precept: 'When ye fast!' But this precept leaves the time, character, and degree of the fasting to the judgment of him who practices it." It remains for me to state the relation of the Methodist Episcopal Church to this subject. In 1784 Wesley sent "General Rules," in which he incorporated fasting among "the ordinances of God," and adds, "All these we know his Spirit writes on truly awakened hearts." It is a good thing that Wesley did not claim infallibility, and that Methodism has no theological Semper idem, otherwise we would have no hope of a constitutional change. Legislative changes have been made, and they will continue to be made. When a small boy the writer saw a class book with this inscription in large capitals on the outside covers, "Remember the Quarterly Fast." In 1888 the requirement of the quarterly fast disappeared from the Discipline. Yet the candidate for full membership in the Conference is met at the gate by a bishop propounding this apparently all-important question, implying that an affirmative answer is necessary for his admission: "Will you recommend fasting or abstinence, both by precept and example?" Our contention is that our Church has here created a positive precept not found in the New Testament. Our intelligent young men, who are well aware of that fact, are placed in a painful dilemma. We hope that the Methodist Episcopal Church will erase from her Discipline every sentence expressing or implying the obligation of the ministry to fast, as she has freed the laity by abolishing the quarterly fast. In the meantime I would suggest to clerical candidates for admission the following affirmative answer to the question, "Will you recommend fasting or abstinence, both by precept and example?" Answer: "I will enforce every precept respecting periodical fasting which I find in the New Testament, or which can be inferred from the example of Christ or any of the apostles whom he personally trained, and I myself will set an example of fasting, so far as I can, while obeying the caveat of Christ, that nobody should know that I am fasting." Daniel Sterke ART. V.-HARNACK'S INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIANITY. SOME Sixty years ago Strauss published his famous Life of Jesus, giving a mythological interpretation to the Gospel. Few theological works have ever created such a profound sensation. All Germany was at once divided into opposing camps, and the shock of battle was felt throughout the Christian world. It was proposed at the time to suppress the book by legal processes, but Neander, then professor of Church history in the University of Berlin, objected, holding wisely that truth only asks an open field. Neander's counsel prevailed, and the theory of Strauss has been so thoroughly exploded that to-day it "leaves not a rack behind." Now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the successor of Neander publishes a book giving a rationalistic interpretation of the Gospel, which once again divides Germany into hostile camps, and forces a profound discussion over the fundamentals of the Christian faith throughout the world. Harnack's book, What Is Christianity, is destined to exert a more subtle, far-reaching, and dangerous influence than Strauss's Life of Jesus, for the reason that the work of Strauss was an attack from without, while that of Harnack professes to be a reconstruction from within, along critical, progressive, and sympathetic lines. It will be the purpose of this paper to outline the main positions of Harnack, and touch the nerves of his argument. First of all, let us acquaint ourselves with the man. Adolph Harnack was born at Dorpat, in the Baltic Provinces, in 1851, where his father was professor of practical theology. The religious atmosphere of that home was simple, ardent, genial. The warmth and glow of Harnack's pietistic inheritance and training lend a charm to all his writings. His curriculum of study began at Dorpat and was completed at Leipsic, where he took his degree in theology and philosophy, and where he began his public work as a teacher. He was called successively to Giessen, to Marburg, and, in 1886, to Berlin, where he still remains as professor of Church history, and rector of the university. Without doubt Harnack is one of the most scholarly and influential living theologians of Germany. In the past twenty-five years he has done monumental and magisterial work. His Texts and Studies on Early Christian Literature is one of the most valuable collections extant. His History of Dogma takes high rank among historico-theological productions. His Chronology of the New Testament is a work of enduring merit. These achievements, together with a great number of books on special subjects, of exact and thorough scholarship, give to his name great weight. In addition to this, Harnack is said to be a man of charming personality, of profound religious feeling, and a magnetic and eloquent speaker. The lectures in the present volume were delivered extemporaneously to great and enthusiastic audiences at the University of Berlin. The fact is, however, that the substance of them all, and in most cases the very form and statement of them, may be found in his carefully labored works. Lowell's epigram on Gladstone will apply quite as well to Harnack: His greatness not so much in genius lies As in adroitness as occasions rise, In truth, the book represents the ripened thought and the matured convictions of a lifetime. It will be helpful here to determine, as far as we may be able, Harnack's philosophical convictions, for the old maxim, "Let me know a man's position in philosophy and I will readily determine his theology," has a great deal of truth in it. Harnack is classed among the Ritschlians, though he has discarded many of Ritschl's peculiarities. Briefly and broadly, Ritschlism and Harnack stand for (1) thorough freedom in the study of the New Testament and Church history, (2) distrust of speculative theology, (3) a profound interest in Christianity as a religious life and not as a system of knowledge. Harnack is the greatest exponent of the so-called historical treatment of dogma. The question, "What is Christianity?" he thus answers: "It is solely in the historical sense that we shall try to answer this question; that is to say, we will employ the method of historical science, and the experience of life gained by studying the actual course of history."