A BATCH OF BOOKS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

November, 1866.

. . . .
In the Quarterly there is a very thoughtful review on " The Life of our Lord," discussing the theories and opinions of writers on the subject, from Strauss downwards. Thus the writer remarks:— Thirty years ago the "Life of Jesus" of Strauss startled the world like a clap of thunder out of a calm sky. Theology has never since ceased to feel that shock. Considered as a mine-spring under the ancient theology for the purpose of destroying it utterly, the " Life of Jesus" is a most remarkable production; but it claims a different rank from this. It is a work of science and philosophy. Christianity and the character of its author are facts ; and this earnest disciple (ardent, we must not apply to one whose thoughts are hard, clear, chilling, and crushing as the iceberg) of the new school of Hegel, having demolished the grounds on which these facts used to rest, will show us in the name of science the new grounds on which they are henceforth to repose. . . . The man who, after playing bowls with spectres in the Catskill Mountains, fell asleep, and awoke in the next generation, found, according to Irving's charming story, a state of matters in his native village not very flattering to his pride or comforting to his affections. Dr. Strauss has just performed a similar feat, after thirty years of slumber; and in his case, too, the results are not adequate to his wishes. His scientific principles, whatever they are, ought by this time to have produced settled results. This is the property, and therefore the test, of all true science, that whatever difficulties it may contend with at first, it conquers them by its power of grouping facts already known, of explaining new ones that occur, and of ordering and arranging ideas. After thirty years, then, there should be, if the principles are true, something like a concord of testimony from all the facts since examined; something like an agreement among theologians upon some settled principles, if not those of Strauss, then those to which subsequent verification has brought his principles down. This, however, is by no means what the irrefragable doctor finds, and the new "Life of Jesus" surveys the state of things with no great approbation. Science, to be true, must be capable of being learned; where then are those who have learned it ? Which of the great principles of the Master have come to be admitted as theological axioms ? Not one of all these [writers named] adopts the author's three great principles, that the Gospels are not historical, that a miracle is impossible, and that the life of our Lord, as recorded in the Gospels, is an accretion of myths. The inference to our minds is that none of this boasted science is established because there was none to establish. . . . The general views, then, of Strauss have been before the world for more than thirty years, and have caused the production of books and pamphlets to be told by hundreds; but they do not bear the test that all scientific systems bear with success; they have not come to be adopted by friend and foe alike, on account of their intrinsic force and power of explaining facts. The details of his system are then showed to have fared no better.

The Queenslander 2 February 1867