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Germany and Austria since 1814

Germany and Austria since 1814 presents an accessible overview of the distinctive
historical experiences undergone by both Germany and Austria during this period.
Beginning in 1814 with the Congress of Vienna and ending two centuries later with
the consequences and ongoing challenges of German and European unification, this
book focuses on political history and traces the development of liberal parliamentary
democracy in Germany and Austria through to the modern Federal Republic of Germany
and the Second Austrian Republic, contextualising the Nazi period in both countries.
Particular emphasis has been placed on exploring major developments, their causes, and
the relationships between them.
Fully revised, this new edition has been expanded to include a new final chapter
outlining developments in both Germany and Austria from 1990 to the current day,
including recent elections, as well as modifications and updates to other earlier chapters.

Features include:

• Nine chapters, each analysing a distinct historical period and providing a timeline of
the key events for quick reference and orientation
• Overviews of the main developments in European and world history at the beginning
of each chapter, providing international context crucial to a broader understanding
of historical events
• Authentic extracts from contemporary German political texts in the original language
• Topics for discussion provided in every chapter
• A guide to further reading and key internet resources for further research
• A combined glossary of German terms.

Germany and Austria since 1814 provides the essential historical context necessary for
an understanding of these pivotal European countries today. It will be invaluable for
undergraduate students taking courses in German, History and Area Studies.

Mark Allinson is Senior Lecturer in German History at the University of Bristol, UK. His
research focuses on the history of the German Democratic Republic and other aspects of
the political and social histories of modern Germany and Austria.
Modern History for Modern Languages Series

Written in an accessible style and assuming no prior knowledge, the books in this series
address the specific needs of students on language courses. Approaching the study of
history from an interest in contemporary politics and society, each book offers a clear
historical narrative and sets its region into a world context.

Titles in the series:

France since 1815, Second Edition

Germany and Austria since 1814, Second Edition
Latin America 1800–2000
Spain since 1812, Second Edition
Germany and Austria
since 1814
Second Edition

Mark Allinson

Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2002
This second edition published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2002, 2015 Mark Allinson
The right of Mark Allinson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Allinson, Mark, 1967-
Germany and Austria since 1814 / Mark Allinson. -- Second edition.
pages cm -- (Modern history for modern languages)
1. Germany--History--1789-1900. 2. Austria--History--19th century. 3. Germany--
History--20th century. 4. Austria--History--20th century. I. Title.
DD17.A734 2014
943.08--dc23
2014016630
ISBN: 978-1-138-81378-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-4441-8651-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-78493-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Lucida
by Phoenix Photosetting Ltd, Chatham, Kent
In memory of Susan Sheridan
Thispageintentionallyleftblank
Contents

List of illustrations ix
Preface to the second edition xi
Abbreviationsxv

Prologue: Germany before 1814 1

1 Reform postponed: 1814–71 11

1814–40: Restoration and change 12
1840–49: From Vormärz to revolution 18
1850–71: The road to unification 23

2 Imperial adventure: 1871–1918 33

Structures of the Kaiserreich 34
1871–90: Bismarck and the Reich 36
1890–1914: Wilhelmine Germany –
   a downward spiral 43
1914–18: War and its consequences 46
Österreich-Ungarn, 1867–1918 50

3 Weimar – a scapegoat republic: 1918–33 55

1918–20: The battle for new structures 56
1920–23: Descent into chaos 61
1924–9: ‘Golden years’? 65
1929–33: National socialism and the collapse
of republican democracy 68
Evaluating the Weimar Republic 71
Republik Österreich, 1918–33 72

4 Chaotic dictatorship and genocidal war:

1933–45 79
The long-term causes of national socialism –
a German Sonderweg? 81
The short-term origins and nature of national
socialism 83
Taking power: the Machtergreifung 86
The Drittes Reich in power 90
Racial war 94
Assent and dissent 101
Evaluating the Drittes Reich 103
viii    Contents

Republik Österreich and ‘Ostmark’, 1933–45 104

Austria and the legacy of national socialism 107

5 Parting of the ways: 1945–9 111

The allies take control 112
The rebirth of German politics 116
Superpower tensions and the division of
Germany 118
Who divided Germany? 121
The rebirth of Austria 123

6 Rehabilitation, restoration and reform:

West Germany, 1949–89 127
Structures of the Bundesrepublik 128
1949–69: Defining moments 130
1969–89: New challenges 139
Evaluating the ‘Bonn Republic’ 143
Republik Österreich, 1945–89 144

7 ‘Auferstanden aus Ruinen’:

East Germany, 1949–89 151
Structures of the GDR 152
1949–71: From crisis to consolidation 158
1971–89: Abortive new start, stagnation
and decline 165
Evaluating the GDR 169

8 Two into one: uniting Germany, 1969–90 175

The two Germanies: strained relations 176
1989–90: ‘Wir sind ein Volk!’ – the road to
German unity 182
Division and unity 185

9 Germany and Austria in a united

Europe: 1990–2014 189
Political and social developments 190
German unification and economic
developments after 1990 197
Germany’s European and foreign policy 201
Germany in 2014 203
Republik Österreich since 1990 204

Further reading 213

Useful internet sites for historians of
Germany and Austria 219
Index/Glossary223
List of illustrations

List of figures

7.1 Distribution of Volkskammer seats, 1985 154

List of maps

1.1 The German Confederation

(Deutscher Bund) in 1815 14
1.2 The creation of Kleindeutschland,
1867–71 27
3.1 Germany and Austria in 1919 62
4.1 Expansion of the Drittes Reich, 1939–41 95
5.1 Occupation zones in Germany and
Austria following the defeat of the
Drittes Reich113
5.2 Central Europe, 1949–90 120
9.1 Central Europe, 2014 198

List of tables

2.1 Reichstag Election Results, 1871–1912 38

3.1 Reichstag Elections in the Weimar
Republic, 1919–33 59
6.1 Bundestag Election Results, 1949–2013 135
Thispageintentionallyleftblank
Preface to the Second Edition

M
ost German degree programmes now include historical and political training
alongside the key language and literature elements. For the many students who
have not previously studied history, the prospect of embarking on a different
discipline may appear daunting. The purpose of this book is to provide non-historians
with a clear introduction to events in the German-speaking world during the last two
centuries, while also highlighting some of the unresolved issues and controversies. A
book of this size cannot, of course, cover all the ground and answer all the questions.
As an introductory text for students who have not previously studied German history,
nor is this the place to reveal new evidence or to propound a new reading of the subject.
However, I hope that this introduction will provide readers with a firm foundation to
pursue themes and questions in greater depth in other, more specialised historical texts.
A further aim is to introduce students of modern languages to the historical terminology
they will encounter in German-language sources.
Determining the parameters for a broad overview of ‘German’ history is anything
but straightforward, as Germans – that is, native speakers of the German language –
have always lived, and continue to live, in a multiplicity of states, an issue this book
attempts to address by including as broad a coverage as possible. The division of
Germany after 1945 into two opposing states – the capitalist Bundesrepublik Deutschland
(Federal Republic of Germany, FRG) in the west, and the eastern, communist Deutsche
Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic, GDR) – is perhaps the best-
known illustration. The legacy of this postwar division has continued to dominate
much of German political and social life well into the twenty-first century, and is central
to many courses on German literature, society and politics. Consequently, this book
considers the history of both German states in the post-1945 period, and the difficulties
of the unification process since 1990, as well as the entirely new challenges which the
Bundesrepublik has faced in its current incarnation.
However, German divisions have a much longer history. Whereas many so-called
nation states (like France and Spain) were well established by the early nineteenth
century, by contrast Germany had always been a rather vague construct, comprised of
numerous separate states and with little national sentiment. When Germany’s political
unification was first achieved in 1871, the new state excluded the Germans of Austria,
who had for centuries occupied a key position in German affairs. In 1918, after the
First World War, it briefly appeared that Germany and Austria might be united again,
and a short-lived Großdeutsches Reich (‘Greater Germany’) was created under Adolf
Hitler in 1938. However, the collapse of Hitler’s attempt to establish German world
dominance by force ensured that Austria and the eastern German provinces would no
xii    Preface to the Second Edition

