BOOK NOTICES.

RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE.

History of Dogma. By Dr. ADOLPH HARNACK. Translated from the German by NEIL BUCHANAN. Vol. vi, pp. 317. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Price, cloth, $2.50. This volume compacts into a moderate compass a great amount of doctrinal history. It comprises in its survey the entire scholastic era from the tenth to the sixteenth century. Within this period the author notices two conspicuous epochs in the history of piety. The first began, in close connection with the cloister of Clugny, in the tenth century and extended into the twelfth. Its ideal was of a thoroughly medieval cast, combining the thought of a monastic renunciation of the world with the theocratic notion of serving the Church in the task of subduing and ruling the world. Its hero was Bernard of Clairvaux, who greatly enriched religious devotion by his fervent appreciation of the suffering Christ, but who on the other hand did not stand sufficiently aloof from the Neoplatonic mysticism with its pantheistic leaning and its tendency to displace the historical by the notional or purely ideal. The second epoch began in the thirteenth century, with Francis of Assisi as the most potent leader and with the mendicant orders in general as its representatives. The watchword in this outburst of piety was apostolical life, the life of poverty, humility, and evangelistic endeavor. In his renaissance of piety, as in the earlier, there was some liability of an outcropping of a hostile spirit toward the Church as contradicting by its worldliness the ideal that was pursued. But in general a strained relation was avoided, and both the Cluniacensian and the mendicant revival were congenially related to the papacy with its theocratic ambitions. Taking mediæval piety as a whole, while it has its vein of gold, it must be charged with a serious fault in its relative neglect of the element of personal fellowship with God. From the time of Augustine the ever-repeated thesis was God and grace. That grace consists precisely in filial communion with God was not recognized. "It was not discerned even by the medieval mystics, who aspired to having intercourse with Christ as with a friend; for it was the man Jesus of whom they thought in seeking this. But all of them, when they think of God, look not to the heart of God, but to an inscrutable Being who, as he has created the world out of nothing, so is also the productive source of inexhaustible forces that yield knowledge and transformation of essence." As is to be expected of any thorough investigator, Harnack pays a tribute of respect to the intellectual achievements of scholasticism. It had the daring to undertake a most arduous task and the mental force to carry it through with a degree of success which properly evokes admiration. "The scholasticism of the thirteenth century presents the same spectacle in the sphere of knowl

edge which the Church of which it is the servant presents in the sphere of human life generally. In the one sphere as in the other everything is to be reduced to subjection; in the one, as in the other, everything is to be brought into a harmonious system; in the one, as in the other, the position is held, tacitly, or expressly, that the Church is Christ, and Christ is the Church. Thus the theological science of the thirteenth century can be described as the submitting to dialectic-systematic revision of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical practice, with the view of unfolding them in a system having unity and comprehending all that in the highest sense is worthy of being known." Doubtless scholasticism wrought onesidedly, with its easy-going attitude toward the problems of nature and its utterly inadequate expenditure of effort in the line of historical investigation. But in fulfilling the dogmatic task as understood by the age it was a masterful agent. From the earlier stage of scholastic theology the author selects for special consideration Anselm's theory of atonement. He grants that it contains commendable features, but his general attitude toward it is one of decided disparagement. He finds it chargeable with a whole catalogue of faults, among which are such crude notions as these: "The mythological conception of God as the mighty private man, who is incensed at the injury done to his honor and does not forego his wrath till he has received an at least adequately great equivalent; the quite Gnostic antagonism between justice and goodness, the Father being the just one, and the Son the good; and the illusory performance between Father and Son, while the Son is one with the Father." Indeed, if at any point in the volume the learned professor betrays a tinge of excited feeling it is in scoring Anselm's doctrine of satisfaction. He pronounces it eminently bad. He adds, however: "Perhaps no one can frame a better who isolates the death of Christ from his life, and wishes to see in this death something else than the consummation of the 'service' which he rendered throughout his life." In the exposition of matured scholasticism notice is taken of the combination of a formal deference for Augustine authority with a progressive departure from his characteristic teachings on the topics of sin and grace. Thomism is represented as leaning to modalism in its interpretation of the Trinity, the Scotist school as sharply distinguishing between the divine persons. In christology the weight of authority is said to have been given to a theory which under Chalcedonian formulæ installed a virtual monophysitism. "Thomas made the greatest effort to give such predominance to the divine factor that the human became merely something passive and accidental." In connection with the teaching on the Church Harnack notices the very mixed tribute which was given to the notion of papal infallibility, and the moderate amount of direct effort on the part of dogmatists to supply a basis to the high papal claims in general "theology," he says, "did nothing for the development and establishment of the papal system till far on in the thirteenth century." A relatively large space is given to the highly important theme of the sacramental teaching of the

