion on earth.
The position which this name took in the course of these
ten centuries in relation to the name Eldhim is thus explained.
Historically we know with sufficient certainty that it was in
existence before the time of Moses,* but nevertheless it was
significance of this name of names, cf. History, ii. 155 ff. [Three possible
significations are given — (1) "The Existing," i.e. the real, abiding,
eternal, in opposition to the unreal or non-existing ; (2) "The Creator," from
the pre-Mosaic usage of the verb; (3) "God of Heaven," as Gen. xix. 24,
"fire from Jahveh out of heaven" is equivalent to "from the heavens,"
cf. Micah V. 7; snow coming ix A-.U in Homer, and the Latin sub Jove. The first
interpretation is favoured, but the literal meaning of the name, it is added,
"we may not now be able to give with perfect certainty," . . . "but we will
restore its real sound, Jahveh, were it only a sign that out of the grave of ages
Hebrew antiquity is now springing up among us endowed with fresh life."]
The attempts to derive the name from that of the Egyptian moon-goddess loh,
or from Phoenician, Assyrian, Chinese, or Sanscrit sources, or to relegate it to
a primeval age in such quarters, are futile ; cf. Gstt. Gel. Anz. 1873, s. 351 ff.
No word can be more purely Hebrew than this, although, to be sure, like
ShaddM, it stands, in the Hebrew in which the Old Testament is written, as a
solitary survival of au earlier period of the language. That in a part of Israel,
the tribe of Levi, the name was much used iu early times, is shown in the old
songs, where it is shortened into Jah in pause ; cf. Lehrbuch, § 93c ; Dichter
des A. Bs. la, Bs. 253. Very late poets prefer Jah to Jahveh, as B. Isa.
xxvi. 4 ; repeatedly also at the beginning of the second member of the verse,
Isa. xxxviii. 11.
' Antiquities, 297. ^ Lehrbuch, 679 ff.
' Some of which, belonging to citizens of the Ten Tribes, have recently been
discovered. Revue archiol. 1868, part xvi.
* Cf. History, ii. 157. Jochebed, the mother of Moses, shows in her name a
trace of this name of God.

90 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
only through him that it acquired its high public significance
for the whole community, whilst the ordinary name, God,
remained tolerably prevalent still longer in simple speech and
in historical writing.' But even after it became used more
and more frequently, and was upon everybody's tongue, it could
by no means be employed as fully equivalent with God, and
could never be made use of where the discourse was of God
in a general sense. The delicate feeling of this people for
what was suitable to the dignity of the true God always pre
ferred the common name Elohim in certain phrases in which
it would appear unseemly to speak of Jahveh.^ For a long
time the best writers in Israel distinguished most precisely
and uniformly between these two names, and to use either
of them in an inappropriate connection would have been
regarded as a literary error.^ Nay more, at the time when
the esteem for this name rose higher and higher, the respect
for the common name in single phrases declined far too much,
although only transiently.* The copious narrators of the
primitive history fondly magnify the day when the true God
first revealed Himself to the whole nation under the name
Jahveh ; the Book of Origins in simpler fashion ; ' the Fifth
Narrator far more artistically, taking occasion to freshen up
anew the meaning of the name which in his time had become
obscure.^ But all this did not prevent many wise men in
1 Cf. vouchers for this, History, i. 66, 94. If the remnants of the oldest
historical writing are few, they should on that account be the more carefully
considered. 2 In such phrases as "sons of God," "man of God," " to renounce or curse
God," E16him is used, the loftier name being rather avoided as unsuitable ; to
the heathen also, and on the lips of the heathen, there is an indisposition to
allow the word .Tahveh to be employed : yet the narrator iu Jonah i. 9-12
retains this name in such case, but not in iii. 5-10.
^ This is seen especially from the Book of Origins and the Fourth Narrator of
the primitive history ; in Job also all the divine names are interchanged with
the greatest caution and skill.
^ For ElShim might signify angels ; and occasionally the magistracy as it was
in the time of the Judges. History, ii. 412; Antiquities, 310.
^ Ex. vi. 2-8.
* Ex. iii. 10-16. The thought must have already occurred that the name Jahveh
might signify ' ' He will it be," since niH " to be " interchanged dialeotioally with

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 91
Israel from beginning at an early period to place the simple
name God where for so long a time Jahveh was used, from the
right feeling that God could not be rightly conceived as other
than the true God,' as if the thought would occur that for the
only true God even the simplest and most general name would
very well be suitable. Yet such innovation could at that time
obtain but little favour ; we shall see, however, that when the
right moment was come it prevailed in a wholly different way.
n*n and <i prophet may perhaps by this play upon the word have pointed to
Him who "will surely be " the accomplisher of all hope and promise. This
explanation, which is very appropriate after the previous promises of God, our
prophetic narrator gives as from the mouth of Jahveh Himself, who to the
doubting question of Moses replies in ver. 12, "I will be with thee." To the
further question of Moses, by what name he should designate to the people the
God who makes such promise, the reply is in ver. 14 from the same source, with
the greatest emphasis, as if in quick and rapid conversation, " I will be He, I,
I will be He," who delivers them ! Then, as if this utterance of God could
form His name, Moses is commanded to say, in full, " I will be " (He who so
spoke of Himself and has made such promise) " has sent me to you : " and
now at last iu ver. 15, as if the actual name Jahveh were quite intelligible if
only the " I " were changed into " He," Moses is called upon to add, "Jahveh,
the God of your fathers, has sent me to you." According to the prelude ,of
ver. 12 there require therefore two atfirmations, two progressively clear sugges
tions, the one in ver. 14, the other in ver. 15, in order to explain the verbal
import of the great name so that it may be understood iu its full significance.
It is thus an attempt to freshen up for the people of the time the half-obscured
meaning of an archaic name, — an attempt such as occurred in other cases also
just in those days when the art of verbal exposition took its rise ; cf. History,
i. 19, iv. 200. Moreover, it cannot be denied that this meaning agrees
perfectly with the context, and apart from the special colour of the discourse as
it becomes affected by the context, it is what is essential that the clear word
ehye should explain the less clear but similar word jahve. But the LXX. no
longer understood the drift and connection of the passage ; and as they
thought they perceived in the words a note of the Egypto-Greek philosophy
familiar to them, they translated them iyii il/n S Hv ; and then the second single
HTIX likewise S JSv, which it cannot in any way mean. "I am that I am,"
appears to give a very profound sense, nevertheless nothing elsewhere in the
Bible at all corresponds to it, and the "self-existent one'' of the Indian
Wisdom as Svajam-bhu is not proved by such name to be an original Old Testa
ment thought. But "I am." or should the phrase be taken against the plain
import and connection of the words, according to Lehrbuch, § 3336, a. 820, as
"that I am," gives here also no meaning in itself.
¦¦ The Fifth Narrator of the primitive history is the one who shows this, of.
History, i. 112 ; concerning other authors of the kind, ibid. 133/, 168. Still
Jahveh is the highest name with the Fifth Narrator ; and the substitution of one
for the other with him often depicts intentionally the advance of the incident
to its climax.

92 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
3. At the beginning of the third great period of Israel's
history, when the monarchy was still in its youth, we find
another proper name of the true God held in highest regard,
viz. Jahveh of Hosts, or of Armies. Its origin was probably
in this wise : once in the hot struggle of Israel with its foes,
when victory seemed wavering in the balance,, suddenly the
forces of the enemy were panic-stricken and routed as though
Jahveh Himself with His heavenly hosts had come to the
help of His people. This feeling had perhaps often before
been awakened among the troops of Israel as they fought,
but it must have been from a new and vivid experience
of this kind on the battle-field that this new divine name
sprang up — some great prophet pronouncing it and the people
assenting with applause ; and subsequently on the celebration
of victory it would be commemorated and hallowed in im
mortal song. The particular day of battle that was the
birthday of the name we cannot now determine, for of the
latter half of the period of the Judges, with its growing
anarchy and confusion, we know little that is certain ; but
that the day fell in this latter period is plain, partly because
there is evidence to show it did not fall in the earlier,' and
partly because the name is still new when the human kingdom
came into existence.^ Passing over from that age in living
freshness into the age of the new monarchy, thrilled so often
by war and victory, the name would the more frequently re
sound in joy and exultation, and become inseparably blended
with the whole national life, as a magnificent resuscitation of the
1 It is wanting as well in Ex. xv. as Judg. v., although rightly it would
belong to Judg. v. 20.
^ This is clear from all evidences, as from P.". xxiv. 7-10.- Nay, this short
song of victory itself rings with such a note that it might be regarded as of the
period of the Judges, perhaps with Ps. xxix., did not other marks suggest
its Davidic origin, as also that of Ps. xxix. That the new name had originally
a purely warlike significance is in Ps. xxiv. distinctly evident from this, that it
corresponds at the end of the second strophe (9, 10) to the concluding words of
the first (8) of similar import repeated from Ex. xv. '3. This cannot be acci
dental ; not till the second strophe is the truly wonderful new name intro
duced. For the rest cf. History, iii. 62 ; the Qor'an has something similar,
Sur. ix. 26, 40.

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 93
old name Jahveh, that originating with the community itself
and increasing in sanctity more and more was now indispens
able to its existence. Born in the midst of war-rejoicings, it
had yet a very earnest and elevated aspect as well, not merely
indicating that heavenly auxiliaries might reinforce in conflict
Israel's struggling ranks, but especially reminding them of the
heavenly host itself, infinite, well -marshalled, keeping its
eternal order like the stars of heaven, and suggesting to the
thought the almighty and, more remotely, the all-controlling
power of God Himself. In this sense, long after the heroic
period had passed away, the prophets were fond of appealing
to the Lord of Hosts, and of sealing their oracles with this
grand name as with the mark of highest authority;' Isaiah,
the royal prophet, pointing back also as occasion served,
in words of high Messianic exultation, to its original graphic,
warlike import,^ and at length the great Unnamed, emphasiz
ing more strongly, as the time seemed to demand, its application
to the stars of heaven.^ But always did it remain the loftiest
and grandest and, as it were, the royal name of God, and
therefore properly marked that brilliant era of Israel's history
when the nation was most powerful and famous in the world.
It could not, however, become a common name ; it was too
long for that. Originally it ran, " Jahveh, the God of the
hosts of heaven ; " it suffered gradually a double abbreviation,
and became " Jahveh of Hosts," * but after this it could not
' The prophets agree so much in this, that there is no difference among thein
save in the more frequent or rarer employment of this lofty phrase, Jahveh of
Hosts. What is most significant is how few wholly avoid it ; and these are
Hosea (xii. 5 is from Amos), Micah (iv. 4 is from Joel, cf Prophets, i. 114),
and Ezekiel.
2 Isa. xxxi. 4. ' Book of Isaiah xl. 26.
* That originally Q^DtJ^n niSOX ^^^^ ^^^'^ ™^y ^^ ascertained from this, that
the somewhat later writers named the angelic or starry host n''12WT\ ^3^,
1 Kings xxii. 19 ; Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3 ; 2 Kings xvii. 16, xxi. 3, 5. As,
however, the four words were gradually shortened to two to form a proper
name, niS3V remained without the article. For the rest the name is quite
different from the previous ones, being drawn from the ordinary Hebrew, since
niX2X in -its common human sense constantly denotes "the well-ordered army."

94 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
be further abbreviated,^ and so it remained suitable only
to the higher discourse, giving a sonorous rounding to the
periods where its special emphasis was appropriate ; but
in ordinary speech the shorter name Jahveh was used inter
changeably with E16him, as we have said.
4. Just at the opening of the fourth great historical period
there emerged a new short proper name, and as far as its
brevity is concerned a very suitable one — viz. "the Holy
One " in the sense of the true God. It is as if the earlier
names were then no longer properly relevant ; a new name
would therefore be formed on the threshold of this new era
with its lofty aspirations, a name originating with a prophet
who sought to express in it briefly the high aims of this
beginning of a new age. And no name was more fitting
and suitable than this. The idea of " the Holy " expressed
the nature of the true God with an ample and striking
appropriateness few other single ideas possessed. On all
sides it was evident as never before how unholy all the
heathen gods were, and that One only is the truly Holy God.
The Deuteronomist had shown creatively from a careful
historical contemplation and survey how little any heathen
god whatever could compare with Jahveh, the God of Israel,
as a true Saviour and shield of His people;^ which is mani
festly true when it is considered how firm and unbending, how
newly-strengthened and newly-sanctified in the pure light and
power of its God Israel had till then found itself after every
severe misfortune ; still more had the vanity of idol-worship
been manifoldly demonstrated ; and in every way was it estab
lished how certainly only the true God is Holy. But this
new name was also the first kindling spark which showed that
now the age of the Hagiocracy was beginning in Israel, in a
sense, however, which was then altogether unexceptionable.^
' The 'Sa.Sha.iS is omitted in many places of the LXX. in very late books, but
not in the New Testament, where the name is quoted from the LXX. (Rom.
ix. 29), and sounds (Jas. v. 4) as a free echo of the Old Testament.
2 In passages such as Deut. iii. 24, iv. 7 tf., 32 ff.
^ As this is described at the beginning of the fifth vol. of the History.

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 95
If this new name was not so prevalent as one of the earlier
names, the cause lay in the fact that the time was now come
when such distinctive names for the true God had generally
no longer a fitting significance, because the genuine religion,
in the midst of the destruction of its old earthly house, had
gradually learned, and still continued to learn, how to maintain
itself among all nations. If the recognition of this with the
community soon to be deeply oppressed again was for some
centuries rather a feeling than a clear perception, there
entered, on the other hand, unobserved an innovation which,
contrary to all human expectation, might produce such clear
perception as its result. Indeed, it is accordant with the
whole history of the progress of the knowledge and appre
hension of the true religion, that events either remote in their
position or apparently quite casual, may yet serve sooner or
later powerfully to accelerate that progress which nevertheless
already the higher necessity prescribes.
As the whole historical development proceeded, the name
Jahveh, as before observed, was blended inseparably with the
very existence of the genuine religion and its community
founded by Moses. In the course of long centuries it became
more and more sacred, and ultimately the most sacred of all.
The Deuteronomist first marks it out as the name worthy of
the highest honour, nay, even of reverence ; ' but long before
him it was so regarded ; and pious custom had long felt a
timid dread of employing it unworthily or allowing others so
to employ it, and had resolved, therefore, no longer to use it
in such connections of discourse, or in such places, where it
might readily be profaned.^ The same fear led also to the
habit of preferring never to pronounce it anywhere, in order
to be quite secure against any possible profanation of it. In
the last centuries before the first destruction of Jerusalem
many pious souls had suffered very severely from the growing
^ Deut. xxviii. 58.
2 Cf. Antiquities, 220 ff. ; History, v. 198 f. It is especially important to trace
accurately the beginnings and first introduction of a custom which subsequently
became quite general.

96 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
scorn and contempt of their God by the heathen, and after
wards no one was any longer safe against it. Many persons
would therefore accustom themselves even then not to pro
nounce the sacred name at all. So strange a habit as that of
suppressing altogether a word that one would gladly speak at
every moment, obtained prevalency with difficulty among a
widely-scattered people ; and the first decades of the New
Jerusa;lem were too full of hope even to cherish the thought
of such suppression. According to all indications, it was the
school of Ezra that from the high esteem it enjoyed was
able to establish this prohibition along with so many
similar restrictions. It was then enjoined — (1) That nowhere
should the name Jahveh b» spoken, but where God was
spoken of He should be designated in some other way than
by this most sacred name : (2) that the word should be
allowed to stand, indeed, in Holy Scripture, but the reader
should substitute another word for it ; and this because of the
most important further consequence for Holy Scripture. For
it was now asked what in this case is the most suitable word
to put in its place ? And upon closer view four possible
substitutes seemed to present themselves.
Every well-known name of a great personage conveys by
its sound and its meaning, even among strangers, a corre
spondingly high or still higher idea and a vivid image of him ;
so that it may be said such a name always precedes such a
personage, and his whole greatness is thought of by means of
it. From the earliest times the name of Jahveh stood in
living speech as representative of His universally known
greatness, and was more and more frequently used in this
sense.' If now it were wished for any reason to avoid
uttering the word Jahveh, instead of it merely " the name "
might be said ; and everybody would readily surmise whose
name was meant from the perfectly unique nature of the case,
1 Such passages may be cited as those in which an ancient poet or prophet
like Isaiah thus uses the word, Ps. xx. 1 ; Isa. xxx. 27. With more facility
"Thy," "His name," were thus used in prayer or in allusion to prayer and
invocation or worship of Jahveh, as Deut. xxviii. 58.

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 97
at least in a discourse whose connection was otherwise clear.
This is found already in the Book of Origins ; ' but it is
evident at once that the meaning would be distinctly apparent
from the special phrase itself; and just on this account this
word was adapted in some measure to stand generally as the
substitute for Jahveh. It was possible also to take another
course and to read Elohim for Jahveh ; and this had already
been often done, as is evident.^ But this expedient was with
reason not generally adopted in the old writings, because the
universal name God had there associated with it, especially in
certain passages, quite a different tone and meaning from^
.Jahveh. A third plan was to read instead of Jahveh,
Heaven, and in later times in common discourse among the
people this was much in favour, as the first three Gospels
and as genuinely Jewish writings still later show.^ In fact,
it had in the nation of Israel a precedent in its favour in very
ancient intuitions which in the absence of any image or
symbol of deity regarded the all-encompassing heaven as the
throne of the invisible and infinite God. This term, indeed,
was a very favourite one with the people, but it came into
Scripture with the Book of Daniel and the Gospels.
Besides other possible substitutes, such as " the Eternal," *
there was, fourthly, a word which alone it appeared best to
the learned schools to employ in the place of Jahveh, whether
in oral discourse or in reading the Holy Scripture, viz. the
word Adonai. This ran originally Ad6nainu, i.e. our Lord !
' Lev. xxiv. 11, "to blaspheme the name ;" who would like to say to blas
pheme Jahveh ? Nevertheless, in the old freedom the full phrase stands imme
diately after, in ver. 16, but therefore most briefly without the article, simply
^ This" is (urther illustrated in the Psalter, cf. Commentary on Psalms, i. 7 f. ;
what is said in the discussion there I still endorse. In a' special case, however,
where the text is Adonai Jahveh, the Massfira proposes that Elohim shall he
read instead of Jahveh, to avoid the repetition Adonai, Adonai.
= Dan. iv. 26 ; Matt. xxi. 25 ; Luke xv. 18. Cf. Die drei er.iten Evangelien, 1.
It became customary to denote the true God as the God of heaven before this ;
and in Rev. xi. 13 the phrase is reproduced from the later books of the Old
Testament. * Cf. Baruch iv. 10, 22, 24, 35, v. 2 ; 3 Mace. vi. 12.
G

98 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
but was early abbreviated on account of very frequent use.'
As an expression of profound veneration, Ad6n§,inu, in the
early period of the monarchy, was used indeed of earthly
kings in addresses or vivid discourse ; ^ but gradually only of
God, and then in the shorter form ; at first united with
Jahveh, and afterwards by itself Always, however, was it
originally only in the glow of public prayer or otherwise of
loyal address to God, never in merely ordinary discourse or
in narrative. If the schools prescribe that it shall be used
everywhere for Jahveh, certainly it is better suited for such
use than any one of the previous three words, because in its
signification it directly points to Jahveh ; but to the special
cast of the discourse it is not suited, since the ancient speech
did not employ both words side by side indiscriminately, but
with a sense of their difference. Therefore, as a further
result, this substitution, altogether misunderstood afterwards,
betrayed itself as a mere arbitrary act ; and the Hebrew
became poorer, not simply by a common word, but by its
true and principal characteristic word. In the last issue,
however, though without any intention or co-operation on the
part of man, it proved of the greatest benefit for the accepta
tion and diffusion of the true religion. For Ad&nai was from
the first no proper name ; and moreover, in the widest use
of it, it could scarcely be translated "our Lord," but only
generally " Lord," or " the Lord," as already the Hellenistic ^
Bible, and the New Testament which follows it, show. The
idea of " the Lord " is not only in itself as clear as possible,
but it manifestly approximates to that of God, is indeed
1 The 1— of ijhx points to a pronoun. The original Ad6n4inu is found in
Ps. viii. 1, 9, and repeated Ps. cxxxv. 5, cxlvii, 5 j Neh. viii. 10, x. 29. Since
Ps. xc, where ijnx is found, is a prayer for the community, like Ps. viii., we
see how AdSnfti stands for Ad6nMnu ; moreover, this would make the distinction
clear between ijhx "my Lords;" 'jhx "my Lord;" and <jnx as applied
to the supreme Lord.
2 According to 1 Sam. xxv. 14, 17 ; 1 Kings i. 11, 43, 47 ; but the phrase is
found now only in these passages, and these have come from one of the oldest
narrators. ' The Hellenistic Bible has its special conception, and is very different from

THE NAME AND NAMES OF GOD. 99
essentially coincident with it, only that it gives greater pro
minence to the true God, which in certain connections of
discourse may be very appropriate.
Thus in the Hellenistic age this whole development, having
secured abiding fruits, returns almost to its beginning, and
the God of this community, now designated simply " God,"
or where emphasis was necessary, " God the Lord," or more
briefly " Lord," might with the greater facility become the
God of all nations without distinction. But in fact much,
nay, the best that was required, was still wanting to secure
the realization of this possibility. For the Hellenistic Bible,
although willingly tolerated so long as no great apparent
disadvantage was caused by it, had no acknowledged and
commanding authority ; it was the law of the great schools in
Jerusalem that was dominant. According to this, there were
still, as in all the great periods previously, two divine names,
different in character, existing side by side, one of them to be
regarded as inexpressible and secret, the other only to be
employed. A singular state of things surely with respect to
the supreme Name ; similar, no doubt, to much that found
place in the heathen religions,' but not therefore better. For,
strictly considered, the name now hidden away in oblivion
was not merely that which had once been hallowed, it was
the grandest name of which this community could boast.
Remaining thus hidden away, because the scorn and arrogance
of the heathen were so deeply dreaded, and too great a risk
would be involved in the open disclosure before the world
of a national treasure so unique and sacred, all that was
noblest and most profound in the power the true religion
was appointed to wield openly amongst mankind remained
the rest of the Greek translations. It is better to speak of it by this phrase,
for the name LXX. , though not incorrect, is less appropriate. The history of the
gradual introduction of ElShim and Ad8n4i into the literature of the Old
Testament can be traced by sure indications, as I have in many places showed.
A phrase like i xvpios V*'" would, however, if continually repeated, be far too
heavy in Greek.
1 Nomina ineffabilia: faith in such names is always of late origin, and
indicates, as here, a transition to a wholly different period and form of belief.

100 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
hidden with it, and, indeed, as by a dark destiny, crippled
and paralysed.' The Hellenistic Bible, on its part, con
cealed this duality in the divine names only artificially ;
and since the name that was most sacred could not, though
forcibly suppressed and silenced, be entirely forgotten, at
least by those who had its four letters before their eyes in
the Hebrew Bible,^ many grave superstitions about it would
naturally arise, and even attempts be made by means of it to
beguile the ignorant as with a spell or charm.'*
5. Only Christianity could bring the true end of this
whole long development. As introduced by Christ Himself
into the world, from the very beginning it rejected all such
perverse wisdom of the schools ; and soon it attached itself
to the Hellenistic Bible alone. In Christianity, as the whole
New Testament shows, the true God has no special proper
name whereby He must first distinguish Himself from other
gods, neither does He need it, or indeed any change or
exaltation of the kind ; while yet the latest books of the
old community still bring forward artificially new divine
names.* But the distinctive names of God, to which Israel
had successively clung with such intense fervour, and which
had expressed the central thought of the periods in which
1 ["This God of the ancient community was in reality retiring further and
further from them into a mysterious distance ; . . . while they were restrained
from calling upon Him by His true name, they were really losing Him more and
more. . . . The name of the people changes with each three great stages of its
history ; — Hebrews, Israel, Judeans ; — each name is a symbol of the era to which
it belongs, so is it of the name of God. Nothing is more significant than that
the simple but sublime name Jahveh should be succeeded by the splendid name
Jahveh of Hosts, . . . and this again finally by — a blank." History, v. 199.]
^ There was a preference long existing for writing the Tetragrammaton in
the Hebrew characters even in Greek and Syriao Bibles ; what is signified, and
how it should be pronounced, was the subject of curious and subtle inquiry,
and all kinds of errors were fallen into ; cf. Ceriani's Monum. sacra et prof.
ii. pp. 106-112. What interpretations of it were early favoured in the
schools, derived from Ex. iii. 10-16, may he seen from Rev. i. 4 ; cf. Die
Johan. Schriften, ii. p. 108 f . ; but from Plutarch's Isis and Osiris, ix., one
sees how early the heathen also make their deity say, iyii sl/ti vZv to yiyayis
KUt iv jcei) iffofiivav.
' As with 6m, the initial word of all Brahminical sacred formularies.
" As the "God of Spirits" in the Book of Enoch, 311; the "God of
Strength " in 2 Baruch, as if the oldest Shaddai were being reintroduced.

CHAOS AND THE UNIVERSE. 101
they arose; — Almighty God; Jahveh, the eternal refuge of
His people ; Jahveh, the Lord of all celestial powers ; — have
not therefore lost their significance with Christianity. Rather
do we now apprehend them all in their true and proper sense,
and resuscitate in its genuine form and pronunciation, Jahveh,
that for over two thousand years has been withdrawn from
the world and buried in oblivion.' Still all of them ^ are but
the immortal adornments of a name which is at once supreme,
all-comprehending, and most simple as well.
Moreover, this simple name marks the inner harmony and
firm coherence of the true religion, as it moves along from the
remotest primitive age through all its changes to its highest
consummation. No violent break has ever occurred in the
threads of its continuity, so that the idea and name of God
have never been compelled to seek to shape themselves
wholly anew ; ^ in the fundamental truth that cleaves to this
word as to no other, even ages the most civilised and deeds
the most daring have but produced a higher and yet higher
development, till the goal has been attained at which we may
now for ever rest.

Vm. CHAOS AND THE UNIVEESE.
§ 240. The old sages formed in the mind an imaginary
system of things, to show how the visible universe in all its
parts might best be considered to have arisen. They
attempted to reproduce the proper succession of those parts ;
but whence the original material itself came remained to
1 The name Jehovah that sprang up from a misunderstanding of the last
three hundred years, is manifestly now giving place to the genuine name, and
has been for forty years or more.
^ [In § 196 Ewald .says: "Israel is Jahveh's first-born son ; so'speak the
prophets, and in the glow of prayer pious and depressed souls look up to God
as ' Father ; ' the Book of Wisdom also and Ecclesiasticus speak of God as
' Father ' and His people as ' children ; ' but Christ, first in all spiritual
simplicity and fervour, makes this term and relationship familiar by His word
and His whole teaching and life."]
' As in the .Sthiopic.

102 OLD AND NEW TEST.\MENT THEOLOGY.
them an unsolved problem. Apparently there hovered
before their minds a pictured representation of the origin
of all life and being visible to us upon earth. As each
individual existence is developed out of what seems but
unorganized, inert, motionless, and so far raw material, and
becomes by a gradual process what we delight to behold
and to admire, in like manner, they thought, has the universe
been developed. And as into such rigid and crude substance,
which appears to be nothing but matter, only gradually do
life and movement come ; so, thought they, has all that which
we call more or less perfect and divine only gradually come
into bare original matter. To be sure, if the origin of the
immeasurable and mighty universe should be conceived in
this way, and compared with the origin of ever-limited,
feeble, individual life, much must be added. We must
think of correspondingly huge first efforts and movements,
rendering it possible that out of such vast, inert, crude
matter the universe should issue forth. But they held still
to the fundamental assumption. The most obviously suitable
image by which to represent all this somewhat clearly to the
mind was customarily that of the egg.' It may be said,
therefore, that this substance, pure, crude, rigid, comprising
everything in itself excepting life and free organized move
ment, or this huge blind mass of that which is called visible
matter {materia), and might just as well be called original
matter, is nothing but the residue of all parts of the present
universe not further to be explained, and so made to stand
as the mere material and substance out of which alone the
universe as it is can have been formed.
^ What a wide distance opens between the calmly earnest way in which
Chaos is described in the Institutes of Manu, i. 5 ff., and the half-frivolous
sportive manner of Aristophanes in the Birds, . 691 ff. ; cf. the Thesmo-
phoriazusd, 14 ff. ; or that of Euripides in the fragment of Melanippe; or
even that of Ovid at the outset of his Metamorphoses, when with forced gravity,
starting afresh, and with the manifest influence of the Alexandrian translation
of the Pentateuch he describes Chaos and the whole creation ! But the
narrative in Manu is not the oldest ; it has its peculiar colour from tie
hypothesis that several creations have succeeded each other, and the last
arises as a new house is built after the demolition and burning of earlier houses.

CHAOS AND THE UNIVERSE. 103
But just on this account the universe, which according to
its name and idea is the now existing universe, well ordered
in its parts, movements, and aims, was definitely distinguished
from that dark primitive substance which was called un^
ordered matter, or in Greek, Chaos. But this must be
thought of as something vast and immense ; and such
characteristic it has essentially retained in the old Hebrew
term Tdhit-va-Bdhu, which by the resonance of its vowel
sounds, and by its alliteration, in a very appropriate and
graphic way describes what is boundless or vast and un
ordered ; and this also is found with greater simplicity in
the short Greek name Chaos, which is akin to the Hebre\V
term in its derivation.' As it is nevertheless difficult for
the imagination to conceive with any distinctness such a
formless mass, the language of the oldest nations endeavoured
to designate it in another way, and so meet the desire for a
more definite conception of it. All the special but still
enormous material that may be called original material, and
that appears in the existing universe in an ordered form,
must be thought of as already present in that ultimate
original material, and as weltering in wild and crude con
fusion. That the lighter or liquid element might be con
ceived as swimming on the surface, was derived from the
idea of the egg ; but this surface was imagined as ten times
1 In nrW) the root of the first word, only the initial sound alternates with
that of the root of the second, nilH ; but in the cjise of x'''^, Z''^"> X'"'"' ^
third sound interchanges with the first and second. All these related roots,
to which Mare and the German gdhnen correspond, express only a wide
sprawling, staring, and yawning, and therefore the contrary of that which is
united together, arranged, falling into order and rank. If now in Hebrew !|rin
and ^iria are placed as closely as possible together, it is evident that thus the
same idea is represented in its highest degree, as if it were said in Greek x'''s
XXI x'^'f''^ > the LXX., however, prefer to take ;t;aoj rather in the signification
of " gulf," " abyss," like f^'j, which to be sure is akin to it, Micah i. 6 ; Zech.
xiv. 4 : and so all old Greek translations 6f Gen. i. 2 avail themselves of
circumlocutions which allow nothing of the old Chaos to peer through, as it has
been retained in Hesiod's Theog. 116. In Hebrew, however, the old n^lH,
" desire," from the wide opening of the mouth, is akin to it.

104 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
more dreadful than the great ocean, with its fathomless depths
and wild storms, of which the ancients spoke ; ' so that Chaos
was well designated the dark, yawning, monstrous depths,^
just as many things are designated according to the appear
ance of the surface they present to us. And if such is the
surface, what must the rest be ! This then was the original
formless mass of which the mind of man could think only
with horror. But the idea of this formless mass, and some
standing name for it, may be found in the language and in
the thought of all the most ancient nations ; and even
amongst the most cultured of the people of the later
antiquity known to us it remained so firmly fixed until the
'latest times, that the best and greatest of the Greek philo
sophers never got beyond it.
In so far it cannot be surprising, then, that among the
people of Israel this idea, coming down from a remote
antiquity, was retained as one long steadily accepted ; and
that it shows itself as well in the language of the traditions
regarded as sacred after the time of Moses, as in the whole
series of ancient sacred traditions. But it cannot be denied
that, strictly taken, in the series of the fundamental truths of
the religion revealed by Moses, this idea has no suitable and
proper place. For if the beginning of all things were some
thing so extremely dark, formless, crude, and waste as Chaos,
what does this amount to ? Had such really been the case,
how could the universe have been formed at all ? That out
of a purely dark and confused mass a better order could ever
' [" Where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy 

The rising world of waters, dark and deep,
AVon from the void and formless infinite." — Milton.]
' DirW, Gen. i. 2, a word corresponding to the Arabic for "lowland," but
in Hebrew signifying rather " the abyss of waters," a^uirirs; {(iutis), or ocean ;
as, however, in Gen. i. 2 it signifies what is equivalent to Chaos itself, so the
old Babylonish name for Chaos corresponds to it, 'O^ifxa ; cf. Richter's Berosus,
p. 50.

CHAOS AND THE UNIVERSE. 105
arise, is contrary to all that experience teaches. But that
afterwards only some God appears, as if casually, who out
of what is in itself a disordered mass creates order, is not
less a perverse thought, because the true God who is the God
of order ' — if with Moses we distinctly suppose such a God
— cannot have been simply added afterwards, and as it were
by accident. The true God is indeed the eternal God, the
Creator of the universe. In its infinite duration. His work
may, in accordance with His will and law, become more
and more spiritual, and be more and more perfected in its finer
elements, but its beginning cannot be thought of as some
thing merely formless and waste. Even those types of
individual existence from which the whole representation of
Chaos is derived, are not, as we consider them more closely,
fitting and suitable illustrations. For individual life, which
is possible only through the subsistence and firm foundations
of the whole great universe, has from the first another
determination and another nature than the universe by
which alone it is conditioned. How then can it be a
symbol and illustration of the origin of the whole great
universe itself? There is resemblance only in the circum
stance that even in the individual life the order of the
whole universe, and so at the same time that of God Him
self, must be dominant ; whilst in such life there may be
something new, something not yet found in the universe,
co-ordinately conditioning it. Moreover, it is only apparently
not really that such life is developed out of what is wholly
formless and waste.
§ 241. Thus, then. Chaos belongs to those ideas which,
coming into the nation of Israel from a remote antiquity,
extend even into the times of its regeneration through the
true religion under Moses ; but not being strictly considered
^ The great apostle in every suitable place makes very prominent the
idea of "the God of love and peace," or more briefly, "of peace," — 2 Thess.
iii 16 ; 1 Thess. v. 23 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 33 f. ; 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; Rom. xv. 33
xvi. 20 ; Phil. iv. 9 ; repeated Heb. xiii. 20 ; but without order peace is
impossible.

106 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
reconcilable with this religion, lose their original significance
at a very early period, and are gradually more and more
superseded by other ideas.
1. For, first of all, it is certain that in the Hebrew lan
guage, as it is presented to us in the Old Testament, the
expressions themselves which contain the idea of Chaos are
regarded only as archaic, whilst they vanish altogether from
ordinary discourse, and reappear but in fragmentary survivals
of reminiscences of old and sacred tradition, or in isolated
and occasional passages in the poets. The two most im
portant words which contain this idea occur only at the very
beginning of the oldest history of creation, which indeed has
preserved them ; ' and this history, after it had become in
corporated in a writing very early regarded as sacred, remained
the only document from which by later writers these words,
newly vivified, were brought back in the higher poetic and
prophetic utterances.^ . . . Indeed, an old sacred representa
tion saved from the primitive age of a people only very
gradually disappears from all the thoughts and all the strati
fications of thought in a nation. Thus among the people of
Israel who refiected deeply and with new zeal upon the
origin of things which no human eye beheld, and which,
nevertheless, with the mind's eye they struggled to realize in
all vividness, this fragment of primitive tradition held its
ground still longer, and was transformed to an ever more
distinct picture, of which indeed the remains of the second
history of creation afford us a clear example.' But already
¦¦ As an independent idea, and moreover in an old writing T6hu-va-B6hu
occurs in the whole Bible only in Gen. i. 2. It is manifestly cited from this
passage in the picturing of Jer. iv. 23, and then again in a somewhat later prophet
and with freer handling in B. Isa. xxxiv. 11. As a special word Jiria does not
again occur ; but ^nn standing alone is often used partly in the sense of
"empty" and "void," derived from the idea of waste and desolate, partly also
only in the higher discourse, as Isa. xxix. 21 ; Job vi. 18, xii. 24, xxvi. 7 ;
Deut. xxxii. 10, and yet more frequently later. Similarly also Qinn remained
in Hebrew as a word surrounded by world-old memories. Cf. Lehrbuch, % 277c.
" It must not be overlooked that Jeremiah used the present Pentateuch as
already the sacred book.
' He who understands the words in Gen. ii. 5 f. will see that they are taken

CHAOS AND THE UNIVERSE. 107
the new freedom with which the old tradition is treated must
have helped graduaHy to dissolve the more ancient conception.
But to such old sacred pictured representations, which at least
originally were connected with the idea of Chaos, the poets
clung longest and most tenaciously, and many of the latest
of them were fond of reintroducing the old highly-coloured
descriptions of Chaos into their compositions.'
2. But the first impulse to the withdrawal of this terrible
image of Chaos was given by the right conception of the true
God and its more and more perfect application to this end,
as such conception was known in the community after the
time of Moses. The direct relation of the whole universe to
the true God from His very nature must be this, — that the
universe is the visible manifestation of His working and of
His will ; that it is created only by Him, and so becomes
such a manifestation. Is He then already existent before it
with His whole power and glory, and His whole will, and
alone from the first all in all ? what significance in that case
can Chaos have ?
In the oldest history of creation, which has felt the in
fluence of the enlightened and all-enlightening spirit of the
true religion, and now has the foremost place in the Bible, is
shown the most memorable transmutation of the whole view
of Chaos. Chaos appears indeed in the very outset of this
narrative only in order to connect the account of the origin
of this existing universe somewhere, as to a firm, clear begin
ning ; but it is without any other significance ; and it is only
very briefly mentioned, much as in common narratives a
beginning is made with some definite time and situation of
from a history of creation in which Chaos was described at large in new fashion
as to its development, and in which a kind of history of Chaos was sketched.
Towards the end of its development, accordingly, *he aqueous portion of it is all
astir, and mounts up in dense vapours which cover the whole firm land in order
to prepare it for fruitfulness, whilst the present much higher canopy of vapour,
the heaven with its clouds and rain, was not yet formed. This is a kind of
ancient speculation as to the way in which, from the original material, water
and earth, lying in Chaos, the existing universe could arise.
' As 4 Ezra vi. 1-6 ; yet here in imitation of the words in Prov. viii. 22-31.

108 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
things.' But the true God does not arise up out of it, still
less does He come to it by chance. He is already before it,
and already active with His whole Spirit. The true God and
His eternally efficient Spirit ; this is already the All ; and
this All is already there both during and before Chaos ! It
may perhaps be asked, how this purely spiritual activity of
God that preceded the whole visible creation is to be more
particularly conceived, and what man could know of it. But
to raise such questions, or indeed to answer them, this was
not the place, where nothing but the beginning and the
creation of the world, and therefore the beginning of all that
we call history, was to be narrated. The peculiar elevated
brevity of this oldest history of creation, of which more is to
be said below, also demanded such sharp and definite restric
tion to what in this account is absolutely necessary. More
over, Chaos is here only a secondary matter, only a point of
connection for the narrative, and a period of time with which
a beginning is made, as indeed the plan of the narrative
attests.^ Over term of time and point of connection stands
already as self-evident the whole true God, with the primordial,
everlasting, moving and working of His Spirit.
This whole history of creation, which is the oldest the Bible
contains, received its present setting in the eleventh century
before Christ, and represents accordingly the purest thought
and spirit of the old true religion. But to the whole power
of the intellectual investigation of things as from that time it
arose with new energy into active exercise, the conception of
Chaos now stood free for a more plastic and profound insight ;
and it is wonderful to see how soon it was wholly trans-
1 Gen. i. 2.
" According to the proper connection of all the words. Gen. i. 1-3, the whole
picturing of Chaos is given as a merely interposed note of time, which should
depict the situation of things more exactly in which the subsequent history of
the work of God falls. The words are best translated, " In the beginning when
God created the heaven and the earth" {i.e. the present universe, which only is
actually the universe), " and whilst the earth was a chaos, . . . then God said."
That the LXX. make the first verse a sentence by itself, and later readers,
translators, and imitators (John i. 1) followed them in this, proves nothing
against the original sense of the passage.

CHAOS AND THE UNIVEESE. 109
formed, as if it were about to fall to pieces more and more and
be lost. We see this in the second history, of which a great
portion has been preserved bound up as closely as possible
with the first.' We see it also in the ample and varied
multitude of pictured representations of creation which the
great poets of the following centuries produced, and above all
in the Book of Job. An unusually rich cluster of thoughts
and images, in which the active power of the imagination
strove to represent vividly the events and periods of creation,
had been gathered together at that time in the higher circle
of traditions current in the nation of Israel, partly from the
treasures of their own antiquity as a nation, partly from
importations from without ; and the great poets and even
prophets used them with great freedom just as might suit
the special aim of their discourse. But what is most remark
able is, that while they employ many grand images which
once stood in close connection with the ideas of Chaos,
nowhere do they any longer mention dismal Chaos itself, not
even where they sketch imposing pictures in long and copious
detail as in the greater descriptive passages.^ They paint
the surging floods that once poured into mysterious depths ;
they speak of lofty mountains upreared on high, with their
deep foundations rooted in the earth ; they describe how the
circle of heaven was outspread with all its wonders ; but
nowhere is a word said of Chaos. Nay, the poet of the Book
of Job, with that rare logical consistency and courage which
distinguish him as poet and thinker, and make his poem
the greatest of all Biblical productions, goes a decisive step
' From what has been already said, p. 106, and from what follows, § 249
below. 2 Passages in Job xxvi. 7-13, xxxviii. 4-38, specially belong to this class ;
then those previously mentioned in Prov. viii. 22-31 ; 4 Ezra vi. 1-6, and
similar descriptions in Ecclus. xxiv. 5 ff., xliii. 12 f. ; but also many references
in Job and elsewhere to widely-diffused traditions of creation of a very foreign
character, of which we spoke in § 219, p. 70. Most copiously and with
intentional multiplication of detail, everything relevant here is fully brought
before us as in clear distinct survey in Job xxxviii. 4 ff. ; but nowhere is a word
said of old Chaos itself, since as we shall see new conceptions intruded which,
strictly considered, displaced Chaos.

110 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
further. For, whilst sketching the thought and image of
God's hanging the earth over Nothing,' — making the mighty
ball in its weight and thickness and breadth, of which ancient
sages could dream, swing without sinking or perishing over
empty space that surrounded it above and below, — he fully
abolished the old idea of Chaos, according to which the earth
from the first formed the chief essential part of the whole
Chaos, and by no means even in the present universe hangs
free and self-dependent. Nay more, it may be said, this is
the first passage which indicates how even the apparent
'' Nothing " can have its high significance in the whole struc
ture of the universe, and that which at first glance seems
simply fixed and motionless can hang free in the midst of it.
For this is as much as to say that in the universe invisible
forces hold sway and condition and sustain everything, and
can proceed only from God Himself, inasmuch as they con
dition and sustain the visible universe in all its parts without
exception. 3. All the more readily could now at length the ultimate
basis of the heathen conception of Chaos be destroyed. This
was accomplished when the word and thought " God spake
. . . and it was so," applied in the oldest history of creation
only to the separate parts of the existing universe, became
applied at once to the whole. In fact, the most direct and
general opposition of the whole universe, as of the created
All, and God as the Creator, gradually became more and
more prevalent without any regard to a Chaos. Prophet and
Psalmist show this in language whose simplicity and form
clearly reveal how powerful had been the infiuence of the
spirit of all true religion which predominates in the oldest
history of creation.^ When in the later times merely learned
^ Job xxvi. 7, where, according to Lehrbuch, 270a, the word ntDv3> formed
by a bold innovation, appears first for Nothing, as in the verse it suddenly
arises alternating with the old :in'n, which the Book of Job loves to use. Nothing
above and below ; the earth hanging between ; such is the meaning of the
description in each member of the verse.
2 B. Isa. xlviii. 13 ; Ps. xxxiii. 9.

CHAOS AND THE UNIVERSE. Ill
and philosophical language prevailed, emphatic reference is
made no doubt to the formless mass out of which God's
almighty hand shaped the universe.' But such phraseology,
a reminiscence of the few words at the beginning of the
Book of Genesis, is found only in the Hellenistic Books of
Wisdom, not in the New Testament, and it has no higher
significance. But in the cases mentioned, if only upon the omnipotence
of God, necessarily from the beginning forming and constitut
ing everything without exception, the view of the creation of
the universe is firmly based ; and if, as in illustration of God's
omnipotence, Chaos comes forth conspicuously only that by
the idea of wide and general disorder the idea of the universe
as the great and glorious divine order may the more distinctly
and luminously appear, there is yet another aspect of the
opposition between the universe and God which is especially
striking and impressive. It is the opposition of the Visible
and the Invisible. The universe is the All of the Visible ; but
it presupposes a something spiritual corresponding to it, i.e.
an Invisible without which it could not exist at all. Since,
therefore, this is to be thought of prior to the Visible, it is not
said, God created everything Visible out of the Visible, as
might be supposed, nor, indeed, as it might be added, out of
Chaos, but out of the Invisible.^ Yet this, it is true, is a kind
of contemplation which is somewhat refined and remote, and
calls forth many new questions ; and it is found only in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and reminds us of the language of the
learned. But the sharpest, simplest, and yet not incorrect way of
expressing in brief the proper view of creation which ulti
mately obtained was the sentence, — " the existent," i.e. every
thing visible and belonging to the outward universe, "was
created by God out of the non-existent," or, as it was said
1 x/isffes vXn, Wisd. xi. 17, cf. xv. 13 ; 4 Mace. i. 29 ; elsewhere, however,
this v>.n, materia, of the philosophers is nowhere found in the Greek Bible.
^ Heb. xi. 3, where the sense of the rare phraseology ^Ji ix ipxm/iiviit, accord
ing to the better reading, is more definitely indicated above.

112 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
subsequently in the common speech, " out of Nothing." '
This way of representing creation is essentially involved in
the words just quoted, " God spake . . . and it was so ; " as
if that which God creates were not, but in the same moment
that He wills it to be, it is ; ^ somewhat as with men who, to
be sure, can only create thoughts, the thought which was not
suddenly is. But this sentence has one great excellence ; in
its simple brevity expressing everything, it completely shuts
out Chaos, and so the entire truth comes fully into view upon
which everything here turns. There is now absolutely
nothing visible which exists or which once existed any
longer conceivable that does not come into being by the
will of God, and that could have any being without that
will. All that is dark and dismal, whether Chaos or any
other material phenomenon, is at once set aside. The whole
universe in all its parts is thus entirely from Him, and
remains in Him so long as His will that created it upholds
it ; and if with the whole universe every creature is only from
Him, and without Him is the same Nothing that it is apart
from His creative and sustaining will, how can anything what
ever boast against Him as if without Him it were anything at
all ! ' But if, whether in works of mind or hand or in deeds
of life, man can create something new only out of that which
is already given ; and something not merely new but also
enduring only out of what is already stedfast and true ; so
that the proverb holds good in his case, "out of Nothing
Nothing comes;" it is not thus in relation to Him who creates
everything what He is not immediately Himself, and who
1 il ohx oWwv, 2 Mace, vii, 28, quite Hellenistic ; where, indeed, in some
manuscripts the reading olx s? Svrus is found without any difference of, sense.
The wholly brief " out of Nothing " is not found in the Bible ; but the truth
lying in it is alluded to in 1 Cor. i. 28.
2 Where, as in B. Isa. xlviii. 13, Rom. iv. 17, "a calling" of the Creator is
spoken of, the thought manifestly goes back to Gen. i. ; and very graphic are
the words in Rom. iv. 17, " God calls that which is not as though it were," as
if in the same moment it came into being. How it could be expressed in good
Hebrew fashion, is evident from Rev. iv. 11, according to the better reading.
3 As the Bible so often indicates.

NAEEATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CREATIVE POWERS. 113
with His spirit may appear to men Nothing whilst He is
All. Chaos, however, always retains for this reason the meaning
and significance which the mere conception of it calls vividly
to mind. It suggests what the universe, according to the
divine will, should not be, since God wills the direct contrary
of it, and in the fitting place is also praised as the God of
order.' For the rest, this idea affords only a remarkable
example how a once prevailing conception ^ can in the course
of the progress of the true religion, without being absolutely
rejected, gradually fade and die in the presence of mightier
truths. It may still be found, but only as a thought that
may be of service to point and illustrate discourse that has
other and nobler aims.

IX. THE NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND THE DIVINE CREATIVE
POWERS.
§ 245. The narratives of creation preserved in Scripture
immortalize in brief and concise form the results of the highest
and wisest conceptions of remote antiquity on this subject.
Their value to us lies in the view they present of the relation
of the universe as a whole to God, and especially of its origin
and development by means of divine power and wisdom
All that is relevant to this question, in harmony with the true
religion, may be set forth step by step in such observations
as the following : —
1. Recognising vividly that God is the mighty ruler over all
things, and also that many portions of the universe have their
peculiar nature and mutual relations, the mind of man may
• This is indicated still more definitely than in the expression on p. 104,
by the words, 1 Cor. xiv. 33 f. ; cf. xxxmrTxirU, 2 Cor. vi. 5, xii. 20. — As to
all the nonsense that in our day is so often and so variously deduced from the
words of Gen. i. 2, no further observations need be made.
* It may be said prevalent as a dogma. Chaos and the plurality of gods
were more and more genuine heathen dogmas. H

114 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
form an idea of the manner in which God as the author of
things gave them their essential characteristic and special
determination, and in what order He made them. Thus He
who is incomparably more than a human designer and artificer
is conceived as the Creator of the infinite objects of the universe;
and if the narratives of the succession of events in creation are
called histories, they are histories of events which no human
eye saw, and which nevertheless may just as certainly and truly
have happened as if they had been witnessed by man. In
inquiries as to the origin of things which lie beyond all
historical experience, what is already known is traced further
and further back, and ideas thus arise as to that origin which
are not necessarily perverse, but based on ascertained know
ledge. In relation to the origin of human speech, or of the
art of poetry, the same procedure is adopted, and so also with
respect to the existing configuration of the earth's surface,
which at first sight appears to have always been what it is,
and of whose formation all human history is silent. The
conjectures of ancient sages in their histories of creation are
but the first bold beginnings of this kind yet of the highest
and most comprehensive contents. They are attempts to trace
and apprehend from above downwards, from the supreme and
ultimate in thought, from God Himself, the origin of things
in the universe and their interconnection ; and they are
attempts possible only as the mind is uplifted by a mighty
impulse to God and to the fuU conception of His power and
glory. To apprehend the divine determination of all visible
things, to form a clear and distinct idea of it and follow its
course from the first conceivable beginning onwards, is indeed
possible ; but the more perfect the God is who is acknow
ledged as God, and the more deeply the religion associated
with such recognition impels the mind to seek everywhere the
truly divine, the truer will be the thought of creation that
will arise. If therefore histories of creation sprang up in the
religions of all ancient n9,tions, and had their fascination and
charm, among no nation was it likely that they would take

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWEES. 115
SO exalted and worthy a form as in the nation of the true
reHgion. And so in fact it was. The Biblical narratives,
different as they are in many respects from one another, are
all of them equally admirable and characterized by a unique
and incomparable grandeur.
2. It would not be altogether out of place to compare the
more copious and graphic accounts of creation to the visions
of the prophets of Israel. Such vivid picturings require not
a little of the genuine prophetic spirit that intuitively realizes
the whole majesty and glory of God, and well might the
greatest prophets have first sketched them. No doubt much
of early investigation and primitive knowledge of purely
earthly and in so far historical things is not merely inter
woven in these narratives, but even constitutes their firm
foundation. Nevertheless they have great affinity with the
visions of the prophets of the work of God as Judge at the
end of all things ; and the similarity extends far enough. To
the beginnings of all visible things correspond their last issues
at the conceivable termination of the present world ;' and the
Judge who decides how far everything has fulfilled its destiny
answers to the Creator who appointed that destiny at first ;
and in the true reHgion the same true God is both Creator
and Judge. Nay more, according to the main conceptions
of all true religion, creation and judgment are only the com
plement of each other; for in the one omnipotence is con
spicuous, in the other righteousness, but in each both are
manifest; and these being the two essential attributes of the
true God, in which also His true unity is found, they blend
in perfect harmony in the supreme development of things
historically conceivable. Moreover, the inspired glance but
sketches in the one case a history of the work of God in the
remotest Past, in the other in the remotest Future ; and we
shall observe presently how far all this extends.
3. At once, however, we advance a step further in this
1 In a somewhat crude way the Institutes of Manu show this, the first book
opening with creation, the twelfth or last dealing with the end of the world.

116 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
discussion. If every portion of the present world proceeds
from a creative thought of God, who appoints to it its
destiny, and returns at last in judgment upon it ; and if the
present world is resolvable into a successive series of historical
changes and developments called atwves, there is no impos
sibility in the supposition that God's entire thought and plan
of creation contemplated the whole in its unity, and that
with the existing state of things the consummation has not
yet been reached. In this sense we may speak of a plurality
of worlds, as we fix the eye upon the future ; and we shall
see below how far this possibility is actually realized.
§ 246. But however boldly and strikingly the divinely-
purged vision rises in contemplation of the first conceivable
beginning of beings in order to picture the true God as
Creator, and the gradual formation of the existing universe,
just as certain is it that such glance depicts the more purely
and sublimely the work of God as Creator, the more it can
clearly express the creative thought of God with respect to
every great portion of the universe. It is, indeed, impossible
to portray the origin of the universe under the mighty hand
of God as one would depict the gradual formation of some
work of man's invention and skill ; impossible in this sense
to describe" how God made the universe. For the material is
already given for all that man invents and forms ; and even
in that which is a purely mental creation, as language, poetry,
science, art, a higher necessity which lies in the nature of
things holds sway apart from and prior to his creative
activity. He can neither bring the material into existence
nor animate a single life. His creations are but copies or
transformations dealing with materials already given, and
obeying laws already prescribed. The true religion marks
from the first this radical distinction between divine and
human works, and no language has characterized so early and
so definitely the speciality of divine creation as the Hebrew.'
1 Cf. Lehrbuch, § 126a. [Where Ewald says that the intensive form of the
Hebrew verb K"13 means fashioning by a slow laborious process, as in human

NAEEATIVES OF CEEATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWEES. 117
Moreover, when a second narrator, in the palmy days of
ancient Israel, speaking from the profoundest spirit of its
true religion, depicts the creative procedure of God in the
first beginning of the world, and depicts it with a freedom
so bold and graphic that only the true religion can admit,'
instead of the old word for " creating " there enter, it is true,
rather the ideas of fashioning,^ and of planting,* and the like.
But, strictly considered, his subject is the appearance of the
infinite variety of individual life, which is carefully to be
distinguished from creation properly so called. The origin of
the materials out of which this variety might be conceived
as produced is not in this case in question. So the position
remains, that with respect to these separate parts of the
world, as also the entire universe, the Bible aims to indicate
only the creative thoughts of God, and the divine destiny
assigned from the first to every created thing.
But here is added a special feature which gradually appears
in the Bible in the high significance that unquestionably
belongs to it. For as every distinct creation, and indeed the
whole universe everywhere, bears the imprint and traces, or,
in one word, the image of the Creator in His immeasurable
majesty and glory, so that it may be said that in each
creation of the least as of the greatest things, the will as
well as the power and glory of God as Creator is expressed ;
nevertheless the aspects of the entire Being and whole
activity of God, which are conspicuous in creation, are not
work ; but the simple form indicates the simplest and easiest creating, that is,
the divine.]
' Gen. ii. 5-iii. 24, forming the great fragment of the second narrative of
creation. ' As Gen. ii. 7, 8, 19. Amos uses ^S"' "to fashion," interchangeably with f{"l3
-T> T I
(iv. 13), but makes it point to less delicate creative power. Isaiah uses it with
essentially the same meaning (xxii. 11) ; succeeding poets and prophets prefer
to employ it as a newer word. Ps. xciv. 9 (20), xcv. 5, cf. viii. 5. It is alto
gether wanting in the Book of Origins; piE'j;. "to make," as the commoner
word, may interchange with it or be associated with X13 as explanatory, as
In Gen. ii. 3.
' As Gen. ii. 8.

118 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
wholly the same as those most perceptible in the perfecting
of creation. For in creation it is not, strictly considered,
omnipotence merely which creates everything in conformity
to the divine will, and which no doubt is first and necessary
in such activity; there are purely divine powers also con
ceivable which correspond fully to the divine will in creation,
and which may be thrown into very prominent relief as
participating in the work of creation. Such "powers" of
God may therefore be distinguished, and may be called co
ordinate powers of creation, manifesting themselves as they
do in creation as from the depths of the divine nature. An
entirely new view of creation thus opens, which in its divine
significance reaches higher, in its human significance goes
deeper, than the simpler view thus given. Such a co-ordinate
creative energy has the same significance for the entire creation
in all its parts ; it is not the sole energy, but it may be
thought of as such when its special significance is recognised
and it comes into special prominence. Historically considered,
as the Bible clearly shows, these separate creative powers
became properly conspicuous, and were definitely traced only
at successive intervals, until at length the whole series
received due notice and adequate estimation. Their import
ance demands that we direct special attention to them.
Reviewing, therefore, the different accounts of creation, and
explaining them as in every case resulting from the idea of
the co-operation of both those simple constituent parts of
their contents and their amalgamation with each other, we
must at the same time carefully note what creative power is
in every case added, and in what way. For with such
completeness have they all come into existence, that no one
of them which we know at all in its entire essential coherence
appears without allusion to the Special creative energy it
holds to be significant. They may be distinguished partly by
the period to which they belong, partly by the creative power
which is associated with God's omnipotence in creation ; and
we shall see that to the five periods we can here distinguish

NAEEATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CREATIVE POWERS. 119
there corresponds the series of five creative powers which
completes their circle, and may in the last issue be simplified
into two. 1. The oldest Narrative j the Spirit of God.
§ 247. The oldest narrative derived from the Book of
Origins forms an extremely suitable prologue to the Pentateuch,
and indeed to the whole Bible^ and an appropriate intro
duction to all that higher history that involves the know
ledge of the true God. In its firm outlines and essential
elementSj so far as the parts of creation and the order in
which they arose are concerned, it comes down from the
remotest antiquity of which we have any clear traces. To
have preserved so transparently and so faithfully through
manifold changes the oldest ideas upon this subject is one of
the many excellences of this inestimable narrative.' But the
spirit which it now breathes and which gives so complete and
magnificent a unity to these primitive deposits and remnants
of sacred tradition, in the new and splendid form they now
wear, can have found its source only in the true religion
subsequently to Moses ; and this feature of it is seen in three
aspects :
1. First of all, in the purely elevated way in which God's
creative work is here conceived and described. As this
narrative, renewing somewhat the series of the particular
parts of the great universe, yet presents it essentially with
the highest simplicity accordiiig to the ancient conception, so
it describes the work of creation itself with the same antique
simplicity rising here from the nature of the subject to an
appropriate and divine simplicity. It is, however, the creative
power of God itself which in this antique sublimity con
spicuously pervades the narrative; and it is thrown into
prominence by the greatest and most sublime subject of
which history up to this time has anything to say. Of
1 Gen. i.-ii. 4. The Fifth Narrator in ii. 4 interpolates nin^ before DTl^X.

120 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
every part of creation, carefully investigated,- it may be said,
it has been created as according to the divine will and aim
to which it answers it must be created ; but applying this to
all the distinguishable great parts of the present universe as
to their separate creation, it may be said of every one, it
actually became just as it was to be according to the divine
will and aim. So iu this narrative is continually repeated
" and God said " . . . " and it was so," and nothing is in all
brevity more conformable to the idea of supreme Omnipotence,
nothing more eloquent, than this uniform repetition through
all the great parts of all the creation of the universe. The
very brevity is sublime, and the absence or failure of human
speech becomes a suitable memorial of that which no human
thought can compass.
2. This expressive brevity is, indeed, of the very essence
and art of the whole presentation.' But where it has to
explain the divine creative thoughts of every part of the
great universe, and consequently its nature, its determination,
and its eternal aim, there the discourse rises into jubilant
tones, and the brevity becomes an exuberant redundance,
partly when the flowing manifoldness of the different kinds
of life with the primordial determinateness and unvarying
similarity of such life has to be depicted,^ partly when the
creation of man is dealt with as the last goal and crown of
the whole creation. So then the creative thought, including
in itself the nature, destination, and aim, or the definite
* Art is seen in the three sharp, precise, yet clear and comprehensive sentences
about Chaos. (1) "The earth," i.e. the broad expanse of all matter, "was a
desert and a waste" (infinitely desolate) ; (2) " and darkness was upon the face
of the abyss," i.e. of the infinite and limitless depths as of the expanse below ;
(3) "whilst the Spirit of God brooded upon the waters," i.e. the water which
surrounded the upper surface of this expanse. What a series of diverse, long
prevalent conceptions of Chaos are here presupposed and now artistically con
densed ! A similar brevity is shown in the two lines (ver. 27) that describe the
nature of man, where " man " in his universality and so far indeterminateness
and indefinite unity as he appears in the first clause, passes at once in the second
into his full determinateness, i.e. plurality, since mx iu Hebrew may mean both ;
cf. Lehrbuch, § 1765.
" So ver. 11 f., vers. 14-18, ver. 21, ver. 24 f. ; also as just explained ver. 276.

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWEES. 121
manifoldness of all the great parts of the universe, becomes a
" word of God " ' to which immediately the actual genesis and
firm subsistence of things correspond. But the creation pro
duces thus in contrast with Chaos the permanent determinate
ness of existence and life, which are infinitely manifold and
yet well established and well graduated ; and since speech
serves for the expression of all this in its idea, and speech
in so far becomes a divine necessity within creation, God's
creative word at length issues into the " naming " of the
parts of creation, as if such short and compact terms
expressed the nature and idea of these objects according to
the divine will.^ So certainly does the necessity and origin
of speech go back to the divine origin and import of the
different things themselves ; as, indeed, is indicated by the
fulness of this narrative, which notwithstanding its brevity is
yet rich in contents and thought.*
3. Whilst, however, the narrative in all rapid brevity
describes so perfectly the infinite manifoldness of the universe
as well in its original basis as in its continually self-renewing
individual life, it gathers up this diversity into the still higher
ultimate truth that all the parts it introduces are " good," and
the whole therefore, as all at length coincides in the most
perfect goodness, " very good." What infinite truth rests in
^ According to M. AbSth, v. 1, some scholars of repute infer from the repeti
tion of "God said" in Gen. i. that the universe was made by ten verbal com
mands ; and this number is certainly drawn from vers. 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24,
26, 28, 29 ; but it is inexact, since ver. 22 is of like sense with ver. 28, and
though somewhat more briefly put should be counted if ver. 28 is counted. It
is only a Rabbinical conceit.
" What was thus begun (Gen. i. 5, 8, 10) might have been continued with
reference to the succeeding parts, if the narrator had not supposed that the
literal import of the succeeding works was self-evident. The meaning is not
that precisely what we now call " day," "heaven," "earth," then appeared as
phenomena, but that God Himself called His creation on the first day of its
genesis as men now constantly call it. If the purpose the light is to serve is
not stated, it is readily obvious from its antithesis, ver. 4. But the light receives
its new name " day " in the remodelling of the old narrative to show the history
of the origin of the Weeks and the Sabbath.
' Gen. ii. 19-23 also gives the origin of speech. Both place it in the primitive
age, but Gen. ii. transforms the setting of the older account in harmony with its
fundamental thought.

122 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
this conception ! The narrative certainly emphasizes it as of
the highest value and importance. Who, indeed, does not
feel with what inward trembling of highest joy in his own
spirit, the narrator at the close of the account of the separate
parts of creation adds, " God saw the work that was done that
it was good ; " just as a true artist and master-worker only as
he is, at last convinced of the quality of his work, allows him
self freely to indulge the thought of its goodness 1 And with
what higher trembling of this joy does he relate at the end
that " God saw," as in one glance, " all that He had created,"
i.e. the whole universe, and found it " very good " ! And as
if also an emphatic outward importance should be given to
this perfecting and finishing of the universe, "good" even
in the eyes of God Himself as Creator, the same narrator who
bounds the divine primteval work with the rest of the seventh
day, and six times as the work proceeds appropriately repeats
the divine verdict "good," crowns the whole at last with
" very good," as with the fitting seventh day consecration ;
thus one sacred seven is endorsed by the other. Moreover,
as every part of the creation opens uniformly with " God
said," so all closes with " good," " very good," in like uni
formity, and everything, however diverse in nature, bears in
its determinateness and aim, and in its pure divine quality of
goodness, but one and the same impress, and the universe is
and is to be only the universe of the true God. Such in its
simplicity is the grand teaching of this magnificent narrative.
§ 248. So far the simplicity of this narrative appears to
place at the side of the Creator only omnipotence. For
indeed the goodness which inheres in all creation points back
only to a goodness which invests and penetrates His creature
coming from the innermost being and will of the Creator, but
as a special creative power goodness is not here represented.
It would appear, then, that omnipotence itself is the only
creative power.
But this is only in appearance. For just at that point of
the story in which a relic of the oldest conception of the

NAEEATIVES OF CEEATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWEES. 123
genesis of the universe is appropriated, viz. Chaos — subse
quently vanishing more and more from view — ^just here the
thought of a co-ordinate creative power is added, for the first
time, which is of the greatest significance. The idea of Chaos
must ever be repugnant to the genius of the true religion.
But while heathenism imagines a deity who arises only in
the period of Chaos and disperses the confusion, the true God
in this narrative is already existent prior to the whole crea
tion, and it is His Spirit that comes to scatter the Chaos,
" brooding ' upon the waters," as a bird, until the warm and
quickened life appears. This image was the more readily
suggested as " spirit " and " soul " in Hebrew, as in all Semitic
tongues, are feminine ; ^ and without doubt it was not used
for the first time in our narrative. Weighing what lies in
the image, we get a very important truth. The Spirit of
God appears here, as according to the Bible in all human
history, as the enemy of all disorder and crudeness, as the
spring and source of all impulse that awakens and advances
in the universe the life that answers to the divine will, as
touching and surrounding with unceasing and unwearied
energy him to whom by the divine will this same Spirit
must already be nearest to his own.' The primaeval Chaos is
therefore the most mighty example of the unordered which
the Spirit has to reduce to order, and of the crude which the
Spirit has to prepare to hear the divine voice and receive the
' The rare ^m. Gen. i. 2, signifies, according to the singularly appropriate
image, " to brood," as in Deut. xxxii. 11. It is related in its root with Dm,
and means " to soften," " to warm." The image is found also in the Veda ; cf.
Banerjea's Dialogues of Hindoo Philosophy, London 1861, p. 486.
' Lehrbuch, § 454, last edition. Only in ^thiopic and the newer African
tongues related with it is a masculine term "head " used in certain phrases as
with us in a sense akin to that of "spirit" and "soul." But it is merely
African, and according to all' indications only in Africa has penetrated into
Semitic. ^ If in passages like B. Isa. Ixiii. 10, it is said, " They grieved God's Holy
Spirit, " those are spoken of to whom this Spirit had come as closely as possible,
and who should have guarded themselves against " grieving " or "provoking "
(Deut. xxxii. 21) the friend who had come so near. It is only such a friend
that one can most deeply and unpardonably grieve and provoke.

124 (^LD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
divine life. It is as if anly the activity of this supreme
energy could suffice to illiimine the most dismal darkness,
and scatter the wildest confusion antiquity knew. Two
things are to be noted — (1) This pure Spirit of God appears
in the Bible in the oldest and simplest narrative of Creation
as a singularly high, self-dependent, divine energy, which
God sends as He wills, and which on its part, as a divine
energy never separated from God, accomplishes its work.
(2) This Spirit of God in this self-dependence appears here
as a really co-ordinate creative divine power, since apart
from the mere omnipotence of God, and before the word of
power goes forth in creation, its own preparatory work is
such that without it the word of power cannot sound at the
right moment. For as the Spirit, wherever it works, works
as a firm, inexhaustible though hidden and imperceptible
energy, and in the course of the world works by way of
preparation for a length of time until the ground is made
ready for the new mighty life that at the right moment
appears, so here its divine co-operation in the creation of
the universe is conceived.
2. The later Narrative ; ' the Man of God.
§ 249. The thought of a co-ordinate creative power which
was scarcely more than unfolded in the, earHest narrative,
became in the course of the succeeding centuries an increas
ingly fruitful thought, and led to many new and profound
glimpses into that mystery which no mortal eye beheld, but
the traces of which nevertheless so certainly extend to the
realities of this present universe. Indeed, this thought domi
nated gradually the whole field of vision as the higher feeling
endeavoured, when the divine omnipotence as the primarily
^ Gen. ii. 5-iii. 24, which is the more difficult to understand inasmuch as it
consists only of fragments from which the original Whole has to be conjectured,
while only from such Whole can the fragments be rightly estimated. Fortunately,
however, so much has come to hand that what is wanting may be trustworthily
supplied, far more so than in the case of a dismembered work of architecture
or sculpture.

NAEEATIVES OF CEEATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWERS. 125
creative power was established, to grasp that element beyond
which touches most deeply the divine intention and purpose
of creation. Among all the individual creations, the highest
is man, and unquestionably the aim of creaticm most nearly
concerns and is most profoundly related to him. It was
precisely the growing perception of the true, nature of man
which led the mind a step further in its contemplation, and
gave currency to that conception of which we would now
more particularly speak.
No doubt the older narrative of creation, notwithstanding
its characteristic brevity, had already exhibited, with an
eloquence at once perspicuous and sublime, the high dignity
and unique peculiarity which distinguish man as part of
creation. Three aspects of that presentation upon which
everything depends, it is necessary here very carefully to
consider. In the outset it is remarkable that this narrative
represents the creation of man as the crowning work of God ;
and the feeling of the incomparably high significance of this
last creative work penetrates the narrative most conspicuously.
There is no longer, as in the earlier creations, the mere pro
nouncing of the creative fiat ; as if the Creator Himself felt
what a surpassing moment of interest is the moment of
man's entrance into the world, the creative thought swells as
it were into joyous emotion, and the solemn repose of the
narrative is broken as by the trembling of a higher joy.'
With concise but striking definiteness, the idea of the high
and unique grandeur of this creation is comprehended in the
two determinations that man is to be formed as to his essence
in the image of God, and as to his prerogative, the ruler
over all the earlier creations ; and what high meaning and
significance are here involved ! Moreover, if the great God
^ According to Gen. v. 1-3, this high strain of discourse continues to be
maintained still further in this same Book of Origins. For this reason, as the
style of composition shows a movement of rare and bounding emotion, no sharp
distinction in the matter here dealt with is to be thought of between Q^v,
" image," and niOT. " likeness."

126 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
gives a simple discharge to all the rest of His works when
He has created them, and adds in the case of the living
things of earth the blessing of increase indispensable to their
transient perishable nature, upon man He lays a special in
junction which, containing in itself both command and pro
hibition, applies to individual will, and thus conditions the
beginning of all changeful development in human history ; so
that here on the very threshold of his existence may be sur
mised by this third characteristic what a wholly different
creation it is that steps with man into the world.'
Such is the oldest narrative in the form it took at the
time of the highest glory of the ancient nation in all the
calmness of its pride ; and well does it show the marks of
the happily-contented elevation of that time. But however
strikingly the peculiar lofty nature of man as a creature was
indicated in those few traits of imperishable truth and
beauty, there came upon the ancient community soon enough
times when the growing corruption of all mankind was
profoundly felt. With new force the question then arose,
What is man in his essential original being, as also his
degenerate present and whole future, and how may the
glaring contradiction be explained, that a creature raised
so high above all others could nevertheless sink down even
deeper than all others ? A real enigma was thus presented
in the earnest contemplation of things ; and the enigma was
capable of a thorough solution only as the eager eye perceived
more vividly the original divine destiny of man, and kept
this firmly and purely before it in its eternal significance.
Man, as he steps into view before us now in the midst of
the current of unfinished human history, under the burden
of error and sin, is not man as he ought to be, not man in
his real intention and according to the divine will, and
therefore not as he originally was when he went forth from
' How significant the special feature of the narrative in Gen. i. 30 f. is, has
often been explained, and this older narrative in so far implies in some measure
what the later narrative in its own way only carries out further.

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWERS. 127
the hand of the Creator wholly pure and good, nor as he at
last must become if his divine destiny is not to prove
futile. Thus the first step for our narrator in the solving
of the problem was to distinguish strictly between man con
ceivable as originally created in his pure determination
according to the will of God and the historical man, between
the typical, archetypal man and the man of to-day,' between
the spiritual ^ and the carnal man, the man of God and the
man of sin. What high doctrine and what fascination may
lie in this distinction as it is vividly realized in thought !
And our narrator presents it with all sharpness of outline,
not merely placing side by side man as conceived in his
divinely-given original glory, and man as fallen from it, but
as a genuine historical thinker he explains and sets forth the
possibility of the transition from the former to the latter, and
also makes apparent the other possibility, viz. the restoration
of the erring and strayed. Only with this does the narrative
attain the charming completeness which distinguishes it.
But while in the first of the three parts of his narrative
so formed, he directs his view to the original purity and
divine glory of inan, celebrated in the older narrative, and
also in many a sacred tradition beside,^ it seems to him as
if this primary man, standing in his purity in immediate
nearness to God, must have been formed not merely in point
of worth, but also in point of time, at the summit of all
the creations of God. The reason for this is obvious.
Side by side with God, man was to be represented as
the witness of the whole glory of the creating, that is, of
1 That is, in the language of the schools, the ideal and the empirical man.
^ In the sense of the •rnvi/.xTixis of Paul, 1 Cor. ii. 13 ff. ; GaL vi. 1.
^ A short summary upon this matter may here be given. The Cherubs
mentioned in Gen. iii. 24 belong to the oldest treasure of representative forms
held sacred in the i>ation of Israel. The "tree of life," on the contrary, and
everything connected with it, is foreign to the Book of Origins : it is found first
in the Solomonic writings (cf Dichter des A. Bs. ii. 4, 2nd ed.), and is known
to us to-day from the Assyrian sculptures as reverenced in those lands. The
tradition of Paradise as it appears in Gen. ii. 10-14 was inserted by the Fifth
Narrator.

128 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
the true God, and introduced into his proper work and his
whole proper life by God Himself, in connection with the
young creation as it arose, so that he might learn with Him
to be a creator. And is not man the only creature of God who
can actually behold in their beginnings the things already
existing before the universe as it now is, and follow God
Himself in His wonderful works? Moreover, at the time of
our narrator, stories of creation had long abounded in all
lands ; might it not therefore be thought because of this,
that man in his primaeval purity and spirituality had been
the actual witness of the creating God, and had thus learned
to know God, and to become with Him and after Him himself
a creator ? The thought of man as witness ' of the divine
creation and joint-creator may be a very bold thought, but
rightly understood there are sound reasons for it.
But to what lofty narration must the material grow to our
narrator, if, proceeding from this conception, he places the
old traditional works of creation in the moment of their
origin under the hand of God in close connection with the
primary man as spectator, as if they were made expressly
for him ! When, at the termination of Chaos, the primary
man is created, God introduces him to the stars then newly
formed. Chaos having wholly disappeared before their glory,
and teaches him, as he is ready to fall down before them,
that not they but only He Himself is the true God.' Vege-
^ The creation of the stars and what is connected with it must have had its
place in the original narrative between Gen. ii. 7 and ver. 8, and should not be
omitted if the whole narrative is to have coherence and meaning. For Chaos
mentioned in ver. 5 comes to an end according to the plan and structure of the
narrative only after ver. 7, and it must have been told that it comes to an end
here, and how, viz. by the cre.ntion of the orbs of heaven. And just as evident
is it that the command of God in ver. 16 cannot have been the first word of
God to man ; that He must have revealed Himself to him earlier ; and that the
best opportunity for this was offered when the orbs of heaven made their
appearance. Even in the older narrative, in the same way, the word i. 29,
otherwise corresponding to i. 16, is not the first word of God to man. The
Fifth Narrator, however, certainly left out this portion here because he wished
to unite the beginning of the whole narrative as closely as possible with the
older one, and presupposed the creation of light and the orbs of heaven as suffi
ciently known to the readers from Gen. i, 3 f., 14-18.

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CREATIVE POWERS. 129
tation now following is as if it were only for him, in order to
initiate him in the divine garden of earth. Paradise, into his
proper work, and also into the proper life he is to lead in
the observance of the divine command and prohibition. The
beasts of the earth are now created as if just as expressly for
him ; and as only now begins for man a life associated with
sentient and active creatures, near to him, and with nature
more or less akin to his own, and as it is of advantage to
distinguish well the different kinds of nearly similar exist
ences, he is moved by God in the finding of names for " the
beast of the field and the fowl of the air " to become himself
a creator, although only of things intellectual. Thus speech
appears at this point very suitably as a human creation of
things belonging to mind, though prescribed and demanded
by God, and as the oldest of its kind and still from Paradise.
But as this creation of beasts, having no sufficient affinity
with man, is, according to the divine will, only to prepare
the way for that of woman, there comes as soon as she is
added,' and indeed with the very addition itself, that turn
of things which closes the first part of this whole primitive
history of man, and destroys his first innocence.
Such is this higher history with its fully exact and lofty
truth, if only it be rightly understood. We shall soon see,
however, how a history related to it, yet incomparably
higher, is added. But before this we must pause to con
sider another view of creation, and the divine power manifest
in it. 3. Wisdom as Co-ordinate Creator.
§ 250. In the earlier times of the community of Israel it
is only rarely, and in a restricted and narrow sense, that any
^ According to this narrator, the number of the divine works of creation by
remodelling the series and numbers of the earlier tradition returned to the
round number five— (1) the man of God, (2) the orbs of heaven, (3) vegetation,
(4) beasts, (5) the wife of the man and marriage. Such a reduction to a less
number is not surprising ; cf. § 247. I

130 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
representation bearing a resemblance to wisdom as an energy
of God is found. But when schools of wisdom were established
in Israel, and a growing love of wisdom or philosophy, with
the observance of its precepts and counsels of life, took root
in the nation, it was otherwise. More and more was it then
distinctly shown what wisdom is in itself, and what power
dwells in it ; and there occurred among the people, when the
right conception as to the profound, powerful, and immortal
characteristics wisdom should possess found acceptance, a
mighty transformation, more possible in this community than
in any other ancient nation, and to which our subject calls
us to glance. For, beginning with scanty and infrequent
references, wisdom was at length contemplated as side by
side with God a co-ordinate creator of the universe, and was
raised accordingly to the rank of such co-ordinate creative
" powers," the highest things being said of it that could be
said of any power but God Himself. In order to understand
how this vast and extraordinary advance was possible, we
must carefully weigh the two following considerations.
On the one hand, wisdom had at this time been long
recognised as a true factor of life of the highest significance,
as a power which might serve to secure to the man who
possessed and used it the noblest and most inexhaustible
blessings. It was regarded, moreover, as a possession which
no man was able to win and appropriate to himself as he
might an outward means of power, or a visible costly treasure,
and thus find with it as in such personal estate the blessing
he hoped for, the boon he prized.' In the first period of the
diligent search for wisdom or philosophy, the Solomonic, this
conviction was ripe and powerful enough in Israel. But a
direct and fruitful inference from it was that wisdom as
a supreme and purely spiritual power which, like all purely
^ According to Prov. xvii. 16 in the more ordinary, and Job xxviii. 15 in the
higher style of discourse ; with which other passages may be compared which
speak of the excellence and preciousness of wisdom. All such proverbs as
Prov. xvii. 16 are intelligible only as a custom even in those early times is
supposed of giving instruction in philosophy as we say for an honorarium.

NAEEATIVES OF CEEATION, AND DIVINE CEE.4,TIVE POWEES. 131
spiritual blessings, no man perfectly possessed as an external
treasure in any period or situation of his life, could have
its abiding seat and its perennial source only in God Himself.
And this inference the Book of Job drew as a new high truth,
and elucidated it as minutely and as clearly and brilliantly
as such a truth not yet commonly accepted deserved.'
On the other hand, wisdom may be contemplated not only
as a power active in its possessor and creating that which is
new, but also as in its fruits a phenomenon, a phenomenon
which may be recognised in the things made or created as
they are with and by its aid. It is then that invisible
quality — visible enough by its marks and traces — which
exists in those things in which it may be discerned, and
which reveal it anew more and more to every attentive or
more deeply inquiring observer. Experience and exacter
investigation, however, further show that the whole universe
was not only created by wisdom,^ but is also the visible image
of the supreme wisdom. Even if in detached parts such
wisdom at first glance comes perhaps to be overlooked by the
inquiring mind, the survey of the whole reveals the more
clearly that there is a wise reason for everything, and that
but one divine wisdom assuredly pervades the whole creation.
When these two conceptions are united, there is, so to
speak, but a single leap from them to the thought of wisdom
as such a supreme divine power, at once in relation to the
universe a co-ordinate creator with God, and in relation to
God as a delicate artist standing by His side to serve Him
in creation. But near as the thought appears to lie, even at
the distance of only a single bound, it was not the poet of the
Book of Job who took it, but the later author of the prologue
to the Book of Proverbs. In this prologue wisdom is con
ceived in such absolute self-dependence, and with immortal
^ What the poet teaches in Job xxviii. can hardly have been at that time a
common conception, even if it should be the last higher view the poet aims to
make it.
2 So most generally but most simply Ps. civ. 24 ; similarly Job xxxviii. 37 ;
Jer. X. 12 ; more remote is Isa. xxviii. 29.

132 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
truth made to manifest itself to all men as well in its ante-
mundane and supra-mundane significance and power as in its
eternal continuance in the universe.'
But wisdom as a co-ordinate creative power with God then
steps forth as it were into the place of the Spirit of God,
which first of all was contemplated as such power. The
more readily could this exchange take place, since both
" wisdom " and " spirit " are alike thought of in Hebrew as
feminine. Wisdom must then also be considered, just as the
Spirit of God had been, as pre-mundane power ; but whilst
this is self-evident of the Spirit of God, such a representation
of wisdom was till then so little conceived that the poet
expressly admits into its self-characterization this feature,
that it could boast of having been created of God before all
time and worlds as the artist of the universe, sporting before
Him as His child.^ It was thus only the ripest period of
Hebrew philosophy proper that recognised so profoundly the
significance and power of all genuine wisdom, and taught the
eternal truth that it is the same supreme wisdom which has
pervaded the whole universe from the beginning as a purely
divine power, and which now and in all ages may be eagerly
sought and apprehended by man. Such a truth is a worthy
subject upon which with the intensest glow of spirit to
expatiate to the utmost ; and our didactic poet in his high
^ In the chief passage, Prov. viii. 22-31, according to the briefer suggestion
iii. 19 f. This short suggestion is just of the kind that indicates that this poet
could not have been the first to express this truth ; he speaks much too briefly,
and as presupposing that the matter itself was already familiar. But it would
be a mistake to cite the words in Job xxviii. 23, 27 f. as relevant here, for in
that passage wisdom is, it is true, considered as pre-mundane, but it is as a kind
of instrument which a wise builder makes use of for planning and taking the
dimensions of his work, which instrument he therefore carefully inspects before
hand (iQD. from 12b, muster-master, inspector of troops), and critically ex
amines to see if it will adjust and regulate everything properly. And this
image only is suitable in that whole connection of discourse.
^ When it was a matter of contention among Christians in later times whether
the Logos were created or uncreated, the words, Prov. viii. 22, in their proper
meaning (o xifia; 'ixri(ri /ii, LXX.), occasioned a difficulty which had no place in
the poet's mind, and for which, according to what is said above, there was no
ground.

NARRATIVES OF CEEATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWEES. 133
poetic mood so expatiates with the glowing buoyancy of his
mind, and describes wisdom as though it had aided as an
artist in the creation of the world, sporting before God as a
child at His side. A step further iu this representation, or a
crass and frigid benumbing of the first pure life in it, and we
should have a Greek Athena or a Roman Minerva ; but from
such a step in this, as in similar cases, the fine and delicate
feeling of the true religion recoiled.
Such was the highest flight of what to-day would be called
philosophic thought which Israel attained during the flourish
ing of its free national life and peculiar schools of wisdom.
The representation, however, was not carried further; there
was no narrative of creation based upon it, and the conception
of this pre-mundane creative power did not penetrate more
deeply into the nation. The son of Sirach, indeed, sub
sequently repeated the sublime picturing which in his day
could already be found and read in Holy Scripture.' He
repeated it nevertheless only in new and artistically drawn
images, and with an addition highly characteristic of his time,
by which the divine wisdom is likened to the Holy Law ; but
without any other essential alteration. Rather did the glance
that with increasing boldness and consistency of aim searched
on all sides into the secret of the origin of creation and of the
universe,^ turn back, during this period or near it, with new
keenness of vision to the second of these representations, already
described § 249 ; and with what result our next section must
show. 4. The Son of God as Co-ordinate Creator.
§ 251. In the rise and unfolding of this new and important
conception, the mightiest impulse which could work at that
time in the community, viz. the prophetic impulse, lent its
' Ecclus. xxiv. ; similarly but earlier, Bar. iii. 9-iv. 1 f.
* Not without purpose is there so much said about the same period of the
secrets of wisdom. Job xi. 6, xv. 8.

134 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
aid. The Messiah Himself was conceived as were He from
the primitive time with God as His Son, and as such co
ordinate creator with Him.' But in order rightly to appre
hend this subject, at the very first glance very difficult to
understand even in its possibility, we must carefully weigh
the following details : —
1. It would be idle to figure to ourselves this conception
of the Messiah as in point of time the oldest, as though the
Messiah had been thought of from the first as co-ordinate
creator with God, existing with Him before all the worlds,
the Son hidden in His bosom and sharing the sovereignty
with Him ; and as though the hope and expectation of a
Messiah had proceeded from this fundamental thought. This
hope had indeed a different origin, which may be ascertained
with sufficient certainty, as is elsewhere shown.^ But after
centuries had elapsed without fulfilling the hope of the
Messiah, which in the community of the true religion, from
stage to stage, had grown increasingly vivid and perfect, this
hope might have expired completely had it not been enkindled
afresh and sustained in its glow by a new and mighty tire
which was never again to die down. The danger of albsolute
extinction arose in the long and weary days of the great
spiritual darkness under Manasseh's rule, in the extreme old
age and up to the martyr-death of Isaiah. For Isaiah and
his friends had fanned the ancient flame anew and kept it
vigorously burning; but when in the decline of all public
affairs under Manasseh this intent and eager Messianic hope,
thus warmly cherished, was grievously and profoundly dis
appointed, it must either vanish for ever from the innermost
heart and fervent desire of the community, or be kindled
altogether anew by the pure force of some additional and
higher truth. And such accession of force by the aid of far
higher material which might rekindle the fire threatening
' The sense of rfit rn Siov thus to express, John i. 1, Cf. Die Johan.
Schriften, i. p. 116.
' History, iv. 201-213.

NARRATIVES OF CEEATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWERS. 135
utterly to expire, waited now close at hand the favourable
moment when it could actually fall upon the hearth and
set everything in a new glow that should not again be
extinguished. 2. For, according to § 249, the view at that time might
long since have been turned to the primary man as witness
of creation and in a certain respect co-ordinate creator, and
everything conceivable and recognisable on this side had
already become familiar to the inspired glance as it surveyed
this lofty subject. The conception retains its truth as above
discussed ; yet if it had its truth, that truth might become
unusually augmented if the Messiah Himself were thought of
as such primary man of purely divine elevation and glory ;
and this thought, to the mind inquiring with divine inspira-*
tion about what is highest, purest, and mightiest in human
affairs, was then possible. The last anchor of the faithful
had been for centuries the hope in the coming of the Messiah,
which had grown more and more vivid ; but it had now, as we
have seen, received its severest blow and suffered its deepest
disappointment. If then this hope was not wholly to vanish,
it must now be raised above all temporal conditions, above all
casualty, and be conceived in its eternal and indestructible
significance. The idea, the nature, the destination, the
necessity of the Messiah must be brought into inseparable
union with the primordial will of God in relation to humanity
as the aim of the whole existing creation, and hope in Him
must be built in this way upon a basis firm as a rock and
free from all the changes and contingency of Time.' If, there
fore, the thought of a divine primary man lay already before the
mind, as we have seen it did, the Messiah could the more readily
be raised incomparably above Adam, who was at first purely
divine, but had historically fallen and could be thought of as
the primary man. As such, the Messiah could be regarded as
¦" In this way the aggrandisement or transfiguration of the idea of the
Messiah which followed was very similar to that which took place subsequently
at, the right moment with reference to the historical Messiah, and for very
similar reasons. Cf. History, vi. 410 f., vii. 46 ff.

