glowed in the Lyra Germanica. HALLER, one of the founders of modern physiology († 1777), with the whole strength of his genius made a stand against the growth of materialism. EULER († 1763), one of the greatest mathematicians of his age, ventured even in Berlin, and surrounded by the sceptics who formed the court of Frederic the Great, to publish in 1747 his Defence of Revelation against the Attacks of Freethinkers.

Turning to works which bore directly on exegesis we notice how cold was the orthodoxy which succeeded the best days of Pietism. Amid the shallowness of the current philosophic views, all men felt the necessity of recurring to the solid ground of history. But even these historic researches partook of the character of the age. They lacked enthusiasm, spontaneity, and faith. The critical learning and moderate rationalism of MICHAELIS († 1791) and ERNESTI († 1781) represent the chief efforts to elucidate the Old and New Testaments on principles of formal philology. Michaelis reduces Moses to a clever statesman who gave to utility a religious sanction.1 He was followed by EICHHORN and PAULUS who, with all their learning, could find no better explanation for the supernatural element in both dispensations than a theory of mistake, hyperbole, and ignorance. The naturalism of Paulus received its death-blow from the mordant sarcasm of Strauss. Ernesti was, perhaps, the first to formulate with perfect clearness the principle which has been much discussed in our own day, " that the verbal sense of Scripture must be determined in the same way in which we ascertain that of other books." He found a pupil greater than himself in the earnest-minded and learned Semler.2

SEMLER († 1791) marks a distinct epoch. He was neither

1 See Hengstenberg, Pentateuch, I. xiii. It is said that the term "rationalism" first occurs in the Theologia Naturalis of Amos Comenius, 1661. "Supernaturalism was first used as the antithesis to "Rationalism" by Gabler (Hengst. Theol. Journ. 1801). Descartes in 1650 had formulated his proposition, De omnibus dubitandum est.

2 Dr. A. S. Farrar in his learned Bampton Lectures (p. 311) points out that Leipzig was the chief home of the dogmatic school; Göttingen of the critical; Tübingen and Halle of the Pietist and Scholastic.

a prophet like Herder, nor an originator like Schleiermacher, but by his 171 books he gave an impulse to exegetic study, which is still far from exhausted. Trained among the Pietists who had taught him the difference between theology and religion, he united to marked liberality and independence a sincere and pious orthodoxy. His spiritual experiences, and the vast reading which revealed to him the divergences of theological opinions, had convinced him that men must often separate as it were for themselves a religion which meets their own needs. He lived in what has been called "the epoch of subjectivity "-the epoch in which men had convinced themselves that "every man must see with his own eyes, and examine with his own judgment, and comprehend with his own understanding, all things in the political, literary and religious world." He regarded it as a part of his religious duty to discriminate between those elements of the Bible which are temporary and Judaic, and that part which is of eternal validity. The teaching of Ernesti, the study of R. Simon, of Spinoza, and of Michaelis, had led him to view the Bible on its human, external, and historical side; to consider it in its diversity rather than in its unity; in its fragmentary divisions and various methods rather than as an organic whole. He examined the Canon as independently as Luther had done, and on much the same principles. He pointed out the distinction between Judaising and Pauline theology, which is the germ of the criticisms of the school of Tübingen. He gave to exegesis a new direction. In the early Church its method had been typical; among most of the Fathers allegorical; in the middle ages dogmatic; after the

1 Something of this tendency is expressed by the doctrine of Frederic the Great that every man must be left to get to heaven in his own way." "Semler did all he could to take off the halo which rested on the first centuries" (Kahnis), and "uttered the magic word which emancipated theology from the fetters of tradition" (Reuss). See Myers, Catholic Thoughts, p. 288. 2 "It is inconceivable how thoughtful Christians confound the sacred Scripture of the Jews and the Word of God which is here and there contained and enveloped therein." Semler, Abhandl. v. freier Untersuchen d. Kanons, i. 48 (4 vols. 1771-1775). He also wrote a special book, Der Unterschied d. Heil. Schrift und des Wortes Gottes. See many passages from his writings quoted by Sonntag (De Doctrina Inspirationis, pp. 162, fg.), who points out the importance of his distinction between "inspiration" and "revelation."

Reformation confessional; in the Renaissance, and recently again under the influence of Ernesti, it had become predominantly grammatical. Semler added, or greatly developed, the historic method, which lays predominant stress on the circumstances and conditions by which the original writers had been surrounded.1 But he was rather the child of his epoch than its leader, and, in his later years, having laid but a bewildered hand on the sacred harp, he

"Back recoiled, he knew not why,

E'en at the sound himself had made."2

The worst feature of his system was the extent to which he allowed the principle of "accommodation." That there is such a thing as the 'oeconomy' (oikovoμía) or 'condescension' (σvykaтáẞaois) of which Origen and the Fathers had spoken is admitted. It is, in fact, a necessity.3 Anthropomorphism is itself a concession to finite capacities. Only by some sort of condescension to our infirmities can the Infinite be revealed. Nor again can it be denied that something which may be called "accommodation" is implied by the progressiveness of revelation. There were times of ignorance which "God winked at." Some things, as our Lord said, had been permitted by Moses, not because of their intrinsic desirability but because of the hardness of men's hearts.5 But Semler gave to this principle an abnormal and even a repulsive development. He pushed it to an extent which seemed, at least, to make Him who is "the Truth" responsible for a suppression of truth which is hardly distinguishable from a suggestion of falsehood." No such system is consistent

1"Le trait caractéristique du 19me siècle est d'avoir substitué la méthode historique à la méthode dogmatique, dans toutes les études relatives à l'esprit humain." Renan, Averroes, p. vi. It is needless to say that Semler was the subject of fierce attacks. The Nova Bibl. Ecclesiastica called him "homo im pius, et Judaeis pejor."

