APOLOGETICS seeks to state grounds for faith in God, in Christ, in the Bible and in the Church; although Protes tantism seriously lowers the importance of Church teaching ("General Councils may err and sometimes have erred," say the Anglican Articles) ; and modern apologists—from a convergence of reasons—propose a more moderate estimate of the Bible also. Again, the basis of apologetics may be placed in reason, or in conscience, or in experience, or (in some sense) in authority— or in a combination of several factors ; even the most authoritarian of Churches, the Roman Catholic, claims to build on the f ounda tion of reason and conscience. Historically, the apologetic debate has meant, first, the elaboration of an appeal to miracle, and, later, the subordination of that appeal to something possibly vaguer but more inward. On one side there is the impression made by the unique figure of Jesus Christ ; on the other side there are the experiences of. the religious life. This two-fold appeal is held to be conclusive.
It would be odious, at least for Protestants, to affirm one type of philosophy to be orthodox and to condemn all others. Yet certain types of philosophy can only by a tour de force be combined with religious belief—e.g., materialism, where materialism is seriously maintained, or the blend of materialism with agnosticism known as naturalism. Briefly Christianity postulates a spiritual philosophy. On the other hand, a philosophy which lays down the law concerning all things human and divine is a dangerous ally for faith. Not in frequently apologetics are treated with contempt in journalism; the same attitude is observable in Albrecht Ritschl himself, whom critics in England tend to regard as the apologist par excellence and to blame correspondingly. The facts are sum marized in the present writer's Albrecht Ritschl and his School, chap. i. None the less, the apologist regards his task as sacred— "by demonstration of the truth, commending himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God." Apologetics in the Christian Scriptures.—The Old Testa ment does not argue in support of its beliefs, unless when the Wisdom literature seeks to rebut moral difficulties (cf. T. K. Cheyne, Job and Solomon; A. S. Peake, Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament). The New Testament supplies materials for the apologist (e.g., references to "mighty works" in the words of Jesus), but its own appeal is predominantly that of the preacher or prophet. The identification of Christ with the Logos fore shadowed in Paul and in Heb. i. 2, and clinched in the Johannine prologue (John i. 1, etc.), afforded an important clue to the Greek-Christian mind. Quite as important for later thinking (e.g., Thomas Aquinas) has been the "Natural Theology" of Rom. i. 20. Again, what might almost be called the "Natural Religion" of Rom. ii. 14 repudiates in advance the conception of mind as—prior to experience—a tabula rasa; moral law is in scribed there "by nature." Also the "great word conscience" is as characteristic of Paul as of Hebrews. Perhaps there are touches of Stoicism in these Pauline utterances; certainly there are hints of a spiritual philosophy. E. F. Scott's important Apologetic of the New Testament gives a wide extension to the term.
Early Apologetic Period.—The young Christian Church stood face to face with Greek philosophy—past its prime, but still immensely strong. Friendship was inevitable ; and the Church borrowed, as Harnack has observed, mainly from Platonism in doctrine and in ethics mainly from Stoicism. (Very early, too, libertarian free-will came to be asserted against the Gnostics.) Justin Martyr, the leading apologist, had before his conversion belonged in turn to each of these schools. Inevitably there arose a tendency to stress the contacts between Christianity and the higher Hellenism while ignoring differences ; some modern censures of this tendency are unduly severe. "Logos" was the watchword both of Justin and of the "Christian Platonism of Alexandria," Clement and Origen ; though in the end, having done its work as a friendly intermediary between Christianity and Hellenism, Logos was bowed out of the great creeds. During this period the appeal to miracle was hampered (it has been suggested) by the prevalent belief in magic—supernatural happenings could be dis counted, if they were so common. The appeal to prophecy—i.e., to fulfilled predictions, and therefore to a miracle of foreknowl edge—is stated by the very greatest minds (e.g., Athanasius) with an unhesitating confidence that impresses every modern reader as naive. The conquest of the civilized world by Chris tianity was certainly not exclusively due to its arguments; nor could Christians wish it to have been so ; but neither as historians nor as Christians can we undervalue such a figure as Origen. The brilliant but harsher figure of Tertullian has several peculiar ities : the (Stoical) appeal from philosophy to the plain man, the tendency to paradox (Credo quia impossibile; the quotation, if inexact, does Tertullian no injustice), and, in a different vein, the assertion of the anima naturaliter Christiana. Occasionally, the "natural immortality" of the soul is displaced by the thought that eternal life even physically is God's supernatural gift ; e.g., in the lay apologist Arnobius. Until the Church's triumph, apolo getic work other than evidential was very necessary for refutation of slanders and in protest against persecution. Even afterwards, when the Christianized empire was suffering from barbarian in roads, Orosius, Salvian and Augustine (The City of God) found it needful to argue, on different lines, that Christianity had not brought disaster, but had mitigated it or redeemed from it.