longer be included in ‘Germany’. Modern Austria now considers itself entirely separate
from Germany, even quite foreign; yet the unifying force of the German language
continues to foster cultural links and exchanges between the two countries. One can
still speak of a German Kulturnation (cultural nation), which arguably overarches
both states. Students of German are students of the language, culture and politics of
both Germany and Austria, and this book therefore includes Austrian themes within
the main narrative where appropriate, and within separate sections of text for other
historical periods.
While Germany and Austria have parallel histories which have sometimes intersected
during the past two centuries, the same cannot be said of Switzerland. Switzerland
had effectively separated from the political development of the other German states
by 1499, and thereafter established quite different traditions. At no point during the
creation of a united German state did a ‘Swiss question’ emerge. Though the literature
and culture of German-speaking Switzerland have been an important influence on the
German Kulturnation (notably through writers such as Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Max Frisch
and Robert Walser), a consideration of the very different course of Swiss history falls
outside the scope of this book.
To place German and Austrian history in context, each chapter includes an overview
of developments in European and world history, and a timeline of the key events for
quick reference and orientation. This new edition has been expanded to include a
full consideration of developments in both Germany and Austria since 1990, and the
opportunity has been taken to revise and expand some of the earlier chapters a little.
The maps in the book have all been drawn to the same scale and have an outline of the
borders of modern Germany and Austria for ready comparison with the changing borders
of the political states which existed in this part of central Europe. Further features include
special inserts in each chapter; these give more information about specific institutions,
concepts or personalities which may have importance beyond the period covered by
the chapter – bold references in the text and index indicate these inserts. There are also
key historical texts in German, and questions to provoke further debate and study using
the literature recommended at the end of the book and other texts besides. German
terminology is used for institutions and ideas wherever appropriate; these terms are
also listed in the index/glossary at the end of the book.
A book of this introductory nature does not require a full academic apparatus of
footnotes and references, but a list of suggested further reading is included. Most of
these titles should be fairly accessible to the non-specialist, but each of them in turn
provides references to more detailed works.
The idea for this series of books was conceived by Elena Seymenliyska; she and
Eva Martinez supported the first edition alongside the production editor, Wendy Rooke,
and the copy-editor, Jane Raistrick, to all of whom I remain grateful. This second
edition has been carefully nurtured at Taylor and Francis by Andrea Hartill and Isabelle
Cheng, with Anjula Semmens as copyeditor. I thank them and my colleagues in the
German Department and School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol who
allowed me a vital sabbatical term to complete the original manuscript. Edith Kreutner
assisted with insights on modern Austria for this edition. I am also endlessly grateful
 Preface to the Second Edition    xiii

to the students at Bristol over the past twenty years who have followed my courses
with such enthusiasm for German and Austrian history, and whose questions and
approaches have enabled me to open up new avenues in my own work.

Mark Allinson, Bristol, April 2014

Thispageintentionallyleftblank
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
allegory of religious and dogmatic ideas[14].’ He would place the first
draft of the Gospel about the year 135, the last chapter and the First
Epistle about 150[15]. But I have long thought that this attractive
writer, though interesting and instructive as a historian of thought, is
a ‘negligible quantity’ in the field of criticism proper.
The other four German writers whom I have mentioned all belong to
the younger generation. Dr. Schmiedel (who though a Swiss
Professor is, I believe, German by birth) is the eldest, and he is not
yet quite fifty-three: Jülicher, the next on the list, is forty-seven. And
as they belong to the younger generation, so also they may be said
to mark the rise of a new School, or new method of treatment, in
German Theology. The Germany for which they speak is not the
dreaming, wistful, ineffective, romantic Germany of the past, but the
practical, forceful, energetic and assertive Germany of the present.
All, as I have said, are able writers; and the type of their ability has
much in common, though they have also their little individual
differences. They have all a marked directness and lucidity of style.
What they think they say, without hesitation and without reserve; no
one can ever be in any doubt as to their meaning. They are all apt to
be somewhat contemptuous, not only of divergent views, but of a
type of mind that differs from their own. Of the four, Jülicher and
especially Wernle have the warmer temperament; Schmiedel and
Wrede are cold and severe. Wrede writes like a mathematician, who
puts Q. E. D. at the end of each step in the argument—though it
would be a misfortune if the demonstration were taken to be as
complete as he thinks it. Schmiedel is rather the lawyer who pursues
his adversary from point to point with relentless acumen: if we could
grant the major premises of his argument, there would be much to
admire in his handling of the minor; but the major premises, as I
think I shall show, are often at fault. Jülicher is just the downright
capable person, who sees vividly what he sees and is intolerant of
that which does not appeal to him. Wernle alternately attracts and
repels; he attracts by his real enthusiasm for that with which he
sympathizes, by his skill in presentation, and his careful observance
of perspective and proportion; he repels by aggressiveness and self-
confidence.
The two French writers also have something in common, though
they belong to different communions. We are not surprised to find
that both have an easy grace of style, to which we might in both
cases also give the epithet ‘airy,’ because both are fond of speaking
in generalities which are not always in the closest contact with facts;
both are thorough-going allegorists, and regard the whole Gospel as
a pure product of ideas and not literal history. In spite of their
difference of communion, M. Loisy is on the critical side of his mind
as essentially rationalist as his Protestant confrère, though he brings
back, by an act of faith which some of us would call a tour de force,
in the region of dogmatics what he had taken away in the field of
criticism.
It seems to me that there is one word that requires to be said,
though I am anxious not to have my motive misunderstood in saying
it. I do not wish to do so in the least ad invidiam. Controversy is, I
hope, no longer conducted in that manner. I speak simply of an
objective fact which has too important a bearing on the whole
question to be ignored.
When I read an argument by Professor Schürer, and try to reply to
it, I am conscious that we are arguing (so to speak) in the same
plane. I feel that the attitude of my opponent to the evidence is
substantially the same as my own. Whatever the presuppositions
may be deep down in his mind, he at any rate keeps them in
abeyance. No doubt we differ widely enough as to detail; but in
principle I should credit my opponent with an attitude that is really
judicial, that tries to keep dogmatic considerations, or questions of
ultimate belief as much in suspense as possible, and to weigh the
arguments for and against in equal scales. But when I pass over to
the younger theologians, I no longer feel that this is so; we seem to
be arguing, not in the same, but in different planes. There is a far-
reaching presupposition not merely far back but near the front of
their minds. I cannot regard them as fellow seekers in the sense that
we are both doing our best to ascertain how far the events of the
Gospel history really transcended common experience. I take it that
on this point their minds are made up before they begin to put pen
to paper.
They all start with the ‘reduced’ conception of Christianity current in
so many quarters, that is akin to the ancient Ebionism or Arianism.
But so far as they do this their verdict as to the Fourth Gospel is
determined for them beforehand. The position is stated with great
frankness by Mr. Conybeare:

‘It may indeed be said that if Athanasius had not had the Fourth
Gospel to draw texts from, Arius would never have been
confuted. Had the fathers of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries
not known this Gospel, or not embraced it as authentic, the
Church would have remained semi-Ebionite, and the councils of
Nice and Ephesus would never have taken place[16].’

