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    ' The Historical Jesus, Pages. 3s. 6d. The Jesus Problem, Vii+264

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    This document summarizes a book review of two volumes about Wessel Gansfort, a 15th century reformer who was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. The summary describes Wessel as a remarkable figure who combined scholasticism's emphasis on logic with mystic piety. His biography and major works, translated here for the first time in English, show he was a vigorous proponent of religious awakening before the 16th century reforms. The review argues the volumes provide valuable resources for understanding the pre-Reformation era and establish Wessel as truly anticipating the Protestant movement.

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    ' The Historical Jesus, Pages. 3s. 6d. The Jesus Problem, Vii+264

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    David
    76 views4 pages
    This document summarizes a book review of two volumes about Wessel Gansfort, a 15th century reformer who was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. The summary describes Wessel as a remarkable figure who combined scholasticism's emphasis on logic with mystic piety. His biography and major works, translated here for the first time in English, show he was a vigorous proponent of religious awakening before the 16th century reforms. The review argues the volumes provide valuable resources for understanding the pre-Reformation era and establish Wessel as truly anticipating the Protestant movement.

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    This document summarizes a book review of two volumes about Wessel Gansfort, a 15th century reformer who was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. The summary describes Wessel as a remarkable figure who combined scholasticism's emphasis on logic with mystic piety. His biography and major works, translated here for the first time in English, show he was a vigorous proponent of religious awakening before the 16th century reforms. The review argues the volumes provide valuable resources for understanding the pre-Reformation era and establish Wessel as truly anticipating the Protestant movement.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    76 views4 pages

    ' The Historical Jesus, Pages. 3s. 6d. The Jesus Problem, Vii+264

    Uploaded by

    David
    This document summarizes a book review of two volumes about Wessel Gansfort, a 15th century reformer who was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. The summary describes Wessel as a remarkable figure who combined scholasticism's emphasis on logic with mystic piety. His biography and major works, translated here for the first time in English, show he was a vigorous proponent of religious awakening before the 16th century reforms. The review argues the volumes provide valuable resources for understanding the pre-Reformation era and establish Wessel as truly anticipating the Protestant movement.

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    of 4

    378 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY

    We are much indebted to Professor Webster for bringing together


    this mass of material relating to rest days of various kinds, and the
    copious footnotes make reference to the original sources easy. To
    what extent he regards these different sorts as related is not clearly
    brought'out by the author. Also in some places generalizations occur
    which are not proved and to which exception might readily be taken.
    On the whole, however, his position is perhaps best illustrated by his
    explanation of the widespread occurrence and similarity of tabooed days.
    Within contiguous areas, for example, in Borneo and the adjoining islands,
    or among related peoples, such as the American and Asiatic Eskimo, it is
    reasonable to ascribe the uniformity of custom to long continued borrowing.
    .. . But where tabooed days are observed for the same reasons by unrelated
    peoples, who, as far as our knowledge reaches, have never been in cultural
    contact, the student is obliged to conclude that the beliefs underlying the
    custom in question have not been narrowly limited but belong to the general
    stock of primitive ideas. In such cases the doctrine of the fundamental
    unity of the human mind seems alone to be capable of explaining the astonishing
    similarity of its products at different times and in different parts of the world.
    A. B. LEWIS
    FIELD MUSEUM
    CHICAGO,ILL.

    BOOKS ON THE HISTORICITY OF JESUS


    In two volumes' the indefatigable Mr. Robertson returns to the
    demonstration that Jesus is a myth. The first of the two is an attempt
    to survey the positions of various writers who believe Jesus to be a
    historical figure, and to show them hopelessly wrong, both in their
    positive assumptions and in their objections to the myth theory. The
    second, though it has some controversial element, is in the main a presen-
    tation of Mr. Robertson's notion of how Christianity, with no Jesus and
    nothing corresponding to the gospel story, got started in the world. The
    whole is an impressive display of the extraordinary, futile ingenuity
    of which a gifted but unsound mind is capable. There is no reason
    why this sort of thing might not be written interminably, concerning any
    historic phenomenon whatsoever. What the author cannot see, though
    it must be plain to every reader, is that the infinitely involved and
    indirect procedure by which he represents the second-century church
    and its gospels to have come into being is a thousand times more incred-