During the whole of the middle ages, Western Christendom was dominated, though incompletely, by the superb genius of Augustine. Apologetically, as well as doc trinally, he is hard to reduce to a unity. A thread, if not of scepticism, at least of authoritarianism, has been detected in him (Ego vero evangelio non crederem nisi me catholicae ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas). Further he is the heir, in a more positive sense, of (neo)Platonism with its intellectual appeal; and his ex perience of sin and grace revives Pauline Christianity, if it hardens still further the grim doctrine of predestination and practically nullifies free will. The Christian Church, so recently persecuted, was not long enthroned before it began to persecute in its turn. For this new departure, also, Augustine unhappily accepted a share of responsibility.
How could there be living apologetics in centuries which appealed not to reason or conscience, but to force? For one thing, the Jew remained anti-Christian. For another, Mohammed launched a non-Christian religion of immense power upon the Eastern world. Jew and Muslim had to be met in argument (e.g., the Pugio Fidei of Raymond Martini, c. 128o). For another thing still, the paganism of antiquity was never entirely forgotten ; Abelard (d. 1142) wrote a Dialogue between a Jew, a Philosopher and a Christian. Yet, while three religions were "at daggers drawn," there was an immense movement pervading all three in favour of the philosophy of Aristotle. This is one of the most extraordinary features in the history of the human mind ; and its apologetic and theological consequences could not but be great. It is easy to underestimate the activity of thought during the flowering times of the middle ages (cf. R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought and Learning, ed. 2) ; per haps because outsiders interpret the Catholic ethos too narrowly, perhaps because moderns ascribe the conditions of their own day to earlier and freer generations. Anselm (d. 1109), one of the fathers of Scholasticism, throws himself into the problems both of Theism and of Christian doctrine with the air of a man de termined on making new discoveries ; and he thanks God at the end for what he believes to be new and also true results.
The mediaeval world studied the problem of the relations be tween philosophy and theology as a problem concerning "faith" and "reason." Augustine, and after him Anselm, quoting Isa. vii. 9, in the Latin translation derived from the LXX. reading— "If ye will not believe, ye shall not know"—proclaimed an ab solute harmony of the two, on the condition that assent to authoritative teaching came first, whereupon reason was sure to confirm it in every detail. Aquinas (d. 1274), following his master Albert the Great, took a different line. To his own mind, probably, the new positions constituted a better way of har monizing reason and faith; whether that claim is correct or is baseless, the positions were new. Rational argument (but not Anselm's ontological proof ; its ingenuities were too wiredrawn for the sober mind of Aquinas) demonstrates God and im mortality. The characteristic contents of revelation are super natural mysteries—undiscoverable beforehand by reason, and never fully intelligible even as revealed. There are all the materials here for later developments; e.g., for the systematic separation of the truths regarded as demonstrable by reason (God, Freewill, Immortality) under the name Natural Theology (used in this technical sense perhaps only from Christian Wolff, 1679-1754, onwards) ; and yet, Aquinas has not affirmed that all "revealed" doctrines are in the special sense mysterious. Again, there are materials in Aquinas for isolating "miracles" and "proph ecies" as the Christian evidences proper; but it did not enter into any mediaeval mind to summarize the evidences so coldly. That remained for a later and less dogmatic period. Still further, Aquinas has something besides argument to proclaim. Faith is a virtue, and exists as such in two forms—acquisita, which rests upon conditions of human effort, and in f usa, which is the higher gift of God. This is an Augustinian thought. It may be trans formed into an appeal away from bare argument to religious and moral experience; or it may imply submission to mere authority. Either way, it constitutes a noteworthy supplement to argumenta tive apologetics. An earlier mediaeval writer, Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), quoted by R. Franks in History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ, I. pp. 228-29, expresses a similar thought in almost startling terms : "There are reasons for the things to be believed which are strong and apparent, such as those showing in what ways God is and is one and is omnipotent, which the phi losophers prove by many reasons ; and there are reasons for things which are to be believed which are not apparent but weak ac cording to human reason, such as . . . Anselm introduces in Cur Deus Homo. . . . Nevertheless, reasons of this kind when in formed through faith infused by God . . . appear necessary." According to C. R. S. Harris, Duns Scotus, the great rival and critic of Aquinas, practically concurred with the Dominican's views concerning the basis of belief. Other interpreters had at tached more importance to the critical elements in Duns, whose tendency at least is to fall back upon Church authority as a remedy against rational doubt; this tendency passes on from Realist Duns to William of Occam and other Nominalist school men. Its climax is a doctrine of "two truths." A thing may be false in philosophy, true in theology. Only one obscure church man of the second rank, Robert Holkot, is said to have definitely recommended this refuge of lies; Pomponazzi, who repeated the suggestion, was a Renaissance sceptic. In modern times, the Vatican Council (1870) definitely adopted the main theses of Thomist apologetics.