136 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
incapable of corruption by contact with evil and sin, always
with God and still remaining with Him in order finally to
become, as promised by the great true prophets, the redeemer
and perfecter of the same humanity whose head and eternal
King He was with God before all creation and so remained.
Such, henceforth, is He who is elevated above all temporal
contingency, abiding securely for ever with God, and at last
at the right moment visibly appearing as the immortal King
of the community of all true religion, for whose coming no
one could hope in vain, because in Him and His pure
elevation the ultimate destiny, and so the beginning and
end of all existing humanity, are inseparably bound up and
involved. 3. But this entire representation was perfected only as not
merely tlie earlier form of it, that of the primary man as
witness of creation and in part co-ordinate creator with God,
became raised and transfigured in this way simultaneously
with the Messianic hope, but as also the conception of wisdom
as co-ordinate creator with God was also amalgamated with
it. This idea of wisdom, as we have said before, could not
readily penetrate beyond the circle of those who more par
ticularly grasped what wisdom must be in its purest and
absolutely divine significance. The image of it as an artist
standing at the side of the Creator always tended to remain
rather a poetic fancy than to pass over into the true religion
as a conception familiar and easily intelligible to the whole
nation. But when the essential elements of it were united
with the transfigured idea of the Messiah, so that He was
considered not merelj' as witness and partially co-worker with
God in creation, but also as fully co-ordinate creator with
Him from the beginning, then in point of fact the consumma
tion of this idea was attained. For if the Spirit of God is to
be thought of as in the most immediate and deepest sense
that power without which the divine creation could neither
arise nor subsist, and if the ordinary man is not to be thought
of as without some if even the smallest participation in this

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CEEATIVE POWERS. 137
Spirit, how much more must this primary man, perfected in
the highest degree, be conceived as participant of this Spirit,
and as with God active before all the worlds, and co-ordinate
creator thereof ! Moreover, the idea of one merely active as
a witness of creation is also too feeble here. For however
deep may be the impression an act of witnessing may make,
this impression may momentarily or gradually become
enfeebled, and only that is deep and abiding which comes of
an actual share and participation in activity. No representa
tion was therefore more appropriate in this case than that of
this pre-mundane Messiah as the Son of God, who ever
rested in the bosom of God, but was also at His side in
creation as the Son with the Father. An over-venturous
imagination might possibly have designated wisdom the
delicate artist co-operating in the framing of the universe as
the daughter of God ; this, however, never happened. On the
other hand, the conception of this pre-mundane Messiah as
the Son of God was the more readily formed, the higher the
representations of the yet more simply-apprehended Messiah
stood, mounting up to the very verge of the purely divine, —
representations which already, in the restless yearning to
behold His advent, Isaiah had sketched and made im
mortal.' That we have now in the Old Testament no longer any
passage in which this new conception is given in detail, as
we have in the two previous cases, is matter for regret. But
it is accidental, and is found also in the following ease
(§ 252). We have, however, in the Old Testament sufficient
evidence of the existence of this view. In the Book of Job,
for example, there is a reference, purely incidental, but yet
plain enough to a wholly unusual " man," who, born before all
' The words Isa. ix. 6, 7, xi. 1-5, Micah v. 2-4, are here meaut. However
high these words go, what is here touched upon may not be derived from them ;
not even from the mention of the "primitive tiihe" and the "days primeval, "
in Micah v. 2, as if here they were spoken of the pre-mundane Messiah.
The sense and connection of the words are against every supposition of the
kind.

138 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Others, is constantly with God, sharing His secret as the son
of a king that of his father, and knowing and understanding
everything divine.' This unusual personage is not an angel,
nor is he one among other men of like nature, but purely as
first in time, so incomparable in spirit and divinity, the pre-
mundane man, who is not here designated Messiah, but is
conceivable as such in the coherence and system of all the
higher fundamental thoughts of the people of the community
of the true God. If he is only mentioned incidentally, so
much the more does such mention in its simplicity presuppose
a belief in him. The Book of Job is the earliest book which
may serve as evidence upon this subject. Subsequently
Ezekiel, likewise incidentally but with sufficient plainness
also, depicts a being who is placed on a level neither with a
High Priest nor with a Cherub ; but as the highest pattern
of all human perfection, glory, wisdom, and moral purity
dwells in Paradise : ^ even as by a later prophet also a most
brilliant star of Heaven is mentioned ; * and only because the
connection of the discourse did not lead to it, is it not
suggested that this Blameless One of the primaeval time was
co-ordinate creator with God. But he is distinctly enough
indicated as such in the seventh century before Christ, under
the definite name of the son of God, in a passage where the
discourse is merely of the wonders of creation ; * and other
testimonies from later times will subsequently be given. He
who weighs all this carefully will not doubt that we have
here before us broken fragments of a wide fundamental
thought, incidental but nevertheless highly significant reminis-
^ Job XV. 7 f. That the allusions in this remarkable passage point to some
thing like the Logos, was remarked in my exposition of the Book of Job, in
1836. ^ Ezek. xxviii. 12-15. The sentences otherwise apparently so obscure, viz.
12, 13a, 15, i.e. the first and last sentences of the whole splendid picturing,
must refer to the pre-mundane man of Paradise, who is always there and is not
driven from it as was Adam, Gen. iii. Cf. Prophets, iv. 146 f.
^ B. Isa. xiv. 12. That the image is here ironically used and applied is as
little surprising as in the passage in Ezekiel ; indeed, Ezekiel gives the precedent
for this prophet, who is later by half a century.
• Prov. xxx. 4.

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE, CREATIVE POWERS. 139
cences of a grand conception of the Messiah as co-ordinate
creator with God. This conception might arise in the eighth
century before Christ, outside the circle in which an Isaiah
and Micah moved, and might have been recorded in some
attractive writing, until it became in the seventh century more
and more cherished and familiar. That it never again could
vanish from the wide circle of all such deeply-fixed funda
mental thoughts of the community, but in the course of
centuries became more and more powerfully effective, will be
evident as we proceed.

5. The Word of God {the Logos) as Co-ordinate Creator.
§ 252. But the circle of all such retrospect, as we have
described, into the mysteries of the whole primitive creation,
could not be fully closed, as contemplation continued to be
extremely active in this direction, until there entered at last
with preponderating force the idea of the Word of God, the
Logos, as co-ordinate creator. With the idea of the Word as
the creative power of God, there enters, it is true, something
different from all the earlier powers, something which only in
the later times of the community is closely united with this
circle, and which then first receives its highest significance.
But in its simplest sense the idea of the Word of God as a
power by which the creation is formed, belongs rather to the
oldest narrative of creation,' and is immediately derived from
it. The " Word " presupposes a corresponding " thought " in
the mind of the speaker ; it reveals it, however, and projects
it in full activity from the hidden mind into the universe.'*
1 § 247. 2.
^ The terms Aoy^s and Xtynrfi-os — as the last is found in Rom. ii. 15, and
2 Cor. X. 4, and very often in the Apocrypha, well represent and illustrate the
connection between "word "and "thought." As a word of remoter derivation
no doubt Xoyir/iis signifies only our berechnung, but xiya, "to read," expresses
originally "a taking together," as 13'^ "to discourse," "to arrange one after
another ; " so that xlyn;, as n^T and verbum, expresses a full if possibly the

140 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
From the Spirit it is distinguished in that it throws a clear
and definite thought into the universe, and in so far can work
creatively in another way, as the Spirit works alone and of
itself Since, however, even the Word itself proceeds from an
impulse of the Spirit as the deepest source of power, both
may thus co-operate.^
1. If now it is referred to God, it may, as applied in this
sense to the " God said " . . . " and it was so," continually
repeated in the oldest history of creation, indicate accordingly
the power by which every part of creation corresponds to the
divine will and thought concerning it ; and thus from the
deep impression which that oldest history of creation made
this whole representation proceeds.^ But in the existing
universe there may also be much that is new and unexpected,
which without the divine omnipotence could not appear as
phenomenon ; and since all things may serve a special purpose
and aim of God, a special thought of God must be contained
in all things. Thus all things may be contemplated as arising
by a Word sent of God.* The Word of God, because it is not
limited to creation merely, but has a special significance,
became gradually conceived as a special power standing as it
were ready to God's hand, which God sends how and where
He will ; and the peculiarity by which it is distinguished from
the Spirit is always that it relates to definite things, all of
which bear in themselves a special divine thought, or, as we
might also finally say, His special reason. To an earthly king
his word and command stand ever at his side to serve him as
the needs of his kingdom seem to him to require ; how much
shortest sentence, i.e. thought (not a mere name, a nomen), just as rechnung,
ratio, and Xnyiirfiis results only from an interchange of speech. With -CC\
Xoyis, alternates mON only poetically, Ps. cxlvii. 15, according to the paral
lelism, Ps. cxix. 58, 76, and fnfi.x. Bar. iv. 37, v. 5 ; Heb. i. 3, xi. 3.
1 § 249.
^ As in Ps. xxxiii. 6, "the breath (spirit) of His mouth" alternates with the
" word of God ; " similarly B. Isa. lix. 21.
' According to Ps. xxxiii. 6, 9, and many other passages. The image is most
str ongly coloured in B. Isa. xlviii. 13.
* As in Ps. cvii. 20.

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CREATIVE POWERS. 141
more is this the case with God ! ' But as the divine aim of
any created thing determined from the beginning may in its
temporal continuance vary, but the divine word which it
bears it bears equally the whole time ; so there may be such
things as, by virtue of the divine primseval cause or original
thought which called them into life, always uniformly so
subsist. And so it is the same word which created the uni
verse that holds it together and sustains it.^ But however
correct all this is, we must yet well consider,
2. That the Word of God in the old community received
its high immortal significance from a wholly different side and
mainly in a different connection. For the Word of God, as it
was published by Moses and by prophets like him, was held
from ancient times to be a high, or in a certain sense the
highest, power in the actual life of the community ; and in
this sense it is equivalent to what is called Revelation, but it
had won at an early period so high a significance that it was
spoken of briefly as the Word.^ What is to be understood by
it was presupposed as already fully known ; from which is
seen that chiefly the ancient Revelation through Moses was
understood, although gradually that of the later prophets
might also be coupled with it. But as the Word of God in
this sense was held in the old community as a supreme power,
it became, by all who held it in high regard, honoured not
merely as a power imperishable, always equally sure and clear,
¦' According to Ps. cxlvii. 15, and the striking expression "in the words of
the Lord " lie "His works," with the proper addition, according to the Peshito,
"and all His creations accomplish His will," Ecclus. xiii. 15. The xiym xupicu
or xylou, xliii. 5, 10, are to be understood in harmony with such passages as B.
Isa. xl. 26 ; the Hyios is at the end of the previous verse. According to Philo,
there are many xiyoi as ordinary angels at the side of an archangel. History,
vii. 215.
" According to the sentence h xiyiji Seou iruyxurxi txvtx, Ecclus. xliii. 26, and
according to another image, Heb. i. 3.
' The quite brief 121 is found in Prov. xiii. 13, xvi. 20, in the oldest series
of these Proverbs, and therefore goes back to the times of Solomon ; and the
transition from " ^3'^ to the mere 121 is seen very plainly in Ps. Ivi. 5, 11
(4, 10). Similarly in the New Testament c xiycs rsS esoJi, Rev. xix. 13, passes
subsequently into the mere i xiyes in the writings of the Apostle John.

142 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
in relation to doctrine,' but also as the consolation and hope
of the Faithful.^
The Word of God in this latter significance was reverenced
as a divine power at a far earlier period than in the sense
previously explained ; and both usages are carefully to be
distinguished and separated. But in this latter sense the
significance of the Word of God assumed an ever-increasing
importance during the centuries of the Hagiocracy, when
Holy Scripture was placed more and more on a level with it,
and became the quickening breath of all the higher life of
the community.* It is evident that now also the idea of the
Word of God in the sense first explained was more and more
regarded with favour, and if it was not raised higher than the
other, for that it could hardly be, it was yet expanded and
brought into closest possible connection with it. Nor did this
assimilation present any great difficulty if it were accepted
that as precisely such impelling creative power God sent His
Word to Moses and the other prophets like him, so that it was
in them an immediately available, independent power for
service, and they not merely discoursed as they were moved
by it, but through its wonder-working aid accomplished their
great and exceptional deeds. From all that can be ascertained
it was some new and attractive writing, composed in the first
flourishing period of the Hagiocracy and before the Greek
school-wisdom became dominant, which presented anew the life
' The expression in B. Isa. xl. 8, cf. Iv. 10 f., lix. 21, sounds indeed much
stronger than those ancient expressions, Prov. xiii. 13, xvi. 20 ; but he who
looks closely to the sense of these Proverbs will find that they betray an
unusually high albeit very simple reverence for the Word of God. Similar is
it with the tolerably ancient Ps. Ivi. 5, 11 (4, 10).
"^ According to such expressions as Ps. Ivi. 5, 11, cxix. 58, 76 ; essentially also,
though without the usual word, Ps. xix. 9-12 (8-11).
^ We must here transport ourselves wholly into those times when the Law
(ThSra) was conceived as the eternal wisdom of God manifest upon earth, and
as it were, palpably visible among men, as we see it first in Bar. iii. 35-iv. 1,
and then subsequently still more in Ecclus. xxiv. 8-11, 22. The last passage
shows most clearly that the representation of wisdom at which we have already
glanced was in these times remodelled. Since now the portions of the Book of
Baruch go back into the fourth century B.C., it is seen how very soon after
Ezra's time this uplifting of the Holy Law to heaven became prevalent.

NARRATIVES OF CREATION AND DIVINE CREATIVE POWERS. 143
of Elijah as a prophet in this sense most celebrated, and in
those days most active in mighty works, that gave to this new
representation its firm basis and its hold upon the mind of the
community.' The highest power of life which in its divine
efficiency and independence could work in the old true
prophets, was thus immortalized in a luminous story, and pre
served for the abiding remembrance of all coming time,
whilst a new conception also was founded which might lead
much further, as indeed it did.
3. For subsequently, during the first splendid effiorescence
of the Greek rule and the Greek school-wisdom, when the
doctrine became powerfully predominant that expressions
apparently too sensuous, found so often in Holy Scripture,
must be softened by exposition and paraphrase, scholars made
special use of this already prevalent conception of the Word
of God, or as it was now called in Greek, the Logos, that by
means of it such end might be attained. Where something
God had done was regarded as narrated in expressions of too
sensuous a kind, the interpretation was. He had done it by His
Word, by Him who is executor of His in this case definite
and special will, and who is continually near at hand to serve
Him. Gradually the Logos of God was substituted where Holy
Scripture spoke simply of God ; and where the name Jahveh
was used, this was done also for the special and immediate
purpose of guarding the sanctity of this name.^ All this
occurred during the third and second centuries before Christ
and afterwards, under the influence of delicate and over-
refined Egyptian manners, through the high estimation in
which the Hellenistic school in Alexandria then stood. The
1 The words of Ecclus. xlviii. 3, 5, offer the main proof of this, for they
must have proceeded from such a presentation of the life of Elijah ; and this
presentation was indeed the source of all the higlier conceptions concerning
Elijah, to which reference is made in the History, iv. 113:
^ The clearest proof of this is the oldest Targum on the Pentateuch, which is
.nscribed to Onkelos. It is later than the LXX., but might nevertheless originate
in the last century before Clirist. How the Logos, translated from the Greek as
''JIKT KHCD, was first of all added as pure explanation of the whole discourse,
T -: - t; ¦¦
the sentence "and Jahveh through the Logos shut him in," Gen. vii. 16,

144 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
custom spread from Egypt to Palestine, and reached even to
Babylon also, where Greek culture under the Arsacidae,
especially in particular localities, not less highly flourished.
But also in the new writings of this time, the idea and name
of the Logos, regarded as the highest heavenly being with God,
became more and more common ; with great vividness and
freedom was the description of the Logos given ; and with
more boldness was it depicted how God works through Him
for the deliverance of the Faithful and the terrifying and
destruction of godless men.' The luminous conception of this
highest heavenly being now tended to eclipse the glory of that
representation, of similar character and significance, which had
floated before the minds of earlier generations, viz. the image
of the supreme angel ; ^ how much more would it overshadow
that of a cherub or similar being !
4. But this splendid pure conception of the Logos did not
receive its highest significance until it was finally uplifted
and transfigured with that of the heavenly Messiah, and
closely connected, nay, altogether blended with it. In point
of fact both ideas, after each had perfectly developed itself,
could scarcely be placed in close juxtaposition, at least in the
mind that inquired with longing desire after the fundamental
conditions of the future Messianic salvation, without its being
at once concluded that the pre-mundane Messiah conceived
shows clearly enough. Commonly it is immediately connected with the name
of Jahveh, so that Gen. iii. 8 is translated, " the voice of the Logos of Jahveh."
But however often "the Logos of Jahveh " stands instead of Jahveh, yet in such
places where the idea of the Logos is less suitable, ^'^1 Nn3''3t5' "the Indwelhng, "
i.e. " the Presence of Jahveh," is by preference inserted, or again as its explana
tion, ''''1 N'lp'', "the glory of the Lord," is written, so that the language that
speaks of Jahveh may not be too sensuous. The same paraphrases are found in
other Targums, but their origin is to be sought in the oldest.
^ The simplest form of expression is such as this, "The Logos stands,'' as
a continually ready watcher, "for ever in Heaven,'' Ps. cxix. 89. Simple
enough is also the phrase. Bar. iv. 37, v. 5. Wholly different are the pictures
inAVisd. xvi. 26, and especially xviii. 15 f., where He is characterized as the
Angel of Death ; and yet here, xii. 9, there is also an allusion to the simpler
signification as by a play on the term "word."
2 § 218, p. 69.

NARRATIVES OF CREATION, AND DIVINE CREATIVE POWERS. 145
as the Logos was just the personage with whom could
be associated the whole yearning and faith of the most
pious members of the community. Only as Logos had the
pre-mundane Messiah His unquestioned position and His
conceivably highest dignity with God. Nor until the pre-
mundane Messiah was blended with the idea of the Logos
did the Logos receive the whole fulness of His significance
and destination for -the entire history of the world. The
complete identification of both conceptions was accomplished
in the second century before Christ,' and it took place all the
more readily since the word for the Logos both in Hebrew
and Greek is masculine both in its form and sense.^
§ 253. These are the fi,ve co-ordinate creative powers
which appear in the Bible, thus successively stepping forth
in the course of the development of the true religion and its
community in the nation of Israel. If in one or another of
these representations anything is found which is suggestive of
heathen myths, nevertheless it is clear how entirely remote in
their essential character they are from such myths. Indeed,
it is self-evident that these five representations are of purely
Israelitish origin ; and so far as the progress of the great
development of all true religion demanded it, they were
developed in Israel itself For the sole foreign influence
already described, viz. the scrupulous carefulness of the
Greek school-wisdom to soften the often apparently too
sensuous phraseology of the Old Testament concerning God,
remained even until the establishment of Christianity in the
woild purely a matter of school-wisdom,, and penetrated
neither into the popular speech, nor into the circle of the
higher prophetic and poetic thought ; and this is shown
' The proof of this rests upon a number of concurrent indications and testi
monies which will be more appropriately introduced in the subsequent discussion
conceming the doctrine of Christ.
' The Hebrew -\21 and the Greek Logos are very different from the Latin
verbum on the one hand, or the German wort on the other. On this ground
the Greek pti/^x, in this sense, was always less preferred. In German, however,
we might say der wort in the higher sense, as we distinguish der verdienst Iroiu
das verdienst.

146 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
clearly enough by the New Testament, and all the remains
of the other writings of the time which we possess.' For the
ultimate blending of- the idea of the Logos with that of the
Messiah as Son of God has no connection with the over-
refinement of the wisdom of the Hellenistic schools, and took
place altogether apart from its action and influence.
If now the truth from which the representation of these
five co-ordinate creative powers originated has its abiding
significance, these separate truths were not of such a kind
that they must continue to stand merely side by side, or that
they did actually remain thus isolated and apart, and are so
to be contemplated by us, They arose, indeed, only in con
nection with all the other irrefragable fundamental truths of
the community, and therefore they were not opposed to each
other, and could never be absolutely and rigidly kept apart.
How the second, " the Man of God," without losing its
peculiar truth received its higher completion only from the
fourth, "the Son of God," and this also was at last fully
blended with the fifth, " the Logos or Word of God," we have
already remarked. Whilst these three were thus closely
connected with each other, the first and the third, that is,
" the Spirit of God " and the " Wisdom of God," were also
associated the more directly, so far as they contained the
eternal doctrine that behind all the visible universe stand the
Spirit of God and the ever-unchanging divine wisdom, Never
theless, so far as this wisdom is here contemplated, not merely
as something passive and discoverable by human perception,
but mainly as a power of creative activity, that is, as finding
> It was apparently Philo who, in his rather learned tha,n popular writings,
made the phrases concerning the Logos familiar ; but that the idea of the Logos
was prevalent long before his time, and that he did not borrow it from the
Greek philosqphers, is shown in the History, vii, 2J4-218. For the Greek
philosoiihers after the time of the obscure Herakleitos used the term in the
sense of a higher spiritual power, it is true ; but the Stoics who employed it
most frequently understood by it nothing but reason. The coincidence of the
names may have pleased Philo ; hut that the Logos came into the ancient
pj^tion of Israel only from the Greeks, and has the same significance with the
Hebrews as the Greeks, is i^n opinion of modern vraiters which is just as foolish
as it is incorrect.

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 147
its proper work in forming the universe with God, and ac
cording to God's own wisdom, it is to be conceived in this
activity as only a special aspect of the universal Spirit of
God," and may thus be included in the same conception.
Accordingly all five co-ordinate creative powers may be
simplified into two, the Son of God and the Spirit of God.
Of what importance this is we shall subsequently see in the
discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity of the true God.^

X. THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM.
§ 254. At this point, however, it is the distinction which
obtains between these two supreme creative powers thus
apprehended and specialized that we must note more par
ticularly, since it will lead us, on this question, a great step
forward. Now the efficacy of the Spirit of God being most
essential in all creation, working even in the midst of Chaos,
such efficacy has a direct bearing upon the whole mystery of
every kind of creation. It is quite otherwise with the second
great creative power. Whatever relation the first may have
to the rest of the creation, certainly the primary man, whether
incomplete or perfect and coequal with the Word of God, has
his relation immediately to the world of mankind, and his
highest significance only through the peculiar significance of
such human world. The idea and whole conception of this
power, as presented in the Bible with all vividness before our
view, with all that it otherwise contains of similar meaning
and experience, thus urge us imperatively to take into close
^ So Isa. xi. 2 ; the spirit of wisdom is only a special aspect and activity of
the whole Spirit of the Messiah.
'^ [The importance of this whole discussion is recognised by Dorner in his
System of Chnstian Doctrine, vol. iii. p. 154 f., where, at the close of a
chapter aiming to show how in relation to the doctrine of Christ the way is
prepared for the revelation of the New Testament by the Old, he appends a
note, extending over a page and a quarter, giving a summary of such sections
of this chapter as trace the origin and development of the Biblical idea of the
Sonof God.— Tk.]

148 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
and accurate consideration this world of mankind in its whole
speciality, and in its connection also with all other worlds
of existence and Hfe. It is indeed our primary object to
know and understand exactly and surely the world of man
kind in its relation to God and His will ; just as this forms
the chief scope and, as we may say, ultimate aim of the whole
Bible itself.
In the series of worlds which we can distinguish, and whose
succession only makes up the universe as a whole, the world
that now exists is, according to the Bible, the world of man
kind. But as each portion of the world, even the smallest,
corresponds to a divine thought, and its purpose can be
adequately recognised only in the divine purpose, so must
each of the worlds, and in the series of them the human
world also, correspond to a creative thought and thence to a
purpose of God, while their succession also must answer to the
supreme creative thought and the last great end and aim of
God as Creator. Only in this connection, comprehending
everything in itself, can the peculiar relation of the human
world be sufficiently evident. If already this has been ex
plained in general terms, we have now to follow out the
subject into details, and for this end to employ whatever is
serviceable for our discussion, scattered though it be through
out the entire compass of the Bible. For the separate
narratives of creation and the distinct creative and divine
thoughts have their primary significance just in relation to
this aim, because the mind, if it rises up to the contemplation
of the origin of things, must at the same time consider their
whole nature with all its possible changes ; nor can there be
any sound discourse concerning the temporal beginning of
things if there is not clearly before the view the corresponding
end as well. We must therefore ascertain how far the whole
of the remaining contents of the Bible supply comment and
confirmation to that which is so briefly and vigorously con
densed in its opening chapters.
§ 255. Entering, therefore, in this place upon the ft)ll

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 149
and complete discussion of the divine aim of the whole universe
and its realization, in the sense and to the extent indicated,
we enter upon the most important part of this whole section
concerning the world. Not the less are we conscious that
we enter also upon the highest and most difficult question
which the Bible, in its whole compass and extent, calls upon
us to consider. For we have to do with the infinite details
we can recognise in the present world, or may ascertain with
respect to the earlier and the future world, and to bring them
into their proper relation and coherence ; and all the principal
matters affecting man, which are subsequently to be specially
dealt with in the following sections, must also be discussed
here in their great connection with all the rest of the world.
The subject is, however, in its details something so infinite
that the Bible only touches the fringe of it ; whilst it places
before our eyes, with the highest completeness and sufficiency,
all that concerns God Himself and has an obvious coherence
by means of His unity and truth. Indeed, the temporal
origin and character of the Bible involve the presentation,
with the utmost fulness that could be desired, of everything
which immediately relates to God, because rightly to know
Him first of all, and securely to possess Him as the highest
good, was the most powerful aspiration of the community
from the time of Moses ; whilst the more definite knowledge
of all the infinite details of the universe was very imperfect
in the whole of antiquity, as, to be sure, it is still defective
enough, and until the last few centuries has made no far-
extended progress. Nevertheless, if care be taken to ascer
tain the views concerning the universe found here and there
in the Bible, it is not at all impossible to base upon them a
sufficiently connected summary of the true ideas upon the
subject. But in order to pass under review in its proper connection
everything relevant to this inquiry, the first and most neces
sary thing is well to comprehend how there lies in the
recognisable ultimate divine aim of the uni\'erse a plurality

150 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
of worlds, and a succession of different worlds corresponding
to that aim, and how these different worlds actually exist, as
well as for what end their succession is to be conceived as
just what it is. Thus there opens to our contemplation the
picture of a history which is the history of all histories, that
history which, devised and commenced by God Himself,
remains for ever in His hand alone, in which we daily, nay,
every moment, can clearly enough feel ourselves living, and
whose beginning and end, by sufficiently definite indications,
we are able to surmise, but still only to surmise. For
history is seen wherever we see forces that may be distin
guished coming into such contiguity and such conflict with
each other that out of the strife something new proceeds.
In the universe, however, so far as we know it in the present
and can trace it back into the whole past, we observe different
forces of this kind, and among them a conflict of longer or
shorter duration, out of which issues some ever new pheno
menon and growth. All this may be brought under the idea
of disturbance in its widest acceptation ; as its type and
example may be regarded that disturbance which, in the
second narrative of creation, is brought before our notice in
the life of the primary man in Paradise. But while the same
divine creative energy which gave rise to the different forces
and makes possible that disturbance works onward by antici
pation in the least as in the greatest affairs through this very
conflict to the proper solution of the problem, those progres
sive movements in this divine history take place which as in
each particular world, nay, in every portion of the special
worlds, so in the long-run lead on to the realization of the
ultimate aim of the whole universe, as the Bible sugcests.
Of this subject, as it stands forth to our contemplation,
and is yet inexhaustible by any contemplation, these are the
three stages which we have to discuss, following the sugges
tions and declarations of the Bible. As all human knowledge
of God Himself is, as we have seen, Hmited in many ways,
and the Bible enables us only to catch a sure glimpse of this

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 151
unfathomable mystery, so the universe shows itself to be the
veritable work of God, in that we can only begin properly to
grasp it in its immeasurable greatness and sublimity as its
infinite details are considered. But concerning its divine aim
we may, according to the Bible, form an estimate ; and it is
only of this that we here speak. Meanwhile the higher
language of the Bible, the more delicate and finished it
becomes, can comprehend and include, with the greater
facility, in three concise intuitions and sentences, all the
innumerable contents which are involved in the three prin
cipal stages of the whole relation of the universe to God,
" Everything," and therefore the whole universe, with all its
incalculable details, is " from God, through God, and unto
God." ' We shall now see more particularly how, in the
above-mentioned history of all histories, these three pro
positions exactly coincide with its three all-comprehensive
changes, which we must here distinguish, and which find here
their full exposition.
§ 256. The divine aim of the universe, everywhere im
plied, if nowhere definitely stated in the Bible, is the diffusion
of the divine happiness, and especially by the unfolding of
the divine nature and glory. But as the creature can share
in the happiness of the Creator, not directly and absolutely^
but only by a gradual experience and perception of it, and an
ultimate practical participation in it, it follows that the pur
pose of creation can be attained only through a succession of
different worlds.^ For if He who possesses all blessedness in
Himself nevertheless desires that an infinite number of His
creatures should participate in it, we may well suppose He
will on this account form a series of worlds one after another,
because only through their succession, by gradual stages, is
to be prepared and found the possibility of the existence and
life of an infinite number of individual creatures who are
' Rom. xi. 36.
' [Ewald evidently means by the series and succession of worlds what are
usually called the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and he makes the
human world as, according to Scripture, the last and highest.]

152 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.,
capable of participating more intimately in the divine blessed
ness. But just as well may we suppose, at the same time,
that there are also different degrees of participation in this
blessedness in the largest sense, and the possibility of these
degrees is found in the series of great creations which we
call the worlds, and whose conceivable number and suc
cession only -eonstitute the whole universe. For the question
of this possibiHty depends upon what is to be understood
by the blessedness which the creature may enjoy in accord
ance with the di>vine will, and which must have in it some
thing of the divine blessedness without being on a level
with it.
As a portion or element of this blessedness may be
reckoned joy, the simple and pure feeling of the pleasure
of one's own existence and work, which need not be so
troubled and mixed as it so often is among men from causes
presently io be discussed. The Bible takes it as self-evident
that God Himself can rejoice in all His works, and to this it
makes no exception.' Man also may rejoice in things he
combines and contrives by art, and thus creates, for the
materials themselves he cannot create. But God's creation
extends to the very materials themselves, which He forms
and vivifies in order to constitute a world. Now if God so
far rejoices in all His works, how shall not they also rejoice,
albeit in a very different degree, as their nature befits ? That
which is purely dead and remains so God does not create ;
rather is everything " good " which He creates ; but what is
essentially good is from God Himself, and rejoices in its own
existence. Higher yet is the joy which the creature derives
from the knowledge of the goodness and glory of God. Such
a joy as that which thrilled the spirit of Joseph's brethren
when, at the close of a long and most changeful life-develop
ment, they were born again, so to speak, by the conviction of
their own guilt, and the full and ultimate realization of the
infinitely greater grace of God.^ Or such as that which filled
' Ps. civ. 31. ' Gen. 1. 15-21.

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 153
the heart of the patient Job when, at the end of all his
sufferings, he became vividly conscious that the whole cha
racter of God was incomparably more profound and just than
he had ever previously imagined.' Such examples, indeed,
running back into the earlier times, may well give to us the
clearest and most graphic pictures of this joy. Still higher,
and from all we can discover highest of all, stand the joy and
blessedness which lie in one's own participation in the work
of God Himself, and in divine creations, as is supposed
possible by the opening of the second narrative of creation :
a joy and blessedness capable of rising to such lofty height
that it is represented briefiy, just at the time when the whole
revelation of antiquity reached its climax, as the very highest
which can be conceived or hoped for.^ Is it indeed really
the divine happiness and joy that, without let or hindrance
and with mighty power, break radiantly upon men in all the
highest moments of the purest revelation and of the most
favoured progress in the divinely-human life, of which we
read in the Bible ? then do such visitations of divine joy
lead also to the most courageous inception and successful
undertaking of new kinds of divine work among mankind.
And to what a high level these works are capable of rising, if
only one considers the sphere in which they move and the
spirit and power they express ! But to such possible elevation
the Bible, purely historically, points with sufficient emphasis
when it shows us how such beginnings return with every
great moment of the kind, and how their power and signifi
cance progressively advance to the climax in that highest
example the Bible records, viz. the certain firm beginnings
of the Christian community upon earth.^
1 Job xiii. 10-17.
^ Nowhere in the Bible is this made in all brevity so conspicuous as in John
V. 20, 36, vi. 27 ff., x. 32, xiv. lOf., and similar passages.
" To give here only some of the chief instances. If we go from Ex. xix.-
xxiv. to Ps. xviii., from there to Ps. xlvi., xlviii., and all that belong to them,
from these to B. Isa. xl.-lxvi., and thence to the New Testament, whose most
important example in the formation of the Christian Church the History, vii.
107 f., discusses, sufficient proof of what is said above will be afforded.

154 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
If now according to such preliminary reasons we can
think of a succession of different worlds, the oldest history
of creation meets us with its due importance. But as this
history, so far as it relates to the mere succession of worlds,
did not arise without the influence of old experiences and
investigations of the things themselves, so it is not without
sisnificance likewise that the observations which have been
made by the assiduous diligence of learned inquirers during
the subsequent three thousand years are in agreement with
the history, at least in that which is here of the greatest
moment. And indeed the much later second history of
creation in the Bible does not show any divergence in these
final fundamental intuitions concerning the stages of the
great creations. What is most essential in it in this respect,
and what is at the same time the oldest, it is however not so
difficult to see.
§ 257. Nevertheless, as we go into detail, there is nothing
more remarkable than that one world is always the basis
upon which alone the successor can arise and develop itself,
and in this aspect the successor is always the more delicate,
the more animated, and having more of mind in it. Each
world, without overstepping the general laws of all worlds,
as of creation conditioned by God, has nevertheless a nature
and life of its own, and forms, with all its infinite divisibility,
a distinct and separate whole. But no world fully perishes
again, leaving behind mere ruins for the ¦ upbuilding of its
successor ; each becomes in its necessary rank and stage the
basis for the admission of what follows. Since now the
course of progress moves on to what is more and more
delicate and animated, and has more of mind in it, it is as
if the Creator had created that which is furthest removed
from Him as Spirit, chiefly that from this distance He might
call into their existence and their destiny creatures more
nearly allied to Him, who, as if returning from thence, more
and more should by successive stages come back to Him.
In this way what has been already mentioned might very

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 155
well take place, viz. the earlier world would always form the
necessary ground for the existence of its successor. But
from all this it does not follow that in such succession the
present world must be the last ; indeed, we shall rather find
reasons enough further on for confirming more particularly the
divine necessity, presupposed in the Bible, of a progress in
this stage.
But what a purely wonderful progress is there in the
detail, where all human caprice or art is excluded, and
only the eternal thoughts and activity of God Himself are
to be noted, as the Bible sketches them for us in a few
strokes !
1. The world of original materials, i.e. such materials as
are not first produced by means of succeeding creations, is
the basis of all that follows, so that without it none of the
succeeding worlds could arise, find its home, and develop
itself. So far as it can be known only through existing
creations, and in so far as it subsisted without the order
apparently peculiar to the present universe, the oldest
intuition found, in this world of original materials. Chaos.
But although the Bible in the outset concedes a prominent
place to this idea, subsequently more and more definitely it
withdraws itself from it. Rather is the original world, the
present universe in its unalterably-firm constituent parts, its
groundwork and its laws, with just the elimination of all that
succeeding worlds demanded for their existence, or themselves
produced. All the succeeding creations have their materials
out of it, and it is as if a new spirit from God always called
them into existence and sustained them, the ultimate basis of
creation being without spirit. And yet this is not possible,
as also the Bible from the beginning to its very last portion
indicates.' Still, on account of its immeasurable vastness, the
world of original materials, in its peculiar life and its whole
1 According to such words as Ps. ciii. 22 ; Rev. v. 13 ; cf. § 223 (2), (3), p.
76. Such words are no mere phrases without sense, even if their meaning is
not more definitely fixed by the poets, and if still less the picturings of the
Book of Enoch, Ixxii.-lxxx., can be accepted as scientific descriptions.

156 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
constitution and coherence through such life, is not yet known
by man even to-day.'
2. But if a peculiar life may and must be ascribed to this
world, in the fullest sense of the term to be designated
" original," yet it is only a very simple life in comparison
with all the rest of the principal creations that have their
possibility, the one after and beyond the other, only in the
firm .basis it affords. To these subsequent creations a double
life belongs, one determined by the original materials of
which they are composed and through which they live, and
another by the special energy which first called them into
life and assigned to them their destiny. It is the creation of
individual life which here comes into view, of individual life
in its infinitude in space and time, in kind and power, and
thence in growth, and, since in the course of time the in
finitude grows, in increase and multiplication also through
continually new births, each according to its kind and its
energy.^ But all this individual life becomes possible only
through the senses as the impulse and instrument of the
special life and endeavour of every kind, and of every
individual in its kind ; so that one may designate this whole
creation, in opposition to the first, as the sense-creation. The
senses are the medium by which is effected the movement of
individual life with its double energy ; and where there is free
self-movement there is joy. As all this, however, both in
kind and energy, is infinitely diversified, there arises here
first of all, as a special world upon the earth, a creation
standing nearest to the original materials, yet still of rather
^ This is not the place to say more than this. The labours of great students
of physical science during the last three centuries may be regarded with admira
tion, without our really supposing that, generally speaking, anything has been
won save some firm positions from which further and still more difficult investi
gations may be pursued.
^ To the infinitude of the kinds (genera and species) of individual life and
their enduring persistence, the phrase. Gen. i. 21, repeated in vers. 24, 25,
emphatically points. But in closest connection with this the divine blessing
of fruitfulness. Gen. i. 22, 28, becomes conspicuous, and is omitted in ver. 25
only because it is self-evident from previous examples and from the following
example.

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 157
limited " sense," viz. the vegetable kingdom. Upon the
basis of this, the world of animals can arise and develop itself,
and find maintenance ; whilst as first in this kingdom the
oldest narrative of creation in the Bible places water animals.
3. The world of mankind is separated in direct progress
from all the animal world, and is so wholly peculiar that
even to man himself it may very well be obscure enough how
such world in this ascending scale of creation is distinguished
from all the rest, whilst to us everything depends here upon
the proper perception of this distinction. It is true that in
point of time it is the most recent world. This, indeed, is a
world-old and correct judgment, which, according to the
observations of the wise men of ancient days, stood as firmly
as the oldest story of creation in the Bible maintains it,' and
to which all the most diligent investigations of learned men
in our day come back.^ But that this creation in opposition
to all that preceded it, according to its peculiar nature and
also in relation to its destiny, is designated most properly
both in itself and according to the Bible as the creation of
will, is a proposition which in this place must be further
established. § 258. In what respects man, as one of the creations of
God and as forming a world by himself, has advantage over
all the rest of creation, is indicated briefly in the narratives of
creation, but in quite other passages of the Bible is touched
upon, incidentally no doubt, yet possibly with much more of
vivid and original force. For in those narratives the chief
object was to distinguish by the very briefest marks, according
to a fulness of knowledge long since established, the peculiar
nature of man in comparison with the rest of the creation ;
but with how much more of original freshness and force is
manifest in the eighth Psalm, for example, the deep conscious-
^ The apparent deviation of the later narrative of creation. Gen. ii. 7-24, is
explained in § 249, pp. 124-129.
2 More closely to pursue this subject would not here be relevant. Suffice it
to say that no scientific investigation of our day has in any instance established
that new animals appear in the creation after man's appearance.

158 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
ness of what man is in the circle of the whole universe, and
how incomparably richer are the expressions here, notwith
standing the brevity of the discourse ! From a purely
historical point of view, indeed, the image sketched in this
Psalm might be regarded as older than the oldest story of
creation, and its conception of man's original glory as the
model of that, as we have it, in Genesis.' Yet, on the other
hand, as to time, the narrative cannot be much more recent
than the Psalm, and falls in those days of the splendid
elevation of the people of Israel which start from the period
of David's youth. But we must here take into consideration
all that the Bible contains of similar import and spirit.
1. This Psalm, however, we may nevertheless most appro
priately make our starting-point, not simply because it gives
us the oldest utterance of the Bible on the subject, but also
because it expresses with the sharpest antithesis, and so in
the clearest mode, what man is in his essential glory as a pure
creature of God. For in point of fact the contradiction we
perceive in man is the more indisputable the more closely we
contemplate him, and indeed is the most pronounced and
complete as well as the most profound that we can observe
in any creature. On the one hand, man is not merely as
frail and perishable as the rest of the earthly existences in
whose midst he moves ; he is also more feeble and corrupt,
as we may say, because of sin. Compared with the celestial
creations of God, the splendid image of whose unchanging
power and glory the heavens reflect with their glittering
throng of wondrous stars, great and small,^ how weak, how
^ Between the words in Ps. viii. 4-8 and those of Gen. i. 26, 28, there is a
clearly recognisable affinity of sense which cannot be accidental ; but just as
easy is it to mark that the advantage of originality lies purely on the side
of the song ; and this fully confirms the otherwise perceptible traces of age
in both pieces.
2 The question why in Ps. viii. 3 the sun is not mentioned as well as moon
and stars is answered by the song being intended without doubt originally to
serve as a community or church song, most probably for a festival at the new
moon or full moon, Antiquities, 349 ff. In the later repetition in Job xxv. 5,
the moon is represented in a genuine astronomical way as below, the stars
(with the sun) as in the upper heaven.

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 159
marred, how evanescent is man ! On the other hand, when
his inner mysterious nature is considered, and his position
of lordship over all other individual existences, how far in
his marvellous strength and glory does he excel all earthly
creatures, how manifestly is he without a peer ! Moreover,
in his deepest thought and most hidden experience and life
he feels himself touched and visited, invisibly no doubt, but
still perceptibly and powerfully touched and visited by God
Himself Never in spirit is he left altogether isolated and
alone ; always at the right moment is he sought out,
questioned, counseUed, directed, and rewarded by Him as by
a familiar friend ' and companion. He, the feeblest of beings,
is graciously favoured by the most mighty, the mortal by the
immortal and eternal, the solitary creature of earth by the great
Creator of the universe ! This ceaseless living intercom
munion between God and man whereby, whether he desires
it or not, man feels himself sought out and visited by God,
as if there were necessarily between them a wholly other
relation than between God and any other earthly creature,
is, as the poet most truly realizes, man's unique and pre
eminent distinction, of which there is no trace, not even
the least, in all the experience of all other earthly exist
ences. But it is this very distinction, and all that is
connected with it, that determines man's relation to what
is above him and beneath him. God has honoured him
by creation itself with a spiritual communion with Him
such as obtains in the case of no other earthly creature.
He has thereby assigned to him a power and dominion in
the world such as no other creature enjoys. He has made
him, on the one hand, only a little lower ^ in glory
' The image in Ps. viii. 4 is derived from that of a. friend who never wholly
forgets his friend, but always thinks of him at the right time or visits him,
even with gifts and good things, as Gen. xxi. 1 ; Ps. Ixv. 9. Subsequently this
image, applied in a different way, is repeated in Job vii. 17 ff.
^ According to the usage of words in this song the ElShim must not be re
garded as Jahveh ; therefore since they must be beings whose nature is deter
mined by the connection of the passage, and not as Jahveh incomparable with
man in degree of elevation, but comparable, they are high angels. If man.

160 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
and power than the gods,' i.e. the highest angels; on
the other. He has appointed him the fully competent
ruler over all visible things, and entrusted to him the
highest functions which can be entrusted to any creature.
For not only is he honoured with lordship over inanimate
things of the world which may be appropriated and employed
at pleasure ; he has also lordship over that which has a life
of its own, neither to be created nor employed at man's mere
will.^ Indeed, it must be acknowledged that it would scarcely
be possible in all brevity more strikingly or exhaustively to
characterize man's chief distinction as a creature above all
others than in the words of this old church-song.
But yet more important is it that thus the antithesis itself
in which the phenomenon of man consists is placed in a clear
and definite light, and thereby the enigma as to what man
ultimately is, and how this apparent contradiction may be
solved, are impressively set forth. Just as important is it
that the discourse, presenting so luminously the antithesis of
the greatest humiliation and feebleness and the highest glory
and power meeting so strangely in this creature, is able at
the same time to show that the antithesis is not accidental,
occasional, or transient, but essentially belongs to man, and
remains always and uniformly the same. For, as is appro
priate in a poet, the language shows this not as a narrative
would by means of a sentence briefly describing man in his
origin or nature, but by a single phenomenon belonging to
the race which offers an example of this same antithesis in
the highest form and of perpetual occurrence. In feeble,
helpless humanity, what is there more feeble and helpless
than a child ? But where is to be seen also more emphati-
however, is here regarded as subordinate, although only a little, to angels, but
in the New Testament is placed rather on a level with them, this is explained
by the efiect of the advent of Christ, § 226, p. 78 f. ; and yet angel-worship is
not favoured in this Psalm in ver. 6, nor demanded by it.
' § 230, p. 90, note 4.
^ For in the highest degree significantly the ' ' works " or " creations of God
(Ps. viii. 6a) made conspicuous are living creatures, and thence the highest
here conceivable.

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 161
cally and obviously what a powerful spring of supreme joy
and glory lies in man than in the simple-hearted, pure
serenity and joy of the child, innocent and without fear,
especially as it begins to think and to speak ? Here the
greatest weakness and the highest blessedness and joy show
themselves for ever present at the point where humanity is
purest and most original,' and where the peculiar impulse
and characteristic of the divine creation tends once more to
return anew in the creature.
The same song, with its wonderfully sublime and concise
contents, also suggests that, conformably to the original
creation and the will of the Creator, the better side in this
antithesis always conquers at last. That such a creature exists,
carrying in itself the most wonderful glory even in its smallest
and feeblest form, and able to vie with the highest heavenly
powers, this indeed speaks most loudly the praise of the Creator
Himself. But that the order of creation rests upon such a
basis, that in the feeble lisping of innocent and joyful chil
dren God has founded the strongest defence against the
loud, wild rage of men, and is for ever reanimating the whole
world by" man himself as a creature appointed to such glorious
destiny, all this, according to our song, fills the earth with
the glory of God in a way not inferior to that with which
heaven is filled with the same glory. Thus this song exults
in higher tones, and praises God with rarer fervour as it
discloses the original and essential nature of man as a creature
of God, a nature never wholly forfeited and lost. But whence
that antithesis comes, with the profound contemplation of
which the whole song starts, and which must unquestionably
be connected in some way with the opposite and contrasted

1 Or as is commonly said, by a word of Latin origin, "most natural," or,
still from the Latin, "most naive." This short Psalm belongs to a class of
passages in the Old Testament which we cannot with sufficient exactness under
stand in their original and thence inexhaustible import. It falls into three
strophes, each of eight half lines, with the refrain at the close. In the Com
mentary on the Psalms, for "causest him to have dominion," read "causedst."
Lehrbuch, 250c.

162 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
phenomenon incidentally touched upon, viz. that of men de
generated into enemies of God, this is not evident, manifestly
because it did not belong to the design of this song to show it.
§ 259. 2. The oldest narrative of creation which we now
possess in the Old Testament, derives therefore a chief feature
of its characterization of the original glory and divine determi
nation of man from the fulness of thought with which this
ancient song began to mark the true nature of man : but as a
narrative it prefers to base the distinction of man from all
other creatures upon a very simple quality. The Book of
Origins, to which this portion of narrative belongs, would be
expected from its very nature to present no more distinct con
ception than that of man, in the gradual progress of the origin
of things, and of all living creatures, as the son of God, and to
assign to him his place in the ascending order. It is true
that inasmuch as the representation of the creation of man is
raised in this Book of Origins to a peculiar height, this idea
of a son of God is expressed in the somewhat rare formulary,
Adam was made in the image of God. But the son, the true
and real son, bears just the Father's likeness, and in this
sense the narrative itself afterwards on the first suitable
occasion expounds the meaning of the phrase.' What is
peculiar to man is accordingly this, that as no other creature
he stands to God as son to Father ; and no image can
express so briefiy and so strikingly the whole intimate relation
' Compare the words " Adam begat in his own likeness, after his image," Gen.
V. 3, with the corresponding Gen. i. 26, 27, v. 1, and it is seen from the connection
that they are intended to signify nothing but "he begat a son, "and that the
expression takes this form because the earlier passages furnished the immediate
precedent for it. (Gen. v. 28 is different, and is the remodelling of the Fifth
Narrator. ) If the words are taken in the sense that Adam's son was born having
a likeness to his father, and therefore bearing the divine image, the wider mean
ing of the phrase will not be exceeded, but something will be put into the words
which they express plainly enough only by comparison. Thus, however, all
further questions as to how the divine likeness of Adam or all men is to be
understood fall to the ground ; however early these questions arose without any
perception of the right answer beforehand, and however differently they were
answered, there was not in the narrative any ground or reason for raising
them. How the phrase was subsequently understood will be touched upon
below in relation to Christ.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 163
in which man may and ought to stand toward God. If,
however, this image was in the ancient world somewhat am
biguous, and could readily be understood in that lower heathen
sense, which is sufficiently familiar from heathen mythology
and hero-worship, all possible ambiguity and all perverse em
ployment of the image must be fully lost in connection with
the true religion and the idea of the true God. When once
the full idea of the true God is vividly present to the mind,
every one will feel that the conception of man as the son of
God is only a different image of a similar kind to that by
which, according to the suggestion of the song just expounded,
God is conceived as the one great invisible and unparalleled
Friend of man.
But certainly this image of man as the son of God implies
in all brevity incomparably more, and is far more suggestive
than that, whose meaning gleams forth only in particular
phrases. Nearer than friend, more inseparable in love, but
also, if need be, more severe, is the father to the son ; and by
far more familiar, trustful, and docile than towards the friend
should the son be to the father. What then must the term
signify when employed in its highest conceivable and spiritual
sense ! An incalculably broad and high realm opens to us
here in the historical gradations and manifoldness of all that
is human. Since this image, as the previous one, is intended
in the sense of the narrative to characterize only the original
nature of man in his relation to God, it is evident that the
question is ever arising how far the image fits any particular
man in his historical appearing and significance. If the first
man is so conceived, it is only because as the first man he re
presents human nature and its divine determination in a pure
and wholly undegenerate form. But the spirit of the true
religion, as it found its home in old times through Moses in
the community of Israel, had an insurmountable antipathy to
characterizing by such figure any of the common historical
men who, with their excellences and defects, were known in
daily experience.

164 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
No doubt for the whole nation itself, as it was charged to
re-establish under Moses in its community the original glory
and divine determination of mankind, the use of this concep
tion in the higher discourse was revived. A great prophet
once depicted in his sublime image how Jahveh found His
Israel helpless in the desert, and took the nation as His son
into His fatherly love.' Still further, in the higher discourse
and in relation to a possible number of nations at present
worthy of it, the genuine sense of the name son of God was
by degrees very appropriately so restored that mankind,
grouped together in each of such nations, was conceived as a
son of God, Israel in such connection being regarded as His
First-born.^ Moreover, the great prophets also never failed, in
their admonitions and reproofs, to remind the members of the
community that since their establishment under Moses as a
community, they were and should be sons of God.^ But from
a deep dread of confounding the divine and the human, inborn
in this community, the individual man was regarded rather
as simply the creature of the hand of God.* Only as ex
perience tatight most powerfully how far the actual living
members of the community had swerved from the ideal de
manded by this conception, and how necessary it was that at
last One should wholly realize it in Himself, did the name
receive its most effective significance, as in the Messianic
expectations, and especially their fulfilment by Christ.
A genuine instance of this old fear of too great a profana
tion of this name is found in the Book of Origins. In that
primaeval hour of man's creation, as if a resolve were formed
1 We see this indeed in the fragments remaining in Hosea's brief words, ix.
10, xi. 1. Without such a precedent also the representation in Ex. iv. 22 f.
would not have been possible ; and moreover, in such delineations as Ezek. xvi.
23, the obvious traces of it are preserved.
^ Ex. iv. 22.
3 In such cases as Isa. i. 2 ff., xxx. 1 ff., Deut. xxxii. 5 ff., of the severer kind,
and Deut. xiv. 1 of the milder type, there reproving, here admonishing ; it is,
however, consonant to the spirit of the Deuteronomist that the milder reference
prevails with him.
** In such thoughts as Job x, 8-17 ; Ps. cxxxix. 13-16.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 165
in solemn council,' God is made to say, not " let us create a
man as our son," but " let us make man in our image," the
utmost meant thereby being merely having such resemblance
to God Himself as is possible. The nature of man being in
such words sufficiently marked, it is only needful to add, in
the words of the Eighth Psalm, the employment man is to
have on earth, corresponding to this nature and the divine
destination. As the father constitutes the son his representa
tive, so is man to exercise the dominion transferred to him by
God over all the lower creatures of the earth.
§ 260. 3. The older narrative of creation thus explains the
nature of man wholly from the relation of special kinship
in which he should stand to God. Springing from the vivid
consciousness of the race in the earlier antiquity, the repre
sentation in so far borders closely upon conceptions current
among the heathen, such as Paul used so aptly at Athens.^
It is simple because it is primitive. But just on this account
it cannot, nor does it, pretend to solve the problem that lies
before us.
The later narrative goes beyond this simplicity, and by a
twofold distinction gives to man in his creation his peculiarity
as a creature of God. " God formed the earthly one, i.e. man,
from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life ; so man became a living soul." In these
words there is the sharp distinction of the two different
constituent elements, blended together nevertheless into a
solid unity, by which alone man is precisely what he is as
a definite living creature. Overlooking for a moment his
peculiar spirit, man is formed, as all other life, out of earthly
' On the Christian side the artificial and ultimately perverse interpretation of
the plural in the word of resolve, "let us make," is found first in Clemens
Romanus, xvi. 11 ff. ; it has a wholly Philonic colour.
^ Acts xvii. 28 f. It might be supposed such late poets as Callimachus,
Aratus, Ovid, had in such thoughts the splendid commencement of the Bible
(Gen. i.) before their eyes. But already Homer's vxrhp xySpui te eiZv n and the
hit.Uii yiyxxiri @!!i) 0v^ti>! t xvipaiwci of Hesiod's Works and Days, 108 ff., pro
ceeded from a similar intuition. On the contrary, Ovid's et quod dominari in
cetera posset, Metam. i. 77, no doubt points us to the LXX.

166 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
materials, and is weak, frail, and mortal as the Eighth Psalm
in its way had already pointed out. Just this side of man,
however, our narrative makes the more conspicuous, the
more definitely it seeks to explain, in its further course, the
weak side of the primitive man.' Moreover, the most ancient
genuinely Hebrew word for man, the name Adam, gave to
the narrator the better ground for this the more certainly it
signifies originally the earthly in opposition to the heavenly.^
Let not man, mindful of his origin, ex^lt himself ! this
admonition runs as an undertone through the whole narra
tive. But that which is immortal in man becomes thus the
more clearly and distinctly conspicuous. For that God Him
self breathes into him the breath of life, communicates to him
therefore immediately something of His own Spirit, this in
the sense and plan of the whole narrative can only be a
reference to the purely divine and immortal element in him,
to show in what he is distinguished from all other living
creatures.^ •^ The words in Gen. ii. 7a must be compared with the words in iii. 19, that
is, the beginning of the narrative with the end. But just as important is it
that the narrator in ii. 19 speaks of all the beasts as formed " from the earth,"
but he does not also, as in the case of man, point at the end as well as at the
beginning to the "dust."
^ nOlSn ID QIH, Gren. ii. 7. This Fourth Narrative, however, is in general
T T -: T ' ¦ T T
fond of such verbal expositions, as is remarked in the History, i. 20, iv. 200.
Now riDIXn, as the soil capable of being tilled, may indicate, according to its
name, "red" earth; but that man as the "red" creature is so named is the
more improbable since the word does not at all mark any opposition to white
or black man, but signifies man in general. Adam, as a shortened form, may
therefore signify the "earthly" one; as tjiiJK, derived from another Semitic
dialect; cf. Revelation; its Nature and Record, 16 note, and as the Indo-
Persian word, corresponding to fipsTcs, opposes man as mortal to the immortal ;
and 7tomo if from humus belongs to the same category.
' It is self-evident that the words in Gen. ii. 76 must be taken in conjunction
with those concerning the creation of " beasts of the field" in ii. 19, where the
life of the beasts thus created is in no way so explained. For it is apparent iu
this way that the narrator does not wish at all by that characteristic to indicate
the mere possession of life in the case of man formed from the earth. A similar
remark was made above concerning the presence or absence of the word " dust "
in this portion of the narrative ; and in such a piece of composition, not written
in flowing and redundant phrase, the presence or absence of every word is of
striking significance.

THE WORLD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 167
The best narrative is usually the briefest ; and this
narrator no longer moves amid the copious exuberance of
phraseology which marks the Book of Origins. But in these
two characteristics he has nevertheless hit upon the essential
distinction of man from the beginning. According to the
drift and scope of this brief description, especially its last
emphatic words, the two constituent elements, earthly matter
and divine spirit, not loosely thrown together, but in complete
interpenetration and combined working, make man as we find
him. In outward appearance man is earth and dust, and
dying must become earth and dust again. The narrative
gives prominence to this at the close,' because its aim is to
present with conspicuous emphasis the particular side of
human nature which in the confidence and success of life is
so easily overlooked. There was a time in the long changeful
experience of the free and independent nation of Israel when
this graver side of human nature and life had to be the more
earnestly regarded ; ^ in such a time falls this narrative as it
is here shaped, and may serve for perpetual admonition. But
our narrator does not on this account overlook or deny the
other side of human nature, the purely divine, in which man's
distinguishing peculiarity over all other creatures lies. He
allows rather this other side to be conspicuous and manifest
so far as it is necessary to his aim and plan in the narrative.
Between man and God, as his whole description sets forth,
there was at that time familiar intercourse, as familiar as that
between the nearest relatives,' or, as we should rather say,
between father and son. In harmony with the peculiar funda
mental thought of the whole narrative, man is conceived as,
prior to his fall and in his purest and most original deter-
1 Gen. iii. 19.
^ It was the long stern time of penitence to which belong Ps. xc. and xlix.
and similar compositions, and out of the midst of which the prophet Hosea
spoke. No one in the New Testament has so profoundly recognised this con
trariety and discord in our nature, nor so triumphantly risen above it after
painfully realizing it, as the Apostle Paul, Rom. vii. 7-25.
' Homini cognatum coelum, says Ovid in that passage already pointed out as
worthy of note, Metam. i. 81.

168 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
mination, the man of God; and the reference to the spirit of
life breathed into him as into no other individual existence
by God Himself, is meant without doubt to mark the purely
heavenly side of his nature, as the origin from the dust marks
the earthly.
These accounts of the creation of man must be said there
fore to start from the same apparent duality of original nature,
or rather from the same observable two different sides of it
which are to be inferred and understood from all other
portions of the Bible. The narrative may be said therefore
in no way to deny, notwithstanding all its soberness in
language and its deep earnestness in the subject-matter, the
higher side of human nature which the earlier antiquity, with
its peculiar elevation of thought and exuberance of language,
regarded it as alone sufficient to distinguish. In this as in
its whole contents and aim, the later narrative is a good
supplement and appendix to the earlier. Thus, then, how
ever correct and striking this account may be, sharply
separating as it does the two different sides of human
nature, all comes back, though with a difference of words
and propositions, to the teaching of the Eighth Psalm as
previously expounded. But just as little as the Psalm does
the narrative solve the problem of the apparent contradiction
in man's nature. In order to solve it we must consider this
difficult subject further, and the Biblical suggestions about it,
and above all contemplate man's high divine vocation.
The Divinely-humoM Work,
§ 261. The divinely-human work which we would now
discuss upon the basis of Scripture we may recognise as the
true vocation and destiny of man. There is such a work by
which all men may be labourers together with God, a work
to which God in creation itself gave the initial move
ment for all men, and in which all men should participate.
Throughout its entire contents, strictly taken, the Bible

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 169
supposes the possibiHty of such a divinely-human work. To
mention at once a case in point, what else does the idea of a
covenant between the nation of Israel and God indicate, but
a work in which both parties take interest, and in relation to
which they were both to act in common each in his own
way ? The fundamental thought lying in this actually con
cluded covenant, on the one side goes forward in all its life
and fruitfulness into the New Testament in order to find
there its transfiguration for all time ; and on the other, goes
back to the beginning of the race, as the Book of Origins
so simply and strikingly represents.' This divinely-human
covenant, as it was concluded under Moses in the community
of the true religion, gave to this community first of all the
fulness and normal tendency of its life. Had it remained,
through all the changes of the long centuries down to the
coming of Christ, in its original sanctity and perfect in
violability, in the nation laid under obligation to observe it
as a covenant, the thought of this one great divinely-human
work would have stood out before the view of men with
growing clearness and power. But there came different
periods when the distinct remembrance of it faded and seemed
ready to vanish altogether. Nevertheless, the thought of such
a work as the one chief work in the continuance of this human
world had become since Moses too firmly rooted in the deeper
consciousness of all pious souls ever to be wholly obliterated
again. Even in the darkest times, as well as in times kindled
afresh by the trembling rays of its eternal light, this thought
returns in increasing clearness and force ; at first during the
existence of the ancient kingdom amid the early gleams of
Messianic hope,^ and afterwards especially in Christ Himself
For Christ often speaks, with His intimate followers, it is
true, of the works of God, His heavenly Father, which He
' Cf. History, ii. 143 f., iv. 290 ff., vii. 118 ff. ; Antiquities, 103 ff.
2 The clearest and most impressive expression of this is found in that Psalm
which in a wide and peaceful survey of all the ages most profoundly conceives
the relation of man to God, xc. 16 ff. ; subsequently repeated in passages such
as Hab. iii. 2.

170 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
must aiccompHsh, since it is commonly only the manifoldness
and rich variety of such works to which men look and which
first of all strike them. Once, however. He speaks of the
Father's work which He must accomplish,' as if all that He
felt Himself called to do was. in reaHty only one great work,
which God required and which He was doing. It is of large
moment in this connection that this one work was on the
one side God's and on the other His own in close and
inseparable union. '
But apart from the Bible, also, it may be maintained that
in the very nature of the case no conception is more just and
necessary than this. For if the progress and ascent of the
great creations of God into one creation, described above, is
not unfounded, but the present creation which has reached
the level of humanity is the consummation so far, a con
summation, however, not excluding a higher but rather
pressing forwards towards it; then it is evident enough that,
strictly speaking, there is one work slowly, perhaps, as at first
sight it seems, but in the long-run surely being accomplished
amidst all apparently endless movements, revolutions, and
changes ; a work which, pervading the existing world, must
at last be consummated in it, and which, proceeding in the
outset from the Creator, and receiving its first impulse from
Him, must also be equally at all times sustained by Him,
whilst in such work man only amongst existing creatures is
called to labour with Him, and in harmony with His will.
If it were otherwise, the most unreasonable and impossible
position would have to be accepted. Either God exists in a
whole universe, as in a single great house, in which there is
only aimlessness, confusion, and deception ; or if God is not
thought of at all, the best thing in any man's life consists
^ John iv. 34, aunv to 'Ipyn according to all manuscripts. In vii. 21 also, it is
true, the " one " work which Christ throws into proininence before His contem
poraries is the work of healing there referred to ; but it is as if He would say at
the same time that His whole earthly activity is only "one" work, and yet
"all" His contemporaries would not understand; as if He with this "one"
work would, must confront them all !

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 171
in the highest and most continuous enjoyment possible of
sensuous pleasure and delight. But this latter alternative is
clearly in direct contradiction to the whole constitution of
human life itself, and the Bible regards it as sufficient to
condemn it ' in the briefest and sharpest words, as indeed in
some sort has ever been done by the noblest men of every
age, and of every nation not yet utterly debased.
For the highest and purest joy, that which is synonymous
with blessedness itself, is ever found in close connection with
the consciousness of participation in the divine work. This
is indicated in a most important passage of the Old Testa
ment,^ and it has already been shown ^ that such joy, contem
plated as a mere experience, is one of the highest for all
creation. Moreover, even the wild selfish chase after pleasure,
which marks the life of man in his utter degeneracy,* pro
claims clearly enough how certainly, by virtue of the very
creation, in the case of every creature, and therefore pre
eminently in the case of man who stands highest, a longing
for enjoyment is natural, and the search after it an ultimate
aim, which is not, however, to be debased. But where joy
is the opposite of this perverse wild passion, it is an experi
ence of the human mind which it has in closest connection
indeed with the work we speak of, but only a fruit of it, and
consequently possible only through a living participation in
the work itself What that work is, what are its contents
and aim, how or why it arises, these are questions the true
answer to which is sought, and which must carefully in their
whole relations be now considered.
§ 262. First of all, however feeble man may be, there is
such a work; man is called upon to labour together with
1 As in the words of 1 Cor. xv. 32 ; words repeated from the wisest and most
severe of all the prophets, Isa. xxi. 13.
^ Taking Ps. xc. 15 in close connection with the 16th verse explained above,
and in such a way as the sense and coherence of all the thoughts of the pro
foundest of all the prayers of the community demands, what is said above will
be understood.
3 § 256, p. 152 f.
* Here belong the first words of the passage just mentioned, Isa. xxi. 13.

172 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
God. If such work is of immeasurable significance, we must
gird ourselves bravely for the task of discussing it as the
Bible presents it. In the outset, then, we must ask wherein
the work of God Himself in the world consists, that we may
thus properly estimate man's work, and say more particularly
how it is to be done. For that God's work stands by itself
altogether apart from all men, nay, that it is to be contem
plated in its absoluteness without respect to man, and par
ticularly to certain special men and nations, is self-evident.
When the nation of Israel had diverged almost irretrievably
from its divinely-appointed task, it was called upon to hear,
as from the presence of God, how God could accomplish His
work without it.' When Job appeared to the wise and
thoughtful Eliphaz to have wandered too far away from the
proper conception of God, he has to hear from the lips of
Eliphaz that the blessedness of God does not depend upon
him.^ And where can it be more strongly affirmed that God
does not need even that whole community, which imagines
itself to stand in closest connection with Him and His work,
than in the language of John the Baptist and others in the
New Testament ? ^
In the Book of Origins is a reverent conception of what is
so transcendent iu its nature as to be scarcely capable of
suitable expression in human language. When the creation
of man had given the completion and crown to the Creator's
work, God's day of rest began. This rest continues still in
the world of men; the foundations of the order of things
under which man lives remain stedfast; the invisible God
appears to have withdrawn Himself into His repose. If we
consider the immeasurable time in which, up to the origin of
the human race, the world was in course of formation ; the
certainty also * that in the case of many worlds one must
' Ex. xxxii. 10.
^ Job xxii. 2-5, according to the proper sense of these words.
3 Matt. iii. 9 f., and then in a wholly different form, Matt. xxi. 43 ; Rom. ix.
21 ff.
^ § 257, pp. 154-157.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 173
succeed the other ; and further, the vast commotions that
must attend the formation of a new world ; then it is con
ceivable that in these enormous spaces of time there should
be a succession of periods of greater activity and greater
repose. But the thought of the present human world as in
glory and beauty lying always as in the very Sabbath of the
now invisible Creator, most naturally follows at once. The
idea of God as invisible, which is peculiar to the true reHgion,
plays a conspicuous part in this representation ; though this
invisibility, as is evident from the representation itself, may
be regarded as possibly ceasing at the end of the existing
world and the beginning of a new order of things. But
everything for which the world of mankind was created has
now the repose in which it may find sufficient opportunity
for development.
But the real and effective action of God does not therefore
cease, nor has it ever ceased. The Old Testament every
where attests the contrary, and in the simplest way Christ
expresses the same truth in opposition to the misunderstand
ing of the Sabbath on the part of the learned men of the
later time.' For if the work of God is verily in its sum and
substance one and the same with the world and its develop
ment, how then shall that work ever cease in the world ?
Even where men do not or cannot see it in its clearest traces,
it yet goes forward upon its steady and unceasing course. If,
however, in any one nation, or in many nations simultaneously,
long periods elapse when the multitude does not perceive or,
indeed, purposely overlooks God's work, yet always at the
appropriate moment there comes a time, as the Bible vividly
attests by many a fresh and living experience, when men are
reminded, whether they desire it or not, that such work is
never wanting;^ or when pious souls are irresistibly impressed
1 John V. 17, in connection with the remark of vers. 9 ff.
' Where do we feel upon the different halting-places of the development of
the whole history of the true religion more vivid and memorable impressions of
this experience than in Ex. xv. ; Ps. xviii., ci. ; Ps. xlvi. and xlviii., and those
akin to them ; B. Isa. xl.-lxvi. and Ps. cxvi. ; and, moreover, in the whole of

174 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
with the wish that it might once more be recognised by man
kind without question in all its reality and distinctness, — the
divine anticipation of the higher prophets declaring that soon
enough it will be so recognised,' — whilst all along in the
whole course of history the popular conviction is readily pre
served that again and again there may occur unexpected
proofs and indications that it never wholly fails.^ But the
most fruitful soil for this conviction in all its vividness and
force is found where the true religion has once made for itself
a sure and lasting home ; and for this reason and in this
respect the Bible is unique among all the writings of antiquity.
Yet what, after all, does all history up to the present day
offer, and offer in the last issue with one unvarying testimony,
but the clear confirmation of this truth ?
This great indisputable and unceasing work of God, of
which the Bible speaks, going on always alike through all the
creations as they follow one another, it is conceivable that
during the continuance of each special creation it should take
a peculiar form. In the existing world of mankind we cannot
fail to observe how its course follows two particular directions
— (1) it maintains the order of this human world in its relation
with all the earlier creations ; (2) it prepares also the way
for the world that is probably to succeed the present, so that
in due time it shall appear. But these two tendencies are
not opposite and divergent, nor are they conflicting ; we
cannot suppose that such divergence and conflict exist, and
we have no proof that they are possible. Rather does the
coincidence of these two distinguishable aspects of the whole
work of God lie not merely in the higher harmony of God's
the New Testament, especially Luke xxiv. 18 ff., with the Acts of the Apostles ?
Such clear testimonies as to the immediate experiences of the time must he
understood just as they are evidently intended to be understood.
1 Besides what is observed in § 261, pp. 168-171, such prophetic passages
may be taken where the "work of God " is expressly mentioned, as Isa. xxviii.
21-29 ; Hab. i. 5 ff.
^ This may be seen clearly enough, wholly apart from the New Testament
time as the Bible depicts it, from the vivid discourse of the Book of Origins,
Num. xvi. 30.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 175
work through all the earlier creations, but also in that single
great subject which is here primary, viz. the human creation
itself, to which now our attention must be further turned.
§ 263. For if the human creation, and thus the whole
present world in general, have any import and aim in connec
tion with the whole creation and work of God, it can only be
that this creature should learn to participate intimately and
with individual activity in the glory and blessedness of the
divine life, in a way far beyond what was possible to the
creatures and earthly existences of all earlier worlds, so that
thus a more perfect, i.e. a happier, world shall be evolved than
has up to this time appeared. What a conception is this, —
the creature capable of learning to participate more and more
fully and purely in the whole glory and blessedness of the
Creator ; and to this end clothed in earthly material, and
becoming in space and time of infinite diversity and multi
tude ; but yet only with the prospect and hope of a future
and still higher blessedness, to be brought about and prepared
by means of just this work ! Nevertheless for this, and for
this pre-eminently, the human creation has from the beginning
been designed, principally through the special measure of and
special participation in the Spirit of God which are peculiar
to it, as this Spirit was appointed from the first to work forth
from man as a creature, and as in the larger and wider view
we see it working forth proportionately in the long and
changeful history of humanity, notwithstanding all change.
This spirit given to man in his creation in such energy and
strength as is not found in the animal world is, it is true,
also by creation, as in the case of the animal world, enclosed
in earthly material that it may vivify and impel individual
existence, and similarly in each case makes the senses its
gate of contact and intercourse with all the rest of the world.
But if we ask by what endowment man is so distinguished
above the whole world of animals that he can interweave his
own work with the work of God, and in such a way that this
united action shall attain the highest aim of life, we find only

176 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
one capability that can realize the given possibility, viz. "free
will," but behind free will, as making it on its part possible,
" free knowledge " also, and both in a sense impossible to the
animal creation. Nothing more appropriate can be said of
these capabiHties than that without them man would not be
man, and still less could we speak of his co-operation in the
work of God in the world. That the Bible denies neither
the one nor the other, but rather presupposes both as a self-
evident underlying condition of all that it demands of man in
the way of spiritual culture as his divine duty, is clear enough
from every part of it. If we ask, however, how this double
capability is related to all the rest of the capabilities of the
human spirit, and in what way that co-operation by virtue
of them all can take place, we must remember that this
spirit —
1. Put into the limits of earthly matter, is from the first
early childhood of the individual man unceasingly stimulated
and moved by all that it experiences from influences of the
outer world, as well by their similarity as their diversity ;
but also possesses the capacity, as no other individual exist
ence possesses it, to appropriate thereby the images of the
whole world, in some cases more completely than others
according to the historical position, but ultimately so that
the whole world may be reflected as in the mirror of such
limited space whose depths are most profound. " God has
set the world in the heart of men," says the wise Qoheleth,'
expressing just what we mean, " the heart " signifying the
inward capability of impression, the spirit or the conception,
the sense and understanding. But he adds at once to this
proud expression, as if regretfully, that man, " the work which
God has worked," i.e. just the universe as it arose and as it
is, alas ! " may not find out from beginning to end," however
much he wearies himself to find it ; thus indicating in a
striking way the limitation of all human knowledge of the
world so far as it rests in the infinitude of God, as already
^ Eccles. iii. 11.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 177
described.' But if this capability to receive in his spirit
impressions from the whole world is the ground of all higher
activity of man, and if it proves how certainly man is destined
to survey and rule over all the earlier worlds, as the oldest
narrative of creation points out as a sure truth, what would
be the use of this whole knowledge, not merely of the present
but also of all past history and worlds, as he pursues the sure
traces of them, if his spirit had not —
2. The far higher capability to win in all things attained
by perception "exact knowledge," i.e. comparing each indi
vidual thing with all others to put it in its right place, and
so advancing from the one side obtain a correct view of a
whole; from the other, however, to secure the conviction
with respect to every individual thing that it is actually in
this its narrowest or widest connection what it was held to
be according to a provisional knowledge ? This is the hearing,
feeling, and tasting of things in that higher sense which the
Book of Job^ demands fo^r everything which concerns man,
and which the Books of Wisdom in the Bible so emphatically
commend, whether under the name of knowledge, wisdom,
reason,^ or otherwise. But it is also that experience and
discernment of the divine by the human, and that perception
of the will of God to man, which forms the basis of all
revelation.* And since man, in this appropriation of the
whole infinitude of such higher knowledge, may embrace a
whole world as well as in that process just described,^ we
1 § 153 f., pp. 40-48. That this idea of man had already arisen in the minds
of the earliest reflecting meuj and appeared to them the most appropriate, is
proved by the name manu, i.e. Thinker, which ultimately established itself
in the Aryan speech. This designation can have come into existence only after
the Aryan had separated from the Semitic race.
2 Job xii. 11.
3. Beside ni33n and njiQH) or more briefly m''2, "reason," the simple
r\)31, like our "knowled'ge,'' is also found in the higher sense of science as
meaning an art and facility of life, in such clear connections of discourse as
Prov. xvii. 27, i. 4, ii. 6, xxiv. 5 ; but it is evident from these passages that it
was in the schools of wisdom only that such usage of language was prevalent.
* §§ 11-46, pp. 5-159, Revelation ; its Nature and Record.
5 Par. i. p. 176. M

178 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
have here that higher art of computation which, by the
gathering together, comparison, and summing up of whole
wide realms of investigation, even of invisible things, leads to
ever new results and fruits of certain knowledge, and of
which the Bible itself affords us an example in the Book of
Qoheleth.' But what may so far be rightly designated exact
knowledge is yet pre-eminently " free " knowledge, because it
is free or open to man to know everything in the world
without exception, the invisible and the visiblej the one by
comparison with the other, and the truth from its direct
contrary; and all true knowledge can be attained only by
such free movement of one's own mind. Since, however, he
is summoned to action by all that he learns and experiences,
this free knowledge becomes to man —
3. Free will, — the will to act in each special case as he
holds to be right, pursuant to that free knowledge. So may
he, then, in accordance with his own proper impulse, act
obediently to the known will of God, thereby, however,
working together with the work of God itself in the world,
and putting himself in close relation with that whole divine
determination whose double tendency has already been de
scribed.^ In the feeble, destructible mortal body, in the dust
of this earth, the veritable participation and blessed working
together with God in His eternal purpose may take place,
even as man in this present world is appointed thereto of
God ; and thus the problem proposed above' is solved.
§ 264. The enigma of the apparent contradiction in man
is also solved, at least so far as it affects the divine destiny
of man and his creation. To know this divine destiny is to
1 If this book, apparently so obscure, is only rightly understood. But the
clearest expression in it which elucidates this whole scientific procedure is
vii. 27, which implies that man in inquiry must set "one thing to another,"
in order to find by counting the result of such computation, rt3B>n) CQmputatio,
and so the truth that is sought. [Gesenius translates this word "reason,"
"understanding;" Fiirst, agreeing with Ewald, "the power of combining ; ''
LXX., koyirfii; ; Vulg., ratio.]
' % 262, p. 171. * § 258, p. 167.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 179
know his glory, and to know all that is- noble that has shown
itself in human history and may show itself in the future.
It is at least to estimate aright his original greatness and
glory which, just because they are original, and therefore rest
in the eternal will and omnipotence of God, can never again
be wholly lost ; as, indeed, the Messianic hopes in the genuine
sense of the Bible fully establish.
This glory is therefore pre-eminently that of the human
mind, as it has received from the first its measure and its
power with all other peculiar gifts. Moreover, that among
all possible bodily forms of this earth, the human body is so
fashioned as best to harmonize with this divine destiny of the
whole man and this peculiarity of the human spirit is self-
evident,-^ as in point of fact something similar occurs in the
case of all other creatures. But indeed the great chief thing,
viz. that the free will of man is the pivot upon which turns
all man's spiritual activity, and the possibility of the realiza
tion of his divine aim, and that this free will presupposes
free knowledge, is explained only by the divine destiny of
man. And since, on this account, everything ultimately
depends upon will, assigned to man as to no other creature,
and assigned to him from the first and so unchangeably, this
wholly new addition in the case of man to the sense-creation
may very well mark the human creation as the will-creation,
and so distinguish it from that which is lower in the sentient
world. For in relation to animals, it is true some kind of
will may be spoken of, as also some kind of imagination,
understanding, and knowledge ; but their will has neither the
determination and office that man's has, nor that universal
range of movement and effort which fits it to be called free ;
nor is it even with the noblest beasts so unalterable that it
may not by domestication diverge from its original bent, and
in so far be destroyed ; whilst the human will at every
• On which account it is foolish to find any reference to the body as such in
man's bearing the likeness and image of God, which we have just described,
p. 162.

180 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
moment remains free and approaches nearer and nearer to
the divine will as to its original goal, if only man himself
does not pervert it. If then we speak of the will-creation,
we mean always free will as it was thus first given to the
world. For without question the creation of will must be called
the creation of a new world, the beginning and first spring of
the whole present world, since it cannot be explained from
the mere quiet and orderly progress and inner development
of the previous creations. A new world enters, as far as we
can see, when on the basis of an earlier preparatory one a
living force appears which is not derivable from its prede
cessor, which has indeed over and above all it derives from
thence its own development, because its own new purpose
and its own new end. We men see now, it is true, the work
of God advancing in the development of the present, i.e. the
human world, as well in its customary groove as from time to
time in movements of a rarer and more powerful kind ; but
not till we ourselves should have experience of a further new
world-creation, could we know and understand such a world
wholly otherwise than in its actual effects. For we live now
in the flow and current of this our world, and looking back can
recognise the certainty of the commencement at some previous
time of this most recent world-creation by its effects, and can
mark in the manifest preparations for it the certainty of a new
world yet to come ; but we can describe the latter and the
former as divine events in their actual occurrence just as
little as the very first world-creation. Such are the limits of
our knowledge to-day, limits the Bible does not remove, and
which to us are not merely necessary ' but beneficial. Recog
nising thus distinctly what we can and what we cannot certainly
know, we prepare aurselves the more calmly and collectedly
to know at the right time what we know not now, sufficiently
occupied and inspirited by the thought that .what we can
know and have not yet learned, we are gradually more and
' § 153 f., pp. 40-48 ; and below in the chapters on Immortality.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 181
more fully becoming acquainted with in its whole compass
and significance, of which indeed there is much that the
nearer we approach to it the greater it becomes to our
view.' How certainly mankind since its creation is, however,
conceived to be in the course of development to a new order
of things, even where it is only blindly or perversely surmised,
may be clearly seen with the help of the Bible by an example.
The most prejudiced and obstinate man will not deny that
there dwells in the human species, as something wholly
peculiar to it, what may be called in one word, the sense or
desire of improvement. All the earlier worlds are complete in
themselves and finished; no progress towards some higher
perfection is astir in them ; every species in the animal world,
including such as in our conception are busiest and most in
genious, is devoid of all passion for advancement to a higher
culture or of capacity to attain it. With the human race,
however, the sense or desire of improvement appears at the
first glance, in the greatest and in the least of men, as the lever
of all higher aspiration and history. It is the noblest spring
of the faculty of imagination and invention, as well as of
every other form of activity. It continually returns ; though
apparently relaxed here and there for a longer or shorter
period, it is only that it may forthwith take up its work again
with renewed energy and vigour. What indeed does the
whole Bible show more emphatically than the unremitting
^ What shall be said of Darwin and his imitators ? They overlook all this,
and, misled by the spectacle of a conflict for existence, like that enkindled
to-day in the corrupt Franco-German world, and by their so far perverted-taste,
imagine the whole world of individual life as we see it now to have arisen
similarly, the ape from the frog, the man from the ape ! If they would only
explain the bodily transitions from the one to the other, they could be endured
and might be useful. But the one ultimate chief thing, the mental distinction,
they overlook or deny, only because they are too inert or too dull to notice
or appreciate it. Supposing themselves able to explain everything on their
method, they really explain nothing at all of that which has chiefly and
specially to be explained, but they confuse everything more and more wantonly,
and cripple all eagerness to recognise aright the true tasks and difficulties of a
scientific investigation. Thus must it ever be ; misapprehension and disavowal
of what is spirit and God are always their own punishment.

182 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
impulse of this sense or desire, if we consider it in its best
aspect ? or in what age, up to the present, has it been wholly
lost ? It cannot be said, moreover, that it moves in our race
only as in a circle, and affords but play and scope for activity.
What entirely different results did it produce in the com
munity of the Old Testament from those effected in heathenism !
And still further, how changed is its influence in Christianity!
But true as all this may be, the question is at once asked.
Whence conies this sense or desire of improvement so peculiar
to the human race ? Is it not manifestly the consequence
and effect of a profounder impulse that must lie deep in the
human mind ? Whether it belong to the lower realms of
man's wellbeing, or to that higher task of all human aspira
tion to which the great prophets of the Old Testament so
emphatically point,' what is it always and throughout but one
of the many indications how unceasingly the human race
strives and moves onward towards a great ultimate consum
mation of the whole existing order of things?
§ 265. Keeping closely to the Bible, the same thing may
be expressed in other ways and by other words and con
ceptions. This is of the highest moment, for the subject has
such singular importance, and is at the same time to the common
apprehension of such special difficulty, that, like other similar
subjects, it cannot, by the utmost diversity of images, be too
fuUy and distinctly expressed. The Bible itself, however, in
passages where it is especially appropriate, contains allusions
to it of the most varied character.
First of all, there is the simple but pregnant phrase, " the
way of God," i.e. the way which He Himself takes through
the world and upon which all men should follow Him. It
is an eternal way ; ^ it runs through all ages and all changes
of the world, but only as the ever direct and uniform way,
upon which in the fitting place emphasis is laid.* Neverthe-
^ Namely, in the fine image of breaking up again or renewing the land that
had run wild ; Hos. x. 12 ; Jer. iv. 3.
^ Ps. cxxxix. 24 ; cf. Hab. iii. 6, which at least is remotely relevant.
» According to expressions like Hos. xiv. 10 ; Deut. xxxii. 4 ; Rev. xv. 3.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 183
less it branches out into the infinitude of worldly affairs and
periods, as well as into those innumerable ways of God of
which, when it is appropriate, the Bible so often speaks.*
What are these ways of God and that one eternally great
way, but the movement and activity by which the unique-
work of God is accomplished ? And as certainly as men are-
to follow God's ways are they actively to take part in the
infinite work which God purposes with them to carry to com
pletion in the present world. So plainly is this idea closely
connected with the previous one.
But most expressive and crowded with meaning is the
short term life ; and in relation to this truth no term is so
forcible and so common as this, For whilst many ideas, as
for example that of the way, scarcely point with any clearness-
to their opposites, life in human conception stands directly
opposed to death with all its gloom, The Hebrew, however,
as the language of the true religion par excellence, learned early
to use this word in the highest sense it can bear, viz. that of
immortality.^ If we take the idea of life in the lov\'est sense
it can 'have, it always signifies a self-directed, uniform move
ment, not constrained from without, but obeying some inner
law, and tending towards a definite goal. Two different
characteristics join here in indissoluble union, and both are
found even in vegetation and in the lowest animals, viz. this
uniform movement proceeding from an inner energy, and its
tendency towards a definite end. But as the simplest and
minutest life in the universe with the universe itself is but
an expression and image of the infinite grandeur and glory of
God, so is He Himself not merely the primal fount of all life,^
but also in the ultimate sense of this term life itself, as He is
' As in the passages above mentioned, Ps. xcv. 10, and elsewhere so often in
the Old Testament; also Rom. xi. 33, and other passages which echo the
language peculiar to the Old Testament.
" Cf. § 48. 2. Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 144-5.
' According to the wholly original expression, Ps. xxxvi. 9a, it is said indeed
only with God is this source, but merely because here that point is to be named
whence for man it may be found ; Jer. ii. 13, xvii. 13, go further, and similarly
Bar. iii, 12.

184 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
omnipotence and love ; and if the meanest life by its very
activity has a definite end, how much more must the highest
conceivable life in man have its end and aim ! If, however,
the aim of the creation of man in the present world is that he
should know God and His will in order to work together with
Him, it is obvious also that each individual man, so far as it
is possible in the incalculable succession and infinite multi
tude of individuals, and so far as he himself does not resist
it, may, in the course of this world, take some part in the
highest life or in the immortality of God. And it is just as
certain that the whole of humanity is appointed to work
together with God in one immortal work expressive of the
divine purpose, as that the Creator Himself, hidden from the
common eye, works in the present world to a new yet higher,
i.e. spiritual creation, which in the end is nothing but a new
Hfe such as never before has appeared either in an earlier or
in the existing order of things. So that this whole transaction
and example, whose greatness we can only conjecture, and
whose scope- and range in the midst of this course of things is
absolutely immeasurable, may find its confirmation and proof
in the idea of life as it is presented in the Bible with growing
clearness and increasing prominence and power.
There is therefore a Hfe destined for man which alone is
worthy of the name. It may be spoken of in all brevity by
the single word life, for when the discourse is of man and
his divine determination such word must necessarily be under
stood in this larger and nobler sense. The usage springs
from a characteristic intuition of the true religion ; and as it
arose primarily in the schools of wisdom as they existed in
the ancient nation, it occurs first in the Books of Wisdom of
the Old Testament.' Now the idea of the " way," as explained
above, is closely connected with the new idea of " the way
1 In expressions such as Prov. xii. 28, x. 16 f., xi. 19, xv. 31, xix. 23, xxi.
21, xxii. 4, cf. xvi. 15, where it is more artificially employed. An emphasis
must be laid upon the fact that this new usage of language is purely Hebrew,
and that it proceeded from the schools of wisdom as iu the last mentioned
§ 263. 2, p. 177.

THE WOELD OF MANKIND AND ITS DIVINE AIM. 185
to life," which every man is to find and to choose;' and
the images of a tree of life, of a fountain of Hfe, of
the water of life, borrowed from ancient and sacred con
ceptions of a blessed land of the gods, obtain among the
people of Israel a new and higher significance.^ Moreover,
the simple idea of life in this enlarged and ennobled sense,
comes forth from the schools of wisdom clothed in the most
glowing forms, and it colours all the language of higher and
purer feeling in relation to the divine duties of man.^ When
subsequently Messianic hopes had penetrated more and more
deeply the entire thought of the nation, eternal life is spoken
of continually as the blessedness of the future fervently
desired and hoped for; and the brief word life, where the
context admits, even without the article, bears, as the drift of
the discourse suggests, this higher and nobler meaning.* The
influence of these thoughts and ideas is seen in all later
writings in which there is more serious and solemn reference
to the last destiny of man. When Christianity enters into
the world, these thoughts and ideas necessarily reappear
with greater frequency and increased fervour, and with no
New Testament writer are they so common as with John ; "
but the term "life of God," though essentially of the same
import, is historically an innovation.'^
^ Yet very original in such instances as Prov. xv. 24, then ii. 19, v. 6, vi. 23 ;
Ps. xvi. 2.
¦¦^ Cf. Dichter des A . Bs. ii. 4 ; and below, the chapters on Immortality.
^ In expressions such as Deut. xxx. 15-19 ; Ps. xxxiv. 12, cxxxiii. 3 ; Ezek.
xxxiii. 15 ; Mai. ii. 5.
* It is not ;3m; but always Z"" that in Greek corresponds to D"i»n.
' As in Bar. iii. 9; Ecclus. iv. 12, xv. 17, xvii. 9, xxi. 13, xxiii. 3, xxxi.
17, xiv. 5, and elsewhere in similar writings.
* But not with the John of the Apocalypse, except in standing familiar
images ; in such difference of phraseology this Jolin is distinguished from the
apostle. On the contrary, such phrases are very customary with Christ Himself,
according to Mark ix. 42-45 ; Matt. vii. 14, xviii. 8 f., xix. 17, 29, xxv. 46 ;
f. Acts iii. 15. The expression « SvTas ?»« sounds quite Greek, but it is found
ily, 1 Tim. vi. 19, in old manuscripts.
' Eph. iv. 18.

