Page images
PDF
EPUB

twelve per cent of the whole; in 1890, however, the evangelical population had increased to seventy-seven per cent, and the Catholic population to a little over thirteen per cent. The total numbers were, in 1870, 23,000,000 evangelical, 4,600,000 Roman Catholic population; and in 1890, 48,000,000 evangelical, and 8,500,000 Roman Catholic. The actual communicants in the evangelical churches have increased in the United States fourfold during the last forty years. These figures are a complete answer to the current statements implying that evangelical Protestantism has entered upon a period of decadence.

Nor is the evidence of spiritual vitality any less encouraging. The receipts of the Foreign Missionary Societies in the United States have increased from $8,000,000 in the fifth decade to $40,000,000 in the ninth decade, being nearly half the total receipts for the century. The rate of increase of expenditures for home missions is still larger. The progress of foreign missions is encouraging. In 1892 there were 52,000 native laborers in missionary churches, and 1,224,000 communicants, which is more than twice the total number of Christians at the end of the first century.

In minor matters it is cheering to learn that while the rate of wages is now twice what it was in 1840 the cost of articles of ordinary consumption is less than then, and that the consumption of distilled liquors is only about one-third as much per capita as it was in 1830, when the temperance reformation had just begun. But this is partly offset by the fact that the consumption of malt liquors per capita has increased fourfold since 1840. These, however, are only a few of the statistics relating to subjects which are discussed by the author in all their bearings, and with reference to the many perils and responsibilities of the hour. Everyone should read and study them.

THE BOOK OF DANIEL. By F. W. Farrar, D. D., F. R. S., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Archdeacon of Westminster. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. 1895. (Pp. xii, 334. 57x338.) $1.50.

This volume upon Daniel is written with the author's accustomed brilliancy of style and confidence in his own opinions, and, we may add, notably displays his lack of judicial qualities in the treatment of conflicting evidence. In his general opinion of the character of the book he agrees, with the more advanced critics, that it was not written by Daniel, but by an unknown author about four hundred years later, or about 170 B. C. His arguments against the genuineness of the book are based upon alleged historical errors; the later character of the Hebrew style; the use of Greek words of late origin; the lack of references to the book before the second century B. C.; the position of the book in the Jewish canon, not with the Prophets, but with the "other writings"; the late character of the doctrines maintained, especially concerning angels and the resurrection; and the general consent of critics.

Among his alleged historical mistakes is the designation of Belshazzar as the son of Nebuchadrezzar. Dr. Farrar says that he was not the son of Nebuchadrezzar. Dr. Farrar falls into error here by failing to remember the extent to which the usage of the word "son" is modified by the social customs of the people. Belshazzar's mother may have been a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar. But even if this were not so, the term may have been applicable to him as belonging to the dynasty, just as the successors of Jeroboam I. are called his sons in 2 Chron. xi. 14. Dr. Farrar also affirms that there was no king Belshazzar, whereas the monuments show that Nabonidus did make Belshazzar co-regent with him; thus explaining in a remarkable manner the apparent discrepancies in the account. Again, Dr. Farrar declares without reservation, that "there was no deportation in the third reign of Jehoiachim" (p. 113). This is a statement without evidence, except of a negative sort. The passage of Berosus quoted by Josephus in confirmation is simply declared to be not trustworthy, and so on with statement after statement which can be met by counter-statements upon equally good authority.

The dogmatic character of his assertions is what misleads. Dr. Farrar thinks, or rather knows, that it would be an easy matter for a writer four hundred years after the time of Nebuchadrezzar to reproduce correctly the scenes of that earlier period, and to clothe it in true Babylonish costume. On the contrary, the Book of Tobit, written in the later times,, and laying its scene in the same period of Nebuchadrezzar, falls into errors of almost every description, and illustrates the hazard of attempting to write about scenes with which one is not familiar.