2 He died, Kurz says, "brokenhearted," at the height of the controversy raised by the Wolfenbüttel Fragments. See Semler's Beantwortung der

Fragmente eines Ungenannten, 1779.

See Colet's Letters to Radulphus, p. 28 (ed. Lupton).

It is defined as "oeconomicum dicendi genus." See Carus, Hist. antiquior Sent. Eccl. Graec. de Accommodatione, 1793.

Ezek. xx. 25. Matt. xix. 8.

6 Each system of interpretation has generally appealed to a favourite dictum probans. That of Semler was ἐλάλει αὐτοῖς τὸν λόγον καθὼς ἠδύναντο ἀκούειν,

with a living Christianity. If the words even of the Master rested on illusion and compromise, then

"The solid firmament is rottenness,

And earth's base built on stubble." 1

"

But there could be no permanent life in principles of exegesis which were lacking in positive elements.2 Men thought too much about the Jews and knew too little of Christ." Their interpretation was "humilis et demissa" to an extent far greater than that of the School of Antioch. From so dead an historical analysis the Church was saved by the genial influence of HERDER (†1803). "In Herder all the blossoms of Humanism ripened; in him the palms of the East, the olives of Greece, the oaks of the North are all thriving. In him we find the shady walks of philosophy, the great perspective of history, the serene temple-path of a religion of Humanism." Herder no less than Semler was able to see the human side and progressive revelation of Scripture, but he infused into the lifeless learning of his day the glowing heat of a poetic soul. He used the Scriptures to elevate his conception of humanity, not to dwarf his sense of the divine. "Poetry, philosophy, history, are," he said, "in my opinion, the three lights which illuminate the peoples, the sects, and the generations—a holy triangle." In Scripture, " he saw alike vivid poetry, a practical history, and an eternal philosophy." "Christianity," he said, and this is the keynote of his system, "commands the purest humanity in the purest way." And thus he met illuminism

Mark iv. 33. It was no less misapplied than the κατὰ τὴν ἀναλογίαν τῆς TioTews (Rom. xii. 6) of the Reformation epoch, and the rò Yράμμа åπоктEIVEL (2 Cor. iii. 6) of the Fathers and Schoolmen, or "the love of Christ" which was used by the Pietists as a plea for holy ignorance.

1 Perhaps the extreme outcome of Semler's tendencies may be seen in Teller's Wörterbuch des N.T. 1772, which reduces Christianity to commonplace morals.

2 On the important influence of Semler, see his own autobiography (1781); H. Schmid, Die Theologie Semlers, 1858; Tholuck, Verm. Schriften, ii. 39; Nösselt, De J. S. Semlero (Rigae, 1792), and the notices of him in Dorner Diestel, Meyer, Kahnis, Hagenbach, &c.

3 Reuss, Heil. Schrift, ii. 323.

Kahuis, Germ. Protestantism, E. T. P. 70. "More poet than theologian, and for that reason only the more lovely." Reuss, § 578.

with its own weapons. Christ in his view was divinest in His divine humanity, and under His own chosen title as the Son of God who called Himself "the Son of Man." At the very time when men like Nicolai and Bahrdt were sneering at the Bible as "an obsolete, incomprehensible book, an arsenal of old prejudices," Herder, whom the most illuminated among them could not venture to depreciate, was labouring, as Luther did, to place it as the candle in the centre of the sanctuary.? While they were attempting to put Homer and Plato on a level with Isaiah and St. John, Herder, who valued the great Greek writers as highly and knew them better, said that in comparison with the prophets and poets of the Old Testament the greatest of them were but as a drop to the ocean. "The Bible," so he wrote in his letters on the study of theology, “must be read in a human manner, for it is a book written by men for men. The best reading of this divine book is human. The more humanly we read the Word of God, the nearer we come to the design of its Author, who created man in His image, and acts humanly in all the deeds and mercies, wherein He manifests Himself as our God." Thus he rescued the Bible from the hands which only tore and tangled the rich threads of its poetry and life. He dealt but little with "the theological metaphysics which neither teach how to live or die, but only how to quarrel scientifically." He always tried to find the Revelation of God centred in the person of Christ, and not in minute and unscriptural formulae concerning Him. Large tolerance, a loving spirit, gladness of heart, sympathy with the East, literary insight, noble and melodious language, the ideal colouring which he shed over all that he taught these were Herder's special gifts. They helped him in counteracting the utilitarianism of pulpit teaching, the conceit of French infidelity, and the incapacity of the prevailing criticism. He left upon the Church the

1 Herder, Vom Erlöser d. Menschen, 1796; Von Gottes Sohn, 1797. 2 Hagenbach, Germ. Rationalism, p. 191.

3 Zur Schönen Literatur und Kunst, p. 67 (1769).