186 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.

XI. THE CONTINUALLY PEOGEESSIVE ORDEE OF THE WOELD.
§ 278. Sin is the great' disturber of the order of things in
the world of mankind or the existing period of creation.
How devastating this disturbance is in its effects, and how
painful for man, the Bible and all experience sufficiently
teach. But since sin has its ground and basis of possibiHty
in the creation itself, and, when it has occurred, its ultimate
issue in the will of the Creator, the inference may be drawn
in anticipation of the result, that the disturbance it produces
will never break up and dissolve the order of the divine
procedure in the world, but will finally even advance the
higher aim of things. Of this supremely important position,
maintained throughout the entire contents of the Bible, we
have now to give further proof. Such proof is complete, if
we regard carefully the two sides upon which the least or the
greatest sin may be said to take effect, as soon as it comes
into existence as an act of the human will.
1. If we look towards the divine side, it is clear that this
must be directly and immediately affected, since sin proceeds
from the human spirit, and in the strictest sense of the words
within the creation only the human and divine spirit con
front each other ' in all that proceeds from the human will.
It is permitted to the created spirit of man to act upon any
definite occasion as free will impels it to act.^ It may act,
in such given case, conformably to the divine will or not;
at all events as a human spirit it acts with a direct bearing
upon the divine. This must be so necessarily, whether the
action be good or bad ; nor is it of special moment here what
may be the material cause of the action or the infinite diversity
of that material cause. In the case of bad actions this relation
^ [Cf. " I believe that it (the doctrine of flnal perseverance) had some
influence on my opinion ... in making me rest in the thought of two and
two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator."
— Newman's Apologia pro Sua Vitd, p. 4.]
^ According to Rom. i. 24 ; but similarly Amos vi. 8 ; Deut. xxxii. 30.

THE CONTINUALLY PEOGEESSIVE ORDEE OF THE WOELD. 187
of sin to God is the more readily overlooked, and man only
is thought of who is so variously and painfully affected by
such actions. But for this very reason one of the psalmists,
who had searched most deeply this whole obscure province
and knows it most fully, makes emphatically prominent this
neglected aspect of evil conduct.' But whilst the action of
the human spirit directly touches the divine, it has a stronger
or feebler bearing upon the divine work which the divine
spirit is continually accomplishing.^ If therefore the human
spirit so bears in its action upon the divine that it opposes
the divine will and* disturbs by such opposition the divine
order of the world, it is the more evident in such case that
by virtue of his free will man has in his own power his
thinking and doing, but not the issues and consequences of
his action. For the great work of God with its infinite forces
still pursues its way, even if the individual man by his
perverse action with reference to it tends to its disturbance.
Thus the, good work of man is taken up in the eternal pro
gress of God's work as conducive to it ; ' but the bad as a
counteracting influence is rejected and made void, however
long, in the incalculable succession of individuals who practise
it, it may be continued. And what is this but another way
of expressing the deep abhorrence with which God rejects all
human perversity of action as, in the midst of the agitations
of life, the prophets announce in the most graphic words ? *
¦' Ps. Ii. 6f., according to the true exposition, ["For the earthly substance
which suffers through sin, for example, whether this or that person is put to
death, is accidental and non-essential ; not against matter does sin properly
take place, but every sin is in a strict and true sense against spirit, against God,
a troubling {triibung) of the spirit, as well of the individual human spirit as of
the universal and divine ; therefore the poet here recognises in the most earnest
and importunate prayer to God, where the discourse cannot be of sin and
punishment in the human sense, that only against Ood alone has he sinned,
from whom alone he may expect and win reconciliation and peace." — Ewald in
loc] = §261 ff., pp. 168-178,
^ As all the prophets of the Bible continually place this clearly before the
view, the latest of them does so also in the short utterance. Rev. xiv. 13.
* Such expressions may be here mentioned as Amos v. 21-24 ; Isa. i. 11^15 ;
Hos. ii. 4ff., and many others like them. Also such words in the mouth of

188 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
2. If now we consider the human side, we see here that
sin, notwithstanding the ruin and desolation it has occasioned
in the human race, in individuals, in whole nations, and
through long ages, and which in our time it still occasions,
nevertheless renders such service as the will of the Creator
determines it should render. Every misdoing, even the most
innocent, serves, when once done, to show to man the more
clearly that which is right as its direct contrary, and to lead
him to seek it ; and all the pains and penalties of sin, when
sin has once realized its own possibility, are but like the
silver-leaf behind the glass, enabling man, as in a mirror, to
recognise what sin really is — the caricature of everything
truly human, and to avoid it with the firmer resolve because
of the misery it brings. Everything in God's world, even
that which appears to be most evil or is in reality through
man's own guilt most pernicious and shocking, must serve
some good purpose ; otherwise it would not be the world of
Him who is absolutely good, nor would it be itself good as
answering the purpose of the Creator. So is it also with sin ;
and it is easy to show how much the Bible itself commends
this view of the uses lying in sin, for the individual man and
especially for the whole human race. The didactic books
and the didactic portions of the Bible portray by striking
imagery the unrighteousness, the perversity, and even the
absurdity of wrong-doing ; ' and a later prophet, at a time
when party spirit divided the ancient nation into irreconcil
able factions, predicts that the remembrance of unrepentant
sinners shall become among men a byword and an abhorrence
for ever.^ These are but a few of the plainest proofs of this
Jahveh as " I despise, I abhor,'' your doing, are not at all too strong ; genuine
love which can breathe only in what is just, and will only in righteousness
reject the more decisively everything incompatible with justice and righteous
ness, and can do no other.
' Such portions are meant as Prov. xxiii. 29-35, xxiv. 30-34, -vii. 6-27 ; and
brief passages like Prov. xi. 22, xvii. 6. Among Christ's didactic parables, that
of the unjust steward may be mentioned, Luke xvi. 1-13.
" B. Isa. Ixv. 15, cf. Ixvi. 23 f. Here belong a multitude of images which
have their place in the discourse, and bear such glaring colours on purpose to

THE CONTINUALLY PEOGEESSIVE OEDEE OF THE WOELD. 189
truth, proofs wholly apart from the purely historical instances
of which the Bible is full, and which are fraught with the
richest instructiveness.
3. These two forces as they may very well be called
because of their effective power, viz. the divine reaction
against everything that must rightly be regarded as sin, and
the reaction in human judgment and conduct against all that
is clearly known as evil, may work together more and more ;
and this combined and coincident working from above and
below becomes a new force of ever-increasing strength the
more the individual man or the entire human race gathers up
and determines to this end the whole energy of free will.
Here then is given to us the luminous picture of the order of
the world for ever advancing to its own proper goal by the
simple displacement of all hindrances. For two things are
here involved — (1) that sin, by reason of the counter-working
against it of the divine order of the world as it stands from the
beginning, can never become too powerful or too destructive —
in other words, can never altogether divert the course or stop
the progress of this divine order ; (2) that the more the indi
vidual man, and at length the whole human race, suffer both
these counteracting influences to exercise their effect upon
themselves wherever it is fitting, and thence with clearer
insight and firmer resolve on their part, the less the divine
order of things is disturbed, and the more that order moves on
with mighty progress to its own proper and ultimate goal.
Thus the free wiU of man becomes in the course of events
more and more definitely directed into its own sphere and
limits, and unfolds as it could not otherwise unfold its whole
divine power ; and thus what is the sole actual disturber of
the infinite work of God serves at last as the most efficient
aid and most powerful ally for its advancement.
The whole Bible may be put in proof for the correctness of
teach by contraries, as B. Isa. xxv. 10 f., Ix. 11 f. Yet it may be remarked
that, such images belong only to the times when the old community was in its
decline. Much more tenderly is the opposite indicated in Luke xvi. 23-31.

190 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
this position, and, strictly speaking, it is but one long con
firmation of it. All the words of the genuine prophets, and
most decisively those of Christ Himself, offer, as is fitting,
their corroboration and proof That all sin finds its limita
tion and the annulling of its action in the eternal counter
working of the divine order of the world, is the one loud and
unanimous voice of the seer ; and that man by the knowledge
of the true nature and consequences of sin is to be dissuaded
from its practice and led to act in accordance with the will of
God alone, is also the teaching of the seer in words as clear
as they are powerful ; while the advent and work of Christ
give to the whole in another way its final ratification.
Moreover, what the prophets and Christ Himself teach by
their word and confirm by their deeds in the close and
painful interweaving of their own Hfe with the darker side
of human history in the world and its sad issues, that is pre
sented in single great pictures as luminous as they are com
prehensive. On the one hand, in the Book of Job the poet
shows us the course of Hfe of the individual man who remains
loyal in faith to the will of God ; on the other, in the Apocalypse
of John is given the final destiny of the human race ; and
both point in this direction. Every other portion of the
Bible also offers its contribution to the fuller understanding
of this supreme truth. Thus, then, the whole Bible may
justly be said to be one continual thousand-voiced confirma
tion of it.
§ 279. Meanwhile the same thing may be shown, con
formably to the Bible certainly, but from a different side of
the contemplation of this great subject. For what free wUl
in man is, not as to its ultimate purpose and aim, but in its
limitation and actual working, also supports the position we
here maintain. Man sometimes deems himself empowered to
take a bold stand because he possesses free will, and with it
may attain all he wishes. The proud thoughts and pre
sumptuous words which the great prophet Isaiah utters as
from the mind and Hps of the victorious and prosperous

THE CONTINUALLY PROGRESSIVE ORDER OF THE WORLD. 191
Assyrian,' are heard to-day in one way or another among
innumerable men. But if man were to imagine for such
reason that his free will has nothing of limit and bound, he
would commit a fatal and egregious mistake, and through an
entirely groundless fancy would be involved and overwhelmed
in an immeasurable sea of errors.
1. For as you seek contemplatively to mark the living
source and fresh upspriuging of the flowing waves in the sea
of thought, and also the corresponding deeds which thought
as it arises occasions, you are surprised in common life by
ideas and acts as to which you know not rightly or exactly
whence they come : you feel yourself moved and led by love or
aversion, or as it is put more simply in Hebrew, love or hatred,
and you cannot at the moment say why. As you go still further
back, you discover that other thoughts have preceded your
present thoughts and condition them ; and as the chain is
followed on and on to its extremest links in the past, you
perceive how certainly all your thoughts were once and still
remain possible only because man is a created being, with
whom all thought and action become possible solely and
simply by the power of the great Creator which is above him
and around him. This is the dispassionate view of the
mystery of the currents of our thinking and of the action
which is its outcome, which Qoheleth,^ in his calm, philosophic
' Isa. X. 7-10, 13 f,
" Eccles. ix. 1. The subject dealt with here, as is customary in this book, is
only briefly sketched, but the words in their connection are clear, and are
literally translated by the LXX., only that the first words of ver. 2 by a mis
understanding are strangely altered. But how capriciously has the Vulgate
and again in another way the Targum distorted them ! [" That all men
without distinction of guilt or innocence, of frivolity (as in swearing. Matt.
V. 37), or discretion, are subject to the same casualty, viz. death, because every
thing, their thinking and acting, their love and hate, rests in a higher necessity
from which there is no escape, or proceeds according to the secret, hidden
development, and no one can arbitrarily withdraw himself from this necessity,
whose end for the individual is death. This is especially shown in chap, iii.,
cf. ii. 14 f,, vi. 11, vii. 13 ; but how the freedom of the will is to be reconciled
with this predetermination, this was not the place to discuss. ' Everything is
before them ' is meant as to time ; through an eternal destiny preceding them
everything is determined, so that they are surprised by the feeling of love or
aversion, they know not how."— Dichter des A. Bs. ii. 320.]

192 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
contemplation of human affairs presents to us, without in any
way or in the least thereby forgetting God, Borne along by
the vivid and profound consciousness of this mystery, the poet
in the Psalter,' who in these matters is most sensitive and
tender, declares in other words essentially the same thing.
A thought scarcely comes to the tongue of man and seeks to
express itself in speech, but it is no longer his only, even if
the man himself be wholly alone, for it is interwoven with
the whole infinite web of spiritual things, and is perfectly
known to God before any one else knows it.^ The mystery
of the seeming play of human thoughts is by Ecclesiastes
traced back into the past, by the Psalmist forward into the
future ; there it depends upon an infinite number of earlier
thoughts, here it is taken up into a realm which stands far
above all human caprice. The will of man is therefore
limited both in time and in fact, both in its first impulse or
origin and in its effect ; for it is the will of the creature, and
so of the solitary individual. If as exercised by man it
entails in thousands of cases no specially perceptible good
or evil consequences, yet in the most important questions of
Hfe and in the most decisive periods, it may prove whether
for good or ill of so much the greater moment. Thus, then,
the will of man is free ais the will of no other creature is
free, but nevertheless in the midst of its immediate and
momentary incitement to activity it is under limitation ; for
it is not as the divine will, unconditioned and having its own
independent aim, but it is conditioned on both sides, and is
subservient to an eternally progressive movement, beyond and
above him, of the will of God, which fixes the supreme aim of
the whole universe.
2. The purpose the freedom of the human will serves will
be more fully evident if it is considered that the will does
not exist in the human spirit amongst its thousand - fold
' Ps. cxxxix. 4, cf. 2, 3.
2 We express only somewhat more distinctly what lies in the brief words of
the Psalm.

THE CONTINUALLY PROGRESSIVE ORDER OF THE WORLD. 193
capacities as the one alone appointed to rule, nor even as
pure will, but its activity is involved in the exercise of every
capacity, and is determinable properly by the sense of right.
The longer and the more variously free will in man has
exercised itself, not merely in thinking but also in the outward
action and conduct to which it ever tends, the more certainly
can man perceive that it avails nothing against the omni
potence of God as that omnipotence is manifest in the world.
This position Qoheleth ' likewise maintains most emphatically
and abundantly in his calm contemplation of things. Every
thing God does or makes is " for ever," and is perfect in itself,
without possibility of addition or diminution — one of the
finest conceptions of the Perfect ; and certainly only that
which is perfect can also be eternal; so teaches Qoheleth,
and his words relate not merely to the words of creation, but
also to whatever can be observed in history as complete in
itself and finished. For who would wish the truly divine
element as it appears, say, in Job's history to be other than
it is ; or who, indeed, would wish this in relation to Christ's
liistory ? Man " cannot contend with Him who is mightier
than himself," he says elsewhere,^ and the sense implies that
this is God alone. And if he says further that " man cannot
make straight what God has made crooked," ^ either in the
world of sense or in the world of spirit,* this is only a special
application of the universal truth the wise man in aU earnest
ness teaches. The Bible, it is true, declares everywhere that
man cannot withstand the divine omnipotence ; but here this
truth is closely and intimately connected, as it is well it
should be, with that other truth, the divine perfection of the
world, upon which the same book lays such stress.
1 Eccles. iii. 14.
= Eccles. vi. 10 ; some time before, the Elihu poet in Job had made the same
thing prominent, Job xxxiii. 13 f.
^ Eccles. vii. 13.
« Since Qoheleth everywhere has the spiritual world specially in view, it may
be thought of here. Man cannot arbitrarily transform into justice, righteous
ness, and happiness what according to the will of God is in human history, dis
torted, unrighteous, and unblessed ; as Isaiah says only in other words, v. 20.
N

194 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
3. The conclusion to which all our discussions on this
subject lead is equally established as we observe, further,
that Qoheleth nowhere thinks of the divine omnipotence as
blind caprice, but rather represents it as one and the same
with the will of God as it manifests itself in the entire order
of the world.' For if the human will is limited by creation
itself, and however earnestly it may attempt it can never
really withstand the will of God, revealing itself in the whole
order of the world, then it follows that the only end for
which the free movement of the will is given to man is that
he may be free to recognise the divine will, and work together
with it ; not, therefore, that he may be free to transgress it
and sin more and more, but rather that he may be free
through the image of sin as it is, that lies so clearly before
him, the more resolutely to determine to follow that higher
will alone. Moreover, according to this representation sin is
doubly condemned, as well on the human as on the divine
side ; and if Qoheleth as the conclusion of the whole subject
infers, "God has so made it that man should fear before
Him,"^ this conclusion, understood as it is intended in the
higher sense of the term fear, shows us the direction in which
man by his free will should ever be led.
§ 280. To understand aright, upon the basis here laid
down, the whole administration of the divine order of things
that for ever continues its progress, notwithstanding all human
disturbance, it is necessary nevertheless to contemplate it as
a whole, so that there may be no serious stumbling at the
details of phenomena in the unsettled and transient present,
dark enough to the human eye, and no mistake as to the
simple grandeur and glory by which the divine order is for
ever distinguished. Amidst the confusion and unhappiness
of human affairs in so many periods of time there is danger
of such stumbling and mistake. Even with the devoutest of
^ If this were not self-evident in Qoheleth, it would nevertheless follow from
what he so definitely sets forth in the whole third chapter to v. 17.
^ Eccles. iii. 14, cf. xii. 13, as the last result of the whole contemplation of the
hook.

THE CONTINUALLY PROGRESSIVE ORDER OF THE WORLD. 195
men this is the case, as the Old Testament shows, not merely
in illustrious examples like that of Job, but in the profound
lamentations of many a gifted and pious spirit expressing
itself in song or prophecy in the whirl and tumult of its own
vivid experiences.' How soon similar difficulties were felt
and found impressive utterance in the Christian community
when already it had arisen, and had to some extent developed
and consolidated its power, the Epistles of James and of Peter
bear witness, with the Epistle to the Hebrews that very soon
followed. But all that the Bible contains that is relevant to
this subject may be summed up in the three distinct and
fundamental conceptions, " for of Him, and through Him, and
unto Him are all things."
1. When the Bible teaches that everything is of God, it
points back to God as the sole and ultimate source of all
niind and life, of all energy and force, and of all movement
and activity. But this truth is not to be limited to the
original creation, or to the essential nature of living things
as first determined by creation : such Hmitation in the face of
the eternity and unchangeableness of God, who continuously
carries forward His progressive work throughout the world,
would, in the Biblical conception, be purely arbitrary. It
follows, therefore, with respect to human duty, that, this
truth being admitted, man should never boast of excellence
and merit, if he has it, as though it were derived from
himself as its ultimate source, and not from the grace of
God, to which all is owing. The Old Testament everywhere
presents this matter aright, and no one expresses the truth
implied in it with such transparent clearness and force as the
greatest of the apostles, who had realized it profoundly in his
own experience ;^ nor, indeed, does any one grasp so strikingly
' No portion of the Bible is here so instructive as Ps. Ixxiii., since the poet
describes in it, -with such vividness and breadth as no other passage presents,
the danger to which he was exposed iu serious reflection upon the divine order
of the world, and how he now feels himself rescued from it.
' 1 Cor. XV. 9 f. ; here, however, the apostle discourses most evidently of him
self, because the occasion demanded it ; in reality and at bottom his thought is

196 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
and comprehensively its essential principles, apart from ex
perience, in this aspect of it. But if everything is said tb be
in the stricter sense of the words " of God," as the ultimate
and never-failing cause and spring of all things in the world,
then indeed everything which is to man apparently or actually
an evil is in the last issue from Him, because without Him
as the Creator and Sustainer of the world it could not arise in
the world. All the evil and pain, for example, of which Job
so bitterly complains is directly or indirectly sent of God.
Moreover, the whole Bible, apart from the typical history of
Job or others, contemplates as sent of God the evil which
comes upon man.' Now this would be in direct contradiction
with the idea of God as creating and sustaining the world in
love, if the aim of the universe, and especially of the present
human world, were dropped out of view. But it is impossible
to admit such contradiction, and therefore it must be sup
posed that some good may be found in all the evil which
comes upon mau, and that it is this alone which, according to
the will of God, should be sought and firmly retained by maa
Furthermore, evil together with Satan and all his bad angels
has thus a necessary place in the divine order of things ; and
how. from evil the highest possible salvation for man may issue
as its result the Old Testament shows in the typical example
of the Book of Job, and the New Testament by an instance
the highest conceivable, and at the same time occurring in
the clear light of history. But instead of allowing ourselves
to be led astray by the current saying, " All evil and all
temptation come upon man from God," — a principle not in
itself incorrect but easily capable of extremely perverse and
mischievous application, — James, in his loyal-hearted and
simple speech, counsels us rather to think and to say,
" Every good gift and every perfect gift comes only from
above," and into good every evil may indeed be transformed
everywhere the same, and in the clear consciousness of this truth he finds the
lever of his spiritual strength.
^ Remarkable enough, for example, in the same epistle is also 1 Cor. iv. 6 f.

THE CONTINUALLY PROGRESSIVE ORDER OF THE WORLD. 197
if only man is not blinded by false judgment and hardened
in sin.'
No doubt there is much of detail in the sum of things in
the world and the divine order that man is little able to
understand, and cannot at all conceive how it can be of God.
The dark questions by which Job was overwhelmed, as his
poet represents him,^ might be repeated to-day. In reality,
however, all this is only as a summons to man to pursue his
inquiry from point to point, and ascertain with growing
certainty how far everything is of God, — a course of action
the Bible does not forbid but rather demands.
2. If many of the details belong to that province of things
with which, according to the Book of Job and the Apostle
Paul, we are only partially acquainted,^ we must, in our
observation of the course of the order of the world as it goes
on hourly before our eyes, the more firmly believe that every
thing that appears and takes place is " through God," i.e. could
not happen if it did not carry in itself beforehand a higher
possibility, by which it may be perceived just how far it is a
necessity, and therefore in the last issue divine,, or not. If
this is to be observed on a thousand sides, yet two things
must be specially considered in the general view.
First, very much happens which appears accidental, and
which men generally designate as such, but merely because
the events themselves cannot in every case, or at least with
sufficient certainty, be anticipated beforehand, and occasion as
they occur more or less of surprise.* But with God nothing
' Jas. 1. 16-18 ; these words in their connection are clear only as they are
properly taken, as strictly in opposition to the errors discussed in vers. 13, 15 ;
and further, as the last elucidation and confirmation of the words at the begin
ning of the chapter, ver. 2.
^ Job xxxviii. 4 ff.
3 Job xxvi. 14 ; 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 12.
* mpD> "accident," signified in common speech no doubt something in
which no divine intention could be found, as is to be seen from the conversation
with the Philistines, 1 Sam. -vi. 9. But in the finer speech of the cultured of
later days it serves as a circumlocution for the evil of death, Eccles. ii. 14 f.,
iii. 19, ix. 2 f.

198 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
is accidental, since nothing can be conceived as occurring in
the course and progress of the divine order of the world which
has not its ultimate cause and its appointed place in that
order. The ancient prophet Amos,' on a given occasion, states
this principle with great emphasis ; and Christ Himself gives,
where it is possible, still clearer prominence to the thought
that not even, that which is apparently of least significance is
accidental, at least where life and death are concerned, and
matters of such fundamental moment in the divine order of
things.^ Secondly, as everything evil and perverse which happens
to man may very well seem to him to lie outside the divine
order of the world, so especially the deeds and whole possi
bility of the life of the unrighteous in all their power may
well appear to him to be something wholly irreconcilable
with such order. But how certainly everything is of God all
human action confirms in a sense doubly strong. For if free
will moves and works in man as if he were God, and may
indeed embolden itself to contravene God's will, yet this is so
only because God has given to the will such power, at the
same time prescribing its limit. If, then, the whole life and
conduct of the unrighteous has its possibility only through
God, it must serve in the course and issue of things to advance
the ultimate aim of the divine order, and so prove in the long-
run only an instrument in the hand of God for good. The
Bible shows this in the great examples of Pharaoh from the
earlier time, and Nebuchadnezzar^ from the later time ; and
also in the sublime visions of the Apocalypse* in relation to
the future ; while certain Psalms yet more immediately pro
claim it in its divine necessity with the glow of the most
vivid feeling.''
1 Amos iii. 3-8. 2 jj^tt. x. 29 f.
' To which example, in the whirl and confusion of that time, Jeremiah, wilh
solemn earnestness, had to point, xxv. 9, xxvii. 6, xliii. 10. Similarly, although
in expression very differently, Isa. x. 5 ff.
* Cf. Rev. xix. 11 with xiii., and all which precedes.
^ Especially Ps. Hi., Ixiv., Ixxxii., and the like.

THE CONTINUALLY PEOGEESSIVE OEDEE OF THE WOELD. 199
3. But since, notwithstanding all human disturbance, the
divine order of the world does not alter its direct course
to the appointed goal, everything comes at last of necessity
to God again. All men's thoughts, to speak only of man,
must ever again turn to God alone, and stand in closest
relation to Him ; the spirits of men and the consequences of
all evil thoughts and deeds must more and more vividly be
manifest in all their nothingness in the light and power of
His justice and truth ; while the issues of all divine thoughts
and deeds of men more and more completely and victoriously
further His work, and with. Him and for His sake reach that
ultimate goal of the whole present human world which His own
will has appointed and His own infinite glory and love demand.
Such is the drift and import of the whole Bible. That brief
treatise, however, which discusses these great questions con
cerning the relation of human and divine things in an abstract
way, that is, with a purely scientific interest, and yet is so
gravely misunderstood by some who seek to be wise, will
sufficiently establish our position. Qoheleth puts the matter
in two short sentences which, taken in their proper connection
and rightly understood, are very suggestive, " God seeks "
that which has been driven away, that which has evaporated
and vanished, " the Past," which men are disposed to think
gone for ever, forgotten and lost without possibility of re
covery ; but God seeks it nevertheless ; before Him and in
the course of the world He rules it is not lost, but must ever
collect itself together again unto Him, and must be taken
up and appropriated by His work. So says Qoheleth in the
midst of his contemplations of things ; ' but the aim and issue
to which this tends he tells us at the end of his book, when
he points to the " return " of the human spirit to God, and
" the judgment of God " upon every hidden thing whether
good or bad, as the ultimate and most certain conclusion of
the whole matter, the sum and product of his dispassionate
' Eccles. iii. 156 ; concerning the half of the line cf. what is remarked below,
§282.

200 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
survey of this vain and transient course of things, i.e. the
world.' What Qoheleth thus calmly expresses, purposely
restraining the glow of inner thought and feeling that he may
not fall into grave errors of various kinds, the whole Bible
repeats in different ways and in the most pronounced doctrine.
Everything in the world is not merely of and by, but neces
sarily and in the end unto God. And what a confirmation 'of
all this is the whole history of the world, with the Bible, to
the present time !
§ 2 8 Off, If now the possibility of sin belongs to the divine
order of the existing world of creation, there belongs to it just
as well also the possibility of man's ultimate entire with-'
drawal from the practice of sin, and consequently the last
victory over it and its final disappearance ; so that the aim
of the creation of this human world may actually at last be
attained and a new higher world without sin succeed. For
can one temptation be overcome, all temptation may at
length be overcome ; and the certainty of such issue the
entire contents of the Bible suggest. Nay, not until we
climb this effulgent height, towering above the dark and
dismal abysses that sin opens to our view, do we come to the
full and proper knowledge of the divine order of the world,
the knowledge which the Bible enables us to obtain and
stedfastly to cherish.
The human race by the exercise of its peculiar energy is
destined to secure all the incalculable gains which in the
successive stages of its progress it may make its own ; and
is destined also to find its joy of life, as in the labour that is
contributory thereto, so in the consciousness of its acquisitions
and their employment for higher and still higher issues.
What a series of stages never to be lost sight of lies before us
in our survey, from the traces of the doings and endeavours
of man primseval preserved in the record of the rocks to
the tokens of progress attained to-day and still further to
be attained ! But upon each stage every perverse aim and
' Eccles. xii. 7, 14.

THE CONTINUALLY PEOGEESSIVE OEDEE OF THE WOELD, 201
every mistaken action are to be only an incitement and
admonition to better things. Even in the lower stages this
is so, if from thence man has come to understand that there
is a will of God which in everything he must obey, and that
as he acts otherwise the worse fault which is called sin arises.
1. As, however, God does not desire shortcomings and
sins, but, seeking from man that which is right, freely
pardons sin where there is honest repentance and a turning
to the right ; and as Christ also enjoins that every one should
guard, himself against offences, although according to experi
ence hitherto these must still come ; ' so there dwells in the
right, when it once actually obtains sway, a far greater power
than in its opposite, just because it is in harmony with the
di-vine order of the world, unites with that order, promotes
it, and is well-pleasing to God. This superiority manifests
itself in the institution of new and better methods and laws
in the conduct of life henceforth, and also in the neutralizing
of the effects of earlier mistakes and sins; the latter being fully
reaHzed only by help of the former. Here lie the progress
and the new aids and securities of salvation in the case of
individual men and in the case of whole peoples and eras;
which the Old Testament in its earliest elucidations expresses
as a fundam.ental law, and in the New Testament no one
shows more distinctly than the great apostle to whom, when
once in the right way, the retrospect of former errors proved
a powerful and constant stimulus ever afterwards to loyal and
stedfast perseverance in it."
2, Looking further at the three stages of the progress of
sin, as it is found {a) in the individual, where as in the early
youth of humanity it is a less serious error that may at once
be annulled, but (&) through repetition and persistent stiff-
neckedness, the evil consequences and the divine punishment
being disregarded, it becomes more and more pernicious, while
upon the rise and working of the Holy Spirit it assumes in the
^ According to Matt, xviii. 7 ; Luke xvii. 1 f.
^ As he himself most frankly testifies, 1 Cor. xv. 8-10.

202 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
individual an aggravated form of guilt, till at length (c) it
attains in society its extremest power by spreading its con
tamination to innumerable souls and incorporating with itself
thousands of prevalent misjudgments and corrupt tendencies
of the mind. This progress indicates that there is a growth
and fellowship of evil in the spirit of the individual and still
more in society ; but on the other hand, there is also a growth
and fellowship of good and of the divine which, according to
what has been said, are in themselves when once operative
among mankind far mightier than evil, and exert a far more
potent influence upon society if only they are present in the
fearless and resolute activity which properly belongs to them.
Indeed, according to sacred tradition and ancient proverb, ten
or five or three righteous men have before God more value
and importance than many thousands of other men, and may
be the means of saving a great multitude of souls ; ' and if
everything ultimately depends upon the elevation and strength
of what is divine in the individual, why should not in such
case, if the divine power is present in the highest degree
conceivable, a single individual suffice ? So the New Testa
ment in its early chapters speaks with emphasis of the few
grains of salt which may preserve a whole body from corrup
tion,'^ and of the small portion of wholesome leaven which
may leaven the whole mass.^ If now such righteous men
suffer greatly that righteousness and goodness may not perish
from the earth, and thus attest to the utmost their fidelity, so
that many feebler men and men of a later age may by their
courage strengthen their own, and finally by their merit and
service find salvation ; thus is established and confirmed the
principle of the fellowship of the good against that of the bad,
and the greater power of the former as against that of the latter,
so that in the entire course of human history the progress of
good may be far more extensive and far more enduring than
' According to the fine and noble narrative, Gen. xviii. 17-32 ; Isa. xix. 18 ;
Ezek. xiv. 14 ff.
2 Matt. V. 13 ; Mark ix. 50 ; Luke xiv. 34.
3 Matt. xiii. 33 ; Luke xiii. 20 f.

THE CONTINUALLY PEOGEESSIVE ORDEE OF THE WORLD. 203
the progress of evil. If, moreover, the fact of divine punish
ment coming upon the unrighteous is a primary, and in the
earlier times of the Old Testament a most important,
means of instruction,' there enters also subsequently with
increasing force the opposite fact that the sufferings of the
righteous may be a powerful means of purification and
redemption for many souls.^ Pre-eminently is this the case
when on the one side there is the highest righteousness, on
the other the greatest unrighteousness, and the latter through
the attempted but impossible extirpation of the former shows
itself openly in its utter futility and absolute repulsiveness ;
for there goes forth from such supreme confiict a divine
warning to all to choose in repentance and amendment of
life the way to God now again freely opened, and to appro
priate that divine service and merit which the righteous
sufferer has achieved, and which they themselves as less
righteous might long before have made their own. The
power and dominion of evil and of good thus appear in
human history in opposition and conflict ; the gain or loss of
the one is felt by the other, but finally the balance falls to
the side of the divine.
3. But it is to be remembered in addition, on the one
hand, (a) that the power of sin and of evil may ever return
so long as all possibilities under which man can make
mistakes are not yet fully exhausted, and have not yet
completely passed away before the well-established habit of
better things in life and conduct ; that there is accordingly
a history of sin and evil extending itself through the whole
development of man, and that the sins of the childhood and
youth of humanity are other than those of a later time,
' Of the most powerful kind in the oldest great example, Ex. xi. 4-9, xii.
29-33 ; and the figure of redemption-money being added which may be paid for
the prisoner already doomed to death, in the ancient Proverbs, xxi. 18, xi. 8 ;
repeated, however, in B. Isa. xliii. 3.
2 Thence the idea of the purifying sacrifice being added, it might be said
inversely, "the righteous dies for the unrighteous ; " B. Isa. liii., the meaning
of which will be explained below.

204 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
and the sins of the pre-Christian era other than those
perilous and destructive sins afterwards possible ; (6) that
this power, however, in its resistance to the divine will,
and its opposition to the eternal progress of the divine
order of the world, at times circumventing that progress and
gaining ground upon it, is nevertheless never able to attain
for itself a direct and ever-continuous advance, or to keep
and hold together its occasional gains, as the divine element
is in reality able to do as it moves forward in human history.
So also it is evident, on the other hand, (a) that the develop
ment of the divine, from the first victory it wins right
onwards (and the lesser victories were already secured in
the first childhood and youth of our race in the formation
of language and the establishment of human society), is
always a few steps in advance of evil, so that further and
still further advances of this kind may be anticipated; (b)
that it is possible merely on this account that this whole
progress of the divine in all its further developments and
in its incalculable details shall yet attain at length the goal
appointed of heaven ; but (c) first One must come who in
the midst of this course fulfils so perfectly the conditions
of this consummation, so far as the individual can fulfil
them, that all men shall be summoned and incited to follow
on the path He opens.'
But further, if all this is so ordered that in the divine
mind the whole immense course, which contains in itself
everything conceivable in relation to man, may be already
surveyed beforehand, even as the experience of a long series
of thousands of years has confirmed it to us, and if thus
the end is thought of even at the beginning, and the
beginning is remembered even at the end, the explanation
is given how the Bible (a) at the creation can at once
think of the " perfect Man of God ; " ^ how it (6) can speak
' [Cf. Butler's Analogy, part i. chap, iii., part ii. chap, v., of which this
whole section almost reads like a reminiscence.]
^ § 249 ff., pp. 124-139.

THE CONTINUALLY PROGRESSIVE ORDER OF THE WORLD. 205
in the narrative of the first sin, of a conflict from that time
forward in perpetuity, but yet at last victorious, between
man and evil ; and how (c) the Old Testament anticipates a
Messiah, and as of necessity demands and calls for Him,'
and the New Testament describes Him as according to
historical certainty actually come, and as Himself the pledge
and guarantee of the true conclusion of all human history.
For all this is connected together as by a firm and con
tinuous thread ; and no one will possibly arise in the future
to break it, but he will annihilate also at the same time all
that is truly human and divine. So contemplated generally,
all this is relevant here in this chapter concerning creation
and the world in their connection with God. The whole
subject will be further discussed more in detail below.
§ 281. Meauwhile the proper observation and survey of
the whole course of this divine order is for man in all the
situations and modes of life, a matter, on the one hand, of
such importance, and on the other of such difficult}', if the
whole infinite truth concerning it is to be exhausted, that
the Bible presents and illustrates it in many different ways,
adapted to the diversity of human apprehension.
1. Where an order is spoken of, .^6. something always
in movement and progress, men think rightly enough of
stedfast and invariable laws which determine the order,
and which so uphold it that it keeps its uniform course
continually without let or hindrance. In this highest of
all conceivable cases, laws certainly may be spoken of as
always upholding the order of the world ; indeed, God may
be regarded as Himself the law of the universe. Thus the
whole question might be considered to resolve itself into a
detailed exposition of this highest all-comprehending law, or,
in other words, the proper ascertainment of the particular
fundamental powers of the divine mind which established
the whole universe, and lead it forwards to its ultimate
goal. The Bible speaks of the "laws of Heaven," and of
' § 251 ff, pp. 133-148.

206 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Heaven's rule over the earth, made possible and actual
by means of such laws ; partly according to the right
feeling that all that is worthy of the name of dominion,
whether it be limited or infinite, must rest upon the sway
of laws, by which alone it can be established and upheld ;
partly according to the equally right feeling that the earth,
as compared with the immeasurable heaven above, is too
small and too feeble not to be dominated by it.' In the
course of the divine order of the universe, how much that
is still imperfectly known depends upon these and other
laws of the world above and beyond us ! It is true, our
human world seems not to be subject to such stedfast and
all-embracing laws as that above it ; the free will of man
appears to prevail here without measure or limit, so that
human caprice may be said to dominate ; ineradicable errors
and sudden deeds of violence of mighty men seem incessantly
to combine to disturb, confuse, and lay waste everything
anew. But all this is only appearance. In the stir and
strife of this present unsettled state of things, men are
often, like blind players, bewildered in the turmoil they
help to create. That the human world, like that above
and beyond it, is dominated by eternal divine laws, the
great history of the world shows, as the Bible unveils it
in its chief contents and true significance, and as it stands
before us more and more fully unveiled to-day. The main
difficulty is that man himself is called upon to employ
his faculties, not only in ascertaining these laws, and
especially those affecting himself, but also to subject his
free will to them when known ; a submission which in
his caprice he regards as not at all needful, and even most
• From these words from the Book of Job, it may clearly be seen how fully
perverse and groundless is the opinion of the Ludwigsburg Strauss and his
present-day followers, that the Biblical religion is no longer of any service,
because it knows nothing of the Copernican laws of heaven and the relation of
this little earth to them. Of the smallness of the earth in the universe
already the Book of Job knows enough ; but a man who does not wish to
know anything of God, as is the case with Strauss, may as well hide himself
behind Copernicus as behind any other human name.

THE CONTINUALLY PROGRESSIVE ORDEE OF THE WOELD. 207
irksome, while strictly considered it is his one great necessity.
But the start has been made in this direction long since.
For what are the Ten Commandments but well-known divine
laws prescribing the right rule of life, in the observance
of which man places himself upon the line of the eternal
progress of the divine order of the world ? And what are
all Christ's words but so many powerful inducements and
incentives to the submission of the free will of the whole
human race, without the outward constraint of such prescribed
commands, to the divine laws which specially relate to man ?
2. But the mere discovery and knowledge of the laws
of the divine order do not always suffice. There are times
and moods in which man cannot but fervently rejoice in
the actual realization of this order, and its unfailing wisdom,
in his own experience. The ancient nation of the true
religion looked upon the whole universe as in closest union
with God, and regarded it as the vast house in which He
rules.' It was natural, therefore, to think of that rule as
oversight, care, or providence with which the true lord
watches over everything in his house, distributing at the
proper time what is due to every member of it, and
neglecting none.^ Varied and ever-changing thoughts and
images spring from this representation, but all of them
striking and appropriate. Everything which has life and
growth experiences this divine guardianship,' or this fore-
^ As in the clearest way the long Ps. civ. shows from its first to its last
thoughts. " The verb IpB and the noun nipS are the words prevailingly employed in
the Old Testament in this sense ; but they have a reference to the rule of one
exercising oversight and guardianship over a house, even the largest and most
comprehensive. The LXX. indeed translate them by iriirxi'r'ri.Tixi, iTurxora,
and otherwise variously by other words, only not by xpoiaCi, ¦rpiioix. These
Greek words, which give a still more finely appropriate sense, were preferred
later, according to Wisd. xiv. 3, xvii. 2, and with reason ; they were, however,
very customarily employed about the beginning of the Christian times, according
to 2 Mace. iv. 6, Acts xxiv. 3, in order to designate most delicately, and thence
.also in the way of flattery, the administration of supreme dominion. The
Vulgate translated the words providere, providentia.
¦' Job X. 12,

208 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
sight of the divine favour.' As the just administrator of
the Vv'hole affairs of a great house does not overlook the most
isolated and detached part of it under his care, but at the
right time devotes to it the special attention it deserves, so
God visits the individual man, the whole nation, or the whole
of humanity, either with His favour ^ or His chastisement.^
Yet it would be impossible to mention here everything of this
kind the Bible contains, as may readily be understood. This,
however, is worthy of note, the Bible nowhere has in it
fictitious narratives, such as are much written in modern
times, to prove the reality of divine providence. With the
Bible, for good reasons, nothing is more self-e-vident from the
beginning than the reality of it: and nowhere is the con
sciousness of it more forcibly and exultingly manifest than in
the Psalter, and at length with triumphant and luminous
clearness in Christ Himself.
3. Furthermore, the Bible shows how vigorously the minds
of the godly of those days often struggled vividly to feel and
realize the actual existence of the divine sovereignty in the
universe, as well as to present a view of it by clear bright
image and graphic picture. What does man more readily
forget and overlook than that which at every moment he
ought least of all to forget and overlook, viz. the highest and
sublimest truths ? It was as if for the purpose of counter
acting this tendency or supplying the need thus felt, that the
conception of angels of all kinds,* as an indestructible heir
loom from the world's earliest youth, a creation springing
from the first freshness of man's faculty of figurate per
ception, must have been the more eagerly preserved in the
actual life of true religion in the ancient nation, and now also
for ever confronts us from the Bible with new and animating
^ As Gen. xxi. 1 ; 1 Sam. ii. 21 ; Luke i. 68, 78, vii. 16 ; Act^ xv. 14.
" As apart from the cases just mentioned, in such passages as Ex. iii. 16, iv.
31 ; but in the form of a request only, Ps. cvi. 4.
3 As Isa. X. 3 ; the LXX., in cases like Ex. xx. 5, render it therefore by
xToiiimxi, retribuere.
* Cf. §§ 214-227, pp. 66-80.

THE CONTINUALLY PEOGEESSIVE OEDEE OF THE WOELD. 209
power. The thought of angels and the most graphic repre
sentation of their nature surprised the pious of old time with
the most vivid feeling of their nearness. Especially was this
the case from the ancient and simpler days down to the time
of David ; while with a new and all-transfiguring power such
conceptions returned in the first period of Christianity, when
Christianity had to find for itself a fitting home upon earth.
In the intermediate times, although the thought of angels lost
more and more its original glow, and continued in speech to
be referred to with increasing prevalency rather as a once
familiar and ancient conception, yet its essential truth can
never wholly be lost. The more strongly and widely the
need was felt to present to the mind the divine sovereignty
of the universe and its course in fuller and more systematic
view and in clearer images, and the more vividly on this
account the thought still returned to the old sacred concep
tions of heavenly spirits and powers of all kinds, the more
fitting was it that the great poets and prophets should meet
this need, as they alone could meet it. Medallion-like
pictures of the administration of the heavenly powers were
given on the one hand by the poet of Ps. xxix. and the
author of the Book of Job, and on the other by Isaiah,
Ezekiel, the writer of the Book of Daniel, and the
Apocalyptist of the New Testament, all bringing such
heavenly powers before us in their highest perfection
and with ever-fresh instructiveness. Thus the more indelibly
is impressed upon the mind, the more profoundly realized,
the fundamental truth, that there is a purely divine order
and rule of the world, which above all human authori
ties and kingdoms stands for ever sublime, inviolate,
immovably stedfast, serving for their enlightenment and
consolation when they do not estrange themselves from it,
for their condemnation and punishment when they do.
This is, in short, "the will of God" of which Christ ever
bade His disciples be mindful, and concerning which He
taught them to pray that by men it might always be
0

210 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
"done on earth" "as" in every moment "it is" actually
" in heaven." '

XII, THE WONDEES OF THE BIBLE.
^' § 172. God does wonders ; and His ways in the midst of
men, His power, light, word, are wonderful ; and He Himself
is the wonderful mysterious God. Whatever is meant by
" wonderful " must be in harmony with God's being in
general in its distinction from the universe and man. That
which appears new, extraordinary ; that which is unexpected,
surprising, the process of which is unexplained, and the course
of which from beginning to end is not to be traced, is
wonderful. Yet even when by reference to that which is
known of things and their higher connection, astonishment
ceases, the nearer view opens new problems, and wonder
begins afresh; much more does this obtain in spiritual
things. When wonder ceases, history ceases for man ; he is
no longer man, but becomes as God.
* § 192. The idea of " wonder-working " is a special aspect
of omnipotence. The wonder is what is new and unexpected,
1 Matt. vi. 10 ; Luke xi. 2. Superficially taken, these highly important
words might be understood as saying, may the will of God as there, cUso here,
i. e. everywhere be done, in heaven and upon earth. But taken literally, the
sentence would then run, according to the simplicity of the Hebrew, simply "in
heaven and upon earth," without any further ch'oumlocution and special pre
eminence in relation to heaven. Nay, it would then still more simply run,
" Thy will be done," as actually some manuscripts read in Luke. But that iu
heaven bad and good spirits strive with each other, many such spectacles as
Rev. xii. illustrate, and passages like Job xxv. 2, cf. with iii. &b, v. 76,
ix. 13i, and others presuppose. Nevertheless, that the wUl of God is not
done in heaven, and bad spirits there can be as disobedient to it as men upon
earth, is against everything which the Bible says in the Old Testament, and
which can be reconciled with the true religion ; least of all, however, would an
idea of this kind be consonant with the words of Christ. The words are there
fore necessarily to be understood as speaking of heaven as the place where con
tinually and without exception the. will of God is done, and so the kingdom of
heaven itself just before mentioned as the pure pattern for the earth, and whose
present inhabitants are referred to ; accordingly the words run, " as in heaven "
it is done, " so upon earth."

THE WONDERS OF THE BIBLE. 211
and is the work of the same Spirit that created everything ;
the possible wonders of God are not determinable and
measurable beforehand. '' Nothing is impossible with God,"
"nothing too wonderful for Him."
§ 282. The Bible speaks, however, not only of the wonders
of God, but also of wonders which happen through man. The
significance of such wonders in relation to the course of God's
order in the universe now demands consideration.
1, How feeble and often culpably indolent and blind man
is in discerning the divine order of the world as it exists, we
have already seen ; and we have traced the stages by which
our knowledge of this divine order must advance to approxi
mate with certainty and confidence to its ultimate end. Now
all recognition of God, of His Being and of His way in the
universe, arises in the first instance from the deep impressions
the outward world makes upon the mind of man. But in the
many and diverse incidents which have long since made such
impressions, and which formed the material for the kindling
of such high knowledge of God and His power in the world,
there may be some incident of a wholly unexpected character
which occasions wonder and astonishment, making the mind
again and again attentive to the obscure and unknown work
ings of that supreme power, long since reverenced as this or
that God, or even recalling to the thought the actual existence
of God so often and so readily forgotten. In the general and
common acceptation these are " wonders," the " signs " and
" tokens " of the Divine, otherwise hidden from view, to
which the heathen gave heed in early times, and which their
priests sought to classify and interpret and refer to their
different divine sources.' For heathen nations, with their
awakened sense and timid fear of the Divine, always paid
great regard to the strangest and most wonderful occurrences,
1 Apart from the immediate names for wonders, niN?D3 and poetically ii^n
T : ¦ V ... »
two words in Hebrew have been preserved, manifestly from the very earliest
times, signifying wonderful sign or prodigy ; niK, "i/nTov, and nsia- Both
originally designated certainly different kinds of prodigies ; but their distinction

212 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
and their priests found a special occupation in collecting care
fully and explaining certain kinds of them, although they
never did more than minister to a vague sense of wonde?
or offer interpretations of an arbitrary and fanciful character;
with a view to serve at times mere private ends.
How entirely different was it in the community of the true
religion from its commencement under Moses! Here, the
true God alone being the sum and measure of things spiritual,
and a large and certain knowledge of God Himself and
spiritual things having been established, it was required that
everything that with right could be called a wonder should
contribute to the better knowledge of the majesty and grace
of God, and to the greater fear of His name, and only a
wonder that really and manifestly answered such an end was
regarded as a true wonder.' Thus mere blind astonishment
and vain guesses at interpretation vanish; but the wonder
still retains its wonderfulness. In the later and degenerate
days, however, when seductive heathen usages had found
their way into the community, and in the practice or the
furtherance of false religion wonders merely casual or arti'-
ficially produced became prevalent, the Deuteronomist, in
fluenced by the vigorous and persistent denunciations of the
prophets,^ enlarged the scope and augmented the stringency of
the old prohibition, and showed clearly and distinctly enough
the pernicious character of such superstitions.'
is now no longer quite clear ; in their roots they are both altogether isolated.
Meanwhile nix corresponds to the Arabic, and flSiD is more a "foretoken"
(" prefiguration ; " LXX. ripxs ; portentum,) than a simple sign, from an old root
na'' = J?3', nSN "to shine bright," with which the ancient proper name Japhet
-T - T TT
is connected. Cf. History, i. 279 f.
1 This may be seen clearly enough from the " that you may know that God is
so and so," Ex. ix. 16, xiv. 4, 17 (repeated in Rom. ix. 17), Ps. lix. 13, and
also from all the narratives of miracles in the Bible. From this is explained
also how, at least in the higher speech, everything with right to be thought
such a wonder could be called briefly HX'lij, augustum quid, 2 Sam. vii. 23 ;
Deut. X. 21 ; B. Isa. Ixiv. 2 ; according to Ex. xv. 11 ; Ps. Ixv. 6 (Eng.
version, 5).
^ As especially Jer. x. 2-10.
' Deut. xiii. 2-6. Cf. Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 213-217.

THE WONDERS OF THE BIBLE. 213
Still later in the changing history of the ancient community
there came periods when with the possession of the sacred
books the knowledge of the true God seemed to abound, and
the passionate contentions and ill-advised endeavours of the
day could be surveyed with a wholly new composure.
Qoheleth in his calm philosophic glance at human affairs and
things universal affirms a proposition altogether new and
unheard-of hitherto in antiquity. " There is nothing new,"
he says, " under the sun," i.e. in the course and experience of
earthly things ; " what has been and has liappened " is only
the same that " will be and will happen," and conversely what
" will come and has to come " is only the same that "long ago
has been," and so all earthly affairs are conceived as moving
in a circle, and therefore empty and vain.' This calm reflec
tion upon the course of the world, sustained as it is by the
eternal laws of the universe and its order,^ and in its un
favourable sense by the common course of human affairs,'
fairly claims its right, especially in the face of the foolish
boastings and idle fancies of men. If we consider how things
occur in the world, it seems that everything repeats itself as
in a perpetual circle. In all ages kingdoms rise and fall,
good men and bad appear, success and failure are found.
Differences there are, but they are only of more or less, and
in the higher survey these all vanish. The later the age, and
Qoheleth manifestly belongs to a late period of the Old Testa
ment, the more certainly will such an observation force itself
upon the mind. Why marvel or be disturbed about anything
in the world ? says Qoheleth in effect From such a reflection
* Eccles. i. 9 f. ; repeated, as previously shown, iii. 1 5. In this passage (iii. 15)
the accentuation iu the case of "D3 is wrong, notwithstanding the apparent
similarity of the words in L 9, vi. 10 ; as already has been said in Dichter, ii.
p. 302 ; but merely because according to the present reading the N5n which
follows makes a ditfioulty. All things well considered, one must really decide
to read instead KW, "will be "; which rare form is found also in xL 3, and is
explained in Lehrbuch, § 192<;.
^ According to Eccles. i. 4-8.
* Upon which -Qoheleth then bases a second main proof of his proposition from
i. 12 onwards.

o

214 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
there is only a step to the denial or rejection of all wonders.
But Qoheleth guards himself against so great an offence
against all true piety,' and nowhere speaks of wonders at all,
or indeed of the wonders of God, still less does he deny them.
And soon enough in the course of its great history there came
for this ancient community wholly other times ; and at the
beginning of Christianity not simply were the earlier wonders
repeated, but wonders of far higher and more spiritual type
awoke the surprise of all who had eyes to see them.
2. There are, to be sure, many instances of what the world
calls wonders, and they are of infinite variety in character.
The busy art of apt and clever men and the easy credulity of
the people tended to increase their number. How the word
was misused in early times, when already a very high national
culture existed, is seen in Egyptian history as we know it from'
the biography of Moses in the Pentateuch. The true religion,
however, from the first favours the right view of all that can
be called " wonders," and the Bible appropriately distinguishes
three chief kinds : — (a) There are wonders of creation or
Nature, as well in the material world as earthquakes, as in
the animal and human worlds. There are obscure phenomena
surprising the mind or painfully affecting the whole man,
whether momentarily and irresistibly as the earthquake, or
gradually and by calm reflection as the wonder of the spirit
of man itself and its connection with God. To this latter
phenomenon the most thoughtful of the Psalmists points;^
and indeed the longer it is pondered the more wonderful it
seems. Of all these wonders the Bible teaches that they
should lead man to recognise the more fully the power of God
and the grandeur of His work ; ' not that they should give
rise to any kind of superstition or despair, but rather that like
everything else in creation, and each in its own way, they should
' How far away does the wise Qoheleth stand from all present-day blank
doubters or foolish deniers of the Biblical wonders !
' Ps. cxxxix. 5, 13.
' What on this point Christ teaches tersely and decisively in two words, John
ix. 3, cf. 34, the whole Bible teaches also at least in its main principle.

THE WONDEES OF THE BIBLE. 2l5
contribute to the larger knowledge of God Himself, and the
more complete realization of His rule throughout the universe.
(b) There are other wonders which are seen in human
history in rare and mighty movements and transformations,
when the latent forces of the human spirit are roused to
action and charged with the power of the divine spirit ;
wonders which in their course, and especially in their brilliant
and splendid issues, show themselves in different ways accord
ing to the nature of such powerful historic impulses, but are
all alike in the irresistible energy they manifest. The chief
examples of such wonders are foUnd in the history of the
origin of the Old Testament community and of the formation
of the New Testament community, while in the intermediate
period something of a similar character occurs. Spiritual
wonders here come forth to view, and in their light all wonders
of the outward world first become plain. But such wonders,
according to express intimations everywhere given in the Bible,
should induce men the more certainly to mark the reality and
the eternal progress of the divine order of the world ; and if
such recognition is more likely to arise in the minds of
immediate contemporaries, the more carefully will succeeding
generations reflect upon the wonders of past days that in all
freshness of feeling such lesson may be learnt anew.' For in
proportion as the bright image of the constant divine order of
the world and its progress is obscured by error and doubt and
the bewildering effects of sin, and withdrawn from man's view,
the more beneficially will the thought of it again and again
be recalled, and if by nothing else, at least by the fact of the
occurrence of such wonders.
(c) There are also men whose work, nay whose very
presence and life on earth, are themselves a wonder. The
spiritual forces of twofold origin, of which we have just
spoken, may meet in them, raised to an extraordinary degree
of power, may gather up their strength for large and fruitful
issues, and flash forth light and radiance far and wide as
1 As the example of Ex. xii. 26-28 may show.

216 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
from the hearth of a mighty and glowing fire. Moreover, as
with the human spirit so here, an infinite gradation of stages
of energy and activity may occur. The sphere also in which
such deeds of wonder are displayed may vary with the wants
of the age or the needs of living individual men. From
Moses onward through the long series of prophets to Christ,
and from Christ downwards to the last of the apostles, what
manifold diversity and gradations appear ! Since now the
human and divine spirit as in their most secret laboratory
touch and blend and work actively together in these wonders,
they Me primarily wonders of the spirit. Such wonders only
men of corresponding capability of spirit can understand, as
indeed is the case with all wonders ; but the perversity of
men may lead them to intermeddle and foolishly mix them
selves up with what is beyond the range of their power.
It was felt in the whole of antiquity that wonders of the
spirit were especially to be expected of the prophets, and
the life of Moses shows how early heathen prophets sought
to intrude amid such wonders their own merely insidious
arts and evil aims.' As with everything spiritual that shows
itself vwith creative energy, so with real wonders of this
kind, ithey arise and surprise the world without the precon
certed planning and devising of the men who are their in
struments. Only as such do these wonders demonstrate that
there are divine forces of which man may prefer perhaps not
to think at all, and demonstrate their existence and co
operation in a higher order of the world all the more definitely
and impressively the more the doctrine and the rest of the
life of the man from whom these wonders gleam forth, already
announce it of themselves. But clearly as wonders of this
kind may point to what stands above them, nevertheless those
previously mentioned, which may be designated as immediately
^ To understand exactly the conflict between Moses and the magicians of
Egypt (Ex. iii. -xii. 36) is here of great importance. It is the one conflict
between all false and true religion, a conflict conducted on the one hand by
unspiritual, on the other by spiritual weapons, and in which people, king, and
government were alike involved.

THE WONDERS OF THE BIBLE. 217
the wonders of God in history, are necessarily of still weightier
and more universal significance.'
3. Furthermore, subsequent generations began to contem
plate the great wonders detailed in the old writings, rather in
relation only to what is wonderful in narrative, and to make
use of them as material for the praise of God, the leader
and guide of His people. The greater the distance from the
grand days of their ancestors, and the less favoured in cir
cumstances they felt themselves in comparison, the more
fondly did they revel in such contemplations, as we see in
some later portions of the Old Testament.^ The Greek
lovers of wisdom, on the contrary, especially after the time
of Aristotle, were accustomed to contemplate the whole creation
altogether apart from God. They regarded everything accord
ing to its visible qualities and hidden powers, and called the
inner constitution and life of a thing, as inborn with it and
invariable, its Physis, or in Latin, natura. The true relation
and state in which all conceivable things stood was then
designated also by the same term ; ^ and at length instead of
" creation," or the " world," they said at once " nature." *
After the creation had thus been separated from God many
began to explain the Biblical wonders, especially those of the
Old Testament, as if God had constrained nature to suffer
^ As according to John's profound conception of Christ's miracles is actually
felt. Cf. Die Johan. Schriften, i. 29, 415 ff'.
' The oldest and at the same time briefest instance of the kind is the
addition of the Deuteronomist to Joshua, viz. Josh. x. 136-14. Cf. History,
ii. 251. Then follow such picturings as in Wisd. xvi. 24 f, 27 f., xix. 5-7,
17-21 ; and the much longer instances of the kind in Philo, which indeed
may be called sermons. After Christ the Rabbis came with their ^y^J2-
'* The use of the word (fMis is altogether foreign to all the Gospels, so certainly
is its import not genuinely Hebrew. Paul introduces such thoughts and
phrases as "nature teaches," 1 Cor. xi. 14 ; cf. Rom. i. 26, ii. 14, xi. 21-24 ;
Gal. iv. 8 ; then Jas. iii. 7 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4. According to the very essence of the
true religion, "nature "was most readily seen or made prominent in human
things, where spirit was not found, or at least did not come into question, as
in Gal. ii. 15, Rom. ii. 27 ; so the Epistle to the Ephesians (ii. 3) calls those not
born again, " by nature children of " divine "anger," towards whom, because
they despise Him, God can only be angry.
* So first 4 Mace. v. 7f., no doubt in the best sense, "the love-gifts of
nature. "

218 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
them or to help to produce them. But such representations
could arise only in the Hellenistic age.' The Old Testament
in its ancient and grandest time calls everything which Greek
philosophers termed nature, rather " law of God," ^ and regards
it as self-evident that the Lawgiver will not violate His own
law, and that God will not act from caprice or exigency as
if He were frail and fallible man. . As soon therefore as
Christianity entered the world, a fresh and healthy experience
and view of things returned, and the mind no longer delights
in a merely wondering or perhaps subtle and rationalistic
contemplation of the old yet sacred narratives ; and in the
New Testament we meet with nothing of the kind. So much
the more then are we entitled to-day, when a thousand reasons
urge us to careful investigation and thorough understanding
of the historical parts of the Bible, to distinguish in the
wonders recorded the essential matter-of-fact from the mere
narrative ; and never to forget that with the Biblical narratives
this is even the more necessary, the higher the estimate we
form of their value as aids to the knowledge of all true
religion, and the more we would build upon them, in harmony
with such knowledge, a sound and intelligent faith.^ Mean
while, all experience hitherto teaches that the Biblical
narratives of deeds of wonder have nothing to fear from the
keenest scientific inquiry, if only the nature and significance
of the wonders themselves are not at the outset misappre
hended, and the historical investigation is not superficially
' In the B. Wisd. xvi. 24 is first found the representation of a wonder as an
instance in which the creation, xtIch, or as we now say '* nature," gave way or
yielded, compelled by the Creator. Thus what iu the Old Testament is ex
pressed merely poetically is made into a doctrine of the schools, and thereby, as
the words show, becomes something essentially different.
^ ph or tDStJ'Di ''s Job xxxviii. 33 ; Jer. v. 22, xxxi. 35, xxxiii. 25 ; cf.
Isa. V. 14.
' If this primary and direct reason should not suffice in the view of some of
our contemporaries, the deviations which so often occur in the different narra
tives of the same event, compel us, as is well known, to seek the historical
basis ; and in so far the compilers of the Canon, in admitting such different
narratives, were of broader and wiser mind than some of our present-day critics
who misunderstand and pervert the Bible.

THE WONDEES OF THE BIBLE. 219
conducted, or the judgment warped by prejudice. In all such
researches, the result will show what are the strictly historical
contents that each particular narrative or group of narratives
may be found to possess.' The more highly significant a
wonder related in the Bible has proved or may yet prove
itself in its bearing upon the mood and tendency of the
human spirit, the more necessary is it to remember that it
has a wholly special and immediate reference to the minds of
those whom it first impressed, and retains its true importance
and significance only in that relation. In the Old Testament
there is no wonder of more powerful effect at the moment of
its occurrence, and none of mightier subsequent influence, than
that which made the deliverance of Israel at the Eed Sea under
Moses the consecration-day of the community of the true
religion. It may first of all have been known to the nation
in that rare and lofty mood of mind which finds corresponding
expression in the well-known song ; ^ but it does not lose
thereby its significance for the faith of a whole community
in the actual existence and power of the divine order of the
world. It may have been brought forward in new form by
later hands again and again in the attempt to disclose anew
freshly and vividly to a subsequent age its abiding significance ; ^
even then its original force and meaning, and the eternal
truth it embodies, do not suffer, if simply and firmly grasped,
notwithstanding all later representations with their diverse
and easily misleading ideas. Or the actual experience may
possibly have occurred at a time when an unusual ebb and
' After all that has been said in the History and elsewhere, it is unnecessary
to say more here. It is self-evident, however, that in those times or places of
the old community, when the spirit was distracted and oppressed, narratives of
wonders would take such a colour as the traditions about Elijah and Elisha,
History, iv. 83 ff. ; and in those when it was affected by a kind of Greek love
of fine -writing, such a colour as in the Apoiiryphal works. History, v. 466-471.
W-hat a wholly other spirit breathes in the New Testament narratives of
miracles ! But even Buddhist and all other legendary wonders of heathen
nations show how their character and nature were determined by the kind
of religion prevalent in connection with them, whilst along with this other
influences would help to give them currency.
2 Ex. XV. = Cf.- further History, ii. 70-76.

220 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
flow of the tide in the bay, and an unusual lofty and intense
spiritual mood of the people combined together to produce at
a critical moment a most decisive influence upon the whole
history, not merely of these two nations, but of the progress
of the true religion, raising to the highest degree of power
confidence in the divine salvation of all loyal servants of
God, even though well-nigh lost in the depths of despair;
but not even then would its significance be destroyed. And
much the same is it in the New Testament with respect to
the resurrection of Christ, which John rightly regards as
standing above all the wonders Christ Himself accomplished,
because it occurred through no hand of man, not even Christ's,
but was experienced by Him and known to His disciples as
the purely divine issue of the highest intercommunion and
fellowship of the Spirit of God with the human spirit, when
the outward and visible occasion to such issue had quite
disappeared. There are to-day scholars so infatuated and so blind to the
wonders of the Bible that they wholly refuse to admit their
reality, and would consequently extirpate the word miracle
from all ancient and modern tongues. But the divine order
of the world and its progress, to which all Biblical wonders
point, is itself the supreme and only true wonder for men.
Every instance of it, however small, is a wonder ; ' how much
more the' whole sweep of it ! He who has no feeling of
wonder for that which is divine, and would quench the Hght
that shines from the universe to illumine our dim spiritual
vision, has already lost the best elements of that higher nature
with which man is endowed,
[In a note in another part of this work, Ewald says :
" The supposition that ' the wonder ' breaks* or suspends the
laws of nature is wholly remote from the living sense of the
' As those words in Ps. cxxxix. 5, 13 with such depth and true emotion
prove ; whilst an apostle expresses himself somewhat in the same strain in
Rom. xi. 33 f. But not less suitable here are the v;ords in Job xi. 7-9,
xxxviii. 6 «•. ; B. Isa. xl. 13 f., xiv. 15.

THE WONDEES OF THE BIBLE. 221
Bible, and is one of those over-subtle scholastic opinions
which arose in the Middle Ages and obtained currency amidst
a pedantic coldness of understanding. The Bible knows
nothing of laws of nature as opposed to divine laws ; how
can it therefore suppose 'the wonder' should interrupt or
disturb these divine laws?" — ii. p, 115. Cf. Revelation; its
Nature and Record, pp. 238-240,
The following passages from the History are amongst those
referred to by Ewald in the notes : " What constitutes the
grandeur of this history (the Passage of the Eed Sea) so
rapidly attained is that now the entire people, as by external
power and visible proofs, discern the true spiritual God as
their actual Lord and Eedeemer, and thus an unbounded
joyous spirit is aroused to know still more of His truths and
His laws, to desire His sole guidance, and to dare the utter
most under such leadership. Gleams of sunlight such as
these are rare in the history of the world, still rarer in that
of single nations ; and with regard to that event we are sadly
deficient in the completeness of the remembrances. But the
day of Marathon, and that of Salamis, cannot have shone so
brightly on the earth, nor kindled upon it such a light as this
day, which might truly be named the baptismal day of the
true community." — History, ii. 72.
" The province of religion is always the province of miracles
also, because it is that of pure and strong faith in the presence
and operation of heavenly forces actually as well as passively ;
where, therefore, true religion makes the most powerful
efforts, there will be a corresponding display of miracles
which will either actually take place through the activity of
the believing spirit, or will at any rate be experienced by the
believing heart ; while to be vividly penetrated, though only
from a distance, with the might of such forces is itself a gain.
Thus far the age of Elijah and Elisha, when the true religion
was obliged to maintain itself with the utmost force against
its internal enemies, was as rich in miracles as the days of
Moses and Joshua, or the conclusion of the period of the
Judges had been; only these miracles do not now 'as in the
time of Moses and Joshua affect the whole nation, nor as in
the era of the last Judges are they directed against a foreign
people, but they proceed from a few individual prophets, who

222 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
are compelled as instruments of the ancient religion to exert
all the greater power, as in the nation itself the true faith
threatens to disappear. No such stories can be anything
more than scattered traces of the action of a spirit in itself
miraculous, and of the impression immediately produced by
it ; but that there is some spirit of power in religion, to the
agency of which they all point, is only the more certain."
— Ibid. iv. 83 f.
" But in the case of Christ, His ordinary daily work was
itself an unbroken series of deeds of power; what therefore
must those deeds have been which in certain rare moments
rose above His ordinary labours as from the combined force
of His spiritual powers which had been called into the
greatest activity!" — Ibid. vii. 226.
" But although Jesus might publicly perform a deed of
power. He never did it with a view to show thereby that He
was invested with regal authority and to attain thereby some
special object, as if He required such outward striking proofs
of His divine vocation as the Messiah. Simply as urged by
love and compassion did He give help by His deeds as the
moment called for it ; and every one of His deeds of power,
whether it was the smallest or the greatest, was always at the
same time a deed of love. . . . Not one of them was performed
in order to arouse the attention of the people and fix it upon the
worker . . , nor, as with the ancient prophets, to induce in
the first instance faith in His words, or supply a preliminary
proof of them ; , . . rather did He rebuke sternly all who
demanded or even expected that He must first by His
miraculous deeds prove before their eyes that He was the
Christ."— /MtZ. 228.
" This very circumstance of His touching and laying His
hands on the sufferer, and of His seeking to be disturbed as
little as possible during the healing act, points to the fact
that His human operation, as need hardly be remarked, was
regulated by the general laws of the divine order of the world,
and that He by no means sought presumptuously to supersede
them." — Ibid. 225.
" Primarily we may say it was the whole spirit of Christ
that was operative in this case also, and which likewise
sought to influence as powerfully as possible the spirit of the

THE NATURE AND OFFICK OF FAITH. 223
sufferer before all things. As nothing but the purest and
most soul-absorbing faith in the ultimate celestial Healer
inspired Him, always conscious as He was of the measure and
aim of His powers of healing, and a previous glance to heaven,
enlightened and strengthened Him for the actual work, so
likewise He required before all things, if his healing act was
to be effective, faith in the presence of the perfected kingdom
. of God, with all its boundless forces and powers ; and neither
could nor would heal where He did not find such faith." —
Ibid. 2 2 4. J

XIII. THE NATURE AND OFFICE OF FAITH.
§ 300. In the attitude of mind repentance and regeneration
give, scarcely has man entered on the way leading to the true
salvation but he learns by experience how difficult that way
is. From two very different causes the chief difficulty may
be said to arise. On the one hand, he may be surprised by
thoughts and even deeds that do not spring from the tendency
of the new purity and strength, but from that of the old
impurity and weakness leading to sin. For the spirit of
the individual man in every new period and situation must
take up a new position against inner and outer temptations,
and may too easily fall back again into its old position, as
Peter's defections show. On the other hand, as the power of
that which is good, established by the conflict of all who in
the world of mankind have made progress upon the right
way, forms one united source of influence, so also is it with
the power of evil ; and he who finds the right way must be
prepared to discover that this whole power of evil as it still
lives and may continually augment its energy in the world,
may turn itself against him. Whilst therefore he has to
fight that he may not fall back again into earlier errors and
perversities, the forces and continuous issues of evil outside
him may throw themselves upon him with the more vehe
mence, the more necessarily in the midst of the course of the

224 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
v/orld all human things have indissoluble affinity and fellow
ship with each other as against the will of the individual
man. Just in this the severest strain begins to be felt by all
who will not forsake the right way to God ; as indeed not
only the Bible but all experience testifies.
But when once man stands at the beginning of the right
way in that mood of mind that springs from repentance and
the new birth, there meets him as it were spontaneously a
new power wonderfully invigorating and defensive, viz. faith.
For the general capability of faith, that of holding as true and
reliable what is not seen or possessed, and even in spite of its
not being seen or possessed, is one of the many capabilities
and powers of mind peculiar to man, and also one of the best
and most prominent proofs that with man everything ulti
mately depends on mind alone. In the lower relations of
human life, and with every fundamental effort and tendency
of the human mind towards some higher aim, faith has a
significance which no other quality of character can bear.
So is it most emphatically in the lofty and direct relation
between God and man ; and, indeed, only he who is accustomed
to cherish and value faith in this loftier sphere of religion -will
exercise it also in the lower relations of life, and value it
highly wherever it is found. At this point, however, we
may distinctly mark, where in the loftier sphere faith must
take its place, where it has its proper claim to act, and where
also it can unfold the power peculiarly its own. In fact,
just at the outset of man's religious life, faith must become
a quickening and impelling power, or it will never become
such. For when a man really sets foot on the way to God,
he has found the way upon which also God Himself moves,
and upon which with Him the eternal order of the world has
its course ; the way which corresponding to the divine aim of
creation will lead man to salvation. It is here that man
may become so possessed and inspired by the highest divine
truth and its whole mighty energy, that he shall never again
abandon that truth, and always be conscious of its energy

THE NATURE AND OFFICE OF FAITH. 225
working effectively within him. He who has once appro
priated as an impelling force the truth that God actually
exists and that human life must follow His will alone, and
who clings with unvarying constancy to this conviction, is
also possessed and influenced by the power of all the divine
forces to which his spirit has now drawn nigh, and in com
munion with which he now lives. This is the faith which in
its necessity and its whole wonderful energy has its true place
here, and must here at the initial stage begin to act for the
advancement of the whole spiritual life. It stands thus as a
power of the human spirit side by side with conscience, but
presupposes as already given the truth which conscience
recognises as certain and necessary, and to which with its
inner voice it gives expression ; and it holds fast this truth
in all subsequent life and effort as sure and irrefragable.
Faith borders closely upon fidelity and confidence ; ' as to its
essential nature, it is loyal and firm adherence, against all
difficulties and opposition and in the whole of this present
existence, to all the truths and forces of the divine Hfe
as that life should be realized among men ; but as a power
it is the true stay and firm impregnable defence of the
way to God upon which man already moves. Where both
elements combine, it is also in its manifestation a clear
proof, over against all doubt and unbelief, of things the out
ward eye may neither see nor find, but which nevertheless
most surely exist.^
§ 301. If now faith derives its power from the truth it
appropriates, and from those forces which may lie in every
truth that man has received with living freshness into his
mind, it is evident that the energy of faith is the more
indestructible and enduring, and just on this account the
more salutary and beneficial, the higher the fundamental
1 Both meanings are contained in the Hebrew word njDN, which the LXX.
quite commonly translate by trim;. In Latin with credo there stands as a,
noun fides ; in Greek with triVri; =fides, there stands as a verb virTiviu,
2 Heb, xi. 1. P

226 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
truth rises in which a reHgion lives and moves. For
heathenism has also its faith, a faith of high antiquity, finely,
artistically, and in many aspects of it even soundly developed,
like the Indian and ancient Persian ; Islam, too, finds its faith
even to-day. But only the true religion gives the basis of a
faith that through all experiences and changes in the world
is just as incapable of decay as it is promotive of the eternal
ways of God with men, and as in the course of the ages it is
more and more widely the conqueror of human hearts. Such
a faith was established by the founding of the community of
the true religion under Moses, the earliest antiquity affording
the prelude to it ; this is the teaching of history. But the
significance of faith itself became gradually more manifest in
this community, and the comprehension of its value and its
indispensable necessity more complete. Little is said of it,
however, so long as the true religion energeticaUy maintains
itself in its first mighty confidence, when religion was the
very life of the community.' But as soon as the clear-
shining day begins to decline, and with the division of the
Davidic kingdom there is weakness without and dissolution
of the essential vigour of the higher faith within, and an
irrepressible feeling of some inherent deficiency prevails,
then the wonderful nature and unique power of faith are
recognised more and more clearly, and the demand for faith
becomes the frequent and definite demand of the best of the
prophets.^ Indeed, at this time in the high places of society,
through the influence of perverse schools of wisdom, faith
was so honeycombed with decay that the greatest and most
1 The Old Testament proverbial wLsdom, which presupposes faith but nowhere
makes it the subject of its teaching, shows thereby its early growth. On the
contrary, the Book of Origins speaks not only of the unbelief of the people, but
relates vividly enough how the faith of Moses and Aaron was not on every
occasion perfect and complete ; Num. xiv. 11, xx. 1-13 ; so persistently and
surely did memory recall the fact that only by the power of faith had the
community been first founded, and that the higher the position of men in the
community the greater is the detriment the least want of it occasions. The
noble expression in Ps. xxvii. 13 is also ancient.
' So in reality of all the prophets, but especially according to the words of
Isa. vii. 9, 11-13, xxviii. 16.

THE NATURE AND OFFICE OF FAITH. 227
powerful of the prophets summoned up all the deepest
energies of his soul in the attempt to resuscitate it both in
the people and the king. But by a most memorable example-
it was then shown how little true and living faith can be
called forth even at the bidding of a great prophet, even with
all his mightiest energy of mind, when at the same time all
fruitful soil for its growth is really wanting.' At this period
also the longing to see faith actually at work as well in its
spontaneity as in its power and success, took refuge as it were
provisionally in the remembrance of the sublime prototypes
of the primitive history, and produced a sketch and model of
genuine faith,^ as pre-eminent in Abraham's life, which could
never be forgotten, and in all succeeding centuries exerted a
powerful influence. During the founding of the new Jeru
salem, a time fuU of trial and difficulty, the more readily did
there break forth in inspired words with the unquenchable
ardour of deep feeling, the new power of a real and true faith .^
Thus, then, though there is little of the -word, there is much
of the reality of faith in the Old Testament; indeed, it is
full of genuine examples of it. But all these accumulated
reminiscences of the necessity and supereminent power of
faith would have been ultimately without abiding result
had not Christ first unfolded the supreme power of faith
which is possible to man. He it was who made it mani
fest in the highest distinctness before all the world; and
' This is the high significance of Isaiah's seeking so often to overcome the
unbelief of people and king by a wonderful sign, Isa. vii. 11, viii. 1-4,
xxxvii. 30 f., xxxviii. 7 f. ; once, however, and precisely in the instance which
is in itself of the utmost importance, and upon which he had himself laid the
strongest emphasis, he saw that he was deceived by the absolute unbelief of the
king, vii. 11-13. Cf. Prophets, i. 47, ii. 13, 81 ff. Cf. also the words of the
somewhat later prophet, B. Isa. liii. 1.
2 Gen. XV. 1-xxii. 19. The Fifth Narrator of the primitive history thus
makes faith conspicuous, and regards it in its extreme importance as the chief
and crowning excellence of the humanly-divine life, not in the example of
Abraham only, Gen. xv. 6, but also in that of Moses, Ex. iv. 1-9, xix. 9. The
Deuteronomist follows him, Deut. i. 32, ix. 23.
' Ps. cxvi. 10, where faith simply and alone streams forth in briefest utterance
as the impulse and power realized in the deepest self - consciousness of the
Psalmist. Cf. moreover Ps. cxix. 66, ovi. 12 ; Jonah iii. 5.

228 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
He did it in the whole phenomena of His life, as much by
His least as by His greatest acts. As He lived in it as the
element of His power, and knew most intimately its all-
conquering might, so also He distinguishes it continually by
the high praise it deserves,' and presents it uniformly by
word and deed as the primary and indispensable qualification
for all who would follow in the way He has traced out.
Subsequently every word from His immediate disciples,
which has passed into the New Testament,^ shows what a
pure and inexhaustible energy of faith has come from Him
into the world, an energy, indeed, transformed at once in His
own disciples into glowing enthusiasm and gifts of ready
service, through which alone the entire human race may be
led to find and keep the way to God. Now only does faith
become what from the first it was intended to become, the
purest and most persistent power for the transformation and
perfecting of humanity, that it may pursue its divine end
throughout the ages of time until the final goal is won.

XIV. THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH.
§ 302. Fully to recognise the true indwelling power of
faith, there must be a proper estimate on the one hand of its
twofold contents, on the other of its spontaneity, for without
^ Such short occasional words may be mentioned, as Mark i. 15, ii. 5, iv. 40,
V. 34-36, ix. 23-42, x. 52, xi. 23-31; Matt. viii. 13, ix. 28 f., xv. 28; Luke
xxi. 22-32, xviii. 8, xxii. 32 ; and such more definite expressions as Matt:
xxi. 21 f. ; Luke xvii. 5 f.
^ Excepting in his Epistle (1 John v. 4), where it sounds like a watchword of
Christians of his time, John nowhere uses the word tiims, not even in the utter
ances of Christ. This, however, is merely a peculiarity of his ; for in no New
Testament writings is so much said of practical faith, ¦rifriiuv, and in such clear
words as in his Gospel, and everywhere in the utterances of Christ, excepting
where at the beginning and at the end the apostle incidentally shows that with
Christians faith is everything, i. 7, 12, xx. 31 ; whilst in his Epistle he speaks
about it as Paul in his. The same may be said of the First Epistle of Peter, and
of the Epistle of James. The praise of faith which is rehearsed in the Epistle
to the Hebrews (xi.), from Old Testament times, rivals Paul's praise of love,
1 Cor. xiii.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 229
such spontaneity it cannot exercise the influence peculiar to
it. In contemplating the whole wide manifold contents which
faith, in the sense in which we here speak of it, includes in
itself, the two aspects it has for those who possess it must be
carefully distinguished.
I. 1. Faith grasps and appropriates the whole treasure of
assured truths which conduct and maintain the individual
man on the way to God ; and it also uplifts him into full
personal participation in the inspiring force of such truths.
That is to say, the various truths already surely won, which
our whole discussion seeks to expound, form the firm ground
and basis of the contents of faith. The whole circle of these
truths may be variously expressed in a short series of signi
ficant propositions, and of such expression many passages of
the Bible afford the example and justification. Yet to attempt
to give a condensation of all truth in this place would not be
so relevant as in our discussion of the nature and office of the
Church ; since such brief summaries have their value and use
mainly in religious instruction and culture. But as certainly
as all these truths are only the detailed statement of the
fundamental thought, and indeed' the foundation of all true
religion, so certainly may the entire contents of faith be
summed up in a single phrase, as the Bible shows, and that
single phrase is, " faith in God." ' In this as in a germ lie
involved all the separate propositions of faith, for without a
sure and just knowledge of the true God nothing in detail
can here be known and believed, but with it everything else
is already given. Moreover, so far as faith is an active
principle, it must turn to God especially, and without Him no
details in this whole province can be properly conceived. If,
then, when we look to their sure foundation, all the separate
propositions which form the contents of faith are held valid
by us as truths, all at last also fall as one inclusive Whole
^ jtiVt/; Ssou, Mark xi. 22 ; for that the addition of eicu is only meant to
characterize ^Ims somewhat more particularly is shown by what follows in
ver. 23. Similarly in 1 Pet. i. 21, true faith in relation to a known fact is more
particularly limited by reference to God.

230 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
under the idea of "truth" itself; as indeed in the proper
place the Bible represents them ; ' and appropriately enough,
for of aU that must be held by man in idea and thought as
truth, the truths of faith are the most profound and compre
hensive, and without them we could characterize nothing
whatever as true.
2. In order to understand the latter remark, we must here
more closely follow out the idea of the truth. This idea
coincides in Hebrew, as in many other tongues, with the idea
of the reHable, the non-deceptive ; but if we ask why some
thing appears to us reliable and true, we can only answer
because it falls short in nothing of what we presuppose to be
right and are ready to rely upon because it is right ; so that
it may be said truth is the agreement of actual fact with the
thought of it.^ From this it is seen at once how closely faith
is connected with all that we call truth, nay, how inseparable
these two ideas are fron;i one another, as well in the smallest
matters of sense as in the greatest and most purely spiritual
things. If this be so, he alone who accustoms himself to
truth in the highest and most spiritual subjects of our thought
and action, and allows his faith to move only in the limits
and conditions of truth, will also in the more common and
sensuous things seek the true everywhere, and find it most
readily. On the other hand, if our mind were from the first
1 For in such expressions as « i^xxm n; &.i.nhixs, 1 Pet. i. 22, -with which
utTxxaliiii T? -ritrni, Acts vi. 7, interchanges, and the reverse, T>i xXrihiif fiii
irilhclxi. Gal. iii. 1, according to the earlier and perhaps still correct reading,
and V. 7, and also in Rom. ii. 8, 20, "the truth" is only the more particular
definition of all that is to be believed.
^ Cf. § 212 [where Ewald says: "We call that true upon which we can
surely and firmly rely, in opposition to all possible kinds of deception and
falsehood ; and that this is the original signification of the word true, follows
from its derivation in most languages. If it be asked further in what respect
anything, whether a mere thought, or a nan'ative, or a matter that has to be
more particularly understood and investigated, becomes for man so reliable that
he may in his mind build further upon its sure basis, one can only answer, the
conviction that all the parts or aspects that come into consideration are in full
agreement with the Whole of our thought, or, in other words, the discernment
or knowledge that the matter must be so and not otherwise, is for us the mark
¦of its truth ; and only thus are we convinced of the truth of a narrative, if we
are to lojk beyond the mere narrator."]

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 231
so bounded and conditioned that it could not believe purely
spiritual and highest truth, and make infinite progress in this
belief, nay more, could not continually acquire accurate know
ledge of new things and appropriate them into its faith, it
would be incapable also of knowing even the most meagre
and sensuous thing with sufficient certainty to build upon it
in faith, and to strive in some kind of belief to make headway,
whether in what is good or what is the very worst.
But in all this there lies the necessary bounding and
limitation of the material contents of the faith we here dis
cuss. Define this faith, if you will, as briefiy faith in God,
which every man should possess, or make the idea of it
equivalent to the idea of the truth, it is at once apparent that
nothing can be taken up into it which is repugnant to the
conception of the true God, or incompatible with the truth
itself. Suppose now that according to the first three Gospels,
Christ did not speak of the truth in this sense at all,' since
it was the very thing itself that in all He said and did He
sought to establish in the world of mankind as it had never
been manifest before ; yet it does not certainly follow from
this omission that there were no occasions whatever upon
which He spoke of it.^ But it is readily understood why,
subsequently, with the more definiteness and frequency His
disciples spoke of it in that higher sense, and no one with
such wide, far-reaching comprehension of the theme and such
lofty elevation of tone, nor so repeatedly, as John.' How
little they err, and indeed the whole Bible with them, con-
^ This is certainly remarkable, and in one aspect very characteristic.
^ In John, apart from the introduction, i. 14, 17, "the truth " in this higher
sense is only mentioned, iii. 21 (where it is the apostle himself almost that
speaks), iv. 23 f., viii. 32-46, xiv. 6, 17, xv. 26, xvi. 13, xvii. 17-19, xviii. 37 ; cf.
with the sentence "God is true," iii. 33, viii. 26. Far more frequently is it
repeated in all his Epistles. But James agrees in this with John, as also Peter ;
Jas. i. 18, iii. 14, v. 19 ; 1 Pet. i. 21. Putting all this together, it would be
foolish to suppose Christ Himself never spoke of " the truth " in the hearing of
His disciples.
' Paul, on the contrary, speaks of "the truth" much less than John, and
not by any means in such creative thoughts and expressions. Somewhat more
as in John the phrase occurs in the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Pastoral

232 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
corning that which they distinguish by the one short watch
word, " the truth," this whole section is the sufficient proof.
The truth had now become a power among men as it had
never been before, — a power that, as if it were equal in
creative force with the Word or Spirit of God, was bringing
from its own womb to a new and glorious birth the humanity
that was steeped in hypocrisy and untruth.'
Furthermore, we have here the touchstone for every prin
ciple or tenet that since Biblical times has sought to enter
into this circle,^ and to increase our great and ancient treasure
of truth. 3. If, however, we consider more closely the particular
contents of faith so far as they may have arisen in their
definite form historically, there is nothing more certain than
that every historical element in faith possesses just as great
significance as does the series of pure truths itself. For
the light of these truths first shines upon man from the history
associated with them, and the mighty energy with which
they work among men owes the beginning of its activity to
those in whose lives it first became vividly manifest. If the
Biblical religion comprehends a large deposit of old inherited
truths, nevertheless Moses and all the men of God who directly
succeeded him in the Old Testament, and Christ with His
disciples in the New, show to us how the highest truths and
forces of the genuine and ultimately the perfect faith, actually
enter into the world to become the salvation of all who,
yielding to their influence, seek to obey the will of God. All
the pure truths in this province are inseparable so far from
Epistles. In 2 Pet. " the present truth," i. 12, viz. the truth that has been
manifest and abides among men since Christ, is a new phrase, as also "the way
of truth, "ii. 2.
' The most striking phrase which comes from this train of thought is, "He
who is of the truth," John xviii. 37, i.e. he who is begotten and born again of
the truth, as is often said in John elsewhere. Had not Pilate, a philosophically
cultured man, been the hearer, Christ would have rather said, according to
John viii. 47, 1 John iv, 6, " He who is of God." But John himself uses the
phrase " of the truth," 1 John iii. 19.
^ § 42, Revelation; its Nature and Record, pp. 118-123.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 233
the lofty historical figures that appear in connection with
their rise and establishment. As Buddhism without Buddha,
as Islam without Mohammed, would be nothing, each needing
the continual retrospect to the life and sayings of its founder ;
just as little, nay, even still less, would Christianity be any
thing without the life of Christ and its abiding spiritual
continuance, and the lives of His forerunners and successors
in the faith, so comprehensively presented in the Bible.
Nevertheless, we are not with this admission to overlook the
fact that pure divine truths, since they are given by God
Himself, and through the divine order of the world, are always
higher than even the very highest that appears in the tran
sient visible phenomena of human history ; and that therefore
they are never exhaustively presented in the details of actual
history, although indeed the loftiest summits of truth seek
supports and bases for belief in visible phenomena and
historical reminiscence. For obvious though it may be that
in the true religion faith has to do with things essentially
divine, yet it would fain have marks and tokens of the actual
presence of the Divine in what is evident and palpable to the
sense. Thus, then, a particular historical phenomenon or
reminiscence serves to faith as a basis and support for truth
which stands high above all historical phenomena, as examples
already given demonstrate.' Failure to make this distinction,
failure to separate in profounder refiection between what is
sensuous and what is supersensuous without forgetting that
both , may nevertheless touch and unite in faith, has given
occasion for the intrusion of grave errors ; while, indeed, the
spontaneity of faith, though it is the lever of its power, may
yet ultimately admit of such result.
But when once faith in a general truth, of incomparable
significance and moment, has become associated with such a
particular historical phenomenon and reminiscence, the truth
itself, Hke all pure truth, may make immeasurable progress
and acquire further enlargement from its own inherent
I § 282, pp. 212-220.