Dr. Farrar knows that one at least of the Greek names of musical instruments is of late origin. We should like to know how he knows it, when there is such a large amount of ignorance concerning the intercourse between Greece and Babylonia, and, we may add, concerning the names of instruments current among the Greeks of that period. Recent discoveries have brought to light many relics of the Greek colonies which were encouraged by Pharaoh to settle at Tahpahanes, on the eastern border of Egypt, where they had constant communication with the Jews. The Greek word symphonia is etymologically descriptive of the double reed pipe in use from time immemorial among the boatmen of the Nile. The reference to these instruments with Greek names in Daniel occurs just after the return of Nebuchadrezzar from the conquest of this portion of Egypt. To assert that there was no such Greek word current among the people at that time, because it has not been discovered in print until a later period, is pure dogmatism, and betrays in the writer a logical defect that throws suspicion upon his good judgment throughout the whole discussion. Dr. Farrar must be omniscient to justify the confidence with which he makes this and many other assertions which he would have pass for conclusive arguments.

In this instance, and many others, we might properly apply to the
VOL. LII. NO. 207.

13

author one of the elegant phrases which he freely applies to others, and say of the book that it is "one of those slovenly treatises which only serve to throw dust in the eyes of the ignorant" (p. 89). Or we might call it, in the author's words again, "one of the tortuous subterfuges and wild assertions" characteristic of "the mere bluster of impotent odium theolog icum," in this case agnosticum. Or, to use his own words again, we might call it "historical and literary assumption which can no longer be maintained except by preferring the flimsiest hypotheses to the most certain facts" (p. 42).

How free the author is himself from hypothesis is seen from the following passage, in which it appears that his opinion upon this subject was formed not from specific study of the facts in hand, but at an early period of his investigations. "My own conviction has long been that in these Haggadoth, in which Jewish literature delighted in the prae-Christian era, and which continued to be written even till the Middle Ages, there was not the least pretence or desire to deceive at all. I believe them to have been put forth as moral legends-as avowed fiction nobly used for the purposes of religious teaching and encouragement. In ages of ignorance, in which no such thing as literary criticism existed, a popular Haggadoth might soon come to be regarded as historical, just as the Homeric lays were among the Greeks, or just as Defoe's story of the Plague of London was taken for literal history by many readers even in the seventeenth century" (pp. 42, 43).

THE MESSIAH OF THE APOSTLES. By Charles Augustus Briggs, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1895. (Pp. xv, 562. 618x358.) $3.00.

In this ample and learned volume, Professor Briggs fitly concludes for the present the series of investigations begun in his "Messianic Prophecy" and continued in the "Messiah of the Gospels." He purposes, however, in the future, if life and health are given him, to continue the series, with volumes on "The Messiah of the Church" and "The Messiah of the Theologians."

With the general conceptions of the Messiah presented both in this and the preceding volume we have little occasion to find fault. They are noble conceptions, and the author has in the main caught the true spirit of the sacred writers, and presented his theme in an inspiring manner. But with this, as with other of the Professor's publications, there is good reason to find fault with the frequent extrajudicial opinions to which he gives expression with a confidence not at all warranted by the facts.

Dr. Briggs finds it in his way to express incidentally his opinion upon a great number of questions respecting New Testament criticism, and it must be confessed the confidence with which he indorses some of the latest speculations of the latest New Testament critics somewhat lowers

one's estimate of the similarly confident pronunciamentos heretofore uttered respecting questions of Old Testament criticism. For example, Dr. Briggs thinks that the prologue to the fourth Gospel was prefixed to it as an afterthought by the author of the First Epistle of John (p. 497); and, while believing that the preponderance of evidence is in favor of John's being its author, confesses that to his mind "the difficulties in the way of the Johannean authorship have not been entirely removed" (p. 462). But of the Apocalypse he is more confident, maintaining, with Spitta and Völter, that it is a composite document, which was finally edited by the addition of the Epistles to the Seven Churches, perhaps as late as 130 A. D.

It is gratifying to find, however, that in respect to Second Peter the latest turn of the kaleidoscope is favorable to its apostolic origin. The same Spitta, who has so effectually remanded the Apocalypse to the list of composite works, “has recently, with great ability, defended its [Second Peter's] authenticity, and as it seems to me [Briggs] with considerable success" (p. 44).

