We have received from the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, the fifth volume of the series entitled "The International Theological Library." It will be remembered that Driver's "Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament" is the first of this series, and that the whole series is under the general editorship of Profs. C. A. Briggs and S. D. F. Salmond.

      The full title of the present volume is "A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age." The author is Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Ph. D., D. D., professor of church history, Union Theological Seminary, New York. The abbreviated title on the back of the book is, "The Apostolic Age, McGiffert;" and I call it McGiffert's Apostolic Age because, as the reader will see further on, it is not the apostolic age of the New Testament, and I think that we should give Professor McGiffert due credit for it. It is a volume of 672 pages, not counting those of the preface and the index, and its contents manifest a vast amount of careful thought as well as a good general acquaintance with the literature of the subject. The first [268] chapter, a comparatively short one, is devoted to "The Origin of Christianity;" the second, a longer one, to "Primitive Jewish Christianity;" the third, another short one, to "The Christianity of Paul;" the fourth, including nearly one-third of the whole book, to "The Work of Paul;" the fifth, to "The Christianity of the Church at Large;" and the last, to "The Developing Church." I shall have something to say, from time to time, on all of these chapters; for the work has been received by the school of criticism represented in this country by Professor Briggs with hearty applause, and we may consider it a fair representative of the present phase of New Testament criticism among that class of scholars.

      At present I speak only of some things that I find in the first chapter, the one on the origin of Christianity. Passing by what he says in this chapter on Judaism and on John the Baptist, although under both heads there are some things objectionable, I call attention to what he says of Jesus himself. His conception of the personal experience of Christ is not that of the New Testament writers. The latter represent him as foreseeing clearly from the beginning of his ministry the whole course of his earthly career, and as entering upon it with the deliberate purpose of bringing it to the end which it actually reached. Put Professor McGiffert, following in the wake of German rationalists, regards him as starting into his ministry with only vague conceptions of himself, and gradually coming to believe himself the Messiah. Jesus reached one conclusion after another in regard to his own future and the kingdom of God, as the progress of events revealed them to him. The author says:

      It was in connection with his baptism that Jesus seems to have received for the first time the revelation of his own Messiahship, of his own intimate and peculiar relation to the [269] kingdom for whose coming he was looking. The words that he is reported to have heard spoken from heaven on that occasion, "Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased," imply nothing less than his conviction of his Messiahship; and that he had not previously reached that conviction is rendered probable by the fact that the temptation immediately followed. That experience can be understood only in its relation to Jesus' Messianic consciousness; and if that consciousness had come to him at an earlier time, the remarkable scene described in such poetic form by Matthew and Luke must have taken place sooner.

      This interpretation of the scene at the baptism, and of the temptation, is remarkable, both for what it affirms and for what it ignores in the text. In the first place, the voice which he is "reported" to have heard from heaven (the author seems to doubt whether he really heard it) said not a word about the Messiahship of Jesus; it spoke only of his sonship. In the second place, the question raised in his temptation was not, "If thou art the Messiah," but, "If thou art the Son of God." These are the affirmations which take the place of those in the text; and the matter in the text, which is ignored, is the visible descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, by the aid of which he was at once filled with the knowledge of all that pertained to his mission and his ministry. Professor McGiffert has no use for miraculous inspiration as respects either Christ or his apostles. He claims that the temptation was a purely inward struggle, growing out of his doubt as to whether he really was the Messiah. A voice from God on high had just declared him the Messiah, says our author, but Jesus immediately doubted the truth of what God had said, and the struggle over this doubt was his temptation! A wonderful example, this, of faith in his Father! Pity that Nathaniel was not there to teach him a readier faith.

      By the by, if the temptation of Jesus was of a purely [270] spiritual nature, it is a strange kind of "poetic form" which Matthew and Luke have given to It. I should rather say that if the struggle was a purely inward and spiritual one, their account of the proposals to turn stones into bread, to jump from a high pinnacle, and to bow down to Satan, instead of being poetic, is a very groveling representation, void of any analogy to the process which it was intended to depict.

      Our author teaches that Jesus owed his conception of the kingdom of God to his Jewish training, and not to his innate knowledge of truth; and also, contrary to the Gospels, that he regarded the kingdom as already in existence during his natural life. He says:

      But the combination of the idea of God's fatherhood, the fruit of Jesus' own religious experience with the conception of the kingdom of God, which he owed to his Jewish birth and training, led him gradually, perhaps, but inevitably, to regard that kingdom as a present and not a future thing.

      Strange language this for one who has read the oft-repeated allusions to the kingdom as yet in the future! And stranger still the thought that Jesus was led gradually to think this and that about himself and his kingdom.

      But these are not the only particulars in which Jesus, according to men who know his experiences better than his apostles did, was gradually taught by passing events. Our author gravely informs us that he can not have preached long "without discovering that there were many of his countrymen who would not repent;" and again, "he would not have preached long without realizing that the hostility of the authorities, so early manifested, would result in his speedy execution." As a consequence of this first conclusion, "the necessity of a judgment, by which should be determined man's fitness for the [271] Messianic kingdom, was, of course, apparent;" and in consequence of the second, "it was inevitable that he should think of himself as coming again to announce the consummated kingdom, and to fulfill in preparation therefor the office of Messianic judge." All these facts, which, according to the Gospels, he knew from the beginning, became known to Jesus, according to Professor McGiffert and his teachers, by observation and reflection, just as similar matters come to the knowledge or belief of ordinary men. In this manner, throughout his account of Jesus, he humanizes Jesus, and completely ignores the power of the Holy Spirit which was given to him without measure. He substitutes for plain statements of the Gospels conceits of rationalists like Strauss, Renan and others, which he has borrowed, and, to some extent, worked over. It would be interesting to know how Professor Briggs, Preserved Smith, L. W. Bacon, and other American "evangelical critics," regard this representation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[SEBC 268-272]