At the Reformation the appeal of religion displaced, for a generation or more, evidential inquiries ; while the counter-Reformation exhibits a religious rallying to the principle of authority. The implicit logic of early Protestantism found ex pression in the somewhat later formula, e.g., Westminster Confes sion of Faith, 1647, which defines the ultimate ground of belief as the "inward" witness of the Holy Spirit "with the Word of God." We may paraphrase as follows: A spiritual experience, notably the experience of forgiveness, is generated by the Bible and commends the Bible for acceptance in all its parts. This formulation is di rected not against rationalism, but against the subordination of the Bible to the Church. It did not yet occur to orthodox Protestant ism that religion permits—still less, that it requires—a distinction between the letter and the spirit.
In the post-Reformation Church of Rome we meet with a world genius in Apologetics, as in other fields, in Blaise Pascal (1623 62). His Pensees, published posthumously, seems to have been meant for a systematic treatise, but it has come to us in frag ments. It borrows its material (as industrious editors have shown) from very few sources—the Pugio Fidei, M. de Mon taigne, P. Charron. Ideas as well as learning are largely Mon taigne's. The latter's cheerful man-of-the-world scepticism is transfigured in Pascal to a deep distrust of human reason, in part, perhaps, from anti-Protestant motives. Further it is fallen man whom he pursues with his fierce scorn; his view of man's nature —intellect as well as character—is to be read in the light of his unflinching Augustinianism. Once again, Pascal, unlike most apol ogists, belongs to the small company of saintly souls. This philo sophical sceptic is full of humble joy in salvation. Pascal earned great admiration from Calvinists; in his own communion he be longed to a section of opinion which was authoritatively con demned.
In the Dutchman, Hugo Grotius, one of the founders of Inter national Law, rational apologetics disentangle themselves from the deeper or vaguer appeals of early Protestantism (De Veritate Christianae Religions, 16 2 7) .
It did not follow from the success of the Protestant movement in several great countries that persecution, even in these countries, was at an end. Its major forms became rarer; but minor dis abilities remained for nonconforming elements of society. More over, the wars of religion constituted another unhappy form of the appeal to force, the peace of Westphalia terminating 3o years of barbarism in an illogical geographical compromise; while in England what is known as the Great Rebellion, with its afterpiece the Revolution of 1688, provoked a similar recoil from religious zeal. The change by which the phrase "Natural Religion"—in vented apparently on the Continent as a reproachful designation for the teaching of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, father or grand father of Deism—came into use on the Christian side as a term of praise foreshadows significantly the temper of the 18th century. Doctrinal emphasis was to slacken : argument was to become clear and definite : and the age of Reason—as it styled itself—was at least to witness the triumph of pedestrian common sense. While on the Continent G. W. Leibnitz (1646-1716), representing the Platonizing inheritance (while quoting Trinity and Eucharist as "mysteries"), had raised anew the problem of Theodicy, and had sought to solve it by asserting that the evil of the finite universe must have been reduced to the lowest practicable dimensions— Leibnitz believed in hell !—by the wisdom and goodness of God, Locke's empiricism was much more congenial to the age. He dealt directly with theology in his Reasonableness of Christianity
—a favourite and often repeated thesis. While Locke is prepared to admit mysteries, the illustration which he names is the nature of angels ; what can the human mind know of such beings, apart from revelation? When an unwelcome deistic admirer of Locke (Toland) proclaims that Christianity is Not Mysterious (1696), and plainly enough if indirectly—it was still unsafe to be out spoken—attacks the doctrine of the Trinity, a new edge is put upon Locke's theses.