234 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
energy. It has found at length a firm settlement from which
it can freely unfold itself, in harmony with its own essential
contents ; and faith must then be directed to these essential
contents of the truth and to the peculiar importance of the
truth itself. It is, however, always of advantage never to
confound such truth with the particular portion of historical
reminiscence which served as the means of its first establish
ment, nor again this with it. The Bible itself, however,
affords us plain guidance as to the way of procedure with
such contents of faith.' The faith must not be allowed to
suffer, but its historical and its eternal ground must be
distinctly recognised and carefully distinguished.
§ 303. Such, objectively considered, are the contents of
faith as comprehended in its unity and embracing all its
separate constituent parts.
II. Let us now turn to the case of the individual man in
whom faith has attained a living efficacy, who has not merely
taken up the truth just described into his memory, but who,
in the bold words of the last great disciple of Christ, " does
it " ; ^ or whom, according to the phrase of the same disciple
in another passage, "the spirit of-truth"^ inspires and moves.
Such a man, whose spirit, now no longer his own, is touched
and led by the Divine Spirit, will feel himself uplifted into
the free elevation of the way to God, and from such elevation
will behold himself received into the living course and move
ment of the divine grace and the eternal order of the world,
in which men are borne onwards towards their final goal.
It is only faith which feels itself so sustained' and upheld in
the world by God, and which looks from the point of view
His own Spirit and grace give into the temporal connection
^ By way of example, one may here look at the manner in which the original
apprehension of the history of Israel's passage through the Red Sea was ex
panded in subsequent centuries ; or that in which the Apostle John relates in
his Gospel (xx.) the corresponding event in the New Testament, the resurrection
of Christ, which similariy divides and unites two worlds. {Cf. Johan. Schriften,
i. p. 419.)
'' John iii. 21 ; 1 John i. 6.
^ 1 John iv. 6, cf. v. 6, and likewise John's Gospel, xvi. 13.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 235
and the impelling energy of the eternal divine work by
whose power it is consciously invigorated. But this is in
reality one of the actual contents of faith, and forms its
higher or purely divine half. That the divine strength and
grace are in a special manner present with individual men,
the Bible indicates from beginning to end.' The clearest
historical phenomena establish this as a fact of experience.
But how faith looks down into all times from its rest in God
now won, is here to be shown more particularly, from traces
scattered up and down in the Bible.
1. Looking from its elevation into the immediate present,
faith sees, first of all, the power of sin broken. It realizes
that before God everywhere in the world the po-wer of sin is
for ever condemned and for ever broken ; but especially is
this power recognised as broken in the body itself close at
hand. The individual man has now not merely heard from
afar the old words and sayings concerning the pardoning love
of God, and realized from the doctrine that God is love some
thing of the inexhaustible efficacy of the divine compassion
and forgiveness ; he also perceives that the more he calmly
collects himself anew by faith in the power of divine truth,
and is consciously led by the clearness of that truth upon the
way to God, the more surely the new thoughts and resolves
that arise within him may be deemed the joyful tokens and
pledges that the divine forgiveness is not to remain with him
a mere empty phrase. This is the mood of mind charged
with the new energy of faith which at an early period found
in the Old Testament inspired expression in a song ^ which
is for ever true to experience, and which did not spring so
much from the stern confiict of faith ' as from the blessed
and restful confidence in God that had now been wholly
regained. It is true, however, that the evil consequences of
past sin, so far as they may still work on in the world, are
' From Gen. xxxix. 21 in the case of Joseph onwards to believers of the
New Testament, in relation to whom, in short, the phrase in Mark xvi. 20 fully
applies, with its characteristic nnpysTt, i.e. God working together with them.
'^ Ps. xxxii. ' Ps. Ii,

236 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
not thereby removed, but certainly the courage and the
resolute sense of obligation to contend against them with all
the power of the soul are wonderfully strengthened. For, in
point of fact, the feeling of having been delivered from the
darkness and the oppressive burden of the consciousness of
guilt does not of itself alone suffice. If this consciousness
were real and genuine, on all sides clear and distinct, it must
lead to that which is higher and better, in which man's spirit
is fully " reconciled " with the divine Spirit, all disturbance,
estrangement, and hostility removed, and an enduring " peace "
with God obtained, — a peace which alone can give a happy
assurance for the present, a peaceful retrospect of the past,
and a confident trust for all future progress upon the way to
God. The old Hebrew tongue is, it is true, rich enough in
expressions for the idea of " reconciliation," for from very
primitive times this idea had entered into the practice of
civil right, and then after the Mosaic period had been taken
up with a much higher significance by the priestly adminis
tration concerned with the task of putting the community in
the position of freedom from guilt.' Nowhere in antiquity
could there be a more careful and solicitous discharge of this
duty than was found in Israel. But far more striking than
these ancient expressions were those derived from the idea of
peace, which the great prophets introduced into this province
of faith, and which ultimately in the New Testament became
more and more predominant.^
^ The original and ancient expression for " reconcile," 5)J) "1B3> signifies
essentially as -|S3. Isa. xxviii. 18, " to efface," related to " to strike out," and
so to make invisible, that guilt should no more be seen. A newer expression for
this is isj? nD3, " to cover over," Ps. xxxii. 1 ; Prov. x. 12. The details of
expiatory off'erings are given in Antiquities, 55 ff^. ; the formation and meaning
of nna3, from 133, " to rub off," " scrape off" (to obliterate, and therefore to
forgive guilt) ; cf. Antiquities, p. 124. In Greek, in the New Testament,
'ikxr/iis corresponds, 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10, cf. Heb. ii. 17, viii. 12, with 3 Mace.
iii. 32 f. ; for the LXX. had already so translated D'"IB3. Paul, on the con
trary, uses, and he alone, the simpler word xxrxWxyii, "reconciliation," which
was borrowed from civil relations. 2 Cor. ii. 18-20 ; Bom. v. 11, xi. 15.
^ As in Isa. ix. 5 f., xxvii. 5, xxxii. 18, xlviii. 22, and elsewhere. In the

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 237
Nevertheless reconciliation and peace indicate rather a
passive condition than such an active state of being as that
into which everything here in question ultimately issues.
For joy also, in its purest and divinest signification, finds its
place here as well. Joy cannot rest, but impels man ever to
thoughts and deeds that are correspondent with it ; but only
joy in God impels to such thoughts and deeds as faith can
desire. Already in the Old Testament, as the characteriza
tion of the life of such as are reconciled to God, this repre
sentation of a life continually illumined by divine serenity
and animated by inexhaustible joy is, in the higher speech,
very prevalent. As if indeed that rare joy, as it broke in
upon the common experience of men in high festivals, became
thus the abiding ground and principle of life.' From the
circle of images belonging to this conception, the idea of
" conducting " men to God is derived.^ It was Christ, how
ever, who, into the midst of the world intoxicated with per
verse delights and unspeakable sadness, first brought that
calm, perennial, serene joyfulness with which He Himself was
filled. Nor does anything more distinctly characterize the
apostolic period than this divine joy,^ as, amid the sorrows
of the time, it welled forth from the experience of the power
of true reconciliation and indestructible peace with God, now
at last won for the whole world.
Genuine faith with radiant cheerfulness and joy are
New Testament no word is proportionately more frequent than tlpm^ ;
and that in such connections as ;t;*P'' ""' ^'px'^ and the like, it always stands
at the end, is here characteristic ; in Col. i. 20, ilpnvsTanTt corresponds to
xxTxXKxirirsiv. ' According to such striking phrases as Isa. ix. 3, xii. 3, xxv. 6.
- The splendid image of the irpcuxyuyi in the New Testament, first used by
Paul (Rom. v. 2), then repeated in 1 Pet. iii. 18, Eph. ii. 18, iii. 12, is taken
from the high privilege of presentation on some festive occasion to a great lord,
and formal admission to familiar acquaintance with him.
'Understanding the ;(;«(><»', placed between "love" and "peace," in Gal.
V. 22, or observing the exclamation in Phil. ii. 18, 28, iii. 1, iv. 4, and adding
others of the same kind in the New Testament, we shall find how little the joyous
message with which Christianity opened was fruitless amongst the first Christians,
and what "rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory" signifies side by
side with "faith," 1 Pet. i. 8.

238 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
inseparable. But still further is this manifest as we re
member that faith, liberating man from the oppressive and
embarrassing burden of sin and error, restores to man's free
will its proper freedom again, withdrawing it from the blind
yoke of error and sin, whose injury is the greater, the longer
and the more severe the sway. If in the Old Testament
the name of freedom in this sense is not used, the thing itself
is found there plainly enough. Where, for example, is there
a purer joy, and a spirit freer from all perverse and troubled
thoughts, than in the songs in which the deepest feelings
of the true religion are poured forth so frequently in the
Psalter ? With what bounding joy, moreover, is the soul of
the prophet often filled, even in the growing confusion and
darkness of his time, at the anticipation of the certainty of
the coming perfection of all true religion ! And in aU the
judgments, thoughts, and discourses of the Old Testament
what luminous transparency there is, what freedom from
error and prejudice ! Joy and freedom are closely related,
as is finely shown in this way in the Old Testament. But
afterwards, when Christ had prepared the mind for all
genuine freedom in this higher sense, both by the consum
mation of all true religion which He brought, and especially
by its immediate and most palpable consequence, viz. the
emancipation of the spirit from the Old Testament law,
transformed in the course of centuries to a grievous if
apparently most sacred and inviolable burden; then the
word itself, with all its weight of meaning, enters into the
language of genuine religion. For reasons easy enough to
understand, it is, however, the apostle who had borne the
yoke of the law most painfully, and who knew it most deeplj'',
who has this word and this thought of freedom most familiarly
upon his tongue and in his mind ; ' and he it is who also
compresses his vindication of the soundness of this view into
1 According to the plainest exposition in Rom. vi. 18-22, -vii. 3 f., viii. 2-21 ;
but similarly also in 1 Cor. ix. 1-19, x. 29 ; 2 Cor. iii. 17 ; Gal. ii. 4, iv 22-
V. 13.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 239
the short sentence, " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
is liberty."' Moreover, as James, who, in entire independ
ence of Paul, always adheres as clearly as possible to the
words of Christ, designates Christianity in sharp contrast
with the Eabbinical law of his time, " the law of liberty '' ; ^
so also Christ Himself exclaims, according to John's Gospel,
" The truth shall make you free." ^
One of the primary and infallible tests of the stage upon
which a religion stands is afforded by the question, what
measure of power such religion possesses effectively to deal
with the errors and sins of men, and to put in their place
vivifying faith in the saving grace of God. Subjected to this
test, the history and course of the true religion taught in the
Bible discover a remarkable characteristic. During the whole
of the long ages of its peculiar development, from the first
moment of its active operation upon earth to its consum
mation, there runs through it, as one unbroken, ever-stronger
thread, the recognition and presence of heroic faith, a faith
which fights against all error and sin more and more
victoriously, and at length completely demonstrates how
such enemies are to be successfuUy met. The first great
historical sin of which the Bible speaks is as full of fruitful
teaching when contemplated in its reassuring aspect as when
looked at on its tragic side. That the terrible sin of Cain is
the immediate issue of the power of sin to which Adam gives
the impulse, shows how inevitably rapid the progress of sin
is, if no higher power turns itself against it ; and may also
palpably confute the preconceived opinion that the mere youth
of the human race alone must have hindered this sad and fearful
progress. Nevertheless Cain, because he follows in time the
divine voice, is ultimately dealt with as favourably as his
position allows ; and this is the more significant since what is
in question is a heinous sin and its correspondent punish-
1 2 Cor. iii, 17.
2 Jas. i. 25, ii. 12 ; also but more in words after Paul's manner, 1 Pet. ii. 16.
3 John viii. 32-36.

240 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
ment.' So this incident stands as a clear and luminous
example at the very commencement of the whole infinite
history of sin upon earth. It shows what the wisest of men,
at least among the prophets, thought concerning the possibility
of an ultimate forgiveness of sin. As, however, they placed
at the beginning of all human eras an example of the realiza
tion of their longing after such deliverance, so they could
hope for its full and complete realization only in the
Messianic age.^ If the mere teachers of the law, according
to traditional exegesis and use of the Pentateuch, had in the
course of centuries more and more arrogated to themselves
the decision concerning the forgiveness of sin among men and
rejected all forgiveness not pronounced by the priest, the
mighty aim and endeavour of Christ, on the contrary, was
directed rather to the awakening of faith in the possibility of a
forgiveness of sin in the individual alone, teaching every man to
connect his own eternal salvation wholly and directly with the
rise and growth of faith in God. From the reminiscences of the
Gospels this is apparent as one of His most characteristic and
supreme aims.^ How fruitful His activity to this end was,
the whole apostolic period shows, in which for the first time
in the whole history of the world a body of men appeared
who, in the clear consciousness of having been redeemed by
Christ from the power of sin themselves, were one and all
aflame with the desire to uplift the whole world to the same
purely divine joy and satisfaction which had been realized
in their own souls, and who felt also that they possessed in
themselves the divine power qualifying them for the task.
But already in the history of Israel there had been an
anticipation of this time. The first faint glimmer of morning,
the precursor of this clear full day under Christ and His
1 This is the sense of the narrative. Gen. iv. 3-16.
" In such words as Jer. xxxi. 34.
' How peculiar and how new this was in Christ is sufficiently evident from
Mark ii. 5-12, iii. 28, iv. 12 ; John v. 14, viii. 11, ix. 2 ff. ; then also in the
model prayer. Matt. vi. 12-16. That nevertheless the first impulse in this
direction was given by the Baptist, is shown in the History, vi. 160 ff.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH, 241
apostles, broke forth at the return from the Babylonish
captivity. By an extraordinary deliverance, and by the
prospect of the possible rise around Jerusalem of a new and
free kingdom, the nation was impressively reminded that true
joy and freedom, without which the new realm could not
flourish, spring only from the inexhaustible grace of God, and
the living participation of man in that inestimable blessing.
The great anonymous prophet lent to- this faith appropriate
words,' and the truth it involved found its celebration in the
community in immortal songs of the simplest but most fervent
strains.^ Not until five or six hundred years afterwards,
however, was the full clear day of perfect realization to shine
forth in all its peaceful splendour. But when at length in
the transfigured faith of all who rejoiced in this day, the
regeneration of the ancient community became a most vivid
and profound reality, and the grievous errors and faults which
for so many centuries had been more and more perniciously
rooted in it, entirely disappeared in the shortest space of time
under the first quickening influence of this new spirit of faith
as it arose, then indeed the higher faith had magnificently
attested its wonder-working power. All the writings of the
New Testament were composed under the quick fervid glow
of this faith, and, breathing its wonderful, confident, world-
conquering ' energy, perpetuate for all coming time its radiant
vivifying spirit. It appeared then impossible that those who
had once experienced this whole divine transformation, and
felt themselves borne along by its mighty impulse, could ever
again sink down from this lofty height of faith and become a
new prey to the power of evil ; impossible also that those
who had fallen from the fully-manifest grace of God should
1 Book of Isa. Ixi. 1 ; here a genuine Hebre.w word for " freedom " occurs,
"liTH ¦ yst it signifies rather "a setting free,'" as the LXX. translate it, x<i>t(n!.
But that the freedom meant is spiritual freedom he has already explained,
xiii. 1 ff. With the greater ease could he therefore introduce much of another
kind. 2 Ps. ciii., cxv. ; cf. cxxx. 3 f.
3 According to the expression, 1 John v. 4 f. ; cf. John xvi, 33.

242 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
once again fight their way upward through the whole stern
struggle of profound sorrow and repentance. The writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews first expresses this thought, as
thus conceived,' and he expresses it with all emphasis at a
time when from all the world the direct perils first threatened
apostolic Christianity, and appeared ready to hurry away
many souls into the vortex. And, in fact, who can imagine
that from all that he had at length so painfully won with the
profoundest tension of his mind, and the fullest transforma
tion of his " old man," and from all that gave to him, amid
the many toils and sufferings of his new life, such unspeak
able confidence and strength, a man like Paul could ever
wholly fall again ? Nor did Paul stand alone in that age ;
an age which, as it was created by such men, might very
well entertain the conviction that it is impossible to fall from
divine grace when once it is actually and fully experienced.
Indeed, this most illustrious of the later apostles, the first
successor of such great forerunners, was not deceived. The
storms preceding the convulsion of the final overthrow of
Jerusalem staggered the faith of none of the genuine Christians
of that time.
But in relation to this subject the proposition is obviously
applicable, that every thought spoken appropriately enough
at a special elevation of mind, and capable of being rightly
understood, is yet very Hable to misinterpretation. The more
momentous and vital, to every one who is called to walk on
the lofty heights of all true reHgion, is the question what
is the essential nature of sin, the more easily may germinate
a new and grave error ; and such error arose sufficiently early
to secure the kindly notice of Christ's beloved disciple. Is
it a principle valid in the main that the regenerate man
cannot fall from grace ; the conclusion that he can no longer
sin is at once possibly drawn ; and this conclusion must have
1 Heb. vi. 4-6 ; how the idea of "once," "once for all," in spiritual things
is elsewhere also appropriately made conspicuous, cf. ix. 26 f., x. 2 ; and the
Indian sakrit satdm, SdvUri, ii. 26 f.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 243
been actually drawn by many in the early Church. John
re-establishes again the real truth upon this subject.' Jude
also,^ another of the later writers of the New Testament,
points out, in cases where spiritual freedom had been abused,
what are the proper limits of such freedom — limits which
may, it is true, be readily overstepped. But indeed Christ
Himself^ had previously given the lucid example that might
well serve for the summary rejection of such error, an error
likely enough to renew its appearance from the lofty position
the consummation of all true religion afforded,
2. But if genuine faith, from that height which it must
always occupy and maintain, looks round still further upon
the present, it finds two other not less important advantages
which the regenerate man may rejoice in as won for him by
divine grace, — advantages which take their rise in the present
but stretch far beyond into all the future, and which on this
account must be carefully distinguished. He who feels him
self taken up by the new birth into the movement and order
of the divine life, may just on this account feel himself also
a participator in the divine righteousness and divine holiness,
apd therefore himself righteous and holy. These attributes,
however, are in the strictest sense so purely divine, that at
once the question arises to what extent they can be held to
apply to men, even if contemplated as regenerate.
§ 304. (1) In the ordinary sense of the word, we call that
man righteous whose conduct is as it should be, but we pre
suppose thereby a standard in accordance with which as a
man he is judged. This standard must put all men under
obligation and be equally valid for all, and can therefore only
be God's will as it has become revealed to man, and presents
itself to him distinctly as the rule of action. Thus purely
historically, Noah is called a righteous man almost at the
beginning of the Old Testament, and Joseph of Nazareth at
1 1 John i. 7-ii. 2, 12, iii. 4-9. ^ Jude 4 ff., cf. 2 Pet. ii. 19.
' Matt. vii. 21-23. The doubts of some recent critics whether Christ Him
self actually discoursed in this manner are sufficiently set aside by a more exact
knowledge of the sources of the Gospel.

244 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
the beginning of the New : ^ the one according to that la-vy;
which long before Moses could be regarded as binding upon
men ; the other according to the law contained in the Old
Testament. The will of God therefore constitutes the
righteousness in which man is to walk, or which he is to
observe and in every way fulfil in his conduct.^ There is
a " righteousness of God " which no one amongst New Testa
ment writers makes so conspicuous as Paul,^ because he had
himself come to know it in his own deepest experience.
This ultimate source of all that is termed righteousness
among men corresponds to the law of right established for
all the world by creation, and tends also continually to the
maintenance and advancement of this law of creation. He
who is born again and reconciled to God is taken up into
the movement and impulse of this divine order, and may
thus have the certain assurance that he dwells and abides
in it as his better self, and in this living faith may the more
absolutely adhere to it on his own part. But, on the one
hand, the aspiration after righteousness demands of him at
all times conduct corresponding to the divine law of righteous
ness. There are situations, however, in which he is not able
to act as he would, in harmony with the will of God. In
such situations, faith that the will of God revealed to him
will nevertheless be done is reckoned to him for righteous
ness, or, in other words, faith justifies him. So the Old
Testament shows* historically in Abraham its pattern of
faith, and also presupposes in the case of the Messianic pro
mises; whilst the first Christians, in the midst of only the
partial fulfilment of these promises, must have been sustained
by the power of this faith under sufferings the most severe,
and with a hope of their full realization strained to the
utmost degree. On the other hand, righteousness, so far
^ Gen. vi. 9 ; Matt. i. 19.
2 Jas. i. 20 ; 1 John ii. 29, iii. 7, 10 ; Matt. iii. 15.
' According to 2 Cor. v. 21 ; Rom. i. 17, iii. 5, 21 f., 25 f., x. 3, cf. vi. 13.
* Gen. XV. 6 ; the words upon which Paul rightly lays so groat an emphasis,
and which he regards as so important.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 245
as man can fulfil it, is a Whole, not to be violated or broken
into parts, but ever to be made good again. Therefore is it
also a possession which, so long as he lives amid the tempta
tions of the world, is, although won, constantly to be guarded
and always more and more increased, but yet in the course
of the life of the individual man is never perfected. On this
side, therefore, only the living power of faith can guarantee
it to him until at death it is decided whether he was actually
a righteous man before God,
For the individual man, therefore, the faith that he stands
and makes progress in the divine righteousness is a divine joy,
concerning the grounds of which he must continually render
account to himself, and it is a foretaste of eternal blessedness.
Within these limits the Old Testament maintains its position.
But righteousness is not indeed a divine good and a divine
power for the individual man merely. By the establishment
of a more or less true religion, how much more by the estab
lishment of the perfectly true religion, it may become a power
for a whole great community, through whose existence and
life it may influence the individual members thereof, and
sustain and strengthen among them in a wonderful degree,
nay even purify and refine, the faith in this very righteous
ness itself. In that case all the individual members, as a
Whole, may be denominated " righteous," and addressed and
admonished as such, and in various ways may be so contem
plated ; not in every condition and circumstance, but where
it is suitable. But this is only equivalent to reminding them
of what they, as members of this community, by their own
consent in the outset, or by their renewed vow at an expiation
festival, have become, and are ever to remain. In the Old
Testament, therefore, the members of the community, as a
Whole, are often designated "righteous;" nevertheless, only
in the higher speech and in exulting elevation of thought;
and not with any frequency till the later community songs,'
• D''i?'''']V as a form of address, Ps. xxxiii. 1, perhaps a joyful song at the
close of the annual atonement festival after purification had been fully accom-

246 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
when the past momentous history had already shown how the
luxuriant growth of unrighteousness could occasion the deepest
corruption even of the nation of Isi'ael, and when a new and
purified community anxiously athirst for the divine righteous
ness had sprung up amid the after-effects of the severe trials
of the time of exile. The term " upright " came into use in
this sense earlier,' perhaps for some special cause. But in
the New Testament Christians are never so denominated ;
since from a wholly new and powerfully operating cause the
following situation of things occurred : —
It is not to be denied that the ability of the old community
to maintain itself as a Whole upon this height of faith gradu
ally became more and more enfeebled after the division of the
Davidic kingdom. Up to the time of the exile the tendency
to decay is clearly enough manifest. However laboriously.
at the period of the new Jerusalem the attempt was made to
give new zest to the rigour of the law, the attempt but imper
fectly succeeded. But only the more was the effort of indi
vidual men now directed to the re-establishment of faith and
righteousness in the community. The inclination of mind,
also, towards these spiritual possessions remained continually
so strong that many in the community would gather about
one righteous man with the desire and thirst that a similar
righteousness should become efficacious in themselves. As
they looked back upon the completed life of such a righteous
man, now glorified, they could feel themselves made righteous
before God, if they felt living and working in themselves the
same energy of faith and righteousness which had come forth
as a mighty influence into the world from him. In this way
plished. Similarly, Ps. cxviii. 15-20, and B. Isa. x.xvi. 2, and in many other
passages of later songs ; but the older songs form the precedent, Ps. xxxii. 11,
Iviii. 10 f., i. 5 f. Just these ideas of righteousness, of the righteous one, or
the righteous, are preferred in the oldest maxims of the Old Testament.
1 DnB'% "the upright," Ps. xxxiii. 1, cxii. 4 ; but this designation is already
found in Num. xxiii. 10; it interchanges in Job throughout in the older
aphorisms very often with D'plS, and impresses itself early enough on the
name of endearment, pllf'^ ; cf. Lehrbuch, § 167a.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 247
there arose in the old community the idea that from the
finished life of a righteous man a virtue might stream forth
upon many for their regeneration and justification before God.
But in all this is to be found only the true strengthening and
enhancement of the operations of the divine spirit among men
which must naturally take place in the ever purer consumma
tion of the powers of all true religion. Since now, as will
appear further on, this was realized in the purest and loftiest
form in the case of Christ, the 'explanation is given why
Christians in the New Testament are represented not so much
as " righteous," but as " made righteous ; " * precisely at that
time the power of the highest and most purely spiritual justi
fication of man before God was most freshly and vividly
experienced. Still the New Testament throws into prominence
as equally important that the Christian may assuredly feel
himself as in his present life already in faith made righteous
before God, and that his faith may serve also to prevent his
ever falling again from the divine righteousness he has once
won ; but yet only after his earthly life is he finally recognised
by God as for ever made righteous.*
^ See B. Isa. liii. 11 ; very similarly Dan. xii. 3, where the context suggests
the influence of the glorified Upon the great multitude of the nation. Apart
from the word, the idea itself is presented and taught for all future time in such
passages as Gen. xviii. 17-32 ; Ex. xxxii.-xxxiv. ; Job xiii. 8 f. Concerning
the historical background of B. Isa. liii. see Prophets, iv, 308 ff'.
2 iixxiufimt, Rom. V. 1, 9 ; Tit. iii. 7 ; 'hixxiaifis, Rom. iv. 25, V. 18, is pre
cisely our "justification;" iixxitirin is always "righteousness;" ^ixxl^ftx,
"that which is declared as righteous," is, looked at retrospectively, the con
tents of the law, iu conformity with which, if one remains faithful to such
contents, one is made righteous ; or it is "the decision of the law, " " that which
is according to law," and is due. Rev. xv. 4 ; Rom. i. 32, ii. 26, viii. 4 ; Luke
i. 6 ; or "the means of righteousness," Heb. ix. 1, 10 ; while, looked at pro
spectively, it is God's declaration concerning the regenerate, and at last con
cerning the perfected, pronouncing them righteous, Rom. v. 16, 18 ; the plural,
Tx'Smxiiifi.xTx,raa.y also, like liieroB ju^tificatoricE (cf. DTTlpES'i " hill of divorce "),
signify "the letter declaratory of righteous character," or the documents con
taining the particulars of the declaration of a man's character as righteous, Rev.
xix. 8. How much this whole -view concerning the justification of Christians is
purely apostolic appears from the fact that it is entirely foreign to all the Gospels,
including even John's.
' It is indeed to be noted that_ everything Paul says in his Epistles to the
Galatians and Romans, and in 1 Cor. iv. 4, vi. 11, always resolves itself into

248 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
(2) The case is very similar with respect to " sanctification."
The regenerate man who is taken up into the operation and
power of the Holy Spirit and the divine life, is also taken up
into the sanctity of this life, and may well ponder in his own
mind what is involved in it. Taken up into this sanctity, he
may consider himself inviolable by all the contamination of
the world, and in this faith may, as a matter of fact, be reso
lutely on his guard against allowing himself to be polluted by
the pleasure or defiled by the lusts of the world. He will then
feel himself, as it were, consciously anointed as with holy oil '
for what is holy in speech and action, and also led and de
fended as by pure good angels,^ or as if the world itself beheld
a luminous splendour about him and feared to molest him.*
If in the Old Testament, from the earliest times of the com
munity, there is a tendency to connect sanctification by pre
ference with priestly purification and cleansing of an outward
kind, nevertheless it is very evident even in the Old Testa
ment, and much more in the New, that only through the
power of the Holy Spirit is sanctification possible.* But with
sanctification, as with justification, it is in the whole com
munity only that such power is regarded as in operation and
seeking to maintain itself ; and it is only as forming such
Whole that its members are in the Old Testament denominated
" saints," or the " holy nation," and where, indeed, some special
reason exists for recalling to mind the sure basis of his sanc
tity.^ It may be remarked also that this designation is by
the distinction but also into the connection of this temporal beginning and
conclusion of justification ; and Rev. xxii. 11 discourses in the simplest way on
this subject, where the variation of the reading between iixamitiTu and S,«a«o-»ni»
•raivnTxTu affords the best exposition of the earthly ^ixxtavclxi. [How Ewald in
terprets the passages which refer to Christ's death in its sacrificial aspect in
relation to the divine righteousness, see below, § 326, in the chapter on "The
Necessity and Significance of Faith in Christ."]
' As is said in B. Isa. Ixi. 1, or in Ps. cv. 15, of the saints of tlie patriarchal
world, who were especially regarded at a later period as the saints of the Old
Testament. With wholly new force the symbol returns in 1 John ii. 20.
^ As Ps. xci. 11 f. ; Acts xii. 7-15. = Ps. cv. 15 ; cf. Acts vi. 15.
* Cf. Ps. Ii. 11 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; repeated 1 Pet. i. 2.
-* Apart from the passages in which the founding and fundamental destination
cf the community are touched upon, Ex. xix. 6 ; Lev, xi. 44 f., xix. 2, xx. 7, 26,

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 249
far less frequent than that of the "righteous," manifestly
because the idea of holiness leads far more into the realms of
the invisible than that of righteousness. On the contrary, in
the New Testament the apostolic Christians are quite com
monly so designated, at least in the higher discourse, and in
passages where the connection of thought cannot be mistaken ; '
and no word so much as this shows what new power of actual
sanctification of Hfe had now, with Christianity, entered into
the world. Nevertheless an individual member of the com
munity whilst living is nowhere so called in the whole Bible ; ^
and in the New Testament prominence is expressly given to
the principle that the sanctification of the whole Church must
continually grow.* Since, however, holiness in general has its
proper import only as opposition to the world and in the con
flict with it, but cannot, as with righteousness, be ascribed to
man only and first of all after the close of his earthly life,
this growth of the Church in sanctification is the more note
worthy. (3) Both ideas, that of righteousness and that of holiness,
are combined in the phrase, " a man of God," or in the special
term, " a prince of God ; " * the former at least in such periods
of the Biblical literature when it was used with undiminished
force in the full lofty signification which it is capable of bear
ing.* Yet the idea of Israel as son and of individuals as sons
the name is found only in Ps. xvi. 3, xxxiv. 9 ; Dan. viii. 24, xii. 7, cf. xi.
28, 30.
^ This is seen in the Epistles of the New Testament and in the Acts. The
more remarkable is it, however, that such terms are wholly wanting in the
Epistles of James and John ; yet this is only au indication how closely their
language follows that of Christ Himself. That nevertheless in such passages
as 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 15, 2 Cor. viii. 4, iX. 1, 12, Rom. xv. 25-31, Heb. vi. 10, by
the "saints," the Christians of the Holy Land alone are meant, the connection
of discourse in each case teaches.
2 The "glorified " are, it is true, early spoken of by this term, Mark vi. 20 ;
Matt, xxvii. 52 ; Luke i. 70. The designation of Christ once whilst living,
Mark i. 24 (Luke iv. 34), as the " Holy One of God," has a purely Messianic
basis. The words in Eph. iii. 5 are post-apostolic.
^ As is very evident from Rom. vi. 19, 22 ; cf. 1 Thess. iv. 3 f., 7; Heb. xii. 14 ;
1 Tim. ii. 15.
* As Abraham once in the Book of Origins is designated, Gen. xxiii. 6.
^ Cf. Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 267-9,

250 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
of God, — ^just as is the case with the two previous ideas, — is
more consonant with the nature of the community.' But if
this most striking and at the same time highest conception
is in the New Testament, even more than the two previous
conceptions, relegated for its consummation to the future
consummation of things,^ this is sufficiently explained from
what has already been said in relation to these two previous
conceptions. Nevertheless, if the idea of God as Father is the
highest that Christians can form, their designation as sons
must be appropriate even in the present life,
§ 305. 3. Finally, as faith with its all - surveying eye
turns from the present to the past, it sees the regenerate man
as one " called and chosen " of God. For it has pre-eminently
the consciousness of being taken up into the wiU, and there
fore into the purpose of God and the actual progressive move
ment of the divine order of the world ; it is sustained, indeed,
by the vivid conviction that there is such a divine order, and
it knows itself to be so little averse or estranged from it that
it rather feels as though the whole thought, desire, and action
were in harmony with it, and tended to promote it. Since,
however, the most isolated individual man, with his personal
endeavour and conduct, is not to vanish as nothing in this
order, but is to contribute to its advancement with his whole
will, desire, and activity, in the position in which he finds
himself, and is to accustom that will more and more to
execute only the divine will, he j ustly deems himself called of
God so to act in this position ; for the call comes primarily to
the individual, and comes to him at a definite time and place,
summoning him to a task which is marked out for him by
such time and place. But inasmuch as the individual who is
^ This idea, in place of which John puts that of " children," 1 John iii. 1 f.
10, V. 2, Paul, it is true, connects closely with that of Christ as the Son of
God, and with His Spirit, Gal. iv. 5 f., Rom. viii. 14 f., repeated Eph. i. 5 ;
but that he makes it perfected only in the future, follows from Rom. viii. 19-23,
just as it certainly follows from Rom. ix. 4 that he properly derived it from the
Old Testament.
2 § 259, p. 162. ' As Paul finely shows in Rom. viii. 14 f.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH. 251
conscious of being thus called of God may know by his own
experience, as well as by the testimony of all past history,
how little many men allow the will to be thus determined,
and by consequence perish, the thought comes to him with
all vividness still further that he is directly chosen of God
for such work and for such experience of the divine grace.
Moreover, this consciousness of having been chosen by divine
grace may, if it is rightly cherished, on the one hand only
increase his joyfulness in working, and on the other his
humility and prudence in the contemplation of the divine
grace. If, however, the divine work, which he is conscious
of being called and chosen in his time and place to advance,
is one which from its original aim and its invariable pro
gressive movement runs through every age and through all the
changes of the world ; and if every man who comes into being
in his time to participate in that eternal work of God, comes
into being as it has been appointed to him, he may be con
scious of being thus called and chosen according to the divine
will not merely in the definite period of his earthly life, but
also from the very beginning of the world. Whatever also
may be his capability of working upon this right path, how
ever limited and however feeble, — a capability bestowed upon
him by divine creation, — he will nevertheless not deem it an
idle and empty thing, by such employment of it, to answer
the divine end of existence.
Such is the high significance of faith in the divine calling
and election ; and we shall see below that it is but the
obverse of faith in the destination of man for the whole
future. The Bible is full of this true faith in divine calling
and election ; but inasmuch as it receives its full significance
only upon an elevation from which the vision extends far
back into the history of all true religion, and accordingly gains
in significance the more such sure vision extends into the
most distant past, it is not surprising that it belongs to those
parts of the Bible which stand out in the comparatively later
writings as of growing importance. A strong foundation for

252 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
such faith is laid by the manner in which the Bible relates
that an Abraham or a Moses, when he began his public work,
followed only a divine call, a caH, however, which did not
come to either of them casually or somewhat abruptly, as at
the commencement of an ordinary epic, but came in the
closest connection with all the earlier development of the
history of the world, and to each of them at the appropriate
time and place.' If this belongs, as it well may, to the later
representation of that which in all true history is abiding and
divine, yet it shows how genuine prophets as they look back
into their own past well know from their individual experi
ence, and from profound contemplation of the whole divine
course of things in the world, what significance the divine call
really has for man in special situations of his life.^ And pro
ceeding by a logical and consistent inference a step further in
such contemplation, Jeremiah depicts how vividly he himself
was conscious of having been destined by God from the first
conceivable moment of the earthly possibility of his existence,
to be a prophet, and to be a prophet in such' special situation
of life ; ¦'' so entirely did his will direct itself to the will of the
true God, and gain a knowledge of it in the protracted course
of his days, and so clearly did the divine continuity of the
great events of the world, in the midst of which he moved,
lie open before his glance.
However justly all this may apply to the individual man,
it is not to be overlooked, further, that the great events of the
history of the world contribute largely to call forth in whole
nations and communities a dominant tendency of mind by
which the individual man in the midst of them is definitively
influenced. As little is it to be overlooked also that moments
' It is important here to note that with respect to this aspect of it, the Fourth
and Fifth Narrators of the primitive history were the first to bring the narratives.
Gen. xii. 1 ff., Ex. iii. 1 ff., to their special and peculiar elevation.
' Isa. vi. If Ezekiel, i. 1-iii. 21, was not able, notwithstanding all his
splendour of language and imagery, to raise the grand introduction of his book
to au equal height, it was owing to his not having in his public life attained to
such a height in his work.
' Jer. i. 5 ; repeated from thence Gal. i. 15.

THE TWOFOLD CONTENTS OF FAITH, 253
of mighty revolution in the destiny of kingdoms and nations,
by their very nature turn back the glance to the beginnings of
things and the divine predestination that governs both events
and men. It was at such a time that the great anonymous
seer, with the keen prophetic glance peculiar to him, perceived
what destiny in the whole course and lot of nations belonged
to Israel as the servant of God ; how God had "called " ' this
nation and " chosen " ^ it before all others as His special
servant among the nations, for a special service in His king
dom, — a kingdom embracing the whole earth. As he further
adds what character and form the divine calling of every true
member of this nation must necessarily assume,* he kindles to
a wonderful glow the faith in the higher duty of life whose
fire slumbers in the heart of every man receptive of the true
religion. He it is who first gave to these remote yet most
fruitful truths their familiar place in the circle of all true
religion ; and with these, at a time when they were in the
highest degree applicable, were at length blended the similar
truths which found expression when Christ and His apostles
appeared. From the reminiscences of the Gospels it is
abundantly evident what a powerful influence they had in the
first rise of Christianity.* But however urgently Christ
admonished the men of His time to obey the divine call that
had come to them then as it had never come before,* the first
to become deeply conscious of the significance of the truth
that God had called them to participation in His kingdom
and His grace, were the early Christians of the apostolic age ;
and no one ever felt it more profoundly in his own experience
and declared it more impressively in all his utterances than
the Apostle Paul.^ He it is who, on the basis of his own
^ B. Isa. xiii. 6, xlviii. 12, cf. xii. 9, Ii. 2, and also xlviii. 15.
* B. Isa. iv. 9, xiii. 1, xliii. 10, 20, xiv. 4, xlix. 7 ; afterwards Luke xxiii. 35.
3 According to B. Isa. Iv. and many other passages, Ixv. 9, 15, 22 ; but even
when the peophet includes himself, Ixi. 1 ff.
' According to passages like Matt. iii. 2 f., iv. 17 ; Luke iv. 17 ff.
-' According to words such as Matt. ix. 13, xxii. 2-14.
^ From his earliest Epistles onwards, as 2 Thess. ii. 14 ; 1 Thess. ii. 12, iv. 7,

254 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
personal realization of the truth, without self-deception or
boasting well knew what he said when in the overflowing of
his apostolic fervour he speaks of himself as not merely called
of God, but also " separated " by Him to his calling from the
world,' or when he discoursed of the grace of God that saves
men "according to election,"^ and of those still living as
" chosen in Christ." *
But the higher these declarations concerning men rise, the
more important in application to them is everything we re
marked above with respect to similar statements as correspond
ing to the import of the Bible. That Paul as an apostle is
and wiU remain in his activity a " chosen instrument of God "
for the mighty advancement of His kingdom, might be thought
in his lifetime and could be said in the fitting place ; * and
the same holds good of others, not simply of him alone. But
Christ everywhere gives prominence to the aphorism, "Many
are called, but few chosen," i.e. few finally approved before
the eternal Judge ; * and if in the apostolic age it was pre
ferred to designate Christians as a whole not merely as called
but also as saved from the corruptions of the world of that
time, and selected by the grace of God,° an individual man
when living, if from special reasons and knowledge there were
no doubt of his unswerving loyalty, might be characterized or
" chosen in Christ," ' i.e. as such an one of whom nothing else
V. 24 ; Gal. i. 6, 15, v. 8, 13. All the rest of the New Testament writers follow
him iu this, excepting James and John.
1 x/pupKr/iUe;, Rom. i. 1 ; Gal. i. 15 ; cf. Acts xiii. 2.
'' So 1 Thess. i. 4 ; 1 Cor. i. 27 f. ; Rom. viii. 33, ix, 11, xi. 5, 7, 28 ; Col. iii.
12, in manifold forms of the expression.
2 Rom. xvi. 13. -* Acts ix. 15.
= Matt. XX. 16, xxii. 14, cf. xxiv. 22, 24, 31 ; Luke xviii. 7.
"So in the superscriptions 1 Pet., Tit., 2 John; it is seen, however, from
1 Pet. ii. 9, how much the words in Ex. xix. 5 contributed to this whole view of
Christians as chosen ; and in 2 Tim. ii. 10, the UX£«To/are in common discourse
the presumably best Christians. But, moreover, the lofty images of the
Apocalypse from the time before the destruction of Jerusalem belong here. Rev.
vii. 1-8, xiv. 1-5, cf. xvii. 14.
' Only for quite special reasons, e.g. because he had once been with Christ and
then ever remained loyal to Him, can the Rufus mentioned in Rom. xvi. 1 3 be
so distinguished.

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH. 255
could be supposed and expected, but that he would continue
in his own spirit faithfully and wholly in the Spirit of Christ,
and so be reckoned by God among the elect.
XV. THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH.
§ 306. But powerful and blessed as the sway of faith
becomes by reason of the whole twofold contents which it
may appropriate, if only, in accordance with what has just
been said, these contents be rightly applied, yet much must
always depend upon the freeness and spontaneity inseparably
belonging to faith. Nay more, in the actual conflicts upon the
way to God, both in the case of the individual man no
less than in that of greater or smaller communities held
together by its contents, everything ultimately depends upon
this spontaneity. For in every moment when the chief
question is to resolve and to act, faith has to give the right
direction to the free will of man, and to maintain it in such
direction. Faith stands therefore in closest relation to the
will, and just on this account, if only in its contents and
tendency it be the true faith, it can never be too prompt, top
joyful, and too brave. Now the free and ready action of faith
suffers, it is true, if not at once yet necessarily in the course
of time, should it have appropriated contents which, being in
themselves perverse and untrustworthy, lead also to doubt and
ultimately to sheer unbelief. But the presupposition here is
that faith has its true and proper contents, as presented in the
previous chapter. Summing up, however, the entire subject,
the whole power of faith must here be passed under review.
By virtue of its true and proper contents, faith, looked at
from below as it exists in man, carries in itself the basis
of the firmest and clearest conviction ; looked at from above,
it is sustained by all divine energies ; thus therefore by
constant, uniform freeness and readiness to act in accordance
with such firm conviction and divine energy, it gains its
absolutely peculiar inward force, and its actual outward power

256 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
which nothing can replace. Moreover, binding together the
human and divine, and blending as it were heaven and earth,
it becomes the great chief combatant in the removal of diffi
culties which intercept the free course of the divine wiU
with mankind, and hinder the co-operation of the human will
with the divine. Where it works, therefore, with its right
contents and its unrestrained and uninterrupted freeness and
spontaneity, the highest and the most salutary experience
possible in the whole development of human history may be
realized, as well in the case of the individual who submits to
its sway as in its subsequent issues in the world beyond.
For in some measure, indeed, according to the position of the
individual to the world of his time, and according to the
greatness of the subjects faith holds and maintains, such
issues may extend their influence beyond the individual into
the whole wide circle of humanity. The whole Bible attests
this ; but no one, in accordance with his own knowledge and
anticipation, and placed in so lofty a position over against the
whole world, expresses it so clearly and so strongly as Christ
Himself, partly in figurative representations,' partly in the
universal proposition, "Everything is possible to him that
believeth." ^ This, to be sure, is only a brief exclamation,
concisely and distinctly expressing the highest conceivable
truth on this question, exactly similar to the kindred saying,
" Nothing is impossible with God." * In such cases a closer
observation of the circumstances under which so universal an
expression occurs, will always show its necessary limitation.
For instance, the " everything " in this saying does not include
what is evil, only what is good and belongs to God and faith.
But who can limit beforehand the extent of such good and
not feel surprise at the occurrence of some phenomenon or
event, whether brought about directly by God, or by means of
man through faith, which seemed" impossible before ? In that
1 § 301 at the close, p. 227 f.
^ Mark ix. 23. This is the right reading and the true meaning of it.
' ' Everything may happen to him that believeth, "" is less correct.
^ So, LXX., Job xiii. 26; repeated Maitt. xix. 26; Luke i, a7.

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH, 257
great expression of Christ concerning faith, this, however, is
especially instructive, viz. that He utters the saying in a
connection where it may be referred as well to him who
already possesses faith as to him who as yet does not possess
it. For inasmuch as faith, if really a free and spontaneous
power, is always eager to express itself in action immediately,
so, like everything that has won palpable manifestation, it
works with facility from him who possesses it to others, and
kindles into flame the spark of faith already lying concealed
within their souls; as indeed is shown in this narrative.'
But the mighty energy with which faith may spread from
one to a whole multitude, and the force which Hes in the free
working of true and genuine faith, are most apparent just
where the highest example of faith has entered into the world.
Moreover, its free spontaneous action immediately, and in
relation to the very utmost difficulty that may tend to enfeeble
and annihilate the faith even of the best men, is attested by
this example. Still further, all this is given and manifest, as
it was needful it should be given and made manifest, within
the sphere of the Biblical development of all true religion,
and when the last great necessary advance upon its way was
for ever won. For the spontaneous energy of faith cannot
show itself more emphatically than when it has to come in
conflict with a law, a law indispensable in an earlier age,
subsequently more and more misunderstood, yet surrounded
with a halo of sanctity, in short, a law like the Mosaic law in
the time of Christ. No doubt everything by which man can
be made righteous before God, everything essential to the
confident expectation of eternal blessedness, is of the highest
importance for faith. But whatever it may be in itself,
should it lose its original freshness of life, and become a mere
outward custom and dead formality, it loses thereby its power
for faith and its divine use for man. All this the great
prophets in the very midst of the true religion in Old Testa
ment times had forcibly and eloquently taught. Yet all
' I.e. in the very next verse, Mark ix. 24.
K

258 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
this, in spite of their warning, had now come about. No
doubt, also, it was the barest outline lof what once had been
sacred, that from the time of Ezra was derived by the
schools of the law from the Pentateuch, and that now, sur
rounded anew by the highest sanctity, was declared alone
sufficient for the justification of men before God, Indeed,
all the world might have supposed that what was held to be
the only true religion was now dependent upon this method
of cleansing and purification ; a method and means, it is true,
innocent enough in the earlier ages and in accord with their
spirit, but now sufficiently known to comprise essentially
feeble, perishable, and earthly elements, and to have become
pernicious rather than salutary in its influence. But the
highest sanctity that could ever guard a way of righteousness
now guarded this way ; and only a faith that stood still
higher in purity of spirit and freedom of action could win a
victory over it ; a purity and freedom, in short, which found
only in the eternal will of God all light and strength, and so
could endure the extremest possible trial. In such supreme
conflict of faith Christ won the victory for Himself and for
all the world that would follow Him, Thereby the proof was
actually given that neither these nor any other means and
works which, because they are prescribed for him by law, man
observes as conducive to holiness, can really justify him
before God ; that not thus is the whole round of duty to
God to be fulfilled ; that all such separate works, even when
they are good, are only single isolated acts of righteousness,
whilst the whole spirit should ever be presented to God, and
that this is possible only through the free and constant
exercise and conflict of faith ; and that only faith that thus
attests itself can therefore ultimately justify in the sight of
God. But when in the apostolic age it was a matter of
moment to obtain and secure all the legitimate results of the
conflict Christ had finished, then indeed a single spark from
the pure and mighty fire of faith that had just been kindled
in the world was able to create out of Saul a Paul, and to

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH. 259
send him as its most fitting instrument in that age to spread
abroad in all its full glory through his whole remaining life
the eternal doctrine, new nevertheless to all the world, that
only by faith, a definite faith now for all the world and once
for all made manifest, does man become righteous before
God,' Having once entered upon this right way, and having ad
vanced further and further upon it in direct and consistent
course, in opposition to all the difficulties that now confronted
him, and by the power of this very faith, Paul found occasion
and leisure to immortalize in literature this noble conception of
it, this lofty view of its incomparable worth as destined to prove
itself the firm stay of the life in all higher endeavours. The
writings of Paul, springing from the purest and most fervent
glow of true faith, have now become its undesigned yet eternal
panegyric. In the course of them he avails himself of the
aid of every proof that came readily to ^lis hand to establish
the soundness of his principle. He proves it (1) by a com
parison of faith with the nature and working of every written
law ; ^ (2) by showing that Christianity with its freedom from
the mere letter of this definite Mosaic law only takes up
again the thread of the patriarchal age,* a proof which cor
responds and coincides exactly with his fundamental thought ;
(3) by a reference to the fact that redemption from the law had
entered into the world through Christ " without the law," which
is true and just so far as Christ and His immediate disciples
did not come forth from the school of the law at that time chiefly
dominant, and did not regard such school with approval ; * (4)
1 Gal. ii. 16-21, cf. vi. 12-16 ; Rom. iii. 20, 24-28 ; the chief passages.
2 Gal. iii. 10-12 ; Rom. iii. 20, vii. 7-25, iv. 15. Cf. also §§ 34-46, pp.
77-139 ill Revelation; its Nature and Record, where the discussion of this
whole subject is more complete.
3 Gal. iii. 6-9, 14-29 ; Rom. iv.
' Xi^pU yifcou, Rom. iii. 21, by which is understood, since the matter is dealt
with historically, that in the appearing of Christ which brings the righteousness
of God and not that of the law, the existing school of the law has not co
operated in the least, nor did Christ proceed from it, — a position with which all
the reminiscences of the Gospels agree.

260 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
by the witness of history to the working of this school of the
law, since it did not possess energy enough, in all thorough
ness of principle and amid all the vicissitudes of the national
life, to uplift the Jews sufficiently above the moral condition
of the heathen.' He points incidentally to other proofs ; ^ he
might also have added many more,* and have drawn out those
he gives in further detail ; * but there was no necessity for
all this. The chief thing is the inner truth of the whole
contention, and the power, inseparably bound up with it, of
effecting that amelioration and renewal of all mankind, which
is distinctive of Christianity. Everything, indeed, with this
apostle ultimately branches out into this one issue, the
spiritual creation of a new humanity, an issue upon which
he discourses as the occasion demands, now with calm and
confident assurance, now with the glow of the purest in
spiration.^ ¦§307. In the long history of the development of all true
religion from the beginning to. the end, a chief endeavour of
all who were conscious of being strongly impelled by the
ardour of faith was necessarily just to foster this its legitimate
freedom and spontaneity of action, to quicken and increase it,
and indeed to preserve it also from deterioration. Nay more,
in all true religion, the higher faith in general and pure and
salutary faith in particular must stand, the more vigorously
^ Paul begins with this as most apparent, Rom. ii. ; cf. earlier, 1 Thess. ii.
14-16 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6 ff.
2 Such as the non-fulfilment of the law, by the chief teachers of it. Gal.
vi. 13 ; the allusion to the earlier impurity of the world yet in its youth. Gal.
iv. 1-9 ; and others ; altogether apart from the allegorical interpretation of the
Old Testament.
3 For example, if he from the other side had wished to enter upon the nature
of works, he might have added the proof indicated p. 258, that all works are
fragmentary, just as all knowledge is, while faith, on the contrary, may be a
whole, constantly in readiness, nay, even complete, so that what James says of
patience may be said of it, akin as it is to patience, it forms an ipyav T'o.nn.
* For how much may we to-day more perfectly know and prove by our more
exact historical investigations and knowledge !
5 As Gal. iii. 5, iv. 15, and especially Rom. vi.-viii. But the reference to
that greatest matter of fact itself is closely bound up with this, viz. that other
wise the whole of Christianity is idle and vain, Gal. ii. 21, v. 2 ff.

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH, 261
were aroused, during the long course of the formation of its
genuine community, and so during the more than fifteen
hundred years of its history as the Bible presents it to us, all
the multifarious questions which a subject like faith may
involve, a subject purely spiritual and deeply affecting the
most inner experiences and the highest aims. The Bible
contains very manifold opinions and suggestions about it,
given sometimes briefly, sometimes more at length, now easily
intelligible, now difficult to grasp, or indeed apparently
contradictory. But putting everything together, including
brief and incidental hints occasionally offered, there emerges
the picture of a conflict continued during all those many
centuries to settle more and more completely and comprehen
sively the perception and knowledge of the nature of faith, of
truly salutary and therefore especially prompt and ready
faith ; and we are obliged to say that all the difficult
questions which here come into view were solved at that
time with perfect confidence.
Nevertheless, in true religion, faith has so much to do with
the purely spiritual, invisible and therefore divine realm of
all human thinking and conception, that he who possesses it
may well seek in a new and difficult situation of things to
lender aid to others by more outward proofs of the spon
taneous working of faith. It is true that the distinct con
tents of faith should ever be determined according to know
ledge, as indeed the Bible presupposes from the first,' and
the fundamental conditions of its free action demand. But
so far as the subject of faith relates to the purely divine
realm, it always remains with men upon a higher level than
all existing knowledge. What else indeed are the similitudes
or parables of Christ but endeavours to make all that belongs
to the perfected kingdom of God, which yet no human eye
has seen, more accessible by means of sensuous images to
those who would not otherwise seriously think about it at all,
much less beHeve in it ? Moreover, in the earliest ages,
1 From Ex. iv. 7-9, 30 f., to B. Isa. xliii. 10, and 1 John iv. 6.

262 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
when the whole mind of man had scarcely in the least degree
made itself famiHar with truths so sublime, and taken them
into its faith, the greatest prophets sought by signs and
wonders to enkindle the belief that the invisible almighty
God was really working in the prophet, in order that thus
the belief so awakened might be raised and directed to that
special message they had to announce from Him ; and in the
ages when already the kingdom was declining, an Isaiah had
to resort afresh to such powerful outward aids. But even
when the prophet is a true prophet, the relation in which he
stands to the new message is never such as to force and
compel the faith he demands. The last of those great
prophets well knew that with a community that ought already
to have been long accustomed to the higher faith, readiness
to accept and cherish new faith of this kind is not promoted
first of all by signs and proofs foreign to the special subject
itself, and calculated rather to strengthen and confirm merely
the belief in mighty deeds ; but only by signs and proofs
manifestly homogeneous with such subject.' When, however,
after the long extinction of all public prophecy in Israel,
Christ arose, demanding faith in what was only the logical
and consistent outcome of all that till then had been legiti
mately believed in the community, and his opponents, full of
unbelief and misconception of the Bible, arbitrarily demanded
miraculous proofs of a whoUy foreign nature, flattering to
the senses, and even then not necessarily convincing, and
demanded them in reality only to tempt Him and cover
their own obstinate aloofness with hypocritical pretence. He
refused to accede to their request, and with perfect justice.^
Subsequently by the great apostle was pronounced the
righteous condemnation as well of the last traces of a super
stition arising out of misconception of the sublimest reminis
cences of antiquity as of every kind of hypocritical unbelief.*
^ As we see it most obviously and distinctly in the case of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. 2 According to Matt. xii. 38 f., xvi. 1-4 ; John iv. 48, cf. vi. 26.
^ As maybe seen in Paul's words, 1 Cor. i. 21, whichwhollyagree with the Gospels.

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH. 263
But He who brought and could demand the highest faith,
and who therefore had the right sharply to rebuke both
unbelief and little faith,^ most profoundly apprehended also
and most distinctly declared that the free spontaneity of faith
is a quality of supreme importance in relation to it ; that
therefore its feeblest beginnings are to be met with helpful
encouragement where they are sincere ; * and that what is
to be required of every man is that when a matter of the
higher faith presents itself, he at least shall not misjudge
what is plainly manifest to the senses.* Thus all that might
mislead or occasion injury, bearing upon this subject, is
substantially and permanently placed upon its right footing ;
and, surveying the whole apostolic age, we see that all the
apostles adopt this method of procedure, Paul, however, as
opportunity offers, discoursing in his Epistles with the greatest
plainness upon the question.' 1. The Trials of Faith.
§ 308. Faith holds fast therefore as unquestionable the
certainty of the eternal existence of the true God, and the
certainty of His salvation. Containing in itself everything
that can enlighten the mind and strengthen the spirit of the
regenerate man, it is his sure defence and unfailing support
on the way to God. But our life on earth continually brings,
on the one hand new and unexpected difficulties and em
barrassments, while on the other it makes heavy demands
upon our powers. The new-born spirit, at flrst surprised and
1 According to Matt. xi. 4-24, and other passages.
'' ixiyomirroi is indeed a frequent word of rebuke. Matt. vi. 30, -viii. 26,
xiv. 31, xvi. 8, cf. xvii. 20 (where the reading IxiyoTtirTixt for xmirTixv, which
is found also in the Cod. Sinait. , seems to be only an ancient toning down of
an expression apparently too strong) ; Luke xvii. 5 f.
3 This is the meaning of the narrative, Mark ix. 23-25.
* The decisive words of John x. 37 f., xiv. 9-11, have this signification.
' The copious counsels concerning those who are weak in faith, Rom. xiv. 1-
XV. 13, may here be mentioned ; and it may be noted that Paul never speaks
of men as "of little faith," and blames them as Christ does; only the Lord
could do this.

264 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
perplexed, may be led to helplessness and despondency, and
faith and loyalty may be threatened with grave and irre
parable injury. In point of I'act, however, he who has been
created anew should not allow his faith to waver in such
circumstances; rather should he hold it with the greater
stedfastness the more it is shaken, that its genuineness may
be attested. He may do this if his faith be really what it
should be; and he ought to do it, inasmuch as by that very
faith itself he knows that the divine order of the world goes
forward with unfailing constancy ; that the present confusion
and embarrassment will speedily pass away, if only he be
stedfast and true ; and that ultimately that happy issue will
come which no one expresses out of the glowing purity of his
faith with such incomparable truth as the great Apostle of
Faith.' Every calamity which comes upon man is therefore
looked at retrospectively only as a trial which God allows to
come upon him in order to prove him and show whether he
have faith or not. It may be said, perhaps, that this holds
good in the case of bad men also ; but the Bible applies it
only in the case of those in whom a higher faith must be
presupposed, who can therefore most readily perceive that
the trial is a trial from God. In this sense the Bible speaks
from beginning to end of trials or temptations from God, and
in its earliest ^ as well as its latest writings also ; so that it
cannot be doubted that this conception belongs to the most
ancient treasure of all true religion as established for the
community by Moses. It teaches also clearly enough that
no mortal man in the midst of the whirl and tumult of Hfe
is exempt from trial; and if the ancient Book of Origins
supposes that Moses and Aaron were not excluded from it,
in the New Testament also, the earliest and earlier portions
of reminiscence give to us the narrative of Christ's temptation
both in the older and simpler and in the more extended form
1 Rom. viii. 28,
^ The short but very clear narrative, Ex. xv. 25, is from the Book of
Covenants, or rather from its sources.

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH. 265
of it ;' M'hilst apart from this particular incident the earlier
evangelical reminiscences relate similar though apparently
different instances.^ Moreover, the whole Bible suggests by
very luminous intimations that every temptation of the kind,
iu proportion to the greatness of the difficulty in overcoming
it, and the imp; rtance of the issue at stake, obtains the more
glorious reward and advances the more powerfully the work of
God in the woil I ; * nay, it even invokes blessing upon those
whom God has thought worthy of such temptation.* And as the
Bible, in a hundred cases of similar trial of the severest kind,
speaks in this strain, though without directly using this term
temptation,^ so it may be said that the true divine progress of the
whole history of the world, from the primitive age until now,
consists of one long chain of such well-endured temptations,
and that out of them, as they fell upon prominent men or
whole nations, the most influential moral reformations have
proceeded. Nay more, we are able thus to comprehend the
representation in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the whole
appearing of Christ as the supreme temptation earth and time
have witnessed.*
^ Cf. History, vi. 270 f. ; Die drei ersten Evangelien, i. p. 40 f., 80 f.
^ For the reminiscences of Matt. xvi. 22 f., John vi. 15, lead essentially to
the same principle contained iu the well-known history of the Temptation ; nor
is any important difference involved in the fact that the narrative of Matthew
(xvi. 22 f.) is more vivid than that of John (vi. 15).
' The story of Abraham, Gen. xv. 1-xxii. 19, affords the great example of
all temptation, even the longest and severest conceivable, although the word
' ' tempt "is actually employed only in reference to the last and highest stage
of it.
* Deut. xxxiii. 8.
^ For instance, the whole Book of Job gives the counterpart to this example
from Abraham's life, in a different way, yet equally elevated and instructive
in character, without once using the word nD3> LXX. srs/fajm. On the other
T ¦
hand, the Deuteronomist (viii. 2, 16, xiii. 3) very clearly speaks of the divine
end of temptation. This riDJ " to trj%" is a word introduced from the Ara
maean into the Hebrew, which, along with the genuine Hebrew word KJ^Jj " to
lift," indicates an artificial lifting up, or a short, quick, upward movement to
ascertain the weight of a thing. Cf. Job vi. 2. It is thus distinguished from
;na, "to test," "to examine," from ¦^(13, "to choose."
' - T T
« Heb. ii. 18, iv. 15.

266 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
As every trial of faith which God sends upon man may
nevertheless be conducive to his salvation, so on the contrary
all murmuring against God, all despair of His help,' as well
as all unreasonable demands and expectations in relation to
Him,^ are appropriately regarded in the Bible as instances
of inadmissible tempting of God on the part of man. For,
looking at this whole matter, in the primary aspect of it, God
has indeed the right to ask at any time whether faith and
loyalty towards Him are duly maintained, since man is
always liable to error and mistake ; but if man despairs of
the existence and power of God, he tempts God with the
doubt whether He be God, and whether He be the true God;
or if man expects some unreasonable thing of God, he tempts
Him with the question whether He is willing to do some
unreasonable thing. For man is able to judge especially
when called to the privilege of true faith, that it is not per
missible to think in this way of God, nor to expect such
intervention from Him ; so that he not merely offends
against faith, but he disturbs the divine order of the world
and provokes the anger of God. That man is not to tempt
God is therefore so old a principle of the true religion that
King Ahaz, as apparently a well-informed and sagacious
dissembler, could misuse it.* Moreover, this contrast between
the Human and the Divine, so emphatic and sharp in itself,
1 The important and clear example of this from the primitive history is the
temptation on account of water in the desert, which was alternate, i.e. of the
people on the part of God according to the oldest narrative, Ex. xv. 25 ; and
of God, in a different way, on the part of the people and Moses, according
to the Book of Origins, Num. xx. 1-13, 24, xxvii. 14 ; or on the part of
the people a ne, according to the Fourth Narrator, Ex. xvii. 1-7. This
portion of reminiscence from Moses' time must have been once very much
spoken abou ; and in fact only in this way does each temptation become
so extremely complicated and also ultimately so prejudicial in its effect, in
one aspect of it, as the reminiscences from Moses' time show to have been
the case.
^ As in the cases Acts v. 9, cf. 3, xv. 19. The same thing, however,
expressed more in Greek fashion lies in the idea of a eio/idx"!, Acts v. 39 ; and
according to Jude 8, 12, Ecclus. xviii. 22, Wisd. i. 2, this idea becomes very
common with later writers.
2 Isa. vii. 12 ; cf. Deut. vi. 16.

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH. 267
helongs unquestionably to the oldest elements of the true
religion as it came into the world by Moses.
§ 309. During the last centuries before Christ there
occurred nevertheless, in relation to many conceptions of
this kind, a remarkable change, which left its impress on
the common currency of speech. As the gravest scruples
were entertained, at that period, against ascribing many
things to God which were apparently too human, or against
placing Him even in thought in somewhat ambiguous associa
tion with evil, so wicked suggestions and all the darker ills
of the world were now attributed to Satan,' temptations of
all kinds were traced up to him, and he was often designated
the " Tempter." ' In such representations the narrative in
the Book of Job was no doubt chiefly present to the mind.
In harmony with this all sufferings and afflictions, particularly
those of obscure origin, were characterized with fitting brevity
as temptations, and much was said of them.* Such ideas
therefore, though occurring rarely in the Old Testament, and
originally only in the most significant passages, were now in
every one's mind. Some, however, who did not care to speak
of Satan, again ascribed the endless series of temptations of
this kind to God Himself, and bewailing the multitude of
afflictions which in the growing confusion of this later age
God sent upon man, thereby lost the faith that might have
coped with them. The best teaching of the Book of Job,
and of many of the finest parts of the Old Testament, was
thus perversely overlooked in common life, — a neglect
which could never have more disastrous consequences than
in an age when from other causes pusillanimity threatened to
work so much mischief. At such a time James* had
recourse to public admonition, and declared that no one
1 § 221 (3), p. 73. ^ i mipxloit. Matt. iv. 3.
' As Ecclus. ii. 1, vi. 6, xxxvi. 1 ; Luke viii. 13, xi. 4 ; Acts xx. 19 ;
1 Cor. X. 13 ; and elsewhere.
* It is noticeable that James, so far as his words go, does not suggest that
such temptation is of Satan ; in the only passages where he speaks of demons
and Satan (ii. 19, iv. 7), they stand remotely enough from his familiar
thought.

268 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
ought to say and think he was tempted of God, i.e. allured
to sin and afflicted ; but he does not utter his warning
against such a perversion of the thought of God without
adding, as the occasion demanded, a full and definite ex
position of the human origin of all sin.

2. An Empty Faith.
§ 310. The same James opportunely corrects another
misconception that might ultimately but in a wholly different
way be especially prejudicial to the free spontaneity of faith.
When Paul, somewhat earlier than the other apostles, had
given to faith, as the perfected true religion now required it,
contents at once both definite and copious, and the Epistles in
which he so presented it were widely diffused and highly
esteemed, it began to be considered in some quarters that the
contents themselves, as such, were the chief thing, and that he
was a true Christian who merely imprinted these contents
upon his memory and repeated them publicly in some brief
formulary as a kind of " confession " before the world. In
fact, many passages may be found in the New Testament in
which the word faith bears this signification, and is almost
exactly equivalent to what we now term Christian doctrine.'
But considered in its essential nature, faith is a faculty and
power of the human mind, and it loses all its potency at
once, — a potency just as wonderful as it is salutary when
such faculty is fairly exercised, — if it be made interchangeable
with its verbal contents, and regarded in the pressure of Hfe's
conflict as something which it really is not. The more
copious and distinct its contents are, and the greater its
power in moving the will of man, the less is it of service if
thus misconceived. But, alas ! just these verbal contents of
it, rich and splendid as they are, and, historically viewed, won
¦• Namely in such connections of discourse as were noticed above in § 302,
p. 229 ; Rom. i. 5 does not, however, belong to this class of passages.

THE SPONTANEITY OF FAITH. 209
with such great difficulty, are a temptation to many to be
so much the more satisfied with them alone. That such a
danger even in the apostolic age might show itself when,
owing to the imprisonment of the great apostle of faith and
to many other calamities that bitterly disappointed the first
buoyant hopes of Christianity in its youth, a great apostasy
seemed imminent, is historically established. Inasmuch as
Paul had inculcated ' that for those who are under the
influence and power of faith in Christ, the works of the law,
prescribed in the Old Testament or deduced from it by the
schools as essential to justification before God, were no
longer binding, it was supposed by some that works in
general as accompanying faith were now superfiuous, and that
even the spirit of love might be dispensed with. By such
misapprehension of the words of the apostle, seeking to excuse
their growing indolence in an evil time, they hindered not a
little, through such pretended faith, the progress and diffusion
of genuine faith. In the midst of prevailing corruption faith
that is real has the power to save the soul of man, and the
body too so far as may be possible ; but this idle, empty or dead
faith could neither restrain corruption from within nor repel
it from without.^ For if the free spontaneous working of
faith be once annihilated in this way, only indolence on the
part of man will increase and spread. In absolutely reject
ing, and in earnestly admonishing men against, a faith which
proves itself by no works corresponding to its contents, —
though in the world often spoken of as if it were real faith,
— James completes everything of importance in the circle
of things touching faith, and contends, not indeed against
1 § 306, p. 259.
2 The words "faith indeed cannot save him," that is, cannot save him who
fails to attest his faith by corresponding works, Jas. ii. 14, only apparently
contradict Christ's frequent word, "thy faith hath saved thee," Mark v. 34,
A. 52 ; Luke xvii. 19. James means in that connection only such empty faith
as Christ Himself condemns when occasion offers. Matt. vii. 21-23, xxv. 44 f. ;
and even Paul, according to Gal. v. 6, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, 7, Rom. ii. 13, and all
that he elsewhere says, means precisely the same thing that in the last issue
James also means.

270 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Paul, but only against a perverse misapprehension of his
words.' XVI. THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST.
§ 313. The historical appearing of Christ, contemplated
in its perfectly unique significance, extends in its relations
so far back and so necessarily into the past, that notwith
standing its supreme speciality, only from that past can it
be adequately understood. On the other hand, this trans
cendent historical event has exerted such determinative
and inevitable influence upon the future, — a future, so far
as it has already transpired, now for us also a long past, —
that just as certainly even this future admits of adequate
explanation only by means of it. No doubt something of
like nature may be said of other historical men of special
character and rare occurrence. The whole life and activity
of Moses, for example, marked as they were by extraordinary
and distinguishing features in that distant antiquity, can
only be fully comprehended from the long series of centuries
of great history through which already his people had passed ;
while his influence upon the future of the nation was such
as no single hero of the kind in that high antiquity ever
exerted. In a more restricted sense something akin to this
may be said of Confucius, of Buddha, of Cyrus ; and even
of a Socrates and Aristotle, of an Alexander and Caesar, But
along with such similarity, even if outward events and
circumstances only are considered, there is in relation to
Christ an obvious and palpable dissimilarity. For in the
case of Christ, not merely the entire past of His own
' Jas. ii. 14-28, agreeing with iii. 13, iv. 11. When will men cease to
do grievous injustice to James ? Why not rather be thankful to him that he
thus expressed himself so soon and so decisively against prevailing error, error
which still to-day seeks more and more perniciously to prevail, and has in recent
time done incredible mischief ? I restate here that James wrote in Paul's life
time. We neither recognise his true merit nor comprehend his whole discourse
if we place his Epistle in the period prior to Paul's great activity. Cf. Send
schreiben an die Hebraer (Gbttingen, 1870), pp. 198-202.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 271
immediate nation contributed to make His historical appear
ing and significance exactly what they were, but in the
fulness and concurrence of circumstances that preceded may
with justice be embraced the entire condition and previous
most checkered history of all the lands which after the time
of Alexander and Caesar constituted an empire of the world,
magnificent in its strength, and pre-eminent even in its
attainments in science and art. Nay more, the highest
conceivable powers which from the very beginning could
enter into a history of the development of humanity also
lent their contribution to this great end. That subsequently
to such historical appearing of Christ, the effects and issues
which from His perfected earthly life and work at once
became conspicuous in the world, were of the most mighty
and incomparable spiritual significance ; that they continue
even till now with increasing persistence and power; that
in most recent times, notwithstanding the existence of open
and concealed foes, they have diffused themselves with
undiminished energy into the whole world of mankind, until
they have penetrated into remote regions unknown in ancient
days ; — all this can no one deny who does not estrange him
self from all the truth of history and all the teaching of
current events.
§ 321, But the imperishable and eternal fruit of the
whole work of Christ may be said to be comprehended in
two immortal boons for the whole of humanity, the greatest
that could possibly be bestowed upon our race in the midst
of the long and changeful course of its history, or that can
be bestowed upon it to-day, and that must ever remain the
greatest in all the ages to come. To distinguish and mark
well these gifts, with the means of their appropriation, is of
first importance, and to this task we now proceed.
1. By His earthly manifestation Christ gives to all men
for ever the one luminous, fully adequate, perfect example of
the perfect divinely-human life ; and presents it suffused with
a charm that irresistibly wins spontaneous and loyal imitation

272 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
The model and pattern has nothing meagre and trivial about
it, but is lofty enough for those who aspire after the highest
type of character, while it is sufficiently lucid and clear for
the dimmer and duller vision. Eich and manifold in its
breadth, it meets the need alike of the learned and the
unlearned, of those who know the deepest of life's sorrows
or the most elevated of its joys. So universal and abiding
is its significance, that it remains the only all - sufficient
example for the whole future of the human race. None
shrink from contemplating it but such as dare not cast a
direct and steady glance upon the life that is pure and
spotless, transcendent and eternal ; and all who have once
beheld with clear and open vision its gentleness and splendour,
its earnestness and love, are drawn towards it irresistibly
and permanently by its undying charm. If humanity is at
all so constituted and adjusted that at any time it shall win
for itself all the blessings it is appointed to win, here at last
has come One who, untouched by all sin, abides in the purest
and most complete obedience to the divine will that He may
call others to a similar perfection. And yet this whole
example that has now entered into the clear Hght of history
would find among men no corresponding adaptation and be
almost wholly useless, if Christ had not been fully man,' so
that men might have had an excuse if in their respective
callings in life they refused to follow Him. But they have
no such excuse. As Columbus broke open the way into the
New World, so that a great multitude might follow in his
track, so Christ has broken open for even a more innumer
able host the highway that leads not simply to the half of
a human world, but to the New World of eternal and com
plete perfection.
2. But as in the case of other men the earthly appearing
^ If we estimate aright all that lies in his words, historically in their full
extent and range, no writer in the New Testament makes this more prominent
than the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ii. 10 f., iv. 14-16, v. 1-9,
xiii. 11, 12. But, strictly taken, John does not deviate from this truth in his
extremely sharp and distinct words, i. 14.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 273
and activity is not all that has to be taken into account,
since every member of the race has also in the infinite
host of men a special relation to the ultimate goal of this
whole existing human creation, towards which all are moving,
and takes some particular place in the unceasing progress
towards it, so is it also with Christ. There is a work of
God which extends through this whole present creation to
a new yet gloriously perfected future creation ; this work
of God of infinite significance is to become completed by
means of mankind itself, which it aims to lead onward to its
final goal. But in the midst of the course of it and before
the eyes of the world stands Christ in unique significance,
the brilliant light to this goal for all humanity, and the
mightiest impulse and security for its ultimate attainment
on the only right path. All that had been truly known and
won in the old community of the true religion upon this
path was gathered up in Him to its highest power and
splendour, in order through Him to become the stedfast
and irrefragable basis of a still higher development of all
mankind. Without Him all the mighty fruitful beginnings
of progress towards perfection which had already arisen in
Israel would have been wasted and annulled ; but His truth
and the energy of His spirit reach back into all the far fore
time, and will remain throughout the whole present human
creation the stedfast security and support of all earnest
endeavour after perfection. That He- is this bright unquench
able light in the whole history of the world, in which all
antiquity first flnds its luminous clearness, and all the future
its radiant hope ; that He remains this firm unshaken stay
in all the changes of the still coming unrest of the world, —
this is the second boon for all humanity which He alone
could bring, and which He actually brought in the only
fitting and appropriate way.
§ 322. Here then lies the necessity of faith in Christ as the
Bible demands it. If we take the first of the supreme benefits
humanity owes to Him, — the example He has left us, — this

274 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
necessity is apparent. That example is not a kind of model
for some particular occupation or art of life, requiring only a
provisional faith for its full appropriation, but demanding
neither a belief with the whole soul, nor a belief of such a
nature as to exclude the thought of the possibility of a better
model. On the contrary, it is the one supreme, ever-abiding
example of the whole humanly-divine life ; nothing higher is
conceivable ; and as it has been given to us once for all, every
man everywhere in every moment of his existence should
freely and spontaneously yield to it supreme and absolute
faith. But the second of the two benefits is inseparable from
the first. Faith in Christ must therefore ever direct itself to
Him as the only perfect Mediator between God and man,
standing in the midst as the central point of the whole work
of God with humanity, connecting the original beginning of it
with its ultimate end, and outlasting it. Both together form
the eternal constituents of a faith of infinite splendour and
sublimity which nothing is to restrict but the directing of its
glance at the same time to God Himself. And indeed faith
in Christ from its first rise could find its roots only in faith
in the truth of God and His promises, promises given and
made intelligible to this community, and therefore remaining
and abiding within it. But how soon and with what
spontaneity faith in Christ grew up in the community,
subsequently to the work of Christ in its midst, may be very
clearly recognised in the Bible.
Christ did not come like Mohammed, having in the outset
to urge belief in God and " His messenger." The common
wealth in which He appeared was much too old, too firmly
based and highly developed, and suggested to the mind too
constantly the great work of God with men, to necessitate
His making such an abrupt, harsh, more than doubtful,
egotistic demand. The only thing He demanded from the first
was faith in the gospel He preached.' To be sure, this gospel
'' The original narrative of this initial event has been preserved in its com
pleteness only in Mark i. 15 ; but the substance of it is presupposed in the other

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 275
as He apprehended it, and in the full consciousness of which
He above all others lived, was wholly new. But it had its
roots in the stedfastly-cherished Messianic expectations, and
contained in itself elements which on their purely divine side
were ever before the mind of Christ. That the perfected true
religion must be revealed upon earth and firmly established
among men, and that now in Him from the time of His first
public activity it was actually present among them, this is the
great truth in which Christ from the beginning demanded
faith ; and everywhere where He discourses of faith, whether
briefly of faith itself, or of its necessity and power, it is
this particular and definite belief He means. In this way
Christ places Himself as an individual man in subserviency
to His high objective aim, and does not press to the front
His outward manifestation. His human person, with its con
tingencies and possible weaknesses, as that in which faith is
required. But in point of fact Christ always worked among men as
the Son and Word of God must work. There came moments,
therefore, in His public ministry when the faith that had long
been glowing, cherished in the gospel, turned suddenly and
spontaneously towards Himself, and was expressed in open or
half-uttered joy.' All the Gospels, even that of John, show
conspicuously enough how faith in Him, which with most men
was hesitating, even if it were not altogether disdained, grew
in the progress of time, becoming at least with some less
wavering, firmer, and more and more stedfast. Nevertheless,
in the first three Gospels such a phrase as " those who believe
in Me," stands entirely isolated.^ John only accustomed
himself to greater freedom in reproducing the words and
thought of his Lord ; and in his vivid reminiscences, Christ
Gospels ; and without it such subsequent expressions of Christ as Luke xvii. 21
are unintelligible.
1 Narratives like Matt. xvi. 15-19, John vi. 67-69, give prominence to some
of the most notable moments of those years.
2 Only in Mark ix. 42, Matt, xviii. 6, is this phrase found in the first three
Gospels ; in Luke nothing of the kind anywhere appears.

276 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
often says, " those who believe in the Son," or " in Me." ' But
no one shows more distinctly than John what difference there
is between " believing " a person, and " believing in " him,
even where the former phrase is used by Christ Himself.* To
believe in Christ is to rely upon Him with trustful heart, and
with the whole force of the mind ; but this, just as much as
" believing " Him, involves believing in the Light (the Logos),
so that all earthly illusions vanish.*
By His death on the cross, it is true, faith in Christ was
for the moment profoundly shaken ; but it was shaken only
to rise up again the more gloriously and indestructibly to the
glorified One, and to transfer itself even in the apostolic age
from the few who already believed in Him to an innumerable
host. If it be asked which of the two aspects of faith above
mentioned wrought such wonderful changes in the hearts of
men, it is not to be doubted that the pattern and example of
life Christ left behind at once made upon His immediate
disciples an impression that was ineffaceable, and that without
it the whole belief in Him which apostles and early Christians
cherished is not at all conceivable. As no immediate eye
witness of the Lord, the Apostle Paul might be content to
speak little of His example ; * but other New Testament
writers plainly enough point to it.^ Nevertheless, the remem
brance of this example was not itself sufficient in those
terrible moments to restore their confidence again. The one
question confronting man in all such profound trials is the
1 Apart from John iii. 15-36, these phrases return iu vi. 35-64, vii. 38,
ix. 35 f., xi. 25 f., xii. 44-50 ; cf. xii. 36, xiv. 12, xvi. 9.
" In Mark xi. 31, Matt. xxi. 25-32, this distinction may be observed in
Christ's own mouth ; throughout, in John's Gospel, it shows itself in many
discourses, as v. 46 f., viii. 45 f. ; or as x. 37 f., " If ye believe me not, yet
believe the works." The rest of the New Testament \\Titers make this
distinction also ; and in cases like Mark i. 15, iv is found Hebraistically for tls.
Yet Paul lifts up e/s into iiri, giving prominence to the elevation of Him in whom
faith is to be placed, Rom. iv. 5, 24, ix. 33.
^ John X. 36, cf. with its further exposition, 44-50.
* 2 Cor. viii. 9, Rom. xv. 3, Phil. ii. 6-8, are the only passages bearing
upon the subject.
" 1 Pet. ii. 21-24, and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Cf. p. 272.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 277
question that was uppermost in this supreme case, viz.
whether the pure consciousness of the divine presence and
power were to be retained or not. Just as Christ in the last
moments of His earthly life held tenaciously the conviction
of His unique mission as Son and Word of God, with all the
divine promises inseparable from it, so upon the minds of the
disciples, as soon as the least external check was felt, the image
of the purely immortal Christ, for ever the same, came with
surprising force and irresistible clearness and certainty. After
the first and most powerful revulsion from their dumb
astonishment and fear, what must come, happened. The
Eisen One, who had certainly been beheld, was regarded with
the deepest affection of the heart as the Son and Word of
God, raised at length in His purely heavenly infinitude above
all human decay and variableness. Temporary agitation and
alarm were changed into happy security and repose. Wholly
born again as disciples of Christ, the full power of the
Christian life was realized, and the outlook into the future
irradiated with a hope and confidence nothing could destroy.
The meaning of resurrection and future glory became now
for the first time apparent. Christianity without the visible
Christ was born upon the earth. The bond between Christ
and His disciples, which had been broken by wicked and
wanton violence, was restored and made stedfast and indis
soluble. God's great work with mankind in His creation,
instead of being suppressed, went forward again with mighty
progress, the mightiest possible to it while it was yet in the
midst of its historical course.' Upon the lofty stage of faith
in God and Christ also, now newly won, the remembrance
of Christ's example of life returned with increased vividness,
^ In the Christian mind there is no doubt of Christ's resurrection ; but how it
is to be historically understood still remains to be determined ; and since now
by enemies of Christ everything historical in the Bible is either wholly obscured
or distorted or denied, this question cannot longer be evaded. In our sub
sequent discussions it will return in its whole compass and extent. To the
resurrection is closely annexed the glorification (the So|a), but not till the
ascension is this thought of as the beginning of the perfect heavenly repose, as
also it is celebrated in the church-song, 1 Tim. iii. 16.

278 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
and became in its earthly radiance, and with all the imperish
able promises attaching to the Ascended One to whom it
now pointed, the universal example of all who aspire after
spiritual perfection,
§ 323. Faith in Christ, therefore, as it shaped itself on the
third day after the Crucifixion, shaped itself as it must hence
forth remain among men without material change. More
definite statements, however, are needed to show the purer
form this faith assumed from the dawning of this creation-day
of the New World, Such more definite statements do not
relate to the example Christ has left behind to all His disciples
for the guidance of the earthly life. No doubt at all could
exist upon this subject, after the collection of the reminiscences
of the best of the Gospels. But how Christ is to be appre
hended with respect to the eternity that is past and that which
is to come, this might become more definitely conceived ; and it
is the first part of this twofold question we would now discuss.
There are only two names and ideas, different in
themselves, which relate to the Messiah, and prior to the
historical Christ blend together in Him, and seek mutual
adjustment, viz. the Son of God and the Logos, The
name, Son of David, was originally synonymous with the
Hebrew, Messiah, or the Greek, Christos, but in the history
of Christ it occurs only rarely, and with a national signifi
cance,' The name. Son of God, was indeed at first but the
higher name accompanying this ; * but it had long received an
incomparably grander significance as the thought that they
were to be sons of God gradually faded away among the later
descendants of the race of Abraham.* The name " our Lord,"
generally abbreviated in Greek to " the Lord," * is fundamen-
' Matt. ix. 27, xii. 23, xv. 22, xx. 30 f., xxi. 9, 15 ; Mark x. 47 f. ; Luke
xviii. 38 f. ; cf. John vii. 42. These references show how much the remem
brance of this name gradually receded in the Gospels, although it could never
be wholly lost.
^ From Ps. ii. 7 ; 2 Sam. vii. 14 ; Ps. Ixxxix. 26 f., but exalted in significance.
^ § 304 (3), p. 249.
¦* "Our Lord" has a solemnity and impressiveness in 2 Thess. i. 8, 12, ii. 1, 14,
iii. 6, 12, 18 ; 1 Thess. i. 3, ii. 19, iii. 11, 13, v. 9, 23, 28 ; cf. Rev. xi. 8, 15,

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST, 279
tally equal and similar in signification to the names already
mentioned. It is used conjointly with the simpler Christos
as the peculiar name of honour ; and even by itself it suffi
ciently designates Christ when in briefer discourse the context!
calls us to think of Him in distinction from God. The. name
" son of man," originally taken from the Book of Daniel, and
very suitable in the case of. heavenly visions, comes into us©
purely through Christ's human kindliness and self-abnegation.,
and therefore only during His earthly life, and chiefly in His
own utterances, as a word of gentler sound than those majestic
names and titles ; ' as indeed in higher discourse, when uplifted
in thought above His ordinary human work. He introduces
the name " Lord." ^ In the apostolic age, however, this
flexible name " Lord " is most frequently employed. On the-
other side stands the name and idea of the purely heavenly
"Logos," which long before Christ's earthly life sought to
adjust itself with that of the " Son of God," and served so
much to invest it with glory. These two names, the Logos-
and the Son of God, are both of greatest moment, not merely
by their essential significance, but also by their rare and
elevated use. But if Christ, when He had to call attention to
the highest element in His divine mission,* preferred not the
former but the latter on account of its more human import
and its correlation with the idea of God as Father, yet in the
apostolic period a marked change took place. For whatever
the immense significance both then and now to be found in
the relation of love between the Fs^ther and the Son, still the
whole undiminished power and glory of the heavenly Logos, as
it appeared humanly in Christ, comes now into the foreground
of contemplation, and of all further expectation and hope.
Only in the affluence, splendour, and power of the heavenly
Logos, permeating and filling the whole universe from eternity
xxii. 21 ; and it is found proportionately nowhere more frequently than in
the Epistles to the Thessalonians, as the earliest of Paul's writings ; cf. also
§ 230, p. 98.
1 History, vi. 231. * Mark xi. 3 ; Matt. xxi. 3.
3 According to Matt. xvi. 16, xiv. 33, xxi. 37 ff., xxii. 2, 42, xxiv. 36, xxvi.63.

280 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
to eternity, did the thought, directed to Christ in His earthly
appearing, and from thence surveying the whole world and
all time, find a full clear light in which to interpret that
earthly appearing in its relation to all the past and all the
future. But on the other side of it, the idea of the Logos is
rather of purely celestial than national import, arising from
profounder reflection, and belonging to the loftier style of
discourse. As therefore with Christ Himself, so with His
followers, the gulf existing between the two kinds of name
and idea had to be bridged over, and a more familiar and
comprehensive view to arise. However rapidly this took
place, as indeed happened with all that belonged to the- early
Christian development, we can still trace in the New Testa
ment writings the stages of this progress.
i" 1. First of all we turn to the General Epistle of James, a
work in many respects very peculiar, written subsequently to
Paul's great Epistles, yet nevertheless following the oldest and
simplest views and usages as they arose in the primitive
community. This brother of the Lord, in high esteem in the
early Church, nowhere designates Christ the Son of God.
Commonly he speaks of Him as the Lord Jesus Christ, more
briefly the Lord, so that only from the context is it apparent
whether God or Christ is meant by this simple name.' Yet
in one passage ^ James seizes the opportunity to express the
highest view of Christ that in the proper place could be pre
sented. He is speaking directly of the right way of holding
faith in Him, and he designates Him by a bold but not
impossible combination of words, " Our Lord Jesus Christ of
glory," * According to the standing usage of the language of
'Notwithstanding the words in the superscription, i. 1, "the Lord "with
James everywhere means God, excepting in the sentences towiirds the close,
V. 7 f., 14 f., where the drift of the sentences shows Christ is meant.
' Jas. ii. 1. That the idea of the Lord may very well be distinguished from
that of Christ is evident from Acts ii. 36.
^ The expression "cherubim of glory," Heb. ix. 5, is from a somewhat later
time ; still further there occurs in a suitable connection of discourse, Eph. i. 17,
the phrase "Father of glory," i.e. the Father who comprehends all glory in
Himself, God,

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 281
the Bible, the glory so briefly expressed is divine glory ; and
the " Christ of glory " is He who is not to be thought of at all
without such divine glory. But this visible effulgent glory
in which God appears to the world is, according to conceptions '
which at that time had been long prevalent, none other than
the Logos ; so that this Christ as He has been manifest
to the world and now abides with God is coincident with
the Logos ; and we may add, in the sense of the whole New
Testament, if He once appeared without this visible heavenly
glory, yet at any moment He may now appear from heaven
with it as the Judge of the world. If, then, James does not
designate Christ the Logos, he yet represents the " Word of
Truth " as it was revealed to the world from the lips of Christ
in the gospel,* as conspicuously the means whereby God has
created anew Christian disciples, a kind of " first-fruits of His
creations," a community which being regenerated first among
all men in the world presents itself also to God as an accept
able offering of first-fruits. It cannot, therefore, be denied
that James, although he does not regard it as necessary in
this writing to represent Christ as conspicuously the Son of
God, and therein agrees with other writings of the primitive
community,* nevertheless in connection with another idea
ascribes to Him the supreme glory which is ultimately involved
in the name. But one of the finest features of the earliest
Gospels is that without putting the glory of Christ as the Son
of God conspicuously in the foreground, they show from the
mere substance and character of the successive reminiscences
of His earthly life that He must be the Son of God.* And
what could in the end be more convincing, or lead more
persuasively to faith in Him, than this ? It may therefore be
' History, vii. 215 ff.
* Jas. i. 18 ; cf. the further description, 21-23.
'^ The superscription of Mark's Gospel, i. 1, according to the Codex Sinait.,
may here be taken ; and it is to be remembered that Peter in the Acts (iii. 15,
V. 31) speaks only df the "Prince of Life," and the "Prince and Saviour"
(repeated Heb. ii. 10, xii. 2), and in his Epistle does not use the name Son of God.
¦* Cf. the Drei ersten Evangelien, i. p. 184 ; and the grand inference on the
lips of a heathen, Mark xv. 39 ; Matt, xxvii. 54.

