66 "The tree fell to the ground; its branches were broken to pieces, and much of the fruit hanging upon them, being loosened by the shock, fell off." You say now thus: Badds to the general fact the breaking of the branches, and the falling of the fruit as accompanying circumstances. We need not hesitate long upon the question, whence did he know this? If the tree fell, he said to himself, nothing is more likely than that some of its branches were broken, and much of the fruit shaken off." Comp. Str. b. ii. p. 490. (k) Having found now a sufficient number of contradictions between the different accounts of the narrators, you pass next to the internal difficulties which lie in each individual history, or in the subjective event itself, to which the history relates. Here you enter on a field, from which you can gather ample spoils. Every event is either simple, and related only in its most general traits, or it is described fully, with an enumeration of all its circumstances. If the former be the case, you then say: "This plain, unadorned representation is perfectly agreeable to the spirit of the primitive, legendary age, in which the story had its origin ;" but if the latter be the case, you say: "The minuteness with which the narrator has dressed out the event in all its circumstantial drapery, shows most clearly, that the exaggerating power of tradition has been at work here." Comp. Str. b. i. pp. 383,395 b., 450, 567, 635,728; b. ii. 24 f. 36 f. and other places. Proceed in this way, and you will never find yourself at a loss. You can turn any thing into a myth, whether stated by your narrator in one form or another. Say what he will, it is myth, and myth it must remain. (1) A bold and impudent falsification of the facts, you will occasionally find very useful. By mere assertion, or the gratuitous introduction of some trait unknown to your author, you can make the particulars of a statement appear entirely contradictory to each other. You need have no fear of such a step, as if it might be hazardous; scores of readers will believe you the sooner for so dashing a manoeuvre. Thus, for example, it is said: "Cajus was a faithful father, and devoted much time and labour to the education and instruction of his children; and in another passage it is related, that a son of Cajus, now grown up, met with a man who had previously been his teacher. You have only now to pervert the first passage, so as to make it affirm expressly, that Cajus gave himself all the instruction to his children which they ever received, and then you can ask, How could his son meet with a teacher of his, when he never had any teacher except his own father?" 66 (m) Another little stratagem, to which you can resort, is that of constantly putting the question, what was the object, when a thing is so plain as to be evident of itself. If Cajus makes a deep and respectful bow to an aged man who meets him, you must ask: "What was the object of that bow? Was it intended merely to please and gratify the old man? But how can it be supposed, that the compliment of a stranger would afford an old man so much pleasure? Or did Cajus perform that act, in order to express his views respecting the reverence which is due to old age in general? A very good object, certainly, but there was no spectator present to profit by the example, and he would have done better at all events to have inculcated that principle publicly in a Compendium of Morals. Or will any one say, that it was to this particular individual that he wished to make such a demonstration of his sentiments? This, again, is not without its difficulty. The act being merely a silent one, might have been misunderstood; and he would have been surer of his object to have explained it in express terms. And besides, what interest could he have in forcing upon a stranger, in so hasty a manner, an expression of his views upon a moral subject of this nature?" Comp. Str. b. i. pp. 221, 261, 290, 556, 562, &c. (n) It will be found, that in the whole course of a history, certain particular circumstances occur repeatedly, though in every separate passage where they are mentioned they are sufficiently explained. The causes which occasion their recurrence are always either specified or intimated. In such cases, you must make it a point to take these circumstances out of their connection, and to represent them as proceeding from a studied design of the writer, consequently as a pure invention on his part. If, for example, one of your sources relates in a certain place, that Cajus returning from a walk sat down to table, and again, in two other passages that he went out, on two different occasions, before dinner-induced, indeed, every time so to do by special reasons-you must then say: "It appears to have been a standing rule with Cajus, to walk or go out before dinner. Who does not see in this the design of the writer to distinguish Cajus from other men, since he represents him as going out for exercise in the forenoon, while the general prac tice is to do this in the afternoon? Comp. Str. b. ii. p. 585, where John's outrunning Peter is said to be one of a series of incidents, introduced for the purpose of conferring a superiority upon John over Peter. For other similar manoeuvres of Strauss, see the author's work, Theil. i. § 78, 4. งา (0) If you find that any difficult point has not been satisfactorily explained hitherto by any commentator, you need not ask, whether it can be thus explained; but you select two from the entire number of the different explanations offered, which distinctly contradict each other, and both of which are untenable. You now reason thus: "This explanation is impos sible; that also is impossible. The matter therefore is inexplicable." Comp. Str. b. i. p. 226 f. (p) But it is time to remind you of your learning. You have no conception what an effect it has now-a-days to see a mass of citations in a book under the text. "Ah, I understand that"-you say· "but where shall I obtain this learning. I have not read either Josephus, or, to confess the truth, a great deal of any thing else." My dear friend, that makes no difference. The exegetical Manuals of Paulus, De Wette, Olshausen, and some antiquated commentaries and monographs you have already studied somewhat; Wetstein and Lightfoot lie before you; you own Winer's Bible-Dictionary; and luckily, Havercamp's Josephus has several capital Registers. You need not suppose it necessary to have read every thing which you quote. Heaven forbid! Wherever you find citations-in Winer, in Paulus, or elsewhere-copy them off without misgiving, they are lawful plunder. Only think what a learned man the world will take you to be! How must such a hope fire your soul! But it may not be amiss to be a little particular in my instructions here:-You begin with Paulus. Here you labour at one point. You must amuse your reader with examples of his style of forced interpretation, and show at great length how very unnatural his natural explanations are. Olshausen you approach in a different way. He is not confessedly free from faults. His greatness consists not so much in the acuteness of his harmonistic talent, as in depth of Christian feeling and in his power of developing the spiritual fulness of the divine Word. In this respect his name marks an era in criticism. As a reformer of the shallow, insipid exegesis which rationalism had brought into vogue, he stands by the side of Schleiermacher and Neander, who produced a similar revolution in dogmatics and church history. His merits, however, you must overlook and attack him upon his weak side. You must hunt up as many instances as possible of his unsuccessful attempts to harmonize the evangelists, and point at them the shafts of your keenest ridicule and satire.