Frequently, deism served as a mask for more thorough-going rejection of religious belief ; although the deists of genius, Vol taire and J. J. Rousseau (who both visited England), were in their different ways sincere ; as also was the formidable agitator Tom Paine. In France on Lockian principles, Materialism (de la Mettrie) and Atheism (Holbach, 1723-89) came to find advo cates. And already from the start of the deistic controversy in England, every apologetic position had been challenged. Thomas Woolston (1669-1731), taking a leaf out of the Church's book, allegorized : but he allegorized away the miracles. Antony Collins (1676-1729), the friend of Locke, eulogized Freethinking, allegorized the prophecies, had doubts about freewill, and about the natural immortality of souls; David Hume (1711-76) found miracles "incredible" (R. C. Trench) if Spinoza had pro claimed them "impossible"; John Toland (1669-1722), a ragged scholar, announced that Christianity was Not Mysterious; Matt. Tindal, an Oxford don (1657?-1733), that Christianity was as Old as the Creation (was in fact neither more nor less than deism) ; and Dodwell the younger, with a sneer, that Christianity was Not Founded upon Argument 0741). Apart from lesser apologists, in dividual points were handled by William Law (1686-1761), the brilliant and saintly non-juror (The Case of Reason—surely your boasted reason has failed ! if we are in so evil a plight) ; by Bp. Berkeley the philosopher (Alciphron) ; by the great scholar Bentley; by Samuel Clarke. The really classical reply, however, was by Bp. Joseph Butler (1692-1752). It is interesting to study in detail which deistic positions Butler deems worthy of notice, and which he simply ignores. He is as clumsy as Pascal was grace ful, but his personality has charm. In a few incidental words he has perfectly described himself as one who_ writes "with sim plicity and in earnest." The three Sermons on Hunan Nature (1726), while not easy to classify as a piece of philosophy, re vived the ethic of duty; to be revived again by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and later still by Thomas Carlyle
who—along with the anti-Christian "Exodus from Hounsditch" of Sartor Resartus—stood for a vague but intense moral Theism, which had powerful effects. Part I. of Butler's Analogy (1736) restates Natural ("or essential") Religion as necessarily includ ing divine punishment, on the analogy of present facts. Here, per haps, Butler is weightiest of all, and also—in that age of easy going optimism—is most isolated. He might have said, with Ps. cxix., "My flesh trembleth for fear of Thee, and I am afraid of Thy judgments." The formal evidences of Christianity (Analogy part II. chap. 7) are conceived by Butler very much as by his contemporaries—miracles, prophecy ("Prophecy is history writ ten beforehand"), and some vaguer supplements. Unfortunately (writing of course before Hume) Butler blunderingly denies that there is need of specially good evidence if we may reasonably hope to vindicate a miracle narrative. The same error is repeated, in reply to Hume, by George Campbell of Aberdeen (I 719-96) ; the theory of probabilities is full of traps which have caught many an acute mind. The error of Butler and Campbell is corrected, with moderation and good'taste, in J. S. Mill's Logic (1843) ; and, from him or from others, the correction has been accepted by later orthodox apologists. (See DEISM.) Valuable work in scholarship was done, with an apologetic in terest, in the Arian or Unitarian Nathaniel Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History (1727-55). Considerably later than either Butler or Lardner, Archdeacon William Paley restates the tra ditional apologetic neatly and clearly, but with no really fresh insight. In his Natural Theology (1802) he concentrates on the design argument. In Moral Philosophy (1785) he stands for a theological utilitarianism. In the Evidences of Christianity
he stresses the honest testimony of the apostles to Christ's resurrection.