282 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
said, that almost as simply as the visible Christ discoursed of
Himself among His disciples, do they who once stood nearest
to Him discourse in the New Testament of their now glorified
Lord. § 324. 2. The new and suggestive way in which Paul
contemplates Christ's appearing, and unites with it in the
closest bonds all the deepest and most vital elements of his
faith, marks a great further progress in the development of
thought upon this subject. It is true that in relation to the
chief conceptions of the unique divine elevation and glory of
Christ before mentioned, he adds nothing essentially new ;
ever since he became a Christian these ideas possessed to his
mind from the first an immovable stedfastness. His rich
and versatile spirit, with that wonderful combination of
sagacity and enraptured joy which everywhere distinguishes
him, but traces out the thoughts and truths these ideas
involve, and blends together all the varied and accordant
notes as in one lofty strain of heavenly harmony. For this
reason the representation of Christ as the Son of God is very
frequently employed in his writings, and on account of the
idea of infinite love that essentially belongs to it, is indeed',
just as with Christ Himself, the favourite representation. On
the basis of this conception of Christ's Sonship, having regard
to His actual appearing here on earth as it took place, and to
the old sacred intuitions and hopes inseparably associated with
the glorified Messiah, there grew up before Paul's mind with
new vividness a new image of the divine connection of all
human things.' For the deliverance of humanity from its
palpable universal corruption, it was necessary that Christ
should be born in the flesh of the race of David, conformably
^ What Paul briefly, because incidentally, mentions in 2 Cor. viii, 9, Rom.
XV. 3, i. 4, cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16, he purposely enlarges upon in Phil. ii. 6-11,
'The words i/«s SfoS iv iutx/m in Rom. i. 4, must be closely connected as in
antithesis to our feeble human nature ; the following xxra vnH/tx kyiuavtm
must he understood as in antithesis to xxrk axpxx, of the rule of the higher
life in accordance with which He was ultimately rewarded ; and i| xixdrimm
must be taken purely temporally. The sense is thus completed on all sides,
briefly but with clearness and point.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 283
with the old prophecies. But since as Logos, and therefore
the most spiritual and effulgent of all Beings apart from God,
He existed from the beginning in divine form. He might have
taken up His abode among men in visible and resplendent
glory and ruled as Almighty God, casting down at once in
His potent sway all that opposed itself against Him. But
to give to men the right pattern and example as Son of God,
He did not, as men in common would have done, regard it as
proper to take advantage of the opportunity for His own
honour in any self-pleasing, as though spoil lay before His
feet to be grasped with eager and material hands ; but He
disrobed Himself of His heavenly dignity, becoming of His
own will a man like all men, nay, a bondservant ' and a poor
man, allowing Himself therefore to be exposed to misjudgment
and persecution, and all the time being simply obedient in all
tilings to the will of God, even at last to the utter degradation
of the cross. Having thus fulfllled perfectly God's will to
the extremest point, and in this way given to all men directly
the supreme example of all true religion. He attained the
divinely predetermined reward as the absolutely Sinless One ;
and through the " spirit of holiness " that ruled Him being
victorious over death. He became " the Son of God with
power " after His resurrection, being exalted to the heavens
and honoured supremely by all, next to God alone, as the
only true Mediator between God and man.
Such is the clear and distinct outfashioning of the idea of
Christ, considered in His significance prehistorically, historically,
and henceforth eternally for all mankind. Such idea could
not but take shape immediately after the dawn of the apostolic
a,ge ; and it subsequently maintains itself without variation,
and alone prevails in the New Testament. It may be said
to blend the representation of Christ as the Son of God with
that of the Logos to a new whole of such beautiful fitness and
1 As ImXiis, Phil. ii. 7, because in the Roman provinces all who were not
Roman citizens were regarded as public slaves, and when put to death as rebels
iwere crucified, not beheaded, Paul's use of this word points in this direction.

284 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
proportion that the former becomes its innermost heart of
love, the latter its outward splendour and glory. The Apostle
Paul, however, did not create the conception. From the first,
moment of the apostolic age it lay before him already in its
fundamental materials and in its necessity : he deals with it
everywhere as already given. The only thing which at the
first glance should surprise us to-day is that the apostle in
the epistles preserved to us, just as James and Peter in their
writings, nowhere applies the name Logos to Christ. But
this is readily explained by what has been already said.'
Christ is always and pre-eminently the King of the true
kingdom of God, who is actually to appear or has already
appeared. He did not come in the effulgent form of the
Logos. The writers of the New Testament, therefore, and
even John as well, everywhere hesitate to call the historical
Christ the Logos ; they love rather the name of Christ only,
simple as it is, and yet, rightly understood, amply sufficient.''
Most obviously is this seen with respect to the name Logos
in the Apocalypse, written not long after Paul. A marked
peculiarity is given to the work in that it introduces, according
to its artistic plan, the entire body of ideas and names that
could be employed in the primitive community for Christ, both
those that were common and those that were rare and suited
only for certain circumstances ; and it introduces them not
in one brilliant series skilfully arranged, but scattered through
out the whole book according as their significance harmonized
with the development of its great theme. Thus the relative
import of these names and ideas in minute detail becomes
clearer, the whole art of the presentation greater, and the ulti
mate impression decidedly more powerful. It is this that invests
the Apocalypse with so much special instructiveness for us ;
but it is easy to see on closer contemplation that in its entire
view of Christ it fully agrees with Paul. After the seer (1)
1 § 323, p. 278 f.
2 As is most evident in 1 Cor. x. 4, where indeed the pre-Christian Logos is
at once characterized as Christ.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 285
in the introduction has connected with the principal name,
Jesus Christ, the three heavenly characterizations — " the true
witness," " the firstborn from the dead," " the prince of the
kings of the earth," ' and also three human characterizations —
" who loved us," and " cleansed us from our sins in His blood,"
and " made us a kingdom "... with three others ; ^ to those
ten he adds (2) at the headings of the seven epistles seven
other names and conceptions, among which that which occupies
the central place is " the Son of God," whilst the last, " the
beginning of the creation of God," points extremely signifi
cantly to the primordial Logos. Then follow in what is the
Apocalypse in the stricter sense, extending from chapter iv. 1
to chapter xxii. 7, five other names and conceptions of Christ,*
amongst which the central one, " the Lamb as if it had been
slain," is continually repeated, as a figure the eye is never to
lose sight of. But far away above the title " Son of man "
there follows as the lofty, amazing, and sublime conclusion, —
yet not till the actual commencement of the judgment of the
world, — " the Logos of God." So manifestly, therefore, is
He not to step forth in visible glory until the close of the
whole development of the present world.
§ 325. How certainly the Apocalypse, in its peculiar and
artistically-graphic presentation, gives to us in this way only
the same great intuition which the Apostle Paul shared with
entire Christendom in its first age, may be especially seen in
one idea and word, which indeed is just as little found in the
passages of his Epistles before mentioned as in the Apocalypse,
and which nevertheless preserves for us this great intuition,
and is the briefest and most usual expression of it. In the
glorious form and the mighty power of the Logos, Christ will
not appear until the end of the world's development; but
' Rev. i. 5. ' Rev. i. 8.
3 "The Lion of the Tribe of Judah," "the Root of David," Rev. v. 5 ; "the
Lamb " from v. 6 onwards ; " One like to a Son of man," xiv. 14, with reference
to Dan. vii. 13, to Rev. i. 13, and the Son of man of the Gospels ; to which
is at length added with entire appropriateness "the Logos of God," xix. 13.
The seven that follow from xxi. 6 to xxii. 13, 16, are only repetitions.

286 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
then He will come as the Judge of the world, and the
initiator of the visibly perfected kingdom of God. Such is,
as we have seen, the second half of all belief in Christ, as it
thriUed the first community of disciples, and even in the
apostolic period sounded through the world. The Greek
word Parousia signifies the beijpg here, the not being wanting,
the presence of any one ; but when the drift of discourse
implies a lengthened or momentary absence, it means the
appearing or arrival of such person.' To believe, therefore,
in the surely expected Parousia of Christ, who had now been
forcibly taken from the sight of His disciples, was so well
understood in itself that it was commonly referred to by
this brief word only. Paul, as well as all New Testament
writers, uses it as a standing expression intelligible to all
Christians.* But from the beginning, the idea of this word
in its relation to Christ suggested, to all who were familiar
with the ancient sacred conceptions of the community, the
glorious appearing of the true God as He came to the help of
His people, of which the sacred antiquity of this community
spoke, and in which, according to the long prevalent intuition
1 Thus wxfuurix is employed by Paul in an ordinary way of the coming and
presence of man, as in 1 Cor. xvi. 17 ; 2 Cor. vii. 6 f. ; Phil. i. 26, ii. 12.
Especially evident is this meaning and usage in 2 Cor. x. 10.
^ So most frequently in the earliest Epistles, 2 Thess. ii. 1, 8 f. ; 1 Thess. ii.
19, iii. 13, iv. 15, v. 23 ; then 1 Cor. xv. 23 ; Jas. v. 7 f. ; 1 John ii. 28 ;
2 Pet. iii. 4, 12. In the text of the Gospels, however, according to all indica
tions (cf. Luke xvii. 26 f . ), it is admitted only by the hand of the last editor,
as in Matthew (xxiv. 3, 27, 37 f.). As the word had already received this
definite signification, in a late writing (2 Pet. iii. 13) "the Parousia," i.e.
"the arrival of the day of the Lord," is spoken of. But in the earliest (2
Thess. ii. 8), in a discourse of unusual elevation, the genuine royal word
iTiipxtux, referring to the "flashing forth of the appearing of our Lord," is
suitably employed in harmony with the original conception ; and this word,
borrowed from the description of the coming into view of a splendid royal
pageant, is found in the late Pastoral Epistles wholly in place of the irapoutU in
the Christian sense, 1 Tim. vi. 14 ; 2 Tim. i. 10, iv. 1, 8 ; Tit. ii. 13, where
T»s So^xs is added ; cf. § 323, p. 280 ; and it becomes more and more frequent in
ecclesiastical writings. The corresponding Hebrew word is, in Rabbinical
language but not in the Bible, n3''3tJ' ; and to this, in Hellenistic Greek,
T • :
¦!rxpaiiiTtx actually answers, Josephus, Arch. III. viii. 5. That the Vulgate always
gives adventus for ¦rxptvirlx has not helped to make clear and intelligible the
original import of the word.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 287
of those ages, was seen not immediately God Himself, but
rather an embassy and representative from Him, the angel of
Jahveh.' Something of that venerable antiquity seemed to
return, but the very highest conceivable, indeed surpassing in
power over men even the grandest divine presentment of that
earlier time, and possessing eternal glory. Whatever is divine
will, in the course of history, before it becomes altogether
and for ever victorious among men, break forth irrepressibly,
revealing itself at rare moments in luminous, rays of splendour
in token and certain proof of its presence. Moreover, the
expectant spirit, filled with hallowed memories of the past, is,
in such times, prepared for such manifestations. It happened,
therefore, that early in the apostolic period, a moment of this
kind is recorded when, before the last journey of the Lord to
Jerusalem, a glorious transfiguration occurred both to Him
and His nearest disciples, a brief but ever-memorable prelude
of the imperishable glory He shall at last bring upon the
world, and an attestation that no doubt, not even the least, is
admissible concerning " the power and coming " of the Logos-
Christ, although for a long time He may continue to be hidden
from the sight of men.^
§ 326. But if Paul so far only holds fast with peculiar
1 Cf. § 216 (3), p. 68.
^ That the original import of the story of the Transfiguration (Mark.ix. 2-8)
is disclosed to us in the earliest reference to it, 2 Pet. i. 16-21, is evident, if it
is remembered that the "power and appearing of our Lord," mentioned in ver.
16, is indeed the .same that is elsewhere meant in the whole of the New Testa
ment, and cannot otherwise he understood than in opposition to His bodily
appearing in weakness and lowliness ; and that here there is an obvious illus
trative allusion to the significant moment of that glorious visible appearing
which itself is the prefiguration of the great Future. The word im'^-n; used in
this passage is taken from the Eleusinian mysteries, and points to this [i.e.
iirivTxi, " eye-witnesses," initiated spectators of His glory and majesty] ; cf. Die
Sieben Sendschreiben des N. Bs.,'^. 124 f. In the Latin Church a geminus
adventus Domini was distinguished in the early days —
prima in humilitate despectus
secundo in potestate regali prmclarus,
as is said in the old Muratorian fragm. de Canone, z. 23-26, following an old
church-hymn that probably treated this question in a creative way ; but the
original Biblical import of the Parousia is thus obscured.

288 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
fervency the same form of faith in Christ which had been
already previously established, he yet added at least in two
aspects something essentially new which became through him
of large significance. Both relate to the right way as well of
understanding as of appropriating the second of the two
abiding benefits ' which Christ bestows upon mankind.
How little the mere example of Christ sufficed in itself
alone to transform His contemporaries to a better life we
have seen already.* Even His immediate disciples, who had
this example continually before their eyes, were not so firmly
established by it in the higher life of faith that at the end of
His earthly course they could be regarded as fully born again.
So certain is it that a whole nation may be sunk so deeply in
the perverse conceptions of long centuries, that only new
forces and events of the greatest power can uplift even the
best of them to a new and better life. But just this, unex
pected as it was, took place, and by aid of the second benefit
Christ's advent and work involved. The perfect humanly-
divine life, having appeared on earth in its unique reality,
could not be annihilated again by the violence of its foes,
but rather the whole connection of the divine purpose on
earth, broken as it seemed to man, proved indestructible, and
the slain Son of God rose again clothed with even mightier
power. All this the apostles saw. The promise of Christ to
His own immediate followers was quickly fulfilled ; and the
possibility of the transfiguring of our whole human life,
apparently destroyed for ever, was made good and established
by its own glorified Author. As the disciples now saw them
selves by this experience suddenly advanced to a wholly new
and higher life, set free from their earlier errors and sins, and
in close spiritual contiguity with the glorified Christ who
stood near at hand as the Judge of the world, so they found
in themselves the wonderful power to declare to all the world
the assurance that the higher life, free from the burden of
earlier errors and sins, was now a given possibility, and to
' § 321, p. 273. = § 322, p. 276 f.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 289
exhort men everywhere to participate in it, pointing to the
death and certain return of the infinitely elevated One. The
murder of an innocent person had always been regarded from
the earliest commencement of this community as the most
heinous crime, to be expiated by the deepest penitence ; ' yet
what is the murder of an innocent man of the ordinary type
compared with that of the Son of God ! But the crime,
apparently impossible even to thought, had been committed ;
and the first freer retrospect to that unalterable fact, the
irresistible impulse to find in this horrible darkness a divine
light, and especially the reminiscence of some anticipatory
words of Christ Himself respecting His temporal end,^ were
sufficient to throw into these open honest souls the light of
a true apprehension of this most difficult divine problem.
Without the divine possibiHty nothing happens. In this
murder, and in the certainty that as the Son of God and the
Judge of the world He still lives, what else can be involved
but the most powerful admonition of God to men now at
least henceforth to violate no more the glorified One as the
anointed of God and the coming Judge of the world, but to
honour Him in His true character, and so escape the divine
punishment which must come upon the whole world on
account of His disdainful rejection and murder if it will not
now recognise Him in His truth ! So simple was the earliest
apostolic view and apprehension of the benefit Christ confers
as the only true Mediator in the work of God with mankind.*
Paul, however, carries forward this view with his own
peculiar glow of thought and discourse as he applies to Christ's
death on the cross the idea of sacrifice taken from an Old
Testament passage,* here incidentally brought into considera-
' Antiquities, 170 f.
2 As Matt. XX. 28, Mark x. 45, according to the "Collection of Discourses ; "
repeated from thence in such passages as Acts vii. 35 ; Luke i. 68, ii. 38 ;
Heb. ix. 22 ; Tit. ii. 14.
^ This is; seen from Peter's earliest discourses, as they were manifestly
restored as a whole from clear reminiscence. Acts ii. 14-36, 38-40, iii. 12-26.
* The words of the B. Isa. liii. were, according to Luke xxiv. 26 f., 1 Pet. ii.
T

290 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
tion ; but he carries it forward with distant outlook to the
whole world, as indeed the thought of the Logos allowed.
Sacrifice, according to a very ancient conception, is a mediation
between man and God, and moreover the supreme and most
efficacious mediation, for averting especially the anger of God
from the guilty; but always is sacrifice also a freewill offering of
man seeking the good pleasure of God.' Now the weight of the
perversities and sins of the human race had grown, in the course
of thousands of years, to such an infinite degree that God was
estranged from man in righteous indignation. This view of
the situation of the world up to the time of Christ is in perfect
accord with the language of the Old Testament. For the
human race, sunk in error and sin, the most thorough of all
purifications, viz. the purifications Moses had formerly estab
lished in the community of Israel, no longer for centuries
realized their aim. Only by the long-suffering of God could
this perversion of the relation between man and God so long
continue ; but God's long-suffering is at length exhausted.
He then sent into the world His long promised Son, who alone
remained the purely guiltless One, in order to seek a peaceful
annulment of the enmity that had arisen between Him and
man. But the world put to death His Son, and in this act
aimed directly at God Himself, who was in Christ working to
such peaceful end. Thus the whole relation was changed.
It was now not merely as when an innocent man is murdered
and the destructive force of the evil deed recoils upon the
murderer ; but the Innocent One, as Son of God, shows in the
very highest degree His love as well to God as to man ; for,
knowing the Father's will that He must lay down His life on
account of the enormous weight of the sins of the world. He
surrendered it freely and in deepest pain as a sacrifice in
obedience to Him, since just this supreme and most painful
23-25, Rev. v. 6 ff., very early referred to Christ, and certainly floated before
the mind of the apostle as he built up his grand structure of thought.
^ Compulsory sacrifices are so certainly of a later and more artificial kind,
that they could not here come into consideration at all. Cf. Antiquities, 23 ff.,
57 fl-.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 291
of all sacrifices was to be offered for the propitiation of that
all-oppressive anger of God, in order that the great work of
reconciliation which, through human guilt, did not take place
by the peaceful method might in this way be accomplished.
As, therefore, according to the ancient faith, at the very
moment when the blood of the sacrificial victim is poured
forth, and the priest announces the purification, guilt leaves at
once the person of the guilty,' so, as God purposed, for the
sake of His beloved Son,'' and in answer to His intercession
on man's behalf,* the incomparably precious blood of Christ in
that very moment absolved the guilt of all mankind, — i.e. for
all those who seek to be redeemed by Him in order to enter
upon a new and sinless life according to His example, —
whilst the same blood calls forth the vengeance of God for
ever upon those who continue and persist in the sins of the
Old World.* This bloody offering, the like of which never
occurred before or since, stands thus in the centre between
the Old and New World. It had to be offered to satisfy
divine righteousness on account of the infinite weight of the
sins of the world, their penalties being thrown upon Christ in
order to their annulment, that by their annulment the way
might be opened for the possibility of a New World freed from
them. But since this new life, now opened, can be realized
only by faith, it is as if in the glare of this blood God has set
forth conspicuously before the eye a sin-offering for the whole
1 " But as soon as this most sacred solemnity of the sprinkling of the blood
was completed, then, according to the ancient belief, the impurity and guilt
were shaken off from the object to which they had clung. It seemed as though
the drops of blood, sprinkled by the mighty hand of One who was pure, called
forth and irrestistibly drew out such impurity and guilt : for thus we must
plainly interpret this procedure in accordance with the feeling of antiquity."
— Antiquities, p. 63.
^ " The Son of His love," Col. i. 13 ; cf. Mark i. 11, ix. 7, xii, 6, according
to B. Isa. xiii. 1 ; Matt. xii. 18.
= This is self-evident in such connection.
' This aspect of the matter is presented in the Revelation from v. and vi. ff.
onwards, because it is specially congruous with its chief contents ; but the con
verted Paul also thinks of it with confidence. That the great forgiving of sin
relates first of all to the sins of the world up to the moment of the death of the
Redeemer, lies clearly in the words of Rom, v. 6-9 ; Col. ii. 14 ; Heb. ix. 15.

292 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
world to be appropriated by faith, in order to show, in that
He justifies every one who beHeves in Christ, the rigour of
His righteousness as to the Past, and His full restored love to
mankind redeemed by Him, For in the last issue it is only
the same eternal divine work, a supreme portion of which we
see here in operation, so that it may also be said, " God was
in Christ," so working that He • " reconciled the world unto
Himself," " not reckoning to men the crime " of the Old World,
and for the New World establishing the apostolic " ministry
of reconciliation ; " and " He has made Him to be sin," i.e. the
sin-offering, that thereby men might no longer be His anger
(and curse), but become His righteousness (and His blessing).'
With such inexhaustible flow does the apostle's discourse
proceed when he aims to give a clear understanding of this
greatest mystery of the divine administration of the world ;
and subsequently even John follows on this subject the form
of speech which Paul had established.*
§ 3 2 7. But however creative Paul is in this representation,
he merits still more our admiration by the way in which he
more particularly conceives of the appropriation of this service
of Christ through faith. The chief incident of Christ's appear
ing, described in the previous paragraph, is ever present to
him in all vividness, so that it is observable everywhere how
firm is his faith in Christ, a faith adjusted by means of this
chief incident. Yet it is nevertheless a special thought lying
in that entire and largely comprehensive representation, from
which he here proceeds. The world sought to kill Christ,
1 The two chief passages, 2 Cor. v. 17-21, Rom. iii. 23-26, explain each
other, and are sufficient for our purpose. They stand in a different connection,
and reflect the hues of a different topic of discourse. Of so much the more
weight is it that thoy nevertheless agree on the great point at issue. Apart
from James, all the epistolary writers of the New Testament, and even Rev. i. 6,
follow the apostle in these thoughts and images. Upon 2 Cor. v. 19 it is to be
observed that Ssos «« iv Xpirrii forms a proposition of itself, the more particular
bearings of which then succeed. The import of the phrase is not one and the
same with 6tSs riv Xpiirrls, but points by such rare expression without doubt to
the Logos.
^ 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10 ; with the peculiar word iXatfcis, cf. Heb. ii. 17 ; Rom
V. 7.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 293
and in Him especially the Logos of God, who spoke and
worked through Him. But if, according to God's eternal
laws, all wrong - doing ultimately recoils upon him who
does it ; so here in this unique case. With all the suffer
ings ordained to come upon Him, the world might indeed put
to death and bring to the grave all that was mortal in Christ,
but what was immortal and divine in Him raised itself at
once out of this deep abyss in order now, in unsullied glory
victorious over death and the world, to gather together to a
new humanity of purer life the host of those who live like
Him in the world, and are transfigured by Him in the
midst of it. This supremest event that was possible in the
course of all divinely-human history, and for which the life
and hope of all the pious souls of antiquity had prepared the
way, has now actually occurred ; and just because it is the
supremest event it has happened once for all, it can never be
repeated,' and there can neither be the expectation nor hope of
the appearing of a new and still greater Eedeemer. The perfect
divinely-human life, so far as it could proceed and shine forth
from one upon earth among men, and moreover in the com
munity of the true God, has come. With this glorious advent
everything old, as the immature or wholly corrupt, imperfect
life of mankind, has passed away, and all has become new ; *
for the power of the errors and sins which oppressed humanity
up to this moment, and led to the death of the absolutely Holy
One,* is by the earthly Christ broken, and at last by the glori
fied Christ fully annihilated for all who seek to live like Him,
that like Him they may be glorified. To lay hold joyfully
' Upon this point great weight is laid, nay, in its proper place, the greatest
weight, Rom. vi. 10 ; and the same " once" (and for ever) is repeated in this
and like relations, 1 Pet. iii. 18 ; Heb. ix. 26-28 ; cf. Heb. vi. 4, x. 10 ;
Jude 3.
* To which Paul likewise in the same connections so strongly points. Gal. vi.
15 ; 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Rom. vi. 4, 6, vii. 6 ; Col. iii. 9 ; repeated Heb. viii. 13 ;
Eph. ii. 15, iv. 22, 24.
' Yet such phrases as o ayio; tou Bzov, Mark i. 24, or o clyio; srs's toZ Qiojj, Acts
iii. 14, iv. 27, 30, characterize rather the primitive Christian speech than that
of the Apostle Paul.

294 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
and at once of the salvation now therefore afforded by God's
grace, to suffer, to die, to be buried with Christ, in order thus
to die to the Old World, and with Him to rise from such
death to newness of life, the life determined by God, — this
only, according to the apostle, is faith in Christ ; and
everything to which in other respects faith in Him relates,
receives thereby its true significance and its inexhaustible
power.' § 328. 3. After Paul had in this way laid for all time the
firm, broad foundations of faith in the glorified Christ, the
edifice was completed by rapid steps to its highest summit.
Everything that lay in the idea of the Logos that was applicable
to Him was gradually more and more applied to Him to the
very utmost possible, as the experience of Christianity in that
creative time demanded it. The immediate occasion for this
was the wide diffusion of Christian truth and the condition of
things presented to the eye of Paul and his friends in the last
days of his life, Christianity was now established in very
many communities of the vast Eoman Empire, and every day
it made powerful and extended progress. But the contro
versies between Jewish Christians and heathen Christians
increased ; and whilst at first only high priests and scribes in
Jerusalem were bent upon extirpating the new faith, now the
authorities of the great world as it then was turned them
selves with growing hostility against it. But if the ideas of
the Logos and Christ coincide, then the Logos, existing before
all creation,* conditioned as a creating energy the upbuilding
of the whole creation and the possibility of its continuance ;
and even now sustains and holds it together in its infinite
manifoldness and diversity, and so preserves it in its proper
bounds that the divine order of the world goes forward not
withstanding all resistance of men. For in the last issue
there is only one divine world, one continually vital divine
^ Such intuitions are everywhere interwoven with Paul's speech, most con
secutively and finely in Rom. vi.-viii. Most forcible, however, is the twofold
saying he writes with the characters of his own hand in Gal. vi. 14.
" §§ 252-253, pp. 139-147.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 295
law, and therefore one divine energy; and but one truth
expressible in human words and answering to this law and
energy, by which truth the whole creation from the beginning
until now is conditioned and uninterruptedly upheld ; and
only the man who apprehends this truth, and has his life and
being in it, can deem himself to have his life and being in
the word and will of God. But this very word and this will,
and therefore this very power of God as well, Christ has now
revealed for all mankind ; from which there result at this point
two consequences. First, that through Christ the truth and
the power are now given in which the two aspects of the
whole development of religion and divine life among men
hitherto, viz. Heathenism on the one hand, and Judaism,
faUen now from its early purity, on the other, can henceforth
secure their reconciliation, each sacrificing its error before the
higher truth, and each receiving the requisite divine power of
a new and perfect life. Secondly, that here a truth and a
power are given before which the most potent forces among
men, if they resist them, cannot ultimately stand; because
this truth and power by the original abiding and unchange
able order of the world are for ever mightier than all
opposition. The Epistle to the Colossians first unfolded in eloquent
presentation this intuition of Christ as the Logos. It became
therefore a pattern and model for all subsequent thoughts
concerning Christ, and found in due course a clear and
distinct echo in the Epistle to the Ephesians. Proceeding
from Paul himself, but according to all indications having its
verbal setting in its main portions from the hand of Timothy,
the Epistle to the Colossians makes conspicuous, as the im
mediate and universal service and glory of Christ, the redemp
tion which He has instituted, — just as Paul does, indeed, in
his other Epistles ; and it connects with this redemption, that
He has made His own disciples, here called " saints,"' meet to
participate in the gracious blessings of the divine Hght, and
1 § 304, pp. 243-250.

296 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
has delivered them from the dominion of darkness.' It must
be acknowledged, however, that the phraseology of the Colos
sians has thus a new and very peculiar hue. But in this
phraseology, peculiar as it is in the highest degree, the Epistle
undertakes to set forth in detail, as hitherto it had been but
little set forth, the divine mystery * involved in the heavenly
and earthly Christ,
(1) The Epistle begins* with what is prehistorical or, in its
essential nature, heavenly, in order first of all to describe
Christ as the " image of the invisible God," and the " First
born of all creation." That is to say, it begins with the Logos,
in the genuine idea of Him, — the most immediate and whoUy
correspondent revelation of the invisible God, — as He existed
before all creation, and indeed as its beginning ; although in
this Epistle, and that which is modelled after it, the name
Logos does not occur, as it does not in Paul's writings. In order
more particularly to explain this, it is added,* " in Him " was
the whole world not only created, but in Him has found also
its firm continuance just as it still endures. Nothing is here
more significant and full of meaning than the brief " in Him,"
by which is implied not only that the creation had neither
been possible nor yet actually exists without Him, but also
that He has been from the beginning its substance and its
stay, and henceforth remains its stability and coherence.
Which again is made still more clear thus : Everything was
created by Him and unto Him, i.e. not from Him, because He
^ Col. i. 12-14 ; with sufficient detail further set forth, and also much more
artistically and tenderly yet always with earnestness and emphasis, in ii.
13-15. ^ The right reading in Col. ii. 2 in connection with the word "mystery" is
in modern times from all sorts of misconception strangely dealt with. If rotj
/tuirrtipUii raH SisS be read, that is too general ; the discourse is not here of the
mystery of God in general, but of the Christian mystery in particular. No
doubt in old times the reading must have suffered much from transcribers.
Many left out XptrTi; altogether ; others wrongly altered it to XpirTiH ; but the
peculiarity of this writer, explained in Die Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus,
p. 483, requires certainly c i'Ti Xpi^Tos to be read here, which indeed appears in
some manuscripts ; and this is fully confirmed also by the corresponding passage,
i. 27. ' Col. i. 14. * Col. i. 15-17.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST, 297
is not said to be God Himself, but He is said to be and He
is henceforth perfectly the Mediator between God and the
world, so that everything is through Him and nothing is to
regard itself as created without Him, but must come back
always to Him as immediate overseer and judge, and through
Him to God, But it is of the greatest moment here what is
to be understood under the term "whole creation;" and when
it is explained that " everything in heaven and on earth," or
" everything visible and invisible," is to be understood, it is
pointed out that there can be no purely spiritual existences
at all, no good or bad angels however great, and no single
high power whatever, whether in ascending series they be
" Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities," visible powers or
the invisible corresponding to them, over which the Logos
does not rule, and over which the Christian through Him
may not spiritually prevail, rejoicing in the good and not
fearing the evil. And who does not see that in this last
assurance everything of the highest moment is involved !
There are in the world not merely outward or sensuous but
also pre-eminently spiritual powers to which the Christian
must assume the right attitude ; and behind each high power
of the world stands a spiritual power answering to it,' upon
which at last everything depends ; but as they all are subject
to the Logos, and every one of them resisting Him must in
the end fall, let the Christian cherish no perverse fear of any
one of them ! It is this free outlook into the whole world
with all its threatening powers which Paul also shares,^ that
here for the first time through the remembrance of the
Logos, who existed before the universe and for ever inter
penetrates it, awakens a feeling of such perfect serenity and
absolute repose,
^ The great emphasis the writer lays upon the "Thrones, Dominions, Prin
cipalities," mentioned in Col. i. 16, is sufficiently evident from his returning to
them so definitely in ii. 10, 15. Cf. how this is taken up again from our
Epistle in Eph. iii. 10, vi. 12 ; also in 1 Pet. iii. 22 ; Tit. iii. 1. See also § 222,
p. 73 f.
'' Rom. viii. 38 f. ; cf. 1 Cor. xv. 24.

298 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
(2) From thence the discourse bounds at once to the other
side of this contemplation, viz. to the Heavenly One, as He
now, — having indeed fallen in death a sacrifice, but among
all sacrifices being distinguished as a sacrifice of first things,
that He might have the most marked pre-eminence in every
thing, — has yet arisen as the First-born from the dead, and
is the Head of the body He has constituted, viz. the Church.'
But in order to explain how this change was possible, by
means of the same idea of the Logos is described* what
happened in the interval through Him upon earth ; how,
namely, " the whole fulness " of the Godhead, i.e. of the Divine
Nature, i.e. just the Logos,* was pleased to dwell in Christ,
and through Him instituted a universal reconciliation and
enduring peace, between mankind and God, together with all
the realm of spirits ; as also between heathen and Jewish
Christians since the wide gulf of estrangement and hostility
which especially separated the heathen from the community
of the true God could be filled up only by a power standing
far above it from the beginning, a power of heavenly recon
ciliation and redemption ; and only as the end of this whole
elucidation of what mankind owes to Christ turns back to
the beginning, is the conclusion fully reached. Yet the
glance might have been directed to the ultimate future, and
it might have been shown how the same Christ-Logos with
His whole power would return also in another form at the
end of all the history of mankind ; but to refer more par-
1 Col. i. 18. 2 Col. i. 19-23.
^ In Col. i. 19 is said merely the "whole fulness,'' -itXyipujia. But since every
thing in this world and in humanity has always some deficiency, the whole
fulness so designated simply is by itself the Divine, although rfit etirvrts is not
added, as it is in ii. 9. Similarly liasn, ^'li, simply is divinity becoming
visible in a veil. It is worthy of remark that in i. 19 the discourse is of the
earthly appearing of Christ ; in ii. 9, on the contrary, of His recent glorifica
tion ; the distinction in the Logos Himself between the time before and after
the earthly appearing is expressed by the word riupiXTmSs. Moreover, this use
of 'rXripa/ix is, like so much else, peculiar to the Epistle to the Colossians. The
©soT!j( also, which in the whole Greek Bible is to be found only here, is in the
sense of the Bible in no way one and the same with eds, as might bo supposed
according to the new German use of the word Oottheit.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 299
ticularly to this did not lie within the scope of the teaching
the writer had in view.'
§ 329. 4. But now came on with rapid strides the age of
the outbreak of the Judaico-Eoman war, which was soon to
involve everything in hot and fervid strife. The temple in
Jerusalem, its schools of faith, its means of religious service,
and its ancient sanctities became once more the object of the
highest reverence and the most intent expectation. Christians
everywhere were in the deepest distress, and many of the
more timid and anxious among them, even such as were
in heathen lands, partially or wholly apostatized. At this
juncture was it that the idea of the Christ-Logos, as applied to
the new situation of things, took one of the last of its advances
to its goal, — one of the last that still remained to be taken.
The eloquent writer of the so-called Epistle to the Hebrews,
by his literary skill and his profound Christian insight,
carried this idea to its further development. If the whole
continuance of the ancient community of the true God, and
of its faith, in the form both assumed after more than fifteen
hundred years, depended naturally upon the temple and its
hereditary high-priesthood, the general question of the rela
tion of Christianity to them must now soon resolve itself into
the special questions of the relation of Christ to this high-
priesthood and of the New community of the perfect true
religion to the hoHest symbols and profoundest elements of
the Old. But only as this writer correctly apprehended and
correctly solved these special problems in their high and
universal significance, as they were presented in the special
commotion and complications of the time, did he carry
forward this whole development over that last important
stage of its progress to which we have just referred.
(1) The comparison of Christ with the high priest in this
Epistle is not only wholly new, it forms manifestly the
^ From this is evident how creative, and how admirably designed and clearly
carried out, is this whole delineation in the artistic language of the Epistle to
the Colossians ; whilst subsequently the Epistle to the Ephesians only repeats
from it what relates to the heathen.

300 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
principal theme, and it is drawn out with the utmost fulness
and exactitude. There is no difficulty in ascertaining the
aim of the writer. But that aim is reached only by point
ing to Christ's sisnificance as Logos, as is seen whether the
likeness or unlikeness, or wide dissimilarity between the
earthly and the heavenly functions, are regarded. For that
Christ from the first moment of His glorification was hence
forth the High Priest of His people is presupposed as self-
evident, although hitherto His name as High Priest may have
been little employed. Christ was in truth not merely the
messenger of God to men, sent to found the new faith ; He
was also, as Paul taught, the actual founder by His death of
reconciliation between God and mankind, which reconciliation
He also maintains for His disciples by His glorification.
But the establishing of peace and reconciliation between God
and His people is the genuine high-priestly function.' The
writer therefore presupposes as self-evident that Christ is the
true High Priest,* although he now feels the necessity of
thinking and speaking of Him as such in a definite way, and
gives with a minute circumstantiality, such as was never
before attempted, the proof that Christ is to be so conceived
and is to stand as the eternal High Priest in place of the
earthly one. The similarity between both is this, that a
high priest must verily be a man in order as a man to feel
proper sympathy for men and their errors, weakness, and
sufferings ; but nevertheless that He establishes reconciliation
" for " the whole community or the whole nation, by His
sacrifice and prayer, yet He does it not of His own will and
' According to Antiquities, 290 ff., 361-364.
2 In Heb. ii. 17-iii. 1 it is presupposed as already granted that Christ is
High Priest, although we do not know whether any one before our author so
designated Him. Very remarkable is it also how in iii. 1 Christ is called the
xrodTAas xxi xpx'ipiit of the Christian confession, and thus in all brevity His
earthly and His heavenly significance is embraced ; and, indeed, it is some
what similarly that Mohammed wished to have himself recognised as the
ambassador of God and intercessor with Him. The right faith must certainly
be capable of justification before God even to all eternity, as is shown in the
following paragraphs. But Paul discourses similarly in Rom. viii. 34 ; and
Philo also calls the Logos apxnptvs. (Cf. History, vii. 216.)

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 301
not self-intrusively, but in accordance with His higher voca
tion.' And in fact this deeply significant principle, most
important in its consequences, had actually been maintained
in Israel from the primitive times downwards, viz. that the
highest and most abiding blessing of the community, its
purity before God and its never -failing struggle for the
preservation of it, had, as far as it could have in one man, its
firm stay and crown in the one High Priest. That all this
is now realized in Christ is clear. He also was fully man ;
He knows by the experience of His own deep sufferings how
to compassionate all human suffering ; He stands from human
sensibilities and yearnings not afar off. More conspicuously
than any other New Testament writing does our Epistle,
because of its scope, lay stress upon this point of comparison.*
Still further, He stands there also as the sole head of the
community,* not brought thither by self-will and self-seeking,
only as forerunner in victory and glorification,* its primary
chief leader to salvation and the perfecter of it.° But the
dissimilarity between the two is that in Christ as the heavenly
Logos there is no longer a High Priest who is mortal, tem
porary, liable to human casualties and imperfections;* but
the unchanging exalted High Priest in the heavenly temple
and at the right hand of God, listening to the petitions of His
people and presenting them as the true Mediator ' before God.
Moreover, if the fideHty with which he discharges the duties
of his office as mediator is part of the merit of the high
priest, coincident with this in the case of Christ is His so
1 Heb. V. 1-4.
2 Heb. ii. 10-18, iv. 15 f., v. 7-10, and also xii. 2 f., cf. ii. 17, iv. 16-vi. 20,
vii. 26-28, viii. 1 ff., ix. 11. Accordingly the ivi; in ii. 11 is to be referred most
properly to Adam, or rather, according to ii. 16, to Abraham.
^ Heb. V. 5 f. ; and it is self-evident that in place of the shortest proofs very
many other proofs would be possible by reference to Old Testament passages.
' According to the peculiar image of Heb. vi. 20. The designation customary
with Paul of first-born Son is also found, with many others (ii. 20).
^ Heb. ii. 10, xii. 2. ^ According to x. 1 ff.
' Our author is the first who applies the idea of furiTn; to Christ, viii. 6,
ix. 15, xii. 2 ; but the context shows that it is associated especially with the
idea of the "covenant" between God and mankind. 1 Tim. ii. 5 repeats it.

302 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
much greater power and glory in that He is not as Moses
merely the administrator, but the Son of the Lord of that
House which includes in itself with the universe the whole
of humanity : a thought derived from what is otherwise
firmly established, which after the manner of this writer is
introduced here without difficulty.'
From all this it naturally follows that the temple in Jeru
salem with its high priest is now superfluous ; and that this
should be definitely established before the destruction of the
temple is here a matter of prime importance. But a shadow
now falls also upon the old sacred objects, material and
perishable in their nature, closely connected with the temple ;
upon the bloody sacrifice and its purposeless repetition,* upon
the vessels and form of the sanctuary * prescribed by the law,
and upon other things ; — a shadow which only the allegorical
tendency so characteristic of our author is capable of trans
forming ingeniously into an adumbration of future all-sufficient
blessings. Yet to speak here of everything which had to be
set forth in its spiritual import would lead us too far.*
Nothing, however, is more certain than that the ordinances of
the sanctuary of the old true religion, albeit they were destined
to fall, must be regarded as the rudimentary beginnings and
historical prefigurements of the perfect things now become
possible ; and are to-day to be so regarded.
(2) But the great value of this Epistle is that it shows
how and why Christ must be contemplated as the unchanging
and only true High Priest of mankind at large, and shows it
not fragmentarily and in arbitrary fashion, but in full and
clear coherence with the whole proper idea of Him. Christ
means originally, it is true, only the King of the true com
munity, and as its eternal King He has everywhere His
immediate and fullest significance. The high priest, however,
was neither originally the king of Israel, nor ought he ever
^ Heb. iii. 1-6, an obscure passage somewhat peculiar in expression.
2 Heb. X. 4. s Heb. ix. 1 ff.
* And is so far unnecessary, since it may be found in the Sendschreiben an die
Hebraer, Gbttingen 1870.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST, 303
to be so in point of fact, although the Maccabsean high priest
usurped at last the royal dignity. If now this objection
might naturally be raised against the representation of Christ
as the High Priest of His own people, our author prevents it by
anticipation. He unites together all the three lofty powers,
each one of which had its special and high significance in
the guidance and rule of the community of Israel, no one of
which might displace the others, and which yet in point of
fact only together in fullest harmony constitute the supreme
power, and as it were the headship of the community ; that
is to say, the prophetic, the high-priestly, and the royal offices.
Till now no one had shown that these three chief powers,
which in earlier days were never really united in one man,
are actually united in Christ, and so united that only their
union in Him makes Him what He J;ruly is. He is not
merely the highest, but also the eternal Prophet, High Priest,
and King of the new community ; and indeed becomes its
eternal King only in that He is at the same time its
eternal Prophet and High Priest. If a more detailed state
ment of this is desired, it might be said : by His earthly life
He established the word of God for ever among men as no
earlier prophet had done, and He is thus, as prophet, at once
the last, the greatest, and the most abiding; by His death
He has become the everlasting supreme High Priest ; by His
glorification that followed His death He is the fully equipped
and crowned King of the community of the perfect true
religion. In this order and this significance, only such triad
constitutes the whole glorified Christ. Since nevertheless our
author desires to make pre-eminently conspicuous the second
member of this triad, he discourses most copiously of the high-
priesthood of Christ, introducing the subject with His pro
phetic and concluding it with His kingly office. On such lines
indeed he plans the artistic structure of his whole long Epistle.'
^ This is shown more in detail in the Sendschreiben an die Hebraer, p. 8 ff.
Not to under.stand the exceedingly artistic arrangement of the Epistle and its
close consecutiveness and firmly linked progress, is to understand nothing of
it as a whole. That it certainly falls into three chief parts of increasing magni-

304 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
(3) Yet the inner connection of all that is presented to
the thought concerning the earthly and heavenly Christ is
derived by the writer from the idea of the Logos, as he, with
his eloquent picturing and sharp Philo-like touches, explains
it. He is therefore the first writer who opens his Epistle '
with an immediate setting forth of the unique characteristics
of the Logos in association with Christ, yet without at all
using the name Logos. Conformably with the grand design
of the treatise, he first touches upon the prophetico-historical
aspect : God in this latest time has spoken to the nation, in
accordance with predictions of the ancient prophets " in the
Son," dwelling in all fulness in the Son, and so speaking by
Him, " whom He has appointed heir of all things," that the
whole world, however hostile it may now be. to Him, shall
nevertheless at last turn to Him and be subject to Him
as the lawful Son * and heir ; with such confidence, after the
beginning of the Christian dispensation is mentioned, is the
ultimate issue of it at once apprehended. From this ultimate
issue the glance now turns back, secondly, away to the earliest
beginning of the world, and that " God through Him also
created the worlds," is thrown into prominence ; but onlj' in
order to return at length, thirdly, to that central point
referred to at the outset, and to say how, although He as
Logos is " the effulgence of the invisible glory " and " the
visible impress of the essential Being " of God, " and sus
tains all things by the word of His power,"* yet, having
tude answering to these three chief powers, is seen in that the chief conclusion
of all three is essentially the same. Men should stand in awe of the all-
pervading, now hidden it is true, but undoubtedly divine power of the Logos ;
that is the outcome of each of the three parts, as is seen by (1) ii. 1-4 ; (2)
iv. 11-13 ; (3) vi. 12 &., and especially xii. 18-29. That the discourse, however,
in the third of these divisions has especially in view the kingdom of God, and
Christ as its King, is clearly evident from the grand conclusion, xii. 22-29, in
which the "unshakeable kingdom," ver. 28, again recurs as the chief word,
notwithstanding the prominence given to the high-priesthood of Christ in the
conclusion of this third main division, x. 19-21, xii. 24.
1 Heb. i. 1-4.
2 The image of heir is taken from Ps. ii. 7, but agrees ultimately in sense
with the words of 1 Cor. xv. 24.
^ It is remarkable how the writer purposely uses pi,ux rather than ?.oyts in

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 305
become man, He has " by Himself," i.e. by His life and His
death, " instituted purification for sins," and so " has sat
down at the right hand of the Majesty (of God) in the
heavens," ' now only in His fullest power and honour properly
efficacious, and recognised by His own as far higher than
even the highest angels, as instrument and mediator of the
divine revelation to men. So the representation is fully
rounded, touching with short and striking strokes all aspects
of the incomparably high Mediator, but starting from the
prophetic side of His nature. Elsewhere, however, the writer
after this splendid commencement comes back, in the further
course of his discussion, only once to the Logos as such, and
then in a passage where he seeks to give prominence not to
the effulgence of His being and its exchange for the earthly
humiliation, but to His judicial function, ever sharply penetrat
ing all things, even as the word of a human speaker, inspired
by the power of truth, searches though in a less degree heart
and reins ; in such case he from the first designates Him " the
Word of God," and sketches on this side in a similar manner
an extremely graphic image.*
Nevertheless, this writer holds himself aloof from the use
in general of the name Logos for Christ ; for such name is
in his view too purely heavenly. By preference the human
names of Christ recur ; among them, however, in the proper
connection, the shortened name, Son,* as the most elevated
and yet the most human. At the same time, the higher
Christ is raised, in the fundamental intuition of this
treatise, as Logos, the more carefully does the discourse
such passages as i. 3, vi. 5, xi. 3, xii. 19, as if in order with respect to the
Logos to make a distinction as to His word. In passages, to be sure, where
the higher elevation of the discourse is naturally wanting, as in xiii. 7, i xiyas
rav @icv is nevertheless possible.
1 So in the lofty style of this discourse, viii. 1, x. 12, xii. 2, somewhat
barely repeats "at the right hand of God," taken from Ps. ex. 1 ; the simpler
phrase is already in Acts ii. 33, v. 31 ; Rom. viii. 34 ; Col. iii. 1 ; Eph. i. 20 ;
and also 1 Pet. iii. 22 ; Acts vii. 55 f. How certainly these words were at once
from the beginning applied to the glorified Christ is evident.
2 Heb. iv. 12.
' In the higher styk of discourse quite briefly uUs, i. 1, vii. 28.
U

306 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
guard itself against placing Him on the same level with
God.' It must be confessed, however, that in one respect this
treatise, the work of a younger contemporary of the apostle,
stands in the New Testament quite alone. The art of
allegory, which had just reached a high development, and
was exercising its fascination anew over many minds, has
cast a shadow upon parts of the discussion, so that for the
chief fundamental truths copiously detailed proofs of a some
what artificial kind are given. Nevertheless, clear simple
thoughts expressed in language readily understood are not
wanting. Above all, prominence is given as never before to
the important truth, that if the perfect type of everything
historically possible in humanity appears but once to remain
in it henceforth for ever, then in the matter of the true
religion this has happened indisputably with Christ, and it is
folly to expect something yet more perfect.*
§ 330. 5. Yet such conclusion is not fully reached until
John's writings are added. It is John's great distinction, in
contrast with the younger writer, to return once more, in
setting forth the relation of the Logos to Christ, to the
essential simplicity of Christ's own mode of teaching. He
does this with respect to the three aspects of this relation
under which it may be considered.
' This noteworthy point is certainly the inference to be drawn from ii. 9 f.,
iii. 4 ; cf. 1 Cor. xv. 27, where the same observation holds good. The reading
xupis in Heb. ii. 9 is the more likely to be the correct reading, since our writer
loves this x'^P'' unusually, and never uses ixTos. To this belongs also the way
of designating God peculiar to this writer, as Him, "on account of whom and
through whom all things," i.e. the world, exists; as the house is built on
account of the owner, and at the same time by him, of. iii. 4 ; yet the phrase
in Greek is more pointed than in German : Si' i'» xxi V d. It is as if the
speaker had brought to its right limit and bound what is said in i. 2, and
wished to use more freely such phrases, that according to § 328. 1, p. 296, had
become common. [Far better is the explanation that the writer, according to
the subsequently formulated doctrine of the Church, does not confound the
persons of God and the Logos-Christ, and acknowledges what is termed the
official subordination of the Son.]
2 Heb. V. 13-vi. 8, ix. 24 ff., xii. 25-29, xiii. 8. The same truth, however,
had already been stated with distinctness in 1 Pet. iii. 18.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 307
(1) He deals, in the first place, with the historical side of
the relation, where three different sections of all conceivable
history, hitherto lying far remote, at once open to view. If
the whole of what may be said from the historical side must
arise in these three stages, the more wonderful is the
simplicity and clearness with which in luminous brevity all
the chief points in this highest of conceivable histories are
handled, {a) There is, first, the pre-mundane history, which
cannot well be described without reference to the creation
of the world by the Logos as the event which forms the
conclusion of it. John, however, could the more readily
sketch this historj' in sublime brevity with a few strokes
weighted with meaning,' as it was already his habit to dis
course thus briefly of the Logos whom all the earlier Christian
writers had originally designated the Logos of God.* The
conception as to the mode of the existence of the Logos at
that period is expressed in sublime brevity, yet with plain
ness, when it is said, " He was God," that is to say. He was
not the universe, nor a created being, nor an angel, but in
His essence God, although in His existence and working
separated from God ; which in Greek could with such brevity
be more easily said than in German without occasioning a
misunderstanding.* Then follows (&) the whole time from the creation of the
existing world and man to the appearing of the earthly
Christ. The view had long been firmly established that the
Logos during this period was not purely inactive, and as it
were withdrawn into the being of God, but continuously
moved in the world, and manifested Himself to men from the
irresistible impulse not to leave without a confident feeling

^ In John i. 1-3 ; cf. how in xvii. 5, 24, the same thought is expressed ; but
it is given still more briefly by aV xp^m, 1 John i. 1, ii. 13 f., iii. 8. Very
appropriately in John i. 1 is the mention of chaos left out, and the remotest
past conceivable represented by " In the beginning," taken from Gen. i. 1.
2§§ 324, 329, pp. 282 ff., 299-306.
3 Because ®£os is here purposely distinguished from i &'.oi. Everything of
further interest is explained in the Johanndschen Schriften, i. pp. 112-118.

¦308 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
of His nearness and help those to whom He stood so near
by the creation itself. The Mediator of the world becomes
by direct consequence also the Mediator of divine revelation
to the world, the quickener and imparter of the spiritual
gifts of God, which are the highest and most abiding. Thus
only did the long series of effulgent appearings of God and
of His highest angels, as well as the whole history of revela
tion in the New Testament, appear sufficiently intelligible
and coherent. There is indeed but one truth of God, one
manifest and active Word of God to men, in all the thousands
of years of human history before Christ.' The Logos, in this
acceptation, was already properly recognised before Christ.*
As soon therefore as Christians were more familiar with the
idea of the Logos, and looked back to the passages of the
Old Testament in which such glorious manifestations of the
true God and beginnings of all higher human life were
described, they must have rejoiced to behold there the
activity of the same Logos whom now indeed they knew
with a fulness and intimacy incomparably greater. With
infinite delight Paul follows such traces of Christ before
Christ ; * but it is John who touches with simple and in
imitable beauty upon the profoundest and most exhaustive
as well as tenderest and most attractive aspects of this
theme.* Yet what is the ecstasy with which John looks back into
the whole past, compared with that which (c) the experience
of his own time awakens. He had stood with so many others
in the closest intercourse with Him in whom the Logos,
fulfilling at last the yearning desire of all the best of man
kind, had become " flesh," i.e. veritable man like the rest of
us. With the expression of joy in this privilege he closes
the lofty introduction to his Gospel,^ and commences his larger
^ §§ 8-50 ; Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 1-152.
2 §252, pp. 139-145. 3 i Cor. x. 1-6.
* John i. 4-13, for that this is the true meaning of the words is shown in
tlie Johan. Schriften, i. pp. 118-126.
'' John i. 14-18,

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 309
Epistle.' But every line he writes is full of the calm feeling
of this ecstasy, and the unparalleled confidence and certainty
it gave to his spirit ; and his whole Gospel, notwithstanding
all that self-collected repose which befits the narrator, and all
the exactness of its reminiscence and delineation, is neverthe
less but one involuntary song of praise to the incomparable
Christ. After the words of the prelude which shine forth as
from a very transfiguration, come the last words which the
glorified One addressed to His disciples, and as their simple
sublime conclusion the prayer to the Father in which the
apostle seeks to express, as they still in his old age abode
with him, the vivid reminiscences and impressions of that
time when the image of what the Logos was, though now in
the limits of the earthly life, grew in all nearness into fuller
vision, and reached once more its whole transcendent grandeur.*
Never has human speech in the survey of all that belongs to
humanity and its right relation to the Divine been able to
produce anything at once sublimer, truer, and more perpetually
inspiring than the words of John.*
(2) Looking now from the purely historical side to its
corresponding counterpart, viz. the permanent relation to the
Logos of the inner forces of the spiritual progress of the life
of man, there is no Biblical writer who presents it with so
much insight and clearness, and, notwithstanding his striking
brevity, with such exhaustive completeness as John. The
coming of Christ had indeed powerfully and conspicuously
disclosed it to the understanding of all susceptible minds, as
it had never been disclosed before ; and John in the serene
repose of a long life, gazing intently upon the glorified One,
who while on earth had stood in closest relationship to him.

1 1 John i. 1-3.
^ How closely John xvii. coincides with i. 1-3 is shown above, p. 307, in a
special similarity.
' Put side by side with these, the Bhagavad-Gitd, which may most of all
admit of such comparison, or even Plato's Phceio ; however much that is
noble and eternally true such works contain, what are they beside the all-
embracing, inexhaustible, yet simple truth of these passages of the Bible !

310 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
had SO deeply and surely received His whole image upon
his spirit, that he could now furnish its most luminous
expression. Now the idea of the Logos, as we have seen,' had assumed
its definite form from the fullest commingling of the plastic
power of creative energy M'ith the power of revelation. It
is self-evident, therefore, that when with the creation of man
the present world exists, the Logos from that moment is
henceforth the Spring and source of new life in man,* the
new life which through the knowledge of the true God and
of the eternal forces and laws of the moral order of the world
is quickened, and seeks to bear its own fruit. But this
higher life, uplifting men towards God, becomes forthwith
" the light of men," leading them aright in everything, and
preserving them from error and transgression. Life, there
fore, the life which among men alone deserves the name,* and
which implies participation in the divine life ; and light, in
the sense of divine light, are the two powers that coming
from above are through the Logos made possible to men.*
But of the two, Hfe in this sense is yet with respect to the
Logos the most immediate and comprehensive.^ On the con
trary, all false life and light, however powerful among men,
can never come from the Logos of God, and through Him
from God Himself, and can never lead to Him ; so that the
light and life here meant may at once be more definitely
termed "the true" light* and life. But true Hfe once
awakened in man, and true light once kindled, the Logos
becomes Himself the "way" upon which in thought and
1 § 252, p. 139.
' § 13 flf. Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 7-29.
' § 265, p. 183 ff.
* John i. 4, xvii. 3 ; but the reason why in the second of these passages
"eternal life" occurs in place of "life" in general, is explained above. In
reality the same principle is involved in 1 John i. 1-7.
'This is seen more especially from the bold designation, "The Logos of
Life," 1 John i. 1 f. ; cf. § 323, p. 281, note 3. But in Heb. iv. 12 also the
idea of the " Living Word " occurs as the first of all the attributes of the Logos.
^ As is done in 1 John i. 9 in a passage which is somewhat redundant.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 311
action he may make progress infinitely, progress to the " truth,"
as the certain fruit of the light, so that at every moment he
may be assured that he thinks and acts in the truth ; and
progress to " the life," which, however, is now at the same
time " eternal Hfe," and so far as he before lay as it were in
spiritual death, " the resurrection and the life." ' Such is the
course and circle in which the Logos works, and in which aU
move who allow themselves to be apprehended and led by
Him. By virtue of the divine life He gives to man the
possibility of individual participation in eternal life.*
If this holds good in general of the significance and activity
of the Logos in humanity, and therefore even in the pre-Chris
tian period,* the wider question, that is especially relevant here,
arises, viz. how the period since Christ's appearing and work
stands to the earlier time with respect to the great universal
powers of the spiritual life of man. To this question John
gives the right answer : exactly as complete and full experi
ence stands to that which is incomplete and imperfect, as the
full age of mankind to the age of its youth, as realization to
desire. Since He, who can say of Himself that He is the
way, the truth, and the life, has appeared as a man like other
men, but on behalf of all, the whole of humanity is raised
through Him to a higher stage, because the ideal and the
inspiration of the perfect divinely -human life which came
into humanity through Him cannot again be lost ; * but as it
at once drew to itself those nearest to Him, so to the end
it can draw and is to draw " all men to Himself." John
presents all this with a profoundness, brevity, and truth, and
with a simple power of conviction, such as no other New
^ John xiv. 6, xi. 25.
^ Cf. § 48. Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 140-148.
^ For even then He gave such as believed in Him power to become the
"children of God," as the Old Testament relates, and here is explained in
John's characteristic language with much appropriateness, John i. 12, 13.
* [Cf. " The most valuable part of the effect on character which Christianity
h'as produced, by holding up in a Divine Person a standard of excellence and a
model for imitation, . , . can never again be lost." — J. S. Mill, Essays,
p. 253.]

312 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Testament writer commands. But just on this account
Christ exclaims, according to John, towards the end of His
activity, and in conflict with the multitude of His foes who
were hardening themselves more and more in their sin, " I am
the Hght of the world ; " ' but only at the end of His course,
" I am the way, the truth, and the life," * and also not till
close upon that end, " I am the resurrection and the life." *
(3) But the Logos-Christ who has thus for all humanity
passed so resplendently through the sphere of the actual,
becomes to living men, since His glorification on high, quite
other than the simple Logos of the previous time, and other
even than He was in His earthly appearing. This also John
presents in the most complete manner, and just as clearly as
simply in His larger Epistle. " I have overcome the world,"
exclaimed Christ, according to John,* to His disciples at the
close of His last discourse, not as one who was about to rest
upon His victory, but as one who feels beforehand that in
the midst of death He shall conquer it wholly otherwise ;
that is to say, as one who is already by anticipation glorified,
and who knows that the world ever afterwards will be in
closest effective relation with Him, and He with it. And we
may at once add, in the sense of the idea of the Logos, if
already the pure Logos before Christ operated so powerfully
upon the world, and men vainly strove to remain indifferent
to Him, with what incomparably greater power will the
Logos-Christ exercise influence upon it in order to lead it
forward towards its ultimate divine destiny! Exposed on
behalf of the world to the violence of error and sin, as He
brought about the only true purification and reconciliation
which is henceforth indispensable for the whole world, so for
all those who nevertheless sin again but turn in full repent
ance to Him, He is the only true advocate with God.^ But
all who will not awake at His clear abiding call to cleansing
' John viii. 12. s John xiv, 6.
3 John xi. 25. * John xvi. 33.
» According to the expression peculiar to this apostle, of which more below.
1 John ii. 1.

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST, 313
and true life are thereby condemned for time and eternity.'
So simple are the apostle's intuitions of this subject ; whilst
at the same time he so closes this whole province of con
ceptions concerning Christ that we ought always to have
been content to rest in the pure consummation, and abide by
the transparent clearness of his most luminous words.
§ 331, Thus, then, was accomplished in the apostolic age,
and by stages attested with sufficient distinctness in the New
Testament, the blending of the ideas of the Logos-Christ, —
prehistorical, historical, and such as cover the whole con
ceivable future ; — and accomplished, as it were, within limits
drawn between heaven and earth, according to the great chief
contents of those ideas. For two different circles of the
general contemplation of the whole material here relevant
were presented to view, intersected by a further third circle ;
and it is of importance carefully to consider in this place
these three circles in their diversity in order rightly to per
ceive how the special material belonging to each could never
theless be mutually attracted and commingled.
1. Only the highest conceptions of the eternal and divine
significance of Christ, uplifted above all the changes of time,
could have kept alive and raised to its fuU altitude faith in
Him in the very earliest Christian days without the visible
Christ. This is involved in the very nature of the case
itself,* and it is fully confirmed by all historical traces. Such
transcendent apprehension of the more than earthly signifi
cance of Christ was still very simple in that earliest period,
firmly retaining the great chief points, but not yet having
passed through the prescribed stages of its development.
But such as it was, it was stedfastly held and could not
readily be shaken. But side by side with it, the need and
the longing made themselves felt even then to possess as
complete and certain a knowledge as possible of the whole
earthly life and work of Christ, That this circle of the
earthly appearing of Christ was traced so early, so persever-
1 John V. 21 ff. ^ Cf. § 323, pp. 278-282.

314 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
ingly and fully that it perfectly sufficed for its aim, is of
the highest moment, and carries with it an abiding use and
service whose place nothing else can fill. But it is not to
be overlooked, that whilst assiduous investigation traced out
carefully this whole circle of hundreds of reminiscences of
earthly events, it delighted to hold fast with special sympathy
certain of them in which it was thought the tones and traces
of the working of the heavenly power of the Logos could be
distinctly perceived ; as if to the ardent longing of that time
it afforded the highest joy to possess some at least of the
clearest indications of the presence and play of the higher
powers in this earthly history. Such narratives or mere
outlines of them are still specially conspicuous above the rest.
They are few in number, but they have naturally something
exceptional about them, and they belong to the oldest stock
of reminiscences. To these must be referred the narrative of
the short transient moments of the Transfiguration in the
midst of the course of earthly events, the story of the feeding
of the multitude, and some others. The purely earthly as it
elsewhere recurs in human history does not here suffice, the
purely divine will nevertheless break through ; this is the in
eradicable feeling which from first to last strongly shows itself.
But that side by side with it these earthly sensuous materials
of reminiscence were still so predominantly and absolutely
retained, is here most remarkable, and distinctly indicates
the preservation and vigorous exercise of the healthy historical
sense. § 332. 2. Meanwhile the history of Christ was in general
too extraordinary, and for all whom faith influenced too
purely elevated, not to induce attempts to make prominent
by itself the divine element it contained. Brief as it was, it
had brought to the light with its force of productive energy
a number of lofty divine truths in luminous splendour, and
had drawn them forth out of the soil which from ancient
times had been fruitful as no other had been in this respect.
Struggling for clear presentation, they found it most readily

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OP FAITH IN CHRIST. 315
when they could be attached to such palpable incidents of
earthly history as might serve for their immediate support.
Nay more, by closely knitting together many such truths,
single parts of this history might have a more extended
coherence, or indeed might be formed into one whole. Behind
every earthly history there stands an invisible higher history
which makes it possible ; and what could the clear and open
vision now see standing behind this ! The presentation of
such a history was made either in the simplest language as
with the few bold strokes of a waU-picture,' or in the rich
adornment of artistic discourse easily overflowing into poetry.*
For an abundance of new Christian songs soon streamed
forth from the wonderfully elevated mood and spirit of the
time.* Some portions of such higher or purely divine history of
Christ we possess in our present first three Gospels, preserved
partly in mere fragments interpolated in the narrative,* partly
in fuller and more independent paragraphs.® Of one portion,
however, which had become widely diffused at an early date,
and which must have left behind a deep impression on
account of its peculiar character, we find in the New Testa
ment only casual, brief, and incidental traces, whilst a similar
trace is preserved in the ancient summary of a Christian
confession of faith.* This is the account of Christ's descent
into the Underworld. From the references to it in the
New Testament,'' we cannot indeed restore the original
^ Such passages as Matt. i. 18-ii. 22, iv. 1-11, with other fragments. Cf.
Die drei ersten Evangelien, i. pp. 79-81.
" As Luke i. 5-ii. 40.
' Cf. the proofs in the History, viii. 357. Fragments of these oldest Chris
tian songs come now more and more to light ; for one of them see note on
p. 287.
¦* As many in the present Gospel of Matthew ; cf. Die drei ersten Evangelien,
i. p. 80 f.
= As Matt. iv. 1-11.
^ That the main elements of the so-called Apostles' Creed are very ancient
cannot be disputed.
' 1 Pet. iii. 18-22, iv. 7; Eph. iv. 9 f. ; cf. Die Sieben Sendschreiben, pp. 44-53,
69 f. , 190 f. ; also the recently published ¦' Acts of Thomas," from the Syriac, by
W. Wright, 180 note, 283, 12.

316 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
narrative word for word, but we can certainly discover the
thoughts and truths out of which it was fashioned. Even
Christ — which scarcely seems credible — must suffer actual
death. He was fully man, and so He was not spared the
destiny of all men, viz. descent into the dark Underworld.
But as with Him the spirit, the spirit of the Logos Himself,
if we may so speak, was altogether untouched by earthly
defect and corruption, this His purely divine nature never
showed itself more conspicuously than now when His mortal
part, " the flesh," being killed, in a moment He lived again
anew " in the spirit ; " for even there, in the Underworld,
He could work where hitherto He could never have so
worked ; and He could work the more purely and actively
in the Underworld as spirit in the midst of the numberless
spirits of the Dead who had gathered there ever since the
creation of man. But what was He to speak of and to
accomplish in this realm of Death ? At the moment of His
own death the divine possibility of a reconciliation for the
whole of mankind had come in that death, and through
the divine grace a remission of all the sins committed in
the earlier time of ignorance of the true Eedeemer had at
that moment begun its work; but only to the repentant
is this grace of avaiL Who knew and felt all this, however,
in its whole signiflcance earlier than Christ Himself knew
and felt it ? Therefore, having gone down into the Under
world, as Dead and yet Living, He published the same gospel
to the dead He had published to the living ; continuing in
Hades also His vocation, but with wholly new power, that
the dead might have opportunity to come to repentance
before the last judgment. Thus the whole universe in its
three great divisions, heaven, earth, and the Underworld, is
comprehended in the range and power of the truth and
redemption of Christ. Even upon the judgments of the
whole pre-Christian world that truth and redemption react
in the way of mitigation, so that those who in the youth of
the human race, when Christ in His fulness had not yet

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 317
shone forth, fell readily into sin, might not lack the privilege
of rejoicing in the gospel, and should not at last be more
harshly judged than they deserved. Thus in the self-same
moment when the redemption accomplished upon earth thrilled
through the world above and below, and filled it with light,'
the Underworld also shares in this benefit. Such higher
thoughts and truths naturally sought illustrative embodi
ment; and the grand magnificent picture was completed
with the representation, on the one hand, of His submitting
the joyful message to the worst sinners of the early w^orld,
the bad spirits chained in Hades from the time of Noah,
and as is self-evident to those also who were misled by
them ; and on the other, of His leading up in triumphal
procession to heaven those who were converted by Him,
and who on the great day of His victorious resurrection
and ascension, as splendid captives, were the spoil of conquest
well-pleasing to God.*
With such grand strokes enrapturing the imagination
must this narrative have been completed ; and a later gospel
story preserved outside the New Testament tends in part to
sustain this conclusion.* And who can fail to see the
great significance of the " descent into Hell " in such con
nection ?
§ 333. In the midst of these two circles a third appears,
finding its material from another source, and serving to
Hght up and enliven the subject still more ; that is the
1 For manifestly such incidents as Matt, xxvii. 51-53 are quite fitting and
appropriate in this connection.
''¦ The descent and ascent spoken of in Eph. iv. 8-10 are intelligible
only in some such connection. Isolated and robbed of their clear and con
gruous setting, such descent and ascent are in the highest degree obscure ;
only as such writings actually appeared does their perfectly obvious connection
make them full of significance and meaning to us.
' The so-called "Gospel of Nicodemus ;" cf. Die drei ersten Evangelien, i.
p. 156. As there explained (p. 81), the original narrative with its creative material
was found in the manuscript used by the last editor of Matthew's Gospel. If
it is preferred not to bring forward opinions and suppositions concerning the
descent into Hades that are quite unfounded, yet offence may be taken where
there is no occasion for it. Indeed, he who recognises no higher truths takes
offence everywhere.

318 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
circle of Old Testament references. Always rich and
luminous with its own glory and truth, if ever the Old
Testament could obtain its supreme value and just estima
tion, the time for this had now come. For the highest
and noblest aims, to which the hope of the Old Testament
and the longing of the most loyal members of the old com
munity had more and more intently been directed, were
now realized in a way surpassing all hope itself, so far as
they could be realized at the central point of human history ;
while at the same time all that yet remained to be accom
plished of sacred and early expectation had found its surest
pledge and promise. It is true that with the purely spiritual
and spiritually marked and definite consummation Christ
had brought, the marked and definite separation was also
made between the indestructibly eternal substance and the
merely historical and historically transient elements of the
Old Testament, as well in relation to the letter of the Old
Testament as Holy Scripture as in relation to the ordinances
and usages that had arisen in the ancient community, — a
separation which already Christ Himself had initiated with
sure eye and firm hand, and as creatively as everything else
is with Him, and which now in the apostolic age advanced
with increased rapidity. But it was rightly felt that the
value of the Old Testament itself as the preliminary school
of all perfect true religion, without which Christianity itself
could not have come, does not on this account suffer in the
least, if only it be well employed. But what better use
could be made of it provisionally than, with an eye newly
opened to this end, to compare it with that which Christ
had now brought into the world ? And how did the
Christian heart tremble with divine joy when in the midst
of the stern conflict with the Jews and the whole world,
it found in the compass of the old sacred book words which
rang as the prelude of what had now been accomplished,
and was yet to be accomplished, or as presentiments of
the Christian spirit ! No doubt similarity of incident rather

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST, 319
than strict historical interpretation was chiefly regarded,
although where historical interpretation bearing upon the
circumstances of the time was indispensable, it was not
neglected. Moreover, the fascination of allegory was felt
again with increasing force. But we cannot be surprised
at these tendencies. In point of fact, however, there was
rapidly formed, under the influence of newly-kindled zeal,
a new circle of thoughts and intuitions which, originating
in Holy Scripture, and of kindred nature with the two
circles previously mentioned, in large measure coincided with
both, but more particularly with the second.
Many passages ' of the Old Testament were unquestionably
taken up in the powerful impulse of this new movement
owing to the precedent of Christ Himself. Others, on the
contrary, came into the Hght of this new life evidently much
later, but yet early enough to be referred to in the New
Testament. Thus Isaiah's prophecy of the Virgin had been
for a long time but little considered, when it was brought
into closer connection with the view that had long prevailed *
of the relation of the Holy Spirit to Christ. That from the
moment of His baptism the Holy Spirit descended upon Him,
and subsequently ceased not to direct Him, but abode upon
Him, is the simplest and therefore the earHest intuition. It
is found in the oldest gospel writing,* and is repeated without
exception in all that foUowed. That His Spirit in this sense
also did not in death itself even momentarily relinquish the
unique divine employment that had occupied His earthly life
is a further intuition, which in the higher history of Christ *
found its significant place without passing over into our four
Gospels. But if His Spirit has thus a self-dependent power
that reaches beyond bodily death, as though the Holy Spirit
Himself were always as near to Him as possible, where is the
1 The most obvious example of this is the passage in the Book of Isa. liii.,
as further explained above, § 326, p. 289 ff.
¦¦> §332, p. 316.
3 According to the Drei ersten Evangelien, i. pp. 59 ff., 190 ff'.
4 § 332, p. 315 f.

320 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
beginning of this peculiar and essential characteristic of His
Spirit to be placed ? Let it be granted that from the day of
His baptism and of the commencement of His public work
till His death. His Spirit displayed the mightiest activity the
Holy Ghost Himself ever lends, to living man, yet had He
not from the first beginning of His earthly life been fashioned
and prepared for it. He could not have advanced from that
day forward, in all public activity, to the extreme altitude
He attained. This is true ; and since towards the end of the
apostolic age the earthly element of this unique life-history
yielded more and more where it could to the divine, it was
only one step further when, in view of that Messianic passage
concerning the Virgin, this Spirit from the first moment of
the possibility of its union with an earthly body was derived
from the Holy Ghost itself. This Old Testament passage
thus became a living member of this circle ; and this circle,
if it is true that where everything is pure and holy the act
of conception also may participate therein,' takes its place
among those of the higher and purely divine history of Christ,
For this narrative is not found till near the close of the
period in which gospel history was written,* and did not
arise even then till the time when Mary herself had long
been reckoned among the glorified spirits,* But it is the
utmost folly to mingle with such thoughts and narratives
what is gross and sensuous, and to accommodate them to it.
But there were manifestly many such Old Testament
passages which, without becoming intimately connected with
the first two circles, were, in the apostolic age, drawn into
the circle of Messianic allusion, or application to Christ;
and although they do not happen to appear in the New
Testament books, they appear in the oldest Christian literature
outside the New Testament.* With respect to the question
at issue, this however is of little moment.
1 In Luke's narrative everything returns to an Sym, and closes with it.
Luke i. 35.
' Matt. i. 18-25 ; Luke i. 26-35. » History, vii. 128.
* The prophecy of Jacob, Gen. xlix. 8-12, which is commonly spoken of as

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 321
§ 334. For everything affecting the subject in hand
ultimately resolves itself into the one question, whether the
faith of man has to be directed to Christ, and has to be
directed to Him just in the way in which, from all that has
been said, the New Testament demands. Here, however, in
the outset it is to be considered that faith of such a kind in
the head of a community is in fact demanded everywhere
else. Faith, as the bond by which alone fellowship between
the head and members can permanently subsist, is due to the
word of every governing power and of every earthly king ;
although such faith is limited in many ways, both in substance
and in range, by the nature of all merely human power.
If, however, the question at issue relates to words that are
valid without limit and without end for the maintenance of
a purely spiritual fellowship, and especially to the duties and
functions of a fellowship founded by revelation, it is self-
evident that such faith is all the more required towards the
historical founder of it. It was so with respect to Moses.
AVith the utmost conscientiousness, indeed, Moses wished to
direct the hearts and minds of all members of the ancient
community to the majesty of the true God alone, and in
point of fact himself as it were vanished with his own
personality before Him even during the course of their
ancient history.' Yet there arose* gradually a faith in him
as mediator between God and the community, which at length
among the Samaritans reached its full height.* Faith in
the prophecy concerning Shiloh, from the words of ver. 10, specially belongs to
this class. Cf. Jahrbb. ii. pp. 49 ff. In this passage, it may further be remarked,
the second member of ver. 9 is best regarded as a question of surprise, which
occurs suddenly to him who looks into the development of the future : "By
spoil, my son, art thou become full grown " (how has this form suddenly
changed ! but it is so !). Arabs. Fdk. p. 119. 2, offers a complete parallel to
ver. 10. That this prophecy concerning Judah was in the apostolic age
referred to the Messiah and the Messianic times admits of no doubt ; it is found
so expounded in the earliest Church Fathers. The designation, "the Lion of
the tribe of Judah," Rev. v. 5, seems to be taken from this passage. Gen. xlix.
9 f., 28 ; although other passages of the Old Testament might remotely lead to
it. Cf. History, ii. 283.
1 Cf. History, ii. 31-34. « § 301, p. 326.
" As everything we know of the ancient and modern Samaritans proves.
X

322 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
Buddha soon displaced all reverence for the gods, and
increased in strength until he himself was regarded as the
sole supreme Deity, Confucius overturned all true faith in
gods and in God among the Chinese; and just for this
reason he is now by his learned disciples, who administer a
vast empire of the world, daily reverenced as a kind of divine
being. And even to Mohammed, who aimed to restore the
bare unity of God, there clung very early a more than
human reverence, together with an obstinate and uncondi
tional faith which has maintained itself among men for
nearly a millennium and a half. So necessary is faith as the
firm cement of every fellowship which regards itself as
possessing eternal truths and ordinances, and desires to live
in conformity with them ; although with every type of faith
the question at last comes back to the special contents and
basis of it.
But faith in Christ, however, as is above explained, and as
this whole work teaches, does not depend simply upon His
words, upon His whole conduct of unique purity and holiness,
nor upon powers of the Spirit which may flow from Him
upon His disciples. It depends also upon this, viz. that
every endeavour and aspiration of entire antiquity for the
possession of the perfect true religion has found in Him its
close and crown; and further, that everything still to be
sought and attained by spiritual forces and faculties, even to
the realization of the ultimate aim of all human history, must
proceed from Him. He Himself indicates this,' and the
apostles also declare it. If therefore faith must go out
towards Him as the head of the community He founded, so
also in this whole realm there can be no faith at once so
pure and sacred, so comprehensive and perpetually enduring,
and so potent and inexhaustible as faith in Him. Christ's
whole significance in its twofold bearing, as already described,*
may be gathered up here into one truth and one effective
principle, and demands a belief in Him purer, higher by far,
1 § 301, pp. 227-8. 2 § 321, pp. 271-2,

THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FAITH IN CHRIST, 323
than the belief demanded in any other founder of a faith
among men, and which indeed is without parallel. There
are passages in the Bible which point clearly enough to this
broader significance of faith in Him, and the more they occur
altogether incidentally the more striking they are.'
Now it is no doubt true, and shown in full detail above,
that the peculiar manner in which the very Highest that
lived in Christ and will on behalf of humanity live in Him
for ever was conceived, was conditioned by the idea of the
Logos, and through such idea ultimatelj' found also its most
luminous expression in the Bible ; whilst according to all that
has been established above, it is just as undeniable that this
idea, although far older and of other origiii than a recent
widely-spread error admits, arose only in the course of the
second half of the whole history of the people of the BibHcal
revelation. But it was no accident that just this idea re
ceived its high significance in the course of the spiritual life
of this nation, and became the receptacle for a fulness of
the most enduring and highest truths, nay, the support and
stay about which all the highest and sublimest truths touch
ing the glorified Christ firmly collected ; this likewise is
shown above. And it was not this idea now become sacred
that, as a mere name, moved and animated Christ. As He
came to realize its contents and to follow out its aim. He
had more in view than this ; and He was what He was not
by any charm or virtue in this name or idea. Far rather, as
it had been a receptacle for the highest energy of desire and
e.xpectation as to the coming of Christ, so when He came.
His peculiar appearing and work gave it a splendour and a
1 As to the essential elements of Christ's significance, such expressions as 1 Cor.
i. 30 are relevant ; as to the perpetuity of it, Heb. xiii. 8. In the first passage
the apostle starts from the view that all ordinary wisdom as then taught in the
Greek schools was nothing without divine wisdom ; he then turns to the sphere
of morals because wisdom does not cover all the needs of life, and finally looks
towards the ultimate future. Christ, he says, has become to us (1) "wisdom
from God;" (2) "righteousness" as well as "sanctification;" and' (3)
"redemption " from the bonds of this body in eternal blessedness. The whole
hicher life of man in its three chief directions and aims is thus compassed.

324 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
real significance which it never had before. Nor would any
other idea have been more fitting and more capable of re
ceiving and appropriating the very Highest. Faith, how
ever, as in all such cases, so also in this supreme case, is
bound by that which is historical, as the firm support and
distinct manifestation of the eternally true thus entering into
history, but it is not to allow itself to be misled by mere
historical splendour and glare so as to miss the Eternal
Truth itself that is hidden therein.

XVII. THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT,
§ 335, How faith in Christ must stand in its relation to
faith in God is a special question which is to be discussed
below, but that without such faith in God it is of no force
is self-evident. Still further, as we take into consideration
faith in its relation to the Holy Spirit, we at once see that
faith in Christ without this also is imperfect. For however
necessary for man, from every point of view and in every
situation of Hfe, faith in the Messiah or Christ who has now
actually appeared, may be, yet it would involve in two direc
tions an unsupplied want if satisfaction were sought in it
alone, or even in connection with faith in God. For so long
as Christ worked in the earthly life among men, nigh at
hand in His full immediate efficacy to those who were willing
to believe in Him, and clearly manifest to them on all sides,
so long He stood before men as the inexhaustible source of
all knowledge of God and all life in Him, and accessible
according to His will to all who sought to derive from Him
the better part of their own life. John in his writings '
everywhere calls this to mind in the quiet but jubilant glad
ness of his soul, and even makes it prominent with special
' The Gospel and the Epistles, not the Apocalypse, which even in this matter
shows itself the work of a wholly different John.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 325
fervour in some narratives of his Gospel.' But how utterly
bereft and without resource did the Twelve feel themselves
as soon as Christ was snatched away from them for ever !
This also no one depicts as John does, out of such deep per
sonal knowledge.^ How much more may this want have been
felt, and felt injuriously, by those who succeeded the apostles,
to whom all direct intercourse with the immediate work and
life of the Saviour was denied ! If it should be said that
the immortal words He bequeathed to men might supply this
first want, yet new complications in the progressive life of
mankind continually lead to a second ; for however much
these words may contain of the truths of eternal life, it is
not to be expected that they will show precisely how to act
in every new perplexity of life or of the age in which we
live. In the fluctuating course of things and the occurrence
of new complications, new decisions have to be formed ; but
Christ does not stand near in the flesh to render help, nor
do His words with their supreme truth when retained in the
memory afford such help, since every such complication has
each in its own case its own peculiar difficulty.
But just for this reason may we at once fully mark what
the Holy Spirit is in His whole significance and power. As
to His eternal nature, and His peculiar way of manifesting
Himself in the development of the true religion, and as to
His commencing such manifestation with conspicuous and
commanding energy in the course of the history of the Old
Covenant, all this has already been explained.* The Holy
Spirit was known and felt in the ancient community as the
power standing between God and man which alone could fill
man with holy thoughts, aspirations, and impulses, and through
which, rather than by any false spirit, true quickening could
1 Especially John i. 35-ii. 12, iv. 1-38, xiii. 23 f.
^ What is indicated in John xiii. 33, xiv. 18, cf. xvi. 32, is in the mind of
the narrator so significant, and opens the way so plainly for the comprehension
of the purpose and mission of the Holy Spirit, that in this connection too
much attention cannot be paid to it.
' §§ 80-85 ; Revelation; its Nature and Record, pp. 270-299 ; also § 163.

326 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
come. Nevertheless, it is only since Christ has worked in
the world that this power has reached its greatest altitude
and most triumphant activity. For so far as the Holy Spirit
has His deflnite function apparent only through His opposi
tion to what is unholy as it arises historically among men,
so far He received from all primitive times a significance for
humanity as soon as the spirit of man, in opposition to all
that is sinful and unholy, desired to coincide with the Spirit
of the holy God, and work only in it. In this way there
came into existence among men words and works which, pro
ceeding from the Holy Spirit, tend to incite and inspire men
to that which is like them ; and where this tendency became
persistently and freely followed, i.e. in the community of the
true religion (in Israel), there sprang forth a clear conscious
ness of what the Holy Spirit is, and a desire to be led and
strengthened by Him more and more ; — a desire which
burned most intensely where the individual or the community
most profoundly realized the danger of losing again all divine
salvation. But spirit in itself is essentially a force that
animates and impels ; and so spirit that is holy may have a
richer or scantier, a more complete or a less complete, scope
and range. On this account in the old community, side by
side with the Spirit as the power standing between God and
man, the Word, i.e. the divine thought clearly reveaHng itself,
is more and more distinctly regarded as a similar high power ; '
and so until Christ came, the Logos stands side by side with
the Pneuma. But after the Logos has in Christ become
human, so far as He could become human, the whole fulness
of divine words and truths streamed into humanity with the
living impulse of the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit which
in superabundant measure now proceeded from Him upon His
disciples and upon all Christians, had an elevation and wealth
of divine clear thoughts associated with it, never met with
before. Wherefore we see the Holy Spirit work now as a
power, and gain a significance and authority for the entire
1 §§ 252, 322 ff., pp. 139-145, 273-285.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, 327
community in a way not previously known. But at the
same time there was not assigned to the Spirit, in the series
and succession of the highest divine powers, the right place,
for this indeed at an earlier period could not so deflnitely
and firmly be assigned. It is evident that the Holy Spirit
henceforth takes the position next to Christ.
But nevertheless, according to some passages of the Bible,
this might appear somewhat doubtful. For when at Nazareth,
for the first time, Christ publicly stepped forth as the Messiah,
He began ' with the words of the ancient prophet, " The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me," as if He felt Himself under
the sway of the Holy Spirit, precisely as one of the prophets
of the Old Testament. With this declaration agrees also the
oldest narrative representing the Holy Spirit descending upon
Him in baptism ; and still further with what is said above.*
For we have seen that, in order to express historically every
thing conceivable with respect to Christ, the Spirit is cha
racterized as the divine power which forthwith from the first
possibility of His earthly appearing formed and fashioned
Him, so that subsequently such power alone predominated in
Him and made His whole life among men as it were that of
the Holy Spirit itself, so far as this was possible in the limits
of a human body.* Indeed, it is thus sufficiently made con
spicuous how little the historical Christ was on this account
merely like the old prophets. For the narrative of the
descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus in baptism makes
expressly prominent that from henceforth the Holy Spirit
" abode " upon Him, constantly, in uniform energy, peacefully
and surely leading Him, and never again leaving Him. If
Jeremiah so far revealed the deepest and most overwhelming
1 Luke iv. 18. ^ § 333^ p_ 319 f_
' If Matt. i. 20 and Luke in the more coloured narrative, i. 35, had put God
Himself instead of the Holy Spirit, the representation would have degenerated
into heathen mythology, and the dignity of the true God would have been
violated. But both the simpler and the more coloured narrative therefore
guarded itself with the more care against such representation. The shortest
and most striking description of the working of the Holy Spirit in Christ is
found in passages such as Rom. i. 4, p. 282, n. ; Heb. ix. 14.