    ' The Historical Jesus, 1916. XXiV+221 pages. 3s. 6d. The Jesus Problem,
    1917. vii+264 pages. 5s. By John M. Robertson. London: Watts & Co.
    BOOKSON THE HISTORICITYOF JESUS 379

    ible than the simple hypothesis that Christianity, like Mohammedanism,


    had a founder, whose mission has left a written deposit in the gospels.
    Mr. Robertson's favorite word is "inferribly"; without it his
    books could not be written. "Demonstrably" is an adverb whose use
    is denied him. The following situation is given him by his powers of
    inference:
    There was at Jerusalem,at some time in the first century,a smallgroup
    of Jesuist"apostles"amongwhomthe chiefmay have beennamedJames,John
    and Cephas. They may have been membersof a ritual groupof twelve, who
    may have styled themselvesBrothersof the Lord; but that groupin no way
    answeredto the Twelve of the gospels. .... The adherentsbelieved in a
    non-historicJesus,the "Servant" of the JewishGod,somehowevolvedout of
    the remoteJesus-Godwho is reducedto humanstatus in the Old Testament
    as Joshua. And their centralsecret rite consistedin a symbolicsacrament,
    evolved out of an ancientsacramentof humansacrifice..... This rite had
    withinliving memory,if not still at the time fromwhichwe start, been accom-
    panied by an annual popularrite in which a selected person-probably a
    criminal releasedfor the purpose-was treated as a temporaryking, then
    derided,and then either in mock show or in actual fact executed,under the
    name of JesusBarabbas,"the Son of the Father." Of this ancientcult there
    were inferriblymany scattered centres outside of Judea (Jesus Problem,
    PP. 135 f.).
    Such centres were found in Samaria, in Ephesus, and elsewhere in
    Asia Minor, probably at Alexandriaand Antioch. The Jewish promoters
    of the cult proceeded "to develop the Savior-God of the sacramental
    rite (which they may at this stage have adopted in its 'pagan' form, now
    taken as canonical) into a Messiah who was to 'come again,' introducing
    the Jewish 'Kingdom of heaven'" (Ibid., p. 203). On the other hand,
    "the chief Gentile achievement in the matter is the development of
    the primitive sacrament-motive and ritual (fundamentally dramatic)
    into the mystery-play which is transcribed in the closing chapters of
    Matthew and Mark. ... .The mystery-play in its complete form was
    inferribly developed and played in a Gentile city; and its transcription
    probably coincided with its cessation as a drama" (Ibid., pp. 204 f.).
    The transcription furnished the nucleus of the Gospels, to which was
    added by accretion material from the Didach6 and other sources, along
    with much symbolic and legendary story. So grew the Synoptics.
    In all these writings "we are in a world of purposivefiction." There
    seems to have been a propagandist among the Gentiles named Paul,
    but "it is plainly unnecessary to assume in his case any abnormal
    380 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY

    sincerity." The extant "Pauline epistles" are not his work; they
    "represent a polemic development, perhaps on the basis of a few short
    Paulines," and are second-centuryproductions. The Acts "as a whole
    is plainly factitious . . . . a blend of tradition and fiction, much manipu-
    lated during a long period." As for the parallel elements in the accounts
    of Peter and of Paul, "one or more may have wrought one narrative,
    and a later hand or hands may have systematically interpolated the
    other" (p. 143).
    Mr. Robertson's most striking contribution to the discussion is
    perhaps his inferriblemystery-play, given by the Jesuists, "which may
    or may not have been definitely Jewish at the outset, " but was certainly
    manipulated into its final form by gentile hands. In this play "the
    apostles in generalare made to play a poor part; one plays an impossible
    r6le of betrayer; and the legendary Judaizing apostle is made to deny
    his Master" (p. 205). Incidentally there is an interesting suggestion
    as to a detail in the Fourth Gospel (13: 29), "where 'the bag' is presump-
    tively derived from a stage accessory in the mystery-drama, Judas
    carrying a bag to receive his reward" (p. 217). If the development
    of such a mystery-play with its implication of another God alongside
    Jahveh seems to us improbable among first-century Jews, we are told
    that Judaism was not at all the unified monotheism we customarily
    think it, and we are given eight considerationson the other side, begin-
    ning with "the essentially dramatic character of the Song of Solomon"
    (p. 74). To be sure, "we have no mention of the existence of a Jesus
    cult of any kind in the Hebrew books. But that is of necessity the case.
    The Sacred Books would naturally exclude all mention of a cult which
    in effect meant the continued deification of Joshua," who was inferribly
    a primitive god (p. 82). The cult and its propagandawere well known,
    some at least of its rites were public and popular, though the mystery-
    play was performedalways in secret and is never anywhere mentioned,
    so that Mr. Robertson's knowledge of it is purely inferrible. The
    "silence of Josephus" concerningJesus and the Christians "is an insur-
    mountable negation of the gospel story" (p. 122); one may inquire
    why his silence concerning the Jesuists and their worship of a hero-god
    Jesus does not render their existence precarious.
    We have no desire, however, to question Mr. Robertson. We
    have let him speak for himself. The more positive account of how the
    Christian religion began and the Gospels were written is of greater
    interest than the rather barren and often petty controversy with criticism
    in the earlier volume. The two together constitute an astounding act of
    A REFORMER BEFORE THE REFORMATION 38I

    faith; for the mind that can honestly believe that the sublimest thing in
    human history was thus achieved we have only speechless incompre-
    hension. It is as if some children playing in a studio during the artist's
    absence had left a canvas daubed over with-the Sistine Madonna.
    The painting of Raphael and the gospel of Jesus were inferriblyotherwise
    given to the world.
    CLAYTON R. BOWEN
    MEADVILLE THEOLOGICALSCHOOL

    A REFORMER BEFORE THE REFORMATION'


    These two volumes constitute a valuable contribution to the resources
    available to the English reader for the twilight period of ecclesiastical
    history antedating the dawn of the Protestant Reformation. They
    were called forth by the four-hundredthanniversary of the beginning of
    that great movement. They furnish the first adequate biography in
    English of one of the most vigorous and interesting figures in the era of
    preparation, and the only available English translation of his principal
    writings. The thesis of these volumes, sustained alike in biography and
    translated works, is that Wessel Gansfort was in every sense of the term
    a precursor of the religious awakening of the sixteenth century. The
    first two-thirds of Volume I deals with the biography of Wessel and an
    estimate of the man. The remainderof Volume I, together with Volume
    II, is devoted to his chief works.
    Many elements combined in the making of this remarkable man.
    From scholasticism came his love of exact definition, his passion for
    logical precision. From the mystic piety of an 't Kempis and the schools
    of the Brethren of the CommonLife came his deep religious enthusiasms.
    His humanistic interest and devotion to the sacred languages prepared
    the way for that interest in the Bible which characterizedthe Reforma-
    tion age.
    The decay of vital religion in the Netherlands and the corruption
    of the Renaissance papacy led him to deep searchings of heart and
    awakened in him a zeal for reform. His mind made up, he spoke it
    freely and forcibly, sustaining his positions by cold logic and the rapier
    thrusts of a keen intellect. "Master of Contradictions" he was called
    by his critics-a tribute indeed to his combative, argumentative
    spirit.
    ,Wessel Gansfort, Life and Writings. By Edward Waite Miller. Principal
    works translated by Jared Waterbury Scudder. New York: Putnam, 1917. 2 vols.
    xvi+333 and v+369 pages. $4.00.

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