This does not indeed quite correspond to the facts. To make it do so,
we should have to blot out St. Paul, and other parts of the New
Testament, as well as St. John. But just so far as the reasoning holds
good, it is obvious that we may invert it. If a writer starts with a
conception of Christianity that is ‘semi-Ebionite’ or ‘semi-Arian,’ he is
bound at all costs to rule out the Fourth Gospel, not only as a
dogmatic authority, but as a record of historical fact.
Another characteristic is common to the writers of the School of
which we are speaking. The complexity of a critical hypothesis very
rarely stands in the way of its adoption; but a very little
psychological complexity acts as a deterrent. For instance, after
quoting from B. Weiss some rather exaggerated language as to the
freedom used by the evangelist in reproducing the discourses,
Schmiedel goes on thus:

‘As compared with such a line of defence, there is a positive

relief from an intolerable burden as soon as the student has
made up his mind to give up any such theory as that of the
 “genuineness” of the Gospel, as also of its authenticity in the
sense of its being the work of an eye-witness who meant to
record actual history[17].’

So far from being an ‘intolerable burden,’ it seems to me that Weiss’

theory is not only in itself perfectly natural, nay inevitable, but that it
is also specially helpful as enabling us to account at one and the
same time for the elements that are, and those that are not, strictly
genuine in the report of the discourses.
Jülicher writes to much the same effect as Schmiedel; and the
passage which follows is indeed very characteristic of his habit of
mind:

‘The defenders of the “genuineness” of the Gospel indeed for the

most part allow that John has carried out a certain idealization
with the discourses of Jesus, that in writing he has found himself
in a slight condition of ecstasy, in short, that his presentation of
his hero is something more than historical. With such mysticism
or phraseology science can have no concern; in the Johannean
version of Christ’s discourses form and substance cannot be
separated, the form to be assigned to the later writer, and the
substance to Jesus Himself: sint ut sunt aut non sint!...’

To please Professor Jülicher a picture must be all black or all white;

he is intolerant of half-shades that pass from the one into the other.
And no doubt there are some problems for the treatment of which
such a habit is an advantage, but hardly those which have to do with
living human personalities.
The French writers, like the German, have a certain resemblance to
each other. To some of these points I shall have to come back in
detail later. I will only note for the present that they are both
allegorists of an extreme kind. I would just for the present commend
to both a passage of Wernle’s:
 ‘This conception, however, of the Fourth Gospel as a
philosophical work, to which the Alexandrines first gave currency,
and which is still widely held to-day, is a radically wrong one.
John’s main idea, the descent of the Son of Man to reveal the
Father, is unphilosophical.... So, too, the Johannine miracles are
never intended to be taken in a purely allegorical sense. The fact
of their actual occurrence is the irrefragable proof of God’s
appearance upon earth[18].’

If the miracles of the Fourth Gospel were facts there was some point
in the constant appeals that the Gospel makes to them; but there
would be no point if these appeals were to a set of didactic fictions.
Within the last few months a monograph has appeared, which from
its general tendency may be ranged with the works of which we
have been speaking, though in its method it rather stands by itself,
E. Schwartz, Ueber den Tod der Söhne Zebedaei (Berlin, 1904). Dr.
Schwartz is the editor of Eusebius in the Berlin series, and his point
of view is primarily philological. He writes in a disagreeable spirit, at
once carping and supercilious. The only generous words in his paper
are a few in reference to the Church historian. He exemplifies
copiously most of the procedure specially deprecated in these
lectures. His monograph has, however, a value of its own, from the
precise and careful way in which he has collected and discusses the
material bearing upon the history of the Evangelist and of the Gospel
in the first and earlier part of the second century.
 5. Recent Reaction.

Far as I conceive that all these writers have travelled away from the
truth, they followed each other in such quick succession that it
would have been strange if public opinion had not been affected by
them. To one who himself firmly believed in St. John’s authorship of
the Gospel, and in its value as a record of the beginning of
Christianity, the outlook last autumn seemed as, I said, very black. A
single book dispelled the clouds and cleared the air. Dr. Drummond’s
Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel is of special value to
the defenders of the Gospel for two reasons: (1) because it is the
work of one who cannot in any case be accused of dogmatic
prepossessions, as it would to all appearance be more favourable to
his general position that the Gospel should not be genuine or
authentic; and (2) because the whole work is something more than
a defence of the Gospel; it is a striking application to a particular
problem of principles of criticism in many respects differing from
those at present in vogue, and at the same time, as I cannot but
think, a marked improvement on them.
To these points must be added the inherent qualities of the book
itself—the thorough knowledge with which it is written, its evident
sincerity and effort to get at realities, its nervous directness and
force of style, its judicial habit of weighing all that is to be said on
both sides.
Perhaps the most important and the most far-reaching of all the
corrections of current practice is a passage in the text with the note
appended to it upon the argument from silence. The text is dealing
with the common assumption that because Justin quotes less freely
from the Fourth Gospel than from the other three, therefore he must
have ascribed to it a lower degree of authority.

‘But why, then, it may be asked, has Justin not quoted the
Fourth Gospel at least as often as the other three? I cannot tell,
any more than I can tell why he has never named the supposed
authors of his Memoirs, or has mentioned only one of the
parables, or made no reference to the Apostle Paul, or nowhere
quoted the Apocalypse, though he believed it to be an apostolic
and prophetical work. His silence may be due to pure accident,
or the book may have seemed less adapted to his apologetic
purposes; but considering how many things there are about
which he is silent, we cannot admit that the argumentum a
silentio possesses in this case any validity.’

To this is added a note which raises the whole general question:

‘An instructive instance of the danger of arguing from what is not

told is furnished by Theophilus of Antioch. He does not mention
the names of the writers of the Gospels, except John; he does
not tell us anything about any of them; he says nothing about
the origin or the date of the Gospels themselves, or about their
use in the Church. He quotes from them extremely little, though
he quotes copiously from the Old Testament. But most singular
of all, in a defence of Christianity he tells us nothing about Christ
Himself; if I am not mistaken, he does not so much as name Him
or allude to Him; and, if the supposition were not absurd, it
might be argued with great plausibility that he cannot have
known anything about Him. For he undertakes to explain the
origin of the word Christian; but there is not a word about Christ,
and his conclusion is ἡμεῖς τούτου εἵνεκεν καλούμεθα ὅτι
χριόμεθα ἔλαιον θεοῦ (Ad Autol. i. 12). In the following chapter,
when he would establish the doctrine of the resurrection, you
could not imagine that he had heard of the resurrection of
Christ; and instead of referring to this, he has recourse to the
changing seasons, the fortune of seeds, the dying and
 reappearance of the moon, and the recovery from illness. We
may learn from these curious facts that it is not correct to say
that a writer knows nothing of certain things, simply because he
had not occasion to refer to them in his only extant writing: or
even because he does not mention them when his subject would
seem naturally to lead him to do so[19].’