328 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
thought of his prophetic activity, that he entered into that
activity in God, as indeed he must have felt himself from
the first conceivable moment of his earthly life called of
God ; ' how much that is beyond and above this is involved
in the thought, that the Holy Spirit Himself fashioned and
consecrated this life of Christ throughout from the very first
moment of it ! But the Holy Spirit in such passages always
appears as the higher power. Nevertheless, just this, com
bined with all other proofs, must lead us on to the right view
of the whole subject. As Christ's earthly work was finished
only with the last exhalation of His natural breath, so only
with this last breath did the whole power of the Spirit that
during His temporal existence could proceed from Him stream
out into the world, in order henceforth as a power of the
Holy Spirit such as had never been in humanity before, to
lay hold upon all those who would allow themselves to be
apprehended and led by it. Not until Christ is glorified, or
the Logos historically perfected, is the Holy Spirit ranked
after Him ; because now the Holy Spirit has appropriated the
whole fulness and power of the Logos, and only with this
fulness and power can move and influence all who in reaHty
allow themselves thus to be moved and influenced. The
earthly living Christ must have felt this ; and suggested as it
is in the older Gospels,* John, in the passage most suited for
its expression,* but states it more definitely and fully, as
Christ apprehended it, observing elsewhere just as clearly and
yet spontaneously the temporal distinction described above.*
For if it belongs to every spirit, as the original power that
impels life, to dominate its own entire realm, how much more
may this Spirit now embrace and vivify the whole realm of
human Hfe in God !
^ Jer. i. 5.
^ Matt. X. 19 f. ; Mark xiii. 11 ; Luke xiu 11 f., a memorable utterance from
the "Collection of Discourses," although taken up in all these Gospels in a
different connection.
' In the discourse prior to His glorification, John xiii. 31-xvi. 33.
* John vii. 39, cf. xx. 22.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 329
§ 336. It was in the apostolic age, therefore, that the
Holy Spirit first became conspicuous in fullest significance as
a purely divine power, although His influence was already
known under the Old Covenant. But the manner in which
He was active in the energetic period of the youth of
Christianity, and in which He may still be active. New
Testament evidence places before our eyes clearly enough.
1. First of all, as the representative of the glorified Christ,
He is constantly near the faithful, at least may constantly be
near them, and, as a luminous cloud hovering above their
heads, may descend to inspire and quicken their spirits. If
the spirit of every man snatched away from this sensuous
life may still be near to many living men in a thousand
memorials and subsequent influences, how much more may
and must the Spirit of God that once living and working in
Christ came nigh to men, afterwards, when Christ is snatched
away from the eye of sense, remain for ever as near to them,
as if Christ Himself, with His whole inflnite love and grace.
His free and righteous indignation against all that is unholy,
and His whole spiritual being, were still present. Thus, then,
the Holy Spirit may in everything animate and impel the in
dividual man, in love, in joy, in confidence in God, in hope,' as
also in sorrow and earnest desire f and if there is a spirit in
communities of men, this also, at least among Christians, shall
be hallowed more and more by His power.* In the tran
quillity of Hfe such is the constantly uniform sway and
ministration of the Holy Spirit, as if with Him Christ Him
self were ever present with His disciples, nay. His Spirit
dwelt within them.* Moreover, as by this sway and minis
tration of the Holy Spirit, and this fulness of spiritual life
never till then experienced in the world, all the individual
endeavours and acts of the faithful are to be inspired ; so also
it is the Holy Spirit who, searching out everything in the
1 Rom. V. 5, viii. 6, xiv. 17 ; 1 'Thess. i. 6.
2 Rom. viii. 11-27. ' According to 2 Thess. ii. 13.
* According to the words 1 Cor. iii. 16 ; Rom. viii. 9, 11 ; repeated 2 Tim.
i. 5, 14,

330 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
world, searches out also the deep things of God,' and under
whose active working and name the old prophecy now Hves
again.* For brevity's sake and the rounding of the sentence
in discourse He is often spoken of merely as " the Spirit,"
and yet only the Holy Spirit as known to all Christians is
meant. 2. But there come also days full of agitation and despond
ency, when the faithful are disposed anxiously to desire that
Christ were still present with His whole visible help. At
the end of His life on earth He was able to say that none
who had stood nearest to Him had perished save one who
was well known ; * but now He is separated from them
irretrievably, and the more remote the salvation appears the
more distant He seems. Such situations, according to John's
description, unparalleled as it is in its truth and sublimity,
Christ had in view at the moment of His departure from His
disciples ; — situations the more serious and critical in life
when the visible Christ has withdrav?n. But the fitting
counsels in relation to them John reports from the farewell
discourse of Christ to His disciples. If then the faithful
are resolved neither to forsake God and Christ nor the Holy
Spirit, now indeed the hardest struggle begins, the struggle
between the dependent spirit of the individual, anxious and
depressed in its human weakness; and the Holy Spirit who is
known and believed to have come into the world through
Christ and to continue His activity for ever uplifted between
God and man, promoting the believing prayer that cries for
help, and presenting it as mediator before God. How in this
struggle in which the faithful disciple is engaged, the Holy
Spirit conquers, and pours ever anew a divine and unfailing
confidence into the heart, the apostle who knew all this most
profoundly in his own long experience, himself describes fully
1 1 Cor. ii. 10.
2 According to 1 Cor. xiv. ; cf. Rev. ii. 7 ff., xiv. 13, xxii. 17 ; Acts xiii. 2,
xxi. 11 ; 2 Thess. ii. 2.
^ John xvii. 12, and this parenthesis is just there so significant in view of the
previous farewell discourse, xiii. 31-xvi. 33.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 331
and definitely and with unsurpassable truth.' This is in
point of fact the highest power that dwells in the Holy
Spirit, a power with difficulty comprehensible by such as
remain at a distance from its inspiration. Yet the confidence
with which it may be relied upon admits of illustration.
The poet, for example, born in a late age, never supposes
that the spirit which once proceeded from a great master of
song can vanish altogether from among men ; rather does he
regard it as possible that this spirit may seize and inspire
without measure those who place themselves in close and
intimate relations with it. But every true intuition and
experience may create for itself its own brief but appropriate
expression. In the discourses of Christ, as John reports
them, the Holy Spirit is represented, in a suitable connection,
as the "Advocate" (Parald^tos) whom the glorified Christ
will send from God to the faithful as the true mediator
between feeble man and God, and who as a genuine advocate
seeks out in times of distress whoever desires help, puts into
distinct words his obscure complaints, and coming with them
to God is his representative * before Him ; a bold but striking
word, characterizing what as a purely spiritual transaction
cannot without difficulty be briefly described.
3. But not merely do embarrassments from without come
upon the faithful from which there can be no true deliver
ance save by an earnest seeking after new help from the
Holy Spirit. From within the community also, nay from
within the heart and mind of the individual member of it,
complicated questions unexpectedly arise, and serious hin
drances to a firm stedfast life in God, which may awaken the
yearning and yet fruitless desire that Christ were again still
visibly present to solve such problems and remove such
1 Rom. viii. 31-39, of 5-30.
2 John xiv. 16 f., 26, where, according to the context, there is first made
prominent the more peaceful inner operation of the Holy Spirit ; then xv. 26,
His active contention ; and xvi. 7-14, where this is further set forth, only with
greater fulness and perspicuity. And yet the former lies already in Matt. x.
19 f. : and the latter with a similar image of "intercession " in Rom. viii. 26 f.

332 OLD And new testament theology.
obstacles. Nor does it seem that in the life of any of the
apostles occasions of this kind were wanting. From the New
Testament, and all other sources, it is clearly indicated in
what wholly new controversies and difficult complications,
in matters affecting Christian faith and conduct, a Peter, a
Paul, a John were engaged, and what inner Christian conflicts
for the utmost certainty and assurance, which indeed the
urgency of the situation demanded, arose in consequence even
to them. At such times it is of moment to exalt one's own
spirit wholly in the Holy Spirit, and to allow oneself so to be
taught of Him as if Christ Himself, with the clear light of
His own teaching, were still present.' In the midst of the
frailty of life and the darkness of the world, to win all
divine assurance, to be consciously inspired by the energy
and guided by the light of the Divine Spirit, to be in fact
taught as of God in affairs for which all human wisdom had
hitherto proved insufficient; this for many struggling souls
in the Old Testament had already been no vain desire and
aim, and its perfect realization was a blessed hope for the
Messianic future.* But now far more than in earlier days
all this might and must be found fulfilled in the way in
which Christianity had brought fulfilment ; and in reality it
was so found in manifold forms, according to the special
spiritual nature of the individual and the historical situation
of the entire community. At the first Christian Pentecostal
feast, the community, assembled for devotion and wrestHng
prayer, were for the first time so possessed by this holy
power that in one moment they learned what hitherto they
had never been able to understand. By a sudden iHumina-
tion from above, Peter feels his spirit wholly changed and its
inmost depths profoundly moved, as a clear vision and
corresponding command show the will of Christ and the
^ According to John xiv. 26 ; cf. other utterances concerning all that Christ
could not tell His disciples till now, xvi. 12. In another form the same truth
lies in such expressions as Phil. iii. 15.
^ According to passages such as Ps. xx5tii. 8 f. ; Jer. xxxi. 34 ; B. Isa. liv.
13 ; cf. the echo of such passages in 1 Thess. iv. 9.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, 333
power of tlie Holy Spirit.' Paul, too, as a Christian, struggles
throughout the rest of his life, that he may never again lose
that illumination and strength of spirit he has once gained,
but rather that, in the perception of all Christian truth, he
may become more and more confident. And at last John, in
the presence of diverse errors that sought in wanton profusion
to obtain currency in the young community, shows in all
calmness the true nature and power of the Holy Spirit in the
enlightenment and guidance of Christians at all times. Here
are some of the clearest examples of this power of the Holy
Spirit, not merely to strengthen and illumine the faithful on
all occasions and emergencies, but also to conduct them from
one stage of knowledge to another, and from victory to victory
over all the hindrances to the better Christian life which new
complications raised. Every conquest of this kind in the
apostolic age gave a mighty impulse to the advancement of
the entire Christian life and the progress of Christian salva
tion in the world ; and that in all future time this same
result may, nay must, take place, the Bible, so far from deny
ing, expressly presupposes and suggests.
But certainly, if this is to take place, one of the most-
necessary pre-conditions of it is that everything that Christ in
His visible manifestation, by discourse and deed, effected and
established in the world shall be freshly and vividly pre
served in the community and continually renewed. In the
flow and pressure of the times that followed, how readily
might be dissipated or obscured the original fulness and
clearness of all that He Himself in His temporal life openly
taught and founded for all mankind ! Yet there it stands
historically in its sublime elevation, its indispensableness, and
its unsurpassed truth, and there it must continue to stand for
all coming time, the irrefragable basis of all divinely-human
life, as for the community so for each individual of it ; for
1 According to Acts x. 1-xi. 18, where just on this account the " Spirit " is
mentioned, xi. 12, and indeed here and elsewhere with brevity, but merely in
order that the language where it is fitting may be the more modest.

334 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
with exactness and amplitude, and a growing richness and
splendour, all this is known to-day far more than some of
our contemporaries suppose. But in order rightly to know it
in its whole truth and connection and fulness, and to place
it ever afresh before one's spirit, the Holy Spirit from whom
it flowed must already have inspired man and uplifted him to
His own altitude. Only the poet can rightly estimate the
poet's work, only the artist the artist's, and find in it the
impulse to further progress ; so only by aid of the Holy
Spirit is the work of the Spirit fully understood. For this
reason it is appropriately said in Christ's farewell discourse
to His disciples, according to John, that the Holy Spirit will
call to their remembrance all that He has befpre told them.'
Indeed, by way of example, what is the Gospel of John
itself but such a freshly living reminiscence of Christ's whole
appearing, which His most loyal disciple, by aid of that same
Holy Spirit, could in later days bequeath to the world ?
Equally appropriate is still another saying, viz. that the
Holy Spirit, by His coming and abiding and working in the
world, will then only truly glorify Christ, and all the words
He discourses He will hear of Him and derive from Him, —
nothing essentially foreign shall intermingle therewith ; and
in such manner only will He further advance the work of
Christ.* § 337. It is quite true, however, that this entire spiritual
condition, though it may arise in the case of the most solitary
Christian, yet it has nevertheless its permanency and its
pre-eminent truth invariably and necessarily in the " com
munity" itself. Moreover, Hke every condition historically
developed among mankind, it has its variations of growth
and strength ; with the individual, as in the great community,
there will be times when the highest elevation is attained,
and when there is decline of longer or shorter duration, and
even when there appears to be complete decay. On some
occasion the Spirit of the glorified Christ must have first with
1 John xiv. 20. 2 John xvi. 12-14.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 335
irresistible force replenished the disciples, not as isolated
individuals merely, but as one and all they were gathered
together in full assembly, and must have created them anew
as by a second and higher baptism into fearless witnesses and
publishers of Christian truth. It must have been on such
occasion precisely as if, in their very midst, the Spirit of
Christ, held to be dead, had visibly and palpably in thousand
fold power reappeared in the world, to remain in it inde
structibly for ever. Just such event actually occurred ; and
it is here the high significance of the first Pentecostal feast
is found, whose historical reality, in the main, it would be
folly itself to attempt to deny.' How this latest and yet
truly characteristic and purely spiritual power of Christianity
was preserved during the whole long period of the rest of the
life of the Apostle John, and became in the pressure and heat
of the time the sole refuge and defence of the young com
munity, the whole of the New Testament apart from the
Acts of the Apostles attests. Indeed, the first three Gospels
would not have spoken of it briefly, nor ultimately the
Gospel of John in copious detail, as so significant, had it not
actually maintained its high significance without interruption,
and even given evidence of its presence more and more in
certain outward and palpable signs.^ But that during those
times this power did not always and everywhere retain its
first fresh energy undiminished, may be shown by the
admonition to the community, " not to grieve the Holy Spirit
which had once been received as the seal of the new Christian
life," as man through ungodliness grieves the Hving God
Himself.* Much also of a similar import finds expression
elsewhere in the Epistles. The author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, one of the first and best of a younger Christian
generation, mentions, it is true, the power of the Holy Spirit
' Cf. History, vii. 88-105 ; and the Drei ersten Evangelien, ii. p. 64 ff.
^ Concerning which see below.
3 Eph. iv. 30, according to the ancient phrase, Deut. xxxii. 21, and especially
B. Isa. Ixiii. 10. The last passage may attest how early the Holy Spirit was
regarded as a personal power that may be gladdened or grieved.

336 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
among Christians,' and once designates it indeed in a striking
passage by new phraseology, the " spirit of grace," and love
from above ; * but on the whole he no longer speaks of it so
vividly as Paul. Nevertheless, this power can never be
wholly dissipated, and can never cease to work so long as the
remembrance of Christ and of Christianity endures ; and not
merely because where the living memory of Christ abides it
must ever return, but also because it is in all Christianity the
truly conserving and continuously formative power, and can
only find the close of its special significance when all men have
become as Christ. This, indeed, could be very distmctly felt
in the times of the Apostle Paul ; and therefore he says, in a
suitable place, by a figure peculiar to him, the Holy Spirit
is an " earnest " Christendom has received from Christ.* As
the departing friend leaves behind, to redeem it again, a pledge
of his love and his hope, so the Holy Spirit as such pledge
unites the earthly living disciples with their now removed
Lord, and guarantees the hope inspired by Him that He will
one day return to them with the greater gift of the perfected
spiritualization or blessedness of all the faithful. And in
the same connection of thought the apostle compares all that
is then realized in Christendom as the power of the Holy
Spirit simply to an " offering of first-fruits," to which at
harvest time other and far richer fruits must succeed.*
But it is quite possible, further, that one who feels himself
moved by the Holy Spirit should nevertheless not be moved
by Him purely and simply enough ; and he may even publicly
boast in the community of such inspiration when he is all
the time following wrong and pernicious impulses. This
happened very early in the history of Christianity. The
Holy Spirit was held to be a high and wonderful power by
' Heb. ii. 4, vi. 4, cf. ix. 14. The Holy Spirit to this writer is already
especially in Holy Scripture, iii. 7, ix. 8, x. 15.
2 Heb. X. 29.
' 2 Cor. i. 22, v. 5 ; more freely repeated, Eph. i. 14.
' Rom. viii. 23 ; according to 19, 23, the fuller offering that ultimately
follows may be termed the uUhaia.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 337
all who professed, sincerely or otherwise, to participate in it ;
and how easily may any power be misused, especially one
that is invisible and purely spiritual, and appears to many
men in such wonderful manifestations, whether he who
supposes himself able to speak and act under its authority
be consciously or unconsciously mistaken ! The example of
Simon Magus and others of his class is sufficiently distinct
and prominent in the New Testament.' The Apostle Paul,
who must have known what the Holy Spirit is in reality, and
how He manifests Himself, saw occasion in his Epistles to
defend himself against some who boasted of the Holy Spirit
themselves, and yet denied it in his case.* Ultimately, John
also had to suffer much from the arrogance of men whose
pretensions were similarly unfounded.* But with all the
more care do the genuine apostles definitely guard against
any misuse of a power so transcendent and so wonderful, and
about which mistake is so easily made. With minuteness of
detail, but from the moral point of view which is readily and
Universally appreciable, Paul shows how the Holy Spirit when
really present must manifest and authenticate His presence.*
Subsequently, when in the new Christianity the diversity of
spirits had become in reality much more marked, John, in his
calm but emphatically decisive way, distinguished briefly and
sharply between the " spirit of truth " and the " spirit of
error," and demands that as in all questions of life, so
especially in that which is then more particularly dealt with,
the spirit of truth may rule.* And it is just as if, in the
words concerning the Holy Spirit, previously expounded,*
which John resuscitates in the valedictory discourse of Christ,
^ In passages such as Acts viii. 9, xiii. 8 f., xvi. 16-18, xix. 13-16; Rev.
xiii. 11-17, and others.
^ As may be manifestly inferred from the expression in 1 Cor. vii. 40, but
also from many other passages of the Epistles.
'Therefore in 1 John iv. 1 f, just as the Deuteronomist, xii. 2-6, he so
strongly calls for the trying of the spirits.
* Chiefly where he discourses of the " fruit" of the true Spirit, Gal. v. 22;
subsequently repeated in somewhat similar phraseology, Eph. v. 9, 11.
^ 1 John iv. 6, cf. 1-5, v. 6. « § 335, p. 324 ff.
Y

338 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
the expression, " the Holy Spirit," were with greater precision
involuntarily defined by the other expression, " the spirit of
truth," ' in order to prevent any possible error concerning the
nature and conception of it. For if, in its deepest life and
aims,* Christianity is one and the same with the truth, —
which according to the divine will should rule in humanity,
and where it is insufficiently known should be assiduously
sought after still further, — so it is self-evident that the
Holy Spirit, as it should rule among men and lead them
forward to their ultimate destiny, must be one and the same
with the spirit of truth ; so that no one can hope to be
animated by His breath, and to act and speak from His
inspiration, who does not love all truth, and zealously strive
that it alone may prevail.
§ 338. Such errors and abuses, however, in no way hinder
us from regarding the Holy Spirit as the purely divine power
He really is, and may indeed still in Christianity be felt to
be, while He is cherished in His i^niversal significance and
efficacy as bringing health and salvation with far more com
pleteness and certainty than in thej period of the old com
munity. He is, it is true, apart from God, the most purely
spiritual power conceivable; but so much the less does that
prevent us from regarding Him as a real and proper power,
since indeed all true power in the world everywhere proceeds
from spirit, and spirit proceeds from God. And, indeed, other
spiritual moving forces and impulses in humanity may well
have also each its possibly good power, may give forth fruit
springing only from itself, and reach at last to the eternal
being and life of God Himself, as, for example, knowledge or
wisdom.* But whilst other divine powers of this character
approach only single sides and capabilities of the human
spirit in order to touch and move them, the Holy Spirit
where He touches and moves the human spirit expressly
' John xiv. 17, xv. 26, xvi. 13, cf. viii. 32-47.
' § 42, Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 118-123.
» § 250, p. 129 ff.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 339
approaches the whole spirit in all its deepest and most
essential being in order to fit men first for the new birth and
then for all divine life and aspiration. He thus stands to
man in the place of God ; and yet is not one and the same
with God, since indeed the purely divine Spirit, so far as He
is in God and works from Him in the world, is through God
Himself the Holy One from eternity ; but in this case the
idea of the Holy Spirit is rather to be understood of Him in
so far as He has attained for men His full distinctness and
definiteness in historical conflict with the human spirit where
this has become unholy, and therefore only as through the
true prophets, and at last most purely and mightily through
Christ, He has manifested Himself to mankind.
But henceforth in this distinctness the Holy Spirit remains
the more surely for all mankind an equal, invariable, and
eternal power, as in His unique character He is the only
power that can aid mankind with an ever new and ever
living energy to advance from stage to stage nearer and
nearer to its ultimate destiny in conformity with the will
of God. If God, notwithstanding that He is supersensuous
and invisible, is to man an all-determining power, and at
the same time the person ' who invisibly yet clearly and
surely for ever hovers before him ; so is the Holy Ghost
also in the special manner just explained. As man may
in his folly imagine himself able to withdraw from the power
of God, so may he also, but only to the general detriment and
corruption of his own spirit, free himself from the power of
the Holy Spirit. Apostolic Christianity was full of the most
vivid consciousness of the Holy Spirit, as such supreme
power; and as antiquity sought most eagerly the traces of
the power of the invisible God, and when it found them per
sistently and gladly retained the memory of them, so the
New Testament shows us distinctly enough how in different
ways, and by signs unheard of before, the manifold coming
and overwhelming power of the Holy Ghost was experienced,
> § 170, p. 58 f.

340 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
not merely as one of the highest angels but as of God Him
self.' In the more vivid imagination of individual narrators,
and in the bolder presentation of divine transactions, reference
was made early enough not merely to the Holy Spirit as dis
coursing, coming, drawing, leading generally, but also to His
appearing in a more definite manner.* That the word for
spirit is feminine in Hebrew and neuter in Greek does not
repress the impulse to think of Him as a living power and as
a person. But in those circles where it retained most purity,
apostolic Christianity was too cautious, and faith in this
heavenly power was too fresh and self-sufficing, to favour, on
the basis of the idea of a person, indulgence in freer and
more coloured representations concerning the Holy Ghost.
The Christian faith could not but rest now firm as a rock
upon the actual presence and undoubted operation of the
Holy Spirit, as indeed it must always continue in such
attitude and in such confidence. How joyful and certain
this faith was in the apostoHc time, the -whole New Testa
ment shows. No special prescription of Christ, no outward
constraint of any kind, demanded this new faith. It had
come, as all higher truth comes, involuntarily, by the most
jMwerful personal experiences ; and it will be preserved in
the same way. For Clirist Himself had indeed created in
His own disciples the possibility of this faith, so that at the
right time it the more quickly reached full realization : but
this also He promoted among them only as He promoted
every other higher belief.
1 Freely varying momentary traces are such as are noticed according to mere
reminiscence in Acts ii. 2-4, iv. 31 ; but the abiding traces were the "gifts of
grace," or charismata. Cf. History, vii. 114 f.
• From the earliest gospel narrative, Mark i. 10 is here relevant ; from the
later, that mentioned above, p. 319, which is described in Luke i. 35 "with more
colour than in Matt. i. 18-20, but yet with the old Hebrew dread of distorting
and profaning the Divine by human passions.

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 341

XVIIL THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY.
§ 339. When the source from which some blessing is
anticipated or some issue awaited, is neither an actual and
palpable possession nor an object the outward eye beholds, faith
is found to be in every case essential. If this holds good in
matters small and great, sensuous and spiritual, it is especially
applicable in relation to powers that provide and determine
for man that which is his highest blessing and which conducts
him to his better destiny. Upon these powers, invisible and
purely spiritual as they are, faith must rest with an energy
and a perseverance as upon nothing else beside. Since Christ
has appeared among men, no longer do we speak of God alone
as the object of faith ; but the rejection of faith in Him now
involves the rejection of faith in Christ and in the Holy
Spirit. For Christ in His historical manifestation and eternal
significance and the Holy Spirit are, with God, three powers,
different indeed in themselves and always to be distinguished,
if each power is to provide for man that salvation of which it
is the special source ; and yet all so completely in harmony
and so coincident in operation both in what they are for man
and in what they are to accomplish for him, that only their
working together can procure through the one faith in them
that salvation which alone is man's true salvation. The
relation in which they stand to each other, how one pre
supposes the other, the second the first, the third the first and
second, has already been shown. But how inseparably and
necessarily related they are to human thought, and how
certainly man obtains the true salvation only as he directs his
faith to each, and so in their right relation to all as to one, is
plainly enough perceptible. For regarding the Christian Trinity
as a chain of three links, if we may so speak, the truth we are
ursins is seen whether this chain be traced in its connection
from below upward, or from above downward, or whether it be
contemplated somewhat more closely from the centre outwards.

842 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
1. The better spirit which we may designate the Holy
Spirit always in. some measure meets those who to-day aspire
after a better life and a divine salvation, if with any degree
of seriousness they come into connection with Christian
thought, endeavour, and literature. Whether one lives in the
midst of the Church and is touched by a thousand evidences
and traces of this Spirit, or whether the glowing fire of the
Holy Spirit shines forth upon the mind as it studies and
ponders in solitude the immortal words of the Bible, always
is the Holy Spirit near, and may be drawn consciously nearer,
even if its whole enlightening power be not as yet reaHzed.
Nor were the apostles themselves in their day with all their
labour able to accomplish more than the kindling of the light
and fervour of the Holy Spirit in the individual and in whole
communities.' But when once the radiant light and full
energy of the Holy Spirit are supposed to have been realized,
the assurance that the Spirit that is felt is actually the same
Spirit that once streamed forth upon the earth from Christ
Himself, is precisely the assurance that is constantly needed.
This, however, can only be won by directing the mind wholly
to Christ in His historical manifestation, to ascertain most
clearly in Him, as the resplendent mirror of God Himself,
what are the necessary characteristics of the humanly-divine
life, and also to obtain a vivid consciousness of what the
divine power of the glorified Christ really is ; and in this Way
to arrive at the conviction that he may justly deem himself
speaking and acting under the impulse of the Holy Spirit,
only if he speaks and acts as the glorified Christ would have
done under the new circumstances of the present time. But
worldly affairs are subject to continual change ; only the laws
of that divine order of the world in which they are ever
comprehended, remain, with the will of God Himself, invari-
^ This is seen very clearly from the epistles sent to the churches shortly after
they were founded, for example, those to the Thes.salonians, and even those to
the Galatians and Corinthians. — "Light" as in Eph. v. 9, where tcV (puri;
interchanges very remarkably with nu ¦rviv/iXTo; in the manuscripts. "Ardour,"
^iXot, as in 1 Cor. xii. 31, xiv. 1, 39 ; 2 Cor. xi. 2.

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 343
able. An infinite variety of events occurs of which Christ in
His earthly life did not speak, and about which no direct
decision can be obtained from His mere words and deeds as
historically presented to us. Inasmuch, therefore, as Christ
contemplated all earthly events and judged all human affairs
from the point of view of God Himself, he also who deems
himself fully at one with the historical Christ and living
entirely under the sway of the glorified Christ, must uplift
himself still further with Him to God ; and he can cherish
the belief that he lives wholly in accordance with the will of
Christ only as he, with as sure and unobscured vision, looks
forth upon every worldly event in each new time, as from the
presence of God Himself, and is conscious that he finds over
against such event the will of God in relation to it. As
Christ Himself ever pointed His followers ultimately to God
alone, and did this even in such parting words as those in
John's Gospel, where He admonishes them to " abide in Him "
that thus through Him they may abide in God ; ' so His
faithful disciple must mount up in such movement and
direction of his spirit by these stages to God Himself, and
can find only in Him full blessedness and rest. The inter
relation is here so close and inseparable, that the transition in
discourse from the Holy Spirit moving in men to the pure "Spirit
of God " * is spontaneously taken in the appropriate place,
and the New Testament sufficiently indicates that it is only
of God that Christ and the Spirit can be perfectly known and
rightly valued.*
2. The last observation leads us naturally from the method
we have designated as " from below upwards " to the converse.
¦• According to the ancient sacred image of the vine, so extremely appropriate
and so genuinely Israelite in its character, and also according to its further
elucidation ; John xv. 1-16, cf. xiv. 10-17, xvii. 23.
^ As in 1 John iv. 2 ; but it is Paul rather than John that loves this transi
tion to highest names where the connection of thought readily leads to it, as
1 Cor. ii. 11-14, iii. 16 ; Rom. viii. 9-14. But how finely and appropriately
he can retain the distinction conceivable between them is especially shown in
1 Cor. xii. 3, where Christ is placed in the central position.
3 John vi. 44, 65, viii. 16, 18.

344 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
There is nothing in the Bible that forbids us, in our con
templation of this highest of all subjects, from considering it
also more particularly " from above downwards ; " rather does
it require this of us if we take in view its entire contents.
Nay, it would seem as if the Old Testament, without which
even the New Testament itself is nothing, warned us through
out to adhere stedfastly to God alone as the object of that
faith of which we are now treating. As in the Old Testament
the true God is strictly the one great heavenly power alone
to which faith is to be directed, why should it not be so
to-day, since without being surely in God man can ¦«'in,
speaking generally, no true salvation ? But in point of fact
the matter stands otherwise even in the Old Testament. For
from all primitive times do-wmwards it has happened that
after personages have arisen among men of such a character
as to be the manifest channel through which divine words
and deeds proceeded into the world, the trust and faith of
many have been turned toward them as to higher beings.
The wide distance that separates humanity from God does not
remain a dreary waste. The fruits of the thought and deeds
of men of God tend to fill it up with a growing fulness and
light, and for the furtherance ultimately of the final destiny
of the human race. It is true that in the ancient community
of the true reHgion, all genuine prophets, and all whom the
Old Testament celebrates as " men of God," rejected all faith
given to them as men, and resisted any attempt to invest
them with divine honours. It was precisely in this that
Jahveism distinguished itself as the true religion from all
heathenism ; and even the offering of divine adoration to the
saintliest of men after their death was most rigidly avoided.
But nevertheless this did not prevent the nation from
renderiAg to the Patriarchs and to Elijah, after their death,
extraordinary reverence,' and from contemplating Moses
especially, in the course of time, as having his countenance
radiant with the reflection of God's glory, and as being the
' History, i. 317 ff., iv. 102-113.

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 345
man accredited of God in whom the people were bound to
believe ; ' although just in that already later age, when there
had grown up a powerful yearning to pay more than human
reverence to the greatest of the ancient dead, the true reHgion
found expression for this feeHng by anticipating the Messiah
as the perfecterl Man of God yet to come. Thus therefore in
the province of the development of the true reHgion the Old
Testament period shows what inextinguishable desire dwells
in every generation to behold the divine life as the highest
conceivable life perfected also in man, so far as it can be
perfected and seen in man.
Accordingly, after He whom the Old Testament so urgently
called for had come, and had come otherwise than most people
expected, yet as alone He could properly come ; and after He
had shown by the clearest and most perfect example how the
life of all men must shape itself in accordance with God's
will, the glance of men who sought to do God's will, and to
find the salvation springing from a life in harmony with it,
necessarily turns from God directly towards Him. More
over, men now find in Him all that in this respect was sought,
viz. besides the purely divine nature and life, the perfect
humanly-divine ; besides the eternal Father, the eternal Son ;
besides the clear and manifest destiny of the whole human
creation, the only true and proper beginning of its consum
mation, and the living impulse for the advancement by all
men of the work of God in creation upon this true and
proper way. The fruit of the right thought and deeds of
all who worked before Him is so little lost that it finds only
here its most fertile soil ; and everything which men subse
quently strive after and win of like import, where it does not
spring from more direct contact with Christ's Spirit and is not
promoted by it, bears the true fruit for the life of man only
in the way He has opened. But the development of all true
religion and of human life in harmony with it has in the
whole of antiquity up to Christ run through all the stages of
1 Ex. xxxiv. 29-35, xix. 9 ; cf. § 301, p. 226.

346 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
its course so directly, and in its ultimate issues with such true
and singular exactness, that if the human race desired and
were able to recommence its whole career from the beginning,
that development must repeat itself in every essential point,
a new Christ must be born as Son of God, and must as Son
of God be crucified and rise again.' But not in such idle
repetitions, or in the empty longing for them, does history
move along its mighty path from the creation onwards ; and
Christ will remain until the closing scenes of this present era
of the world, the firm, immovable, exalted centre and dividing-
line of the two halves of this divinely-human history. As
such, indeed, not only the apostles, with all their best and
wisest contemporaries, regarded Christ, but also the purest and
most pious, together with those most competent to judge from
their day down to our own time, have shared this lofty
estimate of Him. And if the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews correctly recognised this in the growing obscurities
of his time, how much more may we recognise it to-day after
all the illustrious as well as dark ages in relation to the
Christian faith that have since occurred !
But if all this be fully accepted, and faith in Christ be
thus entertained, of what use will it be to recognise merely
the historical Christ and not the glorified Christ with all the
spiritual powers that proceed only from Him as glorified, or,
in one word, to refuse to be led by the Holy Spirit.* Thus,
' Hence the question may be raised, and indeed it has already been raised,
in the Protestanten-verein under my superintendence, by a member now
deceased, who introduced it and dealt with it very fully : " whether Christ has
appeared or will appear among the inhabitants of all the rest of the heavenly
bodies, as upon the earth ? " But the whole question is tolerably vain so
long as we know nothing of the existence of such inhabitants. But so far
as the true God is the only true God, in this respect also that His truth
and His will to men may be rightly known everywhere, even in the narrowest
space, where there are beings created to know Him and free to live in accord
ance with His will ; so far, the question is also idle. It is enough for the present
that we can know upon the earth, through Christ, how we should live conform
ably to the will of God.
2 According to Paul's expressions, 1 Cor. xii. 3, cf. iii. 23 ; but in John's
Gospel, xiv. -xvi., this comes from the mouth of the Lord Himself in the most
graphic manner.

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 347
then, following this three-linked chain from above downwards,
we arrive at the same result.
3. But it is as we proceed from the intermediate name, or
from the second link of this chain to the first and the third,
that we get into the living heart of this inseparable unity of
the three powers. Everywhere, and by all He says and does,
Christ points most vividly back to God and forward to the
Holy Spirit, and has become the only true bond between both,
and must remain so for ever. From Him it may therefore be'
most plainly seen how firmly welded this chain is, and how
little any one link may be removed from it or transposed in
its position. In the last issue everything in this chain is
purely spiritual, solely for the spirit of man clear, ever
lasting light, and for his will perpetual guidance. But
from its centre there shines forth at the same time distinctly
enough what should be the relation of everything earthly and
human to the heavenly and divine, and what is its ultimate
destiny. § 340. It may therefore be truly said that in the Old
Testament faith in three such supreme spiritual powers had
been in process of formation up to the appearing of Christ as
the end of it. There was, first of all, faith in God, of a
nature so pure, true, and invariable, the source of such a
fervent and marvellous inspiration, and in its results so
fruitful and inexhaustible, that there is nowhere anything
Hke it among the heathen. A very similar faith in the Holj'-
Spirit became also by degrees a mighty power, as has already
been shown.' Moreover, with increasing distinctness faith in
the coming Messiah was superadded, as if to fill up the wide
gulf that opened between all that is heavenly and all that is
earthly, and to fill up this gulf apart from faith in the super
human power of perfected men and historically illustrious
exemplars, which subsequently retired rather into the back
ground before faith in Holy Scripture, with its divine contents,
that yet stood so near to man. For faith in the coming of
1 § 82ff.; Revelation; its Nature and Record, pp. 276-299.

348 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
the Messiah was of so exalted a nature that it gradually filled
the hearts of the pious with a purer and more powerful
emotion than faith in an Abraham, a Moses, an Elias, or in
Holy Scripture. In all such beginnings and earliest forecasts
of the New Testament faith cannot be left out of account,
since it could not possibly have arisen without them. But
apart from faith in God, everything in this whole develop
ment remained void, without inner and necessary connec
tion, and consequently too powerless to attain its ultimate
end. Christianity first formed this chain, uniting in an indissoluble
bond all the separate powers that are to faith the security of
the continuance of the perfect true religion and of the eternal
duration of the blessed life. As all true religion finds in
Christianity its sublime culmination and its absolute close for
all ages, so we have a special illustration of it here. The
highest elements in Christianity, recognised as truth after
Christ's glorification from the very first, experienced through
out as the Spirit's power, and appointed to be firmly held,
invariable for ever, as the light and energy of its existence
and work for the whole future ; — all these were inseparably
blended in this bond of brief but infinitely significant concep
tions and words, in order to become henceforth the witness
and token of its spiritual life. No very long time did it need
for young Christendom to learn that these three powers were
indissolubly united, and to find itself actually under their sway.
From the first Pentecostal festival this was at once and for
ever established. The whole New Testament is saturated
through and through with this indelible fundamental thought
of all Christianity, for even the Gospels duly contain the indi
cation of that current of feeling which must lead through
Christ's appearing and word to this result. And the language
which by reason of this main conception now became prevalent
in Christendom, lives and moves in the New Testament still
in its whole original copiousness, naivete, and freedom ; while
the thought is expressed in all the Epistles as well as in the

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 349
Apocalypse,' interpenetrating them in manifold ways, and
making itself in its all-dominating significance perceptible every
where. In short sentences and formularies this thought is
summarily condensed at an early period ; ^ and as in baptism
there must be an especial and continual remenibrance of it,
and of its supreme and commanding position in Christianity,
so there soon arose a brief and vigorous expression of it which,
regarded as that consecrated by the glorified Christ Himself,
• found at the end of the evangelical collection of discourses its
permanent and abiding place.*
Every object of faith, the moment a man believes in it, he
elevates above himself, confesses his dependence upon it and
his hope in it. How much more must this occur here, where
the transcendent object of his faith is condensed into three
brief names ! According to primitive usage, a special human
name characterized only a man of worth,* and the name of a
master denoted the whole power and dignity of him under
whom the servant knew that he had protection ; so that the
higher the master, the more significant is his name in itself,
and the more valuable the shelter and guardianship it affords
to all those who commit themselves to him.^ What a name,
therefore, is that which is to call to mind Him in whom all
power and glory unite ! In the present instance, however,
the name of God, which is of such unique significance and can
so certainly denote of itself alone the highest Being conceiv-
' Rev. i. 4-6, where, according to the artificial structure of this salutation,
the seven spirits represent the Holy Spirit, though somewhat freely, as in the
second place. Cf. Die Johan. Schriften, ii. 109 f. The name Holy Spirit is
wanting in the Apocalypse, but in its essence it is not wanting, as is shown
in § 336, p. 330.
2 As iu the Benediction, 2 Cor. xiii. 13, and here the more appropriately
since much is said in the Epistle of the mutual relations of the Three.
2 Matt, xxviii. 19 ; cf. History, vii. 136.
* The slave, according to primitive usage, has no proper name, since he is
reo'arded as merely goods and chattels, or so far as he is living, as au animal,
and is only numbered. Such is originally the high significance of the proper
name of a man.
* According to the well - known phrases, Isa. iv. 1 ; Amos ix. 12 ; Jas.
ii. 7 ; Book of Isa. Ixiii. 19 ; Deut. xxviii. 10 ; Dan. ix. 18 f ; cf. 2 Sam.
xii. 28.

350 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
able,' is extended at the same time to the two other of these
powers, and the Christian is baptized in this name in which
the three are all one, in order to live continually under their
united power and protection, or, if he will, to call himself by
it in the world, and to glory in it as the name of his Lord.
Such is the significance of baptism, or of preaching " in the
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." *
§ 341. But the more succinctly this formulary summarizes
thus all that is highest and most accepted on this subject, the
more necessary is it properly to recognise as well that which
is common to all Three, which unites them so indissolubly as
that by which the idea of each is distinguished from that of
the other. For the unity of the Three would be no living and
true unity if one could arbitrarily be the other ; moreover,
there would thus emerge as the result, instead of the higher
unity, only intermingling and confusion, and with this also
obscurity and perverse application in the faith of man. Nay,
the seriation * of the Three names would be itself without
' It is sufficiently remarkable that in the New Testament to o.o^k, 3 John 7,
according to the better reading, is similarly used for Christ. Cf. Johan,
Schriften, i. p. 506.
- The preposition us chiefly used in this connection corresponds in the for
mula of baptism to the Hebrew 3 ; but isr/ is also used, which signifies properly,
as in Mark xiii. 6, Luke i. 14, 47, the lofty ground and reason on account of
which something takes place ; whilst Luke in the Acts (x. 48) cujploys the
more simple it, "in " (or in certain cases, as i. 5, " with "). According to the
explanation given above, the origin and import of these Three are to be traced
so absolutely to the deep well-spring of the old true religion and primitive
Christianity, that nothing is more perverse than to seek that origin among the
heathen, as if the ancient Chinese, Indians, or Buddhists possessed any similar
conception. That among many gods or fundamental ideas which became estab
lished iu a somewhat learned religion, three of the most important are jjlaced
together as embracing all, was natural, considering the ancient significance of
the number Three ; but it has not the least connection with the rise and signifi
cance of the Christian Trinity.
^ [Ewald's word is Aneinanderreihung. It cannot fail to be observed how
Ewald's representation and language on this great subject, though in the highest
degree original and independent, often approximate closely to those of the
Ecclesiastical Confessions. Here especially, without doing violence to the
sense of the paragraph, we might add at the close, from the Athanasian Creed,
' ' And the Catholic Faith is tliis : That we worship one God in Trinity, and
Trinity in Unity ; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Sub
stance."]

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 351
meaning, if one of them, with the specific power it indicates,
could be interchanged with another and its power.
1. Every representation of their unity must therefore be
rejected which contradicts their true interconnection just
explained, and consequently their real unity. These three
powers do not casually coalesce into a unity, somewhat as
three men or three human powers, however great, might
coalesce, because consciously too weak in themselves singly
and alone to realize a special aim they have in view. Nor
have they sprung forth at last from an earlier unity, as if from
some primal root, as though God Himself had need of such a
primal root, and in process of time another might arise. Nor
indeed, since all are purely spiritual powers, — and even Christ
Himself, with all His humanly-historical significance and dis
tinctness, has His place in this series only in accordance with
His eternal divine significance and glorification, — is each power
singly only a spiritual power in part ; as if, for example, in
stead of the Holy Spirit, Wisdom might be substituted, which,
notwithstanding all its high significance as creative power of
the universe,' represents only a single aspect of God's creative
and administrative efficacy. Nor, finally, have the two names
succeeding that of God come to be added in their purely spiritual
and divine significance only in the time subsequent to that of
Christ ; rather is it that since His time they possess a signifi
cance for men which in like degree they were not felt to
possess among men before. But this is involved in the law of the
development of all divinely-human history ; and only in such
development, indissolubly bouud up with the divine aim of
creation and the last destiny of man in the present era of the
world, does the feeling of the unity of these three powers — i.e. of
their inner harmony or freedom from contradiction, nay more, of
their continual inter-relationship and co-operation — find that
solution which is given in all that has been said above.
Because the same knowledge and revelation of the inner or
hidden things of God, which it is the purpose of God to give
' § 250, p. 130.

352 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
by the whole creation, and in the highest degree in the exist
ing world by man and for man, and which is accordingly for
ever wrought out by God, the historical Christ also gives ; in
whom, as man first of all, and so through man and for man,
this knowledge and revelation attain their full realization, and
become a new motive power in the world's history. For the
historical Christ has this unique significance in His purely
spiritual energy, both in relation to the past and the future ;
in relation to the past, so far as in Him, as individual man, the
power of self-revelation, working from God in accordance with
all earlier impulses and incipient tendencies, attained its first
and, in the individual, supreme consummation ; in relation to
the future, so far as this power is henceforth for all men the
light and the law of their spiritual life, determining how that
life must now shape itself, even as it is also a power for the per
fect accomplishment of their last destiny such as had nowhere
existed before. Further, because the same power of inspiring
and vivifying this knowledge and revelation which proceeds from
God into the creation as the Holy Spirit, became in Christ at
last, in accordance with all its earlier impulses among men, a
power such as, in the purit}'' and strength in which it worked,
had never before appeared, it must now always be communi
cated to man through Him as the glorified One. Still further,
because these two purely divine powers, inspiring and promot
ing all spiritual life in man, have, in their whole luminous
distinctness, only since Christ's appearing entered into the
forces that contribute to the perfecting of all human destiny,
they form with God that unity which may now be obvious
and certain to every one, so that faith in God has always at
the same time to be directed to them as well. If now a mau
feels himself arrested by the Holy Spirit, he may really in
such case be arrested by the light and power of the true God,
and yet he may not allow himself with this bare possibility to
be content. Is he led, by the Spirit to Christ, and does he
recognise Christ in His pure historical elevation, and in His
ever-living glprified being as well ? If it be so,' in that case

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 353
he may much more definitely apprehend and command the
details of worldly events in the same light and power of God ;
and must, nevertheless, through Christ only seek to be wholly
uplifted into the full mind and will of God, as Christ in His
earthly life constantly and everywhere did the same.
2. Since, however, in this way these three powers are marked
off from each other so finely, and work together so directly
that notwithstanding all diversity they are yet, in antithesis
to the world and to man, of the same essence, it is very
evident that in particular connections of thought they may
agree, and the one may stand in the place of the other
without the diversity of which we have spoken being lost.
When Paul says, " the Lord is the Spirit," ' the meaning in
the connection in which the words occur is, where Christ is
in His whole living energy, there is also the Holy Spirit (and
not the mere letter, dead in itself) as if both were one.
Similarly John, in the expression, " the Spirit is the Truth," *
by no means represents these mutually related ideas as the
same, but in accordance with his whole well-known view of
these subjects intends to say briefly, where the Holy Spirit
moves in His full power, there also is the Truth, so that
Truth is inseparable from the Holy Spirit. If now John
says, in his brief way of speaking, " God was the Logos," he
intends just as little to represent both as the same, as Paul
does when he speaks of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but only
to say, the Logos was then so little " flesh " as He became
later. He is also so little a mere angel, that in His essence or
being He was rather God, of wholly and purely divine nature,
as the son comprehends in himself the nature of the father,
different from him, yet as like him as possible. Nay, the
same John says in like sharp brevity, " Spirit is God," and
" God is Light," " God is Love," * by which he does not mean
to say these mutually related ideas coincide and may be
regarded as always equivalent in signification. — There is,
1 2 Cor. iii. 17. ' 1 John v. 6.
' John iv. 24 ; 1 John i. 5, iv. 8.
Z

354 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
however, a word in the New Testament which in itself fitly
applies to God as well as to Christ, the word Lord, by which
in so many ways God was designated in the Old Testament,
by which, however, Christ was .-designated only as Lord of
His earthly community. It was always sufficient for Paul,
where God and Christ were joined in one closely related
succession, and in the more solemn address of salutation, to
say rather, for the sake of clearness, " God the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ." Yet this is somewhat a rare case.
Moreover, since, according to the allegorical interpretation,
the Logos, and then still further, Christ, was understood in
the " Lord " of the Old Testament, it is intelligible that in
subsequent centuries, under the influence of quite other and
more powerful motives, " Christ " might more and more be
interchanged with " God." ' But as the Church as a whole,
even in the most disturbed and gloomy times, always cherished
an irrepressible reluctance to allow this interchange, so the
Bible itself everywhere, when rightly accepted and under
stood, does not offer the least justification for it.* Otherwise
it would happen to Christianity as it happened to heathenism ;
a more recent, or, according to later feeling, an otherwise
more powerful or gracious God would displace the more
ancient Deity, and all Christianity would lose its true force
and its best light for the world.
3. It is altogether different when one or two from this
firmly-linked series of Three are made conspicuous merely
because from the sense of the passage it is sufficient or more
suitable to speak of one or two in such definite connection
of thought. The New Testament shows in this matter the
greatest original freedom. That it is quite sufficient to
speak of God alone in the proper place is self-evident ; but
' The chief incentive to this was that it was felt in the unceasing decline
of the Roman Empire, in the East as well as in the West, that heathen gods
would pass away only before Christ as God, and so Christ was put in their place.
^ [But are not John i. 1, xx. 28, xiv. 7-9, a full and sufficient justification
for such interchange, at least in special moments and under special circum
stances ?]

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 355
James speaks almost solely of God.' When the context is
suitable, Christ alone may also be so spoken of that the two
other powers might also have been there mentioned together.^
Paul at the beginning of his Epistles salutes his readers always
from God and Christ, without ever in this connection adding
the Holy Spirit.
This last custom with some other indications suggests that
a salutation from the Holy Spirit, and a discourse so framed
as if the greeting came from this source, appeared in ordinary
speech unsuitable ; although the primitive Christian prophets
were accustomed to speak in the name of the Holy Spirit,*
and in the magnificently planned Book of the New Testament
Apocalypse, with its profuse art, a correspondingly magnificent
introduction is preferred.* But it does not follow from this
that the Holy Spirit was conceived less as a person, Eather
does Christ stand intermediately between God and the Holy
Spirit in so far as He now pleads with God, at the request
of the faithful, to send to them, as He Himself has been sent
of God, the Holy Spirit, but can send that Spirit only thus
by God and from God : ^ a representation which, in conformity
with Old Testament ideas concerning the procession of the
Spirit, could in all logical consistency only thus be stated.*
And when John designates Christ, as intercessor with God
for the transgressions of His disciples, the Advocate,^ he does
' § 323, p. 280 f.
2 As when in Luke xxiv. 47, indeed, the formula of baptism becomes so
shortened from Matt, xxviii. 19.
3 § 336, p. 329 ff.
* [Where the gi-eeting comes from God, and " the seven spirits which are
before His throne" (=the Holy Spirit?), and from Jesus Christ; and where
it is said, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the
churches," Rev. i. 4f., ii. 7, 11, 17, 29, iii. 6, 13, 22.]
* So are solved the merely apparent contradictions between John xiv. 26 and
John XV. 26, xvi. 7.
6 There is also no contradiction if, according to 1 Cor. ii. 12, the Holy Spirit
is "of God," and, according to John xv. 26, proceeds "from Him;" in the
latter case the figure of a messenger is employed. But at the same time it
follows from this how ill-sounding and superfluous was the later addition of
flioque to the Latin Symb. Apost.
¦^ 1 John ii. 1 f.

356 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
not contradict himself when in the Gospel he reports Christ's
parting words declaring that as He has been sent of the
Father into the world, so He will send the Holy Spirit from
the Father to His disciples as " another Advocate," that is to
say, for their consolation and comfort in unmerited persecu
tions.' All such views soon arose among Christians, and
with such consistency and readiness that the New Testament
nowhere contradicts either itself or the Old Testament.
§ 342. Historically considered, the entire development of
all true religion in the midst of the ages of time ended here.
With the appearing and glorification of Christ, the purely
divine power of the Holy Spirit came at length to its full
recognition and efficac}'' ; these two powers as the eternal
powers of divine revelation in time and creation are associated
with God as Creator and Eevealer ; and thus the circle of
the powers through whose united action man is to move
forward to his ultimate destiny in creation, became firmly
closed. The expressions of the schools, the Divine Trinity,
the Triune God, are not found in the Bible, yet these expres
sions are fully warranted in so far that the very same creative
power, inspiring the whole man, the pure, i.e. supermundane,
power which is in God, is also in the Logos as the glorified
Christ, and in the Holy Spirit, although in different gradation
and mode ; * and each of these two powers therefore in this
sense may be felt and realized and thought of as, according
to its eternal nature, God, if only it be not forgotten that
without the true God neither the Holy Spirit nor the Logos
is God for man.
In reality, the unity of the Three may be proved most briefly,
in accordance with all that has already been said, by the
special nature of the Holy Spirit. Where the Spirit of God
works, and is seen by the most evident traces to work, there
also God works, there the Spirit of God is but the special
and just on this account sole mighty activity of God Himself
for the world and in the world. In Christ this activity
' John xiv. 16 f. 2 [•/„ verschiedener stufe und weise.]

THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. 357
works SO powerfully and absolutely as revelation of the divine
Logos, that from Him in His glorification this Spirit proceeds
as Holy Spirit, over against the world that has become or is
unholy, with a power and a light for mankind such as before
Christ was not manifest ; although the power of God in
revelation was active both as Logos and as Holy Spirit from
eternity. So accordingly in their nature and ultimate aim
over against the world the Three are One ; although it is
only since Christ's glorification that as well their diversity
as their unity has been clearly conspicuous to mankind. No
writings of the New Testament present all this so confidently
and so clearly as John's Gospel, and the larger Epistle of the
same apostle. Moreover, it is to be noted, indeed, that in
John, as in the earlier Gospels also, however firmly and
clearly Christ makes conspicuous the unity of the Three, and
His own proceeding from the Father, yet He nowhere speaks
of His earlier heavenly abode,' in the way one might expect
perhaps, after the manner of Paul's comparison * of the
heavenly and earthly abode of the Logos. If, however, in
the Old Testament the expressions, " Our God," " My God " —
the God who animates the fervour of the pious, and whom it
is quite appropriate thus to designate in the right place — are
felt to designate nevertheless a wholly different Deity from
aU those whom the heathen worshipped ; so such expressions
designate now in Christianity * with still closer intimacy the
same God as He has revealed Himself through Christ and
the Holy Spirit, and can no longer be separated in Chris
tianity from the thought both of Christ and the Holy
Spirit. But the conception of this circle of the supreme and
eternal powers of revelation for mankind, with its three
members, was at an early period so unusually vivid and
' [Cf., however, John xvii. 5.] ^ PhiL ii. 6-9.
' 1 Thess. iii. 9 ; 2 Cor. xii. 21. — How accurately even before Christianity
the Holy Spirit was similarly distinguished from the Spirit of the Lord filling
and sustaining the whole universe, is very clearly manifest from Wisd. i. 7, of.
ix. 17.

358 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
fresh that it readily brought other objects and characteristics
of faith that were always immediately before the view of the
Christian, into similar circles, or chains of three members, or
into a trinity ; as we observe even in the New Testament itself
from a very prominent example.' In relation to the highest
powers of evil also, this conception, when once strongly and
vividly suggested, showed its influence very similarly at an
early period,* as in a kind of prophetico-poetic drama of
Satan, the Great Beast and the False Prophet, in which never
theless the deepest truth lies. For that all origination and
impulse of error and sin among men is yet only the counter-
image of what God has purposed, and that the spirit also
moves actively in it through all stages from above downwards
and below upwards, has already been sufficiently indicated in
our discussions.
[Ewald's aim, in accordance with the scope and design of
Biblical theology, is to leave the doctrine of the Trinity
where the Bible leaves it ; that is, in its elements and
unformulated, as it appears to faith rather than to the
speculative intellect. Perhaps he both exceeds and comes
short of this aim. But certainly, in harmony with his own
oft-repeated principles, the development and authentication of
doctrine during the Christian centuries would have been in
vain, if we are now to reopen controversies such as preceded
the Councils of Nicsea, of Constantinople and Toledo, and to
hesitate to accept the full scriptural as well as theological
conception of God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God ;
a conception, indeed, which the best and purest religious
experience of all tho^e centuries not only justifies us in
accepting, but also demands and necessitates.]
^ 1 John v. 6-9 ; concerning this passage, and concerning the insertion in the
Vulgate by an ancient hand of the expression of the earlier thought of the
Divine Trinity, cf. the Johan. Schriften, i. pp. 494-497.
^ Rev. xii. 1-xiii. 18. The Trinity of Satan, the Great Beast, and the False
Prophet.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 359
XIX. THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY.
The End of the Whole Way of Man to God.
§ 343. By creation and birth every living man as man is
destined for the way to God. What this way must be, if the
individual man is consciously to enter upon it, is already
revealed in the Old Testament, though only since Christ came
has it been made perfectly open and manifest for all. Back
to God is the necessary destination of all the world. He has
not created it. He does not create it ever anew, that it may
remove itself further and further from Him, — from His mind
and Spirit, and also further and further from its own ultimate
aim and its own essential nature as well. Eather is He its
Creator and Lord that in the whole sweep of its movement
and in the onward progress of its own formative development,
it may continually revert to His mind and will, and for ever
reappear before Him, so to speak, for judgment. If this,
properly understood, can be said of all the world, how much
more must it hold good of man, whose original destination it
is with unfettered vpill to find and keep aright the way to
God, in order himself to take part in the work of God in the
existing era of the world of mankind, and thereby to contri
bute to bring about its consummation 1
To this last great subject of contemplation, a subject of equal
importance with all the rest, our view is now to be directed.
It may be represented as the end of this whole era of the
world, the era of man ; and the relation in which the indi
vidual, feeble and mortal in himself, and in which also whole
nations, stand to such end. It is evident at once from all
that has previously been established, that when in this
sentient life of his the individual man finds and walks in
the way that corresponds to the will of God, he is aided in
his advance upon such way in a twofold manner — (1) Find
ing and walking in it, he participates immediately in the
divine mind and spirit, by which he may be led further and

360 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
further, and thus tastes already in the fleeting moments of
this mortal life that higher rest and purer joy and delight
which may be to him a proof and guarantee that he is not
resisting the divine light and the divine will; and (2) he
participates also already in the ultimate consummation of the
whole divine work in this world to which this way directly
leads, such participation being found partly in the ceriain
hope and prospect of this consummation, partly in the inner
assurance that his own spirit, touched and moved by the
Spirit of God and resting in it, shall enter with that Spirit
into the ultimate consummation which is the end of the way.
Together these form that true immortality for mortal man which
the Bible announces ; the former being possible in the midst
of the temporal life of this scene of things, the latter stretch
ing out beyond it to all eternity. If now the measure of
such double participation in this pure immortality, or in the^
work of God itself in the world, differs incalculably with the
different measure of activity in individual human lives, so also
and in similar proportion the extent of the fruit that ripens
on this way ' varies, and the greatness of the reward * which
human work yields ; but the fruit and the reward itself are
nevertheless secure to all. And if, moreover, whole com
munities and nations participate in such reward and fruit, if
the way to God has been loyally and intelligently kept, yet
everything ultimately depends on the individual. For all
that is accomplished in the whole flow of events in the
history and experience of communities and nations flnds its
flrst as well as its subsequent realization in the living and
repeated experiences of the individual. Indeed, in this
respect, according to the Bible, such marked personaHties
as Abraham, Moses, David, and still more Christ, are in this
1 According to the imagery so frequently found in the Old Testament, Isa.
iii. 10, Ps. i. 3, and elsewhere, but still more frequently in the New.
^ According to the just as striking affirmations whose influence profoundly
penetrates from Prov. xi. 18, Gen. xv. 1, Jer. xxxi. 16, into the New Testa
ment, against the obvious larger sense of which some Germans who would be
philosophers vainly offer explanations.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 361
living participation in the divine work and its fruit raised to
a loftier height than any nation attains.
If, however, man turns aside or withdraws himself from
this way, he can participate neither in its temporal nor its
eternal fruits ; and indeed something more than mere failure
to participate in such fruits occurs. For resisting the divine
work in the world, or the divine order of the world, which may
be disturbed but cannot be abrogated, it turns itself against
him ' with its omnipotence, and punishes him as he deserves ;
so that although against his will, and compelled only by the
omnipotence of God, he must, at least in this respect, come
back to Him and His judgment. But these inevitable divine
consequences, on the one hand of keeping the right way of
God, on the other of deviating from it, are in every case com
plete only at the end of the whole course, and are only then
visible and palpable for such as otherwise would prefer not to
see and feel them at all.
For a twofold end is here at once to be further distinguished.
Every individual man is a link in this chain of human relation
to God and His work in the present world, destined to partici
pate in it, or to take up some attitude towards it. In the
infinitude of time and space the individual, it is true, appears to
vanislT'as a grain of dust;' yet e^ach grain of dusifc, having this
s;geciality of character and destination; has its significance aijd
its £]ace„iii,. relation. to -the great and ultimate issue of the
work of God in thejvorld. Moreover, history teaches, after
thousands of years, how much and to the common eye what
unmeasured infiuence in the present time, the most solitary
individual can have for good or ill. For the matter in
question concerns what is spiritual, and the Spirit of God can
initiate, with the smallest temporal instrument, in the work
of God itself what is infinite, infinite at least in its effects to
the last possible issue.^ Now has the earthly life of the
individual been shown to be short in its course as against
1 § 278, pp. 186-190.
2 As in the very highest degree Christ's earthly life shows.

362 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Infinitude, and historically but limited ; nevertheless, within
this temporal and historical course, it has the highest divine
gift the individual can have, viz. the freedom of the spirit.
So long therefore as he lives the earthly life, the movement
and bent of his spirit is to other men, nay to himself also, as
against God, not to be calculated.' He who has greatly erred
like Paul, may yet like Paul become the saintliest of men ;
and he who like David has reached a sublime temporal and
divine altitude may yet like David signally fall, as he with
draws himself from the way of God. Only death gives the
firm boundary line of final judgment. Just so is it with the
life of whole nations, nay of all mankind. But since the
work of God in the world runs its course notwithstanding the
death of numberless individuals and of whole nations, and
with it everything that has already been won on behalf of it,
by the one or the other, as good fruit continues also, the end
of this work of God with men, and therefore the transition to
another great era of the world, can alone bring the last
judgment and sentence of God upon the whole of mankind,
whose light shall then also shine back with its decisive truth
upon all individual men and nations. So necessarily are the
anticipations of the divine judgment and its stages interwoven
with the thought of the end of all human ways to God.
Belief in this end rightly conceived, in this immortality of
mortal man, in this judgment of God going on throughout all
stages of time and eternity, is just the chief main article of
belief without which all other belief in God and divine things
remains incomplete, and which, though it is the chief main
article of belief, appears most difficult to living man. For
belief in present invisible things rests upon a thousand visible
proofs and signs from the entire past, and upon an experience
to-day which continually presses in upon the spirit ; but in
the matter in question the living man appears obliged to take
^ The thought arises, what a wholly different being man would at once become
if the freedom and power of his spirit were .such that he always knew beforehand
exactly the temporal end of his life ! His whole life would shape itself differently
if such were the case, or rather would cease.

THE DOCTRINE OF IJIMORTALITY, 363
into account all that concerns bis own future which in life
here and now he is yet unable to see. It was, in fact, just
this prominent article of faith, as the Bible fully and clearly
shows, that attained last of all its position of irrefragable
certainty and firm confidence. Yet to mark how the Bible
closes with such assurance of faith, perfected for ever, we
need to recognise and distinguish the same five historical
stages of its development which the full contents of the Bible,
and all other historical indications, enabled us to distinguish
also, in the case of the chief elements of the doctrine of
Eevelation and the doctrine of God.
Nowhere, ho.wever, is it so necessary as here, where the
sphere of knowledge extends into the sphere of anticipation,
definitely to inquire whether the inner truth, contained, it
may be, in the graphic and sensuous imagery in which the
mind forecasts the future, has any valid claim to our full
belief to-day or not. Touched profoundly by the Spirit of
God, the mind of man throws an eager glance into what, next
to God Himself, is the very highest object of contemplation,
viz. the work of God as it will find its consummation in. this
great era of the world, notwithstanding all resistance of man.
The divine assurance of the development of the whole future
of this work rises before the vision in imagery the more vivid
and glowing, in proportion as the strife of men directly tends
to imperil the certainty and interrupt the progress of the
eternal work of God. Pictures of the future, vivid in colour,
thus arise before the mind in its anticipations, pictures with
respect to which, whilst the pure truth veiled in them may
be more and more completely reaHzed, yet the question is
unavoidable, what then is in reality this abiding truth which
they contain ? And the question presses up all the more
irresistibly where, as in the Bible, passages stand side by side
in which the colouring of this abiding truth differs greatly as
the age or the mind differed to which their origin may be
traced. Here then is discussed more particularly what is the
true "hope" to which man may every moment direct his

364 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
glance as he traverses his God-appointed way, and what is
the ultimate goal of life which no man should ever fail to
mark. 1. Belief in Immortality in the Earliest Ages.
^ 344. Were it to be accepted, as in recent times it has
often been accepted, that all belief in an immortal destiny for
mortal man is only of very late origin, it would be in
contradiction to general experience as well as to the Bible,
although the Bible is supposed to establish itj The witness
of antiquity leads us rather to the conviction that this belief,
in the largest view of it, reaches back to a pejiod beyond the
known history of nations, and that, although in the sphere of
divine things it is rather a special beHef, yet it extends to the
very earliest ages of the spiritual development of the human
race, and in those' ages and down to much later times not^a
little promoted the -belief -in. God Himsel£ Two different
causes in nations that had little in common nurtured this
belief, one following the other, and both uniting at last as one
mighty influence in its favour.
1. That with the death of a man there does not die at
the same time all that has lived and moved in him as a
spiritual force, is one of the earliest beliefs that found'firm
footing in primitive tiiries. How many words and thoughts,
acts and deeds of the dead were felt to live and work after
him in a thousand ways, not only when his memory was
cherished with love and reverence, but also when it was
recalled with dread ! But in all this, so far as it definitely
influenced the mind of the living, it was felt that the mind
of the dead still lived ; and here was the first beginning in
that series of thoughts involving a necessary connection and
continuance of all spirits above and beyond outward death,
and an element of immortality in mortal man. Who can
deny that this was in point of fact a rudimentary faith in
an inner and effective connection of all minds with each
other, and in a development not merely of outward good, but

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 365
of all that is spiritual in man, advancing continuously with
the continuous progress of the race ? But very early this
belief took definite shape and form, and originated special
usages in nations that cultivated the higher aspirations, and
particularly in those that followed a more settled course of
life. Every house held the remembrance of its dead sacred,
especially of such as had been eminent in their earthly
existence, and the endeavour was made to perpetuate such
remembrance by abiding sign.s. As the single house, so the
whole clan and the nation held its ancestors sacred, and the
oldest ancestors were reverenced with peculiar fervency. But
the Eeafrin its distress sought from them help and counsel ;
and the oracle of the dead, respect for which continued so
persistent, and the whole art of necromancy, once so remarkably
cultivated, followed as an important and significant result.'
Such a belief in immortality was manifestly extremely
vivid even in the earliest ages of the nation of Israel, and it
came down from thence into later times by many channels
in more or less of vigorous life. We see this from the
powerful influence faith in the continued activity and the
mysterious continued existence of the great dead exercised
upon divinations, examples of which have been preserved in
the Old Testament.* We see it still more from the ancient
and lofty reverence for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the
tribal fathers of the nation, and from the belief in their con
tinued existence and their continued care for the well-being
and honour of their posterity, which even after the time of
Moses still hallowed their memory, uniting gradually with
the higher piety of subsequent days, and seeking complete
adjustment with it, while finding also in the popular art of
discourse and representation a higher significance and finer
application with the whole loftier development of the nation.*
The higher piety adjusted itself with this primitive sacred
1 §§ 68, 1 00 ; Revelation ; its Nature and Record, pp. 225, 323.
2Cf. Jahrbiicher der Bibl. Wiss. xii. 187-198 ff. ; History, i. 295 f, iii.
213 f.
' History, i. 75, 295 f.

366 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
feeling after the time of Moses in the worship of Jahveh as
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob ; and when
Christ, in opposition to the foolish opinion of the Sadducees
that immortality was not taught in the Pentateuch, derived
from the standing phrase of that sacred book ' its most striking
and summary proof, the argument was not only accordant
with this primitive and in its way fully warranted national
faith, but was also valid in itself. For how could the true
God come into such close and indissoluble connection , with
the names of the three patriarchs, if they had not in Him. an
undying significance and force to all living men, and if their
spirits did not continue still to live on in Him ? Moreover,
from the most flourishing period of the life and mind of this
ancient nation there sounds forth to us from the mouth of
Balaam the aspiration, —
" 0 that my soul may die as the Righteous,
That my afterworld may be as Israel's ; " 2
for the inward power of joyfulness as it struggles to show
itself, and the readiness to die as a sacrifice without any fear
of death, if only there be companionship with a nation that
since the time of its noble ancestry has been fired by the
same spirit, cannot be more finely and more touchingly ex
pressed than by praise rising up to the purest admiration
which even an enemy like Balaam lavishes upon it when
irresistibly seized by the power of divine truth. Who would
1 Matt. xxii. 31 f.
2 Num. xxiii. 10. Without doubt there breathes in this expression the most
joyful feeling of immortality in the midst of what is mortal, somewhat similar
to that which breathes in the oft-cited saying concerning Abraham, John
viii. 56 ; but the glance of expectation is directed, as here and in Gen. xii. 1-3,
chiefly to posterity, and this best suits the context, and gives exactly the drift
of this saying and of the whole of Balaam's words. Cf. Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss.
viii. 324 ff. The JT'^nN, as in Jer. xxix. 11; Ps. xxxvii. 37, cix. 13; Dan.
xi. 4 ; therefore the signification is hope in the sure prospect of a better future
for the worid, Prov. xxiii. 18, xxiv. 14, 20. Indeed, this brief expression
nnnS ^\ "there is a future," repeated in the Book of Proverbs as of more
than common significance, includes the whole infinitude of hope in something
immortal in all divinely-human history.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 367
not be glad to die in the certain prospect of having such
descendants as should appear in the case of a community of
the Eighteous, i.e. of Israel ? '
2. Veneration for the illustrious dead, and the glance into
the dark realms of death and towards the gloomy gods of
the Underworld, formed, as we have seen, some of the earliest
elements of a fear of the immortal powers that overshadow
the present existence of man, and touch all that is mortal.
Yet there arose also early enough a fear of heavenly powers
that must become far more fruitful in results. These
heavenly powers cast forth a clear, serene radiance ; and if
among the infinite host of the dead there was one of incom
parably bright and glorious memory who appeared to be raised/
immeasurably above the countless throng, it is not surprising
that the feeling prevailed that he had vanished from the earth!
and been taken up directly by the heavenly powers, and that!
the mind fondly dwelt upon his immortal honour. How, among
the heathen, heaven was thus peopled with heroes is well known.
The more remarkable is it that the Bible in its most ancient
portions speaks only of a single man of this kind, viz. Enoch.
But this is sufficiently explained by the early reaction of
the true religion of the nation of Israel against everything of
a heathen nature.* A heaven filled with heathen gods or
demigods, the religion of Israel could not tolerate. Some
ineradicable reminiscences of these once highly venerated and
sacred forms were, it is true, retained, but they occur only occa
sionally and are pale and faded ; or they occur in the popular
traditions rather than in the actual religion of the community
of Israel ; and Enoch is now the solitary figure whose memory
has been rescued from the midst of a wide circle of such
faded reminiscences of the very earliest times, and handed
down to us by a book dating from a period when the old
true religion was at its zenith.* But the idea of translation
by the heavenly powers and of the immortality of moital
1 § 304, p. 243 ff. " Gen. v. 21-24 from the Book of Origins.
3 History, i. 265-267.

368 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
man of this grander and more radiant kind distinguishable
as " glorification," ' was persistently retained in the com
munity until the latest ages ; and at last, when the true
religion established by Moses struggled with growing power to
break through its first limits, the idea sprang forth with wholly
new force and nobler splendour into fresh and new-born life.
3. Heaven having now become in this twofold sense the
infinitely sublime and distant home of the brighter gods and
demigods, the regions of the Underworld were likewise ap
propriately extended for all the dead that seemed to lack
such glorification. Thus arose the full conception of the
Three Worlds which in the nation of Israel in the primitive
days before the time of Moses gave completeness to the
popular view. Life and light above in the invisible heights,
darkness and death below in the wide, gloomy, and unfathom
able depths ; such were the main features of man's idea of
the universe. The countless multitude of the dead who
were not reverenced as fathers, mothers, or patriarchal heads
of individual houses, tribes, and nations, and who were not
canonized by more definite marks and forms, were neverthe
less by no means regarded as simply annihilated although
they were buried, or by human art burned to ashes. The
thought that the spiritual part of man is not annihilated by
bodily death lay too deeply in the minds of the living for
such an idea to arise. The hosts of the dead were reduced
no doubt to shadowy forms, but they were still thought of as
actually existing in the vast realms of an Underworld. All
intuitions and conceptions resting upon this main thought
left so deep an impress in the oldest times upon the Hebrew
language that they were retained in it even after the true
religion had become the best life of the community, although
without receiving its express approval and consecration. This
is seen in the names for the Underworld ' itself, and for the
1 The Hebrew 1U3, the So?«.
T
^ bii^ 0^ h)^^*7 1^6 Semitic primitive word for the Underworld of the Dead, is

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 369
shadowy forms of the dead who people it.' Yet it is notice
able that in the prevalence and sway of the true religion, the
later the age, the more such terms are withdrawn into the
archaic language of poetry.
There was one phrase especially which in common life in
the more elevated speech constantly kept its ground from
those primitive ages downward, even to the time of the decay
of the Hebrew tongue, and which in its import is sufficiently
remarkable. As the connection of all the members of a
house was in the primitive ages of the very closest kind, and
tokens and usages of the common fathers were always fondly
preserved ; moreover, as so much importance was assigned to
having a common sepulchre and observing the sacred customs .
of interment ; * so the dead were thought of as resting in
common in the wide fields of the Underworld in generations,
nay even in 'tribes and nations when a wider survey was
taken. " To be gathered to his people or race," * or " to his
fathers," * was a standing expression for the death of the
individual, transmitted from the primitive to the latest ages ;
although such ancient sacred expressions were in the course
found, apart from the poets, only in the older speech, at last in such discourse
in 1 Kings ii. 6. The poets for this word, which has in Hebrew no longer a
certain derivation, revive nriK'i " corruption, " and ti'13N-
^ The ancient primitive word D^NSI for the ti'SaXa xxfcitruv of Homer is
found in the Old Testament only in poetry, and among all Semitic languages
has reappeared only in the Phoenician (Great Sidon. inscr. 1. 8) ; concerning its
derivation, cf. History, i. 227-8, n. [The "stretched out," i.e. the nerveless,
prostrate dead. ]
^ The common faith of the ancients, that the spirits of those who died by
violence, or were buried without solemn rites, were restless and impure,
bespattered with blood, is alluded to in the Bible only in the dirge of Ezek.
xxxii. 19 ff.
' This ancient phrase has been retained only in relation to the patriarchs, as
also in relation to Moses and Aaron, by the Book of Origins, and the word lifij?
has there this antique signification. Antiquities, 316, n.
* This somewhat new phrase, and the old one which it explains, gradually
pass over into "sleep with his fathers ;" yet the latter appears to be used in
the old Book of Kings only of the kings of Israel up to Jehoiachin, 2 Kings
xxiv. 6. How freely, on the contrary, the first Deuteronomist proceeded
in his dealing with the history of the kings is evident from 2 Kings
xxii. 10.
2 A

370 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
of loner centuries more and more limited to the patriarchs,
to kings, or to whole generations of the earlier ages.'
2. The Egyptian and Israelite Idea of Immortality.
§ 345. The elements of a higher culture were first found
among the Egyptians, The form this culture assumed was
original and peculiar, but it reached, nevertheless, though in
somewhat perverse fashion, the highest point it was capable
of attaining. Two fundamental conceptions, essentially
foreign to ancient Egypt, became in the course of the religious
development closely interwoven with it. One was the idea
of the transmigration of souls ; a conception which seems at
first sight strongly to corroborate the important assurance
that the spirit of man is not annihilated with the death of
the body, and yet it introduces an arbitrary hypothesis, and
becomes gradually productive of new and manifold errors.
The other was the idea of a divine judgment after death, a
judgment of all men, even of the mightiest kings, and based
upon the quality of the conduct on earth considered as good
or bad. This second conception would have been extremely
fruitful had it been allied with the thought, as great in itself
and far more effective, of a work of God advaucins; throudi
all history in which man also participates. But it remained
fragmentary and isolated. It could therefore raise to an
unusual degree of strength man's fear of life's dark end, and
of the subsequent divine judgment ; but more than fear it
could not produce. All insight into an eternal progress of
the divine work in creation towards its ever higher perfection,
and all idea of the participation of the individual man both
before and after death in this progressive work, it was in
capable of suggesting. Eather did the belief in the trans
migration of souls interdict any other view than that of an
eternal repetition and round of already familiar occurrences.
These two fundamental thoughts blending together iu all
' As in Judg. ii. 10 ; of whole nations in the dirge, Ezek. xxxii. 18-32.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 371
their tenacity and with all their logical consequences, the
whole reHgion of the Egyptians became transformed into a
religion of the dead, such as nowhere else found so firm a
settlement in all antiquity. Nevertheless there was some
thing exceedingly attractive about it, for it not merely com
bined apparent simplicity with apparent exhaustiveness and
depth, but it was elaborated and adorned by the charm of
high art, and invested with a splendour that seduced the
whole nation. Moreover, it threw its magic spell far and
wide over the then existing world, and left behind among
surrounding nations many relics of its glory, although frag
mentary and heterogeneous in their character.
The people of Israel in the last centuries before Moses
¦would be the more completely under the infiuence of this
fascination the more they were exposed to the danger of
amalgamation with the Egyptians, But through the light
and power of true religion, the nation, under the leadership
of Moses, secured its disenchantment from Egyptian super
stition. Its contemplation of the things of death must there
fore be now wholly different, and this difference became
ultimately the more thorough and profound in proportion as
the Egyptian religion was a religion of death.' The whole
subsequent development through the four successive periods
will show how true this is. Meanwhile opposition to every
thing Egyptian could express itself on this subject only by
the full restoration and loyal maintenance of the simple form
of beHef in immortality as it existed in the patriarchal age.
For the new creative power in reHgion, which took its rise
1 ["Jahveism, with its living ardour, presented the direct opposite to the
E<Tptian religion, which, as easily happens in an over-civilised and effeminate
people, busied itself only too much with things after death, and might as justly
be termed the religion of death, as Jahveism the religion of life." ... "As a
strong man in the midst of the triumphant whirl of life and a multitude of
jemunerative labours becomes easily contented with the present, and reflects
neither on the terrors of death nor the rewards of another life, so that ancient
community, amid its new great truths, and the consequent inspiration of its
victorious life, lelt itself too preoccupied by the present and the tasks of the
immediate future to be conscious of any strong necessity to look much beyond."
— History, ii. 134.]

372 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY
in the time of Moses, and afterwards affording no mere
transient enlightenment and guidance to the new community,
difficult though it was to establish it, but destined as highest
truth and purest inspiration to lead the nation in its further
progress, was in itself a creative power so sublime and
elevating, that for many centuries it could adequately sustain
and could always revive anew the entire spiritual endeavours
of the nation, while the simple primitive belief in the truth
and indestructibility of the Spirit continued to exist unob
scured and unenfeebled beside it.
The only true God, designated Jahveh, is so emphatically
the God of all Hght and life and the God of spirit that He
can fill'The individual man, and even an entire nation, with
an infinite joy, and with the desire to serve Him alone, and
to lose all self-will in His own will. And this joyful courage
of the higher life, springing from the regeneration true reHgion
gives, having inspired this nation as no other even before its
redemption from Egypt, and having secured that redemption
by a mighty effort, and transformed the nation into a new
community under the law of God, went on growing in power
during the centuries that succeeded, and notwithstanding
many misfortunes and many a relapse, made its influence
felt to the days of David and Solomon, and even beyond.
Such joyful courage was now both the distinction and defence
of Israel. Conscious of its own lofty inspiration, finding its
true home with God and fatherland, and rejoicing in the
vigour of all life, what had this nation to do with the religion
of the languid and effeminate Egyptians who were bowed
down in the midst of the strength of life by the fear of death,
and anxious to protect themselves artificially against recalling
the gloom and darkness of the grave ? ' But that it lost on
this account its old simple ideas of the survival of the spirit
' ["iiOoking joyfully to a future which showed to him his house and race
enjoying a more and more glorious development in the ever-advancing com
munity of Jahveh," the Israelite "was naturall}' unburdened by any anxious
outlook to the future and continued existence of his own soul," but desired
"perpetuity and happiness only for the earthly fatherland." — History, ii. 133.]

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 373'
after death, is contradicted by the plainest testimonies drawn
from the fresh and vigorous life of those centuries as already
shown.' Moreover, as soon as the wisdom of common life
and the schools grew up independently in the nation, they
discoursed of immortality in the midst of the mortality and
transitoriness of man, and with peculiar fervency and creative
power pursued the thought as it must further develop itself
on the basis of the higher religion."
§ 346. It should be remembered also that when, as here,
righteousness is equivalent to immortality and immortality to
righteousness, and when this is meant in the sense and drift
of the true religion and its idea of righteousness, all that is
highest and truest is already considered and taught that con
cerns immortality in the mortal and the necessary faith of
man in it. He who seeks to live righteously must not only
know the will of God to man as the law of his life ; he must
also, with all self-abnegation, and all sincere and zealous
desire to discover that will more and more perfectly in every.
situation of life, act in conformity with it. He is then no
longer a stranger to the life of God itself, but notwithstanding.
all his mortal feebleness and limitation participates in the
enjoyment of the blessedness of the Eternal and Immortal,
that in it alone he may abide beyond the range of all evil,
and beyond the pain of bodily death. But to bear patiently
and calmly in the conflict against unrighteousness the dread
of a too early death, and the terrible weight of evil that may
come upon the individual man, is just the one problem that
^ § 344, p. 364 ff In Ex. xx. 12 there is no denial of immortality and no
exclusive appreciation of earthly good. Domestic piety and the happy con
dition of the family form the surest basis for the steady continuance and
powerful development of the nation. The " thou " addressed is Israel as
a whole as it was under Moses. In the days when decline and overthrow
threatened the nation, the admonition is repeated in such expres.sions as Prov.
xxxvii. 3, 9, 11, 22, 27, 34, 37, and in many others of similar import.
- Expressions like Prov. xii. 28, and all similar ones where life signifi,gs what
is equivalent to immortality, point to immortality in the sense of the genuine
religion, as also do the images of the tree and fruit of life,' and belong to the
most energetic days in the existence of the old nation. This cannot, in its true
significance, be made too con.spicuous.

374 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
becomes more and more difficult to the whole human race in
the progressive development of human affairs ; and the solu
tion of this problem must be attained with a completeness
proportionate to the unavoidable necessity and increasing
pressure with which the problem has to be faced. The more
abundantly outward wealth and intellectual capabilities and
enjoyments have been won by wise and persevering applica
tion and ceaseless labour on the part of men and nations, the
more eager is the desire to appropriate such blessings even by
violence and to the disadvantage of others ; and the more
complicated all human history becomes chiefly by this un
righteous impulse, and the resistance to it which is itself so
often perverse and even sinful, the higher the difficulty will
mount which stands in the way of a just and wise resistance.
Moreover, should a nation decline from its earlier greatness
into confusion and misery deepening into despair, the more
must the individual man suffer in the midst of it should he
seek to keep himself free from the corruption of his time.
Such an age came for Israel in the days succeeding
Solomon. All the severest trials involved in the circum
stances already described had to be encountered together.
The hearts of men, and gradually of the whole community
in both kingdoms, were more and more bowed down, but
especiaUy in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. Struggling as
it seemed to them with purest ardour in the cause of
righteousness for home and country, harassed and hunted
even to death by insolent foes, men in the vigour and prime
of life, and especially the most devout of them, could not but
break out in bitter complaint of the transitoriness of man
upon earth, and pour forth iu all innocence their lamentations
before God, for the advancement of whose kingdom they so
much desired stiU further to fight. Mingling with such
complaints was the terrible thought of continued existence
in the gloomy Underworld, an existence without the stir
and interest of the earthly life, and without the opportunity
of experiencing still the delight of God's goodness, and of

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 375
praising aloud His guiding grace before all the world.
Pained at the prospect of approaching death, the tenderest
and most pathetic feelings of the heart were expressed, and
some of the songs that were sung in profound emotion have
been preserved to this day in the Old Testament.' As they
v/elled ibrth in reality from the depths of the faithful heart,
throbbing with grief and yet filled with purest zeal for the
kingdom of God, there is in them an undertone of confidence
in the true God and His kingdom among men ; and by this
they are sharply distinguished from similar melancholy dirges
of the ancient Greeks and other heathen. But the deficiency
inherent in this kind of primitive faith in immortality clings
to them, and expresses itself distinctly, and is all the more
perceptible just because of the breath of the true and pro-
founder religion that inspires them. The spiritual element
in man, in the deepest sense the man himself, does not perish
in death, but remains for ever rigid and inanimate, unillu-
mined by the light, unmoved by the grace of the true God ;
such was now the prevailing average thought that had been
formed out of the primitive belief; and all the time how
easily dropped out of view the wholly different immortality
of Enoch ! Some remnant of life and feeling, it is true, must
have been assigned to the shades of the Underworld, if they
were to be anything other and better than ordinary corpses ;
but it seemed as if, shut out from the sunshine of the world
above, they had no more to do with it and must bear for ever
only the pain that survives.^ What disconsolateness and
despair might result from all this, when the living man,
overwhelmed by a flood of undeserved sorrows and driven
1 The simplest and oldest songs of this type are Ps. vi. xiii. ; the profoundest
and most touching, Ps. xxxix. ; as later echoes of this time are B. Isa. xxxviii.
10-20 ; Ps. Ixxxviii. ; Bar. ii. 17. Only in the full consideration of what is
said above can these songs be rightly estimated.
" Job xiv. 21, 22. " Are his sons honoured, he knoweth it not ; iinhonoured,
he heedeth it not. Only his own body giveth him pain, his soul grieveth him."
["He knows nothing more of the things of the earth, joyous or sorrowful ; . . .
he simply endures his own physical and mental pain in desolate retirement."
—Ewald's /o6, 169.]

376 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
well-nigh to desperation by the buffetings of adverse circum
stance of every kind, shuddered that he should not realize
again in the present or the whole future the grace and the
righteousness of the living God ! The greatest poet of the
Bible makes his lofty hero Job, in the days of his heavy
sorrows, bitterly complain of this deeply-felt privation, and
sink at length into a despondency by which it seems as if he
must be wholly crushed. Nothing can be truer, more pro
foundly touching and even tragic than such representation.'
When, however, the whole of the ancient nation, bowed
down under the weight of its increasingly prevailing sins, is
borne along irrecoverably to its own destruction, then arises
that grand church-song of profoundest lamentation and re
pentance, the like of which we look for elsewhere in vain ; *
and all its plaints are similarly eloquent sighs over the
transitoriness of aill human affairs.* With wonderful com
posure, it is true, it rises at the close to the thought of the
eternal work of God with men, and especially with His
people ; * and thus to the only thought that can throw its
light upon the dismal darkness. But that man and the
nation itself can participate in this work, and find therein
eternal hope and strength, is not yet touched upon, although
we shall see that this thought alone can scatter all such
despair. 3. The Idea of Immortality transfigured.
§ 347.YThus, then, did the belief in immortaHty hold its
ground in the. na.tion- of - Israel from the time of Moses until
1 The complaints of Job (vii., x. 2-22, xiii. 25-xiv. 22) are the longest and
most exhaustive outpourings of this mood of mind to be found in the Old
Testament ; and yet he receives no reproof from God on account of them at the
close (xxxviii.-xlii.), and is not himself utterly annihilated by the fierce rage of
burning indignation.
'^ Ps. xc. 3 pg xc. 7-12.
* Ps. xc. 16 f. ["In the endeavour after God, the Eternal, he may overcome
the fleeting and transient, and in spite of its extremely short duration may live
blessedly in Him. . . . He is already inwardly prepared for a new life in God. "
. . . "Here manifestly the one great divine deed is desired, the Messianic."
—Ewald's Psalms, i. 209, 216.]

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 377
the age that succeeded the days of Solomon. 1 But the mind
wav¥red between the higher and the lower conception. In
the school of wisdom was found an elevation more definite
and pronounced to the bright and lofty heights of purer
truths. In the every-day life of men despondency gained
the upper hand and no consolation was realized. Essentially,
however, the basis of the old primitive ideas was maintained.
The best thought of the true religion working creatively in
this community from the days of Moses was opposed, it is
true, to everything Egyptian ; but it was too much occupied
with the true God Himself as the highest good of man, and
with, the observance of strict duties towards Him, to be able
to throw much light upon the old darkness of the Under
world. But in the midst of the true religion, as it moved
ever forward in this community with increasing fruitfulness,
there had long lain the germs of the transfiguration and
perfecting of the intuitions respecting this gloomiest realm of
belief; and in the unfolding of those germs great progress
was made in two primary directions during the last centuries
of the independent existence of the ancient nation.
Within the community of the true religion it was now
taught that man can attain immortality only in the way of
righteousness, and that righteousness and immortaHty were
alike divine blessings in which man can participate. When
such general propositions are applied more particularly, it is
seen to be a just inference that if the individual man does
not grow weary of living in the divine righteousness, but
knows fully and observes stedfastly all that is thereby
involved in the way of duty, then as he already in the spirit
lives in God, he shall live in Him for ever, for the Divine
Spirit is eternal. Or this inference may be expressed by a
short phrase of a later time, viz. that in death the body
returns to the earth, but the spirit returns to God, to be
glorified with Him for ever.' The ultimate issue of this
supreme event, the subsequent development of the whole
1 Eccles. xii. 7, cf. iii. 21, and what is said in explanation below.

378 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
belief in immortality will show more definitely ; yet already
the first chief part of this inference from the premises is of
the highest significance.
But of what service is a mere possible and correct inference
in thought, if it remains only in the pure realm of thought ?
In the true religion, as elsewhere, so most of all in this
remote and obscure field, everything depends at last upon full
living acquaintance with truth, and its experience and veri
fication in one's own life. Now the possibiHty of this was
fully given in the ancient community by the consistent and
proper working to their true issue of all those higher forces
which were active in it. For when a devout man in this
community, amid all the heavy sorrows of the time, as death
drew nigh, directed the glance in unswerving loyalty towards
the true God and His help, vividly conscious of all that
appeared discomforting and even dreadful in the old concep
tions of death and the Underworld, and as vividly realizing
that for this life at least he must renounce all hope of seeing
righteousness victorious and securing the outward help of
God ; what remained to him in the struggles of his eager
quest and effort, if he refused to despair of the progress of
divine righteousness and of the attitude of his own spirit to
that righteousness, but to cherish the thought that somehow
after the death of the body the soul would rejoice in behold
ing that righteousness divinely successful and triumphant ?
Only some such thought flashing in upon the mind would give
back to him his higher calmness in the presence of death, and
overcome all fear of death and aU despondency concerning
the affairs of his time; whilst from this darkest side the
truth of God arose in a wholly new light before him, and at
last the human spirit also found itself again in its whole
truth and power as it might have been conscious of itself
from the beginning of all creation. — That belief in such
immortality whicji for distinction's sake may be designated
" transfigured " immortality, did actually spring up in this
way in those days, and was ever afterward a blessing of the

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY, 379
highest significance in the community, not again to be lost, is
attested by most certain evidence in the Old Testament.
1. The most important and instructive evidence is found
in the great poem of the Book of Job. The author depicts
the most painful feelings, but presents also the sublimest
truth, by both of which he was manifestly himself most
deeply moved ; and the plan of the poem is so grandly and
artistically completed, that one sees in it very clearly all the
grounds that must conduce to the realization and favour the
conviction of the eternal truth of this transfigured faith.
This is indeed a chief excellence and main element of
incomparable worth in the poem itself, an element only, but
important and necessary in its place in relation to the whole
divinely-human transaction here represented. Very striking
is it, too, that since he does not lose his presence of mind in
his controversy with his friends, the ancient hero Job, in
proportion to the vehemence of the controversy continued
through all its possible stages and even with sharpest con
tradiction and increasing attempts to obscure the truth then
in question, is led the more necessarily to the remoter and
new truth not yet realized by man. But he comes nearer
and nearer to it by successive steps, and at last at the fitting
moment it strikes him as a sudden vivid flash of light, and at
once in a moment changes his whole position in his contest
with his friends. Embarrassed by the old and less worthy
belief concerning things after death, having complained and
contended before God and men in vain, and been driven to
the very verge of utter despair, at the close of his long and
fully detailed reply, as he looks round for help on all sides
without success, he is surprised by the thought whether after
all man shall never awake again from the dead, and in the
consciousness of innocence rejoice in God as the avenger of
innocence, nay find in Him with infinite rapture ultimate rest
and blessedness ? ' But in the fresh influx of other thoughts,
this sudden thought, that comes like a lightning flash, passes
1 Job xiv. 12-15.

