Das älteste Evangelium. 839 critic of Leipzic will be spared to carry through to its completion this great monument of a laborious and useful life, in gathering materials for the settlement of the text of the Word of God. Das älteste Evangelium. Von J. H. SCHOLTEN, Professor zu Leyden. Elberfeld and London: Williams & Norgate. 1869. Pp. 256. Scholten is a celebrated professor of theology at the Dutch University of Leyden. In 1864 he published an elaborate critico-historical work on the Gospel of John (" Het Evangelie naar Johannes"), which was published in Germany in 1867. It bore decided evidence that its author belonged to the Tübingen school of critics. The work before us has been rendered into German by Dr Redepenning of Ilfeld, in Hanover. It is a critical inquiry into the relation which the first two gospels bear to each other. The author agrees in opinion with those who regard the Gospel of Mark as the oldest of the three synoptical gospels, and the Gospel of Matthew as partly made up of that of Mark. But not content with this, he affirms that the Gospel of Mark has undergone revision by some writer, who has confined himself however to trifling comments. In the second part of his work, he proceeds in a manner quite arbitrary to determine, judging from his own peculiar stand-point, what parts of the Gospel of Mark are of the genuine ancient form, and what parts have been added by the commentator. He passes the Gospel of Matthew through the same process. In his preface, the author says, "The views entertained by theologians on the relation between Matthew and Mark, may be divided into these two classes. On the one side are Zeller, Hilgenfeld, and Keim, among the German, and among the Dutch, Meyboom, who hold with Baur the early origin of Matthew, at least of a ProtoMatthew; and on the other side, although varying somewhat among themselves in shades of opinion, are Hitzig, Ewald, Ritschl, Rouss, Néville, Meyer, Volkmar, Holtzmann, Weizsäcker, among the Germans,—and among the Dutch, Michelsen, who assign the priority to Mark or to a Proto-Mark." He expresses his delight to find that his countryman Michelsen, in a work on the Gospel of Mark which has just appeared, adopts the same plan of separating the historical from the mythical portions. Scholten believes that both Matthew and Mark abound with myths. Der erste Brief des Johannes. Ein Beitrag zur biblischen Theologie von ERICH HAUPT. Colberg and London: Williams & Norgate. 1869. Pp. 329. This work is not to be regarded, as in the usual sense of the word, a Commentary on the First Epistle of John, but rather, as the title indicates, a "Contribution to Biblical Theology." The writer very justly animadverts in his introduction on the style of commentary so common, in which the opinions of previous commentators are given with so much fulness, that it is with difficulty a glimpse can be obtained into the book commented on, as a whole; the mind of the reader is led to the consideration of so many different things, and so many different questions are handled, that a distinct impression of the book itself is wholly obliterated. That which the apostle says, goes into the back-ground and is hidden behind that which is said about it by this and that interpreter. “Let any one, for instance,” he says, "examine these distinguished, and in their own way, most excellent works, the Exposition of the Epistle to the Ephesians by Harless, and the Exegetico-Critical Commentaries of Meyer and Huter,—and eliminate from them all that is said by previous commentators, and place together, on the other side, all that is said bearing on the theological exposition of the book, and he will see to his amazement how very little it is." "The attempt is here made," he continues, "to present the preceding labourers as little as possible before the reader, and to give the results of their expositions only with the most practicable brevity. The varietates lectionum are referred to also, only when they affect the meaning of a passage. The history of the interpretation is altogether left out of consideration, and all controversy directed against my predecessors in the same field is as a principle avoided. Rather it is my object to penetrate, with the New Testament only in my hand, into the train of thought and the matter of the thoughts presented in this letter." "Every man carries, it may be unconsciously, in himself a system, so that all his separate and apparently isolated utterances arise out of the totality of his conceptions. We are justified in common life in judging of the sum of a man's thoughts from the separate words he utters. The premises must agree with the conclusion, which lies shut up in his words, else he has no right at all to any attention. How much more have we the right in dealing with the apostles, whom the Holy Ghost guided into all truth, to conclude from their words, uttered as occasion demanded, as to the whole of their views. To do that, to place every word they uttered under a microscope, to inquire dialectically from what suppositions it is born, to what consequences it leads, that is the function of biblical theology. To the building up of such a system of biblical theology, I present