Straussâ•Žs Life of Jesus



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THEODORE

 

PARKER



298

STRAUSS


S

 



LIFE

 

OF



 

JESUS


299

cal earth clinging to the roots of the tree, which he transplants 

into the cold thin atmosphere of the “Absolute.” Taking the 

Bible as it is, says good Dr. Ullmann, there are three ways of 

treating it. We may believe every word is historically true, from 

Genesis to Revelation; that there is neither myth nor fable — 

and this is the theory of some supernaturalists, like Hengsten-

berg and his school; or with Strauss, that there is no historical 

ground, which is fi rm and undeniably certain, but only a little 

historical matter, around which tradition has wrapped legends 

and myths; or, fi nally, that the Bible, and in particular the 

New Testament, “always rests on historical ground, though it 

is not common historical ground, nor is it so rigidly historical 

that no legendary or mythical elements have entered it. The 

two former theories recommend themselves, for their simplic-

ity; but neither can be maintained, while the third is natural, 

easy, and offends neither the cultivated understanding nor 

the pious heart.

It is wonderful, we think, that some of the absurdities of 

the theory Mr. Strauss supports have not struck the author 

himself. He reverses the order of things; makes the effect pre-

cede the cause; the Idea appear in the mass, before it was seen 

in an individual, “As Plato’s God formed the world by look-

ing on the eternal ideas, so has the community, taking occa-

sion from the person and fate of Jesus, projected the image of 

its Christ, and unconsciously the idea of mankind, in its rela-

tions to God, has been waving before its eyes.” He makes a be-

lief in the resurrection and divinity of Christ spring up out of 

the community, take hold on the world, and produce a revo-

lution in all human affairs perfectly unexampled; and all this 

without any adequate historical cause. No doubt, theologians 

in his country, as well as our own, have attempted to prove too 

much, and so failed to prove anything. Divines, like kings, lose 

their just inheritance, when they aspire at universal empire. 

But this justifi es no man in the court of logic, for rejecting all 

historical faith. If there was not an historical Christ to ideal-

ize, there could be no ideal Christ to seek in history. We doubt 

if there was genius enough in the world in the fi rst two, or the 

fi rst twenty centuries since Christ, to devise such a character 

as his, with so small an historical capital, as Strauss leaves us. 

No doubt, we commit great errors in seeking for too much of 

historical matter. Christian critics, says De Wette, will not be 

satisfi ed with knowing as much respecting Christ as Paul and 

the apostles knew. No one of them, though they were eye-wit-

nesses, had such a complete, consistent, and thoroughly his-

torical picture of the life of Christ, as we seek after. Many of 

the primitive Christians could scarcely know of Christ’s his-

tory a tenth part of what our catechumens learn, and yet they 

were more inspired and better believers than we. It is much 

learning, which makes us so mad; not the Apostle Paul.* But 

if we cannot prove all things, we can hold fast to enough that 

is good.

Mr. Strauss takes the idea, which forms the subject, as he 

thinks, of a Christian myth, out of the air, and then tells us how 

the myth itself grew out of that idea. But he does not always 

prove from history or the nature of things, that the idea ex-

isted before the story or the fact was invented. He fi nds certain 

opinions, prophecies, and expectations in the Old Testament, 

and affi rms at once these were both the occasion and cause of 

the later stories, in which they reappear. This method of treat-

ment requires very little ingenuity, on the part of the critic; we 

could resolve half of Luther’s life into a series of myths, which 

are formed after the model of Paul’s history; indeed, this has 

already been done. Nay, we could dissolve any given histori-

cal event in a mythical solution, and then precipitate the “sem-

inal ideas” in their primitive form. We also can change an his-

torical character into a symbol of “universal humanity.” The

* L. c. p. 221.



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whole history of the United States of America, for example, we 

might call a tissue of mythical stories, borrowed in part from 

the Old Testament, in part from the Apocalypse, and in part 

from fancy. The British government oppressing the Puritans 

is the “great red dragon” of the Revelation, as it is shown, by 

the national arms, and by the British legend of Saint George 

and the Dragon, The splendid career of the new people is bor-

rowed from the persecuted woman’s poetical history, her dress 

— “clothed with the sun.” The stars said to be in the national 

banner, are only the crown of twelve stars on the poetic be-

ing’s head; the perils of the pilgrims in the Mayfl ower are only 

the woman’s fl ight on the wings of a great eagle. The war be-

tween the two countries is only “the practical application” of 

the fl ood which the dragon cast out against the woman, &c.* 

The story of the Declaration of Independence is liable to many 

objections, if we examine it a la mode Strauss. The congress 

was held at a mythical town, whose very name is suspicious, — 

Philadelphia, — Brotherly Love. The date is suspicious; it was 

the fourth day of the fourth month, (reckoning from April, as 

it is probable the Heraclidæ, and Scandinavians; possible that 

the aboriginal Americans, and certain that the Hebrews did. ) 

Now four was a sacred number with the Americans; the pres-

ident was chosen for four years; there were four departments 

of affairs; four divisions of the political powers, namely, — the 

people, the congress, the executive, and the judiciary, &c. Be-

sides, which is still more incredible, three of the presidents

two of whom, it is alleged signed the declaration, died on the 



fourth of July, and the two latter exactly fi fty years after they 

had signed it, and about the same hour of the day. The year 

also is suspicious; 1776 is but an ingenious combination of the

* We borrowed this hint from a sermon heard in childhood, “opening 

this Scripture,” and explaining this prophecy, as relating to America.

sacred number, four, which is repeated three times, and then 

multiplied by itself to produce the date; thus, 444 × 4 = 1776, 

Q. E. D. Now dividing the fi rst (444) by the second (4), we have 



Unity  thrice repeated (111.) This is a manifest symbol of the 

national oneness, (likewise represented in the motto, e pluri-



bus unum,) and of the national religion, of which the Trini-

form Monad, or “Trinity in Unity” and “Unity in Trinity,” is the 

well-known sign!! Still farther, the Declaration is metaphysi-

cal, and presupposes an acquaintance with the transcendental 

philosophy, on the part of the American people. Now the Kri-

tik of Pure Reason was not published till after the Declaration 

was made. Still farther, the Americans were never, to use the 

nebulous expressions of certain philosophers, an “idealo-tran-

scendental-and-subjective,” but an “objective-and-concretivo-

practical” people, to the last degree; therefore a metaphysical 

document, and most of all a “legal-congressional-metaphysi-

cal” document is highly suspicious if found among them. Be-

sides, Hualteperah, the great historian of Mexico, a neighbor-

ing state, never mentions this document; and farther still, if 

this Declaration had been made, and accepted by the whole 

nation, as it is pretended, then we cannot account for the fact, 

that the fundamental maxim of that paper, namely, the soul’s 

equality to itself, — “all men are born free and equal” — was 

perpetually lost sight of, and a large portion of the people kept 

in slavery; still later, petitions, — supported by this fundamen-

tal article, — for the abolition of slavery, were rejected by Con-

gress with unexampled contempt, when, if the history is not 

mythical, slavery never had a legal existence after 1776, &c. 

&c. But we could go on in this way forever. “I’ll” prate “you so 

eight years together; dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours 

excepted; it is the right butter-woman’s rank to market.” We 

are forcibly reminded of the ridiculous prediction of Lichten-

berg, mentioned by Jacobi; “Our world will by-and-by become 




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