had already come earlier into use, which favored the separation of the people (of Israel.) With it now, Christianity hangs together historically by this means, that Jesus was born among the Jewish people, as to be sure a universal Redeemer could not well elsewhere spring up than out of a monotheistic people, as soon as such had arisen. But we are not at liberty to put forward the historical connection too exclusively. For the religious way of thinking of the people at the time of the appearance of Christ was no more exclusively based upon Moses and the prophets, but was variously modified by non-Jewish elements, which they had taken up during and after the Babylonian dispersion. And so also on the other side the Hellenic and Romish heathenism was in various ways monotheistically prepared, and there the expectation of a new formation was stretched to the utmost; as on the contrary among the Jews the Messianic promises were partly given up, partly misunderstood. So that when we put together all the historical proportions, the difference falls out for less than appears at the first glance. And the derivation of Christianity from Judaism is very much counterbalanced by this, that on the one hand so many more heathens than Jews passed over to Christianity, on the other that Christianity would not have found so much as this reception among the Jews, if they had not been penetrated by those foreign elements.

2. "Much more is Christianity equally related to Judaism and Heathenism, so far as it is necessary to pass over from both to it, as to a something different. The spring certainly seems to be greater from heathenism, so far as this must first have become monotheistic in order to become Christian; the two however were not separated, but monotheism was now equally given to the heathen under the form of Christianity, as earlier under that of Judaism. On the contrary, the step forward among the Jews, not to rely upon the law, and to understand the Abrahamitic promises differently, was also not less. If then we must assume, that Christian piety, although it formed itself in the beginning, is not to be comprehended out of the Jewish either of that or of a still earlier time, we can, therefore, in no manner view Christianity as a transformative or renewing progression of Judaism. It is true that if Paul regards the faith of Abraham as the original model of Christian faith, and represents the Mosaic law, only as something inserted between,' then we could certainly conclude therefrom, that he wished to represent Christianity as a renewal of that original and pure Abrahamitic Judaism. But his meaning is however only, that Abraham's faith was just as much related to the promise as ours is to the fulfilment, but by no means that the promise was precisely the same thing to Abraham, as the fulfilment to us. But where he speaks expressly of the relation of Jews and Gentiles

to Christ, there he represents it as precisely the same, Christ as the same for both, and both as equally far removed from God, and therefore equally needing Christ. Is it now equally related to Judaism as to Heathenism: then it can be no more a continuation of Judaism than it is of Heathenism; but let a person come hither from the one or the other, as to what pertains to his piety, he will be a new man. But the promise to Abraham, so far as it has been fulfilled in Christ, is only so represented, as if it had its relation to Christ solely in the divine decree, not in the pious self-consciousness of Abraham and his family. And since we can recognize the self-sameness of a pious communion only there, where this consciousness is formed in equal proportions: therefore we can just as little recognize an identity between Christianity and the Abrahamitic Judaism as the latter or Heathenism. neither can we say that that purer original Judaism so carried the germs of Christianity in itself, that they would have developed themselves out of the same by natural progress, without the intervention of anything new, nor also that Christ himself so lay in this progression, that a new common life and existence could not begin with Him.

2

And

3. "The wide spread assumption of one single church of God from the very commencement of the human race up to the end thereof, contradicts our proposition more in appearance than in fact. For if, too, the Mosaic law belongs to this one connection of a divine economy of salvation: then we must, according to established Christian doctrines, likewise reckon to that account the Hellenic philosophy, especially that striving towards monotheism; and yet we cannot without entirely taking away the peculiarity of Christianity assert, that its doctrine forms one whole with the heathen philosophy. If, on the other side, this doctrine of the one church aims particularly at this, to express the unlimited relation of Christ to everything human, operative even upon past time, this is an objectivity upon which here as yet a judgment cannot be formed, but with our position stands very well together. And thus is there already in prophecy, ascribed to the new covenant a character different from the old, as to be sure exactly this opposition expresses the internal separation in the most decided manner. Therefore the rule is to be laid down, that for Christian use almost everything else in the Old Testament is only a hull of this prediction, and that has the least worth, which is most distinctly Jewish. So that we can find given to us again in passages of the Old Testament, with any exactness only those of our pious emotions, which are of a more universal nature and are not culti

1

Rom. 2: 11, 12. 3: 21-24. 12 Cor. 4: 16, 17. Eph. 2: 14, 18.

* Εἰκότως οὖν Ιουδαίοις μὲν νόμος “Ελλησι δὲ φιλοσοφία μέχρι τῆς παρουσίας: ἐντεῦσιν δὲ ἡ κλῆσις ἡ κατολικὴ εἰς περιούσιον δικαιοσύνης λαόν.—Clem. Strom. vi. 823 P.

Jer. 31: 31-34.

vated in a very peculiarly Christian manner; but for those which are, Old Testament passages will be no appropriate expression, if we do not think away something, from them, and put something else in; and this being taken into account, we shall without doubt meet with just as near and harmonious accords even in the expressions of the noble and purer heathenism. (!) It is certain, too, that the older apologists appealed not less willingly to Messianic predictions, which were called heathen, and therefore also recognized there a striving of human nature after Christianity.

Prop. 3. "The appearance of the Redeemer in history, as a Divine Manifestation, is neither anything absolutely supernatural nor anything absolutely superrational.