The remarkable thing in this note is not only its independence and
sagacity, but more particularly the trained sagacity which brings to
bear upon the argument just those examples which are most directly
in point and most telling.
Professor Bacon, in the first of his recent articles (Hibbert Journal, i.
513), good-naturedly defends the present writer from the charge of
wishing to discredit the argument from silence in general. And it is
true that in the place to which he refers I had in mind only a
particular application of the argument. Still I am afraid that I do wish
to see its credit abated. At least it is my belief that too much use is
made of the argument, and that too much weight is attached to it.
There are two main objections to the way in which the argument is
often handled. (1) The critic does not ask himself what is silent—
what extent of material does the argument cover? Often this extent
is so small that, on the doctrine of chances, no inference can rightly
be drawn from it. And (2) experience shows that the argument is
often most fallacious. Dr. Drummond’s examples of this will I hope
become classical[20].
Dr. Drummond’s book contains a multitude of passages like the
above and exhibiting the same qualities. Many of them are a
vindication of popular judgement as against the far-fetched
arguments of professed scholars. The excellence of his method
seems to me to consist largely in this, that he begins by making for
himself an imaginative picture of the conditions with which he has to
deal, not only of the particular piece of evidence which shows upon
the surface, but of the inferential background lying behind it; that he
thus escapes the danger of the doctrinaire who argues straight from
the one bit of evidence before him to the conclusion; and that he
also constantly tests the process of his argument by reference to
parallel conditions and circumstances in our own day which we can
verify for ourselves.
If I were to express an opinion on the characteristic positions which
Dr. Drummond takes up, I think it would be that, whereas he seems
to me to overstate a little—but only a little—the external evidence
for the Gospel, he at the same time somewhat understates the
internal evidence. He gives his decision against the Fourth Gospel
sometimes where I cannot help thinking that a writer of equal
impartiality would not necessarily do so. It would also be unfair if I
did not say that his general estimate of the historical trustworthiness
of the Gospel is lower than I should form myself.
I have spoken of Dr. Drummond’s book first because of its
importance as a landmark in the study of the Gospel, and because it
covers the whole of the ground with which we are concerned. But
another book preceded it by a week or two in the date of its
publication, which as yet deals only with a limited portion of this
ground, and yet which, unless I am mistaken, presents qualities
similar in general character to those of Dr. Drummond, though
perhaps the expression of them is rather less striking. I refer to Dr.
Stanton’s The Gospels as Historical Documents, Part I. Dr. Stanton’s
book is planned on a larger scale than Dr. Drummond’s in so far as it
includes all four Gospels; but as yet he has only dealt with the
external evidence bearing upon their early use. An important part of
the volume is naturally that devoted to the Fourth Gospel. Like Dr.
Drummond, Dr. Stanton also presents a marked contrast as to
method with the group of continental writers that we have just been
considering. It was therefore a matter of special interest that his
book should be reviewed a few months after its appearance by Dr.
Schmiedel in the Hibbert Journal (ii. 607-12). It is not very surprising
that Dr. Stanton was moved to reply to his critic in the next number
(pp. 803-7). There is a direct antithesis of contrasted and competing
principles.
It may naturally be thought that I am a biased judge in such a case;
but I confess that it seems to me that the advantage is very much
on the side of my countryman. He shows without much difficulty
that Dr. Schmiedel has seriously misrepresented him. Indeed one
might say that the critic’s representation of views and arguments
was not so much derived from the book he was reviewing as from
his own internal consciousness of what might be expected from an
apologist. This, however, is the personal, and more ephemeral,
aspect of the controversy. It is of more general interest to note the
critical assumptions made in the course of the review. The writer
admits that his opponent ‘not unfrequently gives the impression of
being animated by the sincere resolve to maintain nothing save only
what can be assumed with certainty.’ ‘With certainty’ is
characteristic; the writer attributes to Dr. Stanton (in this case) what
he would have aimed at doing himself. In the eyes of the school to
which Dr. Schmiedel belongs, I will not say exactly that all the data
of which they approve are certain, but they are treated very much as
if they were; in building up an argument upon them, possibilities
easily and imperceptibly glide into probabilities, and probabilities into
certainties. Dr. Stanton disclaims the idea of dealing with certainties;
he would only profess to adduce facts on a nicely graduated scale of
probability, which by their cumulative weight went some way to
carry conviction.
‘Concerning Barn. iv. 14, [Dr. Stanton] says (p. 33) with justice that
this is our earliest instance of the citation of a saying of Christ as
“scripture.” In the year A.D. 130, the date upon which he rightly fixes
for the composition of the Epistle of Barnabas, this estimate of the
Gospels would have been in the highest degree surprising, since it is
not until A.D. 170 that the next examples of such an estimate make
their appearance.’ Dr. Schmiedel goes on (1) to have recourse to the
accustomed expedient of suggesting that Barnabas is quoting, not
from the words of the Gospel which are identical, but from a
passage in 4 Ezra which is quite different; and (2) if that expedient
fails, to represent the quotation as a ‘winged word,’ though it is
expressly introduced by the formula ‘it is written.’
However, it is not of either of these points that I wish to speak, but
rather to call attention to what Dr. Schmiedel thinks would be ‘in the
highest degree surprising.’ Why so surprising? What substantial
ground have we for expecting anything else? In the first place Dr.
Schmiedel begins by exaggerating the significance of the phrase ‘it is
written,’ as though on its first extant occurrence it would necessarily
imply full canonical authority. And then he goes on to lay stress upon
what is really little more than the absence of literature. If we take
the whole extant Christian literature between the years 130 and 170
A.D., it would not fill more than a thin octavo volume, and by far the
greater part of that is taken up with external controversy. What sort
of argument can be drawn from such a state of things as to the
exact estimate which Christians formed of their own sacred books?
No valid argument can be drawn from it either way, and it is far
better simply to confess our ignorance. It is reasonable to suppose
that there was a gradual development in the process by which the
Gospels attained to the position that we call canonical; but the data
to which we have access do not allow us to map out its stages with
any precision.
It seems to me to be a fundamental defect in the reasoning of Dr.
Schmiedel and his school that they fail to see that the real question
is, not simply, What is the evidence for this or that proposition? but,
What is the relation which the extant evidence bears to the whole
body of that which once existed, and how far can we trust the
inferences drawn from it?
I pass over some quite unwarrantable assumptions which Dr.
Schmiedel makes as to the apologetic point of view: such as that, ‘if
there can be shown to be resemblance between a canonical and a
non-canonical writing, the former is uniformly to be regarded as the
earlier’; and that ‘Apocryphal Gospels would not have been used in
the influential circles of the Church.’ Apologists would lay down
nothing of the kind, though in a certain number of concrete cases
they may think that the priority of a canonical to a non-canonical
writing does not need arguing, and though they may also think that
in some particular case the evidence for the use of an Apocryphal
Gospel by a Church writer is insufficient.
Dr. Schmiedel easily satisfies himself that he has refuted an
argument bearing on the Fourth Gospel. Professor Stanton had
rightly maintained, ‘There must have been good grounds for
believing that the Fourth Gospel was founded upon the apostolic
testimony in order to overcome the prejudice that would be created
by the contrasts between it and the Synoptics.’ He has shown, I
think, in his reply, that the instances alleged against this are not
relevant, and also that the part played by the two ideas of
Apostolicity and Catholicity in the forming of the Canon are not quite
correctly stated by his opponent. But even if they had been as stated
the original contention would still have been left standing, because
agreement with previously accepted writings was part of the idea of
Catholicity. It is a sound argument to say that a work so independent
as the Fourth Gospel must have come with good credentials to
obtain the place which it held.
Lastly, when Dr. Schmiedel speaks so imposingly of ‘the silence of
the entire first half of the second century in regard to the sojourn of
the Apostle John in Ephesus,’ I would once more ask him what this
silence amounts to. What is the total bulk of the literature on which
the argument is based? Is it possible to draw from it an inference of
any value at all[21]?
 LECTURE II
CRITICAL METHODS. THE OLDEST SOLUTION OF
THE PROBLEM OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
 I. i. Defects in the Methods of current Criticism.