Yet, long before Paley wrote, the spirit of the age of common sense had begun to flag. In the Evangelical revival, for much good and for some evil, "enthusiasm" had come back to the world. Influenced by Thomas Erskine (1788-187o) and by the evan gelical Quaker Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847), Thomas Chal mers (178o-1847)—leader of the evangelical revival in Scotland —stated Internal alongside of External Evidences for Christianity. This was a repetition, with whatever changes, of the doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit ; and it was an anticipation of modern appeals to religious experience. The process of disparag ing miraculous ("external") evidence had begun ; Bible miracles, great and small, were still unhesitatingly accepted as facts. So long as evangelical religion continued to be, what Jean Ingelow once called it, "as the river of God" in England—the solitary great spiritual force—its prestige carried with it (along with a sharply cut doctrine of penal atonement) the attitude which S. T. Cole ridge's posthumous Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (184o) stigmatized as "bibliolatry." The recoil from the 18th century might demand a deeper type of reason. Here Coleridge (1772-1834) was conspicuous ; if strong evangelical elements were also present in him. F. D. Mau rice (1805-72) was powerfully influential within somewhat nar rower limits; Charles Kingsley called him "master," and R. H. Hutton was inspired by him. Bp. B. F. Westcott (1825-1901) reveals markedly the critical and scholarly interest, and his apol ogetic concern never slumbers; if obscure in thought, he was saintly in character. The supreme modern representative of Platonizing philosophies was the great German thinker G. W. F. Hegel (177o-1831), who inspired new orthodoxies but also in spired D. F. Strauss and helped to inspire the radical New Testa ment criticism of F. C. Baur (1792-186o) of Tubingen, and— more than once and in more than one direction—has told upon the theology of the English-speaking world.
Again, the recoil from the 18th century might make for greater recognition of Church authority—in the Church of Rome, Ultra montanism, heralded by Bonald and de Maistre, which has achieved such triumphs; in Anglicanism, the Oxford Movement of John Keble (1792-1866), J. H. (afterwards Cardinal) New man (1801-9o) and E. B. Pusey (I800-82) etc.; its waves of influences pervade the Anglican communion and extend well be yond it. A. M. Fairbairn (Catholicism, Roman and Anglican, ch. v.; and elsewhere) and E. A. Abbott (Philomythus, and else where) suspect Newman of a sceptical leaven and extend the criticism to Butler's doctrine of "probability." Another of the Oxford converts to Rome, W. G. Ward (1812-82), made vigorous contributions to natural theology.
In the 19th century, Agnosticism was added to the list of non-Christian theories. It owes something to the nega tive side of Kant's critical philosophy. Sir Wm. Hamilton, and Dean Mansel (Limits of Religious Thought, 1858) took it up as a Christian apologetic ; a similar apologetic is much more attrac tively stated in Tennyson's poem In Memoriam (1849) . Herbert Spencer's First Principles (1862), quoting Mansel at some length, detached the system from its supposed Christian affinities ; and finally the word agnostic was coined by the brilliant champion of Darwinism, T. H. Huxley (1825-95). There are differences be tween Huxley's agnosticism and Spencer's ; yet, while shrinking from saying "There is no God," both alike say not merely "I do not know" but "I know that no human mind ever can know." If this is not dogmatism, what is? (See AGNOSTICISM.) Huxley also carried on a vigorous polemic against the Christian miracles in detail, while refusing to join in wholesale a priori re jection such as Hume's, or such as underlies Strauss's "mythical" theory in his Life of Jesus (1835-36 and later). R. C. Trench (Notes on the Miracles, 1846; in the Introduction) made the tell ing criticism that Strauss has sentenced every narrative before hearing the evidence, though his excuses for rejection vary from time to time. An apologetic, which is to claim the right so to criticize assailants, must in fairness be prepared to view some— perhaps many—Gospel tales of wonder as legendary accretions. More sweeping rejection of miracles occurs again in a brief but emphatic footnote to T. H. Green's (longer) Introduction to Hume (1874)—reiterating Hume's thesis, while rebuking Hume's sophistical philosophy for its failure to vindicate in earnest the thought of unalterable natural law. A longer footnote in A. v. Harnack's (larger) History of Dogma (1885, vol. i. of Eng. Trans. from 2nd ed. 1894, p. 65), with a partial admission that there is evidential value in the gospel healings, pleads eloquently for dissociating Christianity from reliance on miracle. A. Ritschl's school book, Unterricht in der Christlichen Religion (1875) had affirmed that "he who is conscious of miracle in his own ex perience will not be troubled by its appearance in others." The close of Hume's Essay on Miracles strikes a similar note—with a sneer; the Christian writer is profoundly in earnest. And prob ably Christians will do well to hesitate before banishing "miracle" from the vocabulary of religion. John Wendland's new theory of the miraculous (Eng. Trans. Miracles and Christianity) as "God's originality"—so A. E. Garvie sums it up—may be viewed as a theological interpretation of "emergent" evolution. It perhaps vindicates the thought of Incarnation as what has been termed "the Crown of science"; it gives less promise of rescuing indi vidual miracle narratives. Contemporary criticisms of the idea of natural law—conspicuous in James Ward's Naturalism and Agnosticism (1899) and The Realm of Ends (I 911 )—raise their own difficulties; and they do not appear to have been exploited in defence of the miraculous. Perhaps the last occasion upon which a first-rate Protestant mind repeated the old Thomist apol ogetic was in J. B. Mozley's Bampton Lecture of 1865 On Mir acles. Mozley's view of revelation is set aside by A. B. Bruce in The Chief End of Revelation (1881) as "the doctrinaire theory," and during a whole generation Bruce's writings, not without traces of an internal development, held the field as a statement of the Christian apology.