66

scholastics. Some sharp criticisms find place here. Especially caustic is the way in which the adaptation of the sacramental system to an easy conscience is portrayed. According to the laxer theory, which tended to pass into the ascendant, the superficial penitence denoted by attrition fits for the valid reception of the sacrament of penance; this sacrament cancels the danger of hell; only liability to purgatory remains, and the indulgence provides against this. Attritio, sacramentum pœnitentiæ, indulgentia-these form the Catholic triad. What was to be done for the indulgence was the only burdensome thing here; but even this was made very easy. Thus the indulgence became a caricature of Christianity or the religion of redemption through Christ." A harder path might indeed be elected by the earnest Catholic, but the easy way to salvation was provided if one did not choose to vex himself with any deep interior demands. Notwithstanding the fairly elaborate treatment given to the period, it could be wished that the author had added a few pages. Certainly it would have been well to have awarded to Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God something more than a bare mention. We should like to have seen also a better warrant than is supplied for the conclusion that the festival of the immaculate conception of the Virgin was celebrated at Lyons as early as the time of Bernard of Clairvaux. It is to be remembered that in the early Middle Ages a feast of the conception of John the Baptist was celebrated entirely apart from any thought of his immaculate conception. So a feast of the conception of the Virgin Mary may have had place prior to any distinct commemoration of her immaculate conception. Now, the references of Bernard (epist. clxxiv) by no means enforce the conclusion that the celebration at Lyons was specifically in honor of the immaculate conception of the Virgin. Let it be granted that he mentions immaculateness (sanctitas); he yet seems to bring it forward, not as a thesis from the criticised party, but as something naturally suggested by the demands of his argument. Only immaculateness, he as much as says, could justify celebration of an instance of conception, and the conditions must be regarded as having excluded immaculateness from the Virgin's conception (compare Stap, L'Immaculée Conception, nouvelle edition, 1869; Sheldon, History of Christian Doctrine, third edition, i, 381). The reader may properly be warned not to expect to make quick work with a volume of Harnack's History of Dogma. Whoever attempts to get away with more than one hundred and fifty pages in a day will find that he is overtaxing his power of mental digestion.

Through Nature to God. By JOHN FISKE. 12mo, pp. 195. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Price, cloth, $1.

This is the latest of Professor Fiske's already numerous volumes. No other writer on his subjects is so incessant in production or has commanded so large a sale for his books. The present volume groups itself with The Destiny of Man and The Idea of God. It is consecrated to the memory of Professor Huxley. It contains three separate discussions on