380^ OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
away again without producing any deeper or abiding effect.
On the following day, as new and extreme pain threatens him,
and death seems inevitably approaching, he is surprised by
the thought of the avenging of blood which is closelj'' allied in
itself with the ideas of divine righteousness and immortality,
and he invokes this avenge of heaven, as one might invoke it
who being innocent is about to be put to death with fearful
violence.' But this vehement outbreak of righteous indigna
tion helps him no more than did the questioning the previous
day as to a possible reawakening from death ; other and more
powerful thoughts again overmaster him. Nevertheless, in
point of fact he is thus brought as near as possible to the
peace-giving truth. In the subsequent discourse, having made
a last and supreme but still futile attempt to move in the old
groove of troubled thoughts, after a pause, recollecting himself,
at length the only right thought overpowers him, viz. that
without doubt certainly he shall see God after death as his
Eedeemer ; and it overpowers him so completely and fills hinr
with a joy so purely divine and a holy courage so unantici
pated, that he becomes henceforth from that moment another
man.* This is Job's regejnera,tion. Here at last is the
highest certainty and the highest rapture. Now he stands
firmly and in good heart, in wholly other fashion than before,
notwithstanding severer trials yet to follow ; albeit so long as
the great enigma of his sufferings still presses like a burden
upon him, for a moment with discomfort the thought of the
nearness of death again passes across his mind.*
2. What appears in Job, depicted in its living growth and
divine necessity, we see shining forth, about the same period.

J

1 Job xvi. 18-21.
- Job xix. 25-29. These clear gleaming stars in the centre of this book, after
long and patient labour to understand the whole drift of this poem, and
especially of this part of it, may, it is to be hoped, no longer be mistaken; It
is in vain that scholars iu Germany since Eichhorn have misinterpreted Job's
words, and refused to find anywhere in the Old Testament the belief in
immortality till we come to the Book of Daniel. The correct view has now
sufficiently been established. Cf. Commentary on Job, pp. 208 f."
^ xxx. 23.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 381
in short songs and passionate or peaceful outpourings of the
same mood, as firmly settled intuition and hope, but always
in such wise that this outlook into eternity stills all unrest in
the soul of the poet, and makes him forget all the storms of
the world.' It is not to be maintained that these songs,
therefore, borrowed their new main thoughts from the Book
of Job. The complexion of the discourse is almost wholly
different, and it is rather the ancient hallowed tradition of the
translation of Enoch to heaven that is present to the mind as
a luminous image of this divine glorification.* But the old
horror of death has here altogether vanished. If in the higher
discourse by the " land of life," or rather " the land of the
living," * in opposition to the Underworld, was formerly under
stood the sunny surface of the earth, and the man was counted
happy whom God " caused to stand before Himself,"* in a long
and blessed life, that he might rejoice in Him upon the earth,
and consequently in the sacred land' or under the shadow of
the temple ; so now living men themselves are divided into
" men of the world " who seek only worldly joy and satis
faction, and such as seek God above all.^ Or if in former
times, according to the ancient conception, " to behold the
countenance of God " designated a moment of surprise for
mortal man, and the radiant illumination of the highest
divine grace and ecstasy in the midst of the affairs of this
' Ps. xvii. 15, xvi. 9-11, xlix. 15. Cf. Commentary on Psalms, ii. 10, 16,
18. 2 The words in Ps. Ixxiii. 246 are manifestly only an amplification of Gen.
V. 246. Probably also in Ps. xlix. 156 one or two words may have fallen out,
for the text is very corrupt, so that the two lines should read : —
Yet God will redeem my soul from the power of death.
Yea, receive me into His glory.
' This expression, " the land of the living," appears in Hezekiah's song, B. of
Isa. xxxviii. 11, evidently in its original sense, for iil the second member " the
citizens of the midworld " corresponds to it ; elsewhere, Ps. xxvii. 13, Iii. 5,
cxlii. 5 ; Job xxviii. 13 ; B. of Isa. liii. 8 ; Jer. xi. 19 ; Ezek. xxvi. 20, xxxii.
24-32. The list shows how long the expression continued on the lips of poets
and authors.
< As in Ps. xii. 12 ; and the opposite, Ps. Iii. 5 ; Isa. xxii. 17 f.
5 As is clear from the new employment of words, Ps. xvii. 4, 14 ; Job xxi. 33,
xxxi. 33 ; and other indications.

382 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
earthly life,' it becomes now rather an image of eternal
transfiguration before God, and the full satisfaction of all
yearning after Him.*
3. But the most glorious expression of this new intuition
in the Old Testament is in the seventy-third Psalm. A devout
singer pictures the whole distraction, error, and despondency
with respect to the course of the world, in which for a long
time his mind wandered ill at ease till he entered into the
true sanctuary of God or innermost secret of His purpose,
where at last he could the more exclusively and fervently
rejoice in the rapture that outlasts death itself, and exult in
the indestructible hope of his heart as he found himself and
his spirit for ever with God.* Nothing can be more glorious
and happier than this presentiment of eternal blessedness
following such misery and unrest ; nothing more radiant and
confident than this outlook compassing in faith all eternity.
If the verses that describe this glance into eternity at the
close are briefer than those that set forth the long aberration
of mind, they are so much the more fervent and inspiring.
But what the faith of the living man so zealously seeks and
so warmly desires, there will be a passionate longing to see
verified by some conspicuous example. It is a true indication
of the purely creative activity of the prophetic spirit that it
did not, as was the case subsequently, go back to the primitive
ages and revive the image of Enoch ; but it ventured to por
tray, to the extent the feeling of the true religion allowed,
such a translation into heaven, by a much more vivid and
historical example, in the departure from life of Elijah, the
greatest prophet of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes;* and
apart from the attempts in later days, before the Christian era,
^ In passages like Ps. xi."7, iv. 6 ; according to Num. vi. 25 f. ; and the tradi
tions of the primitive ages, such as Gen. xvi. 13 ; Ex. xxiv. 11.
¦•' In the passages Ps. xvii. 15 ; Job xix. 26 f. ; repeated in Matt. v. 8 ; Rev.
xxii. 4.
2 Ps. Ixxiii. 23-26, cf. ver. 1.
¦* [ " An earthly career which had no equal in the purity of its devotion to the
service of Jahveh, and was at the same time consummated by such powerful
ett'orts to promote the kingdom of God, can only have a corresponding close. It

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 383
to depict anew the ascension of Enoch and Moses, this re
mained the sole symbol and type of glorification in the Old
Testament.' In new and short phrases, however, the idea of
the soul dwelling in the body of the living man as in a
structure or shell that may easily be abandoned, gradually
finds expression that increases in vigour f and the wandering
of the patriarchs, spoken of in sacred history, passes over
into the idea, taken of course wholly spiritually, of emblematic
transitory wandering upon earth towards eternal life.*
§ 348. Thus by such indications found in the Old Testa
ment there is clear evidence of the rise and of the high
significance also of this transfigured faith in immortality.
Nevertheless the belief is not as yet common property, the
whole great nation does not share it ; only in some isolated
cases does it make its way with its full, clear radiance and
power, and it has to confront, under the championship of its
apostles, a whole unbelieving world. But just this invests it
with a youthful fascination, and gives to it sublime energy
and abiding instructiveness. Nor is anything about it more
manifest than that precisely as it must develop itself after
the time of Moses, so it did develop itself, germinating and
growing up on the soil of the ancient true religion. Only
here, and in a way hitherto unknown to all mankind, did a
belief in immortality tend to become powerful.* But at first
it was confined simply to individuals.
ceases before the very eyes of men only to be taken up into the realm of pure
spirit, that is to heaven, there to carry on its work with less disturbance and
with greater power ; and at that moment heaven itself descends to earth to take
to itself that spirit which is already entirely its own." — History, iv. 109 f.]
1 Cf. History, v. 345 ff., vi. 55 ff.
^ Cf. the image of the unsheathing of the butterfly or locust in Eccles. xii. 5 ;
or that of the tent, 2 Cor. v. 1-4 ; 2 Pet i. 13 f. [Ewald translates Eccles.
xii. 5 "And . . . the locust raises itself and the caper breaks," and explains :
" When the locust uplifts itself to fly, having broken and cast olf its old shell
(cf. Nah. iii. 15 f, where the word for locust seems to mean the locust in its
period of transformation), and when the caper breaks (which fruit it is well
known suddenly springs forth from its capsule breaking through its shell, there
fore as the foregoing an image of dissolution)." — Salom. Schriften, p. 325 f.]
3 Heb. xi. 13 ; cf. Ps. xxxix. 12.
* It is Groundless and altogether against the evidence of the Old 'Testamen

384 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
It happened, however, about that time that the nation, in its
unceasing struggle for the solution of all questions of the true
religion, was profoundly stirred in spirit from a variety of
causes and in many and unusual directions. There now came
into view from another and different quarter, a great funda
mental thought which had long developed itself in isolation,
and which, though apparently unrelated to the idea of immor
tality in mortal man, was nevertheless not at all foreign to
it, and was gradually more and more inseparably interwoven
with it, exercising upon it ultimately the most powerful
influence. This was the thought of the Messiah and His
kingdom. For just in those days the desire and confident
expectation of His coming and rule formed the inner strength
and the best life of the declining nation. From the first,
indeed, the thought of a great redeemer and deHverer one day
to go forth out of this community and a particular family of it,
has its true import and authorization only as there is in this
community and this special house of it something immortal,
which, because it has in the Spirit of God and the working of
that Spirit continuously in the world, an eternal significance
and power, cannot be annihilated by all the misfortunes and
changes of time, but waxes stronger by means of resistance
so as to reach at length 'its ultimate aim, according to the
law of all divine progress in the world. But this immortal
element in Israel was then clearly known already, and was
always distinctly recognised and confidently announced by the
greatest prophets ; and the entire Messianic anticipation, the
more glorious it became and the more stedfastly it was
grasped by faith, in so far is the more necessarily connected
in general with this question. For the Messiah was not
thought of by the great prophets, whose faith was more and
more that of all devout men in the nation, as an ordinary
king who would merely win conquests and restore the old
to suppose that the idea of immortality entered into Israel from without, and at
a very late period of its history. The Old Testament is not really understood
where such a view is held.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 385
national power. He was conceived, as was fitting in this
community, as the King in whom the whole strength and
glory of the true religion would first concentrate itself, as
in its compact kernel, in order through Him to become the
peaceful possession and the means of glorious transformation
of all Israel, and ultimately through Israel of all the nations
of the earth. In so far, then, as the loftier conception was
cherished, the certainty of the continuous working of all that
was divinely immortal in this era of the world, conditioned by
man, and the certainty of a final illustrious issue, as of all that
is human, so of the present world itself, must be connected
more and more indissolubly with the Messiah Himself and
with the firm belief in His coming. The Messanic hope was
thus the mightiest stay of confidence in the progress of the
great divine work in the world and its ultimate consummation,
— a progress that was felt to be fully assured, notwithstand
ing all appearance to the contrary, and notwithstanding all
disturbances ; and of confidence also in such special and
subordinate questions as the immortality and eternal resurrec
tion, as well as the higher continuance, of the whole of that
human work wherein the Divine Spirit has once been active
and which has thereby become immortal. Thus, then, the idea
of immortality passes over as a whole and in particular,
generally and especially, into the idea of the glorious resurrec
tion of the outward body, depriving death itself of its gloomy
horror. This is just that glance into the whole future of man
which makes Hosea cry out, " Where are thy plagues, 0 Death ?
where is thy sting, 0 Sheol ! " ' and in which a subsequent
prophet, before the destruction of Jerusalem, beholds Death
for ever annihilated by God Himself, all tears of innocence for
ever cease, and all human wrong find its end.^
It is especially worthy of remark that this mighty advance
of all thought, expectation, and endeavour in human affairs,
1 Hos. xiii. 14, cf. xi. 8-11.
' B. Isa. xxv. 8, repeated Rev. xxi. 4, and in part vii. 17. The period of
time from which these words come is explained iu the Prophets, v. 23. By
way of supplement, I remark that xxvii. 10 f., as also 9, 12 f., may be repeated
2b

386 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
which alone could carry forward the old true reHgion to its
consummation, and which at last found in such consummation
the end and realization of all faith, starts from the one simple
hope in the Messiah. But in the development of humanly-
divine things it is always so. Everything proceeds from what
is simple and particular at first, if only this itself originates
from the purest power of the Divine in man, and historically
has the right significance and tendency toward what is
universal. The hope of the Messiah, however, sprang forth
from the profoundest divine aspiration of the old community
in the height of its earthly history, and sprang forth in such a
way that the spiritual life of the community could be pre
served and could continue to unfold itself for the spiritual
well-being of all the rest of mankind, only by means of such
hope. Thus early in the outward body of the nation of the
old true religion, growing for a thousand years, for a thousand
years declining towards dissolution, does the winged papilio
begin to prepare itself, which as the herald of a glorious
immortality is yet to break from its chrysalis and soar into
the world. Nor can it in the least be regarded as a fortunate
accident that just at the same time, from a wholly different
quarter, viz. the spiritual conflict of the individual man with
the existing evils of the world, the thought of this glorious
immortality was awakened and became victorious in this
community in the way that has just been described.' A'"ery
diverse and lying apart from each other were these two
sources of kindred thought. There, the spirit of man is called
into activity by stern conflict with the immediate and pressing
ills of life ; here, by its survey of all that is worldly and divine,
and by the longing seer-like glance into all the future of the
world ; there, the inner certainty was won which, here, in
inspired outlook into the whole future of the world pursues
by the last editor from a writing of Isaiah's ; the ring of the words is altogether
the same as xxxii. 10-14, xxx. 9, 19, ix. 16, v. 7 ; and the "strong city," 10,
may in the sense of Isaiah himself be Jerusalem. Perhaps, however, xxv. 6-8
10 f., are from the eighth century and by Isaiah himself.
i § 347. 1, p. 379.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY, 387
the images of its own desire, and sees more and more surely
realized the single objects of its faith, And as all truth must
first be inwardly won by men in order that in its light the
world may be known, and to its ideal the world may be
transformed ; so must that glorious immortality first be
experienced and won by the individual man in his own con
flict with the world before it can throw its images of thought
far and wide into the whole sphere of man's yearning and
anticipation. The Book of Job shows us still how this truth
can first be won for himself in conflict by the individual man,
and then as the unanticipated, but, once opened, inexhaustible
source of his true salvation can be firmly grasped in faith.
But only when this faith does not remain the painfully won
property of private individuals, but, strengthened and trans
figured by the sure outlook into the eternal work of God in
the world and the ultimate destiny of the whole human race,
has secured its full contents and its mightier power of
inspiration ; when, moreover, as thus developed more richly
and definitely, it has obtained at last distinct significance and
necessity for all men equally everywhere without exception ;
— only then is it for all humanity altogether what it is
destined to be.
§ 349. From this whole presentation is readily understood
that the two well-springs of faith in immortality, even in
the nation in whose .sacred community each flowed forth in
purest original power, could only in the course of time unite
their waters into one current and form that mighty stream
which subsequently may be traced in the light of history.
Yet such union must have taken place in the last two
centuries before the first destruction of Jerusalem ; and it
might easily be shown to have been the case if •we had before
us the full evidence all the writings that then appeared would'
afford, the number of which we can very plainly discover was
unusually large. As it is, we are limited to a few scattered
traces of such event ; yet even these are amply sufficient if
carefully observed and rightly estimated as a whole.

388 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
In the outset it is very evident that if the unclouded hope
and consolation of all the faithful were to be contemplated
more closely, and presented in distinct outlines from the
point of view of transfigured immortality, and at the same
time from that of the certainty of a last humanly - divine
consummation of the whole system of things based on the
future issue of the whole existing world, there might thus
be a manifold fulness of pure truths of the genuine religion
Avoven together in all brevity ; ' but the bond and connection
of the whole, a new vivid view of the great event itself must
give. The creative power of the imagination, sustained and
giiided, and especially quickened and made fruitful by all the
chief truths of the genuine religion, must thus have had the
amplest sphere and the freest play for its activity and skill ;
and every part of creation, great or small, must have furnished
suggestive imagery^ and become as a medallion for such as
desired to turn the eye of the mind to that which yet no
mortal eye has actually seen. In other words, all creation
must have afforded an " unveiling " ^ of things which the
divine mystery of the whole future hides irom the common
view, and which in reality go back to that eternal mystery
of the divine order of the world, a mystery which in all
that has happened hitherto man may no doubt see unveiling
itself, although not unveiling itself in such a way that the
goal of this order from the beginning of creation onward,
or to the last conceivable issue, is in point of fact disclosed.
The old prophecy in Israel more and more took the form
of such unveUings or Apocalypses with their artistic descrip
tions, as the question of the ultimate end of all things
human became gradually urgent, and as the community
itself, advancing to its outward destruction, felt, whether
distinctly or dimly, that only in its spiritual substance could
^ As the Apocalypse of the New Testament contains many magnificent utt' y^ ,|..
ances and suggestions of this kind. 10, L
^ Or "phantasy," not to take the word here in its bad sense. -8,
^ On this account such compositions are best designated " Apocalypses," ,,i
distinguished from simple prophecies.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 389
it continue to Hve. The oldest composition of this sort that
has been preserved to us in its entirety, Ezekiel has appended
to his prophecies.' But it does not follow that other
examples of such composition.?, fuller in detail even and
much read in their time, had not preceded it. On the
contrary, it appears unquestionable that they had, as will
be seen by a close examination of the particular objects
to which, from the two established points of view previously
mentioned, the vision of seers was principally directed,
and by a careful collection of all the scattered remnants
of such later prophetic writings that from other causes
became more and more artificial. If, however, regard is
paid to the contents of the pure thoughts that in represen
tations increasing in definiteness and images tending to
grow more vivid in colour seek their realization in the
future, with tolerable completeness may be traced how,
among the earliest prophets whose writings have been
preserved, those contents are sketched in simple sentences,
in brief suggestions, and in creative rudimentary form ; and
just this on account of its importance must here be noted.
But the entire range and fulness of all these briefiy sketched
or more fully detailed intuitions and anticipations, is, it is
true, unusually ample, and their variety so extensive, that
to present them all in one comprehensive summary seems ex
ceedingly difficult. Nevertheless, upon closer view everything
is ultimately reducible to the following three main positions : —
1. First of all is to be noticed the firm confidence, sustained
by inward joy and divine serenity, with which these prophets
looked onward to a sure consummation of all humanly-divine
affairs, and the luminous distinctness in which they conceived
it. If the last aim of the creation of man is that the whole
human race should learn through the creation to recognise
more and more fully the glory of the Creator, and do His
will with increasing fidelity, in order to work together with
Him towards a still more perfect era of the world, and at
1 Ezek. xxxvii. -xxxviii. ; and then further in another aspect, xL -xlviii.

390 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
last to enter upon such era in a new and transfigured
creation ; then the firm boundary of the present period of
the world becomes settled, and on this side of it every
thing is distinct to man's active spirit, and beyond it on
the other his hoping and immortal spirit still sweeps. And
if only one form appears as the inner spring of activity and
the purest model of the perfect humanly-divine life of man
kind, viz. the Messiah, as these prophets foreshadowed Him,
then with Him is 'found the full commencement of this
consummation according to the will of the Creator. More
over, if this consummation is described, in the vision of the
seer, as the illumination of the world by a Hght such as
never yet has shone,' or, briefly and concisely, as a new
heaven and a new earth,^ or, in a less number of instances,
as a renewing of the earth similar to that which followed
the great Deluge ; * it is very evident from all this how
the inspired glance struggles to depict somewhat in detail
what nevertheless as an actual phenomenon transcends all
images borrowed from existing experience ; and it is certain,
besides, that to the present period of the world another
will succeed. But those intuitions which picture what
the transfigured humanity must be in its spirit, are the more
closely connected with immediate reality and all precedent
experience. The knowledge of God will then as in thick-
coming waves of the sea stream over the whole earth ; men
will no longer, as now, painfully and amid a thousand errors,
seek to know God in order to do His will ; they will know
how to do it constantly, freely, and surely, and their conduct
will become incomparably more noble ; such characteristic
is of striking and eloquent significance.* As also in place
' As Isa. iv. 5 f., xxx. 26, B. Isa. xxiv. 23, Ix. 1 ff. ; subsequently
repeated. Rev. xxi. 11, 23-25, xxii. 5 ; from which is seen how much this
image prevails in the Apocalypse from the beginning of the whole description
to the close.
" B. Isa. Ixv. 17, Ixvi. 21 ; repeated Rev. xxi. 1, 2, 5 ; 2 Pet iii. 7, 13.
5 B. Isa. liv. 9 f.
* Joel iii. ; Isa. xi. 9 f,; Jer. xxxi. 31-34 ; and further, B. Isa. liv. 13 ; but
the finest illustration is afforded by Isa. xxx. 21.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 391
of the cruel wars hitherto prevailing, a divine peace is
established among mankind, of which scarcely even a fore
taste has yet been realized in any single period of history, —
and great stress is laid upon this second characteristic ; ' —
so from man, as the crown and goal of the existing creation,
himself now made glorious, a higher glory shall be transfused
over all the rest of the world that stands in such close
relation with him ; this is a further intuition which the
glance of the seer seeks to portray as clearly as possible
in many and various images.^ And if such anticipations,
in proportion as they are just inner certainties which
irresistibly break forth from the prophet's mind, demand
a last confirmation, Isaiah gives it when he points at the
close to nothing less than " the zeal of Jahveh " that will
" do this," * i.e. the zeal of the Creator who cannot leave
His work imperfect notwithstanding all hindrances and
disturbances that oppose it. Similarly the great unnamed
prophet emphatically shows that such truths as at first
glance appear impracticable to the meagre and indolent sense
of man, can never disappoint our hope when they have their
real foundation in God Himself as Creator; so that if their
light has arisen upon man, he may contemplate them as
activities of that Logos who is never sent into the world
in vain.*
It is not surprising that the prophets fixed the eye especially
upon Israel as the earthly seat of the consummation of the
divine salvation, and that the glance of Joel or Isaiah, for
'' Isa. ii. 2-4 (Micah iv. 1-4) according to Joel ; and Isa. ix. 5. Moreover,
all the utterances give the very finest illustration of the then undisturbed rule
of "righteousness," as Isa.'xxxii. 15-20 ; Jer. iii. 14-17, xxiii. 5 f., xxxiii.
14-16 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 20-25.
'^ Whilst other prophets, like Amos ix. 13-15, express this in a rather simple
and antique way, there follow later such transfigured picturings as Hos. ii. 20,
23 f., Isa. iv. 2, xi. 6-8, Zech. vL 12, which are to be taken, in the whole
connection in which they stand, in accordance with the intuitions of the
prophet. ' Isa. ix. 7, the last sentence extremely concise and brief as a true final
argument of decisive weight.
* B. Isa. Iv. 9-11, cf. xl. 8. Cf. also § 252, p. 139 ff.

392 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
example, rested upon the " hiU of Zion," ' whose sanctity had
long been acknowledged ; too deeply were they conscious that
the consummation must proceed from this community. But
all the better prophets saw also that the rest of the nations
would participate ultimately in this consummation, and
believed that the true religion possessed sufficient power
and attractiveness to convert them.^ Very appropriately
and finely does Isaiah express this' conversion of the nations
with a glance as wide-sweeping as it is subHme ; and it is
he also who, with infinite sadness, speaks of the heavy veil
of mourning that now lies outspread upon the troubled
nations, profoundly unhappy in their profound errors, and
who, with a consolation just as great, sees how Jahveh,
removing this veil from their eyes, cheers and enlightens
them, and will gather them around the sacred Hill for their
eternal refreshing as in a day of solemn thank-offering and
praise.* § 350. 2. But whilst the vision of the great prophets
thus with infinite ecstasy beheld the extremest limit of the
whole future conceivable by man, in which everything was
bathed for the moment in a sea of bliss, they were yet fully
conscious how far this distant prospect stood from the present-
day reality, and how much must happen before such a blessed
condition of things should come and stay. So the eye turns
back at length to the immediate affairs of to-day and rests
in the contemplation of them 'with briefer or more extended

' Joel iii. 5ff.; Isa. ii. 2 fi'., iv. 5 f., xxix. 1-8, xxxi. 4 f., x. 32, xi. 9,
xviii. 7, xxv. 10. Similarly, Jer. iii. 17 ; B. Zech. xiv.
^ As Joel, in the sublime image preserved in Isa. ii. 2-4 ; Micah iv. 1-4 ;
then Isaiah, in the lofty utterances, xi. 10, xviii. 7, xix. 18-25 ; the unnamed
prophet, B. Zech. ix. 10 f., and Micah v. 3 ; with which in a freer form such
hopes as Ps. Ixxvi. 10 f. agree ; yet these hopes are at length more and more
surely and briefly conceived in B. Zech. xiv. 9 ; and then by the great unnamed
prophet taken up again in a wholly new fashion, B. Isa. xiii. 1-4, xiv. 22-24,
Ix. 2 ff.
^ Isaiah, indeed, sketches the stages of the conversion of the heathen in xix.
18-25; and in this whole discourse also, strictly speaking (xix.), which may
very well be designated the dying swan-like song of the aged prophet.
* B. Isa. xxv. 6-8.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 393
discourse.' It is here the somewhat later prophets pass over
into that species of " Apocalypse,'' spoken of above, in order
to describe more particularly how events must shape them
selves in all definiteness, and unfold in due succession in the
future, if the true salvation is to come and to endure.^ For
the eye of the genuine prophet seeks above all to ascertain
in what way and by what progressive stages this divine
salvation, sure, final, and abiding as it is, can actually come
to them ; and nothing is more remarkable and instructive
than to note how each starts from the special situation of
his time, recognising fully with appropriate and penetrating
glance the real evils and profound imperfections of the age,
frankly stating such evils and imperfections, and showing that
only by honest and thorough reform (3an the stedfast hope of
the faithful be realized. Just in this way may the greatness
and glory of these prophets be surely seen and estimated in
their eternal worth. Unsubdued by the most alluring tempta
tions and the heaviest disappointments of the time, always
fresh, always unwearied and strong in faith, equipped with
the most perfect knowledge of the condition of things at
home no less than in foreign lands, constantly mindful of
the sublime Past of the community, and its treasure of divine
truths and forces that could never again be lost, these pro
phets peer into all the future, distinguishing carefully and
characterizing clearly all the stages of new aspiration and
effort after better things which must first be traversed before
the desired and final great salvation could come.* And the
oldest prophets had long since been conscious of the enormous
errors and the new difficulties whose mighty power the com
munity, in the degenerate times that succeeded David and
' The sense of the conclusion of Isaiah's great discourse, xi. 10-16, is here
considered, and the still briefer final word, ix. 6, xxxii. 20.
^ The mode of presentation may be very different ; longer descriptive dis
course, as Ezek. xxxvii. -xxxix., and xl. -xlviii., or a closing lyric like B. Isa. Ix.
' It is seen, for example, how well Micah, iv. 6-v. 2, by the figure given, 1-4,
of the highest blessedness, retrogressively distinguishes the stages of the develop.
ment of the future.

394 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
Solomon, has first to overcome step by step, before the great
advance to the last salvation is possible; so distinctly conscious
of this, indeed, that they were accustomed to characterize the
age of the triumphant consummation, in sharpest contrast to
the present and to the immediate future, as " the end of the
days," or, according to the standing expression, " that day." '
But if these men of the Spirit of God looked thus deeply
into the wild turmoil of things that lay before them, into the
increasing confusion of those degenerate times, into the whole
spiritual torpidity and obduracy of men in all circles with
their inveterate errors and shameful sins, but especially at
the growing and gigantic audacity and eagerness for destruc
tion that drove the new grand empires of the heathen nations
blindly into collision with the community of the true religion ;
the same prophetic glance which disclosed to them the whole
blessedness of the final consummation, disclosed also just as
surely that without the most severe conflict of hostile forces,
and without an absolute separation of tendencies now become
irreconcilable, this great salvation could not come ; nay more,
that the one conflict of the world, long since begun, would
culminate to its supreme issue ere the great and final decision
should ensue. As now the nation that must naturally form
the central point of this mighty conflict of the world had
already in the struggles of its earlier history experienced
wonderful deliverances by the power of its God through faith,
and preserved in Hving freshness the remembrance of these
grand old victories divinely won, whilst to many of feebler
faith their repetition in these times of depression seemed
impossible ; ^ the day of this great decision, beheld and
announced by the prophets, might well be regarded as a
still greater " day of Jahveh," when, as the one last Judge
of mankind. He would appear and vouchsafe victory to His
own. This day of Jahveh thus becomes in all expectation
' The origin of this term may be clearly seen from Joel iv. 1, 18, cf. iii. 1-5
[iii. 1, 18, cf. ii. 28-32] ; Isa. ii. 12 if.
" According to Amos v. 18, Isa. v. 19, and other indications.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 395
and hope the boundary-line of the future to these prophets,
the oldest of whom could not make it prominent enough as
a day surely coming ; ' and it is from the idea of it that the
abbreviated reference to " that day " above mentioned is taken.
So far as this day is now the great last judgment-day of
Jahveh which threatens all men with equal severity, includ
ing those who iu the nation of Israel could not but feel
themselves guilty before God, it was thought of as the darkest
and sternest day that could possibly come upon the whole
earth. As the ancients paid much attention to visible prog
nostications and signs of the invisible and mysterious in
human destiny, its approach was described as heralded by
the gloomiest and most terrible portents.* But just on this
account the expression, "the end of the days," denoted at
first rather the age of the world's glory that should emerge
from the general judgment, as the last age conceivable ; *
subsequently it received a much wider signification.^
So long as this nation was still a truly warlike nation (and
its military strength was first severely shaken under King
Manasseh), the distinct marks of this characteristic were
impressed upon the kind of language employed by its great
prophets and poets. Discour.sing of foreign nations, as they
look into the future, or indeed surveying the great decisive
conflict between the kingdom and nation of the true God
and the many foreign nations, especially the more powerful
or heathen nations dominating the whole existing world, their
1 As is seen from the oldest of the larger writings now extant, Joel i. 15, ii.
1, 11 ; then from the Book of Amos and the oldest discourse of Isa. ii. 12 ff. ;
Obad. 15 ; Hosea uses the term only in his oldest prophecy, and then frequently
i. and ii.
' According to Joel ii. 1 f., 11 ; Amos v. 18-20.
' Joel, indeed, the oldest prophet known to us as an author, pictures these
portents in their whole fearfulness ; first, as the day of Jahveh is merely
threatened by such signs ; which at length, however, are graciously averted, i. f. ;
then, on the actual coming of the day, quite differently, iii. 3-5 (ii. 30-32) ;
and similar picturings are repeated the more distinctly the destruction of this
world is thought of along with the "end of things."
* As is evident from Isa. ii. 2 ; Micah iv. 1 ; Hos. iii. 5.
" As already the change that has entered into the words of Joel iii. 1 (ii. 28),
on their repetition in Acts ii. 17, attests.

396 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
language becomes elevated by warlike images of every type,
the stream of discourse swells with them in superabundance
the more, first the kingdom of the Ten Tribes and then the
kingdom of Judah became deeply involved in a death-struggle
with the mightiest empires of the world, There is no need
to be offended to-day at images of the future breathing martial
ardour and the stern alarms of war; they only show the
position this nation then occupied towards the old and new
kingdoms of heathen nations in the conflict for the true
religion, and in the confident hope of the consummation of the
kingdom of God in its midst.' But with Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and their contemporaries, as well as with later writers, a
perceptible change occurs in this respect ; and although in
the Apocalypse of the New Testament, with its warlike age,
warlike images reappear, they return only in accordance with
the precedent of those older prophets. — But however many
and vigorous may be the martial images which the glance of
the older prophets towards the last decisive conflict calls forth,
they are far from supposing that the judgment of the day of
Jahveh will affect the heathen only. On the contrary, to the
mind of the oldest of these prophets it is something long
since clear and certain, that only such members of the com
munity as preserve their fidelity in all the pressure and
straits of the last crisis, nay more, only such as God Him
self caUs to salvation, shall enter into its perfect rest and
blessedness.^ Grasping this main thought with the fullest
distinctness, viz. that only a " remnant " of the community,
tried by the direst distress and the fire of all temptation,
shall be preserved as its indestructible and immortal kernel,
for eternal salvation, and shall form the beginning of the new
and glorious world ; * interweaving with such thought very
' Yet this imagery always has a different complexion in one prophet from
that which it has in another ; the most vigorous is in B. Zech. ix. 13-16.
'' Joel iii. 5 (ii. 32), where the concluding words referring to those "called of
God " definitely limit, by a striking play on the term, the previous words
relating to " those who call upon God."
' Isaiah, in his reference to the " remnant " of those who are to be saved, no

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 397
closely the certain appearing of the Messiah,' Isaiah gives
completeness to the profoundest anticipation, and opens the
most direct and above all the surest way to its proper
realization. Only the truly " holy," only the " elect," shall
enter into the last and eternal blessedness ; such was now the
burden of prophecy in the old community to the end ; and
until Christianity arose out of its midst, only thus was a
perpetual progress to the consummation of the work of God
in the world possible.^
The Messiah Himself, however, the vision of these sublime
prophets does not discover in this warlike tumult of the day
of Jahveh ; * to them He stands far too high for this, and
they seem to have no desire thus to behold Him. But the
prince of the prophets sees him indeed as " the wonderful
Counsellor, Hero-God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace ; " *
and how extremely important the last of these four attributes
is, contemporary prophets clearly attest when they make peace
and the salvation that is won only by righteousness and
victorious courage the most marked feature of His rule.''
In the course of the following centuries, however, when all
these conceptions and anticipations had become much further
developed, we find, in the Book of Daniel, the dominion of
the new and imperishable world given over after the last judg
ment to the Messiah, just as according to the deepest sense of
an Isaiah would be surmised.* But the oldest of these books,
subsequently incorporated in the Book of Enoch, designates
doubt follows the utterances of Joel and other older prophets ; but he first lifts
up the .thought to the position of one of the irrefragable corner-stones of all
anticipation and hope, and he reverts to it again and again, and expresses it
accordino' to his manner and his special art, in short set names and ideas.
1 How, is explained in the Prophets, ii. 76-111.
2 From Joel iv. 17 (iii. 17), and Isaiah in his oldest discourse, iv. 3 onwards ;
that Amos and Hosea do not use such expressions is readily explained by their
individual characteristics.
' This is gathered from a survey of all the passagesthat are here to be brought
into consideration.
* Isa. ix. 5 f.
' B. Zech. ix. 9 f., and essenti-ally the same, Micah v. 2-5,
* Dan. vii. 9-11, 13 f., according to which other words, like ii. 44, are to be
taken.

398 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
very vividly the " Elect One," or " the Son of man," as the
one who in conflict with the altogether degenerate kings shall
Himself commence the last judgment of the world, standing
at the head of the " elect," and illumined as the Logos by the
Spirit of Wisdom as none else.'
§ 351. The course of thought, once started in the direction
of these anticipations and prophecies, ran forward into very
distant and remote realms. When it had advanced so far
that the mind ventured to take a closer view of the divine
judgment of the whole present world, and therefore of the
very last issues of the affairs and phenomena of the existing
world of mankind to which it could look, the time had come
to arrest the attention of readers and hearers by bold attempts
to conceive vividly according to its inner necessities, and to
describe artistically, the entire transaction of the judgment of
the world, as the sublimest spectacle that could possibly open
upon the sense and mind of man. What the great prophets
had long and manifoldly sketched in brief words and frag
mentary anticipations, that, by such attempts, was gathered
up and illustrated ; and so arose the most extensive and
ingenious of the Apocalypses to which we have referred.
If, however, we would note more fully the details which
such grandly-conceived works of prophetic authorship could
present, and actually did present, as all indications show, the
following suggestions are offered : —
(1) A representation of the judgment of the world worthy of
the immeasurable subject must bring forward in all vividness
and reality the powers of evil and of good that lead on in the
history of man to a last crisis, and must bring forward these
powers as they are manifest not merely in particular famiHes
and nations, but everywhere in aU mankind. It will do this,
however, with the most realistic and impressive picturing, if
it starts from an historic basis, and keeps in view matters of
^ According to the Book of Enoch xiv. 3, xlvi. 4-6, xlix. 1-4, Ii. 3, and
other passages of the oldest writing. Cf. Abhandluiig iiber des B. Hendlch
¦Entstehung, p. 19.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 399
fact and localities that distinctly suggest the necessity of such
judgment. Now, in the flrst quarter of the seventh century
before Christ there was, within the limits of Israel, no public
event that in the higher conceptions of the national religion so
manifestly demanded and deserved the punishment of hell as the
continual offering of children in sacrifice to Moloch at the com
mand of King Manasseh, and there was no place where this
abomination so frequently occurred as Gae-Hinnom, i.e. the
valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem. If, therefore, a man in
prophetic mood would in those days depict God's judgment of the
world more vividly and impressively than earlier writers had
incidentally attempted to depict it, he would naturally introduce
into the great picture of the world this same valley, first as the
scene of the most flagrant abomination and of the agonizing
cries of innocent children to God, and then as the scene where,
when God comes to judge the world, the cruel slau.ghterers of
children are condemned to the punishment of hell, while their
last sentence sounds forth, " their worm shall never die, and
their flre shall not be quenched ; " ' images borrowed from the
idea of actual corpses, eaten of worms in the grave, or to be
burnt by fire,^ and now invested in such connection with a
far larger significance. Moreover, Joel, having thought of the
valley situated east of the temple as the valley of battle in the
divine judgment, and having at once designated it by the name
of the great King Jehoshaphat as the valley where " Jahveh
judges," * our prophet could also picture the Judge of the
world enthroned there before the temple as the rewarder of
^ B. Isa. Ixvi. 24, words which subsequently in Enoch xlvi. 6 and in the New
Testament in the like sense are often repeated, similar to those which recur in
the same prophet, B. Isa. 1. ii ; but the picturings, B. Isa. 1. 11, Ixvi. 23 f.,
are the oldest of their kind in the Old Testament, and sound with so novel a tone
that the writer must be supposed to have borrowed them from the work indi
cated above, and, moreover, the very words in the last instance, Ixvi. 23 f., for
in themselves and their connection they are very remarkable.
^ The image of worms is, it is true, according to B. Isa. xiv. 11, taken from
the grave ; but the fire points to the custom of cremation once very prevalent
in Asia, if such a custom had not already been introduced into Jerusalem,
according to Antiquities, 154.
3 Joel iv. 2, 12 (iii. 2, 12).

400 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
all loyalty and innocence, and from thence setting forth
towards Gae-Hinnom as the punisher of all the wicked ; as
Ezekiel somewhat similiarly beholds the resurrection not
everywhere in general, but only in a particular valley well
known to him and his readers.' All this, no doubt, may be
only a section from a larger portrayal of the judgment of the
world ; but at an early period it must have made such an
extraordinary impression that it became customary to call
that part of the Underworld (Sheol), to which the place of
punishment of those overthrown by the Judge of the world
was transferred, Gae - Hinnom, or abbreviated in Greek,
Gehenna, and the valley east of the temple, Jehoshaphat, as
is now sufficiently known.^ In point of fact, a name for the
punishment of hell so singular in itself is not otherwise ex
plicable ; and only as that abomination in the valley freshly
inflamed the imagination could such a view arise. The writing
itself also clearly belongs to the great unnamed prophet.
(2) Meanwhile such prophets, in picturing the judgment
of the world, could very well interweave also the sentence of
God against ungodliness, and the necessary overthrow of the
great heathen kingdoms so conspicuous in power at that time,
and so stoutly resisting the spirit of the true religion. Isaiah
and his contemporaries, no doubt, were able to venture upon
such picturings freely and almost always in simple discourse ;
but under Manasseh, and in most of the succeeding periods,
this would be more and more difficult. So much the more
did such prophets, in their grand and minutely detailed
descriptions of those kingdoms with their conflicts one with
another, and their common conflict against the true God, the
Judge of the world, accustom themselves rather to figurative
characterizations, employing names of strange animals that
might form the special signs and coats of arms of these
countries, and were reverenced after the fashion of the
' Ezek. xxxvii. 1, cf. iii. 22 f.
2 Cf. History, iv. 55 f. , 59 f. The Viinx is therefore not altogether one and the
same with the old PKB*, but only a part or so to speak a half of it.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY, 401
heathen, and transferred to heaven as stars, or companions
of the gods. Towards the close of the exile, the prophets
introduced such names where they deemed it suitable into
their common discourse, but at first they were found rather
in the pictures of the conflicts of these powers of the world
against the great Judge ; ' further proof of which is given in
the similar cases of the Book of Daniel ^ and the Apocalypse,*
as also in the example of Ezekiel, who indicates the powers
of the world of his day and their conflict against the kingdom
of God bv the artificial double name of Gog and Maao".*
(3) Least of all could these prophets forget how certainly,
amid all the dazzling splendour and aU the tumult of the
powers of the world, it is after all only spiritual powers that
are obviously at work in history, and exercise upon the last
decisive conflicts the most determinate influence. There was
thus an immediate opening presented for medallions of this
kind ; on the one hand lofty, highly-coloured, enrapturing, on
the other profoundly suggestive and full of meaning. To
every earthly power corresponds a spiritual or heavenly
power, in the realms of evil as well as good ; as is subse
quently expressed with so much definiteness in the Book of
Daniel and in the Apocalypse. Satan, therefore, has an
1 B. Isa. Ii. 10 and xxvii. 1 ; similarly Ps. Ixviii. 30, Ixxiv. 13 f. If the
Leviathan and even the Behemoth, Job xl. 14-24, are understood of the great
Assyrio-Persian kingdoms, it is explained how, after their destruction by Cyrus
and then by Alexander, when in fact their broken remains fell as spoil and
apparently inexhaustible food to the early oppressed nations, especially the
Judaeans, these kingdoms were regarded as monsters fed by God so hugely th'at
they might serve as a banquet to other nations ( ' ' from the wilderness, " Ps.
Ixxiv. 14), or even to the godly ; whilst in the view that the Leviathan is the
Indian tortoise ' ' under " the earth, a glimmer of its ancient astronomical
significance is manifest. How early these representations were employed is
evident from Ps. Ixxiv. 14 ; Enoch Ix. 7, 9, 24 f. ; 4 Ezra vi. 49-52; 2 Bar.
xxix. ; also Philo concerning Jonah xiii. xiv. Aucher. In wholly other
fashion Isa. xxx. 7 alludes to Rahab ; cf. also Ezek. xxix. 3.
^ Dan. ii. 31 ff., vii. 3 fl'., viii. 3 ff., where the names of such beasts change
much, but only in keeping with the sense of the particular prophecy itself. .
^ Rev. xii., xiii. 10, 11-17, where this old custom is very freely handled, as
side by side with the beast representing the Roman Empire, the second repre
sents Satan, and the third the prophetic powers of the bad Triuity ; but the
Roman Empire was then as good as the only empire.
' Ezek. xxxviii. f.
2c

402 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
army of spirits on high to which the kings of earth corre
spond; but as Jahveh, according to ancient reminiscences,
came down with His whole forces of heaven to rescue His
people in the old days of the community, even so will He
then appear with all His heavenly hosts to vanquish that
Satanic army. As early as the seventh century before
Christ this must have been set forth in a grandly-conceived
medallion-like representation, of which, amid the first difficult
beginnings of the New Jerusalem, a prophet gives a slight
and shadowy outline ; ' but the Apocalypse has also similar
medallions." § 352. The last earthly decision, at least in such conflicts,
seems to the inspired glance to be now very near. Faith
perceives as already close to the eye of the mind what in
God it beholds as necessary. To him who is deeply bowed
down, and who is conscious of suffering not as an individual
in a special situation of life, but through the consequences of
grave and universal error, and who struggles for divine help,
the last salvation of all, and in it his own salvation, appears
as correspondent to the divine righteousness necessarily near
enough. Antiquity is the more readily excused its shorter
glance into the whole future, on account of its more limited
glance into the whole past, especially in the community of
the true religion, whose existence dated only from the time
of Moses, and whose course of experience in the divine
salvation had traversed successive stages of a wonderful
progress up to the time of David. The individual, as he
loolied back upon such a past, might very well hope for the
near approach of a universal decision in a divine judgment of
the world ; and many Psalms are in fact full of such glowing
hope.* But the actual prophet of those declining centuries
between the division of the Davidic kingdom and the destruc
tion of Jerusalem, the more, as a recognised prophet in the
^ B. Isa. xxix. 21 f. ; but see further below.
" Rev. xii., xix. 19-xx. 3, 11-15.
' Ps. Ixxv., Ixxvi., Ixiv., Ixxxii., xiv.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 403
community, he looked into the circumstances of all nations
and into the whole future, must the more carefully be on his
guard against exciting any wavering, or indeed delusive hope,
as if the fulfilment of the whole contents of the divine pro
mises would take place in a short space of time, or indeed
within a number of days and years humanly determined
beforehand. In the midst of the pressure of the unbelieving
present, some events seemed to be nearer and more urgent
than others, and a set time was fixed for their fulfilment by
striking images and signs,' or indeed in a round number of
years. But beyond this the prophets do not venture; and
they scrupulously guard themselves against profaning the
mouth of Jahveh from which they discourse by rash con
jecture or arbitrary assurance. Not only in the splendid
model of an Old Testament prayer of the congregation,^ but
also earlier in Isaiah, and later in Habakkuk, in the most
distressing and painful days of the oppression of the nation
by the heathen, care is taken not in any way to forestall the
divine will in the predetermination of the decision of the
whole future to a single year. But Isaiah on a given occa
sion had already declared how certainly, in the case of
prophecy, the main point is its inner truth, not the time
when this divine truth will be realized, and that such
realization might progressively occur with increasing com
pleteness and growing clearness.*
The divine truth of the predictions of the illustrious
prophets who laboured till the destruction of Jerusalem
having been attested in the main chief tendencies of the
history of nations, and the final decision of a judgment of
the world which had been promised being still in abeyance,
there arose in the weary course of the centuries of the New
1 As especially in the passage concerning the Virgin and the Messiah-child
("the young Messiah at the first stage of His development," Prophets, ii. 89),
and those further belonging to it, Isa. vii. 14, viii. 4.
' Ps. xc. ¦ in Habakkuk, however, what is rather suggested than set forth in
detail must be properly apprehended.
3 Isa. xxi. 16 f.

404 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Jerusalem the new passion for measuring and determining
more definitely the coming of the judgment of the world by
artificial calculations, based upon what seemed to have some
thing divine in it to the longing minds of the faithful in
their manifold trial and affliction. The charm which lies in
old sacred numbers, or in round numbers, appeared to grow
in gigantic proportions when any particular support of divine
assurance could in any way be added ; and the further the judg
ment of the world, promised by the old great prophets, seemed
to be necessarily withdrawn into the dim and distant regions
of the future, the more eagerly was the glance gradually
thrown back into the remotest past to flnd there the last
support of such reckonings ; whilst the learning of the time
busied itself more and more with profotinder inquiries relating
to antiquity and the whole creation. Considered from the
purely prophetic side, all these attempts are but the last
aftergrowths of the indestructible truths whose roots lay
deep in the old creative prophecy. But, nevertheless, they
gave a wider sweep and a more extended range to the vision
of the progress and stages of God's working in the world, so
far as that working can be known and anticipated, and they
accustomed such minds as would heed them ' to a continually
intent, no doubt, but yet calmer waiting for the whole
development of the future. They therefore furnished, within
the community of the true religion, materials not to be lightly
estimated for a last and most complete development of the
whole hope of the future, and especially influenced two of
such artificial prophecies as now became more and more
common, viz. the Book of Daniel and that lost book which
first introduced a calculation as to the duration of the world
on the basis of the idea of a world's Sabbath.^ Moreover, the
Apocalypse of the New Testament also received under its
infiuence the peculiar structure and dress it bears.
1 To which Christ Himself so obviously referred in the particular incidental
sign. Matt. xxiv. 15.
'' % 286. ["In a favourite work of that time, we may well suppose, the view

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 405
§ 353. 3. Everything in this whole subject, however,
ultimately turns upon the idea of " Eesurrection " to a new
and more glorious life, and its application in all cases here
conceivable. Now as much as this is at once evident, viz.
that this idea in its primary and strictest sense, that is, as
referred to an individual man, presupposes the absolute
detachment of the earthly body from the spirit dwelHng in
it, or the so-called death of the man in the common accepta
tion of the term, and his rising up again by the possession of
a new life. The word may be understood in this general
sense, although the figure itself is taken from rising again
out of the grave. It is therefore quite correct to say further,
that man, whilst in this present outward body of his, may
experience a kind of resurrection. For what is the new
birth demanded by true religion of the more mature or
grown-up individual man, but such an uplifting and resur
rection of that which is immortal in him to a life raised
incomparably above his primary sensuous life, and corre
sponding wholly to the will of God ? The supreme truth
of the progress of all divinely-human life in the world is thus
shown to be a reality in the life of the individual man ; the
truth, viz., that only the second life is the more perfect, and
at this stage the possibly transfigured life ; while the " second
death," occurring instead of it through man's guilt, is the last
death. In this way we can mark the course of all human
history in the present world by the example of the history of
a single human life. But the Apostle Paul,' referring to Him
who by His appearing and glorification has made manifest
most completely for all future time the first stage of all truth
was expressed that the world, created in six days, with a seventh as a Sabbath
succeeding it, would endure seven thousand years, and that the last thousand
of these years would be the long-hoped-for divinely-blessed Messianic time.
Thns is explained how the so-called ' Sabbatism ' became a much and fondly
cherished conception. Some trace of it is found in Rev. xx. 4-6 ; but the,
thousand years there spoken of may rather be regarded as a round number
indicating a definite stage in the entire Messianic development of humanly-
divine things."]
1 § 327, pp. 292-4.

406 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
relevant to this subject, compares the new birth with its new
life, as every man should experience it, to a resurrection in
the midst of the mortifying and death of the sinful man.
That, however, is a loftier style of discourse which, although
it often occurs in John in a similar way,' may easily be mis
understood, and both Paul and John prefer not to apply
commonly the term "Eesurrection" to the inward trans
formation of the Hving man ; the term " new birth " suffices
for this when it has to be characterized in one word.
But if now that which may be called, in the more definite
sense, resurrection, has thus the significance for man here
meant only at the stage after bodily death which, according to
what has been said above, we may characterize as in reality
the second stage, it is evident that at this second stage, as
soon as the transition is made from the individual man to the
whole of mankind, the same duality of condition reappears
which we were obliged to recognise on that first stage. For
before the idea of resurrection and the idea closely allied with
it and describing rather the condition that follows it, — viz. the
idea of eternal life in its wider extension and last significance,
— could become sufficiently intelligible and plastic, they must
first make themselves in their immediate and primary power
adequately perceptible in the experience of some individual
man, and thus become wholly clear and distinct. This is the
high significance of that conflict which we saw above in the
case of Job ; and only in such narrow and necessary limits
would the ideas of resurrection and eternal life become a
possession of the thinking and struggling spirit of man that
should henceforth remain stedfast and could never again be
lost.^ It is self-evident also that resurrection as the mark and
sign of the transformation to the higher condition itself, is the
presupposition of eternal life.* But we have already seen
' In such utterances of Christ as John iii. 36, v. 21-24, vi. 27, 32 f., 35-40,
44-50, 53 f. ; to which correspond in John's larger Epistle passages like ii. 25,
iii. 14 f., V. 11-20.
''§347. 2f., p. 380 ff.
' If Job xix. 25-27 does not in so many words speak of his resurrection after

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY, 407
that the whole work of God in the existing world cannot close
with the attainment of a glorious future by individual men.
If, therefore, we pass beyond individuals to whole nations, we
see the same thing accomplish itself which is accomplished in
the case of the individual man within the limited period of his
earthly life. As the aim and effort of man's spirit may at
times vary, and may be directed towards lofty divine perfec
tion, or sunk down to the gratification of merely human and
ungodly desire, but at last the tendency of the entire life must
be determined either to good or evil ; — so is it in an incom
parably higher degree with an entire nation. Since an indi
vidual nation does not embrace the whole of mankind, and in
each nation a special, and in relation to the whole ultimately
necessary, endeavour of the spirit may be predominant and
with all sincere zeal pursued to its end ; the last divine sen
tence will be passed upon it in accordance with such en
deavour. Since, moreover, the chief question in a nation,,
however widely it may be spread and however long it may
have existed, always relates to the attitude and firmness of
mind of its individual members, the last separation in it will
take place among and with reference to individual men, and
one individual may ultimately comprise in himself all that is
highest. In the nation of Israel we see this very thing occur
in antiquity and in the most marked way, but also in a
problem of such a kind as to involve the issue of all others,
viz. in the problem of the true religion. And if after all
earlier resurrections and transformations to higher efforts and
life, among which the most powerful was that of the New
death, since the main thoughts and connection of the discourse do not make
it specially necessary to give prominence to it ; yet that resurrection is neverthe
less self-evident in the import of this discourse, when he maintains that after
his death and freed from iX\e flesh, i.e. the earthly body, he shall see God. In
the other passages cited, § 347. 2, a resurrection is, however, just as well indi.
cated ; the "satisfying" in Ps. xvii. 15, xvi. 11, points to an enduring condition,
and there is no reference here, as in Ps. xc. 14, to a nation ; and the awakening,
Ps. xvii. 15, is, notwithstanding the brevity of the expression, plain enough,
partly from the context, partly because the hope of awakening from death was
at that time firmly cherished.

408 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Jerusalem, ultimately only One arose out of earthly destruc
tion, and He uplifted to heavenly glory reigns for ever as
Christ, in order that, as the Bible teaches. He may lead many
to the same resurrection and glory ; — so the divine destiny of
this one nation, and also an incalculably comprehensive portion
of the divine will in relation to all mankind, are thereby
already realized and fulfilled.
This whole incident of the resurrection and the eternal life
that follows it, is accordingly repeated upon the third and for
us last conceivable stage of the entire work of God in the
present world. The nations also are not here the last. As
they arose only after the creation of man and the first firm
beginnings of his history, even so will the whole of humanity
in its last needs and endeavours necessarily extend beyond
them, until as some collective body it will attain its resurrec
tion and new eternal life, as the Bible clearly enough indicates.
Indeed, after every divine work in this existing world is
accomplished, that only can form the transition to a new
creation and a new world which, in harmony with the Bible,
we anticipate but cannot describe as if it were a matter of
experience, and towards which likewise, in harmony with the
Bible, our last yearning desire ever points.
Thus, then, during the course of time the highest issue we
can conceive of and strive after is being accomplished, in these
three stages of resurrection and eternal life ; that is, in the
individual, the nation, and humanity. But the sole spring of
the inner progress and gradual consummation of the divinely-
human work lies in the spirit ; and as everything in this work
proceeds from God's Spirit, so everything man does in and with
the spirit is thereby taken up, glorified, and made eternal
throughout all three stages in such a way that it serves for
the advancement of that work, and with the spirit lives on and
works immortally. All this the Bible sufficiently teaches,'
§ 354. As soon therefore as the prophetic spirit of the old
true religion had fully recognised, in its high significance,
the truth of a divine resurrection coming upon whole nations.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 409
ideal representations of this great crisis of all the future as it
might possibly occur were definitely sketched, and were soon
of such rare grandeur, the conceivable details of a phenomenon
transcending everything hitherto experienced being set forth
in portrayals so sublime, that they already afforded in them
selves the plastic material for larger or smaller apocalypses.
One of the lesser works of this kind is that of Zephaniah.'
Far more copiously, and yet according to his individuality in
the simplest style and with much insight and comprehensive
ness, Jeremiah also expresses himself upon this question. As
Israel, on account of its incorrigible sins, must in righteous
and divine punishment pass into exile for a whole generation
or seventy years, but may, however, by God's grace expect
a restoration ; ^ thus also must all nations without exception,
on account of the weight of their earlier or recent transgres
sions against the divine righteousness, suffer the just punish
ment of the true God ; but all that are now subject to oppres
sion shall each in its time experience a restoration.* But this
thought of a divine restoration possible to all suffering nations,
which might just as well be designated a resurrection, is given
in Jeremiah with such brevity and yet with such confidence,
that it may well be supposed an older prophet had preceded
him in the representation, and had laid down the firm basis
of such outlook into the future of the whole history of
nations. If, however, a prophet of those times, borne along by a
loftier flight of imagination, apprehended all this in keeping
with the idea of invisible spiritual powers ruling in the
history of nations, and having special connection with the
1 Cf. Prophets, iii. 14-26.
2 Restauratio, rf\2V niCJ'j *s often in the Commentaries on the Prophets more
particularly explained.
3 Jer. xlvi. -xlix., and xxv. The remark made conceming this restoration,
xlviii. 47, xlix. 6, 39, and in the last edition from Jeremiah's own hand only in
somewhat different setting, xlvi. 26, could just as well be made with respect to
all the rest of the nations suffering at that time from the arrogance of the
Chaldees.

410 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
great earthly national powers, the occasion was thus given
for a truly gigantic presentation and exact distinguishing in
their deeper import and plan of all possible stages of the
future. There comes a time when Jahveh, as in a great
decisive battle, will visit and punish all the high heavenly
powers gathered together against Him, with their respective
earthly kings. Nevertheless, He will not at once annihilate
them, but will keep them in the Underworld as well-guarded
prisoners, that there they may have at least opportunity for
repentance: then, after a long time, they will be visited by
Him again to ascertain whether they will stand in the last
judgment of the world or not. Three successive and very
different future periods are thus definitely distinguished in the
imm,ediate great decision of the whole future ; and this
Apocalypse closed with that judgment of the world which,
according to this higher intuition, must clearly be taken to be
the last. Some grand conception of this kind, whose original
written form is lost to us, had prescriptive authority for the
following ages ; a prophet of the first days of the New
Jerusalem has preserved a short outline of it ; ' John of the
Apocalypse also follows its type with his newly-animated
picturing of the long intervals of the remote future, and his
distinction of these three stages in the sublime history of
nations.^ The same three stages in the absolute future of the history
of nations, Ezekiel beheld in the midst of the dissolution and
evident death of his own nation. But directing his gaze
especially only to the earthly circumstances of his own nation
at that time, he sketched with a creative glance that was
entirely new the most graphic picture of a nation as good as
dead reanimated by the Divine Spirit and conducted through
those three stages to its consummation corresponding to the
will of God.* The subject dealt with was the fundamental
' B. Isa. xxiv. 21-23 ; cf. the later very verbose delineation of the Book of
Enoch, xc. 20-39.
2 Rev. xix. 1-xxii. 5. ' Ezek. xxxvii. -xxxix.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 411
condition and circumstances of the progressive salvation of
an empire among men. If it is desired to know how such
Apocalypses in all original vividness and full intuitive clear
ness arose, we have here a model example before us. These
glimpses of the future, with its three stages of continuous
development, John of the Apocalypse blends with those of the
world of spirits into one, and in this way unites them together
into the great picture of the ultimate future which he presents
to us. For since what Ezekiel beheld was not in reality
fulfilled in its whole grandeur and living power in those cen
turies that followed the time of the prophet, its fulfilment was
more and more hoped for in the remoter future. Especially,
however, by the striking truth of its representation of the
resurrection did the first of these three pictures of the future '
impress itself most deeply on the hopeful spirit. Yet since,
according to Ezekiel's intention, this was not meant fur the
general resurrection at the end of the whole history of the
world of mankind, but only for that of the immortal members
of the community of the true religion, it was subsequently
distinguished as the " first resurrection," ^ or as that of the
righteous,* which gives but a first preliminary decision of
human affairs.
Nevertheless a kind of resurrection of the community in a
spiritual sense, not at variance with Ezekiel's prophecy, had
actually occurred in the New Jerusalem at the end of the
Babylonish exile. Not in vain had the earlier prophets and
the voices yet more powerful of prophets who were still recent,
summoned the nation to repentance and the new birth and a
life that was wholly in God ; the community, supposed to be
dead, arose in truth like shadows from the Underworld. But
when this newly arisen community soon after its first days
was on the point of sinking back again as if into the second
and therefore eternal death, the same younger prophet, who
' Ezek. xxxvii. 1-14. " So Rev. xx. 5 f.
' So Luke xiv. 14 ; but already had the same thing been described in Dan.
xii. 16-3 in freer words. The word ¦rpurov, 1 Thess. iv. 16, the sense of which
returns in another connection in 1 Cor. xv. 23 f., is also thus explained.

412 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
wove the beautiful garland of sublime utterances concerning
death and immortality often mentioned before, and who was
one of the last of this Old Testament time of new revival of
prophecy in its old efficacy and power, admonishes the com
munity with all the fire of his eloquence, by the power of the
divine life even in the midst of death, not to despair where
there is no true ground for it, but on the contrary, more closely
considered, there is the most legitimate hope of advancement
to eternal life.' — But it is in the main in this last splendid
period of the Old Testament nation, and in this morning-glow
of a new day for the community of the true religion which
should form the transition to its last consummation, as if the
ancient dead in all the immortal elements of their being were
about to rise to a new life. Indeed, the language of the poets
when this subject is touched upon becomes now altogether
different, and sounds another note.^
§ 355. Thus, then, the truths, the hopes, the anticipations,
which alone complete in the province of the true religion
the full circle of faith, had already been so perfectly developed
on all sides before the time of Christ, that at first sight it
might appear that scarcely anything was yet wanting. The
deficiency which in this community clung to the oldest form
of faith was now in the last centuries before Christ fully
removed. Without belief in something absolutely immortal,
and as such superior to all temporal change, no true religion
can exist. But in the founding of this national community
the true God Himself, apprehended in all the fervency of
faith, seemed in this respect to be sufficient, without in any
way eradicating the germs of the old and simple belief that
there is also something immortal in man. Yet only after

^ Here are intended the noble words of B. Isa. xxvi. 14-20, which in the fol
lowing two strophes of the discourse are further explained, namely by those
repeated from Isaiah himself, xxvii. 12 f., that "on that day," the day of the
great last harvest, not a single seed-corn should be lost.
' How different is the tone of the words in B. Isa. xiv. 9 ff. from even the
animated picturing of the experience of the dead in the Underworld in Job
xiv. 21 f. !

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 413
this community in its stability and its first temporal glory
had passed the zenith, and this belief, deeply rooted but
deficient, threatened to decline again under the heavy trials
that broke in upon the best members of it, and more and
more upon the whole body, was reinvigoration found, and
found in all fulness through the superaddition from the side
of faith in God of faith in a glorious immortality, first in the
individual man, and at length in the whole of humanity.
Upon irrefragable foundations, faith in its entirety thus
renewed its power. Moreover, the centuries of the highest
activity of the genuine prophets of the community sufficed
to complete what as a blending of divine certainty and
human anticipation most immediately belonged to their
special province. This is manifest from what has been
said above, and historically considered is of the highest
importance. What was added in the centuries of the New
Jerusalem was only a continuous series of developments
on separate single sides of the indestructible intuitions
already given, but nothing of a truly creative nature ; and
indeed these further developments were only such as arose
out of the genuine treasure newly won of the true religion
and its great prophets.' Since now, in those days also, the
realm of spirits became an ever richer and freer field for the
intuition of everything divine and spiritual, the breadth and
boldness of such unveilings of the future increased, whilst
the representations concerning heaven and hell as mere
1 Carefully to note and firmly to grasp in its whole truth this last point is
of special and large importance, because of the widely-prevalent errors in scholar
ship of the last hundred years. It has been imagined that the Zoroastrian faith
in immortality as it appeared in Parsee writings was introduced into the nation
of the true religion during its exile in the Easfand the subsequent Persian rule,
and that thus the great change above described was accomplished. Nothing,
however, is more opposed to all historical evidence than this supposition ; and
before any attempt to substantiate such supposition is ventured upon, there
must be particular and exact investigation of the origin and different ages of all
the Parsee writings which have been preserved ; thus only will more valid
results be attained.' Concerning the Bundehesh, the Ardd- Virdf-Ndmak, and
the B. Ahuna-vairja, we have now the first minute examination in Martin
Hang's works. On the whole, the same thing is true on this subject that
according to § 221 ff., pp. 72-78j is true with regard to angelology.

414 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
places for the different classes of the dead shaped themselves
anew. The ancient Hades became, half for the punishment
of the wicked, half for the repose of the dead, a most
extensive region ; the Heaven ascending to the divine
Throne in seven arches or vaults,' comprising also the old
Paradise, became the abode for the most exalted of the
blessed; as the Book of Enoch with the journeys of Enoch
through all these regions depicts. But all this, so far as it
is relevant to our subject, has already been set forth.
4. Doubts concerning Immortality.
§ 356. In the slow course of the last centuries before
Christ, the higher life of the spirit in Israel assumed in
general so unfavourable a form with respect to anticipations
of immortality, that the truth already won stood in great danger
of eclipse or disappearance. As with the individual man, so
with whole periods of time, only when the mind is possessed
by the consciousness of eternal life and sustained by its
power, can there be a confident and ineradicable faith in
the truths and hopes which such doctrine inspires. The
period of the community of which we now speak appeared
indeed, the longer it continued, so to darken the radiant
summits of those hopes, and to withdraw the possibility of
their attainment to such an unexpected distance, that many
persons were disposed to despair even of their reality. More
over, the mind was so powerfully swayed by wholly other
impulses and so divided and weakened, especially after the
later Persian and Greek rule, that it readily lost its fresh
eagerness and desire to realize such hopes, and even failed
to recognise them in their deeper truth with any degree of ,
clearness. From another source also danger arose. For
there is something so essentially exuberant in these very
hopes themselves, that if they are cherished with an over-
passionate ardour or groundless confidence they may readily
1 Cf. 2 Cor. xii. 3 f. ; Luke xxiii. 43 ; Rev. ii. 7.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 415
lead to all kinds of extravagance and excess, which would
ultimately impair their credit and destroy their beneficial
effect. "Dead men do not live again, shades do not rise
again," cried the voice of the same prophet ' whom we
recognised as the last great Old Testament herald of divinely-
human immortality,^ addressing those whose glowing hope
might have led them to overlook the solemn earnestness
of this subject, that he might warn them against employing
the postulate of the resurrection of the dead where it is
not legitimate, and that he might check all exaggerated
expectation. In the Old Testament we have still another clear witness
as to the difficulty a peaceful faith may experience in fighting
victoriously against doubts that spring up again so easily on
the field of vision the future opens. Every man is subject
to death as a contingency, the time of which he cannot
calculate beforehand, just as he is subject to innumerable
other afflictions ; but who knows whether, in the manifest
perishableness of everything mortal, it be really true that,
as is commonly said, the spirit of man goes upwards to
heaven, and the spirit of the beast downwards to the earth ?
This is a doubt which in the older and better times of the
community of Israel would never have been so raised, but
which now in the dreary march of these days of growing
weakness and confusion had become possible, even in the
face of conceptions of immortality developed to the highest
degree, and possible just as Qoheleth expresses it.* It is
' B. Isa. xxvi. 4. = § 354, p. 411.
• According to the true reading, Eccles. iii. 21, cf. xii. 7. It is to be particu
larly noted that this doubt is not found in the Book of Job, where most of all
one might expect to find it, nor elsewhere in any older book of the Old
Testament. [In the Dichter des Alten Bundes, ii. 275-6, to which Ewald
here refers, he says in the exposition of Ecclesiastes, " Upon the separate
continuance of the human spirit many, it is true, build their hope, but no
one can know whether such is the fact ; rather does one event and destiny, viz.
suffering and death, happen to all men without distinction, and after death
follows the dark Underworld (ii. 14, iii. 18-21, v. 19a, vi. 6, viii. 7, ix. 2-6, 12,
X. 14, xii. 5). Already ideas of the immortality of the spirit, firmly developed,
pressed in upon the thought; but the delicate fragrance of the wonderfully

416 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
the same doubt which to-day is still raised, nay, is absolutely
unconquerable wherever the light and power of the true
religion are much obscured or wholly extinguished. In the
meanwhile, since in Qoheleth's time the community abounded
with men who were morose, gloomy, and desponding rather
than merely frivolous and utterly wicked, the aim of his
writings was to counteract their influence by diffusing a
spirit of cheerfulness, and commending patience and the
joy of an innocent life as the gift of God. Giving promi
nence indeed very distinctly and emphatically, even as such
doubters did also, to the frailty of human existence, the
repugnance that is felt amid the stir of life to the gloom
of death, the sharp antithesis between life and death, and
the necessity of using well the passing moments of health,
he yet demands, as the first result of his inquiries into
human affairs, the wise blending of happy, contented enjoy
ment of present blessings with the continued remembrance
of immortality and the last judgment of God.' This indeed
is the true meaning and abiding lesson of this book, which
can be missed only by those who neither understand it in its
whole connection nor in its detail. Just then it was a
suitable time to remind men of the privileges and joys
of human life. In the earlier centuries this was not
necessary ; and indeed it is found nowhere in the older
Scriptures, and here for the first time is commended with
all emphasis. But Qoheleth, so far from approving on this
account the doubts that in his day strongly prevailed,
altogether rejects them at last. Moreover, as this didactic
sublime anticipations with which the Book of Job and several Psalms had
suffused these ideas, was almost wholly lost in the new long darkness of those
centuries ; and because the conceptions which prevailed upon the subject at
the time were too gross and sensuous, as were perhaps those of the Pharisees,
the old Hebrew consciousness, alternating with a kind of inquiring and doubt
ing speculation, here defends itself against them, and ventures upon the bold
attempt of not despairing even if these hopes concerning the future life should
be mistaken ; and in reality hopes built upon the future life might readily
become obscure and troublesome, as au arrogance which contemned too m,uch
this present life found its way into their midst." ]
1 Eccles. ix. 7, xi. 9, xii. 1, vii. 12 f.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 417
poet nowhere proceeds from the point of view of those
lofty Messianic truths which alone ' form the most powerful
impulse and support to a hopeful anticipation of the future,
but rather loves in calm and discursive reflection to survey
simply the things of the present, it may very clearly be seen
in his whole work, how in spite of all these chilling doubts
the inquiring thought nevertheless cannot abandon the ideas
of immortality and the judgment of the world. It is the
drama of Job almost that is reproduced here in calm and dis
passionate inquiry. In the outset and afterwards, Qoheleth
speaks concerning death and the Underworld almost as Job
did before his moment of regeneration,^ and even as Job he
cannot ultimately dispense with the glance beyond death to
God as the last Judge of all human conduct.
How largely in the following age Qoheleth's dispassionate
and more prudent regard to the things of the present grew
into favour, and even threatened seriously to degenerate more
and more into a refined self-seeking and mere sensuous
enjoyment of the moment, a paragraph in the Book of the
Son of Sirach shows clearly enough.* Taking a further step
upon this path, it is not to be wondered at that the Sadducees
also, misled by the later Greek wisdom, proceeded at last to
the denial alike of the world of spirits and of immortality, and
foolishly sought to confirm this denial by an appeal to the
Pentateuch, as if the Pentateuch justified it. But further
discourse on this subject is not now necessary.'' Survivals of
such doubts of all kinds continued to show themselves, inter
mingled afresh with Greek wisdom, down to the time of the
Apostle Paul.^
1 s 348 p. 384 f. ^ It is seen especially iu Eccles. ix. 5 f.
3 The paragraph in Ecclus. xiv. 11-18 is here meant, — a section complete
in itself, where especially the x^xnimi rm -i^Z"' '"' ('''cr. 16) pained many old
readers and was on this account altered. But the expression accords only too
well with its context. Nevertheless, this speaker of proverbs points also at the
end of the book (cf. Jahrbb. der Bibl. W. iii. p. 132 f.), xvi. 1-20, to the eternal
divine retribution with somewhat of a Messianic colouring of thought.
< Cf. History, v. 278.
* Taking 1 Cor. xv. 35, 2 Tim. ii. 18, together with Acts xvii. 32.
2d

418 OLD and new TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
§ 357, Against such doubts and denials, those who were
really the more pious members of the community bravely
contended with the greatest firmness of conviction. A rich
abundance of literary works was the result. But none of the
later -^vritings of these centuries down to the second destruction
of Jerusalem, and even to the war of Hadrian, is so celebrated,
and, as originating in the last century before Christ, exerted so
powerful an influence in upbuilding the truth of the doctrine
of immortality, once more fallen into decay, as the Book of the
Wisdom of Solomon. This work is also replete with a rare
instructiveness, in that with courageous candour and startling
but eloquent truthfulness it exposes to view in aptest words
the innermost thoughts of the deniers of immortality.' From
this is seen as in a great living picture what immense
progress unbelief had made at this time in the educated
world, and how those who were most powerful in wealth and
dominion did homage to it. Were th6y heathens or degenerate
sons of Israel ? No distinction is made, based on such
differences among them ; and in any case, sons of Israel
were sufficiently numerous in their midst. Indeed, it is just
as if the unbelievers of that most brilHant period of
Graeco-Pioman antiquity resembled the unbelievers of our own
day. But all who, like this gifted author of the Book of Wisdom,
fought vaHantly against unbelief, laboured under two defects.
No one can more eloquently express what faith in immortality
in its transfigured sense must mean for man than this preacher
of wisdom. But he suffers from an over-straining of faith
and an extravagance of fancy. He divests the eternal powers
of creation (Nature) of too much of their real character, and
carries over what is divine and immortal to objects in which
^ Wisd. i. 16-ii. 20, v. 3-13. It has been supposed that the first picturing
has in view the early Christians and Christ Himself as the " Righteous man,"
i. 16-ii. 20 ; but this supposition, futile for other reasons, is disproved by the
second discourse of these unbelievers, here interposed, when the judgment of the
world has overtaken them, v. 3-13, where they do not in the least refer to Christ
in their confession.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 419
they are not immediately recognisable by man.' He may be
considered as an Essene ; he would then be one of the earliest
and most accomplished of them, nevertheless his Essenian
asceticism (Sonderwesen) was greatly to his disadvantage. A
morbid tendency^ enters so inseparably into the reflections
and faith of this book as to distinguish it greatly from the
writings of the Old Testament, which are both earlier in point
of time and spring from a wholly different spirit : it cannot
therefore serve as a pure type of doctrine. In a very different
way does there shine forth in the Second Book of Maccabees
a glimmer of faith in immortality. Here there are brave
champions in the stern conflicts against the heathen and upon
fields of battle, who, inspired by the eternal truth of genuine
religion, and impelled by reverence for its holy law revealed
in the Scripture, joyfully meet death and thus attest most
effectively what real force resides in this faith.* But in the
greater part of the community, the faith that is historically
manifest is mixed with all kinds of rude popular superstitions,
which, unless faith is maintained in its pure elevation, may
perversely be derived from it,* or readdy made in sub
stance to agree with it.* The purely spiritual, invisible, and
mysterious objects with which it was conversant, exposed
it the more fully to such danger ; since in the condition and

' How one-sided and erroneous are the views respecting the children of wicked
parents, iii. 12, 16 ; and how groundless those conceming the children of pious
parents, viii. 19 f. ! The last passage is best explained by the mere antithesis ;
there is no need to think of Egyptian metempsychosis, although the conception
itself may be Egyptian. Cf. 4 Mace. xvii. 6, xviii. 7-9.
^ As in vii. 10, where in direct opposition to the many earnest admonitions of
the Son of Sirach even bodily " health " itself is thrown into the shade.
3 2 Mace. vi. 26, vii. 9, 11, 14, 23, 35, cf. vii. 11, xiv. 4, 6.
• We mean here the commendation of the money-offering paid to the priests
for the intercession on behalf of the dead, who died as members of the com
munity indeed, but not without guilt, 2 Maoc. xii. 39-45. This custom was
manifestly new, and on this account was made so specially conspicuous.
* Here are meant the visions of earthly events pictured in the skies, or the
apparitions of angels, 2 Maoc. ii. 21, iii. 24-27, v. 2, a. 29, xi. 8, and the
importance attributed to them in the narrative. This also is new. — The Third
Book of Maccabees no longer speaks at all of the "hope of Israel," as it is
called in Acts xxviii. 20.

420 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
strength in which it now appears, faith, in its more general
aspects, had not, like faith in the true God, passed victoriously
through all manner of trials and obstructing errors from the
primitive ages downwards, but for the great mass of the people
was comparatively new. According to all indications, this
Second Book of Maccabees sprang from Pharisean faith with
its intense spirit of nationality, as it existed in conflict with
Sadducees and Essenes about a hundred years before Christ,
and before it had deteriorated with such gradual and in
creasing degeneracy. For Pharisaism, though one-sided and
defective in its very origin, was not then of the type that
prevailed in the time of Christ. — In the Fourth Book of
Maccabees, which did not arise till the age that immediately
preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, the attempt at last is
made to give to this faith a genuine Greek setting of philo
sophy and eloquence ; but in the presence of that zeal for the
holy law which was then to flnd its full and vigorous Hfe, this
faith cannot be said to attain its free and worthy expression.'
— The Fourth Book of Ezra, the Second Book of Baruch, and
other works written only after the destruction of Jerusalem,
are of too late a period to have any influence upon the New
Testament, or to be of any significant use in this discussion.
5. Tlie Christian Belief in Immortality.
§ 358. Thus, then, only Christianity could bring the con
summation to which all the mighty spiritual labours, hopes,
' The most important is the belief in the ascension of the three patriarchs,
4 Mace. V. 35 f., xiii. 14-16, xviii. 23, cf. vi. 22, ix. 8, 22, x. 4, xii. 12, xvi.
13, xvii. 18 f. (according to an allegory of the words in Deut. xxxiii. 3). The
profounder words, vii. 19, xvi. 25, sound like an addition by a Christian hand.
[In the History, v. 485, Ewald says of this book, " Its main purport is by means
of the most glowing delineation of the stedfast endurance of the pains of death,
and of the everlasting divine glory awaiting those (Maecabsean) champions of the
law, to exhort others to like endurance and like victory. ... It fulfils its aim
so perfectly as to be unsurpassed ; and its descriptions could hardly have been
more forcible even for the Christian martyrs. The whole work is issued as a
grand address to the children of Abraham, and we seem to have in it almost
the solitary example, though on a scale of uncommon grandeur and art, of a
Judsean sermon."]

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 421
and yearnings of the great prophets from the time of Moses
and David pointed,' and which nevertheless they were neither
able of their own will, nor did they propose, to introduce.
But this consummation was brought when of all those
manifold hopes designated Messianic, the special burden, the
coming of the Messiah, — in itself for a long period the most
powerful and inspiring of them all,^ whose incomparably high
significance made it more and more the one centre and goal
of aspiration in the course of the centuries, — was actually
realized in Christ as only He could realize it in the midst of
the stream of divinely-human history. For if under those
sublime seers the whole realm that comprehended this wide
circle of truths and hopes had been on all sides so wonder
fully broken up as in tillage, and made fruitful, and every
thing lay ready to harvest and waited only for its Lord ; yet
He Himself must first come and perfect what in this wide
circle He alone could and did in reality perfect by His
earthly appearing. Then it was that with this sure begin
ning of consummation, a bright light was kindled whose rays
illumined this whole varied realm, and clearly revealed all
that was sound and healthy in it, and that might ripen to the
perfection the entire body of truth should attain. Then, too,
immediately after the glorification of Christ, whose light
irradiated it anew, this whole circle of truths was for the
first time absolutely and fully closed ; a brief summary of all
that was yet to be expected in the future was soon given ; *
and everything that had still a pure and imperishable import
to the Christian spirit awoke to new Hfe. Moreover, when
already the high noon of the apostolic age had passed, and
the repose of the world, and especially the Christian part of it,
• §§ 347-355, pp. 376-414. « § 348, p. 384 f.
* This short summary which the apostle gives on a definite occasion, 1 Cor.
XV. 20-28, is as to its source to be taken in the same way as the evangelical
narrative he communicates in xi. 23-26 ; it had then a firm established
acceptance in the Church of long .standing, and everything elsewhere preserved
in the New Testament, inclusive of the Apocalypse, that bears upon these hopes,
agrees with it in reality upon all essential points.

422 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
had been profoundly disturbed, and the question of the
meaning and compass of all unrealized hopes forced itself
upon the attention with redoubled power ; then we see John
of the Apocalypse address himself to the task of giving a
synoptical survey of all the still significant and certain hopes
of Christianity, — a synoptical survey that proved as com
prehensive and immediately adapted to the needs of the time
as it is graphic, and that remaining for all succeeding ages
the best Christian unveiling of the whole future has rightly
been preserved in the canon of the Bible.
§ 359. I. Turning our attention now to what Christ did
by His appearing and work for the reanimation and advance
ment of these hopes, we find three things that are carefully
to be distinguished, each of which is fraught with the highest
significance. (a) In the first place, it is obvious that Christ enters at
large into the true meaning and proper end of these hopes,
that with the most perfect and ready assent of mind and the
purest aim He may promote their realization. He who thus
practically accepts them must desire to expedite the course
of the whole way of man to God; he must not only keep
that way so far as it is already known, but must also seek
the removal of all hindrances that obstruct it. The Baptist,
it is true, had just previously attempted this task in advance
of Him ; but it is for Him as Messiah, without mistaking or
destroying anything that already in this community tended
towards the purification and advancement of this way, to
initiate and establish firmly for all who would follow Him
that perfection of activity upon it which alone can lead to its
ultimate goal. Thus in reality did He proceed, as the first
pioneer of this consummation, keeping steadily in view in
all things the last aim of this way, calling all to Himself who
desired the same consummation of divinely-human things.
Since, however, his purpose was to become the leader for the
whole of humanity. He gave in detail instruction, illustration,
admonition of the most positive kind, as to the means by

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 423
which men might enter into the kingdom of God, and He
introduced the first realization of His teaching by founding
His own community. What is all this but a sure pointing
towards the whole issue of human ways to God, and an actual
"beginning for Himself and others of this consummation
demanded by the will and work of God ?
(b) Moreover, He promoted these hopes by the firm
confidence, always associated with His conduct and example,
that every one who walks upon this way towards the con
summation already while still in this mortal body lives and
abides in God ;' has to fear neither death nor all the sufferings
of the world ; * and whatever he may accomplish in harmony
with God's wUl and purpose enters with him into the
blessedness and the infinite work of God Himself ; * all his
temporal work therefore being comparable to a seed-corn
which must first spring up and bear fruit upon the field of
the divine activity in the world.* Nay more, notwith
standing the infinitude of God's work in the world, every
good deed even the smallest is not lost,* whilst wicked men
with all their grasping and toil have already received their
reward, that is, have no reward to expect in the future.*
What firm bulwarks of defence are here for such as take and
prosecute the way to the glorious consummation ! But
Christ raised them all as well by His instructive word as by
the example of His own life itself.
(c) Finally, although His work was absolutely unique and
in itself the most arduous that had been attempted in all
history. His course in it was not only stedfastly progressive,
but ever absolutely the right course. With ever-present
consciousness of the limits of all bodily Hfe and of the divine

' 1 John ii. 17.
" Matt. X. 28, 39, xvi. 25 ; Luke xvii. 33, xxiii. 43.
3 Rev. xiv. 13. * John xii. 24 ff.
5 Matt. x. 40, 42, xxv. 40, 45 ; Mark xii. 41-44.
s Matt. vi. 1, 3, 5, 16 ; Luke vi. 24. We cite here only a few chief passages
by way of example from what, more closely considered, is an inexhaustible
fulness.

424 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
law of the progress of the whole system of the world. He did
not attach His Messianic mission to Himself as mortal man
or to the duration of His earthly life, nor did He leave its
subsequent direction to His own nation or race, or even to
some distinguished friend or disciple. Surely, comprehensively,
distinctly He saw beforehand the never-ceasing progress of
the humanly-divine work in the world, and on the fitting
occasion before His departure from earth He definitely
foretold how from His advent and effective earthly term of
labour onwards this work would for ever advance, and what
would be the issue of the whole human way to God, Such
foreannouncements entered into and characterized all His
teaching and life ; but after His ascension they were
summarized with special care, and were accepted as one great
prophecy for the whole future of the kingdom of God.' It
cannot be questioned, indeed, that there were moments when
Christ discoursed thus at large concerning the future. Like
all genuine prophecy, the prophecy of Christ starts from the
immediate future, opens the right outlook into it, and offers
the right counsels as to avoiding impending dangers ; but it
also directs its glance onward with the same certainty to the
remotest future and to the end, inevitable in our thought, of
this whole existing era of the world. What now is this
definite and sure direction of the vision to the glorious future
of the whole development of the kingdom of God, and to the
end of all ways to God, but a further and powerful stimulus
to the real advancement of all men towards this end ? The
eternal hopes of all genuine reHgion were indeed actually
reinvigorated thereby as they had never been before, and the
whole group of them, formed as it was from the higher
struggles and conflicts of the divine spirit in humanity since
1 Matt. xxiv. f. This passage from the "Collected Sayings,'' essentially the
same in all the first three Gospels, embraces unquestionably the actual utterances
of Christ Himself before His earthly life closed. Nothing in His other sayings
contradicts it ; and the same expressions were employed in the earliest Epistles
of the New Testament and in the Apocalypse as a firm, well-known, underlying
basis of all Christian contemplation of the future, as long since I have shown.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY, 425
the beginning of all ancient time, was so winnowed and
purified as to become a great and imperishable boon for the
whole subsequent development of the kingdom of God.
All this worked together, therefore, by the mere advent of
Christ, in the establishment of a faith in immortality and the
judgment of the world more stedfast, more definite, more
comprehensive than had ever before been known. The Christ
who in His historical appearing traverses this earth is the
testimony and proof of the future of this world of men, and
the Judge of all its conduct and effort. How much more
would He necessarily be so contemplated by His disciples
after His ascension, and draw the faith of men to Himself, as
the whole New Testament declares !
§ 360. II. But only after this ascension to glory, in calm
retrospect upon the rare wealth of anticipations of the future
received from all the previous ages of the community, could
a complete survey be attempted of the whole existing treasure,
involving a blending of the most recent purely Christian
anticipations with such as were of earlier origin. How these
attempts multiplied, and what final results were obtained, has
already in general terms been shown. But this recasting and
new presentation of the future must now be more closely con
sidered in detail. At once, however, it is evident that the inner
drift and character of these hopes and their whole tendency
towards the great goal must remain as before ; so definite and
regular had been their rise and development in the pre-Chris
tian age. Now the essential thing to note is that in the
outlook into the whole future three great periods of time are
to be distinguished in which as in ever-advancing stages the
progress of humanity, i.e. of humanity taken in its narrowest
and widest range, towards eternal life and also towards eternal
death is accomplished in this term of the world's existence.
That it is the glorified Christ alone through whom everything
is so perfected from stage to stage that the power of His own
glorification more and more and in ever higher degree trans
figures all that is susceptible of it, and carries it forward in this

426 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
existing term of the world towards the consummation of the
work of God ;— this is the specially Christian element in the
outlook. 1. Of these three stages that embrace the whole conceivable
future, the first reaches to the "first resurrection."' Foremost,
at its head and front, stands He who in this very meaning of
the word resurrection is regarded as the already Eisen One,
or the first Eisen One in point of time and power ; He who,
just as He may be designated in time and power, " The First
born of all Creation," so in this place is to be considered,
" The First-born from the Dead ; " ^ the glorified Christ, the
Logos, who ever since He appeared wholly in fashion as a
man is seeking to bring all men to His own heavenly glory,
and to form " a church of the First-born," * which now already,
amid all the misdeeming of the world and the sufferings of
time, is being prepared to constitute that perfect community,
which will stand forth pre-eminent and victorious at the end of
this first period of the future. Three parts, of very different
extension, are distinguishable in this first period. Falling
back into the past, but truly beginning the new Christian
time, is the moment of the glorification of the earthly Christ ;
at the end lies the moment of the glorification of His com
munity, which is also the beginning of the second of the
three greater stages of the whole future ; in the midst, reach
ing to the second of the greater stages, falls the time of the
regeneration of humanity.* As in less notable instances
changes go on almost imperceptibly for a long period, till at
length in some mighty moment by the rebound or accelerated
impulse of the creative energy of the spirit the process is
suddenly completed, so in this case. The transformation of

' § 354, p. 411.
' According to Col. i. 18, cf. 15 ; and so Rev. i. 5 only a short time later.
^ Heb. xii. 23 in extremely artistic picturing.
* [That is to say, the first of the greater stages of the whole future reaches up
to the first resurrection, and includes as its starting-point (1) Christ's glorifi
cation ; as its intermediate incident (2) the regeneration of humanity ; as its
close (3) the glorification of the Church.]