Superficially re garded philosophy ebbs and flows, whatever progress the debate may reveal to speculative insight. Some notes may be added on a few special points. (a) Freewill is generally assumed on the Chris tian side (R. C. Church; Scottish philosophy; H. Lotze; J. Marti neau; W. G. Ward. Not in a libertarian sense; Leibnitz. New and obscure issues raised by Kant). But there is no continuous tradition or steady trend of discussion. (b) Personal immortality is affirmed as philosophically certain by the Church of Rome and by many Protestant writers. Others teach "conditional immor tality." Others base the hope upon faith in the resurrection of Christ. (c) Theodicy—the tradition of Leibnitz—is preserved (on libertarian lines) by Martineau (A Study of Religion, 1883). See also F. R. Tennant's Origin and Propagation of Sin (19o2) . Others (especially P. T. Forsyth, passim) find in the gospel of redemption the true theodicy.
(a) Copernicanism has won its battles even in the Church of Rome; books which had long occupied a place in the Index have been removed from it. It is not certain that the shock of Copernicanism on supernatural Christianity is exhausted. (b) Geology has also won its battles, and few now try to harmonize it with Genesis, although the cele brated W. E. Gladstone, for whom The Impregnable Rock con tinued to be Holy Scripture, praised the careful work (R.C.) of Reusch. (c) Evolution came down from the clouds when C. Darwin and A. R. Wallace succeeded in displacing the naive con ception of special creation by belief in the origin of species out of other species through a process of natural law. This gave immense vogue to wider and vaguer theories of evolutionary process, notably to H. Spencer's grandiose cosmic formula in terms of mechanism. Here the apologist may himself seek, following John Fiske, to philosophize evolution as a re-statement of natural theology, hinting at personal immortality. Similarly, Tennyson's In Memoriam blends with its agnosticism a hopeful view of evolution—"one God, one law, one element and one far off divine event." As far as pure science goes, the inference from science in favour of materialism has visibly lost much of its plausibility, and Protestant apologists would probably be prepared to accept in advance all verified discoveries as belonging to a different region from that of faith. Roman Catholic apologetic prefers to nego tiate in detail.
History brings us nearer the heart of the Christian position. (a) Old Testament criticism won start ling victories towards the end of the 19th century. It blots out much supposed knowledge, but throws a vivid light on the recon strued process of history. Most Protestants accept the general scheme of criticism ; those who hang back make not a few con cessions. The Roman Catholic Church again prefers an attitude of reserve. (b) New Testament criticism raises even more delicate issues. Positively it may be affirmed that the recovered figure of the historical Jesus is the greatest asset in the possession of modern Christian theology and apologetics. The "Lives" of Christ, Roman Catholic and Protestant, "critical" (D. F. Strauss, A. Renan, etc., etc.) and "believing," imply this at least. Negatively, "unchallenged historical certainties" are becoming few in num ber; though the Tubingen criticism of F. C. Baur and his school —important as the first scientific attempt to conceive New Testa ment conditions and literature as a whole—has been abandoned. The synoptic gospels are now treated with respect in responsible quarters. But not all quarters are responsible ; and in the effort to grasp scientifically, i.e., accurately, the amazing facts of Christ and primitive Christianity, every imaginable hypothesis is can vassed. "Modernism" appeared within the Church of Rome— where authority condemned it—as well as in Protestantism ; it tends to transform some or many doctrines into symbols. The criticism of the Fourth Gospel remains full of uncertainties; but there is less and less tendency to maintain literal authorship by the son of Zebedee. (c) New Testament history. The apologist must maintain (I) that Jesus of Nazareth is a real historical figure—a point never doubted by Strauss although denied by some modern advocates of a mythical theory; (2) that Jesus is know able (not one "of whom we really know very little"—B. Jowett) in His teaching, example, character, historical personality; and that He is full of moral splendour. On the other hand, faith has no special interest in claiming that we can compose a biographical study of the development of Jesus. Certainly no early writer thought of providing material for such use. Yet the fascination