1. "As it respects manifestation, it has already above been agreed, that no starting-point of a peculiarly formed existence, and still more of a community, especially of a pious one, is to be explained from the nature of the circle, in which it arises and works outwards, since otherwise it were no point of commencement, but a mere product of a spiritual revolution. But although now its existence transcends the nature of that sphere, still nothing hinders us from assuming, that the rise of such a life is a working of a power of development dwelling in our nature as a species which reveals itself according to laws, although concealed from us, yet Divinely ordained, in individual men at individual points, in order through them, to advance the rest. Certainly without such an assumption no progression of the human race, either partial or general, were to be thought of. Every distinguished endowment of an individual, through whom in a definite circle, any one spiritual work has been reformed, is such a starting-point; and only the more limited by time and space in their operations, developments of this kind are, so much the more also do they seem, although not explainable from the pre-existing yet, conditionated by it. If we therefore designate all these, each in his sphere, as heroes and ascribe to them a higher inspiration, then by this only thus much is meant, that for the highest good of the circle in which they appear, they are impregnated out of the universal source of life; and that such persons appear from time to time, we must regard as something conformable to law, if we would at all hold fast to the higher significance of human nature.

'All such individuals are therefore in analogy with the idea of revelation, which is meanwhile specially applied only to the sphere of the higher self-consciousness. No one, it is likely, will refuse to admit such an endowing, in all founders of religion, even of subordinate degrees, provided the doctrine and community proceeding from them is to have something peculiar and original in them. But shall this be applied in the same sense to Christ, then, in the next place, we should be obliged to say, that in comparison with him, all which in other respects can be deemed revelation, (mani

festation,) again loses this character, because all the rest is limited to definite times and spaces, and everything proceeding from such points is nevertheless already from the start, destined again to be annihilated in them, in reference to Him, therefore is no being, but a non-being, and only He is supposed gradually to impart to the whole human race a higher degree of life. For he who does not receive Christ in this universality as a Divine Manifestation, cannot desire Christianity as a permanent appearance. But nev ertheless it must still be asserted, that even the strongest view of the distinction between Him and all other men, does not forbid it being said, that his appearance even as man-becoming (incarnation,) of the Son of God was something natural. For in the first place, as certainly as Christ was a man, the possibility, at least, must be in human nature, to receive into itself the Divine just as it has been in Christ. So that the position, that the Divine Manifestation in Christ must even in this respect be something absolutely supernatural, does not at all bear trial; much more does the Prot-evangelium, by in fact connecting the promise of Christ immediately with the Fall, declare entirely against the idea, viz: as if human nature was in any respect incapable of receiving the Divine restoring element into itself, and that the ability thereto must first be creatively introduced. But although in human nature, there lies only the possibility thereto, consequently the actual implanting of this Divine element in it, must be solely a Divine, therefore, an eternal act: still, in the second place, the temporal forthcoming of this act in a definite person is also to be regarded as a fact of human nature, founded in its original arrangement, and prepared through everything earlier, consequently as the highest development of its spiritual power, even be it so that we could never penetrate so deeply into these inmost secrets of the universal spiritual life, as to be able to develop this general conviction into a definite view. For otherwise it would have to be explained always, only as a Divine arbitrariness, that precisely in Jesus and no other, the restoring Divine element made its appearance; but to assume Divine arbitrariness in a single thing is always an anthropopathic view, for which also the Scripture does not vouch, seeming much more to intimate precisely the conditionality here asserted.

2. "But now as to what appertains to the super-rational. Christ could in no wise be confronted with our total humanity as Redeemer, if those very life-moments, by which he accomplishes redemption, were to be explained from the reason dwelling equally in all others, because then these states must occur too in the others, and therefore they also be able to effectuate redemption. If now just so in the redeemed, also conditions of spirit are supposed as obtained only through His communication or influence, and if without this it could not be said that a redemption was accom

plished in them; then these feelings are not to be accounted for solely from the reason dwelling in them from their birth, although this is indispensably necessary, since such states of being can never exist in a reasonless soul. Therefore, something superrational is certainly supposed in the Redeemer and the redeemed; and whoever would in no way recognize this, could also not understand redemption in a proper sense, and must estimate Christianity only as an institution to stand until something better arises for the transmission of the influences of a human reason eminently awakened in the form of the self-consciousness. This super-rationality is also, almost without exception, recognized in the utterances of those who profess Christ, and expressed under different forms, as an original or later-entered persistent or moment-limited indwelling of God or of the 46yos in Christ, and as a movement of the redeemed by the Holy Ghost. But though we suppose even the highest difference between this super-rational and the common human reason, still this super-rational element can never be set forth as absolutely such, without falling into contradiction with itself. Because the highest aim which is brought about by these workings of redemption is ever still such a condition of man, as could not only receive the most perfect recognition of the common human reason, but in which also what the Divine Spirit, and what the human reason itself in the same individual effects, cannot in general be distinguished. As then reason is entirely at one with the Divine Spirit, therefore the Divine Spirit itself can be viewed as the highest degree of human reason, and the difference between both taken away. But just so also even in the first beginning, everything which contradicts the motions of the Divine Spirit, is also that which strives against human reason, since otherwise a consciousness of the need of redemption could not be in man, before those operations enter, certainly such a consciousness as is satisfied by them. Is there therefore in human reason itself, already in a certain manner that supposed, which is produced by the Divine Spirit ?-then in this relation he does not transcend the same. What now is valid of the redeemed, is just as much also predicable of the Redeemer, inasmuch as even they, who admit no kind of Divine indwelling in him, still with regard to those activities, ideas and rules of life which others explain from that indwelling, on their side, eulogize them as highest reason, and therefore approvingly apprehend with their human reason, which apprehension again, the former do not blame or reject, but likewise recognize with approbation.

"Miscellaneous Remarks.-According to the view of piety here presented, the peculiar being of the Redeemer and of the redeemed in their connection with him, is the original seat of the former question of the supernatural and super-rational in Christianity; so