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY, 427
the individual man, progressively advancing from the time of
the creation, culminates at the moment of Christ's ascension
to glory in the realized possibility of the exaltation of One ;
and in the new transformation of humanity initiated and
conditioned by that event this moment is repeated,' when the
Church attains as conspicuously its wondrous glorification.
Meanwhile, in the interval between these two mighty moments,
humanity is prepared for its final change by means of the
Church Christ founded. Thus, then, the conclusion of the
whole first period, the first of the greater stages of the
future, coincides with the coming of Christ in glory, or the
Parousia.^ How the long interval of trial and conflict for the faithful
is filled up, Christ Himself had already vividly foreshadowed; *
and how after a tedious struggle of two powers irreconcilably
opposed to each other, a last desperate and arrogant conflict
of the evil power hastens its own complete and violent destruc
tion, this also, by reference to the Book of Daniel, Christ had
hinted at, designating such an extremity of audacity on the
one side, and of distress on the other, as the approaching
beginning of the end.* Starting from such views, and seeking
to blend the whole fulness of Old Testament prophecy with
the Christian, the conception was very early formed of an
antichrist who in conflict with Christ must previously be over
thrown before at the moment of the Parousia the full victory
of Christ and His disciples should be -won.* If the character-
^ The i> xTo/iif, Iv pm ifixX/iiu, 1 Cor. xv. 52, is to be considered as here
applicable, as also Matt. xxiv. 27.
^ According to 1 Cor. xv. 23, and prior to this, and more copiously, 1 Thess.
iv. 4-17 ; in the Apocalypse this period extends to xx. 3. Whilst elsewhere
the expression •rxpovirix prevails in the New Testament everywhere, as in 1 John
ii. 28 and 2 Pet., the 1 Pet. i. 7, 13 explains it by i^xaXuv^u, a word which
Paul also uses instead of Txpavrix [2 Thess. i. 7 ; 1 Cor. i. 7].
3 Matt. xxiv. 4-28, and elsewhere as occasion offered.
* Matt. xxiv. 15.
= According to 2 Thess. ii. 6-12, where only the name antichrist is wanting,
as it is wanting accidentally everywhere in the New Testament excepting where
its import is at last in a freer sense doctrinally expanded by John, 1 John ii.
18, 22, iv. 3 ; 2 John 7. Much that belongs to these anticipations and
picturings, and is very briefly mentioned in the New Testament, was copiously

428 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY,
istics of this antichrist were derived from different older
prophecies, nevertheless the genuinely Christian colouring
was maintained, in that — following a fine image of Isaiah's,
and following also the actually known type and pattern of
the historical Christ — no other sword of His could be thought
of by which He would slay antichrist than that proceeding out
of His mouth, viz. the word, the Logos.^ And as this conflict
could be depicted at the same time with that of Satan against
Christ,* Christ Himself also having commanded watchfulness
against coming false prophets,* John of the Apocalypse
summed up most emphatically the whole true earnestness of
this conflict in the image of the anti-Christian Trinity.'
§ 361, 2. According to the simplest conception of Last
Things, the great judgment of the world would follow very
closely upon the Parousia. Christ appearing in His glory
awakens by His powerful summons His own disciples who
have fallen asleep in death (of which a foreanticipation is
given by John in the awakening of Lazarus), and also with
them uplifts to Himself in the " upper Jerusalem " and trans-
flgures such as are yet alive.* Along with them He subdues
afterwards from the heavenly Jerusalem all the powers of
evil, and begins the judgment of the world before the tribunal
of which all the sinners of the world must appear to receive
their eternal condemnation and be consigned to their second
and last death.' This is the simplest conception as it imme-
dealt with in writings outside our present Old Testament now lost to us. We
do not know, therefore, where the "trumpets" were placed. Matt. xxiv. 31,
1 Thess. iv. 16, 1 Cor. xv. 52, and in the Apocalypse of John, especially in
connection with the Parousia, although no doubt they were taken from Ex.
xix. 13, 16, 19, and Isa. xxvii. 13. Similarly fares the thought of Elijah's
appearing before antichrist, to which allusion is made in 2 Thess. ii. 6 ; Rev.
xi. 3-13.
¦¦ Isa. xi. 46.
^ Rev. xix. 15, 24, and already 2 Thess. ii. 8. But indeed Old Testament
images of battle are intermingled in Rev. xix. 17-20, according to the precedent
of Ezek. xxxviii.
3 § 351. 3, p. 401 f.
* Matt. xxiv. 11, 24, cf. vii. 15. " § 342, p. 358.
« According to 2 Thess. ii. 1 f . ; 1 Thess. iv. 14-18 ; 1 Cor. xv. 23, 52.
' 1 Cor. V. 24 f.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 429
diately took shape in the mind in the early apostolic time,
partly from the great reminiscences of the Old Testament and
writings allied with it, and partly from still simpler expressions
of Christ Himself.'
But it was perceived that in this general view the whole
compass of Old Testament prophecy was not sufficiently
exhausted ; and it appeared also that with it everything
touching the state of the great affairs of all nations of the
earth in their relation to Christianity was not said, which
indeed the prophetic glance of the Old Testament had
included or which otherwise was prominent in the earlier
prophecy. Christianity had arisen in the Eoman Empire ;
and how severely it had to struggle at once with this
Empire, nothing originating in that age shows more clearly
than the whole Apocalypse, It was known, however, well
enough how many nations of the earth that were very
unreceptive of the culture of that age, lived outside this orbis
terrarum ; and how little they loved the Eoman Empire was
at that time sufficiently notorious both in the North and the
East. So the Apocalypse repeated what Ezekiel had once pro
phesied concerning Gog and Magog, but added also the familiar
computation of the dominion of the Messiah as the Sabbatic
period,^ and formed in this way the prophecy that Christ
after the overthrow of Eome and the first resurrection of
His followers, would reign from Jerusalem, now converted to
the faith, a thousand years, and so establish in the world,
delivered from the power of the devil, the divine peace that
was desired; until, at the end of this miUennium, a pre
sumption like that which brought on the close of the first
period should threaten to terminate also this incomparably
happier condition. Gog and Magog led by the devil would
break forth yet once more, and seek to destroy the " camp of
the saints." But as the audacious attack upon the perfected
saints punishes itself in the destruction of all those from
whom it proceeds, so would not merely they themselves
1 As Matt. xxiv. 29-31 ; John xii. 32, xiv. 2. ^ So also Heb. iv. 9,

430 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
perish, as Sodom once perished,' but the devil also, i.e. the power
of temptation and evil, now fully known in his absolute and
utter perversity, will at last be destroyed (vernichtet).
It is not to be overlooked that in this way the gradual
progress to the ultimate transfiguration of all things is repre
sented in a very graphic form. As the great universal
powers of evil, — the human, the twin-monster of worldly
and spiritual misrule, as the immediate, the devil as the
remoter, power of temptation, and Death also as the yet
darker and more general power of corruption, — ^have become
great in humanity, and through humanity in the world
only historically ; so through Christ and His disciples they
vanish in succession upon each of the three greater stages
of the future. Upon the first, the two human powers of
evil vanish ; upon the second, Satan vanishes ; and thus
nothing remains but that in the transition which the world's
judgment forms to the third greater stage, the wicked dead
called forth to that judgment and Death itself should also
vanish, that the new world of eternal life and the trans
figuration of all things may arise. But it cannot be denied
that if this first resurrection be supposed to be essentially
the same as what, according to primitive Christian intuition,^
is regarded as at all events for the righteous the universal
resurrection prior to the judgment of the world, something
that strictly taken is contradictory is thereby introduced.
For over against the too grossly sensuous intuitions con
cerning the resurrection which readily slip in and which
were favoured by the Pharisees,* Christ had already very
emphatically, and in decided opposition to errors of all
kinds, showed that those risen again into the perfected world
were not to be thought of as similar to men now existing in
^ Nothing beyond this lies in the words concerning the fire from heaven.
Rev. XX. 9.
' The first resurrection as described in Rev. xx. 4 is in the preparation for it
and its accomplishment as in its consequences indeed, but not in its nature,
much more circumscribed and limited than the second, xx. 11-15.
' § 357, p. 419 f.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 431
the body, but as in harmony and correspondence with alto
gether different and purely spiritual conditions and circum
stances.' Paul also, when the question came suddenly into
prominence, and he felt himself compelled to enter into
this mystery of things which never yet mortal eye had
seen, definitely declared that the solution is found only
as the body rising up again from the present sensuous
world is thought of as a purely glorious body,^ similarly
indeed as Christ, the first of the risen ones, was thought
of. Such an entire transmutation and spiritualizing of
what is sensuous can, however, only be conceived as occur
ring at the end of this period of the world and upon its
transition to a wholly new period ; and it is not to be
overlooked how side by side with it Gog and Magog exist
for a thousand years, and then only the glorification of the
whole world is to come, and how only the general judgment
is to usher in an actual glorification of the whole world.
Since now also the number of a thousand years is in the
Christian sense of the prophecy not to be scrupulously
retained, there remains finally only the truth that the last
consummation will come by great stages of progress, and
not everywhere with precise uniformity. This is, however,
a truth which in general has only too much been confirmed
from the time of John of the Apocalypse until to-day.
Now it is certain indeed that the idea of a final redressing
of all great earthly wrong which man has occasioned, and
a sure and subsequently stedfast dominion of the righteous
over the foes of moral order, belongs to the oldest form of
faith in immortality and the judgment of the world, — a
form of faith that stands unshaken amid all the changes
of earthly destiny ; and this same idea derived from the
Old Testament was also firmly retained in Christianity.*
1 Matt. xxii. 30 f.
' 1 Cor. XV. 35-58, an example "of the way in ^vhich the apostle solves
independently the most difficult questions as they were quite freshly pressed
upon him, and in which moreover he handles a fiwnpm, ver. 51.
" As this was also the gospel view, according to Matt. xix. 27-30, brought

432 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Just as certain is it also that in the very circle in which
this whole conscious and powerful incitement of mind
towards the perfection of all humanly - divine things first
arose and found its home, there also the final crisis it
involves must occur. This lies in the congruity of all
development; and as in the Old Testament prophets such
anticipation is distinctly and constantly present, so it returns
in the Gospels,' and becomes invested with special glory
in the Apocalypse. But nevertheless how little aU this
is to be apprehended in a gross material sense, or even
rigidly and arbitrarily, Christ's own words and deeds in
particular, the Apocalypse also,^ and in fact the whole of
the New Testament, sufficiently show. Moreover, much that
the earlier Old Testament prophets had foreannounced as
the divinely necessary issue of the time in which they lived,
was in its main scope subsequently so fulfilled that the
Apocalypse, in the wide circle in which it embraces the
Christian element of ancient and new prophecies relating
to this subject, does not even once revert to it.*
§ 362. 3. The more sharply, however, Christianity dis
tinguishes everything spiritual and sensuous in connection
with this last and for all further development of the work of
God in creation most important aspect of things, the more
back, to be sure, at once by the last expression, ver. 30, most certainly into its
proper limits. The words iv tS vxKiyyivioix are, however, an addition of the
last editor. In other respects cf. Luke xiv. 14 with the subsequent limitation,
15-24. ' As in the intimations of Matt. xxiv. 31 ; 2 Thess. ii. 1 ; Rev. xiv. 1-5,
xix. 19 ; for the "army " of the Messiah is not to be understood of mere angels,
since everywhere these surround Him as servants, heralds, and attendants, but
do not form His "army.'! But very characteristic is the image in Matt. xxiv.
28 of the place where the carcase lies ; it is ancient Israel in Jerusalem irrevoc
ably lost.
2 By the reference to all nations without exception. Rev. v. 9, vii. 9,
xiv. 6 f.
' Especially the Old Testament prophecies of the return to the Holy Land of
the sons of Israel scattered among the heathen (cf. History, v. 90 ff.). With
the return from the exile and the rebuilding of the temple, these prophecies
were as good as fulfilled, and they recur no doubt in the ascension of Moses,
iii. f. and 4 Ezra xiii., but not in the Apocalypse or elsewhere in the New
Testament. What foolish speculations on this subject are met with to-day I

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 433
purely and perfectly could it conceive and hold fast the
promise of the third and last stage of the whole future,
viz, the stage of the consummation and transfiguring of
the entire existing creation. It is impossible to imagine
and to tell in detail what wholly new and higher work
of creation God will undertake with glorified humanity
in the new world ; but a twofold issue may here be fore
shadowed. On the one hand, everything imperfect, disturb
ing, and corrupt arising out of the Hmits of the present
world and inherent in it, will so be overcome in the new
beginning then secured for a world appointed to much higher
things, that it will not return. If particular passages of
the Old Testament in the picturing of the perfected world
always suppose its perfection limited locally to the circle
of the old community, and therefore still intermingle images
from the existing world of wars of nations,' yet the
Apocalypse avoids repeating them.^ On the other hand,
in this consummation nothing is lost of all those divine
possessions which humanity has historically won, but every
thing remains rather as an irrefragable basis of operation
in that world ; just as the present human world rests upon
the basis of earlier worlds. Consequently the Apocalypse,
in the vivid longing to behold that world in all its details,
yet specifies * only such detads as contribute to the new
Whole, the like of which was never seen before. This
whole is formed of what in the great world without, and
especiaUy in the human world, were already held to be
imperishable possessions, such as the heavenly Jerusalem
coming down now to the earth, the transfigured Temple,
and everything else of this kind which the longing desire
found here and there in the Old Testament. The principal
representation, the descending of the heavenly Jerusalem
to the glorified earth, certainly shows that from henceforth
1 As in B. Isa. Ix. 11-14, Ixi. 5 f.
2 At the most, the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of the nations
recall something of the kind (Rev. xxii. 2), but how delicately and tenderiy !
* Rev. XX. 1-xxii. 5.
2 E

434 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
all the discord that divided the world of mankind shall cease,
and all the ardent aspirations of the faithful shall be satisfied.
Corresponding to this conception of the " new heaven and
the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,"' — righteousness
that has as yet nowhere on earth a home and a sphere un
disturbed by man, — is that of the transition from the present
to the transfigured world. In this transition the judgment
of the world first divides in due form and for ever good and
bad men and their works, incompatible with each other, so
that of the higher world with its new creations now com
mencing its course only the good invested with glory serve as
the groundwork, while the bad for ever perish without being
able any longer to disturb the divine order. That this separa
tion is so sharp that it admits of no intermediate condition,
and cuts off all hope of recovery in that world of what has
been lost by man's own guilt in this, — this ^ is nothing but
a constituent part of that faith without which no true religion
is possible. That Christ also has the ultimate and supreme
authority to pass definitive judgment upon all human affairs,*
is likewise but a just consequence and issue of His bringing
to all men the only perfect example of the life they were
all under obligation to follow ; and as He will judge more
leniently those who lived before His coming * than those who
lived subsequently to that coming, so He will visit with
severest condemnation such as have abused His name and
perverted His authority.^ That those who stand nearest to
Him as Christians shall participate with Him in this office of
Judge,* and that all genuine Christians shall judge the world,
and therefore even fallen angels ' also, is but a further conse
quence of their association with Him. But the immediate
1 As succinctly given in 2 Pet. iii. 13. ' According to § 343, p. 359 ff.
' A precedent for the last judicial words. Matt. xxiv. 31-46, is found in the
Book of Isa. Ixv. f., and especially in Ixv. 13-17.
* According to § 332, p. 315 f.
' According to Matt. vii. 21-23, and analogous expressions of ChrLst.
8 According to Matt. xix. 28, where the "Twelve Tribes" express only as
elsewhere in the New Testament the old designation of the whole community.
' 1 Cor. vi. 2 f.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 435
precondition of all this is that the gospel by which all shall
be judged shall beforehand be preached to all, so that no one
can finally excuse himself.' Such intuitions have only to be
rightly understood to be at once accepted as alone correct.
But what most of all attests the soundness of the chief ideas of
primitive Christianity on this whole subject is that with the
final destruction of all the wicked in the world as it was, and
therefore with its readiness to form a new higher creation,
Christ, the Judge of the world, is conceived as subjecting
Himself to the Father as Son, and to God as authoritatively
appointed Messiah after the fullest execution of His copi mis
sion, and as again becoming simply what from eternity He is
and remains, viz. the Logos. This is the view of the great
apostle,^ just as it is that of John of the Apocalypse,* and, as
^ According to Rev. xiv. 6 f. And what else does Paul suggest !
^ In the words 1 Cor. xv. 24-28. After Paul has said in ver. 24 that "the
end" is when Christ delivers up His dominion "to God and the Father' (to
God as man, to the Father as Son of God), he establishes it in ver. 25 by a free
reference to Ps. ex. 1 ; then recalling that Death himself as the last enemy is
not excepted, he establishes this al^o in ver. 25 by means of the vxvtx of the
kindred passage of Ps. viii. 6. Returning, however, to what he had said before
at the beginning of ver. 24 as the great chief subject, he continues on the basis
of this last Old Testament passage : " When He (Christ) shall say, Everything
is subjected " (the last possible victory is won by Me), it is clearly manifest that
by this is to be understood everything excepting Him, i. e. excepting God who
subjected all things to Him, according to Ps. viii. 6 ; that therefore Christ
cannot mean Himself as Him to whom all is subjected excepting God, but that
then Christ Himself and God will remain as not subjected. Since, however, at
last it must come to this that God is again all in all, the whole proof is com-
jileted with the words, ver. 28, "when everything, however, shall be subjected
to Him (God), then will also the Son Himself be subject to Him who subjected
the All to Him," according to the eternal predetermination, Ps. viii. 6, ex. 1.
The sense of the whole and of every separate (dause is thus clear. If Christ's
word with which He solemnizes the last possible victory ran somewhat thus :
"All is subjected by Me," the sense would be somewhat clearer still; anil
perhaps this is an abbreviation of an earlier familiar phrase (cf. Matt. xi. 27),
but as it is the sense is not obscure, because 'i^xv-iisti according to the con
nection can only refer to Christ. Thus I return to that exposition of the words
in ver. 27 which alone appeared to me from the beginning the correct exposi
tion although it is very bold. For Paul expresses himself as opportunity serves
against such as confused or identified Christ with God Himself, and were not
w'illin'' to distinguish both as in Paul's conception they are to be distinguished.
That tiiere might be such people in Paul's time, cannot be denied ; but Paul is
not fond of confusing ideas and dissipating genuine history.
3 As certainly follows from Rev. xxi. 22 f., xxii. 1, 3, cf. v. 6. God and

436 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
is self-evident, of the whole New Testament. Into the glory
of the new world the general judgment transfers all that it
does not destroy. To that new and glorious world points
directly the consciousness of the eternal worth of the good
that is won, and the eternal rejection of the evil that is com
mitted here; for this world of mankind is the first in the
series endowed with free will. The eternal punishment of
those whom the last judgment casts into the lake of fire and
brimstone,' has thus its proper meaning, as the New Testa
ment speaks of it even from Christ's lips ^ in accordance with
Old Testament precedents,* If a new higher world is to
arise upon the basis of this present world, evil that is known
and condemned before the face of the Eternal Judge must for
all eternity be cast out and punished. But evil is never to
be conceived apart from those in whom it is embodied and
works ; although we cannot figure to ourselves in sensuous
forms, even if it is expressed in sensuous imagery, all that is
transferred to the glory of that new world. More particularly,
however, this eternal punishment signifies what has been
indicated above, that the boundary between these two worlds
continuing insurmountable until the general judgment, what
is wrong in the individual man here can just as little be
amended there, yet Christ Himself as the Eisen One may
perceptibly come hither beforehand to amend it.*
the Lamb are well-nigh inseparably united, both seated on one Throne, in the
former passage ; in the last the Lamb stands between the Throne and the
four living creatures and the four and twenty elders that surrounded it, and
is therefore distinguished from God, and has a free and separate activity in the
existing world.
1 This image for the lowest hell is found only in the Apocalypse, xix. 20,
xx. 10, 14, xxi. 8. Similarly, however, Enoch liv, 1-6 ; and certainly taken
from Sodom, Gen. xix. 24.
8 Matt. xxv. 41, 46, cf. xiii. 41-43, xviii. 8. ' Cf. § 351, p. 398 ff.
* As Christ Himself once declared in the most definite and emphatic way,
Luke xvi. 26-31. It would be well, therefore, that at last controversies con
cerning the eternal or temporal punishment of the wicked should cease, unwise
as they have hitherto been. To continue them is to fall back more and more
into the circle of thought on this subject of the Second Book of Maccabees with
its Pharisaic tinge, § 357, p. 419. E.specially significant for this question is,
however, the sharp and extremely appropriate term of the second that is eternal
death. Rev. ii. 11, xx. 5 f., 14, xxi. 8 ; cf. § 361, p. 428 ff.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 437
§ 363. But without doubt the question of the transforma
tion and renewal of the present world is not simply a question
of the conduct and bearing of men in it, however much men
immediately participate and are concerned therein. As
certainly as the human world unfolds its history upon the
basis of wholly different forms of the world existing before,
so certainly this question rests upon powers, events, and
transformations that lie far beyond the sphere of the human
will. It is here the Apostle Paul in his far-reaching glance,
anticipating the course of the whole existing creation that has
suffered so long through the perversity of man, yearns after
a more glorious system of things, which however is not
possible without the ennobling and transfiguration of man."-
And indeed what he felt in the depths of his spirit we our
selves may be still more sensible of to-day. For he starts
from the word of the divine curse in Paradise itself, the
reality of which we may mark in subsequent developments
of human history. The onward course of evil, when once it
has gathered up its strength in the world of mankind, is, in
some portions of the earth and in certain directions, restrained
by Christianity as a higher power, but the finest and most
spacious lands are more and more devastated. Even where
this higher power is at length held to be the supreme and
sovereign power of all human life, the arts of war and cor
ruptions of all kinds acquire an importance and a destructive-
ness never anticipated in earlier times. It may therefore
truly be said, that along with oppressed Christians the whole
earthly world subjected to the bondage of corruption sighs
more and more deeply for the better transformation which
can faU to its lot only by the gradual and higher perfection
of mankind in the glory of the future. And that such trans-
• Rom. viii. 19-24 (cf. 2 Cor. v. 1-10), where, moreover, it is strongly
enough indicated that even in this intuition Christian "hope" is the chief
source of power ; but to give such hope a place (ver. 20) in Paradise close
by the curse, agrees perfectly with what has been already said. How
diff'erently does Philo discourse on the same theme (de prov. i. 90 in the
Aucher, i. p. 42) !

438 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
figuration of humanity has its stages of progress has already
been elucidated from Biblical teaching.'
By what special power of renewal the last of these stages
is conditioned, the picturings of the Bible, representing the
transition of this system of things into that which is to come,
do not more particularly indicate. The profound convulsion
of the world is represented somewhat as some lesser convul
sion which has already been experienced, and the image of
this is found in the violent birth-pangs of the mother when
her hour is come and a new life is ushered into being.^ Nor
does the Apocalypse go essentially beyond this.* The First
Epistle of Peter first mentions fire as the means of the dissolu^
tion of this world;* yet this is rather suggested by an
adaptation of passages of the Old Testament and the con
clusions drawn from them,^ — an early example of such learned
inference and argument.
§ 364. Now with respect to all these prophecies, and still
more also with respect to the Old Testament prophecies
belonging to this province, the question as to fulfilment has

1 § 354, p. 409 ff'.
^ In the oldest picturings, Joel iii. 3 f., iv. 15 f. (ii. 30 f., iii. 15 f.), Zeph. i.
13-18, and the later developments of them, B. Isa. xiii., the great convulsions
of creation are spoken of ; the image of the birth-pangs appears with creative
force in Hos. xiii. 12, Micah iv. 9, and is repeated B. Isa. Ixvi. 7, xxvi. 17 f.,
and leads at length to the image of " the birth-pangs of the Messiah and the
New World," Matt. xxiv. 8, Rev. xii. 1-5, which had become a standing image
before Christ. The earliest simplicity returns in Matt. xxiv. 29 f.
' For that the sea vanishes. Rev. xxi. 1, is but a particular characteristic of the
transformation which is explained by xiii. 1.
^ 2 Pet. iii. 7, and still more plainly ver. 11.
* Viz. as if the promise of the non-return of the deluge. Gen. viii. 21-ix. 17,
must be thus fulfilled (and indeed such a progress lies in the fundamental law
that a new divine world can be no mere repetition of an earlier one), and as if the
punitive fire of the heavenly altar finds only then its fullest use. Rev. viii. 5,
XV. 8, XX. 9, accordiiig to the Old Testament intimations of the cleansing and
punitive divine power of fire for the whole world, Deut. xxxii. 22, and the
ancient sacred traditions of the punitive power of the altar-fire in the sacred
Tabernacle {History, ii. 179-180). There is no need, therefore, to suppose that
the author has taken from Greek philosophers the representation of a last
conflagration of the world and made that his pattern and model. For even if
this were familiar to his mind, as it may well have been, it belongs to quite a
different system of ideas and is of another spirit.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 439
to be met. It is self-evident that the right answer to such
question is more important here than there, and also that after
well-nigh two thousand years it can be given to-day with far
greater certainty than it could be given in the birth-time of
Christianity. But in point of fact the answer here is essen
tially the same as there. Christ's express intimation ever
forestalls us ; God alone knows the day and the hour when
all these things shaU be fulfiUed. But how far up to the
present the immeasurable range and scope of these prophecies
has found its realization, we may know. Nor will recent
German obscurations of- all past history offer more than a
transient disturbance of our retrospect, and cannot in the least
impair our outlook into the future. The growing and advanc
ing confirmation of its whole body of truth, as well as of its
original prophetic utterances, Christianity wiU yet behold,
.notwithstanding the later and the thousandfold earlier inter
ruptions it has e.xperienced, and in great part overcome. But
our faith will gain new enlightenment and confidence in
proportion as we patiently and clearly survey such fulfilment
as has hitherto occurred in this immeasurable realm, and as
we also distinguish what is essential from what is less essential.
For just as by Christ's advent and the founding of Christianity
Old Testament prophecy advanced to fulfilment in every vital
point that could so far be realized, and as that fulfilment
happened contrary to the general expectation of contemporaries,
and was in fact even more glorious than the clearest anticipa
tion could hope, so New Testament prophecies have hitherto
been fulfilled far more gloriously than many suppose, and will
obtain a realization at length that shall exceed in fulness and
magnificence all that our visions of the distant future can
sketch. It is the prerogative of the divine truth that lies in
prophecy that by means of it fulfilment is promoted, if men
are found who suffer the truth to work with its full energy ¦
and still further, that as the truth develops in all fruitfulness
with the infinitude of God and the measurelessness of creation,
it leads to issues and results surpassing all that previous

440 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
knowledge could forecast. And if it is the mark of every
healthy hope in this realm, immeasurable within the life of
the individual man and of the whole of humanity, that it fills
the mind with the highest confidence and the firmest faith as
it glances upon the subjects of its expectation, and also that it
powerfully restrains the glowing spirit where it might be too
rigid and partial by the vision not wanting to it of the whole
body of divine truths ; so does it happen with the New
Testament hope even in that most comprehensive presentment
which it has found in the Apocalypse.
For this hope, after it had appropriated the wide contents
of Old Testament prophecies as well as the loftiest and most
expansive elements of the Christian prophecies in their abso
lute freshness, is pre-eminently the most powerful and eager,
the warmest and most exuberant hope that any generation of
men could ever realize. Anticipating in all certainty what
was yet wanting in the consummation Christ brought, it
beheld it in all nearness before the mind. After all conceiv
able perversity and sin in the ancient world has at this epoch
culminated in the murder of the Son of God, the crisis has
eome that revolutionizes the history of the world. Pursuant
to the eternal righteousness of God, divine salvation falls the
more certainly to all who now at least believe in the Eisen
One whom Death has not conquered ; divine anger and just
retribution threaten the rest. This is now the faith, this is
now the glance of hope into the whole future.' And when
this hope, after the changes of fortune during thirty years, first
threatened to languish somewhat under heavy and universal
trials, the word of the Spirit, "in haste shall it happen!"
came as a higher call to kindle it again to its first glow.^
But as Christ's word had itself indicated everywhere its
' As all this is set forth in Rom. i. 17 ff., almost with the same warmth as
according to Acts ii. 22 from the beginning.
^ The iv rxxu is prominent first and last in the Apocalypse i. 1, ii. 5, xxii. 6,
encompasses therefore the whole prophecy, and sometimes in the course of it is
repeated in the shorter form, rxxu, ii. 16, iii. 11, xi. 14 ; but at the end with
more emphasis, xxii. 6, 12, 20,

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 441
proper limits, these limits were never forgotten afterwards.
Paul restrains such as were becoming too eager and im
patient.' The Apocalyptist, notwithstanding his making
conspicuous the nearness of its realization, lays out the plan
of his book in such a way as to represent in what less and
greater stages it could only by and by be realized.^ He seeks
also for periods of time to illustrate this gradual fulfilment ;
and has recourse to round numbers which the Book of Daniel
and similar works offered, and which were at that time readily
apprehended in a higher sense. He determines more particu
larly on the one hand, as the age demanded, much that was
important in relation to events and their order in time, which
at first had been left somewhat indeterminate ; * and on the
other hand, he extends the range of the remoter future still
further.* But just in this way the New Testament prophecy
receives early that enlargement and wide referability which
should guard it against all serious misunderstanding and mis
chievous application. If Christ prophesied, as the " Collection
of Discourses " emphatically informs us, that that generation
should not pass away before the fulfilment should come, it
may be said, no doubt with justice, that the destruction of
Jerusalem as the primary fulfilment occurred before that
generation had fully ceased to exist. If, moreover, Eome
was conquered amid great devastations by friends of Ves
pasian, a beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy of the
Apocalypse may be found in that event. Truth lies thus in
the one as in the other; although its fulfilment may have
stages and limits. This is shown more clearly in the New
Testament itself, for if some would take too Hterally the
1 In his oldest Epistles, 2 Thess. ii. 1-16 ; 1 Thess. iv. 13-18.
2 Cf. die Johan. Schr. ii. p. 38 ff.
' Especially in this, that he refers to Nero that Antichrist Paul had left quite
indeterminate as to nation and country.
4 If one would appreciate the Apocalypse to-day, it may be said that heathen
Rome intended in xvi. -xviii. has long since fallen, but from xix. everything is
still future. Nevertheless, since Rome in the sense of the Apocalypse is but the
primary image of all heathen power, it is evident how little the fulfilment is
complete, and still less is there even until to-day the fulfilment of xiv. 6 f.

442 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
prophecy concerning Antichrist, the Apostle John himself'
conclusively teaches that there may be many Antichrists,
and diverse in character. When, however, about thirty years
after the destruction of Jerusalem, the foolish doubts of
immortality already condemned returned again very per
niciously, in the case of many even in Christianity, because
its prophecies in their whole scope and range seemed never
to he fulfilled, the Second Epistle of Peter closed very
appropriately the circle of Christian doctrine. From the
elder Scriptures themselves it is shown ^ how little the
ultimate fulfilment of all prophecy depends upon any deter
mination of it according to famiHar calculations of time.
No doubt this late Epistle obtained its place in the canon on
account of its teaching on this subject, and manifestly owed
its composition, as well as its circulation, chiefly to the same
cause. — And as the inquiry how, and how far. Old Testament
prophecy was fulfilled in Christ and the New Covenant He
established irrepressibly obtruded itself in the early days of
Christianity, and the subject was sometimes prosecuted with
great ardour; there occurred for the first time a close and
careful investigation of the question which, as it continued,
necessarily led to the formation of theories and schools of
interpretation such as have in our day been still further
developed.* § 365. The great apostle closes his short survey of the
general judgment,* and of the transformation of the present
world into the future, with the words, as weighty as they
are brief, this will come to pass that " God may be All in
All," as He was in the beginning of the whole creation ; and
He will be so since nothing now in the world hinders Him
from forming wholly anew the fashion of the world in har
mony with His own eternal will and work. The last infer-
1 § 360, p. 428. 2 2 Pet. iii. 1-13.
' It is not accidental that in 2 Pet. i. 19-21 what is first touched upon in
1 Pet. i. 10-12 is again taken up only in another connection ; this shows, more
over, that the writer of the Second Epistle had the First before him.
* § 362, p. 435.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 443
ence may be drawn from the wording of this brief expression,
always supposing God and the universe stand in that relation
to each other which has already been indicated.' For that
the brief phrase means, "God wiH then remain for ever
alone," i.e. without any universe, contradicts the import of
the words, " AU in All," presupposing existence besides God,
and indeed a manifoldness of it; and contradicts also true
reHgion, since He would then be without the Spirit and
without the Logos, i.e. would be the Creator no longer. Nor
can it be meant that God will be " All in All " because He is
dissatisfied with the all beside Him, i.e. with the universe as
it was formeriy ; for then He would be an ill and defeated
Creator, and we know what fruit for eternity and for a new
transfigured creation this world may bear, and at the end
shall indeed bear conformably to that judgment spoken of it
by the Judge. The ultimate meaning of the phrase in its
proper connection can only be, since the present world has
fulfilled its purpose, the purpose foreappointed by the Creator,
God will again be All in All in order freely to form the new
world. The purpose of the existing world is, however, the
perfect recognition and knowledge, of the glory of God on the
part of mankind, in order to their participation with more
and more completeness and self-activity in His work ; that
thus glorifying Him as Creator, humanity may be uplifted
into closer fellowship with Himself, and be in that fellowship
ennobled and transfigured for ever.^ If this aim is fulfilled,
then by means of it the new world can and will be created
according to the eternal nature and will of God as Creator, —
the new world which has been previously prepared in the
existing world, as that and all earlier forms of it were made
' § 231 ff. ['Viz. that the universe is dependent upon God, and as His
ultimate aim is fulfilling His purposes.]
2 No Biblical writer expresses this, especially in accordance with the meaning
of Christ Himself, so perfectly, so free from all obscurity, and indeed with such
transfigured words, as the beloved apostle, and pre-eminently in the sayings of
the glorified Christ, John xvii., cf. viii. 54, xii. 23-28, xiii. 31 f., xiv. 13,
XV. 8, xvi. 14. But Paul's innermost thoughts are the same. Gal. i. 24 ; Rom.
viii. 30. ,

444 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
ready by that which in each case went before. Yet, as every
creature exists only through the Creator, and all temporal and
eternal happiness of man is only the issue and outcome of
His happiness, so everything comes back in the end to the
glory of God as everything proceeded from it. Such, accord
ing to the whole Bible, is the truth and faith without which
all human existence and endeavour would be altogether
empty and vain, and must remain so for ever.

¦'a^

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Aaron, his imperfect faith, 226.
Abraham, his life a doctrine of the
true religion, 29 ; an example of
temptation, 265 n.
Accident, its meaning, 197 n. ; not
conceivable in the divine order,
198.
Allegory, inadmissible in interpreta
tion of Scripture to-day, 16.
Angels, not to be included in creation,
67 n. ; not at first represented as
winged, 77 ; narratives of, why
favoured, 77 ; nature of, 79 f. ; idea
of, and divine sovereignty, 208 f.
Apocalypses, in ancient Israel, 388,
398 f.
Apocrypha, its proof of God's exist
ence, 50 ; its style and character,
219.
Aratus, reference to, 169.
Aristophanes, his frivolous reference to
Chaos, 102.
Aryan race, its idea of man, 177.
Assyrian influence, 70.
Atonement of Christ, exposition of,
290 ; divides Old World from New,
291.
Azazel, description of, 70.
Bakuch, Book of, referred to, 9, 73,
97, 100 n., 133 n., 140, 142 n., 144,
183, 185, 401.
Buddha, 233, 322.
Buddhist traditions, how shaped, 219.
Butler, reference to "Analogy," 204 n.
Canon, breadth and wisdom of, 218 n.
Chaos, Greek idea of, 102 ; no proper
place for, in true religion, 104 f.,
123 ; gradual withdrawal of reference
to, from Scripture, 107 f. ; its ter
mination in Creation, 128 ; unrecog
nised in Job, 110 ; and in New
Testament, 111 f. ; returns in Hel
lenistic iDOoks, 111.

Cherubs, 70, 127 n., 280 n.
Christ, His teaching unique, 24 ; His
historical signiflcance, 270 f., 273,
352 ; His temptation, 264 f. ; His
example, 272, 274, 276, 278; His
transfiguration, 287 n., 314 ; His
death on the Cross, 276, 289 ; im
port of His death as sacrifice, 290 ff. ;
High Priest and Mediator, 299-305 ;
His descent into Hades, 316 f. ;
His resurrection, 277 ; His exalta
tion, 279, 293, 425 ; His fulfilment
of Old Testament, 319 f., 421 f.;
as the Logos, 278 f., 281 ff., 295 ff.,'
307 ft'., 313; James' conception of,
280 f. ; Paul's, 282 f. ; John the
Apocalyptist's, 284; John the
Apostle's, 306-313.
Christianity, its relation to Angelology
78-80; its idea of Nature, 218;
without the visible Christ, 277.
Christophanies, of New Testament,
53.
Confucius, 322.
Creation, naiTatives of, compared with
prophetic visions, 115; divine act
of, unlike human, 116; "powers"
of God manifest in, 118 ; of man,
125 f.
Darwin, misapprehensions of, and his
followers, 181 n.
Dead, oracle of, 365 ff. ; Egyptian
religion a religion of the, 371.
Doctrine, how found in Scripture,
16 f. ; does not embrace what is
self- contradictory or incapable of
expression in distinct propositions,
20 f., 24 ; relation of doctrinal
material to, 22 f. ; in Epistles, 25 ;
relation of narrative to, 28 tf. ; may
be satisfactorily derived from Scrip
ture, 35; system of, indispensable,
35 f. ; comprehends general truths,
36.

445

446

INDEX OF SUBJECTS,

Ecclesiastes, meaning and lesson of,
416.
Ecclesiasticus, references to, 109, 133,
141 f., 185, 266 f., 417.
Egyptian religion characterized, 371 f.
Election of grace, 250, 255.
Elijah, traditions concerning, when
arose, 219.
Elisha, traditions, rise of, 219.
Enoch, Books of, referred to, 77, 80,
100, 155, 398 f., 401, 410.
Efiic, irreconcilable with Jahveism, 71,
77.
Essenes, reference to, 78.
Esther, Book of, refen-ed to, 9.
Euripides, his reference to Chaos, 102 n.
Evil, its purpose, 196, 198; unable to
hold its gains, 204.
Ezra, Apocryphal Books of, 107, 109,
401.
Faith, its rise and function, 224 ;
compared with conscience, 225 ; its
relation to truth, 225 f., 229 ; its
spontaneity exemplified, 227 ; Old
Testament examples of, 226 f. ;
power of, in New Testament, 228 ;
in relation to power of sin, 235,
239 ; inseparable from joy, 237 f. ;
in conflict with law, 257 ; its vic
torious energy, 241, 256 ; Paul's
conception of, 259 f. ; Paul, the
apostle of, 264 ; James corrects mis
conception of, 268 f. ; little, rebuked
and approved, 263 ; in Christ, 275 ). ;
in Christ's sacrifice, 292 f.
Freedom, human, 41, 44 f., 178, 180,
189 ; its limitations, 191 f., 243 ;
its end and purpose, l94; dominated
by eternal laws, 206 ; spiritual,
241 ; full realization of, in gospel,
238 f.
God, knowledge of, its value, 38 ; its
sources, 61-53, 54 ; man's greatest
privilege, 45 ; its limitation, 41, 44,
46 ; denial of, referred to in Scrip
ture, 40, 49 ; no history of, possible,
42 ; conceived by sensuous images,
43, 55 ; existence of, established by
true idea of spirit, 48 f. ; formal
proofs of existence of, not given in
Scripture, 49 f. ; His personality,
58 f. ; caprice impossible with, 60,
194 ; His spirituality, 61 ; His love
and anger, 63 f. ; His unity, 64 f. ;
Semitic idea of, 81 ; familiar names
of, 85 ; His joy in creation, 152 f. ;
man participating in blessedness of,
153; His work, 170; His "ways,"
183 ; the law of the universe, 205 ;
man not to tempt, 266.

Gog and Magog, reference to, 401, 429,
431.
Grace, the ultimate source of moral
excellence, 195 ; falling from, 242 f. ;
election of, 250-252, 255.
Hades, Christ's descent into, 316 f. ;
primitive conception of, 368-370 ;
later view of, 375.
Hazlitt, his definition of poetry,
26 n.
Hellenhstic age, its conception of
nature, 217 f.
Hellenistic Bible, as designation of the
Septuagint, 98 n.
Hesiod, his reference to Chaos, 103 ;
and creation, 165.
Historical periods in Scripture, with
reference to (1) doctrine of spirits,
the patriarchal, 67 ; the Mosaic, 68 ;
the regal, 69-71 ; the post-exilian,
72-77 ; the Christian,. 78-80 ; (2)
the name and names of God, the
patriarchal, 86-88 ; the Mosaic, 88-
91 ; the regal, 92-94 ; the post-
exilian, 94-100 ; the Christian, 100-
101 ; (3) the doctrine of immortality,
the patriarchal, 364 ; the Mosaic,
365-371 ; the regal and post-exilian,
372-420 ; the Christian, 420-444.
Historical sense, never to leave us in
Biblical theology, 33.
History, anticipates doctrine, 29 ;
rising up to supersensuous, 30 f. ;
doctrinal material in, 32 ; human,
its characteristic, 41 ; what it essen
tially comprises, 150. •
Homer, reference to, 165.
Immoetality, as the end of this era of
the world, 359-361 ; in the Psalter,
381 f. ; idea of, quickened by Mes
sianic hopes, 284 f. ; view of, in
Book of Job, 379-382 ; in seventy-
third Psalm, 382 f. ; doubt of, in
Ecclesiastes, 415-417. See Table of
Contents.
Interpretation, effects of diverse, 34.
Israel, return of, to Holy Land, 432.
Jahvfh, the one Lord of Israel, 65 ;
angel of, 68 f. ; meaning of name,
88 f., 91 f. ; of Hosts, 92 f. ; sub
stitutes for name, 96 f. ; effect of
suppression of name, 99 f.
James, the aim of his Epistle, 269 ;
date of Epistle, 270.
Jehoshaphat, valley of, 399 f.
Jehovah, name, a misunderstanding,
101 n.
Job, Book of, its view of Hades, 376 f. ;
its solution of the problem of suffer-

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

447

ing, 379 f. ; its reference to Leviathan
and Behemoth, 401 n.
Joy, inseparable from faith, 237 f. ;
allied with freedom, 238 f.
Jubilees, Book of, referred to, 77, 80.
Knowledge, all human, limited, 46 f. ;
limitation of, its value, 47 f. ; man's
capabilities of, 51.
Law, in relation to God, 205 ; in rela
tion to human world, 206 ; to
nature, 218.
Life, its fulness of meaning, 183-185,
372 n. ; Jahveism the religion of,
371.
Logos, the, as Creator, 139-145 ; as
Messiah of prophecy, 146 ; in Christ,
294-324.
Maccabees, 'Books of, referred to, 78,
97, 111, 112, 207, 217, 236 ; Second
Book characterized, 419 ; Fourth
Book characterized, 420.
Man, his creation, 125 f. ; his weak
ness and glory, 158-160, 165-167 ;
as image of God, 162-164 ; his true
vocation and destiny, 168 f. ; parti
cipates in divine work, 169, 171 f.,
175-177; the "thinker," 177 n. ;
his desire of improvement, 181 ; his
dependence forbids boasting, 1^5 f.
Manasseh, 400.
Manu, Institutes of, reference to, 102,
115.
Messiah, rise of thought of, 134 ;
obtains higher significance, 135 f. ;
is blended with idea of Logos, 144.
Milton, reference to Chaos, 104 n.
Miracles, as purely divine wonders, do
not cease, 210 ; "diff'erent names for,
211 f. ; purpose of, 212, 222 ; differ
ent kinds of— (1) wonders of nature,
214 ; (2) of history, 215 ; (3) of the
spirit, 216 ; not violations of natural
law, 218, 220 f. ; their reality, 220 ;
refused, as proofs of truth, 262.
Mohammed, 233, 322.
Mosaism, its conception of spirits,
68 f.
Moses, his imperfect faith, 226.
Name, significance of, in baptismal
formula, 349 f.
Nature, Hellenistic conception of,
217 f. ; in New Testament, 217 n.
Newman, quotation from, 186 n.
Numbers, charm of sacred,' 404.
Origins, Books of, referred to, 86, 87,
90, 117, 119, 127, 167, 169, 172, 174,
226, 249, 367.

Ovid, his reference to Chaos, 102 n. ;
and to creation, 165 n., 167 n.
Paradise, tradition of, 127 n. ; divine
garden of, 129.
Parousia, the, 286, 427 f.
Person, its meaning as applied to God,
59.
Philo, mischievous effects of his treat
ment of Scripture, 36 f. ; not source
of idea of Logos, 146 n. ; " wonders '
pictured in, 217 ; concerning Jonah,
401 n.
Plato, reference to Phsedo, 309.
Poetry, its definition, 26 ; its relation
to doctrine, 27.
Polytheism, not original form of faith,
67.
Prophecy, its relation to doctrine,
23 f. ; its unveiling of future, 388 f.,
393 f., 298 f. ; warlike images of,
396.
Providence, ancient conception of, 207;
associated with ministry of angels,
208 f.
Reconciliation, Biblical idea of,
236.
Resurrection, its larger meaning, 405-
407 ; of ChrLst, 220, 234 n. ; the
"first," 411, 426, 430 n.
Revelation, a historic process, 19.
Revelation, Book of, its view of Christ,
284 ; its names of Christ, 285.
Righteousness, Old and New Testa
ment idea of, 244-246 ; by faith,
258 f. ; equivalent to immortalitv,
373.
Sabbath, the Divine, 172 f . ; the
world's, 404.
Sadducees, their denial of immortality,
417.
Sanctification, Old and New Testament
conception of, 248 f.
Satan, not to be identified with Azazel,
70 ; first idea of, 71 ; not Persian,
72 ; when connected with serpent in
Paradise, 73 ; darker and more ter
rible view of, 77 f. ; in Job, 72, 78 ;
Christianity breaks the power of,
78 f. ; the Tempter, 267 ; his dis
appearance, 430.
Scripture, its diversity and unity, 2 ;
apparent contradictions in, 2-5, 56 ;
does not solve all problems, 6, 14 f. ;
how its truths may be systematized,
7, 10 ; records important eras with
greatest fulness, 8 ; precedents for
systems of truth in, 11 f., 23 ;
earliest use of, 13 ; Christ's example
shows right use of, 15 ; each work

448

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

to be studied as a whole, 17 ; ob
scurities in, 17-19 ; may yield doc
trine in sufficient fulness and definite
ness, 34 f. ; Philo 's misuse of, 36 f.;
not obsolete to-day, 39 ; its treat
ment of denials of God, 50 f. ; its
language concerning God progres
sively elevated, 57, 62 ; no myths
in, 67.
Septuagint, reference to, 207 f., 225,
236, 241, 256, 265.
Seraphs, 70.
Simon Magus, 337.
Sin, as disturbing order of world, 186 ;
its issues in God's hand, 186, 188 ;
counteractions of, 189 f. ; weaker
than righteousness, 201 f. ; its stages
of progress, 201 f. , 239 f. ; cannot
maintain continuous advance, 204 ;
progressive victory over, 204 ; power
of, broken, 235 ; the forgiveness of,
236, 240.
Speech, sensuous nature of, 43 ; goes
back to origin of things, 121, 129.
Spirit, Holy, necessity for His pre
sence, 325 ; in the community, 334-
336 ; full significance of, realized in
apostolic age, 329-334, 339.
Spirit of God, enemy of disorder, 123.
Spirits, pre-Mosaic view of, 67 ; bad,
sent from God, 68 ; eternally young,
69.
Strauss, his school unhistorical, 33 n. ;
his objection to Biblical religion,
206 n.
Temptation, from God, 264 ; of God,
266 ; various meanings of, 265 ;
of Christ, 264 f. ; ascribed to Satan,
267.

Theophanies, of Old Testament,
53.
Tobit, Book of, reference to, 32.
Transfiguration of Christ, 287 n.
Trinity, the Christian, faith in essen
tial, 341 ; real unity of, 351 f.,
357 ; not connected with Oriental
Tritheism, 360 n. ; term warranted
though not Biblical, 356.
Truth, won by conflict, 28 ; the law of
its progress, 66, 233 f. ; iu relation
tp faith,, 225 f. , 229 ; in relation to
experience, 340, 387 ; in relation to
historical phenomena, 232-234 ; in
separable from the Holy Spirit, 353 ;
spirit of, 337 f. ; verified by experi
ence, 378, 414.
Valley of Hinnom, 400.
Veda, reference to, 123 n.
Vulgate, reference to, 207.
Wisdom, Book of, referred to, 40, 50,
101, 111, 144, 207, 217, 218, 266,
357, 418 ; characterized, 418 f.
Wisdom, different conceptions of,
130 f.
Woman, her creation, 129.
World, the Judgment of, 434 f.
Worlds, the series of, 148, 150 f. ;
order of the succession of, 155 tf.,
180.
Zoroastrianism, the influence of its
dualism, 73 ; of its doctrine of
spirits, 74 ; of its numeration and
nomenclature, 75 ; becomes >•. peril
and a danger to true religion, 77 ;
not source of Jewish idea of immor
tality, 413 n.

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

CHAP.i. 1, .
i. 1-3,
i. 2, .

i. 3 f., 14-18
i. 3-29, . .
i. 11, 14-18,
27, .
i. 15-21,
i. 21, .
i 26, 28,
i. 30, .
i.-ii. 4, .
ii., . .
ii. 5 f.,
ii. 5-iii. 24,
ii. 7, 8, 19,
ii. 7-iii. 19,
ii. 10-14,
ii. 19-23,
iii., . .
iii. 8, .
iii. 19, .
iii. 24. .
iv. 3-16,
iv. 23 f.,
V. 1, 3,
V. 21-24,
V. 24, .
V. 28, .

Genesis. PAGE
. . 307
. . 108
106, 108,
113, 123
. 128
. 121

103

21,

vi. 6,
vi. 9, .
viii. 21-ix.
xii. 1 ff.,
xiv. 18-20,
XV. 1,
XV. 1-xxii.
XV. 6, .
xvi. 13,.
xvii. 1, .
xviii. 17-32,
xix. 24,
xxi. 1,

17,

22,

19.

24, . 120
. 152
. 156
158, 162
. 126
. 119
. 121
. 106
117, 124
117, 128,
157, 166166
127
121138144
167 127
240
8, 19, 27
125, 162
. . 367
. . 381
. . 162
. 79 f.
. . 56
. . 244
. . 438
252, 366
. . 87
. . 360
227, 265
227, 244
. . 382
. . 87
202, 247
89, 436
159, 208

Genesis — continued.

CHAP.xxi. 33, .
xxiii. 6,
xxviii. 3,
xxxii. 10-13,
xxxv. 11,
xxxix. 21,
xliii. 14,
xlviii. 3,
xlix. 8-12,
xlix. 9 f., 28,
xlix. 22-26,
xlix. 25,

Exodus.
iii. 1 ff.,
iii. 10-16,
iii. 16, .
iii. -xii. 36,
iv. 1-9, .

249 8756 87
235 8787
320 f.
321 8
6f.

30

iv. 7-
iv. 31, .
vi. 2-8, .
vi. 3, .
ix. 6, .
xi. 4-9,.
xii. 26-28,
xii. 29-33,
xiv. 4, 17,
XV., . .
XV. 1, 3,
XV. 3, .
XV. 11, .
XV. 25, .
xvii. 1-7,
xix. 5, .
xix. 6, .
xix. 9, .
xix. 13, 16,
xix. -xxiv.,
XX. 5,
XX. 12, .
xxiv. ll,
xxxii. 10,
xxxii. 31-x.\xiii,
12-17,
2f

19.

. . 252
90 f., 100
. 208
. 216
. 227
. 261
. 208
. 90
. 87
. 212
. 203
. 215
. 203
. 212
92, 173

. 92
. 212
264, 266
. 266
. 254
. 248
227, 345
. 428
. 153
. 208
. 373
. 382
. 172

Exodus — continued,
CHAP. PAGE
xxxii.-xxxiv., . . 247
xxxiv. 29-35, . . .345

Leviticus.
xi. 44 f., .
xvi. 8-10, .
xvii. 7, . .
xix. 2, . .
XX. 3, 6, 6,
XX. 7, 26, .
xxiv. 11, .

Numbers,

vi. 25 f., .
xiv. 11, . .
XX. 1-13, .
XX. 1-13, 24,
xxii. 22-32,
xxiii. 10, .
xxiii. 19, .
xxiv. 4, 16,
xxiv. 16, .
xxvii. 14, .

248 70 70
248 59
248 97

. 382
. 226
. 226
. 266
. 71
246, 366
. 55
. 86
. 88
. 266

Deuteronomy.
i. 32,  227
iii. 24  94
iv. 7 f., . . . . 83, 94
iv. 9  93
iv. 29,  52
iv. 32,  94
V. 23,  83
vi. 5,  52
vi. 16,  266
viii. 2, 16  265
ix. 23,  227
X. 12  5-2
X. 21,  212
xii. 2-6, . . . . 337
xiii. 2-6, . . . 212
xiii. 3,  265
xiv. 1,  164
xvii. 3, . . . . 93
xxvi. 16, .... 52
xxviii. 10, . . . . 349

450

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES,

Deuteeonomi

— contin'd.

Job — continued.

TsiLLUs— continued.

CHAP.

PAGE

CHAP.

PAGE

CHAP.

PAGE

xxviii. 58, .

. . 95 f.

vi. 18, . .

. . 106

viii.,. . .

. . 98

xxx. 2, 6, 10,

. . 52

vii., ^ . .

. 376

viii. 1, 9, .

. . 98

xxx. 15,

. . 185

vii. 17 ff., .

. . .159

viii. 4, . .

. . 169

xxxii. 4,

. . 182

ix. 13, . .

. . .210

viii. 5, . .

. . 117

xxxii. 5 ff.,

. . 164

X. 2-22, .

. . .376

viii. 6, . .

160, 435

xxxii. 10, .

. . 106

X. 8-17, .

. . .164

X. 1,. . .

. . 55

xxxii. 11, 21,

. . 123

X. 12, . .

. . 207

xi. 6, . .

. . 55

xxxii. 21, .

. . .335

xi. 6, . .

. . 133

xi. 7, . .

. . 382

xxxii. 22, .

. . 438

xi. 7-9, . .

. . 220

xiii., . . .

. . 375

xxxii. 30, .

. . 186

xii. 6, . .

. . . 40

xiv., . . .

40, 50, 402

xxxiii. 3, .

. . 420

xii. 11, . .

. . .177

xvi. 3, . .

. . 249

xxxiii. 8, .

. . 265

xii. 24, . .

. . . 106

xvi. 9-11, .

. . 381

xiii. 25-xiv. 2

2, . . 376

xvi. 11, . .

185, 407

JOSHTJ

A.

xiv. 21, 22,

375, 412

xvii. 4, 14,

. . 381

V. 13-vi. 2,

. . 69

XV. 7 f., .

. . 138

xvii. 15,

381 f., 407

X. 13, 14, .

. . 217

XV. 8, . .

. . 133

xviii. , . .

. . 153

xvi. 18-21,
. . 380
xviii. 26 f..
. . 55
JtTDOI
:s.
xix. 25-29,
380, 406
xix. 8-11, . .
. . 142
ii. 10, . .
370
xix. 26 1'., .
. . .382
XX. 21, . .
. . 96
v., . . .
. . 92
xxi. 6-15, .
. . 40
xxi. 7, . . .
. . 88
V. 4 f., . .
. . 31
xxi. 14, . .
. . 27
xxii. 1, 11, 19,
. . 55
V. 20, . .
. . . 92
xxi. 14 ff., .
. . 40
xxii. 8, . .
. . 40
vi. 21 f., .
. . 68
xxi. 29, . .
. . 40
xxiv., . . .
. . 92
ix. 23, . .
. . 68
xxi. 33, . .
. . 381
xxiv. 7-10,
. . 92
xiii. 20-23,
. . 68
xxii. 2-5, .
. . 172
xxvii. 13, . .
226, 381
xxiv; 22-24,
. . 40
xxix., . .
92, 209
1 Samu
EL.
xxv. 2, . .
. . 210
xxxii. , . .
. . 235
ii 21, . .
. . 208
xxv. 3, . .
. . 71
xxxii. 8,
. . 332
vi. 9, . .
. . 197
xxv. 5, . .
. . 158
xxxii. 11, .
. . 246
xvi. 14-23,
. . 68
xxvi. 7, . .
106, no
xxxiii. 1, .
. 245 f.
xviii 10, . .
. . 68
xxvi. 7-13,
. . 109
x.xxiii. 6, 9,
. . 140
xxiv. 14, 17, .
. . 98
xxvi. 14, .
38, 197
xxxiii. 9, .
. . 110
xxviii., . . .
. . 131
xxxiv. 9,
. . 249
2 Sami
EL.
xxviii. 13, .
. . 381
xxxiv. 12, .
. . 185
vii. 14, . . .
. . 278
xxviii. 15, .
. . 130
xxxiv. 16, .
. . 69
vii. 23, . . .
. . 212
xxviii. 23, 27 f
., . . 132
xxxv. 22, .
. . 65
xii. 28, . .
. . 349
xxx. 23, .
. . 380
xxxvi. 9,
. . 183
xxxi. 33, .
. . 381
xxxvii. 37, .
. . 366
1 Kin
3S.
xxxiii. 13 f..
. . 193
xxxviii. 21,
. . . 55
i. 11, 43, 47,
. . 98
xxxvi. 26, .
. . 38
xxxix., . .
. . 375
ii. 6, . . .
. . 369
xxxviii. 4 ff..
. . 197
xxxix. 12, .
. . 383
viii. 23-53,
. . 56
xxxviii. 4-38,
. . 109
xii. 12, . .
. . 381
xxii. 19,
. . 93
xxxviii. 6, .
. . 220
xii V. , . .
. . 153
xxxviii. 7, .
. . 71
xlvi. , . .
. . 173
2 Kin
3S.
xxxviii. 33,
. . 218
xlvi. 4, . .
, . 88
xvii. 16,
. . 93
xxxviii. 37,
. . 131
xlviiL, . .
153, 173
xix. 35, . .
. . 31
xxxviii.-xlii..
. . 376
xlix., . .
. . 167
xxi. 3, 6, .
. . 93
xl. 14-24, .
. . 401
xlix. 16,
. . 381
xxii. io.
. . 369
xiii. 2, . .
. . 256
Ii., . . .
. . .235
xxiv. 6, . .
. . 369
xiii. 8 f., .
. . .247
Ii. 6 f., .
. . .187
xiii. 10-17,
. . ,153
Ii. 11, . .
. . .248
Nehem
lAH.
Iii. 5, . .
. . .381
viii. 10, . .
. . 98
PSALI
IS.
liii., . . .
. 40, 198
X. 29, . .
. . 98
i. 3, . . .
. . . 360
Ivi. 5, 11, .
. . 141 f.
i. 6 f., . .
. . . 246
Ivii. 2, . .
. . . 88
Job
ii. 7, . . .
. . .278
Iviii. 10 f., .
. . . -246
ii. 9, . . .
. . 40
iv. 6, . .
. . . 382
lix. 13, . .
. . .212
iii. 8, . .
. . 210
vi., . . .
. . .376
Ixiv., . . £
1, 198, 402
V. 7, . . .
. . 210
vii. 6f., .
; . . 55
Ixv. 5, . .
. . .212
vi. 2, . . .
. . 265
vii. 17, . .
. . . 88
Ixv. 9, . .
. . .159
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

451

Psalms — continued.
CHAP.
Ixviii. 14
Ixviii. 30,

Ixxi. 12, ,
Ixxiii. 23-26,
Ixxiii. 24,
Ixxiv. 13 f.,
Ixxv. ,
Ixxvi. , .
Ixxvi. 10 f.,
Ixxxii. ,
Ixxxviii., Ixxxix. 26 1
xc, . 66
xc. 7-12,
xc. 14, .
xc. 16 ff.,
xci. 1, .
xci. 11 f.,
xciv. 9, 20,
xcv.,xcv. 10,
xcvii. 9,
ciii. ,
ciii. 22, .
civ.,civ. 24, .
civ. 31, .
cv. 15, .
cvi. 4, .
cvi. 12, .
cvii. 20,
cix. 13, .
ex. 1,
cxii. 4, .
cxv. ,
cxvi. ,
cxvi. 10,
cxviii. 16-20
cxix. 58, 76,
cxix. 66,
cxix. 89,
cxxx. 3 f. , .
cxxxiii. 3, .
cxxxix. 2, 3, 4
cxxxix. 6, 13,
cxxxix. 13, 16,
cxxxix. 24
cxlii. 5, .
cxlvii. 5,
cxlvii. 15,

169,

401 55
382381 401402402
392
198, 402
. 375
. 278
167, 376, 403376 407
171,376

56,

305,

Proverbs.

u. b,
ii. 19, .
iii. 19 f.,
V. 6, . .
vi. 23, .
vii. 6-27,

248117 117 183

241156
207 131162 248208 227 140
366435 246
241 173 227246
140, 142227144
241185 192
214, 220
. 164
. 182
. 381
. 98
140 f.

177177185132 185
186 188

Proverbs-
chap. viii. 3,
viii. 4-8,
viii. 22-31,
X. 12, .
X. 16 f.,
xi. 8, .
xi. 18, .
xi. 19, .
xi. 22, .
xii. 28, .
xiii. 13,
XV. 24, .
XV. 31, .
xvi. 6, .
xvi. 15, .
xvi. 20, .
xvii. 16,
xvii. 27,
xix. 23,
xxi. 18, .
xxi. 21, .
xxii. 24,
xxiii. 18,
xxiii. 29-36,
xxiv. 5,
x.^iv. 14-20,
xxiv. 30-34,
XXX., . . .
xxx. 1-14, .
XXX. 4, . .
xxx. 15-xxxi.
xxxvii. 3, 9,
27, 34, 37,
ECCLESI
i. 4-8,
i. 9 f.,
i. 12,
ii. 14,
ii. 14 f.
iii. 11,
iii. 14,
iii. 15,
iii. 18-21
iii. 19,
iii. 21,
V. 17,
V. 19,
vi. 6,
vi. 10,
vi. 11,
vii. 12,
vii. 13,
vii. 2^^,
viii. 7,
ix. 1 {.,
ix. 2 f.,
ix. 2-6, 12
ix. 5 f.,
ix. 7,

continued. PAGE 158
158
106, 132
236 184
203360184 188
184, 373
. 141
. 185
. 184
. 188
. 184
. 141
. 130
. 177
. 184
. 203
. 184
. 184
. 366
. 188
. 177
. 366
. 188
. 61
. 40
. 138
. 11

11,

Ecclesiastes — continu'd.

22,

373

. 213
. 213
. 213
. 415
191, 197
176, 213
193 f.
. 199
. 416
. 197
377, 415
. 194
. 415
. 415
193, 213
. 191
. 416
91, 193
. 178
. 415
. 191
. 197
. 415
. 417
. 416

CHAP.X. 14, .
xi. 9, .
xii. 1, .
xii. 5, .
xii. 7, .
xii. 7, 14,
xii. 13, .

PAGE
. . 415
. . 416
. . 416
383, 415
377, 415
. . 200
. . 194

i. 2 ff..

Isaiah.

¦13

i. 11-15,
ii. 2,
ii. 2 ff., .
ii. 12 ff.,
iii. 10, .
iv. 1, .
iv. 2,
iv. 3, .
iv. 6 f., .
iv. 9, .
V. 7, 10,
V. 14, .
V. 19, .
V. 20, .
vi. , . .
vii. 9, 11-
vii. 12, .
vii. 14, .
viii. 1-4,
viii. 4, .
ix. 3, .
ix. 5,
ix. 6 f., .
ix. 6, .
ix. 6, 7,
ix. 7, .
X. 3,
X. 5 ff., .
X. 7-10, 13
X. 32, .
xi. 1-5,
xi. 2, .
xi. 4,
xi. 6-8, .
xi. 9, .
xi. 10, .
xi. 10-16,
xii. 3, .
xiii.,xiii. 21 f.,
xiv. 9 ff.,
xiv. 11, .
xiv. 12, .
xiv. 14, .
xviii. 7, .
xix. 18, .
xix. 18-25,
xxi. 13, .
xxi. 16 f.,
xxii. 11,

. 164
, 187
. 395
391, 392
. 395
. 360
. 349
. 391
. 397
390, 392
. 253

. 218
. 394
. 193
. 252
226 f.
. 266
. 403
. 227
. 403
. 237
. 391
236, 397
. 393
. 137
. 391
. 208
. 198
. 191
. 392
. 137
. 147
. 428
. 391
. 392
. 392

237 438 73
412
399138 88
392202 392171
403 117

452

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

Isaiah — continued.

Isaiah — continued.

Jehemiah—

:ontinued.

CHAP.

PAGE

CHAP.

PAGE

CHAP.

PAGE

xxii. 17 f., .

. . 381

xlviii. 15, .

. . .253

xxxiii. 14-16,

. . 391

xxiii. 16, . .

. . 27

xlviii. 22, .

. . .236

xxxiii. 25, .

. . 218

xxiv. 21 f., .

. . 76

xlix. 7, . .

. . .253

xliii. 10, •

. . 198

xxiv. 21-23, .

. . 410

I. 11, . .

. . . 399

xlvi. 26, .

. . 409

xxiv. 23, . .

. . 390

Ii. 2, . . .

. . .253

xlvi. -xlix..

. . 409

xxv. 6, . . .

. . 237

Ii. 9,. . .

. . . 75

xliii, 47, .

. . 409

xxv. 6-8, 10 f..

386, 392

Ii. 10, . .

. . . 401

xlix. 6, 39,

. . 409

xxv. 8, . . .

. . 385

liii., . 203, 24

7, 289, 319

1. 39, . .

. . 73

xxv. 10, . .

. . 392

liii. 1, . .

. . .227

xxv. 10 f., . .

. . 189

liii. 8, . .

. . .381

EZEKI

EL.

xxvi. 2, . .

. . 246

liii. 11, . .

. . .247

i. 1-iii. 21,

. . 252

xxvi. 4, . . .

. . 415

liv. 13, . .

. 332, 390

i. 15-21, .

. . 76

xxvi. 14-20, .

. . 412

Iv., . . .

. . .253

i. 24, . .

. . 86

xxvi. 17 f., .

. . 438

Iv. 9-11, .

. . .391

iii. 22, . .

. . 400

xxvii. 1,. . .

75, 401

Iv. 10, . .

. . .142

X. 5, . . •

. . 86

xxvii. 6, . .

. . 236

Iv. 15, . .

. . .188

xiv. 8, . .

. 69

xxvii. 9, 12 f..

. . 385

lix. 21, . .

. . 142

xiv. 14 ff, . .

. . 202

xxvii. 10 f., .

. . 385

Ix., . . .

. 393

xvi. 23, . . .

. . 164

.xxvii. 12 f..

. . 412

Ix. 1 ff., .

. . . 390

xxvi. 20, ^ .

. . 381

xxvii. 13, . .

. 428

1.x. 2 ff., .

. . .392

xxviii. 12-15,

. . 138

xxviii. 16, . .

. . 226

Ix. 11 f., .

. . 189

xxix. 3, . .

. 75, 401

xxviii. 18, . .

. . 236

Ix. 11-14, .

. . 433

xxxii. 18-32, .

. . 370

xxviii. 21-29, .

. . 174

Ixi. 1, . .

. 241, 249

xxxii. 19, . .

. . 369

xxix. 1-8, . .

. 392

Ixi. Iff, .

. . 253

xxxii. 24-32, .

. . 381

xxix. 21, .

106, 402

Ixi. 6f., .

. . 433

xxxiii. 15, . .

. . 185

xxx. If., . .

. 164

Ixii. 6 f., .

. . 70

xxxiv. 20-25, .

. . 391

xxx. 7, . . .

75, 401

Ixiii. 9, . .

. . 69

xxxvii. 1, . .

. . 400

xxx. 9, 19,

. .386

Ixiii. 10, .

. 12-3, 336

xxxvii. 1-14, .

. . 411

xxx. 26, . .

. 390

Ixiii. 19, .

. . 349

xxxvii. -xxxvii

.. . . 389

xxx. 27, . .

. 96

Ixiv. 2, . .

. . 212

xx.xvii.-xxxix.

393, 410

xxxi. 4, . .

. 93

Ixv. 7, . .

. . 438

xxxviii. f., . .

401, 428

xxxi. 4 f., . .

. 392

Ixv. 9, 15, 22,

. . 253

xl. -xlviii., . .

. . 389

xxxii. 10-14, .

. 386

Ixv. 13-17,

. . 434

xxxii. 15-20, .
. 391
Ixv. 17, . .
. . 390
Danie
L.
xxxii. 18, . .
. 236
Ixv. f., . .
. . 434
ii. 31 ff , . .
. . 401
xxxii. 20, . .
. 393
Ixvi. 21, .
. . 390
ii. 44, . . .
. . 397
xxxiv. 11, . .
. 106
l.xvi. 23 f., .
188, 399
iv. 13, 17, 23,
. . 7«
xxxiv. 13 f., .
. 73
Ixvi. 24, .
. . 399
iv. 26, . . .
. . 97
xxxvii. 30 f., .
. 227
vii. 3 ff., . .
. . 401
xxxviii. 7 f., .
. 227
Jbkemi
AH.
vii. 9-11, 13 f.
. . 397
xxsviii. 10-20,
. 375
i. 5, . . .
252, 328
vii. 13, . . .
. . 285
xx.'cviii. 11,
. 381
ii. 13, . .
. . 183
viii. 3 ff., . .
. . 401
xl. 8, . . .
t42, 391
iii. 14-17, .
. . 391
viii. 24,. . .
249
xL 13 f., . . .
. 220
iii. 17, . .
. . 392
ix. 18 f., . .
. . 349
xL 26, . . 71,
93, 141
iv. 3, . . .
. . 182
ix. 21, . . .
. . 77
xl.-lxvi., . .
153, 173
iv. 23, . .
. . 106
X. 13, 20 f., .
. . 75
xii. 9 
. 253
V. 22, . . .
. . 218
xi. 4, . . .
. . 366
xiii. 1, . . . •
253, 291
X. 2-10, . .
. . 212
xi. 28, 30, . .
. . 249
xiii. 1-4, . . .
. 392
X. 12, . . .
. . 131
xii. 1-3, . .
. . 411
xiii. 6, . . .
. 253
xi. 19, . . .
. . 381
xii. 3, . . .
. . 247
xliii. Iff,,. .
. 241
xvii. 13, . .
. . 183
xii. 5, . . .
. . 93
xliii. 3, . . .
. 203
xxiii. 5 f , . .
. . 391
xii. 7, . . .
. . 249
xliii. 10, ...
. 261
xxv., . . .
. . 409
xliii. 10-20, . .
. 253
xxv. 9, . . .
. . 198
Hosej*
xiv. 4 
. 253
xxvii. 6, . .
. . 198
i., . . . .
" . .395
xiv. 9 f., . . .
. 46
xxix. 11, . .
. . 366
ii 
. . 395
xiv. 16, . . . .
. 220
xxxi. 16, . .
. . 360
ii. 4ff,. . .
. . 187
xiv. 22-24, . .
. 392
xxxi. 31-34, .
. . 390
ii. 20, 23 f., .
. . 391
xlviii. 12, . . .
. 253
xxxi. 34, . .
240, 332
iii. 5, . . .
. . 395
xlviii. 13, . . ]
10. 112
xxxi. 35, . .
. . 218
iv 
. . 55
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES,

453

Hosea-
CHAP. ix. 10,
X. 12,
xi. 1,
xi. 8-11.
xi. 9,
xiii. 12,
xiii. 14,
xiv. 10,

-continued.

i. f., . .
i. 15, .
ii. 1 f., 11,
ii. 12, .
ii. 14, .
ii. 28, .
ii. 28-32,
ii. 30-32,
ii. 32, .
iii. , . .
iii. 1-18,
iii. 2, 12,
iii. 5 If.,
iii. 15 f..
iii. 17, .

Joel.

iii. 3-8,
iv. 13, .
V. 18, .
V. 18-20,
V. 21-24,
vi. 8, .
ix. 12, .
ix. 13-15,

Amos.

PAGE
. 164
. 182164
, 385
. 66
. 438
. 385
, 182

. 395
!, 395
. 395
. 62
. 55
. 395
. 394
395, 438
. 396
. 390
. 394
. 399
. 392
. 438
. 397

Habakkuk.
CHAP.i. 6 ff, . . . .
iii. 2, \ . . .
iii. 6 

PAGE
, 174
, 169
. 182

Zephaniah.
i. 13-18, . . .
ii. 13, . . . .

Zeohabiah.

438 73

iii. 1-3, . . .
iii. 9, . . .
iv. 2, 10, . .
vi. 1-8, . . .
vi. 12  391

7672
757575

Matthew — contlnu£d.
CHAP.
xi. 27,
xii. 18,

23,

i.x. 9 f., .
ix. 10 f.,
ix. 13-16,
xiv., . .
xiv. 4, .
xiv. 9, .

Obadiah,

15,

Jonah.

i. 9-12, .
iii. 5,
iii. 5-10,

198
117394
395187186
349391

395

90
227 90

. . 397
. . 392
. . 396
. . 392
. . 103
64, 392

Malachi,

ii. 6, .

i. 6, .
iv. 1,
iv. 1-4,
iv. 4,
iv. 5,
iv. 6-v.
iv. 9,
V. 2-4,
V. 2-5,
V. 3,.
V. 7,.

Micah.
 103
 395
. 391 t , 393
 92
 83
2, . . . .393
 438
 137
 397
.... 392

Nahum.

iii. 16 f..

383

Matthew.
i. 18-20,
i. 18-25,
i. 18-ii. 22
i. 19, .
i. 20, .
iii. 2 f., .
iii. 9 f., .
iii. 15, .
iv. 1-11,
iv. 3, .
iv. 17, .
V. 8, . .
V. 13, .
V. 37, .
vi. 1, 3, 6,
vi. 10, .
vi. 12-15.
vi. 30, .
vii. 14, .
vii. 16, .
vii. 21-23,

16,

viii. 13,
viii. 26, .
ix. 13, .
ix. 27, .
ix. 28 f..
ix. 42-45,
X. 19 f.,
X. 28, 39,
X. 29 f.,
X. 40, 42,
xi. 4-24,
xi. 25-30,

185

. 340
. 320
. 315
. 244
. 327
. 263
. 172
. 244
. 315
. 267
, 253
. 382
202191
423210
240 263185428
243, 269, 434
228263
253
278228185
328, 331
. 423
. 198
. 423
. 263
. 56

Xll,xii. 38 f., .
xiii. 33,
xiii. 41-43,
xiv. 31, . .
xiv. 33, . .
xiv. 36, . .
XV. 22, . .
XV. 28, . .
xvi. 1-4, .
xvi. 8, . .
xvi. 15-19,
xvi. 16, . .
xvi. 22 f., .
xvL 25, .
xvii. 20, .
xviii. 6 f., .
xviii. 7,
xviii. 8, . .
xviii. 8 f , .
xix. 17, 29,
xix. 26, . .
xix. 27-30,.
xix. 28, . .
XX. 16, . .
xx.'28, . .
XX. 30 f., .
xxi. 3, . ,
xxi. 9, 15, .
xxi. 21 f., .
xxi. 25,
xxi. 25-32,
xxi. 37 ff, .
xxi. 43, . .
xxii. 2-14, .
xxii. 2, 42,
xxii. 14,
xxii. 30,
xxii. 31 f, .
xxii. 36-49,
xxiv. f.,
xxiv. 3, 27, 37
xxiv. 4-28,
xxiv. 8, . .
xxiv. 11, 24,
xxiv. 15,
xxiv. 22, 24, 31
xxiv. 27,
xxiv. 28, .
xxiv. 29-31,
xxiv. 31, .
xxiv. 31-46,
xxiv. 36, .
xxv. 40, 45,
xxv. 41, 46,
xxv. 44 f. , .
xxv. 46,
xxvi. 63, .

f-,

PAGE
. 435
. 291
. 278
. 262
. 202
. 436
. 263
. 279
. 41
. 278
. 228
. 262
. 263
. 275
. 279
. 265
. 423
. 263
. 275
. 201
. 436
. 186
. 185
. 266
431 f.
. 434
. 254
. 289
. 278
. 279
. 278
. 228
. 97
. 276
. 279
. 172
. 253
. 279
. 254
. 431

12
424
286427438
428
404, 427
254427
432
429, 438
428, 432'
. . 434
44, 279423436
269185
279

454

¦INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

Matthew — continued.

CHAP.xxvii. 61-53,
xxvii. 62, .
xxvii. 54, .
xxviii. 19, .

PAGE
. . 317
. . 249
. . 281
349, 355

Mark.

i. 1, .
i. 10,
i. 11,
i. 15,
i. 24,
ii. 5,
ii. 6-12,
iii. 28,
iv. 12,
iv. 40,
V. 34,
V. 34-36.
vi. 20,
ix. 2-8,
ix. 7,
ix. 23,
ix. 23-35.
ix. 23-42,
ix. 24,
ix. 42, .
ix. 50, .
X. 45, .
X. 47, .
X. 52, .
xi. 3, .
xi. 22 f.,
xi. 23-31,
xi. 31, .
xii. 6, .
xii. 41-44,
xiii. 6, .
xiii. 11,
xiii. 32,
XV. 39, .

. . 281
. . 340
. . 291
228, 275 f.
249, 293
. 228
. 240
. 240
. 240
. 228
. 269
. 228
, 249
. 287
. 291
. 256
. 263
. 228
. 257
. 275
. 202
. 289
. 278
228, 269
. 279
. 229
. 228
. 276
. 291
. 423
. 350
. 328
. 41
. 281

Luke.

i. 5-ii. 20,

i. 14, 47,
i. 26-35,
i. 35, .
i. 37, .
i. 68, .
i. 68, 78,
i. 70, .
iv. 17 ff.,
iv. 18, .
iv. 34, .
vi. 24, .
vii. 16, .
viii. 13, .
xi. 2, .
xi. 4,
xii. 11 f..

. . .315
... 247
. . .350
. . .320
320, 327, 340
. . .256
. . .259
. . .208
. . .249
. . .253
. . .327
. . .249
. . .423
. . .208
. . .267
... 210
. . .267
... 328

Luke — i
OHAP. xiii. 20 f., .
xiv. 14, . .
xiv. 16-24,
xiv. 34, . .
XV. 18, . ,
xvi. 1-13, .
xvi. 23-31,
xvi. 26-31,
xvii. If., .
xvii. 5, . .
xvii. 19,
xvii. 21,
xvii. 26, .
xvii. 33, .
xviii. 7,
xviii. 8,
xviii. 38 f.,
xxi. 22-32,
xxii. 32, .
xxiii. 35, .
xxiii. 43, .
xxiv. ]8ff.,
xxiv. 26 f.,
xxiv. 47, .

411,

continued. PAGE 202432 432202 97
188189436
201
228, 263
. 269
. 276
. 286
. 423
. 264
. 228
. 278
. 228
. 228
. 253
. 414
. 174
. 289
. 355

John.
i. 1, . 108, 134, 307, 354
i. 1-3, . . . 307, 309
i. 4,  310
i. 4-13,  308
i. 7, 12, .... 228
i. 12, 13, ... . 311
i. 14,  272
i. 14, 17, ... . 231
i. 14-18, .... 308
i. 18  65
i. 35-ii. 12, ... 325
ii. 25  406
iii. 14  406
iii. 16-36, .... 276
iii. 21, . . . 231, 234
iii. 33,  231
iii. 36,  406
iv. 1-38  325
iv. 23  231
iv. 24  353
iv. 34  170
iv. 48,  262
V. 9 f., 17, . . . . 173
V. 11-20, .... 406
V. 14  240
V. 20, 36, ... . 153
V. 21 f, .... 312
V. 21-24, .... 406
V. 46 f., .... 276
vi. 15,  265
vi. 21,  262
vi. 27ff, . . . . 153
vi, 27, 32 f., 35-40,
44-50, 63 f., . 406

John — continued.

CHAP.

PAGE

vi. 35-64, . .

. 276

vi. 44, 65, . .

. 343

vi. 46, . . .

. 47

vi. 67-69, . .

. 275

vii. 21, . . .

. 170

vii. 38, . . .

. 276

vii. 39, . . .

. 328

vii. 42, . . .

. 278

viii. 11, . . .

. 240

viii. 12, . . .

. 312

viii. 16, 18, .

. 343

viii. 26, . . .

. 231

viii. 32-36, .

. 239

viii. 32-46, .

. 231

viii. 32-47,

. 338

viii. 45 f., . .

. 276

viii. 47, . . .

. 232

viii. 54, . . .

. 443

viii. 56, . . .

. 366

ix. 2 ff.,

. 240

ix. 3, 34. . .

. 214

ix. 35 f., . .

. 276

X. 32, . . .

. 153

X. 36, . . .

. 276

X. 37f., . .

263, 276

xi. 25 f., . .

276, 311

xii. 23-28, . .

. 443

xii. 24 ff., . .

. 423

xii. 32, . . .

. 429

xii. 44-50, . .

. 276

xiii. 23 f., . .

. 325

xiii. 31 f., . .

. 443

xiii. 31-xvi. 33,

328, 330

xiii. 33, . .

, 325

xiv. 2, . . .

. 429

xiv. 6, . . .

311 f.

xiv. 6-11, . .

. 47

xiv. 6-17, . .

. 231

xiv. 7-9, . .

. 354

xiv. 9-11, . .

. 263

xiv. 10 f, . .

• 153

xiv. 10-17,. .

. 343

xiv. 12. . . .

. 276

xiv. 12-15,. .

. 379

xiv. 13, . . .

. 443

xiv. 16 f., . .

. 356

xiv. 16 f., 26, .

. 331

xiv. 17, . . .

. 338

xiv. 18, . . .

. 325

xiv. 26, . 331 f.,

334, 355

xiv. -xvi., . .

. 346

XV. 1-16, . .

. 343

XV. 8, '. . .

. 443

XV. 26, . . 231,

338, 355

xvi. 7, . . .

. 355

xvi. 7-14, . .

. 331

xvi. 9, . . .

. 276

xvi. 12, . . .

. 332

xvi. 12-14, .

. 334

xvi. 13, . 231,

234, 338

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456

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

1 Corinthians— con«i?i'(i.

CHAP. XV. 24-48, .
XV. 27, .
XV. 32, .
XV. 36-38,
XV. 52, .
xvi. 1, 15,
xvi. 7, .

PAGE
. . 435
. . 806
171, 417
. . 431
. 427 f.
. , 249
. . 286

2 Corinthians.
i. 11, ,
i. 22, ,
ii. 18-20,
iii. 6 f., ,
iii. 17, .
V. 1-4, ,
V. 1-10,
V. 5,

V. 17, .
V. 19, .
v. 21, .
vi. 6,
vii. 6 f.,
viii. 4, .
viii. 9, .
ix. 1, 12,
X. 4,
xi. 2, .
xii. 3 f.,
xii. 20, .
xii. 21, .
xiii. 11,
xiii. 13,

238 f.

69
336236260353
383437
336
293292244 113286249
276, 2822491.39342414113
357 105
349

Galatians.
i. 6, 16,
i. 15, .
i. 24, .
ii.4, . .
ii. 15, .
ii. 16-21,
ii. 21, .
iii. 1, .
iii. 5,
iii. 6-19, 14-29,
iii. 10, .
iii. 10-12,
iii. 20, .
iv. 1-9, .
iv. 5 f., .
iv. 8, .
iv. 15, .
iv. 22-v. 13
V. 2 ff., .
V. 0, . .
V. 7, . .
V. 8, 13,
V. 22, ,
vi. 1, .
vi. 12, .
vi. 12-16,

253
252, 254 443238217
259260230260259
297259

260
250217
260238

. 269
. 230
. 254
237, 337
. 127
. 297
. 259

GA.LA.TiA.ya— continued,
CHAP. PAGE
vi. 13,  260
vi. 14  294
vi. 15,  293

. 250
. 336
. 280
. 305
. 75
. 75
. 217
. 293
. 237
. 75
. 237
. 317
. 315
. 185
. 293
. 336
. 342
. 337
. 297

Philippians.
i. 26,  286
ii. 6-8  276
ii. 6-9,  357
ii. 6-11, . . . .282
ii. 7,  283
ii. 12  286
ii. 18, 28  237
iii. 1  237
iii. 16,  332
iv. 4,  237
iv. 9  105

Ephesians

i. 5 

i. 14, .

i. 17, .

i. 20, .
i. 21, .
ii. 2, .
ii. 3, .
ii. 16, .
ii. 18, .
iii. 10, .
iii. 12, .
iv. 8-10,
iv. 9 f., .
iv. 15, .
iv. 22, 24,
iv. 30, .
V. 9, . .
V. 9, 11,
vi. 12, .
Colossians.
12-14,15, .
15-17,
16, .
18, .
19-23,20, .
27, .
28, .
2, .
10, 16,
13-15,U,18, 1,
9,12,14,
12,
'73,
298,
296
426296297426
298237296 19
296298297296
291 36
305293 254 1919
1 Thessalonians.
CHAP,
i. 3, .
i. 4, , .
i. 6, . .
ii. 12, .
ii. 14-16,
ii. 19, .
iii. 9, .
iii. 11, 13,
iii. 13, .
iv. 3f., .
iv. 4-17,
iv. 7, .
iv. 9, .
iv. 13-18,
iv. 14-18,
iv. 15, .
iv. 16, .
V. 9, 23, 28
V. 23, .
V. 24, .
PAGE
. 278
. 254
. 329
. 253
. 260
278, 286
. 367
. 278
. 286
. 249
. 427
. 253
. 332
. 441
. 428
. 286
411, 428
. 278
105, 286
. 254
2 Thessalonians.
7, . . . .
8,12, . .
1, . . .
If.,. . .
1, 8, . . .
1, 14, . .
1-16, . .
2, . . .
427278 432
428286253441330
6-12,
13, . .
6, 12, IE
. 16, . .
1 Timothy.
. . 427
. . 428
248, 329
. . 278
. . 105
ii. 5,
ii. 15,
iii. 16,
V. 21,
vi. 14,
vi. 16,
vi. 19,  185
. . 301
. . 249
277, 282
. . 76
. . 286
. . 65
2 Timothy.
i. 5, 14,
i. 10, .
ii. 10, .
ii. 18, .
iv. 1, 8,
Titus.
i. 1, ,
ii. 13,
ii. 14,
iii. 1,
iii. 7,
329 286
254
417 286
254286289
297 247
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458

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

Revelation — continued.
CHAP. PAGE
i. 4-6,  349
i. 5, . . 285, 292, 426
i. 8, 13,  285
ii. 5,  440
ii. 7,  414
ii. 7 ff  330
ii. 7, 11, 17, 29, . . 365
ii. 11,  436
ii. 16,  440
iii. 6, 13, 22, . . . 355
iii. 11  440
iv. 5,  76
iv. 13,  187
v.,  285
V. 5  285, 321

V. 6,. .
V. 6 ff., .
V. 9, . .
V. 13, .
v.-vi. ff.,
vii. 1-8,
vii. 9, .
vii. 17, .
viii. 5, .
ix. 11, ,
xi. 3-13,
xi. 8, 15,

435290 432 155
291254432386
438 76
428278

Revelation-
chap.
xi. 13, . .
xi. 14, . .
xii. ,
xii. 1-5,
xii. 1-xiii. 18,
xiii 
xiii. 1, . .
xiii. 10, 11, 17
xiii. 11-17,
xiv. 1-5,
xiv. 6f.,
xiv. 13, .
xiv. 14, .
xiv. 18, .
XV. 3, .
XV. 4,
XV. 8, .
xvi. 5, .
xvii. 14,
xix. , . .
xix. 1-xxii.
xix. 8, .
xix. 11, .
xix. 13, .
xix. 15, 24,
xix. 17-20,
xix. 19, . .

continued. PAGE
. . 97
. . 440
210, 401 f.
. . 438
. . 358
. . 198
. . 438
, . .401
. . 337
254, 432
432, 435
330, 423
. 286
. 75
. 182
. 247
. 438
. 76
. 254
. 441
. 410
. 247
. 198
141, 286
. 428
. 428
. 432

Revelation-
CHAP.
xix. 19-xx. 3
xix. 20, . .
XX. 1-xxii. 6,
XX. 3, .
XX. 4, .
XX. 4-6,
XX. 5 f.,
XX. 9, .
XX. 10, 14,
XX. 11-15,
xxi. 1, .
xxi. 1, 2, 5
xxi. 4, .
xxi. 6-xxii,
xxi. 8, .
xxi. 11, 2.3
xxi. 22 f.,
xxii. 1-3,
xxii. 2, .
xxii. 4, .
xxii. 6, .
xxii. 6, .
xxii. 6, 12,
xxii. 11,
xxii. 17,
xxii. 21,

20

-continued. PAGE
11-15, 402
. . 436
. . 433
. . 427
. . 430
. . 406
411, 436
430, 438
. 436
. 430
. 438
. 390
. 385
. 285
. 436
. 390
. 435
. 435
. 433
. 382
. 390
. 440
. 440
. 248
. 330
278 f.

16,

THE END.

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