of the subject will always revive the attempt. If it succeeds, there will be a new line of communication along which that great person ality will tell on men's minds and hearts. If it fails—there arc other channels; character can be known and trusted even when we are baffled by a thing necessarily so full of mystery as the devel opment of a personality. (3) Apologists maintain that Jesus "claimed" 1Vlessiahship. There are speculative constructions of gospel history which eliminate that claim; and no doubt apolo getics could restate its position in a changed form if the paradox of to-day became accepted as historical fact to-morrow. The central apologetic thesis is the uniqueness of the "only-begotten"; perhaps here "the supernatural" passes into the substance of Christian faith. And most probably the description of Jesus as thus unique will continue to be associated with the allegation— He told us so ; He claimed Messiahship and "died for the claim." (See preface to 5th ed. of Ecce Homo.) Nor did so superhuman a claim crush Him, or deprive His soul of its balance. He imparted to the title a grander significance out of the riches of His per sonality. (4) In the light of this the "argument from prophecy" is reconstructed. It ceases to lay much stress upon coincidences between Old Testament predictions or "types" and events in Christ's career. It becomes the assertion : historically, providen tially, the expectation of a unique religious figure arose—"the" Messiah; and Jesus gave Himself to be thought of as that great figure. (5) It is also claimed as certain that Jesus had marvel lous powers of healing. More reserve is being shown towards the "nature miracles." In view of the claims of Jesus, different possibilities arise. (i.) The evangelists impute to Him a higher claim than He made. This may be called the rationalistic solution; with sympathy for Christ's ethical teaching, there is relief at minimizing His great claim. So, brilliantly, Wellhausen's Gospel commentaries and Introduction, or K. Lake and Foakes Jackson. (ii.) The claim was fraudulent (Reimarus; apparently hinted also in Renan). This is a counsel of despair. (iii.) He was an enthusiastic dreamer, expecting the world's end. Here we have the central clue to Jesus's teaching, according to Joh. Weiss; but more so in edition I. of his epoch-making Die Predigt Jesu vosn Reiche Gottes, 1892, than in his later, also important, writings. The eschatological idea becomes the clue to Jesus's whole personality in A. Schweitzer's brilliant Von Reimarus zu Wrede, Eng. trans. Quest of the Histori cal Jesus; both these writers were personally Christians of the radical school. This the apologist will recognize as the most plausible hostile alternative. He is bound to admit an element of illusion in Christ's vision of the future ; but he will contend that the apocalyptic form did not destroy the spiritual content of Christ's revelations—nay, that it was itself the vehicle of great truths. So he will argue as the essence of the matter that (iv.) He who has occupied Christ's place in history, and won such rev erence from the purest souls, was what He claimed to be, and that His manysidedness comes to focus and harmony when we recognize Him as the Christ of God and the Saviour of the world.
To a less extent, similar problems and alternatives arise in regard to the Church :—Catholicism a compromise between Jewish Christianity and Pauline or Gentile Christianity (F. C. Baur, etc.) ; Catholicism a Hellenizing of Christianity (A. Ritschl, E. Hatch, A. Harnack) ; the Catholic Church for good and evil the creation of St. Paul (P. Wernle, H. Weinel) ; the Church supernaturally guided (R. C. apologetic; in a modified degree High Church apologetic) ; essential—not necessarily exclusive— truth of Paulinism, essential error in first principles of Catholi cism (Protestant apologetic) .
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The classics of apologetic literature and the leading Bibliography.—The classics of apologetic literature and the leading representative men of different periods have been named above. The best modern theology generally reveals the apologetic interest without being technically a contribution to apologetics; but it is too extensive for enumeration here. The following historical works, however, may be mentioned: J. Oman, Problem of Faith and Freedom; F. W. Macran, English Apologetic Theology. For the 18th century see Mark Pattison in Essays and Reviews and Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century; for the 19th century, V. F. Storr, The Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century. (See also THEOLOGY.) (R. MA.)