-In Lightfoot, you must seek bravely for rabbinic passages, whenever and wherever you can.-In Josephus, whenever the name of a city or any single political event comes in your way, you must scan the Register, and happy will you feel yourself to be, if Josephus does not mention this name or event. You then trumpet it forth in triumph, as a proof that Josephus "knew nothing of it." Whether the name or event was important enough to be mentioned by him, you need not trouble yourself to ask; nor as to the plan of Josephus, of which you are ignorant, need you make any inquiry. You take it for granted, that Josephus must record every thing; what does not stand in the Register of Josephus, did not exist—it is something which never took place. (q) Finally, you are to read through also the apocryphal gospels; do not be alarmed-it will not cost you much time. The most ridiculous distortions and caricatures of the life of Jesus, which you find there, you will sedulously collect and present them as parallel to the simplest biblical narrations. You can safely assume, that the majority of your readers have not read these apocryphal compositions in full; and so will not perceive, as they otherwise would, the utter irrelevancy of these pretended parallelisms. Thus, for example, if a person reads in one book-" Cajus was very old, and when he went abroad, two of his sons were accustomed to lead him;" and in another book-" Cajus was over a thousand years old, and was so weak that he could not move a limb, but his sons took him upon their shoulders and bore him about, and his beard grew to be more than forty ells long"-every one sees that the first is a sober statement, but the second, an absurd tale. You must place them both, however, as parallel to each other thus: Cajus is said, according to A, to have become very old; we find precisely the same in the apocryphal book B, where we find even the number of his years mentioned as one thousand, and the length of his beard as forty ells long. Both accounts agree also in respect to the great bodily weakness which the old man suffered at this advanced period, since according to A, he was led by his sons, while in B, this legendary incident is already magnified into his being carried by his sons. One might attempt, indeed, to reconcile this by saying, that he was at first led, and afterwards as his weakness increased, that he was carried; but it is manifest, that we have before us merely a mythic picture in both accounts." Comp. Str. b. i. p. 226 f. 66 And such stuff,* can it be supposed that my readers will receive with patience? My dear friend, should you apply this mode of proceeding to any ordinary history, containing nothing of a miraculous nature, no one indeed would believe what you say nay, the world would consider you as absolutely mad. But if you apply it to a section of the Bible, to a supernatural history, you may be sure of a legion of admirers, who will stand ready to catch up your words and echo them with thoughtless applause. Observe well, it is against the miracles alone that the scepticism in this case is directed. These, some men would at all hazards discredit and cancel from the records of truth; and any procedure which is designed to explain the sources of the evangelical history as unhistorical, they applaud as an exhibition of the greatest mental acuteness, * A milder term here would not answer. The word in the German is "Zeug" and not "Stoff." whereas, were it applied to any other writing, they would undoubtedly pronounce it uncritical and nonsensical. One word more, I beg to add, in conclusion. In some persons there is still left a spark of that weakness which is called reverence for the Bible. So long as this weakness exists, it will stand in your way, counteracting the impression which your investigations are intended to produce. Seek, therefore, on every possible occasion, to weaken and destroy it. The practised eye will not fail to discern such opportunities. Such passages, for instance, as Matt. xvii. 24-27; xxi. 10. &c., you will not suffer to pass unimproved for this purpose. In particular, I would remind you, that the cross on Golgotha is the place where the Saviour of men was mocked eighteen hundred years ago, and where it will be specially seemly to renew that derision, if any one has a disposition for it at the present day. Go thou now and do in like manner. "I will give thee the whole world, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. And your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall become as gods." Probatum est. ART. IX.-Sources of the American Population. Census Returns; Statistical Tables. [We need scarcely say that the subject of this paper is one of worldwide interest. The statements that have recently been made as to the rapid increase of the Irish population of the United States, and the spirit which they cherish towards Great Britain, have attracted much attention in this country, and are naturally enough regarded with uneasiness, if not alarm. In forecasting the battle that, at no great distance, awaits the world for faith and for freedom, it would be indeed a somewhat depressing consideration for the church of Christ, that the Protestant spirit and influence of America bade fair to be paralysed by a preponderating infusion of the Popish element. The savage exultation which marks the references of the Popish press, both of Ireland and America, to the probability of Great Britain being (by this means) left to stand alone in the contest which Rome is every where precipitating, has largely contributed to spread this impression. "Year by year," says the Freeman's Journal of New York, " the Irish are becoming more powerful in America. At length, the propitious moment will come. Some accidental collision," &c. "Irishmen will yet prove potent among the enemies of England. They have bold hearts, strong hands, and at length thousands and tens of thousands among them and their immediate descendants are becoming rich. But hearts, hands, VOL. I.-NO. III. 2 T |