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RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Christian Theology. By M. VALENTINE, D.D., LL.D. Two vols., 8vo, pp. viii, 476 and vii, 454. Philadelphia: Lutheran Publishing Society. Price, cloth, $5.00.

This is the work of one of the most commanding of the Lutheran theologians in the United States, Professor Milton Valentine, who died on February 7, 1906, at the age of eighty-one. These two ample volumes are, it appears, a careful expansion of an earlier work, called Outlines of Theology, which formed the basis of a course of lectures for successive classes in the well-known seminary at Gettysburg, where for almost two decades the author filled the chair of systematic theology. On the surface, the plan of this system of doctrine is soteriological, reminding the reader (at first anyway) of the plan devised by Professor Henry B. Smith. After an Introduction (151 pages) in which are considered first the subject-matter and sources of theology; and then the nature, modes, and evidences of revelation, Doctor Valentine divides his material into two major parts: I. "Truths antecedent to Redemption." II. "Redemption: or, the Manifestation of God in Christ for human Salvation." In the first part, the important subjects are: the existence of God; the attributes of God; the Trinity; the creation of the world; the providence of God; man's primitive state; the fall of man and his condition of sin. All the remaining doctrines of moment-the person of the Redeemer, the work of the Redeemer, individual salvation, the Christian Church, the last things -are, in their logical order, considered in the second part. Students familiar with the different systems of doctrine will be interested in the following features of spatial apportionment and emphasis: The discussion of the Incarnation occupies 29 pages; of the person of Christ, 32; of the Atonement, 59; of the Holy Spirit, 4; of Justification, 27; of Sanctification, 5; of the sacraments, 68; and of Eschatology entire, 40 pages. In our day, a day of theological crisis and doctrinal mitigation, a work in Systematic Theology should not be reviewed in a polemical spirit, or even from a sectarian standpoint. Economically we may take it for granted that a Lutheran text-book has in it somewhere all the conclusions peculiar to Lutheran teaching, and may, therefore, spend our limited space in bringing out the author's catholic significance in relation to the actual theological situation. Coming to Professor Valentine's Christian Theology with this larger aim, our first crucial question is: In apologetic intention and bearing, is this theology entirely free from mediation timidity? Are those things which concern the Zeitgeist modified and restated in a spirit of timid compromise? Let us touch only the places of quickest test. In the chapter on man's primitive state it naturally becomes necessary to deal with the theory of evolution, and the result is a discussion (more than twenty pages) as conservative and courageous as it is able and timely. The pith of the whole is in this short passage (vol. i, 396): “The com

petence of this evolutionist hypothesis for the proof of man's origin is rendered doubtful, not only by the weakness and difficulties that appear in it at the point of transition from brute to human state, but also by all the mere assumptions, unfilled gaps, and varied difficulties in the offered account of the movement up to that point. These show it to be an unproved explanation." At the next testing place the question of the supernatural-we find no profound search, no serious effort to discover the ultimate difference between the natural and the supernatural, and yet the author's purpose is both plain and bold. He is disturbed that Christian men, like the Duke of Argyll and Sir William Dawson, eminent in science and philosophy, should be misled into gratuitously and inconsistently favoring the appeal for dropping "the valid distinction between the natural and supernatural self-manifestation of God," a distinction which Christian theology can never consent to obliterate without giving up its "special soteriological character" (vol. i, 50). And yet more to the point is the vigorous contention (against those apologists who regard all the miracles, even those of the New Testament, as a heavy burden) that "the miraculous activity of Christ is normal and essential evidence of the foundations of Christianity" (vol. i, 121). And equally pertinent is Doctor Valentine's statement concerning the virgin birth, that point of hot dispute just now (vol. ii, 52): "Though skeptical criticism has lately been seeking to discredit the genuineness and historic authority of the Scripture passages asserting this feature, known theologically as the 'miraculous conception,' the general and best critical judgment sustains both their genuineness and credit. Moreover, the fact itself, so far from being incredible and inviting unbelief, is so thoroughly accordant with the supernatural character of the Incarnation, and, we may say, justified and even demanded by its generic principle and bearings, as to commend it strongly to acceptance." Our second question is even more crucial. It is this: As to our Lord Jesus Christ, is the treatment entirely free from humanitarian and agnostic infection? Again we will select only the most vital places for the test. The argument for the deity of our Lord (vol. i, 321-330) is very scant and very ordinary, but in no way is it dubious. Here is one sample-sentence (vol. i, 326): "To deny the deity of the Son is to put the Scriptures at war with their fundamental doctrine, and make Jesus a teacher of idolatry, and the apostles idolaters." Again, concerning the preëxistence of our Lord, there is this (vol. ii, 88): "The movements of the Old Testament dispensation of grace, its instructions, theophanies, training, and salvation, were in and through Him." (Also note vol. i, 321). It should be said, however, that the belief in our Saviour's personal preëxistence is not adequately supported by the author's cautious, protective discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity (vol. i, 290-333); but it should also be said that this inadequacy is largely due to trinitarian convention, and has no connection whatever with the present theological situation. Professor Valentine has not yielded to the Ritschlian agnostic Christology any more than he has to the mediation apologetics. So much we say in appreciation. And we will go further and commend this system of doctrine as one of the strongest and most wholesome published in recent years, a work