It is now rather more than eight years since Harnack wrote the
famous Preface to his Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur. It
was an instance of the genial insight of the writer, and a keen
diagnosis of the criticism of the day.
The main outline of the Preface will be remembered. Looking back
over the period from which Science was just beginning to emerge,
the writer characterized it as one in which all the early Christian
literature including the New Testament had been treated as a tissue
of illusions and falsifications. That time, he went on to say, was past.
For Science it had only been an episode, during which much had
been learnt and after which much had to be forgotten. His own
researches, Harnack explained, would be found to go in a
reactionary direction even beyond the middle position of current
criticism. The results might be summed up by saying that the oldest
literature of the Church, in its main points and in most of its details,
from the point of view of literary history, was veracious and
trustworthy. In the whole New Testament there was probably only a
single writing that could be called pseudonymous in the strict sense
of the term, the so-called Second Epistle of St. Peter; and, apart
from the Gnostic fictions, the whole number of pseudonymous
writings down to Irenaeus was very small, and in one case (the Acts
of Thecla) the production of such a work was expressly condemned.
In like manner the amount of interpolation was also far less than
had been supposed; and the tradition relating to this early period
might in the main, and with some reservations, be trusted.
Baur and his school had thought themselves compelled, in order to
give an intelligible account of the rise of Christianity, to throw over
both the statements in the writings themselves and those of
tradition about them, and to post-date their composition by several
decades. They were driven to do this by mistaken premises. Starting
with the assumption that all these writings were composed with a
definite purpose, to commend some sectional view of Christianity,
they were constantly on the watch for traces of that purpose, and
they found them in the most unexpected places. The views of Baur
and his followers had been generally given up; but the tendencies
set on foot by them remained. The Christian writings were still
approached in an attitude of suspicion; they were cross-examined in
the spirit of a hostile attorney; or else they were treated after the
manner of a petit maître, fastening upon all sorts of small details,
and arguing from them in the face of clear and decisive indications.
Baur thought that everything had a motive, and an interested
motive. But, whereas he sought for the motive on broad lines, his
more recent successors either gave themselves up to the search for
minor incidental motives, or for interpolations on a large scale, or
else they gave way to a thorough-going scepticism which confused
together probabilities and improbabilities as though they were all the
same.
Harnack went on to describe the results of the labours of the last
two decades (1876-96) as constituting a definite ‘return to tradition.’
This return to tradition he regarded as characteristic of the period in
which he was writing; indeed he looked forward to a time when the
questions of literary history which had excited so much interest
would do so no longer, because it would come to be generally
understood that the early Christian traditions were in the main right.

This Preface of Harnack’s attracted considerable attention, and

probably nowhere more than in England. English students hailed it
as the beginning of a new epoch, and one in which they could be
more at home. It fell in with certain marked characteristics of the
English mind. Even the progressive element in that mind naturally
works on conservative lines; it has been reluctant to break away
from the past. The very advances of freedom, so steady and so sure,
have not been revolutionary; they have been advances
 ‘Of freedom slowly broadening down
From precedent to precedent.’