Of Christ's descent to Hades, Dr. Briggs has a clearly defined opinion, remarking that it "evidently made a great change in the abode of the dead for men and angels. He redeemed some from Hades, and took them with him in his ascent to heaven. During his redemptive reign, for purposes of discipline and judgment, he summons evil spirits and devils from Hades, and imprisons them again at his pleasure" (p. 532). Again, commenting on 1 Peter iii. 19, Dr. Briggs not only knows that this preaching took place in Hades, but that it was successful in converting not only the antediluvians, to whom it was directly addressed, but others also. It was surely not in vain; “for the preaching of Jesus, more than any other preaching, is the power of God unto salvation even for the worst of men” (p. 56). Why, then, were not the scribes and Pharisees converted?

On the other hand, Dr. Briggs has no use for the doctrine of the miraculous conception. According to him, "It is quite evident that the doctrine of the incarnation in the theology of the apostles was constructed without any reference, direct or indirect, to the virgin-birth. The virgin-birth cannot therefore be essential to the doctrine of the incarnation. That cannot be an essential doctrine of the New Testament which seems to be unknown to the apostles and which finds no expression in the theology of Peter, James, Paul, and John" (p. 523). But in the Epistles there is silence respecting all the miracles except the resurrection. Does Dr. Briggs reject them?

It is by repeated unguarded statements and insinuations like these that Dr. Briggs is misrepresenting himself and strengthening prejudices that are already stronger than they ought to be. We think, for example, that Dr. Briggs believes in the genuineness of First and Second Timothy and of Titus, but, after what he has said of the doubtfulness of Paul's authorship of Ephesians and Colossians, it is difficult to tell just how much

he means by saying, "If these betray a later Paulinism, and are therefore disputed as to their genuineness, still more is this the case with the Pastoral Epistles" (p. 225); especially when we read later that, in the author's opinion, "The book [Apocalypse] is no more inspired or canonical if the apostle wrote it than if John Mark wrote it, or the so-called presbyter John, or any other John, or any other person. The prophets of the apostolic age were no less inspired and authoritative in their utterances than the apostles, and the most of these, like their brethren in the Old Testament, have not left their names to history. The Church has recognized the Apocalypse as a holy book of God because of its holy contents, and in her judgment of it the Church has made no error" (p. 303),—a position not far from that of the High Church party among the Episcopalians.

EXEGETISCH-HOMILETISCHES HANDBUCH ZUM EVANGELIUM DES MATTHAUS. Von D. Robert Kübel, ord. Professor der Theologie in Tubingen. Nördlingen: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1889. (Pp. xii, 544.) 8 M.

The aim of the author is to provide for the preacher a complete critical commentary upon the Greek text of Matthew which shall at the same time afford homiletical suggestions. It is his opinion that while critical exegesis should always be of such a character as to furnish practically useful homiletical material, the two methods of treatment should be kept distinct. He therefore follows the critical exegesis of each section with a separate homiletical treatment of the same.

The author's standpoint is that of one who seeks to combine an orthodox belief in the Bible with a full recognition of the laws of critical investigation (p. iv). He entirely discards the verbal-inspiration theory. He admits that in minor details of the Gospels the authors may have made mistakes. Even in their report of the teaching of Jesus there may be errors, in the sense that one author, by reason of his individual pecul iarities, may have so overemphasized some feature actually contained in a discourse of Jesus as to cause a misunderstanding of Jesus' real meaning. But the erroneous impression thus occasioned will be corrected in other Gospels or in other parts of the same Gospel (p. 428); for Dr. Kübel constantly falls back upon the general assumption that the picture of the life of Jesus sketched in the Gospels must, in all essential features, be true. It is impossible that "God the Lord can have left to the world a false or utterly obscure, ambiguous picture of the life and teaching of his Son Jesus Christ" (p. vi). If any process of literary criticism reaches results inconsistent with this principle, the process is by that fact proved to be untrustworthy.

Evidently Dr. Kübel's position among critical schools depends largely upon his idea of what constitute essential features in the Gospel narrative. This is learned from the details of his exegesis which show that he has left the extreme right of German criticism, and is cautiously pro

« PreviousContinue »