worthy of a profound theologian, worthy of his seminary, and worthy of the Lutheran Church; but this enthusiastic commendation does not mean that we are satisfied. Great as the work is, there is manifest in it a very serious weakness. We do not refer to the discussion of the Atonement, although at that point there is evident a strange lack of comprehension of what has been done since 1874. Nor are we thinking of the unfortunately missing chapter on the inspiration and authority of the Bible; for death claimed the author before that chapter was written, its preparation having been "deferred to the latest moment that he might have the benefit of the most recent litrature of this burning question." No, the weakness is deeper than any discussion-it is the scholastic remoteness from the real life of the age. The modern realities have never burned their way through the author's thick crust of scholarship and traditional conception; have never set his entire being on fire. He has never suffered modernly. He has never entered that dreadful chamber where Alfred Tennyson created In Memoriam, or that more dreadful one where John Morley wrote On Compromise, or that most dreadful one where Friedrich Nietzsche was overwhelmed. He has never caught even a fleeting surmise of the heartache and loneliness which are under the best portion of modern socialism. He has never felt in his soul the dawning suspicion, the growing scientific habit of uncertainty, the final impotence for faith which have half paralyzed the religious intuitions of the most original and the most typical thinkers of our time. He has lived his philosophical and theological life in a remote region of protective conventions, has safely and happily and usefully lived there, and therefore his system of doctrine is only for that company of busy, useful preachers who now are living in that same safe and happy place.

A Dictionary of Christ and The Gospels. Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, D.D., with the assistance of John A. Selbie, D.D., Vol. I. Aaron-Knowledge, 1906. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Price, $6.00 per volume,

Doctor James Strong and Doctor Philip Schaff had the gift of dictionary building to a marked degree, but their work, though so recently closed, is already a thing of the past. The present horizon is filled with the productive activity of Doctor James Hastings who, in the midst of the practical duties of a Scotch parish, has projected a four-volume Dictionary of the Bible which easily holds the foremost rank, and now puts forth an altogether unique work in his two-volume Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. That such a work is in demand is no mean compliment in itself to Christ and his Gospels. Doctor Hastings's intimate relation to the active tasks and problems of the present-day pulpit favorably and with set design shapes both of these writings, and in particular the latter, and this will be much appreciated by the ministry. "What think ye of the Christ-whose Son is He?" will always remain the chief matter of Christian inquiry. Again, the emphasis is rightly laid, for present and permanent value in the fact that the Person and not the doctrines of Christ are given prominence. "Whose SoN is He?" "Who do men say that I am?" These are the questions which Christ himself pressed. This second Dictionary