But it was not only the destructive conclusions of continental

criticism with which dissatisfaction was felt, and which gave an
apologetic colour to much English work. The methods were in many
ways not less distasteful than the conclusions. Englishmen felt,
whether they said so or not, that there was something wrong. And
therefore, when a scholar of Harnack’s distinction put their thoughts
into words and pointed to the very defects of which they seemed to
be conscious, their hopes were raised that at last a movement was
begun which they could follow with sympathy, and in which they
might perhaps to some extent bear a part.
When I take upon myself to speak in this way of ‘English students,’ I
of course do so with some reservations. I have in mind the rather
considerable majority of the theological faculties in our Universities,
and I might say the majority of the teaching staffs of all
denominations throughout Great Britain; for there are excellent
relations, and a great amount of solidarity, among British teachers of
Theology in all the churches. A good general representation of the
average views would be found (e. g.) in Hastings’ Dictionary of the
Bible. No doubt there is also the other type—the type represented by
Encyclopaedia Biblica. There are not a few among us who are less
dissatisfied with Continental methods, and who pursue those
methods themselves with ability and independence. And beyond
these there are very many more, especially among the cultivated
and interested laity, who are acquainted in a general way with what
has been done on the Continent, and who are impressed by what
they take to be the results, though for the most part they have not
time to test the processes. I say advisedly that this class is
impressed by what it conceives to be results, because I imagine
that, while there is a feeling that Continental scholars are freer in
their researches and less trammelled than our own, there is also
some reserve owing to the consciousness that the results have not
been fully tested. To this extent I should say that the intellectual
posture of this class was one of waiting—serious and interested
waiting—rather than of complete committal either to one side or to
the other.
Since my visit to America I seem to be better able to speak of the
situation there, though closer acquaintance did but in the main
confirm and define the opinion that I had previously formed. There
are several differences between the conditions in the two countries.
On the other side of the Atlantic there are probably greater
inequalities of theological instructedness. They have a greater
number of Universities and Seminaries, in which the standard varies
more than it does with us. And while on the one hand general
culture and that kind of vague knowledge of the nature and
tendencies of criticism which goes with general culture is more
widely diffused in these islands, on the other hand I should be
inclined to think that a real first-hand knowledge of critical work is
more often to be found there than it is here. This is due to the fact
that a large proportion of the ablest professors and teachers have
been themselves trained in Germany. And yet, in spite of these
differences and inequalities, there is a general tendency, which
seemed to me to embrace the whole nation.
It was summed up in a few words by one of the Methodist Bishops
(it will be remembered that the Episcopalian Methodists are strong in
America) with whom I had some conversation. He had, I believe,
been secretary of some Board of Religious Education, and spoke
with wide knowledge. I should be afraid to say how many students
had passed through his hands. And, speaking of these students, he
said that their general attitude was this: ‘They want to keep their
faith; and yet they also want to see the realities of things.’
The same description would, I believe, fit the teachers and
professors as well as the students, including those trained in
Germany. They too want to keep their faith, and to help their
students to keep their faith. As compared with the state of things in
Germany, there is a more general and sustained effort to make their
teaching positive and constructive; and this constructive teaching
takes, I suspect, in most cases very similar lines—I should describe it
as in the main Ritschlianism of the Right. At the same time, they too
want to see the reality of things; in other words, they want to teach
by strictly scientific methods. And the only further remark that I
should have to make would be that they are perhaps a little inclined
—and it naturally could not be otherwise—to look at these methods
through German spectacles.
Now I would not hesitate to carry this generalization still further. We,
in this country, have probably a greater number of cross currents;
there is a greater number of media that stand between the
individual and his ultimate aims and wishes, in the shape of loyalties
to this or that church or party. And yet I think that, broadly
speaking, we should not be wrong in summing up what is really at
the bottom of the minds and hearts of the whole Anglo-Saxon race
in the same words: ‘They want to keep their faith; and yet they also
want to see the realities of things.’
It is the equilibrium of these two propositions that is most
characteristic. I fully believe that motives of the same kind are
present among the Germans as well as ourselves. I could easily
name a number of German professors who, I feel sure, are as
anxious to keep their faith as we are. At the head of the list I should
put Harnack himself, whose views have been so much discussed in
this country. There is, however, a greater diversity of attitude among
the professorial body as a whole. And so far as they were agreed—I
am speaking especially of the widespread liberal branch—they
would, I think, all invert the order of the two propositions: they
would give precedence to the desire to get at realities; and they
would identify this getting at realities with the use of scientific
method. The reason is that in Germany, more than elsewhere, the
prevalent standards of judgement are essentially academic. The
Universities give the lead and set the tone for the whole nation; and
the Universities have now been accustomed for many generations to
an atmosphere of free thought.
Now it is far from my intention to undervalue, either the use of
scientific method in general, or German science in particular. I have
the highest opinion of both. By far the greater part of the advance
that has been made in Theology—and I believe that a great advance
has been made in our own country as well as elsewhere—I would
again appeal to Hastings’ Dictionary as representing a sort of
average—has been due to the stricter application of science; and a
great part of this has been German science. Honour must be given
where honour is due. We must not hold back the full recognition that
at the present time Germany holds the first place in Science, and
that its output of scientific work is perhaps as great as that of all the
rest of the world besides. I am not sure whether this is an
exaggeration, but I hardly think it is.
But in all the more tentative forms of science, such as philosophy,
history, and theology, there is, or at least has been so far, a double
element, one that is stable and permanent, and another that is more
or less local and ephemeral.
If I proceed to offer some criticisms upon German critical methods, I
am perfectly well aware that the Germans in turn would have
something to criticize in ours. At the present day discussion is not
limited to any one country, but is international. It is by scholars of
different race and training comparing notes together that mistakes
are corrected, methods gradually perfected, and results established.
I shall not hesitate therefore to point out where it seems to me that
German methods have gone wrong. And I feel that I can do this the
more freely when a scholar of Harnack’s high standing has set the
example. The faults that we seem to have noticed in German
criticism are very much those which he has indicated: it has been
too academic, too doctrinaire, too artificial, too much made in the
study and too little checked by observation of the facts of daily life.
The very excellences of the German mind have in some ways
contributed to the formation of wrong standards of judgement. More
than other people the Germans have the power of sustained abstract
thought, of thoroughness in mustering and reviewing all the
elements of a problem, of thinking a problem out in such a way as
not to leave gaps and inconsistencies. Hence they are too ready to
assume that all the rest of the world will do the same, that if an
important piece of evidence is omitted in an argument it can only be
because it was not known, that carelessness and oversights and
inconsistencies are things that need not be reckoned with. And there
is also too great a tendency to argue as though men were all made
upon one pattern. There is a want of elasticity of conception. And, to
sum up many points in one, there is a great tendency to purism or
over-strictness in the wrong place, and to over-laxity also in the
wrong place, to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.
What one desiderates most is greater simplicity, greater readiness to
believe that as a rule, in ancient times as well as modern, people
meant what they said and said what they meant, and that more
often than not they had some substantial reason for saying it.
 ii. Instances in which Criticism has corrected itself.

These are not merely a priori reflections, but they are based upon
experience of the actual course that criticism has taken. By this time
criticism has a considerable history behind it. It has corrected some
of its mistakes, and is able to look back upon the course by which it
came to make them. In this way it should learn some wholesome
lessons.
I will take three rather conspicuous examples in which criticism has
at first gone wrong and has afterwards come to set itself right, in
the hope that they may teach us what to avoid in future. I imagine
that they may be found to throw some side-light upon the particular
problem of the Fourth Gospel.
The first example that I will take shall be from the criticism of the
Ignatian Epistles. I may assume that the Seven Epistles are now
generally allowed to be genuine, and written by Ignatius, bishop of
Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome sometime before the end
of the reign of Trajan (i. e. before 117). This result is due especially
to the labours of two scholars, Zahn and Lightfoot. It is instructive to
note with what kind of argument they had to contend.
Both in their day had to stem a formidable current of opinion. Bishop
Lightfoot wrote in the Preface to his great work dated ‘St. Peter’s
day, 1885’:

‘We have been told more than once that “all impartial critics”
have condemned the Ignatian Epistles as spurious. But this
moral intimidation is unworthy of the eminent writers who have
sometimes indulged in it, and will certainly not be permitted to
foreclose the investigation. If the ecclesiastical terrorism of past
ages has lost its power, we shall, in the interests of truth, be
 justly jealous of allowing an academic terrorism to usurp its
place.’

I should not find it difficult to produce parallels to this kind of

intimidation in the case of the Fourth Gospel. To look back in face of
them upon the issue of the Ignatian controversy is consoling.
Much was said in the course of the controversy about certain
features of style and character as unworthy of an Apostolic father. It
was enough to answer with Bishop Lightfoot that ‘objections of this
class rest for the most part on the assumption that an Apostolic
father must be a person of ideal perfections intellectually as well as
morally—an assumption which has only to be named in order to be
refuted[22].’
It is true that the letters contained exaggerated language of humility,
and also an exaggerated eagerness for martyrdom. Beside these
general features, there were a good many strange and crude
expressions of other kinds. It is needless to say that it did not in the
least follow that such expressions could not have been used by
Ignatius. But if the critics had been willing to study the letters a little
deeper and with a little more sympathy, they might have found
reason to change their estimate even of these acknowledged flaws.
In dealing with Ignatius it is always important to remember that we
have to do with a Syrian and not a Greek. Certainly the language
that he wrote was not in his hand a pliant instrument. It always cost
him a struggle to express his thought; and the expression is very
often far from perfect. The figure of the writer that one pictures to
oneself is rugged, shaggy (if one may use the word), uncouth; and
yet there is a virile, nervous strength about his language which is at
times very impressive. And even his extravagances differ in this from
many like extravagances, that they are not in the least insincere. For
instance, if we read through the letter to Polycarp, we shall see in it
a really great personality. And Ignatius had a very considerable
power of thought as well as of character. Outside the New
Testament, he is the first great Christian thinker; and he is one who
left a deep mark on all subsequent thinking.
I have little doubt that the strong expressions of humility that are
found from time to time in Ignatius are wrung from him by the
recollection of the life that he led before he became a Christian.
They are doubtless suggested by St. Paul, and they spring from a
feeling not less intense than his.
The humility of St. John is a different matter. But as very shallow
and obtuse criticisms are sometimes passed upon it, the Ignatian
parallel may serve as a wholesome warning. I shall have occasion to
return to this point later.
The main arguments against the Ignatian authorship of the letters
were drawn from the seemingly advanced condition of things which
they implied in the way of heretical teaching on the one hand, and
church organization on the other. The objections on these grounds
have been quite cleared up; and now the letters supply some of the
most important data that the historian has to go upon.
It will be remembered that Bishop Lightfoot began by converting
himself before he converted others. He had been inclined to think at
one time that the shorter Syriac version represented the true
Ignatius. He tells us himself how he came to give up this opinion. He
says:

‘I found that to maintain the priority of the Curetonian letters I

was obliged from time to time to ascribe to the supposed
Ignatian forger feats of ingenuity, knowledge, intuition, skill, and
self-restraint, which transcended all bounds of probability’
(Preface to the First Edition).