* And again he says: "A right and full estimate of the Christian religion is attainable only by a comprehensive induction *P. 6. of all the facts of history." Under those words "facts" and "induction" is a Trojan horse of large dimensions; in its vast cavities whole platoons of treacherous and well-armed Greeks are stored away: who shall determine what the facts are, and who make the induction? If the reader will be kind enough to fly a surveyor's flag over this spot we will return to it at a convenient season. The work before us, consisting of sixteen lectures, may be divided into two main divisions, the first treating of the "Essence of Christianity," or the "Gospel in the Gospel," the second treating of the "Development of Christianity," or the "Gospel in History." 1. The Gospel in the Gospel. The first four chapters are devoted to the task of determining the essential element in Christianity, discovering the Gospel in the Gospel. We touch the nerve of the argument in these chapters in the following points: the authority of the gospels, the miraculous element in the gospels, and the general conception of the message of the Gospel. Harnack's proposed aim is to distinguish the "husk" from the "kernel," that is, not only to separate the essential meaning from all those alien accretions with which the vicissitudes of nineteen centuries have surrounded and overlaid it, but also to reject inconsistent elements imported by the evangelists, upon whose records we must rely. This he does in the following summary fashion: "Our authorities,” to quote his own language, "for the message which Jesus Christ delivered are the first three gospels. The fourth gospel cannot be taken as an historical authority in the ordinary meaning of the word. The author of the fourth gospel acted with sovereign freedom, transposed events and put them in a strange light, drew up the discourses himself, and illustrated great thoughts by imaginary situations. Although his work is not altogether void of a real, if scarcely recognizable, traditional element, it can hardly make any claim to be considered an authority for Jesus's history. Only little of what he says can be accepted, and that little with caution."* Historical science, Harnack tells us, had made a great step in advance by teaching us to pass a more intelligent and benevolent judgment on the synoptic gospels. He thus proceeds to exercise this intelligent and benevolent judgment: "These gos P. 19. pels," he says, "are, it is true, not historical works any more than the fourth gospel; they were not written for the simple object of giving facts as they were; they are books composed for the work of evangelization." That is the intelligent judgment; now for the benevolent. "Nevertheless," he continues, "they are not altogether useless as sources of history, more especially as the object with which they were written coincides in part with what Jesus intended."* Again he tells us, "Two of the gospels do, it is true, contain an introductory history (the history of Jesus's birth); but we may disregard it, for even if it contained something more trustworthy than it does actually contain, it would be as good as useless for our purpose. We know nothing, therefore, of Jesus's history for the first thirty years of his life."+ His position on miracles is clearly and emphatically stated in the following paragraph: "We are firmly convinced that what happens in space and time is subject to the general laws of motion, and that as an interruption of the order of nature there can be no such things as miracles." Accordingly, he rejects the virgin birth of our Lord, his resurrection, and the miracles he is said to have wrought. The Gospel, he claims, is not concerned with the personality of Christ, but has to do with the Father only, and not with the Son. This is the most central, fundamental, dominant, and constructive position in the book. "What is essential in the Gospel," according to Harnack, "may be grouped under our Lord's utterance upon three things: 1. The kingdom of God and its coming. 2. God the Father and the infinite value of the human soul. 3. The higher righteousness and the law of love."§ The three spheres thus distinguished, he says, coalesce. It needs only a few touches to develop this thought into everything that, taking Jesus' sayings as its groundwork, Christianity has known and strives to maintain. In this paragraph we have Harnack's basal principle exposed: the groundwork of Christianity, he holds, is not the personality of Jesus, but the sayings of Jesus. After epitomizing the Gospel content he discusses the bearing of the Gospel on particular problems: 1. The Gospel and the World, or Asceticism. 2. The Gospel and the Poor, or Socialism. *P. 20. +P. 30. P. 26. &P. 51. |