"The Mystery of Evil," "The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self-sacrifice,” and "The Everlasting Reality of Religion." All three are philosophical arguments framed from the scientific standpoint and based upon data furnished by modern science as interpreted by a theistic evolutionist. In the first the author wrestles ingeniously, but in our judgment ineffectually, with the world-old problem, which, indeed, no man has yet conclusively solved. Even Dr. McCosh, who disliked to confess himself baffled in philosophy, acknowledged that the problem of evil puzzled him. John Stuart Mill's solution was that God is all-wise and all-good, but not omnipotent; perpetually endeavoring to eliminate evil from the universe, but hindered by some inexplicahle viciousness in the original constitution of things which it must require a long succession of ages to overcome. In the light of this theory Mr. Mill saw in the humblest human being who resists an impulse to sin, or helps in the slightest degree to leave the world better, a participator in the work of the divine Creator. Professor Fiske imagines the comments which a seventeenth century Calvinist would make on Mill's theory. The old Calvinist would say that Mr. Mill's God, shorn of the attribute of omnipotence, is no God at all; that God has created the evil along with the good for a purpose which human reason would approve as wise and holy if it could comprehend all the conditions of the case; that the Creator is responsible for the original constitution of things, and that in supposing anything essentially vicious in that constitution Plato and the Gnostics and the Manichæans and Mr. Mill have simply taken counsel of their ignorance. More than this, the author thinks the old Calvinist, if he were here today in presence of our modern knowledge, would say that if we really understood the universe of which humanity is a part we should find scientific justification for that supreme and victorious faith which cries, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him!" And the author says: "The man who has acquired such faith as this is the true freeman of the universe, clad in stoutest coat of mail against disaster and sophistrythe man whom nothing can enslave, and whose guerdon is the serene happiness that can never be taken away." In his view the Calvinist is more nearly in accord with modern knowledge than Plato and Mill. He says that the attempt to refer good and evil to different creative sources cannot now be seriously maintained; that the advance of modern science carries us irresistibly to what some German philosophers call monism, but which he prefers to call monotheism; that in regarding the universe as the multiform manifestation of a single all-pervading deity we become for the first time pure and uncompromising monotheists-believers in the ever-living, unchangeable, and all-wise heavenly Father, in whom we may declare our trust without the faintest trace of mental reservation. The second part of the book presents with clearness and consistency the now familiar evolutionary explanation of the origination and development of love and self-sacrifice, or altruism, in and through the cosmic process. The particular feature of Professor Fiske's interpretation is his

denial of the notion that the cosmic process shows no relation to moral ends, and his strenuous insistence that that process exists purely for the sake of moral ends. He says that the scientific study of nature discerns an omnipresent ethical trend, and that, when we have learned this lesson, our misgivings vanish and we breathe a clear atmosphere of faith. "Though in many ways God's work is above our comprehension, yet those parts of the world's story which we can decipher warrant the belief that while in nature there may be divine irony, there can be no such thing as wanton mockery, for profoundly underlying the surface we may perceive an omnipresent ethical trend. The moral sentiments, the moral law, devotion to unselfish ends, disinterested love, nobility of soul— these are Nature's most highly wrought products, latest in coming to maturity; the consummation toward which all earlier prophecy has pointed. Below the surface din and clasping of the struggle for life we hear the undertone of the deep ethical purpose, as it rolls in music through the ages, its volume swelled by every victory, great or small, of right over wrong, till in the fullness of time, in God's own time, it shall burst forth in the triumphant chorus of Humanity purified and redeemed." In the third part of this little book we find most satisfaction because of its close-linked cogency, and because of its impressive marshaling of the findings of science into a demonstration of the eternal reality and indispensableness of religion. It begins by showing that what Voltaire hated was not religion but the organized Christianity of his time, responsible for atrocious injustice, for the Inquisition, for oppression and superstition and ignorance. This it was which he personified and called "The Infamous." The little church at Ferney which "Voltaire built for God" was, the author says, the sole church in France dedicated simply to God, and its builder was not only a layman, hostile to the ecclesiastical doctrines and methods of the time, but was almost alone among the freethinkers of his age and country in believing in God and asserting the everlasting reality of religion. Professor Fiske says that "the Deity revealed in the process of evolution is the ever-present God, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and whose voice is heard in each whisper of conscience, even while his splendor dwells in the white ray from yonder star that began its earthward flight while Abraham's shepherds watched their flocks." He says further that the scientific doctrine of the correlation of forces exhibits Mind as nowise a product of Matter; that it is incompatible with the theory that the relation of the human soul to the body is like that of music to the harp, but is quite compatible with the time-honored theory of the human soul as indwelling in the body and escaping from it at death. He presents as religion's fundamental postulates the quasi-human God, the undying human soul, and the ethical significance of the unseen world. He argues, as an evolutionist, that the Infinite Power which is manifested in the universe is essentially psychical in its nature, and that between God and the human soul there is real kinship, although we may be unable to