This is another bit of experience that it may be worth while to bear

in mind.

My second example is perhaps in this sense not quite so clear a

case, that there is not as yet as complete a consensus in regard to it
as there is in regard to the Ignatian Letters. It is taken from the
discussions which have been going on at various times in the last
twenty-five years as to the genuineness of the treatise De Vita
Contemplativa which has come down to us among the works of
Philo.
A marked impression was made on the side of the attack by a
monograph by Lucius, Die Therapeuten u. ihre Stellung in d. Gesch.
der Askese, published in 1879. This, together with the acceptance at
least of the negative part of its result by Schürer, inaugurated a
period during which opinion was on the whole rather unfavourable to
the treatise. A reaction began with two articles by Massebieau in
1888, followed by the important and valuable work of Mr. F. C.
Conybeare, Philo about the Contemplative Life, Oxford, 1895. The
success of this defence may be regarded as clenched by the
accession of such excellent and impartial authorities as Cohn and
Wendland, who are bringing out the great new edition of Philo, and
of Dr. James Drummond. It is true that Schürer reviewed Mr.
Conybeare in an adverse sense so far as his main conclusion was
concerned, and that he still maintains his opinion in the third edition
of his Geschichte d. Jüdischen Volkes (1898); but I must needs think
that his arguments were satisfactorily and decisively answered by Dr.
Drummond in the Jewish Quarterly Review for 1896.
One or two points in this reply of Dr. Drummond have a general
bearing, relevant to our present subject.
Lucius had maintained that the treatise was of Christian origin, and
that it was composed not long before the time of its first mention by
Eusebius. The history of the text is opposed to this; and Dr.
Drummond is quite right in saying ‘the argument seems valid that
Eusebius did not make his extracts from a work which had been
recently sprung upon the market, but from one which had already
undergone a long process of transcription.’ I may point to Dr.
Schmiedel’s article in the Encyclopaedia Biblica as one of many
examples of reasoning similar to that of Lucius in regard to the
Fourth Gospel. It is a common thing among critics to think it
unnecessary to allow any but the smallest interval between the first
production of a book and the date of its first mention in the
literature that happens to be extant. I would not lay down an
absolute rule. Circumstances vary in different cases. But I would
contend that in any case they need careful consideration, and that
assumptions like those of Lucius and Schmiedel are highly
precarious.
The next point I would notice is the argument from identity of
thought and style. One of the striking features in Mr. Conybeare’s
book was the vast accumulation of parallels both in thought and
expression between the De Vita Contemplativa and the certainly
genuine works of Philo. Dr. Schürer thinks that this might be due to
imitation. On that head I should like to quote Dr. Drummond:

‘The purely literary evidence will affect different men differently.

To those who have no difficulty in attributing to the forger a
boundless power of refined imitation it will carry little weight. To
others who act upon the proverb, ex pede Herculem, and believe
that successful forgery in the name of an author, if not of high
genius, at least of unusual ability and distinguished style, is an
exceedingly difficult art, this line of evidence will come with
almost overwhelming force. It is easy enough to imitate tricks of
style, or to borrow some peculiarities of phrase; but to write in a
required style, without betraying any signs of imitation; to
introduce perpetual variation into sentences which are
nevertheless characteristic; to have shades of thought and
suggestion, which remind one of what has been said elsewhere,
and nevertheless are delicately modified, and pass easily into
another subject; in a word, to preserve the whole flavour of a
writer’s composition in a treatise which has a theme of its own,
and follows its own independent development, may well seem
beyond the reach of the forger, and must be held to guarantee
the genuineness of a work, unless very weighty arguments can
be advanced on the other side.’
This paragraph seems to be very much in point for those who, like
Schmiedel, H. J. Holtzmann and Professor Bacon, would distinguish
the author of the First Epistle of St. John from the author of the
Gospel.
On this point it is also worth while to consider Dr. Drummond’s
replies to the inconsistencies alleged to exist between particular
details in the De Vita Contemplativa and the other Philonic writings.
There is always a tendency in the critical school to make too much
of these little prima facie differences, which generally shrink a good
deal on closer examination.

My last example shall be taken from the Vita Antonii, ascribed to,
and now generally believed to be a genuine work of, St. Athanasius.
The Vita Antonii holds an important place in the literature of the
beginnings of Monasticism. As such it was involved in the wholesale
scepticism on that subject which was pushed to its furthest limits by
the late Professor Weingarten in the seventies and eighties. How
complete the reaction has been may be seen in the recent edition of
the Historia Lausiaca by Dom Cuthbert Butler. Among Weingarten’s
converts was our English scholar, Professor Gwatkin; and I do not
think that anything could speak more eloquently than just to
transcribe the list of objections brought against the Vita Antonii by
Professor Gwatkin in his Studies of Arianism (Cambridge, 1882). I
proceed to give the more important of them in an abridged form:

‘In the rest of the works of Athanasius there is no trace of

Antony’s existence. Considering the grandeur of the saint’s
position, and his intimate relations with the bishop of Alexandria,
this fact alone should be decisive.’
Observe the argument from silence, which is enlarged upon in
the remainder of the paragraph.
1. The treatise is addressed to the monks of the West, whereas
‘monasticism was unknown in Europe in the reign of Valentinian,
and at Rome in particular when Jerome went into the East in
 373; and at Milan it had only lately been introduced by Ambrose
at the time of Augustine’s visit in 385.’
2. ‘Apart from its numerous miracles, the general tone of the Vita
is unhistorical. It is a perfect romance of the desert, without a
trace of human sinfulness to mar its beauty. The saint is an
idealized ascetic hero, the mons Antonii a paradise of peaceful
holiness. We cannot pass from the Scriptores Erotici to the Vita
Antonii without noticing the same atmosphere of unreality in
both. From Anthanasius there is all the difference of the novel
writer from the orator—of the Cyropaedia from the de Corona.’
3. ‘Though Athanasius had ample room for miracles in the
adventures of his long life, he never records anything of the
sort.... But miracles, often of the most puerile description, are
the staple of the Vita Antonii, and some of them are said to have
been done before the eyes of Athanasius himself, who could not
have omitted all reference to them in the writings of his exile.’
Again, the argument from silence.

4. ‘Antony is represented as an illiterate Copt, dependent on

memory even for his knowledge of Scripture.’ Yet he alludes to
Plato, Plotinus, &c., and in general reasons like a learned
philosopher.
5. ‘The Vita Antonii has coincidences with Athanasius in language
and doctrine, as we should expect in any professed work of
his.... But the divergences are serious’....
6. It is implied throughout the Vita Antonii that the monks were
extremely numerous throughout the East during Antony’s
lifetime. Now there were monks in Egypt, monks of Serapis, long
before; but Christian monks there were none’ (Studies of
Arianism, pp. 100-2).