of Doctor Hastings is superior to the first. It is solid, equable, and conservative, and that is what a dictionary should always be. Fine writing and the display of extreme erudition, long-drawn speculation, and overwrought hypothesizing are not in place, neither the setting forth in different but cognate articles of opposing views. The opinions of experts are not of great value to the dictionary reader, and if the work is made up of such opinions it will pass out of date within half a decade. This dictionary is distinctly conservative; it does not attempt to please all schools either of criticism or dogma. No important article seems to be written under the spell of the divisive criticism, and none under that of the so-called newer theology. The happy feature so happily chosen by the editor as dominating at once the writing and the writers impresses the reader on every page-vital, preachable truth, presented by living preachers for the edification and instruction of living men profoundly believing and therefore intensely loving both the Christ and the Gospels. On opening the book one naturally turns to the article "Back to Christ," and gets at once in the judicious article of the Rev. W. Morgan, the keynote of the work. "An ethical conception of redemption as a change in our relation to God, effected within our consciousness, requires us to seek the significance of Christ, not in the metaphysical background of his nature but in the ethical and religious traits of his character, which disclose to us the heart of God and have the power to awaken within us the response of love and faith." Great profit and satisfaction must come from the entire series of articles on the "Birth of Christ," the "Infancy, Childhood, and Boyhood of Jesus," as well as those upon "Home, Education, Common Life," and the "Humanity of Christ." To the very learned paper on "Dates in Our Lord's Life" we must take particular exception in the matter of the length assigned to his public ministry. When one remembers how exceedingly full of activity that period was, even as reflected in the comparatively meager records of it in the Gospels; when he recalls the important fact constantly overlooked, and it would seem by all writers, that no public teacher in the East, could work abroad more than eight out of every twelve months at the best, and that our western type of living and going about is and always has been utterly foreign to the East, it passes understanding how any thoughtful student, much less historian, could conclude that the Judæan, Galilean, and Perean ministry of Christ could all be compressed between the Passover of A. D. 28 and the Passover of A. D. 29. The provisional arrangement of the days and occurrences of the Passion Week on the last page of this same article is beyond praise. It is impossible in this place to give adequate estimate of such a group of articles as that upon "The Annunciation," by the Rev. Alfred Plummer, the "Authority of Christ," by Professor James Denny, the "Character of Christ," and the "Incarnation of Christ," by Professor Thomas B. Kilpatrick, "The Divinity of Christ," by the Rev. A. Stuart Martin, and "The Death of Christ," by the Rev. William D. Thomson and the Rev. John C. Lambert. In order to understand the essential merits of Christ's death it must be judged from the standpoint of the moral order of the world. But this last is "only one

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of the constituent factors of the world's moral course. Besides it there are two more. There is, on the one hand, the factor which consists of all those facts or phenomena in the individual and social life and history of mankind which fall under the designation of sin, or moral evil, and on the other, the moral government of God which presides immanently, persistently, and universally over the relations between sin and the moral order of things, or the order of righteousness. These three factors constitute that actual moral course that the world is ever following, and the predestined end of their relation to one another will be realized in the complete and eternal victory and triumph of righteousness over sin through the unerring and all-sufficient administrative judgments of God's moral government of the world." . . . Thus it was "from the point of view of Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment that he contemplated the fullest and profoundest significance of his obedience unto death." On this broad and truly biblical basis Doctor Thomson proceeds to develop the conception of Christ's death from the Gospels, and Doctor Lambert builds upon the same foundation in tracing the same conception through the rest of the New Testament. The articles on "Criticism," "Christ and Evolution," and "Fact and Theory" are very wholesome reading, even for the most advanced type of inquirer. Although the papers on the Gospel and on the Gospels are luminous, those on the Synoptics separately do not fall within this volume, but those upon the Acts and upon the Apostle John and the Gospel of John do. This last impresses us as the great article of the volume. It is divided into two parts, the first, "Critical," by the Rev. R. H. Strachan, and the second, "Contents," by the Rev. W. R. Inge. "The question of the authorship of this Gospel is more than a merely academic one. It occupies a unique position. None of the other three claims to be written by the man whose name it bears, but the fourth Gospel is issued with an explicit statement to that effect (21. 24). Moreover, its contents are vitally connected with the individuality of the author. The very way in which his identity is studiously concealed shows that the writer is himself conscious that the Gospel contains a personal testimony which he does not hesitate to present as objective and impersonal." . . . "This is no merely antiquarian question. There can be no doubt that the Gospel is intended to be read as the work of an apostle and it would seriously detract from its value if, as extreme critics are more and more inclined to allow, that claim means only that it contains a nucleus of Johannine tradition. The same objection applies to all partition theories of the Gospel, and it is assumed in this article that their authors have failed to prove their case." Likewise Doctor Inge: "The difficulties in the way of partition theories seem to be insuperable." And farther, against Harnack's opinion that the Logos doctrine of the Prologue does not dominate the entire Gospel: "This strangely perverse judgment has evoked protests from several critics who understand the Gospel better than Harnack, among others from Réville, who has certainly no bias in favor of traditional views. It would be easy to show that every one of the dogmatic statements in the Prologue is reasserted in the body of the Gospel." . . . There is thus