here a stone, in my endeavour to follow out the expressions of the apostle in their consequences. John's is a mighty spirit, and one feels literally almost crushed under the majesty of the heavenly thoughts of this letter, which thunder in sublime harmony around the reader. If only here and there a single soul is moved through the instrumentality of my book, to go down into this ocean of the riches of divine wisdom and knowledge, the design of my work will have been fulfilled." Kurz-gefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament. Zweite Lieferung Hiob, erklärt von Dr AUGUST DILLMANN. It is more than twenty years since this condensed exegetical Handbook to the Old Testament began to be published. It is now complete in seventeen volumes, most of them by different authors. Three of the volumes are now in the second edition, and three also in the third, one of which is the volume on the Book of Job, now before us. Handbuch zum alten Testament-Hiob. 841 It is from the pen of Dr Dillmann, Professor of Theology at the University of Giessen, the chief town of Upper Hesse. Dr Dillmann has just received a call to the University of Berlin, to succeed the late Dr Hengstenberg, and will enter on his new sphere at the beginning of the approaching winter semeater. He began his academical career as Repetent at the University of Tübingen. In 1853 he was appointed to an extraordinary professorship there, and in 1554 removed to Kiel in the same capacity. In 1860 he was promoted to the rank of ordinary professor there, and appointed to the chair of Hebrew and Oriental literature, in the room of Justus Olshausen. In 1864 he was called from Kiel to fill the situation of professor of Old Testament Exegesis at Giessen, as successor to Knobel, where he has laboured with growing reputation as a Biblical scholar till now. Dr Dillmann has already published several valuable works. This exegetical Handbook on Job was originally prepared by L. Hirzel, and published in 1839. A second edition, with emendations and additional remarks, by J. Olshausen, was published in 1852. Dr Dillman has written an entirely new work, though he has as far as possible followed the footsteps of his predecessors. He has been at great pains, by a judicious and patient use of his abundant materials, which, during the last thirty years have been accumulating in Germany, to present a complete and comprehensive view, and in brief compass, of the actual present state of exposition and criticism of the Book of Job. In a somewhat elaborate introduction, he considers the various subjects which usually fall under that head. 1. The Character of the Book. Although it contains a history, it is not a historical but a poetical book, ranked in the Hebrew Bible in the division of the Ketubim. It is an artistic, epic, dramatic, didactic poem. 2. He gives an outline of the contents and subject of the book, following out the history of Job. 3. The importance of the subject, in which he treats of the design of the sufferings of the righteous. 4. The idea of the poet, and the object of his poem. 5. The material of the poem. 6. The plan of the poem. 7. The art of the poem. 8. The unity of the book, and the interpolated fragments. Of the chapters xxxii.-xxxvii., containing Elihu's speeches, he says, "This part shews by its language its poetic art, and its contents, that it is the production of some other poet." It is the "interpolation of a later reader, who wished to give another explanation of Job's case, but who, in poetic power and elevation, could not reach an equality with the original work." He in like manner regards xl. 15-41, as no part of the original. 9. The age of the poet. Some (Haneberg, R. Stier, Ebrard) have regarded Moses as the author of the book; others suppose (Vatke, Köster, Meier, &c.) that the author lived after or during the exile; a third party (Stäudlin, Augusti, Vaihinger, Hahn, Schlottmann, Delitzsch), that the book belongs to the age of David and Solomon. Dillmann thinks that probably the author lived in the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century after the exodus, and that the Elihu fragment (xxxii.-xxxvii.) was written in the course of the sixth century. 10. The person and country of the poet. He agrees with those who think that his dwelling-place, whoever he was, was in the south or south-east of Jerusalem, in the borders of Arabia. This whole series of Handbooks will be very useful to students, especially on account of their elaborate and thorough word-criticisms. Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte. Von OTTO PFLEIDERER. Erster Band. Das Wesen der Religion. Leipzig and London: Williams & Norgate. This book is dedicated by its author to the faculty of the University of Tübingen. It deals with the nature of religion, or the philosophy of religion, from the Tübingen-Rationalist point of view. A second volume, which is to follow, will treat of the History of religion. author says in his preface, "This work is the substance of a course ... The of lectures which I delivered in the summer sessions of 1867 and 1868 at Tübingen, when I was a repetent at that University. As they met with approbation there, I resolved on leaving the University to put them to the press. . . Corresponding with this its origin, the work has a special reference to students of theology, as intended to be a guide to them from the region of general historical aud philosophical studies into that of theology." The volume before us consists of two parts. I. The psychology of the philosophy of religion, consisting (1) of Piety, under which he treats of the history of the philosophical conceptions of religion by Kant, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Feuerbach; and (2) of the relation of piety to the other functions of the mind-to faith and knowledge to moral activity; (3) the origin of a pious community (the church) and the activity of the church in worship. II. The second part treats of the metaphysics of the philosophy of religion. The different branches of this part are (1) God and the world; in which are presented the arguments for the existence of a personal God; the relation of God to the world as conceived of in the Indian Pantheism, the Greek Pantheism and Atomism, the Pantheism of Bruno and Spinoza, the material and idealistic Pankosmism; the deistical tendency of Plato and Schleiermacher (that religion consists in a tendency of the mind revealing itself in the consciousness of an absolute dependence on God); the process of Hegel (that religion is the process of the mind); Deism and Pantheism; Theism,-speculative of Schelling, Weisse, and R. Rothe, -and empirical of Aristotle, Leibnitz, Lotze, Ulrici; and the Theistical doctrines of the Creation of J. H. Fichte. (2.) Man; 1, his creation; the fall; original sin; the theories of the origin of evil; the relation of God to evil. 2, The ultimate destiny of man; the psychological, moral, and religious proofs of his immortality; the eternal life. (3.) The divine revelation; the positive development of the divine revelation; the supra-naturalism and the rationalism of Schleiermacher and Hegel. Redemption and reconciliation as a process; redemption and the Redeemer; miracles, prophecy, inspiration. The whole of this wide sweep of subjects is discussed entirely from the Tübingen point of view. The last arbiter is, not the Bible, but Reason. The book is very instructive as exhibiting the idea of what religion is as entertained by those who occupy the writer's point of view. American Literature. 843 XI. AMERICAN LITERATURE. The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review. Edited by CHARLES April and July. These are excellent numbers. That for July contains:-(1.) An account of the Welsh Methodists, based on the valuable history of that denomination by the Rev. J. Hughes of Liverpool. (2.) A review of Some Recent Discussions on the Fundamental Principles of Morals; an admirable review of modern ethical philosophy. (3.) A brief historical account of the early Planting of the American Churches. (4.) A calm, earnest, seasonable paper on The Novel and Novel Reading. The writer is discriminating and thoughtful; and he views, with just alarm, the tendencies of this "Era of the Novel" in which we are living. He shews how novel reading, as it has developed itself in our age, weakens the intellect, deadens true feeling, destroys real benevolence, destroys all taste for the other and more solid reading which is essential for every intelligent man or woman, and so, in the end, all taste for real, right life. By novels "the reader is led away from the facts of history and the truths of science, away from the laws of ethics and the doctrines of religion, away from the realities of this life and the glories of the life to come. The precious time for solid mental improvement is wasted, and he is made to move in a fictitious world till all his notions of society are warped, all his views of life perverted, all his ideas of religion distorted; in short, until he becomes equally unfit to stay in the world of reality, or to go out of it." We strongly sympathise with these views. It has been to us a matter of surprise and deep regret that even the religious periodical literature of our country has so fully fallen into this tendency of our times, and is doing so very much to foster it. (5.) A vigorous, healthful article follows on the Ethics and Economics of Commercial Speculation. The writer well shews the manifold evils which flow to all classes of the community, and to the nation itself, from the spirit of commercial speculation which has been recently so powerfully developed in America, and, we are sorry to say, is very largely developed also in our own country, and concludes with these words, "Against the alarming inroads of the fever of speculation, and so many other evils growing out of the passion for sudden wealth, sensual luxury, and coarse ostentation, good men should set their faces. May the Spirit of the Lord lift up a standard against this enemy which cometh in as a flood." (6.) A review of Froude's History of England, which has been republished in America. The writer does full justice to this magnificent work, which is worthy of being regarded as one of the most elaborate and valuable contributions to the historical literature which has been produced in our day. We cannot, of course, be expected to coincide with all the |