Now I am not for a moment going to disparage this display of

learning. It is very clever; it is very scholarly: in the state of
knowledge when it was written it was at least very excusable in its
statements. Altogether it was as brilliant a piece of criticism as one
would wish to see. To this day the objections read quite formidably.
And yet the inference drawn from them is pretty certainly wrong;
indeed the whole array is little more than an impressive bugbear.

With such warnings from the past before our eyes, I think we should
be inclined to scrutinize rather closely arguments of a like kind when
they meet us in the course of our present investigation.
 iii. Examples of Mistaken Method as applied to the
Fourth Gospel.

At this point we may go back to Harnack’s Preface. And here I

cannot help expressing my regret that it has not had more of the
influence that it deserved to have, both in the country of its author
and elsewhere. I am even tempted to go a little further, and express
my regret that it has not had more influence upon the author
himself. I will henceforward confine myself more strictly to the
Fourth Gospel. And it seems to me that, in his incidental treatment
of this, Harnack has more than once forgotten his own precepts.
He expends endless ingenuity in trying to prove that there was a
confusion, in the minds of the Christian writers of the second
century, between the Apostle St. John and a certain ‘Presbyter’ of
the same name, who really lived, as the Apostle was supposed to
have lived, at Ephesus in the Roman province of Asia. An important
difficulty in the way of this proof is the explicit testimony of
Irenaeus. To meet this difficulty, the attempt is made to show that
Irenaeus derived all his knowledge, or supposed knowledge, about
St. John and his surroundings from two sources, a very brief
intercourse in early youth with Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and the
book of Papias, called Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord. It is
like Nero wishing that Rome had one neck, in order that it might be
cut at a single stroke. By reducing the channels through which
Irenaeus received his knowledge to these two, it became more
possible that if they happened in any way to lend themselves to the
confusion, that confusion should really take hold of his mind and
express itself in his writings. The learning and ingenuity and skill
displayed are admirable. But how futile, from the very first, to
suppose that all the information Irenaeus possessed about the
greatest leader of the Church of his own home came only through
these two channels and no others; indeed, that he was like the
princess in the fairy tale, shut up in a tower and cut off from all
communication with the outer world. We know that two at least of
his companions in the Gallic churches of Vienne and Lyons came
from the same region as himself. It is commonly supposed that
these churches had as a nucleus a little colony from Asia Minor. In
his Fourth Book Irenaeus often refers to a certain Presbyter, whom
Harnack rightly shows to have been not a direct hearer of the
Apostles, but at one degree removed from them, a disciple of those
who had heard from the Apostles. It is natural, with Lightfoot, to
identify this Presbyter with Pothinus, Irenaeus’ own predecessor in
his see, who had passed the age of ninety when he died in the
persecution of the year 177. In any case, Pothinus must have been a
store-house of traditions and memories, to which Irenaeus would
have constant access. We know also that after the persecution
Irenaeus was in Rome; and there is some reason to think that he
had resided there more than twenty years before[23]. This was
another great centre with which he was familiar, and to which news
and traditions of the past came streaming in from every quarter of
the Christian world. And yet we are asked to believe that Irenaeus
was the victim of a confusion that in any number of ways might have
been corrected. As Dr. Drummond well says, ‘Critics speak of
Irenaeus as though he had fallen out of the moon, paid two or three
visits to Polycarp’s lecture-room, and never known any one else. In
fact, he must have known all sorts of men, of all ages, both in the
East and the West, and among others his venerable predecessor
Pothinus, who was upwards of ninety at the time of his death. He
must have had numerous links with the early part of the century[24].’
Again the same writer says:

‘The testimonies of Irenaeus, of Polycrates, and of Clement are

those on which we must mainly rely. In judging of the collective
force of the evidence, we must not forget that the second
century was a literary age. The churches freely communicated
with one another by letters, and there was an abundant
theological literature of which only a few fragments have
 survived. I see no reason why the churches of Asia should not
have had as well-grounded a certainty that John had been once
among them as we have that Goldsmith was once in London[25].’

To deal with all this body of evidence as Harnack deals with it is very
like ‘arguing on the strength of a few particulars in the face of clear
and decisive indications[26].’
Here is another instance of the very thing that Harnack himself
complained of. He has made up his mind that chap. xxi of the Gospel
could not have been written until after the death of the author. But
in ver. 24 the editors of the Gospel say expressly that the Apostle
who figures so conspicuously in it was the author of the whole book
(‘this is the disciple who beareth witness of these things, and wrote
these things’). This, according to Harnack, only convicts them of a
deliberate untruth, contradicted by the verses immediately
preceding. If we must needs accuse the unfortunate editors of
falsification, we might at least give them credit for the sense to take
care that their falsehood was not exposed by their own words, and
almost (as it were) in the same breath. But the fact is that the
premiss, from which Harnack argues, is purely gratuitous, as I hope
to show in the next lecture.
Perhaps it is the same persons, the editors of the Gospel—in any
case it is the Presbyters who were closely connected with them—
who are charged with another piece of dishonesty. Harnack sees that
mere accident will not account for the supposed confusion of John
the Presbyter with John the Apostle. He therefore does not shrink
from imputing deliberate fraud.

‘The legend purposely set on foot that the author of the Gospel
was the son of Zebedee, &c.[27]’
‘But Papias, through the oral traditions about which he took so
much trouble, already stood under the influence of Presbyters, of
whom some perhaps purposely started the legend that the
Presbyter John was the Apostle[28].’
 ‘The John who had the encounter with Cerinthus, after what has
been said can only be the Presbyter. But in the confusion, “the
unconscious” alone can hardly have been involved.’

The dishonesty went beyond the confusion of the two persons. It is

also seen in the definite ascription of the Gospel to the Apostle.

‘The twenty-fourth verse of the twenty-first chapter of the Fourth

Gospel, about which we have spoken, will always remain a
strong indication of the fact that in Ephesus the Fourth Gospel
was deliberately put out after the death of its author as a work
of the Apostle, and so that the Apostle and the Presbyter were
deliberately identified, as Philip the Evangelist was made to
change places with Philip the Apostle[29].’

Facilis descensus. When once we begin imputing fraudulent actions

we may very easily find that we have to go on doing so. It should,
however, be remembered that the ground for all this is no assured
fact, but only the exigencies of a complicated theory which, quite
apart from this, has a load of improbability to contend with.

I will give one further example of a different kind. The tendency of

the criticism that has been, and still is largely in vogue, is to give
what seems to me quite undue weight to the exceptional, the
abnormal, the eccentric, as compared with that which is normal and
regular.
In the controversy over the Fourth Gospel one of the questions has
been as to the exact degree of importance to be attached to the so-
called Alogi, who, about the third quarter of the second century,
denied St. John’s authorship of the writings attributed to him,
including the Gospel, and by a piece of sheer bravado ascribed it to
the heretic Cerinthus.
Harnack’s account of this—coterie perhaps rather than sect—is just.
‘The attack did not spread; it was soon defeated; but the memory of
it lingered on, and the policy of the Church, auspiciously begun by
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